Chapter Seven
“Who was that woman?” Shannon allowed Anton to set her on top of the counter.
He released her, stepped back, and frowned. “Mating heat is about to start. Other packs wish to unite with ours. Different ones send a woman here to see if I’ll hit it off with her.”
Shannon silently gawked at him. She finally found her voice. “As in you take her to dinner and get to know her? She wasn’t exactly dressed, well, to go out anywhere unless it’s to a strip bar. That outfit left little to the imagination. I can’t believe she goes out in public.”
His dark head turned away and she would have sworn she saw him blush. “Not exactly.” He glanced back at her and crossed his arms over his chest.
It sank in slowly. “Oh my. You’re supposed to have sex with them?”
“Yeah.”
Emotions flooded forth, mostly jealousy. The idea of Anton with other women just didn’t sit well with her. The scary beauty queen the other pack had sent made her feel worse. That woman was porn-star hot in her skintight leather jumpsuit. She’d been about as different in appearance from Shannon as she could get. It also became clear that the guy probably had slept with a lot of women in his lifetime.
“Every year you have to sleep with one woman to see if she’s a possible mate?”
He glanced away again. “Not just one.”
She knew the color drained from her face. “How many women are you supposed to sleep with during this heat thing?”
“There are a lot of packs out there who would love it if their daughter mated with the future alpha of our pack. We are stronger than most and have prime territory. I get sent one every day from the different packs during mating heat. They schedule the days with my father.”
“How long did you say this thing lasts?”
“Anywhere from ten to fifteen days. It depends on the year. It’s difficult to predict. Sex is an effective way to test if we’re mates.”
Her shock turned to a sick twist of her stomach. “I’m leaving.” She shoved off the counter, landed on her feet, and walked for the door.
Anton moved faster than she could, his body blocked the only exit, and he frowned down at her when she halted. “It’s not safe for you to go.”
Embarrassment and humiliation battled her emotions. She refused to look into his eyes, instead focused on the mouth that had been on her body recently. She’d thought they might have had something special, perhaps the beginning of something real, but instead he just had sex with a lot of women. He had to be one serious player to take sex that casually. She’d almost allowed him to f*ck her. She would have if he hadn’t halted it.
“Get out of my way, Anton. I’m out of here. No wonder you have so many condoms stashed.”
He sniffed and softly cursed. “Damn.”
“I’m not turned-on.” She backed up to put space between them, spun around, and her gaze lifted to the window she’d contemplated leaping through earlier. It looked tempting again. She just needed to get away from him. She’d totally made a fool of herself by allowing him to touch her. “I just need to leave before the next one arrives.”
“I know exactly what you’re feeling. You’re hurt. I can smell it.”
She refused to look at him. “No, I’m not,” she lied, unwilling to allow him to know she’d started to grow too attached to him. “Get your nose checked. I just don’t want to be here when another werewolf woman arrives to threaten to make me her dinner.” She tried to nonchalantly inch closer to the window. “You’re too busy with your schedule to babysit me.”
“Damn it, Shannon. Look at me.” He growled the order.
She turned her head. “What?” Her gaze met his and regret simmered in his brown eyes.
“It’s not what you think.”
“What am I thinking?”
“Hell.” He blew out air. “I don’t invite them.”
“But you’ve sure slept with a bunch of them. Wow. You poor baby. You’ve got such a sad life. All those werewolf women showing up every day to have sex with you must be traumatic. You said your father schedules them to see you, right? That implies he has your permission to do that. Is there a sympathy card I can send you for that?”
“This isn’t— Shit, I don’t even know what to say.” He lifted a hand to run his fingers through his hair. He tore out the ponytail holder and tossed it aside, shook out his long tresses until they fell around his shoulders, and grimly studied her. “I know it sounds bad but I wish you’d at least let me explain.”
“What’s to explain? I was here and no one else was so you thought you’d amuse yourself with me regardless of the fact that you had to realize I don’t just mess around with guys for fun. You knew I wasn’t that type.” She put a few more feet between them. “Maybe I’m a novelty to you. Ever done a part-puma shifter before?” She jerked her head toward his bed. “Are there hidden notches somewhere over there that I missed seeing? I am short. Maybe you keep them high on the posts.”
He snarled. “You’re making it sound…” He closed his mouth and shot her a glare.
“Dirty? I guess that’s exactly what it was. I’ve never been so happy not to have gone all the way with a guy. Are you going to let me out of here?”
“No. You’re not safe out there alone.”
“Nothing I say will change your mind about allowing me to leave?”
“Hell no. Not until I know no one poses a danger to you.”
“That’s what I thought.” Her body tensed as she took a deep breath. “I’d rather take my chances out there than be used by you. At least whoever comes after me will be honest about wanting to cause me harm.”
She allowed her instincts to take over, encouraged them, and suddenly sprinted toward the window. The rumor that cats really did land on their feet gave her the hope that she wouldn’t get hurt. She jumped, her arms lifted to protect her face and throat, but she never hit the glass. Two strong arms grabbed her instead and they slammed into the wall inches from it.
“Are you insane?” Anton raged.
She would have told him no but she couldn’t breathe. He’d nearly crushed her when they hit. His large body pinned hers in place and then he leaned back. She drew in a deep breath and started to struggle.
“Let me go.”
He refused, instead held her tighter, and walked toward the bed. He tossed her so she landed in the middle of it. She scrambled to sit up and then rolled off the other side to keep the large mattress between them.
“I want to leave.” She glared at him. “If you won’t allow me to walk out the door, I’m willing to test a theory by going out the window. The only danger I’m in comes from the next woman who gets mad that you’ve sent your brother to meet her in your place.”
Anton snarled, his eyes darkening to black. “You’re taking this all wrong.”
“What have I misunderstood? You have sex with a lot of different women, it doesn’t mean anything to you, and I am not like them!”
“I didn’t say you were. You have no idea what my life has been like. Since I could walk, my father has been grooming me to take over the pack one day. I have a shitload of responsibilities and taking a mate is one of them. There are pack rules to follow and obligations to be met.”
“Then I’ve never been happier in my life to have avoided all shifters and be on my own.”
“I didn’t touch you because of boredom. I’m genuinely attracted to you, Shannon.”
“Excuse me for not finding that anything noteworthy. It sounds as if my having a pulse is all it takes for you to feel drawn to me.”
“You’re purposely trying to anger and insult me.”
“That would imply it’s possible to do that. Obviously you don’t have many standards if you allow your father to rule your sex life. Have I said anything that isn’t true?”
He growled, flashed his fangs at her, and took a threatening step forward. She hissed at him. She hadn’t meant to but the sound still pushed past her parted lips. She lifted her hands, fingers curved, implying she’d scratch him if he tried to touch her. He paused.
“Stay away from me. I mean it. Go after that bitch if you need to nail someone. I sure as hell won’t allow you to touch me now that I know your dance card is full.”
“Damn it!” He took a step back. “You’re really hurting. I can smell your pain. You don’t mean what you say. You’re trying to wound me with your insults. We are attracted to each other. I realize you don’t allow many males near you.”
“I’m totally not your type and you aren’t mine. I should leave now. I’ll be fine with my mother. Give me a cell phone number to reach you at and I’ll call you within a few days. You can tell me when it’s safe to leave her house.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“I’m not staying.”
She glanced at the bed, the one she’d been on recently, allowing him to do things to her, and she wrapped her arms around her waist. The memory of it made her want to cry. She’d foolishly allowed him to get beyond her defenses, his touch going deeper than just her skin, and she’d started to fall for him.
“I need to leave.” She met his gaze. “I heard what your brother said. No way am I sticking around, risking you going into heat. I won’t allow you to ever touch me again.”
“It’s not…damn. You’re not listening to me. It wasn’t just sex, Shannon. I want you to believe me. It’s the truth. My oldest brother, Grady, warned me that allowing my father to schedule meetings with prospective mates would bite me in the ass one day. I guess it’s today.”
Shannon watched him. She’d thought he looked handsome, still did, but now she knew what kind of life he led. He had sex with a bunch of different women, often. She knew she’d always avoided one-night stands or allowing a guy to touch her too quickly in order to avoid these painful situations. She’d bypassed her own rules because she’d just been too attracted to Anton Harris. She’d thought there was something special between them, something meaningful, but it had only been on her part.
A horrible thought struck. “Oh no. Tell me you’ve been tested. If you’ve slept with a lot of women, your chances of an STD are higher than normal.”
“Shifters don’t carry sexual diseases.”
“Good.” Her shoulders slumped. “I guess that’s one bright side to this, but it seems everyone you know wants to either kill me or spout dinner references about me. I’ll assume that angering an alpha couple could be a death sentence. You keep telling me I’m in danger but you seem to put me in more of it than I’d find on my own.”
“You’re under my protection.”
“Then just announce that and allow me to walk out the door.”
“I need to guard you.”
“That’s bullshit. If I go to my mother’s, they won’t find me there. I won’t go to work until this is over. They tore up my apartment and my uniforms and paycheck stubs were there so they will know where I work. But they wouldn’t have figured out where my mom lives.”
“They may have found her address in your apartment.”
“We see each other enough that we don’t send mail back and forth. I never wrote down her address. I just drive there. She’s remarried, everything is under her new husband’s name, and I’ll be safe.”
Anton shook his head. “I won’t allow you to leave me.”
She stared at him silently. She didn’t understand his persistence to keep her with him. It didn’t make any sense. He should want her gone so he could sleep with lots of other women if he enjoyed that kind of lifestyle. It was unsettling how much he confused her.
“I won’t touch you again, okay? I will be on my best behavior. That should alleviate your concern if you think I only want you for sex.”
She studied him. “What about when the next woman arrives for her appointment with you? Is she going to try to attack me too?”
His jaw clenched. “Rave has taken over those duties for me until I’ve established that you’re safe from the males hunting you.”
“And if you go into heat? Then what?”
He glanced away. “I’ve got a few days.”
“Look at me.”
He met her gaze.
“What happens if you go into heat and I’m still here in your apartment? Tell me the truth.”
His licked his lips. “You’re f*cked, kitten. Often. By me.” He dropped his arms to his sides where they fisted. “In the literal sense.”
“You said it’s hard to predict this mating heat thing. What if you’re wrong and it starts tomorrow? Or worse, tonight?”
He hesitated. “Would it really be so bad?”
“Yes,” she stated clearly. “I am not the casual type, Anton. You said you smelled my pain. I can’t get involved with you. I’m grateful for all you’ve done, I owe my life to you, but I’m not willing to get my heart broken if something happens between us. You’ll go on your merry way to someone else and I’ll really get hurt.”
He growled and then spun away. He put on a shirt, his boots, and a belt. He never looked at her while he dressed and stomped to the door. “I’ll go hunt down those males and deal with this now. Don’t try to leave, Shannon. You don’t want me hunting you. Trust me on that. If you do…” He stopped at the door and turned his head to glare at her over his shoulder. “I’ll finish what we started only I’ll be too pissed to care if I harm you because my wolf will be in charge. You wouldn’t like me out of control. I gave you my word that no harm would come to you and I will protect you even if it’s from me. I’ll be back soon.”
He slammed the door behind him. She heard something beep and ran for the door. She tried to open it but it refused to unlock. He’d managed to trap her inside his apartment. Her gaze darted to the window. It would be her last option to get out.
“Shit!”
* * * * *
Fury drove Anton to kick in a door to the house where some of the pups lived together. Three of them sat on a couch playing video games. He snarled when he met their shocked gazes.
“Where are they hiding?”
A blond teenager paled. “They didn’t say.”
Anton didn’t have to mention names. He studied Kyle, the blond, and showed his fangs. “What do you know?”
“They decided to go after some cat and I know that’s why you’re here.” He glanced nervously at two of his roommates. “They hang with some rogues who thought it would be fun to go after her.”
“Shit,” one of the younger males cursed. “I didn’t know.” He gave Anton a terrified look. “I swear. I would have reported it if I’d known anyone hung with rogues.”
Anton walked to Kyle, leaned over the frightened teen, and snarled, “Where do they meet? They must have somewhere they hang out together to avoid being seen by anyone in this area.”
“In the woods at the north end but I swear that’s all I know. I told them not to piss you off. I warned them what would happen if they didn’t obey your orders. I didn’t do anything to that puma shifter. You made it clear about how angry you were and said to leave her alone.”
Anton glared at the three. “Go hunt them down and bring them back here. I want the rogues too. Call me on my cell when you have them.”
The three nodded eagerly and bolted for the door. Anton left the house, still longed to beat on someone, but had to attempt to calm down. It wasn’t so much that the pups had disobeyed him or that they were hanging out with undesirables that angered him. Pups did those things, needed to learn to obey orders, and it had just become part of his job to deal with them. It wasn’t anything new. What irritated him the most, made him killing mad, had been Shannon’s reaction to learning about his life.
My having a pulse is all it takes for you to feel drawn to me.
He couldn’t get Shannon’s accusation out of his head. Her words repeated over and over. He growled low under his breath. The sad thing, he admitted, was that it wasn’t that far off the mark. He had allowed his life to become a parade of bitches strolling through his life to fulfill his duty to find a mate to lead the pack when he had to take over the alpha position.
The scent of Shannon’s pain and the look of betrayal in her beautiful eyes haunted him. He hadn’t wanted to lie to her when she’d asked her questions but his answers had struck her as if he’d backhanded her across the face. She’d closed down on him, hell, she had tried to leap out a second-floor window just to get away from him. Their touching had been incredible but now she believed it amounted to something meaningless and dirty. She’d asked about sexually transmitted diseases.
He snarled, straddled his motorcycle, and fought the urge to throw back his head to howl in rage. He wanted Shannon unlike any other woman he’d ever known. It didn’t make sense. He knew it couldn’t work out with their bloodlines but he didn’t care about logic or odds. Neither did his wolf. He ached to touch the mostly human shifter to the point of pain.
I should have taken her when I had the chance. Now she would never allow him to touch her again. He paused. Not unless she’s really scared and wraps around me. A slow smile spread. It would be underhanded and wrong but he wanted her that bad.
“F*ck!” He tore down the street on his bike to return home. “I can’t do that to her. I’m not an animal. At least not totally,” he muttered.
He parked behind the building and entered the back door. The noise from the bar drew him inside. The room nearly overflowed with shifters from his pack and visiting ones. He scanned faces, couldn’t recognize about forty percent of them, and then located Glenda. She’d exchanged her bloodied white shirt for a blue tank top and snug black jeans.
Males studied his friend but few approached her. She intimidated most werewolves. She stopped at a table to talk to a few bitches, not from their pack, and then spun toward the bar. She appeared angry when their gazes met. She changed direction and headed his way instead.
“You’ve got fans. They want to meet the Harris boys.” She rolled her eyes. “I told them to pair up with someone else. Pathetic groupies. They don’t even have alpha blood. Talk about trying to start a fight. They know damn well that’s all that gets your attention this time of year and that those women who come with appointments would kick their asses for even daring to draw your eye.”
He sighed. It seemed every year more females showed up in town hoping to hook up with him or his brothers. They tried to bypass the pack agreements their father made with other packs with the meeting appointments. “Great.”
“Yeah. I lied and said all you guys had paired up already. You want shocking?” She jerked her thumb toward a far corner. “See the two redheaded males over there? You’ll never guess where they’ve come from.”
“I’m not in the mood to play games.”
“They have accents. They are Irish. They wanted to vacation over here to try out American wolf bitches. I don’t know who to feel sorrier for since they are kind of rough around the edges and our females tend to be a little too coddled. One of them hit on me.” She grinned. “What do you think? Should I go for it?”
Anton grinned, glanced at the two burly men, and studied them closely. “The one in the blue shirt would probably challenge you. He looks mean enough for you not to break him easily or scare him away.”
“I was thinking about taking on both.”
He chuckled. “Wolves aren’t known to share well. They may fight over you.”
“They are brothers. I figure they have to be used to doing that since they are from the same litter. They said they shared a woman’s body once.” She winked. “They can do it again.”
“That’s so wrong.” He laughed though—couldn’t help it. “Good luck. Don’t do anything inside the bar. They look big enough to do a lot of property damage if you’re wrong and they decide to challenge each other in an attempt to impress you.”
“I haven’t found any other prospects who appeal to me.”
“What about Boris?” He remembered the Russian transplant she had spent the last few mating heats with.
“He had to go home. His father took sick.” Depression settled on her features. “I’ll miss him. I had a lot of fun with him and that wolf had serious sex skills.”
“He didn’t ask you to go with him?”
She waved it off. “He asked. He loves me but he wanted a mate. Can you see me being his alpha bitch?” She snorted. “I’d make all the pups in his pack wet their pants.”
Sympathy welled inside Anton. “You’d make a good one.”
“Been there and done that.” She met his gaze. “Never again. Love sucks and I’m just glad you took me in when I showed up here. This is where I belong.”
He let it go. Glenda didn’t talk about her past much but when she’d arrived in town she’d been in bad shape. Someone had obviously abused her. She’d been half dead when she’d been found hiding inside a motel room, nearly unconscious. The Harris family had nursed her to health, accepted her into the pack, and Anton had personally trained her to fight. They’d been fast friends ever since, nearly family.
“How goes it with the she-cat? I think you’ve lost your mind, by the way.”
“She’s upset.”
“I would be too if I were a cat.”
He shot her an annoyed expression. “She found out about how the packs send me women to test out.”
“Oh. Yeah. If she’s into you that would definitely piss a woman off. Some don’t like to share.”
“I just want her.” His voice dropped. “I feel things.”
He wasn’t able to block the surprise punch that slammed into his stomach. He grunted and shot Glenda a glare while he rubbed the spot. “What the hell was that for?”
“Feel that? That’s nothing compared to what your parents will do when they find out you’re holed up with the enemy. Maybe I should deck you in the head to try to knock some sense into you. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever known.”
“I bet. She’s a cat.”
“She’s mostly human.”
“That’s two strikes against her then. Why don’t you allow me to take her to a safe house? Two birds with one stone. She won’t be upstairs under your dick and she’ll be safe from the pups. I won’t hurt her.”
He knew Glenda would keep her word. It would be the perfect way to be rid of Shannon until he could track down the pups threatening her. He just didn’t want to let her go yet. “No.”
“Oh hell, Anton. Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Not a clue.” He sighed. “But wish me luck. I’m about to go upstairs and she’s not going to be welcoming.”
“Got her hackles up, huh?” She laughed. “A hissy fit? Maybe she’s going to cough up a hairball and throw it at you?”
He playfully snapped his fangs at her, his eyes flashing. “Cute.”
“I’m not the one infatuated by a forbidden p-ssy. It makes me extremely happy that I will never have to say that I don’t know dick. I also think with the head on my shoulders.”
Anton groaned at the pun and left the bar. He had no idea how to handle Shannon’s injured feelings but he wanted to make it clear that he didn’t plan on hurting her in any way.