“I don’t know. She looked serious to me.” I wanted to believe him, but he’d failed to pick up on the same undertones of our conversation with Kelsey as I had. Sure, they were from the same pack, but did he really know her all that well? “You said you grew up together?”
“Yeah. She was a pack baby.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What’s a pack baby?” I’d only just been allowed into the pack clearing for the first time two weeks ago. I still had a lot to learn. More than I liked.
He shifted uncomfortably and looked away. “You know my pack has too many alphas?” At my nod, he continued, “Sometimes after a run, if a wolf is in heat things get a little...crazy.”
It took me a second to catch his meaning and when I finally understood, my eyes went wide and my mouth dropped open. “Isn’t that rape?”
He shook his head. “Human logic doesn’t apply to wolves brimming with too many hormones for their own good. My dad was there, he witnessed the whole thing. She got lost in her heat and was a more than willing participant. Dad tried to stop it, but things spun out of control very quickly.”
“Does that mean she could be your sister?” I put a hand to my mouth shocked at the idea.
“No, I doubt it. Dad’s the pack alpha. He could fight his wolf’s instincts.” Jackson paused for a moment and then said, “Anyway, because we didn’t know who the father was, she became a pack baby. She belonged to everyone and we all took care of her, especially my momma.”
“What about her mom?” I asked remembering the odd exchange back at the bar. There was some painful history there.
Jackson’s expression darkened. “She was married and her husband didn’t like that fact that some other wolf knocked her up. She had as little to do with Kelsey as possible.”
“Oh wow.” I felt a small amount of sympathy for Kelsey. “We don’t do that kind of stuff up here.” There was no post change orgy, ever, and, if you were mated, you didn’t sleep around. Jackson’s pack sounded like a Las Vegas bender compared to Huntsville.
Jackson nodded. “I know. Every pack is different. If you had all the alphas we do, you might.”
I tried to picture our pack with a bunch of alphas running loose, but failed. We’d never had more than one or two alphas at a time. The whole reason Jackson came to Hunstville was because there was no one to step into Cal’s place. Since our pack alpha was pushing seventy, he’d been concerned enough to reach out to other packs in search of a successor.
Jackson put his hands on my shoulders. I let him come close this time. “Listen, I don’t want to talk about Kelsey or Vicki anymore. In fact, I don’t want to talk at all.” He leaned down to kiss me.
“They shook me, Jackson,” I murmured as I pulled away from his mouth. “Both of them, like a one-two punch.”
“I know. I could see it in your eyes, but you are my mate. You can feel our bond, right?”
I nodded.
“That’s the truth of us.”
I waved my ringless hand at him. “But this is the truth too.” I knew we were mated down to my marrow, my every heartbeat sang of our bond, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t be torn apart. He could walk away or I could even be forced out. It was rare for a mating to be disrupted, but it did happen. With wolves like Kelsey and Vicki at my door, I was afraid of what might happen.
He grabbed my hand and lifted it to his lips. “You want a ring?” He kissed my knuckles in turn, his lips soft, his breath hot.
I shivered. “I want everything, Jacks.”
He folded his hand around mine and pressed it against his chest. “Then I’ll give you everything.”
Chapter Five
My clothes melted off my body as I finally succumbed to Jackson’s sweet seduction. I’d been fooling myself if I thought I could resist him. We were mated which meant our bodies sought each other out like magnets.
We passed through the house in a blur of urgent kissing. By the time we reached the bedroom, I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the pure need throbbing between my legs. A haze of hot lust consumed all my worries and concerns.
The mattress jiggled as he tossed me onto the bed, and he paused to take off his clothes before joining me. I watched him disrobe, my gaze tracing the hard lines of his muscles. His skin was still tinted caramel from the summer sun. The color tempted me to lick him and see if he was as sweet as he looked.
Covering me with his body, which ran warm as an electric blanket, he nuzzled the nape of my neck. I did the same and we inhaled each others’ scents for several long minutes. Jackson smelled like fresh earth and pine with a faint undertone of clean soap. He told me once that I smelled like honeysuckle and mud.
I’d been offended when he’d first told me that. Mud? What girl wants to be told she stinks like mud? But then I realized I really liked the scent of wet dirt. True, it wasn’t Chanel No. 5, but, with my enhanced wolf senses, it smelled of earth, water and growing things. Mud held potential and the promise of growth. I liked that.
Once we taken in our fill of each other’s musk, Jackson moved to kiss me. His tongue traced mine with long strokes. I moaned and thrust my body up into his. My desire was fierce, burning me from the inside out. Fisting my hands in his thick hair, I tried to take over the kiss, but he was not having it and deftly pinned my arms overhead.
“Tonight is on me.” He flashed a wicked smile that promised dark delights.
My breath came short and I tingled with delicious anticipation. I was about to be taken by my alpha and my wolf whole-heartedly approved. She actually howled with glee inside my head. When Jackson’s wolf sauntered into my mind’s eye and head-butted her shoulder, she visibly quivered. His wolf smirked knowingly.
On the human side of things, Jackson kissed me and nudged my thighs apart with one knee. His hard shaft skimmed my belly as he moved down my body. I spread my legs with an eager smile, but he didn’t take me then. Instead, he kept moving down until his head was even with my core.
Jackson’s tongue breached my core with soft, quick flicks that teased and satisfied nothing. I gasped, my hips arching up in a futile effort to increase the pressure. Jackson chuckled deep in his throat and pushed my hips firmly down into the mattress. With me restrained, he could have his way with me and I couldn’t stop him.
I wouldn’t want to anyway. How could I protest when I knew the mind-blowing pleasure he was about to bestow upon me? That didn’t keep me from whimpering though, when he drew things out, raising hot pleasure inside me and then leaving me to hang without any release.
When I gave an impatient sigh, Jackson said, “I’m going to take my time, babe. You can fight me all you want, but I’m going to take what I want, when I want it.” He then dipped his tongue back into my sweet spot, finally giving me the pressure I craved. He tormented me with it, giving me just enough to almost reach the peak and then backing off before I could climax.
Need clawed through my senses, sparking sensation in every nerve and running in desperate loops throughout my nervous system, trying to find an escape. My hips writhed against the firm prison of his hands, frantic to find an escape.
“Jackson,” I keened.
“Chloe,” he said, his mouth still against my flesh so that his voice rumbled through my epicenter like an earthquake. Just my name on his lips put me a little closer to the edge.
My hands clutched the sheets, twisting them into handles that would keep me from flying apart. “Do that again,” I begged.
“What?” He lifted his head and arched an eyebrow at me. “You mean this?” He ducked back down and his tongue found my center again. “My mate,” he growled, stretching the words out until they were impossibly long.
“Yes, that,” I managed to say before my voice disappeared into a scream as I exploded.
It didn’t stop there. In the last two weeks, Jackson had learned my body and he knew he could push me back up the peak once more. His tongue stroked me, first in a soothing caress that allowed me to ride the orgasm without interference, but, a
s it faded, he changed tactics. Instead of soothing, he demanded.
“Are you mine?” he asked. His commanding touch left my body taut under the strain of it all.
“Yes,” I hissed. Every muscle in my body quivered.
“Forever,” he said as he nipped at me with his teeth, giving the vibration of his voice an edge. The contact was gentle, yet rough at the same time and it electrified me.
“Yours,” I said. Goose bumps pinched my skin and my nipples stiffened.
He wrapped his lips around my nub and sucked. I blew apart once again, a wave of pleasure obliterating the tension.
Before I was done coming, he entered me with one smooth thrust. Leaning down, he took my nipple into his mouth and lashed it with his tongue. I bucked at the new sensations piling onto the aftershocks of my orgasm.
It was too much.
It wasn’t enough.
“This is all that matters, right Clo?” He slammed into me for emphasis.
All I could do was nod.
“Vicki will never have this. And Kelsey never thought of me this way. You’re my mate, no one else. Understood?” Another slam hit me as he sank deep into my core.
I nodded again and he leaned down to kiss me, his warm chest pressing into my breasts, the hair their teasing my nipples. Then he went to my neck and after planting a soft kiss, he bit me. Hard.
It hurt, but I didn’t care. The pain just heightened the pleasure of being claimed.
He pulled back after a moment leaving my neck stinging. “There, you’re marked as my mate.”
I wrapped my legs around him. “Jackson?”
“Yeah?”
“Stop talking and fuck me already.” It was time to come again.
“You sound impatient. Am I getting to you?” He grinned, liking the idea.
He was under my skin, in my head and buried inside me, of course he got to me. I just squeezed him with my legs, pulling him deeper yet. When I started contracting my core around him, he lost the ability to make smart ass remarks. His dark eyes glazed and his breathing came fast. Sweat slicked our skins as we both chased release.
Jackson had the endurance of an athlete, but no one can last forever. His climax burst in a hot wave and triggered my own. We shuddered into each other, lost and found at the same time.
When we recovered, I snuggled up against his side and he laid a possessive arm over me.
“Jacks?”
“Yes, baby?” His voice was full of drowsy satisfaction.
“What if I am an Omega wolf?” I bit my lip knowing he would hate the question as much as I did. It was just that I’d always assumed my parents’ deaths had set me back, but what if that wasn’t it. What if I’d been delayed because I was weak?
He sighed. “We’re talking about this again?”
“I just...what if I am?”
“You can’t be. We wouldn’t be mated.” He gave me a squeeze. “It doesn’t matter, Clo. It’s not true and I’m not letting you go.”
I wanted to say more, but he stopped me. “Look, you either believe in us or you don’t. Are we mated?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then that’s all you need to know.” He rolled over then and fell asleep.
Still awake, I stared up at the ceiling alone with my worries, which came roaring back without the distraction of sex. I knew we were mated, Jackson knew we were mated, but why didn’t anyone else believe it?
Chapter Six
Morning came with the sound of loud knocking at our door. Jackson and I both jerked upright at the noise. For a second, I was disoriented. My sleep had been dreamless, my body humming with deep satisfaction. Being thrust into abrupt consciousness hurt.
“Jackson,” yelled the familiar voice of Cal. He sounded upset.
“Coming,” Jackson shouted back. He didn’t bother to get dressed; wolves didn’t care about nudity and the urgency in Cal’s voice said this was not a social visit.
Bed sheet clutched around my body, I trailed after Jackson to the front door. I hadn’t been a wolf long enough to lose my human sense of modesty. Being naked in the pack clearing didn’t bother me, but, in a more human environment like my home, I struggled with shyness. Sometimes I worried I’d been human too long.
“What’s up, man?” Jackson covered a yawn and wiped sleep out of his eyes.
Cal didn’t bother to step inside the house. Outside, I could hear his car still running. His usual scent of tobacco and warm green grass filled the air. He always smelled like he’d just cut the lawn while puffing an expensive cigar, but just then there was also a dark undertone of worry to his scent. “Tonya’s missing.”
“She go out on a run last night?” Jackson asked. Sometimes wolves lost track of time and dawdled until people panicked. The thing was, people worried about schedules while wolves followed whatever enticing scent crossed their path.
Cal shook his head. “No. She was with James until midnight. He said she was asleep when he left. The bar called me when she didn’t show for the breakfast shift.”
I frowned at that. “She was working? We were supposed to go to Nashville together at nine.”
Call just shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she picked up an extra shift or was planning to cut out early.”
“What about her cell phone?” Jackson asked.
The alpha’s mouth thinned out into a grim line. “No answer. So I went out to her place and it’s all tore up. Front door’s been kicked in and she’s gone.”
Jackson stiffened and his eyes narrowed. He was wide awake now. So was I and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Huntsville didn’t have crime. Everyone here was pack and you didn’t turn on pack unless you wanted to die. Either something had gone really badly between wolves, or a stranger was on our land.
“Let me put on some clothes and I’ll meet you there,” Jackson said.
“You do that. I’m going to round up some of the boys, see if they can sniff out a trail.” Cal turned and headed back to his truck.
Jackson wasted no time getting dressed and I followed suit. For a second day in a row, it looked like my plans to shop for a wedding dress would fall through. I tried not to read any bad omens into the pattern, but couldn’t quite shake a sense of foreboding either.
Tonya had made an overture last night. What if someone wanted to punish her for that? My thoughts went right to Vicki, but I dismissed the idea. Vicki was nasty, but I failed to see how hurting Tonya would further her agenda. She wanted me gone, not Tonya.
Shrugging off my suspicions, I followed Jackson out the door. He stopped short, aware of me following him. “Not a good idea, Clo,” he said, putting a hand up to stop me.
“What?” Cal’s wife, Betty, died when I was nine, but I remembered how she often stood at her husband’s side. On the rare occasions he was out of town, she led the pack in his place. Because of my rank as alpha’s mate, I had a responsibility to the pack. I wasn’t about to stay home. That’s not what an alpha’s mate did.
Jackson didn’t have that memory, though. Perhaps in his pack things were different, I didn’t know.
“Stay here,” he said.
“And do what? Twiddle my thumbs.” I tapped my nose. “I can help track her.”
He frowned. “I want you safe which means you stay home.”
I huffed at him and crossed my arms. “You can leave me behind, but I’m not a dog. I don’t sit and stay.” I shrugged. “Either take me with you or I’ll go on my own.”
He gripped my shoulders and shook me. “I’ll take your truck keys.”
I lifted my chin and stared into his eyes. How dare he think he could tell me what to do? “I’ll change and pitter-patter over there on four feet. Seriously, Jackson, I’m not a child. Don’t treat me like one.”
“I’m your alpha.” His voice carried a growl now. He was mad. Good, so was I.
I gave a sigh of exasperation. “First of all, Cal is my alpha, not you, not yet. Second, the pack sees us as a unit. You leave me behind often eno
ugh and no one else will value me either.” I pushed his hands away. “Is that what you want for me? Is that what your mother did?”
“No.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “I just want to keep you safe, away from whoever kicked in Tonya’s door.”
The sincerity of the concern in his voice softened my anger toward him. I understood the desire to keep me safe. I felt the same way about him. More gently, I said, “We won’t be alone and if you can’t protect me there’s no hope for anyone in this pack.”
My logic finally prevailed and he gave a curt nod. “All right. But do what I say.”
I snorted. “Come on, Jacks. That’s over the top.”
“Hey, remember you’re a new wolf, babe. Running wild is a fast way to get hurt. Just listen to me, okay? It’s for your own safety.”
“Okay,” I said after a long pause where I tried to find something wrong with his logic and failed. God, it sucked being a baby wolf in an adult body. My wolf needed to grow up like yesterday. She gave me a curt nod of total agreement. Neither one of us liked being curtailed.
He picked up the keys to his truck and tucked his wallet into the back pocket of his jeans. “Come on. I’ll buy you coffee down at the gas station. I have a feeling we’re going to need all the caffeine we can get.”
* * *
Tonya lived out in the woods in one of the few houses that didn’t cluster around the town center. Wolves don’t want to be separated from their packs and liked close neighbors, but the occasional lone wolf wanted more distance. I wasn’t sure how Tonya felt as she’d inherited the house from her great-aunt. She always seemed social enough to me. Everyone knew her and appeared to like her well enough, which made her disappearance all the more chilling.
As we pulled into her driveway, we saw the damage. Tonya’s door had been kicked in, left to hang askew on splintered wood. Jackson parked his truck and we both hopped out. We didn’t speak, but the glance we exchanged spoke volumes. Something really violent had happened here and it made us uneasy.
My hackles on high alert, I gingerly made my way to her porch, stepping over pieces of broken wood along the way. The porch was new and made of white pine. Tonya had added some nice wicker rocking chairs and a few plants. The chairs now rested on their sides and the pots were a smashed mess of terracotta and dirt. Running my hand over the warped door frame, I inhaled the frigid morning air, wincing as a pungent, unpleasant scent filled my sinuses.
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