Alphas Unbound: 8 Sexy Shifter Romances

by Elsa Jade

  Expression troubled, he pulled his cigarette butt out and lit it again.

  She let him get a drag or two before asking, “Do you know something I don’t?”

  He sighed heavily. “You remember when I used to hunt?”

  “Yeah, sure. It hasn’t been that long since you stopped.”

  “I stopped after I saw something most men have no business seeing,” he said, glancing at her. “Think about whether you want the burden of that.”

  Goosebumps spread up her arms. Before she could prod him for more, her mother appeared at the screen door.

  “Joy, I am not entertaining Evan if you get pneumonia out there with that wet hair.”

  Joy cringed but stood to go inside. The fastest way to get past her mother’s ire was to face it.

  “Evan didn’t come with me to ‘be entertained’,” she said, following her mother into the kitchen. “He wanted to see the lake.”

  “He wanted to see you, and you should be ashamed of yourself for letting him think he would. Sit and peel those potatoes for dinner, and don’t take half the potato the way your father does.”

  “I didn’t ask him,” Joy snapped, too stressed to deal with this. “I told him nothing was going to happen with us. You don’t have to feed him dinner. The snow’s too bad to go get him from the motel, anyway.”

  “Oh, Joy.” Her mother deflated and grabbed the tea kettle from its permanent place on the back burner of the stove. “Evan is the better choice. I wish you could see that.”

  On her way into the pantry to retrieve potatoes, Joy stopped and looked back. “I see it, Mom. I just can’t change how I feel. I’ve tried.”

  Chapter Three

  ‡

  The Suttons had always been the early-to-bed type, thanks to the hardware store’s six a.m. opening time. It hadn’t taken Joy long to get used to a very different schedule as a student, so as her parents were yawning off to bed, she was still wide awake.

  Silence quickly settled over the dark house, leaving her with no way to mute the words she and Gabriel had exchanged. After trying for hours to get to sleep, her mind buzzing with her father’s warning to be sure, she gave up and got dressed in the dark. God only knew what held Gabriel back but she wouldn’t find out by carrying on a one-sided conversation in her head. As volatile as her emotions flared when she was with Gabriel, she knew she had to see him.

  Grabbing the keys to her dad’s SUV, she crept from the house. As she cautiously maneuvered through the deepening snow, her thoughts strayed to the first time she’d driven into Gabriel’s arms.

  She’d been a brand-new driver, the plastic of her driver’s license practically still warm from the machine that spit it out, and she’d crept out after midnight to break in her new license with a long drive in her mother’s new car. The new model had a backward fuel gauge—FULL on the left of the dial, EMPTY on the right. After three hours of carefree driving, Joy found herself out of gas on the side of the same dark road she drove now.

  Both of Calla Beach’s gas stations closed at eleven o’clock, leaving Joy with two options—okay, only one option, because a ten-mile hike to the gas station off the highway was seriously impractical. While she was locking the car and steeling herself for option two, walking home to confess her crime, a pickup truck whipped around a curve and blinded her with its high beams.

  As the truck slowed to a stop several yards past her stalled car, it didn’t occur to Joy to be scared. More embarrassed than anything, she leaned against the car and scuffed the toe of her sneaker on the pavement, watching as three tall, muscular guys climbed from the truck’s cab.

  The driver, dark hair shaggy around the collar of his jacket, stopped at the truck’s tailgate. “Anything we can do to help?”

  God, his voice. Goose bumps erupted over her arms. She had to swallow a few times before she managed to croak out an answer. “I ran out of gas.”

  “Easy fix,” one of the other guys said. “Gabriel, you want to run up the highway and fill a gas can for her?”

  Joy was nodding, but the first guy—the driver with the beautiful, shivery voice—shook his head.

  “I’m not leaving her here,” Gabriel said, low and with an edge of sexy growl underscoring his words. “Not by herself, and not with you two, either.”

  Joy licked her lips nervously while the three strangers looked at each other, communicating without any words she could hear over the sound of the truck’s engine.

  Afraid they would leave—well, really just afraid Gabriel would leave—she finally said, “I could ride with you. Um, Gabriel, right?”

  He stared at her intently, holding her gaze so long she had to look away before her heart burst through her chest.

  “She’ll come with me,” he said. Followed by something that sounded like, “She’ll be fine on the way.”

  Joy nodded. “It’s not that far. Not by car.”

  “Come on.” Gabriel crooked his fingers, beckoning her forward.

  She nearly tripped over her own feet in her haste to join him. Being close to Gabriel felt like a compulsion, as if by his side was a place reserved just for her. As he helped her up into the passenger seat, the heat of his hands gripping her waist stirred something deep inside.

  With her cheeks burning, she reminded herself she would be fine. It was just a ride to the gas station. She would have made the same short trek with anybody else in Calla Beach, a community so small, you couldn’t really commit a crime even if you wanted to—which nobody did, because the food at the county jail was notoriously gross.

  So she would be fine. It wasn’t like she was crawling into some strange man’s lap or anything.

  *

  “She fell into your lap.” Forrest clutched the back of his neck as he paced Gabriel’s kitchen. “Do you have any idea what I would do for the chance you have right in front of you? What Zev would do for it?”

  Gabriel didn’t look away from the snow crusting the other side of the glass. “If you or Zev were where I’m standing now, I would leave you to decide the best way to handle your own affairs.”

  “Neither one of us would be pushing her away like you’re pushing Joy. What the hell are you waiting for, Gabe? You’re going to lose her. And if that doesn’t mean something to you, think about what you’ll lose for us. We made a pact, you and me and Zev. Grey Wolves Rising—remember that? Not fucking Grey Wolves Dying Out of Existence.” Forrest pounded his fist against one of the cupboards.

  Gabriel turned away from the glass and glanced at the splintered wood before meeting Forrest’s glowing eyes. “You’re losing control of yourself.”

  Forrest snarled. “One of us needs to be something besides the block of ice you are right now. Talk to me. What are you waiting for? That woman is part of you.”

  Gabriel scrubbed his face with his hands. “She deserves to know what being mine will mean.”

  Zev swore. “So tell her.”

  “‘So tell her’? You think it’s that simple?” Bracing his hands on the table, Gabriel stared at the wood grain until his eyes crossed.

  “For fuck’s sake, that’s what this is about? Yes, it’s that simple. She won’t run from what we are. How have you gotten this far without figuring that out?” Standing in the door between the kitchen and the dining room, Zev waved his index finger back and forth between himself and Forrest. “And if I’m wrong and she does, we’ll take care of it for you.”

  Protective fury flashed white behind Gabriel’s eyes. “You won’t touch her.”

  “Yeah, we know,” Forrest said. “You’ll tear our hands off and shove them so far up our asses, we’ll be able to scratch our ears from the inside. The point is we won’t have to touch her. Not if you do, like you damn well should have years ago.”

  Zev stiffened and whipped his head toward the front of the house. “Someone’s here.”

  A second later, a light, tentative knock confirmed Zev’s words.

  Gabriel’s gut clenched. “That’s Joy.”

  Forrest
and Zev started for the back exit. “Tell her,” Forrest said. “Show her if you have to. You’re running out of time, and she’s not towing that trailer because it matches her shoes.”

  The trailer. Hell. “I need you two to do something for me.”

  Zev raised an eyebrow. “The surfer?”

  “He’s at the motel,” Forrest said. “We’ll take care of him.”

  Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Don’t kill him.”

  “I’m not the idiot you are,” Forrest grumbled. “A little talk should do it.”

  Joy tapped at the front door again. While Forrest and Zev made their exit, Gabriel padded through the house to let his mate inside.

  The sight of her ripped the air from his lungs. She was wearing that ridiculous jacket again instead of a coat. Half of him wanted to take the vulnerable flesh of her throat between his teeth bite until her blood coursed over his tongue, finally making her his once and forever. The other half of him—

  “I should smack your ass for coming out into this storm without a proper coat.” He eyed the wind-flushed tips of her ears. Snow glittered in her wavy hair, which looked more silver than gold under the streetlamps.

  “I was in a hurry.” She shifted her weight, drawing his attention down her body to curvy thighs and the heeled knee-high boots hugging her shapely calves.

  Her fingers curled nervously against her hips, filling Gabriel with a beat of remorse over her lack of scarf. He had no problem envisioning himself pulling a filmy bit of silk from her neck and using it to bind her wrists, leaving him free to explore every dip and valley of her luscious body. After addressing her stubborn determination to contract frostbite.

  As if she had a direct link to his thoughts—hell, maybe she would; it wasn’t that uncommon for mated werewolf pairs to share a mental bond along with physical—she tucked her hands under her arms and cleared her throat gently.

  “Can I come in? It’s colder out here than I’m used to these days. Plus, snow.”

  Gabriel shook himself and pushed the door wider. “Why did you drive in this? I would have picked you up. Or Forrest.”

  She tilted her head, gaze searching his face before settling on his eyes. “Would you have, really? I mean, thank you for sending him after me earlier, but would you really have asked him to bring me back here? Sometimes I think you’re only willing to deal with me when I throw myself at you.”

  She injected a note of lightness into her words but Gabriel didn’t buy it. All he saw was the pain darkening her eyes.

  “It isn’t like that.”

  “Yeah?” She whispered. “How is it like?”

  He fucking surrendered. “Come in here and I’ll tell you. Show you, if you need that too.”

  Pursing her lips, Joy eyed the narrow space he’d made in the doorway. “Do you want to back up some so I don’t have to climb all over you to get in?”

  “No,” he replied honestly. “I want you rubbing your body against mine.”

  Her breath hitched. “Well.”

  Gabriel didn’t respond, nor did he rush her decision. The cold didn’t bother him much. He itched to yank her in out of the frigid weather but it was more important that she make up her mind without him rushing her into something she probably wouldn’t do if she were actually aware of what was coming.

  He knew the instant she made her decision. Angling sideways, she eased into the tight space he’d left for her. Her breasts compressed against his chest as she squeezed past, and even though she held her stomach in, the soft roundness caressed his cock. The muscles in his thighs jumped, urging him to rock forward and grind against her feminine heat. He locked his body down, knowing that path would take them straight past the place where they needed to have a discussion of the facts.

  The fact that he was a werewolf, and if he let himself—when he let himself really touch her, he wouldn’t stop until he made her a werewolf, too.

  “Gabriel.” Her whisper teased his neck.

  Swallowing a curse, he curved his hands around her hips and tugged her the rest of the way into the house.

  “There’s only one way we’re going to get all the way through the talk we need to have,” he said, closing the door.

  Joy lifted her eyebrows, silently encouraging him to continue.

  “Hell, there’s no way around this,” he muttered, scrubbing his face. “Okay, beautiful. Let’s go.”

  *

  “This is your bedroom.” Joy hesitated on the threshold of the room that smelled so much like Gabriel, she wanted to throw herself onto the large bed and bury her nose in the rumpled green comforter.

  “It’s the only room with both a ground-level window and a lock on the inside.”

  “Those are…odd requirements for a chat. Am I going to need a door that locks from the inside and a ground-level window?”

  “Maybe.”

  His tone was so serious that she turned to look at him. “What’s going on here? My dad said…” She trailed off, because he hadn’t really said anything.

  Gabriel’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t purse her dropped thought. “Just an explanation that’s long overdue. I want you in here where I can’t get derailed by your big eyes or soft lips, or your—”

  “Derailment in progress,” she said, smiling despite her nervousness.

  “My point.” He angled his head at the window. “So the lock’s for me. With a locked door between us, I’ll have a fighting chance at saying what I need to say instead of putting my mouth all over you. The window, that’s for you, because you might want a way out of here that doesn’t involve going through me. You should use it if…well, if you feel like you need a way out.”

  “Um…I don’t know about this. It’s more than a little weird, you know?”

  His lips kicked up at the corners. “I know. Close the door, Joy. Don’t forget to lock it.”

  “Okay,” she whispered. Gabriel stepped back into the hall and, after a moment’s hesitation, she closed the door.

  “Lock it,” he reminded.

  Blowing out a long breath, she thumbed the twist-style lock on the knob.

  The floorboards in the hall creaked as Gabriel paced. Joy stared at the closed door for a minute before turning to study the bedroom. Except for the intoxicating smell of him, this room wasn’t a lot different from the others in his house. Neat but lived in. Personal but…not.

  A glint of something on the nightstand caught her eye.

  “Huh,” she whispered, studying the 5x7 frame angled toward the bed. Maybe Gabriel had some sentimental attachments after all.

  Before she could cross to look at the picture, he stopped pacing.

  “I know this town is about all you know of the world,” he said, “but it’s not all of the world.”

  Irritation flared in her chest. She went back to the door. “I’m not going to have this talk with you again. It’s not all about me.”

  “No, you’re right. There used to be wolves around the lakes. Can you remember them?”

  “Yeah, of course. There still are. Forrest said their numbers are way down, but I don’t know about that. I saw one today, almost right on top of me.” She bit her lip, waiting for a shiver of fear. Only now realizing she hadn’t been afraid at all that morning. The fear hadn’t come until later. “I heard at least two howling way off while I was brushing the snow off my car.”

  “You heard wolves tonight?” he asked sharply.

  “Yeah. I mean, I guess they could have been dogs but they didn’t sound like dogs. Maybe a pack a few miles out?”

  “Maybe.” But he didn’t sound convinced.

  “Yeah, um, maybe. So, you were saying?”

  A light thump jarred the door. Joy pictured Gabriel dropping his head against it. She wanted to go out to him, was reaching for the knob when his voice cut through the wood.

  “Whatever you heard, there aren’t many wolves left out there. Winters are longer and longer. The cold drives them away to find game, and then there are diseases. A few come back to bear an
d raise young, but more than that don’t.”

  “Oh.” What more could she say?

  “The hunt for food doesn’t take all of them. Some go looking for a mate. Not many find her.”

  That word—mate—stroked down her spine as if Gabriel had touched her himself.

  “I’ve heard wolves mate for life,” she said weakly.

  The door groaned under Gabriel’s weight. “Werewolves do.”

  The words were clear. Carefully distinct. And something sucked all the air from the room. Weirdly calm, she walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. The framed photo caught her eye and squeezed at her heart. It wasn’t really a photo but a blown-up newspaper clipping of an ad her father had run a few years earlier. Sutton Hardware was a family business. To prove it, she’d stepped behind the register as a model for the ad. It probably should have been creepy, discovering that her face was what Gabriel saw before he went to sleep, but mostly she was sad. And no longer willing to play this stupid game of keep-away.

  “So,” she said. “Werewolves. Werewolves who mate with humans.”

  Silence crept through the seams of the door.

  No, no, no. There wasn’t time for silence anymore. Needing an answer from him, she put the picture frame back on the night stand and popped off the bed. A moment later, she flipped the lock and jerked the door open.

  Gabriel stood with his hands braced on the top of the doorframe. The muscles in his chest strained at his shirt and his ribs heaved with his harsh, ragged breaths. The shadows in the hall made his hair blacker than night as he hung his head between his bulging biceps, not looking at her.

  He looked savage, more than half wild. She wanted to touch him so badly, she couldn’t have articulated her desire if she tried.