“Mallory, this is my mate, Lucas. Lucas, my baby sister, Mallory.” Mazy refused to let me go, so I reach out with my free hand to shake Lucas’s hand. His nostrils flared and a look of surprise slipped over his face before he wiped it away.
“Pleasure, cher.”
“Mallory?” Apollo called out. His footsteps slapped against the hardwood floors as he came storming down the hallway. We all turned to look at him and my eyes went wide.
A very naked, pissed off Apollo stood in the entranceway to the living room. His eyes flashed with his wolf, until he took a deep breath.
“Fuck. How did you find us?” Apollo calmed a bit, but still stood naked as the day he had been born. I might have been okay with it just being me and him, but I don’t think I would ever be okay with how he flaunted it now.
“Your truck. I had my eyes and ears out for it. Easy enough find. Might want to remember that,” Lucas replied, glaring in my mate’s direction.
Apollo’s top lip curled back into a snarl. He took a step forward, and I cleared my throat, trying to divert his attention even for a second.
“Maybe go put some pants on.” I felt weird having my sister see my mate’s … well, everything.
“I’ll be back.” Apollo twisted around, leaving the room still annoyed.
“Well, that’s one way to meet someone,” Mazy said, shaking her head. She turned her attention back to me, cupping my cheeks. Tears welled in her eyes again.
“I can’t believe that you are awake. And alive. And …” Mazy started to cry, and Lucas gave me a sympathetic look as he pulled her into a hug.
“She’s been a wreck lately worrying about you, cher.”
Mazy pushed away from her mate’s hold.
“I had no idea Asher would turn on me like that. I mean, I knew he wanted money, and lots of it, but I never thought … I am so sorry, Mallory.”
I flinched, hating the thought of Asher. Even more so hating that my sister believed she had been at fault for what happened.
“It’s not your fault, Maze, you didn’t know. No one could have predicted that.”
“I guess I just don’t understand how he got you to wake up. He isn’t your mate, is he?”
My brows pinched together, and my lips parted as I began to ask how she didn’t know Apollo was my mate, but he stepped into the room.
“If you found us here, it means he can, too. Are you going to call in Dominic and Quentin?” Apollo asked. My confusion only grew.
“Who?”
“I already called them. And told them my mate’s sister was in trouble that I could use their help.”
I opened my mouth to speak but Apollo took a step farther into the room.
“Perhaps I could call Moss.”
“So, it’s also his scent I smell here?”
“Yes.” The muscle in Apollo’s jaw ticked. It was the same one that I saw jump whenever I called him by his nicknames. I considered doing it now just to get his attention, but instead I remained quiet, listening.
“You’ll love Eden and Winnie. Winnie and I used to work together at a bar, that now Eden’s mate owns. It’s a weird, long story, and I will tell you about it later. Mallory, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up.”
Mazy continued to speak, but my eyes had settled on my mate. The animal inside of me felt so fresh and new, it had been a bit of a struggle to keep her contained when her lust shot right through me. Desire to be with her mate, desire to touch her mate. Our mate.
“And you will come live with Lucas and I of course. We’ll be able to take care of you.”
“What?” I asked, pulling my mind out of the gutter and back to my sister.
“You’ll come live with us.”
My mind spun out of control. I loved my sister, I did. And her words were coming from a good place—she wanted to protect me, be there for me—but my lungs tightened and seized up. She wanted to shelter me. My whole life before … Apollo really had been my parents sheltering me. Then my sister. And I realized before I allowed them to. I had let them take care of me because I’d been scared. Maybe my fox gave me courage, or Apollo did, or maybe even it had to do with the little time I spent with Asher.
I didn’t want to hide. I wanted adventure.
Chapter 23
Apollo
My ear twitched as I listened into Mallory’s conversation with her sister. Hearing how someone wanted to take my mate away from me, my wolf rose to the surface. From the moment I woke up I had thought I lost her. And to come out here and find not only her sister, but Boudreau in my home? I don’t know how I contained my rage.
Actually, I did. I set my sights on my mate—she looked gorgeously ruffled still from our encounters last night. Thinking about her hot, welcoming body, my cock stirred to life. Pushing those thoughts out of my head, and thankful for the sweatpants I found on the bed, I focused on what Lucas was saying. Or rather I tried to.
“How long has it been since you two completed the bond?”
“Last fucking night. I was going to call you today and give you our location.” My irritation grew, because Lucas had kept Mallory from telling her sister that I was her mate. How the other shifter didn’t smell us on each other or connect the dots I didn’t understand.
“Look, we got some news while we were in New Orleans. Mazy is feeling a little bit protective, and a lot scared for her sister. Until we get this mess figured out with Asher, it would be best if you two cool your jets. For Mazy’s sake,” Lucas said. He kept shifting his gaze back to his mate.
I took in a deep breath and noticed Mazy’s scent had a unique twinge to it. “She’s with child?”
“Yes, and my mate would appreciate if you kept your mouth shut, so she can tell her sister.”
This was a side of the womanizer I had not seen. When I met Lucas years back he had been chasing different tail every night. He rarely cared about the consequences of his actions. I didn’t know this shifter, and it worried me. He had no claim over my mate, especially now, but I glanced over at Mallory.
She was mine, and I hers. Mallory would have to decide our next move once I took care of Asher.
“Your mate will eventually find out, Boudreau,” I growled, annoyed all over again. The day after we marked each other, and I can’t even hold my mate the way I long to do. But more pressing mattes had arisen. Since Boudreau was able to find me here, it meant Asher would most likely be able to as well. It had been foolish on my part to have brought my truck, I should have stashed it away and found a different way out here.
The thought pissed me off. I had my mate, then lost her … she had been held by a psycho loan shark. Shaking my head, I pushed those memories away. They were in the past and could not be changed. It was pointless to fret about it. Instead, we needed to plan.
“I think we need to call Asher out,” I stated.
Boudreau looked at me, analyzing my words and probably running through every possibility.
“When the others arrive, it wouldn’t be a bad plan. You can challenge him.”
“He won’t play fair and he will bring men to try to steal her away. It might be best for you and the others to leave.”
“No, we will stay. Dominic is more than capable of taking care of the women on his own, and Winnie is a shifter as well. Quinn hasn’t said if she is pregnant yet, but I don’t think that would stop her anyways.”
“Mallory will be able to take care of herself. Her animal is fierce.” I didn’t know if Mallory wanted me to tell them which parent she took after. I would allow her to tell who she wanted in her own time.
Boudreau and I joined out mates, and Mazy was holding Mallory again with quiet tears running down her face. Mallory smiled, holding her sister, but I could see a hint of worry in her gaze. I would get her alone sometime today and ask her what upset her.
Once Mazy released her sister, we all went into the kitchen. Mazy and Lucas sat down at the table, while Mallory joined me by the stove. There was a lot I wanted to say to her, a lot
I wanted to do to her—kiss her, fuck her, be with her. Instead, I settled on placing my hand on her ass, caressing it gently, hidden behind the cover of the stove.
“Stop. Not right now.” Mallory’s tone held a hint of teasing. She wouldn’t mind so much if her sister wasn’t sitting across the way.
“What’s the plan, now that they are here?” she asked, concern wrinkling her brow.
“When Lucas’s friends show up you will leave with their mates to a safe place. Then I will challenge Asher.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Mallory asked, pissed off. Her fox crept forward, shining in her eyes for a moment.
“I am not kidding you.”
“You promised me you wouldn’t baby me. You promised you would treat me better.”
“I am. This isn’t a battle I am willing to lose you over. I can easily take care of this.”
“You’re not listening to me, Apollo.”
“You are not listening. You have only shifted once, you only hunted once. You do not know our ways.”
Mallory took a step back, looking like I had slapped her across her face. I regretted my words the moment I said them. Of course, she understood. She had lived her entire life wishing to have her animal at her reach; having to watch from the sidelines and longing for more. I stepped closer to her, reaching for her, but she flinched away.
“Don’t.” Mallory glanced over at her sister who watched us closely. “Don’t touch me.”
“Mal?” Mazy called over to her sister with a worried expression on her face.
My wolf growled deep inside my chest. No one should be comforting my mate besides me. She shouldn’t even be upset. How could she not see that I was trying to protect her?
“I’m fine, Maze. I think I might need some air though.”
“I don’t think that is a good idea, Mallory. You should stay in the cabin for now. Until the others arrive, this is the safest place for you,” Mazy said, giving her sister a stern glare.
I agreed with Mazy. Mallory was too new to shifting, and we didn’t exactly have a restful sleep last night. And thoughts of what we did do last night rushed through my blood right to my cock.
Fuck. This wasn’t the place or the time. Mallory sent me a dark glare before smiling demurely at her sister.
“’Kay, sis. I’m at least going to go hang in one of the bedrooms for a bit. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“I’m so sorry. We will take care of, Asher. You won’t have to worry about anything,” Mazy told her with a soft smile. She misunderstood the reasoning behind Mallory’s sleepless night. And it annoyed me that I had to hide the fact Mallory was my mate. Even if she was pissed off at me.
Mallory didn’t speak again; she left the room without even looking in my direction, and it pissed off my wolf. I tried to calm myself down with thoughts of killing Asher, because after he was dealt with, my mate and I could start our lives.
Chapter 24
Mallory
Anger surged through me. My sister I understood, because this had been our relationship since the day my parents found out I was latent. They had drilled it into her head―protect your sister at all cost. As much as I wanted to resent my sister for treating me like glass our entire lives, I couldn’t blame her. Our parents wanted what was best for me, and a human in a shifter life? It could be dangerous. And even now she didn’t know that Apollo and I mated, that I took after our father and had his Arctic fox.
Of course, my father had been a lot larger then I was in fox form, but I still had the teeth and claws to protect myself. Anger pumped through me, my fox irritated that even my mate didn’t believe in me. He had promised not to treat me like everyone else. I didn’t need to be at the front lines fighting Asher, but I wanted to be here. I needed to.
I had to live with him for a stressful couple days. I had to bend to his will, trying to keep myself alive. And I survived. Although I didn’t come out completely unscathed, I’d been the one to get away initially. Apollo didn’t see me as capable, as his equal, and that gutted me. Though I hadn’t meant to lie to my sister, I truly did see the logic in their worries.
The air felt too thin. I couldn’t get enough into my lungs, and my vision wavered. Instead of going to the bedroom, I stepped outside. I wouldn’t go far. The quiet and steadiness of the woods around me calmed my anger. My fox had been irritated, but being outside calmed her as well. Breathing in the scents of the woods that I took my first run in coaxed my fox further out. Holding back the urge to take a sprint, I breathed in.
The air was filled with different odors, new ones that I couldn’t decipher. My fox shifted under my skin, apparently noticing the smells as well. A tension crackled under my skin. As my heartbeat increased, my control over my fox dissolved. I tried to keep a tight hold on her but she took over. I dropped down to all fours, this shift proving much faster and easier to do than my first.
I had to crawl out from my borrowed flannel. Shaking my head, to untangle my ears from the shirt, I lifted my snout. The air still tasted wrong. I tilted my nose back down, trying to catch the trail we had taken last night. Perhaps a quick run wouldn’t hurt, and the smells would dissipate. Trotting forward, the scents finally started to disappear, and my fox snuffled happily.
****
I caught the trail of a rabbit and ended up chasing it until its trail disappeared. Disappointed that I hadn’t caught my bounty, I decided to head back the direction that I came. The wrong odors still lingered nearby and it started to agitate me. My nose twitched as the scents filtered in. Sneezing, I tried to clear my nose out. But everything seemed muddled and I lost Apollo’s trail.
When I left, I had planned to follow his essence back to the cabin, but too many new smells covered over the tracks. Slipping through the woods, a noise caught my attention―the motor of a car―and I crept closer to the sound. If I could find the road, or at least the dirt path Apollo drove here, I could find the cabin.
The SUV that came barreling down the road bounced and made a loud noise as it hit another pothole. Apollo had been much more careful about driving this way. My instincts flared, telling me to run. Twisting around I ran back into the woods. The SUV’s noises stopped and my ears swiveled back.
“Fan out, there’s a shifter out here, I can smell them,” someone called out.
My heart leapt forward. I kept running, my heart thumping in my chest.
The voices started to fade away, but my instincts urged me forward still. I knew I shouldn’t have left the cabin, but coupled with my anger and my fox’s worry over the other scents, I hadn’t been thinking clearly. A branch snapped close by and my pace slowed. Creeping closer to the ground, I crawled onward.
Leaves rustled nearby. Crawling to a stop, I sniffed the air. The smells had turned to a wetter, muskier scent that made my lips peel back from my canines. The scent was all wrong, it niggled a memory from the back of my mind. A quiet growl rattled in my chest as I tried to figure out where my prey hid. The voices from the SUV got closer and my tail flicked with indecision.
Before I could decide, the hair on my scuff rose. I twisted on my paws, but I didn’t move fast enough. Someone grabbed the extra skin on the back of my neck and lifted me off the ground. I growled fiercely and snapped my fangs at my captor. Pinning my ears back, I growled at the smiling man.
“Hello, mate.”
I snapped my jaws at Asher who stretched his arm farther out to keep me out of range. I twisted my body, trying to escape his hold. Logic told me to shift, he would be dazed for a moment and it was all I needed. Unfortunately, logic had been overruled by instinct. My fox was in full control, not allowing me even an inch to try to shift back.
“I’m going to declaw your little paws when we get back home. And then, you are not leaving our house, our bed for the next couple of months. Do you realize how much you put me through?” Asher’s eyes flashed to his animal’s. Fear coiled in my belly and I lashed out, scratching at any bit of flesh I could get.
Asher
hissed at me, shaking my whole body, dazing me.
“You will stop this madness, mate. We are leaving.” Asher pulled out a cellphone from his pocket while he still held me in file-sharpened nails. Human nails, just filed to a point. Snarling, I wiggled myself around, attempting to loosen his grip, as he pressed the phone his ear. I knew he wouldn’t be able to pierce my skin with his nails. At least I hoped not. So, I curled my body as tightly as I could. As soon as Asher’s attention had been diverted to his phone, I flung myself wide and caught some skin on his arm.
Asher released me, and I took off. Or I had hoped it would work that way. Dropping his phone, he wrapped both hands around my fluffy tail. The hard yank on my sensitive appendage caused me to whine loudly. Blood rushed to my head as he flipped me upside down. While I tried to get my bearings, he pulled something else of his pocket.
My heart hammered in my chest.
A syringe filled with an unknown substance caught my sights. Redoubling my efforts to get away from him, all I kept seeing was the syringe getting closer. I continuously yipped, trying to get someone else’s attention. Maybe if we were close enough to the cabin, Apollo would hear me. Or even Mazy. Of course, my sister didn’t even know about my fox yet.
Oh gods, my sister.
My eyes widened as Asher got closer. Either I quieted and allowed him to prick me and I would protect my sister, or I could fight like hell and hope to get someone’s attention.
My decision was made for me when a howl filled the air.
Chapter 25
Apollo
Mazy had been quietly talking to Boudreau in the kitchen about their next plans. Once this had been taken care of, Mazy wanted to take my mate away. After hearing the way she spoke to her mate about Mallory, I understood Mallory’s anger. Mazy had tried to keep her sister in a bubble, being overprotective even in human standards.
Shame bit at me, followed by anger at myself. Mallory asked me not to do this to her, not to put her in this small human bubble. But I had. And I didn’t allow her to speak her mind. She had wanted to support her mate and show her courage to her captor.
Authorized: Mercenary Shifters (Mercenaries For Hire Book 4) Page 11