Desired by the Pack: Part One: A BBW Paranormal Romance (3 page)

Holding her breath, she waited. If she was right, one of them would confirm. If she was off her nut, nobody would be squinting at her wondering about shifter lore. Even though she chose to remain apart from them, she still honored the protection secrecy afforded.

But there didn’t seem to be any secrets here, because Beck nodded.

“Pack,” he confirmed. “And you’re in Heat. Get in. We’ll see you back to
your…”

“House,” she said.
“Just my house.”

Cross raised a golden eyebrow. “You have someone at your house
who can take care of you?”

Can
, he said, not
will
.

She sucked in a breath.
Two small words, two hugely different meanings. Goddess, how she wanted a man--or a pack of men--who
could
, instead of merely
would
. She smothered the self-destructive voice inside and said, “I’ll be fine by myself.”

2

Beck and Cross didn’t immediately follow her into the truck. The red-head had reappeared while she was crawling inside. Before Beck shut the door behind her, she heard him call the newcomer Maverick. Alone, January fished her phone from her back pocket and texted Prince.

Where r u? Need reality check. Ride home. Sign u r alive. ???

Outside, Beck stood with his back to her. The rearview was just as nice as the front. For a man who probably spent more time in fur than denim, he wore his jeans well. As he shifted his weight and angled to say something to Cross, the owner of the truck, his muscular ass flexed against faded, threadbare pockets. A pulse throbbed between her thighs, begging for a little attention. January slid her hand over her mound and squeezed, but forced herself to stop there.

Doing her best to ignore her rising body temperature and raging hormones, she swallowed to clear her drool and checked her phone even though nothing buzzed, blinked or chimed.

“Where are you?” She whispered, peering out the windows. The parking lot was still bright despite the late hour. Nothing moved in the shadowy corners.

The passenger door creaked open. Beck stuck his head inside, lips parted to speak. Whatever he meant to say got pushed aside by the long, deep breath he drew through flaring nostrils.

Yeah, she could spend all night sniffing him, too, but she shouldn’t. In fact, she should be booking it out of that truck, into a taxi, and home to the safety of locked doors, battery-operated relief, and zero risks to her heart.

A life without sexually compelling werewolves who oozed alpha authority the way this one did.

Beck drew another lungful of her before speaking. His voice dropped to a low, hungry rumble, but he didn’t reach for her. “If you’re looking for someone to save you, don’t. You’re safer here than anywhere else.”

Hah. Like he knew the danger she was in just being in his and his pack’s hemisphere. And speaking of danger… “I’m looking for my friend. We came together. I haven’t seen him in a while and he’s not answering texts or calls.”

“Friend?” Beck’s eyes narrowed to glittering slits.

She rolled hers. “
Friend
.”

Thumbing through the gallery on her phone, she brought up a selfie Prince had texted that afternoon.

“Since you guys don’t seem to be in a hurry, maybe one of you can look around for him.” She pushed the phone at Beck.

Their fingers brushed as Beck took it from her. Just like that, the deep physical yearning cramped her uterus. She clamped her teeth together and breathed through her nose. Heat wasn’t a pleasant experience for a female left to face it on her own. Her body seemed hell-bent on reminding her she had willing aides right there in arm’s reach.

Beck’s gaze seared her but she stared at her knees. Eye contact would only make it worse.

“What are you waiting for?” She snapped once the moment passed.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

She looked up then, caught by the undercurrent of disappointment in his voice. Brow furrowed, she studied him for a long minute. There was something, but it must’ve belonged to a dream, because her reality didn’t allow for men like him. Sighing, she rubbed her hand across her chest, which ached with longing. “No, and I think I would know if we’d ever met. You have me confused with someone else.”

“I don’t think so.” He didn’t weaken his focus, just continued to look at her like he wanted to make his next meal of her.

The heated, swollen flesh between her legs tingled, distracting her from the emotional holes in her life. January squeezed her thighs together. She hadn’t lost control yet, but she might if he kept looking at her that way. Already, her brain seemed incapable of forming a coherent argument for mistaken identity. The truth was, they might have met
before. Heat shook her hormones so bad, she often came out the other end with big gaps in her memory.

“Maybe…” The whisper trailed off because she had no idea how she’d meant to finish the thought.

Beck’s lips curved, a savoring kind of smile that edged her body a little closer to surrender and her brain a little closer to crazy. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Mercifully, he looked away from her to concentrate on the phone. He tapped the screen to wake it again. “Is this guy worth my time?”

“You mean is he Blood?” The term for people possessing Moon magic but lacking a wolf spirit was archaic but it made her point.

Beck’s nod left her strangely disappointed in him. She didn’t know him, so she shouldn’t care that he assigned value by magic code. Most shifters held the same moral compass. They protected humanity as a whole but on an individual level, left humans to their own devices and their own problems.

But Prince wasn’t human. Like her, Prince came from something ancient and moonlit. Also like her, his wolf lay dormant. Unchanging.

“He is,” she finally said, pulling her head back from that dangerous rabbit warren of thought.

Beck took the phone and backed his head and shoulders out of the cab. He slammed the door, leaving her alone again.

She would have crawled over the back of the driver’s seat and out the door if Beck wasn’t so damn right.

Physically, she was safest right where she was. The whiskey was burning out of her system but the sexual imperative of Heat was growing more urgent. It had a tight grip on her body and mind, turning her decision-making ability to mush.

If she got out of that truck, she didn’t know where she would wake up.

Or if anything she did would be by choice or sheer physical compulsion.

Outside, Beck handed her phone to Maverick, who peeled away from the group. Instead of going back into the bar, Maverick headed around the side of the building.

A small orange flare sparked in the shadows beside the door. January squinted, picking up the outline of a man leaning against the brick wall.

She crawled across the seats and popped the passenger door open. Mistake, because that much werewolf pheromone made her dizzy. She closed her eyes, re-centered herself, and opened them again so she could point at the smoker. “Somebody should ask that guy if he’s seen Prince.”

The angry shifter glanced in the direction she pointed. Sandy hair fell across his face as he shook his head. “He is only seeing the motorcycles.”

She started to say something smart but shouts erupted nearby. Beck jerked his head up, homing in on the source of the noise.

“Trouble,” Cross said. “Call it.”

“Maverick’s on his way back. We stay with her.” Beck flicked his fingers and the angry wolf vaulted into the back of the truck. The cab rocked with the force of his landing.

Keys jangled as Cross circled around the front. He popped open the driver’s door and filled the seat, broad shoulders wider than the back rest. The engine rumbled to life before he got the door closed.

He checked her in the rear-view mirror. “Seatbelt, honey. What’s your name, anyway?”

She grabbed the belt clip and yanked it across her chest. “Jan--“

Bang! Bang!

“Fuck,” Cross breathed.

Beck opened the passenger door but didn’t lever up into the seat. He clenched his hand over the top of the door frame, knuckles gleaming white.

“Hunters,” Cross said grimly.

Beck nodded. “Mav’s keeping ahead of them. He should be--there.”

Maverick came tearing around the far side of the bar.

January’s mouth fell open. “Is that--“

“Your friend got himself in some trouble.” Beck jumped into the truck as the first of Maverick’s pursuers appeared.

She saw one of the strangers lift a weapon a second before Beck reached back, palmed her head and pushed her into the corner.

“Don’t move.” He slammed his door shut and thumped his fist on the dash.

Cross gunned it.

The truck charged forward, tearing through a cluster of parked motorcycles as Cross closed the distance between them and Maverick.

Another shot cracked the night, echoed now by shouts and curses from different directions.

Glancing back through the rear window, January cringed as bikers surged through the bar’s wide-open door.

“You and your friend better be worth this,” Cross said, no malice in his tone.

She started to defend herself but Beck beat her to it.

“She’s more than worth it. Mark that down.”

Cross laughed. She caught his eye in the mirror and he winked.

“I believe it,” Cross said.

And then they were nearly on top of Maverick, who carried a lean body draped over his shoulder.

“Hold on.” Cross hauled the wheel left. The truck fishtailed, slamming into another row of bikes.

Mav leapt, landed on one of the twisted motorcycles, and jumped again. He bellowed an excited, victorious cry as he landed hard in the bed.

“Get out of here,” Beck ordered, studying the crowd. “Don’t stop for anything.”

January peered between the men riding up front. The group that was chasing Maverick--hunters--raised weapons but melted away from the light.

Foot heavy on the gas, Cross bounced over a rough patch of land between the lot and the street. Within minutes, the bar was a chaotic memory.

They drove in silence for a few minutes, focused on evading the bikers riding in pursuit. Beck checked in with Maverick, whose thoughts were a jumble of adrenaline-fueled impressions, but he managed to pick up the gist of what had happened with the hunters before she spoke.

“My house is a couple miles west,” she said, smoky and soft.

Goddess, even her voice got under his skin.  “If we head to your place now, we’ll bring friends.” He pointed at the side mirror, where headlights winked in and out of the reflection.

The lights were little pinpricks, sporadic and weak. Distant and falling farther and farther behind, but still a threat. Every fiber in his body screamed to protect her, not  bring danger to her door.

Her breath rasped out on a sigh. “This day can go ahead and end any minute now.”

Beck left the comment unanswered. With Cross focused on driving without headlights, silence stretched thick in the cab.

He knew every time she moved, imagining the sinuous way she did everything from tossing back a shot to climbing into his truck. Watching her walk across that bar, a hint of black lace peeking from a fashionably frayed patch of denim right where the swell of her ass met her thigh, had stirred his wolf into a near-frenzy. Now she squirmed behind her seatbelt, shifting forward and back as she sought relief from Heat.

His mother, seeing to the thorough education of Beck and his four brothers, had likened a female’s fertile cycle to portions of childbirth. The wails and howls that echoed off the mountains of his childhood home when a female began to labor did bear a certain similarity to the needy cries of a Heat-afflicted female without her mate.

Or her mates, as was becoming more and more common with the population shift of recent decades. Werewolves were falling faster than they could reproduce, lost to the wars in Solaine, a realm of perpetual fires fueled by an ever hotter, ever more hungry sun. He might have burned in the solar fires himself if Luna, the Moon’s Handmaiden, hadn’t pulled him and Anders from battle when their alpha perished and the mate bond snapped.