For Life (15 page)

“No. What I want is to get some food without you baring your fangs in public.

We’ll discuss this later.” He turned, starting the car.

“Later,” she mumbled.
Maybe I
’
ll agree to have sex with him when he agrees to tell me
why he swelled inside me and marked me but now wants to pretend it didn
’
t happen
.

Josie squealed his tires when he took off from the post office. Maura grabbed her door handle, giving him a quick look.

“Okay, wolf man. I haven’t figured out yet if you respond more when I think or when I speak. But at least I know you’re hearing me when you react.”

“I haven’t ignored you for one second since we’ve been together.”

“I can smell the kind of attention you want to give me. What I want to know is why.”

“You must know you’re hot as hell.” It wasn’t more than a few blocks before they reached the restaurant. A werewolf establishment known for not burning their meat, Josie had eaten there a few times, and conducted some business with their pack leader as well. Every nose in the place would be sniffing up a storm when he entered with a fucking hot
lunewulf
at his side.

Maura stared out the window as he slowed and then pulled into a parking stall. “So you fucked me and then marked me because you think I’m sexy.”

“Your smell drives me wild.”

“Now? Or before?”

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For Life

Josie turned off the car and got out, sucking cold air deep into his lungs. Maura wasn’t going to drop this. He already told her he didn’t know why he had marked her.

That answer wasn’t good enough for her.

He reached her side of the car as she opened the door. Pulling her into his arms, he stared into those deep blue eyes. It made him nuts that she worried so much about his feelings and motivation behind fucking her.

“Everything about you has distracted me since I first laid eyes on you months ago,”

he confessed.

Damn. Just that little bit and her face lit up. “Was it so hard to tell me that?” she asked.

“Yup.” He turned her toward the restaurant and then slapped her ass.

She squealed and grabbed her hair, twisting it into a ponytail before looking up and glaring at him. “Brute,” she growled. Her thoughts told him otherwise. She loved the attention, the way her body distracted him and the way he noticed her.

Maura held her head high when they entered the werewolf establishment.
They all
think I belong to him
.
It won
’
t be so bad playing along like this for a while
.
Josie is a hell of a lot
better catch than any werewolf I
’
ve ever known in the past
.
She put him in the same situation. Possessiveness almost made him swell as he placed his hand on her back and led her to one of the tables.

Josie let his gaze settle on the males who turned curious stares their way, sniffing the air. Obviously a Malta male and
lunewulf
bitch entering an American werewolf restaurant would cause chatter. But most here knew him. Their attention quickly diverted to Maura.

The young waitress hesitated before Gus Johnson, the werewolf who ran the place, growled at her and sent her their way.

“Good morning.” She snapped her gum and poured coffee for both of them. Her

hand barely shook as her pale eyes traveled over his body more than once. “What would you like?”

The waitress addressed him, her back almost to Maura. But Maura answered

quickly before he got a word in.

“Steak and eggs for both of us.” She ordered for him, but her attention was hard on the young waitress who now gave Maura the once-over. Maura laid her claim on him, addressing the female and demanding acknowledgment, just as any mate would do for her male. “Both steaks rare and scramble the eggs.”

He was so damned proud he almost burst. The waitress gave Maura a curt nod then turned and left them. Maura reached across the table and ran her fingernail down the back of his hand. Every tiny hair, even those on his fingers, stood at attention.

“Treat me like I’m not even here,” she growled under her breath.

“My little bitch has some spunk to her.” He couldn’t help grinning at her.

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Lorie O’Clare

Your little bitch
?
She liked the way that sounded but diverted her attention to his hand. He listened to her thoughts as she tried analyzing why it mattered so much to her that she be recognized as his bitch when they were practically strangers.

You
’
re listening to my thoughts
,
aren
’
t you
?

He squeezed her hand in answer. Lifting her gaze, her blue eyes sparkled as if she was enjoying a good joke. He wished she heard what was in his head. Maybe then she wouldn’t get her hackles up when he didn’t tell her what was on his mind. He’d never tried teaching the gift to anyone else. Honestly, teaching anyone else to do what he did never crossed his mind before now.

“I take it you’re a regular here.”

“It’s a good place to hear what’s going on with the American pack.”

“And that’s your job?”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it a job but it’s what I do.”

“Do you keep an eye on the
lunewulf
pack too?”

“Sometimes.” Very few understood what little effort was involved in sniffing out the packs surrounding the Malta territory. “I don’t have to tell you that I’ve never sat in one of your restaurants and casually enjoyed breakfast.”

Maura glanced around at the few werewolves awake before noon. Every one of

them wondered what the hell she was doing with him. Josie didn’t have to watch how quickly most of them ate so they could get out of here and spread word that apparently Josie Balzon had mated with one hell of a hot-looking
lunewulf
bitch.

“It’s not that we’re antisocial.” Maura would defend her own kind. He would have thought less of her if she didn’t. “American and Malta werewolves don’t wish to work with us. If they did, we would have no problem with any of you walking through our pack.” She pointed at him, flashes of her past snapping in her mind like quick glimpses of partial videos. “Just last week some
Cariboo lunewulfs
were in town. And from what I heard, they’d been in Cuchara before they visited our pack.”

“Where were they from?” He hadn’t heard of any
Cariboo
in the area, let alone werewolves moving around the humans. Cuchara wasn’t known as a werewolf-friendly community. The humans who lived there vandalized Malta territory and
lunewulf
territory in the past, managing to kill several members of their pack.

Maura raised a shoulder lazily, but her expression remained alert. She guessed quickly that any werewolf activity out of the norm put him on the alert. “My point is that they were welcomed and there wasn’t any fighting. At least none that I heard of through the pack grapevine. I never personally saw them.”

When their waitress returned with plates of food and more coffee, the two of them fell into a comfortable silence. At least there was no speaking. Josie ate slowly, focusing more on the thoughts going on around him than on his meat. The food was as good as always, but somehow eating with Maura made the meal better than any of the other hundred breakfasts he’d eaten here before.

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For Life

The door to the restaurant opened and Josie made eye contact with Ollie Grayson, the pack leader in Valle. The American werewolf rested his gaze on Maura’s backside, and his radar immediately kicked in. Everything he’d been focused on when he’d entered the restaurant faded as he picked up the
lunewulf
bitch’s scent.

Ollie sauntered toward them, ignoring his pack, who straightened in their seats around them. The place quickly got silent and Maura paused, her fork with a piece of meat on it in midair as she glanced around her, sniffing the air and looking worried when she met Josie’s gaze. The air in the place settled with the hard smells of anticipation and concern. Everyone waited to see what Ollie would do and say to Josie and his female companion.

“Josie.” Ollie nodded his head slightly when he reached the table and looked down at him with a very serious expression.

Josie offered the American pack leader his respect. Making sure his expression appeared as relaxed as his scent, he gestured to the empty chair at their table. “Here to eat?”

Ollie pulled the metal chair away from the table, its legs scraping over the linoleum floor. If the squeaking sound hit a few werewolves’ ears a bit hard, it simply served as a reminder for them to focus on their own damned business. Josie didn’t ignore any of their thoughts though, instead putting himself on alert and staying focused on everything around them as well as the intimate setting at their table.

“I didn’t get an announcement that you’d mated.” Ollie looked at Maura, staring at her without reservation. The werewolf would assume traditions were being honored.

Maura reeked of his scent, and he had her out in public, presenting her at his side. It wouldn’t surprise him if by the end of the day, all three packs heard that Josie Balzon now had a
lunewulf
mate. Might prove interesting when Dimitri got the news.

Josie would give Maura this, she didn’t balk under the scrutinizing appraisal but straightened, putting her fork down and then folding her hands in her lap. She offered Ollie the softest of smiles. He almost burst with pride as her scent grew richer, an aromatic mixture of curiosity and his scent on her. Not once did she look his way.

Her thoughts weren’t as composed.
Please don
’
t let him contact my pack leader
.
Bob
can
’
t find out like this
.
He
’
ll explode
.

Josie agreed with her on that one. “We haven’t formally made an announcement yet. Figured we’d enjoy some breakfast first. I told Maura this was the best food in the mountains.”

“Maura?” Ollie questioned.

“I’m Maura DeBeaux. It’s an honor to meet you.” She extended her slender hand, which Ollie took, gave a firm shake, then brought the back of her hand to his mouth, faking a kiss while getting a better smell of her.

“DeBeaux? Your den is part of the
lunewulf
pack?” He let go of her hand and turned his attention to Josie. “She is returning to that pack?”

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Lorie O’Clare

Josie offered his most chivalrous smile and wasn’t daunted when Ollie simply raised one eyebrow.

“Allow me to present Maura Balzon. We just made our decision early this

morning.” He held up his coffee cup, looking away from Ollie long enough to grab their waitress’s attention—not that it was hard to do. Like everyone else in the restaurant, she was already watching him. “We’re still on our first cups of coffee, and I admit Maura and I had a long night last night.”

Ollie leaned back in his chair, crossing his thick arms over an even thicker chest.

“Good to hear, Balzon. Real good to hear.” He waited while their waitress refilled everyone’s cup, including the one in front of Ollie. He took a long sip, then relaxed again, nodding his approval. “I like seeing young werewolves stick to the formality of our traditions. There are too many bitches these days running around with some male’s scent on her that she has no intention of seeing again. I wish you both good hunting.”

Ollie finished his coffee with a couple of swallows then stood, patting Josie on the shoulder. “Check in when you have time. I’ll leave you and your bitch to enjoy your breakfast.”

78

For Life

Maura needed to run. Tear over the mountains with all the speed she could master and simply feel the cold air bite at her flesh. She would run like that until all thoughts torturing her brain slowly faded.

Too much happened too fast.

In just over twenty-four hours, Pete dumped her outside her pack, Josie found her, killed her mate and had now just announced their mating to the American pack leader.

No matter that he wasn’t her pack leader, Josie’s announcement made it stick.

Maura wasn’t a bitch to turn her tail on werewolf tradition.

Unless they didn’t work. She acknowledged just the other day, when she

approached her own pack leader and begged him to release her from the foul stench of her mate’s brutal claws that laws should only be binding if they worked. That wasn’t disgracing laws and traditions that she’d honored all her life. She was simply trying to save her hide.

And for good cause. Hadn’t Pete dropped her ass out in the cold, more or less announcing to her that he was throwing her away?

But now…

A good, hard run would make it easier to think.

And she needed to think without sharing every thought that popped into her

conscious mind with Josie.

Maura ground her teeth together when they walked out of the restaurant, no more wanting to shop than she wanted to spend more time in this pack. Josie was in her head. She knew he was by the way he walked silently at her side. His expression sobered with small lines forming alongside his eyes when he focused on other people’s minds. In less than a day, she’d picked that up about him.

Her eagerness to know everything that made this werewolf tick bugged the crap out of her. Although deep in her mind she knew exactly why she wanted to know everything about him. Josie moved her more than any werewolf ever had. Whether she cared to acknowledge the truth or not, she was falling hard for him—real hard.

If only he would let her know what he thought about all of this.

Possibly he seriously didn’t know how to share his thoughts. That would be rather ironic—a werewolf who could hear everyone’s thoughts but couldn’t hear his own mind.

There was so much she didn’t know about him. Which was perfectly normal. She’d known the werewolf—really known him—for one day. Hardly enough time to

understand what made a male get his hackles up.

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Lorie O’Clare

Granted, there were still matings that took place in the twenty-first century where males and bitches hardly knew each other before setting up their den together.