Her Captive Wolf (Sawtooth Shifters Book 1)

by Kristen Strassel

  “This is where the deck was. I loved sitting out here on nights like this.”

  “Do you own the land?” I asked as he turned to me. He took my other hand in his too. After last night, it shouldn’t have seemed so intimate, but his touch was getting even more intense.

  “Yeah.” He drifted back to another memory. “It’s all mine.”

  “You could always rebuild.”

  “I know. But it’ll never be the same.” Shadow sighed, walking back to the truck. He didn’t have to add without Archer. I followed him, already wanting to touch him again.

  “Tell me about it,” I said more to myself than him. His pain was tangible with the corpse of his former life sprawled out in front of us.

  “What happened to you, Trina?” I almost walked right into him when he turned around. My heart slammed against my ribcage, a different sort of impact. “I brought you here because I knew you’d understand what I was going through. But I don’t know why. Who do you cry for?”

  “What?” Oxygen stopped flowing to my brain. This why I never talked about Ryan. His memory threatened to drag me to the other side.

  I didn’t want to be like this. I wanted to be the smart, funny, light-hearted girl that lived in Portland and loved Ryan. Not the melancholy mess that grieved for him in Idaho. But Ryan took that piece of me with him, and I hadn’t figured out how to get it back. Some days, I could convince myself I was doing better, but Shadow shattered that little misconception.

  “You cry in your sleep,” he continued. “Every night I’ve spent with you, you’ve cried. Even last night. You call out for someone, but I can’t understand who you’re calling for. I thought maybe as a human I could figure it out, but I haven’t yet.”

  He put his arms around me, and I should’ve shrugged away. But I couldn’t move.

  “Who did this to you?”

  “I can’t talk about it.” I ducked out from under his arm, breaking into a quick trot until I got back into the safety of my truck.

  Shadow took his time starting the truck. We weren’t in any hurry. Just having him nearby calmed me down. Those ice blue eyes framed by long lashes, the dark skin, that impossibly silky hair. The way his chest rose and fell under his sweatshirt. I swear I could hear his heart beat. Or maybe it was my own blood drumming a tattoo in my ears.

  “I want things to be better for all of us.”

  “Me too,” I said softly.

  “Whatever it is,” he said as he turned the key in the ignition, “I promise I wouldn’t do it to you.”

  That was a promise he was sure to break.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Shadow

  It was the perfect morning to go talk to Major. He’d pissed me off, and I was ready for a fight.

  I was grumpy as hell today. Trina’s couch had seen better days, its springs poked into my ribs as I tried to sleep. I wanted to be in the bed with her, kissing away what hurt. Melting the guard she put up against all humans and letting her be free. I’d ripped a wound open with my question and going to bed with her last night would’ve been taking advantage of a shitty situation.

  I tossed and turned but resisted going to her until she cried. It was just a matter of when. She didn’t shun me when I crawled between the sheets, kissing her wet cheeks.

  “It’s gonna get better,” I whispered, rocking her back and forth until she calmed down enough to sleep peacefully. I just wished I believed it. She was twisted inside this pain like a maze, and there was no finding the way out.

  Eventually she fell asleep, letting me hold her while she dreamed. Finally I drifted off, too.

  “Sometimes I think I’m dreaming that you’re human,” she said when she woke up, her voice gravelly from her own shitty night’s sleep. “But I wake up and you’re still here.”

  “Is that a good thing?” I asked her.

  “It’s the best thing.” Her T-shirt and hair were rumpled, and she leaned down shyly to kiss my forehead. I gasped, my erection painful under the tangle of sheets. I looked to the clock, wondering how much time we had before the girls would be waiting for us outside the shelter. “I don’t usually do this, you know. Let guys I don’t know into my bed. All right, I never do this.”

  My aching cock was going to have to wait for the shower. I pushed myself up on my elbow. Trina bit her lip, and I’d give anything to get inside that head and know what she was thinking.

  “Since we’re doing this backwards, how about I take you out tonight? We can get dinner and talk. Get to know each other.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Like a date?”

  “Exactly like a date.” My heart was pounding just as hard as my dick. I’d been with a lot of women, but I wouldn’t consider any of them dates. No chance of having a mate had equaled no future. My mother’s voice echoed in my head, the only thing that could deflate this erection. The heartache that had been so plain on her face, thinking all of her sons had left her alone. “Where should we go?”

  Trina’s face fell, looking around the room. “I don’t have any nice clothes. An animal has marked every single top I have, and—”

  “Trina,” I cut her off. “You’ve already got me. I don’t care what you wear. I’d prefer you didn’t wear anything at all. What do you want for dinner?”

  She exhaled, more in disbelief than relaxation, but she laughed. “I’d love to go to Sun Valley Saloon. I hear the steak is amazing, but I’ve never been.”

  “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “I never had anyone to go with.”

  I sat up quickly, pulling her into me and returning her forehead kiss. “That’s a not a problem anymore.” I crawled off the bed. If I didn’t get into the shower I was going to explode. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

  BEFORE I WENT TO BACK to Sawtooth, I stopped at the Tack and Feed and bought all the dog, cat, and bird food they had.

  “Holy shit.” Trina couldn’t pick her jaw up from her chest when I walked in with the first massive bag of food over my shoulder. When I came back in with the next load, I caught Kiera poking at the bag like it was a rabid animal that could bite at any second, maybe to make sure she wasn’t imagining things.

  “You’re a fucking hero. It sounds cheesy, but it’s true.” Trina’s eyes were glossy with unshed tears. “I wondered how I was going to make it through the rest of the week. You know your crates were taken the minute you guys walked out the door, and with the way I’ve been treated in town since the fights, there haven’t been any donations. I’ve been beside myself. Thank you.”

  My smile faded as the little cluster of cabins that Major and the rest of his community lived in came into view. It was shitty of me to have wanted something to have happened to his house, too. Then I could point the finger about my ruined life squarely at Ryker. But with everything as it always was here, it left too many questions.

  I went straight to Major without stopping to get my brothers. I needed to do this alone, without anyone interfering. My brothers would follow my lead. They always had. What happened next would determine if all the wolves would follow.

  It didn’t help that the first person I saw was Shea, the bastard who’d killed my brother in the ring.

  “Nice truck,” the shithead said with a smirk. His face was cut and bruised. No surprise he’d found trouble. “My brother tells me you’re shacking up with the shelter chick.”

  “Trina. Not ‘shelter chick’.” I shoved my hands in my pockets so I didn’t strangle this asshole. All I could see was my brother’s body bleeding out. “My house is gone, so if you have any other suggestions, I’m all ears.”

  “Yeah. I heard. Sorry about that.” Bullshit.

  “Your brother here?” I wasn’t here to make small talk.

  “Yeah.” Shea didn’t take his eyes off me. “Major. You have company.”

  Major sauntered out like he’d never been anywhere else. He was in his regular clothes, jeans and T-shirt, and I was still wearing the clothes Trina had given to me because it was all I h
ad. I’d been too busy to do anything about it. Until now, I hadn’t cared.

  “What do you want, Shadow?”

  “Glad to see you made it home.” I emphasized home.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I would’ve asked the same question before I went to see mine. There’s nothing left. They dozed the lot after the fire.” Our eyes were locked on one another. “My brothers and I were all reported dead.”

  “I heard,” Major said solemnly. “I’m sorry.”

  “When did you hear about it?” He looked genuine, but the timing was all too perfect. If I kept asking him questions, I’d catch him in a lie.

  “Yesterday.” Major narrowed his eyes in confusion. “I was with you when it happened.”

  “I need to make sure I can trust you, Major, if I’m going to work with you.” I gave him another chance to come clean. “We’re stronger together. Division weakens us.”

  “If you’re working with me, I need you here. Taking care of pack business in the forest. We’ve been gone for six months and everything’s a mess. There’s been no leader in Sawtooth the whole time we’ve been gone. Your brothers won’t listen to me without you here. I don’t have time for this bullshit. You don’t need to be fucking playing lap dog at the shelter. That woman did her job. She can’t save you anymore.” His laugh caught on the last few words.

  He still thought he could tell me what to do.

  “I’m not working for you, Major.” I didn’t break my gaze. “We’re equals.”

  He chuckled again. “We’ll see about that.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Trina

  Tonight I had a date with Shadow Channing and I’d never been so nervous in my life.

  There was no reason to be, in theory. We were going to have dinner and get to know each other. He’d already been inside me, so I didn’t have much to hide. But he actually wanted to talk. It wasn’t the wolf that scared the living shit out of me, it was the human.

  Shadow had been grumbly since he’d come back from the forest. I kept waiting for him to say he’d changed his mind. Terrified or not, I wanted to do this. I wasn’t giving him an out.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” I said. Once we got out of the truck, I noticed Shadow had new clothes. Jeans and a tight T-shirt that did nothing to hide the hard muscles of his chest under his jacket. I wondered if he’d gone shopping, or if he had a stash at his mother’s house. No matter where he got it, he looked amazing. He raised an eyebrow and my knees went weak. “I’m gross from the shelter. Don’t bother trying to tell me it’s fine. I smell like cat pee and I know it. No one will want to sit near us.”

  “Okay,” Shadow grumbled. He sat down, looking uneasy.

  “What?” Everyone in Granger Falls knew I ran the shelter, but this shower was non-negotiable. Nothing was more brutal than the stench of cat piss.

  The look in his eyes made me shiver.

  “It will be hard to stay out here, knowing what you’re doing in there.” He softened, wiggling his eyebrows. “But we’re trying to do this the right way.”

  “If we were doing things the right way.” I walked over to him and put my knee between his legs. He didn’t flinch at the smell, instead looking up at me like he couldn’t believe what was happening. I couldn’t either. I hadn’t done this since...block the thought out, Trina. Don’t feel guilty about this. This man wants you to flirt with him. And you want to do it. “You wouldn’t have seduced me the first night you shifted.”

  “I seduced you, hmmmm?” He pulled me down into his lap, his lips hovering just over my skin. But he didn’t kiss me. I nodded. My heart fluttered in my chest so fast I thought it might give out. “I don’t think I remember it that way,” he said.

  I wanted so many things. To tell him he was wrong because I wasn’t capable of seducing anyone anymore. To beg him to kiss me, to lay me down on the floor of my living room and run his lips over every inch of my skin. But I also really, really wanted to go out to dinner with Shadow. Not just because I was starving, but because I desperately wanted to go out on a date. I wanted to feel like a woman again. Normal.

  My legs could barely carry me to the bathroom, and I washed my hair twice because I was so distracted. Once I got my head on straight, it didn’t take me long to get ready. I dried my hair and put on the clothes with the least amount of animal damage. Even before the accident, I’d never been a fancy girl who wore a lot of makeup. I’d always kept things simple. Practical. A lot of good that did me. I took a good look at myself for the first time in a long time. I didn’t recognize the person in the reflection, the one with all the rolls and the dark smudges under my eyes. My hair was much longer than it had ever been, and I resisted tying it back as I did every day at the shelter. I wanted to like this woman, I just didn’t know her that well.

  Shadow rose when I came back to the living room.

  “I like your hair down,” he said, pulling me in closer to him. Still no kiss, just a deep breath, like he intended to swallow me whole. What a tease. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it that way.”

  I ducked away from him and made a beeline for the door.

  “It’s weird when you say things like that,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. I was into him. Totally into him. But it was overwhelming. “It’s only been a couple of days.”

  “For you,” he reminded me. We’d already fallen into an easy pattern, like we knew what the other one wanted. Shadow climbed into the driver's side of my truck. “I had nothing to do but watch you the whole time I was at the shelter.” He chuckled. “That didn’t sound creepy at all.”

  “No, it actually didn’t,” I admitted. It was nice to be able to watch the town come into view without worrying about, well, anything tonight. Except for this date. “It’s actually pretty sweet.”

  “I think I’d prefer creepy.” Shadow laughed harder, shaking his head. “You’re going to ruin my street cred, Trina, I’m trying to...never mind.”

  “You’re trying to what?” Now I was alarmed. He could be trying to be anything, with me held hostage as a passenger in my own vehicle. The Sun Valley Saloon was at the end of this street and I prayed that he’d actually turn into the parking lot. “Now you’re creepy.”

  Shadow looked at me quickly, the smile gone, before turning into the parking lot. I finally exhaled. He could be as creepy as he wanted with witnesses.

  “I want to be alpha. I’ll have to fight for the title, and it goes against everything I stand for. But I can’t let Major take the reins and destroy order in the forest, and our chance at a future. He leads by intimidation; his brothers barely speak in his presence. And Shea, that’s the one who ran off, he’s nothing but chaos.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I think it’s worth fighting for.”

  “I do too.” I put my hand over his and the smile was back. “What about running for mayor?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it.” He headed toward the restaurant. “I’d need the support of the pack to win.”

  “I think you can do it.” If Shadow could get me to come out of my shell, even by the baby steps I’d taken, he could get people do to whatever he wanted. He might not look like a typical politician, with his long, streaked hair and his leather jacket, but Granger Falls was full of hard-working people that didn’t easily trust a fast talker in a suit and tie. “Let me know what I can do to help. I won’t be running for Miss Congeniality or anything, but there must be something I can do that wouldn’t hurt your chances.”

  Shadow kissed my forehead as we waited for the hostess. Everyone in the restaurant gasped when we walked in—the guy who they’d all thought was dead and the weird animal lady who put a wrench in everyone’s lives by exposing the dog fights. They turned back to each other, the buzz noticeable as we walked by. But no one approached us.

  If Shadow noticed, he didn’t acknowledge it.

  “I’m so excited to be here.” I said, looking at him over my menu. I wanted this night to be about us,
our future. Not the past. “Cooking for one person sucks. I’m usually too tired to bother with anything more than a sandwich when I get home.”

  Shadow raised an eyebrow when I ordered a strawberry margarita, or maybe I just imagined it. Drinking had been one of the ways I dealt with Ryan’s death. It was a way to quiet down my brain before I met Shadow. I added a T-bone steak and mashed potatoes to the order. Shadow ordered the same thing and the way he looked at me after he handed his menu to the waitress—I had no idea how we’d make it past the appetizer.

  “I have some questions for you, since we’re doing this the right way.” Shadow smirked. “Normal stuff,” he added when my eyes widened, still self-conscious about ordering the drink.

  “Okay.” I was doing something I hadn’t done in a long time. Living in the moment. There was no doubt he’d ask me things that would make me squirm. But if we were going to be anything more than whatever it was we were right now—a bundle of nerves and some insane sexual tension—I had to stop running from this. “Go for it.”

  “Are you from Idaho?” He started easy.

  “No. I grew up in Oregon. South of Portland. I haven’t been home in a long time, but if I concentrate really hard, I can still smell the mint fields.”

  “That explains the Ducks obsession.” Shadow smiled. I’d figured out a way to stream the football games on my computer, and I blasted them at the shelter every Saturday afternoon. “I’m more of a Broncos fan,” he added.

  “Boise or Denver?”

  “Boise, of course.” Shadow rolled his eyes and laughed like it should’ve been obvious. “And it’s my alma mater.”

  I nodded. “University of Oregon is mine. What did you study?”

  “Anthropology. You?”

  “Marketing.” The plan had been to go work for an advertising agency.

  Shadow’s eyes widened. “Really?” I expected him to react like that and braced myself for the inevitable next question. “How’d you wind up with a shelter?”