Yeeeeah. It’d been…crazy. Even by Targhee pack standards.
Meaning more work for Prime Alphas Dewi, Peyton, Badger, and Duncan. They had to use their Prime powers to smooth over the memories of clueless humans Lu’ana and Reggie. Lu’ana was Nami, Da’von, and Malyah’s other sister, and Reggie was her husband.
Oh, and the Primes also had to break the news about the wolves’ existence to Da’von.
Even on her “family vacation,” Dewi had to work. She was always working, it felt like.
Ken didn’t resent it. Not really. Dewi was good at what she did. She saved lives and kept order. Being Head Enforcer wasn’t merely her job description, or something she did for a living—it was who she was. On top of that, she was also now the head of the expanded pack council. She had a weighty job, emotionally. But she loved her pack fiercely and protected them even more fiercely.
Here he was, a computer geek.
In the grand scheme of things, he supposed trying to keep a baby shower secret from his wife wasn’t that big of a deal.
He wasn’t sure how the hell he was supposed to do it, when she could read his mind, but he’d try.
Dewi still hadn’t returned from her meetings. Sometimes, Ken felt like a useless third wheel when it came to pack stuff. He wasn’t sure they hadn’t put him to work more as a pity job than they legitimately needed his help. He could absolutely imagine Peyton and Trent making up a job for him and spending the money to pay him just to make him feel like he was contributing. The pack could afford it.
Then again, maybe it was better he didn’t know if they had done that. It’d hit his ego even harder if they had.
Maybe one of these days Dewi’s self-confidence will wear off on me.
He stretched out in bed to try to catch a nap, because sleep had been a rare luxury since their arrival seven days ago.
How did I even end up here?
Less than a year ago, he was teaching computer sciences at the USF Tampa campus. He’d also been blissfully unaware that wolf shifters—or any other kinds of shifters—were real. He’d lived alone in his bleak little life, a vegetarian who abhorred violence in all forms, even professional hockey, and had never even handled a gun in his life.
Until the night Dewi Bleacke showed up at the sports bar where he’d been having dinner and grading papers. She’d been there to kill a packmate who’d sold his daughters to a drug dealer.
That’s when her path crossed Ken’s, she claimed him as her mate, and his future changed forever.
Now he was the token vegetarian “grazer” in a family of carnivorous wolf shifters, had shot and killed the murderous Prime Alpha wolf who’d murdered Dewi, Peyton, and Trent’s parents, and had executed a drug cartel leader and some of his men.
Oh, and survived driving off a mountain.
Among other activities.
All in the space of less than a year.
He wasn’t complaining, either.
He was…processing. Because despite having lived through all of it, it still sounded weird in his brain when he thought about it all.
Throw in impending fatherhood, and his emotions ranged all over the chart. Wanting to protect Dewi and their baby, trying to walk a line between reeling Dewi in and not worrying about her—wanting to do nothing but ignore the rest of the world and nest while not shirking their duties to the pack.
He was almost asleep when he heard the cabin’s front door open and close. He didn’t even bother opening his eyes, because he knew it was Dewi.
She immediately sought him out, undressing and sliding under the sheets with him, her bare arms and cheeks still cool from the crisp Idaho mountain air.
He wrapped himself around her. “Mmm. Hello.”
“Hiya. Do strange, naked women plop themselves in your bed very often?”
He smiled. “Don’t call yourself strange, sweetheart.” He cracked open an eyelid to spot her smile.
“Did you eat lunch?” she asked.
“Mmm-hmm. With Peyton.”
“What’d you guys talk about?”
“Pack business.”
“Ah.”
When he immediately felt her mentally disengage, he nearly smacked himself. Just like he didn’t pry when it had to do with her job, neither did she.
Oh, shit.
Maybe this wouldn’t be as difficult as he first thought.
He opted to push the barrier a little, since luck seemed on his side.
“Peyton had a good suggestion.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. How about we take a mini-vacation before the baby arrives?”
One eyebrow slowly arched skyward over a gorgeous mocha eye. “Really?”
He closed his eyes again and drew her even closer, snuggling her tightly against his body. “He made the valid point that you and I have been cheated out of relaxation time twice now when we’ve tried to take vacations. I’d like to go to the beach. Doesn’t Manasota Key have a lot of condos and stuff for rent?”
That immediately defused her suspicion. That beach, a barrier island straddling Charlotte and Sarasota Counties, was her second-favorite place in the world, next to here in Idaho. “Yeah?”
“Can we please take a weekend or something? Just you and me? Maybe a Valentine’s Day trip? Let’s rent a room, or a condo, or something, and get away for a long weekend. You’ve got two more Enforcers now to help keep the peace. They can get by without you for a few days, can’t they?”
She nearly melted against him. “Probably.” She nuzzled her face against the hollow of his throat. “Don’t suppose I could talk you into letting me drive us down on the motorcycle, could I?”
When he felt the low warning growl start deep in his chest, he let it loose instead of holding it back.
“All right, all right,” she muttered. “Just asking. Sheesh.”
Chapter Two
It wasn’t that long ago when Dewi could remember she never imagined she’d ever have a mate, much less a mate like Ken, or a baby.
That wasn’t a complaint, either.
Her husband might not be a wolf shifter, or the biggest, beefiest guy around, but he was definitely coming into his own in terms of figuring out how to stand up to her.
Which…to be honest, she loved that about him. That he let her be her and didn’t try to change her. The few things he did want to control…well, she couldn’t blame him.
Not the bad kind of controlling, either, but the good kind of dominance. The way Beck had always—okay, sometimes—been able to stand up to her when they’d been dating.
Before she’d met Ken.
The loving kind of dominance that wanted to protect, not be domineering. Like Ken—rightfully—feeling pissed off because Dewi didn’t consult with him first about her plan to capture Manuel Segura, using herself as bait to draw the psycho in close enough for her to take control of him. Had Dewi not been pregnant, Ken wouldn’t have been so upset.
In retrospect, she totally understood why that had upset him.
Ken only asked for Dewi to take him—and now their baby—into consideration before deciding on a course of action, not change who she was at her core. Just some slight…behavior modification. Defaulting to caution
Like not riding a motorcycle while she was pregnant—although, to be fair, she wouldn’t have really done that.
Maybe.
He had a quiet way of changing her mind. Quite an accomplishment for a human.
Because of everything he’d accomplished so far, her vegetarian computer geek had effectively silenced all critics within their pack, even if he didn’t fully appreciate how respected and admired he was amongst them.
One does not simply drive off the side of a mountain, walk away unscathed, and locate the former pack Alpha—who’d been presumed dead for nearly fifty years—and not end up with a pretty solid reputation on the other end of things.
Dewi totally meant to seduce Ken but she missed her chance by waiting too long. Her hand was already creeping south alo
ng his torso when she realized he’d drifted to sleep.
Nertz.
Then again, she could use a nap, too. She’d been up late last night on a run with others in the pack. She didn’t often get the chance to do that, and Ken had sweetly given her a kiss and his blessings to go have fun.
Yes, totally safe fun, because they never left the enormous pack compound. And she’d run with Peyton, Trent, Beck, Badger, Duncan, Joaquin, and Martin. Hell, the men had slowed their pace, despite her telling them not to, and kept a tight group around her for duration of their run.
Not even a flea could’ve jumped on her without being intercepted by one of them first.
It was annoying. She wasn’t used to this much attention being paid to her.
Even Carl, one of their newest Enforcers, had tagged along with them, staying close behind and learning the terrain of the compound. It was the first time he’d been able to run with wolves since he was a kid, before his mom died.
Dewi settled in to nap, carefully rolling onto her side with her back and legs pressed against Ken’s body. While sleeping with him usually involved snuggling, ever since her pregnancy, she realized she awakened nearly every time they weren’t physically touching somehow in bed. Even if it was just having their feet touching, or a hand. Something.
In sleep, he rolled to spoon with her the way he always did, his hand coming to rest over her tummy, where she had the slight swell of a baby bump.
Their daughter.
Dewi smiled as she laid her hand over his. She didn’t know—and didn’t care—if their baby would be able to shift. She imagined how much different their daughter’s life would be than Dewi’s own childhood. Their daughter would grow up with two loving parents, surrounded and protected by a loving, extended pack, with cousins approximately her same age to grow up with.
Considering how her parents had met their fate, there’d be little chance of anyone getting the drop on her and Ken. Not with everyone surrounding them. No, their daughter would have a fantastic childhood.
They hadn’t even started trying to pick names yet. Dewi wanted to give her at least one name from someone in their family. Either Ken’s mother or her own, or her grandmother, or Badger’s wife.
But she’d have to narrow it down and pick one of them, unless she wanted the poor kid to have a dozen names.
Yeah, no.
Also running through her mind, the news Badger had dropped on her just before they’d left Florida for Idaho: in the process of tracing Ken’s lineage, Badger discovered that it appeared Ken’s mother had actually been adopted. Which was something she likely wasn’t even aware of, based on what Ken said she’d told him.
Meaning it was possible Ken had a shifter or two in his background. That possibility would explain a lot of things. Like how he’d managed to overcome a direct Prime order from her and get the drop on another Prime wolf. How he’d managed to mark Dewi without getting his throat ripped out. How he’d managed to tap into his instincts to keep him and Nami alive.
Why, despite Ken being a vegetarian, Dewi had immediately pinged on him as her mate.
Trying to untangle all of that was something Badger was working on. Dewi had opted not to tell Ken right now. He had enough on his plate as it was, and she had no answers for him yet, anyway.
But if he did have a shifter in his family tree, it would explain a lot.
It would, in fact, explain everything.
It would also ease her mind quite a bit. Because it’d mean there was likely not a damn thing wrong with her own Prime powers.
She eventually drifted to sleep, awaking when she heard voices speaking at the front of the cabin. Then she realized she was alone in bed.
Damn, I must have been really tired. It wasn’t like her not to awaken when Ken got out of bed.
Hell, it wasn’t like her not to wake up when someone knocked on the door.
She climbed out of bed, wrapped a robe around her, and padded out to the living room barefoot to find Ken speaking in low tones with Peyton, Badger, and Duncan.
All four men fell silent when they spotted her.
Didn’t take wolf senses to know something was up. She walked up to them with her arms crossed over her chest. That was something else annoying her, because her boobs were starting to get a little bigger and she felt awkward as hell doing even that simple gesture. “Okay. Spill it.”
Peyton didn’t look happy, which matched the anger she felt practically radiating from his body. “They’ve lost Faegan Lewis’ trail in Scotland.”
“What do you mean they’ve lost his trail?” Dewi asked. “Something like half the wolves in Europe are hunting him! What the hell is wrong with those assholes that they can’t track one fucking idiot?”
Faegan Lewis was a batshit crazy corgi shifter who hadn’t taken the news well that his daughter, Tamsin, had a mate bond with and married a female Alpha wolf. He’d also refused Tamsin’s new in-laws’ multiple attempts to broker a dowry agreement. Mostly because Tamsin, while an omega, was one of the few shifters they had left in the current generation of their corgi shifter pack. Almost from Tamsin’s birth, Faegan had planned an arranged marriage for her to one of her much older cousins.
A marriage Tamsin definitely had not wanted, to a guy Dewi knew was a real shitstain. A guy who’d already murdered one mate, and the two pups she’d given birth two, when it turned out they weren’t shifters.
Not exactly class-act kind of shifters.
It wasn’t a discrimination thing, either. Dewi didn’t give a shit what kind of shifters they were. It was the fact that they were murderously shitty people she had a problem with.
Tamsin, Maisie, and Maisie’s fraternal twin brother, Rupert—also an Alpha—had gone to France to see a fertility doctor. They used IVF, and Tamsin was pregnant with Rupert’s biological child. The three of them were hiding out when one of Tamsin’s older brothers tracked them down. Maisie and Rupert were killed in the attack while holding them off so Tamsin could escape. In the process, Maisie and Rupert killed three of the attackers, including one of Tamsin’s brothers.
Trevor Clarke, the father of Maisie and Rupert, was also the Staffordshire Pack’s Alpha. He called for blood in the wake of Maisie’s and Rupert’s murders. He’d brought Tamsin over to Florida, begging for sanctuary for her with the Targhees and pledging his pack’s allegiance. Dewi and Badger transported Tamsin to Idaho, to the pack compound, for her protection.
“They think maybe he hit the water and literally swam to Northern Ireland,” Peyton said. “There were news reports about an exceptionally large corgi being rescued by a fishing vessel. By the time Trevor’s people could get there to investigate the story, Faegan had vanished and the trail went cold.”
“They sure it was him and not a coincidence?”
“It was described as ‘a corgi of inordinate size.’ So I’m gonna go with yeah, it was probably Faegan.”
“Shit.” She turned and headed down the hall. So much for my holidays.
“Where are you going?” Peyton called after her.
“To pack. I guess my ass is going to Northern Ireland to track the fucker.”
“No,” Peyton, Badger, Duncan, and Ken all said.
She stopped and slowly turned, her focus falling on Peyton. “What did you say?”
“No,” Peyton repeated, stepping forward, his hands braced on his hips in that annoying way he’d had when he ordered her around, ever since she was a kid. “As pack Alpha, I’m forbidding you from going and taking part in the hunt.”
* * * *
Uh-oh.
Ken wasn’t sure that Dewi might not be able to make Peyton’s head explode from the force of the anger radiating from her. The much larger wolf even took a step back when he spotted the fury on his baby sister’s face.
She jabbed a finger at him, taking a step forward while Peyton retreated another step. “Don’t you dare fucking Prime me for this, Peyton. Tamsin is pack, and we swore to protect her and her baby.”
�
�Which is why you need to stay here, in the States, and do your fucking job, Dewi.”
Oh, shit.
Dewi’s gaze widened even more than Ken’s at Peyton’s sharp tone.
Peyton immediately gentled his voice. “Dew, you are one of the best trackers in the world, yes. But you’re not the only Prime in the world, or the only one who can track. They’ve got Primes over there every bit as experienced and skilled as you working on this. And you don’t even know the terrain.”
“This is because I’m pregnant, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” all four men said in unison, Ken realizing after he spoke that he probably should have kept his mouth shut.
“But it’s not the only reason,” Peyton quickly added. “What if that guy shows up here in the States, huh? It’s doubtful he can make his way over here, because we’ve cut him off from everything and everyone, including his own mate. He won’t have the resources to get over here. He can’t get his hands on any cash. He doesn’t have any contacts in the US. And you know damn well there’s not a single fricking shifter in that region who doesn’t know he’s got a blood price on him. Not just a blood price, but a cash bounty, too. Any of his own people will gladly hand him over just for that. He won’t be able to trust anyone. No one’s going to help him. He’s contained over there.”
“They thought he was contained when they tracked him to Scotland,” she countered. “If he can escape that fucking island, who says he can’t escape another one? All he has to do is sneak onto a freighter and hide out.”
Badger stepped forward to try. “Dewi, ye’re needed here. We swore to protect Tamsin and her baby. That means yer place is here in the States wi’ her, not galavantin’ over there. Let Trevor deal wi’ it. He’s got things under control.”
She crossed her arms again and looked at the men. “I’m pretty sure, based on what you all just told me, that things are the exact opposite of ‘under control’ over there. If they were ‘under control,’ we’d be looking at pictures of his decapitated head and not arguing about this.”
Geek-Speak (Bleacke Shifters Book 6) Page 2