by Spear, Terry
“All right. If someone comes again, tell me and I’ll shift.”
“Believe me, I will. If it is them, he might be regrouping, realizing you’re not alone, not when a male wolf has left his scent here also.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. You’re probably right.” She shifted again and climbed on the sofa bed.
He smiled at her for shifting back into her wolf form, and while she curled up to sleep, he checked out the whole of the villa inside, listening for any indication someone might be trying to find a way in. He heard the wind and waves, but nothing else. As soon as it was light out, he’d check to see if the wolves had left their scent behind.
* * *
As soon as she heard a kitchen window break, Serena was off the sofa bed in a flash, not running for the kitchen as a wolf, but heading in the opposite direction to the front of the villa. She suspected the window was a diversion. She was right. Harold used his lock pick on the front door, but a chain lock prevented him from opening it. He used bolt cutters to cut the lock and then barged inside as a naked human. She lunged for him before he could shift, knowing she couldn’t take on the heavier male wolf once he shifted. But Tanner slammed into him first, biting him hard in the arm, forcing him to drop the bolt cutters.
Harold shifted, growled, and struggled to get the aggressive wolf off him, snapping his jaws, unable to get to his feet. He’d made the tactical mistake of entering the house before he shifted, of thinking whoever was with her wasn’t as powerful as him. His arrogance could be his downfall. She only hoped.
She was half watching the two wolves fight—though Tanner was winning the battle—and keeping a lookout for Harold’s mate in case she tried to come in the back way. Serena couldn’t believe Velvet wasn’t already here. Maybe she wasn’t as alpha as her mate.
Then Serena heard something crunching on glass, and she prayed Tanner would take care of Harold quickly, while she raced off to stop Velvet from helping Harold. The gray she-wolf was bigger than Serena, but what the gray had over her in size, Serena had in pure aggressive adrenaline. Like Tanner, she didn’t hesitate to take the wolf on. Serena might not have fought with wolves for some time, she imagined neither did this she-wolf. But Serena had killed a couple of real wolves who hadn’t liked that she’d crossed their territory. What could she have done? As much as she’d hated to kill the wolves, it was either that or be killed herself.
Thankfully, the two grays hadn’t ganged up on her, so she fought one and then the other. So one gray she-wolf wouldn’t be an issue.
She still heard growling in the front room when she tore into Velvet. The woman growled just as loudly back, which made Serena even angrier. She hadn’t wanted Tanner to hear her fighting with a wolf. He needed to concentrate on his own fight and not worry about her.
The wolf came so close to her throat, Serena nearly panicked. She had to quit thinking about Tanner and concentrate on the menace before her. She lunged forward, snapping her jaws, tearing at the wolf. She didn’t want to kill her, but if she left Serena no choice, she would do what she had to do.
She tasted Velvet’s blood and the wolf squeaked and dodged away from her. Serena waited to see if the wolf would quit. It was quiet in the other room, and she glanced behind her to see Tanner standing there, panting, watching what the gray she-wolf would do.
A male gray and a smaller red female were too much for the gray she-wolf to handle. She jumped out through the kitchen window and tore off down the beach. She wouldn’t report this to the police. She couldn’t.
Serena licked her mate’s face, and they both shifted. He took her in his arms and hugged her tight.
“Do you think she’ll return?” Serena asked.
“She would be crazy to. I’m going to take a swim.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“I’d rather you—”
She raised her brows at him.
He let out his breath. “—go with me and we’ll take your ex-roommate swimming.”
She thought of them bleeding—Tanner had suffered some bite marks, and the she-wolf had managed to claw Serena—but neither were badly wounded. Harold was bloodied too, and all she could think of was that sharks feed at night and they all would be bleeding in the water.
“There’s a boat rental place not far from here. I’ll get a boat and we’ll take the body out,” Tanner said, changing his mind.
“They have to be closed for now.”
“Exactly. Will you be all right?”
“Yes. I doubt Velvet will stick around to see what we do next. While you’re gone, I’ll be a wolf.”
Serena shifted as Tanner left, and it took him so long, she didn’t think he’d ever return with the boat. Finally, he returned and brought a fishing net, too, and carried Harold’s human body out to the boat.
“You can stay here.”
“I’ll help you.” Wolves helped their mates out, always.
They went out as far as they could, where divers wouldn’t be diving to see the coral reefs, and after weighing him down, they heaved Harold into the ocean. Once they were done, Tanner dropped Serena off at the villa beach. He’d been torn between taking her with him just in case Velvet visited again and dropping her at the villa in case he got caught returning the borrowed boat.
Serena had worried about the same thing, anxious that the she-wolf might come back. She’d shifted to wait and watch for her.
When Tanner finally returned, they locked the front door, and would call management in the morning about the vandalism to the window and security chain at the door. Which meant they had to keep up the guard watch until then in case Velvet snuck back.
But she didn’t.
The next morning, Tanner called Devlyn with an update on what had happened. “We don’t need my brothers’ help, if they can’t get a flight out.”
“They got one earlier this morning. They’re afraid they’ll miss out on a chance to get to know Serena.”
Tanner pulled Serena into his arms and said, “It’s too late for that, unless they mean in a brotherly way.”
Devlyn laughed. “Is this news I can share with the pack?”
Serena smiled and nodded.
“It sure is. It’s a done deal. Hey, I’ve got an incoming call. Get back with you in a bit.” Tanner took the call from Vaughn. “Are you arriving soon?”
“At the airport on Grand Cayman now. We’re boarding the flight for Grand Brac, but we passed a woman—a gray wolf—with bags in hand, headed for a flight leaving for the States. She had light-brown hair and looked just like the picture you sent to us of the two of them when they were at the grocery store.”
“Okay, that’s Harold’s mate, and he’s dead.”
“Hell, don’t tell me we flew all the way out here just to miss out on all the action.”
“You can help us celebrate the mating.”
And that’s just what they did. Tanner’s brothers joined them several hours later, and while all of them sat on loungers on the beach, rum drinks in hand, they watched the sunset go down over the aqua waters.
“Next time a new she-wolf shows up, I want to be the one doing the protecting,” Brock said, sipping from his rum and cola.
Tanner smiled. “The SEAL wolves always think they should get the girl.”
Serena snuggled up to Tanner. “Not this time. An Army Ranger won out. Are you ready for bed?”
All the guys looked at Tanner and laughed.
“With the pretty she-wolf of my dreams?” Tanner swept her up in his arms and headed for the house. “You don’t ever have to ask.”
Epilogue
Devlyn didn’t trust that Velvet wouldn’t try to steal from another wolf, so Brock and Vaughn located her to see what she was up to after she’d left Grand Cayman Island. Ironically, she hadn’t married the wolf and he’d never given her access to his accounts, so she was pe
nniless. Which meant all that money was still sitting in a Grand Cayman account. She’d run off with another wolf and was living in Virginia and it seemed that was end of the story for her.
Serena couldn’t wait for Bella to have her babies, though Bella hadn’t wanted to know their sexes, so Serena was waiting for the babies to be born before she bought anything for them. They got together all the time, whenever Tanner was at work, or when she wasn’t working hard to set up her lending library.
She and Tanner had set up housekeeping in her family’s home and hoped to have their own children one day, while Heath was building a home behind the clinic. Fisher and Shawn were building a place of their own, though all of the brothers often came over for pizza parties once a week at Serena and Tanner’s home. Serena enjoyed being part of a wolf pack again.
“It was way too many years for us to be apart,” she told Bella, hugging her lightly, not wanting to squish the babies.
“Every day I can’t believe our good fortune to have you home again.”
Serena couldn’t have been happier to be home with her sister again and to see her as a pack leader with her loving mate.
And Tanner had been the greatest, as if he’d been her red-hot lover for an eternity. She loved him for it.
Tanner was reminded daily that he had stolen the red wolf from his brothers just because he was the eldest. But he knew that no matter how it happened, in the end, he and Serena had been meant to be together.
And no one could have been more right for the vivacious and protective alpha red wolf he would cherish always.
The End
Journey to the Highlands for a brand-new, wolfishly delicious adventure from USA Today bestseller Terry Spear
Coming soon from Sourcebooks Casablanca
Chapter 1
“We’ve got trouble,” Lana Cameron, the baker, said to Heather MacNeill, motioning with her head to the big glass windows of Ye Olde Highland Pie Shoppe in the village near the MacNeills’ Argent Castle.
Heather glanced out the window and saw Lana was right. Heather had been hoping the rumors about having more problems with the Kilpatrick brothers wouldn’t come true. But redheaded Robert and his equally redheaded brother Patrick were climbing out of their truck, looking around to see who was eating at the café tables outside and then speaking to each other before they entered the shop. They both looked like wary gray wolves.
They should be. After Patrick had killed the wolf Heather was going to mate, she’d wanted to end Patrick herself. The only thing stopping her was that the fight had been her mate-to-be’s fault.
Lana joined Heather behind the counter. “Did I tell you Enrick MacQuarrie came in when you were gone yesterday afternoon?” Lana raised a brow and gave her a smile.
Heather frowned. “On purpose?”
“Of course he came in on purpose.”
Heather let out her breath in annoyance and folded her arms. “He came into the shop when he knew I wasn’t going to be here?” As owner, manager, and general hand-on-deck, Heather was nearly always there, though she was training Lana to take over whenever she had to be away.
Lana let out a long-suffering sigh, placing her hands on her chest and looking heavenward. “Aye, if ’twere up to me, I would chase the hunky Highlander all through the heather until I had him pinned down to a mating. But alas, he doesna see me as a prospective mate.”
Heather continued to frown. “Me then? Why come when I wasn’t here? On purpose.”
“He is a hardy warrior but with feelings running deep for ye.” Lana was keeping in character with her role here at the shop. “’Tis you he wished to see, but he fears you’re still in mourning over Timothy and doesn’t want to approach you too soon for a courtship.”
Heather didn’t lose the frown. Lana couldn’t be serious. Was she up to a bit of matchmaking where none would be possible? “He has never had time for me…ever. He’s a workaholic. He doesn’t believe in having fun. He’s a…stick-in-the-mud.” With her. Not with others. She folded her arms and let her breath out in a huff. “Okay, so then what did he do?”
“He asked me how you were feeling.”
“And you said?”
“Good.” Lana laughed.
Heather curbed the urge to sock her.
Lana sighed again. “That you were ready to date if he would get on with it and start making an overture. Don’t expect too much at first. I’m not sure he took me at my word.” Lana smiled, then frowned. “Just think, if he were your mate…” She motioned to the windows where the Kilpatricks looked unsure about coming inside or not. “He would toss them out on their ear if they came inside. Or at least Enrick would make them shake a bit in their boots. They wouldn’t be as cocky as they are otherwise.”
Protective, oh aye. Enrick and his two brothers were protective of her when Heather chanced to go to the MacQuarrie castle. But the brothers thought she was too wild, too impetuous. And that irritated her. She’d overheard them talking to her brothers about it on different occasions, how difficult it was to keep her in check. She sure didn’t need a mate who felt that way about her.
What was wrong with wanting to do things on the spur of the moment? To take a chance at doing something fun and whimsical? That was who she was, and she wasn’t changing to fit some male wolf’s concept of the perfect she-wolf.
Take her business here. It had been a risk to start something like this, and a few had said she couldn’t do it. Well, she proved she could. She’d worked hard to make her dream come true. And it was her dream, no one else’s.
“Oh, I’ve got to tend to the bread.” Lana hurried off to check on it while Heather glanced back at the glass door.
She was seriously surprised Enrick had come to talk to her friend and feel her out about Heather’s thoughts on dating again. As much as she’d had a crush on the wolf forever, he wasn’t the one for her. She’d figured that out a long time ago.
Then she thought again about the current situation. Enrick wasn’t here to serve and protect, so she was on her own for now.
As far as she knew, the Kilpatricks and their McKinley cousins had been furious they hadn’t gotten the film contract to have a new fantasy film shot at the McKinleys’ castle in the Highlands. They would be even madder once they learned the MacQuarries had gotten the contract to have it filmed in part at their castle and on their grounds instead. Since some of the MacNeill wolves would be participating with the MacQuarries as extras in the film, and the MacNeills were McKinley rivals, there was bound to be trouble at some time or another between them. Had the Kilpatricks already learned where the shoot was going to be held, and that was why they were here? She knew they weren’t here to tell her they were sorry for Patrick killing Timothy. Patrick had felt perfectly justified, and truthfully, he had been.
The MacQuarrie pack leaders were keeping quiet about the film location for now, although they’d told Heather’s pack leaders because they needed some of their men and women to sign up as extras. Heather knew because she was going to be in charge of the MacNeill female extras during the filming. She hoped the McKinley wolf pack would leave the pie shop out of their quarrels, though the Kilpatricks—members of that lupus garou pack—had been passive-aggressive of late with both the MacQuarries and the MacNeills at pubs or wherever they chanced to meet. That attitude was sure to escalate once word reached the world on where the film would actually be shot.
Heather had her cell phone out, just in case she needed to text her pack leaders for some Highland wolf muscle.
The aroma of fresh bread baking, of hearty beef stew bubbling in a cooker, and of sweet pastries filled the air as Lana brought out another loaf of Scottish soda bread from the oven. In full view of the customers, she made buttermilk bread and soda bread in a brick oven, just like in the old days. Originating in Scotland, the bannock bread made of oatmeal dough was cooked in a skillet, so it was made in the shop’s kit
chen. The ladies working in the shop were all wearing long dresses with narrow sleeves, long tartan overskirts, boots, and wimples. Lana’s kilt was the Cameron tartan of red, green, and blue, while Heather’s was the blue and green tartan of the MacNeill clan.
Heather’s pack leaders—gray wolf cousin Ian MacNeill and his red wolf mate, Julia—had assisted Heather in establishing the shop a year ago to help some of their wolves remain gainfully employed and Heather achieve her dream. Julia had loved the idea of Heather sharing several of the clan’s old-time recipes with the world because Julia was American with Scottish roots and had fallen in love with all things Scottish when she joined them a couple of years back. Since the wolves lived such long lives, aging a year for every human thirty, many of them had been around for a very long time. Heather had wanted to own a shop like this since she was always cooking for Ian and his brothers, and she’d wanted to share the old-world charm of the recipes she’d personally prepared. She just hadn’t had the means to do it on her own without the pack leaders’ assistance.
Heather manned the cash register as a man and his wife paid for two venison and cranberry pies.
The woman said, “We’ve been wanting to come here since the shop opened. It’s so fun, and best of all, the food is great. I love your costumes too.”
Heather smiled. “Thanks, I’m so glad you enjoyed the visit.” No one could accuse them of wearing costumes that weren’t true to the late medieval period. Though about that time, some of the women were casting their wimples aside.
Agreeing with his wife, the man nodded to Heather and carried out the pies as the couple left.
The medieval Highland theme of the shop and the food brought in customers locally and from around the world for a unique dining experience. Who wouldn’t want to try something different?