and I’ll have it for you next time. You’ve got a picky wolf.”
“Tradition? Or does the wolf like a little snack after walkies?”
He cut me a hard glare. “This isn’t a joke. Being a Shifter is an honor. We get enough shit from some of the other Breeds, I don’t want to hear it coming from you. There are a lot of prejudices, and many of ’em treat us like we’re the lower end of the totem pole. Someday I’ll tell you what they used us for.”
“Sled dogs?”
He leaned over and restrained every spark of anger until it only glimmered in his eyes. Austin was nose to cheek with me and I lowered my eyes, feeling immediate guilt for my predawn sense of humor, not to mention his alpha power flowing over me like a punishment.
“Slaves. We were chained, whipped, beaten, slaughtered, raped, and the wolf packs were used as guards or bloodhounds. We were forced to kill and do other people’s dirty work. It was before our time, but there are many from that era who are still around. Ivan is one of those men, so be careful what you say around him. We’re not immortal, but some Shifters are hundreds of years old.” His voice softened, and he tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
“I’m sorry, Austin. You know I’d never be disrespectful if I knew all of that. I’ve just been having a hard time dealing with this and I didn’t think it was off-limits to make a few jokes.”
A grin slid up one cheek. “We joke all the time, Lexi. I just want you to keep your nose out of trouble when we’re around other packs,” he said, tapping my nose.
The engine growled to life and by the time we hit the highway, I’d put away three sticks of beef jerky.
After a quick breakfast detour for sausage biscuits and black coffee, we pulled up to a majestic ranch house. Ten acres of cleared land surrounded the property, and there was a red riding mower off to the right.
“Ivan’s living it up,” I said, admiring two bright red sports cars on the left side of the house.
Austin parked behind them and cut off the engine.
“How long is this going to take? I can wait out here.”
“No, you’re coming inside with me. You’re also going to hold my hand, and not because we’re dating, but because I don’t want you out of my sight for a minute. I trust Ivan; he’s been around a long time. But I don’t know his pack and in your condition…”
“Someone please explain what my condition is, because I feel perfectly normal. I thought only alphas could smell me?”
“We can pick up the scent when you first change over, but going into heat is something entirely different. It’s like a pheromone. It draws the males to you before it starts and once it does, the weak ones aren’t able to control themselves.”
“Maybe it’s my perfume.”
He clicked open his door. “Come on, smartass.”
Austin held my right hand and we walked up the steps to a winding porch. A small set of wind chimes tinkled in the breeze as we clomped across the hollow wood floor, announcing our arrival before any doorbell was ever rung. The door swung open, replaced by two men. One had a handlebar mustache and looked like he was short a Harley while the other was missing a surfboard and needed another bottle of bleach to touch up his roots.
“Ivan here?”
“Who’s asking?” Harley demanded, folding his hairy arms.
“Tell him Austin Cole is here. He’s expecting me.”
“Austin Cole,” a voice boomed. “Been a few years.”
Harley and the surfer parted like two lovers who were just not that into each other anymore.
Ivan’s presence made me grab Austin’s arm and curl up against him. The man had salt-and-pepper hair with about two inches of beard, but he sure as hell didn’t look like Santa Claus. More like the guy who slips into your house in the middle of the night, strings you up by your ankles, and cuts off your ears while telling a story about his time in a Mexican jail.
Austin stood his ground and made no move to coddle me in any way.
“You’ve sprouted up, Cole. Not quite the young pup I remember,” Ivan said in a gravelly, southern drawl. Not the good kind of southern drawl, but the kind you hear whenever you’re skating through those tiny towns and pull over into a truck stop to use the bathroom as fast as humanly possible.
“I’ve formed my own pack, Ivan. The Weston pack.”
“You don’t say?” Ivan put his hands on his waist and tapped his snakeskin boots against the floor. “Boys, leave us alone. Y’all come inside before the skeeters get you. Damn bloodsucking insects have been a nuisance around here since the last hard rain.”
The two men obediently disappeared. Ivan led us to a quiet sitting room full of musty old books and bizarre artifacts such as animal skulls and a tarantula in a glass orb. There were only two chairs and after Ivan sat in the red one, he began packing a pipe with a pinch of tobacco.
Austin hesitated. He still had hold of my hand and our palms were sweating.
Ivan struck a match and waited a moment before he lit up his pipe. After a few puffs that clouded his face, he extinguished the match and grinned slowly as he looked me up and down.
“Someone’s about to make you feel real good, Cole,” he said with a knowing chuckle. “Ever had one in heat? Ain’t nothing like it. Nothing in the world.” He took a few short puffs from the pipe and blew out the smoke, shifting his hips. “Have a seat.”
It wasn’t a suggestion.
Austin sat down in the chair and I jerked my hand free, wiping my sweaty palm on my shirt. He burned me with his glacier eyes, so I leaned on the back of his chair and that seemed to satisfy him.
“What brings you out here?” Ivan asked.
Austin sat forward with his elbows on his thighs. “You’ve got connections, Ivan, and I’ve got a situation. We have a woman missing—kidnapped—and I know you got men who can find her.”
Ivan listened to the details, including the fact my mother was human, which rubbed him the wrong way. Then Austin said he would be indebted to him and Ivan’s cloudy eyes lit up with interest.
He took another small puff from his pipe and set it down in a holder. “As it so happens, you can even out that debt today. I got a female I need you to take off my hands, and I’ve been knowing your family long enough that I trust she’ll be in good care with you. If she chooses to go with another pack, then you let her, but I want you to look out for her as one of your own.”
Austin rubbed his jaw and I listened to the bristly sound of his whiskers. “Who is she?”
“My daughter.”
I gasped. Just a little bit. Ivan looked up at me and I dropped my eyes to the floor.
“She’s going through the change soon and I need fresh blood in the pack. I can’t have my own flesh and blood mating with any of these sons of bitches. You know pack rules—can’t keep our girls, and she hasn’t met anyone to take her off my hands.”
“Why not one of the local packs?”
Ivan shrugged and tapped his boot heel on the floor with an outstretched leg. “I made a promise to her mother before she died I’d get her the hell out of Oklahoma. She never was fond of the packs in this territory and I guess I can’t blame her. We’re not like you city boys,” he said, scraping Austin up and down with his eyes.
“Do you have a bathroom?” I interrupted, doing the embarrassing dance on my tiptoes.
“Lexi, no,” Austin said.
“Tight little leash he’s got on you, honey. ’Round the corner to the right.”
Austin caught my hand and I jerked it free. “Sorry, Austin. I refuse to stand in here like a three-year-old holding it in. My bladder has needs.”
Ivan rocked with laughter, but it was a silent laugh with a bit of a wheeze. His chest shook merrily until he wrapped it up with a long snarl and snort. “She’s a keeper, that one. I think she’ll get along well with my little girl.”
I sprinted down the hall and opened three doors before I found the bathroom. It took a good five minutes before I was ready to come out. When I finished drying off my hands and opened the door, three men blocked my exit.
