Furred Lines

A Fated Mate Romance

By Amelia Jade

Furred Lines

@ 2017 by Amelia Jade

First Electronic Publication: November 2017

Amelia Jade

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.

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Furred Lines

Aiden

He glided up to the compound, as silent as death.

There was no need for stealth; all the scents were familiar to him, and none of the warning lights were lit. No, his near-silent movements were simply a matter of habit. Truthfully, he wasn’t being all that quiet, what with his flanks heaving the way they were. He struggled to bring his lungs under control, but after the wild run he’d just been on, it was going to take time to calm down.

The cool stone of the courtyard came underfoot, and he was home. Surrounded by the high stone walls, a feeling of familiarity washed over him. Not safety—never safety in a pack house—but as close to it as he was ever going to be.

With a mental decision, the large lupine creature shivered and then suddenly was replaced by a naked human. He was on his knees, forearms resting on the ground. The muscles in his back flexed and contracted wildly as he heaved for breath, unable to stay as quiet in this form as his animal. But long practice worked in his favor, and the tortured complaints of his respiratory system soon eased.

Standing up, he padded forward across the rear courtyard toward one of four stone obelisks that rose up between the entryway and the house itself. Reaching one, he slipped two fingers into a notch and pulled. The beautifully fitted stone door swung out easily on its hinges and he pulled a robe of luxurious cloth from within before closing it. The garment was dyed a deep, rich purple that had the look of royalty to it.

Clasping it in one hand, he walked over to the large fountain in the middle of the courtyard. The simple design was circular. The water spouted from the mouths of four stone wolves standing back to back, facing the four primary compass points. The features of the carved spouts were so finely detailed a master sculptor would be jealous.

But Aiden ignored all that as he plunked the robe down on the thick ledge that ran all around the overly deep catch basin. He glanced around, and then hopped over and into the pool. Water that wasn’t warm, but wasn’t freezing slipped over his body, washing clean the sweat from his pores. He relaxed into it, running a hand across his skin to help clean it deeper.

“Ahhh,” he said quietly, glad that for once he was out here alone and uninterrupted.

If Rayne had been there, the entire thing would have been—

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Ruined.

“Hello, Rayne,” he said languidly, opening his eyes and giving an equally lazy wave. “What brings you out to ruin my day this time?”

Don’t do it. You know you shouldn’t taunt him. Mack said to leave off on each other.

“God, put some clothes on.”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “We’re fucking werewolves. What kind of frea—”

He stopped as the pack’s second-in-command narrowed his eyes, daring him to finish his sentence.

“—freedoms should we expect to lose if we lose this one?” he finished.

It was a lame attempt, but the point was more that he tried, not that he was successful. That in itself was a change in the right direction. Before Mack’s last warning, he would have just kept taunting the other shifter, despite his higher rank.

After all, I can’t help it if Rayne is an idiot. That’s not my fault.

“Why are you out here?”

“Because I’m not inside.”

Rayne glared at him. “No more games, funny guy. What were you doing beyond the walls?”

Aiden sighed. “You realize leaving the compound isn’t against the rules, right? But,” he said, smiling cheerfully, “just for you, I’ll tell you what I was doing.”

He closed his eyes and sank back into the water, letting it cleanse his face.

Fingers closed around his ankle and yanked him closer to the edge of the fountain bath. Aiden’s eyes flew open at the unwanted interruption and touching of his person.

“What the fuck was that for?” he snarled.

“Because, you little shit, I can tell you’re trying to get the best of me. But the jokes on you. You’re the one who needs to be careful. One word from me and it’s buh-bye for you. So tell me what you were up to.”

His temper flared and Aiden splashed to his feet, water soaking up over the ledge and drenching the robe. He stood there naked, lips pulled back and teeth bared as he growled at the other man.

Rayne matched him, his arms slightly pulled behind him as he leaned forward, spitting and snarling in return. The two of them stood like that for several seconds, issuing challenges and taking the mettle of the other. It wouldn’t be the first time they had clashed. Nor would it likely be the last. Rayne had had it out for Aiden from the moment he’d joined the pack.

Probably recognizes competition when he sees it.

Just to irritate him some more, Aiden started swaying his hips back and forth from left to right. The movement produced some rather interesting movement of his junk.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Rayne snapped, his eyes momentarily distracted.

“Ha! You looked!” he crowed, doing whatever he could to make the situation uncomfortable.

Aiden didn’t have a problem with nudity. He was a werewolf; it came with the territory. Any time they shifted, they were naked, or prepared to lose the clothes they were wearing. Which meant when they shifted back…you guessed it, nudity! He’d seen more dicks than he could count. Which could sound bad, when taken the wrong way.

“Not much to look at,” Rayne shot back.

He growled angrily, knowing he shouldn’t be irked by the insult, but angry about it nonetheless.

Rayne began to taunt him. “You just gonna stand there and take it, aren’t you?”

Aiden simply stared, willing his temper down.

“You’re no better than a bitch in heat, taking everything she can get.”

He launched himself at Rayne, closing the distance in the blink of an eye. The pair bounced and rolled across the stone courtyard, the individual pieces ripping patches of skin from Aiden’s naked body even as he struggled for position with Rayne. One particularly rough patch of stone tore a large patch of skin from his back. Aiden yelped more in surprise than anything.

Rayne took advantage of the opening, slamming a forearm into his neck and pressing down with all his weight. Aiden was too experienced to fall for that though. He simply brought a knee up and into Rayne’s rear end. It didn’t knock his opponent away, but it forced him forward.

Right into range of Aiden’s head. He connected perfectly, right onto the bridge of the nose of his pack’s second-in-command. Rayne reeled from the unexpected blow and Aiden was able to use this to fling himself free. There was a snarl midair and clothing exploded as Rayne shifted.

He contemplated the white wolf streaked with charcoal for a split second before initiating the change himself. He could feel his body shiver, the precursor to the change, and a moment later he was three feet lower to the ground and standing on all fours. Aiden stepped forward, noting the deep black fur that covered his legs now as he and Rayne stalked each other in a slow circle around the courtyard.

There were lights on in the pack house now, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before someone came out to see what all the noise was. Fights weren’t uncommon when you housed nine werewolves in one building, but that didn’t stop them from always being a big spectacle.

Shit.

The single word summed things up quite nicely he felt. A spectacle was exactly the last thing he wanted just then. Because that meant it would draw the attention of Mack. And the Alpha had made it fairly clear he didn’t want to even know that Aiden existed for the new few weeks.

That had been yesterday.

But he couldn’t back down from the challenge now that it had been issued. And dammit! He was sick and fucking tired of Rayne always strutting around like he was some sort of gift from God. Aiden knew he could take him. This time he was going to prove it. It wasn’t like it would change how much shit he got in from fighting Rayne. Again. So he may as well go all out and prove to everyone that he was better than his tormentor.

At a minimum it would hopefully get him to stop bugging Aiden. Hopefully.

The white and gray beast snapped one last time before he charged. Aiden closed as well, darting to the left at the last moment, his head shooting back in as he tore a small chunk of flesh from Rayne’s hind leg. Not enough to cause issue, but enough for him to know he’d been pinked.

Let’s go, you bastard. I’m gonna make you regret this.

They closed again, and again Aiden was too quick. Rayne leapt aside, both legs now oozing a bit of blood. Aiden let his mouth hang open in what most would term as a “doggy smile,” letting the blood in his mouth color his teeth and tongue.

Figures were emerging from the house now. He could see them in his peripheral vision as they spread out to watch the fight. None of them were storming forward to put an end to it, so clearly Mack wasn’t there yet.

Good. Time for me to end this before he does arrive.

Aiden pushed off the stone and drove straight for Rayne. The white wolf froze for a moment, trying to understand just what his foe was doing. Aiden, having half-expected that reaction, headed right at him. They crashed together and went down in a pile, rolling over and over, biting and clawing one another. Aiden had been ready for it though, and Rayne was caught off guard by the unorthodox tactic. He managed to gain position, and his teeth closed around Rayne’s hind leg. He ripped and tore a huge chunk of flesh and tendon from a hind leg, tossing it free as coppery-tasting liquid filled his mouth.

Rayne howled in pain, throwing his head back in a reflex action. It was exactly the wrong move though, and Aiden showed him why as he gained ground and closed his jaws around the Second’s neck. He tightened them until his teeth punctured skin. Rayne went perfectly still, knowing just how little it would take for Aiden to rip the life from his body.

But he didn’t submit.

Aiden was about to bite deeper when a hammer exploded against his hind leg, forcing his mouth open in shock. He flew ten feet through the air, only stopping because his body hit the stone wall that surrounded the rear courtyard, bringing him to an abrupt halt. He bounced off the wall slightly before hitting the ground.

A ferocious snarl filled the air, cracking like lightning. A huge beast as pure white as Aiden was pitch black stood over Rayne, twin plumes of fog billowing from its nostrils as yellow eyes stared at Aiden, promising a swift death if he did anything he wasn’t specifically allowed to. Judging by the way his hind leg wasn’t responding in any way except to send white-hot needles of pain through the rest of his body, Aiden didn’t sense that to be an issue.

So he just lay there, feeling defeated. He’d had Rayne. Had him dead to rights. Everyone saw it. It felt so good to finally give that pompous ass what he’d deserved. Five years of pretending to kowtow to him was over and done with. Aiden didn’t expect to be made the pack’s Second, but he did know he was done putting up with Rayne’s bullshit.

“Aiden.” The commanding tone from his Alpha, Mack, rang out across the courtyard. “Put some clothes on, and find me in my office. Now.”

The pack Alpha turned and walked back inside. Silence rang out through the assembled werewolves. Most of the rest of the pack was there, and they were all watching him. Not a single eye was on Rayne, who was getting to his feet. Aiden felt a sense of gloom come over him. He’d finally thrashed the Second, but nobody was going to remember that if Mack came down on him like a ton of bricks.

Fuck.

Gathering his wits, he became human once more. The agony in his leg increased, instead of subsided. Aiden wanted nothing more than to lie flat on the ground until his leg healed itself. But when an Alpha issued a command, you obeyed. So he struggled to his feet, nearly blacking out from pain the first time he put his foot down on the ground.

But his healing was already kicking in, and the leg would support his weight. Barely. Aiden limped toward the house, step by slow, agonizing step. The weight of the rest of the pack fell upon him as they all stared, none offering a helping hand. Instead they simply watched as he passed them by, heading inside to get his ass handed to him by Mack.

Eventually he made it to the room that Mack classified as his office. His fist rapped against the doorjamb.

“Inside. Now.”

Aiden stepped inside. He contemplated apologizing right off the bat, but his stubborn pride got the better of him, and instead he simply came to attention, staring at a spot on the wall above Mack’s head.

Mack looked up at him, saw the set of his jaw, and sighed. The Alpha rose from his desk, walked around it past Aiden, and closed the door. Aiden prepared himself for anything from a verbal tirade to a physical beatdown, but Mack surprised him with neither. Instead, he acted…defeated. Almost like Aiden had felt earlier.

“You’re done, Aiden.”

He frowned. This wasn’t going the way he’d expected it to at all. He opened his mouth to respond, but Mack casually backhanded him before he could speak.

“I’ll tell you when to respond. Until then shut the fuck up.”

Aiden just nodded, fighting down the surge of anger that clouded his vision.

“You’re a loose cannon. Unreliable. Untrustworthy. I gave you a simple command. Don’t fuck with Rayne anymore. Very simple. That was yesterday , Aiden. You couldn’t even go twenty-four fucking hours without disobeying me. And you did it where everyone could see, when they all knew that you had been ordered not to. That’s blatant disrespect to my authority as Alpha.”

Aiden wisely didn’t comment on the fact that it had technically been about twenty-nine hours since the command had been given. Somehow he suspected that wouldn’t go over very well if he pointed it out. Mack didn’t seem to be in a humorous mood.

“That was the last straw,” Mack said heavily. “You used up your final chance.”

Dread began to fill his veins as Mack spoke. He was using words that didn’t usually lead to happy scenarios. Aiden was confident in his chances in a straight-up fight with Mack. He wasn’t sure he’d win, like he knew he could with Rayne. But he would give him a good enough fight that Mack wouldn’t try it unless he knew better.

But with his leg busted to hell and gone, it wouldn’t even be a challenge.

“I’m not going down without a fight,” he said at last, not bothering to wait for Mack to leave him an opening.

A fist came out of nowhere and Aiden flew into the back wall.

“Maybe,” Mack said calmly as he stood over him. “Maybe not.”

Aiden felt the wolf’s fury building. He almost launched himself right at Mack.

“I’d rather not kill you though,” his Alpha said. “That would be a waste of talent. Unrealized and wasted talent. But talent all the same.” Mack shook his head. “What you need is a proper focus. So, I’ve got one last chance for you.”

“What is it?” he rasped, extricating himself from the wreckage of the blank wall he’d been sent into. Neither of them expected him to say something like “I’ll do it” or “I won’t let you down.” Those would be useless platitudes, and Aiden wouldn’t insult Mack by using them.

“You’re to go to Stephen’s pack. He’s up to something, but I don’t know what. You’ll find out what.”

“I see.”

“It will be complete Banishment,” Mack said levelly, no hint of pity or remorse in his tone. “No contact at all with anyone from this pack.”

“What if I find something?”

“Then you bring it to me, and only me. I’ll handle it from there. But make no mistake about it, you’re done with my pack. Even if you don’t succeed in this, which I find unlikely, you aren’t coming back. If you do, I’ll kill you myself. Understood?”

Aiden nodded. He got it. Mack had an image to keep. Not only as Alpha of his own pack, but also as the regional Alpha of the megacity they inhabited. It was a lot of pressure, and he couldn’t afford to deal with things like misbehaving pack members. He was well within his rights to kill Aiden and just be done with the whole situation. But he wasn’t; he was giving him a chance to redeem himself.

What might happen if he succeeded didn’t matter. All that mattered was staying alive. Aiden wasn’t ready to die. Not yet.

“I’ll do it,” he snarled, caving to the stereotype at last. “I’ll find out whatever he’s up to.”

Mack snorted. “You’ll die, boy, but I appreciate your candor. Stephen harbors idiots even less than I do. He’s going to be angry enough I’m forcing you on him. I give you less than twenty-four hours before your body turns up.”

Aiden shivered at the cold pronouncement of his Alpha’s lack of faith in him.

No. His former Alpha. Aiden had a new leader now.

Stephen.

Willow

“Hi, Father!”

She waved cheerfully at the middle-aged looking man waiting by her desk.

Stephen Pike looked up at her and smiled. Willow returned the look as she walked up to him and gave him a big hug. He grumbled and said something about showing emotions in public, but she knew he didn’t actually care. Willow was his only child and he’d spoiled her rotten. Now, at thirty-five years of age, he was paying the price.

“Hello, Daughter. How are you today?”

Willow shrugged. “Honestly, I slept terribly last night. Couldn’t get comfortable. So I’m exhausted. What about you?” She could sense he had something to tell her, and whatever it was, it had him irritated beyond his normal levels. “Bad news?”

He shrugged. “Annoying, really. Not the end of the world, just one more thing I need to take care of that that prick Mack can’t handle on his own.”

Willow winced. She knew her father’s hatred for Mack, the regional Alpha. There were four packs in the city, and Mack called the shots for all of them, including what part of the city they could claim as their own. Letting four packs intermingle was a bad idea. Divvying up the city into turf and ordering each pack to stay on their own was a much better way to handle things.

“I see. What has he done this time?” She dropped her shoulder bag on her desk and pressed the button to wake her computer up.

“He saddled me with some reject from his own pack.”

Willow nodded. Yep, that would certainly make him pissed. She wondered just who the newcomer was, and why he was being sent here.

One of the others poked his head out through the double doors that led into the back. “Steph, we need you back here.”

Her father nodded and waved the other man off. “I’ll be right there.”

The doors closed just as swiftly as they’d opened.

“Anyway, he’s going to be here in a bit, and when he gets here, I want you to just show him right into the back. We’ll handle it from there.”

Willow just nodded. She knew what he meant by that, figuring it was unlikely she would be seeing the newcomer tomorrow morning. Or ever. Her father had a rather permanent way of dealing with things like this. Poor guy.

“I’ll do just that, Poppa,” she said, leaning in to give him a peck on the cheek. “But it’s only Monday. Try not to start off the week like that, okay? It can’t be good for your stress levels.”

“Tell that to Mack then for saddling me with him.” But there was a twinkle in his eye.

“Go deal with whatever problem those idiots have created,” she said, pointing at the double doors.

“Thank you, Daughter.” With that he was gone, leaving her alone.

Willow nodded and relaxed into her seat, pulling up her email. Just because she was the boss’s daughter didn’t mean she didn’t have an actual job. The shipping company he owned was actually rather more successful than any of them had originally anticipated, and she usually had a good amount of work to get through on any given day. After a weekend, it would be even busier, especially with the holiday season getting close.

With a sigh she opened the first email, read it, and started to type out a reply. Before she was even halfway done with it, the front door opened and footsteps made their way directly to her desk. As they never received visitors of any kind, conducting all business via email or telephone, Willow knew this had to be the newcomer. Not interested in losing her train of thought, she continued to type out the email while he came to a halt in front of her desk. When she was finished she hit Send and then directed her attention to the person waiting patiently for her to acknowledge him.

The first thing she noticed was his posture. He didn’t come off as some sort of pathetic slob. His clothes—while not formal attire, because that wasn’t necessary—were clean, crisp, and looked freshly laundered. He stood up straight, without a slouch or lean. She noted his dark work boots and fitted pants. They were blue, but not jeans, instead looking to be a tougher fabric that might put up with the strains of the shipping facility better. All in all, he looked ready to work.

She frowned to herself. This wasn’t at all what her father had told her to expect. She’d expected an unshaven face, rumpled clothing, and a generally slovenly attitude. Instead the person in front of her was looking better than half the other guys who worked in the back. He exuded confidence, though something about his military-straight posture belied a lack of calm. So he was nervous. Willow had begun to think that maybe this was in fact someone else, but now she was positive it was him.

“May I help you?” she asked, finally lifting her gaze to look him in the eyes.

A set of deep brown orbs stared back at her. His eyes were set deep into his face under a powerful brow. On many she would have considered it to be a rather unintelligent look. But the eyes that were fixated upon her spoke of a highly intelligent persona, despite the muscles that were part and parcel of being a shifter.

“I was told to report here,” he said crisply, his voice deep and melodious without sounding forced.

“Your name?”

Willow was working hard to try and remain aloof. Despite her first impression of him, she knew why he was here, and what was awaiting him inside. It was unlikely that he was going to be around for very long, so no sense in getting friendly. She was normally very good at that. Most of the newcomers weren’t worth the time it took her to get their names and send them on back.

This one was different. His eyes had captured hers from the start, and they had yet to let go. She could feel her pulse quickening slightly for no discernable reason. He hadn’t done anything, so why was she getting like this? This man was supposed to be the nervous one, unsure of what he would see back there, of what awaited him. Yet he didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned. If anything, she realized suddenly, he was looking forward to it!

Part of her wondered if perhaps this one was going to stick around. Either way, the next little bit was going to be interesting.

“Aiden Kristoff Lee, ma’am,” he said formally. “I’m here on orders from Mack Danzig. I’m to report to Stephen.”

“Well, Mr. Lee—”

“Just Aiden, please. I’m not a mister.” He spoke gently, his request soft-spoken, and yet filled with an understanding that he would just be obeyed.

Not very likely.

“Through those doors, Mr. Lee,” she said, emphasizing the title ever so slightly, allowing frost to color her tone.

Who did he think he was? Her father was an Alpha, and one of the more respected ones out there. Well, okay, feared, but it was close enough. Did this newcomer think that just because she was human she was going to obey every subtle command a shifter tried to give? Ridiculous!

Willow knew every werewolf had some bit of Alpha in him: the ability to utter commands and have them obeyed, to simply expect obedience with little more than a look or a gesture. It wasn’t something necessarily tangible, but if you were around it long enough, it became obvious. But it took a strong Alpha to be able to control minds that were aware of it. Most humans weren’t, and thus they were easily malleable.

Willow wasn’t most humans. His attempt didn’t work on her, and it certainly wouldn’t have worked on another werewolf. She was almost insulted by it.

“Those ones?” he asked, pointing to her left. “Or those ones?”

Angry at herself for not pointing, becoming distracted by looking at his rather attractive face, she jabbed a finger to her right. “Those ones.”

Aiden smiled at her. “Thank you.”

She was caught off guard by the brilliance of his smile. It was bright enough to nearly rock her back in her seat. The genuine happiness she saw cased within it was unusual and most unexpected. Who the hell was this guy? Despite all of her best efforts, Willow found herself actually rooting for him, though she knew he didn’t stand a chance.

Her father’s men were vicious, brutal beasts. This guy seemed too nice. Still… , she thought as he walked toward the doors.

“Stay alert, Aiden. The shipping floor is a lot more dangerous than you might expect.”

The shifter came to a slow halt, his hand outstretched and placed firmly on one of the doors. He looked back over his shoulder, his cute, oblong face covered in stubble that moved as he smiled at her again. The motion played up his wide jaw and angular cheekbones even more.

Willow kept looking, and realized that she was staring. Looking down, she busied herself with something on her desk, desperately hoping that he would just go away.

“Thank you, Ms. Pike,” he said gently. “I’ll make sure I keep my eyes open.”

She heard him push open the doors. For a moment she was blasted with noise from the various machines running in the back as he moved through the second set of doors before the first closed. But then they all returned to normal and the noise died away.

It took several minutes before she was able to really focus on her next task, her mind far too distracted for her own comfort.

Just who the hell was that? And how the hell does he know who I am?

Aiden

He stopped just inside the second set of doors, letting his senses adjust to the assault of noise. It wasn’t all that loud compared to say, a concert, but it was definitely a busy place. Conveyor belts ran here and there, zipping packages along to their destination bins. Elsewhere, larger packages were neatly arranged on pushcarts.

The concrete floor, while discolored from a lot of use, was smooth and free of debris. None of the machines seemed to squeak, and the corners were mostly devoid of dust. Stephen ran a tight ship. Not quite what he’d expected from the other man based on what he’d heard of him. Aiden had never met Stephen before, but he’d seen him at several council meetings. Mostly interrupting Mack to say disparaging things, but occasionally preaching a freer, less restrictive lifestyle when it came to putting up with humans.

His eyes roamed over the sorting and loading facility. He could see several people moving about, but their backs were to him. That was odd, but when he focused on one of them, Aiden smiled as the body language became clear. They weren’t oblivious to his presence; they were simply ignoring him. Acting as if he didn’t matter. He immediately filed them away as some of the more dangerous members of Stephen’s pack.

Every pack had a hierarchy. A ranking system. It was determined by sheer combat capability. Human or shifter, it rarely mattered how it was settled, as long as no cheap shots were taken. Fights happened all the time, and the lower ranks were usually a constant source of challenges and scraps. It was why most packs usually topped out at ten or twelve members. Any more than that, and it just became too chaotic.

According to Mack, Stephen’s pack was only seven in size. The smallest one in the city. Which likely meant the most vicious. With fewer ranks to be had, and fewer opportunities to move up, the wolves here would be fighters, one and all. Aiden would have to watch his back, just like Willow had suggested.

He smiled at the way she’d jerked when he’d said her name. There was no nametag on the desk, and he hadn’t known who she was going in. But there were several papers on the desk, all addressed to her with her last name on them. It had been child’s play for him to read them upside down.

He thought back to the cute honey blonde. She was older. Not old, but in her mid-thirties. Aiden wasn’t an excellent judge of human aging, but he felt confident about that one. As he’d grown older and entered his forties, he’d become exponentially more aware of the fact that he was no longer interested in the young college co-eds or recent grads. Aiden preferred a woman who was confident in herself, and, to put it bluntly, had her shit figured out as much as someone could be expected to.

A figure appeared around the end of the racks on his right. Short, wiry, and with a tan to his skin that suggested it was natural, not a result of excessive sunlight. He was wearing gray overalls, a white T-shirt, and, oddly enough, orange boots.

“Cute rainboots,” Aiden said.

His jab earned him a snarl.

“I see,” he said calmly, well aware of the way tensions had just ratcheted up in the building. “Well, I’m here to report to Stephen. I know you aren’t him, so could you be a dear and just run along and get him?”

He punctuated his statement with a shooing motion of his hands, effectively dismissing the shifter. Which he already had. Aiden knew his abilities, his strengths, and his speed. His animal instincts had already sized up the smaller fellow—small being a relative term, he was probably still six feet in height, but that was short compared to Aiden—and judged him as a non-threat.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Look, Snarly-and-Tanned, I’d really rather not do this.”

That wasn’t true. Aiden loved a good fight. It was part of his problem. He would fight anyone and everyone who sneezed at him wrong. Which was probably why he had few, if any, friends. None of them could put up with him and his temper issues.

Aiden wasn’t an idiot either. Just because he was prone to violence at the drop of a hair, didn’t mean he was a meathead. He was well aware of his issues, but he’d yet to find someone who could keep him in check. Even Mack was careful when and where he challenged Aiden, because he knew it wasn’t as clear cut a fight as he might wish.

Aiden had all the Alpha he could need. He just had none of the control.

“What did you just call me?” The shifter walked up to him.

“Oh, come on,” he sighed. “That’s the best you’ve got, ass-muncher? Listen, needle-dick, why don’t you run on over to get Stephen, and then you can go back to the kiddie table, m’kay, pumpkin?” He reached up and tapped the shifter’s cheek twice softly.

Just like that the fight was on. A right hook slashed at his face but Aiden was already swaying back out of reach. He reversed direction so swiftly his opponent wasn’t ready for it, smashing his head into the smaller man’s face. Aiden wasn’t particularly fond of that move, but it worked , because nobody expected it.

The shifter reeled back, his nose pouring blood, tears filling his eyes. Grimacing through the pain that filled his own head, Aiden advanced, delivering a one-two-three combination, with the final being a wicked jab right to the already-broken nose. The shifter’s eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed to the ground.

Two more shifters appeared at the end of the stacks.

“Ah, Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumb,” he pronounced. Waving a finger back and forth between the two, Aiden frowned. “But which one is which? Do me a favor and help me out?”

The one on his left came forward.

“Ah, perfect. Tweedle-dee it is.”

The man was also wearing gray overalls. It must be the work uniform he decided, wondering how the hell they’d come up with something so unflattering.

Without a single word, the shifter facing him shivered for a split second and then suddenly a wolf burst forth from the tattered remnants of his clothing, shaking off the last of the rags as it snarled loudly in Aiden’s direction. By now he could see the other members of the pack had stopped what they were doing to watch.

Aiden wanted nothing more than to go through them all, to see just where he truly ranked in this pack. But as he assumed his own wolf form, noting in the process that he outweighed the other animal by perhaps twenty pounds, he recalled the decision he’d come to earlier.

If he was going to stand a chance at succeeding in this mission, he couldn’t afford to shake things up too much. The chain of command would have to be respected. Which meant he had to lose the fight. Aiden had never before thrown a challenge. Backing down just wasn’t in his blood. When he’d first come to that realization, he’d had a fit. It hadn’t been pretty at all.

But he’d consoled himself with the fact that he’d also never been a spy before. And that being a spy meant pretending to be something you weren’t. Which meant that if Aiden was always a winner, as a spy he could pretend that he was a loser. It wasn’t a perfect solution, and for a bit there he’d forgotten all about it, his mind thinking of the easiest ways to eliminate the wolves as he worked his way up the ladder.

The slate-gray wolf lunged at him, and Aiden met the challenge head-on, instead of trying to dodge it. Again, his unexpected actions caught his foe off guard. But the other wolf was wilier than he’d given him credit for, and he managed to slip out from between his snapping jaws just in time. There was a flash of pain and Aiden knew he was bleeding from his haunch.

Anger erupted inside him, blowing his control to smithereens. He flew at the other wolf, throwing caution to the wind. He snapped and bit at the gray wolf as they went down. His anger fueled his strength, and it didn’t take long for him to get the other wolf to submit.

TAKE THAT!

The mental jubilation was cut short as pain slammed him to the ground. While he’d been celebrating, the other werewolf had strode up to him and hammered his body with a brutal fist.

Aiden bounced once and slammed into a metal rack. Something gave way in his chest and breathing instantly became a challenge.

His challenger had stripped out of his clothing and came at Aiden, but the pain had broken through his anger, and he immediately flattened himself to the floor, tilting his head to the side as he whimpered in submission, hating himself for it the entire time. The other wolf came to a halt, standing over Aiden. Its jaws closed around his neck and he whimpered again in the ritual to confirm the end of the challenge.

It irked him terribly, and he kept his eyes glued shut so that the others wouldn’t see the anger burning in them at the cheap shot that had taken him out of the fight. It was entirely legal what had happened, but it wasn’t considered “fair.” In a challenge, after the newcomer had forced someone to submit, he was supposed to face off with the next ranked wolf before they engaged. That was the spirit of the rules. Here in Stephen’s pack though, it looked like they adhered to the letter of it, no more.

“Interesting.”

Aiden looked up as Stephen pushed through between two of his men, looking around at the mess.

“You two are pathetic,” he snarled at the pair to whom Aiden had submitted. “You allow Mack’s reject to beat you? What the fuck does that say about you?”

Only the one shifter could reply, and all he did was hang his head in shame.

“Get the fuck out of here, and take your incompetent friend with you. Wake him up and then the two of you clean up this mess.”

The shifter nodded and hauled the unconscious body of his comrade over his shoulder before hustling back into the warehouse.

“Good job, Rokk,” he said, nodding to the shifter that had beaten Aiden.

Rokk? What the fuck kind of name is that?

“He went down pretty easily,” Rokk said in a thunderous baritone. “He should have had more fight in him.”

Aiden forced himself not to tense at the accusation.

“You,” Stephen said with a gesture at him. “Human form.”

Aiden obeyed the command. Cold concrete pressed against his bared skin. He lamented the loss of his clothing. Usually in a pack challenge time was given to remove clothing. With how often fights broke out, things would get expensive if they didn’t take such care. Again, another lesson to be learned about Stephen’s pack.

“Rokk says you submitted like a bitch, instead of fighting till the end.”

Although there was no question attached to the words, it was obvious what he wanted to hear.

“Can’t breathe,” he rasped, both happy and pained that he didn’t have to fake the injury. It gave him a great cover story, but it hurt like hell. “Broke a rib. Or three. Not sure.” The grimace on his face from speaking was entirely genuine too. He’d hit the metal post at the perfect angle to do the most damage.

“On your feet,” Stephen commanded.

Aiden nodded and slowly got to his feet, though he was forced to lean against the rack to ease the pain. Fuck, it hurt. He glared at Rokk, his eyes promising a rematch. The hulking brute just smiled. The answer was clear: Bring it.

“Well, I hadn’t expected such pathetic performances from my men. But, it seems you’ve got a bit of fight in you. We can use you, I suppose.” The already angry look on his face condensed into a fury the likes of which Aiden wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before. “But make no mistake, reject. You are here only because Mack is forcing me. I don’t like being used, and I don’t like you. You fuck up, and I will personally tear your head from your body and mail it back to Mack. Got it?”

He forced himself to swallow his natural reply, which would have been an insult ending with a description of his sexual habits toward family members. Instead, Aiden nodded. Once.

Stephen seemed like he was about to fly at him right then and there, but he didn’t.

“Start unloading that truck,” the Alpha said, pointing at a big rig that was just pulling up to their loading dock. “You have thirty minutes.”

Aiden swallowed, wincing at the pain. He wouldn’t even be fully healed in thirty minutes. How was he supposed to unload an entire truck in that time? He didn’t even know what they wanted him to do with it.

Sink or swim, I guess.

He almost laughed. If they thought saddling him with some sort of nigh-impossible task was going to get him to back down, then they were sorely, sorely mistaken. Aiden would unload that truck with time to spare, and he would damn well do it right.

Walking up to the bay, he guided the driver in until the rubber bumpers around the opening started to compress. Almost immediately the engine died and the cab door opened. Aiden more heard this than anything, as he was already bending over to open the trailer doors. A burst of pain washed over him and he fell into the door, using it to support his weight while he regained himself.

“Whoa there, fella. You all right?”

Aiden nodded to the unseen voice.

A large hand reached down and around his bicep, hauling him to his feet.

“Ow,” he gasped, falling back into the door at the unexpected motion, agony pounding his brain.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Ribs,” he wheezed. “Broken.”

“That’ll hurt,” the voice—the driver, he assumed—said in an agreeable tone.

“Just a bit.”

“Don’t recognize you. Must be new here.”

Aiden nodded, finally opening his eyes. At which point he was forced to look up. Way up.

“Holy shit.” The words came out in the same gaspy, pained tone. “You’re a werebear.”

The big jovial driver grinned from ear to ear. On any other person it would have been the look of a simpleton. On him though, it just fit his nature. The big friendly giant.

“Guilty as charged.”

“Didn’t know Stephen had any werebears working for him.”

The look vanished, replaced by one of stern disproval. “I don’t work for Stephen. I am a driver. This is just one of the places I serve.”

Aiden nodded quickly. Few people who knew of his world wanted to tangle with a werewolf. Well, in his world, nobody wanted to mess with a werebear. Period. The man was easily three hundred pounds or more of muscle slathered over a frame that had to be roughly seven feet tall at a minimum.

“Well then, I guess we can get along.” He stuck out his hand. “Aiden.”

“Joe. I take it you just ran the initiation gauntlet with them?”

He nodded. “Yeah. One of them hit me like a hammer. That hurt, but it knocked me into a metal pole.” Aiden shook his head ruefully. “All my strength, and yet metal is still stronger. It’s not fair, I say.”

Joe the werebear laughed, a deep booming sound. “Life ain’t fair kid, but if you’ve got a good sense of humor about yourself, you’ll do all right.”

Aiden smiled. “Well, good thing I don’t, because I’ve got precisely”—he glanced at the clock on the wall behind him—“twenty-four minutes to unload your trailer, or the boss is gonna put me through his personal meat grinder.”

“That’s an oddly specific amount of time.” Joe gently pushed Aiden out of the way and let the cargo door of his trailer swing up into the roof, exposing the interior. “But I think you got lucky today.”

Aiden grinned. The interior of the truck was half-empty, and, unless he missed his guess, everything inside was already on pallets. Stephen hadn’t provided him with a pallet jack, but there was a well-worn red one lying on its side strapped to one wall.

“Mind if I borrow that to unload?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Joe replied. “Help yourself.”

He got to work, unloading the pallets into four even rows of three. With more than five minutes to go he finished unloading, had returned the mover, and strapped it back down and pulled the trailer door closed. His movements were coming easier now as his body healed from the injury.

“Do I have to sign anything?” he asked as Joe returned from the cab.

The werebear smiled at him and produced a clipboard, showing him where to initial, sign and date. “And you’re done.”

“Thanks, Joe. Appreciate it a lot.”

“My pleasure. Stephen always was a bit crotchety for me,” he whispered with a twinkle in his eye.

The two parted, and the truck pulled out of the loading dock. Aiden watched him go for a moment before he went to find Stephen, a tiny smile on his lips. He’d gotten damn lucky, and he knew it.

“Truck’s unloaded,” he told Stephen as the Alpha emerged from an office on the right-hand side of the facility. “Where do the pallets go?”

Stephen’s eyes widened as he looked at the neat rows of goods, anger burning brightly. Aiden watched as he looked at the big white boxes more carefully. Then he snapped his fingers at one of his subordinates.

“Flint, put these away.”

The other shifter took one look at the shrink-wrapped pallets, nodded, and got to work.

“Go help Rokk,” Stephen said, pointing to where the wolf Aiden had submitted to was sorting packages.

Aiden nodded and moved off, keeping all trace of smug satisfaction from his face. He could gloat later. For now, he needed to establish his place, and learn more of what was going on. That meant not stirring up trouble.

It would be tough, but then again, one thing he’d never been opposed to was a challenge. This was a different sort of one than he was used to, and he wasn’t entirely sure he could handle it. But what the hell, he could try.

And maybe in the process learn Ms. Pike’s first name.

Willow

“I can’t believe he’s keeping him around.”

She carefully remained hunched over her desk, pen scribbling across her notebook. To all outward appearances she was focused on her work, effectively invisible to the chauvinist assholes that her father seemed to prefer.

He’s not like that himself, so why does he insist on keeping these loathsome, antiquated, and reviled pigs around?

Long ago Willow had taught herself to stop asking question. It was just easier for her sanity that way. There was a lot she’d learned about werewolves growing up around them. But there was just as much that was coded into their DNA that she just couldn’t understand. Like their constant need to fight each other to prove who was stronger. Because that was something that could change in three days’ time. Idiots.

But from what she could hear two of the more senior members of her father’s pack discussing, it sounded like Aiden had actually made enough of an impression to spare his life. Neither Orren, the pack number three, nor Langdon, his immediate junior, sounded happy about it, but she knew that neither of them would question her father once he’d made a decision.

They had come out from the back and were headed toward the lunchroom, talking in hushed whispers she was sure they didn’t intend her to hear. But as a consequence of growing up around werewolves, her hearing was more acute than many would suspect. After all, when they spent years trying to talk quietly so that she wouldn’t hear, Willow had been forced to grow very adept at understanding even the faintest murmurs.

Eventually the pair moved out of her hearing range, but she’d heard enough to allow a quick smile, before clamping down on her emotions. Willow wasn’t entirely sure why she was so happy that this newcomer had survived, but the elation wasn’t fake. She was genuinely happy.

Odd.

The chime went off to indicate the front door had opened. Sparked from her daydream by the harsh sound, Willow glanced at the clock. It was almost noon.

“Hey Rachelle!” she said, getting up and going to greet the mail carrier. “Anything besides junk mail today?”

“Nothing fun, but I think there might be an envelope or two in there.”

The pair giggled as Willow grabbed the thick stack of mail that was always there. Her father refused to get with the times and do things such as electronic billing. Which meant she was forced to deal with piles upon piles of paper ones. Life was just fantastic sometimes.

“See you tomorrow,” Rachelle said as she departed with a wave.

“I hope not!” Willow called back in their familiar routine. The door chimed again while she went back to her desk.

“Bill, bill, bill, junk mail, bill. Credit card offer. Bill.”

The offer went straight into the shredder before her father saw it. He also didn’t grasp the concept of credit cards, and thought of them as free money. Her father, for being so smart, was rather naïve when it came to money.

“Huh.” Willow stopped sorting mail. There was an envelope, hand-written and addressed to her father. That was odd. He almost never got personalized mail at work. It all went to the pack house. He refused to conduct pack business while at work, and vice versa. He was very strict about his employees enjoying personal time and not having to worry about their jobs while off the clock, and he lived by that formula as well.

There was no return address. The inside didn’t feel like it was stuffed with cash, which had happened a time or two. She could feel the card, but there didn’t seem to be a whole lot else. Curiouser and curiouser. Maybe a check? It wasn’t his birthday or any other occasion, and to her knowledge, he didn’t have anybody who would send him such things in the first place.

Willow could just leave it in his mail slot and let him grab it the next time he came through reception. Or , she thought, getting up from her chair, I could go take it to him. A walk through the back was just what was called for she decided. And if I happen to catch a look at the new guy, who can blame me for being curious, right?

Decision made, she snatched up the letter and started walking into the back. The big doors opened under her push. They were heavy to keep the sound out, but her father insisted on ensuring everything was well oiled and maintained, so they swung open easily. The sound of the working floor washed over her, but after having been there for so many years, she was used to it.

Her father’s office was off to the right, giving him a full view of the sorting and storage area. Her heels clicked off the floor, announcing her presence before she could knock on the open door.

“Willow? What brings you back here?” He set his pen down and gave her his attention.

“You got a letter in the mail today. It doesn’t have a return address and it’s handwritten.” She tossed him a wink. “Too skinny to be a bribe unless it’s a check, so don’t get your hopes up.”

Stephen smiled at her as she held out the baby-blue envelope to him. “It’s not my birthday, is it?”

“The only person who gets you a card for that is me, Father, and I send it to the house, remember?”

“Of course.”

She shook her head. He didn’t remember. His mind was all work and nothing else. “No, it’s not your birthday or any other special occasion that I’m aware of. Which is why I figured I would bring it to you instead of just leave it for you to grab.”

While she was talking, Willow had turned so she could lean against the inside of the door frame. Arms crossed, trying to affect an air of disinterest, she surveyed the floor. The new guy, Aiden, stood out like a sore thumb. Not because he was doing something wrong, though she could tell from his movements he wasn’t entirely sure of everything he was doing. No, it was the way he simply captured her attention without doing a single thing. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t even noticed her yet, but somehow she was drawn to him like a magnet.

His face turned in her direction and she saw his lips quirk. He had seen her! Not only that, he’d noticed she was staring at him. And if he could notice, so could others. Willow quickly focused her attention back on her father.

“So, who is it?” she asked as he pulled out the folded paper from within.

But before her father could reply she found her eyes pulling her head around to look for Aiden once more. Damn, what was it with that man that made her unable to look away while he was around? She saw him lift a box, and after setting it down atop a conveyor, hold his side briefly. An injury from that morning, perhaps? Or had he just hurt himself then and there? Did he need help? First aid? Before Willow realized it she was ready to go over to him and see what she could do to help.

“It’s from the drivers’ union.”

She looked back at her father, who was frowning at the paper.

“What do they want? And why a hand-signed hard?”

“I guess they’re appreciative of the boost in business we’ve been giving them the past six months,” he said carefully, folding the paper up and stuffing it back into the envelope.

Willow frowned, but didn’t say anything. As the main receptionist and administrator she knew all of the goings-on, and she’d noticed the uptick in shipments for the past half year. It wasn’t a growth spurt she’d been expecting based on their normal annual growth, but nobody was complaining about it on either side. Sometimes these things just happened.

“Well, that’s nice of them. You should write back and ask them to send Joe more often. I like him.”

Her father laughed and tucked the envelope into a drawer. “You just missed him actually.”

“What? Why did nobody tell me!” she complained, stomping her foot like a petulant child.

Joe was her favorite werebear driver. He was one of the senior drivers for Gear-Shift Cartage, the company that they outsourced the actual deliveries to, and just a general all-around great person. He was a redneck shifter, which sounded like it should have been at odds with itself, but in reality it wasn’t. Willow just loved it when he came by.

“He was here and gone. His truck was unloaded and he pulled out.”

Willow knew her father wasn’t nearly as fond of Joe as she was. Although all of the drivers were shifters, many of them were werebears and other types who preferred a solitary living, for whatever reason, he’d never come around on Joe. Which was a shame.

“So rude,” she said lightly. “I’m going to have to give him grief about that when he comes back.”

“Indeed.”

“So, you kept him?” she asked, pointing to where Aiden was moving up to a loading dock with a pallet jack as one of the others guided another truck in. “I hadn’t expected to see him around again.”

It was a struggle to keep her voice from betraying her interest in him, especially from her father, who probably knew her vocal mannerisms better than anyone else. The distant, annoyed expression that replaced the neutral look on his face made it fairly clear she’d succeeded. If he was irritated, his mind would be elsewhere, and not on what she was saying.

“Yeah. He bested Patrice and Deckard in quick order. Rokk beat him of course, but he’s got some potential. If he hates Mack as much as I do, then maybe I can bring him around. I could do with an extra hand here.”

“That’s very generous of you, Father,” she said, mildly surprised at his calm dissection of the situation.

“Oh, if he messes up or tries anything stupid it’ll be the final straw. Fuck Mack for thinking he can saddle me with his problem children, that uppity bastard.”

Willow just smiled, looking out at the work floor. Aiden had just emerged from the back of the truck, and as he wheeled the pallet around she saw him glancing up in her direction. Trying not to blush, she smiled back at him briefly.

“Now now, Father. We all know your dislike for Mack. No need to go on a rant about it.”

Her tone was gentle and chiding, but she was deadly serious. His hysterics about the regional Alpha had gotten worse and worse over the past few years, and lately they’d become tirades to the point that she feared being in the same room as him if he went off. It wasn’t good.

Not that he would ever challenge Mack either. Stephen didn’t want the position and responsibilities Mack had. Yes, it was a status increase, but she knew the workload the other Alpha shouldered, and it was immense. Her father would crack under the pressure, she was certain of it. Willow didn’t want to see that, and so she did her best to try and keep him calm when discussing Mack.

It seemed to work this time, but she knew that was far from an everyday victory on her part.

Flint went by, wheeling a pallet of white boxes out of sight into a side room. Willow had seen those sorts of things before, but she’d never asked what they were. To see Flint handling them was odd, considering the fact that as the pack Second he was usually in charge of supervising everything, leaving the manual labor up to others. She wondered what it was all about, but couldn’t be bothered to ask. Her father knew how to handle stuff back here, and she could deal with paperwork. They made a good team.

On the floor two of the shifters, neither of them Aiden, suddenly snarled and sprang at each other, a brown box tumbling to the ground forgotten. Willow winced as something broke inside of it. The sound of clothing ripping was unmistakable. Neither were the barks and yips that followed.

“For fuck’s sake.” Her father stood up and rushed for the door. “Not again, dammit.”

Willow just sighed. She was going to have to order some more overalls after this. They could never keep enough of them in stock.

Aiden

He slapped at his cell phone, the alarm going off like an emergency buzzer in his ear.

“Stupid piece of shit. Just shut the fuck up already. Fuck, let me sleep!”

The noise kept buzzing. He fumbled with the phone again, but it dropped to the floor at the side of the bed.

“Sonofabitch!” he cursed, rolling over and picking it up, sliding his finger upward in an attempt to get it to sleep.

It kept blaring.

“For fuck’s sake. If you don’t shut the fuck up I’m going to break you in half you insufferable piece of technology!” His voice was still low, but it was infused with anger now as his eyes opened and he focused on the screen.

“Shit.”

He’d forgotten he’d set it so that he had to solve a math puzzle to get it to shut off. What the fuck kind of sadistic person had Last-Night-Aiden been to come up with such a horrible idea? That jerk. If he ever found him, This-Morning-Aiden promised to lay a beating on him. Puzzle solved, he tossed the phone back onto the nightstand.

It was too late though. He was up and awake.

“Fucking hell.” He tossed the sheets back and stretched out his limbs. Muscles and tendons creaked, joints popped, and his nearly five-decade-old body came alive at his command.

Thankfully Aiden didn’t feel like he was closing in on fifty. He could reasonably expect to see his hundred and fiftieth birthday, which meant he was closer to a human in their late twenties in terms of age. And his body responded appropriately upon awakening.

“Seriously? Still?” He glanced down between his legs and sighed in exasperation. There just wasn’t time for that! Aiden had gotten up early for a reason, and that most definitely was not it.

Throwing his legs off the bed, he walked over to the bathroom, feeling the awkward side-to-side bounce between his legs. Going to the washroom was always an interesting adventure when he woke up like this. Leaning forward and over the bowl, he forced it down and away from him.

Sometimes being a guy sucks. Nobody should be forced to take such an awkward morning leak.

He perked up once he hopped in the shower next, the lukewarm water bringing his brain out of its foggy state, and helping encourage blood flow throughout his entire body, not just in one place. Nearly ten minutes later—an eternity for him in the shower—he emerged feeling awake and refreshed.

One thing I can say is that Stephen got the water pressure right. None of this pissy dribble stuff. That water has some force behind it!

Glancing in the mirror proved that shaving could wait another day. By then the stubble would be too long and he’d need to get rid of it. But it would be fine for today.

Moving in to a new pack house had been a weird and unsettling experience. But Aiden was no longer welcome in Mack’s, so he’d had to move out immediately. It had been three days now, and he was getting used to it as best he could. There was one thing that made it more bearable, and had made the transition easier.

It was that reason which had prompted his early morning, something Aiden was absolutely not known for. If a survey had been conducted about his attitude in the morning, it would probably have been a landslide victory for “Danger—Landmines—DO NOT DISTURB” or something similar.

Essentially, he was not a morning person. Which is why his hackles rose when he glanced at the clock for the time and realized it said nearly seven thirty.

Who the hell gets up at this ungodly hour? Not even wolves are awake right now.

Truthfully, he knew next to nothing about the habits of his wild brethren, and frankly, he didn’t care. They could be wide awake right now. But that’s why they were wild. Intelligence came with the desire to sleep in, or so he told himself.

Slipping his overalls on, he grabbed the keys to his room, locked the door behind him, and headed down to the common room of the pack house. Nobody else was awake, and knowing that his position was precarious enough without him agitating it, Aiden chose to move in as much silence as he could.

“Ah!” Willow yelped as he stole into the kitchen on the pads of his feet, barely making a noise. Her coffee mug flew into the air.

“Sorry!” he hissed, hand reaching out to snatch the mug. “Ow!” he sat the scalding-hot mug on the counter.

“A coaster!” she whispered, pointing frantically at the counter.

“It’s granite,” he said slowly, but doing as he was told. “You realize it won’t harm it, right?”

Willow rolled her eyes as she rinsed her hand of the coffee that had jostled over it. Thankfully the cup had been mostly empty, so not much had spilled.

“Make you a fresh cup?” he asked, pointing at the machine.

“I don’t need it,” she said slowly. “But okay.”

Aiden laughed and made her a fresh cup, dropping in a spoonful of sugar and two bits of cream as per her directions.

This is why he’d gotten up early. Most of the pack would start to rise in half an hour, and when they did, the place would become an absolute circus. The raucous noise the pack created was more than even Aiden could sleep through. So instead of trying, he’d gotten up early the morning before out of pure spite, to get ready before all of them.

Which was when he’d discovered that Willow did the exact same thing. She’d been heading out the door when he’d come down the stairs, and besides a brief exchange of glances, nothing more had been said. This time though, he was determined to do more than just look at each other.

Finding out her first name hadn’t been a challenge. He’d heard it at least twice the first day. Learning more about her, however, had proven to be a bit more difficult.

“Why are you up early this morning?” she asked, accepting the fresh cup and blowing on it gently before taking a sip. “Mmm, perfect, thank you.”

“Beat the rush,” he said. “I am so not down with the circus life.”

Willow laughed, the light notes reminding him of butterflies and the color pink, for whatever reason. She had a way of evoking random images in his mind, things he associated strongly with her for some reason.

“Neither am I. You werewolves are something else.”

He watched in amazement as she slid into one of the bar stools that were under the standing-height island that occupied a huge amount of space, which was saying something, considering how oversized the kitchen itself was. It wasn’t her ability to seat herself that had caught his attention though. It was what she was doing once there.

“I didn’t think people your age even knew what those were,” he said, stunned as she opened the newspaper and began to read.

“What?”

“Newspapers.”

Willow frowned. “Just how old do you think I am?”

He shrugged, knowing full well the rough answer. “Early twenties?”

Her warm blonde hair was hanging down loose this morning, and now it bounced lively as she gave a full-throated chuckle. Bright green eyes that had a very wolf-like demeanor to them, even if she was very much human, regarded him carefully.

“You should try a little less flattery next time,” she informed him. “It might actually be believable then.”

Aiden nodded. “Duly noted. Late twenties would have been the better option.”

“Precisely. Then I could act flattered that you genuinely thought about it, instead of knowing you’re trying to get on my good side by saying an age that is far too young.”

“Well, you certainly don’t look your age, that’s for certain.”

Willow grinned. “Much better. Vague but complimentary at the same time. Perhaps you can learn.”

He shrugged. “With such an excellent teacher, how could I not?”

They shared a laugh.

“Perhaps you could teach me more about something else?” he asked, trying to keep his tone as light as possible.

“We’ll see. What did you have in mind?”

Aiden decided to go for the straight track. Willow seemed to appreciate being direct.

“You, honestly. I mean, you’re human, you aren’t mated to anyone here, and yet nobody seems to care. I don’t get it.”

“My father.”

His eyebrows went up a bit. “Pardon?”

Willow waved her hand around the room. “My father is the reason I’m here.”

“Stephen is your father?”

She nodded.

“But you’re human. And you don’t have the smell of a werewolf, or of any relation to him. How is that possible?”

“I’m adopted.”

Aiden rocked back on his heels. He’d never considered such a thing. Mainly because Stephen was an arrogant ass, and the idea of him ever adopting someone was…mind-boggling, to say the least. “I did not see that one coming.”

Her response was dry and full of sarcasm. “Yeah, your reaction is pretty clear about that.”

“Sounds like an interesting story.” Aiden really wasn’t sure what else to say. He hoped he hadn’t given away his feelings toward her father, but it seemed likely something had leaked through.

“It is. Father was really nice to me, took me in. I owe him a lot.” Willow didn’t elaborate, turning slightly to close herself off from him.

Aiden wasn’t picking up on any anger emanating from her. So it must be something else bothering her. Pain, perhaps? Memories of what had led to her being adopted? That seemed far more likely.

“I’m sorry I brought it up,” he said softly, stepping around the corner of the island to move closer to her.

“That’s enough.”

Aiden froze at the command from behind him. Wincing, he turned to find Stephen standing in the entryway to the kitchen, glaring at him.

“Stephen, I—”

“That sentence had better end with ‘I’ll stay away from your daughter,’ or you will very much regret any other words that you utter.”

Willow moved past him to stand behind her father. Despite his best efforts Aiden couldn’t prevent his eyes from tracking her movement. The threatening growl from her father—his Alpha—caught his attention though, but not before he saw Willow give him a smile. It was the barest ghost of an expression, but he saw it nonetheless, and knew that she would be okay if he continued to talk to her.

I’m just going to have to be far more discreet about it. Damn, I didn’t realize Daddy has issues with men around his daughter. No wonder she’s still single and lives at home with him. He’s probably got her conditioned to think ridiculous things like that are normal. Asshole.

Stephen snarled. “Do you understand?”

“I understand,” he said obediently.

“Good.”

Stephen spun and walked away, leaving Aiden alone in the kitchen. Sounds started from upstairs. Not for much longer, he thought. But for now, he could still enjoy a peaceful breakfast, replaying that last image of Willow giving him an encouraging smile.

Besides, Stephen never told me to stay away from her. He simply asked if I understood that my sentence should end that way. Of course I understand. But that doesn’t mean I agree, or I’m going to obey.

His cheeks crinkled as Aiden grinned. Perhaps not everything about this place was going to suck after all!

Aiden

Willow was already gone the next morning.

Whether by design or circumstance he wasn’t sure, but Aiden didn’t let that dull his day. He’d gotten a good amount of sleep and was feeling rested, energetic, and ready to get on with his mission. The how of it was still escaping him, but he’d been working on the shipping floor long enough now to have noticed several things.

First, twice a week they would get deliveries from a truck that would be offloaded only by Flint, or if he was unavailable, Orren, the pack Third. Nobody else would touch it. That had been noticeable right away. He’d not been there long enough to confirm it was twice a week, but one of the others had spoken too casually at one point about the delivery.

Second, was that the items weren’t turned around and sent back out with Stephen’s fleet of contracted shifter drivers. They were promptly wheeled into a side chamber and never seen again. This could mean that they were being stockpiled, or that they were maybe reboxed and he had just never noticed them coming out. Or something else entirely, he really wasn’t sure.

But whatever it was, he most certainly wasn’t allowed to know about it. Nobody had made any comment about it to him, and so far Aiden had kept his mouth shut. So now he was stuck with trying to figure out just what was going on with those deliveries, without alerting anyone to the fact that he was interested in them more than any normal pack member should be.

Off to his right there was a crash and boxes started spilling everywhere. Stopping what he was doing, Aiden leaned against a pile of skids and watched yet another fight break out. Discipline among most packs was rather lax, but Stephen’s brought it to a whole new level. There were fights almost daily.

He doesn’t allow them out enough to blow off steam. It just builds up until the smallest things have them snapping at each other.

Deckard, to whom he’d still mentally tagged the name Tweedle-Dee, was going at it with Rokk, the werewolf that had broken Aiden’s ribs his first day. He was somewhat irritated at the fact that Deckard was challenging two ranks above himself. Technically Aiden was ranked above Deckard, because he’d beaten him on the first day. That was how pack rules went. So, if Deckard wanted to move up, he should have challenged Aiden.

But apparently his ranking was just smoke and mirrors, not anything actually tangible.

Thankfully Aiden wanted exactly zero to do with fighting just about anybody besides Stephen, or Flint, who was an even bigger asshole than Stephen, and made zero qualms about rubbing that fact in Aiden’s face. Oh how he couldn’t wait until the day that douchebag got what was coming his way. But the challenges would test his temper, and he needed to ensure he wasn’t a thorn in anyone’s side. The less attention on Aiden, the better.

Listen to myself. Don’t fight? Don’t attract any attention? Avoid rank challenges? Who the fuck have I become? I’m some sort of pansy-footed bitch.

A huge part of his core being urged Aiden to go get involved. To drop Deckard and drop him hard for having the audacity to ignore him. Hell, he could go after Rokk too, and put the big fucker square on his back while he was at it. Then the others would have to give him the respect that he was due.

If he did that though, Langdon would have to get involved as the next ranking werewolf, and at that point, Aiden wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop himself. He could take Langdon one on one; he wasn’t scared of him. Only Flint and Stephen would pose a threat in this pack. But after dealing with both Deckard and Rokk, it could be difficult, depending on how much trouble the other two were.

All in all, it just wasn’t worth it.

While he watched, Deckard went for an early kill shot, looking to end the fight early. Rokk was ready for him though, and the ranking shifter didn’t miss. Deckard went down, and Rokk made sure he stayed there, doing a number on the other shifter. Rokk wouldn’t be getting any more challenges for a day or two, that was for sure.

Aiden turned back to his own work as the pair resumed human form. Patrice, the other shifter Aiden had bested on his first day, came forward and helped Deckard off the floor before returning to clean up the blood. There was a lot.

What a waste.

As he was about to find out, however, the fight had just made his life a whole lot more interesting.

Stephen came barging through the doors with Flint at his side.

“Orren, Langdon, Rokk, Deckard. Get in my office!” he snapped, barking out the names like rifle fire, never breaking stride as he walked across the plant floor.

Langdon walked calmly over to him and spoke into his ear as he followed him. Stephen became visibly agitated while Aiden watched, appearing to curse silently for several long seconds. Then he turned and pointed at Aiden, reluctance written all over his face.

Recognizing a cue when he saw one, Aiden stopped what he was doing and hurried over to Stephen’s office. The Alpha was already speaking when he got there.

“Flint, take Orren, Langdon and Rokk with you. I need the three of you there.”

“What about the pickup?” That was Orren.

“I was going to send you or Langdon with Willow to deal with that. But, since Deckard here isn’t along to help out, and we all know Patrice isn’t intimidating enough, I have no choice but to send him with Willow to handle that.”

Orren nodded. “Okay, boss.”

Flint motioned and the others all filed out, each one staring daggers at him as they went past.

“What the fuck did I do?” he snarled angrily at their backs.

“Shut up.”

Aiden bit down on his tongue to forestall a hot retort and simply nodded instead.

“You and Willow are going to take one of the trucks and go retrieve some supplies. You are manual labor, nothing more. She is in charge. If I hear that you did or said anything less than professional, I will tear your dick off and shove it down your throat so far you’ll be pissing out your asshole. Got it?”

“Absolutely.” I’d like to see you try.

“Willow will be here momentarily. Now get out of my office.”

Aiden hadn’t gone more than a step before Willow came through the doors.

“Ready?”

“You bet,” he responded.

Willow didn’t wait for a response, heading straight out the back. Aiden hurried to keep up with her. She walked over to a white truck, one of the small cargo ones that places often rented out to students and families when they moved.

Aiden’s long strides allowed him to catch up as they walked around the side.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

He frowned. “Getting in the truck?”

“Passenger side is over there,” she said, pointing up and over the cab.

“Ah, right. Of course.”

Willow snorted in amusement behind him as he hurried around to the far side.

At least she couldn’t see his cheeks burning from there.

Willow

“Can I ask you something?”

The question she’d been wanting to bring up had been on her mind since the very first day the tall brown-haired werewolf had walked up to her desk and blown away all the stereotypes she’d been building of him in her head. It was unlike her father to be so mistaken about somebody, but it was clear to Willow that he’d misjudged the newcomer.

She didn’t expect her dad to admit it, of course. Getting Stephen to own up to a mistake was such a novelty Willow wasn’t sure she’d react if she heard it happen. Probably throw a party or something, just to draw it out and make him more irritated about it. Which of course meant he’d never do it again. But still, it would probably be worth it.

“Um, what’s that?” Aiden replied, glancing over at her from where he lounged as comfortably as possible in the seat. He somehow made the worn chair look far more relaxing than it had any right to be.

“Why are you here?”

Aiden blinked. “Your father told me to come along with you. I’m manual labor, apparently.” He shrugged and continued quickly before she could speak. “I was as surprised as you, trust me. After the way he ordered me away from you the other day, to stick us into a truck together for…well, I have no idea how long the ride is, but even just pairing us up caught me off guard completely.”

“True,” she agreed. “But that isn’t what I meant…”

The werewolf was silent for several long moments as he considered her question.

“I mean, you’re smart, I can’t argue that. You have some drive, you aren’t incompetent at life. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Aiden nodded. “Well, thank you for that. But it wasn’t for any of those reasons. Well, not for a lack of them, at least.”

Willow considered that. “He thought you were a threat?”

She could practically imagine the way his big brown eyes danced as he laughed next to her. “Mack considers everyone a threat. That’s what makes a good Alpha, is analyzing threats and dealing with them. But no, he knew I had no designs on his position.”

“So what’s the problem then?”

The mood turned somber even before he replied. She could tell that admitting the truth behind it wasn’t easy for him, and it likely opened up some hurt that Aiden hadn’t known was there. But it was important to her to know the answer, so she didn’t back down or tell him that he didn’t have to answer.

“I couldn’t keep it together,” Aiden said at last, his voice heavy with regret. “Someone could blink at me wrong, or make even the slightest joke, and we had to fight. Had to. I didn’t see any other option. Nor did I care. I was good at fighting, and I wanted to do it. To prove to everyone how much of a badass I was.”

He laughed softly at himself while she drove in silence. “You’d think I’d have grown out of that after puberty, right?”

Willow considered her answer carefully, not wanting to say the wrong thing. “Sometimes it’s not just hormones, but a part of our personality. If you never had to learn to control your anger as a child, to let it out in healthy ways, then it’s only natural that you would want to fight often. That doesn’t make it right, but it is understandable, in a way.”

Aiden stared at her for a long, long time before responding. Long enough that Willow began to blush from the attention.

“You are a very perceptive young woman,” he said at last. “Very perceptive.”

Willow smiled. “I’ve lived around you werewolves my entire life, Aiden. I know you run hotter and tend to align with some of the more primitive and feral aspects of humanity. It’s in your nature.” She shrugged, keeping her hands on the wheel. “But I’m glad you’ve become aware of these issues. I hope that means you’re working to fix them.”

She clamped down on her mouth, not willing to say just yet why she hoped he was working on them. Telling Aiden she wanted him to stick around so she could get to know him better was not something he needed to hear just now. She wanted him to fix himself for him , not because he thought it would grant him a better shot at getting closer to her.

“You know, at first, I wasn’t. Mack exiled me, said coming here was my last chance and that Stephen would put me down in a heartbeat if I didn’t behave. Do you know the first thought that ran through my head after he said that?”

“No.”

“Bring it. I’ll take him on, I’m not afraid.” Aiden’s head banged off the headrest. “I thought that for quite a while. I was ready to come in the other day and just fight everyone until I was either dead, or Alpha of the pack.”

Willow sensed her cue as he stopped speaking. “What changed?”

“I slept on it. Figured that if I did that, Mack would just send one of the regional response teams after me, with orders to terminate with extreme prejudice.” He laughed weakly. “I’m good in a fight, but against a dozen of those guys? Not a chance. Individually, I’d be willing to test my luck, sure. I was a member of one for a decade. I know the tricks, the training. But they work as a team, Willow. Twelve wolves, hunting as one. I’d be dead before I knew it.” He ran a hand through the hair on top of his head. “No, I want to live. I figured out that was the most important thing to me. Living, to see what tomorrow brings, next week, next month. I want to experience the fullness of my lifespan, Willow. To see what other changes will occur in the world.”

The last thing Willow had expected was an inner monologue of his thoughts, and what was important to him. But now she had it.

“Is that all you want to live for? Is to see what tomorrow brings?”

No! Bad Willow. Stop flirting with him. He’s going to pick up on it instantly and then you’ll really be in trouble with Father. And yourself. He’s a werewolf . Remember how we swore those off after the last one? Hmmm? Or did you forget how he nearly killed you before Father could rescue you?

She cursed herself silently, thinking of ways she could deflect any tension, so that Aiden wouldn’t pick up on her ulterior motives in asking the question.

“I’m still trying to figure that out,” he said, his head swiveling to stare at her.

She glanced over at him, letting her eyes get trapped for mere moments before returning them to the road. It was tough, but like Aiden, Willow wanted to live, and focusing on the road would aid that cause big time.

They rode the next ten minutes in silence, both of them lost deep in their thoughts, and Willow relieved that Aiden hadn’t pressed her on her question. Though of course, his response had been vague enough to make her wonder.

He could easily have been insinuating that he was still trying to figure out whether or not she was something he was living for. His response, if that were the case, was his way of saying he was confused, and unsure of how everything was playing out. Which was also true of her. Willow had no idea how everything was going to go. In fact, she’d never expected it to head down this road in the first place, so all of this was new territory for her.

“We’re here,” she announced, pulling the truck off the road and into the parking lot for a warehouse.

The building was huge. It dwarfed her father’s place, and that was just a section of it. The loading bays could easily hold twenty plus trucks at a time. It was better suited for use as a distribution center for a national or multinational company. Instead, it sat mostly empty, unused. Willow pulled around to the rear, where another quartet of loading bays were located, shielded from the road and others by the building.

Waiting for them were two cargo vans, their rear doors open and filled with boxes.

“What’s the deal with them?” Aiden asked, casually pointing to the two human guards standing nearby, automatic rifles slung over their shoulders.

Willow noted how he didn’t seem worried or concerned. Just curious. Threat Assessment. That’s what he’s doing right now.

“As long as you keep your mouth shut and do as I say, nothing to worry about.” She wheeled the truck around and started backing it up to the vans.

One of the guards used a hand to wave her in until she was close.

“I see. This doesn’t seem like it has much to do with shipping,” he remarked, sitting up straighter as she put the vehicle into park. He didn’t comment when she left the engine running.

“Sure it does,” she said. “But sometimes we have to do things a bit more clandestinely.”

“Is this stuff illegal?”

“No. Just highly private. We do a lot of government work as well. Some of their agencies aren’t comfortable delivering to us in private.”

Aiden shook his head. “The stuff is already loaded. Why not just deliver it in those vans?”

Willow rolled her eyes. “You don’t know everything, so of course it doesn’t make sense. But they aren’t all going to the same destination. Hopefully that helps you figure it out.”

He considered her response, and then shrugged. “Sure, whatever you say. I’m to load it all up into our truck then?”

“Yes.”

Before she could say any more Aiden had slipped out. Willow cursed and went after him. The humans didn’t know who he was, and she didn’t want any trouble.

God I hate dealing with the government sometimes.

Aiden

Whoever the two goons with guns were, they most certainly weren’t government agents.

They weren’t nearly aware enough of their surroundings, nor did they give him the respect he deserved. True, they both brought their weapons around when he appeared, but after Willow told them he was fine, they relaxed.

He’d listened carefully to Willow describe to him who the men were. He hadn’t sensed any deceit in her voice. Whoever they truly worked for, she believed they were part of a government agency. What kind of lies was her father giving her, he wondered. Whatever was in the brown boxes was absolutely illegal. He just didn’t know what it was.

Preparing himself, he lifted the first box, muscles flexed and ready.

“Whoops,” he muttered as he nearly upended himself.

The box weighed next to nothing! It wasn’t empty; he could feel the contents, they just didn’t have much weight to them. With a shrug he picked up an entire stack and started walking back to his truck.

“These aren’t fragile, are they?” he asked Willow.

“No.”

“Excellent.”

The loading of the truck proceeded in fairly quick order.

“Only one stack at a time?” Willow jabbed as he was working. “Orren usually takes two.”

He rolled his eyes at her taunt and snatched up two piles of the ultra-light boxes the second time around. “It’s not the weight,” he remarked as he set them down. “It’s the bulk. If they would shrink-wrap them together, I could take four stacks at once with ease. It would make the whole thing go far easier.”

“I’ll mention it to Father,” she replied with a twinkle in her eye, grabbing some of the boxes that had been shoved in and around the main stacks and moving them over as well.

Another ten minutes and both vans were empty. The guards nodded at Willow, went over to their vans, and got in. Aiden noted they both entered the passenger side. Which meant there had been two others present, drivers only. Very interesting. He really needed to get a look inside the boxes, to figure out what they contained.

“I’m just going to secure these down a little better,” he remarked, hopping into the truck. “I don’t want them to fall all over the place.”

“Are you criticizing my driving?” Willow challenged lightly.

“Is it really criticizing when you state facts?” he shot back. “You ran over the curb getting us in here.”

“It’s a tight squeeze!” she protested.

He snorted, looking on the boxes for any labels that would give a clue to the contents. “You realize that this facility is designed for ease of entry and exit with big eighteen-wheeler vehicles in mind, right?”

Willow just glared at him.

“Since I’m going to be the one unloading them, I want them to stay stacked upright. Not only will it be more work for me if they don’t, but I’m sure someone will yell at me for it.”

“You’re probably right,” Willow agreed. “But you can console yourself with the knowledge that you deserve it.”

He slumped. “Ouch.”

That earned him a giggle, though the Alpha’s daughter quickly tamped down on that reaction, turning away. “I’ll be in the cab.”

“Okay.” He tried not to sound too excited.

Once she was gone Aiden swiftly sliced open a box to take a look at the contents.

“What the hell?” It was just filled with translucent plastic packets. Like plastic baggies, but a much heavier grade. His mind was taken back to the one time he’d been to a hospital, after a particularly bad injury. He’d received an IV bag…which when empty, looked exactly like what he was holding in his hand.

What the hell?

Shoving it back inside, he adjusted the tape as best as possible, and then shuffled some stacks around, hiding the opened box near the bottom of a random one. Hopefully nobody would notice or care when they finally got to that point. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d be able to retape the box later when nobody was around.

Everything secured as best he could, Aiden closed the rear and hopped into the cab. Willow had it in gear before he even had his seatbelt done up.

“Hey, safety first!” he yelped. “With you doing that thing you call ‘driving’ in this rig, I’m probably gonna need it.”

She glared at him as they approached the exit. “Keep this up and you’re going to need protection, that’s for sure. But far more than the seatbelt can provide.”

Aiden laughed off her threat, enjoying their little banter. It was the most he’d really gotten out of her since they’d met. He felt she was enjoying it too.

“Maybe I’ll have to buy a dashcam,” he muttered, ensuring it was loud enough for Willow to hear. “That way I’ll have proof of my claims.”

All he could hear was a high-pitched growl from Willow. They both laughed at that for a bit before settling down into amicable silence.

He broke it first. “Can I ask you something now?”

“I guess I owe you, don’t I?”

“Nah, I don’t keep track of that kind of stuff,” he said with a wave of his hand.

“Well, you can ask. I might not want to answer, but I will.”

“What happened to your family? How did you end up adopted by werewolves?”

She grimaced. “I should have figured it would be that.”

“I’m sorry, if it’s too painful, you don’t have to tell me.”

Willow shook her head, hands staying calmly on the wheel. “No, it’s only fair. You told me about your past, I guess I reciprocate. That’s how these things work, right?”

He very carefully did not make a comment to the effect of “these things.” That would be pressing things too much, too soon. If he wanted her to learn to grow comfortable with him, he’d have to move a little slower.

“It’s painful,” she said. “But not because of the memories I have.”

Aiden frowned, not understanding.

“It hurts because of what I don’t have. What I never had. I don’t remember my family. I was an infant still, no memories of that time. So all I know is that I never grew up knowing my real family. They never got a chance to meet me. When I look around and see other human families, or werewolves at that, I hurt, because I want that, but I don’t have it.”

His heart ached for her. Aiden wanted to reach out, to rest his hand on her forearm, to tell her that it was okay to hurt, that she shouldn’t feel guilty about it. To make sure she knew he would be there for whatever she needed.

“My family was killed by a rogue werewolf,” she said at last. “Stephen was hunting him, trying to bring him down before he did any more damage. They lived out in the woods, preferring privacy to the city life. Anyway, as he tells me, he got there too late. The wolf had killed everyone but me. He managed to save me, and he felt guilty about what had happened, so he adopted me and raised me as his own daughter.” She pursed her lips, thoughtful for a second. “Yeah, that’s the story. I’ve worked at his company ever since he started it when I got back from college.”

Aiden nodded. “I see. And you’re, what, mid-thirties did you say?”

Willow gave him a look, and he just realized he’d asked a woman her age. Shit. But he needed to know. “On the dot, actually.”

He nodded, trying to play it off, not wanting her to know the thoughts racing through his head. Thirty-five years ago. He would have been twelve. The age difference mattered exactly not at all to him. That’s not what he was thinking about.

Rogue or wild Weres were an extremely rare occurrence. To the point that they were all documented and reported. He could think of exactly twice that it had happened during his lifetime. Neither one of which had occurred thirty-five years ago.

What other lies is her adopted “father” telling her? “Government agents.” “Rogue Weres?” Right.

***

Once back at the pack house, Aiden returned to dutifully pretending not to have any interest in Willow whatsoever.

That was what Stephen expected from him, and that was what he was going to keep up the illusion of. He’d finally managed to get her cell number during the last bit of the drive back though, and now was free to talk to her as often as he wished, without Stephen interfering.

In fact, they’d just finished making plans to both head out of the pack house that evening and “accidentally” end up at the same spot. He couldn’t wait. Neither of them had been willing to classify it as a date, but Aiden knew a date when he saw one. The two of them were going to be alone and unchaperoned—the horror!—for the first time. His excitement was threatening to bubble over the top, and he was forced to counter it with an extra dose of dour frowning anytime anyone was around.

“Aiden.”

He froze as Stephen called his name, appearing from around the corner of the hallway that led to his office.

“Yes?”

“Good job with the pickup today. Not everyone can handle the fact that we do clandestine government work.”

“Ah, thanks.”

I’m pretty sure I just committed a crime, or helped aid criminals. Either way, Mack would likely be pissed about whatever it is you’re up to. Now my hands are dirty too though, and you know it.

That was probably the plan all along. Get him doing stuff that could incriminate him, so that if they went down, it would look bad enough that he’d be taken down with them. Whether Aiden knew what he’d been doing or not, it wouldn’t matter. He was an exile, and Mack wasn’t going to give him another chance. He had to bust this whole thing wide open, and soon.

“There’s a party going on tonight, outside of town.”

“Oh yeah?” He tried to feign interest, wondering how he was going to get out of this one.

“Yeah, boys-only sort of thing.” Stephen smiled, making it clear that there wouldn’t just be boys there.

Aiden had an idea what it was he was referring to.

“Bonfire?” he asked, trying to sound hopeful.

“Yeah, definitely. Everything is on the house. We’re leaving around seven.” It wasn’t an invitation. It was a command.

Aiden was expected to be there.

“Do you have these parties often?” he asked casually, trying to sound eager.

Stephen shook his head. “No, we haven’t had one in a while. But the pack is too worked up. We’ve been doing a lot lately, and it’s time the boys let loose and relaxed. Work off some steam.”

“I understand completely.”

And he did. Stephen wasn’t talking about a brush party. He was talking about a Frenzy. An organized orgy, essentially. From the sounds of it, complete with drugs and human women. Aiden wanted to hiss in anger at the idea that Stephen was putting one together. The women were rarely there out of a desire to be, and judging by the way his pack acted, he doubted that all of them would be returning home.

“Seven sharp,” Stephen said.

“I’ll be ready.” He smiled and let a low chuckle echo between them.

His Alpha smiled and disappeared back to his hallway.

Shit.

“Willow is not going to be happy.” He spoke the words under his breath.

“No, she isn’t.”

He spun to find her standing behind him.

“How long have you been there?” he asked, swallowing nervously.

“Long enough to hear all about how much fun you’re going to have tonight at the party .” She practically spat the word at him.

So much for her not knowing what was involved at the Frenzy.

“Look, Willow, I—”

But she was gone, disappearing up the stairs to the second floor. Moments later a door slammed.

“Son of a bitch.”

What the fuck was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t not go to the party. But he wasn’t going to sleep with anyone while there. And he had to ensure that the women all made it home safely. On top of all that, he was somehow supposed to prove to Willow that it wasn’t his idea to go, that he’d simply been pretending so his Alpha didn’t suspect him of anything!

What a clusterfuck.

He headed for his room, his brain already switching into high gear. He had plans to make. Right now, as much as he hated it, he had to put Willow’s thoughts toward him as a secondary priority.

Spoiling Stephen’s party and yet somehow managing to ingratiate himself further into the pack at the same time was top priority. The first part was easy. It was the second that took him some time to work through. In the end though, he knew he could make it happen. Aiden started contacting a few friends he had outside of Mack’s pack. In addition to the party, he had some questions about Willow’s family, and the supposed rogue Were.

It was time he started getting some answers.

Aiden

The party was in full swing.

Three separate bonfires formed a triangle in front of the barn, but by now they were mostly devoid of figures. Everyone had moved inside, where sheets and sleeping bags were sprawled out everywhere. Many of them were occupied by various forms. Some sitting up and talking, but most were covered in darkness that humped and moved against themselves. Noises from a multitude of female throats rose into the high ceiling, where they were joined by a few more from the loft of the barn itself.

Aiden was disgusted by what he saw. There were only seven other shifters in Stephen’s pack. All of them were with two, three, or in Langdon’s case, he’d been seen going off with four women attached to him. In other places, women doped to the gills on some concoction of drugs were simply going at it with each other, so horny that they wanted the first warm body they could find.

The air reeked of pheromones, sex, and sweat. So far he’d managed to avoid much more than having a woman or two sit in his lap. He wasn’t proud of himself, but every time one woman would plop down, he’d find another to occupy his other leg. The women were obviously brought in because they were willing to fuck anything that moved. It didn’t take him much effort to get them interested in each other, thinking they were doing that to turn him on.

Once they got good and aroused though, he could put them onto the ground somewhere and let them enjoy each other’s company. Part of him enjoyed the view, watching two women strip each other down and then start pleasing one another. There was a primal nature to that even he couldn’t ignore.

But he didn’t want to join in. Not just because the women were high on who knew what, or rather obviously wannabe porn starlets. No, the bigger answer was that he ended up comparing each one of them to Willow and her curvy figure, honey-blonde hair, and vivid green eyes.

And every single woman came up lacking in a big way.

At first the other packmates had given him some looks when he didn’t just randomly grope and fondle the women who threw themselves at him. But as the night wore on they forgot, becoming more absorbed in their own rutting than they were in him. Things got easier at that point, but now he was starting to get anxious.

Stephen was walking toward him, a gleam in his eye.

“What’s wrong?” his Alpha asked, obviously hoping to corner him into admitting something.

“Just thinking back to my days as an RRT member.”

The Regional Response Teams were composed of highly trained Weres who helped the Alpha and local councils enforce the laws of the Were world. Mostly werewolves, but with the odd bear or mountain lion worked in for good measure, they were a force to be reckoned with.

“Why does that have you worried?”

“Because if I were a team leader who had heard of this Frenzy, I’d wait until most of the Weres were good and bedded before I stormed the place.”

Stephen looked around. “Like now.”

He nodded. “Like—”

The front door of the barn burst open as a pack of snarling wolves came racing through.

“SHIT!” Stephen shouted, picking up a nearby stack of hay and tossing it through the air.

The wolf it was aimed at didn’t see it coming and they went flying, colliding with another wolf, a smaller gray-tufted beast.

All around the barn figures were waking up as the RRT deployed. Aiden had already moved to the side into the shadows, preparing to make good his escape, when the cry that he’d been waiting for struck up.

“Out the back!”

Aiden stepped forward, swatting another wolf aside that wasn’t looking in his direction. He hit it hard enough to hurt, but he’d had enough surprise on his side he could have snapped its neck. That wasn’t his mission though.

“BELAY THAT!” he bellowed, his voice clear and oozing command. “OUT THE FRONT. FIGHT THROUGH THEM!”

Stephen looked over at him from where he’d just hopped back down from the loft.

“Trust me!” Aiden shouted and pointed at the front doors. Then he leapt toward Stephen. The Alpha’s eyes went wide as he assumed Aiden was coming at him.

But Aiden kept going, pushing past Stephen and tackling the wolf that was coming at his rear. He fell on it heavily, using his knee to crack some ribs before driving his elbow hard into its head. The wolf lay there stunned while Aiden got to his feet, picked it up, and hurled it at the back door, wincing as it hit a post and whirled away into the shadows.

Stephen took one look at what had just happened and came to his decision. “Let’s go, boys!” he roared, and as one the now-awake pack shot toward the front door.

As they went, Aiden allowed himself to flow into his wolf form, ignoring the stomach-wrenching shiver that always came just before he turned. Eight men had run toward the front doors, but now they were eight wolves, led by Aiden’s midnight-black beast and Stephen’s gray and black wolf, the duo running side by side.

They shot through the opening, flashing past the bonfires while keeping their heads low to retain their night vision as best they could before disappearing into the growth that surrounded the barn. They ran along by scent and sound more than sight until they reached the edge of the field, at which point they regrouped and fled across the meadow and into the forest.

The pack ran for hours, until they were positive that any pursuit had given up. Then they ran upstream in a small river for half an hour to obscure their scent before finally heading home. Another hour later they were finally back home at the pack house. Stephen ordered them all back into human form and they started washing themselves off in the wading pool out back.

Meanwhile Patrice went and got them all towels so that they could dry off. The cool evening air didn’t penetrate their skin enough to be a real bother, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable either. Their breath was visible each time they exhaled, which was often as they fought to recover from the run.

All around him the pack were high-fiving and exchanging stories of their harrowing escape. He smiled as several of them even included him in their moments, too caught up in the adrenaline to remember they were supposed to hate him.

“How did you know?”

He turned to see Flint staring at him suspiciously. “Know what?”

“That they were coming.”

Aiden shrugged. “I didn’t. But I was on a team for a decade. I know procedure.”

“Did you know that?” Flint asked, turning to Stephen.

“Yes, I was more than aware of that fact,” the Alpha said, glaring at his Second, obviously not appreciating the way Flint was acting. “I’m aware that he was kicked off the team, and then kicked out of Mack’s group. But his knowledge came in handy back there.” He looked at Aiden. “How did you know going out the front door was the option?”

“It’s one of their tactics. I’m not sure if any of you noticed, but only eight of them came in the front. Which meant another four were waiting out back for you. If we’d gone that way, none of us would have escaped. At least, certainly not as a coherent group. They could then track us down individually.”

Stephen seemed satisfied, and then waved for them all to head inside.

Aiden allowed himself to be swept up into the moment again, despite the turmoil he was feeling inside. Even as shoulder-slaps, fist-bumps, and congratulatory remarks rained down on him, he was feeling sick to his stomach.

I just assaulted several members of a Regional Response Team. Who have now seen me participating in an illegal Frenzy. I’m so dead. No matter what, I’m screwed unless I can find out just what Stephen is up to.

He decided to use his goodwill from that night as best he could to ingratiate himself with the rest of the pack. A genuine smile spread across his face. Perhaps tonight had been good for something after all. He could use this to his advantage, to bring down Flint, Stephen, and the entire damn pack.

Willow

The noise when the pack returned was unmistakable.

Not only that, but it was early, and she was still up. Nobody sounded upset or worried, but she hadn’t expected to see anyone until the next morning. Willow wasn’t an idiot; she knew what her father had organized out in the bush. Whores and illicit substances to try and get his men to relax and stop fighting each other.

And Aiden had gone to take part.

The double doors at the rear of the house parted, and the pack walked in, all smiles. In the middle of them, Aiden seemed the recipient of the praise. She watched, shocked as he accepted high-fives and praise with a big grin on his face. The group walked up to her and then stopped.

“I guess you had all kinds of fun tonight, didn’t you,” she snapped, glaring at Aiden before leaving.

It might not have been the wisest course of action to openly show that she had feelings for him right then and there in front of everyone, but she just didn’t care. Besides, the others weren’t dumb. If they hadn’t already figured out that the two of them were involved, then they were dumber than she thought.

Storming off, she first headed to her room, but then decided against that. Aiden would go right there to find her, to try and talk to her. She didn’t want that. Instead she took a left near the front doors and went down a hallway and into the library. As a child this had been one of her favorite rooms. The high bookshelves filled with all sorts of hardcover books, more than she could ever hope to read in a lifetime. As she’d grown older, her interest in reading had waned somewhat.

Now though, she plopped herself down in a chair on the far side and contemplated why she’d stopped coming to the room.

Because you realized you were already living in a fantasy world, filled with werewolves and other creatures that most people don’t know exist. After that, books became boring to you, since you were living it.

It was true. Especially after college, Willow had truly begun to retreat from the human world. Going away to school had been a hard experience for her. Surrounded by people that all seemed immature, and on top of that, were completely blinded to the real world all around them. People who would have laughed if she’d told them she grew up adopted by werewolves.

There had been several occasions where she was drunk that Willow almost spilled the beans. With modern technology it would have been easy for her to get proof for the couple of people who had put up with her while she was at school. In the end though, her loyalty to her father had won out, and she hadn’t done anything.

Upon receiving her diploma, she’d come home and gone straight to work at his company, where she didn’t have to worry about being ridiculed and called crazy for things she’d seen with her very own eyes. Home was her shelter. Her safe place.

“This is cozy.”

She sighed heavily at Aiden’s voice. Of course he would find her. He was a werewolf. Why had she felt that coming here would make things any more difficult for him than if she’d just gone to her room and locked the door? She couldn’t obscure her scent, which meant he’d find her anywhere. Willow was just going to have to suck it up and deal with the fallout now.

“It was.” Her voice sounded frosty and harsh, even to her.

“Until I got here, you mean.”

“Mmm.”

“I’m assuming this is about the party. I’m not aware of anything else that might have angered you, but please do correct me if I’m wrong.”

Willow stayed silent.

“It’s not like I wanted to go.”

He was still standing at the doorway, having remained respectfully out of the room. This had the added effect of forcing him to speak to the back of her head. She turned to look at him now, pinning him in place with a glare.

“It sure didn’t sound like that earlier,” she shot back. “I was there, Aiden. I heard you talking to my father about it.”

The broad-shouldered werewolf sighed. “Willow, your father is my Alpha. If he tells me I’m going, then I’m going. I don’t really have much choice.”

“Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean you have to sound as enthusiastic about it as you did. Or come home like that.” She jerked her head back in the direction of where she’d first encountered him before turning to give him the back of her head to look at once more. It was the only time he was going to be getting that particular view.

“Seriously? Think about things from my side here, Willow. I’m new to the pack. I have exactly one shot to make it work out, or else your father will attempt to kill me. Sounding uninterested in something that should be a huge amount of fun for any shifter in this pack is not the way to go about it. He’ll pick up on my reluctance, and then so will the others. That will lead to suspicion, and one way or another, I’ll be out.” He paused. “Try and tell me I’m wrong.”

She wanted to do just that. To scream at him and tell him how dumb he was being about it all. That his fears were those of a paranoiac, that nobody actually thought that way. But she couldn’t, because the truth was, Willow knew her father and his pack. And that’s exactly how they would react. They would kill him. Not try, like he seemed to assume, but they would definitely get the job done.

“Not to mention your father already told me to stay away from you.”

“What does that have to do with you going to the party?”

Aiden sighed and walked into the room and around her chair, leaning against a sturdy table, forcing her to look at him now.

“Why are you so upset that I went?”

She sneered at him. “That was bad enough. But you came home as part of the pack, Aiden. They were high-fiving you, giving you congratulations. For your actions at an unsanctioned and illegal drug orgy. Take a page from your own book and look at that from my side of things.”

Willow thought the exaggerated surprise “jaw-drop” was something that only happened in movies or books. But Aiden’s mouth fell open in an imperfect O shape that could rival some cartoon characters.

“Wait. That’s what this is all about?” He started to laugh.

“Laughing is not helping right now,” she snapped, feeling angry and embarrassed.

“Willow. Those high-fives were not about my sexual prowess, nor my ability to ingest drugs.”

“Bullshit.”

“Will you just listen ,” he said, his tone growing hard as she half-interrupted him.

Willow crossed her arms and glared at him some more, not responding.

“I didn’t sleep with anyone at the party. Hell, the only drugs I did were those that got into my system from the fumes of other people smoking them. The reason that they were all giving me praise is because while we were there, we were jumped by a Regional Response Team. They’d found out about the party, Willow, and they came after us. Because I used to be a member of one, I recognized their tactics. Because I was sober, I was able to get us out of there safely, without a single person getting captured or worse. Because I helped save the pack, I earned some of their praise.” He snorted.

“But—”

He cut her off with a sharp chop of his hand. Willow fell silent at the angry motion.

“Oh, I had the opportunity to sleep with plenty of women there. It’s not like it was hard. Your father brought in dozens of them and drugged them up with booze and other stuff to make them easily pliable. They were falling all over themselves to get to me.”

He was sneering now as he insulted her father. Willow wanted to say it wasn’t him, but deep down, she knew him well enough to know he’d do whatever was necessary for his pack. If that meant providing them with easy women to calm them down, then he would do it.

“But I didn’t do anything with them. Do you know why?”

“No, I don’t know why, Mister I’m-Too-Good-For-All-Women. Why don’t you enlighten me?” Willow hated how pathetic her comeback sounded.

Aiden rolled his eyes. “I didn’t do anything, because they were all plain. They didn’t interest me.”

She sniggered. “Oh, and why is that?”

“Because they weren’t you.”

She froze. What ? That wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting at all. Him saying he preferred respectable women, sure. Women who were more wholesome. Things that perhaps obliquely referred to her, that wouldn’t have surprised her. But for Aiden to come right out and say he didn’t want any of them because he wanted her instead? That was a stunner.

“You can’t expect me to believe that,” she said weakly.

Aiden just continued to gaze at her steadily. He never wavered while her eyes kept darting around the room, desperately looking for something, anything to fix upon that weren’t a pair of deep brown circles that drew her in like a bee to honey.

He was telling the truth. She couldn’t deny it any longer.

“An RRT jumped you?”

“Yes. They almost got us too. It was close there for a bit, but your father’s pack responded quickly. Quicker than I expected.”

Willow nodded. “Thank you for getting him out of there.”

She watched him smile weakly.

“Just him? Not the rest of them?”

“The rest of them are a bunch of useless assholes, Aiden. Don’t act like you don’t know that. I’ll take them or leave them.”

Aiden chuckled softly while looking over her shoulder as if to pretend one of them was there. She wasn’t falling for that though.

“So you really didn’t sleep with anyone?”

He shook his head.

Willow stood up, uncurling from the chair she’d been on, a sense of relief filling her body, leaving it all tingly and awake.

“I thought you’d been waiting all day for that party.”

Aiden pushed off the desk and stood up straight as well. “No, I was waiting for something else.”

“Really? For what?”

“This.”

He crossed the space between them in the blink of an eye. Willow wasn’t aware of them crossing the distance, but her shoulders hit the shelf of a bookcase and she gasped as he held her aloft, his lips nearly smothering her with the frenzied passion of their first kiss.

It was so hot. Willow wrapped her legs around him, forgetting that moments earlier she’d been furious with him. Her desire for the odd werewolf burned brightly, with the intensity of a laser. Her breasts swelled under her clothing as his hands held her hips tightly, preventing her from falling.

Aiden’s mouth, hungry and tender, was everywhere. Her lips, her jaw. Down her neck where he nibbled on the sensitive skin, drawing soft moans and even a hiss of delight when he bit down a little harder. Then along her collarbone, that so oft-neglected erogenous area that made her turn red, the blush flowing from her cheeks all the way down across her upper chest and through her breasts as well. She hated it, and that just spurred her on, making the flush deeper.

“Oh my,” Aiden remarked, pulling back to admire it, his voice throaty and full of testosterone.

“Stop it.”

He shook his head. Willow was dying from embarrassment, but he had the perfect cure. She tilted her head back and she let him kiss her some more as he held her there, his body pressed firmly against her, pinning Willow to the bookcase.

Holy fuck this is hot.

“So you’ve been waiting all day for that?” she gasped several minutes later, breathing heavily.

“Okay, maybe all week,” he confessed.

Willow giggled, leaning in to press her lips tenderly against his once more. Then she wiggled free of his arms, placing a hand against his chest.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, concerned he’d done something wrong.

“I just don’t want my father to catch us. We need to be more discreet in the future, that’s all.”

Aiden nodded. “Right. Good point. I just sort of acted on impulse there, sorry.”

She lifted a finger to his lips. “Don’t be. That was…worth it,” she finished softly, her mind drifting back to the way he’d just taken control of everything, including her.

“Am I forgiven?” he asked, whispering the words into her ear before gently tugging on her lobe with his teeth.

Willow hissed. “I suppose. But if I find out you’re lying, it won’t end well for you.”

Aiden smiled. “I would be worried, if I weren’t telling the truth. But I promise to always do that for you.”

“You’d better,” she said, letting her fingers drag down his chest, stopping below his belt, but above anything else.

Aiden inhaled sharply, but she went no further. Instead she just tossed him a wink and walked out of the study. Oh, he was forgiven, she supposed. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t above a bit of petty payback, like leaving him all riled up like that.

Besides, they couldn’t do anything further that night. Not with the pack home. Things would have to happen at another time. She could wait.

Maybe.

Aiden

He awoke the next morning with a tightness in his groin, despite having spent some time in the shower alone after Willow had left him high and dry the night before.

It didn’t help that he’d dreamt all night about her soft porcelain skin, and just what he was going to do if he got his hands on her without the others anywhere nearby.

“This just won’t do,” he muttered to himself.

Another trip to the shower was in order it would seem. He heaved himself to his feet and proceeded to do his best to relax himself so that he could make it through the day.

It didn’t help.

By the time the end of the day rolled around and he got back home, Aiden wondered if he was going to be able to wait. His body was coming to life in a way he’d never known before. With the floodgates opened between him and Willow, he was now having a hard time shutting them. It had never been such a struggle to contain himself around a woman before.

Did this mean that she was his mate?

He wished things were clearer to him. Instead it was like trying to look into a muddy puddle while trying to see the bottom. It was impossible. Aiden knew that the odds of him actually finding a mate were near mythical. To find the one woman in the world that fit perfectly with his half-man, half-wolf person was astounding enough. That she might be found in the same city as him was extraordinary, and highly unlikely.

Which, he knew, is why most werewolves didn’t end up mated. They would have several women over the course of their lifetime, but never that one . Aiden knew precisely three werewolves who had found their mates. Mack was one of them. The presence of his mate was what had enabled him to rise up, become a pack Alpha, and eventually the regional Alpha as well. The man had an unrelenting drive, and he said he owed it all to Maggie.

Aiden didn’t want to get his hopes up. Just because she wasn’t his mate, however, didn’t mean that he couldn’t care for her deeply. Aiden was positive he already did, and after the previous evening he thought she felt the same. A bond had been forged between them in the short time he’d been a member of Stephen’s pack. The way he saw it, they were the only two sane ones in the entire house. The rest were a pack of wild animals barely held in check.

The van that hauled the entire pack to and from the shipping facility finally came back to the pack house. Aiden wanted to sigh with relief as the aging vehicle shuddered to a halt and the engine finally cut off. With the way his mind and body were all wound tighter than a spring over Willow, the vibrations of the ride hadn’t been helping keep himself calm.

“Okay, get some food and then rest up for tonight,” Stephen said before the group went their separate ways.

This wasn’t all that unusual of a command. Aiden had heard it two other times before. Neither time had it included him, and he doubted this time would be any different. So he hopped out and started heading over to the house, wondering just how he might be able to finagle a random run-in with Willow.

Or perhaps everyone will leave tonight, and we can have a bit of time to ourselves…

He desperately hoped that would be the case. Anything to help him get closer to her. He’d barely been able to exchange ten words with her all day, and even that had been a challenge.

“Aiden, Flint, stay behind please.”

His footsteps halted immediately. Stephen wanted him to stick around? For what?”

Flint spoke up before he had the chance. “What’s up, boss?”

“I want you to take the new guy with you on your delivery tonight.”

Aiden watched as Stephen held up a hand to forestall Flint’s complaints. “I know your feelings on the matter. But he did good for us last night, and he deserves a chance to become a part of us. He’s in our pack, whether you or I like it. We may as well make sure we’re all in it together.”

There was something about the way Stephen was speaking that made Aiden suspect he wasn’t doing this completely out of the niceness of his heart. There was definitely something else going on, some other reason he wanted Aiden to go along and help out. His speech wasn’t about unity.

Then he got it. It was the “all in this together” line that finally clued him in. Stephen wanted to ensure that Aiden’s hands were as dirty as the rest of them. This wasn’t about giving him a shot, but about having proof that he was involved with whatever was going on, just like everyone else was. That way Aiden would be less likely to report things, because in his state, if Stephen’s pack went down Aiden would go down with them. He had no other chances, no way out.

It was a neat trap, and there was nothing Aiden could do about it except stick it out and hope that he could find a way to ensure that Mack was the one who brought the whole operation down, and not someone else. Nobody else was likely to believe his situation.

“What are we doing?” he asked, trying to act like he was happy for the chance to be of more use to the pack.

“A delivery,” Flint growled. “Don’t fuck it up.”

Aiden glared at the pack Second. He fucking hated Flint. When the time came, he was going to enjoy handing the arrogant prick his ass on a platter. “I won’t fuck it up if you tell me what’s going on, so that I can do a good job. If you don’t give me the information I need, then it’s all on you whether this goes smoothly or not.”

Stephen stepped between the two of them as Flint snarled and squared off against Aiden.

“Enough,” he snapped. “Work together, get this done. Understood?” He turned his glare on Flint.

For a moment Aiden thought the two were going to fight, but eventually Flint submitted and nodded.

“Good.” Stephen spun, hitting Aiden in the chest with a finger. “Don’t provoke him. Do as you’re told, nothing more.” Then he addressed Flint again. “The better he does on this, the more I can trust him, which means he won’t have to run with you again. Keep that in mind. Now go get it done.”

The Alpha turned and walked away before either of them could say anything else.

Flint glared. “Come on.” He didn’t wait for Aiden to respond before he headed to the garage where the other vehicles were housed. Aiden hadn’t been there before, since he didn’t own a vehicle. He saw pickup trucks coming and going infrequently, but that was all.

The two hopped in a white pickup and headed back to the facility where Flint directed him to one of the company’s cargo vans. This one didn’t have any windows on the rear, and the hole between the front seats had been covered over with plywood, preventing him from seeing what was in the back.

"Should I be doing anything?” he asked while Flint guided the truck out of the lot. Judging by the feel of the way it handled, Aiden decided it was already loaded up. With what, he couldn’t tell, but obviously this had been prearranged. All they were doing now was the final step.

He still didn’t know what that was, but something told him this was going to be a turning point in his investigation of Stephen’s pack. Tonight he was going to learn more about what was going on, and then start to formulate a plan to bring it all crashing down. He could feel it. Things were starting to move faster. Now all he had to do was keep up.

“Keep your eyes open for anything suspicious.”

Aiden contemplated asking just what classified as “suspicious.” The way that dog across the street looked at him while it squatted to do its business? That was certainly odd. Or the streetlight that flickered on as they drove underneath it. Could that be a warning signal to a black-costumed night vigilante, telling him that their van was up to no good? Would the spotlight in the sky come on to notify him? Or maybe the static fuzz on the radio station meant it was actually a recording by aliens. All of the above were “suspicious” in the right mindset.

He doubted Flint would see the humor in any of that though. The guy was so tightly wound the slightest bit of humor would probably cause him to go insane. Probably not a good thing while he was behind the wheel. So Aiden simply sat back into the chair and scanned the surroundings until Flint pulled them into a parking lot that bordered on a woodlot.

“Take the woods. Keep an eye out for uninvited guests. Make sure you aren’t seen.”

Aiden nodded, understanding exactly what Flint meant by that. He wanted him out in his wolf form, prowling for anyone who might be waiting to ambush them. The only other vehicle was a black pickup truck. It had one of those old-school hardtops on it that were the same height as the cab, allowing it to store a good amount of stuff.

The doors opened and two men got out. Flint nodded in recognition to them both. Once he saw that, Aiden padded off into the forest, finding a small clearing where he could strip before changing. He really didn’t feel like riding naked all the way back with Flint. Things were awkward enough between the two of them that he didn’t need that, despite his normal proclivity to poke at the pack Second.

Just before he shifted, Aiden sent another text, asking for an update on his earlier quest for information. He put his phone on silent, stashed the clothes under a pile of brush, and then shivered his way into wolf form. Testing the air to ensure nobody was imminently close, he then took off into the forest to explore the area, keeping his nose open as the wind constantly swept through.

He roamed far and wide, leaving the decision of how to notify him if he needed help up to Flint. Nothing came across as unusual on his little jaunt, prompting him to head back toward the parking lot. As he got closer, the scent of human and metal became clear.

Guns. Goons and guns. He lifted his nose, testing it. Three of them.

Aiden moved along their scent, gaining on them quickly, but also quietly. The humans were good at moving noiselessly, considering he hopped up onto a log and nearly ran into one after they had paused. His jump had been completed in near-perfect silence. But with the human’s head perhaps three feet from his own, staying unseen just wasn’t possible.

Shit.

His options were not good. Running seemed preferable; he could lose them with ease as he circled out and around and back to Flint and the van. They wouldn’t beat him to it, and he could be there to help Flint deal with the others if need be. Then they could get in the van and drive away before the gunmen arrived.

Or he could do something really, really stupid, and attack them. This was the idiotic route. The one most likely to get him killed. He couldn’t take on three armed gunmen, even with the element of surprise, which was already being lost. Not without there being a good chance of them tagging him with some hot lead. Yet, if he did take them on, it would prove to Flint that he could be trusted, and perhaps engender some respect for dealing with them on his own. It could also get him killed, very easily.

The smart thing to do was run.

Which is why Aiden leapt at the nearest gunmen, a blur of black fur in the darkness. He had that going for him. With the sun having set nearly an hour before when they were arriving back at the pack house, things among the trees were very dark. Little of the city light penetrated this far into the foliage, giving him all sorts of cover and natural camouflage.

Aiden rode the panicked gunmen to the ground. His trigger discipline was excellent though. Despite the surprise attack, he didn’t shoot as he was buried under two hundred-plus pounds of wolf. Aiden leapt from his back into the face of the next attacker who had just completed his turn. First his paws, then his jaws shredded the delicate, sensitive skin of the human’s face.

He bounced off the gunman back at his original target. Aiden’s jaws closed on the back of his neck and he tore at it viciously for a split second before darting off into the woods. He listened carefully at the pained cries of the two men, and the angry voice of the third telling them both to shut up.

Smiling, he crept through the darkness until he was behind them. Even if the one remaining healthy attacker had been looking in the right direction, his only warning would have been the sudden appearance of a pair of yellow eyes that darted toward him. A split-second later bone-white teeth would have loomed large in his vision.

Instead Aiden slashed in swiftly and stealthily, his razor-sharp teeth ripping much of the gunman’s calf free of his body before he darted away back into the underbrush. A moment later gunfire blew apart his trail in a hail of bullets, narrowly missing Aiden as he ran deeper into the brush, circling out and around them once more.

He was breathing heavily now, more from the close call than his efforts. Several of those bullets had gone by so close he’d heard them whiz by his ear. He would have to be more careful next time with a follow-through attack, so they wouldn’t get the chance to orient on him.

Twice more he darted in unexpectedly, taking chunks of flesh off each time. The gunmen were good though, and both times the bushes disintegrated under the combined fire of all three of them. Finally they managed to get their backs to each other, each of them watching a different direction.

Aiden wanted to keep going to drive them off, but he felt like this was enough. He shifted back to human form, careful to keep a tree between him and the others.

“Leave,” he commanded, his voice echoing through the trees, bouncing off of some.

A flurry of gunfire sprayed all around where they thought he was. Most of it was in the right general direction, but none of it threatened him. Not with a three-foot-wide tree in the way.

“Fuck you!” came the response a moment later.

“Leave before I kill you.”

“Fucking Weres,” came the reply. “You think you own everything. That you have the right to sell this shit. Well guess what, some of us don’t want it out there. You don’t know what it does!”

Aiden frowned. He started to ask them what they were talking about when another wolf emerged from the forest and resolved itself into Flint. His face was covered in blood, the only evidence of how he’d dispatched the other two.

“Sitrep.”

“Three men, back to back, automatic rifles, twenty-five yards straight ahead,” he said, indicating the direction. “They know what they’re doing too.”

Flint nodded. “Wounded?”

“Yeah, all three of them are in rough shape, but still in the fight.”

“Can they run?”

“No.”

“Okay, we’re out of here then. They’ll have backup, possibly local police.”

Aiden again wanted to know more, but Flint was already back in his wolf form and leaving, fully expecting Aiden to follow. Cursing himself, he dropped to all fours and took off, only stopping briefly to grab his clothing. Then, without waiting around any longer, they hopped in the truck and departed, leaving the gunmen to wonder what had happened.

They weren’t the only ones with questions. Despite his hopes that his night would end with a more comprehensive picture of just what the fuck Stephen and his pack were up to, it appeared Aiden was going to be left with more questions than answers.

He’d already surmised that they must be selling something. The question was, what ? Drugs? Weapons? Stolen goods? He had no idea. While there was no law in the shifter world that packs must adhere to the idea of being the “good guys,” it was well known that nobody would stick up for them if they were caught.

Mack wouldn’t have sent him here for that though. He would just tip off the police and let them handle the problem for him. Far easier to do it that way. So why insert Aiden into the mix? That clearly indicated it was something related to the fact they were Weres. There were a few things they could be selling. None of them pleasant, and some of them downright terrifying to think of if word got out.

On top of that, there was the question of who the gunmen were. His earlier inner joke about the masked vigilantes suddenly didn’t seem so far off the bat. Whoever they were, they seemed intent on stopping Flint from delivering whatever had been in the back of the truck. Or was still there, for all he knew.

In his pocket his phone buzzed. Pulling it out, he looked at the message.

Private Number: No record found of any wild shifter within five years on either side of the date you provided.

Aiden took a second to reread the message, then sent one thanking his contact and deleted the conversation. The number wasn’t in his phone, and never would be. He’d memorized it a long time ago.

Just before he’d left the RRT.

The message hadn’t answered his question, but it had told him something he’d long suspected. Stephen was lying to Willow about what had happened to her family.

The question was, why?

Willow

She paced back and forth in the upstairs hallway, the curtains wide open, giving her a full view of the driveway. Once her father had told her that Aiden was going out with them that night on a delivery, Willow had instantly known she wasn’t going to sleep until he returned.

It wasn’t that she was expecting trouble for any specific reason. The deliveries always seemed to go smoothly, and she rarely heard of any issues. The government, as big and ungainly as they might be, seemed to always handle its business with her father’s company smoothly and efficiently. What Willow didn’t understand was why it all had to be so clandestine. Why couldn’t they operate during the daytime? She hated all this sneaking around bullshit!

Tonight was even worse, however. With Aiden out on a delivery—with Flint of all people!—she was even more anxious. In her gut she could just feel that something was going to happen. Thankfully the house was empty, which meant nobody was there to see her little freakout.

Movement on the driveway caught her attention like a dog who knows the word “walk.” Willow was practically perched on the windowsill as a vehicle came up to the house. It was a white pickup, which unfortunately didn’t tell her much. All of the vehicles stored at the pack house were white pickups, besides the van they used to get to and from the facility daily. She had to wait until it pulled up and two figures emerged.

When neither of them seemed to be moving with obvious hurry or injury, Willow allowed herself to breathe her first sigh of relief. Perhaps everything had gone according to plan. They headed inside and she went to greet them.

“What the FUCK happened back there?” Flint shouted as the door opened.

“Like I’ve told you twice before, Flint. I don’t know who they were. I was patrolling the forest, like you asked me to. I smelled three humans. I went to check them out, and they were armed with guns. They weren’t novices at wilderness movement either. They stopped, I jumped up on a fallen tree, and they were right there. I had no choice.”

“You didn’t know if they were friendly or not!” Flint raged.

Even Willow, taken aback by the anger, could figure out the bullshit in that logic. Aiden didn’t need her help, though. He snorted.

“If they were friendlies, then you didn’t do your damn job properly, in which case everything is your fault. I did exactly what I should have done, Flint, and you know it. You’re just pissed that someone was following whoever those guys you were meeting with, and almost got the drop on us.”

Flint stared daggers at Aiden, and for a moment Willow thought the two of them were going to go at it. But eventually the pack Second just snarled and walked away. The pair of them stood where they were, watching as Flint headed up the stairs and to his bedroom. The door slammed a moment later, confirming his location.

Willow exhaled. “Well, that was fun.”

“Oh, barrels of it,” Aiden said dryly, rolling his eyes so hard it had to have hurt. “You only got the tail end of it. I had to listen to it all the way back here.” He shook his head. “You know, Willow, I think Flint might have some anger issues.”

She snickered. “You don’t say.”

His brown eyes latched on to her, filling with warmth and amusement. “I would never say!”

They stood like that for a second, staring at each other, neither speaking, nor making a move. Then, like a dam that had finally broke, they rushed forward into each other’s arms. Aiden lifted her up, twirling her around in the air like she was as light as a feather. She rested her hands on his wrists just in case, but it wasn’t necessary. Aiden had her, completely and securely.

The muscles on his arms bulged slightly as he lowered her until she could kiss him. It was interesting to experience being the taller one, and also quite a lot of fun. She wrapped her arms around his neck, cupping his face and tilting it upward so she could kiss it properly. Aiden stopped his spin once their lips touched, standing in the middle of the hallway without moving, not a tremble in his arms as he held her aloft. Willow had never felt so safe before.

“Are you okay?” she asked, running her hands up and down the side of his head, staring intently into his face, looking for any signs he must be holding something back from her.

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “It was dark, and we were in a forest. They didn’t stand a chance.”

“You killed them?” Willow wasn’t sure how to feel about that. She knew they’d been attacking him, but still, to have killed…

“What? No!” he said, shaking his head. “Hurt, yes. But nothing they won’t heal from. Just enough to incapacitate them, prevent them from following, that sort of thing, you know?”

She nodded, the motion a little jerky but confident enough.

“I don’t kill indiscriminately,” Aiden said, glancing up the stairs after Flint. “And certainly not humans. There’s just no point. I have killed,” he admitted. “And if that’s going to be a problem, speak up now.”

She frowned. Most humans, knowing they were developing feelings for a killer would be a deal breaker. But she knew that shifters were different, and what Aiden had likely done was not murder the way a human would see it. Their world was different. For instance, she knew her father had killed before, and she didn’t let it affect the way she loved him. So why should Aiden be any different?

“Humans?” she asked quietly, the word coming out before she knew she wanted to ask it.

“No. I’ve hurt some badly, but only to ensure myself or others could escape a situation. But never a mortal wound, no.”

“Did the others deserve it?”

Aiden hesitated. “All but one,” he admitted. “One, in hindsight, probably could have been saved, and I regret it all the time. But it was either me or him, and at the time, I didn’t see another way.”

Willow nodded. “I understand.”

He started to let her down, but Willow fought it off by clamping down harder around his neck. Eventually he picked up on her resistance and adjusted his grip so he could hold her aloft still. Now though she was cradled into his arms, one around her legs, one around her back as he held her to his chest.

“Aiden?” she said, kissing his neck with an increasing urgency. Something that had been kept restrained was building within her now, and Willow needed to let it out.

“Yes?”

“I think you should take me upstairs now.”

Aiden

The walk upstairs was silent.

Not an awkward, unsure, tentative thing. But a comfortable peace between two older parties that knew what was about to happen. Neither of them were nineteen anymore, the nervous trepidation and insecurities of inexperience were gone for both of them, replaced by a calm confidence and a desire to experience one another in a more intimate setting.

Aiden wasn’t actually sure which room in the huge house was hers, having only ever encountered her on the lower level, but she guided him to it. Much to his relief, it was down a separate corridor, where all the guest rooms were located. Her father believed in giving Willow some space from his loudmouthed pack it would seem. For once, Aiden agreed with something he’d done.

The huge bed had four wooden posters and a black metal canopy over it, draped with a white cloth that looked like a sail. He walked over to it and set Willow down into the bedding, feeling her sink deep into the thick down comforter. Still without a word he stepped back, and, knowing her eyes were on him, slowly pulled his shirt up and over his head, flexing his muscles and twisting his body to give her as good a show as possible.

He was no Chip & Dale’s dancer—or whatever they were called—he knew that. But just because he couldn’t do a proper seductive striptease without falling across the floor and breaking something didn’t mean he couldn’t at least give her a little show.

“Ow oww,” Willow catcalled from the bed, biting down on her index finger seductively as her eyes opened wide to look at him. “Take it off!”

“I need some music,” he muttered sarcastically.

“Oh, I got this!”

Aiden stood up straight, frowning as Willow rolled over and grabbed her phone, fiddling with it for a few moments before plugging it into a bedside dock. Music started to emerge a moment later.

“ I’m…too sexy for my sh—”

Aiden lunged forward and hit the pause button. “No.”

But Willow never heard him, she was too busy trying to contain her laughter. Both hands clamped over her mouth as she shook violently, tears streaming down her rapidly reddening face. “The look—your face.” She lost control again. “Price…less!”

Her words were coming out in fits and spurts.

“You think you’re soooo funny,” he drawled, fiddling with his belt.

Willow nodded, grabbing a pillow as she laugh-cried into it.

Aiden dropped his jeans.

Willow stopped laughing immediately as her eyes focused on the rather obvious bulge in his pants. Aiden felt his ego swell at the way she licked her lips nervously, the earlier humor already forgotten.

“Finish the job,” he ordered, letting just a bit of steel slip into his voice, letting her know that playtime was over.

“Okay,” she said breathlessly, sliding onto her knees in front of him before pulling his boxers down to the floor where he could step out of them. “Oh.”

It was the reaction he’d hoped for. Now he watched from above as Willow looked up at him from her knees, eyes wide. “Put your hand on it,” he said firmly.

Willow’s right hand came up and wrapped around his shaft, her touch warm and feminine in a way that he couldn’t describe any better. She didn’t wait for him to say anything else before she started to stroke him up and down in short motions. Aiden groaned as her tongue came out and licked up the underside of his head, warm, wet, and just firm enough to be felt, but not enough to be rough.

His eyes closed momentarily, but he opened them soon enough, his arousal swelled by the sight of Willow in front of him, lavishing attention on his cock. It was such a visceral, dominant moment that it rose up inside of him, swelling over until he wanted nothing more than to return the favor.

With a growl that filled the room he bent over, casually lifted Willow off the floor, and pushed her down onto the bed, mounting her as he covered her lips with his. They kissed with a franticness that wouldn’t have been believed a few minutes earlier. His hands ran up and down her body, leaving no part of it untouched, even as he undid buckles, bra, and buttons. None of it could be stripped without him moving, and it was with great reluctance that he eventually slipped back off the side of the bed.

But that all died when her clothing joined his on the floor, although perhaps a bit more haphazardly scattered. Aiden stood back and admired the sight of her naked body on the bed in front of him. She was pleasantly thick, with curves and meat in all the right places. A little moon tattoo adorned her upper leg on one side. He smiled, never having pegged her as the type to get ink.

“Come here,” she said, reaching up and grabbing his unshaven jaw, pulling him back down on top of her.

He obliged, returning to kiss her some more while this time his hands ran all over her exposed skin, earning him the gratifying moans and gasps that drove him absolutely wild.

It wasn’t long before he felt the desire for more, turning his kisses away from her face. Willow arched back under him as he kissed her neck and then onto the swells of her breasts. He gave them some attention, bringing the tips to a hardened state before moving down some more, even though his hands remained behind to gently tease her.

By this point Willow was practically vibrating with need. Once he crossed below her waist and slipped between her legs, he thought she was going to explode on him. Which wouldn’t have been all that bad. He wanted to make her do just that.

“Yesss,” she said, the word trailing off as Aiden kissed her inner thigh, bringing his legs down to wrap around her waist even as he slipped off the edge of the bed, giving himself a better angle.

Now the fun was about to begin. Aiden had heard rumors that there were men out there who didn’t enjoy this part, and he thought them all equally crazy. As his tongue began to slide across her, his eyes fixated upon her face, watching the pleasure he was creating play across that.

Willow smiled and bit her lower lip, eyes already closed shut as she writhed in time with his tongue. He loved to receive attention, and watching his cock disappear into her mouth had been a glorious sight indeed. But even that had a hard time comparing to the visual feast that was laid out before him as he brought Willow to climax with his tongue.

She arched and shuddered, one hand gripping her hair as she buried her face in the bend of her elbow, the other finding its way to one breast, playing with it gently, touching herself. If he’d been hard before, the moans and cries of delight that his touch brought forth took it to another level.

Aiden drank it all in, memorizing the way she gasped, the way her lips curved upward in a smile as he came closer and closer. Finally, he watched with intensity as she came, her body racked by spasms and muscle contractions as he ran his tongue back and forth until the final moment.

At last she fell back into the bed, breathing hard and flushed from neck to damn near her belly button. His eyes widened as he saw that development. If Willow had been attractive before, now she was downright sexy.

“Wow.”

He grinned at the single word, wiping his face surreptitiously on his arm before starting to kiss his way back up to her.

“I hope you’ve got enough in you to do that again before the night is over,” she said with a wink as he settled down gently on top of her.

He spoke into her ear, letting his hot breath wash over her skin. “I think I can manage that. As long as you ask nicely.”

Willow lifted her eyebrows suggestively. “I think I can figure out a way.”

“I bet,” he chuckled.

“How’s this for a start?” Her hand slipped between them, grasped his cock, and adjusted it until he felt himself slip inside of her, already several inches deep due to their closeness.

Both of them gasped, for slightly different reasons.

“Are you okay?” he asked, starting to pull out.

Hands dug frantically at his back, stopping him. “No, don’t do that,” she whimpered. “Come back.”

Unsure of how she was feeling he did as he was told, pushing his hips closer to her, burying the first third of his dick inside of her. Willow gasped and moaned, fingernails digging deep enough into his back to leave welts he was sure.

“More,” she whispered into his ear. “Please.”

“I like it when you ask nicely.” He started kissing and nipping at her neck , listening to every sound she made as he slid himself deeper into her, until he was pressed up firmly against her.

Then Willow did something he hadn’t experienced before. She squeezed . He had no idea how else to explain it, but everything just tightened around him.

“Holy shit,” he gasped, trying not to explode right then and there.

“Did you enjoy that?” she purred into his ear, moving her hips up and down against him while he remained still. “Would you like me to do it again?”

“Oh fuck yes,” he rumbled.

She did.

Aiden was forced to flex all the muscles of his core to ease the pressure on his cock, or else he would have lost all control. “Okay,” he gasped a second later as the crucial moment passed. “Wow.”

Willow giggled, her green eyes dancing with wicked delight. Although Aiden enjoyed that look, he was ready to reestablish control. He did this the easiest way he knew how. He pulled his hips back until only the very tip of his cock was still inside of her. Then he thrust against her, filling her with one swift, smooth motion.

She cried out and moaned, her mind suddenly focused elsewhere. Aiden kept it there as he thrust in and out regularly, picking up speed and establishing a rhythm.

“Holy shit,” he said again, his eyes roaming all across her. “You are the sexiest. Just fucking staring at you makes me want to explode.”

Willow blushed, though this time she made no attempt to cover up just how far down the redness extended. “Not yet,” she admonished, pushing him back off.

He straightened his upper body, knees digging into the bed as she crawled out from under him. Her purpose for moving quickly became clear as she turned over and lifted her hips up off the bed, resting on all fours while she gave him an exposed view of her ass.

“Oh,” he said, with a mixture of excitement, desire, and surprise. “Well, if you insist.” He shuffled up until he was at the right distance.

Wrapping his hands around her waist, he gripped tightly and pulled her back, sliding his cock all the way in without hesitation. Willow bucked and trembled in his grip, but he held tight, preventing her from moving.

“Fuck me,” she begged as he gave her big ass a firm slap. “Please! I want it.”

Even if he’d been planning to tease her, there was no way Aiden could have resisted the sultry tones and the sheer need contained in her words. Without hesitation he started thrusting hard and fast. He reached forward with one hand and grabbed her honey-blonde hair, pulling on it just hard enough to lift her face from where she’d buried it in the sheets so that he could hear her cries unmuffled by the comforter.

“Don’t forget your promise,” she gasped as he began to shudder, nearing his own explosion.

“I haven’t,” he growled, withdrawing from Willow even as he felt himself reach the peak.

He flipped her over with ease, moving up until he was straddling her stomach, one hand stroking his cock as he climaxed, spilling his seed all over her stomach and breasts, coating her with thick, hot liquid. Willow moaned and begged for it throughout, telling him how much she wanted it. It was so arousing, and he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in the moment.

But he had a job to fulfill.

Now, before it had even begun to cool, he slipped back between her legs, his tongue easily finding her clit and starting to work on it.

Willow shuddered and started to moan loudly. He watched as she got so wrapped up in what he was doing she started to touch herself, rubbing his cum all into her tits.

Blood rushed back into his cock at the sight of that, especially when she realized what was going on and didn’t stop. First one, then a second finger slipped inside her as he built up speed with his tongue. She was starting to shiver now, a surefire sign that she was close. Aiden never slowed, and a second later Willow grabbed her chest tightly and held on as her orgasm crashed over her.

He didn’t slow until her entire body went limp and she started to gasp for air. Then and only then did he stop, propping himself up on one elbow and enjoying the glorious sight in front of him.

“Like the view?” she murmured.

“Like it?” He stood up straight, showing her that he was already hard again.

She smiled. “Well, I’m glad I can turn you on.”

“And how,” he agreed.

“But I’m going to need a shower before I deal with that. So why don’t you come wash me down, get me clean, and then we can see about getting me dirty again, okay?”

It was phrased as a question, but Aiden wasn’t born yesterday. He knew there was only one answer. He got up, helped her to her feet, and sent her on her way to the shower.

“Are you coming?” she called over her shoulder, shaking her ass.

“Yep, just doing one last thing,” he said.

“What’s that?”

The phone started up again.

“I’m…too sexy for my shirt…too sexy for my shirt…”

They eventually made it to the shower.

Willow

The next morning she awoke to an empty bed.

For a brief, splitting second she feared that Aiden had left before she awoke, leaving her alone without an explanation. But that died almost immediately as her brain continued to wake up, exiting its slumber and reminding her that that wasn’t, in fact, what had happened, and that she was needlessly creating drama where none existed.

Aiden had told her as they’d settled down after their second shower that he’d have to leave once she was asleep. Willow had protested, but only halfheartedly. She knew why. If he was caught leaving her room, the both of them would be in for it from her father. Since neither wanted to risk that situation, they would have to continue seeing each other clandestinely for the time being.

Willow hated sneaking around behind Stephen’s back, but in this he was being unreasonable. She knew that his initial command not to get closer with her had been given before Aiden had truly worked his way into the pack, but so far her father had yet to rescind the order.

It’s not like he’s going to be more likely to allow it if Aiden went and asked him. That would just cause him to double down I’m sure.

So secrecy was the name of the game until such time that Aiden had earned enough trust that they felt they could ask her father for permission. Willow really hoped that wasn’t too far off. Waking up alone after such a fantastic night sucked .

But , she decided, throwing off the comforter, I can still go downstairs early and hopefully run into him!

It took an effort not to skip down the stairs. Nobody else was awake yet, but she didn’t want to risk someone seeing her and figuring out what her good mood was about.

“Morning,” she purred, reaching up to tug on his ear with her teeth as she entered the kitchen.

Aiden, who had been bending down for a hug, did the little shiver-melt thing that guys do when you tease them just right. A strong hand grabbed her waist and pulled her back into him as she tried to walk by. Willow hissed as his hand slowly walked its way south along her stomach and between her legs.

“Stop it,” she whispered. “They’ll smell it if we start doing anything.”

The coffee machine beeped and started to pour, the rich, thick smell of fresh brew overpowering anything else that might be in the kitchen.

“No they won’t,” he said, and pushed his hands beneath her waistband.

Willow shuddered and cried out softly as he brought her to a swift orgasm. It wasn’t powerful compared to the ones from the night before, but it was the perfect way to start her morning.

He gave his fingers a very manly lick before washing them, and then went about pouring the two of them steaming hot cups of coffee.

“I could get used to this sort of morning,” she said, languidly draping an arm over him and planting a soft kiss on his cheek before moving to her own stool.

“I bet,” he said, laughing softly. “Why are you up so early?”

She frowned. “Work?” Her tone indicated she was wondering if he was losing it.

“Willow, it’s Saturday. We don’t work Saturday.”

Holy shit. He was right. “Well, fuck me,” she cursed.

“Later tonight, if you aren’t out with your friends,” he promised.

She muffled a laugh. “I’m going to take you up on that. I’ll be here.”

He waved a hand at her. “Don’t stick around just for me. Go out, it’s Saturday. Go have some fun.”

“With who?” Her mood was souring a little.

“Uh, friends?” Aiden stopped talking as the look on her face registered. “I guess it must be tough to make friends when your family is full of werewolves.”

Willow shrugged. “I mean, when I was younger, it certainly was difficult to explain away all the hair considering we didn’t have any dogs.”

Aiden snickered. “Fair point.”

“Making friends with humans was always a dangerous prospect. You all go through so much to remain hidden from the world. In this day and age of electronics, the fact that you’re still mostly legend and nothing more is absolutely astounding.” She shrugged, and related to him her story about going away to school, the trials and near-misses of her revealing everything.

“Nobody would have believed you,” he said after she finished. “Not that that makes a difference of course, except they would have tried to put you in a padded cell most likely. So, I’m glad you didn’t tell anyone.”

She looked at him strangely. “Thanks. I think. But it still doesn’t help with making any friends.”

“What about the rest of the pack?”

“Uh-huh,” was all she would say to that.

“Did your father never introduce you to other shifters, to help you make some friends your own age?”

Willow nodded. “Yes. When I was younger there were several that I would see. But we grew apart. I couldn’t relate to them very well. By the time I was of high-school age, it was just me and the rest of the pack.”

Aiden reached out and laid his hand on top of hers where it rested on the granite countertop. “I’m sorry. That must have been incredibly lonely.”

“It was,” she agreed. “For a long time. Until you came along.” She lifted her eyes to see him staring back at her with an intensity that momentarily left her so terrified she couldn’t speak.

The silence between them was deafening.

Aiden broke it at last, though his eyes never moved. “Don’t say things like that unless you mean them, Willow.”

She raised both her eyebrows. “Have I really given you the impression that I’m prone to lying and saying important things without thinking them through?”

“No,” he admitted, his expression softening. “No, you haven’t.”

“Good. Then don’t give me any of that shapeshifter intimidation bullshit. I know what I’m about, and what this could lead to. I’ve grown up around werewolves my entire life.”

“True. But none of them are mated, which is a problem in and of itself,” he said, body relaxing as the moment passed.

“Neither are we,” she pointed out before she could stop herself.

What the hell are you doing, woman?

Aiden smiled, but said nothing.

Willow was confused. She’d expected more of a reaction than that, depending on how Aiden was viewing the situation. Her general denial was supposed to bring out his emotions, so that she could see how he reacted. But by simply smiling, he was refusing to do that. As if he knew her plan! It was mildly infuriating, and yet she somehow found herself smiling alongside him as well.

“Does your father not allow the others to mate?”

She shrugged. “No idea. I’ve never asked. But come on, you know them. They’re dicks. Who would want to stick with any of them?”

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But you stick with your father despite his actions, so I figure there are probably others out there who would put up with them. I just didn’t know if they were banned from doing so.”

Willow narrowed her eyes.

Aiden

Aiden cursed his choice of timing.

He hadn’t meant for his words to come out the way they had. Now was not the time he’d intended to reveal to her what he knew of her father’s lies. Things between him and Willow were still too unstable; it was highly unlikely she would believe him to be telling the truth. Instead, she was more likely to turn on him and push him away. But it was too late now. He’d opened the box, and there was no putting it back away judging by the look on her face. The only thing left to do was face the storm head-on.

“What do you mean by that?” Willow’s voice was deceptively kind.

If he was going to have this conversation though, Aiden wasn’t going to play around. Doing so would allow Willow to keep her blinders on, and he needed to get her to finally say what she’d been refusing to admit to herself for a long time now. He just hoped their relationship could recover from it.

“Don’t give me any of that bullshit,” he said in a neutral tone. “You know as well as I do that your father is up to something, and whatever it is, it’s not good.”

“What are you talking about?”

He slashed at the air with a hand. “Enough, Willow. Stop living with blinders on, just because you want to refuse to acknowledge what’s going on. But I know you, you’re not stupid, not even a little. You see what’s going on. You aren’t naïve enough to actually believe that your father has a government contract of some sort, and that’s what all the late-night secrets are all about. Don’t play with me. You see it, you know better, you just don’t want to admit to it. Why?”

She shook her head in denial, but he could see in her eyes that she knew the truth. What was it that was keeping her so willing to support him? What had he done to earn her loyalty?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My father adopted me when he didn’t have to, and he’s raised me on his own. He is a good man.”

“No, he’s not, Willow.” Aiden desperately wanted to step forward, to take her in his arms and hold her, to let her know that he was there for her.

But she wouldn’t understand. So he kept his distance, and tried his best not to weep as he brought the last pillar of her world crashing down around her.

“He’s lying to you.”

Her green eyes went glacially cold. “He’s never told me one way or another what his contract is about. I don’t ask, because it’s his business. He hasn’t lied to me.”

Other than telling you it’s a government contract…

But that’s not what he had to say.

“That’s not what I was referring to, Willow.”

She frowned. “What else could he be lying to me about?”

Aiden swallowed nervously, not wanting to continue. Something about his expression must have clued her in to what he was talking about. Willow’s eyes grew wide and she started to shake her head quickly back and forth. “No. I don’t believe you. It’s you. You’re the lying one.”

“You know that’s not true,” he said gently. “Deep in your heart, you can hear the truth in my words. The truth you’ve never heard from him. He’s lying about your family, Willow. Whatever happened to them, it wasn’t the work of a rogue shifter.”

“How do you know that?” She was near tears.

“Because, Willow. All wild shifters are reported and logged. There’s also a huge bonus for bringing one down, as incentive for ensuring people don’t forget to log it.”

“So?” She crossed her arms defiantly, but the doubt was plain to see in her eyes.

“So? Willow, there is no record of a wild shifter anywhere near here thirty-five years ago. Nothing on three years either way. So unless you were a three-year-old when he adopted you…?”

She shook her head. “No. I was only six months old.”

He looked away, unable to bear the way he was destroying the only world she’d ever known. Why did it have to be him doing this? He didn’t want to see her like this, in this much pain, let alone hurting because of what he’d done!

“He’s lying to you, Willow. I don’t know why, but he is.”

She stood there, coffee forgotten and cooled by now, leaning against the island in the kitchen, staring desolately at the floor off to his right. For five minutes Willow didn’t speak. She just stared at something only she could see.

“Why are you here then?”

The question caught him completely off guard. “What?”

“If my father is such an evil person, and is involved in something bad, then why are you still here? Why not…” Her head came snapping up, eyes ablaze with jade fire. “You weren’t banished from your pack…were you? This is all an elaborate setup to take my father down.” Her face flushed with fury. “Mack always was trying to get rid of him. He doesn’t like my father. So now he’s sent you here as a spy to try and take him down from the inside!”

Aiden’s mouth hung open for a second, and Willow used that time to formulate her next argument. But he recovered in time, speaking harshly to her for the first time.

“Willow, Stephen has tried to have Mack assassinated no less than four times. Because he wants to be the regional Alpha. He doesn’t want to challenge him directly, because he would lose! So he wants him out of the way. Mack dislikes Stephen because he’s a coward and power-hungry. And because he tried to kill him! That’s a perfectly valid reason in my opinion. And before you ask, I helped thwart two of the attempts, so I know for a fact they aren’t lies.”

She looked away.

“Stephen is not the person you think he is, Willow.” Aiden paused for a moment, wringing his hands before rubbing his face. “I’m sorry. This is not the way I wanted to do things, or how I saw this morning going. But I’m telling you the truth. I know you can hear it in my voice. You don’t want to believe it—you want to hate me and tell me to get out, I’m sure. But that can’t stop the fact that you need to stop hiding from this, and take some responsibility yourself.”

“He’s my father,” she whispered.

“No. He’s a liar who adopted you for his own reasons. He’s also a criminal, probably in both the human world and mine. There’s little I can do to stop what’s already started, Willow. I’m sorry…I…” He trailed off, looking up at her, seeing the fire in her eyes fade, replaced by bitter agony and possibly even betrayal. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, not knowing what else to say.

Willow was shaking her head. “Get out.” She pointed at the door. “Now.”

Aiden sighed, looking down at the floor in defeat. “Willow, this isn’t going to fix anything.”

“Get. Out,” she hissed with barely constrained fury. “Now.”

He pushed off his resting post on the far side of the island from her. “This doesn’t change what I said. You can deny it as long as you want to try and continue to live in your fake little world, but you know it’s a lie as much as I do. It’s time to move on, Willow. I know you’re scared, but if you’ll let me, I’ll help you as much as I can.”

She looked up at him. “I believed my father too when he told me similar things. Now you tell me he’s a liar. Why the hell should I believe you? Get the fuck out of my house.”

He grimaced. “Fine.”

“Good. You know what? I’m going to go ask him now, to find out the truth. You’ll see. He does care. He loves me. He wouldn’t lie about my birth family. That’s not who he is.”

Aiden rolled his eyes at the denial in her voice. “You’re going to be disappointed. Even more so when I return with proof that Stephen isn’t the man you think he is.”

He spun on his heel and started to leave.

“How are you going to do that?” she asked.

Aiden didn’t answer. If she admitted to herself what was going on, she would know what he was going to go do.

Aiden

Getting into Stephen’s shipping facility was the easy part. Within the first three days Aiden had figured out two separate methods of entry.

Two days later though he’d been given an access code to the rear door so that he could help load a van with some packages and not get locked out. He assumed it was a slip-up on Langdon’s part, because he hadn’t been entrusted with any other information since. Now though it served to easily grant him entry inside where he could snoop around privately. He opened the door and slipped inside, ready to work his way through the warehouse in darkness.

There was one little problem with that plan: the lights were on.

Aiden froze. Shit.

Did Stephen keep a guard here on the weekends? Or was someone else here for different reasons? His eyes scanned the floor, but he saw no movement. Whoever was here, they must be in one of the offices along the wall to his left.

Unless someone just left the lights on? A quick check of his memory told him that no, he remembered the lights being turned off before they left on Friday. Someone was definitely here. The question was who, why, and where were they? If it was a member of the pack, Aiden would just tell them that Stephen had sent him to retrieve something from his desk. A trivial task that he wouldn’t give to one of the others, but that the new guy was perfectly suited for.

If it was someone else though, there might be trouble. Reluctantly he prepared himself to fight. It was strange, putting himself in that sort of mindset. Other than the night he’d gone with Flint, Aiden had spent so much effort into keeping calm and refraining from fighting, that conjuring the urge to do so now was almost difficult.

Almost.

“Aiden?”

He jerked in surprise as Patrice’s voice echoed out from the stacks straight ahead of him.

“Holy shit, you surprised me,” he said, giving the other shifter a wave. “I thought you were up in the offices. I was going to sneak up and surprise you.” He smiled, trying to act as if he was mildly upset his plan hadn’t worked, not that he’d been caught red-handed.

“Sorry about that. I was just stretching the ol’ legs. Guard duty can get pretty boring, you know?”

He nodded. “Yep, I know. Well, I guess I don’t. Haven’t been trusted with that yet. But, in general I understand.”

“Why are you here?” There was no suspicion in his voice. Perfect.

“Stephen needed a phone number from his desk. Something to do with those humans who tried to ambush Flint and me Friday night. He certainly wasn’t going to send Flint on a little errand, so guess who drew the short stick?”

Patrice laughed, falling in step next to him as they walked past the conveyor belts toward Stephen’s office. “Hey, you’re talking to the guy who works almost every Sunday here. Trust me, I completely understand.”

Aiden frowned to himself. Every Sunday? How had he missed that little bit of information! Sloppy, Aiden. Sloppy. If you’d been more involved with the pack, you might have figured that one out already. He would keep that in mind for the next time he was forced to be a spy, which would hopefully be never. After what he’d been forced to do to Willow, Aiden hated himself and the whole operation. He was ready for it to be over.

“So, anything fun going on back at the—”

CLANG!

Patrice fell to the ground in a heap, bleeding from where Aiden had reached up and grabbed the back of his head and slammed him face-first into one of the giant metal support beams that kept the roof up.

“Sorry about that,” he muttered. “But I don’t have time for your small talk.”

He stepped over the body and hurried to the far wall. Instead of Stephen’s office though, he kicked open the door to the room next to it. This room was obscured by double doors, and the shifters going in always waited for one set to close before they opened the next. Whatever was going on behind here was a secret they didn’t want him or any other visitor seeing. The next set of doors opened just as easily, admitting him into the room.

“What the fuck?” He walked forward several steps and looked around.

It was empty. Completely, and totally empty.

“Ooookay. That’s weird.”

Confused, he went back out into the main section, grabbed Patrice’s limp body, and dragged it in after him. Then he slapped the smaller shifter several times until he came around.

“What the fu—”

Aiden drove his fist into one of his kidneys. The other werewolf curled over in pain.

“What goes on this room?” he snarled.

“Fuck you.”

“Wrong answer, bud,” he muttered, grabbing Patrice by an ankle, whirling him around and launching him into the wall along the rear of the building. The cinderblocks cracked and dust flew everywhere as Patrice slipped to the floor, moaning incoherently.

“What goes on in here? There’s more to this room than just this emptiness. Tell me.”

Patrice spat, blood and more than a few teeth coming with it. He was too weak for it to hit Aiden, but it splattered on the floor nearby.

“I really don’t want to have to torture you for the answer, P. Just be a good boy and give it up.”

A shake of the head was his answer.

Aiden sighed, leaned forward, and grabbed Patrice’s wrist as he swung a punch at him. Aiden snarled, twisted his hand around and then drove the other down hard onto the elbow joint. Things cracked and made disgusting noises. Patrice howled in pain.

“Tell me!”

“Go suck your momma’s—”

Aiden slapped Patrice twice in the face, grabbed his neck, and hurled him against the opposite wall.

“That will be the last time you mention my mother,” he said calmly as he walked over.

Patrice was slumped on the floor, back against the wall, feet outstretched.

“Ready to talk?”

The werewolf weakly lifted his good arm and extended the middle finger. It was curled and unable to straighten, but the point was there.

“This is just not going the way I expected it to,” Aiden said with a sigh. Then he stomped on Patrice’s ankle, crushing bone before he ground his foot back and forth, turning more of the bone into dust.

“So, ready to talk yet?”

But Patrice was too overwhelmed with pain to respond. He just kept rocking back and forth, tears streaming down his face as he tried to handle the pain.

Aiden grabbed his good ankle, pivoted and set his feet. “Last chance,” he prompted.

The foot jerked in his grip in an attempt to wrench it free.

“Fine.” Aiden hauled on the leg, tossing Patrice at the wall opposite the one he came through. “Have it your—”

He’d timed his sentence to complete when the wreck that had once been a human-looking person hit the wall. But when Patrice went sailing right through an incredibly well-concealed set of doors, his timing was interrupted.

“Well look at that. You wanted to help after all!” he crowed. “So nice of you.”

The room beyond was dark, except for a number of soft blue glowing lights. Aiden walked forward. He’d never thought that perhaps Stephen owned more of the building than just the shipping facility. But the room beyond was so large it had to be two or three of the units next to them as well. Which meant that the signs out front of them were all cover for what was actually going on.

“Which is what?” he murmured to himself as he stared at row upon row of blue lights. They were coming from some sort of boxy contraption, one that looked oddly like a shortened version of a coffin.

He walked up to the first of them and peered inside. His eyes widened as he realized what it was he was actually seeing.

“Oh. Shit.”

Willow

She returned to her room to cry where nobody could see her.

How could Aiden do this to her? After all she’d done for him, after she’d given herself to him, both her mind and her body. Apparently that wasn’t enough though. He needed her soul as well, which he was trying to take by severing all the connections she’d known.

That doesn’t make any sense, girl.

Okay. Maybe it didn’t. But it didn’t mean that he wasn’t acting jealous, trying to get her to abandon her father so that he could be the only man in her life.

You know that’s a stretch.

“Stop it!” she snapped, speaking out loud to her inner voice. It had always been pragmatic when forced to acknowledge something. Normally Willow appreciated that, but now that she wanted to keep living in the perfect little world she’d constructed, its inability to believe the lies and falsehoods that surrounded her was extremely annoying.

Aiden was lying. He had to be lying. Oh, Willow could buy in to the fact that maybe her father was doing some things that weren’t…strictly speaking illegal. But whatever it was, she was sure it was for a good reason. Wasn’t she?

Why would you be sure of that?

Angrily she tried to come up with logical reasons, but each of them fell apart as she tried to construct an argument around them.

Okay, fine. Maybe he is involved with something shady or even illegal. But he’s not lying to me about what happened to my family. He wouldn’t do that.

Would he?

The question echoed around in her head. Willow was torn on this one. She obviously wanted to believe he was telling the truth, that her family had been killed in an unfortunate attack by a wild shifter. But the truth in Aiden’s voice, the way he’d told her not what had actually happened, but simply that it hadn’t happened the way her father told her, that was near impossible to ignore. He didn’t know any better than she did why Stephen might have lied to her. That was the part that made it believable. Or at least, not immediately unbelievable.

So what did she do? The answer was obvious, but for a solid half an hour she shied away from it, unwilling to confront that particular path. But as the noise outside in the house increased and the pack came awake, Willow knew she would never be satisfied unless she confronted her father and got the truth out of him. She’d learned to read him well, and since this wasn’t a question she’d ever asked before, or something she’d ever seemed to doubt, any surprise should be easy for her to pick up.

“You can do this.” The spoken encouragement didn’t help.

“Fine. You’re a coward if you don’t.”

Willow was on her feet ten seconds later. For whatever reason, that particular designation had always been something she’d feared being assigned to her. She may not be a fighter, but she was no coward.

The walk out of her room and through the house to her father’s office downstairs felt like the longest steps of her life. Twice she paused, and once she even turned around to head back upstairs, hoping to put the conversation off to a later point in time. But she didn’t. Her hands were shaking and she was on the verge of tears, but Willow wound some coil around her fragile mind and yanked it tight, forcing herself to keep it together until she could get through this.

Then, and only then, if her fears were confirmed, would she allow herself to have the mental breakdown that was likely to come with having her entire world torn apart. The fact that she was already preparing for that eventuality told Willow several things in itself, but she refused to acknowledge them just then. First her father. Then her.

His office door was closed, but he responded readily when she knocked on it.

“Can I speak to you?” she asked, pushing the door open.

“I’m sort of busy right now, Wil, but once I’m done, of course.”

She stood her ground, not willing to take his dismissal. “Please, Father. I don’t ask much of you. But I need to talk now.”

It wasn’t hard to pick up on the fact that she was in distress. It had to be practically etched on to her face. Stephen nodded to Flint and Orren, dismissing his two senior-most lieutenants. The werewolves nodded respectfully at her as they passed, then closed the door behind them.

“What is it?”

She noticed he didn’t get up from behind his desk.

“I need to know something.”

“Of course. Anything.” He spread his hands wide, then indicated she should take a seat.

Willow approached, but she remained standing. She caught his gaze and kept it, staring into his stormy gray eyes. “Father, what really happened to my family?”

If she hadn’t been looking for it, she never would have seen the slight tightening around the corners of his eyes, or the way his pupils dilated ever so much. But it was enough.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

His voice was tighter than normal too.

“Your parents and older brother were attacked by a wild werewolf. I’ve told you this before. We were on his tail, closing in on him, but we were too late. By the time we arrived and dealt with him, the only one left alive was you.”

Stephen—not her father, but Stephen, the pack leader—got to his feet with a sigh, coming to wrap his arms around her. “Willow, you know how sorry I am that I couldn’t do more. It is my biggest regret in life.”

She heard the lie in his tone now.

“Why is this coming up now?”

“What was his name?” She worked herself free of his grip, pretending to pace back and forth, but putting herself closer to the door. “The shifter. What was his name?”

Stephen seemed to grow a little more angry. “I don’t recall, Willow. It was nearly thirty-five years ago. My memory is hazy. I could find out, I just need to look at the records.”

She latched on to that. “Records?” she asked. “What records?”

“The ones that I submitted to the regional Alpha at the time.” He shrugged and turned to face the window. “Any time there’s a wild Were, of any sort, we’re required to file a report if we take it down.” He rested one hand on the window behind his desk, looking out from it. “I don’t agree with everything regional does, but on this, we are in complete agreement.”

“What is it with the questions today?” he asked. “Why are you bringing this up again?” His eyes narrowed. “Does it have anything to do with Aiden?”

Willow shook her head, not answering. “I just want to know the truth.”

Anger flared in his gaze as he spun to face her. “Excuse me?” he snarled.

“I want to know what happened to my family!”

“I told you what happened!” he raged. “What is Aiden telling you?”

“He’s telling me more truth than you are,” she fired back. “He doesn’t like lying to me. But apparently you do!”

“I’m not lying!” Stephen’s knuckles were starting to turn white.

“Sure. Like you’re telling the truth about those ‘government’ contracts you have. Or the private room, where you do stuff that I’m not allowed to see. Totally aboveboard, and not trying to hide anything at all.” She was crying now, but it didn’t matter. “I believed you, because you gave me no reason to doubt you. But now I find out you’ve been lying to me the entire time. Since I was an infant. You’re all I ever knew. How could you do this to me?”

“I didn’t do anything to you!” Stephen snapped at her, and she saw his façade crumble, revealing to her the monster behind it all.

Willow gasped and stepped back.

“Where is Aiden?” the Alpha snarled. “Tell me where he is.”

Willow went to the door and opened it. “I don’t know. Probably off finding proof of how much of an asshole you are. Goodbye, Stephen .”

She stepped through the door, not even bothering to close it. Behind her a howl of rage erupted from the room. Her father came storming out.

“Orren!” he shouted. The third-most senior werewolf stepped around the corner.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Take her to her room. She’s not to leave. I’m going to the facility. Our newest member is apparently smarter than we gave him credit for. Summon the others, be prepared to come to my assistance or…well…just be prepared! Have Deckard look after her.”

Then he was gone.

Willow watched her father go, frozen in shock at the sudden change in him, as well as the order he’d just given. Put her under house arrest? What the hell had she done?!

“Don’t you touch me,” she said as Orren came closer. “Stay back!”

The shifter sneered as he came closer.

Willow screamed and tried to dodge around him. If she could just make it to the garage, maybe she could get a vehicle and escape.

An iron vise-like grip closed around her wrist as Orren’s fingers snagged her easily. “I don’t think so. Let’s go, this way.” He wrenched her arm around her back and forced her stumbling down the hallway and up the stairs.

Willow wanted to struggle, but she was so unprepared for what was happening that she simply did not know what to do. This was not the way things were supposed to happen.

She could only hope that Aiden was more prepared than her. That perhaps he would learn of her plight and come rescue her. Or else…

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked nervously as Orren shoved her into her room.

“With luck, never have to put up with you again,” he replied before slamming the door in her face.

Willow backed into her room, looking around nervously. This wasn’t at all the way she’d expected things to go. What had happened to her father? Why had he so easily turned on her? She hadn’t done anything to him!

Despite her best efforts, and the self-directed anger for her perceived weakness, Willow began to cry. She cried for the danger she knew she was in now, but most importantly, she cried to remember the life that had been nothing more than a lie.

Aiden

A pair of unfocused blue eyes looked out at him.

Aiden hissed in fury as he recognized what was going on. Everything fell into place now. What the chambers in this room were, what the human gunmen the other day had been trying to stop. Even the thousands of near-transparent white packages he’d picked up with Willow made sense.

He stepped back, looking around the room in horror.

It was a shifter blood bank. He counted thirty total. Five rows of six. Each of the little coffin-shaped metal boxes was a containment for a shifter. Looking inside again he could see the lines hooked to their veins. Lines that were both pumping them full of drugs to keep them out, removing blood from their system, while also injecting IV fluids and other necessary things to keep their bodies fueled.

“Those assholes,” he snarled. “I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill them all!”

Selling shifter blood was among the worst crimes a shifter could commit. To humans, shifter blood was an opiate with the addiction level of fentanyl, higher than that of heroin or cocaine, while lacking the lethal side effects of overdosing. A human quite literally could not OD on shifter blood. They would go on an insane trip that would last for hours or days, but in the end, they would always come down unharmed.

Which is why it was sold at such a premium. But it ruined lives. Aiden had seen that firsthand during his time on the Regional Response Team. They’d broken up two rings like this in his time. Both of them had only been small-time and operating for no more than a few months before they were brought down. Yet despite that, thousands of lives had been ruined, destroying families and relationships. In some cases, he knew addicts had even ended up committing suicide when it was revealed they couldn’t get any more of their fix.

It was a horrible, horrible thing to do, and one reason why it was outlawed in the shifter world. Period. There were no loopholes, no places on the planet where it was allowed. Nothing. It was one of the few things the various Were-Councils could agree upon with one hundred percent unanimity.

But motherfucking, sheep-sucking, shit-for-brains Stephen had gone and broken that code. Not only a little, where perhaps he bled his men once or twice a week and sold that. No, he had dozens of shifters in captivity, and was bleeding them constantly .

“How the hell did this fly under the radar for so long?” he muttered, still stunned by the ego necessary for such an operation. This was by far the biggest operation he’d ever heard of.

He felt bad for taking down those human gunmen the other night. Now suddenly he understood. They weren’t cops, they were simply men who had had enough of this drug trade happening in their backyard, and wanted to put an end to it.

Well, so did Aiden. But how?

That question was a little beyond him. He wandered around the room, finding several control panels.

“But which one is it?” He was speaking to himself now, talking aloud while he punched buttons, scrolled through screens and menus. But there was no simple option for “turn it all the fuck off.”

Damn, so much for simplicity. Why is there never a big red STOP button when you really need it?

The truth was, Aiden had no idea how to shut it down without harming the occupants inside. He could start killing power, ripping things apart, that sort of thing for sure. But there was exactly zero guarantee that the shifters being bled would emerge from it alive. He was going to have to report this. Thankfully, due to the severity of the crime, he could simply call the regional office—Mack’s pack house—and leave an anonymous tip about a blood bank. They would check it out regardless.

So he pulled out his cellphone and made a call, hanging up shortly.

“Shit.”

Another thought came to him. This was going to destroy Willow. When she found out that her father was a drug lord, it would absolutely devastate her. Aiden slumped as he headed for the exit. Why him? The last thing he wanted to do was to have to give her more bad news, to destroy her world some more. She didn’t deserve that. Head bowed in defeat, he didn’t even hear the movement ahead of him until a voice spoke.

“Aiden?”

He jerked. “Stephen?”

“What’s going on here?”

“I don’t know,” he said, trying to play it off. Improv had never been a strong suit of his, but he needed time to collect himself. “I came in to get a shirt I forgot that I wanted to wear out tonight, when I saw the doors there were wide open.” He pointed behind Stephen at the double doors he’d tossed Patrice through. “Then I saw Patrice lying on the floor and I came to check.”

He pointed at the unconscious body between them.

Stephen nodded. “How is Patrice?”

“He was still out cold when I tried to wake him. I thought I heard a noise, so I went to investigate. But I couldn’t find anyone. Whoever they are, they’re long gone.”

It was obvious the Alpha didn’t believe him for an instant.

“Indeed.”

Aiden paused, trying to act surprised. “Why are you here?”

Stephen shrugged. “Well,” he started pacing back and forth in front of the entrance. “I was in my office having a meeting with Flint and Orren. We usually do that every Sunday you see.”

Aiden nodded, his eyes watching Stephen closely. He was up to something. His pacing was absolutely on purpose, heading toward an end result that Aiden couldn’t quite pick up on yet. Was it a distraction? He’d searched the room fairly carefully; there didn’t appear to be any other entrances or exits, or ways for others to sneak in behind him. Trying to disguise it as scratching his face, Aiden lifted his nose and tested the air.

All he could smell were Patrice, Stephen, and the vast amounts of metal around him. No other scents reached his nose.

“And then, in the middle of the meeting, Willow comes barging in, says she just has to talk to me.” He stopped and gave Aiden a knowing look. “You know how women are. Tells me to dismiss my men, we need to talk now . So, I do. They leave. And then she starts to ask me questions. Questions she hasn’t asked me for years. Then she calls me a liar. ME!”

Aiden understood now. The pacing wasn’t a distraction. It was a lead-in to the anger that Stephen was doing his best to contain. He was furious, and it was dictating his actions, making him think less clearly. Perhaps Aiden could use that to his advantage somehow. He looked around as surreptitiously as he could while Aiden continued to speak.

“She proceeds to ask me what happened to her family. When I tell her, she doesn’t believe me. And you know what else she told me, Aiden? Do you?”

No, but I suspect that you’re going to tell me one way or another.

“She tells me that the person who fed her the idea that I was lying, the one causing her to question all this? That it was YOU!” The final word was a bellow, the loudness of it catching Aiden off guard.

Even as he yelled it Stephen came at him, cold fire burning in his eyes, careful training guiding his motions. Aiden dove to the side, just ahead of the charging Alpha. He had underestimated the older werewolf, assuming him to be caught up in his anger. Instead, Stephen had played him with ease, luring him into a false sense of security before attacking.

Aiden got to his feet and dodged behind the nearest container, buying himself a few moments of time as he moved deeper into the miniature maze of wires, boxes, and other equipment.

“You know what the worst part of all this is?” Stephen said, his voice echoing so much it was hard to pin his location down. “Now I’m going to need to find a new secretary.”

Aiden’s blood froze. He was going to kill Willow. His own daughter.

“Why even keep her all this time then?” he shot back, fighting for time, hoping to keep the Alpha talking.

He needed to win this fight, and win it swiftly. Aiden felt he could beat Stephen one-on-one. But to do so would require a lot of him, and he wouldn’t emerge unscathed. One way or another he was going to need to deal with the rest of the pack as well. Whether they were waiting outside for him, or back at the pack house, Aiden needed to save his energy. There was also the RRT to consider. They would be mobilizing and heading this way at all possible speed. In fact, they might be going to both here and the pack house. Aiden needed to go, and go now. The best way to do that was to not fight fair.

To cheat.

He crept around several more coffins until he found something he could use.

“I never took you for a simpleton,” Stephen said. His voice sounded more like it was coming from off to his right now. “But come on. How perfect of a cover was it? Nobody would suspect the guy who took in a human and adopted her. That’s not the sort of person that gets another look. It was the perfect cover.”

Aiden felt chills as the layers began to peel back around Stephen, revealing his true ugliness. He’d hated the bastard even before Mack had assigned him here. Now his hatred was justified even more.

“I cannot wait to take you down,” he snarled. “I was going to kill you, but now I think I’ll leave you and Patty-cakes there for the RRT. You deserve to be locked up for a long time. Death would be too kind to you.”

As soon as he finished speaking Aiden hefted the chunk of metal pipe he’d found, bouncing it off the aisle three coffins away. He spied movement as Stephen went to inspect it.

Which is when he hurled the bigger piece of pipe straight at him like a javelin.

Stephen heard something and pulled back, but not before the wobbling piece smacked sideways into his neck. The blow wouldn’t have been anything damaging, except for the fact that Aiden was charging in right behind it. He hit Stephen low, like a linebacker, intending to take him to the ground and try to choke him out.

“ARGH—”

Stephen’s voice cut off abruptly as a massive tremor ran through his body and into Aiden. He abruptly bent in half over his shoulder, and when they hit the floor, the Alpha didn’t rise.

“What the fuck?” Aiden stood up, looking at the limp body, taking several steps back in case it was a trick.

That’s when the blood started to leak from the back of Stephen’s head. He frowned and reached down for a pulse. He was still alive. Aiden had mixed feelings about that. Looking around he finally spied what had happened. The long piece of pipe had gotten jammed in the floor under one unit, and it was long enough that it stretched across the passage between it and another, like one half of an X-shape. When Aiden had tackled Stephen, he’d been low enough to go under, but clearly the back of his head had impacted on the bar, knocking him out.

Aiden smiled. That would keep him out for some time, but he needed to take it another step. Taking the long piece of pipe, he wedged it in really tight between the two coffins. Then he grabbed the shorter piece of pipe. Holding that under his chin, he placed Stephen’s hands on the ground above his head, palms up, one atop another.

“This is for threatening Willow,” he growled, and then stabbed the piece of pipe right through the middle of both hands.

Stephen awoke with a scream, but Aiden was moving swiftly and expertly. He lifted the now-pierced hands from the ground, and with a grunt of effort he folded the shorter piece of pipe around the longer one, effectively tying Stephen to the wedged piece of pipe.

“Shut up,” he snarled and knocked the Alpha unconscious with a huge right hook.

There was no more time to waste. Aiden darted for the door, phone already in hand.

Aiden: Willow! They’re going to try and kill you. Get to safety! I’m coming.

His phone buzzed before he’d fired up the truck and he glanced at it, scrambling to read it once he realized it was from Willow.

Willow: AIDEN! Oh thank God your alive. They’ve locked me in my room. I don’t know what to do. Please hurry.”

He ignored the typo, deciding to forgive her for improper spelling based on the circumstances.

“I am a generous God ,” he muttered as the tires screeched, quoting a semi-famous movie from a decade earlier.

It often amazed others how he could remain so calm under pressure, often cracking jokes and being a general wiseass regardless of the situation. But that was just the way he was. The shittier things looked, the funnier he got.

At least, that’s what Aiden thought. Not everyone always agreed with him, but whatever. He got the job done. Every time. Just like he was going to do now.

“I’m coming, Willow,” he said, repeating the line out loud as the truck tore out of the parking lot, an oncoming car swerving and slamming on the brakes to avoid hitting him.

“I’m coming.”

Willow

Aiden was right.

It irked her to admit it, even to herself. But even more than that, it hurt . Because it meant she’d been wrong. Completely, utterly wrong. Not just about something, but about everything . The way that her father— NO. He is not my father. He is “Stephen”— the way Stephen had changed so completely and without any remorse had been a cold slap across the face.

Willow was starting to wake up now, to realize just how badly she’d been played. The reason why he’d adopted her was still a mystery to her, but it didn’t matter. For whatever reason, it had all been an act. He’d never cared. All the memories she had, they were false. Lies.

The tears continued to come down her face as her life came crashing down around her. Everything she’d thought she’d known was going up in flames. Burn it all, she figured. It was time to start fresh. The blinders were off now. No more looking the other direction.

She walked over to the door and locked it. Then she started piling objects in front of the doorway, pushing furniture, whatever she could to block the doorway.

“What are you doing in there?” Deckard called, pounding on the doorway.

“Throwing a hissyfit and preparing to smash some shit, you arrogant micro-penis!” she hollered back, surprised at her own vocabulary. “Now fuck the hell off and let me rage in peace.”

There was no more calling from the other side. But moments later she heard a plethora of voices start cursing. Heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway, and suddenly everything was silent.

Willow sniffed in derision. “Well then. It’s about time they gave me the respect I deserve.”

The sudden noise of something bouncing off her window caught her attention. She ran over to it and opened it.

“Aid—Pleh!” She spat the pebble that had landed in her mouth back out. “What the fuck, dude? You just threw that in my mouth! You need to ask before you do that!”

Aiden stood on the ground, arm raised to throw another pebble. “Uh, sorry,” he said, caught off guard.

“Seriously? You’re going to let me get the better of you with one dirty comment? Let’s go, Rescue Boy. Get me the fuck out of here.”

Aiden shook his head. “Holy shit, I fucking love you.”

She hadn’t been intending to hear those words, but they were said loud enough she could pick it up. A grin spread across her face as she realized, right then and there, that she felt the same. This man, this incredible man. He was hers and she wanted to be his oh so badly. It wasn’t going to be easy, and she was going to need some time to adjust to the complete upheaval and betrayal of her past life. But if he would stick by her and accept her nervousness over trusting someone again, she knew they could create a life together that others would only dream of.

“Yeah? Well get up here and say that to my face so that I can show you my response.”

“You need to jump,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll catch you. But we need to go. Now . There is exactly zero time, Willow. Let’s go!”

Jump? It was two stories down. Two big stories. That was a long, long way to fall. She knew Aiden was strong, but the idea of just blindly launching herself out the window was terrifying.

“Um, are you sure?”

“Yes! Positive! There are things going on you don’t know about. We need to GO!”

His tone was urgent enough to spur her into action. Willow ripped the screen off with a burst of strength she hadn’t realized she possessed. Then, backing up, she prepared to jump.

“GO!” he shouted from outside.

She started to run forward at the same instant the door behind her exploded inward under a massive blow. A huge body—Rokk—came through the door. Furniture and objects sprayed outward in a half-circle as he bulldozed his way through. A spinning piece of a chest took her in the side, throwing her off balance.

“AIDEN!” she shrieked as she fell to the floor.

Rokk was on her in a second, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “I don’t think so,” he rumbled. “We have other plans for you. Let’s go.”

She beat and pounded on his back, but it was no use. The werewolf was far too strong for her to resist.

Behind her there was a roar and a huge figure came through the window, taking out the frame with it. Aiden thrashed his way into the house just as Rokk exited the room and ran down the hallway. Another shifter ran into the room to take him on. Langdon, she thought, but it was too fast for her to see. They retreated to Stephen’s study.

Stephen was there. His hands were a mess, covered in gauze that was soaked with red. Fury was etched in his features as he looked upon her while Flint wrapped the gauze around one palm then the other.

“I’m going to kill him,” her non-father snarled. “Slowly, and as excruciatingly painfully as I can, he will die. And you will watch.”

Rokk tossed her into a chair and then went to help Orren and Deckard, who were barricading the door behind them. They shoved a huge wardrobe in front of the door, then the massive oak desk, and piled other tables and chairs in front of it.

Orren tore up some floorboards and was in the process of wedging things tighter when a werewolf missile came hurtling through the doors, shattering the barricade in the process. The beaten and bloodied form hit the far wall, nearly going right through it before bouncing off. At first she feared that it was Aiden, but as the others reacted with anger and turned to face the door, she saw through the bruised and bloodied face that it was Langdon.

“Let her go.” The voice that came through from the hallway didn’t sound like it was coming from any human throat. It was too deep, snarly, and sounded like there were teeth in the way.

“Fuck you!” Flint shouted. “Why should we? There’s more of us than there are you. You’re screwed.”

She edged closer until she could see into the hole. Aiden was standing there, his features enlarged and filled with animal qualities. She gasped. He was holding his shifter-change in check, giving him some of the animal qualities while still in human form. His jaw was a little longer and filled with more teeth, his limbs more fluid, and long claws could be seen in place of his fingernails.

Oh, and there was midnight black fur everywhere. He still looked more human than not, but it was an unbelievable display of power that she knew very few could handle.

“Not nearly as screwed as you think,” the man-wolf hissed. She watched him reach into his pocket and remove a cell phone, waving it at Stephen’s pack.

“Oh no. What are you going to do, call the police?”

Aiden sighed visibly. “No, you gargoyle, it’s not what I’m going to do. It’s what I already did.”

There was a massive BOOM! from what sounded like the front door. The entire house shook.

“What was that?” Stephen asked, sounding a bit panicky.

“That,” Aiden said, supplying the answer, “would be the first half of the RRT that I summoned. The second should be here any mome—”

Willow screamed and dove for cover as the glass ceiling above them shattered and half a dozen figures came leaping down into her father’s study.

Aiden

He hadn’t expected them to come from the ceiling of the office. It was a nice touch, he had to admit, but it was unexpected.

“Willow!” he roared, dashing forward even as she ran toward him, hands over her head to protect herself from the rain of deadly shards.

Reaching her side, he snatched her up into his arms and darted out into the house. Behind them the rest of the pack bellowed and took up pursuit. All around the house more sounds could be heard.

“Damn, they must have brought two teams. That’s some serious firepower.”

He swung around the corner, deposited Willow on her feet, waited a second with his head cocked, and then kicked out. Hard. His foot lashed out past the corner and took the lead shifter in the chest. The motion was so quick he never even saw who it was.

“Time to go!” he yelped, snatching Willow up and heading down the hallway, picking up speed as he went. The others were right behind and catching up. They didn’t have to worry about keeping a woman in their arms safe, so they ran with reckless abandon.

“You guys should try to escape!” he shouted back at them. “Priorities!”

The growls only grew louder.

“I don’t think they agree,” Willow said as she bounced in his arms.

“You know, I think you’re right. You should try.”

“Go run and hide like the flea-bitten cowardly dogs you are!” she cried. There was a brief pause. “It didn’t work. I think they’re getting madder now.”

“Well, that happens when you call them dogs,” he said conversationally, turning a corner and heading for the staircase.

“It was just a joke,” she complained. “Can’t they—Ooph!—Hey, driver. Doesn’t this thing come with shocks or something? What’s with the rough ride?”

He snorted. “You took forever to get in the cab. It’s not my fault we’re behind schedule now.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs in a hurry, mostly because he took it in two bounds, holding Willow tight to his chest to try and minimize the bumping around. He was halfway turned toward the right when Willow hammered on his shoulder.

“GO LEFT!” she screamed.

Aiden didn’t hesitate, he just flung himself to the left. A split second later two wolves went sailing right through the space he would have been. Instead of landing on him and taking him to the ground, they both hit the hardwood floor. Paws searched for traction that wasn’t there. Amid yelps and snaps at each other they went down. Their momentum carried them into the wall that stopped them dead.

Aiden didn’t stick around to see any more. He was already tilting his body forward and accelerating once more. Stephen’s pack wouldn’t stay down, they would keep coming after him.

“They’re going to catch up,” Willow said, looking over his shoulder as he raced for the back door.

She was right.

“End of the line, please exit the vehicle to your left,” he said, and tossed Willow to his left.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” she yelped in midair, before landing on the couch he’d aimed for. “Ooooh, you’re so lucky, mister!”

All around them the house was shaking as the RRT closed in on them. He could hear shouts and noises. It felt like the entire house was being invaded. There were only three teams in the entire city. To cover a population of nearly a hundred thousand shifters among almost five million humans if you included the suburbs, that was not much. Had all three been tasked with hitting the pack house at once?

Aiden just needed to keep the two of them alive until the teams reached them. For once he was annoyed at the fact that Stephen’s house was so incredibly huge. But for now, he had to focus on stopping the rest of the pack.

The two wolves he saw first came at him, having recovered before the others could join them. He didn’t wait for them to reach him. He charged right at them, relying on momentum and inertia. He lowered his shoulder and simply plowed right through the first wolf. The second snapped at his leg, drawing blood, but they went past each other so quickly there was no time to do more than worry at the flesh.

Aiden dealt simply with the snarling wolf he’d shouldered. He fell on it with one knee. Bone cracked and he lifted a hand and drove it straight into the wolf’s neck. It yelped and flailed weakly, stunned by the blow.

“AIDEN!”

He turned at the shriek, realizing his mistake. By letting the second wolf past him, he’d given it free access to Willow.

“I don’t think so,” he growled, searching around for something to throw at the wolf as it stalked toward his mate.

It prepared to pounce, so Aiden sent the only thing within reach. Two hundred pounds of angry wolf went sailing through the air. He smiled as the stalking wolf went down. Hard. He ran forward, kneed it in the head as it tried to rise, and grabbed Willow’s hand, yanking her off the couch.

“What the hell was that?” she asked as they ran for the back door, almost there.

Oddly enough, he noted that it hadn’t been burst in yet. Behind them there were shouts as the RRT teams found the various members of the pack and rounded them up. Two snarls told Aiden they weren’t in the clear just yet.

“A detour,” he replied, not caring that the comment didn’t make a lot of sense. “Get behind me.”

Willow barely had time to comply before he spread his arms wide and threw himself through the glass, taking out as much of it as possible so that Willow didn’t get cut.

“GET ON THE GROUND!”

He turned to see a RRT member come at him.

“Hey, it’s me, Aiden. I called this in, I—”

The other werewolf hit him hard and dropped him to the ground. Aiden hadn’t been expecting it and was caught completely off guard.

“I SAID GET ON THE GROUND, YOU PIECE OF SHIT.”

“Are you fucking serious?” he snarled. “I’m Aiden. I fucking called this in. You were supposed to leave me unharmed!”

Beside him Willow was also forced to the ground. Seeing her facedown on the concrete patio immediately outside the door made his blood boil and he began to struggle. He kicked out at the nearest werewolf, pushing him back. With a low growl he snapped the bonds they’d been trying to get around his wrists and got to his feet.

“I’m. On. Your. Side,” he snapped as two more closed in on him.

“That’s not what we were told,” one of them said warily.

“Who the fuck told you? I spoke to Mack personally. He said he’d get word to you guys.”

Aiden’s stomach was already sinking before a familiar figure walked into his vision from the side of the house.

“You,” he snarled. “You’re the ass who didn’t tell them that I was one of the good guys.”

Rayne, Mack’s second-in-command, smiled happily. “But Aiden, you aren’t one of the good guys.”

“Bullshit. You know exactly what Mack told you. That he sent me here undercover to find out what Stephen was up to. Well, now we know! He was a blood smuggler. I found his lab. I reported it to Mack.”

Willow gasped from on the ground next to him. “He was selling your blood?”

“Not mine,” Aiden said angrily, never taking his eyes off of Rayne, who was dressed in a sweatshirt and sweatpants. Easily removable clothing. There was more going on here than he thought. Was he going to use this to kill Aiden, to claim he was killed during the assault on the house?

“Whose then?”

“He had thirty shifters he kept drugged in the other half of the building at work. I found it out today when I accidentally threw Patrice through the wall.”

“You threw...but…I don’t understand,” she said, finally getting to her feet as well.

“I’ll tell you later. First I need to deal with this douchebag who thinks he can kill me now and write it off as a casualty of the assault.”

Willow stepped up next to him, the anger practically pouring off of her. Aiden could just imagine the glare she was directing at Rayne. “Who the hell does he think he is?”

“My former pack’s Beta. He thinks he’s hot shit just because I never beat his ass the way he deserves.”

“You don’t have the balls,” Rayne shot back. “You don’t have it in you. You’re not Alpha material.”

Aiden fell silent, the last point hitting home. Rayne was right. He wasn’t an Alpha. He was—

“Yes he is.” Willow’s hand landed on his shoulder. “He’s far more of an Alpha than you’ll ever be.”

Rayne’s eyes grew huge as Willow, a member of Stephen’s pack and a woman no less, called him out and insulted him in front of the few members of the RRT who stood nearby.

“That’s enough. We’re done talking,” he snarled. “Now I’m going to deal with you once and for all, and then I’m going to handle your bitch.”

“Wow, that’s a cheesy line if I ever heard one,” Aiden fired back, trying to keep calm despite the insult to Willow. He needed to keep his head about him if he was going to win this fight. “Been practicing that one in the mirror? Hoping you’d get the chance? ‘Cause really, you should have tried harder if you wanted to sound badass. I could give you a few pointers if you—LOOK OUT!”

He pushed Willow to the side as Rayne came at him, shifting as he moved. Aiden took the first blow so that he could ensure that she was safe. In hindsight that might not have been the smartest move, but he could berate himself for being full of himself later. First he had to show Rayne just how badly he’d underestimated Aiden.

His body shivered, and as he pushed Rayne clear he fell to the ground in his wolf form. It was time to rise up and show the world what he was made of.

To show Willow what he was made of. That he could be the man for her.

Willow

The two wolves stalked around each other in a circle for what felt like an eternity, feinting and dodging without ever really striking a blow. Aiden’s huge raven-furred beast against the nearly equally large white wolf that was streaked with dark gray.

When they finally closed with each other, it happened so fast she could barely keep up. The black wolf darted in with what looked to be another feint, but this time it never stopped. The other wolf was caught off guard and reacted too slow to get out of the way. Realizing it was going to take a hit, it accepted that fact and ripped a chunk of Aiden’s flank free. The dance repeated itself again and again. Neither side seemed to be gaining an advantage, though they were both covered in blood.

In the end, it was the smallest of mistakes that ended the fight. Aiden had been circling, pushing ever so much closer to his foe. The other wolf matched him stride for stride, when suddenly Aiden’s black wolf shot forward. To her eyes he appeared to be moving slower, as if he wanted to give time for the unknown fighter to back away.

Which is exactly what happened.

The white and gray wolf shuffled backward, preparing to swipe a paw across where Aiden’s face would be. Willow saw it all coming from a mile away, and she knew if she could see it, then both wolves could see it.

But what she and Aiden’s opponent had failed to notice was the ending of the stone patio. It was so large, over a hundred feet across, that they were just sort of used to it. But now it ended, and grass began. It was only a four- or five-inch drop, but when the white wolf put its weight on its back legs and they suddenly had to fall half a foot farther, it was caught completely and totally off guard.

Which is when Aiden darted in low and ripped the throat from it.

She cried out and turned around, not wanting to see the result. It wasn’t the first time she’d watched a challenge, nor the first time she’d seen a werewolf bleed out and die from the result of one. But that didn’t mean she enjoyed it.

“Okay,” she said as Aiden limped back into her view. “Now, what the fuck was that all about?” So far she’d been fairly patient, but it was about time she started getting answers about everything that had been going on.

Before she could though, she saw Aiden straighten painfully, his eyes focused on the house. Turning, she saw someone else emerge from inside. As they walked over, she saw his eyes dart back and forth between Aiden and the body. Beside her, her newfound love was holding a position of attention that had to have his body screaming with agony from the wounds.

“What is going on here?” the newcomer asked.

“Rayne decided that he could deal with me on his own,” Aiden said stiffly. “Word unfortunately was not given to your teams that I was on the inside, and they came after me as well as the rest of Stephen’s pack. When I finally got Willow to safety, two of his goons took me down.”

The two RRT members who had remained nearby for the entire thing shifted uncomfortably as the newcomer’s gaze shifted from one to the other.

“Is that true?” he asked, his voice deadly quiet.

“Uh, Rayne said it was part of the operation,” one of them protested, looking uncomfortable. “He didn’t tell us the truth. We thought we were just following orders.”

As much as she didn’t like it, even Willow could hear the truth in his voice. She wanted them to pay for aiding this Rayne in his quest to kill Aiden. But it seemed they were innocent.

“You’re fired,” the newcomer said. “Get the fuck out of my city, and never come back.”

“But—” One of them started to protest, but the rest of the words died on his lips as the newcomer took a step toward him.

“Who is this?” she asked, speaking out of the corner of her mouth. She was tired of thinking of him as “the new guy.”

“Uh, Willow, this is Mack, my former Alpha. Mack, this is Willow, the girl I told you about.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “You told him about me?”

Aiden blushed.

“Yes, he did,” Mack said, stepping in front of both of them. “He told me all about the goings-on here.”

Behind them there was the sound of a struggle. They all turned to see two more members bringing Stephen from the house, held firmly between them.

“Willow, I know we just met, and this will make me seem like an asshole, but your father has to die for his crimes.” There was an awkward pause. “Um, if you want to say anything, I’ll give you some time.”

Mack went to move away, but Willow shook her head.

“No,” she said, her voice hard. “I would have loved to speak to my father, to tell him I loved him.” She spat in Stephen’s direction. “But my father died thirty-five years ago, murdered by this pathetic asshole.”

Stephen’s eyes went wide. “Who told you?! I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them all.” He started to struggle.

Willow shook her head. He was insane. Being presented with his death had caused a break with reality in Stephen. It was most obvious in his eyes. They were wide, looking back and forth, focusing on things only he could see.

“I didn’t,” she said sadly. “I just played a hunch. I still don’t understand why.”

“I’m not sure we ever will,” Aiden said softly from next to her, taking her hand in his. “But my guess is perhaps they stumbled onto his operation and threatened to expose it. He killed them and took you in as cover, to make himself appear more down-to-earth and likable by everyone else.”

Willow nodded. “I’d come to most of that same conclusion myself.” She looked up at Mack. “Do what you have to do.”

“Inside,” Mack said, indicating he wanted it to happen out of sight.

The werewolves holding Stephen in place yanked him back to his feet and hauled him inside and away from her.

“Are you okay?” Aiden asked.

She shrugged. “Most of my entire world has been turned upside down. I’ve gone from latching on to a fake father, to a brand-new man in my life. I’m terrified that I’m going to learn that you’ve been faking everything all along.”

Aiden grimaced. “I’ve not been faking who I am, or how I feel about you. The only thing that I didn’t tell you was that Mack sent me here in hopes that I might be able to expose whatever it was your f—” he shook his head—“what Stephen was up to. I was still banished, and I’m now without a pack. That part was all true. As is the part where you’re my mate, and I am so madly in love with you. None of that was a lie, Willow, I swear to you.”

She squeezed his hand tight. “I never figured I would actually find a mate. But if I’m forced to do that, I suppose I can’t argue about it being you.” She winked.

“Just a warning. I have no idea what the future holds for me. We’ll probably have to move out of the city, find somewhere new to live. I overstayed my welcome here, and screwed up one too many times before I found something worth changing my ways for.”

Willow furrowed her eyebrows. “You did? What’s that?”

The werewolf lowered his head, shaking it slightly. It took a moment for Willow to realize it was laughter.

“You!” he said, looking up at last.

“Um, oh.” She felt rather sheepish. That was a fairly obvious answer. “Thanks?”

Aiden just shook his head a few more times and then leaned in and kissed her. “You’re welcome.”

“So, where do we go then?” The idea of leaving the city behind scared her. She’d lived here her entire life, aside from when she went away to school, but even that was in a big city. The idea of country living wasn’t something that had ever crossed her mind, even though the pack house was well outside the outskirts of town, almost enough to be classified as country living.

“You don’t have to go anywhere if you don’t want to,” Mack said, speaking up at last, having maintained polite silence.

She looked at him. “What do you mean?”

Mack glanced at Aiden, and then beyond him. “Well, there’s an opening now in my pack. If you can show me you truly have changed, then you would be welcomed back.”

Aiden stiffened next to her.

“Willow would of course be welcome too.”

Her mate relaxed somewhat, but he still seemed as hard as metal. She shook his hand. “Well, what do you say?”

“Umm, can I take a few days to think about it?”

Mack blinked in obvious surprise. “Of course. But not too long, I’ll need to fill the position soon. Seventy-two hours. No longer.”

Aiden nodded. “Right, three days. Got it.”

Willow wasn’t sure what she was missing, but one thing was clear. It was going to be an interesting next three days.

“Is there anything else?” she asked, stunned at how calm her voice sounded. “Because if not, Aiden’s going to take me to a hotel and I’m going to have a breakdown about how the life I’ve known was a lie and is gone now, if that’s okay with everyone.”

The words were barely out of her mouth when she suddenly felt dizzy as adrenaline faded and realization set in.

“Aiden.”

“Yes my love?”

“Catch me.”

“What?”

“I’m going to faint.”

And she did.

Aiden

“Have you thought about your answer to Mack yet?”

He looked up from where he was cutting the chicken that they were going to have in the salad for lunch.

Salad. Aiden hated that word. It meant green and colorful things and some sort of oily liquid poured all over it. Give him meat ‘n’ potatoes every day. Yum. Broccoli and cauliflower were acceptable as long as there was some shredded cheese to go on top. He’d also had asparagus that he’d enjoyed before, though truthfully he wasn’t sure if it was that, or the bacon it had been wrapped in. But a salad? No thanks. Not for him, if given the choice.

It made Willow happy though, and over the past three days that had been his entire world: giving her everything she wanted or needed. Attention. Space. Sex. Food. Massages or his shoulder to cry on. An ear to listen. Nothing had been too much or too little for him to give his mate as she tried to process everything that had happened in a short period of time.

Three days was not enough for her to get over it. They were both aware of that. But it was enough time for her to start to accept it. She was no longer bursting out into tears several times an hour and seeking out the comfort of his embrace. And if her last question was anything to go by, she was starting to feel calm enough to talk about him.

Which was a relief, because Aiden had no fucking idea what to do. He was utterly lost.

“Thought about it? Oh yes. I’ve thought about it a lot.”

His back was to her as he focused on the cutting board in their hotel room’s little kitchen, so he couldn’t see what sort of look she gave him.

“And?”

“And what? I’ve thought about it. I still have no idea what I’m going to say or do.”

He could sense the glare.

“What? I only said I’d thought about it.”

“When you answer in the affirmative without clarifying, that usually means in most social circumstances that you have an answer, you jerk!”

A piece of celery bounced off his head.

“Don’t forget to chop that up too,” she smirked as he caught it before it hit the ground.

Celery? Eewwwwww.

“Yes, mistress,” he said, hunching over some more.

“Right. So, spill. What are you thinking?”

He paused, setting the celery down on the counter where it wouldn’t encounter the raw chicken. Then he resumed cutting, taking a deep breath in. The question he needed to ask wasn’t a big one, but he worried about the answer anyway.

“Just tell me already,” she said. “Did you want to stay, or go somewhere else?”

“I want you,” he said firmly. “Would you stay if I accepted the position?”

Willow was at his side in a heartbeat. “Of course I would stay! I thought I’d made that clear to you, Aiden. I’m in this with you now. It’s all your fault…you seduced me with your charming good looks.” She pinched his cheek.

He sighed.

“It sounds like you don’t want to do it though.”

“I…I don’t know. I mean, I liked Mack. I respect him big time. But I don’t know if I want to go back to being under him.”

She nodded. “I understand. So you want to leave town?”

“Not really. I like it here. I don’t know what to do.”

There was a long pause. Willow wrapped her arms around him from the side and rested her head on his shoulder. “I have an idea,” she said after a moment.

“You do?”

“Mm-hmm. If you’re up for it.”

He put the knife down and looked at her straight on. “I’m listening.”

She started to speak, and the more she talked, the larger his grin got.

Damn, this girl gets me perfectly.

Aiden

They waited for the metal gate to open and then he guided the truck up the driveway to a house that looked very familiar.

It should, considering he’d lived there for nine years until the past few weeks.

“You got this.”

He glanced over at Willow and flashed her a smile. She was right. He was ready for this. He’d been ready for it for a long, long time now. Until recently though, he hadn’t known it, hadn’t believed it. Nor had he had the person in his life to wake him up enough to make the changes necessary for him to be able to achieve it.

Now he had it all, and he couldn’t be happier. Even if Mack decided he didn’t like the idea, Aiden knew he had to make the attempt.

The white pickup courtesy of Stephen’s estate pulled to a halt and he emerged.

Mack was waiting for him.

“You’re cutting it close,” he remarked, glancing at his wrist. There was no watch there.

“I didn’t want to rush my decision,” he returned as Willow came around the front of the truck to stand at his side.

“So you’ve made one then?”

He nodded. “I have.”

“So, are you going to come rejoin the pack?”

Aiden steeled himself, taking in a breath, and shook his head. “No.”

Mack’s eyebrows lifted noticeably. He hadn’t been expecting that answer. “I see. So, you’re going to head out then?”

“Actually, I have another idea.”

Beside him Willow squeezed his hand and gave him a minute nod. It was all the support he needed.

“I want my own pack.”

Mack frowned. “You can’t. Not here.”

“Why not?”

“Because we already have enough packs in the city, Aiden. We don’t have room for ano—Oh.”

The sudden look of understanding that spread across Mack’s face was priceless. Aiden wished he had a recording of it. Birthday parties and regional meetings would never be the same again.

“You want Stephen’s territory.”

“Yes,” he said bluntly. “I can do it, and you need somebody there you can trust.”

“True,” Mack said slowly, his eyes looking away as he thought the idea over.

“I can do this, Mack. I can do it better than Stephen ever did, and bring unity to the city.”

“Where will you get your pack from?”

Aiden smiled. Mack had already moved past any issues he had with Aiden, and was checking to see if he’d thought everything through.

“Well, I happen to know where several dozen shifters are currently recovering after spending a long time drugged and drained of their blood. Once they recover, I suspect some of them will want to stick around and help make amends in the community. They weren’t responsible for the problems their blood caused with the humans, but that doesn’t mean they won’t help.”

“Interesting.”

“I’m going to show them that there is the possibility to change yourself. I’ll take them and any other castoffs. I’ll turn them into decent members, or I’ll deal with it as necessary.” Aiden’s voice grew harder, more confident as he spoke. “I’m living proof that you can overcome yourself, Mack. There are others out there who deserve that last chance as well. I want to provide it to them.”

Mack was looking at him intently as he made his impassioned speech. Nothing in his gaze gave away his feelings. Aiden began to grow nervous. He’d thought he had all the answers. Both he and Willow had spent the past eight hours planning everything out, trying to come up with any problems Mack might have with it and address that ahead of time.

“This was your idea, wasn’t it?”

Aiden opened his mouth to reply when he realized the question had been directed at Willow.

“Aiden isn’t meant to be a second, even to an Alpha like you, Mack. He’s an Alpha, and he deserves to have a pack. He saved me. Now let him do the same to some others.”

Mack’s gaze swung back over to Aiden. “That’s quite some high praise. Do you think you can live up to it?”

Aiden nodded. “Yes. And if I falter, she’ll be there to smack me around until I do. With her by my side, I can’t fail.”

His former Alpha started to chuckle. “You know what, that might be the most convincing thing you’ve said. Okay Aiden, with the powers granted to me as the residing regional Alpha, it’s yours. I’ll have all of Stephens assets transferred over to you. With the rest of them in jail for a rather lengthy stay, they won’t need any of it, even if they hadn’t forfeited it all with their actions. Stay here for the night, and we’ll take care of the paperwork in the morning.”

“We haven’t eaten yet,” he began. They’d never intended to stay, regardless of the decision. Now though, it appeared they were going to eat with Mack and his pack tonight.

“Good. Dinner should be just about ready. Chicken and scalloped potatoes tonight. Sound okay?”

“Sounds heavenly,” he replied, sighing in relief that there was no mention of vegetables.

An elbow hit him in the ribs.

“Is anyone making any vegetables? I think we should have a salad or something with dinner. I could go grab a bunch of kale if you’d like?”

Both Mack and Aiden groaned good-naturedly.

“She’s going to get along with Maggie better than I think I’m comfortable with,” Mack complained as they headed inside.

Willow looked back and forth between them. “Who’s Maggie?”

“His mate,” Aiden replied. “She’s always harping on him to eat more vegetables.”

“Ooh, I like her already!” Willow said, clapping her hands together.

Aiden and Mack spoke together. “I was afraid of that.”

********

********

This concludes Furred Lines. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Although this story is over, there are more adventures to be had. To get access to my newest stories at the introductory price of just 99c, and for other exclusives, sign up for my newsletter!

Hey!

Thanks for digging in to my back matter for more books to read. I’ve written a number of series now, in two main worlds. Both worlds have an easy and convenient to read introductory bundle with a number of stories in it that will drag you right into the world.

The story you just read is a complete standalone, unrelated to anything else I’ve written. But you want to dig into something else, try one of the bundles below!

Cadia

In this world shifters and humans live apart, with shifter society clad in secrecy. Not sure where to start? Try reading:

This 6 book bundle is just $0.99c or FREE with Kindle Unlimited. From there, just follow the links in the back!

Genesis Valley

This is the other world I have written extensively in. There are a number of books in the series, and the order can jump around a bit. The best way to start is here:

This 7 book collection is also just $0.99c and FREE with Kindle unlimited. Once you reach the end, it will link you to the next series.

Already read both box sets and want more? Flip the page for the complete rundown of all my series and the recommended reading order.

Thanks!

-Amelia Jade

The world of: Cadia

Here are the main series in the world of Cadia. Find them below!

Start with:

Dragons of Cadia: The Complete Dragon Shifter Series.

(Link)

Includes:

Next:

Base Camp Bears

Then:

The Koche Brothers

Then:

Standalones (In Chronological Order)

The World of: Genesis Valley

This world follows the events in Genesis Valley, where misfit shifters of the world are sent. It is a brutal, vicious place where everyone’s chances have already been used up. This is it. Screw up, and they end you. But amongst the harsh life these bear shifters have eked out for themselves, everything burns brighter. Especially love.

The books in the first two series jump around some if you wish to follow the exact chronological timeline. See the numbers in bold to follow the order.

Start With:

Jade Crew

Includes:

[1]

[2]

[3]

[5]

[6]

[8]

[9]

Next:

Stone Bears

[4]

[7]

[10]

Then:

Genesis Valley

Finally:

The Agency

Amelia Jade

Amelia Jade loves to write the stories of tall, growly shifter men and the women who come to love them. Living out in the backcountry near the mountains, she keeps her own alpha male close by to keep the bears away and keep her warm. In her downtime (which is rare), she loves to read science-fiction with a dash of fantasy. You can often find her curled up in front of the real wood-burning fireplace, her nose firmly buried in a book or her favorite e-reader. The cold can’t bother her there!

For more information about Amelia Jade and her work, visit her website or find her on Facebook.

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