The only thing Piper Diamond wants to do with hockey is to stop hearing about it so much.
For this witch, gallery owner and artist, the absolute worst time to be in her hometown of Uphoria, Alberta is when the town hosts the Werewolf League games, resulting in hockey permeating every aspect of her life. Even her normally attentive, sexy Werewolf mate, Baxter, loses his head during the hockey season and eats, sleeps and breathes hockey.
But when the hunky center forward of Uphoria's home team, Patrick Giles, wants Piper and Baxter for his trois amour, a three-way mating group, Piper's interest in hockey suddenly skyrockets. Even though Patrick is sexy and Baxter is more than willing to have him join them, Piper's not certain that she can commit to a relationship with another Werewolf.
Unfortunately she doesn't have much time to think about her love life. Her gallery is in financial trouble and it's all she can do to keep warlock Thor Wragge from buying it and turning her dreams into cheap reproductions. Things don't get any easier when the gallery becomes a target for vandals and burglars, so Piper has to decide what she really wants from life.
Chapter One
Piper Diamond tried to ignore her mate, Baxter, as he sighed, rubbing his thumbs in small circles at the base of her neck. He always knew just the right way to touch her to ease the tension in her spine. His musky Wolf scent so close to her stirred desire like it always did, but right at this moment, he wasn't after sex.
Instead, his eyes were sad and droopy, his mouth downturned, trying to convince her to do something far different. And far less exciting.
"Please come to the game with me."
"Baxter, I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because I have all this work to do," she gestured to the receipts and invoices strewn over her desk. "And because I don't want to. You'll have more fun without me, anyway."
It was the Wolf League playoffs in Uphoria, Alberta. Winter howled outside and the windows rattled as sand-like grains of snow beat against them. And it always led people to bundle up in woolen hats and parkas to brave the frigid temperatures, so that they could sit in a freezing cold hockey arena and watch a bunch of Werewolves skate around on the ice, slapping around a puck with their little sticks.
Hockey season was the worst season in Piper's opinion. Though she could easily summon up a small dragon to keep her hands toasty in the arena, she just didn't see the appeal of the sport. Not a very Canadian attitude, as Baxter repeatedly told her.
When it came to hockey, the only delightful parts of watching a sports game–the rippling muscles of the athletes–were hidden beneath layers of padding and fur. Boring.
What made it even more unbearable was that while the playoffs happened, they were all anybody in Uphoria, especially Baxter, would talk about. Piper couldn't even walk down the street without hearing fights over the finer points of what happened in the last game.
Baxter leaned over her, nibbling at her neck. She tried to ignore the tingle that it created, focusing on her bookkeeping papers.
"You have been pouring over these books for hours," Baxter nipped at her earlobe, his steamy breath in her ear. "If you come with me, I can make it really worth your time…"
Piper swept her blue-and-purple hair out of her eyes and turned to her mate. As a Werewolf, he was able to shift forms at will and either be a man with firm muscles, dark hair, dark eyes, and a Latino complexion, or a humanoid wolf with hairy, clawed feet, hands the size of dinner plates and boundless muscles that rippled under gleaming fur the color of midnight.
"You'll be able to enjoy the game better without me," Piper repeated. "The gallery is in the red again, I'm not sure how I'll make rent. It seems every time I break even, something happens and I'm in debt again."
Baxter caught the arms of her swivel chair, trapping her. "Piper Diamond, you get your delicious ass out of this chair this instant. You need something to distract you, and you know how… desirous I get after we win a game."
"You're insisting, aren't you?"
Baxter nodded, and Piper wrapped her arms around his neck. He rarely insisted on anything, and so she knew that this was very important to him. "Okay. I'll go. On one condition. If we lose, you don't start pouting."
Baxter flicked his tongue across her lips and she opened them readily and moaned.
"I'll get your coat," he whispered, slipping away from her grasp.
Piper smiled at him. She really did not want to go watch hockey, even though she had to admit the sex after Uphoria won a game and Baxter was all hopped up on adrenaline and excitement, was always mind-blowing. But Baxter was right, as he usually was. She needed a distraction and hockey was better than sitting around stressing.
They had been mates since senior prom night. Neither of them had really understood just how permanent Werewolf mating actually was. They had been hormone-fueled teenagers with their heads in the clouds, lost in a night of music and dance.
They hadn't even known each other prior to that night.
Nobody had asked Piper to prom. She was the high school's fat-girl that nobody noticed, except for when she snuck candy into Mr. Breton's oh-so-boring History of Magic in the Americas class. She wasn't the only one eating chocolate while Breton droned on and on, but she was the only one the other students seemed to notice. Back then, Piper hated her body, bouncing from diet to diet, her weight yo-yoed like crazy, making her constantly sick.
She hadn't even wanted to go to prom, but her mother wanted her to go. Her mother had just stopped chemotherapy and so Piper had agreed. During a slow song, Piper was making up an exciting story to tell her mother about how much fun she had when Baxter approached. He complimented one of her art pieces that was displayed in the school hall. Talking lead to kissing, intense and fiery.
Piper was still not entirely certain how or why it happened, but before the end of the night, they were in the backseat of his car, clumsy, awkward, but with no second thoughts.
It had been a mistake.
But it was the best mistake Piper had ever made. Baxter was the sweetest, most attentive mate she could ever hope to find. Even though knowing that she was his mate for life scared the shit out of her at first, it didn't take long for her to truly fall in love with him.
"I love you," she said, leaning against him for warmth as they scampered out to the car.
Baxter kissed the top of her head. "I love you, too."
***
The game, as Piper had predicted, had Baxter jumping from his seat, swearing like a sailor at the referee every few minutes, cheering and stomping his feet every other time. He wasn’t the only one, either.
Piper watched him with a smile, only half paying attention to the game. On the rink, two teams of Werewolves, both in their beast's forms, faced off, snarling and slamming into each other. The Wolf League games were notoriously more violent than the ones humans played and it was common for the ice to stain red.
"There he goes, there he goes!" Baxter screamed, pulling Piper to her feet.
The center forward for the Uphoria team had the puck. Skating so quickly that it was hard to keep her eyes on him, he zig-zagged through the opposing team players. Baxter screamed so loud his voice grew hoarse.
In that instant, as though she had called his name, the center forward looked up. His wolfish face was twisted into a snarl, white teeth flashing in the arena lights. Brown eyes burrowed into hers and he winked with a distinctive nod of his head.
There was a flash of movement and a roar of approval from the crowd. Piper strained to see what had happened. A buzzer went off, announcing the end of the game. Or at least, she hoped it was. Her cheeks were flushed all of a sudden, her pulse quickening.
"We won!" Baxter shouted, jumping up and down. "We won!"
Piper applauded half-heartedly. Her gaze continued to follow the center forward, but he didn't look back at her.
***
The next morning Piper yawned as she flipped the sign in the window of her art gallery from closed to open. After th
e game had finished, she and Baxter had celebrated with a few beers when they got back to the house her father had given to them as a gift after they graduated from college. The bottles were still sitting on the kitchen table, abandoned when Baxter had begun kissing her.
Winning the game had made Baxter more passionate than normal and he had given her a night that made her forget all about that odd wink at the game–unfortunately, it had also given her only a couple hours of sleep.
Piper walked around her little gallery, admiring the pieces of local art on display. As the host for the Wolf League playoffs, Uphoria always experienced an influx of tourists during the hockey season. This usually also brought in a couple extra thousand dollars and helped offset the unpleasantness of the season.
It had always been a dream to own a big grand gallery in the city, but Baxter was a hometown guy. Even though they tried out the city for a few years while they were in college, Piper could tell he was miserable and willingly came back to Uphoria.
Even with her father's gift of a house to help them get on their feet, Piper had rapidly gone through her savings to open up this small gallery. Though she always managed to break even every month, keeping her business afloat was no easy task.
Nobody appreciates the lovingly painted strokes of a real brush these days. They only want those cheap knockoffs Thor Wragge sells.
Speak of the devil. The tinkling of the bell announced a visitor and even before she saw him, she recognized the slimy, greedy aura of Thor Wragge.
Wragge owned a knockoff art souvenir shop directly across the street from her. He even dared to refer to as a gallery! The mindless could find any number of replicas of famous pieces of art over there, from The Mona Lisa to kits that would instantly paint any room like the Sistine Chapel.
Wragge had a setup in his basement that constantly put out his rip-offs via magic, but there technically wasn't anything illegal about it, as he never claimed to sell the originals. It was just bad taste and lack of originality.
"Can I do something for you, Wragge?"
Piper refused to call him by his first name. Whether it had been him or his parents to arrogantly give him his name, he was no God of Thunder. He was a powerful warlock, yes. He was attractive enough with neat, sandy-brown hair and brown eyes, but he wasn't even of Norse descent.
"I just thought I'd come over and take a look around. I've been getting so many customers lately that I need a nice, quiet place to think." Wragge flashed a smile at her.
Piper bristled. She had seen the steady stream of customers in and out of Wragge's shop. In the last three days, she had had four. But that didn't matter. One of them had bought a thousand-dollar sculpture and that was worth the hours of sitting in the back, working on her own art while listening for the bells announcing a customer's arrival.
"If you're here to offer to buy me out again, forget it." Piper folded her arms across her chest, squashing her breasts down. They were large, like the rest of her and Wragge had a tendency to ogle them.
Piper was glad that Baxter wasn't here–the last time he had faced off with Wragge, he'd nearly attacked the man. Baxter already had a difficult enough time finding a job simply because he was a Werewolf. He didn't need jail time to make it even worse.
"You say that every time," Wragge smiled a toothy grin at her. "It's such a delightful little shop. I could do such wonders with all this. And you. It's a shame all that potential is wasted."
Heat rushed to Piper's face and she glowered. "Get out."
Wragge smirked and left.
Chapter Two
As the door swung shut, Piper noticed somebody standing in the corner. Had a customer just witnessed that exchange between her and Wragge? Piper repressed a groan as she tried to compose herself.
The man wore a light coat, most likely indicating that he was a Werewolf since their internal temperatures ran hot. He stared up at her painting of Baxter. He was in a half-shifted state, his deep eyes staring straight out of the portrait, one finger crooked seductively, his shirt dropped and strategically placed to cover his groin.
It was one of her favorites and Baxter liked to brag when they had dinner with her dad, that people were always coming up to him and asking for his autograph because of it.
As she approached, the man turned.
He was well muscled, all seven feet of him, with brown hair that matched his brown eyes. His hands were the size of dinner plates and had feet to match. There was a self-confident way he held himself that made Piper instantly attracted to him. She had always been a sucker for bad boys and bad boy vibes were coming off this guy in spades.
"Sorry about that," she said, indicating the door Wragge had just left from.
He gave her an easy grin. "No problem. I don't mind waiting. Patrick Giles."
Piper took the offered hand and introduced herself, smiling politely. "Can I help you find anything?"
"I'm Patrick Giles," he repeated, his grin widening.
Her brow furrowed. Did he think she hadn't heard him the first time? "Piper Diamond."
"You don't know who I am, do you?"
Piper bit her lower lip. The name did sound familiar, but—
Oh.
Oh, my. Piper felt her eyes widen and she struggled to keep herself in check. "You're the center forward for the Uphoria Wolf hockey team - thing."
"Yes. That thing," he chuckled.
Piper mentally kicked herself. She didn't even like hockey and she was acting like he had stepped out of her favorite daytime drama. She tried to recover herself. "Pleased to meet you. Can I help you find anything?"
"I've already found what I want."
His gaze swept down her full figure, making her face feel even hotter. She found herself wishing that she had worn something with a deeper scoop to show off her cleavage and sternly reprimanded herself.
I'll have to tell Baxter about this when I get home. And that wink. Will he be angry?
The thought cheered her up–maybe he'd stop wanting to drag her to the games with him. Then again, Baxter never got jealous, so he'd probably think it was funny.
Patrick turned back to the picture of Baxter and gestured to it. "How much? I can't find a price."
Piper's jaw dropped. Why did he want this sexy, seductive painting of Baxter? Had she got it wrong? Was that wink last night meant for her mate, not her? Anger swirled in her. Baxter never got jealous, but she did, as irrational as it was, as Werewolves mated for life.
"It's not for sale. It's from my own private collection."
"Did you paint this?"
"Yes."
"Is he your boyfriend?"
"He's my mate," she rose her chin and glared defiantly at Patrick, but he only grinned at her.
"I'll give you five thousand for it. I have a friend in New York who is looking for something just like this one. I'd like to give it to her as a present."
Piper's jaw hung slack, not hearing much past five thousand. The painting, as much as she loved it, wasn't even worth half of that! Five thousand dollars? That would certainly give her a good bump in her profits, would even push her out of debt again. Maybe even enough to buy a new car. Or at least fix the one she and Baxter had.
Numbly she nodded. "I'll package it up for you."
Patrick lifted the painting down and smiled, following her into the back, where she eased the picture into a box for travel.
"Is a check good?"
Piper nodded.
"I saw you at the game last night. You know, it's the blue moon tonight. We're having a special charity game. I've got a couple of extra tickets. I'd love for you and your mate to come."
"I don't know if—"
"And I'd like to commission you to paint a portrait of me. You've got a good eye for shadow and color. I don't know much these things usually cost… Is another five thousand good?"
Piper rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, really it's not worth that much—"
"Five thousand it is then." He quickly wrote a second check. "I'll se
nd my assistant over with those tickets later. See you at the game."
With a grin that was half-smirk, he strode from the gallery with the painting tucked under his arm, whistling. Piper stared after him and then at the two checks in her hand. What the hell was going on here?
***
Baxter wasn't the least perturbed about the strange way Patrick Giles had just given his mate ten thousand dollars and tickets to a hockey game. He wasn't even the least bit annoyed when she told him about the wink she'd gotten the previous night.
"Yeah, I saw that," he said, much to her annoyance. "You've actually got tickets to the Blue Moon game?"
Piper repressed a sigh. "Yeah. And he was so generous I don't think we can stay home."
Baxter's eyes were bright, a grin spread over his face. "Who wants to stay home? I've been dreaming about seeing a Blue Moon game since I was a pup! This is going to be fantastic! What should I wear?"
His excitement was catching and Piper found herself laughing. "What's wrong with what you're wearing right now?"
"You wouldn't understand. You're not a hockey fan. I can't believe it! Patrick Giles in your gallery, buying a painting of me!" Baxter beamed. "Next time he's there call me and don't let him leave until I'm there. Do you think I could get him to sign a copy of his book?"
"Should I be jealous?" Piper teased.
Baxter shrugged. "I'm yours for life, baby. If you want to make your life miserable by being jealous, go ahead. Whatever makes you happy." He burrowed his face into her neck, the way she liked.
Piper laughed again. "Come on. I'm taking you to dinner to celebrate this sudden, strange good fortune that we've got."
***
The game was even more violent than the last. Several times two of the hockey players went after each other, snarling and snapping, sending up a ruckus that drowned out the cheers of the crowd.
Piper bit her nails, unable to tear her eyes away from the action on the ice. She felt like she was watching a gladiator match–and for some incomprehensible reason, she loved every second of it. She especially loved when a member of the audience burst into Werewolf form, breached the Plexiglas barrier and attacked the hometown goalie when he let the other team score a point. What was wrong with her?
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