by Amy Green
“No, you’re not.”
“For God’s sake.” Now he was starting to get angry, and it came out in a low growl. “If you think I’m letting you walk the streets alone, at night, after someone just made a play to drug and abduct you, then think again.”
She blinked up at him, and he saw that she was finally, reluctantly listening. “Fine,” she said. She turned to leave, but hesitated again.
“Now what?” he said.
She turned back. With the door open, the sounds from the bar downstairs were clear. “We’re going to go down there together,” she said. “Everyone is going to think we’ve been…”
Was that seriously what she was worried about? He shook his head. “No, they’re not.”
He watched her figure it out. “You mean shifters can smell that?”
That made him smile. He stepped closer to her, looked down at her. “Sweetheart,” he said, “not only can shifters smell whether I’ve fucked you, they can smell whether you liked it.”
Her cheeks went red and she turned away, pounding down the stairs.
He followed her, laughing to himself. She was so easy to rile.
The second bartender, Oliver, had come in and taken over. There were a few catcalls and hoots from the bar as Heath and Tessa came out of the stairwell and headed for the front door, but they were good-natured. Tessa ignored them. Heath, walking behind her, gave everyone an I’m-a-rock-star wave as he followed her out the door, grinning at the applause.
“You really like the attention, don’t you?” she said grumpily as she walked down Howell Street. It was a nice June night, cool and pleasant, the air from the mountains fragrant with oncoming summer.
“Oh, please,” he said, falling in step beside her. “Nearly every shifter who has walked into my bar has had his tongue out like a dog for you. You like the attention just as much as I do.”
She was quiet for a minute. Howell Street was Shifter Falls’ main drag, but it was mostly shutting down at this time of night, except for the Black Wolf. The hole-in-the-wall Greek place was closing, the pool hall three doors down was turning its lights off, and a few customers, in varying stages of drunkenness, were going home. The only business still open and lit up was the strip club, a low-level pit named The Dirty Den, which still had its lights—the ones that weren’t burned out—flashing. The Dirty Den had been one of Charlie’s pet projects while he was alive, and one of his favorite places. He’d done a lot of business in the so-called VIP booths. Now, with Charlie dead, the place had only a small clientele of desperate humans and underage kids with fake ID’s. A couple of hulking guys, standing on the sidewalk smoking cigarettes in front of the Den, gave Tessa a look as she walked by. Then they noticed Heath, and they all looked away.
“The walk isn’t far,” Tessa said when they were out of earshot of the Dirty Den creeps. “Just another seven blocks.”
“I know,” Heath said, fishing in the pocket of his leather coat.
She darted an annoyed glance at him. “You already know where I live, don’t you?”
“You’re my employee, so yes.” He patted the inside pockets.
“I don’t think every employer scopes out his employees’ addresses.”
“They do when they’re Donovans, and their father the alpha has just died, and they don’t know who the hell is loyal to who,” he said shortly. “I’ve done a background check on every employee I have. I don’t dig into anyone’s personal life, but to trust everyone blindly would make me an idiot.”
“Okay,” she said after a minute. “I didn’t think about it like that. What did your check turn up on me?”
He could pretend not to remember, but that would be lying. “You’re twenty-four. You live on Penner’s Row. You worked at the Black Wolf for three years before I bought it. Before that, you worked as a waitress at various fine establishments in Shifter Falls. You’re not married, you have no children, and your father is a lawyer.”
“My adopted father,” she corrected him.
“Yes, well, that part isn’t common knowledge. Care to explain?”
She shrugged, and he watched the graceful motion of her shoulders in the dim light. “There isn’t much to explain. I was given up as a baby. My parents took me in and eventually made it legal. I was two.”
“You were adorable, I’m sure,” he said, trying to picture Tessa at age two. “They must have been smitten.”
She snorted, and he picked up a wave of anger in her scent. “Not exactly. I think they just wanted someone to control.”
His protective wolf’s instinct went up again, but he kept his voice light. “Things were not happy chez Keefe?”
She glanced at him. “Things were just fine chez Keefe, as long as you followed the rules. Every one of them. To the letter. No talking. No shouting. No playing too loud. Strict curfew. Speak when spoken to. Don’t ask questions. You get the idea?”
He thought about that. He couldn’t picture it. It was the opposite of how he’d been raised, with almost no rules at all. “So you moved out as soon as you were able.”
Her voice was tight. “I take care of myself, yes.”
It was probably meant as a dig at him. Well, fuck. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and swiped it on, staring at the screen, pretending he knew what he was looking at.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Tessa look over in surprise, their previous topic forgotten. “You use that thing? I thought Brody had given up making you try it.”
“I know how to use it, yes.” He didn’t add that he’d mostly learned in the past few hours, while she’d been asleep. He’d called Quinn Tucker, to report the attempted abduction. He’d called Doc Ferraro to ask him to check on Tessa. And, of course, he’d called Brody. “I’m not a total idiot, despite what you think. I just prefer not to use it because it screws with my wolf senses.”
They had reached the corner of her street, and she turned as he followed. “What does that mean?” she asked.
“Wolves are in tune with things,” he said, trying to put it into words. “Our sense of smell, our hearing, our instincts. The wolf and the human are always walking a fine line, always communicating. Sometimes the wolf is dominant, and sometimes the man. In the human world, the man has to navigate, but he accesses the wolf’s senses. In the animal world, the wolf ascends, but he can use human logic. This thing”—he held up the cell phone—“fucks with all of that. To use it injects a noise, like a far-off buzz saw or the whining of a mosquito. It’s exceedingly unpleasant, if you must know.”
“But Brody wants you to use it,” she said. “Doesn’t it mess with his senses?”
“Of course it does,” Heath answered her. “He just thinks it’s an acceptable sacrifice. And I have to admit, in some cases that’s true. Like when you’re stuck taking a stubborn woman home, when you should be reporting to your alpha that it was a rival pack who just tried to abduct her from your bar.”
“Excuse me if I want to go home after my shitty day,” she snapped. “Try having someone dump the date rape drug in your drink and see how you feel.”
“You shouldn’t be going home at all,” he argued. “You should let me protect you.”
They had reached the door of her apartment building, and she pulled out her key and jammed it in the deadbolt lock. “God, you are so fucking bossy.”
“You should talk,” he shot back. “Besides, I’m an alpha wolf, and I’m actually your boss, so at least I have an excuse. Also, I’m right.”
“Well, I’m here now, so you can just leave me alone.”
He didn’t answer that, just dialed Brody and put the phone to his ear as she pushed open the front door and started climbing the stairs of her small apartment building. He watched her ass move in her jeans as he followed her.
“Heath,” Brody said when he answered the line. “I’m glad you called. I need you here right now.”
“Need me where?” Heath asked.
“My place. Emergency pack meeting. There are new developments.”
Tessa crossed the first landing and continued up the second set of stairs while Heath watched the sinuous line of her hips. Damn, that woman. “Do the developments have anything to do with the Martell pack?”
Brody paused. “How do you know?”
“Because Tessa woke up. The dirtbag who tried to grab her was asking her about the Martells. He seemed to think she’s one of them.”
There was stunned silence on the other end of the line. “Then get here right now, Heath. And bring her.”
Tessa had reached the top landing, and was walking down the hall, sorting through her key ring for her apartment key. She stopped so suddenly that Heath nearly ran her over.
“What are you talking about?” he asked Brody, looking past Tessa’s shoulder. His body grew tense and the back of his neck went cold.
“That dirtbag you’re looking for?” Brody said. “Scott Kraemer? He just turned up dead. Ripped open, like the first guy. And I just got a message from Xander Martell.”
Tessa moved, and Heath curled his hand instinctively around her upper arm, keeping her from stepping forward. To Brody, he said, “Who the fuck is Xander Martell?”
“Son of Christian Martell, alpha of the Martell werewolf pack. Devon’s looking into it, but word has it that Xander’s gone rogue. He’s tired of waiting for his father to die so he can take over. He’s looking to carve out his own territory. And by my guess, that means ours.”
Heath digested this. Tessa had gone still under his touch. They both stood in the darkened hallway, looking at the door to her apartment. The lock was splintered, the door forced open, and even through the narrow gap, Heath could see that her place had been destroyed, every item turned over and broken, the stuffing ripped from the sofa cushions, the dishes broken on the floor.
“All right,” Heath said, his voice coming from his dry throat. “We’re on our way.”
7
Brody Donovan lived outside the city limits of Shifter Falls. Tessa watched the woods outside the car window grow thicker and denser in the heavy darkness as they got further from town. Next to her, Heath was quiet as he drove.
She’d expected Heath to own a Porsche, or a Mustang—something showy and expensive. In fact, he owned a beat-up old pickup truck, forest green behind the scrapes and dents. When he got behind the wheel in his white shirt and brown leather jacket, he somehow looked completely at home. She had to remind herself yet again that although she’d worked for him for nine months, she didn’t know as much about Heath as she thought.
He’d told her what Brody had said. Scott was dead. Scott was murdered, and someone had trashed her apartment. Her sanctuary, the place she worked so hard to pay for every month, the place that signified her independence. Everything in it was ruined.
Tessa was numb.
“Are you tired?” Heath asked her, breaking the silence. “It’s late.”
“I was supposed to work until closing,” she replied. Late nights were the norm in the bar business. Everyone adjusted. She figured it was somewhere after midnight. She turned and looked at Heath. “Why does the pack alpha live so far out of town?”
Heath shrugged. She could barely see him in the darkness, just a glimpse of movement and the white of his shirt. “That’s just Brody,” he said. “He’s always lived away from people. He’s a bit of a hermit, I guess.”
“But he’s the leader of a werewolf pack.”
“We made him take it,” Heath said. “He wasn’t happy about it. But someone had to lead, and he had no choice.”
“Why didn’t you take it?” she asked. “The leadership?”
He was quiet for so long that she started to think he wouldn’t answer. “I wasn’t ready,” he said. “Leadership requires qualities that I don’t have.”
Tessa snorted. “Like what? Charm? The ability to get along with people? You live and work in your bar in downtown Shifter Falls, where you talk to everyone in the pack every day. What makes this”—she motioned to the dark, empty woods—“better than that?”
She wished she could read his expression, but it was too dark. “A leader needs focus,” he said. “The ability to get things done. Seriousness, I suppose.”
“You’ve run the Black Wolf for nine months,” she pointed out. “It’s doing better than it ever did before. You fired the incompetent people and kept the good ones. You look after all the details.”
“No, you look after all the details,” he said with a smile in his voice.
“I only do what you direct me to. I make decisions because you trust me to make them. I’m the best employee you could ever have, and you know it, so you give me authority. See? Leadership.”
“You’re being awfully nice,” he commented. “Please keep it up when you talk to my brothers, all of whom see me as an incompetent child.” He sighed. “I wasted a lot of years, Tessa. No one forgets that. But I really think that the reason no one wants me to lead the pack is because I was too close to Charlie.”
She watched him, curious. “Why is that? I mean, why were you so close to him? Charlie was so different from you.” She’d seen Charlie a few times over the years from afar, though she’d never met him. But everyone heard stories. Charlie had ruled the pack with an iron fist of fear, punishing his enemies and using people—especially women—before throwing them away like garbage. He’d not only been the pack’s leader, he’d also been the kingpin of Shifter Falls’ drug and prostitution trades.
Heath was quiet for a long time again, and she realized the question was hard for him. Far ahead, she could see lights in the trees.
“Can I tell you something?” Heath asked her.
Tessa shrugged. “Sure.”
“I hated him.”
Tessa blinked. “You hated Charlie?”
“With every fiber of my being, to the very depths of my soul, yes.”
“But everyone said you were his favorite.”
“The truth? Charlie didn’t have a favorite.” His voice was dark and bitter, bone-deep and tired. “He had four sons, and he saw every one of us as a threat. He hated Ian most, because Ian lived by his own rules from day one, and Charlie couldn’t control him. But make no mistake, he hated us all.” He shifted in his seat in the dark. “It was all about control with Charlie. His greatest fear, which got worse as he got older, was that one of us would kill and replace him. So he controlled us any way he could. He controlled Devon by making him one of his thugs, making Devon believe there was some kind of loyalty there. But he never promoted Devon within the pack.”
“And Devon stayed?”
“Yes, he stayed, because he wanted his father’s approval, which he never quite got. Brody was different. Brody didn’t want Charlie’s approval, or a position in the pack, but Brody has family loyalty. He couldn’t just walk away like Ian could.” Heath nodded to the driveway they were turning on to, a long, two-rut drive that ended somewhere far ahead. “Charlie took advantage of that. He kept Brody under his eye because of that family loyalty, and he made sure it meant that Brody never made a move against him. He also used Brody’s mother’s death against him.”
“His mother’s death? How?”
Heath shook his head. “No one knows the details, not even me. But the rumor was that Charlie had Brody’s mother killed as a message to Brody about what could happen. And he made Brody watch.”
A sliver of ice traveled down Tessa’s spine. She thought of Brody, his quiet, polite ways, his dark eyes beneath the rim of his baseball cap. She was starting to understand why everyone referred to Charlie Donovan as a monster. “And what about you?” she asked.
“My mother was Charlie’s favorite woman,” Heath said. “He was incapable of love, but with my mother he came close. She was a beautiful, lovely woman who kept her sweetness even after Charlie Donovan completely overpowered her life. She died of cancer when I was seven. I was there. She pulled me into her arms on the bed and held me while she fell asleep for the last time.”
“Oh, my God,” Tessa said softly.
“
It was better for her,” Heath said bluntly. “It got her away from Charlie for good. And it worked in my favor, being her son. I didn’t get hit or kicked as much as the others. Charlie let me live in his house, though I was left alone to run wild, with no parenting at all. It was all I knew. As I got older, he kept me under control by indulging me. Never too much, you see, but just enough. A teenager who gets just enough money, just enough women, is not going to plan a revolt against his father.” He glanced at her. “And I took it. I admit it. I was a stupid kid, and I thought he was treating me like the special one. So I took everything he gave me, and I went along.”
Tessa swallowed. This was the story everyone knew—Heath as Charlie’s spoiled son. But now she realized it had been an existence that was slightly sick, and terribly lonely. She wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
“The thing was, I knew better,” Heath continued. “Deep within myself, I knew. The older I got, the clearer I understood just what Charlie was and how he was using me. I knew that someday he’d be finished with me, and I’d only be a threat, and I’d be no use to him anymore. Do you understand?”
“Jesus,” Tessa said. Her voice was hoarse. “How did you stand it?”
“The longer I stayed, the fewer options I had,” Heath said. “That’s the way Charlie planned it. There wasn’t a single person who would help me if I ran. Everyone in the Falls knew what I looked like, and there wasn’t a single person who wouldn’t turn me in to save his own skin. So staying, keeping Charlie happy, became its own form of survival. It certainly was its own form of hell.”
For a minute, Tessa couldn’t speak. She was too shocked, and too ashamed of herself. She’d worked for nine months with this man. Nine months. And she’d been wrong about him the entire time.
He seemed to sense her mood, because he reached over and touched her arm, a touch that made her tingle. In the brief second before he took his hand away, she wondered what it would be like to be touched by him. Everywhere. His skin on hers. All of him hers. He would be warm, hard, expert, taking his time. She’d never had a man like that. What would it be like?