Prey to the Heart

by Kristen Banet

  “Abby,” Antonio growled softly in her ear. “Such a gorgeous doe.”

  One of his hands dipped down and touched her folds. Antonio growled louder in her ear at the realization she was wetter than the stream behind them. He stroked her clit once before sinking a finger inside her, causing her to gasp and break the kiss with Thomas, who grinned at her.

  He dropped down onto his knees in front of her and kissed her abdomen, then moved lower. He trailed kisses on her thighs and replaced Antonio’s hand at her center. Abigail threw her head back as Thomas licked her core, then shoved his tongue deep inside her. Antonio moved up and began to massage her breasts.

  James finally joined and claimed Abigail’s mouth for his own. She could smell how aroused they all were, how aroused she was. The game had brought out something she hadn’t expected, probably something they hadn’t expected either.

  She just went with it. She couldn’t bring herself to stop this sexual fantasy, this moment in the woods no one would have to ever know about.

  Antonio ground against her ass, pushing her forward, and Thomas growled into her core. It pushed her straight over the edge and she cried out as she came, one hand holding Thomas by his hair, the other holding on to James’ bicep. They all just held onto her as she shook, none of them stopping the gentle, possessive kissing they had been giving her.

  “Tell me, little doe,” Thomas asked, looking up to her. “Would you join the Pack if I asked you to? Because I think it would be good for you and for us.”

  She nearly said yes.

  That brought her back out of the adrenaline-induced sexual haze that she’d fallen into. Antonio and James must have noticed because they stopped touching her immediately and let her move away.

  “I should go,” Abigail said suddenly. Oh god. She’d nearly fallen into the worst decision of her life. More wolves. “I need to go.” She couldn’t do this again. She couldn’t get roped into more wolves. She couldn’t do this - not more wolves, not another Pack.

  “Abby?” James tried to catch her, but she shifted back into a doe and ran.

  She heard them trying to keep up but this time she ran as if her life depended on it, making a straight shot back to the house.

  She broke out of the trees and didn’t stop for her robe. She shifted back into human right before she hit the back porch and pushed inside their house, running to the room.

  She threw her clothes on and heard them coming inside.

  “Abigail,” Thomas sounded confused and hurt. “Abigail, we won’t go there again. Please, tell me what I did.”

  “Nothing,” she answered. “I just shouldn’t…” She shook her head.

  “Abigail,” Thomas said, stronger, “You could join the Pack and that’s all. That’s all I’m asking. You need a community. I’m just trying to offer that. What we were doing out there doesn’t need to be a part of it. It’ll never happen again.”

  “I can’t join the Pack,” Abigail whispered, tears flooding her eyes. She buttoned her pants and pulled her shirt over her head. She grabbed her bag and pushed past Thomas to leave. He didn’t try to stop her, but he did follow her, along with James and Antonio. She made it to her car before Thomas finally asked the all-important question.

  “Why not?” Thomas asked. “We’re not asking you for your life. It could just be that you come out here and run, you have us to lean on and we…have you to lean on. A community you know you can come to every so often and we’ll have time for you, make sure you’re healthy. We like talking to you, Abigail. Why can’t you join the Pack?”

  “I’m just a doe,” she snapped, opening her car door. “I don’t join wolf Packs.” She got in and closed the door. Thomas and the guys watched her drive away.

  Tears were still in her eyes as she got to the hotel.

  She’d tried before. She’d tried to be in a wolf Pack before. She’d been rejected, ignored, betrayed. She wasn’t going through that again. She wasn’t going to give her trust to that sense of community anymore. She hadn’t just been the laughing stock of the North Dakota Wolf Pack, she’d also been the laughing stock of the Herd. They’d told her she was stupid for falling for a wolf, that he would never respect her.

  They’d been right, and they reminded her of it every time they got the chance.

  She wasn’t stupid enough to try a second time.

  Later that night, Abigail made a decision that she hoped wouldn’t ruin her career. She needed to get away from the wolves and Wild Junction for a few days, maybe a couple of weeks, just to clear her head. She slammed her finger on Brenton Kingson’s name in her phone and waited for him to answer.

  “Yes, Abigail?” he answered, sounding exhausted.

  “I was hoping you were okay with me taking a couple weeks off, check on my condo. That sort of thing. Maybe visit my family?” she asked, hoping he didn’t pry into her cover story. She called him so he couldn’t smell her, smell that she was running.

  “Certainly,” Brenton answered. “Take the holidays off as well. You can resume after the New Year.” He sounded so distracted.

  “Are you sure?” she pressed, trying to make sure he knew what he was agreeing to.

  “Positive,” he growled softly. She swallowed a lump in her throat. She shouldn’t have questioned him like that. “I expect you back January second. The Pride is dealing with some things right now anyway, so we’re distracted and busy. Get out of town for a little while and it should be cool by January. This will also keep you out of our trouble.”

  “Okay,” she mumbled. “Thank you, Alpha Ki- Brenton.”

  “Have a nice holiday, Abigail. I’ll keep paying for that room at the hotel, so it’ll be yours when you get back,” he grumbled and hung up on her.

  She looked at all her bags. She didn’t need to take all of them if he was going to keep the room going for her. She could just take a week or two worth of clothes and head out. Go back to her condo for a week, then to her parents’ for the holidays and then back to her condo. She could definitely afford the travel, and it’d give her the time and space to clear her head.

  She needed to clear her head. What nearly happened in the woods was not okay. She wasn’t going back down that road, and she needed to remind herself why wolves, no matter how hot they made her, were off-limits.

  She quickly loaded up her bags and dropped them on her bed. She sat down at her desk and looked on her laptop for flights. She would surprise her parents early, she decided. They would like that.

  To think she had been hoping to skip a trip home for the holidays this year. Now she was desperate to get there, even if they did always remind her of her ex.

  That was the best reason to go back: a reminder why to not do it again.

  12

  Thomas

  Thomas stood in his driveway, confused and frustrated. Why had she bolted? She could have just said no. She could have taken their bodies and decided that she didn’t want to join the Pack. It should have been fine. Offers to join Packs were made all the time.

  “Thomas,” James growled. “Come inside. She’s gone, and I don’t think she’s coming back.”

  “This better not be her joining the Pride,” he muttered. “I like the felines, but she needs a group that devotes their attention to her.”

  “I don’t think she ran off because she’s joining the Pride,” James groaned. “Come inside. We’re naked in the front yard.”

  “No one will know we’re naked in the front yard,” he growled. He was mad, and he didn’t know why. Something about the fucking fear and pain that ran through her scent and his fucking innocent question. “No reason…” he mumbled to himself. “No fucking reason…” He turned around and stomped back inside. She’d run for no damn reason again.

  “Maybe we should have kept it innocent out there,” Antonio said loudly. “Maybe we spooked her with that and the Pack thing. She could have taken it…well, I don’t know, but it obviously spooked her.”

  Thomas thought about that. He shouldn’t have
kissed her. He shouldn’t have led them to that. He had been fired up and seeing her there, having her in his arms, had made him possessive and wanting. He would have claimed and conquered with his Pack at that moment. He had wanted to send her to the damn heavens while he thought things that would send him to hell.

  “Maybe I should have asked her after the sex and not in the middle of it,” he growled, to himself mostly. Why had he even opened his mouth at that moment? He should have waited, waited to watch her come undone again. The middle of a good time isn’t the place for him to be asking someone to join the Pack.

  “I like the idea of her in the Pack,” James sighed. “She’ll still be in Wild Junction. We can figure out what happened and slow down a bit. No more Chase, no more touches or comments. I think we can convince her to join if we don’t spook her again. She needs to have community, people looking out for her.”

  “You make it sound like we’re going to adjust something as simple as a hunting tactic,” Antonio laughed.

  “Because we are,” James growled. “She’s easy to talk to, she’s pretty to look at, and damn, she was so fucking happy out there. I want more of that. So yeah, Tony. We’re going to change our damn tactics and we’re going to get her to join this fucking Pack.”

  “Jesus,” Antonio mumbled. “All right. Thomas?”

  “I like James’ idea,” he answered. He wanted her. He’d known it the moment he’d seen her in the mansion, her first day in Wild Junction. He’d ignored it, hoping it was just a physical attraction, but something about her made him nearly crazy, brought out his Alpha, brought out his wolf. He couldn’t ignore that.

  “So you’ve finally come to terms with your attraction to her?” Antonio asked, sitting down on the couch as Thomas collapsed into his recliner.

  “Obviously.” He sighed. “And if she’s Pack then…”

  “Then what?” James asked him. Thomas frowned at himself. He didn’t know so he thought about it. If she were Pack, then…

  His Packmates could take care of her in ways he couldn’t?

  He wasn’t sure.

  “I don’t know,” he told him honestly. “She’s a good asset, too. Therapist? Yeah, we could use one of those on hand. And she can still have her job and travel for work. But she’ll come back here and stay healthy.”

  “Now you’re talking about her moving in,” Antonio pointed out.

  Was he? He groaned. He probably was. That was the natural assumption for joining a Pack, and one this small? Yeah, that would be the first inclination.

  “Look, let’s just make this work, all right?” He growled at them.

  “Can do,” Antonio chuckled. “Just wondering where your damn head is at.”

  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly again. He was frustrated, angry, hornier than hell, and confused as fuck. He’d never been this tied up in knots before over anything. Anything. “I should be…focused on everything else. The Pride is going to need us over at their place for a few days. We’ll use that to clear our heads, focus.”

  “Play good allies and all that, stop thinking about the pretty doe we’re desperate to chase through the woods again?” Antonio asked.

  “Yeah,” Thomas groaned. He ran a hand over his face and through his hair. What was wrong with him? “Yeah, we’ll do that.”

  Two days later, Thomas was wandering through the mansion, looking for Riley. He just wanted to bother her. She also had a budding and growing friendship with a certain doe that kept running through his mind.

  When the guys had started in on her, he’d found it slightly amusing. She was pretty, and they needed the chase, the distraction. He needed it, and then it started growing. She wasn’t properly taking care of her doe; she wasn’t treating it right, and when he’d given her the chance to, she’d been glorious. Beautiful. Her doe form was elegant and enchanting and he…well, he could admit chasing her had made his mouth water. What happened when they caught her?

  That was now haunting him every night instead of the hunting compound.

  Thomas knocked on Riley’s bedroom door, wondering if he was even allowed to do this. She was his friend and he wanted to bother her, but he knew the felines were possessive as hell and pissing off even just their lower guys, Troy and Gabe, wasn’t something he was keen on.

  “Hey, Thomas,” Riley greeted him as she opened the door. “Coming to hang out?”

  “Yeah,” he huffed, walking as she motioned for him. “How you been, little cheetah?”

  “Worried, but that’s to be expected, I guess,” she said, sighing. “I was working on some paintings, want to see?”

  “Love too,” Thomas answered, smiling at her. He adored her creative spirit. He felt it fell in line with how passionate she was. She was a spit-fire, dangerous, and her heart was too damn big to hold it all in. If he were a different man, like the felines, he would be half in love with her, but he liked her for other reasons.

  Riley reminded him of his sister and he treasured that. She’d been a passionate, fiery thing too.

  “I’ve been wondering what to fill my gallery up with for its opening in April.” Riley started talking as they walked through her massive bedroom to the area she’d turned into a studio. “And I think shifters, in either form, would be perfect for it. I’ve done all my guys in their feline forms, but now I’m slowly working on human portraits for them.”

  “Okay,” Thomas said slowly. She went on a tangent.

  “Would you, Antonio, and James be willing to sit down and let me get pictures of y’all? In human and wolf forms?” She turned to him as they walked around her easel. His eyes fell on the portrait of Brenton she was working on. She’d made him regal, like a Kingson would always look on canvas, but there was a deviousness to his facial expression that Thomas hadn’t expected. Not even a bad deviousness, more like…

  He dropped that thought. What Riley knew about the Pride in their private moments wasn’t somewhere his head needed to go. Not at all.

  “We’d love too,” he answered honestly. “How’s this going to work? I mean, I wouldn’t want my portrait sold to people in your gallery.”

  “The animal forms would be for sale, since no one would ever know they are shifters, but I think the portraits would hang permanently or be gifts or commissioned work for the person who sat for them.” She chuckled. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to part with a painting of my men. Their animal forms wouldn’t be for sale either.”

  “But a painting of me as a wolf would be,” he said thoughtfully. “Not a bad plan. You would get models from all over, willing to sit down and get their portraits done, and you would get the ability to sell a painting of wildlife others may never even get the chance to see.”

  “Exactly!” Riley nodded, grinning. “So, what are you up to? Still thinking about Rocker’s?”

  “Yeah.” Thomas sighed. “We’re going to help your Pride through whatever this political mess is, then look at the bar in the new year.”

  “I don’t like what’s going on,” she admitted softly. “I don’t like that we don’t know our enemies.”

  “Neither do I,” Thomas told her.

  “We’re just being slammed from all sides, Thomas,” She said, punctuating it with a groan. “The hunters? They were easy. I knew my enemy there. I knew what I needed to do to make it through it. I knew.”

  “And now you don’t,” he whispered, watching her. She nodded slowly. “We went through some hell back there, Riley. Yeah, our enemies were obvious, but don’t let not knowing bring you down. Keep fighting.”

  “Is that what you would do?” she asked softly.

  “Yeah,” he answered simply. “Wolves, we’re easy. Fight and kill. Party. Simple lives. I think you felines would have a lot less problems if you did things similarly.”

  “Me too,” she mumbled. “What else is going on in the world of the wolves? I’m done talking about my Pride’s shit. Brenton and Zachary are off dealing with it and I promised I would trust them to.”

  “Uh.” Thomas
shoved his hands in his pockets. It was good she was going to trust her Alpha and second to handle their problems. They were being bled dry financially and picked apart by piles of disrespect from other Prides. The hunting compound had made them weak on the political side and they all knew it. He’d talked to Zachary about it when they came over for the barbecue. He’d promised their loyalty, no matter what, even to the death.

  Thomas didn’t mean it for Brenton though. He’d offered his life and loyalty to the cheetah that reminded him of his sister and who forced him to man up and go save his wolves from the compound. Because of that, he needed to find an answer to her question.

  “We took Abigail out for a run,” he told her quietly.

  “That’s good!” Riley laughed. “She needs more friends, too. She’s cool - I like her. Can’t wait to see her back here in January.”

  “Excuse me?” Thomas perked up and frowned. January? She wasn’t going to stop by while he was here at the mansion?

  “Yeah, she left yesterday for the holidays. Asked Brenton if she could take a couple of weeks off and he gave her the rest of the month. She’ll be back January second. She’s going to be visiting family and stuff,” Riley explained to him, smiling. “Didn’t know?”

  “No,” Thomas muttered. He met her amber gaze and wondered what the look she was giving him meant. “Stop thinking whatever you’re thinking.”

  “You’re talking to her,” she finally said.

  “I was. The run might have changed things.” Thomas groaned.

  “Oh, please explain.” Riley chuckled. “I want to hear this.”

  “No,” Thomas bit out, giving her a displeased look. “It’s nothing. Stop thinking whatever you’re thinking, little cheetah.”