Craving His Virgin Mate (Poison Wolves MC Book 2), page 3
Agatha noticed them hesitate when they saw her, but it didn’t stop them. They went to Amelia and gave their orders. She released a breath and stood behind the bar, waiting for someone to ask her to get their order.
Val came around the bar and put a hand on her shoulder. “What can we get you?”
Agatha tried not to freak out. She saw that people wanted to wait for Amelia to serve, but they also didn’t want to offend Val. They gave him their order, and that was when her training started.
She was a mess. The beer pump was quite strong and she ended up holding the glass too close to the nozzle. She ended up smashing three glasses, shooting beer up against her shirt, and then not filling them quite deep enough. Val took over, but he only did one or two, giving her time to see and learn. After the tenth glass of beer, she was starting to get the hang of it.
With how fast the bar filled up, they had no choice but to come to her, as Val and Amelia were busy. She was a little surprised to look up and see that there were people everywhere, and the panic she had had earlier evaporated.
“You need to go and grab some glasses and clear the tables,” Val said, handing her a serving tray.
She took it, grateful to leave the counter, because serving didn’t seem to be her strong suit.
Working her way between the tables was not difficult at all. People were giving her a wide berth. She knew, deep down, she should be a little upset by that, but in truth, she didn’t care. Carrying trays full of empty glasses was easy. When she got to the kitchen around back, she saw there were a lot of them that needed cleaning, so she got to work without Val’s insistence. She washed the glasses, dried them, and carried them through to the main bar, placing them on the back counter for Amelia and Val to serve. She got into a nice routine.
“So, they’ve got you here in the back.”
Agatha nearly dropped the glass she’d been holding. She hadn’t heard anyone enter the kitchen.
She held the glass tightly and turned to look at the man, Boyan. His voice was very distinctive. Deep, dark, rough, and an edge that seemed to melt her panties.
“Someone needs to clean glasses.”
“Is this what you did back home?” Boyan asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
“What did you do back home?”
She glanced over her shoulder to find Boyan still looking at her. “Are you supposed to be back here?”
“I can be anywhere I want to be.”
“Val doesn’t mind?”
Boyan raised a brow. “Back home?”
“I, uh, I worked in an office. I handled insurance.”
“In a small office?”
“Yes.” She finished washing the last of the glasses and grabbed a towel, ready to dry them.
Boyan surprised her by taking the towel from the counter and joining her.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“But I want to.”
“Do you work here as well?”
“No.”
“Then trust me, I need this job. I already suck at serving,” she said.
“I heard. Word seemed to travel fast that the new girl can’t serve drinks.”
Agatha rolled her eyes. “I will get better.”
“I have no doubt, but it seems people like to see you fail.”
“You do realize this isn’t a good advertisement for the town.”
“I’m not trying to advertise it. This place can be a massive shit show, and yet, for some reason, you’re still here. Makes a guy wonder why?”
“And I like to keep guys wondering.” She placed the glasses on the tray and picked them up.
“Is that what you’re doing? Trying to keep a guy back home wondering?”
“Not at all. I’m here because there’s nothing waiting for me back home. Why go someplace and be lonely?”
Boyan looked at her and she found it impossible to look away. Why did he do that? How did he do that? It wasn’t like his look was friendly or forthcoming. He actually looked quite mean, but again, she still couldn’t bring herself to turn away. Maybe it was the town. It was starting to have an affect on her mind that she couldn’t quite control. That made more sense to her.
“And yet, you’ve come to a town that has not been accepting. Many would say coming to a place and setting up a home where no one wants you is even more lonely.”
“It is, but this is where it gets really strange…”—she moved in close to almost whisper—“I don’t feel lonely here.”
She took a step and made her way out toward the bar. It was the truth. She knew she should feel an element of loneliness and despair. The town had been consistent in making her feel like an outsider. Even though they’d done that, she loved the town and felt so complete and at home. It was strange.
Admittedly, having Val sniff her from time to time was a little strange. The first time he did it, she asked Amelia about it, and the other woman had told her not to worry about it. Even still, she was pretty sure when she stood close to Boyan, he’d also sniffed her.
Oh, well, the town was full of interesting people, and this was where she planned to make her home. She’d accept them, quirks and all.
****
The pack couldn’t get drunk, though they could attempt to. At the most, they would get very merry, but that wouldn’t last. Their systems wouldn’t allow them to get too far as they metabolized at a fast rate.
Boyan sat at the bar and watched Agatha as she continued to gather glasses and disappear into the kitchen. She’d be gone for several minutes, only to return with clean glasses.
“You keep staring,” Amelia said.
“Why is she working in the back?” Boyan asked.
“It’s where Val sent her. She wasn’t doing great on the serving, and people were getting antsy. We’ll train her, and she’ll be as good as me at serving.” Amelia shrugged. “Is Alpha coming down to check her out?”
“I’m not sure.” Alpha wanted to get a sense of her, but he had a feeling he’d do it when Agatha wasn’t even aware of it. Boyan didn’t know when, but Alpha would get his answers. He took a long swig of his drink.
“Are you okay?” Amelia asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t give me that. I know having her around might be a little hard,” Amelia said.
“It’s not hard. I promised Alpha I’d keep an eye on her. That’s what I’m doing. That is all I’m doing.”
His wolf was trying to claw through his skin, trying to force him to go into the kitchen, just so he could see her again. He ignored the impulse. He was the one in control of his body, not his wolf. Not anyone else. Just him. He had to stop himself from constantly looking out for her. The moment she stepped into the room, his body went on high alert.
“Macy alert,” Amelia said, and took a step back.
Boyan didn’t have time to make his escape before fingers stroked up the back of his leather cut.
“Hello, Boyan,” Macy said.
“Macy.” He shrugged off her hand.
He didn’t need or want to be cruel, but she didn’t seem to take a hint, or the plain bluntness of denying her attentions. He wasn’t interested in her. They had some fun times, but that was all it was.
“I haven’t seen you in a long time.” She reached out to touch his ponytail and he grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t.”
She stuck out her bottom lip, in what he assumed was supposed to be a pout.
“Boyan, you do not have to be that way.” She pressed her body against his arm.
He’d never struck a woman in his life. In fact, he often had a great deal of patience, but Macy was testing his last freaking nerve.
“Step back, Macy.”
“Come on, Boyan. You know as well as I do that you want me. That you need me. It’s been so long since you came to visit me.”
Boyan stood and pulled away from her. “I also know you’ve been enjoying many of the pack. I suggest you back off before you embarrass yourself.”
Val was there, grabbing Macy by the arm and escorting her away. Boyan didn’t want to be at the bar, waiting for glimpses of the new woman. He handed Amelia some money and stepped behind the counter, going into the kitchen. Agatha was there, drying some glasses again.
“You don’t have to keep coming back here. I’m quite capable of cleaning glasses without assistance.”
“Tell me about yourself,” he said.
His wolf liked to hear her voice. So far, just her talking was able to calm the beast within him, which was what he needed right now. He’d wanted to tear out Macy’s throat. His wolf was not happy with the idea of her touching them. He’d go so far as to say his wolf was pissed off at him for sticking his cock inside her.
“Er, you want me to talk about myself?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your parents, about you, about all of it.” He didn’t want to keep talking but he needed to insist on her speaking.
“Er, there’s not much to tell. My parents adopted me when I was a baby, and they raised me but told me—”
“What?”
“Huh, what?”
“You were adopted.”
“Yes.”
“As a baby?”
“Yes. I was adopted as a baby, but no one had any idea who could have abandoned me or why, or anything.” She shrugged. “There’s no record of my birth parents. In fact, I even took a blood test in an attempt to find them.”
Boyan stared at Agatha, a little … shocked. This couldn’t be happening.
“Boyan, are you okay?” Agatha asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. So, you gave blood for someone to check your DNA, to try and find your parents?”
“Yes. There was no record, which according to the expert, I can’t remember his name, he said it might mean they’re not in any database and there’s no record of them. Boyan, are you okay?”
“Do you remember the person you went to?” Boyan asked.
“I have no idea. What is going on?”
“The doctor or the expert, do you know his name?”
Agatha frowned. “I think … his name was … Dr. Milton, I think.”
Boyan stared at her in disbelief. No, it wasn’t possible. Dr. Milton was a fucking vet, it couldn’t be the same person.
“Are you okay?” Agatha asked.
“Yeah, uh, I’m fine. I’ve got to go and check on something,” he said. “It was nice to see you, Agatha.”
He rushed out of the bar and headed back to the clubhouse. This couldn’t be happening, it had to be a coincidence. There were more people out there with the name Milton. There was no way a vet would take blood to test for DNA or family links. He didn’t understand how he was able to find Agatha. Arriving at the clubhouse, he didn’t linger, even though several of the guys called out to him. He ignored them and instead headed straight to the basement. They had kept Milton’s main files. Most of the words had been an erratically written, jumbled-up mess that made no sense. Some did, though, and he could only put it down to when he’d been perfectly sane and conscious of what he was writing.
“Boyan, what is going on?” Alpha asked, coming down to the basement five minutes after he’d found the box with the files.
“Agatha was adopted,” Boyan said.
“O-kay, but why are you looking through Milton’s files?”
Boyan looked up. “Because Agatha was adopted as a baby. Her scent lingers within the fucking pack. She feels more at home here, where everyone hates her, than she does in the city surrounded by humans. She went looking for her parents, there was no record, but she gave blood. Think about it, Alpha. She gave blood to a Doctor Milton. Her scent disappears in the pack.”
“You think she’s a wolf?” Alpha asked.
“I think there’s more to her than meets the eye. We also don’t know how the fuck Milton was able to get wolf blood.”
“She hasn’t transitioned,” Alpha said.
Boyan shook his head. “I don’t know all the details, but you have to admit, this makes sense. Milton was conducting experiments. We assumed Amelia was the cause of him being exposed to wolf blood. What if this was before now? What if Milton had seen one of us, or someone in the past turn into a wolf?”
“I think that’s a long stretch.”
“We’re wolves, Alpha. We take care of our pack and every full moon, we throw back our heads and howl. We give in to the wolf inside us. You don’t think that’s a long stretch of the imagination?”
Alpha ran a hand down his face and took a deep breath. “Fine. What are you looking for?”
“I don’t fucking know. Something, anything in this mess, that would explain Agatha. She’s not a wolf, and yet seems to blend into our world, and that makes no sense.”
He looked through the first box, not seeing anything of significance. Milton had been clever. He’d been able to file some of his research but it had also been made to appear as if the file was about a pet dog.
When he got to a file named “Agatha,” he stopped. The picture was that of a wolf dog. He pulled out the file. The wolf was bright white with a few wisps of gray. Opening the file, however, he saw Agatha’s picture, and next to her name was a title, Experiment Twenty-Six.
What the ever-loving fuck?
Chapter Four
Calling a church meeting had been vital. Boyan had read the file that stated Agatha Preston was Experiment Twenty-Six. According to the notes, Agatha had been born to a couple, a human female and a male who could turn into a wolf. They were simply known as “Mom Twenty-Six,” and “Dad Twenty-Six.”
The mother died during childbirth, and the father attempted to escape with Agatha. He’d been captured. There were no details as to where or when, or exactly who they were.
Agatha’s blood had been drawn as a child. According to the blood work, she was a human child and had been placed in an adoptive home. She had been adopted twenty-four hours later, but it would seem Milton had in some way stayed a part of her life. First as a vet, then as a family friend, and finally, taking her blood in an attempt to find her parents. Even though he knew her parents were dead, he’d kept the blood, and Boyan had a feeling it was Agatha’s blood that had been used to infect other humans.
“Do we know if someone was funding this?” Enzo asked.
For the first time in a long while, he didn’t have any knitting in his hands.
“We don’t,” Alpha said. “No one has come to check on his research, nor bought his veterinary practice.”
“This is a little … stretch,” Wolfe said. “None of us knew about him until Amelia. Do you really think he could be responsible for experimenting and testing on wolves? On packs?”
“Anything is possible,” Alpha said. “We know there are human hunters. We know they have tried to hunt us and kill us. If someone put a price on one of our heads, it wouldn’t take long for them to find someone weak, take them out, and hand them to whoever was willing to pay.”
“This shit is dangerous,” Rocco said. “If she is number twenty-six, it means there were twenty-five experiments before her. How many after?”
“I’d say until he found the perfect blood,” Gunnar said. “He was trying to create a baby that had both wolf and human blood. That must be what he was after.”
“But what he might not have known was that our blood doesn’t change until we transition. Our wolf is dormant,” Alpha said.
“What about Agatha?” Ryker asked. “She’s not a wolf.”
“Or is she?” Boyan asked. “Her scent mingles with the rest of the pack. She is happy here, which I don’t fucking get.”
“She has never turned,” Gray said. “Her scent mingles with us but that doesn’t mistake the fact she’s still human.”
“Maybe that’s it,” Enzo said. “She is part human. Her mother was human, her father was a wolf. It stops her from being able to turn.”
“Do you think that’s why Milton wanted nothing to do with her?” Rocco asked.
“I’m starting to think we shouldn’t have killed Milton. Most of his notes are nonsense. He clearly took the blood himself but suggests he ran out of money, got desperate, or someone attacked him,” Enzo said.
“Agatha knows nothing,” Boyan said. “She only knows that her parents gave her up.”
Boyan sat back and stared at the file spread open on the desk. They had gone through Milton’s files and decided they were nonsense. Crazy ramblings of a man who’d gone over the edge. Not once had he considered any of this real.
Now, they were facing the possibility that not only did Milton infect innocent people, but he also had a lot of people currently living in the human world who may or may not be wolves.
“I need to meet Agatha,” Alpha said.
“She works at Poison,” Boyan said.
“No, I need you to bring her here.”
Boyan looked at Alpha. There was a reason they had given him the role of Prez, and also why he was the leader of the pack. Out of all of them, there was only one skill Alpha had that none of them did—the ability to bring forth a wolf, no matter the time within a moon cycle.
“If you do that, you could kill her.”
“We need to know what we’re dealing with. I know this is not ideal.”
“You can’t kill her,” Wolfe said.
“Bringing forth her wolf will not kill her.”
Enzo snorted. “No offense, it won’t kill a full-blooded wolf, but we don’t know what this will do to a part-human, part-wolf breed. Look what’s happening to those infected.”
“Yes, those that have been infected,” Alpha said. “We’re talking about someone who has some wolf blood in her.”
“And what if the infected are the same?” Boyan asked. “What if they have part wolf blood inside them?”
Alpha ran his hand down his face. “We need to start somewhere and if that means it kills Agatha, that’s a risk we have to take. We need answers, and fast. None of this makes sense. Our only source of information is gone. Even Agatha’s parents are dead. We don’t know if they were working with Milton or not. We don’t even know if this was some wealthy man’s ramblings or ideals based on stumbling upon a real-life wolf. We know jack shit. This puts the whole pack in danger, and I’m not going to allow that to happen. The pack, Boyan, comes first. It will always come first. You know this.”
