“You’re fucking her and she hasn’t even had her first shift yet,” Malec said. His words tight and accusatory as they stood in the living room, near the fireplace that Channing had lit before dinner.
“None. Of. Your. Business,” Phelan stated tightly, stepping closer so that he and Malec were now toe-to-toe. Their voices were lowered because Marena, Kira, and Caroline weren’t that far away.
They’d all moved into the living room after dinner, glasses of wine or coffee or nothing in hand. The women—Caroline, Kira, and Marena—were standing close to the window because that’s where Marena had walked to. She’d been looking out to the dark stretch of land that surrounded the back of the house. The forest wasn’t visible on nights when there were no stars or moonlight in sight.
“Channing couldn’t trace that Hunter back to any pack,” Malec replied, not backing down.
Phelan gritted his teeth. “So we have another Solo.” He didn’t like the thought of there being another lycan with no ties to anyone as their next target.
Malec shook his head. “You know a Solo has a different scent than pack lycans. But you were adamant that this Davis character was a Hunter. How did you come to that conclusion?”
His frown deepened as Phelan looked over Malec’s shoulder to Marena. Caroline had brought Marena’s bag and purse from the room she’d been assigned to last night down to Malec’s rooms about an hour before dinner. Phelan had dismissed the blatant act, deciding not to give it a second thought. It was only moments after he’d brought Marena to yet another climax. His dick had remained rock hard as he’d stood behind the door, reaching his hand out to accept the bags from Caroline. There was no doubt the lycan had known what he and Marena were doing and had apparently wasted no time running back to tell Malec. These mated unions in this house were frustrating Phelan more and more.
Marena wore a gray dress tonight, belted at the waist and just a few inches above her knees. Her long, straight hair was pulled over one shoulder, and while the look on her face was that of someone just a little bit stressed, the confidence in her stance and tone was in direct contrast. Of course, all of that was the physical. It was what any other lycan in this room would have seen when they looked at her.
Marena’s unique scent, however, was all his.
Even now in this room full of other lycans he could pick her out with his eyes closed. He could inhale deeply and let the soft, erotic aroma that reminded him of honey and pine trees filter through his mind, his body, and—
That was the scent he’d picked up that night on the highway. The deep earthy smell that reminded him of the wild, the uninhibited, the Hunters. Only it hadn’t been that scent alone.
“I was wrong,” Phelan said through clenched teeth. “Dammit, I was all wrong.”
Malec nodded slightly. “She’s more than just someone that got bitten by a lycan, isn’t she?”
“No,” Phelan replied immediately. “No. She has nothing to do with us, or them. Davis bit her; he pulled her in. She’s—”
She doesn’t belong here. She doesn’t belong with you, Eureka’s voice interrupted. I told you it would always be me.
“She’s what?” Malec asked, continuing to stare at Phelan with his silent accusations.
Phelan shook his head. He closed his eyes in an attempt to get his thoughts, words, and feelings straight.
She has to go. Now! Or there’ll be trouble, Eureka declared. Trouble unlike anything you’ve ever imagined.
“Phelan?” Malec asked, cupping a hand on his shoulder. “You all right?”
Phelan lowered his head, flexing his fingers at his sides as his claws extended, a growl rumbling low in his chest.
“Phelan?” Malec called to him again.
You know what you must do, Phelan, Eureka taunted. She. Must. Go!
“Phelan?” Channing was there now, calling his name as well.
Phelan felt himself swaying. He felt the room around him shifting. No, not the room, the world. And when he opened his eyes finally, his gaze went directly to her.
“Marena,” he whispered.
His mate.
* * *
Phelan was staring at her. Marena could feel the intensity of his gaze bearing down like a heat lamp on the back of her neck, but she refused to turn around or acknowledge him. This was also how she’d decided to dismiss the fact that weird things had already begun to happen to her. She figured it was as a result of that bite on her shoulder that didn’t look like it was healing at all.
That was the reason she was so drawn to Phelan. It was why all he had to do was look at her with those sexy as hell eyes, or kiss her with those dangerous and desirable lips, or touch her with skillful hands and she was like putty in his hands. She was ready and eager to do any- and everything she could to receive the pleasure from being with him. Whether it was simply his oral pleasure or the feel of his thick length buried to the hilt inside of her, she craved it and found herself wondering when her next opportunity to experience it would come.
It was ridiculous and demeaning and so she’d purposely spent the entire dinner looking in the opposite direction of him to where Channing and Caroline were sitting. She chatted with the two of them almost exclusively. That wasn’t because she didn’t care for Blaez or Kira, but they were sitting in Phelan’s direction and she was trying to ignore him. Or rather, she was trying to ignore the crazy and intense desire she’d so quickly developed for him.
“So you didn’t leave a boyfriend back in San Francisco, did you, Marena?” Kira asked as the three of them stood together.
The alpha female hadn’t even tried to be subtle. Marena didn’t think it was possible for her anyway, which she kind of respected. The last thing she wanted was to have to deal with catty women in the midst of everything else that was going on. Then again, she thought with an inner chuckle, how could they be catty if they were actually wolves?
“No boyfriend,” Marena replied, taking a sip from her wineglass.
It was an excellent cabernet sauvignon, full bodied and flavorful. She took another sip.
“No time for one, since I’m a workaholic,” she admitted. “Which is why I need Davis to show his conniving face so I can get back to work.”
Caroline nodded. “I’m a veterinarian,” she said. “I used to work at the clinic in town before things got a little … weird. I miss working with the animals and the variety of the day. So I can understand you wanting to get back to your job.”
“When you say ‘weird,’ is that because you’re publicly involved in a ménage relationship?” Kira wasn’t the only one who could be candid.
The alpha female arched a brow at Marena’s question and then smiled in Caroline’s direction.
“Yes, I am in a ménage relationship. Do you think that’s strange? Oh, no,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Maybe you think it’s a little odd that these very sexy and virile men would look toward full-figured women for their love interests?”
Marena frowned at that odd question, tilting her head to the side as she considered her response. “I’ve never had a problem with my body and I’ve been what doctors call ‘obese’ according to their BMI charts and guidelines since I was seven years old. Yet even now, at twenty-eight years old, I’ve never been diagnosed with high blood pressure, diabetes, or any other medical condition directly related to obesity. I’m healthy and sexy and don’t give a damn who thinks differently. So, the answer to your last question is no, I’m not at all amazed that a group of very attractive men would have the good sense and awesome taste to look to a plus-size woman for their pleasure. Why the hell wouldn’t they?”
Kira laughed then. Loud and long, until she almost dropped her half-full glass of wine on the pretty Aubusson rug.
Caroline had smiled as well, nodding her head as she reiterated her first question, “So it’s just the ménage thing you find strange?”
Marena shook her head. “Not at all. To each his own. If that’s what makes you and them happy, then who am I to have a problem with it? In fact, let’s just get this out of the way right now. I don’t have a problem with any of you. Feline shape-shifters or lycans or whatever else might be walking this earth. It’s a big planet, room enough for all of us in my book.”
“If ever we thought of creating a lycan council you’d get my vote as spokesperson,” Kira said finally after her laughter had subsided. “I like you, Marena.”
“I do, too,” Caroline added. “And that’s a good thing, especially since Phelan’s so taken by you.”
“No,” Marena replied quickly. “He’s not. He doesn’t do girlfriends.”
“Really?” Kira asked. “He told you that?”
Marena nodded. “Yes. He did.”
“When? Before or after he made you scream his name?” Kira continued.
Now that was a little beyond the honest scope and Marena hesitated a moment. That was a mistake.
“No, don’t answer that. Tell us this, Marena: Why did you drive all the way from San Francisco to Montana? If you wanted to get back to work so quickly, why go so far?” Caroline asked, this time lifting her own elegantly arched brow.
Her red-painted lips had tilted slightly as if she was enjoying Marena’s discomfort.
“I … I don’t know,” Marena replied honestly, thinking back to the afternoon she’d left her condo and climbed into her SUV.
She’d just begun to drive knowing only that she needed to get away from the police who would no doubt show up at her apartment momentarily. Tammi said they were asking about her and wanted to question her. It was only a matter of time and that’s why she’d left, but she hadn’t thought, not once, of where she was going.
“I just drove until the buzzer went off telling me I was low on gas. I pulled over at the next gas station and got right back onto the road. Continuing nonstop,” she finished quietly, her gaze going to the window once more.
She looked out to the dark night with no light in sight. It was an ominous blackness that, for some reason, she felt a kinship to.
“Until Phelan found you in that B and B,” Kira finished. “What made you stop there?”
Her fingers clenched the stem of the wineglass until she thought she might actually break it. “I was hungry, I think,” Marena started, trying to remember back to those moments when she was in the SUV and she decided to pull off the road. “I wanted to eat and to lie down. I was in so much pain and I felt so sick and then I wasn’t anymore. The pain was gone and … and Phelan was there.”
“Phelan was there because it’s where he was supposed to be to save his mate,” Caroline told her matter-of-factly.
“His what? No,” Marena said, shaking her head. “I’m an attorney. I don’t do boyfriends or romantic connections. It gets in the way and I can’t … I don’t want … He’s not—”
The words she was stumbling over were halted immediately, only to be replaced by a yearning so deep and so warm that she almost buckled with its intensity. That feeling had come as his hand touched her shoulder.
“Are you ready for bed?” Phelan asked.
Marena looked up to see Kira and Caroline smiling knowingly at her. When she looked at Phelan it was to his drawn brows, thin stretched lips, and a muscle twitching in his jaw. He was upset, angry possibly. At her? Or something that had been said? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. Just as she didn’t give a damn what Caroline and Kira had been trying to say. Phelan was nothing to her. None of these people were. No, she acknowledged that they all would be a means to an end once she found Davis. That’s all that mattered here. Find Davis, clear her name, get back to her job and her life.
Nothing else.
Not even the sexy lycan who was staring at her while his hand rested on the shoulder where she’d been bitten. Especially not him, Marena thought as she once again attempted to ignore the pulsating of her pussy and the heaviness of her breasts.