Roaring for Him (BBW Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance) (Wicked in Wilder Book 1) (16 page)

She made fun of herself often enough, she couldn’t care less. Another shake of her head.

“What if I promise not to…”

Tilly lifted her head and focused on his intent, yellow-eyed gaze. “Promise not to leave.”

Mitchell immediately released her and a spear of pain struck her heart. Except that ache was banished by his next movement. By the way he cupped her cheeks and forced her to meet his gaze. He didn’t let her skirt his stare or hide from him. No, he demanded her whole attention and she gave it.

“I will never—
ever
—leave you. You’re my mate.
Mine.
If you try to run, I will find you. Always. Baby, humans deal with stalkers, but they’re nothing against a werewolf male going after his mate. You can run. You can hide. But if you do, find a place with a nice comfortable bed because as soon as I find you, I’m gonna claim you. Over and over again.”

It was wrong that she found his words hot. She readily accepted that. But it didn’t change the fact that her pussy was aching and her clit was twitching and throbbing in time with her heart.

“Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll fix it. And if I can’t fix it, I’ll destroy whatever is putting that look in your eyes.”

Violent threats were not sexy… except when they came from Mitchell.

“That was my mother.”

He nodded. “I realized that before I asked you to go inside.”

Tilly snorted. “Shoved. Ordered, maybe.”

“Semantics.” He shrugged and even
that
was sexy.

“She left on my eighteenth birthday, you know?”

She still remembered that pain, the ache, and fucking pure goddamned desolation that hit her when she got home that night. She’d pulled a shift at the diner in the morning and then went to the gas station for the evening. She’d dragged herself home just before midnight after having spent eighteen hours working and making money to support their family. And she’d have to do it all over again in the morning. But right then, she’d have been happy with a shower and bed.

Except she walked into their small trailer, the place hardly big enough for the four of them, and found her mom sitting at the rickety kitchen table with a cigarette dangling from her fingers. The tip glowed red in the dim light and smoke drifted into the air, stinking up the place. She hadn’t seen Verity—Verity, not Mom—in weeks, but that wasn’t new.

Her being at the trailer in the middle of the night was abnormal. If she came home, it was in broad daylight just when Phee got out of school. Her mother knew how to use a kid and Phoebe always acted like a great buffer between them. Tilly wasn’t about to tear into her mother with her youngest sister around.

But Phee was in bed. So was Liv. That left the two of them, and her lioness ached to go at the woman who’d given birth to them and made their lives hell. Only instead of Tilly making her mother feel like shit, it was all piled over Tilly, once again.

“She just showed up?” Mitchell’s voice was low and soothing as he slid into her memories. “No warning?”

She shook her head. “No. She never stayed home long, not after I dropped out of high school to work and help take care of Phee and Liv. I worked while they were in school and as soon as Liv was old enough to watch Phee at night, I started taking night jobs, too. Anything to feed us. Keep a roof over our heads.” Even if the roof was rusted and rotted here and there.

“She came home often enough to make it look like she was taking care of us, but everyone in the trailer park knew the truth. But what were they gonna do, huh? Three halfers clinging to life in the middle of the fucking park and every time someone threatened to call social services, I talked them down. I wasn’t about to have them taken from me; put in the system so I’d never see them again.” She chuckled. “Maybe they would have been better off, huh? Maybe they would have been adopted by their own kind and they wouldn’t…”

Tears pricked her eyes, blurring her vision with their sudden appearance and she didn’t have it in herself to blink them away. So she let them fall. She hadn’t cried over this shit since that night, never shed a single one since.

“Hush…” He brushed aside one droplet and then another. “You know that’s a lie. I’ve seen you with Phoebe. I’ve heard you talk to Liv. There’s no way they would have been better without you. I can’t believe it. Their own kind?
You’re
their kind.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand…”

“I don’t have to understand to simply
know
.”

“But—”

Mitchell brushed his lips over hers. “Listen to your alpha.”

That brought a smile to her face despite her sorrow. “We’ll see about that.”

“Yeah, we will. You’ll see I’m right.”

She sighed and let her eyes drift closed. She breathed deeply, his scent soothing her cat before she continued. “She only came home that night to hand me a bunch of papers and then she was gone. ‘See ya, Tilly-girl.’ That’s what I got for my eighteenth birthday.” She chuckled and shook her head. “I stood there for a good five minutes staring at the front door, trying to figure out what the hell had happened. But I knew. Without reading what she’d shoved at me, I knew. The air in the trailer was different. It was as if that rust bucket knew there was one less permanent occupant.”

“What did she give you?”

“Power of attorney for Phee and Liv. Signed, sealed, and notarized. Those two were as good as mine at that point. I was already taking care of them, but I didn’t have to forge my mother’s signature on paperwork any longer. The girls were mine to raise. It wasn’t much different than it’d been when Verity lived with us, but my lioness recognized the change. She became a stark, raving bitch to anyone who dared come near. She was protective before but then they’d become
mine
.”

“You’ve done a good job, Tilly. Liv has a full ride to UGA and Phee is about to graduate as valedictorian. You can second guess yourself all you want, but you did good.”

“It was so fucking hard, Mitchell. So…”

More tears, more pain, more memories of walking the street, when she was desperate and willing to do
anything
. Even getting into
that
car and going to
that
warehouse and then…

A full shifter couldn’t get away with hooking—her alpha wouldn’t stand for it—but a
halfer
with no pack or pride ties was another story. Bust out a bit of fur and a whisker or two and it wouldn’t matter what her body looked like. She wouldn’t go full shift, but there were humans that had a certain kink…

“But worth it. Because you’re here now. With me. You’re safe. Your sisters are safe.”

“Sisters,” she whispered the word. “She revoked the power of attorney for Phee.” Tilly swallowed hard. “She wants me to pay her or she’ll take Phoebe.”

Pain filled his gaze, pure heartache that matched her own. “I know. She told me that much.”

He took a deep breath and his chest brushed hers. It was the wrong time to become aware of him, for her body to come alive at his touch, but she couldn’t help it. He was alive and good and here when she needed that in her life.

“I raised her, Mitchell.” Her throat ached, tears crowding her. “She’s mine.
Mine
. And because she signed
another
piece of paper, she’s tearing out my heart. All because I don’t want to give her money. I can be right and miserable or poor and happy.”

Mitchell shook his head. “No, you’re an alpha’s mate, baby, and we’re a cocky, opinionated bunch. We always know what’s best. I sent her packing and told her I’d finish the job you started, power of attorney or not. She can’t enforce anything if she’s dead and I made that real clear. She just wants money, Tilly. She doesn’t really want Phee.”

“I smelled an alpha on her. So he probably needs the money and she’s trying to impress him by getting it out of me.” The scent was similar to Mitchell’s—strong and powerful—but not the same. He wasn’t a wolf, but… she’d figure it out later. “She always did go for dominant males. The stronger the better. She always said they were the only ones worth having. It explains why she wanted the food first. A hungry shifter is dangerous.” Something she’d learned when the girls were younger. “God, another alpha. You’d think she’d have learned by now. None of them ever kept her, huh? And they didn’t want
us
.”

Not a single one of them. She and her sisters were always forgotten, pushed aside, and hidden when Verity found a new man. A man who didn’t want someone else’s cubs around.

“Tilly? Look at me.” She hadn’t even realized her attention drifted from his eyes. She refocused on him, on the seriousness in his gaze. “I’m an alpha and I want you. I’m keeping you. You’re my mate and your sisters are mine now. Nothing—no one—is taking them from me. What is mine stays mine. Do you understand me? I. Want. You.”

“I…”

“Say it, Tilly. Believe it. Because God help you if you try to leave me.”

“Mitchell… I’m so—”

“Mine.”

He was so single minded. “I have to deal with the bakery and Phee and my mother and your pack—”

“The pack can go fuck itself.” His words were harsh and filled with a growl from his wolf. “Whatever
you
have to deal with is also my responsibility.”

“You have a responsibility to your pack.”

He shook his head in immediate denial. “No, you’re number one, Tilly. You, your sisters, even this bakery comes before them. I’m an alpha, I can’t help that, but I refuse to live my life based on what
they
need when my whole world would crumble without you.”

“That—” she swallowed hard. “You saying that is gonna make me fall in love with you. I’m warning you now. If you don’t want that—”

Mitchell’s kiss cut her off, his lips firm and punishing against hers as he delved into her mouth with his tongue. He swept her into a passionate mating of mouths, tongues tangling and she tried to keep pace, to match him, teasing caress for caress.

She tried and failed. She fell beneath his strength, his wordless demands, and his pure animalistic power. She surrendered, sinking into him, and the moment she gave in, he gentled his approach. The fierceness fled, replaced by a sweet tenderness that brought new tears to her eyes. He was gentle and soft, a slow, coaxing temptation she couldn’t help but fall into.

She moaned into his mouth and reveled in his taste, in the heat of his body, and the natural musk of his wolf. He was fire and earth and everything that made her cat purr. He didn’t stroke her—his hands didn’t wander over her body—but she felt him
everywhere
. Her body was alive and attuned to him, reacting to his every breath and sound. Her feelings were feral and raw, the lioness scraping her tether and fighting for freedom. It wanted to embrace Mitchell as well, delight in his nearness, in his dominion.

“You better not be leaving wet spots because I am so not doing any kind of baking on a table covered in spooge and
Want-a-Man-Juice
. Just sayin’.” Emma’s voice was a total mood killer. Dammit, why did Emma have a key again?

At least, for Tilly it was. Mitchell wasn’t letting her retreat, though. No, he continued their kiss, lessening the passion gradually until it was merely a gentle brush of his lips on hers. And when he pulled back—she swallowed hard—she couldn’t define the emotions lurking in his gaze.

Then again, she didn’t have to. Mainly because he told her. “I want it. I want it all, Tilly. Everything you have. It’s
mine
. Your body. Your soul. Your heart. It’s all fucking mine.”

“Da. Yum. And focus on the
yum
. That is some hotness, right there. If you don’t want him, Tills—”

Tilly’s lioness’ response was instantaneous. Her fangs dropped, claws slammed into place and fur burst from her skin in a blinding rush. She clenched Mitchell’s shoulders and shoved as she fought to push him aside so she could defend her claim. Mitchell belonged to her and if Emma thought for one damned second—

“Dude. You went from horny bitch to raging cunt in like a second. That. Is. Awesome.” Emma really took the fun out of being pissed. Dammit. “So, while he’s lovely to look at—” her best friend ignored Tilly’s growl. “—why is he about to fuck you on the cookie prep table? I mean, other than your obvious fuckability?”

Tilly sighed. Mitchell growled—who knew why? And Emma grinned.

It was… nice. Normal. Something she needed after the shit-storm that erupted this morning. “Verity came by.”

“Oh, shit.”

“It gets better.” She breathed deeply and pushed her new tears away. “Unless I pay her off, she’s going to revoke my power of attorney and take Phee.”

Emma gasped. “That…”

“Cunt-faced whore?”

“Totally.”

“You’re not paying her,” Mitchell released a low snarl. “Ever again.”

She eased from his embrace and glared at him. “But she’ll—”

“Baby, we got two kinds of law in Wilder: mine and mine. Everyone else can go fuck themselves.”

Mitchell wasn’t sure how he’d managed it, but he’d convinced Tilly to come home with him. She’d closed up the shop with a simple note about a family emergency and by the end of the day, a few of Phoebe’s things were snug in one of the pack house’s spare bedrooms while Tilly’s were spread throughout his.

His mate had tried to argue.
Tried
.

But he wasn’t leaving her alone and his pack was more equipped to keep Verity—and the alpha the woman was “dating”—away from the house.

He murmured his last instructions to Kade and sent his beta on his way. Now the dependable male could carry his orders to the pack members who’d come forward with offers to help guard Tilly and Phee. It wasn’t everyone in the pack, not even close, but it would be enough. He excused the few who had cubs they couldn’t leave, but the others… They were making their feelings about a non-wolf alpha bitch known. When they came to him for help and guidance—leaning on their alpha—he’d remember their actions.

For now, he left the living room and sought out Tilly. He’d already memorized her scent and he used that knowledge to hunt her. She’d bypassed the dining room and padded beyond the great room. She went even farther, heading through the kitchen and beyond to the back doors.