Wicked Wolf Shifters: BBW Werewolf Paranormal Romance

by Anna Craig

  He also ignored the sensation of being watched now and then from far behind him. Thayne's life had been spared only because Tamsin had arrived back just moments before Cassandra dispatched Aliana. Trevor had been about to get the upper hand with Thayne, but his brother had sensed Aliana's death. Trevor had noted the sag in Thayne's entire body the very moment Aliana must have been killed. He'd dropped to the ground beneath Trevor, abandoning all pretense at any more fight. He'd even shown his throat to the pack alpha in the ultimate gesture of subservience, despite the fact he was officially banished already and held no further allegiance to his former pack.

  Trevor could have dispatched him right then, but for Tamsin's protest, voiced in a low, soft voice. “He has paid enough, alpha. First banished, now with his own mate killed. He will suffer the rest of his days anyway. You prove nothing by killing him now.”

  “Mate?” Trevor had snorted. “They were not mates.”

  Glancing down once at Thayne, Tamsin's features had rippled with a flash of sadness and deep resignation. “They were,” she said quietly. “His heart hurts, no matter that he made all the worst choices possible. You know how it feels to suffer, alpha,” she had finished in a very soft voice, looking at him with a gentle yet firm gaze.

  From no one else would he have countenanced such words. But from the one who had seen his suffering, had kept him from falling over his own damned cliff—from her, he was forced to hear the truth and know she was right to say it.

  Shaking her head, Tamsin had added, “Let this be Cassandra's time now. What just happened is enough to cement her position in the pack forevermore. Let them talk about nothing else except her today.”

  Standing over his brother, teeth still ripped back in a snarl, listening to Cassandra's tremendous howls singing from below the cliff in a fur-raising cadence of triumph, Trevor had almost wavered. In the end, though, he knew his sister was right as usual. He'd released Thayne into the care of several other wolves present, commanding them to escort him back to the estate to be held until he could be banished somewhere far away enough that he could never return. Which might be fucking Siberia, for all Trevor cared. He was done with the entire stinking mess, and wished to never have to think about his brother again.

  All he wanted now was to be with his mate. His most astonishing, stunning, fierce wolf mate. Looking down the cliff at her, many sensations boiled up in him. Emotions, he realized. Damned emotions, again. Not now, he'd thought, and pushed them back.

  Walking beside his mate, even Trevor could feel the power emanating off of her.

  “Come,” he said suddenly, forcefully throwing off the obnoxious, unwanted feelings warring within him. After all, this should be a moment to be savored. “You should run in your new shape. It will be very good for you.”

  He could see the lustrous gold of her coat faintly in the dark, lit by the edges of a moon sliver. She was a beautiful golden wolf, just as he'd thought she would be. Unique.

  “Really.” Her voice sounded grave, as if she still thought heavily about everything that had just occurred. “Or do you mean it will be good for you to see me run?”

  Trevor snorted in the huffing way wolves did. “It will be good for the pack to see you run. But yes. I would enjoy watching you revel in your new body. It would indeed please me.”

  They walked in silence for many more strides through the dark forest. Trevor held in increasing nervousness as he waited for her response. He needed her to throw off the burden as well, for the moment at least. He needed this time to be a pleasant one for them both.

  Something dark within him, smoldering with an old pain, threatened to ignite into a conflagration if not.

  As if shaking off somber thoughts, his lovely Cassandra finally turned and stretched her nose to him. She sniffed for a moment, then suddenly darted in and nipped him on the shoulder before jumping back. Startled, he flinched away. She barked out a sudden burst of laughter as she also seemed to shake off the somberness of her own thoughts, whatever they might be.

  “Okay, then,” she said. Abrupt excitement raced through her voice. “Let's see who's faster. The big, bad alpha, or his wolf mate who wants to see how fast she can run like this?”

  Trevor opened his mouth to reply. He ate dust.

  Cassandra had already leapt ahead with a tremendous spring of her hind legs, launching off the ground with all the power a wolf could muster. “Race you back to our chambers, alpha. I'm betting I'll win, too.”

  She yipped howls of delight as she tore off ahead of everyone.

  A startled buzz rumbled through the pack trotting behind them, although a few instinctive yips of delighted response burst out as well. They approved of her. Their alpha's once-human mate.

  “Well?” Cassandra's voice drifted back. “I'll definitely win if you don't start running now!”

  Trevor firmly thumped down the maelstrom of emotions that still pushed at the edges of his mind and heart. Except one. The one that beat out a fierce rhythm of hopeful, almost giddy elation.

  With a mighty spring of his haunches, he leapt after his mate, howling in pride along with the rest of the pack as they ran through the moonlit woods with their newest member.

  Chapter 5

  Cassie only let out her breath when she and Trevor were back in their room, chambers, whatever, door shut firmly behind them. Okay, she'd been breathing the whole time, of course. But with all those eyes watching her, it had been a little difficult.

  Running with the pack? Now, that had been awesome. Crazy, wild, totally awesome. It felt like they'd run for at least an hour, just tearing around the mountain and the forests. She was so sure in her wolf form, so certain of every motion and every feeling. Being able to see in the dark, to leap over logs and plunge down embankments and do it all with grace, was the best thing she'd ever experienced.

  Well—sex with Trevor still held the number one spot of best things ever. But being a wolf? Yeah. Pretty high up there, too. Running with the pack was glorious and amazing. It made her feel weirdly at home. It made everything feel right.

  It felt like all the pieces had finally clicked into place, and her life was whole.

  “How many pack members are there again?” She looked at Trevor as she asked. He seemed so calm. So collected. She had just killed another wolf, she was a wolf herself, and he seemed to take it all in stride. Steady, focused Trevor. Nothing ruffled him. No wonder he was the alpha. There'd been something a little funny in his mood earlier, but that had to be because he was thrilled his bite actually worked.

  He was thrilled, right?

  Damn. She was still a little less sure when she was human. Well, that was annoying. Hopefully she'd feel as certain and secure in her human form, eventually.

  Her sexy mate shrugged a shoulder as he turned back to check the door. Jiggling the handle as if to be sure it was locked, he said in his usual controlled voice, “There are three hundred wolves in the pack, give or take. Adding one today, of course.”

  Cassie smiled when he said that. “I still can hardly believe it. I mean, now that I'm in human form again”—and that had been so easy to slip back into, as simple as pulling on clothes—“it almost seems like a dream. But it's real, isn't it?” Twirling around just because she could, she whispered, “Wow. Seriously, wow. Aren't you excited about it, too?”

  Slowly, Trevor turned around to look at her. Tall, so strong she sometimes wondered if he could bend steel bars in his hands, showing off that broad, ripped chest that seemed to give her heart palpitations—mmm. Cassie sighed in pleasure at the sight.

  Then she looked at his face. His expression caught her breath and stuffed it back into her chest. Oh, god. Oh, shit.

  Still tall, still sexy, still hers. But now also—fragmented. Something was fighting behind his calm exterior. Something hurting him. His face shattered her with its pain and something that looked a lot like fear.

  She hadn't seen Trevor Reginald look afraid one single time since she'd met him.

  “Wh�
�what's wrong?” was all she could manage to say. Her heart felt like it would jump into her throat and choke her.

  Where the hell was her granite man? The face she was so accustomed to seeing as remote, cold, and sternly held together, was morphing in front of her eyes into someone else entirely. Someone lost. Someone who still looked a lot like the severe, relentlessly alpha kind of alpha she knew he was, but who now also showed a side of him she instantly sensed no one else ever got to see. Not even Tamsin.

  Not even, she suspected, the man himself.

  “Tell me,” she said, taking a step toward him. “Tell me.”

  Shaking his head suddenly, hard and fast as if to swipe off cobwebs, Trevor instead headed toward her and gathered her up in his arms. He leaned into her for the briefest moment. Then he simply hauled her onto the huge, soft bed with him, dotting her face and head with kisses, his hands exploring her body with reverence, as if he'd never touched her before. Almost like the first time they'd been together. But now there was a tenderness in it. Almost a desperation.

  Like he was afraid she'd just disappear on him, even though she was right there with him.

  Turning her over on the bed so she faced him, Trevor extended the hard length of his body against hers. He gently nipped at the skin on her neck, causing a shiver to race down her body. Another one followed as he nipped her again, then nibbled at her ear. His aqua eyes darkened, a sure sign of his arousal.

  Helpless as usual against his erotic onslaught, Cassie moaned. She wasn't sure what was going on with him, but damn it, this felt too good for her to want to stop. “More,” she said, her voice already going ragged. How she had the energy after all the running they'd just done, she didn't know. All she knew was how her body always responded to Trevor's.

  He rumbled against her neck, licking her sensitive skin there. Shivers raced through her body. The day had been crazy, her body still ached from her earlier battle, her tough alpha mate seemed to be fighting some internal battle of his own right now, but she let it go. Trevor's caresses were just too good to set aside, despite the blazing questions in her mind.

  He rumbled again, the sensation of it vibrating through her. She imagined his lips doing that on her lips. On her breast. On her stomach. Best of all, down between her legs, which were already spreading open for him. Apparently being a wolf shifter now didn't make her one bit less wanton when it came to her mate. God, no. She wanted him even more.

  Cassie let her eyes close as she arched against him. Excitement began to spiral through her body, eager and demanding. Pulling his head against hers, she sought his lips with her own.

  “Mine,” Trevor's voice whispered against her mouth. He slid one hand down her naked side, curving over one hip and pausing to dip in at the apex of her thighs. “All mine.”

  “Yes,” she whispered back. Those white hot flames she usually felt at his touch roared through her, igniting all her senses. All she felt was an unquenchable desire to be stroked into beautiful oblivion by her mate.

  Pushing her hips down into their huge bed, she urged his fingers to explore her more in depth. The sensation of his body on hers, all his naked, hot skin pressed right against hers, made her begin to wiggle beneath him. She'd given up feeling shy or nervous about her body's needs. She had needs, and it was a lot more fun to be open about them.

  Especially with Trevor. The mate she'd never known she wanted. The mate who made her flesh tingle and her heart do a little pitter-pat thing.

  Mate of my heart, that deep something within her whispered. The something she knew now was her wolf.

  Herself.

  Cassie laced her hands behind Trevor's neck to pull his face to hers. Kissing him with a greed that was getting stronger, more sure with each little nuzzle and nibble, she let her feelings bubble up into the moment and guide her movements.

  Trevor pulled back a bit, looking at her with those darkening blue-green eyes. His black hair was mussed, his expression teetering between fragmented, hard, and aroused.

  Maybe this just meant her granite man was loosening up? Getting gentler for her, the way she was getting stronger for him.

  The thought made perfect sense. It flooded through Cassie in a delicious haze of rightness, of realness. She let one hand loose to slip over to his face, brushing against his sculpted cheek, touching the corner of what was usually the hard slash of his mouth. Now, his soft lips kissed her finger.

  Cassie made a little noise at that, one of mixed approval, desire, and tenderness.

  “Ah, Cassandra.” Trevor groaned, his slowly unfocusing eyes still capturing hers. His entire body seemed to be melting into hers. “My Cassandra.”

  “Yes,” she said, caught by his eyes. “Yours. Always.” She smiled up at him, completely overtaken by her emotions as well as the physical sensations zinging around her body.

  “My love,” he whispered, the words slipping out of him so naturally and carelessly they had to be true.

  Cassie's heart about stopped before it started to pound again in hard, excited thumps. She felt a thrilled smile race across her face as everything fused into one big, joyful explosion of rightness.

  Mate.

  Wolf.

  Love.

  Mine.

  Oh, god, yes.

  “Yes. And you're my love,” she said, stroking her hand over his cheek in complete awe at the truth of it.

  Trevor abruptly snapped his mouth shut so hard Cassie actually heard his teeth crack together. His shattered expression from moments ago disappeared into the usual cold blankness he wore, topped off with a sudden chill in the summery night air.

  “Trevor,” Cassie said. The ugly cold began to seep into her skin. “Come back to me.” She tried to pull his head back to hers, to kiss him back into the softness. The rightness of being mates.

  The alpha of the pack, no longer simply the man who was her lover and mate, pulled back from her, lifting his body away from hers so that a literal chill swept over it. He moved off the bed, eyes completely hardened again. Cassie sat up, staring at him in confusion and denial.

  “Wait a minute—” she began, totally lost.

  “No.” His voice and hand sliced the air at the same time, cutting off her voice as if with a blade.

  She heard the tiniest shake in it, though. As if something in him really needed to be said, and he was fighting his hardest to refuse to let it out.

  “Trevor,” she tried again.

  “Enough!”

  His voice assaulted her ears with a blast of desperation that shocked her like nothing else this crazy day had. Stunned, she stared at him.

  “I—cannot,” he said. Teeth gritted, he inhaled hard through his nose, the back out. “You,” and he stabbed a finger at her, “shall stay here and stay safe. Is that understood?”

  Still shocked, Cassie shook her head a little. She manage to say, “I don't understand—” before he cut her off yet again. Rising anxiety filled the air. Her wolf senses could pick up on it

  “You would not understand. You cannot.”

  Staring at her for another long, ragged moment, Trevor abruptly turned and strode for the door. “I will be back. You will do as I say and stay here.”

  That did it. Um, no. Flicking her shock off her, Cassie felt her newly awoken self take charge again. “No. No more ordering me around. I won't stay here, and you can't make me, Trevor.”

  Rather than childish, the words came out like a smooth warning. Cassie watched in some satisfaction as her suddenly crazy-ass mate whipped his head around to look at her, a frown etching deep lines in his forehead as his gorgeous eyes pinned her.

  “I'm a wolf shifter now, too,” she went on, watching him carefully. Whatever the hell his problem was, being a wolf had something to do with it. “Because you wanted me to be one. So I'm pretty much invincible now, right?”

  He just stared, though a tiny muscle in his jaw worked with a little twitch. Mr. Granite Man was here for sure.

  “Well, isn't that right?” she said, starting t
o get off the bed so she could go to him. If only she could touch him, maybe that would startle him into telling her what the hell was going on.

  But he had yet another zinger for her suddenly fragile heart.

  “No. You are not invincible. Wolves can still be vulnerable, too, Cassandra.” His voice was so dark, so heavy, it halted Cassie in her tracks. “Stay here,” he added. He unlocked the door and left her alone.

  For a wrenching moment, Cassie felt like all the air in the room had been sucked out of it, leaving her gasping and frozen.

  Until she heard the unmistakable click of the door being locked from the outside.

  Oh, no, he did not.

  If her big, bad, confusing, and apparently very confused alpha wolf shifter thought his little mate was going to roll over and still play the “Yes, sir” game with him, he had another damn think coming.

  Leaping up from the bed, Cassie shifted into her own wolf self halfway to the door.

  Fucking kick-ass, she thought with a serious amount of glee, before she battered down the locked door.

  Chapter 6

  Trevor's head throbbed in time with his steps as he damn near charged down the hallway. A lounging young shifter saw him coming and abruptly bolted from the area at what must be a frightening sight.

  Good, Trevor thought grimly. He needed that right now. He needed to know his pack still feared his strength. He could run with them, howl in joy under the moonlight at being a wolf, let them leap and play around him if he chose.

  But he expected their utter and unquestioning loyalty the second he demanded it.

  Despite that wish, he knew he didn't always command pure loyalty. From most of them, yes. He was alpha by dint of having fought hard for it, and by proving his worth.

  But that hadn't stopped Aliana and Thayne from threatening him and his mate.

  And it hadn't stopped his first mate from dying.

  Those goddamned ripping, snarling, clawing, terrifying emotions surged through him again, promising to drag him into their relentless undertow.