McQuade: The Lone Wolf Takes A Mate (15 page)

“Alice, what have you done?”

“Listen, you prissy little virgin, bring the damn necklace to me now.”

Rose snapped the phone shut. Had her sister had anything to do with the attack?
Dear God, had the call for help that rainy night been the start of some wild scheme of Alice’s to get Rose’s necklace? She had been wearing it the night at the bar and the day she’d been attacked by her car. She hadn’t been wearing it when the lion had accosted her in the hospital and let her go so easily.

Briggs had finished the cake and was washing the pan when she turned back around. Were all shifters so domesticated? Maybe it came from living alone, knowing no one
was going to clean up the mess for you.

Much like what Rose needed to do now, with her sister.

“Umm Briggs?”

“No.” He turned away from the sink, leaning against the counter, his arms f
olded across his massive chest. Really, if she wasn’t so taken with McQuade, this man could make her heart turn over.

“You do
n’t know what I was going to ask.”

“Yes, I do. You want to go to the Crater Moon and meet your sister.”

“Okay, you do know what I’m going to ask.”

He held up his hand as if to
ward off her next words. “No. Do not ask. I have no desire to have my ass kicked by a crazy wolf.”

“McQuade wouldn’t hurt you.”

Briggs actually laughed. “If I let you go to the bar, he’d hand me my balls and order me to–”

“Alright, alright, I get the picture.” She chewed her fingernail.

Briggs sighed. “I’ll try to put this nicely so it doesn’t offend your delicate sensibilities, but your sister needs a swift kick in the ass.”

“
I know, but I have to go. She’s my sister.” She didn’t share her suspicions about Alice’s part in the shifter’s attack. “Look, we could go there and be back before McQuade comes back.”

“No.”

“Please Briggs.”

“Fine,” he threw up his hands and straightened from his position against the sink. “But when McQuade guts me, and puts you over his knee, I’m going to be the one saying ‘I told you so’.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

McQuade thought his shift would never end. It had been twelve long hours since he’d seen Ro
se’s face, since he’d kissed her. Thirteen hours since he fucked her sweet cunt.

He shifted as soon as he was back on his own property, transforming from wolf to human in almost the blink of an eye. He remembered the awe and wonder in Rose’s face when she’d watched him shift. It was the first time he’
d shifted back into human form with a hard-on.

Near the edge of his yard, he pulled
out his jeans, shirt and phone from the small wooden locker he’d installed. He had several such lockers scattered throughout his property. He sighed with relief to see the set of clothes he’d left for Briggs was gone. He would have had to kick the wolf’s butt to hell and back if he’d shown up at his front door with no clothes on.

Opening the front door he called out. “
Rose, I’m home.” He smiled thinking how nineteen-fiftyish he sounded. The man coming home to the little wife.

Wife. Mate. Mine.

Ours
, his wolf chimed in.
All ours.

His phone rang as he walked into the living room. “McQuade,” he grunted. He’d been expecting a call from his alpha. The man had promised to contact the local pride and find out all he could about the lion who had attacked Rose. He’d bet money the lion was ro
gue. If he was, he was dead. No one touched his mate and lived.

“Hey
, man.”

“Briggs?” McQuade frowned. “What the hell are you calling me for? I’m in the damn house.”

“Well, I’m not.” A small hesitation, then “and neither is Rose.”

“Briggs!” he roared so loud, he knew the leaves on the trees outside trembled.

“Now calm down,” Briggs urged.

Again
McQuade growled as he sprinted to the garage and saw his SUV was gone. Where the hell had the man taken his mate? “Tell me, Briggs. Tell me now and I might not eviscerate you.”

“See, I told Rose that’s what you’d do.”

McQuade resisted the urge to throw his phone against the wall since it was the only connection he had with the man who had apparently lost his freaking mind and taken his mate out of his house.

“I’m taking Rose to the Crater Moon.”

The man had lost his fucking mind. “When I get Rose back, I’m going to–”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gut me where I stand.” A second or two of silence followed by a soft feminine chuckle had McQuade starting to shift. “Rose says hi by the way.”

McQuade took a deep breath and stopped his shift. “I’m going to get on my bike now, Briggs. And when I get there, I’m going to give you a ten second head start before I come after you.”

He shoved his phone
into his back pocket, not even bothering with his shirt, he flipped the kill switch and his motorcycle roared to life. Speeding down the two-lane road, he allowed his wolf to merge with the man. Why the hell were they headed to the Crater Moon? Instantly the answer came to him. Alice. The damn woman had probably called Rose and asked for her help again. What neither woman understood was that those days were over. No one, no one was allowed to put his mate in danger. Not even family. Alice was getting the hell out of her sister’s life. Tonight.

He spotted Rose
the moment he stepped inside the run-down building. She was standing in the very back of the bar next to a group of shifters. The same lion shifter that had attacked her was seated at table, his arm around Alice’s shoulders. They both seemed to be laughing. Briggs had his body angled in front of Rose, even though he could see she was trying to go around him. The man better be damn glad he was at least trying to protect her, even if he’d put her directly in the path of danger.

“Rose.”

All heads turned in his direction. He saw a long gold necklace hanging from Rose’s hand. On the end was a diamond the size of a small pea. He’d seen it on her before.

If Rose hadn’t been so close to the damn lion shifter,
he would have simply attacked without thought to anyone’s safety. Tonight was the last time the shifter would ever put his mate in danger. The lion was dead.

His wolf strai
ned against the confines of McQuade’s human form. Keeping a wary eye on the hyena shifters seated close by, he walked closer to the table with the lions. He wouldn’t put it past the lion to have hired the hyenas to join take him down. The lion shifter looked up from his beer. McQuade guessed it wasn’t his first of the night.

“This doesn’t concern you, wolf.”

McQuade laughed. It wasn’t a pretty sound and he heard several chairs shift behind him, followed by the thud of feet and the slam of the metal door. Hyenas, besides being low on integrity, were cowardly as well.

“Get her out of here.”

Before anyone could react, Briggs bent over and hauled Rose over his shoulder.

Even though Briggs had pissed him off, he knew
he’d protect Rose with his life.

His eyes never left the lion. “
We have some unfinished business.”

Instead of coming straight at him, t
he man’s eyes flickered to McQuade’s right. Instinctively he stepped to the side as he turned, but he wasn’t quick enough to avoid the sharp thrust of a knife. McQuade cursed himself. He should have scented the hyena. He spun out of the way, bringing his arm down and shattering the other man’s forearm. The knife twisted deeper into his side as the man fell.

Two more
shifters came at him. He threw one off and reached for the other when pain washed over him with such intensity his stomach churned. What the fuck?

The third attacked while
he was still trying to deal with the first two. The force of the blow sent him staggering into the front glass window of the bar. The give of the shattering glass threw him off balance. The second hyena shifter landed another blow and McQuade got seriously pissed. Drawing on his anger from seeing his mate in danger, he landed a hard blow of his own to the hyena’s midsection. He needed to shift to finish this fight quickly, but he knew there wasn’t time. The hyena would be on him before he could blink.

He looked to make sure Rose
was okay. She was yelling and screaming, tearing Brigg’s arms to pieces with her nails as she tried to get away. The man cursed and held on tight. The two lions came at him. He disposed of one quickly but took his time dismantling the one that had dared to touch Rose. He smiled as the greasy shifter hit the floor. With a snarl at the remaining shifters still standing, he growled, “Anyone else?”

The
bar cleared quickly until the only other person who remained besides Briggs, Rose, and himself was the bartender. He stood behind the bar drying a shot glass. No doubt fights were a regular occurrence. He winced as he straightened. The cut on his side hurt like hell and he knew his back was riddled with shards of glass from the window.

Alice, he was glad to see had fled as well. The way he felt, he
probably would have ripped out the woman’s throat. Sister or no sister. He turned a chair around and sat down.

“McQuade!”
Briggs had released Rose and she ran toward him.

He inhaled her scent as s
he dropped to her knees at his side, her eyes tearing as she assessed his injuries.

“I’m alright, sweetheart.” His reached out to touch her face but dropped his hand quickly as he noticed the blood dripping from his palm.

“No, you’re not.” Rose pushed a wad of napkins against his side. “You’re bleeding. Badly.”

“W
hy the hell are you here? Briggs was supposed to keep you safe.”

Rose
pressed her makeshift bandages harder into his side. “Don’t get mad at poor Briggs. He brought me here.”

“
I know he did, Rose. Now I want to know why. His fucking job was to keep you safe.”

“And he did.”

He did not like her defending the other wolf.

Briggs
made his way through the broken pieces of chairs and tables and the jagged shards of glass and McQuade snarled at him.

“What the hell were your thinking?”

“I was thinking to keep your mate safe, bro,” he answered, a little put out by the anger in McQuade’s voice.

“By bringing her into the lion’s den?”

Briggs laughed and McQuade frowned when he realized what he had said. Damn, his side was killing him.

“Had you rather I let her come here
by herself? Cause believe me, pal, she was coming with or without me. And I did call.”

“After the damn fact.”

“I can’t help it if you picked a hard-headed woman to mate.”

“
Would you two stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here. I am a grown woman, capable of making my own decisions and taking care of myself.”

“No, you’re not.” Both men spoke at once.

One delicate brow rose. “I’m not capable of making my own decisions?”

McQuade heaved a large, overblown sigh. The woman was going to give him trouble for the rest of their long, long, lives together–and he was going to love every freaking moment.

“Cut him some slack, Rose. It isn’t every day a lone wolf takes a mate. Besides McQuade’s knowledge of women is much, more limited than mine. I knew I had no chance of talking you out of your decision to come here.”

“I don’t need your help here, Asswipe.” McQuade growled. Then immediately groaned as the movement pulled at the stab wound.
What had the damn hyena stabbed him with, a solid silver knife?

“You need to go to the
hospital.” All of Rose’s anger vanished in a moment.

“No.
Give me another minute. And a drink of water.”

“I’ve heard this story before,” Briggs
commented to no one in particular as he walked around assessing the damage. Pulling out a wad of bills, he threw them down in front of the bartender.

“You
really need to go to the hospital.” Rose had retrieved a bottle of water from the bar and knelt down again. He remembered the feel of her wet mouth as she’d sucked him off. She’d do it again, tonight after he bent her over his knee and turned her plump ass a bright red. She’d disobeyed him for the last time.

“No, I don’t.”
He pulled the soaked napkins away from his side, throwing them on the table. The bleeding had slowed, but the wound still gapped open.

“She’s right,
McQuade,” Briggs chimed in. “You have some pretty big pieces of glass sticking out of your back. It’s really gross.”

He saw the worry in Rose’s eyes and gave in to the
inevitable. He couldn’t shift to heal the stab wound until the glass was out anyway. He knew he couldn’t remove all the pieces himself and sure as hell wasn’t asking Briggs. The damn wolf would probably push them in deeper. He didn’t want Rose to have to deal with it either.

“Don’t let this go to your head,” he warned, “because it doesn’t mean you’ve won.”

“I won’t,” Rose grinned, helping him to his feet.

             
Once at the hospital, McQuade dragged Rose into the cubicle with him. Since a shifter’s rate of healing was so fast, the emergency room workers took them straight back to deal with the wicked looking pieces of glass sticking out of his back. If the glass wasn’t removed quickly, his skin would simply close over it, forcing the doctor to go in and cut them out.

He sat on a gurney as the doctor
worked on his wounds.

“Now, tell me what you were doing in the bar.”

“Alice called–”

McQuade gripped her chin, demanding that she meet his eyes. He knew they glowed a dark gold. He was pissed at the
events that had occurred during the last hour and he wanted her to know. “Listen to me well, my little Rose ‘cause this is the last fucking time I’m telling you. Your sister will never put you in danger again.”

Instead of being upset, Rose
seemed to glow under his concern. He’d thought for sure she’d have him by the balls for interfering. Go figure women.

“I
know. I’m done with Alice.” She went on to explain how Alice had been after her necklace all along. McQuade growled, the sound more wolf than man. He could understand why Rose had wanted to confront her sister, but it didn’t excuse Briggs’ lapse in judgment in allowing her to go to the bar. The wolf was going to pay for that little slipup. And pay dearly. But that could wait for another day. Right now his mate was standing between his legs, running her hands over him again and again as if searching for any other injuries.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Her voice was shaky.

McQuade stilled her hands by taking them in his. Even though he liked the idea of her concern, he didn’t like seeing her upset.

“I’m positive, baby.” He lifted
one hand to his mouth, placing a soft kiss in the center of her palm. “Although there’s one place that could use some tender loving care.”

He moved the same hand he’d just kissed to the hardening flesh between his legs.

“McQuade!” her voice was indignant, but she allowed him to cup her hand over his cock. She had no willpower when it came to him. Her hand tightened, drawing a groan from him.