Wolf Rock Shifters Books 1-5: Five BBW Paranormal Romance Standalone Novels (44 page)

T
he motel sat
on a quiet road, separated from the town by a heavily wooded area. It looked like a place that had seen better days; the sort of establishment that tired travelers migrated to for its cheapness and convenience, rather than for any luxury.

The couple who owned it were the sort of earthy, warm folks who might set up shop in the mountains merely to have mountains to look at, and who would be content spending their days inhaling fresh air and the odd puff of engine exhaust, or, more to their liking, weed. It seemed the unlikeliest and yet likeliest location for an organized crime syndicate to set up shop.

Nash arrived at eight a.m., hoping to catch the men he was looking for before they’d be headed out to cause trouble. He approached the door to room eighteen, the lion inside him impatiently padding to and fro as though trapped in a large cage, aware that its next meal was just beyond the steel bars. When the door opened and the man who could feed him stood before him, a swipe of the paw might get him what he wanted, or it might kill the guy holding it.

Caution, he knew, would be best. He had to resist the dominant male within him and opt for submission. It wouldn’t be easy.

Inhaling deeply, he knocked at the door. When he heard voices inside, his spine lengthened as though someone were pulling the top of his head upwards, and he realized that he was attempting to grow in the seconds remaining before the meeting that was to come.

The door creaked open and the thin, wiry man stood before him. He looked startled to see Nash, and hesitated too long before trying to close the door again. The young man blocked him, his large hand flat on the door’s surface.

“Jesus, what do you want?” asked the man, whose hair appeared even greasier than when Nash had first seen him. It seemed unlikely that the motel’s shower was broken or that the shifter was out of soap or shampoo; more likely the weasel just didn’t see the point in dealing with something so trivial as personal hygiene.

His stench confirmed it, and the lion shifter did his best not to reveal with his features just how unpleasant he found it.

“I want to help you,” Nash replied. “And for you to help me, more to the point.”

“How would I do that?” asked the man, his entire body now concealed behind the door, only his head sticking out. It was as though he wore the thing as some sort of thoroughly useless body armor.

“I want my family and ranch protected. I know my parents are stubborn. But I don’t want to worry about them. So I want to offer you my services in lieu of cash.”

“That’s not the deal,” said the man, who seemed to be relaxing.

“Yes, I realize that,” said Nash, trying not to allow exasperation into his tone. “But I want to make it the deal.”

“Hey, Larry,” said the greaseball. “This guy—this lion—wants to make us a proposition.”

“So I heard,” said his friend, the larger man whom Nash had seen previously.

“Listen, there are only two of you. Surely I could be of service. People around here know me and trust me. Think of how much money I could net you.”

“Come in and shut the door behind you,” said Larry.

Nash walked in and slid the door shut, then the other man secured the chain in place, as though that would prevent anyone entering.

“Nash, is it? I’m Larry, and this is Fargo,” said the densely-packed shifter.

“Nice to meet you.”

“So listen, you’re not a stupid guy. You must see that from our end this seems pretty fuckin’ suspicious.”

So Larry wasn’t quite as stupid as he looked.

“Of course,” said Nash. “I get that I’ll have to earn your trust.”

“Yeah, you will.”

“And the trust of your boss.”

Larry and Fargo exchanged glances.

“The boss and you won’t be talking,” said Fargo. “So don’t get excited. Even I don’t talk to him, other than through texts.”

“So you’ve never seen him?”

“No. Mostly he works on his own. He’s not into chattin’ with the little guy.”

“Well, I’d like you to text him that you have a lion on board who’s interested in getting in on the action. Maybe down the road if he’s happy with me, he could hire me. For now I’m all about helping out my family. And I know people he might be interested in. Like Conrad Malcolm.”

Larry raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”

“Not well, but yes. I know him. I’ve been at his place.”

“That’s interesting news. Fine. For now, we’ll agree not to attack your ranch again if you follow our orders very closely. Are you prepared to do that?”

“I am, yeah.” Nash wondered again what the hell he was getting himself into.

Larry walked over to a duffel bag which was sitting open on one of the room’s two beds. He reached inside and tossed something to Nash, who caught it. A cell phone.

“This is how we’ll contact you. Wait for our first order,” Larry said.

“All right.”

“I don’t need to tell you not to tell anyone about this little meeting. One slip-up and you’re out. Not only that, but fire will be the last of your ranch’s worries.”

Nash’s muscles tightened at these words and the great cat in him snarled. Larry’s head would make such a fine trophy for his living room wall.

“Understood,” he said, wondering where to find a taxidermist who specialized in human-stuffing.

“Go on your way. We’ll call you this afternoon.”

Nash left then, his mind racing as he got into his car. Could he really do this? He was risking his reputation in the town and his whole future for this project. He was risking even his family’s good opinion of him. And yet he wouldn’t be able to tell them. He had only to hope that whatever assignment he was given, he and it could remain under wraps. At the worst he’d be run out of town. At best, he’d prove himself worthy of Cecile, worthy of love and worthy of his own kind thoughts.

I
n the afternoon
the phone rang.

“Nash here.”

“I’m going to give you an address. You need to meet up with Fargo at a park nearby and the two of you will proceed to the business. He’ll do the talking, but you’ll be the guard. Your job is to stand there and intimidate. Can you do that?”

“Do you have any doubt that I can?”

“No.”

“Good. I’ll be there.”

It was difficult for the man and his lion to envision being the lackey to a weasely shifter greaseball. Nash had historically been the master of his domain throughout his life. Perhaps it was not having adequate competition that meant that he could take on any threat, or more likely it was that the animal side of him was unrelentingly wild. When a moment of hostility came he could lose his mind a little. Funnily enough, it was the human who was most flighty. The lion was disciplined and knew to contain itself.

At college there had been one incident in particular that had caused Nash’s parents concern. A young female friend of his had been date raped on a Friday night and when Nash heard about it he’d torn across campus to the dorm where the bastard was staying. It was bad enough for the students to see a larger-than-full-grown lion coming at them through the hallways, but to have him pin a grown man to the ground and stand on top of him, razor-sharp claws digging into his flesh until the authorities arrived, was something else.

It was only that the guy was ultimately charged and convicted that got Nash off as lightly as he did. On most college campuses shifters were allowed to enroll, but many had been expelled for less. Something like segregation was kicking in and a lot of schools across the country, and even around the world, were shutting their doors to Nash’s kind.

The man in him had wanted to tear the rapist’s man-parts off; the lion in him simply wanted to terrify him. It was the lion who’d won.

N
ash arrived
at the park a few minutes before Fargo did. He sat on a bench, allowing his mind to race but forcing his body to remain still and composed. Patience was not his strong suit, but he knew he could easily throw this entire operation out of whack if he slipped up. The idiots he was working with were already suspicious enough of him, after all.

Fargo showed up, skulking through the park. He was the sort of man who couldn’t look innocent if he tried; the kind you’d see in a mugshot on TV and hear his neighbours saying things in interviews like, “Yeah, I always thought he was creepy and likely to collect roadkill and store it in jars in his fridge.”

“You set?” said the perpetually dirty man as he approached Nash, whose lion wanted to grab him by the neck and shake him until he was dead. That would have to come at a later date.

“I am. All ready to be a daunting figure in the background.”

“Good. Let’s do this.”

“Let’s do this?”
thought Nash.
“This asshole thinks he’s part of a cheesy action movie. He has no idea how fucking smug and killable he is.”

Today’s target was a fancy, expensive hotel on the edge of Wolf Rock. Nash was relieved to realize that its owners were shifters he hadn’t met previously; a fox and a coyote. Their animals meant that they would be wily, sly and cunning, but that they would be lacking in brute strength. That, he knew, was why his presence was necessary. He was the meathead who was meant to intimidate them into submission. And so he would.

When they entered the hotel’s lobby, very few guests were around, and that was a good thing. Fargo approached the reception desk and announced to the young man working behind it that he’d like to speak to the owner.

“The manager is out at the moment,” said the man, who eyed the weasel with a sort of disdain that one might exhibit towards a homeless person, if one were a douche, thought Nash.

“It’s not the manager I wish to speak to,” said Fargo. “It’s the owner.”

“I think he’s sleeping.” By this point the hotel employee was eyeing the large lion shifter who was advancing slowly towards him, eyes locked on his own. “But I can wake him.”

“Yeah, you might want to do that,” said Fargo.

W
hen the owner
, a middle-aged man, came out of the elevator, Nash could already see the look of defeat on his face. The entire town was now aware of what was happening, and it was clear that they were wondering when it would end. With Tristan gone and the wolf pack a little scattered, it seemed that there was no hand of the law to hold the place together.

Nash’s only worry was that shifters would become vigilantes and take the law into their own capable paws, which would end in a poor result for everyone. He didn’t yet know how many men were behind the extortion racket, and he knew that, though he’d only seen Fargo and Larry, there were bound to be more. There was no way these two shifters could take on a whole group, and they knew that was what they’d be up against. And there was still the question of the mystery grey wolf, who seemed to keep away.

“What can I do for you, or do I even need to ask?” the hotel proprietor asked, addressing Fargo but looking at Nash.

“You’ve probably heard,” said Fargo, “about the attacks in this area. We’re here to offer you a hand. Protection for a small percentage of your earnings.”

“Right, of course. And if I refuse?” said the man, bristling. Nash sensed that his defeatist attitude had quickly shifted to irritation and was now moving towards outright anger. A shifter’s instinct was of course to defend his territory, and it was impossible to blame the man for his attitude. He’d drawn an unfortunate lot as a weaker physical foe; there was really no winning this fight.

“If you refuse, we can’t help you. And in all likelihood this place will go up in smoke, or worse.”

“And you wouldn’t have anything to do with it, of course,” he said.

“Of course not. It’s out of our hands. We simply saw an opportunity to render a service for a fee and jumped on it.”

The owner stepped back for a moment. Nash saw a familiar flash in his eye, and in an instant he was on all fours, his clothing in tatters. The coyote sprang at Fargo while Nash looked on, part of him thinking, “Well, no fucking wonder. That fucking weasel begs to be mauled.” But he rolled his eyes and shifted himself, abiding by his duty as a menacing thug.

It was clear that the coyote hadn’t envisioned being torn off the pale, repulsive man by a lion three times his size, and when Nash threw him to the ground he submitted immediately, exposing his belly in what normally would have been viewed as a pathetic display. But Nash felt for him. He had to protect his home, his property, just as the Richardsons did.

The great lion stood over him purely for show, growling, exposing his fangs and allowing his jowls to contort in a series of deep wrinkles that displayed just how enormous his mouth was.

From behind the desk, the employee ran to a back room, grabbed a fresh bathrobe and approached his boss, wrapping the robe around him so that the man could shift in private.

“Jesus,” said the owner as he eyed Nash. “Go easy, big guy.”

Nash shifted, the tall, muscular man now naked in the lobby. He wanted to apologize but instead he continued his act.

“Don’t fuck with us,” he said. “I know where you live.”

“Clearly. Fine. You write down a number for me and we’ll negotiate.”

Fargo jotted something on a piece of hotel stationery and the owner nodded agreement.

“No attacks of any sort?” he asked.

“None.”

They shook on it.

Nash gathered his shredded clothing and, holding it in front of himself, left the building with Fargo.

“Impressive,” said the scrawny man. “You’re proving your worth quickly.”

“I’ve been known to win every fight I’ve ever been in,” said Nash.

“I don’t doubt it. With a body like that…” said the man.

“Do me a favour and never, ever compliment me on my body,” snarled Nash. Fargo backed off immediately.

O
ver the next
several days the pattern went something like this: Nash received a call in the morning and after he’d finished his chores he met up with Fargo and made the rounds. On a few occasions he was forced to shift, and by now he’d grown accustomed to bringing a change of clothes along.

Nash didn’t hear from Cecile, though he heard through mutual acquaintances that she’d left town for a few days. His suspicion was that she was tired of dealing with her father, and that she’d come to understand how impossible their prospective relationship was. Nash thought of her daily, though, and if he was honest with himself, hourly. He couldn’t banish her from his thoughts regardless of how hard he tried.

A voice within him told him how much he wanted her, but what actually managed to frighten him was that it was the word ‘need’ that cropped into his mind again and again. He needed her. He’d been dealt a cruel hand by fate, and the beautiful creature he wanted to mate with, the woman he felt certain should bear his young, was inaccessible to him.

When he heard that she was gone he felt a sense of relief, as though the blood could return to his head, since it seemed to migrate in vicious waves to his cock when thoughts of her curves entered his mind. The recurring image was that of her luscious ass as she bent over in her jeans. He went off into moments of reverie, imagining his hands wrapped around her hips, thrusting himself into her, deep to the point where she cried out in pleasure and in pain. He wanted her to growl for him and to beg him to pound her harder.

But he also wanted to pleasure her. In his fantasies she sat atop a table, a counter, a fence even, her thighs spread apart and he devoured her pussy while her fingers wrapped themselves in his hair. He wished that his man had the mane that his lion did, so that she could pull his face into her and guide him with her fingers, showing him just how to make her come.

It was in letting these thoughts, these moments, go that he ached the most. As though someone had put a hot, rare steak in front of a starving person and then ripped it away. She should have been his.

C
onrad Malcolm owned
a house several hours from Wolf Rock and Cecile knew that it was sitting vacant. It wasn’t so much that she wanted to leave; in fact she wanted nothing more than to stay and to find a way to be close to Nash, but that was the issue, after all. In the short time she’d known him, during which she hadn’t gotten to know him deeply so much as to realize that she
wanted
to know him in every possible way, he’d become a sort of forbidden fruit. Everything in Cecile wanted to sink pointed canines into him. She wanted his juices to run into her awaiting mouth; to taste his savoury flesh over and over again.

If she’d never known what it was to be in heat, she knew now. Her body was fighting her with a violence that she’d never experienced, her tiger attempting repeatedly to emerge, ready to pounce; ready to claim her mate.

In Cecile’s mind, everything was backwards: it was the man, the male, who chose the mate. He was dominant. He was strong. Yet her cat told her that she had no choice, and therefore he had no choice either. He was to be inside her, and that was that.

But her human suffered the fate of considering actions and consequences. Was she willing to accept being cut off from her inheritance, let alone losing her father? She’d already lost her mother and would, for all intents and purposes, be an orphan at twenty-three. Her father was misled, she knew, and had lost his tiger somewhere over the years. There was a pain in him. But she loved him still, and she knew that he loved her. She couldn’t bear to deprive him of another woman in his life. Her sister was an ocean away, and Cecile knew that she was all he had, whether he appreciated it or not.

So she got in the car and drove, hoping that a few days away would give her and her body some perspective.

Whether it would work or not was yet to be seen.

I
t was
on the fourth day of working with the extortionists that Nash made a breakthrough. Until then he’d done his job satisfactorily, getting vicious when he was supposed to and remaining threateningly looming at other times. Fargo and Larry seemed pleased with him. But only when they came upon someone who recognized Nash did the trust begin to build.

It was a hardware store. By now, every shifter in Wolf Rock knew what was coming; they’d heard that a lion shifter would likely tear their throats out if they didn’t agree to what was now being cynically referred to as the “city tax.” Since the shifters didn’t pay national income tax, many of them went along with it, but in back rooms and pubs, there was a lot of discussion of how to take down the syndicate. The lack of an organized wolf pack and of general teamwork that came alongside a town filled with independent shifters meant that nothing could yet be done.

In the hardware store, Nash heard his name.

“Nathaniel!”

It was an old man, standing behind the counter. Nash had known him when he was a child.

“Hello, Mr. Christensen,” he’d said politely.

“And what are you doing here? I haven’t see you in years.”

“To be honest with you, I’m…” Nash hesitated, eyeing Fargo, who was watching him for signs of breaking. “I’m here to ensure that you pay up.”

“Pay up? To whom do I owe money?”

Fargo spoke now. “To us. Technically, to our boss. For protection.”

“Ah. I suppose it was only a matter of time before you showed up,” said Christensen, his face contorted into a wrinkled expression of sadness and anger. He turned to Nash. “I’m surprised at you, son,” he said. “In all my years I would never have thought that you could turn on your townspeople.”

Nash’s instinct told him to come clean.
“I’m doing this for the town. I’m doing this for my family. For Cecile.”
But he couldn’t.

“It’s for the best,” he said instead. “You really need to pay up.”

Christensen, who was a puma shifter, knew that even as a young man he’d never have stood a chance against the lion before him.

“I will pay my percentage,” he said. “But I’m disappointed in you.”

The words were like a knife in Nash’s gut. Why was it that an old man expressing disappointment was like the worst punishment ever? “Act,” he told himself.

He walked up and towered over the man.

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you think of me,” he said. He took Christensen by the collar and pulled his face towards his own. “I only care about your money making its way out of your pocket and into ours.”

He could feel the man tremble as he let go. Nash was a protector. He wanted to steady Christensen, to calm him. But he couldn’t. He held his breath, waiting in hopes that the old guy didn’t have a heart condition.

When they left the store, Fargo turned to Nash and said, “I had my doubts about you, kid. But you’re a real asshole.”

“I’m learning from the best,” growled Nash. “You’re an excellent role model in the field of douche-baggery.”

“Well, keep it up and there’s a promotion in it for ya.”

“I’m counting on it,” thought Nash.

Dinner at the ranch that night was difficult, to say the least.

“How could my son be roaming around with these…these thugs?” asked Mrs. Richardson, tears streaming down her face. This woman who’d once been so sleek, so vicious in her younger days, had become a simple mother of a boy who’d been steered wrong. “How is this possible? Christensen told us everything.”

“We raised you better than this, son. What’s this all about, anyhow?” Nash’s father asked. “I refuse to believe that my son, my heir, would be capable of this sort of derelict behaviour.”

“Really, dad? I’m a fucking lion. I get into fights. I’ve come close to killing humans. This is a surprise to you?”

“I don’t want your lip, boy. Now, are you going to stop this foolishness or do I need to kick you off my ranch? You’re putting people’s lives at risk.”

“I’m saving people’s lives,” said Nash as he stood, thrusting himself from the table. “You don’t see it, but I am. But don’t you worry. I’ll leave. The ranch is safe so you don’t need me here anyhow.”

That night he moved into the motel where Fargo and Larry were staying. Though he hated to pain his parents, he knew that this was for the best; it would increase his new accomplices’ level of trust in him.

He went to sleep wondering how much more of this he’d have to endure. Nash could take all the physical brawls in the world, but disappointing the older generation seemed like a cruel and unusual punishment. He hoped that the shifters he’d conspired with had a plan for an endgame in action.

I
t was
the next day that Zoe found him at the motel. Kyla had figured out where he was, and the tiny mouse who’d snuck into Nash’s room, found a large bath towel and wrapped herself in it when she’d shifted startled Nash, who was still in bed, pondering the day ahead.

“Sorry to freak you out,” she said as she walked out of the bathroom. “But I need to hear about your progress.”

“They trust me, mostly,” he replied. “I think maybe something’s in the works; Fargo mentioned a promotion. But I can’t take much more of this, Zoe. It’d be one thing to piss off a pile of strangers but this is my home, and the whole town now thinks I’ve betrayed them.”

“Well, you haven’t, and they’ll know it soon enough.”

“If they don’t kill me first.”

“They won’t. We have eyes on you.”

“I’m not even so worried about that as…” Nash’s voice trailed off. “I can’t take certain people hating me.”

“I suspect that you’re referring to a certain white tiger,” Zoe replied, sitting on the edge of Nash’s bed. “And I understand. She won’t hate you; not when she finds out what you’ve done.”

“It doesn’t matter anyhow. I can’t be with her.”

“You
have
to be with her, Nash. That’s your life. It’s your fate. I can see it in you. The criminal bastards won’t kill you, and the townspeople won’t kill you. But if you’re not with Cecile I suspect that that’s what’ll kill you.”

“I’ve never dealt with this. This…what is it? It’s like someone’s moved into my body and is controlling it.”

“It’s that you’ve found your mate. Everything in the world is conspiring to separate you two, but she’s yours and you’re hers. Now it’s just a question of logistics.”