Ruthless Read online

  “You or your wolf?” Marina asked, cocking her head to the side.

  I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to rub out some of the misery. An idea struck me. “Maybe it would help if you all talked to her. If she met you? You know, to get some perspective on what it’s like to mate a shifter?”

  “You want us to do your work for you.” Becky laughed.

  “I’d do anything in the world for you if you could deliver my mate to me right now,” I admitted with a wry smile. My wolf and my dick both liked that idea.

  The women looked at each other. “Sure, we can talk to her. If she wants to talk,” Willow said.

  “She could join us for our next ladies’ night,” Marina suggested.

  I groaned. “Can’t you see her sooner?” The thought of a whole week going by without me doing everything in my power to get my mate to agree to mating me was killing me.

  Marina shook her head. “You can’t rush this. You’re going to scare her off if you act crazy.”

  I hung my head. “Yeah. She’s pretty much told me that already.”

  “Well, it’s time to listen!” Becky countered.

  “I hear you.” I exhaled. “How much time do you think she needs?”

  Becky snorted. “However much it takes. Definitely more than a week.”

  “More than a week?” Fates, I wasn’t going to survive this. How long could a possessive wolf like me last without claiming his mate? Well, at least next week, she could be with these women instead of… ugh. “She probably couldn’t come to your ladies’ night, anyway,” I realized aloud. “She works evenings at Cody’s and wouldn’t want to give up the shifts.”

  “Well, maybe we can go there,” Audrey said with a shrug. “We can try to make it seem casual. Not an ambush. Becky and I can stop by after work sometime. The hospital’s not far from the bar.”

  “Not an ambush, right,” I replied. “Thank you. Thank you ladies so much. It really means a lot to me.” I pushed off from the rail and backed down the stairs. It was time to get to Cody’s. It wasn’t even near closing time, but I’d just tell her I was in the area. Whatever.

  “You still have to do the work!” Marina called to me.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I agreed, offering all of them a wave. “I will. Just as soon as I figure out what that means.”

  The females’ laughter followed me to the truck.

  I ground my teeth and gears as I shifted into reverse. I was no closer to claiming my mate. But I did feel marginally better.

  I just needed to give Natalie my time and prove my love for her. So as long as I didn’t push too hard and make her run or shove me away, I could do this.

  15

  RAND

  * * *

  A few days later, Nash and I got to the pack lodge early to open it up and clean it for the monthly pack meeting. It had been built decades earlier as the central meeting place but also the starting point of the monthly full moon runs. It was away from any prying human eyes and a safe location to shift freely. The last time I’d been here was right before I’d veered off path because of Natalie.

  I hadn’t been aware of it in the moment, but I’d somehow known my mate was out there, that I’d needed to seek her out. Now, I was stir crazy—which was putting it mildly—being away from her. Me, here with my pack—her at Cody’s working.

  There was a time when Levi and Clint would be here helping us, too, but now that they were mated to humans, they didn’t come as early or stay as long. From what Clint had told me, Becky and Audrey would be stopping by the bar to meet Natalie. That and that alone kept me from jumping in my truck and heading into town.

  Charlie and Becky, Marina and Audrey could come to pack meetings if they wanted, but not all the pack members made them feel comfortable, which fucking sucked. People like Nathan Brown, the guy whose chimney we fixed a few days ago, and other conservative members had old-fashioned ideas about how the pack should be run. They were traditionalists, old-timers who thought Rob was too… liberal. The alpha had done many things in the almost twenty years he’d been leader, all for the good, I thought. Most recently, he’d changed the pack law to allow the mating of humans, and not all the members agreed with it. Or him. No matter the example he set or the number of shifters who were mating humans these days, it didn’t make a difference.

  Rob and Willow pulled up, looking every bit the alpha couple they were. When Rob’s wolf had chosen her, he hadn’t known she was actually a shifter—nobody did. Including her. Not until she was shot in the line of duty, and she spontaneously shifted to heal herself. Rob would’ve mated her anyway, shifter or human, but it sure took the pressure off that his human mate turned out to be a beautiful ginger wolf, and as alpha as could be for a female.

  “Hey guys. Thank you for opening up,” Rob rumbled as he came in. He came over, slapped me on the shoulder. It was a sign of a good leader that he still thanked us every month. I’d be here even if he didn’t. He was like another big brother to me, and my family had been standing behind him as an alpha since the night the Wolf boys’ parents had died when we were kids.

  My parents came in next, my mom carrying a casserole dish of her famous lasagna and my dad bringing a pan of brownies and a watermelon. “Rand, go and grab the bag of groceries in the back of the SUV,” my mom directed. She always over-provided on the food. Potluck meant everyone brought one thing, but my mom had to bring at least five to every meeting. No one would go hungry on her watch.

  She was the pack’s mother hen, without stepping on Willow’s shoes.

  I went out to her car and carried in a grocery sack full of chips and home baked cookies and a bag of freshly cut carrots and celery with ranch dressing.

  Inside, Rand and my dad were setting up the chairs.

  The pack members started rolling in, and Rob stood at the doorway to shake hands and greet them all.

  “Hey, Clint. You didn’t bring the humans today?” Nathan Brown called to my brother.

  It was a purposeful dig—implying that Clint’s daughter Lily was also human and wouldn’t shift when she reached puberty. Clint didn’t care if she shifted or not or if she grew wings and flew like a fairy. He was pleased with his daughter any way she turned out. Same went for me, my parents. Rob. Fuck, everyone in the pack but Nathan.

  I growled on his behalf although it was probably drowned out with the noise of everyone arriving.

  “Don’t call my family the humans,” Clint clipped and a staredown ensured between the two men—one young, one older. Clint topped him by several inches and at least thirty pounds of muscle. The only time Nathan had any strength was in shifter form but not compared to Clint or me.

  I sauntered over to stand at my brother’s shoulder. If Brown thought he could fuck with Clint, he’d quickly find out at least six of the strongest pack members would have his back. Nash joined, too, arms crossed over his chest, most likely so he didn’t strangle the asshole.

  Nathan shrugged. “Are you ashamed of what they are?”

  Clint’s hand shot out, and he gripped a fistful of Nathan’s shirt.

  Growls went up all around the large meeting room until Rob’s voice cut across the room in an alpha command, “Enough.”

  The lodge went silent.

  Boyd stepped forward, using his signature diplomacy the rest of us had never mastered. “Hey, now. Everybody take a breath.” To Nathan, he said, “I’m sure you don’t want to goad a former council enforcer into thinking you’re insulting his mate and pup, right? Because that would be ill advised.” His words reminded the pack that my brother had been chosen by the shifter council and had enforced their laws secretly for years. He probably had more kills counted than Colton had while serving as a Green Beret. Boyd’s words sobered the room.

  “Take your seats,” Rob ordered, forestalling any response from Nathan.

  Everyone immediately moved and settled. I sat beside my brother—not that he required my back up. The reminder of him being an enforcer without any of us knowing for so l
ong still stung a bit. I knew it had been for his safety and ours that his role had been a secret, but it bugged the hell out of me that Clint had lived a double life.

  With Becky and Lily, it was long behind him now.

  Rob ran through the usual pack agenda and then opened the floor for new business.

  “I have new business,” Nate Brown said, standing up.

  Aw, fuck. Seriously, every time this guy spoke up it was to take a pot shot at Rob’s leadership. The guy was open about his dissatisfaction over the direction the pack had taken allowing us to mate humans and whatever else he could stir up shit about.

  There was always something.

  I swore I heard Rob’s teeth grinding from my seat. “What is it?”

  “Were you going to tell us about the threat to our pack from your neighbor?”

  “What neighbor?” I couldn’t help my angry outburst. If he was talking about Natalie, we were going to have more than words.

  I was gonna tear his head off.

  Rob held up a hand in my direction, his stern glance conveying his displeasure. At me, even though Nathan was the one being a pain in the ass.

  Fuck.

  I shut up, and Nathan waited. I could practically sense his giddy excitement over the trouble he was about to cause.

  “You heard the question,” Rob prompted. “What neighbor?”

  “I think you know exactly who I mean. Natalie Sheffield and her plans to open a bed and breakfast right next to you. To the entire pack.”

  What the fuck? How did he kn—oh shit. We were talking on his roof when we’d fixed his chimney! What a dumb-ass move. Fucking shifter hearing.

  A stir went around the room, and I muttered a curse. Clint wrapped a hand around my forearm to prevent me from leaving my seat. My wolf was pissed. Natalie wasn’t here. She wasn’t in danger, but I wanted to protect her still.

  “Keep your cool,” he muttered under his breath. Not that muttering worked well with shifters.

  Keeping my cool was an impossibility. My wolf wasn’t going to sit on my ass when a threat to Natalie was being made. I was ready to tear out throats. One specifically.

  Rob frowned. “That situation is being handled,” he said curtly.

  “I think this pack deserves to know how it’s being handled. Having a revolving door of humans adjacent to pack land is a problem. A big problem,” Nate said.

  There were a few murmurs of assent around the room.

  A low growl started in my throat.

  “Knock it off.” Clint tightened his hold on my arm.

  My parents, who sat a few rows ahead of us, turned to look at me, taking in Clint’s hand on my arm.

  “It’s being handled,” Rob repeated.

  “But how?” This time it was someone else who asked the question, which meant Rob would probably have to address it. If it wasn’t my mate who’d moved in, I’d have been rational and thought the question reasonable. A human next door, especially one who might open a B&B, could make trouble for a pack.

  Dammit.

  Rob closed his eyes as if begging for patience. “We are working with Natalie Sheffield to find another solution for the property.”

  “I’ll gladly go by the place and—”

  “You won’t,” I snarled. Clint couldn’t stop me from flying to my feet. I jabbed a finger in Nathan Brown’s direction. “Nobody goes near that place, do you understand me?”

  “Rand!” My mother sounded shocked.

  “Enough, son,” my father used his quiet authoritative voice on me. The one that usually worked.

  Rob’s nostrils flared. “Sit.” His alpha command might have worked under different circumstances. I felt my knees start to bend, but my wolf responded with a surge of energy to combat it.

  Clint seized the moment of weakness to yank me back down to my seat.

  A rumbling went around the room.

  “As you can see,” Rob cut over it, and the room fell silent again. “One of our pack brothers has a horse in this race.” He paused a moment for that information to land.

  A mate? She’s his mate? a few people whispered.

  My mother’s eyes went round, and she laid a hand on her cheek with pleasure.

  “And that is how I’m handling it,” Rob continued. “Rand will win over his mate and bring her into the pack. Then I’m certain we can come to an arrangement that works for Ms. Sheffield and the pack.”

  My stomach knotted up. I didn’t like hearing Rob announce my intentions to the whole pack like that, especially because while the fact that the words were true, they weren’t completely accurate. He was being diplomatic and trying to shut it all down. I knew it was to quell the dissent against his leadership. To get the assholes off his back and mine. Still, the moment he ended the meeting, I stalked out, skipping the potluck. I couldn’t stay even though I knew my parents would want to talk. To celebrate. I couldn’t now, not when my mate was being threatened.

  Nathan Brown had better watch his back. Because I would mate Natalie. I’d bring her to pack meetings if she wanted to come. If he made the tiniest remark about her, I’d fucking kill him.

  My brother may have more experience in that area, but I’d never been more certain of anything in my life.

  16

  NATALIE

  * * *

  I’d spent the last twenty minutes in the storeroom counting liquor bottles. It was early and the bar was quiet. It was after happy hour and well before the evening crowd arrived although Tuesday didn’t get packed like the weekend. I adjusted the count of tequila on the clipboard then moved onto the vodka. It had been a few days since I’d told Rand he needed to chill the fuck out… at least that was the way I thought about it.

  The guy was the epitome of alpha, over the top male.

  Every time I worked, he showed up to walk me to my car and then followed me home. He sat at the bar in what I now considered his usual stool and ensured no one messed with me. Not that Cody or the weekend bouncers would allow it. We’d spent every night together either at my house—where the smoke alarms had been installed and the wiring work was in progress—or at his cabin. I’d had a little chat with myself, meaning my pussy, and she’d won. We were going to sex it up for as long as we could with Rand.

  That didn’t mean I wasn’t still resisting his claim on me. He didn’t love me. Of course, I didn’t love him, either. While I’d known him most of my life, I didn’t really know him. Although, he would argue with me about that since we were more intimate than I’d been with anybody. That didn’t mean I was in love. I didn’t even know what love was. It wasn’t like I’d had a good example of it at home. I never felt loved by my parents. The closest I’d felt to affection was the kindness from Uncle Adam. I liked my friends. But the Big L? Love? Nah. It was a stranger to me. I’d never professed love to the few boyfriends I’d had in college.

  I’d learned to have sex without love. If I waited to be in love with someone to have sex, I’d have died a virgin.

  I had no idea what was going to happen in the future, but I knew I couldn’t hang my hat on Rand’s supposed undying love and a happily ever after for the two of us. Planning on this thing going somewhere would be a big mistake.

  That was what it felt like with my work, too. I was going nowhere.

  I was in a flipping storeroom counting liquor bottles. I had an advanced degree in music, and I was in a cowboy bar in the middle of Montana. I’d taken the bad situation of being a broke grad student who hated her field of study to something worse. I wondered if on some subconscious level I came here so I wouldn’t have to play music any more. There was nothing in Montana for me to do as a violinist. Lessons to local kids? As if that was going to pay the bills.

  But I also didn’t want to be a professional bartender. Cody was great, and he was a solid business owner, but slinging drinks wasn’t what I wanted to do with myself.

  I grabbed the clipboard and shut off the light.

  “There you are!” I stopped halfway to the bar when
two blonde women came up to me as if we were long lost friends. One was in her early thirties, short with glasses, and the other one was curvy with a sassy smile. The one with glasses nudged the other, but looked at me as she said, “Careful of the storeroom. Last time Becky was in there, she got knocked up.”

  I stared at the other one who was now rolling her eyes and blushing. “Whatever,” she said, shrugging and not denying. She’d gotten knocked up in the storage room? Seriously? “By the look on her face and the clipboard in her hand, I had way more fun.”

  “Probably,” I replied, not sure what to say.

  “I’m Becky,” she said. “I’m Rand’s sister-in-law.”

  The lightbulb went off. These were human mates of the guys from Wolf Ranch. That made Becky Clint’s mate.

  “I’m Audrey,” said the blonde with glasses. “Boyd’s wife. We work at the hospital, and since we were in town still, we decided to stop by.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at how… perky they were. I wasn’t sure if they were always this way or not. “Great.”

  Cody waved me over.

  “Want a glass of wine or anything?” I asked, walking to the bar and lifting the pass through. I held it up for Cody, and he took the clipboard from me.

  The ladies had taken stools at the bar. “We’re both driving back to the ranch, so no alcohol for us, but I’m starving,” Becky said. “Breastfeeding makes me hungry all the time.”

  “I heard you had a baby,” I said, putting a menu between them. Rand had told me about his family the other day as he’d worked on the electrical. He’d had to take the switch out and somehow feed modern wiring to a plug a few feet away by tugging it through behind the wall. In some spots, he’d had to poke through the sturdy plaster. It was a mess and a huge undertaking. I’d asked him after trying to pay him for his work… again, but he’d pushed me off. So far, it was only electrical supplies he’d purchased… the fuse box and a heck of a lot of wire. That wasn’t ridiculously expensive… so far. I’d get squared away with him. I would, dammit. “Lily, right?”