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  He took two more steps forward. “Gentlemen, would you like to stop skulking in the corner and come out or shall I come in there?”

  One of them moved forward in his direction. He was tall, broad shouldered and tattooed. He wore his brown hair spiked up like out of some movie where one of the characters was supposed to be a punk. His shirt was cut to the shoulders revealing a skull and bones tattoo. Hell, the idiot was like one bad cliché after another.

  Just the fact that he’d moved forward first meant he thought he was a tough guy.

  Are we shifting?

  Michael looked left and right. The street was clear. It so often was when these things happened. He wasn’t an expert on magic by any means, but it seemed to him that the level of magic it took for a shifter fight sent out some sort of adverse signal to humans that they instinctually stayed away.

  Yep.

  Calling the warm white light onto himself, he shifted into his wolf form. He knew he looked impressive when he let the wolf out. His canine-self was big, at least two feet taller than most of his brothers, and dark black except for white stripes around his ears and eyes. His belly also had a circle of white. These fools wouldn’t be seeing it today when they fought. None of them were getting anywhere near his stomach.

  As he watched, his opponent also shifted. The white light surrounded him. At least he was able to call the light. That meant he was a real magical wolf. Not one of Kendrick’s miscreant wolves for whom the shift was painful and wrong.

  Growling, Michael leapt, landing hard on the other man’s back. With an oomph and a whimper the “tough” wolf hit the ground hard. With very little fanfare, the wolf who had challenged him, who had very likely beat up Michael’s latent mate, whimpered and whined, moving his body until he lay flat beneath Michael in a gesture that screamed subservience and defeat.

  Michael snapped at him as he jumped off his back. He wanted—no needed—more of a fight than that. They’d hurt Scarlett. He arched as he felt the hair on the top of his spine stand straight up. Turning around, he regarded the four other men still in their human form. There was nothing he wanted more than a good fight.

  As if moving in unison, they backed up into the wall behind them, raising their arms in surrender. None of them had shifted.

  Finally, one of them spoke. “We’re sorry.”

  Michael called the shift onto himself, returning to his human form. He stared at the men in front of him. The wolf he’d easily bested shifted and joined his friends.

  Regarding them each with a cold stare, he found not one of them to be more than a pipsqueak pretending to be a man. But then even a pipsqueak could beat up a human and had when they’d attacked his woman.

  “What are you sorry for?”

  The one farthest to the left, who had blond hair and a goatee, spoke first. “For stalking you.”

  Michael waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I don’t care if you stalk me. Stalk me all day if it makes you feel like a man.” He pointed at each of them. “The four of you hurt my mate. You’ll answer for it in blood.”

  The one he’d beat up gaped at him. “The latent? Scarlett?”

  Michael growled as his wolf took over his eyes. “That is my mate you speak of. You will never speak of her in disrespectful terms again, and out of your mouth, the word latent doesn’t sound okay.”

  The man fell to his knees. “I didn’t realize a wolf of your abilities would be interested in a creature that should have been killed at birth.” Michael lunged forward. This time he would kill.

  Dipshit fell flat on the ground before Michael could even speak. “I apologize.”

  Michael decided he didn’t feel like accepting his apology.

  Chapter 2

  SCARLETT stared dauntingly at the bed. So far she’d managed to follow all of his instructions. She’d taken a bath, but she hadn’t had any clothes to put on afterwards so she’d taken one of the bathrobes she’d found in the closet. Biting down on her lip, which caused her enough pain to bring tears to her eyes, she quietly hoped he wouldn’t mind that she’d looked in the closet. He hadn’t told her it was okay.

  But he was her mate so it should be fine, right?

  Rolling her eyes, she sat down on the end of the bed. Who was she talking to? She had no wolf to answer her. Never had, never would. So why were tears forming over this issue now? Sniffing, she climbed onto the bed, wincing with every jerky movement.

  The tears were because she now had a mate, a handsome, strong shifter from a royal family of a famous wolf pack who would no doubt, despite his best protests, throw her over for a non-broken wolf the first chance he got.

  And then there was Cole to deal with. He was going to be furious she hadn’t brought Michael straight to him, especially after he offered her protection. But she hadn’t completely disobeyed him. She hadn’t told Michael about Angel yet. Cole had been clear. No one told Michael about Angel Kane but Cole. That much she could handle. She hoped.

  The door swung open and she tried to sit up, groaning in pain as she did. Michael strode into the room wearing different clothes than he’d had on when he’d put her in the cab. In the bar, Michael had looked like a secret agent. He’d been dressed in all black, with curly hair cut short and high cheekbones that framed his long face. His chin was covered with dark brown stubble and the eyes that had regarded her were a warm, chestnut brown with specks of green in them. When he’d stood up, he was so tall she’d had to lean all the way back to look at him.

  Oh and how he’d smelled, it had been so right. His scent was like coffee, like cloves, like cinnamon and like the woods. Well, what she imagined the woods smelled like. No one let her go to the woods.

  Now, however, as he walked into the room on nearly silent feet, he wore a Harley Davidson t-shirt and pants that were too big on him. Not to mention he smelled like…Seamus. Oh heavens, had he killed Seamus and taken his clothes?

  Michael walked to the end of the bed and looked down at her, still not uttering a word. His silent regard made her gulp. What did he want? Had she done something wrong? She’d get out of the bed and take off the robe if he wanted. She’d move as fast as she could.

  “Don’t say a word, I know I stink to high heaven like Seamus and probably Todd and Barge too.” He held up a bag he carried in his left hand. She recognized it as belonging to one of the local drug stores. “After I shower and get the aroma of those three imbeciles off, I’m going to bandage you up.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but she had no idea even where to start. Had he killed all three of them? She’d been terrified they would destroy him. How was it possible? He’d been all alone. Then there was the complete novelty of someone saying they were going to take care of her. What was she supposed to say to that?

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded, his smile indicating he was satisfied with that answer.

  “Um…are they all dead?”

  “No, they live to be idiots another day.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “They suffered, though. Let’s say I gave them what they gave you and if there are any others out there who were involved, I want you to tell me because I’ll do the same to them.”

  There were tons of others and she was sure she would never tell who they were. Not ever. Michael’s good luck at besting Seamus, Barge and Todd couldn’t be relied upon to last. No, she would protect him.

  Michael crossed the room to the bathroom and closed the door behind him. Seconds later, the water in the bathroom turned on. Scarlett swallowed as something that should have occurred to her earlier dawned on her at once. He was probably going to want to have sex with her. Tonight.

  She pulled the covers up tightly till they touched her chin. Oh. Gods. She did not want to do that again. And Michael was so big. All of him would be that way. Suddenly, all of his masculine beauty scared the hell out of her. She realized her hands shook and she hid them underneath the sheet.

  Would he discard her like so much garbage afterwards? If they had sex did he have
to keep her as his mate?

  She heard the water turn off. Seconds later, Michael bounded out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. His hair was wet, the curls, for the moment, looking straight and plastered to his head. He hadn’t shaved and the whiskers she’d seen earlier were still there.

  His chest and abdomen were muscular, but also angular at the same time. He didn’t have the look of what she thought of as a “shifter gym rat”. Still, he was obviously an athlete.

  He opened one of the drawers and pulled out a pair of boxer shorts. Dropping the towel for a second gave her a view of his tight ass. Strange warmth pooled between her legs.

  His body was so spectacular, at least as it was viewed from a safe space. She wasn’t sure how she’d feel with it pushing down on top of her while it assaulted her insides.

  “Alright.” He smiled as he turned around and walked to the bed. “Let’s have a look at your wounds.”

  “You really don’t have to.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to start the touching the process. The more skin-to-skin contact they made, the more he would decide he was entitled to. Nothing good was going to come from that.

  He narrowed his eyes. “I do have to.”

  As she watched, he pulled out two ice packs and manipulated them until she heard a crack. “There, that should work now.”

  He climbed onto the bed and scooted up next to her. This close she could feel the warmth that radiated off him all the way to her bones. “Was it a hot shower?”

  “That’s the best kind.”

  Gently, which surprised her, he placed one of the ice packs up against her jaw. She flinched. Gods, it hurt. Anything touching her face was almost beyond bearable. For days and days, they’d taken turns giving her pain. She closed her eyes. If she had endured that, she could make it through this.

  “I don’t mean to cause you pain.”

  She laughed, it was better than crying. Besides, she had her eyes closed. It was always easier to say what you wanted with your eyes closed. “No one ever means to.”

  “I don’t think that’s true. I think most people who cause pain mean to do it. At least my father always did.”

  Opening her eyes, she regarded him. He was looking at her cheek as he held the icepack to her. His expression seemed pinched, pained. It did appear as though he cared a great deal about the fact that she had discomfort.

  “Your dad is Kendrick Kane, right? He’s famous.”

  His eyes found hers again. “For many reasons, I imagine.”

  “Angel was hidden in New Orleans with us from the time she was a baby to keep her safe from him.”

  “And now I’ve come to take her, and you, back with me.”

  Her heart stuttered. “You want me to leave with you?”

  “Of course, I do. You’re my mate. You go where I go.”

  “I can come with you. Angel can’t.”

  Damn. She closed her eyes again. Two minutes talking to Michael and she’d gone and done what Cole specifically told her not to do.

  “Why can’t she?”

  He didn’t sound angry. Just sort of curious so she opened her eyes again. At this rate, opening and closing her lids she was going to get dizzy.

  “I’m not supposed to tell you.”

  “Oh no?” He removed the ice from her cheek. “We’ll leave that off for a moment or two and then put it back on. I want to examine your cuts. You need disinfectant.”

  He opened up a tube of antibacterial ointment and starting applying it to her open wounds. She wasn’t currently bleeding anywhere. Some of the more recent ones hadn’t completely scabbed up yet.

  “Who told you not to tell me?” His hands stayed gentle as he bandaged her up. But maybe he was one of those men who got all of a sudden mad. There was no build up. There was just explosion.

  “Cole.”

  “I’m going to meet Cole first thing tomorrow morning.”

  That was probably for the best. If they showed up first thing in the morning, Cole would be less mad. Yes, that made sense.

  “Okay.”

  “Listen,” Michael started speaking and she almost blanched. This was it. She knew it was coming. He was done with her. He’d done his duty, fixed her up and now they were through. “I need you to explain your pack to me, okay? I’m confused.”

  So was she. That had not been what she thought he was going to say. Not at all. “What’s causing the confusion?”

  “Where I’m from we have an Alpha. Shifters meet and they fall in love, mostly with another shifter but sometimes with a non-shifter. They mate. It’s for life and beyond. We almost always travel together to the Great Beyond. When the Alpha passes on, someone steps up to be the next Alpha. In my long lifetime, that’s only ever happened once. Our Alpha, Tristan, wasn’t ready to take control so I held the pack for him until he could. If there’s a challenge, it’s one wolf against another, fight to the death.”

  When he’d spoken, he moved closer to her until he was so close she could feel his warm breath against her face. He smelled sweet, like mint and shifter and man.

  She rubbed her nose, which gave her a twinge of pain. “For a long time, Nero was our Alpha. My whole life, actually. But he didn’t hold us together very well and men have always had a choice in the women they get mated to. No one would want a mate like me, for example. I’m going to pollute the bloodline of any children I might have.”

  Michael sucked in his breath. “Not true. My great-grandmother was latent. Her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are all pretty damn talented.”

  Really? Michael was making her head spin with all the things he said. In his pack everyone accepted and loved their mates? The Alpha held everything together?

  “Your pack sounds pretty fantastic, Michael.”

  He nodded. “I’m not going to lie to you ever. It was fantastic and then it wasn’t and now it’s struggling but it will be again.”

  “Something happened with your dad?”

  Michael stood up and pulled the covers back on the bed, removing the top bedspread. She had no idea what he was doing. Did he not like to sleep with sheets? Without realizing it, she must have given him a questioning look and he smiled.

  His grin made her heart stutter. Michael had one dimple in his left cheek. Gods, she was so pathetic. There was no question he was dreamy, but there was no point in her fluttering around about him especially because she did not want his hands on her.

  “The bedspreads in hotel rooms are always infested with bacteria. I’m removing it from the bed.” That being said, he dumped the floral monstrosity on the floor.

  “Are you a hypochondriac?” As soon as she asked the question, she shut her mouth in horror. You didn’t ask Michael Kane that. She dropped her eyes down. Now she had done it. Now he would flip out.

  “Not at all. I’ve slept in horrendous circumstances much worse than this. But, I’m thinking of your open wounds. I don’t want anything happening to you.”

  He climbed up on the bed next to her again, this time lying down with his head on the pillow. Scarlett’s heart pounded hard. Where was the attack? She waited and waited, but he lay silent next to her.

  Finally, she lifted her eyes to look at him. His head slightly turned, he regarded her with one eyebrow raised. “To answer your question from earlier, my father got drunk with power. His objectives changed. He no longer cared about being a good Alpha, he wanted more. He wanted to make more of us. So he got involved with a very bad man, and between the two of them, they found a witch who cursed all the mated men in my pack to kill their mates.”

  She gasped, a vision of that night filled her eyes even as Michael kept talking. She could almost see them as it happened. Michael had been there, he’d tried to stop things, he’d tried to help, and he’d been attacked on all sides. Ten different wolves, all shifters he’d grown up respecting and caring about, they’d tried to kill him too…

  “You okay?”

  She nodded, coming back to herself. “Sometimes I have t
his weird thing happen where I can see what people see when they tell me stories.”

  “Ah.” He smiled and reached out to stroke her hair. She had to admit, she really liked when he did that. She didn’t want his hands on her body; her hair was a different story. “You’re a vision-seeker.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s part of the female magic line. Men may be the stronger shifters, but the female pack members hold all the magic, keep the pack right with the universe. Yours is an old ability, very rare these days.”

  Wait a minute. That wasn’t even possible. “Michael, I’m latent.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Just because you can’t shift doesn’t mean you can’t do anything else. You have the sense of smell, you have the magic. Surely, even here, someone explained it to you.”

  Scarlett was beginning to suspect that nothing that had ever been explained to her was ever true. “No.” She cleared her throat. “Please continue.”

  “Oh, well after that night, we struggled. My mother had hidden away all the un-mated females when she got wind of my father’s plan. Then he killed her. We spent thirty years floundering around in agony before Tristan found Ashlee, his mate. After that, he took his place as Alpha of the pack.”

  She wasn’t sure why exactly, but Scarlett heard something in Michael’s voice that told her he was holding back something from this story. Something personal. Maybe it was the way he’d rushed through the backend of it. More likely it was because she couldn’t see what he talked about. He must be holding something back, something that made the story incomplete.

  “And Angel came to live with us because your mother hid her from her father.”

  That much she was aware of. Scarlett had been five. She could still remember the day the beautiful infant had arrived. Dark hair, dark eyes, and a smile that made everyone in the pack grin back.

  “Yes, that’s when Angel got sent away. We all forgot about her. It was part of the magic my mother did to protect the women. Only recently did we become aware of her existence again.” He rolled over and turned off the light before turning on his side to face her. “But we aren’t going to talk about Angel Kane any more tonight. Cole told you not to and you don’t trust me enough yet to know that I would never let anyone so much as speak harshly to you let alone punish you for disobeying an order.”