Accidentally Wolf (6 page)

He sat back in the leather seat
and exhaled a loud sigh.

She unbuckled and turned in her
seat to look at him. “Okay.
So spill.”

“Not here.
Inside.”
He gave her his best boy scout grin.

“Does that look usually get you
what you want?” Laughter lit up her face.

“Is it working?” Her unique scent
mixed with the spiced apple lotion she wore had his mouth watering.

Cora blinked. “Your eyes are like
glowing…and it’s not
th
…
the sun.”

“No,” he answered. There could be
no lies between them. “Please come inside. I will tell you…show you
everything.” He reached over and took the keys out of the ignition, but instead
of pocketing them he held them out to her. Trust was something earned.

Her hand hovered over his, and
then she surprised him by curling his fingers over the keys.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured,
kissing her knuckles.

Once inside his house, he wasn’t
sure where to start.

“Would you like a drink?” At her
nod, he went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water for them both.
After their discussion, he may need to hit the hard stuff, but he’d save that
for later.

“Why don’t you just spit it out?
It can’t be worse than what I’m thinking. I mean you can’t be a vampire,
cause
you’ve been out in the daylight.” She turned to face
him, the bottle of water gripped tightly in her fist.

“What!” he exploded.

She jumped nearly dropping her
drink, but Zayn was there to catch it, jerking her into his body. “You thought
I was a bloodsucker?’ He laughed, caught the fist holding the bottle before it
connected with his stomach. “Oh, luv, I’m no bloodsucker. I’m…let’s go into the
living room where we can be more comfortable. I promise to explain everything.”

At Cora’s nod against his chest,
he lifted her chin with his index finger. “Everything will be fine. I promise.”
Because he couldn’t help himself, he brushed his mouth over hers.

Lacing their fingers, he led her
into the living room with the leather sectional where he’d made love to Cora
for the first time.

Sitting on the edge, she looked so
small.

Instead of prevaricating or
mincing his words, he figured he’d just get them out. Taking a deep breath he
squatted down on his haunches. “What I’m about to tell you is going to sound
crazy, and you’re not going to believe me, but I want you to let me finish
before you say anything. I will prove it to you after I’m done. Again, I’m going
to need you to trust me. You will want to scream, maybe even run. Above
everything else you believe
,
you must trust that I
will never, ever hurt you, or allow anything or anyone to hurt you. Do you
think you can trust me?”

“You’re really scaring me. Why don’t
you just say it and get it over with. Kind of like a band aid. If you just rip
it off, it hurts a lot less than if you ease it off.”

He let out a wry chuckle. “Damn, I
love you. Okay. I’m a werewolf. My nephew bit you first by accident and then I
did, which in turn has made you one of us. I’d say I was sorry, but honestly,
baby, I’m not. I’m sorry I…Fuck!” Zayn choked. His breath wheezed out in a gasp
as he fell on his ass with a pissed off
she-
wolf
standing over him.

“I asked you for the truth, and
you make up some lame ass story. Well piss off.”

Zayn pressed a palm to his chest.
“Wow, you pack a punch.” With his free hand he grabbed onto one of Cora’s
ankles when she tried to step over him. “I can prove it to you. Just give me a
minute to catch my breath.” She obviously had no clue that as a new shifter her
strength was increased.

Uncertainty flashed in her eyes.
Doubt clouded her beautiful features, tension in her body never lessoned, but
she nodded.

“Will you sit back down?” He
didn’t let go of her ankle.

Exasperation flickered over her
face. With a huff she sat, caught her bottom lip with her teeth and had her
eyebrows drawn into a deep frown that Zayn wanted to erase.

He stood in a fluid motion.

The magic that allowed them to
shift also gave them the ability to do so with or without their clothes on.
Usually when they knew they were going to shift they removed their clothes, not
because they needed to in order to shift, but because it was freeing. As a
wolf, they didn’t need clothes, so when they became their wolf, the clothes
just disappeared. When they returned to their human form, whatever they had on
before the shift is how they returned. He had never questioned how or why, it
just was. For as long as shifters had existed, that had been the way it was.
Though he wasn’t sure if that was the way it would be for a human made shifter.
Cora was his first. He really needed to speak to the elders or Niall.

Cora’s gaze locked with his, as if
telling him to get on with it.

He let the magic pour over him,
keeping his gaze locked with his mates.

A shriek, loud enough to wake the
dead, flew from Cora as she threw herself backward on the couch. He opened his
mind to hers, another benefit of being a shifter, hoping to calm her fears.
Cora, calm down, honey. It’s me, Zayn. I’ll
never hurt you
.
I asked you to trust
me, remember?

Her eyes bugged, and the smell of
her fear overwhelmed to his senses.

“How are you talking to me?” she
demanded.

The same as you can now. As a shifter we can communicate telepathically
in either form. Do you want me to shift back?

She sucked in a swift breath,
straightened from the sofa, and reached out her hand to touch his head.

He lowered his head to rest on her
thighs.

“So, are you saying I can do that
too?”

Yes.
If she kept scratching him the way she was he was sure he’d
roll over like a domesticated pet and beg for her to rub his stomach.

“How?”

He scooted back, missing her touch
immediately. With ease, he shifted back to his human form.

It was hard not to jump his mate
and make her forget, for a little while at least, what he knew she needed to
know.

Zayn gave her an abbreviated
description of shifters and how he and his brother, along with Jett had come to
Mystic. The compassion she couldn’t hide for his nephew made him all the more
happy that she was his mate. Being born a shifter from two parents who were
shifters, he wasn’t sure what to expect for one who was accidentally turned.

“So where are your parents now? I
thought wolves were pack animals?”

A genuine smile crossed his face.
“They are pack animals. We are pack animals. My parents are still with their
pack, our old pack. I don’t know how to explain it. We were restless, Niall,
Jett, and I. There just didn’t seem a place in the pack for us.” He shrugged
his shoulders.

* * * *

“So do I have to wait till the
full moon and then, you know, like turn all furry?” Cora tried to make light of
the situation, when inside she was a little freaked. Okay a whole lot freaked
out.

Zayn grinned. “We don’t need the
moon, full or not. All you need to do is picture your wolf in your mind.”

She wasn’t ready. The thought that
her…boyfriend—or whatever he was—turned into a wolf was enough to take in at
the moment, thank you. She had a thousand other questions that needed answered.
“How do you know I’m one, if you haven’t ever met a human who was, you know,
bitten or whatever? How do you know I don’t need to be naked? And why do you
call me mate? And what does this mean for me and my life?” The questions
swirling around in her mind frightened her.

“Hey, calm down. Listen to me. I
know that humans have been turned and are fine. Our life expectancy is longer
than the average human. No, we are not immortal. We don’t live for hundreds of
years without aging. Our oldest elder is a hundred and fifty-one, but don’t
quote me on that. We can go see him and his mate. They will have answers to
your questions. If they don’t, we will find someone who does. As for mate, you
are it for me. Don’t you feel it? It’s an unmistakable pull with a scent only a
mate has.”

She sniffed. “Are you saying I
smell?”

Cora wasn’t sure if she should
knee him in the nuts, push him away, or pull him closer. Now that he’d
mentioned it, he did smell really good. Truth
be
told,
no other man she’d met, before or after she’d made love with Zayn, had done
anything for her. Although in her defense, she hadn’t really dated anyone after
college. The need for Zayn was a little disturbing, a compulsion that was far
beyond what was natural, or what used to be normal for her.

“I’m saying that when a shifter
finds his or her mate, nature lets them know by their scent. I was confused
because when I first scented you I wanted you, but you were human. Hell, want
is too tame a word.”

“And you didn’t want a skinny
human.” She had little doubt he regretted his words.

“Oh, baby, I was running scared. I
didn’t mean it. You’re the perfect mate for me. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve
you, and I will work for the rest of my life to make it up to you.”

She was drawn to him, whether it
was because of the shifter thing or not. She steeled herself against her
heart’s reaction to his impassioned speech, pulled in a deep breath, and waved
a hand between the two of them as she spoke. “I need some time to digest all
this.”

He nodded, sadness and resignation
etched on his handsome features.

“I understand. I was supposed to
work at Chaps tonight, but I got Jett to take my shift. That’s the bar we own
in Sturgis. The weeks leading up to Bike Week can get pretty crazy. We all try
to be on hand, but I was going to stay here and help you adjust.”

She swallowed the lump in her
throat. He was giving her space. “I think you should work, and I’ll go home—back
to the clinic and get some rest,” she corrected. “Catch up on some…laundry and
stuff.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll follow you home.
Make sure you get there safe.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Don’t argue, baby. I’ll just
follow you even if you protest.” He leaned down and rested his forehead on
hers. “Damn, I’m sorry I fucked up.”

God, she wanted to wrap her arms
around him and tell him everything was okay, that she’d stay, but she needed
time to deal with everything. “You didn’t fuck up. I just need time to process.
When the bar closes, why don’t you call me? If I’m still up, maybe you can stop
by.”

His eyes, which had been closed
until that moment, popped open. The electric blue that had scared her a few
hours earlier made her heart beat faster for a whole other reason now. She
wondered if her eyes would change color too. Then she thought of Jett and his
black eyes and realized that would be an absurd thing, or would it?
More unanswered questions.

Chapter Five

Zayn looked at the clock behind
the bar again, wishing all the people in the place would just go for fuck’s
sake.

“You know if you keep looking at
everyone like that, you’re either going to scare the shit out of them, incite a
riot, or entice the ladies to drop their panties. I’m all for options one and
three, not so much for number two. Why don’t you take your scowling self on
home? You’re not doing us any good the way you are.” Jett slid a beer across to
another customer.

He knew his best friend was right,
but Zayn didn’t want to look like a whipped pup. He mixed another Jack and
coke, popped the cap off two more beers before handing them off to one of their
waitresses. All the waitresses wore leather chaps and leather vests as part of
their uniforms. What they wore underneath was their choice. Most of the ladies
chose to wear a pair of boy short briefs, but some of the more adventurous went
for a thong. In the past Zayn had loved to watch them as they walked away. Now,
he only wanted to watch one woman, and she wasn’t here.

Diane, one of their veteran
waitresses, sidled up to the bar with a sweet smile on her face until she
locked eyes with Zayn. He tried to temper his emotions, obviously failing when
she side-stepped to place her order with Jett instead of him.

“Maybe you’re right,” he conceded,
filling two mugs with draft beer for Jett. It was getting harder not to growl
at some of the customers. A niggling fear for his mate had the hair at the back
of his neck standing on end. With their mating being so new, he wasn’t sure if
he could connect with her so far away, but he had to try.

“I’m going to go out back and see
if I can’t reach her. Can you handle this?” He indicated the bar. Jett nodded,
making Zayn exhale before he called Teal over to help out.

Once outside, he breathed a little
easier. Even knowing it might be impossible, he opened his senses and searched
for the mating bond to Cora. The trail was faint but there nonetheless.

Cora, are you okay?

There’s something not right, Zayn.

What do you mean, baby?

I hear howling, but it’s scary. Not like…I don’t know how to explain
it, but not like you or family.

Is there a safe place in your clinic you can hide till I can get there?
Even as he spoke he was climbing on his Harley. He feared it was the wolves
from the Whitewood Pack, but didn’t want to scare her even more.

There’s an old walk-in freezer that I’ve never used.

Go in there. Can you lock it?
Zayn could hear her fear even through
the miles separating them.

No…Oh God, I’m inside. There’s no light.

Zayn did his best to stay calm,
knowing his next instructions were going to be the hardest he’d ever given. He
linked with Niall while he was talking with Cora, hoping his brother who was
closer could reach her in time.

Cora, I need you to listen very carefully to what I’m about to say.
The shifters that come in there aren’t friends of mine.
If
they were, I’d know about it, and they wouldn’t be there. That can mean only
one thing.
Zayn took a calming breath.
Honey,
they are there to take you. I want you to go with them. Don’t fight, even when
that’s what your instincts scream at you to do. A wolf loves a fight. Don’t
run. That’s like waving a red flag at a bull. Do you understand what I’m saying
to you?

The silence that greeted him had
his heart nearly stopping in his chest.

You want me to just go with them like a sheep to slaughter?

His breath burst from his lungs,
reminding him he needed to breathe, or he’d pass out and be no use to Cora.
I’m saying I need you to live, so I can find
you and kill the sons of bitches who dared to take what’s mine.

What if…what if they r-
ra
…
She didn’t
continue, but Zayn knew what she was asking.

Cora, I will love you no matter what happens. I just need you alive.
Don’t shift. Don’t fight. Please, baby. I’m on my way. Niall is on his way.

I’ll try. I can hear them in the clinic.
Panic laced her voice.

Keep our link open. Don’t shut me out.
Zayn put as much authority
into his tone without scaring her as he could.

I don’t even know how we are doing this.

Her fear was almost overwhelming
him.
All you have to do is think about a
line that goes directly to me and talk to me.

I hear scratching at the door. I’m so scared, Zayn.

The scream that filled his head
was one he’d hear for the rest of his life. The lost connection to his mate was
even worse. No matter how many times he yelled for her through their bond, he
kept hitting a wall. Thankfully, the link wasn’t severed so he knew she was
alive, which meant she was unable to contact him because she was still too new,
or she was incapacitated. Neither possibility made him happy.

Niall, how close are you to Cora’s clinic?
A lump the size of a
golf ball was lodged in Zayn’s throat.

Almost there, I rounded up several other pack members, but didn’t want
to leave the cubs unprotected.

Although he wanted everyone racing
to save his mate, he also understood Niall had to protect the rest of the pack
too.

I’m still a good thirty minutes away.
That chafed Zayn’s ass. He
should’ve insisted on staying with Cora or had her come with him to the bar.
Anything other than leaving her alone and at the mercy of other shifters to do
whatever they planned to do to her.

You need to stay focused, bro. If you lose your head and get yourself
killed before you get here, you won’t be able to help find her. I don’t know
her scent as well as you.

The surge of alpha power whipped
across their bond as if his brother was standing in front of him, instead of
miles away. Zayn was never so glad to have Niall with him as he was then.

It usually took over an hour to
get from Mystic into Sturgis, a drive he normally loved, but with his mate in
trouble he cursed every mile. He kept his senses open for danger along the long
winding road, while keeping his mind open in case Cora tried to contact him.

When Niall reached her clinic and
found it empty but trashed and relayed it all to Zayn, he pushed the gas on his
custom Harley to the limit without any thought to his own safety. If he lost
his Cora, he would gladly go to the other side to be with her. His brother
Niall had Nolan to live for. Without Cora, Zayn had nothing.

By the time his Harley crested the
last hill to the clinic, he was having problems keeping his beast in check. The
scent of Cora’s fear rushed him within seconds of him pushing the kickstand
down on the bike. His senses were more acute in wolf form, and he allowed the
change to take him without a second’s hesitation.

Niall, along with four other pack
members, stood in their shifted forms. All were waiting for Zayn to catch his
bearings and lead the way.

He let his nose sift through all
the different smells, zeroing in on the one scent he most wanted to find. The
cloying scent of one of the men he recognized as Tom overlaid Cora’s. All
around the building he was able to differentiate over four other shifters.
Meaning five shifters had been there, five men he would have to kill. The
scents shifted and left three different trails leading away from the building.

Niall, Torq, and Bronx waited for
Zayn to point out which trail to follow. Afraid that the other wolves had done
a bait and switch, Zayn decided they should split up. He’d follow the one with
Cora’s scent, and his pack mates would follow the two other trails.

At the last moment, he reminded
them of the traps that had injured Nolan. The possibility that there were still
more out there waiting for a victim, or a wolf, made his hackles rise. While
the cub had escaped without real injury, the adult wolves wouldn’t. Upon
further inspection of the trap, Niall had found it wasn’t an ordinary trap, but
one with a silver core, meant to kill werewolves. Luckily they could scent
silver if they knew to look out for it.

Each group turned in opposite
directions, taking the other trails.

Zayn kept his nose and senses on
Cora’s scent, kept calling out to his mate to answer him. He came to an abrupt
halt. The tiny almost nonexistent whisper of sound off to his left had his
hackles rising. He dropped into a crouch, ready to pounce.

Paul, a member of their pack,
stalked into the underbrush.
You were
right. The trail led back into a circle this way. They tried to fake us out.

Zayn reached out to Niall.
Did you send Paul out to search for Cora?

No. Paul was supposed to be helping watch the cubs.

He’s here pretending you sent him. I’m going to allow him to think I
believe him and see what he does.

Zayn fed him a line of bullshit,
hoping he was in turn relaying it to the bastards who had his woman, hoping it
would buy them more time.
Thank you,
Paul. I appreciate your help. I’m fucked in the head, thinking what could be
happening to my mate right now. She can’t even shift.

I’d be the same way, man. You lead the way, and I’ll follow you.

Now that he was really listening,
he could hear the sneer in Paul’s voice. Paul had a thing for Niall’s mate Emma
before Niall came along, even though she hadn’t returned the feelings. When
Niall and his brother came to Mystic with Jett, Paul and several other pack
members had tried to scare them away, which was normal in shifter societies.
They’d challenged, all three of them, Niall, Zayn, and Jett in not so fair
fights, and lost each time. Again, it was normal in their world. Niall had to
prove he was alpha enough to be mated to the previous alpha’s only daughter. He
was.

Up until that moment, Paul had
never shown any signs of not being satisfied with Niall being the alpha. Never
did Zayn think Paul, or any other member of the Mystic pack, would ever harm a
woman or child considered part of their pack. Now, he had to wonder if others
from his pack were part of the attempt on Nolan’s life, and who else he was
going to find holding his mate who
were
part of his
pack too.

Gods, this was going to kill Emerson
and Payton. They loved each and every man, woman, and child like their own
flesh and blood.

Zayn blocked his thoughts from
Paul, other than showing the man a mass of confusion. The other man on the
other hand, didn’t have the same control, and Zayn picked up his sense of
triumph. Zayn wanted to turn around and rip out the man’s throat. Unsure what
kind of connection Paul had with the other pack was the only reason Zayne
didn’t follow through on the impulse. A loss of life could alert the ones who
had Cora that Zayn was onto them.

Once he had Cora safely in his
sights, all bets were off, and the first he’d kill would be who was closest to
Cora, followed by Tom.

* * * *

Cora’s stomach rolled. Being hit
over the head with what felt like a sledge hammer and then waking up, face down
over the shoulder of some stranger did that to a person. She swallowed bile for
the hundredth time. The last thing she wanted to do was throw up all over his
ass, unsure if he’d hit her again or kill her. The man jumped over something,
jarring her more, and she gave up the pretense.

“Oh, God, I’m gonna be sick.” Hot
tears poured from her eyes.

He either didn’t hear or didn’t
care until she gagged and everything she’d consumed moved up her stomach.

“You fucking bitch,” Tom roared,
throwing her off his shoulder.

She closed her eyes, landing with
a sickening crunch on the hard ground, too undone to pretend indifference. The
kick to her side made her curl into a ball, a whimper of pain escaped before
she could call it back.

“Don’t kill the bitch, Tom. She’s
worthless to us dead.”

Cora cracked one eye open to see
who the other man was. He had a scar that ran down one side of his face, and
the same yellowish tinge to Tom’s eyes also burned in his. She didn’t recognize
him from Mystic.

“She threw up all over me,” Tom
whined.

If she wasn’t in such a dire
situation, she’d laugh at his cry baby voice. She thought back to her time with
Zayn. How he’d told her he loved her. With shifters maybe it was instinctual,
or whatever, but now she wished she’d told him she really felt deeply for him.
She wasn’t sure if it was love, but she wanted to find out. All they needed was
time. It wasn’t fair that just when she found someone to love her, her world
was tilted on its axis and destruction was left in its wake, again. Life wasn’t
fair.

Her first thought was to get up
and run, or fight. Zayn said those were two of the worst things she could do
around shifters, and he would know. She trusted him with her life. With her
heart though was a whole different thing.

She kept her eyes closed trying to
get control of her raging heartbeat. Knowing they could hear her every breath,
she didn’t want them to aware she was scared shit-less. She pretended to be
asleep or knocked unconscious, when the man with the scar came to check on her.
Even when his hands touched her breasts, Cora didn’t make a noise. Not even
when he grabbed one of her nipples and twisted, so hard she was sure he was
going to rip it off, did she make a sound of protest. She centered herself with
deep breaths.

You’re doing so
good
, Cora. When I get there I
will make that man pay. This I promise you.

She focused on Zayn’s soothing
voice without responding other than sending him thoughts of needing him.

“How hard did
you hit her anyway, dickweed?
If we can’t get her to wake up and give us
the information we need, she’s going to be utterly useless to the boss.”