The Mane Attraction

by Shelly Laurenston

Startled, Sissy looked up into Travis’s face. He stood right in front of her, not even looking at the gaggle of females she had surrounding her who’d come to check out the Smithtown Team hotties, including Mitch. “Why?”

  “You’re distracting him, and this is our last practice before the game tomorrow. So you need to go.”

  “He’s fumbled the ball a few times, but how was that my fault?”

  “He’s handling that ball as bad as his brother.”

  “Hey!” Ronnie piped in, insulted for her mate.

  “You can’t be here.”

  Sissy really didn’t have a problem leaving, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t torture her brother a little. “But where can I go? What will I do while he’s here?”

  “Are you trying to piss me off? Is that your goal here?”

  Sissy smiled. “Maybe.”

  Travis scowled, but before Sissy could make him good and frothy, Patty Rose interceded. She always did. The possibility of Sissy kicking Travis’s ass all over the football field was too real and too much to risk their “rise to power” as Ronnie liked to call it.

  “Now y’all, cut it out. Brothers and sisters shouldn’t act like this.”

  Sissy stared at her brother’s mate. “Are you new to the neighborhood?”

  Travis growled, “Sissy Mae!”

  Patty Rose reached into her bag and pulled out her wallet. “Why don’t you go on down to your uncle’s bar and have a few drinks on me and Travis? I know a few of these ladies here”—she motioned to the females who’d been sitting behind Sissy—“would love to spend some time getting to know y’all.”

  “Especially if the drinks are already paid for,” Ronnie muttered under her breath.

  “I swear,” Patty Rose went on, ignoring Ronnie like she always did, “as soon as Mitch is done here, we’ll send him right over. Won’t we, hon?”

  “Whatever.” Travis stormed back to the field.

  Now that her brother was gone ... “Patty Rose, you don’t have to pay for our drinks.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind.” She placed a small wad of cash in Sissy’s hand. “Y’all go on now, and I’ll let Mitch know where you’re off to.”

  Sissy shrugged. “Okay. Thanks.”

  With Dee, Ronnie Lee, and a handful of the young She-wolves in tow, they headed down to the bar.

  Mitch pulled his helmet off and watched as Travis ran back to the field. “What’s going on?”

  “She’ll be back. She’s going to the bar with Ronnie and Dee.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she was distracting you, and it was pissing me off.”

  Mitch wished he could honestly tell Travis he was wrong, but he’d not been playing his best game today. Not with the memories of last night constantly flooding his brain.

  Christ, he loved her. Not a little either. Not something he’d get over one day. He loved Sissy Mae, and absolutely no one else would do for him. But he always came back to the same thing: he couldn’t take her away from this. He couldn’t part her from her family or her Pack. Sure, if her only brother was Travis, he’d ask her to come with him in a heartbeat. But she had Bobby Ray, and the two relied on each other the way Marissa and Bren did.

  Knowing he’d have to leave her soon was breaking his heart. Thinking of her a few years from now with some wolf as a mate was making him homicidal.

  “Hey, golden boy.” Mitch ground his teeth together. He hated when Travis called him that. “She’ll be back. So you think you can give the team a few minutes of your precious cat time?”

  He started to say something, and Bren grabbed his arm, pulling Mitch back. “We’ve got it,” he said before Mitch could start the Pride–Pack war of the century.

  Sissy wasn’t enjoying herself. And not simply because she missed Mitch, which she did. Or because it was hitting her in no uncertain terms that she’d fallen head over boots in love with the big goofball, and she had no idea how to handle that. Or how to handle it when she lost him forever into the government system.

  True, all those things were bothering her, but that wasn’t what was nagging at her like an uncomfortable itch.

  Something wasn’t right, and Sissy couldn’t quite put her finger on it. There was a tension among their group of young She-wolves that had her nursing her one beer. Dee had settled for a Coke, and Ronnie Lee nothing.

  The fact that Dee hadn’t disappeared by now told her a lot. Dee bored easily and always simply up and left, but this time, she hadn’t. She stayed. And she watched.

  What was it that bothered the three friends? The girls. Why they’d followed them to the bar, Sissy had no idea, but she was ready to split. The three of them could hang at their aunts’ pie shop rather than here with girls she didn’t trust.

  Sissy glanced at Ronnie and Dee, giving them a small tilt of her head to indicate she was more than ready to go.

  Ronnie nodded and leaned forward to make some bullshit excuse about why they were leaving when one of the girls—Shayla ... or something?—slapped her hand against the table.

  “How come you’re not Alpha here?” she asked with a sneer Sissy didn’t much appreciate.

  “Because my momma is Alpha.”

  “She ain’t gonna live forever. You think you’re coming back then?”

  “No.”

  “I bet you’re scared. Scared you’re not strong enough.”

  Sissy shrugged. “You’re right. I’m scared. Too scared to be Alpha here.” She motioned to Ronnie and her cousin, and all three stood. Sissy dug into her front pocket for a couple of twenties to cover their drinks and tossed them on the table.

  “Ladies,” she said and stepped around the table toward the exit. But Sissy barely stepped back in time before a bottle of tequila exploded at her feet. Her bare feet.

  Sissy took a deep breath, turning just her head to look at the one who had thrown the bottle. “Little girl, have you lost your mind?”

  “They say you’re so scary tough. I call bullshit.”

  “You can call anything you want, but I’m walking out of here and you’re backing off.”

  In answer, the girl slammed another bottle of tequila to the floor, this time close to Ronnie. Too close in Sissy’s estimation.

  Sissy pushed her friend back and moved around the table toward the girl. The girl, like an idiot, charged forward—and right into Sissy’s grip. Sissy held her by her throat and stared into her eyes.

  “Take it out back, Sissy Mae,” the bartender ordered her. Since this bar belonged to her uncle, she nodded and dragged the girl toward the back exit.

  As one mass of She-wolves, they burst through the back door, and Sissy flung the girl to the ground. Planting her foot on the back of her neck, Sissy pressed down simply to keep her in place, not to snap anything. She didn’t want to do any permanent damage to her; she just wanted the pup to learn where she fell in the big scheme of things.

  But the girl scratched at the ground and desperately begged, “Get her off me. Please! Get her off me!” Surprised her bravado had left so quickly, Sissy looked over her shoulder at Ronnie and Dee. Four She-wolves were holding Ronnie back, and two males had Dee. She looked at her cousin, and Sissy knew Dee was moments from killing anyone and everyone in that alley.

  What the hell was going on?

  And that’s when Sissy heard him.

  “Hey, baby,” Gil said softly, his sister and two cousins standing behind him. “I didn’t think little Shayla would ever get your cute ass back here.”

  Ronnie started to shift, but Sissy held her hand up, halting her. Sissy was Alpha, and Ronnie had to follow her lead.

  Sissy lifted her foot off the younger She-wolf’s neck, kicking her out of her way.

  “What is this, Gil? What do you want?”

  “I’ll be the first to admit I screwed up. I know I did. But I still think we make a hell of a pair.”

  Sissy looked back at her and Dee, and even in the situation they found themselves, all three still had to laugh.

  “Yo
u know,” Sissy said, still chuckling, “my momma always said you weren’t too bright. And I should have listened to her.”

  “Your momma adores me.”

  “Actually”—Sissy scrunched up her nose—“she doesn’t. In fact, she warned me that if you were anything like your daddy, you were cursed with the Warren small balls.”

  “Forget it, Sissy. You’re not gonna make me angry.”

  “Trust me, darlin’, I can make you angry. If I remember correctly, it didn’t take much more than, ‘No, I don’t want to,’ to have you taking a swing at me.”

  “That was a long time ago. It’s over. And I’m a different man.”

  Sissy glanced around the group. “You call this changing? You call trying to force me into a mating changing?” She smirked. “That is what you’re planning, right? A forced mating?”

  “It worked for your parents.”

  “Lord, you are dumb. My daddy didn’t force my momma to do anything. He never had to because she wanted him. Sadly, your father can’t say the same thing. But if I remember correctly, Momma left him crying and whimpering right outside of Smithville all those years ago before heading to Smithtown. You hoping to repeat that experience for yourself now?”

  And Gil’s anger, always a brittle thing, snapped quickly, and he took an aggressive step forward—which Sissy probably knew he’d do. Taking one step back and putting up her arms, Sissy punched Gil in the face. She did it exactly the way they’d been taught when she and Ronnie had ended up in Ireland with nothing more than a hangover and five pounds between them. Louis McCanohan had taken them in when he found them about to shift and kill some full-human scum behind his favorite pub. The sixty-year-old wolf had taught them how to fight as human so they could always take care of themselves in any situation.

  Hands covering his bleeding nose, Gil glared at her. “You broke my nose.”

  Staying loose and on her toes, Sissy nodded. “Yeah, I did. So if we’re gonna do this, son, let’s do this.”

  Gil came at her again, fangs bared, and Sissy stepped to his left and slammed her fist into his gut. When he doubled over, she brought up her knee. She’d aimed for his jaw, trying to break it, but he moved in time and she hit his already broken nose.

  Again, he dashed toward her, and Sissy danced out of his way, only to turn and double tap him twice in his right kidney. He went down on one knee, the pain probably not as bad as the embarrassment of having a female kick his ass as human.

  Apparently, he didn’t want to deal with it anymore either because Gil shifted and flipped around, charging Sissy. He launched himself at her, and Sissy brought up her hands, catching his front paws in them. They went down, and by the time they landed, Sissy had shifted to wolf. She scrambled away from him, her fangs bared and her body ready.

  Ronnie didn’t wait any longer. She shifted and tried to slip out of her captors’ arms. But they shifted as well and tackled her to the ground, pinning her in place. She howled, hoping to call to Sissy’s kin, but the females sat on her neck, stopping her from doing much more than snarling. Two more males had joined in an attempt to control Dee, but she was causing them a lot of damage. But not enough yet to get away and help Sissy.

  Sissy didn’t wait for Gil to come at her again. She went for him, her mouth open and aimed for his throat. But Gil’s sister and cousins tackled her like the others had tackled Ronnie and pinned her to the ground, holding her in place for Gil.

  At that point, Ronnie fought harder, knowing what they were planning and horrified beyond anything she’d known. This was more barbaric than the Smiths had ever been. A Smith male had to be able to handle his female on his own. If he couldn’t, then he wasn’t worthy of her.

  The only man who could handle Sissy Mae Smith was back at the football field, catching passes and impressing Sissy’s brothers. Mitch loved her, and eventually, Sissy would have to admit she loved him. Everybody in town knew it. The rumors were spreading, and everyone was wondering how Bubba Smith was going to take another one of his pups mating outside the Pack and the breed. Especially with a cat.

  Gil must have heard the rumors and decided to make this desperate move. Or maybe one of Sissy’s brothers had put him up to it. Ronnie didn’t know. She just knew that she had to get to her friend. She had to get to her now.

  Travis was real happy with how practice was going now that his sister had left. She distracted his star player, and to be damn honest, he couldn’t have it!

  He wondered if there was a way to get the boy down here every year in time for the game but leave Sissy back wherever the hell she’d be at the time. He’d have to ponder that one. A couple of days apart wouldn’t kill them, could it?

  He called break and jogged over to the ice chests. His mate waited for him, a sports drink in her hand. Patty Rose wasn’t the prettiest thing, but she was tough, a good breeder, and an even better fuck. He definitely could have done worse.

  Besides, her ambitions rivaled his own. With a female like this by his side, he’d definitely take over for his daddy once he could get the old bastard to submit.

  “Thanks,” he grunted. She grinned up at him, and he raised his brows. “What are you looking so smug for?”

  She stepped closer. “I think I took care of our little problem.”

  “You mean the shed? Thought we were gonna wait to fix that.”

  “No.” She rolled her eyes. Travis knew she thought he was dumb as dirt most days, but that was okay. Sometimes, when he was bored, he treated her like a whore. It kind of made them even.

  “Then what?”

  Another step closer. “Gil Warren and Sissy.”

  Travis shrugged, already getting bored with this conversation—and his mate. “What about them?”

  “I let him have her.”

  “Let him have her?” He didn’t understand what she meant.

  She went on tiptoe and whispered in his ear, “He’s forcing a mating as we speak.”

  Stepping back, Travis stared at his mate. “What?”

  “You heard me.” She smiled and glanced over at Sammy and Mitch, making sure they weren’t listening. “We’ve been planning this for days.”

  His hand was around her throat, and he lifted her off her feet before she could blink. “You did what? ”

  Sissy fought to get out from under the She-bitches who held her down, but they weren’t letting go, and Gil was heading right for her.

  If Gil Warren thought he’d really make her his this way, he was dead wrong. A forced mating on a Smith female was just a quick way to end up with your throat cut while you were sleeping.

  But for Sissy, this was about the humiliation. She’d always wear Gil’s mark no matter what happened. And because of it, she’d always be considered weak. Not worthy of being Alpha Female. Travis and his mate would know this, but Gil didn’t understand. He thought this forced mating was his fast ride to the top. But he was only dooming them to permanent Beta status. Maybe even Omega. And the thought of it made her sick.

  No. No way! She’d never let that happen. Not while she still had blood in her veins.

  With a snarl that shook the females holding her, Sissy twisted and snapped and dragged herself out from under the She-wolves. They tried to grab at her again, and she spun and snapped at them, ripping into someone’s snout and making them back away from her.

  With a growl, she turned around and faced Gil. She bared her fangs and motioned for him to come to her.

  He took a running step, and Sissy braced her body for the oncoming fight, but a large body jumped in front of her so she stepped back and to the side.

  Gil stumbled back in shock as he faced something that he feared more than a Smith female—a Smith male.

  Bobby Ray bared his fangs and lowered his body as he moved around Gil. The rest of the New York Smith Pack surrounded them, easily batting away the She-wolves still holding on to Ronnie. But the Reed boys went after the males holding on to Dee since they probably didn’t feel right tearing up the little girls holding do
wn their sister.

  Sissy didn’t know why Bobby Ray was back from his honeymoon so soon, and she’d kick whoever the hell told him to come home, but that would be later. At the moment, she was just damn glad to see him.

  Gil tried to maneuver away from Bobby, but Sissy moved to his flank, blocking him from making a run into the small stand of woods behind the bar alley.

  Now that they had him trapped, the siblings looked at each other over Gil’s suddenly trembling body.

  They waited. One. Two. Three heartbeats—then they tore into him. Fur and blood and flesh flew across the back alley, and Gil howled in pain.

  As always, Bobby Ray and Sissy moved as a synchronized pair. It was why they made such good Alphas. They didn’t stop hurting Gil until Bobby Ray had him on his back with his maw wrapped around Gil’s throat.

  He bit down, and Gil’s body went limp, paws up, eyes downcast. Gil Warren would never recover from this. He’d never be Alpha in any Smith-run town. Knowing that, Sissy threw her head back and howled, her Pack joining her.

  But she stopped short when that blur of gold shot past. Sissy stumbled back as Mitch snatched Gil up in his mouth and proceeded to shake him back and forth like a rag doll. He slammed Gil’s body against a wall and then tossed him to Brendon. It was then Brendon’s turn to shake Gil and bang him into the wall a few times.

  Gil got tossed back to Mitch, and Mitch held him by his back and stared at Sissy. She was tempted—Lord, was she tempted—to let Mitch finish Gil. But that wouldn’t be today. She shook her head, and Mitch nodded.

  He tossed his head, mane flipping up, and Gil flew across the alley, slamming into the wall and landing on the ground.

  They all heard it, too. That sound of a spine snapping in half.

  Of course, Mitch could have done worse. And in time—years, really—Gil’s back would probably heal, and he’d walk again. But for now ...

  Well. It wasn’t Sissy’s problem.

  Mitch walked up to Sissy, those gold eyes watching her. He wanted to know she was all right. Sissy nodded, and Mitch brushed his forehead against hers, rubbed his mane against her neck and snout. He’d marked her, at least temporarily, and walked off, Brendon right behind him, the rest of the team following, including Travis.