Her True Wolf Read online

  “Yeah?”

  “Looking for a job, and a place to stay…”

  “You ain’t some kind of crook, are you?” she asked skeptically. The aroma of her arousal was intoxicating, but she wasn’t doing anything to act on it. She wasn’t flirting with him, and she was holding herself rigid, fighting against the urges her body was throwing at her. He could sense the fight inside of her as clearly as he could smell she wanted him.

  He wondered what it meant.

  He wanted to see how she would react if he touched her hand across from his. Instead of going that far, he moved his hand farther up the counter, toward hers, palm down so she wouldn’t see the small cuts he was healing from. She jerkily drew back.

  “No,” he said, trying to mask the confusion he felt at her actions. She was his Fated Mate, and he knew she felt it. But she wasn’t giving in to it. “I just found myself in a bad spot. I want honest work and honest pay.”

  Karol eased slightly. “Lucky for you, I know a lady who can help with that. She’s kind of taken the initiative to reform Old Tree Creek, the run-down and original part of the city you’ve found yourself in. That big city you see in the distance is what we call New Tree Creek. The people with money moved to the outskirts and extended the city way back when and things have just kept growing like that. One end growing newer, the other growing older. Apparently, Isabelle has enough money that she’s trying to fix that. She’s been hiring a lot of guys for construction.”

  “Construction happens to be something I have a lot of experience in.” Casey was an experienced builder and even an architect. He had his father, and the Hunt line, to thank for passing down those skills and knowledge.

  Karol nodded and stared at him with those light brown eyes of hers like she was trying to see through him. “Great. My shift is almost over. I’ll help you out when I’m done if you want to wait. If we keep talking like this any longer my boss is going to get on my ass.” She looked over her shoulder like she fully expected him to be standing right there.

  “You got it,” Casey replied. “And thank you.”

  She nodded her head and got him another glass of water before the other guys in the bar started calling for her attention. The catcalls and whistles weren’t anything new in this bar compared to any other Casey had been in, but he hated how they were directed at Karol. She was his. No other male had the right to even look at her as far as he was concerned. The possessiveness he felt nearly manifested as a growl, but he trapped it in his chest.

  What was he doing? This wasn’t in his beta wolf nature. He was easy going most of the time. He wasn’t a coward, but he wasn’t overly aggressive or possessive. Yet, having just met this woman, he was already filled with both. She was his, and he would fight for her without question.

  She was his.

  Chapter 2

  KEEPING HIS EYES OFF Karol was difficult. When Casey glanced at her and caught her staring at him, he was a little relieved to know she felt the same way, but he didn’t understand the way she was acting—like she was trying to keep him at a certain distance. He would have been flirting like hell if she had given him the slightest hint she would have been interested in that. Maybe her arousal was hint enough, but there was too big of a disconnect between that ready scent and how she was acting. It made him doubt himself. It cooled the hardness in his dick and the burning in his gums where his canines were being so persistent before.

  Waiting for her to get off was a slow agony filled with uncertainties, but when she finally started walking over to him—after ignoring him for the entirety that was left of her shift—his heart lifted a little.

  “Be back in a sec,” she told him as she went behind the bar counter and disappeared through an employee’s only back door.

  He focused his hearing, trying to discern whatever was going on behind that door, but no one was talking. There was nothing to hear. Karol came out a few seconds later with a light jacket that hid a lot of what the dress was meant to reveal.

  Casey cocked his head, sensing a new level of ease falling around her. She didn’t act uncomfortable before in nothing but her dress and high heels, but she was more alert—maybe even on edge. It was how she moved and how she watched everything with calculated precision. He hadn’t noticed it before. He had mistaken it for confidence, but he misinterpreted her.

  She walked to the door leading out of the bar and paused when Casey didn’t follow. “You coming?” she asked, looking at him over her shoulder.

  He got off the barstool, slipped his hands into his shorts pockets and walked up to her.

  “Firecracker. You’re finally taking a guy home and he’s a fucking stranger,” a drunk-ass man shouted.

  Casey glared at the man. His wolf was in his eyes, fighting to come out. He held on to his human form, but the man must have seen his eyes because he swore under his breath and drank the rest of his beer.

  Casey jerked when the door closed and the little skull bell jingled. Karol was outside, walking down the street. He opened the door and jogged for a moment to catch up to her.

  “We’re going to my house. We don’t have a damn phone in the bar. Well, we do, but it’s my boss’s cell, and he doesn’t let anyone use it. Dumb, right? Anyway. I know it’s late, but hopefully Isabelle will answer because I can’t let you stay for what’s left of the night,” Karol informed when Casey was at her side.

  He was getting an odd mixture of scents from her. She seemed warm, sweet, in that she had a good heart and genuinely wanted to help him, but there was fear, a sour smell, too. He was technically a stranger to her, but he hadn’t expected his Fated Mate to act… this cold. Maybe he had made a mistake and she wasn’t his Fated Mate at all, but something in him kept pulling him toward her. He was concerned. He hated that she was closed off from him. It gave him anxiety, and he was desperate to understand why. All he wanted was to protect her, to support her, to help her. He was ready to throw his heart down at her feet.

  “No car?” Casey asked. “Doesn’t seem safe to walk alone at night.”

  Karol stopped and spun around to face him, pointing a finger at his chest. “I can take care of myself.” There was a defiance in her eyes, dark in the night. She turned back around and started walking again. “Besides, I have pepper spray. So you better not try anything.”

  He wasn’t imagining it. She was getting more and more anxious the longer he was with her, walking down this unwelcoming street littered with garbage.

  “I’m sorry,” Casey said quickly, trying to relieve some tension. “Didn’t mean anything by it. I really do appreciate your help. You said Isabelle is the name of the lady who can help me out? If she doesn’t answer the phone when we get to your house, can you leave me her contact information so I can try again in the morning?”

  Apparently, those were the right words to say. Her hunched up shoulders fell back away from her ears and she slowed her furious pace. “Yeah, I can do that.” She shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around her. “I know it’s summer, but the nights are still cool. Aren’t you cold?”

  Casey shrugged. “Nah. I don’t feel the cold. I could wear shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals all year long.”

  He was hoping that would at least get a smile out of her, but she said nothing. He cursed inwardly. Then he stepped on a stupid small piece of jutting concrete. His sandals didn’t have hard soles, so it dug right into his healing foot. He could feel some cuts reopening again as he hissed at the pain. His minor wounds would heal fast enough if he could just stay off his feet and stop using his hands. Basically, he needed to find a place to sleep and rest for the rest of the night.

  “You okay?” Karol asked, her tone pitched higher in alarm.

  “Fine,” he replied.

  She didn’t look convinced. She glanced down at his foot. He could feel and see the blood pooling in his sandal, but he hoped it was too dark for her to see the same. It would stop soon enough anyway.

  “You’re bleeding!” she exclaimed.

  Shit. J
ust what he didn’t want. He was about to attempt to talk her down and tell her that it really wasn’t a big deal when she somehow managed to bend down in that skintight red dress of hers and more closely inspected his foot.

  “What did you do? Walk a million miles to get here tonight?” she asked.

  “Pretty much.” He caught her hands when she started to stand, making sure she wouldn’t fall over.

  “Your hands are all jacked up too,” she accused, slipping out of his grasp. “Don’t tell me.” She held her hands in front of her like a barrier. “I don’t want to hear the story. We’ll fix you up when we get to my house.”

  Casey winced. Things were just getting worse and worse between the two of them. It frustrated him even more when her arousal spiked because of his touch. It made him hard again, and it was beginning to get irritating. When she turned away from him, he quickly adjusted himself and continued following her, not saying a word.

  She said she didn’t want to hear his story, so he wasn’t going to tell it. It probably wouldn’t have been a good idea to tell her he was a wolf right off the bat anyway. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure what any human would think if they found out what he was. All shifters must have been secretive in their own way because they weren’t common knowledge.

  “Hey, Mom, sorry about bringing home a criminal, but he looked like a lost puppy and I just felt so bad,” Karol said into the night.

  “I can hear you, you know?” Casey remarked.

  She carried on her fictional conversation with her mother and Casey settled on watching her back, her curly red hair blowing in the wind, the red skirt hugging her elegant legs, and those freckles all over her skin. He loved them. He wanted to taste them, run his fingers down them. His cock was throbbing in his shorts. His canines were cutting at his gums. He wanted her so bad. He needed her.

  “Okay,” Karol said as she turned around to face him. He hadn’t paid attention to the fact that they were now in front of a small house that looked as run-down as the rest of Old Tree Creek. At least it looked lived in and like someone tried to take care of it. Despite it being well into the night, he could see a glow coming from the front window, suggesting people were awake inside.

  “Don’t do any talking,” Karol instructed. “I’ll do all the talking. I’ll take care of everything. You just follow my lead, got it?”

  “Got it,” Casey muttered.

  A giggling scream from a young girl and the sound of stampeding footsteps came from the house, drawing Casey and Karol’s attention.

  “What the fuck?” Karol said flatly.

  Suddenly, she meant business. She stomped up to the front door in that move-I’ve-gotta-get-shit-done way Casey had seen from his mother a few times before. He always figured it was a mom thing that kicked in when the kids had gone too far… Was Karol a mother? She looked around his age, so it wouldn’t have been unusual if she was. He hadn’t even thought that far. He was so set on her being his Fated Mate, on being the one for him, he hadn’t considered she might have children from another man. He hadn’t considered she might be in a committed relationship. He did not like the thought of her with any man but him. It made his hackles rise. He had to actively work not to bare his teeth.

  Karol unlocked the door and threw it open, bathing her and Casey with the light coming from inside of the house.

  “What are you all doing awake?!” she shouted as she stormed inside.

  Casey walked up to the door and leaned against it so it wouldn’t close on him, but he didn’t go inside. He observed the cluster of kids running around the small living room and joined kitchen of the old house like a whirlwind. There were two boys and four girls. Some of them had orange or red tinted hair, but none of them had the pure, deep red of Karol’s hair. He supposed the youngest girl looked like she could be Karol’s.

  “Everyone stop and listen!” Karol shouted in the eye of the storm.

  The kids stopped immediately. Apparently, Karol was like some kind of drill sergeant because they were all standing at attention. “Mom needs her rest. Just because it’s summer vacation, doesn’t mean you all have to stay up all night either.”

  Still standing at the door, Casey peeked around the corner to see into the kitchen. The air smelled stale in that area. It was dense, dark, putrid. He had never smelled death before, but he recognized it instantly. There were two women sitting in the kitchen. One was older with a bum leg, and the other was a middle-aged woman who was nothing but skin and bones. The dark bags underneath her eyes sagged. Her skin was nothing more than a thin sheet covering a skull. Her heart still beat, but Casey knew it wouldn’t for much longer. This woman was the dead somehow clinging to one last thread of life.

  “Off to bed,” Karol ordered.

  The kids all groaned their protest, but they got moving like she told them to; however, their eyes wandered to Casey. There was unease in the gesture, and their eyes lingered. The old woman with a bum leg went after the kids, assisting the youngest as she hurried them along.

  Casey closed the door, figuring it was better to let himself in and shut the door than to let mosquitoes inside. The woman that looked like death warmed over turned her head with a snap, eyeing him with a steely glare. He got the sense he was not welcome or wanted here.

  “Karol,” the woman said sharply.

  The red haired beauty gave Casey what he assumed was an apologetic glance as she walked into the kitchen. Immediately, the two women lowered their voices. They couldn’t know he was a wolf shifter with damn good hearing. He leaned against the door and settled in for whatever conversation Karol was in for.

  “What were you thinking, bringing a man home?” Her mother demanded in an angry whisper. “You know they’re good for nothing. They’ll fuck you for a night or maybe a few if they think they can mooch off your hard earned money. Then they’ll up and leave you high and dry when they get bored. Besides, we can’t take in any strays. We didn’t even have room for Mary to stay here, but she’s a good person and she needed help, so we’re making due.”

  “I know, Mom,” Karol said, exasperated. “But the poor guy looks like he’s had a rough night. I didn’t ask him to stay here or anything. I just brought him over so we could call Isabelle.”

  “At this hour?”

  “She could be awake. She lives on weird hours. Besides, if she doesn’t answer, I told Casey he’d have to leave anyway. Like you said, he can’t stay here. I’m just doing what I can.”

  “You have a good heart, Karol. Just remember not to let anyone take advantage of that. Especially a man.”

  Yeah, Casey was not welcome here. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. When he opened them again, he took in the rest of the small run-down house. He guessed the door ahead of him, across the living room, led to the bathroom and probably a laundry room. The doors to his left, where the kids and old woman disappeared, were probably the bedrooms in the house. A two bedroom house was accommodating nine people. He was part of a wolf pack, but they each had their own space. He had never had to live with anyone in such close quarters. It seemed like too much to ask.

  Casey glanced back at Karol and her mother. Her mother was struggling to get out of her chair. Her bony arms were shaking with the effort to use a strength they didn’t possess. Karol moved in to help her.

  “Knock it off,” her mother ordered. “I can do it on my own.”

  To Casey’s amazement, she did manage to get out of the chair by herself after a fair amount of struggling. She walked across the living room and went into one of the rooms to his left already full of people. The lights were off and it seemed everyone was at least pretending to be asleep. When she closed the door, Casey and Karol were the only ones in the open area of the house.

  “Why doesn’t anyone sleep on the couch or on the floor in here?” Casey asked cautiously. “It’d free up a little space.”

  “We’re like a litter of puppies. We like being close to each other.” Karol shrugged. “Phone’s over here.”
/>   She disappeared farther into the kitchen and Casey followed her. She picked up an old landline phone that was all scuffed up. She dialed a number and held it to her ear as she picked at a piece of peeling yellow paint on the wall. Her red painted nails were chipped too. She probably only painted them as often as she had to. It was probably part of her dress code for working as a cocktail waitress at The Red Maiden. He doubted she spent much money on makeup otherwise. Her family was obviously hurting for money. Most likely everyone in Old Tree Creek was.

  Casey’s heart sank. He wished he could give them a better home and enough money to live comfortably, but he didn’t have a penny to his name anymore. He was worse off than they were right now.

  He caught Karol staring at him. When she looked away, her cheeks reddened slightly. Any thoughts Casey might have had about running his hands all over her perfect body were shattered. She wasn’t as cold toward him as her mother was, but she must have agreed with her mother about men. How she was acting made more sense if that was the case. She was attracted to him, but she wouldn’t give in to that attraction.

  How would he ever claim her, his Fated Mate, if she wouldn’t even give him a chance? Should he let her know how into her he was? Should he step back? He didn’t know the right answer. Every woman he had met before was more than happy to throw herself into his arms. They were even more willing to try him out in bed.

  “Hi, Isabelle,” Karol said when the phone had stopped ringing. “I’ve got a guy here who could use your help.”

  “You do realize most people don’t call this late,” Casey heard Isabelle say on the other end by using his keen sense of hearing.

  “Yeah, but you’re awake, aren’t you?”

  “True. So what’s the story?”

  “He came to The Red Maiden tonight looking pretty worn out. He said he was looking for a job and a place to stay. He says he has experience in construction. He seems nice.” She glanced at him when she said that last part. He offered a smile, and she actually smiled at him in return. He still had a chance to win her over. The pull she felt toward him was strong. Her arousal was blossoming around her again.