“You can take all the time you need,” Nashoba continued. “But I suggest we talk about this later. I’m pretty sure Haley said that I should rest as much as possible, and all that sex exhausted me.”
“You’ll get no apologies from me for that,” teased Akala.
She squeezed Nashoba’s hand and snuggled back against him before closing her eyes. Her last thought as she drifted off to sleep was how much she felt she belonged in this man’s arms. It didn’t matter that he was a shifter, or that he was a leader of a tribe of werewolves. She loved him with all her heart, and she had to find a way to come to terms with all the rest. But that could wait. For now, she was happy to sleep in his arms, more content than she’d ever been in her life.
BOOK 3
THE ALPHA'S MAIL ORDER BRIDE 3
JASMINE WHITE
ONE
Akala pulled the truck into a parking spot near Mountain View’s quaint little downtown area. Killing the ignition, she sat there for a moment, keys in hand, staring out the window and wondering if this was a good idea. She’d been going stir-crazy for the last few days of living with Nashoba’s parents. After talking her out of it twice already, Nashoba had finally relented and let her borrow the truck on the promise that she wouldn’t go anywhere but into town. It’s safe in town, she’d told them. With all the people about, it’s not like anything was going to happen to her in broad daylight. Besides, the Kintawep tribe was in a state of complete disarray and it wasn’t like they were going to come after her any time soon.
The problem was that Akala wasn’t so sure of her reasoning herself. Dreams of being hauled away and thrown into the back of a van haunted her nights, and she couldn’t shake the awareness of just how close she’d come to being turned into a sex slave for Herbert Johnson. Even the thought of his name brought to mind his hands on her body and the way he’d touched her. She couldn’t believe that it hadn’t even been a week since that night with the medicine man when she’d almost been made his mate. If it hadn’t been for Nashoba…
She didn’t want to dwell on that any more than she already had. It was bad enough that the thoughts came unbidden but there was no point in bringing them up again. She was safe, Nashoba was in his rightful place as head of the Choctaw tribe, and the two of them were making good use of their time getting to know each other in all areas. His gentle and considerate lovemaking helped ease her through the transition of what she’d faced after being kidnapped by a rival tribe. And although she still didn’t know if she could handle the pressure of being the mate of the tribal leader, she became more certain with every passing day that she didn’t want to leave Nashoba or the fellow Choctaw that she’d come to know during her time.
That wasn’t to say she wanted to live with his parents for the rest of her life. They meant well, and they’d given her plenty of space to do her own thinking but the questions had been there. His mother dropped hints about marriage at every opportunity, and although his father hadn’t been as vocal, there was always a look in his eyes that made Akala feel a touch uncomfortable. It had taken her a few days to realize that it was his concern for his son that made him seem so gruff and distracted all the time. If Akala didn’t agree to become his mate and bear him a child, Nashoba’s position as leader would most likely be too fragile for him to try again. If another man was able to bring an heir to the position of a leader, he could unseat Nashoba without even adhering to the ancient laws of challenge by combat.
Thinking that she’d been learning entirely too much about a culture she hadn’t known existed just a couple of weeks ago, Akala shook her head and pushed the truck door open. She hopped out and slammed it shut behind her, not even bothering to lock it. There was nothing of value in the truck and Nashoba never seemed to do it, so she left it as it was. Being a city girl, she felt a little uncomfortable with the idea that everyone here seemed to trust their neighbors to be good and respectful human beings, but that was part of the charm of the small town culture that kept her here. As much as she had fallen in love with Nashoba, she knew she wouldn’t be able to live with him if he lived on an oil rig or in some desolate part of the country. Akala needed people, and she needed community, even if that wasn’t something she’d had a whole lot of back home.
Mountain View was a cute enough town. As she walked down the main street, she felt her spirits lifted by the people out and about doing their thing. The local diner seemed busy with what she figured was the regular lunch crowd, and here and there were people running errands and going about their business. A light stream of traffic crawled through town as farmers and nearby residents passed through or came to town to pick up supplies, and she couldn’t help but smile when she saw the looks of sheer bliss on the children coming out of the ice cream parlor with giant grins on their faces.
To be young and on summer break again, thought Akala, her mind drifting back to the day of the scavenger hunt Haley had set up for her and Nashoba. That had been a wonderful day and night until everything went sideways and she discovered that the man she’d been falling in love with was really a werewolf. She still couldn’t believe it. Akala looked around her at the people of Mountain View and she wondered how many of them were shifters of some sort. She hadn’t gotten around to asking Nashoba if there were people who could shift into some form other than wolf, but if one was true, then why not the other? Surely there were bear people and deer people and who knew what else running around in the woods or living secret lives while working days at the local café.
Akala saw a cute little bookshop and pushed open the door. A tiny bell jingled over her head, and an older man smiled at her from where he’d been reading by the cash register. He nodded once and then lowered his gaze back to his book.
“Let me know if you need help finding anything.” He said with relative cheer despite not bothering to look up from his page.
Akala walked absentmindedly through the stacks, her eyes roaming over titles and author names. She’d brought an e-reader with several unread books still sitting on it but there was a certain charm to paper books that she couldn’t seem to get over. She loved the way they smelled and felt in her hands, and she was often transported back to her childhood during moments like this one. The bookshop was warm and comfortable, and she felt safe and normal here. It was just what she needed as an escape from the pressure that waited for her back at the Choctaw village.
At the back of the shop was a small display dedicated to books that featured local folklore. They seemed to be mostly low-budget affairs — a few of them looked like nothing more than photocopied sheets that had been stapled together — and they mostly seemed to focus on things like the strange creatures that roamed out in the wilderness in the dark of night.
One book in particular caught Akala’s eye. Sandwiched between a guide to spotting the local version of Bigfoot and a compendium of fairy legends was a book called Lycanthropes of North America: A History of The Modern Werewolf. It was one of the thicker volumes on the shelf, and published by a small press Akala had never heard of.
She put down the books she’d intended to buy and brought her discovery to the counter. The man put down his own book, and if he thought anything unusual about her purchase or her interest in the subject of werewolves, he made no outward indication of it. That was just as well by her, as the last thing she wanted to do was have him go on about whatever crazy theories he might have about what might or might not be roaming the woods around town.
Akala paid for her book in cash and tucked it into her purse as she exited the store. She felt a little guilty buying a book to research Nashoba and his kind, but there were certain things she wanted to know about werewolves that she just wasn’t ready to ask him in person. Even if the book was mostly speculation and sensationalized stories designed to sell copies, she figured it would at least give her some base of knowledge for her to build on. Besides, there was something about the few pages she’d skimmed that made her think the author might actually belong to one of the local tribes.
After all, if Akala were a shifter, wouldn’t she want to gain some kind of truth into the world around her?
Back out on the street, Akala drifted aimlessly, peeking into store windows and enjoying the peacefulness of a lazy summer afternoon in a quaint little town. She tried not to think about Nashoba and how she wished he was able to be there with her because that only served to remind her of the fact that he was with his people, trying to rebuild and deal with the attack on their village and the girls who’d been kidnapped. Akala didn’t want to think about that because it was nothing more than an anxiety-ridden spiral of worry over what had happened to her and the choices that now awaited her. So instead, she stopped into a small corner store, bought a cold drink and took it to a bench in the patch of greenery in the center of town. There were a number of benches facing out into town, and a cute little gazebo sat in the center of the square, as though patiently awaiting some sort of fall harvest festival.
Akala pulled out the book she’d bought and began reading. The woman who’d written it wasn’t the best writer. The grammar was a little messy and her phrasing was often awkward and difficult to follow but that was secondary to the fact that almost everything she read seemed to mesh perfectly from what she’d learned from Nashoba and his fellow shifters. She read of the rites of passage a wolf must go through in order to become accepted into his tribe, and she learned of the various quiet struggles they’d waged against the general population of humans over the years.
She was halfway through the book before she realized that she’d been sitting there for hours. The sun had moved on in the sky and she’d been away from the village longer than she’d intended. It was still only late afternoon but she knew that if she wasn’t back in time for dinner, Nashoba and his family would probably start to worry about her. Given everything that had happened over the last week that was the last thing she wanted.
Akala slipped the book back into her purse, tossed her empty drink can into the nearest bin, and made her way back to the truck. She was less than a block away when she saw something that made her stop in her tracks and spin around in complete surprise: there, walking casually, was the woman she’d seen in the woods outside the Kintawep village. It had been dark and the woman’s face had been partially concealed by the shadows cast from the firelight but there was no doubting it, this was the woman Johnson had stopped to talk to before dragging Akala off to the medicine man. What was it that he’d said to her? Something about continuing spells, she thought.
Glancing at the truck and thinking she should forget about this and go back to warn Nashoba, Akala made a decision to not let this woman disappear again. Whatever problems were affecting the local tribes, this woman was a part of it and if she had been involved with Herbert Johnson, there was no telling what trouble she might still cause.
Akala calmed herself with deep breaths and crossed the street as casually as she could manage. She tried to imagine herself as a spy in a television show, acting normal as she followed the strange woman without being seen. Luckily, the woman walked briskly and never stopped to look in a window or chat with anyone. Had she turned around at the wrong moment, there was no telling whether or not she’d recognize Akala’s face. After turning abruptly into a narrow alleyway, the woman disappeared from sight for a moment until Akala could safely manage to creep up to the corner and peer around it. The alley was more of a cobblestone pathway than anything else, and there were a few innocuous shops hidden from the main thoroughfare. It was into one of these doors that the strange woman stepped through, and although she wasn’t sure she was making the best possible decisions, Akala went into the alley and inspected the door.
There was no sign to indicate that the place was a business of any kind, except for a tiny handwritten card that marked the hours of operation in ornate calligraphic script. Akala had to know who this woman was and what her involvement had been with Johnson and his plans, and so she gritted her teeth and pushed the door open. The store was spacious and inviting, smelling faintly of vanilla and cinnamon from the candles that burned in several places around the shop. There was no one behind the counter, but a beaded curtain near the back of the store swayed gently as though someone had just passed through it.
Careful to make as little noise as possible, Akala crept to the back of the shop, noting the items on the shelves and display tables around her. The place seemed to be some sort of Wiccan supply store. Candles, incense, spell books and other assorted items like feathers and crystals all seemed innocent enough. Combined with what Akala had seen in the forest that night, however, she feared the power of these objects might actually hold. After all, if it was possible that a man like Nashoba could shift from human to wolf, then couldn’t it be possible that witchcraft was real as well?
Akala approached the beaded curtain and very slowly nudged a few of the strands to one side, trying to peek in the back room without being noticed. She saw shelves with stacks of glass jars; each of them holding some murky and strange item that looked like it had come from inside an animal of some kind. It was dark and difficult to make out much more, so she pulled the curtain open a little farther and moved to step inside.
“Can I help you?” asked a woman’s voice from behind her.
Akala shrieked and jumped, her heart pounding so hard that her breath caught in her throat and she thought she might collapse on the spot. A few seconds passed and she realized that the woman she’d been following was standing behind her with a smile on her face, hands clutched neatly before her. She looked like a normal woman running a perfectly innocent little store for people who worshiped trees or something.
“I… uh…” stammered Akala. She hadn’t planned anything beyond following the woman, and now she was at a complete loss for what to do.
“You’re right. Let’s not play games with each other. We both know why you’re here and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. Can I offer you a cup of herbal tea?”
Akala shook her head. Her eyes darted to the front door but there was no way she could go past the woman without being in range of whatever the witch might do to her. Even if she didn’t have any magical powers, she looked fit and strong and Akala didn’t want to find out how well she could fight.
“No, I wouldn’t accept a cup of tea either, if I were you.” The woman shrugged her shoulders and gestured to a set of comfortable looking chairs in a corner of the store. “Shall we sit and talk for a moment? I think you’ll find I’m rather reasonable despite whatever opinion you may have formed about me.”
“Who are you?” asked Akala. She forced herself to step away from the beaded curtain and chose the seat closest to the door. “What is your connection to Herbert Johnson?”
“That man was a fool,” the woman waved her hand dismissively. “He had something I wanted, so I agreed to do some work for him. Our arrangement has ended, largely thanks to your handsome boyfriend. Oh, and my name is Issie Vicktor. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a witch. Although, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep from blabbing that about town.”
“Why are you telling me this? Aren’t you mad that I was following you?”
Issie smiled. “Well, to be fair, you did ask me about myself. As for being mad, no, I’m not upset. Herbert was a dick and I don’t blame you for wanting to find out more about my connection to him. It’s only natural.”
“You’re not what I expected,” said Akala.
“You thought I’d cackle and try to put you in a cauldron of boiling newt eyes or something?” Issie laughed. “No, dear. Things have moved on considerably since those times. Oh, the nature of spell casting hasn’t changed that much, but it’s not all warts and scraggly hair anymore. I’d murder someone if I had to spend a week without shampoo or conditioner.”
“Do you know anything about this curse that the shifter tribes have on them? Is there anything you can do to stop the infertility that plagues them?”
“Let’s talk about you instead,” said Issie. “You and I could do well togethe
r. With your looks and my abilities, why, I’m sure we could have these little wolf pups eating out of our palms. Wouldn’t you rather be the one calling the shots instead of bending over so Nashoba can fuck you like a piece of property?”
“It’s not like that,” replied Akala, her face burning with a mix of embarrassment and anger. She stood up and stared down the witch sitting across from her. “And I want nothing to do with power or someone like you who can’t see anything else.”
“Relax.” Issie crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. “No need to get upset. I just think that you and I could work together in ways that you can’t even imagine. Have you ever really thought about that? Have you wondered what it would be like to have everyone respect you and your power? Do you realize what you could have if you agreed to work with me?”
“You’re insane,” spat Akala. “I would sooner die than work with someone like you.”
Not wanting to hear another word out of the woman’s mouth, Akala stormed to the front of the store, barely avoiding bumping into a table stacked with books in her haste to get away and back to Nashoba. As she pushed the door open and stepped out into the street, she heard Issie call after her.
The Alpha's Mail Order Bride- The Complete Series Page 13