Chapter Thirteen
When Lucy woke, the two men were already gone. She sat up in bed and looked around. Her head ached, and she put her hand against her temple. She’d been pretty drunk last night. Memories of the night before drifted through her consciousness. Werewolves were real, and she’d had sex with two of the hottest men she’d ever seen in her life. She wasn’t sure which was more shocking at that moment in time. The sex had been mind blowing, but the full consequences of it were barreling toward her hung-over, addled brain.
She groaned and flipped the covers off her naked body. Sticky cum still clung to her thighs and breasts. Stumbling to the bathroom, she groaned and turned on the shower full blast. Caleb had a gorgeous bathroom with a massive rainfall shower, black granite counters, and beautiful modern fixtures.
Stepping into the shower, she sighed. The water fell over her messy hair and sticky skin. She washed the vestiges of last night’s debauchery from her body. Too bad she couldn’t wash it from her mind. Last night, she’d been sure it was all right. She hadn’t cared. All that had mattered was the feeling of their bodies against her, inside her. Now she wasn’t so sure. She’d let Caleb come inside her. She’d never done anything like that before.
After her shower, she went back to her room and found her clothes laundered and laid neatly over the back of a chair. She dressed and slowly made her way downstairs. She could hear someone talking in the kitchen. As she rounded the corner, she saw Elijah with his back turned, holding a telephone.
Anger burned in her chest. “You lied to me!” she yelled.
Elijah turned to her; his face dropped. “I’ll call you back,” he said and hung up the phone.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her, putting his hands up as if to calm down a rabid dog.
“The phone!” she screamed, pointing. Her headache and her guilt over last night burned her emotions into a hot flame.
“It just came back on,” Elijah said, his tone giving away the bad lie.
“Just tell her the truth, damn it,” Caleb said, slamming the patio door behind him. “I’m sick of this shit.”
Elijah sighed and ran his hand through his dark hair as Lucy tapped her foot and crossed her arms, raising her eyebrows at him expectantly.
“The truth is, the phone and Internet were never off. The truck isn’t broken, either. We just wanted to get to know you and try to convince you to stay.”
“It wasn’t my idea,” Caleb said, holding his hand up in surrender as Lucy’s eyes shot daggers at both men.
“How dare you!” she shouted. She’d let them share her, come inside her. How stupid could she be?
“Please, Lucy. Let me explain,” Elijah took a step forward, his eyes pleading. She felt a tear roll down her cheek, and she wiped it away. How could they use her like this, lie to her and trick her? How could they be so cruel? She’d thought she meant something to them. Elijah moved toward her and tried to put his arm around her shoulders, but she pulled away and turned toward the living room to stand near the front door.
“When we found you in the woods, we scented you as our mate. Our perfect mate. Shifters know their mates by smell. We were both so excited, we didn’t know what to do. You are a human. A lost human and a stranger. If we’d taken you back to your car right away, we might never have seen you again. And we would have been left for the rest of our lives without our perfect woman.”
“This is a load of shit,” she said, waving her hand.
“It’s not,” Caleb said from the kitchen as he munched on a piece of bacon. Lucy’s mouth watered for breakfast, and her head begged for the coffee, the scent wafting through the heavy air.
“For the record, Caleb wanted to just bite you and claim you,” Elijah said defensively. “I just wanted a chance to get to know you.”
“You’re both jackasses. You could have just gotten my number and visited me in Portland.”
“We can’t leave our pack for very long. Plus, we didn’t want to let you get away without telling you the truth about our kind and about who you are to us. If we’d done it the first night, you would have thought we were insane.”
“That’s true,” said Caleb.
“Come, Lucy. Have some breakfast. Just relax. We’ll take you back to your car. We are both deeply sorry to have deceived you. We wish there had been another way.”
“There was. We could have just bitten her. Then she’d have to stay,” Caleb said, pouring her a cup of coffee and setting it on the table.
“Caleb. No,” Elijah said. Lucy gave Caleb an angry glare and rolled her eyes.
She sat down with a harrumph and stirred cream and sugar into her coffee. “I can’t forgive this,” she said definitively. “You trapped me. You didn’t respect my autonomy.” She took a sip of her coffee, and her headache slowly subsided.
“It will never happen again,” Elijah tried to assure her.
“Somehow I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. We want you to be our mate. Help us run our pack. We need our alpha female to give us pups. This was all unfortunate. But how were we to know our mate would be a human?”
“What are you talking about? Run your pack, give you pups? That sounds like crazy talk. Are you saying I’d become a werewolf?”
“The mate’s bite can transform a human to a shifter,” said Elijah. “Being a shifter is fantastic and freeing. You will love it, Lucy. You will be strong and powerful. You will never have to worry about bad jobs or abusive bosses ever again.”
“So I’m supposed to trade an abusive boss for two deceptive asshole animals? No thanks. I think I’ll pass.” She stood from the table and crossed her arms. “I’d like you to drive me back to my car now, please. Or are you going to keep me here against my will?”
“Of course not,” Elijah said, standing. He sighed and looked at his brother with strain in his eyes. Caleb growled and stormed out the patio door. A moment later, the sound of a truck rumbled in the front drive.
Chapter Fourteen
The truck bumped down the dirt road until they came to the highway. Lucy watched Caleb pull the truck onto the road headed south. She’d told them the name of the trail she’d started at, and they’d assured her it wasn’t very far from their property.
As they drove down the highway, she watched her cell phone for a signal. Slowly, bars appeared on her phone. At least they hadn’t been lying about that. When her phone finally had a connection, it began to beep with text messages and emails. She flicked the screen to open her email account and found several messages from Mr. Bars demanding she meet him back at the office for a special assignment that weekend.
Her skin pricked with anxiety as disgust sank in her stomach. She still didn’t know what to do about work. There was no way she would allow Mr. Bars to harass her any more. After the last few days, she realized that she’d been too passive in her life until that point. She’d let people take advantage of her. Anger at the twins still filled her heart. Their lies had been unacceptable and unforgivable.
Even though they’d given her the best orgasms of her life and made her feel things she didn’t even know were possible, they had still lied. They’d taken advantage of her vulnerable position and had used it against her, just like Mr. Bars.
The truck pulled up the gravel park road and into the parking lot of the trailhead. Her car sat where she’d left it. Caleb parked, and they all climbed out. Lucy pulled her keys from her backpack and put them in the door lock.
As she sat in the driver’s seat, she slid the key into the ignition and heard her engine chug. What the hell? She looked at the gas tank and found it empty. It had been half full when she’d parked two days ago. Annoyed as hell, she got out of the car and went to check her gas tank on the other side of the car.
She found Caleb and Elijah looking at the open gas door. She narrowed her eyes at them. “Did you do this?” she barked. Caleb sniffed the air, and Elijah gave her a pleading look.
“Coyotes,” said Caleb. “Damn thieves siphoned
your gas.”
Lucy kicked the gravel underfoot and growled, her anger heating to a boiling point. She went around the car and pulled the key from the ignition and slammed the door before pressing the lock button on her key ring.
Caleb lifted a gas can from the back of the truck and shook it. “Empty,” he said, frowning. She didn’t believe a word they said. They were still tricking her. “We’ll take you in to Mystic Harbor and get some gas.”
“Fine,” she shouted, storming back to the truck. Lucy had never been so angry before in her life. She couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone was taking advantage of her at every second.
The brothers climbed into the truck after her, and Caleb started the engine. A few moments later, they were back on the highway again, headed south to Mystic Harbor.
Lucy had never actually been to the coastal tourist town before, but as soon as she saw Main Street she was mystified. It seemed straight out of a storybook or a movie about a sweet small town. Little shops lined the street that headed to the harbor, and quaint houses clung to the hillsides overlooking the sea.
“It’s so cute here,” she said as they stopped at the gas station at the edge of town.
“Want to look around? I hear Vivian McNealy’s apothecary shop is nice. It has all kinds of sweet-smelling soaps and lotions you might like,” offered Elijah.
Lucy bit her lip. Her anger seemed to melt away at the sight of the cute little town and the power of the bay and sea beyond. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to look around for a little while.”
Caleb turned the car around after they’d filled their gas can and headed back into town. He parked in front of the quaintest shop Lucy had ever seen. It almost made her eyes water from its cuteness. They got out and opened the front door of the apothecary’s. The scent of flowers and oils filled Lucy’s lungs and made her instantly feel a hundred times more at ease than she had before.
A pretty, curvy woman with red hair came from the back room. She gave Lucy a big smile, making her freckled cheeks glow pink. “Can I help you?” she asked, looking from the brothers to Lucy.
“I’m just looking around. I’ve never been to Mystic Harbor before.”
“New here?” the woman asked, her bright eyes looking the brothers up and down. “Do you plan to stay?”
“No. I’m going back to Portland,” she said definitively.
“Oh. What a shame. Let me know if I can help you with anything,” the woman chirped as she went back behind the counter to adjust a small distillery.
Lucy walked up and down the rows of perfumes and lotions, potions and oils, until she found a lavender-and-lemon goat’s milk soap that tickled her fancy. She took it to the counter and paid. The brothers followed her back outside onto the curb, and she looked around. The smell of fried fish filled the air, and her mouth watered.
“How about some lunch?” Elijah asked. “You didn’t eat breakfast.”
“That does smell good,” she said. “But after lunch, I have to go. Seriously. I’ve already missed a day of work at this point.”
They walked over to the seafood restaurant and went inside the little building. It was decorated with nets and wooden boat wheels over wood paneling. They sat and ordered three servings of fish and chips. After the waitress brought their food, Lucy covered her fish with vinegar and her fries with ketchup. She took a bite of her battered salmon and almost fainted from the yumminess.
“God, this is so good.”
“Best in the state,” Caleb said, pointing to a framed award on the far wall.
“I believe it.”
They finished their lunch and sauntered out into the bright afternoon sunlight shining down on Main Street. Lucy and Elijah crossed the street to the truck, but Caleb stayed back.
“Damn,” he growled loudly. Lucy flung her head around to see Caleb staring down a group of scraggly-looking young people, laughing and hooting as they walked down the street. One of them had a bloody bandage on his neck and held a lit cigarette in his hand.
“What is it?” Lucy asked Elijah under her breath.
“The people who stole your gas.”
“Go,” Caleb bellowed as he pointed to Elijah but looked straight at the group of kids. The kids just laughed at him. Caleb growled, his sharp teeth becoming visible even in the middle of town.
“Get in the truck, Lucy,” Elijah said, opening the door for her. She climbed inside and waited for Elijah to go around to the driver’s side. He opened the door and slid in before turning the key in the ignition. The truck’s motor rumbled to life.
“Who are those people?” she asked, worried. She wasn’t sure whether she was more worried for herself or for Caleb as the group approached him. The one with the bloody bandage pushed his finger into Caleb’s chest. Elijah shook his head as he pulled out of the parking place along the curb.
“Those,” he said, pulling up to the intersection and stopping at a red light, “are coyote shifters. Nothing but a pack of trouble in human skin. They’d lie, cheat, and steal from their mothers.”
“What is Caleb going to do?”
Elijah drove as soon as the light turned green. Lucy could see the kids converge on Caleb. Fear gripped her senses. Would he be all right? Those kids looked tough.
“Probably kick some coyote ass.”
Chapter Fifteen
The coyotes converged on Caleb, and he could barely keep his wolf inside. He growled at them, his eyes burning with the brightness of his animal within.
“I told you to go,” he barked, his chest muscles straining against his shirt.
“We decided to stay,” the leader said. “We like this town. Lots of waste and whatnot. You can’t make us leave. I believe there are laws in the human world that protect all citizens. Look around, wolf. We’re all human here.”
“This is a shifter town, pup. Don’t test me. I will bring a million teeth and claws down on your head. Shifters who cannot respect our rules are not tolerated. You have not agreed to abide by our rules, so you must leave.”
“Sure, we’ll follow your rules. Anything against intershifter mating? That girl you were with is hot. Are you tapping that?”
“Don’t you dare speak of her,” Caleb lunged forward, teeth bared. He could barely hold himself back from destroying the young coyote and his pack, but he resisted the urge. As the leader of the Cascade pack, he had to set an example. Taking the first shot at a kid in the middle of town was not a good example.
The coyote swept his foot against Caleb’s ankle. It barely fazed the bigger man, but it did make him angry. That was it. The kid took the first shot. Caleb looked up at him and grinned. His heavy fist knocked the kid in the stomach.
He staggered backward, falling into his crew. The girl with long dreadlocks looked at Caleb and sneered, baring her teeth. The others lunged forward, fighting in human form with so little grace and skill that Caleb was able to sidestep almost every punch and kick.
A fist connected with his jaw and pushed him sideways. A knee tripped him, and he lost balance. He went down hard on his ass, and the pack of coyotes was on him, yipping and growling as they punched and kicked.
Caleb twisted and shot up, dispersing the pack of wild dogs with a series of skillful movements. He and Elijah had studied martial arts with their father, who had learned from his father before him. The wolves were a well-oiled fighting force, even in human form.
Within minutes, the entire coyote pack was sitting, bloody, on the sidewalk or limping away.
“If I catch this pack around these parts again, I won’t go so easy on you.”
“You’re lucky we’re in town, wolf. Or this wouldn’t have been so easy for you.”
Caleb licked the blood seeping from his lip. His eye stung. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but the coyote’s words were true. One wolf against a pack of coyotes? He’d never survive that.
***
Lucy watched Elijah as he pulled her backpack from the back seat of the crew-cab truck. She couldn’t help but be
worried about Caleb.
No matter how angry she felt at the two brothers, she’d come to care about them. Their night of passion had been more than just sex. It had opened up parts of her that she hadn’t known existed. She would always feel a connection for them, no matter what they did.
They had been such asses to lie to her, but she was beginning to understand the world of shifters better. Perhaps she’d been too hard on them. If she really was their perfect mate, how were they supposed to tell her about paranormals and convince her to stay?
Caleb and Elijah did have a point about that. She put herself in their shoes for a moment and tried to imagine what she would do in their situation. Would she deceive someone for true love?
She shook her head. She couldn’t imagine deceiving her true love to get him to stay with her. It just didn’t make sense in her world. It couldn’t. How could such a beginning ever lead to something good and lasting? Deception was deception, plain and simple. She might not hate their guts for what they had done, but she was a long way away from accepting their behavior or forgiving them.
“Well, that’s everything,” Elijah said, opening the driver’s-side door for her. She walked forward and stood in the door, looking up at him on the other side.
“I guess this is goodbye,” she said, a hint of sadness in her voice. Elijah looked down at her and smiled.
“I could come with you. We could talk this through. You can let me beg for your forgiveness. That kind of thing.”
“I don’t know. What about Caleb?” She surprised herself that her main concern was Caleb’s safety and whether he would be jealous.
“Caleb is a big boy. He can take care of himself. Besides, he’d be overjoyed if one of us went with you and tried to change your mind.”
She sighed. The idea of going back to Portland alone wasn’t all that attractive. There was so much for her to deal with at home. Having Elijah along sounded somehow comforting.
Her Two Alphas Page 5