by Amy Green
“Sure you did,” Brody said. “And maybe it worked, for a while. But not now. Because here I am.” He looked around at his brothers. “Here we all are. And all you’ve managed to do is piss us off.”
Archer squirmed. “We can—”
“Shut up,” Brody said. “Everyone is sick of listening to you. You humans—just talk, talk, talk all the time. Why don’t you ever stop talking long enough to listen?”
Archer went still. Brody could feel the fear coming off of him, could hear him breathing. He stayed in his crouch and looked up at the moon for a minute, thinking. Putting his words together. Then he turned back to the men.
“There’s a way out of this,” he told them. “Only one. Otherwise, my brothers and I will kill you, and no one will ever find your bones.”
“Oh, God,” MacKenzie said.
Brody looked at him levelly. “That’s how you know a werewolf didn’t do your other two kills, Sherlock,” he said. “When we kill, we don’t leave the bodies behind. Now listen. Are you listening?”
Both men nodded.
“Say it.”
“I’m listening,” MacKenzie said. Archer echoed him.
Brody sighed. “That will have to do. Like I say, there’s one way out of this for you two. And that’s to start acting like good neighbors.” He looked at the surprise on their faces. “Yes, idiots. We’re neighbors. Have been for a hundred years. And we’ve always gotten along like neighbors have. You don’t piss in my yard, and I don’t piss in yours. Am I right?”
Silence. Ian approached Brody and butted his forehead against Brody’s shoulder, impatient. Brody put a hand on his brother’s snout and patted it, then dropped his hand.
“My brothers don’t like this,” he explained. “They’d rather I let you go, so they can hunt you through the woods. That’s fun for us wolves. But this is my offer instead. You leave us the fuck alone, we leave you the fuck alone. It’s that simple.”
Mayor Archer’s voice was small and desperate. He was shivering with cold now. “I… I think we can do that,” he said. “We can make a deal.”
“You thought it would be easy,” Brody said. “Showing us shifters who’s boss. Well, it wasn’t. You can arrest us, you can come after us—but we’ll always win. We’re faster than you, smarter than you, and harder to kill. You can’t rule us any more than you can rule the ocean or the skies or the trees and put them all in prison. If you make enemies of us, we can kill you all without a minute’s remorse. So my suggestion to you is to make allies of us instead.”
“Whatever you want,” Mayor Archer said. “Anything at all.”
“Jesus, Mike, shut up,” MacKenzie said. “Didn’t you hear him?”
“Listen to your sheriff,” Brody said. “And consider this. Carson Dunne, with all of his bullshit so-called testimony, is dead. We can be enemies, or we can be neighbors. You’ve seen us shifters up close. Think about what it would be to fight us. And then think about what it would be to call on us when you need us. Which one would you rather have?”
“It sounds fine to me,” MacKenzie said. “I’d rather not have any of you in my jail cells, scaring my cops. But Mike has an election to win.”
Brody shook his head. “You promised the people of Pierce Point that you’d keep them safe from shifters. Tell them you tamed us. I really don’t care. It’s just as good a story as the other one. Maybe even better. Makes you look more heroic. Got it?”
“I got it,” Archer said. “I got it.”
“Then you leave us the fuck alone, as I previously stated. We clear?”
Both men nodded.
Brody scratched his beard. Fuck, he hated the thing—he didn’t know how his brothers lived with them. “If anyone comes after me for escaping, the deal is off and you’re both dead within an hour. My brothers will see to that. They all like to kill more than I do. I’m the only one keeping them in line, and even I have trouble sometimes.” Heath’s wolf growled. “Be quiet,” Brody told him.
“Deal,” Mayor Archer said. “We have a deal.”
“Agreed,” said Sheriff MacKenzie. “We have a deal.”
Brody stood and ripped the bonds tying each man’s hands. “Go home,” he said.
The men got up, stumbling and shivering. “We don’t know where we are,” MacKenzie protested.
Brody sighed. Humans were so fucking clueless. “Go that direction,” he said, pointing west toward Pierce Point. “And do it fast, before my brothers feel like hunting you, no matter what I say.”
The men began to run—slow and hobbling at first, then faster. They disappeared into the trees. The three wolves disappeared into the trees, too, but minutes later Brody’s brothers strolled back out in human form, putting their clothes on.
“That went well,” Heath commented.
“A pretty good show,” Ian said in a growl. “Even though it was mostly lies.”
Brody shrugged. He’d had no intention of killing either man. Werewolves never hunted humans; it was against their nature, so his brothers would never have hunted the men and hidden their bodies. But sometimes you had to say what you had to say to get results. Between lying and killing, lying was the lesser sin. “They believed it,” he said. “That’s what matters.”
“You think they’ll really leave us alone?” Devon said.
“I think so,” Brody said. “We pretty much scared them shitless.”
Heath brushed his hands off. “A good night’s work,” he said. “Plus we got Brody out of research hell. I wish I could have seen that fence go off.”
“It was good,” Brody said. “Shep did a good job. So did Devon with the shirt. So did all of you.”
Ian clapped him on the shoulder. “I, for one, am going home.”
“I owe you,” Brody said to his brothers, making himself say the words. “Thank you.”
“We owe you,” Devon said, “for putting Charlie down.”
Brody looked away. They knew now. Of course they did.
“I always said,” Heath said easily, “that whoever killed Charlie should get a parade and a monument in the middle of downtown. And I was only half joking. I might just do it.”
“I agree,” Devon said. “I’d have done it myself if I had half your balls.” He nodded. “Now you should probably go home to your mate. She’s waiting.”
He was right. Brody was free, and the work was done.
Finally, it was time to go home.
23
Alison was supposed to stay inside, but she couldn’t stand it anymore. After an hour sitting alone in the house, on one of the sofas, trying not to think about what was happening miles away, she finally got up and went outside.
It was cold at night. She pulled on a zip-up sweatshirt over her t-shirt and put boots on before sliding open the glass door and stepping out behind the house. The stars were like sparks in the crystal clear night sky, the moon high and sharp. The trees waved in the brush of cold wind, and other than that, there was no other sound.
Brody, where are you?
Had it gone according to plan? They’d worked it out so carefully. What if there was a problem along the way? What if Brody hadn’t escaped in time, or they recaptured him? What if they hurt him or killed him? What if one of the other brothers was caught doing his own part of the plan? She felt so useless—so weak and impossibly human. She couldn’t change into an animal or climb a fence or knock a man unconscious. She was slow and made too much noise. She was also pregnant, and the Donovan brothers were adamant she should take no risks. So she had to stay here and wait.
It was awful. She was getting used to being an alpha now—making decisions, taking action. Even though it was hard, the waiting was harder. She wanted to be doing something, right now.
She walked out into the trees, going west. He would come from this direction, she thought. If everything went all right. Soon she was in the woods, the trees arching above her like a cathedral. The air was sharp and cold and tasted good. Alison was a Shifter Falls girl—she would never lea
ve this place. Colorado was in her blood. Shifter Falls was in her blood. And now, Brody Donovan was in her blood.
She paused and looked back to see the house behind her. It sat dark and beautiful, the angles of the roof mimicking the angles of the mountains. There was a yellow light in the living room she’d just left, beyond the big windows. It was the perfect place, except someone was missing. Alison shivered and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Alison,” Brody said.
She whirled and he came out of the darkness. He was wearing only jeans and a t-shirt, his feet bare. He had a beard, dark and wild, changing the shape and the look of his face. But it was him.
He stepped forward and pulled her to him. She ran her hands over the bare skin of his arms, feeling the cold on him, even though he couldn’t feel it. He cupped her face in his big hands and kissed her.
He was back.
Alison kissed him, long and hard, like he belonged to her. She kissed him like he was hers. She wound her arms around his neck as he slid his hands down her back, his touch taking her in. His beard was strange against her skin, rough and very, very masculine.
Brody broke the kiss. “Are you okay?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she said. She ran her hands over his jaw, his shoulders. “Did they hurt you?”
He smiled a little in the dark, one of his rare smiles that made her knees weak. “They tried. But no, I’m fine.”
She shivered. She didn’t know what they tried meant, but she would get him to tell her later. She wanted to know all of it, even the hard parts. “Did everything else go all right?”
“Perfect,” he said, and he kissed her again. This kiss quickly went deeper, and Alison felt the insistent pulse between her legs that she always got in Brody’s presence. She opened her mouth and licked him, and in response he bent his knees and hefted her up, her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his neck, and started to walk back toward the house.
She pressed her cheek to his neck as he walked. She could feel his body move like this, just like she had the day he’d carried her up the ridge. It was the best thing, feeling Brody’s amazing body move. Like this, and in bed, where she knew they were going. Thank God.
“You’re crying,” he said.
“I’m just happy,” she said, blinking the tears back. Was she going to be a waterworks for nine months? Well, that was too bad. The Donovans were going to have a weepy alpha until this baby was born.
He walked her to the house, opened the sliding door, and stepped inside. Without putting her down, he closed the door again and carried her up the stairs. She remembered that he’d just been locked up in God knew what conditions for weeks. “Are you hungry?” she asked him. “Do you need a shower?”
“Be quiet,” he said. “We’re going to bed.”
She smiled against his neck.
He took her to the bedroom and put her on her back on the bed. He moved to take her clothes off, but she was first. She pulled up the t-shirt and took it off him, running her hands over his neck and chest, looking for scars. He was protective of her, she knew, but she was also protective of him. If anyone had hurt him, they would have her to answer to.
He was thinner than before, but he was still powerful and strong, packed with muscle. He had such a gorgeous body, she hadn’t had time to get enough of it. He leaned down and kissed her again, interrupting her inspection. “Sorry about the beard,” he said when he broke off. “I hate it. I’ll shave it as soon as I can.”
“It’s sexy,” she teased, brushing it with her fingertips. “Wolfish.”
In response, he leaned down and nipped the side of her neck, making her squeal. While she was distracted, he pulled her shirt up and off, then reached behind her and unclasped her bra. He ran his hands over her breasts, which had already started to feel different, oddly sensitive. “Are you healthy?” he asked seriously. “You and the baby?”
“You’re robbing me of my fun,” she teased again, arching up into his touch and trying not to sigh. “By the way, Brody, I’m pregnant.”
“Thanks for telling me,” he said, bending to kiss her nipple, which just about shot her off the bed. Yes, her breasts were definitely sensitive. “Is everything okay?” he asked again.
“Everything is fine,” Alison said. “I take more naps, and I’ve only thrown up once so far. I’m emotional, though. Your brothers have been nice about it, but it makes them uncomfortable.”
“I bet,” Brody said. He kissed down her body, brushing his hands and his lips on her stomach, and then undid her jeans. “They’re off duty now, though. I’m here to look after you.” He slid her jeans and underwear down her legs, pulled off her boots, then pulled off everything else. He was intent now, serious as always. “I’ve been thinking about this for weeks,” he said, kissing his way up the inside of her knee, her thigh, pushing her legs apart. “Every minute.”
She touched his hair. “Me too,” she said, and then, when he kissed her there, “Oh, my God. My God.”
In minutes, he had her begging. He pushed off his own jeans, then kissed his way up her body again, using his hands to firmly wrap her legs around him. When he pushed inside her, it felt like the best thing in the world. She held on and let him do what he wanted, which turned out to be sweet and hard and incredibly pleasurable, and then she came, just like that. She should probably play hard to get with Brody one of these days, but today was not that day.
He moved swifter, harder, taking her now, and then he came, too. Then he pulled the covers around them and lay next to her, spent and resting, as the wind tossed the trees outside.
Alison rolled on her back. “I love you,” she said.
He kissed her jaw, her shoulder. “I love you more than life itself,” he said simply, and her heart twisted in her chest.
“I had to tell your brothers about Charlie,” she said. “About the house. I’m sorry, but I had to.”
“I know,” he said, stroking her arm. “You did fine.”
“I burned the house down.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate that. It saves me from having to do it.”
She tried not to sigh in relief. “There was money in it. A big stash of it. We didn’t burn the money, but we don’t know what to do with it.”
Brody was quiet for a second, still stroking her arm. “I can think of a few things,” he said. “Carson Dunne left a daughter he was trying to help. That’s why he was selling drugs. We’ll discuss it in the morning.”
But she wasn’t done. “I didn’t tell anyone about the way the letters jumble,” she said. “No one knows.”
“Then I’ll tell them myself,” Brody said simply. “It’s time. Things are different now. I have nothing to hide anymore.”
Alison rolled over and pressed her cheek against his bare chest. “It’s really over?” she asked him. “They won’t come after you?”
Brody was quiet for a minute. “I think I convinced them it would be a bad idea,” he said. “We all did. So, yes. It’s over.”
“So now we start new,” she said. “You and me, and your brothers, and the pack. Now we go forward instead of looking back.”
He stroked her hair, and she felt his heart beating beneath her cheek. “Yeah,” he said in his low rumble of a voice. “Now we start new. Tomorrow is a new day.”
Epilogue
Eighteen Months Later
There were no rules to werewolf football. None that Alison could discern, anyway.
The game, such as it was, seemed to consist of standing in a sunny, dirty field outside the edge of town and throwing a football for four wolves to chase and fight over. It was a warm spring, but the ground was damp and cold, and when four huge werewolves trampled it, it soon became nothing but mud. Which only made the game better.
Alison gripped the football and looked for a likely catcher. Tessa was standing twenty feet away, her hands in the air. She was hugely pregnant, about to give birth any day, but she was still game and ready to catch, her big belly cas
ting a shadow in the sunshine. Anna was sitting in a folding chair on the sidelines—she was pregnant, too, but only in her first trimester, and the morning sickness was hitting her hard today. She gave a faint wave but didn’t get up.
Alison herself was four months pregnant with her second baby, but she had dodged morning sickness this time. She found Nadine, the only Donovan mate who wasn’t pregnant today—though Alison happened to know that she and Devon had been trying for weeks—running toward the trees, her hands up. “Me!” she shouted. “Here!”
Alison threw the ball. Nadine caught it and turned to sprint for the trees, her legs pumping hard. And then the wolves chased her.
Brody, Heath, Ian, and Devon were all in wolf form, and they all came from nowhere, speeding behind Nadine. “No fair!” Nadine shouted as they overtook her. She spun and threw the ball to Tessa, who moved as fast as she could—that was, not very fast—to catch it. The four wolves spun and headed for Tessa instead.
Tessa spun and threw to Alison, who threw to Nadine again, but this time Heath’s wolf leapt and caught the ball in midair. It was his turn to sprint toward the trees with the ball in his mouth, his brothers on his tail. The ensuing tackle ended up in a tangle of fur and mud, all four wolves wrestling until Ian broke away with the ball in his mouth. He ran to Anna and dropped it at her feet, his tongue hanging out.
Anna looked down at the ball—deflated, ripped nearly in half, covered in dirt and wolf slobber—and said, “Do we win?”
“Go!” came a delighted cry. Alison looked down at her daughter, Skylar, almost one and walking on her chubby legs into the middle of four huge werewolves. “Again!” she cried, waving her arms.
Alison opened the rubber tote on the sidelines and pulled out another football. “She says go again,” she told the Donovan brothers. “So we do it. Go!”
She threw the ball to Tessa this time, who threw it to Nadine. Nadine only got three feet before Devon tackled her—gently, of course, for a two-hundred-pound wolf—and butted his head into her hip. She threw the ball back to Tessa and tackled Devon back, throwing herself onto his back and dropping him to the ground. They wrestled, Nadine shrieking with laughter, while Tessa threw the ball again.