Mate Marked: Shifters of Silver Peak (8 page)

Zeke lay next to Holly, stroking her arm and staring down at her. She was beautiful, with bee-stung lips and high cheekbones, and silky black hair that fanned out on the bed like an ebony waterfall.

They were in the cabin that Holly was renting, on the edge of Silver Peak. When the paper mill closed, the young man who had been living there had moved on. Holly had come to town a few weeks ago, looking to start a new life after the death of her husband.

“I can’t wait for you to meet the pack,” Zeke said. “I’m just warning you that since you’re gorgeous, they’re all going to hit on you.”

“Jealous?” Holly said, looking amused.

“A little,” Zeke said. “Just let me know if any of them gets fresh, and I’ll knock them on their ass.”

“But what if I like it?” Holly said, her full lips curving in a teasing smile.

“Very funny,” Zeke said, trying to disguise that he felt faintly hurt. He and Holly had talked about getting exclusive. Once shifters got to that point, they were expected to forsake all others and definitely dial back on the flirting.

Hell, Holly should know that. She was a young widow. Her husband had been killed in a challenge. She still bore his Mate Mark on her neck.

“Just kidding,” Holly said. “Don’t be so sensitive.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that I’m crazy about you.”

“Well, you should be. I’m amazing. Tell me more about your Alpha,” Holly said. “Are you sure he’ll be okay with me joining your pack?”

Zeke started to relax. She wouldn’t be talking about joining their pack if she wasn’t interested in moving on to the next level in their relationship. They hadn’t gotten quite that far, but Zeke’s plan was to someday place a Mate Mark on top of her old one.

“He’ll be fine with it,” he said. “Like I told you, he’s generally too busy chasing tail and working ’til he drops to pay much attention to anything else.” He paused. “Although that might change soon—the part about him chasing tail, I mean.”

He felt her tense up beside him.

“What do you mean? What’s going to change?”

Zeke kissed the top of her head. “Nothing that will affect you. He just met some woman that he seems interested in. The local sheriff, actually. It’s funny as hell, because she keeps trying to arrest him. But I can tell there’s something there. When he’s with her, when he talks about her, he acts different than I’ve ever seen.”

“Maybe she won’t like me. Maybe she won’t want another female in the pack. She’s probably the jealous type.”

Zeke wrapped his arms around her. “Sweetheart, if it comes down to it, you and I could just stay here together,” he said.

She sighed and relaxed in his arms. “That’s sweet of you to say. And now, it’s been ten minutes since you last made me come, you lazy bastard. Why are you talking so much? I want you to fuck me now, big boy.”

* * * * *

Chelsea had an odd feeling as she pulled up in front of Joyce’s house, but she couldn’t have said why. Something had been bothering Joyce the night before at work, but Joyce had brushed off all Chelsea’s attempts to find out what was wrong.

She’d also been downright curt to Paul, who’d looked crestfallen and finally left.

Did that mean Roman’s pack was somehow behind the sheep thefts? Was that what was bothering her? Either way, it was obvious she didn’t want to talk about it at work, but maybe she’d feel more comfortable discussing it at home.

Or not.

When Chelsea approached the house, the front door opened right away. Joyce walked out and quickly shut the door behind her.

She had circles under her eyes and she looked tired and stressed out.

“Hey Joyce, is everything okay?” Chelsea asked. “I could tell something was bothering you. Is it anything I can help you with?”

Joyce ran her hands over her face, and nodded with a grimace.

“Everything’s fine,” Joyce said. “I’m just tired. I’ve been working a lot of shifts, and you know those boys and my grandmother. They wear me out.”

It seemed like more than that, though. Joyce was nervous about something. She was shifting from one foot to the other, and acted as if she wanted to glance back at the house but was restraining herself.

“Are you sure that’s it?” Chelsea asked.

“Positive,” Joyce said.

“Okay. And there haven’t been any more sheep killings? So far, it looks as if a regular wolf, not a shifter, killed those sheep. The police chief is stepping up patrols and putting traps out.”

“That’s great. I’m glad to hear it,” Joyce said. “There haven’t been any more sheep killings that I’ve heard of. I knew it wasn’t Roman’s pack. Everything’s been quiet here, nothing to worry about.”

She was fidgeting, anxious, clearly wanting Chelsea to leave. She did seem sincere when she said that she knew it wasn’t Roman’s pack, though.

“All right. Well.” Chelsea wished she knew what was wrong, but it was clear she wouldn’t get anywhere by sticking around.

She hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “If you need anything, you know where to find me,” Chelsea said, and she turned and headed back to her truck.

Joyce quickly stepped back inside. She stood peering out the window past the small lace curtain and watched Chelsea pull away, feeling sick.

“Nice job,” Mitch Rodgers growled in her ear. She started. He was standing uncomfortably close to her, his hot breath on her ear, leaning in. She took an involuntary step back, which made him scowl. He moved forward, crowding her. Her grandmother wandered by them, holding a pot of hot coffee.

“Tea, dear?” she said cheerfully to Mr. Rodgers, and began pouring coffee on his foot. He let out a scream of pain and jumped back.

“Grandma! Not now,” Joyce said, grabbing her grandmother by the arm and dragging her into the kitchen. She was secretly pleased, however. Not just because she wanted savage, painful revenge on Mitch Rodgers for threatening her family. She also wanted him to stop staring at her in that creepy way, making her stomach churn.

Mitch Rodgers stormed into the kitchen after them, swearing.

“She does that on purpose!” he howled.

“No, she doesn’t! She’s senile! She does not have any clue what she’s doing!” Chelsea said, quickly stepping in front of her grandmother. “And you are not to harm anyone in my family. You promised.”

“I’ve got my eye on you,” Mitch growled at Edna.

“Tea, dear?” she began pouring coffee again, but this time he managed to jump out of the way just in time, swearing. Joyce took the coffee pot away from her grandmother.

“I did what you asked. I got rid of her. Now I want my brothers back,” she said, her stomach churning. She was sick with worry.

Mitch had grabbed them two days ago. Said that they were trespassing on his property; she didn’t know if that was true, but either way, he had them. She didn’t know where they were being held. If she called the police, Mitch had sworn that her brothers would be dead long before the police could find them.

“You’ll get them back when all of this is done,” Mitch growled at her, limping towards the back door. “And it would be a smart idea for you to start being a little nicer to me.” There was a leer on his face this time, and the way that his gaze roved over her body made her feel physically ill.

The school bus echoed with the shrill sound of “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

“Almost!” Chelsea yelled for the millionth time.

“He’ll never know what hit him.” Erika snickered. Chelsea grinned. She’d decided to switch tactics. She’d also decided it would be fun to play dirty.

It was obvious she wouldn’t be able to physically subdue Roman and drag him off to jail, so she was bringing his pack’s worst nightmare right to their doorstep.

What’s the worst nightmare of a commitmentphobe? Children.

Fifteen of them. So many that they’d had to borrow a school bus to transport them all.

Erika had gathered up all her nieces and nephews and younger cousins, who apparently were a wild, out-of-control handful. So far, they were living up to their reputation.

Pepper was enjoying a visit with Lorena, who liked having her in her store. The pack members would come in and give her treats.

They drove down the dirt road that led to the camp. The sun had just risen; she wanted to make sure she got there before the pack headed off to work.

Chelsea parked by the side of the road, flung open the door and waited as all the kids scrambled out.

“Remember, everybody, outlaws like lots of noise!” she called to them as she led them along the dirt trail towards the encampment.

They were hollering loud enough to wake the dead. In case anybody was still sleeping, she shouted, “Good morning! Rise and shine!” at the top of her lungs. The pack members were staggering out of their tents already, half dressed.

“Hello, everybody! Newsflash!” she yelled. “These kids wanted to come meet some real, genuine outlaws. Hey, Rafe, how you doing today?” she asked, as a young boy named Harvey shifted into cub form and hurled himself into Rafe’s arms. Rafe caught him and stumbled backwards, too shocked to speak.

“So here’s how it’s going to be,” she continued, as Roman strolled up to her. He was wearing khaki shorts and sandals and nothing else. She blinked, trying not to stare at the swell of his biceps and his lean, muscular frame.

Everybody was staring at her. Waiting for her to speak.

She cleared her throat.

“We’re going to be hanging out here all day. And probably all night. School just let out, summer camp had to close because of lack of funds, and these cubs are driving their parents up the wall. They told us we’re welcome to stay here as long as we like. Weeks. Months. In fact, they’ll come here and join us for cookouts. Pansy, stop biting Benjamin’s ankle! Go for the thigh, much meatier.”

“Ouch?” Benjamin winced as he tried to pry the little girl from his leg.

“Wow,” Roman said admiringly to her. “You’re no quitter, I’ll give you that.”

“Damned straight.”

“Watch your language, there’s children present.” He said it with a smirk.

She snorted. “They are uncorruptible. They’re a bunch of little savages.”

“Chelsea, I’m surprised at you.” He shook his head with an expression of mock disapproval. His silky hair flowed over his shoulders, and she swallowed hard, imagining what it would feel like to run her fingers through it. “Where are your maternal instincts?”

“You didn’t just spend the last hour with them.” Then she flashed him an evil grin. “But you’re about to.”

She turned and yelled out to the pack, who now had children swarming them like ants at a picnic, “You’ve got another alternative, if you don’t want to play kindergarten cop all summer long. Roman can come with me, deal with this warrant, and come back when he’s done. Benjamin can run things perfectly well until I get back! Until Roman comes with me, the kids and I are camped out here permanently. That’s going to put a real crimp in your social life. What do you say?”

Marcus was the only one who hadn’t been swarmed. He scowled at any of the cubs who tried to come too close, and they turned and happily ran off to bother other pack members. Climbing up them Nipping at them. Hanging on their hands.

She saw a couple of stragglers, Leland and Paul, heading towards the clearing. They were yawning and rubbing their eyes. They looked as if they’d just woken up.

“Those two,” Roman muttered to himself. “Always sleeping in these days.”

“Hey, Erika!” Leland called out. “What is this, field trip day? My car’s running great now, by the way.”

Chelsea repeated her little speech for them. “So what’s it going to be?” she called out.

A little boy whose nickname was Tom-Tom shifted to cub form, jumped into Leland’s arms, and began chewing on his hair. Leland let out a loud whoop – of joy.

“Kids? We love kids!” he yelled. “We never get to hang out with kids! We’re a week ahead in our work—we’re taking the day off! Who wants to go down to the waterfall and do cannonballs into the lake?”

Apparently, according to the children’s deafening screams of excitement, they all did.

“Cannonballs? Waterfall? That doesn’t sound safe,” Chelsea said nervously.

It was too late. Several of the pack’s girlfriends were already coming out of their tents, and Erika was enthusiastically joining in with the whooping and carrying-on.

“Tonight we’ll have a cookout. Hot dogs and hamburgers!” a shifter named Petrov yelled. More screams of excitement ripped through the air. Chelsea winced.

“Last one to the waterfall’s a rotten egg!” Erika yelled.

“Erika! You can’t go! You…you didn’t bring a bathing suit!” Chelsea protested. “It’s not ladylike!”

“Aw, the heck with ladylike. There’s no place for being ladylike out here,” Leland snorted, and Erika beamed, and Chelsea reluctantly found herself really liking him.

Except that now Erika and Leland were leading the happy gang of children and shifters away.

“But…but…” she protested. Everybody was already heading out of the camp.

“You didn’t eat breakfast!” Chelsea yelled after them.

“We’ll hunt our breakfast!” somebody yelled back.

Son. Of. A. Bitch. Her carefully thought-out plan was going down in flames. She could not possibly have failed any harder.

“Why aren’t you going with them?” she demanded of Roman.

He grinned at her fiercely. “Somebody’s got to watch our prisoner.”

Okay, so apparently it
was
possible for her to fail even harder.

“Prisoner? But…come onnn!” she groaned. Talk about adding insult to injury.

“Hey, sorry, but this was clearly another arrest attempt. On my property. I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.”

She scowled at him. “Um, you did, in fact, make that rule.”

“Oh, right, so I did,” he said with a laugh “And I could break it if I wanted to. But I’m not going to. You know why?”

“Because you have to prove what a macho badass you are?”

“Everybody already knows that, trust me. It’s because I like your company. Now, let’s make coffee. And by the way, do you want s’mores for breakfast?”

“But you don’t have the ingredients,” she protested as they walked over to the pack’s supply tent.

“I got the ingredients. I knew you’d be back.”

Despite herself, Chelsea found that she was flattered. He hadn’t forgotten about her after all.

“Should we eat all that sugar this early?” she wondered.

“Better eat them before the kids get back and gobble up the rest of them.”

“Stealing candy from children,” she said, shaking her head chastisingly.

He laughed. “Hello, have you met me? Alpha asshole here.”

Minutes later, they were sitting by the fire-pit, setting marshmallows on fire. Roman watched in admiration as she built a gooey s’more sandwich and handed it to him. He bit down deeply and a look of bliss appeared on his face.

“Right?” she said.

“How have I lived without this in my life?” he asked, looking straight at her in a way that made her heart stutter.

She knew he was talking about the s’mores.

Wasn’t he?

“Now I get to make you one,” he told her. He stabbed a marshmallow with a piece of tree branch and shoved it into the fire, and together they watched the flames turn the marshmallow’s shell bubbly and crispy-brown.

Then he built her a s’more, and fed it to her, and she leaned forward, biting down until melting chocolate oozed from her lips.

The sticky sweetness invaded her senses, but even the richness of the chocolate was not as intoxicating as the sensation of his fingertips, slightly rough from manual labor, lingering on her lips. She caught her breath as a trickle of wetness escaped from her core and shivers of sensation danced up her spine.

Roman’s eyes were dark and intense as he slowly drew his fingers away from her lips and replaced them with his mouth, kissing her with slow, drugging intensity. She parted her lips on a sigh and his tongue tangled with hers, her senses overwhelmed by the flavors of chocolate and marshmallow and Roman’s musky, masculine scent. He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close, and she could feel his heart hammering fast and hard in his chest in counterpoint to the lazy self-assurance of his kisses.

He tumbled her back onto the ground, one hand cradling her head to protect her from the impact, and ran his hands down her sides, over the plump outer curves of her breasts, the dip of her waist and her soft, generous hips.

She was achingly aware of the rigid length of his erection pressing against her core, and found herself rolling her pelvis against him, seeking the heady friction her body yearned for, cried out for. She flushed, feeling wanton, but she couldn’t help herself.

Roman drew back and deftly unbuttoned her shirt, slipping it from her shoulders and weighing her heavy breasts in his big palms. He lowered his head to suckle on the pale, creamy flesh where it spilled over the top of her lacy bra—the one hidden touch of frilly femininity she’d allowed herself when donning her practical, no-nonsense sheriff’s outfit that morning.

His low groan, almost a growl, rumbled through her, making her nipples furl and bud against the fabric of her bra and lighting up her nerve endings. White-hot licks of lust ignited and tumbled through her like shooting stars.

Roman ripped away her bra and discarded his shirt, then returned to her, suckling at her throat, massaging her breasts wrapping his arms around her back and holding her close so she could feel the hot, hard planes of his muscular chest and taut stomach against her skin. His breathing was rapid and as he pressed his hips against her he made low, effortful noises of hard-won restraint. A pulse throbbed between her thighs and she moaned, running her fingers into his long, silky hair and holding his head against her breast, where he played his tongue over her nipple and tweaked it gently between his teeth.

Roman’s hands went to the fly of her jeans, and shame hit her like a dash of cold water. She sat bolt upright. Roman drew back as if stung, as if smarting from rejection. But then his eyes softened as he took in the way she’d crossed her arms defensively over her body, turning her face away to hide the tide of hot blood she could feel rising in her cheeks.

“Why are you hiding yourself from me?”

Because you’re so gorgeous. So sexy. Because you’re toned and tan and delicious. Because you have a body made for sin. Because you’re sex on legs and I’m…not.

She swallowed and forced herself to speak. “It’s just…your reputation precedes you.”

He gave an irritated little growl. “Is this about the whole outlaw thing again? Because I thought we were past that.”

“No! No… It’s just I’ve heard about your love life. Leggy blondes. Beautiful brainless bimbos. I’m not exactly your type.”

“That’s true.”

She nodded dully.

“You’re definitely not brainless. You are beautiful, though.”

She glanced at him. The firelight reflected in his eyes made him look as if he were burning up from within.

“It’s okay,” she muttered, reaching for her shirt. “You don’t have to say it. ‘You have a beautiful personality. You’d be so pretty if you just lost a few pounds…’”

Roman’s hand clamped around her wrist like a vise, bruisingly tight. “Don’t you dare say that about yourself,” he said, and there was real anger in his voice. “Who told you that?”

She swallowed. “Oh, you know, ex-boyfriends…”

He snorted. “You might not be brainless, but you obviously have terrible taste in men.”

She ventured a shy, tentative smile. “Nothing’s changed there, then.”

His eyes narrowed and she felt a thrill run through her that was part fear and part excitement. “It seems to me that you need to be taught another lesson,” he said, his voice almost a purr, and before she knew what was happening he’d yanked down her jeans and panties and pulled her across his lap, her bare rump in the air.

She squealed and wriggled, then quieted when he gave her a light, brisk tap on the ass.

“I’m going to spank you three times,” he told her gravely. “Once for the smart remark about me. Once for the stupid remark about your body. And once for fun.”