Alyssa's Wolves (Wolf Masters, Book 4) Read online

  Exhausted beyond measure, Alyssa finally felt safe enough to let her guard down. She slumped against the door and closed her eyes. She had no idea if one of them would decide to claim her, but at least for the moment, it didn’t seem anyone was going to force anything.

  Alyssa slept the entire day and most of the night, waking only occasionally to eat and use the restroom when they stopped for gas. She barely exchanged words with her rescuers. Every mile they put behind them put her more at ease.

  When the sun rose again the next day, she sat up to look at her surroundings. “Where are we? I haven’t even asked where you’re going.”

  Charles glanced at her in the rearview mirror and chuckled. “I noticed. That boyfriend of yours must have really frightened you.” He obviously didn’t buy her story but also didn’t pressure her for more details.

  “Yeah…” she mumbled. “He did.”

  “Well, we live on a farm outside Corvallis in Oregon. You’ll love it. My parents are the kindest people I’ve ever met. Don’t worry about a thing. You’ll be welcome there for as long as you need. We’ll be there in a few hours.”

  “Do you mind, um … I mean…” She bit her lip before sitting up straighter and continuing. “Would it be too much to ask for you to pretend you’re like … with me?”

  “Both of us?” Reese chuckled now. She was glad to know she was so amusing.

  “No. Of course not.” She shivered. “I didn’t mean … I just…”

  Charles reassured her. “Don’t worry. No problem. But, for the record, no one in our family would think it was strange for you to share us. It’s kind of the norm among my brothers.”

  “You share? Women?” Alyssa cringed and scooted closer to the door. God. Maybe this had been a horrible mistake. She’d just gone from a pack that shared women to a pack that shared men? Greeatt.

  “Don’t look so frightened. We aren’t going to rape you.” Reese turned all the way around in the front to look at her. “We just have a tendency to share is all. Charles and I haven’t really outed ourselves to the family just yet, but if you want us to pretend you belong to us, we can do that. I’m not sure I understand quite why, but we can play along.”

  Okay. Deep breaths. They seemed harmless. If they intended to take advantage of her, wouldn’t they have done so already?

  “This isn’t really necessary, you know. My family won’t care what your reasons are for fleeing, but if you need time to think about it, that’s okay with us. Take all the time you want. I’m sure once you get comfortable you’ll see you don’t have to pretend.” Charles glanced her way again but kept most of his attention on the highway.

  “Do you think perhaps … maybe…” How could she say what she was thinking? That she actually wanted them to claim her. Anyone would do as long as it wasn’t that greaseball Dwight Wells. If they were by chance followed from Oklahoma, it would make her life a whole lot easier if she was mated and claimed before her pack caught up with her.

  Reese narrowed his gaze. “Are you asking us to claim you?”

  Alyssa nodded.

  “Wow, your plight is worse than I imagined.” He reached over the seat as if to touch her but then pulled back. “Let’s not jump the gun here. We don’t even know you. Maybe, in time, that could happen I suppose, but there’s no rush. You’re so young. What are you, like eighteen?”

  Alyssa nodded. Exactly eighteen.

  “Ahh, I get it,” Reese continued without waiting for a response. “You want to keep this boyfriend of yours from being able to claim you. Huh. I thought he was a euphemism. He must be a real ass if you’d let perfect strangers—two of them no less—take you as their own to keep him from getting you.”

  “He is,” she stated clearly, not losing eye contact with Reese.

  “Well, don’t worry. There is no way in hell we’d let anyone force you to mate against your will—not on our clock. Charles has four brothers. The farm is saturated with protection. You won’t be kidnapped from our domain. You don’t have to jump into any arrangement so young. Okay?”

  “But, maybe?” She wouldn’t let the idea go. In her mind, the only thing that would assure her safety would be a claiming outside the pack. These guys thought a rough boyfriend was after her. They had no idea how powerful the pack leader was or what lengths he might go to in order to get her back. Fredrick Wells had been known in the past to send his thugs to retrieve wayward members. She wouldn’t put it past him this time.

  The only thing that would save her would be if she’d managed to escape without a trace. If anyone had followed her, all bets were off.

  * * * *

  Michael Masters was sitting at the kitchen table eating his lunch when the screen door screeched open and banged against the wall.

  “Hey, little bro.” Charles dropped his duffel right inside the door and kicked it out of the way.

  On his heels was his best friend, Reese. That wasn’t a surprise. The two were inseparable and had been in Texas for the last six months following the rodeo circuit just for fun, though Michael suspected their reasons for getting out of Corvallis for a while had much more to do with their taste in women, specifically sharing women, than anything else.

  He had no idea why Charles and his friend found it necessary to hide the fact they enjoyed threesomes. They weren’t the first in the family to lean that way. But he wasn’t about to question their reasoning.

  With his sandwich midair, and his mouth open wide for the next bite, another person stepped through the door on Reese’s heels. Now this was a surprise. The petite blonde beauty took his breath away before she even fully entered the kitchen.

  When she did finally step all the way in, Michael sucked in a deep breath and held it. He stared at her in disbelief. This woman, barely more than a girl, was his mate. Fuck. He froze in disbelief. Now? Michael himself was only twenty. She wasn’t close to being that old. In fact, he prayed she was at least legal. He had to force himself to keep from shaking his head in denial. He was too young. She was way too young. But there was no mistaking the impact her presence had on him. He finally exhaled, but it seemed the wind had been knocked out of him.

  Long blonde hair hung down her back in soft waves. Her piercing blue eyes grazed over him only briefly. He could scent her as clearly as if she were in his embrace. A floral shampoo. The minty gum she casually chewed. Her own personal pheromones that tugged at his soul.

  And then his gaze whipped to Charles. Oh God. Was she sleeping with his brother? And Reese?

  Michael set his sandwich back down and narrowed his gaze at his brother. He stiffened, fisted his hands in his lap, and adjusted his cock.

  Charles spoke, seemingly unfazed by Michael’s plight. “Michael, this is Alyssa. Alyssa, my brother, Michael. One of them anyway. The baby.”

  Oh, thanks. Just what he needed. Make him out to be a child.

  Alyssa nodded his direction but barely made eye contact. She didn’t know—had no idea she was his. Huh. Perhaps she couldn’t because she was too young.

  Charles looked at Michael and then back to Alyssa. “Sorry about my brother. He’s usually the chatty one in the family. What’s up with you?” He glanced back at Michael.

  Michael swallowed. “Nothing. How do you … know each other?” Please don’t tell me you intend to claim her, or I will seriously injure you without pausing to think.

  “Oh, we met on the road,” Charles stated vaguely. “She’s gonna spend the holidays with us.”

  What? This was seriously not happening. No way.

  Michael stood and tried to get his legs to move forward. He needed to smell his mate up close. He ambled as casually as possible toward the fridge as though he needed a new drink.

  As he brushed past Alyssa, he let his arm graze hers. He almost gasped. A tingly sensation ran up his arm and knocked him senseless. It didn’t happen for her though. She just stood there oblivious to the shock he’d gotten.

  He breathed her essence in deep. Nope. She wasn’t sleeping with Charles.
Not yet anyway. Not ever, if he had anything to say about it. And he fully intended to.

  That information should have relaxed him, and it did, marginally. But still the questions hung in the air. What the hell was she doing here with Reese and Charles? What did “spend the holidays with us” mean? And, how was Michael going to survive having her in the house without taking her?

  He was going to have to have words with Charles later. For now, he’d just keep an eye on the trio and make sure no one touched his mate. As long as everyone kept their hands to themselves, it was all good.

  Neither Reese nor Charles seemed all that interested in her. He’d seen his brother, Justin, and his friend, Trevor, with their mate. From the moment they’d met, none of them could separate. If they weren’t touching each other, which was rare, they were at least following each other around the room with their gazes.

  It was the same with his second brother, Ryan. He and Alejandro had mated with Lindsey, and the three hadn’t come up for air for weeks after they’d met.

  Charles and Reese barely paid Alyssa any attention at all beyond that which was deemed polite.

  An entire week went by. Michael eventually assessed that whatever was going on with Alyssa had nothing to do with Charles and Reese. In fact, those two men almost immediately met and claimed another woman, Jessica.

  The mystery behind Alyssa’s plight slowly unfolded. Michael spent a great deal of time with her, but he never let on what he knew. She was eighteen and completely unaware she belonged to him.

  On Christmas day, two idiots from her pack showed up at the door. They’d been sent to retrieve her. Michael was furious. He wrapped Alyssa in his embrace, claimed she was his, and kissed her. The kiss might have been a little overboard. He’d intended to pretend, for everyone else’s benefit, that she belonged to him. The act was make-believe for everyone but him. She did belong to him. And when he kissed her, he lost all sense of reason for the eternity it seemed to last. He had to force himself to pull back.

  Nothing up to that point could have prepared him for the way his heart slammed against his chest, and his blood pounded through his veins. His cock did not listen to reason, and he hid behind his mate to keep his erection out of everyone’s line of sight.

  Even after the threat was over, and the thugs had left to inform the Oklahoma pack she had been claimed in Oregon, Michael could not rein in his desire.

  In the end, he had no choice. He told his parents what had happened. Richard and Nancy Masters simply smiled. They’d known. Of course.

  Seeing no other option, Michael decided to go away for a few years. His mate needed time. Time to grow up. Time to learn about life outside the restrictions she’d been raised with. Time to be loved by his family. He wouldn’t steal her youth by mating her prematurely, even though it broke his heart to leave her. As luck would have it, Alejandro, the man his brother Ryan shared a mate with, was from Spain. It was perfect. Michael would go to Spain and live with Alejandro’s family on their vineyard while Alyssa enjoyed a carefree life with the Masters.

  When the time was right, he’d come home…

  Chapter 1

  Two years later…

  “Bingo,” Tyler Evans muttered to himself. Finally, after two days of hiding between the trees staking out the Masters’ Oregon home, the subject of his private investigation emerged. “’Bout time.” He’d worried Alyssa Franklin would never come out of the house by this point.

  Tyler’s arms ached from holding up a pair of binoculars for so many hours without bending his elbows, and his eyes could barely focus on anything each time he lowered the binoculars for a moment’s reprieve.

  He’d know Alyssa anywhere. Granted, he’d only seen her a few times since they were much younger in Oklahoma and then only from a distance, but she hadn’t changed at all. Maybe her silky pale blonde hair was longer, but the only other difference he could see, even from this distance, was her smile.

  Tyler remembered Alyssa as a quiet, mousy teenager who rarely allowed her lips to curve up at the corners, probably because she knew with each passing year she was getting closer and closer to a fate she couldn’t accept—marriage to Dwight Wells. Just the thought made Tyler cringe.

  Alyssa nearly skipped out of the house, trailed by three other women, and her radiant face spoke volumes. She was happier here with the Masters in Oregon than she’d ever been with her own pack in Oklahoma. And who could blame her? Even having to separate herself from everyone she’d ever known, including her own parents, was a better fate than the one she’d been arranged to endure. Running away from home two years ago and reestablishing herself with a new pack in the northwest had clearly done her a world of good.

  Tyler slumped against the tree next to him. God, he couldn’t do this. Fuck Fredrick Wells. The leader of his pack would just have to go screw himself.

  The women climbed into a shiny new black F150 and headed down the gravel driveway toward the main road.

  Tyler nearly forgot his mission—to track Alyssa and verify she was indeed mated to Michael Masters. Why his pack leader had a sudden renewed interest in Alyssa was a mystery, but now that Tyler stood here, staring at the back of the truck loaded with the women, a chill went down his spine. Did Wells still intend to force her to mate with Dwight?

  Scrambling toward the rental car he’d hidden off the road, Tyler tripped over several roots, berating himself for growing lax. Hell, he was hungry and thirsty and tired. The bottles of water he’d brought and the various snacks had long since disappeared. Adrenaline led him to the car and caused him to start the engine moments after the black truck passed his location.

  His mind was made up. Why the hell are you still following her? He just wanted to see for himself, get a closer look. Perhaps he could live vicariously through her for just a few minutes if he could just get near enough.

  It hadn’t occurred to him he might lie. In actuality, he’d assumed it would be easy to prove she was claimed, and he could return home mission accomplished. At this point he could see he wasn’t going to prove anything. He hadn’t seen anyone who appeared to be her mate. He suspected these women were the mates of Michael’s brothers. A lot of men had come and gone from the house in the last two days, but there was no way for Tyler to know if any of them were actually mated to Alyssa.

  He’d done his research, more than Fredrick had given him and more even than was required for this task. So many shifters and their spouses lived at this dairy farm he could barely keep up with all of them. Tyler would never be able to recognize a soul from the Masters family. There were too many. Michael had three older brothers and an older sister. And to make matters even more confusing, all three brothers shared their mates with another man.

  Granted, they didn’t all seem to live in this precise ranch house, but that was a hell of a lot of men for one family.

  Alyssa, however, had been easy to spot. She stood out even among the other mates with her long, light-colored hair and even lighter skin tone. Where was her mate?

  Tyler kept a short distance between him and the F150. Thank goodness he’d rented a non-descript, small, white, two-door sedan. Hopefully no one would notice him or care to pay attention.

  The women drove about ten miles before turning onto another highway and then almost immediately exiting to the right.

  Easy. And their destination made him grin from ear to ear. A small county rodeo. Perfect. He could follow them at a short distance in the crowd, spy on Alyssa, maybe even eavesdrop on a conversation between the women. And then he could get out of town as fast as possible, return to Oklahoma, lie to Wells about what he’d seen, and go on with his life.

  No way in hell was he going to jeopardize Alyssa’s happiness by reporting back to his pack that she wasn’t mated. Now that he’d seen her, he didn’t give a fuck whether she was mated or not. She looked fantastic, and these people had done that to her.

  The women parked and headed toward a ticket booth. Tyler angled his car into a spot not far from theirs and
followed at a distance. He didn’t want to give himself away. He found himself drawn to the blonde beauty. How had he never noticed how gorgeous she was before? He’d grown up seeing her frequently at pack meetings.

  Because she’d been barely more than a child when she left. And noticing her would have done him not one iota of good. She’d been promised to Dwight Wells since birth.

  She wasn’t a child now, however. She was most definitely a grown woman. When she tipped her head back to laugh at something one of the other women said, Tyler gasped. She was not just a woman. She was sexy as hell. Her hair flipped behind her, and he found himself wishing he could run his fingers through the silky mass.

  Tyler handed two fives to the ticket agent, his hand shaking at the thought of Alyssa mating a man three times her age who already had three wives. How in the hell had Tyler ever thought that way of life was okay?

  He entered through the turnstile, staying far enough behind Alyssa to not arouse suspicion. It was crowded enough inside the park that remaining anonymous was not a hardship.

  Tyler was one of the lucky ones. Being a man afforded him more privileges within the pack. He’d gone not only to college but also graduate school. No woman was promised to him yet. Little wonder since there weren’t enough to go around with several men having more than one female mate. Since he’d not felt connected to any girl or woman within the pack in his life, he didn’t give a hoot he’d not been arranged to mate with one. Relieved was a better word.

  At twenty-four, he was just now out of school and job hunting. Somehow that made Wells feel that his time wasn’t valuable at the moment, and he’d been sent to track Alyssa and report back. Tyler shivered, a chill running down his back when he considered the ramifications of telling Wells Alyssa was not mated. Lord knew what that jackass would do.

  Didn’t matter now. He’d never tell Wells a thing. His sudden moment of clarity between the trees was expanding by the second.

  The women were easy to follow. There were four of them, all dolled up for an evening of entertainment. One was hugely pregnant. They were so carefree. Giggling. Joking. Without a care in the world.