by Jess Bryant
“Oh…” She blinked, looking out over the water instead of directly at him, “I wasn’t bailing. I know tonight is important to you. I just needed to get some fresh air.”
“Tonight is important.” He nodded, “The Gilles family will make a good addition to the pack. The parents were elders in the Crescent pack and their daughters are all young and unmated. It made the men happy to hear there would be fresh meat and several of their friends joined them for the party as well. If we’re lucky, there will be mate bonds made before the night is out.”
The air in her lungs tightened as he spoke and Zoey realized she wasn’t breathing by the time he finished. Her mind had finally caught up with what her subconscious had been trying to tell her all day. The gut feeling that something important was going to happen, it had been trying to tell her this exact thing.
Michael was going to find his mate tonight.
She felt lightheaded. Sick. Nauseous. How had she not put it together before? It made sense. So many new faces running around town the last few days. The Gilles moving here was just the tip of it. There had been contractors working on their house, movers, even party planners all from out of town coming and going. Any one of them could be the lucky woman that would trigger Michael’s wolf to recognize his mate.
Had he already seen her? Did he know who she was? Was it the blonde from inside? Was that why he’d followed her out here? To tell her that he’d found his mate?
He was still talking, “It’s not only the addition of the Gilles family to the pack that we’re celebrating tonight though. I haven’t told anyone else but we’re welcoming back a member that has been gone for a long time too, someone I didn’t think was ever coming home again.”
She struggled to pay attention as her mind whirled with possibilities, “You didn’t mention that.”
“I wasn’t certain it was really happening until today.” Michael scratched his jaw and sighed heavily.
“Is it a good thing or a bad thing that this person is coming back into the pack?”
Bad thing for her? Good thing for him? Was that what he was getting at?
“When he said he was coming home, that he wanted to talk, I thought it was the best news I’d ever heard, but then he got here and…” Michael trailed off, staring out across the water, lost in his thoughts and she frowned.
He? Not she? Zoey felt a small bit of relief at that but it quickly faded when she realized how stricken her best friend looked. Just as he had looked when he came rushing into the party earlier. Half-worried and half-scared, which were both foreign enough on Michael’s face to worry her.
“Hey, are you okay?”
He turned to face her then and she realized how close they were standing. A deep breath would have her breasts brushing his chest. She had to crane her neck to look up at him from this angle. She wasn’t short but he was far too tall for them to stand together like this comfortably. Strange that she’d never noticed their height difference until just that moment.
“You ever wish our lives weren’t so complicated? No pack. No rules. Wish we could just do whatever it was we wanted, take what we wanted and not have to worry about the consequences?” He snorted, “I wasn’t even supposed to be Alpha, not of the Moirae pack, and maybe that’s what changed everything, changed fate.”
She blinked, trying to place the look in his eyes. She didn’t recognize it. She’d never seen him look at her like this before, talk to her with this edge of desperation in his tone. She had the sudden uneasy feeling that she was missing something important, that he hadn’t told her something important, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up.
“Michael? What’s going on?”
He reached out and gently stroked her jaw, “I wish things were different. For so long, I’ve known it was you, that you were the key to all of it. I thought if I could just figure out what my connection to you meant that I’d be able to fix this thing between us, because fate messed up not putting us together. You know that right?”
She leaned into his touch. She wanted to sink into him. She wanted to grab him and never let go. This moment, this was the one that she’d been waiting on for what felt like a lifetime.
Michael touching her again, touching her with all of the powerful emotion that she’d always known was there between them. Michael telling her that he wished things were different and that they could be together. But even as she stepped closer, watched his eyes stroke over her face, and even as she licked her lips, certain he was going to kiss her, she felt like she was missing something. Something important. Something about his words was off.
It was almost as if he was telling her goodbye. He was memorizing her face as if he’d never see it again. He was going to kiss her, one last time, but then what?
“Yeah, I know.”
His thumb stroked softly over her cheek and his voice was low and pained when he spoke again, “I figured it out, but it wasn’t what we thought.”
Her mind and her body went to war. Her mouth wanted to open, wanted to ask one of the dozen questions racing through it. Figured what out? What was it? What was he talking about? Her body wanted to shut her brain down and just accept whatever this strange moment was. Whether it was hello or goodbye or something else entirely, she didn’t care.
She wanted it to last forever because she was certain the moment on the other side of this one was going to change everything.
“Michael?”
“I’m going to find a way to fix it Zo. You have to trust me. I’m going to fix it.”
She didn’t understand what he was talking about. She nodded anyway. It didn’t matter what the question was. She trusted Michael. She always had. She opened her mouth to tell him that but she never got a word out because a loud growl stopped her short.
“Mine!”
The roar of the male voice was vicious and close enough to rattle her eardrums. She jumped. Michael’s hand fell away. He winced, almost as if he was in pain, and an apologetic look crossed his face. Then, before she could even blink, he was gone.
She screamed as something huge collided with Michael and took him to the ground. Zoey staggered back, more out of shock than fear, because as she watched her brain finally caught up to what was happening. It wasn’t a thing that had come flying out of the darkness to attack Michael, it was a who.
Chapter 3
Fists were flying. There was growling and snarling. Zoey felt the shimmer of magic in the air, knew that Michael was close to shifting and her gaze automatically darted to the idiot dumb enough to attack a Pack Alpha.
Her eyes widened when the attacker easily rolled Michael to his back and landed a brutal punch to the jaw that snapped his head around. Not possible, her brain screamed. He’d gotten the best of Michael and that shouldn’t have been possible.
Michael was big. He was a dominant shifter. All of the male shifters she’d come across were big and muscular but Michael, being Pack Alpha, was the biggest she’d ever seen. Until now. Because she was certain from the growls, from his sheer, massive size and from the fact that he had just overpowered Michael, that the attacker was a shifter as well, possibly even another Alpha.
Because he was kicking Michael’s ass.
She watched in horror as the two men, two werewolves, rolled again, splashing into the soggy, swampy riverbed. Michael came out on top momentarily, getting what looked like a lethal hold around the other man’s neck, but by the time she’d blinked he was on his back again, taking a punch to the gut this time.
Oh God, she winced at the brutal, bloody scene. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t very well get between them. She was human. They’d rip her to shreds with one misplaced swing.
“Help!” She screamed instead, “Somebody help! I need help out here!”
“Zoey.” Michael choked out amid pants, “Run.”
“Mine!” The attacker only growled again and slammed a fist into Michael’s jaw.
“Stop it!” She screamed in horror when she heard what sounded
like bones cracking, “Stop it! You’re hurting him! Stop!”
Nobody was more shocked than she was when the attacker instantly stilled. It was almost as if her words had broken through his rage and he heard her. His head snapped up, his gaze connecting with hers, and she sucked in a startled breath as a flash of recognition struck her.
“Mine!”
“Goddammit, Rafe!” Michael shouted, scrambling to his feet, water splashing as he struggled back up onto dry land, “You stay the hell away from her!”
Rafe? She took a step forward, towards the two men, then caught herself and locked her legs. What was she doing? What was going on? Had he just called the other man Rafe?
“What’s going on out here?”
A third male voice cut into her thoughts and she turned in time to see Sherriff Wiley go storming past her to position himself between Michael and the other man, who had frozen on the edge of the river as soon as she spoke. She realized as they all glared at each other that Michael had put himself in front of her, blocking her from the man that had attacked him. Even still, she could feel the other man’s eyes on her and her own gaze was immediately drawn back to him, past Michael, past the Sherriff, as if the only person that mattered was the one being carefully sequestered away from her.
“He’s not taking her.” Michael was beginning to catch his breath and his words came out steady, “This is my pack. She’s part of it. He’s not taking her.”
“Mine!” The other man snarled and took a step forward, clearly intent on causing Michael more damage before the Sherriff shoved him the other direction.
“Get yourself under control Rafe!” Wiley ordered loudly and then lowered his voice, “I can arrest you and you can cool off in a cell at the station or you can snap to and tell me why the hell you just attacked our Pack Alpha.”
“Mine!”
Almost in slow motion, Zoey watched Wiley turn to face her. His eyes were wide as he looked her over. A shiver ran down her spine when his brows furrowed and a wary, worried expression took the place of the usually staid, Sherriff’s face. He glanced from her to the other man and then finally to Michael.
“Is it true?”
Michael shook his head, “No. He’s unstable. You know that.”
Wiley put his hands on his hips, “What I know is that he just attacked you, a Pack Alpha, something no wolf in his right mind would ever do unprovoked.”
“I just told you he’s out of his mind! He’s practically feral!”
“Yeah, but I also know he’s saying he has a claim on that girl behind you and from the looks of it, you interrupted.” Wiley scowled, “You know better Michael. Nobody is allowed to interfere when it comes to a bond. Not even you.”
Zoey watched the two men argue, or rather, she listened. Her eyes never left the man staring at her. He looked wild, savage and unkempt, though she wasn’t sure how much of that could be owed to the violent fight he’d just won. And it was clear to her that he had won, or that he would have if he hadn’t stopped when she begged him to.
His hair was unruly, falling over her his eyes in disheveled strands, and with only the moon as her light, she couldn’t tell if it was black or just a really dark brown. His eyes were similarly dark, though for a second there they’d glowed with the gold of his wolf. His face was hard with its strong jaw and stubbled chin, his lips pulled tight over his teeth each time he snarled and growled.
He was handsome, her brain told her and her body agreed, warming as he continued to stare at her. He had the same coloring as Michael but where her friend’s features were almost pretty this man’s were rougher, jagged. He was handsome in a more overtly masculine way than Michael, which she wouldn’t have thought was possible if she hadn’t been staring at it with her own eyes.
He was bigger than Michael. He’d beaten him in a fight. He’d attacked a Pack Alpha and won. The kind of power that hinted at made him dangerous on top of handsome and the fact that he kept staring at her and saying nothing but that one word, mine, sent a shiver of something terrifying through her veins.
Was it panic? She didn’t think so. Fear? No. And that was the truly terrifying part. Because despite his show of violence and aggression, she was fighting her legs to keep from moving towards him. Worse, she didn’t think it was despite those things at all. She thought it might actually be in part because he was so big and strong.
She had the strangest feeling that she was supposed to be at his side, not Michael’s, but that couldn’t be right.
“I didn’t interfere.” Michael was saying, “He did.”
She cleared her throat, forced her gaze to her friend, “Michael, what’s going on?”
He flickered a glance at her, his face softening with that look of concern again, “I’m sorry Zoey. I didn’t think he’d find you here, not with your scent hidden among the entire pack. I tried to stop this. I’ve been trying to stop this all damn day.”
“Stop what?” She asked in confusion and he reached for her but the second he touched her arm another snarl tore from the chest of the other man and she jerked away from her friend’s touch.
Michael’s touch felt… wrong, somehow. Not the comfort it had always been. Not causing that knot in her belly of need and despair. But she didn’t have time to think about that because the other man snarled menacingly.
“Michael! I will rip your hands off and beat you to death with them if you touch what belongs to me again.”
Michael growled right back, “Stop threatening me before you really piss me off Rafe.”
“You want to fight me for her?” The other man’s dark eyes lit gold again; his wolf showing through it was so close to the surface, “Let’s fight Alpha. I’ll beat you and then I’ll take the girl and the pack. They were both supposed to be mine anyway.”
Zoey felt her jaw fall open. Rafe. Michael had called him Rafe again. Add in what he’d just said about the pack being his and that meant he was exactly who she’d thought he was when she got that first good look at him.
Her mind was whirling, “Michael? What’s going on? Tell me. Now. Because what my head is telling me can’t possibly be right… can it?”
Michael sighed, started to reach for her again and then must have thought better of it considering the threat hanging in the air. He swiped his hand across his jaw instead. When he met her eyes again, there was more than just concern there this time. There was also a good portion of sadness.
“Zoey, you remember my brother?”
“Rafael.” Her gaze automatically shifted back to him when Michael confirmed what she’d already put together, “Rafe.”
That flash of recognition hit her again along with something else. It had been a long time. She’d barely been a teenager the last time she saw him. He’d taken off after the accident that took his parents life and the life of his twin brother, the same accident that had made Michael Alpha of the pack.
It was the something else that distracted her though, the thing that definitely hadn’t been there when she’d known him before. The instant attraction to him was new. So was the urge to move towards him, to let him protect her, the belief that he was the one offering safety, comfort and home. None of that had been there when she’d known him before… before she’d turned eighteen, she realized.
Her head was still trying to figure out what that meant, how that was possible, when Michael’s next words confirmed what her heart had been trying to tell her all day.
This was the important part. The impossible part. The part she never could have seen coming because it changed everything.
“He thinks you’re his mate.”
Chapter 4
Rafe Hudson was going to rip his little brother’s intestines out and use them to choke him to death. It was a fantasy he’d been living over and over in his head for the past few hours. It was a fantasy that he would have fulfilled already if only she hadn’t stopped him.
Her. Zoey. His mate. He was still trying to wrap his head around how that was even possible.
He’d wondered if he would find her at his next stop or the one after that. He’d wondered where she was and if she was looking for him too. And, in his darkest moments, he’d wondered if fate had even seen fit to give him a mate when he’d already failed to protect those that meant the most to him once.
He’d failed his family, his entire pack. He had been the one to run past the boundary line. He was the one the hunters had followed back to camp. He was the reason they were all dead, every one of them.
His proud father, the leader of them all. His mother, the sweetest wolf to have ever been born. And Gabe, his littermate, his twin, his other half in every way. The only member of his family that hadn’t been in the woods that day was Michael and because fate liked to throw punches when you were already down, Rafe knew that the reason his little brother hadn’t been there was because he’d been with her.
Zoey.
To find out, after all of this time, that she was his? That she’d been his all along? That she was his but that she’d been here with his brother? Well, that was an injustice he wouldn’t, and couldn’t, tolerate.
Any other wolf being anywhere near her would have been enough to incite him to violence after he’d caught her scent. The fact that he’d scented her for the first time in his brother’s home had been shocking but not altogether unrealistic. Michael had taken over the position of Pack Alpha, it was reasonable for him to have invited a member of the pack into his home. But her scent hadn’t been casual or fleeting in Michael’s home and that had been his first clue that something was wrong.
Her scent had been strong because she’d spent a lot of time there and realizing that his brother’s scent and his mates were so closely intertwined had felt like the first blow in a fight he hadn’t known was coming. Not at the time. Not until Michael purposefully tried to keep her from him, going so far as to refuse to tell him who the scent belonged to.