Beast (Norseton Wolves #1) (2 page)

The woman’s back was turned to Anton and Adam, but Anton could see that it was narrow and slumped. Her black hair was pulled into a dense, braided bun on the top of her head, and her clothes—what he could see of them—seemed plain. Long skirt with some kind of flowery pattern, and a long-sleeved denim shirt, though it was really too hot for it.

“She’s only got two bags,” Adam said. “Come on to my place and get them. Maybe by the time you’ve got them, you’ll work up something civil to say to her.”

Anton growled, but cut across the courtyard with his alpha.

The woman didn’t move as they neared, and with her head bowed low like that, he wondered if she was asleep.

He turned his head for a better look and caught her lush lips moving in profile.

Not sleeping
. Praying.

He groaned. She’d need all the prayers she could get.

Adam pulled open his screen door and said, “Be right back.”

The woman still hadn’t moved. She kept her head down, and wrung her hands atop her lap.

She was small. He couldn’t tell how old she was from where he stood, but somehow he knew that she wasn’t anybody’s last pick.

She was…

He turned his head to the right for a different angle.

She’s beautiful
. Delicate features, like a doll.
His
doll, now. Unless she wanted to leave. If she saw him and wasn’t attracted to him, he’d have to let her go. That wasn’t the wolf way, though, just
Anton
’s way. Once the alpha made his picks, they were binding. An alpha pick was as good as a marriage license in their community, but Anton still wanted the doll to have an out. She had her whole life ahead of her. If she’d thought she’d be going to New Mexico to get matched up with a cranky, thirty-five-year old mercenary werewolf with one good eye and a suspended driver’s license, she might not have made the trip.

Adam dropped an overstuffed tote bag at Anton’s feet, rousing him from his meandering thoughts. He let the screen door slam closed and pulled the rolling suitcase to a stop in front of Anton.

“There you go, lover boy. I’ll be by in the morning with your paperwork.”

Adam turned, as if to disappear into his house, but Anton grabbed him by the elbow before he could manage to. “Wait. Come on, don’t you think that’s hasty? I mean, given the circumstances.”

“What circumstances are you talking about? This is the way we’ve always done it. Your aunt’s not going to stand for these women living under your roofs without y’all being married properly.”

“But—” Anton caught his assigned mate moving in his periphery and reflexively turned to look at her.

Her lips parted, eyes widened, and cheeks flushed—almost like she was ashamed to have been caught looking.

You can look at me all you want, sweetness. Can’t say you’ll enjoy the view.

He turned back to Adam. “Look, she could do better is all.”

“
Better
is subjective. You going to stand here and second- and third-guess my picking, or are you going to go do what needs to be done?”

Anton grabbed the suitcase handle and snatched up the tote by the strap.

“That’s my boy. Call me if you need anything.” Adam went into his house, closed the door, and locked it with a resounding
click
.

Anton turned to his would-be mate and shifted the bag’s strap on his shoulder.

She was just waiting there for him, all wide-eyed and expectant. But just
what
had she been expecting? Not someone like him, probably. She probably thought she’d get a whole man, not just the shattered remnants of one. He was pretty sure there were still bone shards floating around beneath his skin from when his eye socket had been destroyed. All that metal in his face made going through airport security a real good time.

All right.
He shifted his weight.
Let’s get on with it. See how long it takes her to run.

He canted his head toward his house. “The door is unlocked. Make yourself comfortable.”

She blinked at him for a few beats before reaching for the battered leather purse beside her. She slowly pulled the strap up to her shoulder and stood. Doing so didn’t change her height all that much.

He grimaced.
Tiny.

She held the purse tightly to her belly and moved in a hunched but graceful line to the door.

It was a defensive posture if he’d ever seen one. She’d probably gotten used to having people hit her as often as talk to her. Common shit in wolf culture.
Too much fucking egomaniacal testosterone
. Too many men who couldn’t discern the difference between
alpha
and
asshole
. Shitty thing was that packs didn’t
have
to act that way. Folks were just used to it now.

God.
He rubbed the meat of his palm against his good eye and let out a slow breath. She was amongst a pack of hired thugs now, but none of wolves in his pack would ever lay a hand on her, or any of the women. They were too valuable to hurt. For every male wolf, there was something like zero-point-six females. It was a wonder Adam had managed to get all four of them, and Anton didn’t really want to give his up now that she was here—he was nothing if not practical. But she needed a man who could take care of her. He could in most ways, but the sensual ones weren’t to be dismissed. She surely wouldn’t want him touching her.

The little doll stepped into his house and paused just inside the threshold. She made a little
“Huh”
sound before moving in any farther.

What’s that about?
Maybe she’d expected more.

He set her bags near the entry and left the storm door open so some of the late afternoon sun could stream into the living room. And also so she could see that she had an easy way out, if she wanted it.

He nestled her purse onto a shelf of the bookcase cluttered with various gun accessories, then turned slowly to him. Her lush lips flattened into a tight line and her small hands fluttered up to her shirt buttons. She deftly unfastened them all, and he simply stood there, mesmerized by her efficiency…and was desperately aroused by the beaded pink nipples and high, round breasts she exposed when pulling apart her shirt’s plackets.

She managed to stay still as she twisted her shirt in front of her belly and stared at him.

The fact that it took him so long to work out her motives frightened him. Already, he wanted her too much, and she clearly wasn’t horny. She was simply waiting on her bite.

He groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was the wolf way. Females were bitten by their new mates right after they were matched. Not only did the bite imbue her mate and protector’s essence into hers, broadcasting to whoever was sniffing that she was off the market, but also the enzymes shuffled her DNA around a bit. Female wolves didn’t shift until they’d been bitten—until they were prepared to breed and protect their young.

He closed the distance between them, took her shirt, and pinned it up against her naked breasts. Out of sight, out of mind. “You don’t have to do that,” he barked.

A lovely red flush spread up her neck to her cheeks. “I-I don’t understand.”

Groaning, he raked a hand through his hair and turned from her. The more he looked, the harder it would be to let her go. “I don’t know what kind of information Adam put out there or what you were expecting to find here.”

“There’s never much information,” she said quietly. “Only how many females are needed and how far away the men are.”

Anton sighed and fixed his gaze on the stun gun that needed repair. Anything but her. Women really drew the short straws when it came to being matched. That was the way it’d been done for as long as anyone could remember, but it didn’t seem fair to him. It wasn’t enough for a woman to just
smell
right to the alpha. Chemistry still counted for something. And attraction. It shouldn’t be so one-sided.

“Please don’t send me back,” she whispered. “I can’t—
won’t
—go back there.”

He closed his eyes and clenched his hands to fists.
Knew it—she’s desperate.
A few deep breaths didn’t ease the roiling in his gut any, so he turned and walked to the door. “We’ll find you somewhere else. I promise, it’ll be somewhere where you won’t get beat up.”

She flinched, and her mouth opened, but he was out the door before she could get any words out.

He didn’t want to hear her tell him that it was okay and that she’d get used to him. He didn’t want that kind of pity.

___

My man is so fine
. But he sure was confusing.

Christina stood in the doorway of her mate’s house, holding her shirt over her chest, and looked the big werewolf from head to toe as he conferred with his alpha.
Their
alpha.

“That one’s mine,” she whispered to herself. She could hardly believe it was true. He was tall and broad, like all the wolves in their little enclave seemed to be, with dark hair that skimmed his jaw and didn’t quite completely hide the black patch over his left eye. He looked a bit like a rakish pirate, but was outfitted in blue jeans and motorcycle boots.

She giggled.

He was so confused. She could sense his hesitation. Female wolves didn’t have many courtship advantages when compared to the males, but they had good noses. Good
guts
. His hormones had spiked the moment she walked into his house. He
wanted
her. Wanted to take care of her. She could tell. But, something was holding him back. Whatever it was, they’d get past it—as long as he didn’t make her leave.

She pushed her arms back into her shirt’s sleeves and pulled the plackets together as she sat on his sofa.

Moments later, he returned, expression drawn and skin pale. He leaned his back against the door and tipped his head down. His hair fell into a curtain over his eyes and he drummed his fingers against the doorframe.

Certainly a man like him has had some experience with women, so what’s the issue here?

“Adam says he’s not sending you away.”

“I’m glad. I don’t want to be sent away.”

There went another one of those wild hormone spikes. This one tasted of anxiety and fear. She furrowed her brow.

“You don’t have to say shit like that. I know you girls are trained to tell us what we want to hear, but you don’t have to waste your breath on me.”

“Oh.” She pushed her top button through its hole and stared at her lap. “I’m actually not that clever. I’ve never been any good at comebacks or flirting. I tend to—to speak
plainly
, I guess.”

He was quiet for so long that she risked a glance up at him.

He’d turned his head slightly and eyed her through that veil of wild hair. She sighed. The wolf needed grooming. She’d put that on her task list for right after she got her bite and papers: bathe him well, then—she scanned the room around her and what she could see of the kitchen—organize his life. If there were a filing system for weapons, she’d figure it out and implement it.

“You the quartermaster?” she asked.

“Yeah. Most of the guns belong to the other guys. I can’t see worth a shit to shoot anymore. I used to be a two-eye shooter, and my blind eye was my dominant one. Need more range time to adjust for it.”

The injury must have been recent.

She pulled her feet up beneath her on the sofa and licked her dry lips.
Keep him talking
. She patted around in her head for conversational tidbits. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she was no good at flirting. Some of the girls she knew would have foregone the flirting altogether and just taken their clothes off. Well, she’d already tried that. Obviously, her mate—

Wait, what’s his name, again?

She thunked her palm against her forehead.
Duh.

“I’m Christina,” she said. “Christina Stilton.”

He straightened up a bit at that, so he seemed to be looking down at her now. Of course, from his height, he’d always be looking down at her. He’d probably have to hunch just to put his arms around her. The wolves were shorter where she came from.

“Anton Denis.”

Anton.
His packmate had called him “Beast.” That wouldn’t be happening anymore. Not on
her
watch. There was nothing beastly about him, as far as she could tell. She was usually pretty good at reading temperaments, if not intents.

“So, where are you from, Anton?”

He scoffed. “Everywhere, lately. Adam splintered us from a group that got too big, just before we were going to be expelled, and we haven’t stopped moving since.”

Typical
. Packs always sent the strong boys away before they could become threats to the alphas and betas.
Stupid practice
. It left the packs unbalanced with a few strong wolves, a bunch of weak males, and—well, a bunch of girls and women. “How old were you?”

One of her brothers had left at sixteen. She hadn’t heard from him since, and he’d left ten years ago.

“Fifteen, I think. But Adam is my uncle through marriage, so it’s not like I got tossed out with a stranger.” He crooked his thumb in the general direction of Alpha’s house. “My aunt lives with him.”

“Oh. That’s reassuring. Knowing there’s an experienced woman here.”

He grunted, and that curtain of hair fell over his face again. She wanted to go over there and tuck it all behind his years so she could get a good look at that handsome, scarred face, but she didn’t have the courage at the moment. What if he refused to let her get close? Her wolf needed some gentling.

“Anton?”

“Yeah?”

“Where exactly are we? I slept for most of the trip from the airport in Albuquerque.”

His eyebrows bobbed and he pushed away from the door he’d been holding up. “Middle of nowhere, basically. Hold on, I’ve got a map in here somewhere.”

He disappeared into a back room and returned a couple of minutes later with a Southwest atlas. He turned to a flagged page and ran his finger down a longitude line to a spot that was, indeed, in the middle of nowhere. Just mountains and desert all around. “Our hosts chose this land specifically because no one would bother them out here.”

“Hosts?”