And Jericho Burned: Toke Lobo & The Pack

by MJ Compton

  “And she’s one of us now,” Stoker said from the bathroom door. Drops of water clung to the black hair on his head and bare chest. A loosely-knotted towel covered his hips.

  Lucy’s breath hitched. She hadn’t heard the shower stop. Otherwise she could have prepared herself for Stoker’s display.

  “Quick shower,” Hank said.

  “I know you’ve got better things to do than harass my wife,” Stoker replied. “Thanks for stopping by.”

  That strange expression flashed on Hank’s face again. “Any time.” He nodded at Lucy and left.

  The silence after his departure might as well have been a third person in the room. It lingered, large and awkward.

  Lucy tried not to stare at Stoker, but couldn’t budge her gaze from that chest. The man had muscles, had definition. She generally wasn’t interested in male bodies, but Stoker rearranged her thinking. He was gorgeous, in every way a male should be gorgeous.

  “Don’t,” Stoker said as he crossed to the bureau, “ever call me lemonade again.”

  “Huh?” Lucy said. She blinked, trying to focus on his words instead of his looks.

  “You insult me when you call me lemonade.” Stoker threw a bright kiwi-green T-shirt on the bed and slammed the drawer. His towel slipped a little, revealing a trail of dark hair curling around his navel then narrowing as it spiraled lower.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, stunned by both the sight and the accusation. “I didn’t mean to insult you or hurt your feelings.”

  He sat on the bed, his back toward her, and pulled on clean briefs. “I can only use the excuse that you don’t understand our ways for so long.”

  He was fast, but not so quick that Lucy didn’t glimpse a very fine looking butt. The play of muscles in his shoulders was distracting, but she hated being put on the defensive. “I know the feeling.”

  Stoker finally looked at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Restin insulted me when he called me a whore.”

  “No one called you a whore.” Stoker frowned. Where had she gotten such a ludicrous idea?

  “He did,” Lucy insisted.

  “He said you’d been with other men, not that you’d had sex for money.” His gut clenched at the thought of Lucy with someone else.

  “Man,” Lucy said. “Only one. We were supposed to get married, and Charles didn’t want to wait.”

  “I waited for you,” he interrupted.

  “I wish I’d waited for you.” She spoke so softly, he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “It was only once, and it was–awful. I didn’t enjoy it at all. Not like when you kiss me or touch me. And all this time, I thought it was me, that something was wrong with me, when all along, it was him.”

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” It did, a little, but he wasn’t ready to admit it.

  “No. You’re supposed to make me feel better.”

  “Better than what?” He shouldn’t have asked, but the question popped out anyway.

  “Than being used.”

  That’s what he got for asking. “By using me?” He didn’t want to be used. He wanted to be honored. To be loved.

  “Sure.” The word was pure Lucy, but her tone lacked its usual sass.

  She didn’t want him. She couldn’t have made it any clearer. He was better than Bill Danby, supposedly better than Finkler, but he wasn’t her dream. He wasn’t her forever. He was a deal. A business deal. He was the best of her bad choices.

  Damned lemonade.

  “I called my lawyer about a prenuptial agreement,” she said, “because of what happened with Charles. I know that’s not your fault, but I’m telling you, it was awful. When I walked in and saw his . . . him and his secretary–”

  “You don’t trust me,” Stoker interrupted. “I’m good enough to rescue your sister and keep Bill Danby from raping you, but not good enough for your trust.” He pulled on his shirt then flopped onto his back, and stared at the water-stained ceiling. “Mating isn’t about finances or material bondage. It’s about heart, Lucy. It’s about forever and trust and always having someone on your side. Right now, I feel like you’ve spurned everything.”

  Didn’t she understand honor? The importance of doing what was right? The male always protected–and cherished–his female and their offspring. Without a mate, children, and honor, a male was nothing.

  Look at Hank. He’d mated, had even gotten a child on his Charlotte, but both had died in childbirth. Now Hank had no purpose. He’d rejoined the teams–and they were damned lucky to have the best pair of ears in the Western Hemisphere on their side–but when a task force was idle, he was nothing but a death watch.

  “I want no part of your money. I have no need for it, but you are mine, and I take care of what is mine.”

  “What do you mean by you don’t want or need money?” Lucy asked.

  Of course, she was concerned only about the money. He hadn’t gotten through to her at all.

  “Everybody needs money, and most people want more.” Bitterness crept into her tone.

  “I am not Charles Finkler or Randy Butler!” Stoker shouted.

  “Thank God!” she shouted back.

  Stoker sat up. “Don’t yell at me.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “Or is that against the werewolf rules of mating?”

  “It’s disrespectful.”

  “You’re right.” She thrust out her chin. “So don’t disrespect me again.”

  The woman went too far. “Me disrespect you?” His laugh was short and mirthless. “I’m not the one who isn’t honoring her wedding vows. I married you in one of your ceremonies, but do I get the same courtesy?”

  Her face paled, and her eyes widened. She looked as if someone had punched her in the stomach.

  And he didn’t care.

  “Fine,” she said, dropping to the bed next to him. “Let’s do it.” She grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and started to tug it up her legs.

  He stopped her, but not before he glimpsed the sparse, dark blond hair at the juncture of her thighs. “I can’t just do it.”

  “Why not?”

  He didn’t believe she had to ask. “I have to be ready, and right now, I don’t feel so good about us.”

  Lucy made a funny noise that sounded like a snort. “Guys are always ready for sex. Want me to help?”

  “No!” He swung his legs over the bed, his back to her.

  She shouldn’t know how to help. He didn’t even know if she could help, but his mate had no business thinking he needed help performing his duty.

  If he didn’t get away from her, he might do something he’d later regret.

  He stood, keeping his back to her. His lack of motivation was embarrassing.

  Behind him, bed springs squeaked as Lucy dropped onto her back.

  He grabbed a pair of jeans from the bureau. “I’ll be back later.” He yanked on his pants.

  “You’re going to leave me here alone?” Her voice sounded small. Frightened. Her heartbeat thundered in his ears.

  Stoker stared down at her, focusing not on her sarcastic words or her exaggerated actions, but rather on the physical manifestations she could not control, like her racing heart and ragged breathing. Her body’s chemical reaction to her fear tickled his nostrils as he inhaled. He should have noted these signs earlier, before working himself into a bad mood.

  Lucy was scared. Her bravado was simply an act.

  Her chin quavered, and the salty tang of imminent tears clung to the air.

  “Don’t cry.” He didn’t think he could stand it if she started sobbing again. The last time had nearly killed him. “I won’t leave, but please don’t cry.”

  “I’m not crying,” she said, blinking wet eyelashes.

 
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he covered her tiny hand with his own huge one. “We aren’t doing very well, are we?”

  Lucy shook her head. “I keep expecting to wake up in my own bed, in my own apartment because Michelle is on the phone to tell me she wants to drop out of college or something.” She swallowed. “I am really out of my element here.”

  He shoved the hurt her words evoked into his deepest recesses as he tried to put himself in her position. Her feelings, he hated to admit, were valid.

  “I’ve never been married before, either,” he reminded her. “And I always thought my mate would be another lycanthrope, not a human.” He scuffed his bare toe against the carpet. “Seriously, I prayed to the Ancient Ones for a mate of my own kind, because it really wasn’t pretty when Delilah and Tokarz got together.”

  Lucy’s slender body trembled as she inhaled deeply. “Then we’re not breaking new ground here?”

  “Luke’s grandmother is human,” he said. “That’s the only other mixed couple besides Delilah and Tokarz that I know. Makes it easy to blame Luke’s stupidity on human blood.”

  He’d meant the comment as a joke, but Lucy didn’t crack a smile. Her lips didn’t even twitch. Instead, she watched him with wide eyes, as if she were as afraid of him as she was of Bill Danby and Randy Butler.

  Fear comes from ignorance, his own granny always said, and Granny Hawkins was a smart old lady, even if she was as miserable as anyone Stoker had ever met.

  He stretched out next to Lucy, hands clasped behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. “Are you afraid of the werewolf stuff?” The words caught in his throat.

  She didn’t answer right away, which increased his anxiety.

  “A little,” she finally admitted. “It’s new, you know?”

  Okay. The unknown always unsettled him.

  “The killing stuff,” Lucy added. “The violence. You guys have really bad tempers. My father used to yell a lot.”

  He digested her concern. “You know, we honor our families. Mates and offspring, well, they’re the most important things to us. They guarantee the future, so we take real good care of them. So don’t let all the growling and snapping get to you, okay? It’s the way we communicate. I mean, you’re my mate. My wife. That makes you practically holy.”

  Her sigh jiggled the bed. “Is that why all of you came running when Bill . . . this afternoon?”

  “Yes.” Maybe she did understand. “But because you’re to be honored and taken care of doesn’t give you the right to dishonor me with your insults.”

  “Insults?” She sounded indignant. “I haven’t insulted you.”

  “Sure you have. You called me lemonade, you claim I only married you for your money—”

  “You’re the one who called me green.”

  “Green is the way you smell.”

  “Like money,” she insisted.

  “No, like spring time. I love spring time. Green is my favorite color. When I say you smell green, it’s a compliment.”

  He resented the need to explain every little thing to her, and the irritation rubbed his patience raw. “This isn’t any easier for me, you know. You’ve got that bug up your butt about money, you’re terrified of me when all I want to do is love and protect you, and I have to rescue your sister from a lunatic before I can take you home and get a baby on you.”

  “What?” Lucy sat up.

  Okay, now what had he said that got her so upset? Well, he wasn’t budging until they got a few things straightened out. Life was bound to get more painful before it got any better.

  “What part didn’t you understand?”

  She stared at him as if he’d sprouted a second tail. “The baby part, for starters.”

  “Don’t you want children?” He was reluctant to ask about his children in particular.

  “Not now,” Lucy said. “Maybe someday, down the road.”

  “Why wait?”

  She buried her face in her hands. “I’m not insulting you when I say this,” she said, her voice muffled, “but I’m barely ready to be married. I am no way ready to be a mother. Parenthood makes it all seem so very . . . permanent.”

  She spoke as if permanency were a bad thing. Or an option.

  “It is permanent. You know that.”

  Her hands dropped, and she nodded. “So you want children?”

  What kind of question was that? “Of course, I do. I can’t wait to be a father.”

  Her miserable expression made him want to cry.

  “How do you plan to support these children? You claim you don’t want my money, but I can’t see the band making enough to support you, much less a family.”

  “Huh?” He really didn’t understand her. “The pack supports the family.”

  “What?” She sounded as baffled as he felt.

  “The brewery.”

  “What brewery?”

  Like a comic strip light bulb over his head, he finally understood Lucy’s concern about money. “Moonsinger Beer. Our pack owns Moonsinger Beer. The brewery supports everyone in the pack. Ever since the Internet took the market international, the brand has been doing really well.”

  Lucy’s mouth gaped. “Werewolves own Moonsinger Beer?”

  He nodded, pleased. “You’ve heard of it then.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. There was more Moonsinger than blood in my father the night he died.”

  Uh-oh. Maybe not such a good thing.

  “I don’t drink,” he said, wanting–no, needing–to reassure her. “My kind can’t drink alcohol. It blocks liver function and interferes with our ability to shift.”

  Tokarz had proven that legend true, on a full moon not so long ago. Stoker still didn’t know if Tokarz had been seeking madness or if he’d drunk the beer to prove something to his human mate.

  Either way, knowing Stoker didn’t drink ought to make Lucy feel better.

  But she didn’t seem appeased. He’d probably pay later.

  “What about Michelle?”

  Right. Her first priority.

  He sighed. “I made you a promise, and I’ll always keep my promises to you, but that doesn’t mean I like having to figure out a way to get your sister out of New Sinai without starting a war.” He couldn’t state his reservations any plainer than that.

  “I can’t fault you for that,” she admitted.

  “Good.” He scrolled the mental list of issues he’d made. One remained.

  “I guess that brings us to sex.”

  Lucy choked. “I guess so.” She stared at the ceiling, her eyes unblinking, as Stoker watched her profile.

  “I don’t blame you for what happened with your ex-fiancé,” he finally said.

  She said nothing, but she swallowed, throat muscles working convulsively.

  “I understand,” he continued, “that premarital relations are the norm for some of your society. I would have to be blind and stupid not to understand what I see when we play in bars.”

  Her head moved ever so slightly in his direction.

  “I’m not trying to embarrass you, Lucy, but you have me at a disadvantage. Marking one’s mate is always a nervous time for males. And that’s with someone who’s as inexperienced as he is.”

  If it can be solved with conversation, it’s not a conflict, Granny claimed. The old bat would gloat until the day she died if she knew how right she was. She’d also die of embarrassment if she ever found out why Stoker had to have this particular discussion with his mate.

  “I made a mistake,” Lucy said. “A really bad mistake. I knew right away, but see, I thought it was me. I thought there was something wrong with me because it was so awful.”

  “It was awful because he isn’t your mate,” Stoker said.

  “I wish I’d kn
own about this mate stuff a little sooner,” Lucy muttered. “It would have saved me a whole lot of grief.”

  His stomach tingled, along with his fingers, toes and even the end of his nose. Had Lucy just admitted she accepted being a werewolf’s mate?