Authors: Celia Kyle
Around noon, after the concierge provided her with a feather-light sundress and sandals, the three of them left their suites and headed back down to the parking lot. After their confrontation over breakfast, Raul seemed to let up a little. Hopefully, cat-boy realized that just because she didn’t know all there was about being mated to someone, she did care about Michael.
When they departed the elevator, Michael took the lead, and Raul took up position behind her. She tugged on Michael’s hand to get his attention, and he answered her question before she had a chance to ask. “Don’t want Carl getting his hands on you, baby. Just in case he’s still got ideas.”
Warm and fuzzy feelings she didn’t know she had took up residence in her stomach. Sure, she knew Michael was her mate, but she hadn’t expected butterflies. She thought they were just a myth. Something her mother made up when she was younger.
So, she settled between them, following Michael’s perfectly sculpted, jean-encased ass toward the parking lot. He had an easy, loose walk, belying the power she knew he held.
They passed through the outer door, and she ran right into his solid back when he stopped short. “What the…?”
Lyla peeked around Michael’s back to see what had him stopping in his tracks, and her eyes widened. “Bitch” had been spray-painted all over Michael’s SUV.
Raul snickered behind them, and she turned to glare at the cat-boy. “What? It’s funny…” His gaze traveled from her head to toes. “Considering. The guy isn’t the brightest bulb, eh, bro?”
She turned back to stare at the truck and joined Raul in laughing at Carl’s attempt at vandalism. Of course, the joke ended the moment Jacob came around the corner, half of the pack in tow. “Oh…” “Shit,” Michael finished for her. This was not good. Not good at all. Lightning fast, Raul pushed her behind him as the two men faced down the approaching
weres
.
Lyla’s wolf, still working in concert with her inner husky, growled at the coming threat, angry that the finding of her mate was marred by the pack, by Carl.
The worm
.
With two large men blocking her way, she couldn’t see what was going on, but she didn’t really need to. The silence in the parking lot was near deafening. She could imagine Michael staring at Jacob, both strong men unwilling to admit defeat or allow themselves to appear submissive to the other. This was all new territory for her. She’d never dealt in pack matters, choosing instead to live on the outskirts of their society.
“Lyla. Heel.” Jacob barked out his orders, and Michael’s response was swift. “She stays right where she’s at, and you’ll be paying for that one.” Her blood ran cold at the deadly tone in his voice. She closed her eyes and swallowed past the ball of fear in her throat. Without speaking, she nudged Raul aside and twined her fingers with Michael’s.
Jacob’s gaze hadn’t strayed from Michael, and the tension continued to rise. “Fine,” her Alpha snapped. The man had to be unaccustomed to defiance. Too bad for him.
“Mind tellin’ me what you fine wolves are doin’ here today, then?” The slow, easy drawl belied the tension she could feel thrumming through him.
“Carl.” Jacob snapped his fingers, and Carl wove through the crowd behind the Alpha to come stand at a respectful distance behind him. “Carl is enforcing his prior claim on the
weremutt
on your arm.”
Lyla’s hackles rose, as did Raul’s. Michael was the only one to vocalize his objection. He took a slow step forward, staring into Jacob’s eyes, and spoke with deadly calm. “Respect. Learn it real fast, or you’ll mosey onto my bad side …You don’t want to be there.”
Jacob cleared his throat and dropped his gaze for a split second, and Lyla’s entire world shifted on its axis. North became south, and suddenly the man across from her no longer ruled her life. He wasn’t the end all, be all of her world any longer. The man on her arm was.
“Be that as it may. He’s enforcing the claim.”
Lyla gathered courage from Michael and Raul, and for the first time in her life, stood up for herself in front of her alpha; hell, she stood up for herself for the first time in her life. Period. Normally, scurrying away was her answer to everything. But not today. “Too fucking bad.”
She winced internally the moment the words left her mouth. Okay, maybe she should tone back her rebellion just a smidge.
The attention of all the
weres
and Michael turned to her, staring at her as if she’d grown two heads. Yup, she should have started a little smaller with the whole “standing up for herself” thing. Definitely.
Michael gave her a slow, easy smile, and her heart started beating again. It picked up double-time when he winked at her. Well, at least he had her front, and when the man behind her took a step forward, she knew Raul had her back. The three of them would take down a wolf or five before they got killed, but they sure as shit would go down fighting. Hard.
“Bitch,” Carl growled, and Raul snickered behind her.
She turned to glare at him, and he just shrugged, a shit-eating grin on his face. “What? I mean, think about it. You really
are
a bitch, Lyla.”
Lyla snickered, and Carl’s growls grew louder. She turned to face the bane of her existence and sneered at him. “Carl, not just no, but hell, no. Jacob’s order or not, I’m mated to Michael and…”
“
Liar.”
Without any other provocation, Carl launched himself at Michael, pinning him with his body. Before her eyes, Carl’s body began to shift, his face and arms, replacing parts of his human body with that of a wolf. Bones popped and cracked to reform, stretch and morph into a half wolf form. Michael fought and grappled with Carl, rolling across the parking lot.
She spared a glance for her pack—her
former
pack—and assured herself that they weren’t going to interfere. Confident the wolves were staying out of it, she turned to Raul.
“Well?” she shouted. “He can handle him. He’s what? An omega?” Raul snickered. “He’s got this. My brother was a beta.” Raul crossed his arms and leaned against a nearby car, seemingly unconcerned. Well,
shit
, she was concerned, damn it. Fuck that, even her wolf was concerned.
And
her dog.
Fuck
.
Every instinct she had screamed, roared and barked at her to get her ass in gear and help her mate. Lyla jumped into action. Within seconds she was striding across the parking lot, calling to her wolf and praying she could do this and not get both of them killed.
Carl was still on top of Michael, straddling her mate’s stomach, clawing, growling and biting at the man beneath him.
She heard growls, snarls and a purely feline growl end all sounds behind her. Good, Raul had things under control. Not even a wolf tangled with the whacked-out Pumas. Fucking brutal creatures.
Giving her wolf and dog a mental push, she reached for Carl’s neck. With each flex of muscle, her arm and hand reformed to become the perverted claw of a wolf. Wicked sharp nails tipped her long, bony fingers covered in a thick pelt of midnight black fur. Muscles grew and bulged beneath her skin, giving her the strength of ten
weres
. Yeah, her half-form was pretty badass. She just hoped she could hold it long enough to get her point across … or kill Carl. Whichever came first.
She closed her fingers ’round the back of Carl’s neck and tightened her hold until she felt the warmth of his blood ooze over her claws.
Bastard
.
With a roar, she pulled the
were
from her mate and flung him across the parking lot. She ran after the flying body, arriving shortly after Carl landed with a thud. She didn’t give him a chance to recover from the impact. Again she wrapped her hand around his throat and dragged him to his feet, squeezing until his breath was no more than a wheezing hiss.
“Mine.” Oh, yeah, the wolf was
real
happy to get at Carl. “You touched what is mine.” She squeezed harder, relishing in the deep red liquid flowing over her hand.
A hand stroked her shoulder, and she turned her head, lightning fast, to bite at who dared touch her. Almost too late, she realized it was Michael.
“
Whoa.”
Michael tucked his hands behind him. “Baby, let’s put the icky wolf down, okay?”
She tightened her grip and smiled when Carl squeaked. Ha! Like a mouse! “Touched mine,” she snarled.
“Yeah, but I’m okay.” She eyed him, letting her gaze travel from his feet, up his legs, across his torso, until finally she reached his head. She nodded; more or less, he was okay. “So, wouldn’t it be best to let him live with the humiliation that a woman kicked his ass.”
Lyla thought about it for a moment. She really
had
kicked the man’s ass. Omega or not, most female
weres
didn’t have the strength to take a male down. And she
did
.
She smiled and then frowned. “So, no killing?” Michael shook his head. “No, baby.”
She growled, but knew that killing the man was wrong, even if her wolf assured her that sometimes it felt really,
really
good to be wrong. Without delaying further, she released her hold on Carl’s throat and let him flop to the ground in a whimpering heap. She stood over him, glaring at his body and thought of the only insult that would sink home. “Who’s the bitch now?” She narrowed her eyes further. “That would be you.”
Her wolf, content that her mate had been avenged, even without death, receded, and her arm slowly returned to its normal, chubby shape. She grimaced as the pain of the shift washed over her, but it disappeared quickly.
Feeling more herself, she wiped Carl’s blood on her dress and then walked into Michael’s arms.
A cough from their right drew their attention. “Uh, guys. We done here?”
Lyla looked into Michael’s eyes and nodded. Her mate answered for them. “We’re done.” Wrapped in Michael’s embrace, they walked toward Raul and the rest of her pack. “But she’s not in your pack any longer. She’s mine now, and if I see anything that looks remotely like one of your pack, you’ll be extinct. We clear?”
Jacob nodded, and Michael began leading her away from the gathered pack. His arms held her tight as he whispered against the top of her head. “You took ten years off of my life. Don’t
ever
do something like that again. Aren’t the males supposed to protect their mates, not the other way around?”
Lyla stopped listening after he referred to himself as her mate and smiled against him, petting his chest. Of course, that’s when she noticed…
She wrenched free of Michael’s grasp and yelled across the parking lot. “And you owe me a manicure, you bastard!” Didn’t men know that shifting wreaked hell on a woman’s nails? About the Author: Celia Kyle would like to rule the world and become a ninja. As a fall-back, she’s working on her writing career and giving readers stories that touch their hearts and *ahem* other places.
http://celiakyle.com