Four Weddings and a Werewolf

Logan latched onto the auburn-haired wolf’s neck and shook. Blood splattered everywhere, spilling into the street and pooling in the gutter. The wolf howled and kicked his back legs, fighting to slip free from Logan’s killer grip. They edged closer to Veronica, but she was frozen in fear. Forcing her legs to move, she made a clumsy attempt at a sprint around the planter box. The wolf bounded off the ground and rammed into Veronica’s side. She lost her balance and slammed into the wall. Her head snapped back, hitting the brick and causing lights to dance in front of her eyes.

Chest tight, Veronica couldn’t catch her breath. She put her hand over her breast and tried to calm her racing heart, but it pounded anyway, right against her hand. Her head swam, and her vision fuzzed. Focus on the fight in the street. Just focus. Little by little, the auburn-haired wolf worked his way free. He bolted the second he dropped from Logan’s jaws. Logan chased after the wolf and disappeared around the corner.

She was going to pass out. Right here in the street where everybody…

The darkness won.

…

Logan drove hard and fast. He thanked the makers of Lexus for putting a 5.0-liter eight-speed in this car—it could really get up and go when you put some heat to it, and he wanted to get out of Everett as fast as he could.

Veronica started to rouse, so Logan turned down the radio. “It’s going be all right,” he said, tugging her coat up her slumbering body. “It’s all over now.”

He didn’t want to tell her that it wasn’t really over, but he couldn’t bear to say the words yet. Soon, when she was ready, he’d have to tell her that the auburn-haired wolf had disappeared into an alley. The canine had been smaller than Logan, which meant he’d been more agile. He must’ve bounded over a fence and gone quiet. Logan couldn’t find him, not even with his heightened sense of smell. It had struck Logan as odd, until he realized that he’d just had sex with Veronica and her scent was still all over him, clouding his other senses.

“I was blind. So fucking blind,” Logan muttered to himself. He shook his head and tunneled his fingers through his hair. “Damn it, he should’ve been mine. He was right in my hands…toying with me.”

As long as the coward kept using the postal service to relay his messages, there was little Logan could do to track him down. There was never a return address and the envelopes smelled clean, besides the traces of hand sanitizer from the mailman’s hands and a hint of glue. He should’ve been trying harder. Been more alert. Stayed up all night to see if her home was being watched. He should’ve slept with her, alongside her, so that she’d never be alone, not for a single second. He should’ve…he could’ve.

There was too much, and he’d done too little. The stalker had come too close.

Exiting the freeway thirty minutes later, Logan drove quickly through the neighborhood, watching for signs of being followed. There was no one there, nothing out of the ordinary. He pulled into the alley behind his house, pressed the garage door opener, and drove inside. After the stalker had let himself into Veronica’s house and invaded her personal space, there was no way Logan was taking her back there. Besides, he had a better chance at protecting her on his turf.

She was going to have a ton of questions when she woke up. What happened at the wedding? Why didn’t he tell her that he was a werewolf? Why did her sister and Jake keep the truth from her, too? (They’d have to answer for themselves on that one.)

Logan lifted Veronica from the car and carried her inside. Clamoring to get through the door, Fang barked and jumped. Logan kneed him gently, urging him down, as he walked Veronica into his bedroom.

“Don’t be mad that I brought you here,” he said, lying her down on his bed. She wasn’t awake and couldn’t hear him, but talking calmed him down. He covered her with the sheet and drew the curtains closed. “At least give me the chance to explain.”

He knelt beside the bed and took her hand. She was so soft and delicate. The Big Guy upstairs must’ve been laughing his ass off when he decided Veronica should be Logan’s Luminary—his soul mate and fated lover. Even if Logan wanted to be with Veronica for the next thousand years, she was human and would have to be bitten by a werewolf in two different pulse points to become a turned wolf and join their pack.

Born werewolves, like Logan and the majority of his packmates, shifted at whim, usually when they got angry. Turned wolves, however, shifted at the full moon. They were different, yet shared the same traits. Two wolves from different breeds. If Veronica was bitten and turned, like what happened to her sister, Logan and Veronica could be together and she could be accepted into the Seattle Wolf Pack.

But he was getting ahead of himself, wasn’t he? Veronica hated wolves. She wouldn’t want to be with him.

In her eyes, he was a monster. She’d already said as much.

“I promise to tell you everything.” He lowered his head to her hand, touching his forehead to her knuckles. “I think I can handle it if you decide to walk away at the end of all this,” he whispered. “All I ask is that you don’t hate me.”

Chapter Thirteen

Dog breath. There was a seriously bad, gagging amount of dog breath fanning over her face.

Peeling her eyes open, Veronica shrieked and jerked away from the golden retriever staring at her from the edge of the bed. The dog’s disgusting tongue was lolling out of its mouth, hanging mere inches over the mattress. Its breath was rancid. As if it’d been eating dead fish and took second helpings.

“Go!” Veronica cringed. “Shoo!”

The dog clamped its mouth shut and made a cute little meeping noise. Kinking its head to the side, staring at her with sweet brown eyes.

“Okay, so you’re kinda cute,” she said. “But you’re drooling. Go!”

She fanned it away and shrank deeper into the bed. It barked, and Veronica covered her now-busted eardrums.

Wait…

Logan’s dog. Logan’s…bed?

Clutching the covers to her chest, Veronica glanced around, half expecting to see leashes, dog bones, and rubbery chew toys lying around. Okay, so she’d hadn’t ever seen a werewolf with any of those things, but she hadn’t seen someone in wolf form before last night, so who knew what they enjoyed in the privacy of their own homes?

She was pleasantly surprised to find none of those things. The king-size bed was in the center of the room, and two dressers flanked an open door that led to a bathroom with an oversized mirror hanging above a single sink. The walls were painted a cool shade of gray, and a black-and-white picture of Seattle’s skyline hung over the bed in a chunky black frame. It was surprisingly…nice.

“Veronica?” Logan knocked on the door and started opening before she answered. “I’m coming in.”

She sat up quickly, her dress from the wedding catching on her backside. She yanked it up and checked her neckline as Logan pushed the door open wide.

“What am I doing here?” she asked. “What happened after…?”

She couldn’t finish. God, she couldn’t even say what she really wanted to say. What if she made him angry? Would he lose control and turn into a werewolf? She was in his house, on his territory. She needed out.

Logan leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms over his chest. “It kills me to say it, but he got away.”

“So he’s still out there.” She brushed her hands up and down her arms.

“Not for long. I swear to you I’ll find him.”

He’d use his super wolfie senses, no doubt about it.

“It sucks that he got away, but I shouldn’t be here.” The dog whimpered and licked for her hand. Its tongue caught the edge of her pinky and slimed her up. She swiped her hand across the sheet. “Could you take him