She gritted her teeth. “Magnum forbade anyone to help me. Ryker and Gee did what they could, but neither one of them have that kind of power.”
“I wish I could have killed him. I wish I’d been stronger sooner.” He looked up at the ceiling.
“Well, I wish I could hop a jet plane and land in sunny Miami with a million dollars. Wishes are really pointless things. Let’s live in reality, shall we? Now, if you don’t want to kiss me, that’s fine. Forget I asked.” Tasha gasped almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth. What was with her? She never spoke to anyone in this manner.
He yanked her against him. “You want me to kiss you?”
His mouth pressed on hers, hard and unyielding. Even though she’d never been kissed before, she knew the one he gave her wasn’t meant to tantalize, but more as if he kissed her for punishment. He was mad. She could taste his anger.
She pushed at his chest, and he deepened their embrace, gentling against her. Tasha knew she should pull away. He hadn’t kissed her nicely. All she could do was sigh against his mouth. He tasted like mint mixed with the smell of cloves, and she wanted to wrap herself around him.
Cole drew back to look at her. “Kiss me back, sweetheart. Unless you’re mad at me. I’m sorry for grabbing you. I was thoughtless…and you deserve better.”
She stroked the side of his face. “I am kissing you.” What was he talking about? Her mind felt muddled.
“Then you really weren’t joking about never being kissed.” He made a tsking noise. “My pleasure to show you.”
His breath felt warm against his face. “When I kiss you, open your mouth slightly for me, Tasha. I want to taste your tongue against mine.”
“Oh….” Whatever she would have said got cut off when he kissed her again. This time his taste held none of the harshness of the first one. Instead, her insides instantly turned into molten lava, and it was everything she could do to remember his instructions.
She did as he’d asked, and his tongue pushed into her mouth, swirling against hers. He moaned slightly, and warmth flooded to her core. How could she be reacting this strongly to him from a kiss?
Her thoughts fled, and nothing mattered except kissing him. He stayed very still, only moving his mouth and one of his fingers when he caressed the side of her face. She pulled back slightly to look at him.
He pressed her head against his chest, and she breathed him in. Had she done something wrong? Why hadn’t he progressed the kiss to something else? Or maybe he’d simply done as she asked and nothing more. She had asked him to kiss her and he did.
Colt kissed the top of her head. “I’m glad I didn’t know before I left.”
She sucked in her breath and took a step away from him, trying to pretend she didn’t want to melt into a puddle on the floor.
“Didn’t know what?” Did she look cool and collected, or had she turned a shade of splotchy red?
He leaned over until his nose touched hers. “That you’re mine.”
“That I’m yours?” Her voice squeaked. She had often imagined this situation, but she had a hard time holding onto the idea she wasn’t lost in a fit of imagination.
“You were too young. The mating instinct wouldn’t have kicked in yet. But now I get to live with the idea I almost got my mate killed. Could this be any worse?” He closed his eyes. “There’s nothing to do but to avenge you. I can’t kill Magnum. Drew will have to do.”
He was still on that? Apparently, kissing her hadn’t taken the idea from his mind. What the hell was she doing wrong?
“Before you do, or don’t, because I certainly don’t feel I need to be avenged, if that means anything”—she gripped at his shirt—“maybe you could show me some more things resembling kissing. Since you think you’re my mate and all.”
“Think?” He snarled the word. “Do you doubt me? You don’t feel the tug?”
“I’m missing some Wolf senses, remember? How will I ever know if you’re my mate? I can’t scent you in the Wolf way. I’m pretty much a human. You’ve lived with humans. How do they figure this stuff out?” TV and movies never make sense.
His face fell, making his already strong features look even harder. “Shit.”
“What?” She put her hands on her hips.
“Humans make a mess. They’re always falling in and out of love. Divorcing. We can’t have that. You have to let your Wolf side recognize me. Sometimes you can shift; that’s what you said. At some point, those instincts have to work.”
She shrugged. “Maybe not.”
Tasha had always known he was her mate. The nice thing to do would be to tell him and let him off the hook.
Opening her mouth to do so, she thought better of it and swallowed the words unspoken. He seemed so set on killing Drew and kissing her hadn’t taken care of the problem. Colt needed to stay and work with Drew. The pack had been through so much turmoil. Even if he killed the Alpha, nothing would be fixed. No, she knew from experience a healthy pack had numerous dominant wolves assisting the Alpha.
Colt would help them all so much more if he left Drew where he was and concentrated on other things….
“I think we’re going to have to sort this out.” She stepped away from him. “Don’t get me wrong. I liked kissing you. I’m certain you can smell my arousal. Only, I’m not sure that’s enough to be a mate. If you’re really mine, you’ll need to help me get to where I can be sure. This will take twenty-four hours a day. Nothing else will work.”
Chapter Three
She had lied to him. He could smell the falsehood. The untruths slid across his nose, making it itch, and he reached up to rub away the sensation. Even if he hadn’t had Wolf senses, the play of emotions across her scarred yet still beautiful face would have given her away in an instant. He’d gotten good at reading people’s true motives. In the world outside of the pack, certain humans could so fool themselves into believing their own bullshit that they could actually alter their scents without knowing they had.
Within his first year on the outside, Colt had learned there was more than one way to tell truth from fiction. But Tasha didn’t have those motivations. What was her end game here? Why try to hide her real expectations from him?
His cock twitched. He really, really wanted her, and he’d certainly been obtuse for the last ten years when he hadn’t realized his daily thoughts of her amounted to more than simple guilt at her getting hurt.
Magnum hadn’t let anyone fix her….
Anger swelled in his chest, and he clenched his jaw to stop the roar. The need to do something consumed him. She moved her hand, placing her fingers on his arm, and his temper cooled. Tasha had always been able to calm him.
“So, you want me to prove to you that you’re my mate.” He smiled. His mate wanted to play, and he liked that side of her. When was the last time he’d been easy with anyone?
Had he ever been?
“I do.”
Liar. He almost smiled. “How shall I do that?”
“What are the ways people do?”
He dropped his hand from where it had grown comfortable on the side of her face. Not touching her all the time was going to be a problem. She smelled like roses, and being so close to her had infused his system with her scent. Kissing her had been a lesson in patience. The woman had never been kissed. She didn’t need him ripping her clothes off and taking her on the floor.
Even if that was exactly what he wanted to do.
Apparently, he was being given some kind of lesson in restraint. He internally shook his head. Too much time with the humans had made him sappy.
“Well, if we were living out there in the rest of the world, I would take you out to dinner. You might even reject me for the sake of making me chase you. Ultimately, I would win because these days, I always do.”
She raised a dark eyebrow. “You always win?”
“All the time. That’s how I knew the time had come to return here. I left here unsure and capable of losing. That’s not an option for me any
more. I can be sidetracked, but, ultimately, not stopped.”
Tasha giggled, and the sound went right to his groin. Could she be any more adorable?
“You’d ask me to dinner. I’d reject you to make you work hard, and then we’d end up going anyway. What would happen at dinner?”
He smiled. Even if a lot of the world seemed senseless most of the time, he could make Tasha happy, and he knew how. “Why don’t we find out? Gee’s place still serve dinner, or is there somewhere else in town doing that?”
“Actually, it’s funny you mention restaurants. That’s what I’m doing to help the pack. Drew assigned me to handle the redevelopment project. And we have plans to start a few restaurants once more of the pack has reformed. His mate, Betty, her family is interested in starting one. I mean we can’t all be wolves all the time, can we? There are even some humans joining our ranks these days. Who would have thought it? Magnum must be rolling over in his grave.” She paused, and her eyes widened. “Wow. I’m totally rambling right now. I’m sorry.”
“No, I enjoy listening.” Hearing her voice made his Wolf want to come out and play. When was the last time he’d shifted without a purpose? A decade at least. Living with the humans meant guarding his shifts as if they were precious possessions. The last thing he needed was to end up on some lab table, being dissected.
“Well, I’m not really sure what has come over me. You were saying something about dinner?”
He nodded, extending his hand. “Let’s go eat. Gee isn’t cooking, is he?”
She laughed, and he wanted to roll around in the sound. “No….” She started talking again, and his mind drifted fluidly in the musical intonations of her voice. He’d feed her, and then he’d discover why his mate pretended she didn’t know they were meant for each other.
Then he’d figure out how to help her with her Wolf-senses problem.
Then he’d kill Drew. Maybe not in that order.
***
A hush fell over the bar when they entered, and Colt didn’t pretend not to take it personally. After all, Gee had whacked him over the head only hours earlier. Some of the pack, he recognized; some, he didn’t, but that was standard. Once, Los Lobos had been home to hundreds of Black Hills Wolves. They’d been a thriving town that happened to, at least once a month, shift into wolves.
The trick would be to undo their first impression of him. Although what they thought didn’t matter. When he killed their lousy Alpha, he’d be given the job. Then there would be changes.
“Don’t worry.” Tasha slipped into a booth and smiled at him. He followed suit, taking the spot across from her.
“Don’t worry about what?” He loved the way the sunlight pooling in through the window touched her hair and highlighted the strands of red amidst the dark brown ringlets. The effect made a red halo appear above her. If he had an ounce of artistic ability, he’d try to capture how she appeared. But he’d have to do with simply making a memory he’d never forget.
“About the stares. You’ll get used to them. That’s what happens when you go places with me. Everyone initially stares at my cheek as if they can’t believe what they’re seeing, and then they get over the shock”
He took a deep breath. If his temper got any worse, he wouldn’t be able to stop the fury of his shift as he destroyed this place from the inside out. “First off, that had better not be true. Anyone who stares at you will have to answer to me. And they won’t be happy with my response. Second, they’re not staring at you. They’re staring at me. I was whacked over the head.”
She shook her head. “We must make quite a pair. You getting smacked by Gee and me looking the way I do.”
“Hey.” He took her hand in his. “Those are war marks. You wear them with pride. You challenged the worst Alpha this pack has ever seen and lived to tell the story. Those are scars of bravery. Warriors wear them proudly.”
“I hardly challenged the Alpha. You did that. I got in the way.”
“You were enormously brave. Same difference.” He shrugged. There was no difference in his mind. Anyone else would have stayed cowering in the corner. She’d only been fourteen years old.
“What have you been doing with yourself for the last ten years, Colt?”
A waiter approached their table and set down what looked and smelled like fried pickles. Colt stared at them for a second before glancing up at the server. “We didn’t order these.”
Tasha answered instead of the waiter. “Everyone gets them. There are three things on the menu here. We’ll all get the same thing. Thanks, Paul.”
The waiter nodded at them and walked away, looking down. Paul was clearly a non-dominant male, but his response bordered on rude. Why wouldn’t he have answered either of them?
As if reading his mind, Tasha spoke. “Magnum cut out Paul’s tongue for trying to take a stand against the food shortages. Gee gave him this job to help him.”
“I don’t remember him.”
She sighed. “He would have been twelve at the time. Out of your radar, I imagine. So you understand the menu, what will come out next is steamed broccoli and a hamburger. Sometimes with cheese. Sometimes without.”
He laughed. Well, the food was a change from the outside world. “You’re right about needing a restaurant.”
She squeezed his fingers. “Colt, you didn’t answer me.”
He knew he hadn’t. She wanted to understand what he’d done with his decade away. He’d not thought to tell any of them. Ever. Only he hadn’t counted on having a mate, and that changed things a great deal.
“You want to prove we’re meant to be mated, right? Don’t mated couples talk?”
He twirled one of her long curls through his finger. “Low blow there, Tasha. This is hard for me. I’ve been alone without a pack for a long time. I’m not exactly used to sharing.”
“Before you left, I felt I knew you a little bit. Or, at least, I pretended I did.” The woman had no subterfuge, and he loved that about her. The word jarred him, but not for more than a second. With humans, love took a long time to grow. His Wolf knew he needed her, and always would, to complete him.
“I did a lot of stuff in the last ten years. I had to survive. Gee left me with five hundred dollars, which didn’t last very long considering I was used to eating about three times more than a regular human guy my own age.” That had been a hard lesson to learn. “I slept on the street for a while. Did odd jobs. Got some very…disturbing propositions.” There had been a certain type of human predator that had been really interested in him. His shifting abilities had made him too strong to be attacked as long as only one man made the attempt. Colt had gotten good at sniffing out the danger before it got too close. He wouldn’t tell Tasha about that. There were limits to what he would open up about.
She didn’t need to live with those memories. He’d keep them to himself.
“Was it like that the whole time?” The catch in her voice nearly killed him. He didn’t want her to have pain for him. After his initial shock, he’d no longer been a victim. The opposite, actually.
“I was finally approached by a man named Pez. Funny sounding, right?” He could still see him as he’d looked then. Old, for a human. Decrepit, really. He had an oxygen machine because of his emphysema, a disease Colt hadn’t known about. His breathing aid had made a clicking noise that had torn into Colt’s ears.
“The man ran an underground fighting ring.” Colt could still see the first venue he’d been thrown into. The way the lights had flashed, the way the doors had locked behind him. He had one way to get out—pound or be pounded.
He’d pounded. And discovered there were so many more creatures out there besides humans and Wolves. Some of them could hit harder than he could, some of them he would have killed if he hadn’t been careful.
“All of the good intentions of this place before Magnum changed it. When the elders had talked to us about honor, about respecting our animal sides? None of that mattered. There’s no respect. However, I made a lot of money
for Pez before he died.”
Colt shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about that time anymore except there was still one more thing to be said. “I never lose. I can take any opponent now.”
“You’re trying to tell me you could take our Alpha.”
The waiter brought the broccoli, sliding the vegetable onto the table between them. Colt stared down at the leafy greens. Melted on top of the vegetables was an orange substance resembling cheese, but sure didn’t smell like it. No dairy he’d ever eaten had been so tangy a scent.” He poked at the broccoli with his fork. “Who is cooking?”
“Could be any number of people. Right now, everyone is working in shifts. When there are more shops open, there will be more things for people to do. Soon, I hope. My job is to help plot all of it out.”
“Smart that he’s using your skills. You were always super organized. Wasn’t it you who used to set up all those events? Pre and post shifting get-togethers for the juveniles.”
Her mouth fell open. “You remember that?”
“You’re my mate. I may not have immediately understood that because you were too young for me, but I knew a lot more about you than I did other people.” He ran his finger down the slope of her nose. “You’re not going to comment on my ability to win every fight I undertake?”
She shook her head and didn’t speak. Part of him wanted to shift right that second and show the woman how strong he could be against any predator who got in his way. But he’d promised to prove to her they were mates, and acting a brute would probably not win his case.
“Why not?”
“Because I think it’s risky to say ‘you never lose’ out loud to the universe. I don’t want you to get challenged and find out you’re beatable. I’d rather have you around. Because we’re maybe mates.”
“Maybe mates.” He chuckled. She’d once again defused the temper he’d started to spike. “Why are you lying about this?”
“I’m—”
Whatever she would have said got cut off as the front door of the bar slammed open. Three figures stood there, and although Colt didn’t recognize them, he could immediately smell their nefarious intent. Their hostility wafted through the room so strongly that a female at the other end of the establishment let out a loud growl.
When Hell Freezes Page 3