chapter 2
“I’m still not sure I see the point of interviewing bands for the bar. Quill’s doing just fine as DJ on the weekends, and during the week we’ve just been running the no-commercial satellite station. It’s worked for the last year. Why f*ck with it?” Michael groused to his brother, Jason. Michael had been acting manager of Jake’s bar since they officially reopened it last March. The bar originally belonged to the alpha of the Garra Pack that shared the small town of Allen with them. After the alpha’s son kidnapped Cadence, his brother’s mate, pack justice was delivered in a brutal and final way, and the Garra Pack left town for good. The Tressel Pack – of which Michael was second in rank – took over the bar along with a few homes and a restaurant.
“I heard you the first time you complained, Michael. I told you that eventually you’d need to find a band to do a weekly show. I’ve let you slide for a long time, but now it’s the end of May. I want a house band in here by the end of June, period. Get your act together. The pack alone can’t sustain the bar. We need the humans that come in to drink, and they’re not loving Jake’s as much as they did when it was run by the man himself. If we start to lose business, then it’s everyone’s problem.”
Good point. “So you do it.”
“Nah, you like music, so you can pick out the house band, and then eventually we’ll hire a manager. Maybe you’ll get lucky and one of the bands will have a manager with them who can run the bar for us.” Jason shrugged as if it wasn’t a huge undertaking. Michael couldn’t really deny Jason. Not only was he his big brother, but he was also pack alpha. Right now Jason was being genial. If he decided to put his alpha authority into the order, then Michael wouldn’t have a choice. At least if he went along with it, then it appeared he’d made the choice himself.
Jason wasn’t wrong, anyway, and Michael knew that. If the bar went into the red and had to close, then the pack would go elsewhere to drink. Here, the pack protected their own. Out and about, a wolf could go off alone and get into a lot of trouble.
It hadn’t exactly been his choice to take over managing the bar. He was a mechanic by trade and a smartass by nature, two things that didn’t exactly go hand-in-hand with slinging suds and dealing with customers and employees. So far, though, he wasn’t doing a bad job. He just didn’t want the job.
* * * * *
Three weeks into June and Michael wasn’t having a good time of things. He rubbed his temples and glared at the call sheet. He’d placed the ad a couple weeks ago in local papers around Kentucky and on an online posting website for bands. They were offering very little in the way of perks to start, but they’d had a good response to the ad:
“Small town bar needs house band for weekend gigs. $200 per show plus all the beer you can drink.”
As the bands trickled in over the weeks to audition, Michael grew steadily more disappointed. Were there no decent bands not already house bands elsewhere?
Thursday afternoon, as the deadline for finding a band before the end of June hovered over his head like a battle axe, the first band of the day took the stage. One look at their punk clothing, and he knew that even if they played amazing, the town wouldn’t go for them. He knew what would fly here. A band that could play both rock and country, would do covers on request, and had a nice looking girl as part of their entourage. Maybe that last part was all his thinking. He was damn lonely.
The last girl he’d been with, well, that was a long while ago. He flirted around with the females because that’s just the kind of guy he was, but he hadn’t slept with anyone in a long time. Tired of the get-out-before-dawn f*cks that most of his friends enjoyed, he’d figured out that none of the females in the pack were a mate for him, and then he’d soured on the whole casual sex thing.
He wasn’t the only one going through a dry spell, but the numbers were dwindling. Linus, fourth in rank, had found his mate in Karly, who was a supernaturally perfect mate for him called an Angel Mate. Bo was still single. As third in the pack, he was moody as hell because of an old injury that caused him to limp, but he also didn’t go for the few she-wolves in their age group or any of the human groupies. That was the hard part. If you went human, you had to figure out if she liked you for all of you or just because she was f*cking the big bad. Michael had been disappointed every time.
So for all intents and purposes, he was currently celibate. The first month was hardest, going through the full moon cravings that tended to make a wolf think about nothing but hunting and f*cking. But that first month had happened a while ago.
Shuttering the all too depressing thoughts that he was twenty-seven now and still single, he cringed through the band’s very British punk sounds and mentally cursed Jason. Three hours later, after sucky-punk-band, all-girl-hate-men-band, and screaming-not-singing-metal-band were gone, his ears were still ringing.
One more band to go. He hoped to hell they didn’t suck. They were the last band that had responded to the most recent ad, named TrayneWrek. It appeared to be an all-sorts kind of band, boasting to play anything, anywhere. Judging from the picture, the four men and one woman were related somehow, maybe siblings. From the picture, she was pretty, but it was hard to tell for sure. And he couldn’t exactly hire them just because she was cute.
“Something up?” Toby, one of their regular bouncers, asked as Michael stepped outside onto the sidewalk in front of the bar. Toby was a big man, not fat but just solid. He had legs like tree trunks and a body like a brick wall. He made an excellent bouncer, and he was part of the pack.
“Nah. I just needed a breath of fresh air.”
A loud engine broke the afternoon silence, and an incredible Viper SRT pulled to a stop at the traffic light. Just behind it, a black van that looked like it came out of an old A-Team episode eased behind the car so close that they almost touched, and then a Ford F-350 joined them. The Viper swung into the parking lot of Jake’s suddenly, and so did the truck and the van.
“This must be TrayneWrek,” he said out loud. If Toby cared, he didn’t acknowledge it. Right now, Toby was just hanging out before the evening shift, pulling guard duty while the bands played in case Michael pissed them off, which had happened more than once. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut to save his life.
A woman eased out of the car and Michael's jaw dropped to the sun-heated concrete at his feet. Hello, angel. Dressed entirely in white, from her stiletto heels and tiny mini skirt to the form fitting tank top, she looked like she’d just dropped right out of heaven. Sunshine-blonde hair fell to her waist in fat curls, moving like a lush wave. He half expected to see a halo nestled in those curls.
And then she cursed like a sailor to the man that climbed out of the A-Team van. “You run up on my ass like that again and I’ll skin you alive!” She threw a punch at him, and he ducked with a laugh. Spinning deftly, she elbowed him in the kidneys, and he doubled over with a groan.
“That was not fair,” the man laughed, standing up and pressing his hand into his side. “You better hope I can still sing.”
A very large man unfolded himself from the passenger seat of the Viper. How he fit in there, Michael wasn’t sure, but he was huge. And not just big like Toby, but he wore his flesh like armor, like he was protecting himself.
The angel spied them, and he was sure his mouth was still hanging open like an idiot, so he tried to remember how to work his jaw to shut it.
The closer she got, the more he felt like he was looking directly into the sun. Her pixie face, complete with heart shaped mouth, loomed into view, and she said, “You Gerrick?”
Finding his voice, he managed, “Yeah. You guys TrayneWrek?”
“You bet.” She stuck out her hand, and he shook it. “Name's Jazlyn. With a ‘y’.”
He said, “Oh, you’re a wolf?”
“Yeah, you too?” She cocked her head to the side. “Is this a pack-run bar?”
“Yeah. I’m managing it for a while until we can find someone to take over. We kind of inherited it. Are you part of a pack?”
“We’re our own pack. We broke ties with our former pack a while ago. We’re not looking to join up.”
He nodded. “I’ll let the alpha know; he’ll probably want to talk to you if you get the job.”
“Well,” she grinned and flashed perfectly white teeth, “we're awesome, so you should probably call him.”
He opened the door into the club with a chuckle. Four men followed her, each carrying a piece of equipment, and then the mountain man brought up the rear. He was fairly certain the man could snap him in half like a piece of kindling. Best to stay on his good side. Mentally locking his mouth, he walked inside with Toby.
The mountain man stood protectively next to Jazlyn, and they looked like an odd pair. He dwarfed her on a grand scale. His head was completely shaved, and he had a goatee that made him look like a serial killer. And a freaking cross tattoo on his neck. Could that be her boyfriend? She seemed like such a delicate thing, with a big mouth. That must be why Michael liked her already.
Remembering he had a job to do, he walked over to Jazlyn and said, “When you’re all set up, you can play a couple songs, no pressure, and then I’ll let you know.”
He tried not to make eye contact with the mountain, but he could feel his gaze on him like it was made of acid and would burn him alive. He glanced up at him and darted his eyes away. The man was a complete freak show. He had one weird eye that was almost entirely white.
She elbowed the mountain, and it looked like it should have hurt her elbow. “Introduce yourself, dink.”
The voice was deep like a cave and just as dark. “I am Shayne.”
She quipped, “With a y, too.”
Immobile, not even a smile cracked Shayne's face.
“Nice to meet you, Shayne.”
Michael went to sit down at one of the booths where he’d set up shop. She joined him. The mountain, aka Shayne with a y, stood next to her. Michael was trying damn hard not to look at him. As if sensing his unease, she said, “I’d tell you his bark is worse than his bite, but that’s not actually true. And at any rate, as long as no one threatens any of us, he won't cause trouble, okay?”
That sounded a lot like a threat, but Michael let it go. For one, she was just clarifying their position, and, for another, they hadn't done anything threatening yet. He was definitely not one of those wolves that went looking for trouble when there wasn’t any. “No worries.” Except for the large foot that’s always popping in his mouth. “Nice car you got out there.”
She grinned again. Dimple. Adorable. “Right? Shayne got it for me. F*cking love it.”
“Car girl, are you?”
“Eh,” she shrugged, “I like things that are powerful and make a lot of noise.”
Hello, double-entendre.
As the band tuned up, she said, “So what kind of music you guys dig around here?”
“Well, what kind do you prefer to play?”
“Anything, really. Country, rock, pop, blues, jazz, Irish, hard rock, 70s, 80s.” Another shrug, and it made the thick curtain of her hair bob on her shoulder.
“Really? So many kinds?”
“Sure. You have different kinds for different places. We’ve been traveling around, looking for a place to set up shop for good. They’re a little tired of not being in one place. Makes the booty calls harder to deal with.”
“I’ll bet.” He grinned. She was feisty as hell.
“So?” She prompted.
“Ah, the people who hang here like country and rock.”
She caught the eyes of the one with the lead guitar that she’d punched outside, “Hey, we’re going to play some rock to start.”
“Why don’t you leave the decisions to the big boys, Jazz.” He flipped her off.
She huffed. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, you a*shole! You play what I tell you, or you’ll wake up with all your hair shaved off again.”
The man raised his head with a jerk, looking worried, but schooled his features into casual nonchalance quickly, turning his attention back to his guitar. Had she been the one to shave him before? She looked at Michael and smiled sweetly. “They’re all my brothers, so, you know, we fight a lot.”
“But you shaved him?” Michael laughed.
“Well, he pissed me off.” She was too cute.
“Remind me not to piss you off.”
She winked her gorgeous bright blue eyes at him. He hoped to hell the band played well so she would stick around. Hell, even if they sucked, he’d hire them anyway just to keep her close.
She joined her brothers up on the stage and, much to his pleasure, the band played extremely well. They laughed and joked on stage, and Jazlyn’s voice was just as incredible as her looks.
The band seemed content to keep playing, so he made some phone calls, and in no time, the bar was slowly filling up with the top ranked in the pack. The band was jamming, and everyone loved them.
When they took a break, Michael brought Jason over. “I’m alpha of the Tressel pack, Jason Gerrick.” He shook all their hands. Cadence stood next to him. “This is my mate, Cadence, our female alpha.”
Jazlyn introduced her family: Shayne, Fray, Parker, Torn, and Gio.
“This is strictly a bar gig. As long as you stay out of town on the full moons so you don’t interfere with our hunting parties, then there’s no reason to think there will be a problem with you taking the job if you want it.”
She looked around at her brothers. Everyone was smiling except Shayne. “Sounds great. Any decent rentals around?”
Michael told them about a week-to-week rental place in town that had a few vacancies. After a few minutes and some cold drinks, the band returned to the stage and played for an hour. It was the best time that he’d had in a while at the bar. Almost like old times. Before everything went to hell between the packs.
He made quick arrangements at the rental place so the manager would be available and sat back down at the booth where Jason and Cadence were nuzzling each other. He stifled the exaggerated sigh that wanted to break free. He was glad his brother and Cades were married and happy. He just didn’t need to see it. People who were getting it regularly tended to forget about the people who got it very infrequently and how annoying it could be to see those kinds of displays front and center.
The only problem that Michael could see was that the beauty on the stage wasn’t his mate, either. He’d wanted to deny it, but he already knew the hard truth. His wolf had fairly much gone to sleep in his mind. She might be stunning, but she was going to be stunning for someone else. Damn wolves picking out their mates!
“She’s pretty,” Cadence said, pushing Jason away from her neck with a growl. She was over halfway through her pregnancy and in her own words “horny as hell”, but Michael knew she didn’t like being pawed in public. Even by her husband.
“Yeah,” Michael sighed. She was pretty. Just not for him.
* * * * *
Saturday afternoon, he’d taken a run to the shop on his bike to fill it up and check out the mod he was working on. It was taking him forever because he was only working half days at the shop, but he loved working on bikes, so he wouldn’t ever stop.
“Hey, Fritz,” Michael said to the young wolf behind the counter.
Fritz straightened and smiled. “Hey, man. Bike’s looking good back there.”
“Thanks. You going to Jake’s tonight? The new band’s playing.”
“Um, oh. I don’t know. I don’t usually, you know.”
Michael did know. Fritz’s father drank himself to death when Fritz was a teenager. Younger than him by a few years, he was pretty sure that Fritz had never touched a drop of alcohol in his life. Sometimes the f*ck-ups of the parents really take a toll on the kids.
“No worries, man. The band’s great, though, and it’s good to hang around the pack other than just on the full moon.”
“I’m here at the shop.”
“Yeah, but on the off shifts. You run the tow truck during the week and then this on Saturdays. I just think you might be happier if you spent more time with the pack.”
“I’ll think about it, Michael.”
“And Clay’s jumping ship, you know. You should think about that, too.”
Fritz’s eyes went wide as Michael walked into the back to work a little on the bike. Clay was fifth in the pack. He’d recently found his mate in a human girl and was planning to get married. Things were fine until she got a job offer in another state. Clay didn’t even blink when he decided to quit the pack and go rogue to follow her. Fritz was strong enough to fight for that rank. Right now, he was pretty low in the pack, but only because he’d never fought it.
Later that night, the band took the stage, and the bar filled up fast. Michael made sure things ran smoothly, standing near the back of the bar to keep an eye on things. He caught a glimpse of Fritz in the back corner watching the stage. He had planned to talk to him, but he lost sight of him when the band finished their first set and took a break.
“Michael, I need some more vodka,” Marcus, one of the human bartenders he hired said. “Can you spare a minute?”
Since Marcus' hands were full with orders, Michael went to get it. Much to his surprise, when he walked through the back into the storage room, he found Fritz and Jazlyn tangled up in a hot kiss. A rumbling growl from Fritz’s chest told Michael that he didn’t really want to be disturbed, and he would cut the kid some slack. Even if he was below him in the pack, wolves didn’t mess around with other wolves and their women. It was just a rule. Grabbing the vodka, he made a mental note to keep an eye on things. If the brothers didn’t like Fritz pawing their sister, he didn’t want the young wolf's picture to wind up on a milk carton.
In the end, though, it hadn’t mattered. Faces flushed from whatever base they had gotten to in the back room, Jazlyn and Fritz walked straight up on stage, and she appeared to be introducing him to her brothers. They looked shocked at first, and then they laughed and clapped him on the back like old friends. Even the mountain man seemed to crack a smile and nod at Fritz.
Jason joined him at the bar. Gesturing with his head to the stage where Jazlyn was now singing a bluesy song and Fritz stood just off stage with Shayne, he said, “They’re mates.”
“What?” Michael’s brain stalled out in shock.
Jason nodded. “Yeah, you know that instantaneous I’ve-found-my-mate thing that some wolves get? Like really true love at first sight?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
Jason said, “Now you’ve seen it in person. From what I could hear of the conversation on stage, they locked eyes across the room, and she jumped him in the storage room. Neat, huh?”
Michael snorted. “Some guys have all the luck.”
“Hey, it could be worse. You could have to deal with that big ape as an in-law.”
Michael spent the night in deep thought. Even after the bar closed and he was home alone in bed, he tossed and turned for a long time thinking about what he’d seen. For most wolves, their mate was someone they knew for a long time. They would just grow into their love and know that the person was meant to be their mate. Like Jason and Cadence. Jason knew when he was eleven and she was nine that they were meant to be together. And his parents – they’d been teenagers and in the same pack, and one day they’d just known. A wolf could choose another wolf or human as a mate, even if they didn't feel that mate-pull, but he'd always thought that was kind of selfish. It was like saying, 'I'm going to settle for less than ideal because I'm tired of looking'. What had happened to Fritz tonight was something of legend. Just looking at someone and knowing they were meant to be with you? He could tell it was true. It was all over Jazlyn and Fritz’s faces. They were in heaven because they’d found their soul mates, their truemates.
Some wolves really did have all the f*cking luck.
* * * * *
“Come on,” Cadence smiled at him, rubbing her hand absently over her swollen belly. “It’s the first weekend of the Temple County Fair. I haven’t been in years.”
“I’m just not really in the mood, Cades.” He yawned and leaned against the counter in his mother’s kitchen while Cadence tried to eat her body weight in French toast. Since spring, it had been his habit to come over for Saturday morning breakfast with his grandfather Abraham, Jason and Cadence.
“What’s to be in the mood about?” she said between syrupy bites. “We’re going to hang out and eat. There’s even some kind of cool exhibition boxing match at eight, and Jas got us tickets. So, yeah, you’re going.” She made a stabbing gesture at him with her French toast laden fork.
“Is that an order or a friendly request?” He smirked. Why the hell was he so moody today? Before he could think on it further, a hand clapped down on his shoulder.
“Consider it a friendly request to start, brother,” Jason said with a low voice.
“Fine. I give up.” He put his hands up in surrender and waited for Jason to take the vise-like grip off his shoulder. Cadence beamed at Jason, and Jason moved over and kissed her and then sat down next to her.
“Fritz has asked to leave the pack,” Jason said after taking a drink of coffee.
“What?” Michael said, stunned.
“Yeah. Jazlyn and her brothers don’t want to join the pack. Fritz asked to go rogue so he could be with them on the full moon, too. He’s going to keep working for the garage, and they’re going to keep playing at the bar. When those brothers of hers get mated, they’re going to be a pack for all intents and purposes. His house is outside of Allen, so territory isn’t a problem. I guess they’ve all been living together for the last week.”
“Seems fast,” he mused, even as jealousy streaked through him.
Jason shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be slow to be right. Look at Linus and Karly. She knew right away that they were mates because it was her destiny. He spent a whole day freaking out about why he wanted her so badly until he realized that she was meant to be his truemate. Fritz said that the first night, his wolf was so loud in his head that he couldn’t even consider that he hadn’t met his mate. It just felt right.”
“But sometimes wolves don’t find a truemate, right?” Cadence asked.
“Sure, if they don’t feel connected to a wolf in their home pack and they don’t move on and expand their horizons. There’s nothing wrong with settling down with someone that you love and having a family while knowing that they aren’t really your truemate. Some of the couples in our pack did that, but many of them found their truemate,” Jason answered, playing his finger around the edge of the coffee mug.
“Wouldn’t your wolf bother you if you settled?” She swiped her finger through the syrup left behind on the plate and popped it into her mouth.
Their father, Peter, spoke up. “Did Jake and Renee seem happy?”
She blinked in confusion.
He smiled endearingly. “Jake’s truemate was a woman from another pack down south. They met in high school during a full moon gathering of several packs. At the time, Jake’s grandfather was alpha of the Garra Pack, and Jake’s father had taken off to start his own pack. The she-wolf had been given away to another pack’s alpha to solidify an alliance. Jake protested to the alpha on her behalf, but he wouldn’t release her from the agreement. Jake offered to fight for her, but she didn’t want to disappoint her family even though she admitted they were meant to be mates. So he knew his truemate was out there, but he and his wolf pretty much resigned themselves to the loss. He fell in love with Renee eventually, and I never doubted that he loved her as much as he could. He told me once that there were times when he ached for that connection, but that he never regretted his life with Renee.”
“That would suck,” Cadence said finally.
They all agreed.
Later that morning, a large group of them drove an hour north to the fairgrounds. His parents, Cadence and Jason, Linus and Karly with their baby boy Remy, Linus’ mom and grandparents, and Bo walked around the large fair. For the better part of the day, they took their time wandering around the big tents filled with booths, and he and Bo were tasked with running purchases out to the parking lot.
Linus and Karly left after they ate a greasy dinner of everything fried they could get their hands on. Little Remy, born in April, was a good baby, but he’d had his fill of crowds, apparently, and so had Karly. It was heartwarming for Michael to see his childhood friend in the role of attentive father. Linus was one whipped puppy when it came to Karly. There wasn’t anything that he wouldn’t do for her. Once more, Michael felt like he was destined to be alone forever.
And then he saw her.
Heaven in a short skirt.
Near the tent-covered arena where the boxing matches were going to take place in a couple hours, the sweet, heavenly beauty was chatting up a few men, laughing and casually touching their arms. His beast sat up and whined. Immediately, everything in his body went on alert.
Without even realizing that his feet were moving, he was suddenly next to her as the other men left with brochures in their hands and smiles on their faces. He looked down into her face as she looked up into his.
“Hey, sweetie, like to work out?” She smiled sweetly, a lush movement that made him picture that mouth on his cock.
He looked up at the booth. It read “Stone’s Gym”.
He remembered to answer her. “Sure.”
“I’m Shyne. I teach group fitness at the gym, but it’s a lot more than just me bouncing around in tight shorts.”
Now that he’d like to see.
“I’m Michael.” He felt like a total idiot. Like he’d never spoken to a woman before. Come on man, get it together!
She handed him a brochure, and their fingers touched for a moment. She straightened slightly and blinked at him. Beautiful dark brown eyes flecked with gold looked up at him. Their fingers stayed like that for long enough that he was sure of three things. One: she was gorgeous. Two: she was not a wolf but human. Three: she was his mate.
She pulled her fingers away and blushed. Her skin was a lovely shade of coffee with cream, darkly tanned enough to speak of a parent that wasn’t white. Her jet black hair was long and tied back into a high ponytail. The white golf shirt she wore highlighted the lovely shade of her skin and showed off her fit physique. Short, about five and a half feet of gorgeous, she had curves everywhere and great legs that peeked out from under the black skirt.
He looked at the brochure. The gym was in Dalton. That was only about a half hour north of Allen. He could totally swing going there and working out. A rumbling growl suddenly alerted him to the three hulking men behind the counter of the booth. Glancing at them, he felt his wolf’s hackles rise, and he scented them discreetly. Hyenas. All three of them.
Completely oblivious, Shyne said, “These are the owners, Dante, Cairo and Mason. Cairo’s boxing in the match tonight. Are you going?”
“Yeah.”
“Great, I’ll see you there, then.” She gave him another smile, and it was more genuine than the first one. Suddenly, the man she’d called Dante was at her side with his arm on her shoulder. He whispered something to her, and she nodded and then seemed to try to extract herself from under his hand. Michael wanted to break his hand off for touching her.
Dante was taller than Michael by several inches. And wider. He gave Michael a hard look as Shyne turned away from them and went back into the booth and rummaged through a box.
Michael gave the stare back as good as it was given to him. He didn’t blink until the hyena turned with a snort of derision and went back into the booth. Michael turned and walked away to find his family and friends and read over the brochure. He figured a good way to get to know Shyne was to spend time at the gym. The hyenas seemed possessive of her, but he knew a little something about their kind, and they obviously hadn’t claimed her yet. There was no way that a hyena clan would let their mate touch other men so casually like that. And more than that, she didn’t seem to want Dante to touch her either, which told Michael that she wasn’t in a relationship of any sort with them. That was a very good thing.
He watched Shyne during the boxing match. She stood off to the side in the corner of the one named Cairo, who was as big as any man he’d ever seen except for Shayne. What was it with huge guys shaving their heads? As Cairo beat his opponent soundly, Shyne cheered for him. He hoped it wasn’t just wishful thinking on his part that there was nothing between her and them except friendship and a working relationship.
Monday afternoon, in between the end of the day at the garage and the start of his shift at the bar, he, Bo, and a handful of other wolves from the pack drove up to Dalton and signed up for the short-term membership of three months. Michael figured if he couldn’t win Shyne over in three months then he didn’t deserve her. Even if she wasn’t a wolf, she knew there was a connection between them, and that was all he needed to get a foot in the door.
As the bouncy receptionist gave them a tour, he got a nice eyeful of Shyne teaching a large class. She wore a tight aqua tank with black form-fitting shorts. Even through the glass he could see her body glistening with sweat and the sheer concentration on her face as she called out instructions to the class. Her toned body was every inch as incredible as he’d imagined. Lightly muscular arms, a perfectly flat belly, and shapely legs. Not to mention that incredible ass.
Oh, yeah. He was definitely going to get his mate.