Growl (Winter Pass Wolves Book 2) (6 page)

Pax lost himself then. For long stretches, he could only think of Brooke’s cries of pleasure, of the feeling of stretching her tight core, of the way her heat seeped into his body and spread like wildfire, burning him up from the inside out. He lost some of himself, lost time, lost everything but Brooke as he thrust against her, taking them both higher and higher until he was sure he would die.

When Brooke shuddered and clenched and shouted his name, her orgasm making her grip him so tight it felt impossible, unreal, Pax let himself go. Wrapping one arm around Brooke’s chest, he pulled her upright to sit on his lap and bounced her up and down, engrossed in the feel of her. Nuzzling her neck, he let his instinct take over completely. he was barely aware of sinking his teeth deep into her neck until the tang of her blood filled his senses, driving him past all comprehension.

He plunged over the highest cliff, freefalling endlessly, fingers marking her flesh as he pounded his seed deep within Brooke’s body, pouring out everything he’d held back for so long.

It was so good, it hurt. Like being turned inside out, emptied so completely that there was nothing left of himself. And yet… Brooke anchored him, warm and soft under his hands. He collapsed, managing to roll off her and pull her close. Stroking her back with light touches, listening to her ragged breathing, he drifted, awash in the sense of completion.

Finally…
was his last thought, burying his face in her hair, wrapping an arm around her, and pulling his mate close.
Finally
.

“
A
re there any more boxes
?” Brooke asked Penny, who was standing in Harlan’s cabin, taping a cardboard box shut.

“Uhhh…. not in here, but I’m like 99% sure that Chase still has a bunch of stuff in his cabin that hasn’t even been packed. You’d think, since it was his decision to move everyone to the big house, that he’d be more on top of his own packing…”

“Uh, no. I wouldn’t think that. It’s classic Chase,” Brooke said. “He orders everyone around and worries what they’re doing, without considering himself. Left to his own devices, he’d happily be packing and moving
alone
at midnight, once everyone else is squared away.”

“He has been pretty helpful today… like a knight in shining armor, but with cardboard…” Penny sighed. “It would be easier if the guys weren’t trading off doing patrols.”

“Yeah, but if Harlan thought he saw a Humvee of unfriendly humans…” Brooke sighed. “I guess the odds are stacking up against us. I just hope it wasn’t Travis that called in the calvary…”

“It’s been three weeks since your breakup,” Penny said with a shrug. “If it was him, he waited a long time to call the hunters. You said he doesn’t like to lose, like maybe he thinks you’ll come back to him. It doesn’t make sense for him to call in someone to try to hurt you if he plans to get you back. Besides, he’s a shifter too. Why would he draw attention from people who’d kill him, too?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Brooke said. “I’m just nervous, I guess. Creepy humans, creepy exes…”

“And we’re coming up to your first full moon,” Penny said, guessing the true source of Brooke’s anxiety. Or one of them, at any rate.

“Yep.”

“Worried?”

‘Terrified,” Brooke said, hoisting a box.

“Don’t worry so much. It’s pretty fun, actually,” Penny assured her.

Brooke chuckled.

“You’re irrepressible, you know that?” she asked Penny.

“That’s me!” Penny said with a grin. “Here, take this box too, it’s light. Then I’ll meet you at Chase’s cabin and we can tackle that next.”

“You got it,” Brooke said, waiting for Penny to stack the box on top of the one Brooke already held. “Then we can continue our conversation from last night about you and Harlan starting a family. I want all the details!”

Penny blushed and laughed, holding the door open for Brooke as they both left the cabin.

“You got it,” Penny promised, tossing Brooke a last look before walking toward Chase’s cabin.

Brooke hitched the boxes higher on her hip and headed for the main lodge, thinking about her own plans for the future. She certainly wasn’t ready to start her own family just yet, but the idea of having a baby with Pax called to her heart. He’d be an amazing dad. She could imagine him crawling around on all floors, showing a little version of himself how to get into mischief.

If two werewolves had a baby, would it be born a wolf? Brooke had zero idea how that worked, so she should probably do some research—

“Stop right there,” came a too-familiar voice. Cool metal touched the back of Brooke’s neck, raising every hair on her whole body. Lynne Marchand chuckled as she pressed the tip of a gun against Brooke’s bare skin.

“What are you doing here, Lynne?” Brooke asked, her whole body trembling. Careful to remain still, Brooke turned her gaze to Lynne. The attorney was dressed head to toe in black hunting gear, which in itself was shocking. Then there was the look on Lynne’s face, steely determination mixed with a sneer. That in itself was almost scarier than the weapon she held.

“You’re very stupid, you know that?” Lynne asked.

“You don’t have to do this,” Brooke said. “You can have whatever you want, you don’t need the gun.”

“Hah! I know what you are now, Brooke. You think I’m going to wrangle a werewolf without a weapon? I’m not the stupid one here.”

A werewolf who’s never shifted…
Brooke thought. Lynne didn’t need to know that, though. Brooke’s wolf stirred within her, the sensation still jarring for its newness. Her wolf didn’t like Lynne’s presence, didn’t like the scent of gun oil filling the air.
Right there with you, buddy
.

“What do you want, Lynne?” Brooke asked, trying for the same no-nonsense tone Lynne normally used. Lynne gave another amused huff, which wasn’t a very good sign in Brooke’s eyes.

“Lots of things, Brooke. I want my son’s heart not to be broken. I want him to have everything he deserves, which you’ve so rudely denied him.”

“I didn’t do anything to him,” Brooke pointed out, shifting the boxes in her hands.

“Put the damn boxes down,” Lynne ordered. “Slowly.”

Brooke took a step away from Lynne and her gun. She set the boxes down, then stood up again and turned to face Lynne.

“He doesn’t even love me, you know,” Brooke told her.

Lynne’s sneer reappeared.

“What does
love
have to do with anything? Do you think I loved Travis’s father? No. I needed his position and power, and I needed his seed. Once I had Travis, I didn’t need anything else from that bastard. So I got rid of him, just like I planned to do to you. Once you gave Travis children, of course.”

Brooke blinked, surprised that Lynne would just lay out her crazy plan like that.

“You’re going to kill me?” was all Brooke could think to ask.

“I said
planned
, past tense. Keep up, dear.” Lynne paused, then shook her head. “No, I’m afraid you interrupted all of that. I was going to wait it out, get you to sign over the rights to Winter Pass Lodge and your parents’ offshore accounts to Travis, let you give me some grandchildren first. But now, you’ve ruined that. Now I have to speed up the process.”

Brooke wasn’t sure how she was supposed to respond to that. Lynne reached into the pocket of her black windbreaker, pulling out a sheaf of papers and waving them meaningfully.

“Time for Plan B. My car’s this way,” Lynne said, waving the gun toward a path that led south, away from the main house and cabins. “Start walking.”

“Lynne… really, you don’t need to do this,” Brooke said again. “If it’s money, we can work something out.”

“You don’t know anything, stupid girl. Of course I have to do this. Do you think securing my position as district attorney was cheap? And Travis, getting him a job in the state house, that was very costly. These things cost money, Brooke, and campaign donations would never have been enough. Now I need to repay my debts, and it’s more than you could possibly
work out
.”

“Killing me isn’t going to get you anything,” Brooke said. Lynne’s white SUV came into view, parked at the end of a freshly-made dirt path through the woods. Brooke started thinking of those abduction PSAs she’d seen in college.
Never let an assailant take you to a second location
. “I’m not getting in the car with you, Lynne.”

“No, you’re not,” Lynne said, stopping by the SUV’s flat hood and tossing the papers down. “You’re going to sign these, to start.”

Brooke picked them up, accepting the pen that Lynne shoved at her. She leafed through the documents, which contained dozens of bank accounts and the deed to Winter Pass.

“I don’t understand,” she said, looking up at Lynne. “You can’t think I’ll sign these. I don’t even have the… I don’t, the authority to sign these.”

“You do, actually. I’ve made sure that you’re the sole signatory on everything,” Lynne said, her lips thinning.

“Why would I do this? If I sign these, you’ll just kill me,” Brooke said, her heart pounding against her ribs.

“Actually, I won’t. Like I said, even though I keep finding more and more money that your parents stashed away, it’s not going to be enough to pay my creditors and still give me the life I want.” Lynne licked her lips, her greed and uncertainty showing for the briefest moment. “Ah, there’s the second part of the plan, pulling up now.”

A black Humvee trundled up the path, pulling to a stop behind her. No doubt, the same Humvee that Harlan had spotted previously… filled with what the guys called
Hunters
.

“Oh god…” Brooke said, goosebumps breaking out over her skin.

“Doubt that’s going to help you now,” Lynne said, looking amused. “These guys are paying a huge amount of money for you, did you know? I’m not sure if they want to vivisect you, or make you pop out wolf babies for them to hunt… honestly, I don’t really care. They’re going to make me rich and give Travis the connections he needs to fulfill his political aspirations.”

“You’re doing business with men who would gladly hang your son’s skin on a wall?” Brooke asked, horrified.

“What?” Lynne asked, frowning. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Travis is a shifter. He’s never going to be president, or anything close to it. Not if guys like these have anything to do with it,” Brooke said, looking at the camo-suited guys climbing out of the Humvee.

“Lies aren’t going to save you now, you stupid bitch,” Lynne snarled. “Sign the damn papers or I’m going to shoot you right here, right now. I’ll wound you and drive you out into the woods and let them hunt you down.”

“You’re crazy,” Brooke said, shaking her head. “You really didn’t think this plan through. I’m not going to help you!”

“Of course you are,” Lynne said, her nostrils flaring. She took the safety off the gun with an audible click, pointing the gun straight at Brooke’s heart. In that moment, Brooke saw Lynne with such clarity: her desperation, her willingness to do absolutely anything to get what she wanted, the fact that she’d dug herself in so deep that she would likely never escape…

“Lower your weapon,” barked one of the Hunters, approaching with a rifle aimed at Lynne. “That’s our property you’re endangering.”

“Not until she signs these papers, she isn’t,” Lynne said, the whites of her eyes showing as she stared Brooke down.

Out of the corner of Brooke’s eye, she glimpsed movement. A hint of coppery red, just the color of Penny’s hair. Squeezing her eyes shut, Brooke prayed that Penny wouldn’t give herself away and end up caught, too. Maybe she could run for help.

“Shoot her,” one of the guys said. Brooke’s stomach dropped, sure that it was a death sentence. Then the man with the rifle fired straight into Lynne’s chest, dropping her like a sack of stones.

Brooke went utterly still. Lynne lay in a heap on the ground, gun still in her hands, mouth open in shock. It was only a matter of moments before she went slack, the life drained out of her just that fast.

Run
, her wolf urged.

Too late, Brooke turned to flee. One of the Hunters caught her around the waist, jabbing something sharp into her neck, something that made her tingly, made her vision blur…

Her eyelids slid closed with a definitive slam, leaving Brooke in utter darkness.

“
P
ax
, man, you have to
calm down
,” Chase said, but Pax just paced in his wolf form, snarling. “Brooke wouldn’t want you killing random people to try to find her. You
know
that. Don’t make me tranq you again, dude.”

Standing on the lodge’s front porch, Chase watched his friend agonize, knowing exactly how angry and scared Pax was feeling. After all, Brooke was his sister. Paxton was losing his shit, clearly; when Penny broke the news of Brooke’s abduction, Pax had grabbed a gun and stalked toward the front drive, like he was going to go into town and just…

What? Kill until he got the answers he needed?

It wouldn’t work, obviously, though Chase could see the temptation. Chase wanted to rage and rampage too; he could almost taste the blood of the Hunters on his tongue. Someone had to be cool, though, and Harlan was too busy comforting Penny to help much with keeping Pax from going postal on the whole town of Winter Pass.

“Hey,” Harlan said, walking out onto the porch to join Chase.

“Penny okay?” Chase asked.

“Yeah. I had to give her something to sleep, but she’s resting now. Damn, that could have been her instead of Brooke.” Harlan’s hands were bunched into fists, clenched so hard they were turning white.

Chase just blew out a sigh. He didn’t know what it was like to lose a mate, but Brooke’s absence was tearing him up inside. His baby sister, snatched right from under his nose, taken for god knew what purpose.

“Chase…” Harlan began.

“Don’t say it,” Chase insisted, folding his arms across his chest.

“You know what has to be done,” Harlan sighed.

“I’m not even sure she’ll help,” Chase said, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Bullshit,” Harlan growled. “Stop being such a pussy. They took your sister, man. You can make one phone call to save your own sister, can’t you?”

That hung in the air between them for several long beats. Seconds ticked by as Chase watched Pax pace with increasing agitation, a low whine escaping his chest every few seconds.

“She might kill me,” Chase said at last.

“Hmm?” Harlan asked, glancing over.

“Avery. She tried to kill me, but she couldn’t do it. I’m not sure that will be the case this time.”

Harlan hesitated.

“You’re going to do it, though,” he concluded.

“Call the one woman I genuinely hoped never to encounter again?” Chase gave a humorless huff of laughter. “Yeah, I’m going to do it. I’m going to call Avery Burke.”

Chase felt a sickening sensation in the pit of his stomach. Something else, too… something he shouldn’t feel at all.

The tiniest speck of excitement.

Shaking his head, he pulled out his phone and dialed, holding his breath.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring…

“…hello?” came that sleepy, seductive voice.

“Avery… it’s Chase. Don’t hang up,” he commanded.

“Son of a
bitch
.”

Chase swallowed. This was his only hope…