But then…she wasn’t in New Orleans. She was royalty there. She and her cousin Aria had free run of the quarter. Her father’s guilt over what’d happened to their families so many years ago hung like a shroud she could never escape, no matter how much she acted out. Her father never said a word. Never discussed what happened to her mother. To her aunt. To any of the lost. That’s what he called them. The lost.
Fine.
She could be patient. Give McHunk time to cool off about her display in town. He was the Sheriff after all. Maybe he was waiting so he could tie her up somewhere?
A shiver ran through her body. That sounded like a fabulous idea. As long as it ended with them mated and his delectable mouth speaking the words that would bond them together forever.
Reyna had always hoped Fate would match her with a wolf, unlike several of her cousins who had married wealthy, and turned their husbands. The pack always appreciated an influx of new money, but it wasn’t necessary. Like the VonBrandts, the Dubois family had plenty of financial resources. They owned the docks of New Orleans. Every single boat that came and went from the great city paid for that right and had since before the Louisiana Purchase.
The SUV pulled to a stop in front of the giant VonBrandt home. Reyna hadn’t moved from her lopsided seat on Allan’s lap, but he hadn’t shoved her off yet either. Lust kept his gaze dark. It was still hot and hungry. The door clicked open.
“So you want an audience? I’m down with that, if it’s what you like.” She leaned in to press her lips to his and instead found herself face down on the ground.
Fuck.
“We’re not doing this. You’re going to this meeting and as soon as they figure their shit out, you’re going back to the Bayou. Think whatever you want about magick, but I’m not doing this wolf thing.”
Spitting bits of grass and dirt out of her mouth, she stood and faced him. Grass and dust clung to her black corset top. She brushed herself off and flashed him an angry glare, attempting to hide how his words stabbed a hole in her heart the size of the Mississippi river mouth.
Reyna bit the edge of her bottom lip and smirked instead of crying. She’d learned a long time ago not to show weakness. Not to show pain. She couldn’t... She wouldn’t accept his no as a valid answer. Her heart couldn’t bear to know that she’d found her mate and he’d rejected her. Why had she lived then? She should’ve died along with her sister and mother and aunt and everyone else on that boat. If her Fated mate didn’t want her, she had no reason to continue soldiering on. Her boot heels sank in the soft earth. She readjusted her weight to stand on her toes and stalked toward him.
“Now, turn around and head to the house so I don’t have to—”
“What, Sheriff McHunk? Use your cuffs on me? You know I already offered you that option and you turned it down.” Reyna licked her lips and took another step forward. His attitude had to be a mistake. An oversight. Perhaps he just wasn’t used to being pursued. Men did usually like to be the ones hunting. Of course, it was too late for that now. “Why are you resisting? Can’t you feel the pull? Don’t you want to taste me? Isn’t your mouth watering to lick every inch of my skin?”
His nostrils flared. He marched forward and a shiver of excitement skittered over the surface of her skin. Yes. Come and get me. By the gods, please.
She palmed his chest once in reach, but instead of returning the caress, the stubborn ass wolf grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward the SUV. He pressed her face against the glass of the driver’s window and snatched her other wrist, pushing them both against the small of her back.
Cold steel embraced her wrists.
He leaned over her shoulder, pressing her a little harder against the vehicle. His arousal grazed her ass and she wriggled, desperate for a reaction other than irritation.
“See, I knew you wanted to use those cuffs.”
“I don’t want to see you in town again. Is. That. Clear?”
She smiled. “Sure, big boy. Clear as your dick rubbing against my ass.”
“Fuck!” He pulled her away from the SUV and pushed her toward the mansion, never once letting go of the vice-grip he’d taken on her upper arm.
“That’s exactly what I’d like to do. You’re the one denying our mutual pleasure.”
“Will you shut up.” His voice carried across the quiet yard as they continued toward the front entrance of the palatial VonBrandt residence. For a small town country hideaway, she had to admit the family had good taste when it came to architecture.
The place was massive, and built of heavy brick—a red castle in the country, unlike the St. Charles house, with its stately French quarter grandness and historical charm settled deep in the heart of her old city.
The massive front door opened and several people came spilling out. One of them looked very much like Sheriff McHunk—definitely the VonBrandt alpha. No mistaking the magick he wielded.
“You promised no wolves in town making trouble.” Her soon-to-be-mate’s voice boomed out. Her father, Francis Dubois, exited the house and caught her gaze. He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head as he joined the VonBrandt alpha headed toward her. That’s all she was. Trouble. A nuisance.
Both men approached.
A lamb headed to slaughter would feel safer than she did staring down two annoyed alphas.
“They started it, officer,” she said, over-enunciating the word officer. She let it roll off her tongue. His grip on her arm tightened—still telling her to stop.
“She broke some glass thing at Joe’s and possibly the bones of a few cowboys.”
“Reyna, how did you get into town, my keys are in my pocket.” Her father patted his front pants pocket and frowned. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Not a surprise to Reyna since they were snugly tucked in her back one.
“Aaron, I apologize for the trouble she caused in town. Usually my daughter, and best pack enforcer, is much better behaved. Please let me pay for all of the damages.”
“They put their hands on me without an invitation. I was just teaching them to mind their manners.”
“Whatever,” the sheriff growled and turned to his brother. “There are too many wolves here, Aaron. This is a small town. People notice things.”
There it is again. Fear. That dark corner where the VonBrandts shoved everything Moonbound.
“Allan, just calm down, everything will be fine. Joe Walker is a friend of the family, Francis, and he will accept our apologies. Your offer to pay for the damages will smooth this out and no one will be the wiser.”
Her father nodded at the VonBrandt alpha.
“Allan?” Reyna whispered Sheriff McHunk’s name and rubbed her leg against his. “I like that name—big, strong, and unyielding. Just like you.”
He whirled her around. His hands gripped her shoulders with steely determination. Frustration and desire competed for dominance in his gorgeous brown eyes. With hot air feathering her face from his closeness, he hissed at her, “You have to stop that. Now.”
But she’d seen the lust. Felt his arousal. Been entranced by the magick. Was there some sort of unwritten rule with these Texas wolves that she had to be the one doing the wooing?
If so, that was perfectly fine with her.
Chapter Three
Allan stood in the back of the massive dining room, hugging the wall. The last time he’d been at a pack meeting in this room, he had walked away from wolf politics forever. He glanced around the large space, taking in all the players and feeling a slimy dread crawl through him. The four alphas sat at cardinal directions, surrounded by their enforcers and other pack members. El Paso had brought just as many enforcers as the other packs—they weren’t big enough to need ten enforcers, so it was possibly a show of for…
No. No opinions about the alpha’s business. I’m not an enforcer anymore. That was exactly the kind of bullshit that would distract him from his real mission.
His new job.
He caught the eyes of the wolf from th
e bar. Reyna. Allan shifted his gaze between his brothers and sister, and his other family members, hoping they hadn’t noticed her blatant staring. And he prayed to every god he could name that Aaron couldn’t see the magick continuing to shimmer between him and Reyna.
Could everyone see it?
Shit. He hadn’t even thought of that.
And she wouldn’t cool it on the sexy staring. Dammit. I’d rather be anywhere else right now. Root canals, major surgery… hell, I’d take a torture chamber over this.
Being bound to the moon made him slave enough to Fate. It couldn’t have his future, too.
Aaron was blathering on about their duty to each other. He cared way too much about other wolves, and not enough about the fact that Reyna had almost exposed them all. She’d put them all in danger, and not just the wolves in the VonBrandt family, but all the people in Somewhere. Part of him waited on Aaron’s words, hoping there would be a reprimand about putting humans in danger.
The last thing they needed was a bunch of drunk cowboys wondering why she could throw grown men across a bar, or how she could fight three men at once. People started asking questions when things didn’t make sense, and eventually, there would be a nut-job who asked the wrong questions and they’d have to do the spell—the one they’d never had to do—the one that made humans forget and disappear.
In a small town like Somewhere, Allan was all that stood between the humans and the wolves. He could care less about the heritage of a wolf who just happened to have lived most of her life without bonding to a pack alpha. At least she had kept her wolf stuff under wraps and hadn’t endangered the secret identity of a whole family hiding in a very small town.
“Maybe we should ask Elise, instead of talking over her head.” Reyna’s alpha spoke up when Aaron paused. “She’s here, isn’t she?”
Aaron signaled to their cousin Jared, who stood next to Allan against the back wall. “Jared doesn’t want her in the room for now, since she’s not familiar with how our packs work yet. But he knows the whole story.”
“The whole story?” asked the Oklahoma family’s alpha, a wide-faced, broad-chested man.
Aaron frowned. “There is no whole story. That’s why we’re here, Bracken.”
While everyone had their attention focused on Jared, Allan noticed Reyna standing behind her alpha, nostrils flaring. She wasn’t paying attention to the pack business at all. When they made eye contact, the whites of her eyes flashed and her mouth fell open just enough for Allan to see her tongue snake out and lick around her lips.
He remembered what those lips had felt like, latched on to his skin. Too hot, too wet, too ready. She was the epitome of everything he was trying to avoid about female wolves—it was all about sex and mating and running.
But that wasn’t his life. He’d known since he was a boy that he wanted to be part of the human world. Since he and Aaron had played knights-and-protectors, saving human women from the invading Romans, when the race had been first created.
He used his magick to keep humans safe from each other, and to punish the ones who couldn’t get their shit together. But that meant he had to be fully a part of the human world—not like his family, who stayed secluded and hidden. He would absolutely not be taking a wolf mate. He had his plan with Laurel. That would solve this issue for good and get everyone off his back about taking a mate.
Jared was still talking with the Oklahoma alpha, explaining something about a church and a baby left on the steps. Aaron had called the nearby families together to talk about the wolf Jared had found in New Orleans. Elise. The one without a pack.
“What I don’t understand is, how did she manage to change every month inside the city of New Orleans without any Dubois knowing anything about her?” The El Paso alpha pounded on the big mahogany dining table. “Dammit, Francis, y’all fell down on the job.”
That got Reyna’s attention. For the first time since Allan had walked into the room, her gaze shifted elsewhere. Her teeth flashed and she took a step from Francis’s side, toward the group of black-clad El Paso wolves, but Francis had a hand on her arm.
“We don’t patrol the city.” Francis pulled Reyna back to his side, but her glare didn’t stop. Shit. His own pulse raced right along with hers.
She shook off her alpha’s hand. “No one has ever heard of an unbonded wolf before, so it wasn’t like we were on the lookout.”
El Paso crossed his arms. “We woulda’ known.”
Aaron stood. “We’re not here to point fingers, gentlemen. We need to get to the bottom of this. Find out how it could have happened.”
Reyna’s chest was heaving, bringing her cleavage into view with each in-breath, for God and everyone. The woman needed a shawl or something to cover that up. She shouldn’t be on display for anyone to ogle.
She clapped her eyes on his and seemed to calm and focus. He liked that more than he should.
“Allan?” Aaron’s voice snapped him out of that fantasy.
He glanced at his brother. “What?”
“Did you run her prints and DNA?”
“Whose?”
Aaron narrowed his eyes. They had talked about this. Right. He’d forgotten. Aaron had asked him to run a sheet on Elise, back before the Sheriff’s election, when he hadn’t had time. “I haven’t yet, but I can do that tonight. I have to go back to the station to fill out a report on the incident at Joe’s.”
“It helps to have a wolf in cop’s clothing.” The El Paso alpha lifted his gut and shared a laugh with his pack. “I’d like to see that up where we’re at.”
Allan’s shoulders snapped to attention. “I’m not a wolf in cop’s clothing. I’m the fucking sheriff, and I have a job to do.” He pulled his hat back on, and settled it down so it covered his eyes.
“Wait.” Aaron’s voice was almost a growl. “I need you to stay until we decide what to do. We might need you.”
“You don’t need me.” He swiped at the edge of his hat, trying not to show his anger in front of the other wolves. “This is pack business. I have a job to do in town. Let me go do it. Y’all figure out your magick and let me know what happens.”
“Allan.” Aaron’s growl edged the little hairs on Allan’s neck up and his limbs began to feel heavy from the alpha magick. “I asked you to stay.”
With a long breath, he met his brother’s eyes. “Do you want me to run her sheet or not?”
Aaron pressed his knuckles into the table and leaned forward. He exchanged a glance with Andrea and then Jared. In the silence, while all the VonBrandts appeared to be having a wordless conversation with their eyes, Reyna’s voice rang out.
“My cousin Rain got his hands on all that information already. He emailed them to my dad this morning.” She reached for a couple of folders that sat in front of Francis and tossed them into the middle of the table. “Nothing. Not even a speeding ticket. It won’t help.”
If Allan hadn’t been trying to avoid all things Reyna, he might’ve given her a thankful glance, but he wasn’t going to give in to the urge to meet her eyes. No. He absolutely wasn’t.
“We need a new approach, gentlemen.” Francis Dubois spoke up. “The girl isn’t hiding her history. She’s answered all of our questions. There have to be other avenues of information open to us, at this point.” The New Orleans alpha had the kind of voice that would silence a whole room. His family was the oldest among all the packs, and Francis had the most experience as pack alpha.
All the wolves watched him.
Except Reyna. Allan could still feel her eyes on him. Could feel the pull of her magick on his.
His phone buzzed and he slid it carefully out of his pocket. Maybe it would be Laurel. Break the wolf monotony of his night.
I just got to the bar. What the fuck happened to my lamp?
Allan rolled his eyes. Joe Walker. He wanted to say, it’s just a fucking lamp. But he tried to play the politician, like human sheriffs had to do. He texted back. The woman who broke it will pay whatever restitution you ask
.
He held the phone. He’d told his deputies not to make any arrests, assuming it would all blow over and he could get the she-wolf out of the public eye. But if Joe insisted on making a big deal out of this, it could put him in a bind.
Allan allowed himself a short glance at Reyna. She swayed her shoulders under his gaze and thrust her chest out. The movement seemed dangerous, more than a challenge.
Another text buzzed in his hand.
That was an authentic Tiffany antique lamp. It’s worth fucking $20K, Allan. I want to see this woman in jail.
Fucking fuck. Damn Joe Walker and his expensive shit lamps. Damn Reyna Dubois and her devil-may-care. Damn his fucking job and his fucking pack and all the fucking magick in the damned world.
This was going to be a long night.
Chapter Four
A wolf trying to avoid anything to do with wolves. Denial much? Or am I missing something?
Reyna moved back from the main table where her father and the other alphas still sat discussing the best option for locating a lead on where the hell Elise had come from. Wolves didn’t typically drop from the sky, so Elise had a past. The trick would be picking up the scent.
Right now the only scent that interested her sat directly across the room. Brooding and annoyed, the wolf in Sheriff’s clothing wanted to leave. Apparently, he did respect his alpha enough not to storm out without permission.
When they stopped the meeting for a dinner break, she easily found her way through the crowded room, and next to the object of her desire. He smelled good enough to lick from head to foot, a heady mix of musk and spicy male. “Why don’t you want to help the pack?” she asked, following him down a hallway and into a beautiful kitchen decked out in granite, natural wood, and travertine tile.
A growl rumbled in his chest. “I am helping the pack. You’re the one putting my pack in danger. You broke a twenty-thousand dollar lamp, and the bar owner wants you put in jail. How am I supposed to help the pack if one of the alpha’s daughters can’t keep a lid on her temper in town? I can’t arrest you. The full moon is tomorrow.”
To Catch A Mate: Somewhere, TX (VonBrandt Pack Book 5) Page 2