Chapter Eight
Addison lay curled up into Ethan like pieces of silverware, one curved into the other. She’d done it, taken the first step toward being officially mated. It felt good, satisfying, but also a little scary.
Thank goodness they hadn’t gone all the way to the bite. She had time to get to know him, time to adjust. She inhaled deeply and snuggled her backside into his front, his chest moving against her spine as he breathed. “I think you smell differently.”
“Definitely. You’re more intense.” His lips moved into a smile on the back of her neck and it gave her warm fuzzies all up and down her body.
She sighed, and stretched. “I’d love to do this again, but I know Linc wants to talk to you about the men who attacked us.”
“Sven and Bart. I’ve been hanging with them for a few months.”
Addison stiffened. “You like guys like that?”
“Rogues stick together.”
A chord of alarm bells rang inside of her. “What the hell?” She pulled away from the warm comfort of his arms, and sat up, turning to look at him. “They attacked us. For no reason.” Inside her wolf whined in confusion. “Is this why you’re a rogue? Why you don’t have a pack, you want friends like that?”
She went to get out of the bed, but he reached out and grabbed her forearm. “Hang on. It’s not that simple.” His beautiful blue eyes asked her for understanding. “You stay with the pack, even though most of them are assholes.”
“No one in the pack would do something like this, not even the assholes.”
“You’re wrong. Someone in your pack hired them. Someone you know.”
Her blood chilled.
She shivered and wrapped her arms over her breasts, covering the hardening nipples and looking him directly in his sky blue eyes. “They’re rogues. No one in my pack would associate with them.”
He flinched.
Immediately she wanted to take the words back, tell him that she was wrong. But it was too late, his face had smoothed over into an unreadable mask.
“Whatever.” He got out of the bed and found his pile of neatly folded clothes. “You don’t have to believe me, but you know I’m not lying. I would never lie to you.”
Suddenly she felt very alone, even with Ethan a few feet away. He’d shut her out that easily, and she wasn’t sure how.
“Ethan, I’m sorry.”
But by the stiff motion of his back as he pulled on his blue jeans over the long lean muscled legs she’d just been stroking with so much pleasure, she knew, it was going to take time to make this one up to him.
“Look, I overheard some of the guys talking about it. Someone in the pack paid to have them attack you. You were set up.”
“Just me?” She’d finally felt like she had someone who had her back, but with Ethan’s shutting her out and now this, it was too much. She couldn’t get warm and now, instead of that warm glow from the mark, she felt so alone.
She got up and looked for her own clothes. She needed to be dressed, being naked in this moment left her too vulnerable. Even in front of the man who had just marked her.
“It sounded like it was aimed at you, but they talked about the Hunter girl too.” He turned to her and his eyes blazed bright with his wolf. “I didn’t stay to find out. I ran to you.”
Addison wanted to go to him, to tell him that she loved him, that she was sorry she’d insulted him. But the truth was there between them as if it were a living person standing by the foot of the bed where they’d just made love—she didn’t know him at all. Was this how her mom had felt, waking up in the morning next to George? Tied to a man who in every way but his scent was a stranger?
She’d been right to resist, right to fight her stepfather about finding a mate. Her heart and her wolf trusted him, but her brain said, how can you trust a man you don’t know? She’d let him mark her. A man who hung out with criminals—who was a rogue himself—all because he’d smelled good to her wolf. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Another chill shook her, shuddering through to her bones.
She turned her back and began to get dressed needing the warm armor of clothing between her and Ethan. He’d run to save her, but was he protecting his own rogue pack? “So, you don’t know who it was?” she asked, trying to be casual.
“No. All I know is they said you’d refused to buckle down to the mating ritual and you needed to be taught a lesson.”
“I don’t understand.” Despite the clothes she couldn’t stop the tremors. She sank down into a chair and wrapped her arms around her body. “We don’t control the mating ritual, just look at us.”
His face twisted. “Yeah, just look at us.”
They stared at each other, two people bound by instinct. The room got quiet. Too quiet. Inside, her anxious wolf paced. Addison knew just how to calm her. She needed to go to her mate, the one she’d chosen, the one who had just taken her to the heights of pleasure. Ethan, the man who had marked her.
But she resisted. Instead she stayed put in her chair and thought about who might have it in for her. Who was the person she’d hurt the most? Who’d suffered from her resistance to finding a mate? Who blamed her, and not her instincts, for her refusals?
“Oh my God. It’s George.”
“Who?”
“George, my stepfather.” She got up and paced back and forth across the room. “Ooh! I swear, this time he’s gone too far. He thinks he can run my life like he’s run my mom’s. But I’m never giving in to him. Never.”
“I don’t understand. Why would your stepfather send Sven and Bart after you?”
“He’s furious with me for not finding someone who can advance him in the pack. He thinks I’m snubbing these guys on purpose.”
“But you don’t choose a mate that way.”
“I know that, but he seems to think I’ve been doing it to spite him.” She hung her head. “And frankly, I can’t argue with him. I didn’t want a mate.” She met Ethan’s eyes. “I still don’t.”
His face blanched. “What are you saying?”
“Look, I’ve seen what marrying someone you don’t love can do to you and I’m not going there. No matter how good you smell.”
“Fuck this, Addison.” His eyes flashed hot and the room filled with the smell of wound-up wolf and angry male. “I love you, Addison. I think I knew when I looked up and saw you swinging those hips as you walked across the street in Snowflake. I knew, even before I smelled your sweetness. I just knew.”
He was waiting for her, waiting for her to say the same thing, to tell him how she needed him, but she couldn’t move, couldn't react. Her throat was dry and tight, and stuffed with too much emotion.
Ethan shook his head his gaze flat with disappointment. He hooked a finger in his leather jacket, wincing as he swung it over his shoulder and headed for the door. He paused his hand on the knob, his shoulders slumped. He didn’t even look at her, just stared down as if his feet held all the answers. She had to perk up her ears and listen hard to hear his low words, “When you grow up and figure out what you want, Addison, I’ll be waiting.”
The door slammed and she was left alone.
Inside, her wolf howled. Addison fell onto the bed, pulled her feet up and tucked them tightly under her body, and curled up into a ball of misery. What had she done?
***
Ethan viciously punched the elevator button over and over again. “Come on. Come on!” He slammed his palm against the metal, the sting not even helping to alleviate the burn inside.
Finally the doors closed and he was on his way to the lobby, but not fast enough. He had to get out of here. He ached to shift and run off everything. To get on his bike and ride and let the miles wear him down until there was nothing left. Within hours the world had opened up and showed him something he’d never thought he’d be able to have—a mate, a woman. Love. But now, he gave a bitter laugh, fate had played one of her usual cruel tricks.
He couldn’t have happiness. No not him. He was doomed to be miserable for the rest of his life.
The door opened with a cheery bing! He strode out of the elevator and into the packed lobby. The scent of new wolves, pack, and a hint of something supernatural hit him, and he snarled.
“Hey. Get it under control, man.” A man turned to him, reeking of stranger, his eyes lighting up with his wolf as he sniffed the air. “You smell like blood. And rogue.” He growled, his shoulders bunching with tension.
The scent of the shift rose high on the air. Ethan readied himself for the attack, trying to hold his wolf back. He didn’t want to make a scene here. All he wanted to do was run away and lick his wounds.
But the attack never came.
Another shifter, this one with dark auburn hair, and smelling of the local pack, came up beside the first. “Any trouble Aric?”
Aric stared hard at Ethan, his eyes flashing with his wolf. “I don’t know. Is there going to be any trouble?”
Ethan’s own wolf pushed under his skin. He shoved it ruthlessly back. “No.” The words throbbed with an underlying growl, but he shoved that down too. He rolled his neck, cracking the muscles. “I’m just heading out.”
The auburn haired man grinned. “Good. I didn’t think you’d be causing any issues after I had my team patch you up and let you stay here in the hotel.” He thrust out a hand. “I’m Linc Hunter, and this is Aric Wolfe.”
Ethan shot a suspicious glance at Linc’s hand, but he took it and gave it a shake. “Ethan Blaywolf.”
“Aric, this is the guy who saved the girls from those rogues.”
Instantly, the other shifter relaxed. He grinned, showing sharp white teeth, his smile almost friendly. “Nice to meet you, Blaywolf.”
Ethan nodded, but he noticed this one didn’t stick out his hand. “I’m heading out. Thanks for the recovery time and the bed.”
Linc laughed. “By the smell of you, you should be thanking me for more than that. Addison’s one hot number, and I can smell her all over you.”
The back of Ethan’s neck got hot. “Mine,” he growled.
“Relax. You know, she fought my sister and me to stay with you. I wasn’t sure, but once I saw she’d made up her mind, I left her there. Now I see why.” He shook his head. “Her dad is going to be furious.”
At the mention of Addison’s dad, Ethan’s wolf rose again to the surface. He clenched his hands into fists to hold it back. “I need to go.”
“Yeah, man. I can see that. But before you do, I need to know what happened. The girls said you saved them, but I gotta know the whole story. Who were those guys? No one dares to attack anyone on Wolf Lodge property. No one.” For the first time Linc’s easy demeanor disappeared.
Ethan cast a look around the lobby. He lowered his voice. “I need to get out of here. Too many pack.” With Addison’s rejection still boiling beneath the surface, he didn’t trust his control. “Walk with me outside.”
“Sure.” Linc nodded to Aric. “Come on.”
“Not him.”
“Aric’s cool. I’d trust him with my life.” Linc grinned. “In fact, I already have, several times.”
“No.” Ethan didn’t know the other wolf. He knew Linc, if only by reputation. And Hunter’s own sister had been attacked. “I can’t trust anyone.” Someone who knew Addison had sent Sven and Bart after her, and despite her stinging rejection, she was his mate. He had to protect her.
“Hang on.” Linc went to the front desk and retrieved Ethan’s backpack. “I think you’ll want this. They exited by a side door. “We brought your bike back. It’s over here.” The other shifter led him around the side of the hotel to a parking lot. When they were around the corner and far from anyone else he stopped. “Now tell me, what the hell is going on.”
Ethan filled him in, ending with, “I don’t know who’s behind all of this. And I guarantee, they’ve cleaned out of the trailer and are long gone. Sven may be a lot of things, but he’s not stupid. He won’t hang around.”
Linc’s eyes glowed green. “I can’t believe someone in our pack would hire those assholes to go after Addison.” A growl lay under his voice, the aggressive sound rumbling every word. “And my sister.”
Inside, Ethan’s wolf rose to Linc’s unspoken call of the hunt. It was in his nature to want to run with a pack, to chase down prey together, to howl at the moon and celebrate the group’s success, but this man wasn’t his pack and the call wasn’t really for him. Sure, Linc was being friendly, but when it came down to it, Ethan knew—to Linc, he was a rogue.
He was a loner, he’d always been a loner. Even the rogues he’d hung with from time to time never lasted long. He knew better than to think someone from the organized packs would take him in, even when they had a common enemy.
“I gotta go.” He swung up on the bike. “Tell Addison if she needs me for anything to leave a message with Mike at the ice cream place.”
“Hey Ethan, don’t go after those guys alone. They’ve pissed me off and I’ve got lots of men behind me. We can take them on.”
“Sure.” He nodded, but he could see the acknowledgment in Linc’s eyes. They both knew—if Ethan found Sven and Bart before the other man did, they were dead men.
He rode out of the parking lot and turned onto the road that headed up the side of the mountain and out of the valley. The entire way to the trailer he went over his plan, just in case anyone was left. The sun was setting by the time he pulled down the dirt road to the isolated lot. The trailer was still there, but he could tell from the abandoned look of the place, every single rogue was gone.
He parked the bike and sniffed hard, checking out the area outside the trailer before venturing inside. When he was sure he was alone, he opened the lightweight aluminum door, nearly bowled back by the smell that hit him.
He shook his head and went inside anyway. They’d left all the crappy furnishings that had come with the trailer, even left some of their belongings in their haste, but someone had taken a baseball bat to the big TV. He guessed it was too large to take with them and they didn’t want him to have it. Vindictive sons of bitches, every single one of Sven’s bunch.
He was sure of it as soon as he opened the door to the room he’d been sharing and the acrid scent of urine hit him hard. The meager amount of stuff he’d left was still there, but someone had pissed all over it. From the stench, more than a few someone’s. His clothes, his sleeping bag, everything but what he had on his back and in his pack was ruined.
“God damn it.”
He left the stinking trailer and stood outside, sucking in deep lung-fulls of fresh mountain air and letting the beauty of the pines and the snow on the mountains soothe his agitation.
What had he expected? That they’d say ‘thanks dude!’ for his betrayal. No. He’d never had much of a connection with them, they’d never been that important, just another in a series of shallow interactions.
The sun dropped behind the mountain and he watched the sky turn pink, while he tried to puzzle out what he was feeling. These guys had been his pack, even if temporarily, and yet losing that connection wasn’t the thing he was upset about.
What he cared about was that they’d tried to hurt Addison. In the face of that, none of the ties he’d thought were important, mattered. What mattered was his mate. His.
And despite her fears, she was his. It was as simple as that. He’d gone from rogue loner to mate, and he wasn’t going to let that go.
He’d never had a shot like this, never felt like this. She was now the center of his universe. The scum who he’d hung out with? They’d dared to hurt Addison and as soon as he saw them, he would tear out their throats. No mercy. No regret.
But under his drive for revenge was something else, something lighter that sang within him. Despite the anger at his former buddies, despite the danger, despite it all—he had a mate. And at the thought of his curvy delicious Addison, his lips turned up in a smile.
She was everything to him now, and he’d prove it to her.
He got back on the bike, headed for town. He flipped on the lights. It was getting dark. Despite his shifter fast healing, he needed to crash and get some sleep. He had some cash, he’d get a cheap hotel room. Tomorrow, he’d hit up Mike for that job in the store.
He wasn’t alone anymore. He had a pack—a pack of one. Addison. She was just scared. He’d been homeless and kicked around until he’d toughened up and started hanging with the rogues. He knew scared. He could deal with scared.
What scared him shitless was losing her forever. He’d work his ass off and make some money, and maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to show Addison that he wasn’t like those other rogues. It would take patience, but he’d win her over. He didn’t have a choice. He loved her.
Their mark singing through his veins, he revved the bike and drove faster down the twisting turning mountain roads. As a fat white moon rose over the next mountain he took a hairpin fast, tilting the bike and letting the rushing wind swallow up his howls of joy.
He had a mate. Him. Ethan fucking Blaylock had a mate. All he had to do was prove himself worthy. And he’d do it, even if it took the rest of his life.