She was getting ready and trying to look all cute for one person: Grant.
Now, as Britta walked into the gym where she was going to meet both her alpha, Hann, and his next in line, Kato, she cursed at herself. She wasn’t even looking crazy amazing, yet she’d taken so long to get ready.
As she opened the doors to the gym where all shifters seemed to be lately, she caught a reflection of herself in one of the floor-length mirrors by the entrance. She was wearing workout clothes, and she was ashamed to admit that it took her almost an hour to decide on these. Her yoga pants were tight and fit nicely around her curvy body, while her black tank top was loosely fitted and cut open on the sides so that one could see her skin and the black sports bra that she wore underneath it. Britta never left her apartment in any other color than black, even though her mother desperately wanted her to wear color every now and then.
To finish off her all-black look, Britta tied her hair up in her signature high pony tail, her long hair still swishing to her lower back even when tied up. Her blue eyes seemed to pierce through everyone’s soul as she smiled and waved to the shifters while she walked through the gym. They’d better look piercing at least – she took forever doing her makeup and making sure it was flattering to her eyes, what she considered her best asset.
As Britta walked down the stairs to where the main gym materials and machines were held, she looked around in pride. The place was filled with her pack, all who were training and trying to better themselves in these trying times.
After all the recent attacks that had been occurring, both in her pack and around the world against shifters, Hann, the alpha of the Moonlight Pack, decided that they needed a place where people could properly train and learn from their fellow shifters. Britta and Grant, as well as their friends: Kato, Annie, and Lukas, all began training together in the forest when things began to get tough with Kato’s human lover, Thea.
Thea was a human who knew too much–in Elder standards, at least. After their first mission to take Thea away and wipe her memory of everything shifter-related failed, a small group of Elders came back to town with vengeance on their mind. They wanted things to go back to how it used to be, and they were angry that rules and regulations weren’t being enforced like they should’ve. They wanted to deal with this Thea “problem,” and they didn’t care if that resulted in violence.
When these Elders finally showed up, everyone thought that it was going to be a showdown between the Elders and the pack. But when the entire pack showed up to defend Thea with other Elders in tow, things changed. The Elders revealed that they had been split within, with one side wanting stricter rules being enforced, while another side, led by the friendly Elder, Michael, wanted to focus on more important things–and humans falling in love with shifters and vice versa just wasn’t as important to many people as it used to be.
Since the battle almost took place, things had changed within the pack. While they’d all accepted Thea with open arms, they’d decided that they needed to prepare for things that could come their way. Because the Elders weren’t the only problems on the horizon.
Uprisings within the shifter community of rogues–shifters that had been banished from society because they had broken the rules (almost all cases were because of murder)–had become an almost daily thing, and the Moonlight Pack had dealt with these issues in the past. A shifter named Kaiser had come to town on a brutal, merciless quest to enact revenge on the pack’s alpha, Hann, for killing his father. Of course, Hann had killed his father years before in order to protect his human wife and newborn baby, but Kaiser didn’t care. He thought that Hann got away with cold-blooded murder, and he wanted revenge.
Kaiser got a lot of rogues to join together and slaughter tiny villages around Europe, but when he finally came to Maine, the Moonlight Pack prevailed and took care of every single murderer, including Kaiser.
Kaiser’s death didn’t mean the rogue uprisings stopped. Not at all. In fact, his death seemed to spark something inside of these rogues’ chests, and now they were banding together like never before. This worried the Elders and every pack, of course, but they had yet to figure out how to stop it. What with the Elders in disarray and an almost all-out civil war for the past few weeks, they hadn’t had enough time to really focus on anything else.
But now, things had calmed down . . . slightly. The Moonlight Pack had created a gym for their shifters to come to and train in, in case the worst happened. The gym itself had seemed to become a form of a fight club, though the shifters all loved each other and never wanted to hurt anyone. They just wanted to be prepared so that they didn’t lose any shifters like they did when Kaiser showed up with rage and murder in his heart.
Britta sighed as she thought of all the things her pack had been through in the past few months. She couldn’t believe they had all stuck together through thick and thin, and she was proud of her pack. She knew that they would prevail, because they all trusted each other. Other packs didn’t have the luxury of love and trust. Lukas’s old pack was full of treason and murder, so trust wasn’t exactly anywhere to be found.
Britta walked downstairs and smiled at a few shifters who caught her eye. The moonlight shone through the floor-length glass windows that covered the gym. When she caught Grant’s eye, she tried to fight the smile that crept onto her face. He was currently boxing, with his shirt off, sweat glistening on his toned chest. The whole gym was filled with shifters; some in human form, others in wolf form, and Britta found herself surprised that Grant was in his human form. He normally liked to shift into his wolf form and train, but there he was, fit as a fiddle.
Britta wanted to swoon like those girls in the old movies, though she braced herself and had a spatting war with herself in her head. She would not let Grant see her affected by his shirtless, toned chest. She was in control here. And if Grant figured out that she thought he was something, he would never let her hear the end of it.
Grant, needless to say, could be a dick.
When Grant nodded his head at her and inclined it in his direction, motioning that she should come over to where he was, Britta obliged. She really didn’t put up that much of a fight, if she was being honest with herself. As she walked over, she made sure to put a little confident bounce in her step, making her long black hair swish behind her from where it was kept in a high ponytail.
“Weren’t you just here?” Grant asked her as she walked over, sweat dripping off of his shirtless chest. She almost seemed to brace herself. She didn’t let herself glance at his body, only caught his eyes and acted nonchalant, as if she wasn’t being affected at all.
“Yeah, but Kato wanted to meet with me,” she informed him, crossing her arms and looking around as if nothing bothered her at all. “He’s meeting with Hann and wanted me in on the meeting.”
Ever since everything happened with Thea a few weeks ago, Kato had asked Britta to join him as his own personal bodyguard. Kato, who was next in line to become the alpha after Hann, and who was Hann’s first choice since his own daughter couldn’t take the gig, needed protection at all times. While currently she wasn’t his bodyguard twenty-four/seven like she would be when he became the alpha, Kato still liked having her around and making sure she was informed about everything that was going on.
And she liked her new role. It finally gave her life a purpose. Her whole life had been just her floating around, looking for a mate in all the wrong places. Now, with friends like Kato and Thea, and a steady job that she could actually excel in, things were starting to look up for Britta.
If only she could get Grant out of her head.
“Wanna run tonight?” Grant asked as he grabbed a towel that was thrown on the ground next to him. He started to wipe the sweat off of himself, and Britta became slightly proud of herself that she was able to keep such a straight face.
Grant and Britta had been running together through the forest almost every night in their wolf forms for the last few weeks. What started as a ‘spur of the momen
t’ thing had turned into a nightly ritual, which helped cement their friendship. Britta and Grant sparred with each other and consistently made fun of each other before. They still were constantly at each other’s throats, but Britta knew that something had changed between them. Now, even though they always fought, she knew that Grant would always have her back, and she would always have his.
“I don’t know, it depends how long this thing takes,” she said, nodding to the back room where everyone seemed to meet during important crises now. Before, it was the bar. Now, it was the gym. At least they’d upgraded slightly. Britta felt like they needed to invest and buy a building just for crises or when the next crazy murderer shifter decided to come to town.
Britta nodded at him and started walking away, giving him a slight smile as she turned to go. She saw two shifters in their wolf forms, on one of the mats training. They were fighting each other, stopping slightly every now and then when one of them got the upper hand and was able to pin down the other wolf. Britta could barely hear them talking in her head, as shifters have the ability to communicate through their brain waves when they are in their wolf form. They can also hear each other and communicate when they are still in their human form, though it is harder to do and it’s just easier to talk regularly then.
On the other side of the little walkway Britta was on, she saw two members of her pack fighting in their human form, stopping to talk to each other and tell each other what they were doing wrong. As Britta watched all of her pack members training together, she felt pride bloom in her chest. The next time some evil shifter came around and tried to mess with them, they would be sorry.
Britta didn’t want to go in the back and wait for Kato and Hann to eventually show up. She wanted to train. She wanted to fight. So, she turned back around and walked briskly to where she’d left Grant, who was back to fighting against the punching bag. With a smirk on her face, she quickly picked up her pace to where she sprinted full force at Grant, expecting to tackle him to the ground and catch him by surprise.
She didn’t expect Grant to turn around less than a second before she hit him, using his own force to knock her to the ground, his body crushing her to the soft mat beneath her back. She felt the wind get knocked out of her, and when she was able to regain her composure, she wanted to slap the smirk off of Grant’s face.
“Next time, know who you’re trying to attack,” Grant murmured from above her. She struggled to break free of the grasp that he had over her arms, which just made him lean into her more and apply more pressure to her arms, his smirk growing even more. “I’m stronger than you, you know.”
“In your dreams,” she snorted back at him, rolling her eyes. If he was anyone else, she would’ve already had him pinned to the ground underneath her. But he did something to her, and she hated the way her bones seemed to turn to mush when he touched her. And now that his whole body was touching every inch of her body, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do. All she could do was try to bring her sarcasm into play, but even her witty banter wasn’t up to the par it normally was.
And she couldn’t help but notice his wasn’t, either. Maybe she wasn’t the only one affected by their close encounter.
Britta felt her heart pick up speed in her chest, and she prayed that Grant couldn’t tell. Her mind was running at incredible speed as she tried to think of something, anything, to say. Instead, she just laid there and stared up at him, hating the way she, a strong and independent woman, turned to mush the second this guy touched her. And it sure as hell didn’t help that he was touching almost every part of her.
“If you hurt my bodyguard, I’ll be upset,” they heard someone say as a group of people walked by them. Grant laughed, the spell broken, and got off of Britta, reaching down to help her up. She attempted to save face and stuck her tongue out at him. Mature.
Britta saw Kato and Hann, the next alpha and the current alpha, walking past them, both of them wearing knowing smirks on their faces.
“I’ll see you later,” Britta shoved him aside, both of them smiling slightly as Britta jogged to catch up with the alphas. She smiled at Lukas, a newer wolf and former rogue, as she passed him. When she looked back, she saw Lukas and Grant talking to each other, both of them laying down on the mats.
Britta smiled to herself. Grant and Lukas hadn’t exactly gotten along when Lukas showed up, a rogue with dire warnings of Kaiser–and it was all Grant’s fault. Grant went so far as to try to beat up Lukas and send him a warning when he first got to Maine, something that Annie, Hann’s daughter (who is half human, half shifter) and Lukas’s current mate, put an end to. Since that day, Grant had been trying to atone for what he tried to do. After Lukas saved both Annie and Hann when Kaiser tried to kill both of them, the Elders and the pack accepted Lukas as one of their own, letting him shed his rogue status and join the ranks of shifters again.
Grant never really talked about it, but Britta knew he felt bad. The loss of shifter life by the hands of Kaiser and his friends cut deep, and they were still missed on a daily basis. It was hard when the pack lost someone, as they were all so deeply intertwined. Grant realized that things could’ve been much worse had Lukas not been there. So, Grant started to shape up. Now, he and Lukas were incredibly good friends, something that no one saw coming.
Britta couldn’t help but think that maybe there was hope for everyone. If Grant, who used to be one of the most closed-minded and annoying people she knew, could change, then maybe the world could become a different place.
After all, if someone told Britta back then that she would ever have a crush on a guy like Grant, she would’ve scoffed and rolled her eyes. But now . . . well, now things had changed.
And she couldn’t get Grant out of her head.
Chapter 2
“When are you guys just going to admit that you both are head over heels in love with each other?” Lukas asked Grant as they watched Britta walk away with Kato and Hann. Grant rolled his eyes, though he found himself watching Britta’s toned backside as she walked away from him. Those yoga pants fit her in all the right places.
“You’re so dramatic,” Grant laughed, though he couldn’t ignore the way his heart still beat in his chest in overtime. He wished he could say it was from him working out with the punching bag. It wasn’t true, though–it was all because of Britta.
“What?” Lukas looked over at him, a bewildered look on his face as he smiled and dove into the teasing. “You at least have to admit that you two are in love with each other.” Lukas laughed again after he drawled out the words “in love.”
All Grant could do was shake his head, fighting the smirk on his face that had the potential to become an all-out smile. If Lukas saw that, he would never hear the end of it.
Grant truly didn’t know how he felt about Britta. Did he think she was sexy as hell? Hands down. And seeing her fight and in action just enhanced that sexual desire that he wanted to get rid of; because he knew that Britta would shoot him down if he even so much as flirted with her in a serious way.
But, during times of stress and new stories of uprisings happening closer to home, Grant had found that his first thoughts went straight to Britta. He couldn’t help it. He wanted to protect her, even though he had no reason to even act or think like that. He knew that Britta could protect herself. And he knew that she was going easy on him earlier when he had her pinned to the ground. If she wanted to, she could’ve kicked his ass in a matter of seconds. And it’s not like Grant was weak by any means, Britta was just that deadly and strong when she needed to be.
Grant didn’t know where his true feelings lay with Britta, but he knew that he didn’t want to lose her as a friend. He’d begun to rely on their nightly runs together as a way to blow off steam and remind himself that there was more to this world than his incessant anger. Because boy was Grant angry.
Ever since Kaiser rolled into town with one purpose, and one purpose only, Grant’s world had flipped upside down. Because, as Kaiser brought death
to the town, he also brought death to Grant’s immediate world. That fateful night, Grant lost his mother at the hands of a rogue. Grant, seeing only red, killed that rogue a few seconds after his mother perished. He wanted to make the rogue pay. He wanted there to be torture, to make the rogue feel what he was feeling as he saw his mother take her last breath as the rogue ripped her apart.
Grant had been through a lot since then. He’d mourned, and he’d grieved. Hann came to visit him, helping him through the process. And he thought that maybe he would be able to recover. His mother was the sweetest, kindest shifter he knew, and she’d raised him to be everything his father, a cold-hearted brute who had left years before, wasn’t. He knew that his mother would’ve wanted him to grieve while also putting his life back together. So, he was trying to do right by her and fix himself up.
Grant knew what it was like to lose someone he loved. And he didn’t want to even think about how he felt around Britta, because the fear of watching her being torn apart meant that he would fall apart completely. He wanted to protect her from everything already, and he knew that if he let his feelings grow, he would fall head first for her.
“Britta’s too good for me, you know,” Grant told Lukas after they both sat in silence for a second. It was a true statement. Britta was too good for a lot of people, even though she didn’t think so–and her string of men proved that she didn’t think so.
“Isn’t that the truth?” Lukas joked with him, shoving his shoulder lightly. Grant smiled back at him. “But why don’t we let Britta make that decision? Who know? She might like having some shithead with her instead of some great person. That way, she looks like the saint in the relationship.”
Moonlight Wolves Box Set Page 25