Lone Wolf Dawn E-Book

Aimee Easterling

• Herausgeber: Aimee Easterling
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

The second novel in a hot new urban fantasy series that reviewers are describing as "Packed full of action, emotion, and powerful writing!"

Fen is a half-werewolf who's lost her pack. All she wants is a home and an ordinary human life, which means seeking out the deadbeat mom who abandoned her a decade ago.

Her journey takes her to a simple small town that's serene on the outside yet contains a rotten core of complicated danger. A stalker, a bomb threat, and a rogue shifter keep her hopping, but Fen's greatest struggle lies within her own heart.

Will she be able mend her relationship with her mom and find a place to belong...and can she do so without risking her mother's life?

USA Today bestselling author Aimee Easterling's Alpha Underground trilogy begins with Half Wolf, continues with Lone Wolf Dawn, and concludes with Wolf Landing.

Leseprobe

Lone Wolf Dawn

Alpha Underground, Volume 2

Aimee Easterling

Published by Wetknee Books, 2017.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

LONE WOLF DAWN

First edition. March 12, 2017.

Copyright © 2017 Aimee Easterling.

ISBN: 978-1386807391

Written by Aimee Easterling.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Wolf Landing

Chapter 1

L is for love.

And for laughable, lost, and—ultimately—lonely.

Twelve years ago, I said the L word one last time...and was promptly tossed to the curb for my efforts. After learning that lesson the hard way, I definitely wasn’t planning to backslide into stupidity anytime soon.

Not even when my mate looked at me with those penetrating amber eyes and murmured: “We make a good team.” Then ignored the fact that we were stalking prey and instead leaned forward as if for a kiss.

I certainly didn’t mind Hunter’s kisses. But something about the set of his shoulders suggested he was looking for more than simple physical pleasure this time around.

Darn Hunter anyway for his overwhelming cuteness, for his thoughtfulness, and for the way he gently but constantly begged me to reciprocate his affections.

The uber-alpha had named himself my mate a month earlier and had since waited on me hand and foot as I recovered from a gunshot wound. He’d been the rock I clung to as I dealt with losing both my small band of shifters and the alpha mantle that had allowed me to lead said pack in the first place.

The charmer had even brought home a wicked set of throwing knives to cheer me up in lieu of flowers. How sweet was that?

Still, there was no reason to descend into mushland. We were mates—we worked together and we played together. Why risk everything with words neither of us actually meant?

So, instead of giving in to my companion’s silent request, I deflected the discussion back onto the hulking warehouse in front of us. “A puppy mill for werewolves. Who exactly thought this was a good idea?”

Once again, Hunter accepted my diversion with only a faint sigh before his lips curled upward into an answering smile. “I assume the human has no clue what he’s gotten himself into.”

Something about Hunter’s tone suggested he wasn’t merely referring to the fact that the cuddly puppies inside the nearby warehouse would abruptly change into human form fourteen years after being sold to unsuspecting new pet owners. Instead, as my companion’s glance flicked to the knife I was absently tossing up into the air and then catching repeatedly, I couldn’t resist grinning in reply.

Hunter was right—the law-breaking human had no idea what he’d gotten himself into.

“Now?” I asked, glancing down at my watch. The puppy-mill owner had been inside for a good ten minutes already and he rarely waited around after feeding time ended. If we wanted to catch our prey as he emerged from the front door, then Hunter and I needed to stop canoodling and start moving into place.

“Sure,” my mate answered, already stripping out of his clothes and stashing them in the brush where we’d been hiding. After dealing with several minor and not-so-minor criminals together, we’d gotten our partnership down to a science. Hunter went in as a wolf, intimidating shifters with his sheer alpha dominance or scaring humans shitless with the size of his tremendous fangs. I stayed human and used my best weapons—words first, edged blades second.

We hadn’t lost a scuffle yet.

Of course, the current job was a little trickier. The puppy-mill owner was a one-body—human only—and thus couldn’t be made aware of Hunter’s and my dual nature. Plus, the security cameras over the door threatened to bust our world wide open if they caught a shift on tape.

Still, I wasn’t worried. Two werewolves against one weak human? The one-body’s chances were laughable.

Well, I wasn’t worried until I caught the reek of urine, feces, and unwashed mutt oozing out through the cracks between sheet-metal walls. Three werewolf pups, my inner wolf informed me, using our shared nostrils to gather sensory data that my human brain wouldn’t have been able to decipher on its own. And dozens of dogs.

I didn’t bother passing the information along to Hunter. My mate’s growl proved that he was well aware of the contents of the metal building.

Aware and thoroughly displeased about the matter. The wolf pups were bloodlings, born in wolf rather than human form and often cast out of their clans as a result. But even though they looked like animals, the puppies possessed two-legger brains within those four-legger bodies.

Hunter knew very well what that scenario felt like since he’d begun life as a bloodling himself.

The two of us were now crouched behind a row of shrubs on the left side of the front door, and I took advantage of being out of camera range to drop a hand onto Hunter’s head in a silent show of solidarity. But there was no time to soothe my mate further because heavy footsteps quickly approached the opposite side of the metal barrier. With a screech, the garage-type door rolled upward and our opponent came into view between the leaves that shielded our faces.

The owner looked like an ordinary, middle-aged guy with a receding hairline, slight paunch, and unshaven jawline. But my wolf snarled within my belly as we took in his odor. It was subtly off, reeking of greed and sadistic pleasure with just a hint of madness swirling deep down underneath.

So I didn’t hesitate to pull my second knife out of its boot sheath and step up behind our mark. Then I crossed both blades over the human’s Adam’s apple and pulled in so tightly that they indented the skin.

“Not so fast,” I whisper-growled as the man tried to jerk free.

My inner wolf begged me to let the sharp edges bite deeper, to draw a little blood. But I shushed her and merely shoved the human back through the doorway he’d been about to draw closed.

“It’s time for us to have a little chat,” I informed him.

***

THE INTERIOR OF THE warehouse was in an even more disreputable state than I’d initially imagined. The building was small and windowless, with barely enough space for me to walk between two rows of cages. And the stench now that we’d entered was overwhelming. I actually had to ask my wolf to turn off our nose for a moment to prevent myself from gagging.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

An emaciated female dog hovered against the back wall of one cage, her lip curling upwards into a snarl as she strove to protect her litter. Above her head, a frightened puppy released his bladder. Liquid splattered down to land on offspring and mother alike.

There were dogs everywhere. Half a dozen crammed into a cage too small to house a single beast. Others with matted fur and open sores where animals had been left to fight over the bare minimum daily ration.

The air filled with coughs every bit as loud as the growls and barks. And then there were the eyes. Dark, begging eyes. Liquid, terrified eyes. Crusted, infected eyes.

Amber, sparkling eyes so much like my mate’s that I gasped and released the proprietor before I realized what I was doing. I only came to myself when the first bloodling pup licked my hand, his tiny teeth following up with a bite to my thumb. Pay attention, he seemed to be saying. Your job here isn’t done quite yet.

I rose from my knees with murder on my mind. The puppy-mill owner was standing in one corner, a large, adult wolf growling in front of him as Hunter made up for my lapse by keeping the offender in line. “This is private property...” the human began.

“This,” I said, waving my hands to encompass the two rows of reeking cages, “is a travesty. You’re breaking so many laws you could spend the rest of your life in prison.”

I expected the man to cower in the face of Hunter’s teeth even if my rage made little impact. But, instead, he smirked. “And who are you to pass judgment?” he demanded.

“We’re with the...” I paused, trying to remember the name of the human organization that dealt with puppy mills. “We’re with the, um, AARP?”

I closed my eyes for a split second in frustration. I hated that my sentence had risen at the end into a question, our cover story abruptly forgotten in the face of the bloodlings’ eyes.

Worse, the puppy-mill owner laughed at me. “I think you mean the ASPCA,” he offered, side-stepping Hunter as if he knew my companion possessed a human intellect within that lupine body and wouldn’t lunge forward instinctively the way a real wolf might.

“But you aren’t really affiliated with any organization at all, are you?” the man purred, stepping into my personal space and forcing me to backpedal until my spine settled against the metal bars of the closest cages. “You have secrets of your own to keep and you can’t afford to harm a human, hmm?”

I gasped, shaking my head in negation. This money-grubbing two-legger couldn’t really know that he was trafficking in werewolves, could he? Hunter’s job as Tribunal enforcer had set us on the one-body’s trail, but the rules were clear—we couldn’t out shifter-kind to the larger human world and we didn’t have the authority to punish a human the way we might want to.

But if the human already knew about werewolves? That was a gray area I didn’t know how to navigate.

Hunter, apparently, lacked my scruples. Despite the security cameras I’d seen in each corner of the room, he shifted without warning and strode toward my assailant two-legged. “Stay away from my mate,” he growled, an unconscious alpha compulsion turning his words into daggers of command.

Of course, alpha compulsions only worked on werewolves. Still, the human’s eyes widened with the first faint inkling of fear as he took in Hunter’s massive, muscular, form. “Shit,” he muttered. “I didn’t think they were really real.”

Then, slowly, the one-body’s brain caught up with his eyes and his scent morphed into the terror I’d expected from the get-go. But the puppy-mill owner still tried to tough his way out of what he must have realized was an increasingly hairy situation.

No pun intended. Okay, maybe I did intend that pun just a little bit after all.

“You know more than you should know,” Hunter whispered into the man’s ear, his words so deep they resonated in my belly. Even when he’d fought by my side against serial-killing shifters, I’d never heard the uber-alpha sound quite so wolf-like.

In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure his human brain was involved in determining his current actions at all anymore. So I set one hand on Hunter’s bare forearm in hopes a simple touch would prevent my mate from doing something he’d later regret.

Amber eyes the exact same shade as those of the caged bloodling puppies flicked over to meet mine before darting away. The tiniest dimple formed on Hunter’s right cheek and I released my pent-up breath. No, my mate was still in there. He was just doing his job—making sure this puppy-mill owner didn’t turn into a repeat offender.

“Human law believes in three strikes you’re out,” my mate continued, his voice becoming even quieter as he leaned in closer. On the final word, his teeth snapped together a millimeter away from the puppy-mill owner’s ear and, to my satisfaction, the man jerked away as if he’d been struck. The human wasn’t so brave after all.

Smirking, Hunter finished his train of thought more loudly. “Our law believes in one strike you’re dead.”

The bloodling paused to let his words sink in. Then he stepped back, releasing the human from his over-powering presence. Abruptly, Hunter became the epitome of a cordial—if naked—businessman sealing a deal, and immediately the human’s tension eased.

“We’re taking the puppies, plus your records about any other ‘dogs’ you’ve rehomed. Then we’re burning the building,” my mate continued, his light tone suggesting that he was talking about baking cookies rather than planning arson. “In the future, I’ll be checking up on you at intervals. If you even think about bringing home a goldfish, you’re out of the realm of human law and into the realm of our law. Do you understand?”

The puppy-mill owner gulped, then nodded. Hunter clearly had everything under control, so I took advantage of our opponent’s stunned silence to snatch the cage-keys out of his hands and head toward the kennel that housed the bloodling pups. We’d save all of the residents of this reeking shed, of course, but the shifters came first.

Especially the biggest male with the dash of white fur on his forehead who had nibbled on my fingers a moment earlier. I’d bonded with him instantly and was already starting to call him by a pet name within my mind—Star.

But to my surprise, the bloodling in question bared his tiny teeth when I reached forward to pull him out. Only when Star began nudging his weaker companions toward the front of the cage did I realize that he wasn’t resisting my advances. He was merely making sure his less able cage mates were rescued first.

And wasn’t that all werewolf?

Shooting one last glance toward the one-body who considered shifters and dogs alike unworthy of his compassion, I once again thanked my lucky stars that I’d been abandoned by my parents. After all, I’d lost that easy familial love at a far too tender age but had gained something unimaginably more valuable in the process.

Despite my half-human heritage, I’d enjoyed the distinct advantage of being raised by wolves.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Chapter 2

Our rental van stunk after dropping the dogs off with a nearby vet to be treated for fleas, ear mites, and kennel cough. And even though the medical professional we’d worked with was as human as Mr. Puppy Pusher, Hunter showered this second one-body with copious amounts of cash and appreciation.

In exchange, the vet had promised to call us if he was unable to find homes for the outcast dogs in a timely manner. None would be put to sleep on our watch.

It was the right choice. But still.... “I don’t know what you plan to do with thirty pets,” I muttered as the remaining bloodlings squirmed in my lap. For obvious reasons, we’d need to find families for this trio of four-leggers ourselves. “We don’t exactly have a home to take them to,” I elaborated.

It hadn’t really bothered me before that Hunter’s life was always in limbo. As an enforcer for our region’s shifter governing body, his expenses—and mine by proxy—were all paid up front. Still, the bloodling had never bothered to purchase a home and defend a territory. Instead, we just holed up in hotel after hotel wherever the job took us.

That lifestyle would be a lot tougher to accomplish with a few dozen canines in tow.

Rather than answering my implied criticism, Hunter shot a single amused glance in my direction before returning his eyes to the road. Still, he let one hand drift down to settle comfortingly on my knee.

In response, the largest male pup pounced upon the encroaching palm and began a tooth-and-claws tussle that looked prone to draw blood. “Calm down, Star,” I chastened the youngster even though Hunter’s smile never wavered.

Star cocked his head to one side, eyes glancing back and forth between me and my mate. Then, clearly deciding that it was better to ask forgiveness than permission, he leapt across the center console so he could continue nibbling with impunity. After only an hour in our presence, the pup already knew that Hunter had more patience than I did for sharp puppy teeth.

“We’ll work it all out,” the adult bloodling promised as the youngster tried to scrabble up the larger male’s shirt-front. “But you have more important matters to focus on at the moment.”

I winced, and not because the remaining puppies had hurt me either. Unlike Star, the smaller male and female were weak from lack of food and spent most of their time napping. At the moment, both were nestled into a ball of gray fur with two noses, two tails, and eight tiny paws. It was impossible to tell where one puppy ended and the next began, and it was just as impossible to look at the youngsters without feeling an affectionate buoyancy in my chest.

No, my negative reaction wasn’t due to the bloodlings—a tricky subject that my mate and I would need to broach later. At the moment, Hunter was right. I was more concerned about the unwanted family reunion I’d been invited to attend.

“I don’t really see why I have to go,” I whined, then paused as the tone of my own voice hit my ears. I sounded like a teenager, not the world-weary twenty-one-year-old I professed to be. Still, didn’t relatives bring out the worst in all of us?

“You have to go because you’ll regret it if you don’t,” my mate answered, turning down a tree-lined lane leading to a lush and vibrant green space. We’d spent longer than intended at the vet and were arriving late, so cars already filled the parking area up ahead.

The vista was beautiful—lush, vibrant, full of flowers. Too bad those tulips and daisies were stuck in vases atop monochromatic gravestones.

Because this wasn’t precisely a family reunion. More of a family disunion. A month ago, I’d gotten a note from a mother who had ignored me since birth informing me that the father who had abandoned me twelve years earlier was no longer living.

Did I want to go to his funeral? No way in hell. Did I feel obligated to attend, especially with my mate pushing me along every step of the way? Yes, yes I did.

“Do you want me to come with you?” the aforementioned mate nudged, disentangling his arm from seatbelt and wolf pup alike long enough to take my hand. Hunter’s solid presence settled my stomach and fed both warmth and strength into limbs that had grown abruptly chilled despite the typical sultry heat of a Virginia summer.

The truth was that yes, of course, I wanted him to walk in with me. But meeting up with my family after over a decade apart was something I needed to handle on my own. So I shook my head, smiled at a middle-aged gentleman walking past with a sleek, leashed pit bull at heel, then gently slid the much meeker napping canines out of my own lap and onto the seat I was leaving behind.

Opening the door, I forced myself to lower shoulders that had hunched upwards from sheer anticipatory tension. I felt worse than I had a month earlier when I’d gone into battle against armed werewolves while naked and armed only with a stick. Then, all I’d had to worry about was a gunshot wound to the chest.

Now, as I prepared to meet the one-body who ditched me without a backward glance when I was nine years old, I was terrified my mother might rip out my entire heart.

***

WEREWOLVES SHOULD BE burned, not buried.

The words bounced around inside my skull as I hovered just inside the tree line that ringed the backside of the cemetery. I was here to tell my father goodbye and to meet my mother for the first time in over a decade. But I kept getting stuck on the incongruity of the scene before me.

I could smell shifters. Even with my half-breed nose, the distinctive aroma of fur and fangs was heavy on the air, proving that I wasn’t the only werewolf who’d been invited to this solemn occasion.

And yet, there were no flames. No praise for the fallen and howls of tribute for the dead. No ceremonial pyre to burn away our pain and warm our lupine souls.

Instead, a woman who seemed far too young to be my mother held court in front of a huge statue of an angel—an angel for crying out loud—that rose out of a ring of daylilies surrounded by perfectly manicured grass. Even from a distance, Celia was so absurdly human that I couldn’t quite imagine having spent nine months growing from egg to fetus within her womb. High heels, a black suit with tight mid-length skirt, red lipstick. She looked the part of a bereaved human wife mourning her lost husband.

But no one would have mistaken her for the mate of a shifter.

We should talk to her, my wolf murmured. Get to know her.

Unconsciously, I rubbed at the mostly healed bullet wound midway up my left arm. But the real pain came from within my chest.

Even though I knew I was lying, I told myself the ache was just heartburn. No way would I acknowledge the truncated memories of Celia that flickered through my mind.

But the recollections of my father were harder to push aside.

Harbor, the werewolf half of my parental unit, had done his level best to turn us into a real family. Even twelve years later, I still vividly recalled my father kissing away my boo-boos and trying to do the same for the pinched expression that came onto his wife’s face every time she glanced in my direction.

It hadn’t worked, though. It had never worked.

Instead, Celia exploded into regular bouts of tears and rage. A one-night stand turned into a surprise pregnancy turned into a marriage—that Celia could accept. She could also overlook her husband’s tendency to don fur as long as he did so far out of sight and never mentioned the bestial half of his personality in her presence.

But when her young daughter’s eyes turned feral every time a sparrow alighted on the family’s bird feeder.... That was too much to handle.

I wasn’t even old enough to shift for the first time when the tears and sighs gave way to screaming matches and finally to an ultimatum. Celia was leaving our clan, leaving me, leaving her mate.

For a werewolf, though, being separated from his mate was akin to driving hot spikes under his fingernails. So Harbor packed up alongside her and left me behind in his quest to make their relationship work.

Not fair, my wolf whispered. Daddy wanted to take us with him.

My inner beast had matured considerably during the last month, but she still possessed the naivety of a child. So, for her sake, I allowed one Celia-related memory to rise up and fill our joint mind. For the wolf’s sake, I replayed the final conversation I’d shared with the shifter who even now rotted in the ground forty yards away from the spot where my feet remained rooted to the earth.

“You know I love you, right?” Harbor asked as we sat together one summer evening on the stoop of our ramshackle single-wide. The landscaping was a bit shabby, dirt trails worn between residences and everything in need of a fresh coat of paint. But the pack’s territory felt warm and welcoming in a way this human cemetery never could. That night, nine-year-old me had been completely content.

“I know,” I answered cockily. I hadn’t known yet that Harbor planned to rip out my heart that very evening. So I parroted back his words easily. “I love you too, Daddy.”

My father smiled and pulled me onto his lap. But his voice was grim as he broke the bad news. “But your mother needs to be around people like her,” he started, and abruptly I wanted to be anywhere but there. My throat tightened with tears as I realized what was coming.

Still, my father wouldn’t continue until I spoke. So I forced out a single word. “Yeah,” I answered, itching to run away under the moon with a mason jar, to capture fireflies for bedroom illumination and pretend the current conversation wasn’t happening.

But I could hear my mother’s gut-wrenching sobs wending through the open window behind me. The sound alone was proof that something drastic needed to be done if we ever hoped to unify our own small corner of the pack.

Replaying the memory a dozen years in the future, I realized that my father had been painfully young then. Celia had gotten pregnant at fifteen and a half, and Harbor hadn’t possessed many additional years. Which meant the pair of them were only a little older than my current age when they’d broken all ties with their daughter.

Trying to imagine raising a kid of my own when I barely felt old enough to make my own way in the world, I felt a little more sympathy for the duo...even if the gut-wrenching pang of parting hadn’t faded one bit in the last dozen years.

Back in the past, Harbor’s lupine eyes bored into mine as he begged me to understand. “You can come with us if you want. Or you can stay here with a pack that loves you.”

See! my lupine half barked in my ear now. I shrugged off her jubilation because I’d been the one responding to Harbor then just as I was the one trying to decide whether or not to face Celia now.

My wolf still didn’t get it, but my human half had been savvy enough even at nine to understand what my father was saying between the lines. Harbor couldn’t bear to relinquish either of his responsibilities. He wasn’t an alpha werewolf, but he still possessed a deep-seated urge to protect his wife and daughter, the instinct like a heavy yoke dragging down his broad shoulders. Harbor would never leave me against my will.

But he and I both knew that I was the rotten apple tearing his marriage apart.

So nine-year-old me had puffed out her little chest and told Harbor what he needed to hear. “I’m old enough to take care of myself,” I said, simulating tween arrogance that I didn’t really feel. “Who wants to go live with humans when I have a whole pack to hang with?”

Behind us, the screen door creaked open then slapped shut with a bang. “Are you ready yet?” Celia asked her husband, averting her gaze from a daughter who she neither wanted nor loved.

The one-body clutched a cardboard box full of the few possessions she planned to take with her. Possessions that didn’t include the carton of baby photos and mementos I later found when I tore our little home apart in search of something to remember my parents by.

In contrast to my desperate clutching for the past, there was very little of our shared life that my mother hoped to remember.

“I’ll be right there,” Harbor soothed her, his voice calm and deep like the rumble of lullabies that lulled me to sleep every night.

For a moment, Celia hesitated, tapping one hard-soled sandal against the rough planks of the porch step. But then she turned toward our family’s car to stow her luggage in the trunk before sliding into the passenger-side seat. Keeping her eyes safely averted, she waited for the arrival of her mate.

My father sighed, but didn’t jump immediately to do her bidding. Instead, he rumpled up my short hair with one huge paw. “Never forget that I love you, Fen,” he murmured so quietly that Celia wouldn’t have been able to hear even if she possessed superior shifter ears. I could barely hear him, my half-blood nature meaning that my inner wolf slept most of the time. “If you ever need me, call and I’ll come.”

Then he’d turned away and walked toward my mother, leaving me shivering and abandoned in front of our little home. In the distance, I could hear the howls of our pack mates reminding me that I could turn up on their doorsteps for food or hugs at any hour of the day or night, no questions asked. It wasn’t as if I was alone in the world.

But it sure felt that way.

Years later, when I’d needed a father, Harbor hadn’t been present. I’d ached to turn to him when I grew into my own skin and ran away from the pack to spend eight months wandering alone through outpack territory. I’d needed him again when I returned to my clan and slid into a new role, slowly learning to guide teenage shifters not much younger than myself. And I could sure have used his advice at the present moment as I strove to figure out a mate bond that left me alternately giddy with joy...and on the verge of fleeing in terror.

Still, I’d never picked up a phone to call Harbor because I’d known he wouldn’t come. When I was nine years old, my father had chosen Celia over me. And now he’d fled beyond my ability to follow.

We still have a mother, my optimistic wolf whispered.

I only shook my head by way of reply. Because no matter what my inner animal thought, the one-body whose high heels were currently sinking into the sod before me was mother by blood alone. There was no point in poking my nose where it didn’t belong.

So I turned away from my father’s funeral even as I felt the electricity of transformation fill the air and heard my relatives howl out their eulogies to the clear blue sky. My wolf wordlessly yearned toward the possible companionship. But instead of pacing forward to join these family members who I barely recognized, I just retraced my steps back toward a shifter whose affections weren’t fickle and flighty, who cared for me with no strings attached.

I was plenty old enough not to need a parent. And I was better off without Celia in my life.

Chapter 3

Hunter’s anger hovered over our hotel room like a lead weight. The puppies had been fed and washed and were now nestled down amid half a dozen pillows in the bathtub. We hadn’t heard a peep out of them for ten minutes, a sure sign that even Star was fast asleep at last.

Which meant my mate was finally free to release the pent-up frustration that had been building inside him during the entire drive home. “You were right there and you didn’t even bother talking to your mother?” he demanded. The uber-alpha’s amber eyes cut through my skin and made a beeline for my already aching heart.

Within my human body, my lupine half whimpered as the overwhelming aroma of frigid root beer splashed over us like an ocean wave tumbling a failed surfer toward shore. The effect was pure alpha compulsion, but my mate hadn’t put any intention behind it—only anger. Even so, I felt my shoulders bowing, my knees trembling, and the ground beckoning me to come closer.

The sensation pissed me off.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” I rebutted, opening my mouth with an effort. “But, no, I didn’t.”

I’d taken to letting my inner wolf hang out behind my eyes lately, but now I shushed her the same way I’d calmed the puppies moments earlier. And as my animal half disappeared from view, so did Hunter’s alpha compulsion. Abruptly, I was able to stand tall once more.

To stand tall and to march over to my companion, shoving both hands against his broad chest in a schoolyard show of aggression. “Playing top dog with your mate isn’t cool,” I ground out, expecting Hunter to apologize as he always had in the past when his wolf got the better of him and he slapped my weaker animal down.

Instead, the uber-alpha’s usually amber eyes glinted gold as he wrapped two huge hands under my armpits and lifted me up so we saw eye to eye. My feet kicked against nothing and I gulped. I liked to treat Hunter like my own personal lap dog, but the truth was that his overwhelming alpha dominance combined with his massive strength meant he could snap me like a twig if he felt like it. Maybe sass and backtalk wasn’t always such a smart move.

“Playing like you’re not my mate isn’t cool either,” Hunter rebutted after a long moment of tense silence.

Then his mouth smashed into mine and his hands slipped down to cradle my butt as I wrapped my legs around his waist. My mate’s proximity had flicked an internal switch from anger to arousal in an instant and I growled with pleasure as his tongue invaded my mouth, plundering and pillaging rather than easing into his usual gentle pleasuring.

Yep, my evasions of the L word earlier that day hadn’t been overlooked. Hunter was just as pissed as he was turned on.

Well, so was I. Time to see if angry sex is as delicious as happy sex.

My back slammed up against a wall as we twirled through the air. I should have felt dizzy from the abrupt motion. But my eyes were still wide open and latched onto Hunter’s, a lifeline in the turbulent sea of our churning emotions.

The funeral, the puppy mill, my misspent childhood all fled from my mind as I grabbed Hunter’s hair in one fist, pulling him closer even as I fumbled at the clothes that lay between us. For all that was holy, what had he been thinking this morning when he donned a belt?

Luckily, my mate only needed one hand to hold me up now that my spine was sandwiched between his broad chest and the room’s cheerfully painted drywall. So his other five fingers were free to flick and twist and yank.

In seconds, both of our flies were open, my panties pushed to one side and Hunter’s engorged cock throbbing at my entrance. I was sopping wet with anticipation, shaking with desire, barely able to gasp around the passion that consumed us both.

But then Hunter paused and drew back, breaking the liplocked battle that I hesitated to call a kiss. Touching his forehead to mine, he closed his eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...”

Great. Of all the moments to squash his wolf....

So I took matters into my own hands, both literally and figuratively. “I’m not sorry and I did mean to,” I countered, wrenching myself down onto my mate’s member before he could stop me.

As always, Hunter filled me to bursting. But his sheer size wasn’t enough to still the aching neediness within. “Take me,” I growled to a bloodling who had regained his humanity at just the wrong moment.

For the first time since our first time, I thought Hunter might refuse my advances. My companion was in complete control as he held me aloft three feet above the ground, his broad hands and strong arms in charge of determining whether we ground together fast or slow or not at all.

As Hunter’s lips thinned into a hard line, I had a feeling he might be leaning toward not at all.