I glanced at the clock to see that it was only a little after eleven, surprising because I rarely went to bed before midnight. Since I was up, my body probably wouldn’t let me get back to sleep until well after three in the morning.

  “Here you go,” I told Henry as I held the back door open for him to go to the bathroom in the small backyard. He hesitated, staring out into the blackness of the night.

  “Go ahead.” I stepped onto the back porch and ran my hands up and down my arms while looking up at the dark sky. The moon was exceptionally bright that night, even though it wasn’t a full moon.

  Within seconds of opening the door, that unsettled feeling returned in the pit of my stomach. Henry’s growl caught my attention.

  “What is it?” He kept his attention on something over the fence, growling low. I crouched down beside him. “What’s wrong?”

  Right then, Henry stood even straighter, his body statuesque, looking out into the wooded area beyond our fenced-in backyard. He let out a bark and then a deep growl.

  “Henry, shshsh.” I placed my hand on his back to calm him. Some of our neighbors were already suspicious of Henry’s sheer size and that he didn’t immediately take well to new people. The last thing I needed was for them to start complaining about his barking in the dead of night.

  He kept growling. I traced his line of sight. “It’s probably just a deer or something.”

  That time he growled and bared his teeth, something he rarely ever did. The only other time I ever saw him take such a threatening stance was when we were out for a walk, a neighbor’s aggressive rottweiler got loose and threatened us. We narrowly avoided getting into a fight with the dog before the neighbor ran out of her door, calling him back.

  I squinted to find what had Henry so rattled, and that was when two pairs of glowing eyes glared at me.

  I screamed and stumbled backward, tripping over my own feet. “Come on.” I tugged Henry’s collar, forcing him to bring his butt back into the house with me.

  My entire body trembled with fear. When I looked back, those four eyes continued to watch, unnerving me. I couldn’t pinpoint what type of animals they were.

  Even with the door closed and locked behind me, I still didn’t feel safe.

  I pressed my face against the door’s window, opening the blind to see them still there. Whatever they were, I got the impression they were watching me. Like in those Animal Planet documentaries where they describe animals that stalk their prey.

  A heartbeat later, a howl sounded. It took seconds for me to place the sound. “Are those wolves?”

  Henry growled but then whimpered as he stood beside me. Fear racketed through my body. My legs wobbled, and I could feel Henry’s body tremble beside me, though he stood as if on guard.

  I couldn’t shake the anxiousness that coursed through me. With measured steps, I backed away from the door, watching it as if at any moment it would burst open.

  More howling sounded, and my heartbeat almost came through my shirt. It sounded like they were coming from different angles around the house. Were they stalking me? Did wolves do that sort of thing? Maybe they were after Henry for some reason.

  “What’s happening?” I looked around my kitchen, feeling ridiculous but unable to tamp down on the fear.

  Call me if you need anything.

  Without thinking clearly, I raced back into my bedroom and picked up my cell phone. My fingers shook, but I managed to bring up my contacts list and press the button to dial Chael’s number.

  “Reese?” He answered on the second ring. “What’s the matter?”

  “I, um.” I gathered my thoughts. “There are wolves… I think or something.”

  “Are you home?” His voice held urgency.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m on my way. Seal all of the doors and don’t let anyone or anything in the house until I get there.” There was so much authority in his voice. I didn’t even question why he didn’t hesitate to come to my home.

  I paced in front of my front door as I waited for him, Henry right by my side. Every few minutes, he continued to growl and stare toward the kitchen where the back door was.

  “I should call him back and tell him not to come.” Just as I said that, I stopped in my tracks. “Wait, how does he even know where I live?”

  CHAPTER 6

  Chael

  I knew my fucking instinct to remain in Texas for the time being would serve me right. Even though Christophe had yet to pull up anything relevant on Pines, and there was a hell of a lot of pack business that I needed to get back home to take care of, I couldn’t leave Reese.

  She didn’t know it, but I stayed in a hotel only about ten minutes from her home. Yes, ever since I first scented her and found out her name, I had my brother look up her address. While I couldn’t claim her as my mate yet, I would be damned if I let her out of my sight for too long.

  When she called me, I knew something was wrong. I was in my truck and on my way to her place before the call disconnected. Less than ten minutes after ending that call, I parked in her driveway behind her car.

  I bared my teeth as soon as I opened my truck’s door. The distinct smell of wolf DNA permeated the air. They weren’t just wolves but shifters, fucking werewolves around my mate’s home. And they weren’t from my pack.

  I hadn’t assigned any of my protectors to watch over Reese, not since I was so close. In fact, the only members of my pack who knew about Reese were Chance and Christophe. I thought about heading into the woods and shifting to seek them out, but I needed to lay eyes on Reese first.

  I ran a hand over my hair to calm my ire to not frighten her. I strolled up the concrete pathway that led to the front entryway. My booted foot hit the top stair, and Reese pulled open the door.

  “You’re here.” The words came out breathy, and I had to fight to control my urges. There was fear in her brown eyes, which ignited my anger again.

  Without thinking, I reached out my long arms and pulled her into me, needing the comfort as much as she did. She came willingly.

  Damn, did her body feel divine pressed against mine. Leaning down, I buried my nose into the top of her head and inhaled deeply. The tingling sensation that I remembered from the first time I caught her scent was there but in much greater abundance. She smelled like vanilla with a hint of lavender and something woodsy that reminded me of the mountains of my mother’s home after a fresh rain.

  Reese slipped her arms around my waist, holding me to her, and I knew that my long wait to find my mate was worth it. I pulled back and brushed my lips across her forehead. It wasn’t quite a kiss, but it was all I could do to contain myself. Not while the scent of foreign shifters continued to pulse in the air around us.

  “Let’s go inside,” I said, loosening my grip on her body, though it was the last thing I wanted to do.

  She went back inside, and I followed after doing a sweep of our immediate surroundings with my gaze. There weren’t any wolves in sight, but that didn’t mean they didn’t still linger around somewhere.

  Reese moved a few feet away from the door to stand in the middle of her small living room. I stared down at her, dressed in a pair of red-and-black plaid pajama pants and a formfitting sleeveless white top. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and as soon as I caught her nipples peeking through her top, my mouth watered.

  My wolf whined.

  Take her! I gritted my teeth, quietly reminding my wolf that my human was in charge at the moment. Mauling Reese in her living room would only scare the shit out of her.

  “I’m sorry.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I shouldn’t have called you.”

  Before I could respond, a low growl sounded from behind her.

  “Henry, no,” Reese commanded. She moved aside and lowered, petting the large black dog that stood behind her. “He doesn’t usually take well to new people,” she said, an apologetic smile on her lips.

  He continued to growl. My face hardened, and I glared at him in the eyes, my stare unwavering.

  Silence. My wolf commanded. Recognition soon filled Henry’s gaze, and he went from growling to lowering his head, bowing. The universal sign that he recognized who the alpha in the room was.

  “Wow. I’ve never seen him do that before.” Reese stood, glancing between Henry and me.

  “He just needed to know who he was dealing with.” I smiled down at her until the wrinkle in her forehead relaxed. Moving in closer, I brushed my fingers down the length of her arm. “Tell me what happened.”

  Her lips parted, and her eyes swayed from one side of the room to the other. She ran a hand over the back of her neck. “It’s ridiculous. I thought I saw some wolves in my backyard. It was probably me making up things. I had a weird dream that woke me up and—”

  “Show me.”

  She paused and pushed out a heavy breath through her mouth. She waved her head toward the kitchen. “It’s likely nothing at all, and I’m overreacting.”

  “Let me be the judge of that.” I bit back the desire to tell her that she wasn’t making anything up. Her senses were correct. But that would mean revealing the truth to her, and she wasn’t ready for that just yet.

  She nodded, and I followed her into the kitchen. “They were out there.”

  “Let me.” I covered her hand when she started to unlock the door.

  She stepped back, and I opened the door. I sniffed the air and counted at least three different wolf scents. They weren’t alphas, though. Not powerful enough to take me on, even in a pack of three.

  “Stay here and lock the door behind me,” I ordered over my shoulder.

  “You can’t go out there.” There was alarm in Reese’s voice as she went to step over the threshold of her back door.

  “Do not take another step.”

  She stilled at the biting edge in my voice, I assumed.

  I swallowed my anger down. It wasn’t her that had me angry, but I was fucking rattled. The possibilities of why there were werewolf shifters at my mate’s home were too numerous. This could have something to do with the nursing home, or somehow, someone had found out that she was my mate. If the Alliance discovered I found my mate in a human, they would do their best to put a stop to it.

  I’ll kill them all. My wolf declared, his voice roaring through my head. I dipped my head, agreeing with him, silently.

  “I’m going to make sure they’re gone. Go inside, lock the door, and do not open it for anyone but me,” I warned.

  Reese tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, and I had to look away. When I lifted my head again, she stepped back inside and closed the door. I didn’t move until I heard the door lock.

  Off the back porch was a stone trail that led into the small backyard. The distance between the patio and the fence was only about ten feet. I glanced over my shoulder before grabbing hold of two wooden planks to hoist my body over the eight-foot fence. I landed in a crouching position and didn’t move.

  An owl sounded in one of the trees, about three yards again. We made eye contact, and he quieted down. I quickly discarded my shirt, boots, and jeans, leaving them by the fence, before shifting into my wolf.

  Find them. I ordered my wolf, and he took off running, tracking the scent. Their fucking smell was all over the backwoods behind Reese’s home. I growled and bared my teeth when I spotted paw tracks. I followed them for about six yards, noting the scent of the wolves still prevalent in the air.

  However, my anger eased, only slightly, upon recognizing they were long gone.

  The bastards, whoever they were, had followed this pathway out of Reese’s neighborhood and connected to another street about half a mile away. That was where I lost their scent and the tracks. They likely shifted somewhere around here and got in an awaiting vehicle.

  Who the fuck were they? And why were they looking for my mate?

  I made my way back toward Reese’s home, stopping at a few trees just past her fence, and lifted my back right leg. A stream of piss flowed out, watering the trees. I went over to another tree at the opposite end of the fence and did the same. Then I circled to the front of Reese’s home, doing the same thing over and over, drenching her entire property in my scent.

  Not until I was thoroughly satisfied that I’d marked my territory did I return to my pile of clothes. Once shifted back and dressed, I circled to the front of the house to do one final sweep of the surrounding neighborhood. Nothing was amiss, but I knew what I smelled earlier.

  “Hey,” Reese said as she pulled the door open for me. “Everything okay?”

  “Perfect,” I lied.

  “You didn’t find anything?” She slapped her forehead and shook her head. “I knew it. I was overreacting. I shouldn’t have…” She cut off when I took her hand into mine, squeezing it.

  “You did what I wanted you to do.” I stepped back inside, crowding her space and shutting the door behind me without peeling my gaze away from her.

  A small smile touched her lips, and a yearning in my body unlike any other started. How I wanted to stroke those lips with my own. I wanted to hear her beg for me with that pretty mouth of hers.

  I ran my hand down the side of my face.

  “Oh my.” Reese’s eyes grew wide. “I’m sure you’ve been working all day and are exhausted. You probably want to get back home.”

  “Actually.” I paused to make sure I locked the door behind me. “If it’s alright with you, I think I’ll stay awhile.”

  Reese

  If it’s alright with me?

  I should’ve told him that it most definitely wasn’t alright with me for him to be in my home in the middle of the night. I stared at Chael, taking up the entirety of my doorway, his presence filling up every inch of my tiny, rented home, casting his almost overwhelming energy over everything it touched.

  He unnerved me in ways that I’d only read about in romance books and romantic comedies. I’d felt butterflies for other men before, sure. But this was more than that happy, giddy feeling you get when you think about your crush. I called this man when I was terrified in the middle of the night. And he came. No questions asked.

  That was a panty-wetting type of behavior.

  I cleared my throat and pointed over my shoulder toward the kitchen. “I like to make a cup of cocoa when I can’t sleep. Would you like some? Or maybe coffee or something?”

  He followed me into the kitchen, but I found it strange that he barely made a sound as he did. Even in the heavy work boots he had on. Usually, the slightest movement caused an earthquake of sound in my place. Henry had woken me up more times than I could count whenever he would move around in the middle of the night.

  “Let’s see.” I pulled open the overhead cupboards and pulled out two different types of cocoa powder. “Are you a dark chocolate kind of guy? Or do you prefer your cocoa to have a little milk in it?” I shook both packages a little for emphasis.

  Chael’s eyes glittered with amusement. “Neither, actually.”

  “You don’t like these brands?” I peered at both of the brands in my hand.

  He shook his head, and a few strands of his hair that fell free from his braid landed around his shoulders. “I’m not a chocolate kind of guy.”

  Henry whined from his position at the entryway.

  “We’ve been through this,” I told Henry. “No chocolate for you.” I bit back the urge to say he could have some of his favorite unsweetened applesauce. He had, after all, stood guard by my side when those wolves or whatever they were, looked as if they wanted to eat me.

  “Chocolate’s not for us,” Chael said as he walked over to Henry, bending low to pet him.

  I noticed my pup bow his head again as Chael approached, almost as if paying deference to him. That was absurd. Henry wasn’t an aggressive dog, but he would stand his ground, and his sheer size intimidated most other dogs we came across, let alone humans.

  But in the presence of Chael. Henry tucked his tail and sat awkwardly on his hind legs, positioning himself to put as little pressure as possible on his hips.

  “He moves strangely.” Chael turned to face me from his squatted position in front of Henry, still petting him.

  My heart smiled at the little purring sound Henry made, enjoying the attention.

  With a nod, I said, “He has hip dysplasia.” I walked over to them and ran my fingers over Henry’s head. His eyelids lowered, and he made that high-pitch noise he made to tell me he loved the attention.

  I chuckled.

  “Poor guy was born with it. We think.”

  “We?” Chael asked.

  “The employees at the agency where I adopted him. He was a few months old when I got him. The agency wasn’t having any luck getting him adopted because his ailment was obvious, but as soon as I met him, we fell in love with one another.”

  I leaned in and took Henry’s face into my hands and shook it. “Isn’t that right, baby? I’ve had him for a little over six months now. I’m saving up money for surgery since pet insurance won’t cover it and the rehab he’ll need afterward,” I explained to Chael.

  Henry preened again and stuck his tongue out to give me kisses. I pivoted my head. “Ah, ah. What did I tell you about that? I love you, but no kisses on the mouth.”

  I stood and went over to the stove. “Since you don’t want any hot chocolate, would you like some coffee? Or tea?” My breath caught in my throat when I peered over my shoulder, expecting to see Chael still by the doorway. Instead, he stood directly behind me.

  Our bodies were mere inches apart.

  “I’ll take a cup of coffee.”

  I nodded and tried to swallow, but my throat had become as dry as the Texas desert.

  “Thank you again for coming out,” I said while focusing on the task in front of me and not the man behind me. “I hope I didn’t pull you from anything important.”

  I snuck a glance over my shoulder.

  “You didn’t take me away from anything or anyone of relevance.” He moved to the back door and reached for the knob, twisting it. When the door didn’t open, he nodded in approval before turning back to me.

  Had he emphasized the word, anyone? Was he trying to tell me that he wasn’t married or attached? He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but that didn’t mean a damn thing in today’s day and age.

 

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