The Wolf's Mate Book 3: Callie & The Cats (11 page)

His eyes were flat and he looked like he
wanted to take out a building with his fists. “I’m going into the
station to finish my shift.”

And just like that, she was sitting alone in
the family room. The front door opened and she heard Ethan say,
“Well, I smell Melania and Lola. They must have talked to the other
females.”

He must have reached for Eryx or said
something she couldn’t hear, because Eryx’s normally calm voice was
strained. “No, don’t Ethan. I don’t, I just don’t. Later.” Eryx’s
boots crunched on the salt on the sidewalk and when the front door
shut, Ethan moved quietly through the house and down into the
basement. She heard the cruiser start up and the squeal of tires as
they bit into the pavement before screeching forward. Wow, she’d
totally insulted them, and her chest ached at the knowledge.

If this was how they felt when she walked
away from them, then she had some serious apologizing to do.

Chapter 9

**Ethan**

In the basement, Ethan had hoped to get some
space from Callie because he was torn in half. Part of him wanted
to scream his head off at her callousness and part of him wanted to
latch onto her and never let go no matter what. But no amount of
space changed what he was feeling, and that was a whole lot of love
for his mate and a whole lot of anger at their situation.

She wasn’t wrong. Why couldn’t the females
leave her alone? Why did they have to fight against every good
thing that the males tried to do for their kind? So what if a male
wanted to mate with a human? So what if they’d both chosen a wolf
for a mate? It didn’t make them any less lion and it didn’t make
them care any less about their own, it just meant that they loved
her more.

And help him, he loved her. It didn’t matter
that it had only been a few days. It didn’t fucking matter at all.
The instant that his fingers had touched her skin, she’d slid into
his veins like a drug that he couldn’t get enough of and she was
the only supplier. And no matter what she said, no matter the
distance she tried to put between them, he knew that she loved them
both, too, at least in a small way. She was fighting so hard, he
wondered what would happen if she just let go and embraced
them.

Jealousy streaked through him. Why had she
kissed Eryx? He knew it wouldn’t be easy to share a mate, but he
hadn’t expected to feel so betrayed by the whole thing. He wanted
her to kiss him, too. He wanted her to like the way he smelled. He
just wanted.

Looking around the basement, he wondered why
he’d even walked down here. He should have just gone for a walk
outside. The fresh air might have cleared his head. Oh, he knew
why, and the little brunette reason was sitting up in the family
room on the hooker-red couch right now. He hadn’t wanted to leave
her alone in the house. Not with that little fucking present on the
doorstep. It was like the females were toying with her as if she
were meant to be their prey.

With the human females that had made their
way into the hearts of one male or another over the years, the lion
females simply started off with a verbal warning to both the human
and the lion, and then if the human stuck around, they went
straight to violence. It was almost like they knew they could push
Callie’s buttons and were enjoying it. Enjoying driving a wedge
between the three of them. Maybe they hadn’t been so impressed with
her standing up to them with the children, maybe they stepped back
because they were curious about her attachment to the cubs or were
looking to see just how badly they could turn the knife for the
males. If the kids were attached to Callie and the females drove
her away, it would hurt not only the adults but the kids. It was
like an evil two-for-one deal.

His roving eyes passed around the basement.
It was carpeted with a sturdy dark berber so the kids could play as
they liked and not ruin it. Their home was often a gathering place
for their family, it had always been. Maybe it was the caretaking
gene in both of them, because they liked seeing their uncles and
their cousins happy and taken care of. Because no one took care of
the males, like their father, except the other males. Unless he,
Eryx or Alek helped their father if he got sick or injured, or
cooked a meal for him, or took him out for a movie, then he just
sat in his empty house and wished that their biological mother
would return his affection. You could see the empty longing in his
eyes.

Shuttering the dark thoughts of a future that
Callie seemed so determined to give to them – one without her
presence – he stripped off his sweatshirt and went to the far
corner where their workout equipment waited. Sexual frustration was
a norm in their house. Sure the female lions were willing to have a
go whenever asked, but it was hollow and he always felt dirty
afterwards. The older he got, the less he wanted to be with them,
and he grieved in his heart for asking Melania to bear his cub.
That had been a mistake of such vast proportions that it was nearly
incomprehensible. And knowing the strength of his feelings for
Callie now, he felt like he’d betrayed her on a level that was so
deep he couldn’t ever hope for her forgiveness.

He hit the bench, warming up with 150 and
then pounding on extra weight in slow increments until sweat poured
from him and his brain was just a dull buzz in his skull and his
skin threatened to melt right off his bones. And that’s when he
smelled her. That sweet honey and floral scent, all heat and woman.
Fuuuuuck
.

He dropped the bar onto the rack and it
clanged loudly. He hadn’t even been paying attention, but judging
from the number of black weights on the bar, he was well over
400.

“I thought you might be hungry, Ethan?” She
sounded very nervous and he rather liked that scent on her. It was
about time she worried about them for a change. He sat up slowly,
not for effect so much as his muscles were feeling raw and hot, and
he was pleased to see her hazel eyes darken.

She was holding a tray and a few chilled
bottles of water under one arm. He reached for one of the towels on
the floor to wipe off the sweat and said, “Thanks.”

She stood frozen in place while he rubbed the
sweat from his face and he wanted to say something, anything, but
he really didn’t want to keep putting his foot in his mouth around
her. It felt like every time he said something to her that she shut
down in some way; ground her heels in even more when all he wanted
to do was pull her into his arms.

Something ice cold touched the back of his
neck and he hissed and opened his eyes to see her standing with a
water bottle pressed to him, the tray on the floor and the other
bottle in her free hand. Poised between his legs at the end of the
bench, she stared at him, just slightly taller than him standing,
which made him really think about how small she was. Petite and
perfect. And then he was wildly ashamed. They were asking too much
of her. Not just judging from her background, but because even in
her shift, she was much smaller than them. Although more powerful
than a human, she was no match for the females.

“You know what a male wolf would do if a
female wolf disrespected his mate, the way the female lions did
with that little present for me?” The cold bottle moved slowly in a
rolling line from the back of his neck to the crux of his shoulder
and she added the other bottle to the other side of his neck.

He shook his head. Mesmerized by her gentle
attention to his needs, he didn’t want to do anything to make her
stop.

She got a thoughtful half smile on her face,
which took her from beautiful to stunning. He hadn’t seen her smile
at all.

“He’d beat the shit out of her. And then he’d
take his punishment from the alpha for the infraction.”

“Punishment?”

“Sure. Females are supposed to handle their
own business. The female ranking is entirely separate from the male
ranking.”

“So defending your mate deserves
punishment?”

The water bottles rolled soothingly up and
down his neck, all the way to his sweat drenched hair and back
across his shoulders. She seemed lost to the movement. “Same sex to
same sex in the wolf hierarchy, yes. It means she’s not capable of
handling herself, even if she’s not. If a wolf ignores the
disrespect, then her mate should ignore it too, or he weakens her
even more. But males are funny like that. All brawn and pissed off
righteousness when it comes to their mate.”

“We could tear the females apart, Callie, and
it wouldn’t change the core of what we are as a were-group. The
females will always resent anyone that comes in to take one of the
males away from them. They don’t want us, but they don’t want
anyone else to have us either.” He wrapped his hands around her
wrists, and they were so small that his fingers overlapped his
thumbs. He was aware of how fragile she was and he hated himself
for putting her through this. “I would let you go if I could,
sweetheart.”

Shit he was going to burn alive being so
close to her. She was like an oven, but not in a bad way, in a way
that he wanted to curl around her and draw in her warmth
forever.

“I don’t think I’m strong enough to be what
you need me to be, Ethan.” She moved closer to him instead of
pulling away and he looked up at her in surprise.

“I want you just the way you are.” Truth.
Hard truth.

In a slow move, she straddled him and he was
completely aware that her short skirt moved up her thighs with a
delicious sound and her hands slid up his arms as they wound around
his neck and she laid her mouth against his. It was so intimate,
such a small thing, but he’d truly never felt something so gentle
on his mouth and when he felt her tongue against his lips, he
opened them and the intoxicating taste of her slid inside him and
burrowed into his brain. If anything tasted better than Callie, he
couldn’t imagine what it might be. She tasted better than even her
delicious scent, and her hot tongue slid sensually against his and
her cold hands, empty of the water bottles that dropped to the
floor, drew him close.

Lifting off his mouth, she made a throaty
purring sound and kissed across his jaw until she reached the place
behind his ear where their scent lay heaviest. She fisted her hands
in his hair and pulled his head to the side and he wouldn’t have
stopped her for anything. She stroked her tongue up that place and
sighed, her hot breath like a caress on his skin and the sound of
satisfaction in his ear was like a blessing.

“You smell so good, Ethan.” There, that’s
what he wanted to hear. And feel.

She moved away from him, not with a gasp of
alarm like she did with Eryx, but with a small smile, and said,
“I’m kinda starving.”

He helped her off his lap, although he’d much
rather her park against him like that for all eternity, and she sat
down on the floor next to the tray, curling her legs beside her.
Gathering the water bottles, he joined her on the floor, sitting
across from her with the tray between them and giving one water
bottle to her.

One plate with four sandwiches and a bowl
with a large bunch of grapes sat on the tray. He’d never had a
woman make him a sandwich before. His whole body warmed at the
thought. She picked up one sandwich and gave it to him and he took
a bite without taking his eyes off her and then paused. Peanut
butter and – bananas? He looked down at the sandwich and lifted the
edge of the bread. Yep. Peanut butter and bananas, and something
sweet he couldn’t place.

“Honey.”

“Yeah baby?” He answered automatically and
she giggled. He blushed because he’d reacted like it was an
endearment. “I’m sorry, what?”

Now she was really smiling. A thousand watt
brilliant one showing perfect white teeth. “There’s honey on the
sandwich.”

He hummed in his throat. It was different but
good. He’d never had one like it before, usually going for meat
filled sandwiches. “It’s good, sweetheart. Thank you.”

“For the sandwich or the kiss?” She’d already
plowed through one sandwich and was reaching for another.

“Both.”

She chewed slowly and took a long drink of
water. “Did you really feel connected to me when you touched me
while I was unconscious?”

“Yeah. Both of us touched you at the same
time and we thought you were human and that you were going to die.
I’ve never been so freaked out in my life.”

“I looked pretty bad?”

He didn’t like thinking about how close he’d
come to losing her before he even got to know her. “Yeah, there was
a lot of blood and you were out cold. That first night, you cried.
Is it because you miss your pack?”

“I did.” She sighed, brushing her hands
together after she popped the last corner of her second sandwich
into her mouth. She was a really fast eater. “I didn’t want to get
tangled up somewhere. I had this idea to just keep drifting until I
found what I was looking for, and you guys threw this huge monkey
wrench into everything. I don’t know what to do, Ethan, and that’s
the truth.”

He reached for her hand and was so glad when
she didn’t cringe away from him. “You don’t have to make a decision
now.”

“No, I guess I don’t.”

A great hope filled his chest. Maybe she
wouldn’t be so determined to leave now. He started to pull the
grapes off the stem and drop them back into the bowl after he
finished his sandwich. He offered her the fourth sandwich and she
tore it in half to share it with him. Again he was awed by the
gesture.

While they finished the sandwich and then the
grapes, she asked him about being on the force and his family, and
he shared with her because she took an interest, even though he
desperately wanted to have her answering his questions. And Eryx
deserved to be part of what was going on right now.