Alpha Curves (Paranormal BBW Shifter Romance): Wolf Clan Book 3 (3 page)

She released the necklace then dropped her gaze to the shredded fabric around her pants' button. No fixing that -- fabric and plastic wouldn't respond to casting, even most metals wouldn't, just iron and silver.

Untucking her shirt to cover the front panel of her pants, she scowled at Cade. "Better?"

The answer was "no," even if he didn't utter a single word. She heard it in the hot exhalation of breath as his nostrils flared, saw it in the angry shudder that rolled over his body as his gaze narrowed.

With a nervous lick to her top lip, she patted around the right side of her waistband. Her hand closed over her badge. Unclipping it, she rolled the shield at the tip of her fingers, her gaze kept on the curved gold edges of metal instead of the angry shifter in front of her.

Cade had every right to be angry and no right at all. He had no idea what she had done for him, just like she had no idea what lies his father had filled his head with after she vanished from clan lands a dozen years ago.

The air in her lungs froze at the thought of the elder Mercer. Her brain became fuzzy as it always did when she tried to remember the details of that day. Vague images and sounds danced at the corners of her eyes and ears. Hank hurting her, threatening to kill Cade and her grandmother, a piercing pain and then the magic she had kept hidden exploding, suddenly free from his grip, her legs pumping, running hard, her body an alien thing that only barely followed her commands.

She sharpened her focus on the shield, her grip on it so tight the edges threatened to slice her skin. She didn't care about the pain, knew the magic running through her body would heal her the same as if she were a shifter. It was more important to stop the panic attack that threatened while she still had a chance to convince Cade to turn the van around or at least stop the vehicle and let her out.

She looked up, her cop façade in place. "You really think you can kidnap a homicide detective with another one dead on the ground?"

He shrugged and for a second she saw the twenty-year-old boy she had been crazy in love with instead of the hardened shifter that had thrown her into the van and clawed at her pants.

She blinked, dismissing both memories as she jabbed her finger at the back door. "That's my partner--"

Cade's growl rumbled through her body, gripping her and holding her paralyzed as he closed the small distance between them.

"I tolerated that word the first time you used it." His breath played hot over her throat as he spoke. "Don't say it again."

"Joshua--" A second growl, more menacing than the first, froze her tongue for a few more seconds. She closed her eyes, tried to control the trembling she knew he could see, if not feel. She swallowed, shook her head. "Detective Harper was--"

"He's not anything but a stain on the sidewalk now," Cade reminded her. "That bullet was meant for you. You're not going back."

"I can take care of myself." She wanted to argue further, but his head had started to move in a familiar pattern, his nose and mouth lifting to the top of her head as she heard him inhale. His face made a slow descent to pass against her ear, and then her throat.

Iris threw her hands up to block him. "Don't!"

He was scenting her for another male, one whose odors went deeper than the surface to hide in intimate places. Any such trace of a man was long gone from her body.

"Stop and let me out," she ordered, squirming to gain a little separation of their bodies.

"If I do, you’ll have to give up the clan. The only way to stop the cops' questions is to give them us." His hand closed over the badge she still played with. Taking it from her, he tucked it in his jeans pocket. "You want to turn everyone over? Me? Your grandmother?"

"My grandmother's dead," she bit out, turning her head but not before she saw shock flicker in his dark eyes.

"And how the hell do you know that?" he barked. "You visited her after you left?"

Wiggling away from him, she shook her head then pressed her face against her knees and wrapped her arms around her shins. "I saw it," she answered, her words muffled. "Felt it when she passed."

"Don't believe you," he growled, his hands continuing to move over her with all the efficiency of a street cop until he found her cell phone. "Andra said she kissed you good-bye."

Iris had felt that, too, her heart breaking at the distant press of her beloved grandmother's lips. But she hadn't been there -- not physically.

Moving into the front passenger seat, Cade rolled down the window and threw it out. Hearing the right rear tire smash the phone's case, Iris hugged her legs a little tighter.

Chapter Four

Sliding open the van's side door, Cade braced against the look on Iris's face. He expected anger, a blazing white fury instead of the trembling fear that turned her purple gaze almost black. Slamming the door shut without removing her, he turned on his heels and barked an order at Mathis.

"Bring her inside!" Reaching in his pocket for his house key, he slowed his steps and lowered his voice to a register he hoped Iris could only feel and not hear through the van's steel frame. "Respectfully or I'll rip your guts out."

Opening the door, Cade stepped into the house's dark interior. His hand hovered over the light switch. He didn't want the light on, didn't want to look in her eyes and see that she was afraid of him.

She had no reason to be.

He blinked, his chest tightening as he remembered holding her down in the van, his claws shredding the front panel of her pants as he fought his wolf to keep from slicing deeper. She had to realize he had contained himself -- strangled the need triggered by the ball burning, cock gripping, full on rutting odor of a she-wolf who was not only a female alpha but his mate, a woman he had loved as long as he could remember.

With the house remaining unlit, he watched Mathis guide Iris out of the van. Her lips quivered as she said something, her face turning toward the driver so that she spoke straight into his ear.

Cade heard only one word, the only one he needed to hear.

Hank.

"Dead," Cade barked, his voice as cold and buried as his father. "A few months after you skipped out."

He watched as her face hardened. He flipped the lights on, pushed the door open a little more and moved deeper into the living room. As soon as Iris entered, Cade held up his hand to stop Mathis. "Go to the latents' dorm and round up some clothes and supplies."

Iris turned toward the door, her hands and lips moving as if searching for a way to make Mathis stay. Reaching past the she-wolf, Cade slammed the door shut. His hands found her shoulders, his fingers itching with the need to remove the necklace again.

She stiffened beneath his touch.

"Time to talk." The order rumbled through him with mixed motives. He wanted to talk her right into his bedroom, to remove the clothes that held the scent of other men, to bury himself between her soft thighs as he nuzzled her pale neck, to part her lower lips and lick her into submission.

Tightening his grip, he turned and directed her toward the couch. "Sit."

She obeyed, but instantly seized one of the oversized couch pillows and protectively drew it to her body. The fleeting anger that lit her gaze a few seconds before reverted to fear. Scowling, Cade yanked the pillow from her and nodded down his hall.

"Perhaps you should shower first," he suggested dryly. "You're getting bits of Detective Harper all over my furniture."

Violet fire erupted in her eyes and her face turned to stone once more.

He nodded, satisfied. An angry mate he could handle. A fearful one clawed at his gut with a burn worse than any fire, bullet or silver could conjure. He watched Iris rise silently from the couch, his posture stern but all of his senses targeted on her until she slammed the bathroom door shut and locked it.

Alone, he sank onto the couch and pulled the pillow to his nose. There were no actual bits of the dead man on the pillow or furniture. The fabric, however, had soaked up Iris's scent like a sponge dipped in perfume. The mingling of cloves and oranges with the deeper musk of her heat stirred his cock to full hardness.

Sighing, he lowered the pillow from his face, pushed it down his chest and stomach to rest firmly against his cock. The sigh turned to a growl, the sound vibrating so low he knew it would penetrate the walls and the fall of water over her soft body.

Another low, rumbling, quiver of noise moved through him to pass over his shaft like a lover's fingers. Eyes closed, he imagined Iris in his shower. Even as a child and teen, she had never quite looked like a shifter, her sweet body too soft, her face too round. But he could smell the wolf in her when others -- not even the grandmother raising her -- couldn't. He could see the shift that never fully materialized as it shimmered beneath her skin, fighting to break out.

Now there was no doubt that Iris was all wolf, in heat, just down his hall...in his shower.

Tossing the pillow aside, Cade stood and took his first step toward the bathroom. His right foot dragged forward, his once iron will fighting the desire to shift. Body shaking, he took a third step, right hip dipping, ankle rolling outward as the other foot started to move forward.

A tentative knock landed on his front door.

He sprang backward, landing expertly behind the couch in a tactical position before laughing at himself. Tears flooded his eyes and he rubbed roughly at his cheek, laughing some more and shaking his head. Maybe Mathis was right and he was turning into a pussycat. He sure as hell had just jumped like one. And how the hell did someone make it to his front door without him knowing it at the first crunch of tires on his drive?

Oh, yeah -- because his entire focus had been on Iris, on the lingering scent filled with her heat and the memories of her half-yielding flesh the last time the two of them had been alone in their youth.

The knock landed again, producing another startled jerk.

"Coming!" He prowled toward the door, his wolf seeking out the energy of the person beyond it. Not Mathis, whom he expected to return with the clothes. Not male at all. Female, shifter, unmated and trembling...

He yanked the door open to find Joelle Frost holding a small duffel bag of clothes in front of her like it was a silver shield that could protect against Cade's ire.

"Mathis said to bring this!" she blurted.

Hearing Joelle's voice shake worse than her hands, Cade closed his eyes and cursed Mathis. He understood why his second had sent someone else, but he'd made a bad choice. He could have chosen any other female wolf, or a mated male, even one of the latents. Instead, Mathis had sent a nineteen-year-old wolfling who had been sniffing around Cade since her first heat -- a move that reeked not of stupidity but sabotage.

Grabbing the duffel, Cade jerked it toward him. She held tight to the bag, the momentum pulling her into his house.

"Leave, Joelle."

She dropped her gaze, refusing to challenge a pack alpha directly, even if Cade wasn't her alpha. "I thought all new latents were supposed to go to the Fielding house."

He could hear the question lurking beneath little she-wolf's statement, could see it in the way her body twitched with a poorly concealed need. She wanted to know if the woman she had brought the clothes for was a latent whose scent marked her as Cade's mate.

"My guest isn't a latent and you need to go now." He fought the urge to growl at the wolfling, knowing the energy running through his body was too confused by Iris's proximity for the sound to come out right. The way his day was going, his mate would exit the bathroom to find Joelle on her knees, ass bobbing in the air in supplication for Cade to take her if he risked another growl.

The girl's delicate nose lifted to scent the room. "A regular human?"

His right brow slowly rising as he breathed deeply, Cade shook his head. How could she not smell what Iris was? Did the silver mute it completely for another she-wolf? Maybe it was the water and soap covering Iris's lush body as she washed away the evidence of her dead partner?

He wanted to tap Joelle's pert nose and ask the girl if it was defective. There was no missing Iris's scent. Even with the wolfling drenched between her thighs, all Cade could concentrate on was his mate's smell, the cloves and oranges, the sweet, deep odor of the heat that would let him put a pup in her as soon as he could get Iris to spread her legs for him.

With the duffel as a barrier between them, he tried to steer Joelle out of his house. "Time for you to go, cub."

"Not a cub." A weak snarl bubbled past Joelle's pouting lips. Then her gaze flicked beyond his shoulder and her eyes went wide. "Is that woman wearing your robe?"

A wave of heat blasted Cade's back. He heard the sharp snap and crackle of witch light, felt its energy run electric fingers through his hair and down his spine. Another hot blast, wolfish in form, washed over him.

Joelle buckled to the ground.

Dropping the bag, he grabbed the wolfling by one arm and roughly hauled her to her feet. His mate's wrath pushing at his back, he stumbled into his drive, dragging Joelle's half limp form with him. He shoved her into the cab of her truck, his hands ransacking her jacket pockets for the key. Finding it, he shoved it into the ignition and turned the engine over.