Rosko, Mandy - Mate of the Wolf (Siren Publishing Classic) (11 page)

Michael’s jaw tightened. Already she could see the wheels in his head turning, planning to hunt the guy down and make him ever regret looking at her. “Were you hurt?”

She shook her head. “No, but I could’ve been. I never knew he was watching me until after he was caught. A neighbor walking her dogs saw him lurking on my property one night. He’d been watching me for over a month. He had pictures of me at his house. Some of them were Photoshopped to look like he was in them with me.”

She allowed a few seconds for Michael to absorb her words. She felt his anger sliding away and knew she was getting through.

“Let me stay with you. I can go with you to your pack. If anyone has to watch me, I want it to be you.”

He rubbed his palms over his face. “What about your life? Your family? If you come with me, you have to know you’ll be leaving them behind.”

He was right about that. Her parents were too eager to see her in the spotlight, and there couldn’t be reporters with cameras sneaking around a group of werewolves. It would ruin the whole secrecy thing. And even if she left it all behind, there was still a chance that people would recognize her. She would have to change her name and dye her hair.

Shelley Hunter. Brunette. No. Redheaded fiery writer. That sounded kind of nice. She’d call Mindy and tell her she wasn’t going to sign onto those movies, that she was done. And her parents, well, they’d be upset, but eventually they’d get over it. And after enough time had passed, after she was no longer in the magazines and in movies for a while, people would forget her. Her name, what she looked like. She could start writing novels. She could be normal.

As normal as could be for a woman living with a werewolf.

“I don’t want to live in the spotlight anymore. I never wanted that.” She touched his face, pulled him closer until they were so close she could be kissing him. “I’ll leave it all behind and never look back. I either disappear with you, or I disappear if that vampire finds me. I’d prefer to be with you.”

His resolve was entirely broken but for a single remaining thread. The one that was left behind to make one hundred percent certain that she knew what she was asking for.

Shelley nearly smiled. She could get used to this whole mind-reading thing.

He licked his lips, trying to avoid eye contact, but she wouldn’t let him. “There’ll be others like me, most of who are as unpredictable in their transformations as me. You’re my mate, and they’ll smell that even in their wolf forms. You’ll be safe, and they will protect you if I tell them to. But it will be different from what you’re used to.”

She did smile this time. “Your transformations are a lot more predictable than you think. I’ll bet anything that when we met, you changed into a wolf because you smelled me or something. And the second time, I bit you, made you bleed. The third time…” She trailed off with a smile.

He returned it.

“They won’t scare me,” she promised, even though she was certain it actually would be scary. But she would get used to it if they were anything like what Michael said they were. “As for being different, well, I’ve got enough money for the both of us, and we can share it with your pack, too.”

He put his hands up, backing off her very fast. “Whoa, whoa, what’s this about money? I never said anything about money.”

He hadn’t? Wasn’t that what the whole
different
comment was about? Then there was the little cabin…

He shook his head. “Being with you would be so confusing if I couldn’t read your mind. I have my own money. I told you that before. I’m master of my pack. That back there,” Michael jerked his thumb behind him, indicating the cabin that was no longer in sight, “was just where I was hiding. I have my own house, a nice one, and so do my pack mates. We don’t live in the cities or anything, but we’re definitely not forest dwellers either. The vampire king heard about my silver coat, wanted it, and sent Pearl to collect it. No one was hurt the first time she’d tried, so I left the pack in the care of a trusted friend and disappeared before someone was.”

She swallowed. “And now?”

He sighed. “Now, everything has changed. It changed the second I realized what you were.”

“Really?” Shelley asked.

He nodded. “You wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to let you go. You wouldn’t have come back. But if I send you away now that Pearl’s seen you, I’ll have to go back and get some people to watch you. If I do what I want and keep you, take you from your family, everything you’ve ever known, I’ll have to go back anyway so you can be with my family. Where it will be safer.”

He knew the answer, but guilt radiated from him.

She pressed her lips to his mouth, trying to take that guilt away with a kiss, caressing his scratchy cheeks and hair to soothe away his hard decision.

She knew what he should do. He never should have left his pack to begin with. If the word
pack
was anything like how she’d pictured it, it was a group of people who were loyal and loved Michael very much. Especially if he was their leader.

He never should have left them. With or without her, she wanted him to go back to them and stay with them. Where there were lots of people. Where he could be safe from that vampire princess cunt.

Michael chuckled. “Even your mind is filthy.”

She pulled his mouth back onto hers. She didn’t care. No one was going to be skinning the fur from Michael on her watch. Shelley happened to like his fur right where it was, thank you very much.

She stopped their kiss to look at him, grinning as she felt the distant haze inside his head. “I’d like to meet your family.”

He put his hands over hers and sighed. “I said I’d never let you go, didn’t I?”

She smiled brightly. She’d won. She didn’t know if the joy she felt was hers or his, but it didn’t matter. Maybe it was both of theirs. “I think I remember you saying something like that.” When she was busy having the greatest sex of her life.

“Then let’s go.”

The truck started up again, and wearing nothing but the T-shirt of her werewolf mate, Shelley Star vanished into the night with him.

THE END

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