“And I can still die from an attack!” she needlessly pointed out, because really, the man was almost thirty years older than her and should know this.
Frowning in a way that she refused to find adorable, he looked back at the sneaky little bastard who she’d swear had moved two inches closer and then back at her before once again pointing out the obvious, “But you’re a shifter,” he said as though he just couldn’t quite seem to grasp what the problem was.
“We’ve covered that already!” she snapped at him, wondering what kind of sick bastard she’d been bonded with that could stand there mocking her when he should be doing everything in his power to kill the devious bastard who’d taken advantage of her distraction and moved another inch closer.
“It’s just a bug,” he said, gesturing towards the vicious bastard that was once again staring at her in a way that told her exactly what it had on its mind.
It was going to kill her and use her body to feed its family!
“Drew!” she cried as the vicious bastard intent on killing her moved even closer.
He rubbed his hands down his face and she swore that she heard a muffled chuckle that was going to get his ass kicked later, but right now she had bigger problems to deal with. The ferocious bug had moved even closer and was staring at her, trying to decide where to start.
“Please!” she begged, hating the fact that she was letting him in on her biggest weakness, but really, what choice did she have when the little bastard actually had the audacity to walk across her bare foot?
“It’s not going to hurt you,” he said with a shrug as though that somehow was able to convince her that she was overreacting.
She was not overreacting!
“You don’t know that!”
He blinked down at the bug, who was now looking around the forest, seeming deceptively bored, trying to lure her into a false sense of security so that she would get off the large boulder and come closer, making her an easy kill.
It wasn’t happening.
No way in hell.
Sighing heavily in a way that she really just did not appreciate, Drew walked over to the large bug, leaned over, picked it up and walked away, making her heart beat double time with fear, because the bug now had a new victim. She started to move so that she could climb down and save the dumb bastard, but he’d made his decision.
Drew was a grown man and if he wanted to risk his life and limb to make his point then that was his right. So, while he walked thirty yards away with another one of those heavy sighs, placed the dangerous bug on a tree branch and walked back, she decided to glare at the bastard even as she scurried off the boulder and ran for the tent where her clothes were and-
Screamed her head off when a large wolf spider chose that moment to crawl out from the tent and announce its presence. Within seconds she was turning around and running back to her boulder, tripping over her feet a few times before she finally made it to safety just as Drew returned, looked from her to the spider and then back to her.
Sighing heavily, he muttered, “I fucking give up,” and walked over to the boulder, grabbed her and threw her naked ass over his bare shoulder. Normally she would have bitched and demanded to be placed back on her feet, but Drew was tall which meant that the bugs would have a hell of a time reaching her.
That was fine with her, more than fine.
*-*-*-*
“Move!” his beautiful little mate snarled at Ryan, the poor dumb bastard, who’d made the mistake of getting in her way.
Ryan, recognizing a pissed off, crazed woman when he saw one, jumped out of her way and plastered his back against the club wall, making damn sure that he didn’t make any sudden movements that would attract Kara’s attention.
Drew, smiling like a fool in love, simply chuckled as he followed after his extremely pissed off mate, who was willing to kill anyone who got between her and a long, hot shower to wash away the “stench of evil,” as she’d referred to the dirt and the creepy feeling from the bug assault.
When Ryan pushed away from the wall with a sigh and made the mistake of getting between Drew and Kara, Drew simply grabbed his Beta by the back of his neck and threw him across the club.
“Ow! You mean son of a bitch!” Ryan snapped as he went to stand up only to fall back down to the floor with a groan.
Sighing with pleasure now that he had an unobstructed view of his mate storming off towards the backstairs wearing only his shirt as he followed after her. Anyone that tried to get his attention quickly realized that he wasn’t interested in anything but his mate. Once they’d received the message, he quickly followed Kara up the stairs, into his loft and followed the short trail of clothes left scattered on the floor on the way to his bathroom.
As he followed the sounds of the shower running and Kara mumbling about bugs being unnatural, he pulled off his own clothes and tossed them aside. By the time he made it to the bathroom, he was naked, hard as a rock and more than eager to help his mate wash away the bad memories of her close call with a few bugs.
A shifter afraid of bugs, he thought, chuckling, because he’d never thought he’d see the day when a werewolf was terrified of a few bugs. What made it worse was that Kara was an Alpha and had the ability to shift whenever she wanted and could have easily destroyed those bugs, but apparently Kara wasn’t willing to risk an attack in either form.
On his way into the shower, where Kara was scrubbing every inch of her skin raw, he closed the glass door behind him. Licking his lips in anticipation, he walked over to Kara, who barely registered his presence and dropped to his knees in front of her. When he buried his head between her legs and ran the tip of his tongue through her slit, she dropped the bar of soap she’d been scrubbing her body raw with, grabbed onto his shoulders and moaned.
Yeah, he definitely could get used to having a mate, he thought as he flicked his tongue over her clit, earning another moan of pleasure that was going to get her pinned to the wall in a matter of seconds and fucked raw as he did his best to help her forget all about the creepy crawlies and remember just how good it had been in that tent before the spider had shown up.
It was probably for the best that he didn’t mention that he’d spotted the wolf spider in the tent last night while she’d been riding him.
“Drew,” she moaned, spreading her legs to give him better access.
Yeah, definitely not something that he should mention, he decided as he stood up, grabbed her by the shoulders, turned her around and bent her over.
It would only wreck the mood and God knew that he didn’t want to do that.
Chapter 32
Three weeks later…
“Should we call Dr. Phil to help you get over the trauma so that you can shift tonight?” Drew asked, looking concerned as he held out his phone to her. “I don’t want you to have to live in fear,” the bastard added with a slight pout that had her eyes narrowing on the large bastard even as she was forced to bite back a smile.
“Don’t make me hurt you,” she said with a teasing smile as she pulled off her blouse and tossed it at him, making him chuckle as the rest of the Pack watched on, not looking particularly happy to see their Alpha so smitten with his mate, especially because it was her.
The way they’d always treated her and acted around her always made her wonder if they knew something, but that wasn’t possible, because if they knew the truth then there would be no way in hell that they would have ever willingly been in the same room with her. They definitely would have demanded that she be thrown out of Boston and if the Alpha had refused, then they would have most likely left and found a new Pack to take them in.
Not that she would have really blamed them if they had. After all, its what her Pack had done to her once they’d found out the truth. So, why would she expect anything different from a rival Pack? She hadn’t had much hope, but then again, she hadn’t had any real choice in the matter.
Refusing to think about the past and how easily it could destroy her future, she shimmie
d out of her jeans, tossed them at her mate and laughed when he growled, allowing his beautiful blue eyes to shift silver as she reached for her bra strap. Seconds later, she was naked and ready to shift right along with the rest of the Pack that still kept their distance from her, but they now did it in a way that wouldn’t cause them to get their throats ripped out.
“Shift,” he ordered his Pack, his voice dropping several octaves and becoming more beastlike as he watched her.
Throwing her one last weary glance, the Pack as one backed up into the woods and began to shift while she waited for her mate to drop his jeans and shift. When he cocked a brow in clear challenge, she laughed, smiling more freely these days, turned around and ran into the dark woods, past the humans shifting into beasts, trying to use their scent to cover her own as she headed for the one place that she was guaranteed to lose him.
The howl the echoed throughout the woods had her laughing. Oh, she was so going to win this, she told herself, imagining her reward tomorrow morning when she walked into camp, climbed into their new tent, laid down with her legs spread wide and waited for her mate to reward her for outsmarting him.
This was going to be so easy, she thought smugly. She’d run to her cave, and yes, she had many secret spots in these woods. When you were an outsider joining a Pack for a shift without waiting for an invitation, it became necessary to make yourself scarce. While she was in her cave, enjoying all the comforts of home, Drew would be stuck watching his Pack, making sure that there were no humans around, that no one was trying to get a little payback during a shift, and to make sure the females were being treated with respect.
It was an important job and one that Drew took very seriously, which unfortunately for him, meant that she was about to win their bet. She’d bet him that he’d never find her tonight and he claimed that he would not only find her, but fuck her before midnight. They were pretty big words for a guy that basically had to play babysitter to a bunch of werewolves for the next ten hours.
She had this one nailed.
She was also about to develop hypothermia, she realized as she ran barefoot through the cold slush that was more cold water than snow by this point. That was fine because it was going to make it harder for Drew to find her. No footprints and her scent covered by the watery frozen mess pretty much guaranteed that she was going to win.
Smiling more than she had in years, she ignored the cold bite from the slush and kept running. As she ran towards what promised to be a very relaxing evening, she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d remembered to bring an extra sleeping bag the last time she’d used the cave. She had several of course, hiding spots that is.
Well, hiding spots might not be the right word since that would indicate that she hid because she was afraid. She wasn’t. Afraid that is, but that still didn’t mean that she wanted to spend three nights a month having to fight whatever moron shifter who wanted to have a little fun torturing the “banished one.”
On more than one occasion she’d been forced to deal with little shifter cliques trying to teach her a lesson and have a little fun at her expense. She never let them win, no matter how badly they hurt her, she refused to allow them to humiliate her and put her down, making her look weak.
That was one thing that she would never allow anyone to ever do to her again.
Make her look weak.
She wasn’t weak.
She wasn’t.
She also wasn’t foolish. So, when it became obvious that the Boston Packs lacked any originality in entertaining themselves, she decided to just save herself a lot of time and trouble and just find really good hiding spots where she could read romantic comedies, pig out on junk food and pretend that she was staying awake all night because she loved nothing more than to be exhausted the next day.
Because there really was nothing more fun than trying to stay awake for seventy-two hours straight so that she wouldn’t wake up covered in bruises, bleeding and wondering where she was, because they’d dragged her body a hundred miles away after they’d managed to knock her out for shits and giggles.
Which reminded her, there were still a few bitches in this Pack that she needed to deal with, but she’d do that later, because right now she needed to-
“Hello, Kara,” the deceptively beautiful woman blocking her path said with that chilling smile that she would never forget as long as she lived. “Aren’t you happy to see me?” she asked with that smile becoming colder than the slush beneath Kara’s feet by the second as she came to a halt around the same time that she realized that she’d stayed here too long.
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