by Maia Dylan
She sent up a prayer to the god of all things creepy crawly that if he kept his children the fuck away from her, she wouldn’t come up swinging and wipe out as many of the little fuckers as possible when she regained consciousness. Her last thought was a plea that she survived this, reminding God and all other deities in the world that she had some serious vengeance to pay out, and then the darkness closed in around her.
* * * *
Rhys Wilson stepped from the workshop attached to the garage he and his brother, Jase, ran, placed his hands against the small of his back, and stretched. Damn, he had been working on Dane Smith’s pimped-out Ford F-250 all fucking morning, and they were notoriously difficult to do anything with. Any time someone wanted to work on anything, the entire cab practically had to be removed from the fucking frame.
He made a mental note to threaten to add additional cost to Dane’s bill just for having a fucking F-250 in the first place. He drew in a deep breath and felt the familiar wave of pleasure that always came when he was outside. He could see the mountains and smell the trees that surrounded Grey River, and he knew he couldn’t live anywhere else but here.
Taking another deep breath, he turned and walked around the back of the store, waving to their cousin Max, who was working the counter for them. The garage and store provided a great living for him and Jase. The two of them had built a house on the back of the property, and Rhys loved the fact that he only had to walk through his front yard to get to work each morning.
As he approached the shed that housed additional tools and equipment, his wolf began to pace within him. Rhys stilled, a frown forming on his face. Calling to his wolf, he brought it to the surface a little more and scented the air. At first he found nothing out the ordinary. But just as he was about to shake it off, thinking that it was probably just his wolf wanting to go out for a run, he caught something else. There was only a slight touch of it in the air. It held a hint of vanilla, something spicy, and just a touch of something citrus. It smelled divine and made Rhys’s mouth begin to water.
What in the hell?
A faint thump came from the shed, and had he not just called his wolf closer, Rhys didn’t think he would have even heard it. He stepped silently up to the shed and noticed that the heavy-duty combination lock he had placed on the shed was still in place and appeared untouched. Reaching out, he plugged in the numbers and opened the door as quietly as possible. The shed wasn’t that large, but it was ridiculously organized thanks to his anally retentive brother, so it was easy to spot that there was no one in there.
He closed the door and secured the lock once more, then stood and listened. His wolf obviously felt that something was up, as he stood alert and still within Rhys, lending him every bit of preternatural skill he had to determine why both of them felt as if something was off. Then it came again. A soft thud, as if something had gently tapped against the shed.
He knew it was definitely the shed because he still had his hand on the door and felt the slight tremor of vibration through the palm of his hand. Moving to the corner of the shed, Rhys looked down between the shed and the wooden fence that ran the entire perimeter of their property. He expected to see a cat or a rabbit or some other animal hiding in the slight space between the two objects, but what he found froze him for a split second. Blinking to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was.
Wedged in the smallest gap imaginable was a body. Judging by its size, it was either a teenager or a woman, and either option was enough to send Rhys into a panic.
“Jason! Get your ass out here,” Rhys fired off down their link, already moving to try to reach the body. “Someone’s hurt.”
Almost before he had finished calling for him, Jason was standing behind him. “Shit! Can you reach them?”
“No.” Rhys grunted as he stretched his arm in the ridiculously small space and tried to get a hand to the body. “Fuck, how in the hell did he get in there!” Rhys heard his brother take off, and seconds later, he was standing on the other side of the fence, looking down through the gap.
“Fuck, Rhys, I can see her face.”
Rhys froze at Jase’s words. What on earth was a woman doing wedged between the fence and their garden shed! “Hang on, I’m going to pull out the bottom planks. That way you should be able to get your shoulder through and grab her.”
There was a cracking sound as Jason twisted the wooden planks of the fence, and then used brute force to pull them away from the cross beam and create the space Rhys needed. Rhys wriggled forward and managed to get his arm over her hip. Praying that the black jacket she was wearing was thick enough to protect her, he slowly drew her out of her hiding place.
“Careful,” Jason said from behind him.
“What the hell do you think I’m trying to do, Jase?” Rhys snapped as he finally managed to get the woman free. As gently as he could, he rolled her over and laid her across his thighs as he knelt behind her.
“Holy…shit,” he breathed, his voice sounding a little higher than usual.
The fact that Jason didn’t throw a smart-ass comment about him and puberty told Rhys that Jase was just as affected as he was. The woman was perfection. Her hat had come off as he moved her and a curtain of black silk now lay over his thighs. Her face was flawless, the skin probably paler than it should be. Rhys noted the dark smudges beneath her eyes, but she was by far the most stunning woman he had ever laid eyes on.
“Come on. I’ll carry her into the house. You close up the workshop.” Jase moved fast and had the woman in his arms and against his chest before Rhys could object.
“Why couldn’t I carry her and you close up the shop?” Rhys complained as he stood up.
“Because I’m older and faster, little brother. I’ll call Cody and Brendan when I get up there.” Jase shot him a quick worried look and then moved quickly up the path that led to their house.
Rhys stood watching until they disappeared. Brendan and Cody were part of their pack, but more important, they were EMTs with the local fire department.
There was a shitload of questions surrounding that woman. First, she had no real scent. How in the hell was that possible? She’d also had to really work to get herself into that small gap between the shed and the fence. But what had been her motivation to do so?
Running a hand through his hair in frustration, Rhys went to turn back to the shop. A flash of blue caught his eye, and he stopped. Wedged further into that gap was a backpack. Lying back, he wriggled into the gap Jason had made once more and had to almost dislocate his shoulder to get to the bag, but he managed to pull it out.
Filled with the need to be with their beautiful patient, Rhys took off and locked up the garage as fast he as could. He stopped in to tell Max that they were done for the day and then sprinted to the house.
* * * *
Jase knelt on the living room floor beside the couch and stared into the face of the woman Rhys had discovered hiding beside their shed. Despite her not actually being conscious to tell them she was, in fact, hiding, Jase knew without a doubt that she was.
“Cody and Brendan are on their way, Jase.” Ty’s voice came to him down their communal pack link, the one all male wolf shifters had with their alphas. “I’m about fifteen minutes away as well.”
“Thanks, Ty.” Jase felt a little of his tension ease knowing that help was coming for the woman. He had no idea why, but he was anxious and pissed off that this woman was hurt. His wolf paced within him, just as unsettled as he was. It was almost as if both he and his wolf recognized her. But without the Quickening, she couldn’t be their mate. Could she? Could she?
Playing a hunch, and feeling like the words largest lecher, Jase leaned forward and pressed his nose to her neck. He inhaled deeply, and although his heart began to pound at the slight scent of vanilla, something citrusy, and a spice that he recognized but couldn’t name, he didn’t get the all over tingling sensation he had heard others who had experienced the Quickening had felt. But he had definitely reacted to her.
Sure, he reacted to beautiful woman all the time, usually physically. It was hard not to appreciate a beautiful woman after all but never had he had this heart pounding sensation that he knew her. Frowning as confusion filled him, he leaned in to try one more time. This time, he called to his wolf, bringing him closer to the surface, he inhaled deeply.
There is was. The Quickening. He felt a not completely pleasant tingling feeling bubble through him. Unable to put the shock into words, he simply let the feeling of it flow from him to his brother down their link.
“Fuck!”
Rhys’s shocked curse came back down the link, and if Jase had not currently been completely in shock at having found their mate, he might have laughed. The front door flew open, and Rhys was on his knees beside him in seconds. As Rhys leaned in to take the alluring scent of their mate into his lungs, Jase knew the exact minute the Quickening had struck. He caught the echo of what he had felt slam into him down their link at the exact moment Rhys seemed to shudder.
“Mate,” Rhys growled as he sat back and reached a shaking hand out toward the woman. He gently swept a lock of her silky black hair from her forehead. As he pushed it from her forehead, they both spotted a black bruise on the left side of her face, high up near her hairline. It disappeared behind her hair so they were unsure how large the bruise actually was.
“Shit, do you think this is why she’s unconscious?” Rhys said, his wolf clear in his voice.
“I don’t know. We’ll have to wait until Brendan and Cody get here and look her over,” Jase replied with a frown. He did not like that men were going to be looking over their mate, not one bit.
“Jase! Rhys!” Brendan called as he approached their house.
Jase had to put a firm hold on his wolf to keep from roaring at the man to stay the fuck away. He shot a quick glance at Rhys to check that he too had a firm grip on his wolf and then shouted, “In the living room, Brendan.”
Brendan and Cody ran into the room, carrying a large first aid kit with them. Jase placed a hand on Rhys’s shoulder, and they both moved out of the way to make room for Brendan and Cody to work. He watched as they lay the kit on the ground and worked like a well-oiled machine. Cody began to take things out of the kit and hand them to Brendan as he started to examine their mate.
Jase had managed to hold in the warning growl that had been threatening from the moment Brendan had placed a hand on their mate. But it erupted from him as soon as Brendan went to lift her shirt. Jase was vaguely aware that Rhys offered his own growl of warning.
“Well, well, well.” Brendan turned and looked at them with an odd expression on his face. It was part amused and partly pissed off. “Isn’t this just a beautiful case of dèjá fucking vu! Let me guess. This woman triggered the Quickening in the two of you, right?”
“Yes,” Jase growled. “She’s ours.”
“Well, that’s just fucking fantastic. I will offer you my heart-felt congratulations once you both pull your heads out of your asses!” Brendan’s eyes flashed the arctic blue of their kind. “Now, I am going to tell you the exact same thing I told the last bastards who growled at me when I tried to examine a patient. I—”
“Have yet to master the ability to assess a patient telepathically without fucking touching them,” Ty said as he strode into the room, filling it instantly with an aura of power and dominance. Ty looked over at him and Rhys with a grin. “He then suggested that Trent and I get our possessive heads out of our asses, too. Apparently, that particular request is a favorite!”
“Yeah, well,” Brendan grumbled as he continued to assess their mate, “there are entirely too many possessive bastards in this town who insist on shoving their heads up their asses. It is my duty as a medical professional to advise people not to do things that could potentially prove hazardous to their health.”
“Too true, my friend.” Ty moved to look over his shoulder. “So, who is the sleeping beauty we have here?”
“Our mate,” Rhys said from beside him, his voice no longer filled with his wolf. Now it rang with awe and wonder, and Jase had a feeling that if he were to say anything, his voice would sound the exact same.
“Faith will be disappointed she wasn’t here to see that,” Ty said as he looked back at Jase and Rhys. Despite his fears for their mate, he couldn’t help the small smile at that. Faith had been matchmaking like crazy with their pack mates. She had these crazy psychic skills that helped her to read people or some such shit. Whatever it was, she was connecting wolves with their mates quite successfully.
“She’s unconscious, but there are no other signs of injury. She has some contusions that are consistent with falls but nothing I could pinpoint as a cause of her losing consciousness. She is, however, showing signs that this is not permanent and that she will be coming around soon,” Brendan said as he put their equipment back in their kit bag. “Cody’s heading back to our rig to bring back a gurney so we can get her back to the hospital. We’ll run some tests to see if we can’t determine what it was.”
“Thanks, Brendan.” Jase heard the relief in his voice. “We’ll follow you.”
A few minutes later, Brendan and Cody were pushing her out of the house, and Jase couldn’t take his eyes off her. She looked so damn small and vulnerable lying there like that.
“We don’t even know her name. Rhys found her wedged into the space between the shed and the fence. We had to basically snap the bottom of the damn fence to get her out.”
“She had this with her.” Rhys lifted a blue backpack that Jase hadn’t even been aware he’d been holding.
“Well, hand it over, and let’s see if we can’t find out more about our newest pack member.” Ty held out his hand for the pack and Rhys hesitated a moment before handing it over. Ty sighed. “Rhys, if you look through it, that’s a breach of a person’s rights. Implied consent allows me to look through it, so pass it over, and let’s see if we can’t find out the name of your mate.”
Rhys nodded and handed the bag over to their alpha. Ty placed it on the coffee table and unzipped it. He pulled out a few clothes, all of them well-worn but clean. In the front pocket of the pack was a piece of paper with Grey River written on it, and then a cell phone number. That was it, just a few pieces of clothing and a note. Nothing to tell them who this woman was, where she came from, or who she was hiding from.
“Well, that didn’t prove as fruitful as I was hoping.” Ty placed everything back in the back and handed it back to Rhys. He then pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. After dialing the number, he placed it on speakerphone. It rang a couple of times, and then it was answered, but nothing was said. Ty raised an eyebrow after a moment of silence, before saying, “This is Sheriff Tyler Jamieson of the Grey River Sheriff’s Department. An injured woman with no identification has been found carrying a piece of paper with this number on it.”
There was a distinctly feminine gasp on the other end of the phone. “Where is she? I will come immediately.”
The woman’s voice was soft but filled with concern. Jase didn’t recognize the voice, but judging by the way Ty frowned and tilted his head slightly, he had an idea who she was.
“Melaina?” Ty queried.
“Yeah, Ty,” the woman confirmed with a sigh. “It’s me. Where are you?”
“We’re taking the woman to the hospital. We’ll meet you there.”
“Ty,” the woman called Melaina said, her voice filled with urgency, “you can’t put Parris’s information into their system. Just let me come and get her, and I’ll take care of her.”
“Oh, hell no!” Jase snapped. “This woman is our mate. She is unconscious and hurt. We are taking her to the fucking hospital, and getting her the help she needs.”
Parris. Their mate’s name was Parris. Jase felt the thread that connected him to his newfound mate tighten a little further within him. He figured the more he solved the puzzle surrounding their mate, the stronger their bond would become.
There was silence for a moment. �
�Well, shit,” the woman snapped right back. “That makes things a little more interesting. If she is your mate, then you must do everything in your power to protect her, correct?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Well then, don’t let them put anything about her on file. I’ll meet you there. Just keep her safe until I get there! So help me God, if you ignore me and they put one mention of her, or her symptoms into a goddamn computer that is connected to the fucking Internet, I will fucking end you!”
The click of the phone told Jase the woman had ended the call. Jase stared at their alpha, who stood with an enigmatic expression on his face.
“Who in the hell was that woman? And what fucking charm school did she flunk out of?” Rhys asked incredulously.
“Her name is Melaina Christakos, and she’s Xanthe’s sister. My advice to you two is to do what she says. Her level of badass is off the charts,” Ty answered as he placed his phone back in his pocket. When he saw Rhys roll his eyes, Ty’s grin spread. “No, seriously. That woman succeeded in not only shooting Dane Smith and taking out his moving truck, but she also managed to kidnap Hunter Reed behind a house filled with Enforcers, all on her own.”
Well, shit.
That did lift her badass score to some serious heights. Jase had gotten to know the two lion shifters over the past couple of months since they had been living in Grey River, and they were both big bastards, not to mention that they were Enforcers for the Shifter Council.
“Well,” Jase grumbled as he grabbed his keys from the coffee table and started out the door, “we had better follow Brendan and Cody and make sure we keep her safe. I certainly don’t want to fuck off a woman who had the balls to shoot a fucking lion shifter!”