Moves Like Jagger (Wolf Mates Book 4) (13 page)

Tiffany waffled; Viv sensed it as her eyes shifted in unease. “Yes! No! I mean, yesss! He
was
my husband. Back in New York before he moved her with all of you, and it took forever to find him, but I’m not leaving this backward-ass town until he leaves
with
me!”

Hmmm. She had only seconds to think—but she ended up wishing she’d paused longer before she spoke. “So he’s your husband in your mind? Like your imaginary husband?”

Regret screamed through her nerve endings when Tiffany thwacked her with an open palm across the face again. “Don’t you dare say that! I’ve given up everything for him—
everything
just to be with him!”

“
What
did you give up, Tiffany?” she howled, her limbs growing numb from the ankle-deep snow.

The wind swirled Tiffany’s long hair around her face, and Viv didn’t doubt this woman was beyond troubled.

She glared at Viv with venom in her eyes when she latched on to her throat and dug her fingers into her flesh. “My
humanity
! I did this for
him
. I became a bear shifter for him!”

Viv clawed at Tiffany’s long fingers, managing to loosen her grip, but only by a hair. “
What?
”

She shook Viv, rattling her teeth as though she were angry Viv didn’t understand. As though she should know the sacrifice Tiffany had made. “He revealed himself to me and I freaked the hell out!”

Totally natural. JC had done the same when she’d found out about Max. “So you were human?” she croaked as Tiffany tightened her grip.

“Yes! But I fixed it. I’ve fixed everything now!” she said, her excitement at finding her way out of her predicament, whatever it was, palpable. “Ohhh, he was so upset when I told him I didn’t know if I could live with something so—so—enormous. He broke it off. It was awful. So, so awful! When I realized I’d been shallow, that I’d made a huge mistake, I begged him to take me back. But he wouldn’t—he refused. He said he could never live with the way I’d looked at him when he told me—when he
showed
me! But it’s better now. Now I’m just like him and I’m not leaving until he comes home with me!”

“How?” She forced the word out as though it were mired in peanut butter, pulling at Tiffany’s hand. “How did you become a shifter?”

She looked quite pleased with herself when she whispered in a giggly tone, “I made him bite me. I held his wife at gunpoint and made him bite me as a way to spare her and voila—look out Winnie The Pooh! Then
boom
! I killed them both anyway.”

Okay. Time to get the hell out of Dodge.

That was when she saw it, from the corner of her eye, a blur of something—maybe someone.

Suddenly, Derrick was in her line of vision, waving his hands just in time to save her windpipe from being crushed.

He made the universal sign for Viv to stretch out the conversation as he began his shift.

So rather than fight the immovable grip, she went slack. “
Who
did you bite, Tiffany?”

“Jagger’s best friend Dale, of course. He’s a bear shifter, too. You’d know who that was if Jagger really loved you. He would have told you. But he loves
me
, and once you’re out of the picture, he’ll see the sacrifice I made for him and come back to me where he belongs!”

Oh, God. She was staring stark-raving mad right in the eye. Horror washed over her in waves.

How had this woman who’d been so lovely turned into this?

Viv slumped, fighting for oxygen, but she pressed forward as snow battered her face and the wind tore right through her. “You killed his friend Dale?”

She snapped her fingers with a smile of glee. “Just like that!”

“But what did you do with Dale and his wife, Tiffany?”

“My name’s not Tiffany, you useless, useless, interfering bitch! It’s Miranda. The only name Jagger will speak from now on!” she growled.

“Where are Dale and his wife?” she asked, raising her voice to drown out the noise Derrick and Max were making with their shifts.

She batted her eyelashes, her lips a crimson slash in her face. “I don’t know why you care, but I buried them in my backyard. No one will even know they’re gone because everyone thinks they’re in Nigeria. I texted Jagger from Dale’s phone just last week. Clever, don’t you think?”

“It was you in the woods that night, wasn’t it? It was
you
who killed the rabbits—you who bit those dogs.”

Miranda frowned, suddenly displeased. “I can’t seem to eat enough. I’m hungry all the time,” she whined with a moan. “I don’t know how to fill up, but none of that matters. Jagger will teach me everything I need to know. Now shut up and move!” she roared, lobbing Viv to the ground.

Just as she stumbled, she caught sight of Scar off in the distance, moving faster than she’d seen him move since they’d met, his teeth barred, his jowls flapping on either side of his precious face.

That was the exact moment Tiffany/Miranda sensed a presence behind her. Viv saw it in her eyes. She lacked the finesse of a shifter, that much was easy to spot, seeing as she suffered her own maladies with the subject, but that didn’t stop her from her next course of action.

Her clothes melted away in a flash, her bones making that horrific crunching noise Viv knew only too well.

Hair sprouted from her flesh as her skin fell away and she transformed with a roar that could make one’s ears bleed.

Viv scurried backward in a crab-like crawl, her hands stiff from the cold, her legs wooden, scanning the forest floor for some kind of weapon.

Miranda dropped to all fours and began toward her at a run, one she’d never expect could be so quick from a lumbering bear of her size. She towered over everyone, surely standing at least seven or eight foot, her body quivering with ugly rage.

There were seconds between her and this woman who was so lost in a world she’d created in her head that, if her life weren’t on the line, Viv would pity her.

But there was no time for pity. There was only time for survival.

And she fully intended to survive this just so she could hear Jagger’s explanation.

That oughta be good.

Wife indeed
.

There was also no time for any more thought as Miranda lunged for her, her jaws wide, her teeth dripping with strings of saliva.

Gripping the first thing she could touch, Viv latched on to a branch, pushing herself upward and taking a wild swing. If she was going down, if this was it, she wasn’t going down without a knock-down-drag-out.

But it was like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Miranda had her on the ground in the time it took for Viv to wipe the flying snow from her eyes, and then she went for her throat.

Viv surprised even herself when she tucked and rolled into a snowdrift, crashing against the hard packed, icy matter with a shout of pain.

Miranda rose upward again, howling her anguish, screeching until the trees around them shook with her distraught ire.

Back on her feet, she caught sight of Derrick and Max, fully shifted now, leaping through the air at Miranda’s back, snowflakes lashing their wolf forms. But Miranda was too swift. She whirled around and swiped them away from her as though they were nothing more than tennis balls and her paws were the racquet, their howls following in their discarded wake.

The distraction had given Viv just enough time to turn and run, her best bet at this point.

Then she heard, “Hey! Stop being so mean to Viv!”

She swiveled back toward the voice. She knew that voice.

Jerry?

Oh God, no! Not Jerry. She’d pulverize him. Jerry was sweet and gentle and he got stuck halfway through his shift. Miranda would eat his face off and he’d have no defense.

No. No, she couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t live with herself.

As quickly as that thought absorbed into her brain, another came hot on its heels.

Where the hell was Jagger?

No sooner did she wonder than she heard a distinct low growl, very different than Miranda’s. It was a fierce warning, a vicious threat.

Jagger!

Miranda didn’t take too kindly to Jerry’s assessment of her. She twisted around, opening her mouth wide and charging him with the pound of her feet against the snow.

And chaos erupted. A silent, stealthy chaos. There was no growling, no heated snarls of rage. There was just motion and the blinding wind.

Snow flew as Jagger knocked Jerry out of the way when Miranda made a frenzied dash for him, and then he was on his feet, too.

Majestic, beautiful, scary as hell, he rose upward and roared, the sound reverberating around her head in swirls of noise.

He went for Miranda’s throat, knocking her down like a freight train ramming into a brick wall. They rolled, twisting and turning, their bulky bodies kicking up clouds of snow and ice.

Jagger pinned her momentarily, but Miranda’s rage was her adrenaline, her fuel, and she managed to throw him off her.

A bark sounded, one full of anger and warning, high and almost shrill, making Viv’s eyes swerve to her left.

Scar!

Jerry and Hector were running behind Scar, yelling protests, but the dog was on a mission.

Save his master.

If she’d had more time, she might have wondered where the steam behind Scar’s full-on run had come from, but instead, she launched herself forward. Her intent to stop him from being eaten alive.

“Scar, nooo!” Viv bellowed as loudly as possible over the whipping wind.

Her heart crashed against her ribs in fear as she took the only route she could when Miranda caught sight of Scar.

She threw herself in front of Miranda.

With a screech of adrenaline laced with sheer terror, Viv, using her feet as springboards, threw herself in Miranda’s path, hitting the ground with such force, she gasped a shrill wheeze of air before the bear landed on top of her and pounded her into the snow.

Sharp teeth nicked her neck, but she couldn’t lift anything on her body even an inch to stop the attack, she was so deeply embedded in the ground beneath her.

There was another sharp bark from Scar, one Viv wanted to silence so he wouldn’t end up with a fate similar to hers, but she couldn’t breathe.

Her last thought was, no matter what her end, these last days with Jagger and Scar in Cedar Glen had been some of the happiest she’d ever experienced.

“Jagger! Scar! Stop, Scar!” someone yelled.

Moments passed with wet snuffs and snarls as her background noise, the heavy weight suddenly gone from her back. She lifted her head just enough to see Jagger on top of Miranda, his mouth at her neck and then she squeezed her eyes shut and gulped.

Tears slid down her face, making hot trails over her cold cheeks. There was a cold crunch of snow beneath feet and the mumbling of the men before she felt Jagger’s hand at her back.

“Viv! Jesus Christ, honey,” Jagger yelped, turning her over and wiping the hard-packed snow from her face.

She jolted forward almost as a reflex, trying to sit up but thwarted by the undeniable fire of an ache in her ribs. “Scar! Where’s Scar?” she managed before the tear of pain sliced through her midsection as Jagger helped her sit.

And there he was, his goofy face pushing between she and Jagger, his tongue lolling from his jaws and over his crooked bottom teeth. He snorted and grunted, head-bonking her.

Despite the pain, she threw her arms around Scar’s neck and sobbed into his wet fur. “Don’t you ever, ever do that again! Do you hear me, you brave beast? What were you thinking?”

Scar licked her face, driving his head into her arms, bringing tears to her eyes.

“Scar! Easy boy,” Jagger reminded him, pulling Viv close and resting his chin on the top of her soaking-wet head.

He was naked again, the poor man, his skin like ice. However, they had some things to clear up. “Where’s Miranda?”

His sigh was audible, his chest heaving against hers. “She’s gone. I’m sorry, honey. So sorry.”

“You,” she responded on a sharp wince of pain, “have some explaining to do, Boo-Boo.”

His chuckle was a deep rumble. “Ah, there’s my girl. You’re right, but first, we need to get you back home and warm. Then we need to brush this rat’s nest you call hair. I had hope for you this morning after our shower, but this afternoon brings with it the dashing of my dreams. You’re a mess. Who’s your hairstylist anyway?”

Viv giggled. “Take me home and I promise to dig my brush out.”

Jagger scooped her up in his arms, taking care to be as gentle as possible and, naked as the day was long, he carried her back to the van, where he put her in the passenger seat with great care and ordered Scar to get in beside her.

Derrick and Max followed with Jerry and Hector in tow, handing Jagger his clothes so he could dress.

There was a moment when she remembered the sight of Miranda’s body, still in bear form, a massive lump of brown with crimson spatters surrounding her body.

But she chose to look away, lifting her chin to instead peer out the window on the drive back to her cottage.

Scar snuggled her hand, his big, goofy head never far from her fingers, and Jagger kept looking to his right to check on her.

Derrick and Max wrapped blankets around her, and Jerry squeezed her shoulder with his usual compassion.

They were silent for most of the ride—despite a victory, a death had occurred, one she’d always remember with great sadness.

But when Jagger pulled into her driveway at the cottage, she sighed in relief. The timer on the Christmas lights had turned on, leaving that beautiful glow to welcome her.

This had become home.

She hoped to wash away the sadness of today with the beauty of the promises tomorrow held.

Chapter 12

T
wo days later, Viv sat on her couch, admiring Jagger’s handiwork.

“That’s some Christmas tree, Dr. Dubrov. I think you might have missed your calling. Thanks for doing this, seeing as I’m broken.”

The tree glowed with starry lights and fat, round ornaments in all colors. They’d strung popcorn and made row after row of garland with the kernels mingled with cranberries.