Past My Defenses (Taming the Pack series) (Entangled Ignite)

by Wendy Sparrow

  “I said I’ll take care of it!” Jordan jerked a hand roughly through his hair and took a deep breath. “I’m Alpha. I’ll make sure it ends for all of us here. My pack comes first. I come last. If anyone knows the rules—I do.”

  He’d scent-matched with someone who was dead in front of him—someone he’d barely known. Vanessa swallowed and blinked back moisture in her eyes. He was probably wondering if he could have done something, if he’d known. She was thinking that, and she wasn’t exactly known for her empathy.

  This sucked.

  “Leave me,” Jordan whispered, too quiet for Dane to hear.

  “My inhaler,” she said again.

  As they were walking away, Jordan called over his shoulder, “Dane!”

  They stopped.

  Jordan took a deep breath. “I apologize for trying to kill you. Again. It was…rash.”

  Dane raised his eyebrows. “So, to be clear, you’re apologizing for both times?”

  Jordan threw a glare over his shoulder.

  “He said yes,” Vanessa said, rolling her eyes at both men. There was no way that was audible to a human.

  Dane nodded. “I’m not going to apologize for punching you in the head. Mostly because I enjoyed it too much, but also it was that or kill you.”

  Jordan looked upward as if asking for patience. “I wouldn’t expect it.” He rubbed his face. “I will be telling the pack that it was the poacher, though…and that I ripped out his throat for it.”

  Dane narrowed his eyes and then shrugged. It gave her hope that he was beginning to understand and accept their ways…grudgingly. “As long as you also tell them I didn’t miss shooting.”

  “No, you didn’t miss.” Jordan exhaled deeply.

  “I don’t think we should tell them it was Sammy.”

  Jordan shook his head. “There’s no reason to. No reason at all.”

  She pulled Dane with her. She glanced back in time to see Jordan drop his head onto the pelt of the mate he’d never know and heard him sigh raggedly.

  Dane stopped just inside the cabin. “I’m helping to cover up two homicides.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it was her. I can’t believe I killed her. I can’t believe any of it.”

  She nudged him inside. They could leave death outside. Their lives had been dogged by death for too long. It felt like time to be free. At least for them. It’d be a lifetime before Jordan got past today. But they could get beyond it.

  When the door of the cabin closed, she dragged her own mate close to her and said, “Tell me…us getting married…was that a ‘we’re going to die’ sort of question?”

  Dane grinned. “No, that’s an ‘I’m booking us flights to Reno just as soon as the FBI lets us. I’m not taking a chance that you’ll change your mind and run out on me.”

  She pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him…and then she whispered “zucchini” against his lips.

  He whispered back, “Banana wasn’t on the list,” then, a kiss later, “I love you anyway.”

  She laughed and wound her arms around his neck.

  Mine.

  His.

  Epilogue

  Dane ran his hands along Vanessa’s swollen belly from her ribs to the waistband of his boxers she was wearing bunched up underneath her stomach. He was lying beside her, his eyes on his wriggling, soon-to-be-born offspring. Leaning forward, he pressed a kiss on her stomach.

  “That tickles,” she murmured above him as she shoved a chocolate-covered marshmallow into her mouth.

  He shook his head with a smile. This was her second bag of marshmallows. “Maybe you should pace yourself.”

  “Oh, hell no. I’ll probably be allergic to these as soon as he’s born. I’m not taking a chance.” She dunked another marshmallow in the melted chocolate. It dribbled across her chin as she chomped it down. If she didn’t get that, he’d lick it off her in a moment. In fact, hopefully she wouldn’t use the entire bowl of chocolate on her marshmallows—but the first and last time he’d tried to take food away from her, she’d snarled and nearly shifted, and they’d been late for the pack’s meeting.

  “You’re sure it’s a he?”

  “Yep. Definitely.”

  “Do we really have to name him Jordan? Or was that him screwing with my head?”

  She laughed, making her stomach bounce around, and he saw a foot kick the side of her stomach. His son was a fighter already. That was good. Not that he wanted an alpha male in the family, but a kid as pathetic at being submissive as his mother wouldn’t be bad.

  “It is a tradition. By the way, Jordan says he knows you’re not really bowing your head during the meetings when you stand behind me. If my hair was longer it might cover that you’re trying to distract me by biting my neck. Also, he doesn’t know why I’m muttering spices under my breath, but that has to stop.” She shrugged. “At least we stand behind everyone else…and the pack is smaller since Travis split off with most of the contenders for Alpha. Liam was getting antsy—Travis is going to have to drop his act in order to stay on top.”

  “Troy.”

  “What?”

  “Troy is going to be the real problem for Travis.” Men knew better than women on these things.

  She didn’t agree, and her eyes narrowed for a moment. “Anyway, I think that’s worked in your favor.”

  “Jordan asked me to come to pack meetings.”

  “I think he hoped it would show that you’re no longer in this stubborn power struggle for me, but it’s really just proven neither of us is capable of going for long periods of time without…arguing.” Her eyes sparkled when she said it, and she smiled around a marshmallow she was eating.

  “We’re no longer in a power struggle because I won.” Did it really need to be said? Vanessa was spread across his bed—which they’d moved to her place—and she was huge as a house with his child.

  She sighed but didn’t rise to the bait. Her mouth dipped in a frown. “I don’t think celibacy agrees with Jordan.”

  Yeah, he was cranky as hell sometimes.

  “It agrees with the rest of us—his taste in women ran to psychopaths.”

  Her frown turned to a scowl, and her eyes narrowed.

  He handed her a marshmallow from the bag. “Other than you, of course—that’s why I don’t think it would have worked out. You weren’t planning on a killing spree.”

  She accepted the marshmallow but said, “You don’t think so, huh?”

  He laughed and kissed her stomach again. “Are you looking to start a fight before you finish this bag?” He’d assumed they’d wait until after he made them dinner, but dinner might be marshmallows for her. Last night, she’d only wanted fried zucchini.

  Her mouth twisted back and forth as she tried not to smile. “I wouldn’t dream of arguing with you.”

  “Too tired from the last time?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Aggie mentioned that we’re always the last to arrive and the first to leave at meetings lately. So, yeah, that’s been noticed. Then she winked at me. It was a little creepy coming from someone who could be my great-grandmother.”

  The pack seemed to find their…fervor amusing, and it didn’t seem to detract from Jordan’s place as a leader. That was probably why he put up with it with only the occasional halfhearted glares to the back of the room. At the last meeting, Ethan had patted Dane on the shoulder and said, “I remember when me and my mate were like that. It’s normal for Glacier pack males.”

  He felt…accepted. He didn’t always understand their ways, but they thought he was equally weird at times. Maybe that was more like a family than he’d given them credit for in the beginning.

  “Jordan’s middle name is Nathanial,” Vanessa said. She moaned in ecstasy as she dipped and bit into another marshmallow. He tried to ignore it…until she was done with them.

  “Oh, that’s a family name for me too.” He had a great-uncle named Nathanial. Well, that would make it easier to explain to his family, who’d been kept in the dark about thei
r new in-law’s furry side. He brushed a hand across her stomach. Nathanial. It felt right. He’d never growled it under his breath shortly after choice profanity, so there was that. “So, can you tell if he’s Lycan?”

  Another marshmallow went into her mouth before she answered. She was determined to gorge herself during this weird reprieve from some of her allergies that the pregnancy hormones had allowed her. Her theory was that if she ate enough maybe she wouldn’t want them if her allergy came back. “No, we won’t know for sure until puberty. Does it matter?”

  “Well, it’d be nice to have someone to run beside you and keep track of you.”

  She immediately set the bowl and bag of marshmallows to the side and slid down beside him. “Oh, you are going to have so much sex for that.”

  He laughed. He loved this woman so much. Allergies, snoring, furry side, and all. Leaning forward, he licked the stripe of chocolate from her chin. Inhaling, she moaned and caught his mouth with hers.

  “I like being pregnant,” she whispered against his mouth.

  “I like you being pregnant.” He’d never heard of a woman being healthier while she was pregnant, but other than a few stubborn allergies—and the snoring—his mate wasn’t so high-maintenance anymore. Her medicine cabinet could have shrunk to one shelf if they trusted that it was going to last.

  “I’ll be in heat again a few months after Nathanial is born.”

  “Mmm.” They’d managed to make it beyond that first fertile season even though they were newlyweds for the last few days of it, but she’d gotten pregnant immediately around their first anniversary.

  It was no wonder, really.

  Having a wife in heat for three weeks and two days was the most sexually sublime experience he could ever imagine—it was like every holiday rolled into one. Trying to keep her appetite for him sated had demanded Dane taking several vacation days and calling in sick from exhaustion twice. He used to look forward to March Madness, but this madness was a lot more intensive, and March might be his favorite month. There wasn’t a square inch of her house that hadn’t been used for carnal purposes. There was a corner near the fireplace that would forever make him smile nostalgically.

  “Mmm, you smell good.” Vanessa licked along his jaw as her hands started unbuttoning his shirt.

  If they did have a lot of kids, they’d be farmed out to his relatives for at least some of March. They could throw it under the heading of celebrating their anniversary. Thoroughly. So thoroughly.

  And if she wanted to spend three weeks and two days making babies—well, her allergy list was a lot shorter. They’d actually been able to go out to eat. At a restaurant. Without her asking for every ingredient on the side. If she wanted to hear the pitter-patter of little paws or feet constantly, he was willing to do his part to make that happen, though he might ask her again after their son was born. Any child of theirs would probably be a handful. He rubbed his hand across her belly again.

  Mine.

  Ours.

  She was gorgeous normally, but pregnancy had left her extra curvy and soft. He could spend hours stroking her skin. Mmm. He was more than willing to consider it—keeping her barefoot and pregnant sounded primitive, but she was barefoot most of the time anyway. Naked, too—you didn’t get much more primitive than that. “I don’t know. I sort of want your body back to the way it was.” He’d tell her it was a lie…later.

  “Oh, hell no. You did not just say that!” She smirked as she pushed him onto his back. She knew. Of course she knew. He’d been both physically and vocally appreciative of her body for seven months now. She’d have to be blind and deaf to not know—and she was preternaturally adept in both those areas, especially with her allergies tamed.

  Actually, that might be the only thing they’d managed to tame—her allergies, and possibly only temporarily. She was still as wild as she was when he’d caged her, except now, when she did run, it was usually to him, and the only thing chasing her these days was him—and she let him catch her. Most of the time.

  Leaning down, she whispered in his ear, “I’m going to make you pay for that—just like that one time in Reno.”

  Mmm. Hopefully they had enough chocolate syrup for that.

  Acknowledgments

  This story began, as all the best stories do, as a joke. I was on Twitter goofing off and bemoaning my terrible allergies, which had become a joke themselves. As I tossed around ridiculous storylines and plots with author friends (who I hope will come forward because I can’t remember your names to thank you) I tweeted that it would be funny to have a story about a shifter allergic to animals. Tweeting paused. Then, the LOLs poured in. I tweeted, “DIBS!” and that was that.

  Except it wasn’t.

  Thank you to everyone there that day on Twitter, but also those who asked me frequently how things were going with the “allergic shifter” story. It could have been a joke that faded, but my Twitter friends wouldn’t let it.

  Special thanks to: Kait Nolan, Andrew Turner, Richard Crawford, Sue London, Jennifer Spiller, L.K. Gardner-Griffe, Brittany Marczak, Amalia Dillin, Michael O’Day, Derik Hawkins, Jami Gold, Suzanne Lucero, Tina Sandoval, Natalie Murphy, Laina, Talia, and all my close friends on Twitter. Your support means everything to me, and it’s a blessing to have too many friends to name in this space. (I’ll catch the rest of you in the next book…)

  I also had Facebook friends pitch in to help with word choice. Heather New, you thought I was joking about thanking you here, didn’t you? I never joke. About anything. Thanks also to Lisa Moffat, Shannon Langland, Lisa Henson, Dave Grissom, Susan Bielski, Mary Williams, Kristy Osborne, Karen Echols, Cheri Chartier, Sarah Simonsen, and Nic Williams.

  Thank you, Stephanie Summers and Jenni, for letting me revise at Disneyland and helping me brainstorm.

  I have wonderful sisters who will beta anything I write because they’re awesome. Thank you, Heidi and Jaime.

  My most sincere of fist-bumps to Jay Donovan and his wife. Every time I needed you, Jay, you were magically not busy, despite being up to your ears in work. You’re a true friend.

  Entangled is home to wonderful and industrious people. Lewis Pollak, Erin Crum, and Terese Ramin all did so much for this book. Thank you, Entangled crew.

  My agent, Sarah Yake, puts up with many crazy emails—and I’m glad to have her looking out for me.

  Every romantic is searching for their happily-ever-after, but it’s not just between the pages of the book. Living with someone with living-in-a-bubble worthy allergies can’t be easy. (In fact, while researching for this book, I discovered I’m allergic to marshmallows.) My husband knows the dozens of things I’m allergic to. That’s true love right there. My husband and kids are the reason I write romance, and I can never thank them enough.

  About the Author

  Writing is in Wendy’s blood…which is also about thirty percent Mountain Dew and twenty percent chocolate brownies. Wendy has been telling tales since she was a child with varying amounts of success. Her parents clearly anticipated her forays into the paranormal because she heard “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” so many times she could have written the screenplay at age five. She lives with a wonderful husband and two quirky kids and is active in Autism and OCD support networks. She can usually be found on Twitter where she’ll talk to anyone who talks to her and occasionally just to herself.

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  Reviews help other readers find books. We appreciate all reviews, whether positive or negative. Thank you for reading!

  Other books by Wendy Sparrow

  Frosted

  On His List

  Cursed by Cupid

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