Cole (A Wolf Shifter Romance Novel) (The Steelman Shifters Book 1)

by Ruby Brooks

  My mum pulled out the cooked lasagne from the oven and motioned for my dad and I to sit at the table. There was even wine in the middle of the table. I cringed at how hard they were trying and wished I was anywhere but here. My mum had already helped herself to half the bottle.

  Well, actually, I wished I was with Hayley. I wonder what had happened for her to need me. I tried to ignore the part of me that was jealous about the fact she may have reached out to Kian, first. Because why wouldn’t she? He was everything I wasn’t and I hated it every day.

  This is your best friend.

  I bit the inside of my cheek, hard, to bring my attention back to the table.

  “How was school?” My mum asked, piling my plate. For all her faults, she was a fantastic cook. I couldn’t wait to pretty much just inhale this dish.

  “It was fine,” I said, about to tuck in.

  “Answer her properly,” my dad said, not lifting his eyes from the article he was reading on his phone. If I was on my phone at dinner, I would get clipped behind the ears. Got to love double standards from your parents.

  I stifled a sigh before answering. “We have had an opportunity to pull forward one of our English exams. I have decided to take advantage of it so I have been spending most of my time revising.” It wasn’t a lie, but I didn’t see why it mattered.

  “Right. See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  I ignored him and focussed on eating. The food was good, and I needed to get the recipe for this one day to make it for Hayley.

  Christ. Could I go more than a minute without thinking about her?

  “So, we need to talk to you about something.” My mum glanced at dad, who nodded. I didn’t like the sound of this but I kept quiet. “That girl you hang around with… Hayley Morton?”

  “What about her?” My back was up, but I kept the shift at bay so my parents didn’t detect it. I still hadn’t gotten my wolf under control yet, and I couldn’t afford to show weakness in front of them. The first time I shifted was yesterday, with I still hadn't processed that yet though and have been yet to shift since.

  “We have been debating telling you about this for a long time," my mum drew me out of my thoughts. "The Morton’s come from a long line of shifter hunters. I think it is best if you stop associating with her.”

  “What?” I couldn’t believe my ears.

  “Cole, you have to understand.” My dad spoke up this time, again not looking at me. “We have a reputation on the line here.”

  “A reputation?” I scoffed. “Don’t make me laugh. If anyone has a reputation around here it is me. Cut the bullshit, both of you. The only reputation you have is for arguing like children in front of the pack. It’s fucking embarrassing.”

  My dad slammed his fist on the table, knocking over my mum’s wine glass in the process. “You will not speak to me like that.”

  “I just did.” Not the most mature response, but I shrugged anyway. I was done with this, and desperate to go to Hayley.

  “She is dangerous,” my mum said, coming in at a different angle. “What if you were alone together? She would kill you.”

  “No, she wouldn’t. Fuck. Do you two even know her?” I felt my own anger rising but I needed to keep it in check. I didn’t want to be like my dad.

  Ever.

  “We knew her parents,” my dad muttered. He picked up his fork again and started eating.

  “Her parents were killed. I highly doubt they are speaking to her from the dead.”

  “I know they were killed.” He rolled his eyes and my mum dropped hers to the table, her fingers shaking.

  “What was that about?” My wolf was dangerously close to taking over.

  Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

  “I killed them. Well, I orchestrated it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have chance to deliver the final blow.” My dad looked up when he realised I wasn’t responding. I couldn’t fucking think. “I was lucky to make it out of there alive, come to think of it.”

  All the nights Hayley cried herself to sleep it was because of my own family. My own fucking blood took away hers. Holding my shift back was agonising, but, somehow, I still managed it anyway.

  “Say that again,” I demanded, my voice low. My mum was shaking as she mopped up the table cloth, and my dad’s jaw dropped open.

  “Cole,” he breathed. “You’re an alpha.”

  Yeah, no fucking shit. I figured that out a long time ago.

  “You killed them.” I flipped the table. I could hold in either my shift, or my temper. Not both.

  God, what was I doing?

  I couldn’t control it. All I could see was red.

  Hayley – my fucking Hayley – was hurting because of my family.

  How couldn’t I have foreseen this?

  “Cole,” my mum gasped. “We were doing the right thing.”

  “For who? She is thirteen, Mum. How would you feel if your daughter lost her parents?”

  I didn’t mention me in that. My mum always wanted a daughter instead of a son and hadn’t been able to get pregnant since me. She loathed me for it, and constantly reminded me of it every time she was pissed.

  I was pissed now, and it was my turn to do some hurting.

  She visibly flinched while my dad decided to square up to me. I was inches shorter than him, but a damn better fighter. I had been training for a few years – I was so fucking ready for this.

  “Do you have any idea what you have done?” I snarled at him.

  “Get over her, Cole.”

  “She’s my mate. I am not going to get over her.”

  My mum gasped, the horror of what she had done was finally sinking in. It didn’t encourage her to stand up and help me though.

  “It’s a crush. You’ll grow out of it. Don’t go throwing around the mate card.” My dad said, laughing to himself.

  I knew it in my heart that I was right and didn’t need to explain it to him. My wolf was clawing at me, giving me one hell of a migraine. Without thinking, I lashed out, tackling my dad to the ground.

  He hurt her. He hurt her. He hurt her.

  My dad quickly recovered and had me in a choke hold on the ground. I was clawing at his forearm, leaving large gashes in his skin.

  “Don’t fucking fight me, boy. You are pathetic.”

  “Aiden!” My mum yelled. “That is our son. If Hayley is his mate… then he is forgiven. Please, let him go.”

  “No.”

  I couldn’t breathe. There was only one way to get out of this but I couldn’t.

  I shouldn’t.

  I shifted and let out a roar. We had human neighbours, and God-fucking-knows what they must have thought. Tristan would be on his way already, and my window of opportunity was growing smaller by the second.

  “Hurt him,” my wolf snarled aloud. My dad registered the words but he was a slow shifter. I had already lunged at him, clamped my snout around his neck. It was the ultimate form of submission and I felt it as Tristan’s member left and joined mine. My pack.

  Fuck.

  Tristan was going to kill me.

  My mum was panting, struggling to get me off him. I pressed harder, the blood seeping into my mouth. I spat it out, releasing him, and stared at my mum.

  I didn’t want to do this.

  No, I screamed at my wolf. Don’t do this.

  I wasn’t in control anymore. All I could see was red. I was free, and I was my in my element; I was a natural fighter, and my wolf was rejoicing.

  Please, not my mum, I begged.

  For all her faults, she was my mother.

  My wolf didn’t care. He would only submit to his alpha who was God knows where. He enjoyed the smell of her fear. Her incompetence to fight back. With ease, he forced her to the ground in the same way.

  “I’m so sorry, Cole. I didn’t know.”

  Those were her last words.

  ✽✽✽

  Tristan didn’t say anything as we sat in his tactical room. No one would dare bother us in here, not even Kian.
Tristan told me he was upstairs asleep, and the few pack members who saw us were bound by secrecy. Tristan didn’t like applying his alpha influence on his own upper level pack members, but he vowed to keep this a secret so he had to.

  “Cole. I am going to find a new family for you so you can stay here, if you want to?”

  I nodded once. All I could think about was Hayley.

  What was she going to think of me? When could I see her? Will she ever forgive me for this?

  I’d never forgive myself. The signs were all there, that there was a planned assassination, and I knew we were collecting someone from Harrogate around the same time. I told Tristan, but it was too late; her parents were gone.

  “There is a family across the street from Hayley,” he said, and I met his eyes.

  “What the fuck have I done?”

  “I know you’re scared, and you will reconnect with your wolf, I promise. All I have done is put him in a deep sleep for a few hours while you process this.”

  “I don’t want my wolf.”

  Tristan tsked. “Don’t say that, hell, don’t think it. You are one and the same, and it will only create friction between you.”

  “I didn’t want to kill them,” I exploded out of my seat and paced the room. “I wanted to hurt them, yes, in the same way Hayley hurts. Fuck. I did this for her but she never asked me to. She will never look at me in the same way again. How can I get her to forgive me?”

  “Don’t tell her.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” I scoffed. “Do you lie to your mate, too?” I couldn’t fathom hiding it from Hayley forever.

  “When I have to.” It was like Tristan had aged before me. I always saw Tristan and Maria together as strong, stable, but it was as though this man had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  “How do you destroy the monster without becoming one? I lost it today. Completely lost it.”

  “We aren’t monsters, Cole. You are not a monster. We will work on your control. I should have seen this coming.”

  I pulled at my hair hard enough to make my scalp burn. It was a little longer now, and Hayley liked it this way. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re an alpha. It is why I was reluctant to have you in my pack, but your parents… I knew something like this would happen because it happened to me, too. I didn’t have any support. I couldn’t control my anger. I killed and fucking loved it.”

  This was the most raw and honest conversation I had ever had with someone. I felt like I was talking to my dad, not my alpha.

  “I wish you were my father,” I admitted after a long pause. I avoided talking about the problems anymore. “My head is pounding from the shift.”

  “And I wish you were my son. I love Kian, I do. You know, as well as I do, he doesn’t want this responsibility, but you do. If you were my son… I could have saved Kian. Your headache will pass.”

  We were quiet for a moment and I stopped pacing, looking at him instead. “Help me, Tristan. Please. I will beg you if I have to.”

  “I know a place we can go. Come on, I’ll even drive.”

  “Now? I said I was going to see Hayley. Fuck, what time is it?”

  “It’s almost midnight. Go see to her, and tomorrow meet me here. I know you visit her late so come whenever you are ready.”

  “What about Kian?”

  “I’ll handle Kian.”

  I nodded and stopped at the threshold. “Thank you, alpha.”

  He sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “When it is just the two of us, Tristan will suffice.”

  “What will happen now? With the police.”

  “The police are in my back pocket.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You would have been on a murder charge, Cole. Double. I took care of it, but it means there will be a lot of us that go down if this gets out.”

  I nodded again, understanding the threat, and slipped out of the room. The only guy who passed me in the corridor was Dane, and he gave me a subtle nod in understanding. He had held me down while waiting for Tristan to arrive, and I was glad I didn’t cause him any serious harm.

  As soon as I was outside, I tried shifting. Whatever Tristan had done to my wolf it didn’t seem like it was lifting any time soon. I was miles away, without anyone able to drive me, and I kicked a stone as I walked, watching it bounce off a tree.

  Fuck this. I am getting a car as soon as I can drive.

  When I finally arrived at Hayley’s, I tapped on the window, grateful to hear her still awake.

  “Cole?” She called out my name, groggily. “I’ve been texting you. Where have you been?”

  “I’m sorry, I got held up.”

  She gave me a puzzled look, but went back to bed, pulling the cover up around her. I swallowed hard at the sight of her puffy eyes and congested nose.

  “Want to talk?” I asked, awkwardly sitting on her windowsill.

  “Yeah, come in for God’s sake. It’s cold.”

  I looked around for a place to sit. I locked the window, hoping no one else would come up and join us. “Um, can I sit on your bed?” I scratched the back of my head, feeling awkward as fuck.

  “Yeah,” she giggled softly. “I don’t think I have ever seen you nervous.”

  I shrugged. “Your grandmother is terrifying when she’s mad. If she finds us in here, it’s all your fault.”

  She let out another giggle, and the sound was slowly loosening the knot around my chest.

  “Talk to me,” I asked, my voice low so we wouldn’t wake her grandmother.

  “It’s stupid really.” She pulled at a thread on her duvet and I automatically reached out, taking her hand in mine. Her hazel eyes met mine as she bit her lip.

  “Nothing that you could say would be stupid.”

  Her hand was soft in mine as I slowly rubbed my thumb over her delicate fingers. I heard her breath hitch and I had the overwhelming urge to kiss her.

  When she looked at me with pure innocence in her expression, I knew I couldn’t tell her. Why would I destroy something, someone, so pure?

  “I… I am being bullied at school, by some guys. I need your help. Or Kian’s, but he doesn’t like that sort of thing. He thinks he may lose control and accidentally get a human to submit to the pack.”

  “I’ll help. Whatever you need.” Don’t go running to Kian, come to me.

  “Thank you.”

  I sat with her all night, listening as she told me what was happening at school – right in front of my eyes. I needed to thank Tristan tomorrow for putting my wolf to sleep. I brushed away her tears with the pads of my thumbs, desperate to kiss her, and know how it would feel.

  Her eyes darkened as they flicked down to mine, but just as I was about to lean forwards, she leaned out of my grip.

  “Will you stay with me tonight?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. It was nearly four in the morning and I had nowhere to go. No one was going to miss me. Besides, this was the only place I wanted to be.

  “Yeah, do you have a spare pillow? You know, for the floor?”

  “You can stay in the bed next to me. On the blanket. Boundaries.”

  The flush creeping across her cheeks and neck was fucking adorable. I needed to make her do that more.

  “Okay.”

  I slipped my shoes off, and tossed my jacket over the back of her desk chair. As I lay next to her, she watched me.

  “You’re different to how I expected,” she admitted.

  “Different how?”

  “You’re kind and gentle with me. Every time I see you, it is like you are angry with the world. I like this softer Cole.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, tucking a dark strand of her hair behind her ear. I loved her hair, all long and wavy. It suited her.

  “Don’t be,” she smiled. “It was just an observation.”

  “Go to sleep, Hales.”

  “Hales?”

  “Yeah, my nickname for you.” I flashed her my playful smile, reminding her I was still here. Telling me
she thought I was gentle wasn’t sitting right with me.

  “Sorry ‘Hayley’ is too long for you,” she mocked, rolling her eyes which made me chuckle. “Okay. Thank you for staying and listening.”

  “Anytime. Just promise me one thing?”

  “Hmm?” The sleep was beginning to take over already and I watched in awe the trust she had in me.

  I don’t deserve you.

  “Don’t ever ask Kian for this kind of treatment. I’m not sure I could handle it if you told me he spent the night in your bed.” The words slipped out, my self-control waning. I wanted to tell her how I really felt.

  A smile played at her lips. “I promise.”

  Chapter 5

  Cole

  One year ago…

  “What’s up with you?” Kian asked, tearing a bite out of his sandwich. We were sat in the canteen at a table to ourselves. Most people went out to town, but we stayed so that we could stay out of trouble. We went to the local school and college with other shifters, and it was the only neutral ground.

  “Nothing,” I grumbled. I was in a foul mood, ready to tear into someone. I didn’t know why but my wolf was clawing at me, begging to be free.

  “Need help with that?” He nodded at my chest, knowing my internal struggle.

  Tristan had promoted Kian to his second in command, and that meant he could begin using any alpha influence that he was gaining as he was getting older.

  “No, fuck off.” I flung a dry bit of my lettuce from my wrap at him, making him cringe.

  “Not on my new shirt,” he whined.

  “You’re such a girl,” I rolled my eyes.

  “Speaking of girls…”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Just stop it,” I tossed my wrap on the table, no longer hungry.

  “Hayley likes you, you know. I knew it since the day you met. Why do you keep stringing along other girls? Claim her already.”

  I wanted to. I couldn’t be alone with Hayley anymore because, every time I was, the urge to claim her would overwhelm me and I had to run out of there. We hadn’t even kissed before, and yet I was all angsty when she even breathed near me.

  No way was I every admitting that to Kian though. I’d never live it down.