by Jane Jamison
The idea of being Moses’s mate sickened her. It was time to set the record straight. “The word is wrong. First of all, I’m a woman, not a girl. Second of all, I’m through with Moses. Truth is, I was never really with Moses, much less going to be his woman.”
“That’s really good to know,” added Thomas. “Really good.”
“I told you the same the other day.” She arched an eyebrow then gave them all a good once-over. “What I didn’t tell you the other day is that I’ve already decided on who my mates are going to be.”
“Your mates?”
She almost laughed at the surprise on Ryan’s face. “Yes, Ryan. And I mean mate, not girlfriend and not wife. Mate.” She zeroed in to really let them know where she stood. “As in pack mate.”
“So you know?” asked Thomas as he glanced from one man to the next. “About us?”
She held her head high, just like a primary alpha’s mate would. After all, her men would be primary alphas soon enough if their plan to oust Moses worked out. “Yes. I know everything. I know shifters exist. I know Fate is a town filled with shifters. And”—was she enjoying their amazement a little too much?—“I know all six of you are werewolves.”
Might as well go all the way.
“And I want you, Grant, and you, Ryan, and you, Thomas, to be my mates. I want you to change me into werewolf and make me your mate. Not necessarily in that order, but you get the idea.”
“Oh, shit. You really do know,” whispered Thomas, sounding a little awestruck.
“I really do. So what do you say? Will you be my mates or not?”
“I think that’s our cue to get out of here. This needs to be between a woman and her mates.” Brady tipped his hat. “It was good to meet you, Willa. I hope you’ll be staying awhile.”
“Oh, I will. You can lay bets on it.”
Dart chuckled as he started after his cousins. “I heard she had spunk. It’s a good thing. She’s going to need it.”
Once the Rann men were gone, Grant turned her around to face him. His expression was unreadable, but his words were as clear as a bell. “You were spying on us, weren’t you?”
“And if I was?”
“If you were, then it was a damn foolish thing to do. Anything could’ve happened.”
He was worried about her. She liked the feeling of having someone worry about her. “Nothing was happening except a bunch of talk.”
“Dangerous talk if anyone else overheard us.”
“I’m alone, and no one else heard.” She turned away from Grant and leaned into Thomas. “Now can we talk about us?”
Thomas enveloped her as she looked up into his strong, handsome face. “So you think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”
“No. Not all of it. I’m sure there are a lot of things I don’t know. But ever since my college roomie and her boyfriend outed themselves to me, I’ve done a lot of research and study. And, after a lot of self-evaluation, I’ve decided I’d make a great werewolf mate.”
“I’m sure you would. But a lot of what’s out there is pure myth.” Ryan came behind her. His hands fondled her butt cheeks. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know. But I’ve picked up more information since moving here.”
“Already?” Grant kept his distance, his focus more on their surroundings than on her.
“I’m a quick study.” She shot them a stern look. “Okay, now answer my question. Will you be my mates?”
“Yeah.” Grant’s grin was the biggest she’d ever seen him make. “You bet. Right, guys?”
“Absolutely,” answered Thomas.
Ryan rubbed his chin, pretending to consider her request. “Well, we haven’t actually talked about the whole mate thing yet, but—Ow!”
“Knock off the jokes or I’ll pinch your titty again.” She made a pinching motion with her fingers, threatening to twist his nipple again.
“Okay, okay.” His jokes were gone, his expression suddenly serious. “Yeah, baby, we’ll be your mates.”
“Now that we’ve gotten that straightened out, I’ve got to ask something else.” All at once, Grant was next to her, pulling her away from the other two men. “Why the hell were you hanging around Moses?”
She’d expected as much. Had, in fact, rehearsed her answer. Yet, what she said differed from what she’d planned to say. “I wanted to find a werewolf mate, and he’s the first one I met in Fate.”
“That’s a shitty way to find a mate.”
She cringed, hearing the disappointment in Thomas’s voice. “Yeah, you’re right. It wasn’t a good plan by any means. I guess I had my mind so set on finding a werewolf that I didn’t think about the man I’d find. I’m sorry I ever met him.”
“He’s got his eye on you.”
“Shit, Ryan, tell her what he really said.” Grant gave her a hard look. “He intends to make you his mate. The problem is, we don’t know if he means to ask you or to take you.”
She almost gagged at the idea. “Seriously? Do you really think he’d try to claim me even after I tell him no?”
“I don’t know. You never know what Moses might do.”
Inwardly, she cringed. Being Moses’s mate would be a fate worse than death. “Oh, hell, then it’s worse than I thought. After having dinner with him, I was sure I’d set him straight.”
“Why? What happened?” asked Thomas. “And why didn’t you tell us this before?”
“Nothing awful except that I spent a lot of time trying to keep his dirty paws off me.”
Anger ripped through the men, their eyes changing to amber, fangs slipping over their bottom lips. She reached out, sure she’d seen fur skim along Ryan’s jaw, but it disappeared soon enough.
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
Understanding Grant was difficult with the growl in his voice. “No, no. Like I said, I kept away from him. I was lucky and thankful you guys showed up when you did.”
They calmed down, their features and eyes returning to normal. Thomas rolled his shoulders as though warding off a shift. “It wasn’t luck at all. We had to make sure you were all right.”
“I kind of figured as much,” she admitted. “Your excuse of needing Moses to decide which horse to train was pretty lame.”
“Yeah, I don’t think he bought it, either.” Ryan let out a slow breath. “Still, as long as he didn’t do anything to you, then I’m good.”
“Believe me, if he had, I would’ve told you when you drove me home.”
“Speak of the devil.” Grant pulled her with him into the darker recesses of the shadows. He put a finger to his lips.
She kept quiet, following his gaze. Moses and Carl got out of their pickup and strode toward the bar.
“You’d better get back to your car once they go inside,” whispered Grant. “We’ll stay here and make sure you’re okay.”
She nodded, hating having to leave them. “Can’t we go back to your ranch?”
Thomas gently covered her mouth with his hand as Moses glanced their way. Moses paused, his eyes going to slits, before Carl motioned for him to get moving again.
Once Moses and his friend were inside, he took his hand away. “As much as we’d like to, we can’t take you home with us. Not tonight. We’ve got to show our faces inside, or Moses will get suspicious. He might even check up on you, so it’s safer if you go on home to Henrietta’s. But don’t worry. We’ll be thinking about you.”
She looked up at him, her attention locked on his full lips. He was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”
He leaned in, teasing her with a heated look before brushing his thumb over her lips. “I’d kiss you, we all would, but that wouldn’t be safe, either.”
“Why not?” She was breathless. How much more breathless would she be if he actually kissed her?
Ryan tugged her away from Thomas just as she was sure he was finally going to kiss her. “Because we won’t stop with a kiss.”
The t
hree men caressed her body, their hand saying as much as their words ever could, as Ryan turned her toward the parking lot. “Go on. And no more going anywhere with Moses. You understand?”
She turned around, continuing to head to her car. “Are you giving me an order, my mate?”
“Damn straight I am.”
She grinned, thrilled that her plan had finally worked. She had her mates. They’d spoken the words straight out to say they’d be her mates, but they’d also told her with their bodies and their touches. Spinning around, she rushed to her car.
Chapter Four
“Boys, I don’t know about you two, but I’m not going to wait another damn day to claim her.” Thomas wasn’t the excitable type, but he was having a difficult time containing his exhilaration. Willa was their mate, all right, and nothing would change that fact. “Who the hell cares if we take her now or later? She’ll be our mate before the shit hits the fan and after the shit hits the fan.”
“Why put her in danger?” asked Grant. “I understand how you feel. You know I do, but her safety is more important than any pack business. We’ve waited this long. We can wait a little longer.”
“But we don’t have to, man.”
Thomas nodded at Ryan, thankful they were on the same side of the argument. “Yeah. If nothing else, finding our mate means we need to speed things along. So far, it’s been all talk and no action. I say we make something happen and we do it tomorrow.”
But Grant’s mind was as set as his jaw. “Calm the hell down. We don’t go off half-cocked. If we do, we’re liable to shoot ourselves in the foot. And, unlike a shot in the foot, the wounds that Moses and his followers will give us won’t heal. If Willa’s our mate when things go wrong, she’ll go down with us.”
“So what’s the plan now?” Thomas hated the fact that Grant was making sense. He didn’t want to listen to reason, and neither did his inner wolf. The beast inside him didn’t care a damn about the pack and its turmoil. All it could think of was sinking its fangs into her flesh and changing her.
“It’s the same as it was before. The Rann men are taking the lead on this. They’re inside talking to those in the pack who are thinking like us. But we have to be careful. Approach the wrong person and Moses finds out. If he does, if we blow the element of surprise, everything we’ve done is for nothing.”
Ryan glanced at Thomas. “Damn it. I hate it when he goes all logical and shit.”
As much as Thomas hated to admit it, Grant was right. “So we get inside and start working on the others. The more pack members we have on our side, the better chance we’ll have.”
“Exactly.” Granted patted Thomas on the shoulder. “Hang in there. She already said she’s ours. The rest is all downhill.”
“Taking over the pack from Moses Garrett is all downhill, huh?” Thomas chuckled. “My friend, you and I have a different idea of which direction downhill goes.”
Grant laughed and led the way back inside the bar. As soon as Thomas walked inside, he sensed the tension. The Rann men had split apart. Each of them was talking to a small group of men and women, not more than five. Moses was next to the counter, slugging back shot after shot. Thankfully, one of the pack females who was on their side was keeping him preoccupied with a toss of her hair and bending forward to show him her generous chest.
Thomas jerked his head to the side, indicating he’d take the right. Grant and Ryan would do as the Rann men had done and go in different directions.
This had better work. Now that we’ve found our mate, I’m not about to lose her. Not for anyone or anything.
* * * *
Willa couldn’t take much more. Since seeing the men outside the Wolf’s Den three days earlier, she’d done her best to stay away from Moses, but she wasn’t having much luck. At first, she’d answered his calls, but when those became too numerous, she’d begun to ignore them. Then came the emails and the texts. Those were easy to ignore, too, but were somehow more irritating.
Why couldn’t a werewolf understand the concept of ghosting? Not answering a man’s calls and emails was a tried-and-true method of gently letting a guy down. Or, at least, it was in the human world.
She’d turned his invitations down so often that now he wasn’t calling or texting her any longer. Instead, he kept showing up wherever she was, at Henrietta’s and in town, to talk to her face-to-face. He’d figured out that telling him in person that she didn’t want to have dinner, didn’t want to go riding, and didn’t want to have drinks was a lot harder than answering an email or text. He was right, of course, but the more he pursued her, the easier it became to tell him no.
“Come on, sugar. Why are you busting my ass?”
He’d cornered her outside the Lick Your Plate Diner, right where all the onlookers could get a good earful. She tried to keep her voice low, but with a werewolf’s hearing being sensitive, she assumed it was a useless tactic. “I’m not trying to bust your ass. But when I say no, I mean no.”
“Nah, you don’t really mean no.” His smirk was nauseatingly smug. “You’re playing hard to get. I’m right, aren’t I? It’s okay. I get it. A beautiful woman has to play the game with the man she wants.”
Shit. Why won’t he leave me alone?
She’d definitely screwed up, and now that things were getting out of hand, she could see how he’d gotten the wrong impression. She’d led him on, flirting with him in the beginning, but didn’t a woman have the right to back off if she wasn’t feeling it? Flirting or not, she had a right to decide to end their relationship, especially when they’d never been in an actual relationship.
“No, Moses, I’m not playing any games.” At least, not any longer. “I appreciate the time we’ve spent together, but I’m no longer interested.”
“Bullshit.” The smirk morphed into a silent snarl. “You can’t say no to me.”
Talk about an ego.
Yet instead of spouting off, she tried the amicable approach again. “Look, Moses, I’m sorry if I led you to believe we were going to be anything more than friends, but I’m telling you straight out that I don’t want to see you any longer. Please respect my wishes.”
The eruption of his change was so sudden, so startling that a small cry escaped her. Fangs broke through his gums, replacing teeth. Fur spread along his jaw line. Amber filled his eyes.
She swallowed and stepped away until her back was against the brick wall of the diner. “Moses, calm down.” Although she spoke calmly, she was struggling not to shout for help. Had she pushed his wolf too far?
Fortunately, he regained control, and the fur and fangs disappeared. A low growl rolled out of him. “My wishes are all that matter.”
He was an egomaniac, a control freak, a…pack leader. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to see you any longer.” Her gaze darted behind him, where a group of people had gathered. A few of the men had eyes filled with amber. Others cast their gazes downward as though trying to pretend they weren’t watching. The three women in the crowd, however, wore scowls. But were they angry at Moses? Or at her for refusing a pack leader? She silently pleaded for them to help her.
Moses grabbed her arms, startling her, and slammed her against the wall until the jagged edges of the bricks dug into her. “Look, you little bitch, I’ve already claimed you. You’re going to be my mate.” His eyes narrowed. “You know what that means, don’t you? Do you know what an honor it is to be my mate?”
“Yes, I know what it means to be a mate.” She met his hard gaze, silently telling him she knew about shifters. But would he understand? Or would his anger cloud his perception? There was no way she’d ever believe that being his mate was an honor. Not for her. Not for any woman.
“Good. Then you know what’ll be expected of you. When I tell you to do something, then you do it. When I say we’re going to dinner, then we’re going to dinner.”
Fear trekked its way through her, but she’d die before she let him see how afraid she was. Instead, she thrust out her chin. “Moses, I’m sorry,
but you’re not getting this. I am not interested. Which means, I am not going to be your mate.”
The amber in his eyes, which had faded a little, suddenly roared to life again. “It looks like I’m going to have to teach you a lesson in manners.” A wicked grin slanted his mouth. “After I do, we’ll have a lesson in submission.” His gaze slipped lower to her breasts then back to her eyes. “You’re going to love taking orders from me. Hell, you’re going to beg to take orders from me.”
She narrowed her eyes, mimicking his hard look. “The hell I will.”
Jerking her forward, he then slammed her against the wall again. The world spun sickeningly before coming back into focus.
“Garrett, back the hell up.”
Strangely, with all the men gathered around, it was a woman’s voice that commanded Moses. Willa swallowed the bile that had risen into her mouth to find Stella Lennox pushing her way through the crowd.
Keeping his hold on her arm, Moses whirled to confront Stella. “Don’t go telling me what to do. Your boys might be alphas in their pack, but they’re nothing to me. And you? You’re even less than nothing.”
“Is that right?”
Willa hadn’t actually met Danny Lennox, but people at the Wolf’s Den had pointed the Lennox brothers out. She almost crumpled to the ground as relief flooded her, making her knees weak. Danny and Mike Lennox were by Stella’s side. Alex pushed through the crowd to join them The three men formed a massive wall of anger with Stella planting her feet in front of them, a queen ready to lead her warriors into battle.
Willa sensed Moses’s sudden loss of bravado in the slight slump of his shoulders. “Stay out of this. This is Garrett Pack business.”
Alex smiled, but there was no pleasure in the gesture. “First of all, Willa’s not a member of your pack. Secondly, we don’t give a damn what you say. No man puts his hands on a woman that way.”
Not waiting for Moses to finally get a clue, Willa shoved his hand off her then skirted around him to dash toward the Lennox men. Stella wrapped her arms around her, giving her the comfort she badly needed. “Are you okay?”