The Wolf's Mate Book 1: Jason & Cadence (6 page)

Both Michael and Callie called all day, but
it was easier to ignore them than to face a painful truth. She
dressed for the cool night in dark jeans, hiking boots, a white
fitted tank with a dark purple pull over that looked like it had
been splashed with black paint, and her leather jacket.

When the doorbell rang at 8, Chris was
standing on the front porch with a bouquet of sweet peas, her
favorite flower. She felt another little crack heal and took the
bouquet and pulled him down for a tight hug and kissed his cheek.
"You are adorable, Chris. How did you know what my favorite flower
is?" He followed her into the kitchen, looking delicious in dark
jeans and a tight black t-shirt. Nearly every wolf would be wearing
just about the same thing, at least the ones in their age group. He
had a leather jacket on, not one of the motorcycle jackets but a
fitted dark brown one that was very soft.

"I think it's just one of those things I've
always remembered. My mom used to grow them, in the flower beds,
and you always picked them, made crowns for yourself. And I think
you tried to put one on me, once, too." He grinned, leaning against
the refrigerator, watching while she pulled a vase down from the
cabinet and filled it with water. They were very pretty and they
smelled incredible. She had no clue where he got them in the fall,
but they'd probably cost him a good bit from a florist.

"If I ask you something, will you be straight
with me?" Turning around, she leaned her butt against the kitchen
table where she set the vase down in the center.

He went very still and then relaxed. "If I
can be. You know that there are things that I'm not allowed to tell
you, because you're not technically pack."

"Never mind then." She sighed and reached for
her jacket. He picked it up for her, holding it open, and she slid
her arms into it while he pulled it up over her shoulders, sweeping
her hair aside and lingering with his hands on her shoulders. "If
you're wondering why I've picked now, to be extra sweet to you,
then you have to know that part of it is because you're done with
college and not taking off again."

"This is you being extra sweet?" She gave him
a smirk, turning around to look at him.

"Well, sweeter than I used to be, anyhow." He
laughed. "Cadence, I've known you my whole life. Hell, I was in the
hospital when you were born, screaming little thing that you were.
I've never had a friend, a real friend that was a girl, except for
you and I think I haven't really been as nice to you, or as
friendly, as I should be. I just want you to know that you have
options, for your future." He held out his hand to her, and they
walked through the house and out onto the front porch, stopping
while she locked up.

"What's your future look like, Chris?" He
opened the passenger door of his sleek black pickup truck and she
sat down. He looked thoughtful as he shut her door and walked
around to his side, opening his own door and sitting down.

“Well," He started the truck up, glancing at
her with a half smile and said, "I'm not really sure. The pack
wants my dad to step down in the next few years, and that's going
to be tough to deal with. He's a great alpha; it will be hard to
fill his shoes. And I can't exactly have the get togethers at the
condo. Somehow I think the association would frown on about 70
wolves showing up to hang out and blare rock music."

She laughed as he pulled out of the driveway.
The darkness enveloped them, the headlights bouncing along the dirt
road that led from her driveway out to a rural route that led
across town to his parents’ house, nestled back in the woods on a
hundred acres. "I should probably find a mate, too." He said
suddenly, picking up their conversation. "Packs don't like it when
the alpha is single."

"Why is that?" She looked at him in
surprise.

"Well, because it makes the females fight for
the position, for one. You see how the females in Jason's pack act.
Any female that even looks at him sideways gets trouble from the
others. Until he chooses someone, it will always be like that, and
that screws up the men, too."

"Why?"

He sighed in an exasperated sort of way but
smiled. "Because the females don't want to pick a mate on the
off-chance that the alpha might pick them. His pack wouldn't be so
volatile if he had a mate, he's hobbling his own people. It's the
natural order of things for wolves. Alphas are supposed to come in
pairs, one male and one female, to balance each other and protect
each other, and to protect the pack. A female alpha can't really
protect the males, anymore than a male alpha could deal with the
females, so for a pack to be in harmony, to feel safe, there have
to be two. Get it?" He gave her a rakish raise of his brows and she
laughed.

"Yeah. Your dad has explained a lot of
werewolf hierarchy to me over the years."

When they parked in the grass at the front of
the farmhouse, Chris came around and opened her door for her and
held out his hand. "A lot of the hierarchy is bullshit, but when
it's working right, it just - works. I meant what I said earlier
about making choices. Our pack runs smoothly, and you're already
part of our family. You should give it some thought." She
was
thinking, actually. Was he asking her to be his mate? So
casually? Was that how they did it? She'd never asked before, how a
male and female end up together, but she’d always assumed it
involved something physical like dragging her back to his house by
her hair. Wolves did everything over the top. Even though she cared
about Chris a great deal, she had to think that when she did decide
to be with a man forever that she’d want to know he at least loved
her, not that he was just making a good business decision.

He held her hand the whole way around the
house and pulled her inside where his mother practically tackled
her. She held her face in her hands and smiled broadly. "Sweet
heavens, you get more beautiful every time I see you. Doesn't she,
Chris?" She gave him a look and he rolled his eyes, "I think I may
have mentioned that to her once or twice."

Renee was thick waisted but tall, and a real
bitch, but in a good way. She was female alpha for a reason, not
just because Jake had claimed her as his alpha mate, but because
she could take out anyone, anywhere. Even now, when she was closer
to 60 than 50, she looked as young as ever. She made Cadence miss
her mom.

She looked at Chris in surprise. "You
shaved!"

He chuckled, gesturing to Cadence as he
popped a potato chip into his mouth. "She made me. Said she
wouldn't dance with me all scruffy."

She laughed, and Cadence did, too, and she
said, "Well, it's about damn time. How can anyone see how cute you
are when you're covered in stubble like a hobo?"

Chris groaned, flushing with embarrassment
and it was totally adorable. "Shit, mom. Not cute, okay? Anything
but cute."

She waved her hand at him to dismiss his
chiding words and it made Cadence smile even more but also made her
a little sadder. She never got to tease her mom or be embarrassed
by her. Her dad, yes, but not in a fun way.

Chris extracted her from Renee's grip and
they walked the few hundred feet to where the packs were gathered,
through a stand of trees to a large clearing with cut logs and lawn
chairs scattered around an enormous fire pit that was roaring with
twenty-foot flames. Music blared from someone's stereo, and while
some danced, many of the wolves were just hanging out and talking.
The weekly Sunday night bonfires, alternating between Jake's place
and Jason's father's place, were a way for the wolves to connect
and enjoy each other's company on somewhat neutral territory.
Wolves were extremely social creatures and they craved being around
other wolves.

The hum of voices went oddly quiet when she
and Chris walked into the clearing holding hands, and she didn't
really understand it, but then again she didn't understand a lot of
what was going on the last couple of days. It was like the whole
town had been transported into the Twilight Zone. Chris tugged her
towards the band and an open cooler and handed her a bottle of
Irish Red, which happened to be her favorite beer. She looked down
at it and up at him and he was grinning, very pleased with himself.
"You're very observant tonight." She said, twisting off the cap and
taking a drink.

"Yeah, well, it's about time someone started
observing things around here." He cast his voice around her, like
he wasn't really talking to her, and her ears picked up the angry
whispered voices from the other side of the fire. She had a feeling
that Jason was pissed off, a lot of the male wolves from his pack
were, but she couldn't actually hear what they said. Once again,
she still no clue why. He had Callie after all, and that little
reminder made her grimace and until she could get back to neutral
face, she took a long drink of beer.

Planning to ignore Jason's pack for the
night, she stayed very close to Chris, enjoying the way it was easy
to be with him and the pack that she was most close to. Chris
finally reminded her that she had promised to dance if he shaved,
which he had so clearly done, expertly he added, and tugged her to
the side of the bonfire while Brett and the rest of the guys in the
band grabbed the females hanging around, and followed them, all of
them dancing together. She had forgotten what a good dancer he was,
but most wolves were. It was easy to be coordinated and naturally
rhythmic when you had an animal inside you.

While she tried her best to have a good time,
several things bothered her. First, she could feel Jason's eyes,
not to mention the eyes of the Tressel pack, on her back the entire
time that she was with Chris. Second, every time she looked in that
direction, which she tried not to do, she saw Callie's face
streaked with tears and she was being comforted by several females,
and was clearly standing far away from Jason. And lastly, Cadence
was completely miserable. She hated Callie for taking Jason, hated
Jason for abandoning her all those years ago, and hated that she
was desperately lonely but couldn't even really picture being with
Chris.

He was everything a girl could want:
gorgeous, charming, a great job, a place of his own, and a sweet
smile. He was the sort of guy that smiled at you and your knees
went weak and your heart fluttered. Except that didn't happen to
her with him. She liked him, she loved his family and the Garra
pack, but he wasn't Jason. How could you be with someone when your
heart belonged to someone else?

After a half dozen songs, when she was
thoroughly turned on just from all the grinding Chris was doing,
not to mention the vibes from the other wolves as they danced, she
was pulled back to the house, Chris with his arm around her and the
band tight behind them. The suggestion that they were going to jam
a little was like literal music to her ears. Years ago, when they
first discovered she could sing, they used to spend time jamming
during the bonfires, singing radio songs while the guys played
their acoustic instruments. It was some of the happiest times in
her life, even though she'd always wished that Jason would share it
with her, not stand on the outside and glare at her
disapprovingly.

Chris took the easy chair that was adjacent
to the couch, pulling his Fender Malibu acoustic from the case that
had appeared out of nowhere. She sat on the edge of the couch that
was next to him, tucking one leg under the other. The Garra pack
started to filter into the house, Renee's eyes shining with
happiness but a grimace on Jake's face that didn't mesh with what
had always been a fun time. After a quick tune up and some light
bantering, they played and she sang, with Chris accompanying her.
Her range was big, both soprano and alto, and Chris had a tenor
that matched nearly perfectly. They sang and played for hours, and
she was able to really lose herself in the music and the sense of
family that the pack gave to her. It was the first time, in a very
long time, that she felt like she truly belonged. Jason's pack, the
females all resented her, except for Callie and of course the mated
ones. But the ones that were her age or older made her feel like
she was some kind of horrible creature, brought from the bowels of
hell to torment them. Jake's pack was different though, and maybe
Chris was right. Jake was alpha and married, so the females weren't
fighting for the coveted position, not wary of every female that
walked by.

When their collective voices were trashed,
Chris put his guitar away and stood up and held his hand out to
her, pulling her gently up. Renee gave her a hug on their way out
the door and said, "We should go to lunch this week, honey."

"I'd like that."

"Good, I'll get some of the girls together,
how about tomorrow at Lonestar's at 1?"

Cadence agreed, looking forward to it. It
would be nice to have a girls day. Chris was telling her how
amazing she sounded, and how much he enjoyed singing with her, when
the rush of footsteps sounded suddenly and Chris moved her behind
him protectively. It was an instinctual response on his part, but
it warmed her just the same. Callie, with Michael hot on her heels,
had come storming around the house and Cadence could see Jason on
the front porch, arms folded and an angry expression slashed across
his features.

"Cadence, please, don't leave. Please talk to
me." Callie breathed, fresh tears on her cheeks. Callie was not
acting like herself; Cadence had never seen her cry so much
publicly. She was like Cadence, more a suffer silently in public
and go berserk in private.

Cadence would have hugged her, called her an
idiot and told her that she loved her. But she couldn't get the
image of Callie and Jason out of her head even though her brain was
the one that put it there in the first place. She thought it might
haunt her forever. Shaking her head at Callie, Cadence pulled Chris
backwards towards the truck. He shut her in the passenger seat
while Michael put his arm around Callie and she sobbed into his
shoulder. Cadence shut her eyes against the ache of tears that
pressed as they pulled away.