Fated for Mikayla

by Suzette Rose Cauler

  He could wish for a larger pack, and he’d been recruiting up and down the East Coast, and eventually he’d make it across the country to rally the numbers needed to win a war against the vampires. He should have more men now, but so many of the wolves had turned out to be pussies. They either didn’t want to fight other packs or they were just too afraid to fight vampires. Ulric killed those who wouldn’t join him, but sometimes, too often, those cowards got away.

  Recently, he’d come up with a plan for that, too. He’d been taking the shifter packs’ precious women and using them to encourage new recruits and keep the reluctant followers in line. Occasionally, he traded the women back to their packs, getting things he needed in return—a little money here, a couple of cars there. It worked.

  Ulric had been plodding along with his plan, biding his time until he’d have the numbers to attack River’s Bend. Then, he’d planned to plow through that shifter territory and take control, killing Grey and anyone else who wouldn’t submit. With the clan under his rule, he’d have the numbers to launch a full-scale attack on the vampires. And once the war had begun, any holdout packs and clans would be forced to join him in the fight. The vampires, after all, would see all wolf shifters as a threat.

  When Jackie had tracked him down, he’d been suspicious at first. But then he remembered her as the beautiful blonde who’d just smiled at him after he set that fire outside Clan Liekos territory. He’d been on a mission to find vulnerabilities in the clan’s border patrol, and she could have raised an alarm and set her clan’s guards after him. She hadn’t, though. Instead, she’d come to him months later when he was camped in a town not far from River’s Bend. His men had been embroiled in battles with Clan Liekos here and there, but he hadn’t been ready for a real attack. The battles were really just to keep Clan Liekos, and Grey, on edge until the time was right.

  Jackie had offered him both her body and a partnership. She’d help him get past the heavy security in River’s Bend so he could kill Grey, and she’d help him escape after he’d done the job. As the alpha Zion’s niece, she was trusted and could get him close. In return, he would kill Zion for her. At first, she’d seemed too good to be true, but she’d passed all of his tests and they’d begun to plan. He wouldn’t have to be patient anymore, thanks to her. She even came up with the plan to corner and kill several vampire royals, planting their bodies on the land of some other largest wolf shifter communities on the continent. The vampires would attack, and wolf shifters across the country would be forced to come together to fight back. Ulric would have his war, his revenge, sooner than he’d ever hoped possible.

  She was one smart, treacherous she-wolf, and he liked that. She had yet to be forthcoming about why she hated Zion so much, but she seemed particularly fixated on his daughter Nikki. She wanted her to watch Zion die. Ulric would oblige, once he got what he wanted, and truthfully, he didn’t care so much about her reasons. He certainly had no intentions of sharing his. Not just yet.

  At first, they’d had more time together to talk and plan, but then her alphas had tightened the reins on the females of the clan. Once that happened, she could only get away during the day, a privilege many of the other females didn’t have. Under the pretense of working, she would sneak to see him, and they would fuck, plan, then fuck some more. That went on until her alphas decided that no female could leave River’s Bend unescorted. He’d worried that their plan would be delayed indefinitely, but Jackie wanted it nearly as much as he did. She’d sworn she’d come through.

  And she had. Just that morning, she’d told him all was nearly ready. He’d planned things to the minute with his men and now only needed to wait for her final word. Jackie had found wolves from her clan who were willing to help, and he would finally have his day in River’s Bend. A day, maybe two at most, and he would finally destroy the man who’d done everything in his power to destroy him.

  * * * *

  The guard that approached Hunter’s car didn’t question her too much. They’d known she was coming and allowed her to pass with both men in the car, giving them no more than a cursory glance and perhaps a bit of a smirk. Yes, she was in trouble, and of course, everyone knew it.

  The trio had stopped briefly at her house in Silver Spring to drop her car off. Then, Jack had slid into the backseat of Hunter’s car for the rest of the trip to River’s Bend. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of parking in the territory, as most of the wolves traveled on foot. A few of the houses had driveways and the huge lodge had multiple garages, but no way did she want to impose on the alphas by asking for space to park a second car. As it was, she’d asked Nikki to get Adam’s and Levi’s permission for them to park Hunter’s car in their driveway.

  Adam and Levi were Nikki’s brothers. Adam was slated to become the next alpha, and they’d all grown up together. Adam could be tough when he needed to be, but he was basically a sweetheart, so he said yes. They’d leave Hunter’s car there and walk to her cabin. It was a small, two-room place and had nothing even remotely close to space for parking. What it did have was hot, running water, and Mikayla couldn’t wait to jump in the shower.

  She’d been tempted to grab a quick shower back at her place, but Nikki had been very clear. Zion had said she was to drop her car off and head straight to River’s Bend without delay. It seemed they’d tightened up the rules for the females even more in her absence. According to Nikki, most didn’t even go out for shopping anymore. As Mikayla directed Hunter down the narrow road to Adam’s and Levi’s, she couldn’t help but smile at the thought. If the women weren’t shopping for all things necessary, that meant the men were, and she could only imagine their hulking forms puzzling over things like toilet paper brands and toothpaste. Clan Liekos was very set in its ways in some respects. The women usually did the shopping and the men did the protecting.

  The gang was all there when Hunter pulled his car into the driveway. Adam and Levi and their mate Hope were there. So were Nikki and her mates, Luke and Mason, who happened to be Grey’s sons, and Hope’s sister Sarah along with her mates Jackson and Wes. Mikayla’s other close friend Robyn was there as well as a newer member of their crew, Amber. There was no sign of either alpha, thank God, but Mikayla didn’t find that surprising. They would expect her to go to them, and she was one step closer to facing the music.

  The moment Mikayla stepped from the car, Nikki and Robyn plowed into her, hugging her as if she’d been gone for years rather than a couple of weeks. Robyn finally pulled back and gave her best schoolmarm look. “Don’t ever pull that shit again.”

  Nikki pulled back, too. “Seriously. Don’t. We were so worried about you.”

  Hope, Sarah, and Amber came next, everyone hugging her and ignoring Jack and Hunter for the moment, though she saw all looks the women gave her men. It was obvious they were curious.

  Adam and Levi walked over, followed by the other men. They looked like a small pack ready to strike. Male shifters were naturally territorial, and here were two new men to deal with. The Clan Liekos men stood staring at her men, and her men glared back.

  Mikayla sighed. More posturing. She hoped they’d get it over with quickly. “Guys, these are my mates, Hunter Lyall and Jack Marrok. I met them, well sort of, not five minutes after I got to Liz’s apartment building.”

  Some shook hands, others pounded fists, but the atmosphere was still unnecessarily tense.

  “You’re going to like them—all of you. They’re great men and I probably wouldn’t be standing here right now if they hadn’t been there.”

  “What happened with Liz?” Nikki asked. “Tell us everything.”

  Adam nodded. “Yes. We want to know why you would ever think to do something as crazy—”

  “Or stupid,” Luke chimed in, earning a hard jab in the side from Nikki.

  “—as stealing the alpha’s van,” Adam continued, “and going off to the city by yourself.”

  “I think it was brave,” Hope said, smiling. Only a couple of months pregnant with Adam’
s or Levi’s pup, the woman already had the pregnancy glow.

  Levi looked over at her, his expression the sternest Mikayla had ever seen it. “And something you’d better not even think of ever trying.”

  Mikayla and Hope looked at each other. Along with a group of other women in the clan, they’d secretly pledged to do whatever necessary to help Clan Liekos deal with Ulric and anything else that came along, in particular, vampires. They’d decided soon after Hope arrived in River’s Bend that they wouldn’t just sit around defenseless, waiting for the men to make all the decisions and do all the fighting.

  Luke shrugged. “Glad you’re back in one piece, Mikayla. You probably should have waited for Adam to take leadership, though. He’d have let you off easy.”

  She’d hated Luke when he’d first mated Nikki. She’d seriously thought he was the king of all assholes, but he’d turned out to be a good guy. “Yeah, no one ever said I had good timing.”

  “She wouldn’t get off easy with me, either,” Adam said. “She could have gotten herself killed, or…worse. If you ask me, she needs a good spanking.”

  Jack and Hunter growled at that, but it was Jack who spoke. “No one touches Mikayla. No one but me and Hunter.”

  He said it so seriously, it was clear he didn’t know Adam was joking. Adam growled back at Jack and suddenly the atmosphere was ten times more tense.

  “Hey, you get no argument from me,” she said to Jack, trying to lighten his mood. “In fact, if I had known spanking was on the table, I would have caused some trouble on the way home. See you guys later. My ass has a date with those big hands,” she mocked, walking rapidly away, which got her a few laughs.

  Mikayla was tired and in need of some food and a hot shower. She didn’t have time for the men who were already stealing her heart to get all territorial with the wolves she considered her brothers. She’d actually never been spanked, not even as a pup, and though she’d never thought she’d be into that before, the idea did have its merits. In fact, the image of her smexy mates smacking her bare bottom turned her on.

  “Seriously,” she said, looking back at Jack and Hunter. “Mikayla needs some discipline.”

  * * * *

  Mikayla didn’t get that shower or that spanking for much longer than she liked. Her friends were anxious to get to know everything there was to know about her mates that could be learned in a single conversation. Jack and Hunter were open, and as far as she knew, honest with their answers. However, the typical male sizing up was evident throughout the little get-to-know-you session, and at one point she told them all to just whip out their dicks and compare. That shut them up for a good minute before they all burst out laughing.

  Of course, after grilling her mates like common criminals, they all wanted to hear about Liz and why she hadn’t returned home with them. The fact that she’d fallen in love with a panther had them all aghast, except for Robyn.

  “He sounds hot as hell,” Robyn said. “Have you ever seen the way panthers walk? It’s like sex moving.”

  “Yeah, but they’re not mates.” Nikki looked to Mikayla as if wanting her to confirm that again. Mikayla nodded.

  “So? When it’s right, it’s right.” Robyn cocked an eyebrow her way, a little grin curving her lips. “If the right one turns up here, you won’t catch me saying no.”

  She wouldn’t, either. Of all Mikayla’s female friends, Robyn reminded her most of a man. Not that she looked like one. Robyn was feminine and beautiful, but she took what she wanted without worrying about traditional roles. And she didn’t really get attached. While Mikayla had fallen for a wolf or two, Robyn was fine to just fuck ’em and leave ’em. She’d had always sort of admired her for that.

  Mikayla smiled back at her friend. “Sorry I couldn’t bring one back home for you.”

  “Next time,” Robyn said.

  “There won’t be a next time,” Jack and Adam said at the same time.

  Yes, Mikayla thought. They would get along just fine. She sighed, standing up from her seat on the porch. “I’d hoped to at least get a shower first, but we’ve probably sat around here long enough to piss the alphas off. Time to face the music.”

  Nikki looked sheepish. “I forgot to tell you.”

  “Forgot to tell me what?”

  “Well, not just me… Someone else could have said something. The alphas are away, at least until tomorrow, hearing disputes in former Clan Lycan lands. You have a bit of a reprieve.”

  Mikayla blew out a hard breath. “Next time lead with that, okay?” She looked over at Adam. “So you’re in charge, then? Can I just go back to my cabin?”

  “Yeah, I’m just holding down the fort.” Adam said. “You’re free to do whatever you want until they get back. But don’t leave River’s Bend, of course.”

  “Of course.” She stood and turned to her mates. “I’m starved. What do you say we eat and then head back to my cabin for that…discipline.”

  Mikayla didn’t have to ask her men twice. Like her, they were always hungry. The others decided to tag along to raid the lodge’s huge refrigerators. The alphas’ cooks prepared huge meals three times a day and those closest to the lodge often came to enjoy them. It wasn’t a mealtime, though, so they’d just have to see whatever they could find. Being tight with the alphas’ offspring came with the privilege of coming and going there whenever she pleased.

  As they walked, Luke, Mason, and Wes continued to ply Jack and Hunter with questions about the underground, and Mikayla dropped back to where Adam and Levi walked with Hope.

  “What do you really think?” she asked.

  Adam frowned. “Luke was joking, but he was right. You shouldn’t have run off by yourself. It was dangerous. Maybe even a little stupid. But you would have been better off if I was already alpha.”

  “What do you think they’ll do?”

  “If it was just Zion? You know him. He can be hard on the males, but I’d bet on isolation for a female, especially since you’re Nikki’s friend.” Adam gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s what I’d do. Confine you to your cabin.”

  Levi nodded. “It’s Grey we’re all worried about.”

  “Luke has told some hair-raising stories about Grey,” Hope said. “We’re worried he’ll ask for a physical punishment.”

  Mikayla inhaled deeply, then let out her breath slowly, striving for calm. “I’ve heard some of Luke’s horrific stories, and that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

  * * * *

  Mikayla enjoyed a big meal of leftover beef, some pork, and even a couple of green leafy vegetables. She also enjoyed good conversation with her men and her friends, washing her meal down with some wine the ladies had snagged from the kitchen. Whenever the subject of her punishment reared its ugly head, she pushed on to something else. She’d had her answer from Adam and Levi, and she just needed to forget about it, for a time, and enjoy her first night at home with her mates.

  There would be plenty of time to worry when the alphas returned to this part of the territory. Until then, she’d distract herself with listening to Hope and Sarah comparing pregnancy symptoms and her men compete with the other men about such things as where they’d hunted before and how large their kills were. She debated with Robyn the merits of settling down with one man versus two. Of course, Robyn insisted she’d wouldn’t be happy with anything less than a small tribe fucking her every night. Nikki went on about the medical building she’d managed to outfit with hospital beds and the stock of herbal and traditional medicines she’d been stockpiling. Amber and Hope were helping Nikki with that, so they had a good bit to say on the subject, too.

  Mikayla wasn’t really ever the quiet type, but for once, she listened a lot more than she talked. It was good to be home, to hear her friends’ voices mingling with those of her fated. Despite whatever punishment lay ahead, this was how life was meant to be. Ulric and the Crimson Moon Pack were still a problem. The battles were growing ever more frequent and maybe Ulric would actually manage to draw the vampires into
the fight. But right then, on her little slice of the world, everything was as right as rain.

  * * * *

  Jack paced the room, waiting for Mikayla to finish her shower. She’d insisted he shower first, followed by Hunter, and then wouldn’t let either of them join her for her turn. She’d claimed she needed to decompress, which was exactly why he’d wanted in with her. He had no trouble sensing how stressed she felt. He could scent it and wanted nothing more than to relieve some of it.

  He looked over at Hunter who sat, of all things, putting his hair into a long braid. “I don’t like it, H. This Grey… He sounds like he’ll be a problem.”

  “Yes, he does.” Hunter finished his braid and leaned back in his chair. Like Jack, he wore only a towel. They were both waiting to give Mikayla a night of forgetfulness. “I don’t want her disciplined at all.”

  “Unless we’re doing it.” Jack couldn’t help but grin remembering the way she’d playacted excitement over all that spanking talk. From his point of view, it hadn’t all been playacting.

  “Agreed. But they’re her alphas.” Hunter shrugged, shaking his head. “I hate this bullshit. Ever think of having your own pack? Being the alpha?”

  It was Jack’s turn to shrug. “Thought about it. Who knows? Maybe someday. You?”

  “I could take it or leave it. One thing I don’t want is the job of punishing women. What kind of an alpha decides not to send men after one of their own?”

  “All kinds.” So many of the females they’d rescued and hidden hadn’t seemed to have anyone looking for them.

  The bathroom door finally opened, and Mikayla appeared in the doorway in a haze of steam, with a bathrobe on and a towel wrapped around her head. His heart sped up in anticipation while his wolf growled in nothing short of anger. That beast wanted her naked on all fours already. Fuck. It didn’t take that animal much. He’d always liked the ladies, but with his mate, his wolf didn’t just constantly strain at the chain. He threatened to break it.