Awakening Abduction (8 page)

Chapter Seven

When the sun was high in the sky the following day, and just when Hannah didn’t think she could possibly sit one more minute in that small space, James finally announced, “We’re home.”

Hannah stared out the window at the sprawling ranch James had referred to as “home”.

“Well, not technically, I guess. I have my own place just down the road. Yours now too. But this is your father’s house.”

Nerves shook Hannah’s hands uncontrollably as her focus shifted from hours of needing to pull over and fuck to the house in front of her and all it represented.

James stepped out of the car and casually rounded the front to let her out. When he grasped her fingers, she wondered if he was as nervous as she was.

The front door burst open when they approached and Hannah’s mom ran down the few steps to the sidewalk, straight toward Hannah, whom she grabbed in a tight embrace. James took only a few scant steps to the side to give her space.

“Baby. I’ve missed you so much,” her mother began, taking her face between her palms. “Are you okay? I was so worried.”

“I’m fine, Mom. Tired, but fine.”

“James…” Meredith Stone took a step back and turned to him while Hannah held her breath. “It’s been so long. How are you? You’re all grown up.”

He smiled at her warmly.

“Let’s go inside. Sit. Talk. I’m sure you have about ten thousand questions for me…and your father.”

When Hannah’s mother turned toward the open front door, Hannah exchanged a look with James, trying to convey her confusion.

I’ve no idea what to say, babe. Let’s just go inside.

She said nothing. She doesn’t know. You said she’d smell it on us.

Oh, she knows, honey. The rest I can’t explain.

James put his arm around Hannah and squeezed her shoulders.
Are you trying to provide support for me or hold yourself up?
Hannah chuckled in her head.

As soon as they reached the front door, a large, burly man appeared to greet them.

“Hannah? Oh my God. Look at you. You’re so beautiful.”

He clasped her hands in his and stepped back to survey his daughter. There was no doubt this man was her father.

James never left her side or removed his grasp around her, though it slipped to her waist.

She didn’t know what to say. The father she’d thought dead stood before her now with love in his eyes.

Hannah’s own mother, thought to have been a hermit for Hannah’s entire memorable past, grasped this large man around his arm and hugged herself against him tightly.

Hannah had never once seen her mother exude such emotion…happiness. The reason for her self-imposed celibate life was clear now.

“Let’s sit in the parlor.” Meredith tugged the silent group around the corner to a large room Hannah would describe as anything
but
a parlor. Inviting, warm, perhaps masculine, but not the stuffy definition she’d give to a parlor.

Chocolate-colored fluffy furniture filled the room. Lush rugs. The walls were painted muted earth tones that invited one to sink into one of the sofas and relax.

Maxwell headed straight for one such couch and pulled Meredith down alongside him. His arm wrapped around her waist and he kissed her sensuously on the lips before speaking again. “I can tell you’ve done a wonderful job raising our daughter and I love you so much for it.”

Glancing up, her father motioned for Hannah and James to take a seat on the couch across from them. “Please,” he implored of her, “make yourself at home. This is as much your home and your mother’s as it is mine.”

Why is he skirting around the issue?
Hannah spat into James mind. At least she hoped she’d spat the question.

James ignored her, his gaze never leaving her father. “Sir, might we please address the elephant in the room first?”

Maxwell chuckled and squeezed his wife closer. “What elephant, son?”

James cleared his throat. “Sir, I mated with your daughter, claimed her as my own two days ago. Is it not obvious?”

Maxwell laughed louder this time. “I know that, James. I’ve always known. Why do you think I sent
you
to get my daughter?”

His smile was mocking.

Hannah gasped. “You knew?” Her mouth hung open and she squeezed James’ leg beside her while she glanced back and forth between her parents. “Why didn’t you tell us? Tell me?”

James still stared at her father, seeming to not have heard Hannah at all. “When you told me you had a mate in mind for Hannah, it was me?”

“Yes.” Maxwell smiled at them and then turned to his wife.

“Honey,” Meredith began, “we watched you, both of you,” she looked pointedly at James before continuing, “when you were just kids. Of course you were only five. You had no idea why you gravitated toward a random boy. You just enjoyed his company. He played with you, tickled you, chased you around. But James was ten. He was coming into his own, just shy of puberty. We saw how he looked at you, confusion warring in his eyes, wondering himself why he’d rather play with a little girl than his peers.

“We knew you were meant to be together. That’s how we also knew you didn’t belong to Gerald Hariger. Something was fishy about that man and we didn’t want there to be any chance at all he could spoil your life or take you from James during the last sixteen years. So I took you and fled to the northeast. There are other packs in the area that helped us, protected us, without you ever realizing it.

“I would have preferred you had more time, a few more years to grow and mature before meeting James again, but when your father found out Gerald had men snooping around Boston, he had to act quickly.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me all this?” Frankly Hannah was a little hurt by her mother’s blatant omission.

“I’m sorry I never told you that you were lupine. I never quite thought the time was right and I knew as long as you weren’t mated you could live blissfully in your ignorance. If we’d had more time, I would have explained the situation before your return to Seattle.

“As far as mating is concerned, it just wasn’t my or your father’s place to interfere with what nature had planned for you two. We were pretty sure, hoping really, we’d been right all those years ago and you two belonged together, but there was no real guarantee.

“It was James’ place to claim you and his right to explain the process. Not ours.”

Hannah slumped against James and released a breath. She still wasn’t sure she shouldn’t be angry with her parents for making decisions on her behalf. She was an adult, for Christ’s sake. But somehow, her emotions were tangled up in her need for James and overshadowed any aggravation with her parents.

“So what happens now?”

Maxwell cleared his throat. “Now my women return home and I get to know the daughter I haven’t seen for sixteen years.”

“Where will I live?”

“With me, babe, with me.” James turned her to face him. “We’re going home to my place now so I can show you around, let you get accustomed to where I’ve been living, and we’ll stay there permanently as soon as this threat with Gerald has passed.”

“Actually,” her father added, “we haven’t had a single moment to bring you up to speed. Three of Gerald Hariger’s sons were captured last night by a friendly pack in Boston. Under great duress, they babbled that their father’s plan had always been to marry into our family and take over this pack, increasing his numbers and making it stronger.”

“God,” Hannah jolted.

“I always knew that man was…off. He’s a lunatic,” Maxwell continued. “His pack sent a letter of apology to me early this morning informing us of their disgust with their leader and assuring me there would be no further trouble. I have their word. The fact that you two mated is proof that you never belonged to Gerald as he’d insisted. He’ll be forced to step down as Alpha.”

Moments passed. Suddenly James stood, dragging Hannah up with him. “I know you have a lot of catching up to do with your daughter, but…if you don’t mind, sir, could you start, say, next week? We really need to go now. Hannah needs to see her new home, get adjusted—”

Laughter stopped him midsentence. “Go. We’ll catch up later. Come for dinner on Sunday and we’ll talk all afternoon.” Hannah’s father covered his mouth, merriment dancing in his eyes.

James pulled her, not out the front door, but to the back of the house. He didn’t stop until he’d entered what appeared to be a large closet and closed the door.

“What are we doing in here?”

“Mud room. Strip.”

“James. You can’t mean to have sex right this moment in my father’s house.”

James laughed. “No, sweetheart, I mean for us to shift and run through the woods to get home.”

“Really?” Her shoulders relaxed, but part of her was actually disappointed they weren’t going to have sex yet. Instead they were going to frolic in the woods as if they were wild animals.

“We are not going to ‘frolic’ anywhere, honey.” Naked now, he stood and glanced down her still-clothed body before bringing his gaze to hers. His glorious cock stood at attention between them. “We’re going to run helter-skelter through the trees until we reach home and then fuck like wolves as soon as we enter the house. I’ll give you the grand tour after. Much later.”

Hannah smiled at the man she realized she loved more than anything in the world. Surely he’d picked up on that from digging around in her open mind, but it was time to say it out loud. “I love you, James Morgan.” She pulled her shirt over her head, dropping it and her bra in the pile he’d started on the floor.

“And I love you, Hannah Stone.”

She stepped forward, naked now, and tried to kiss her mate on the lips, but he wouldn’t have it and jumped away from her.

“Don’t start. I’ll never be able to stop. Let me get you home.” With that, he grabbed her hand and pulled her out the back door.

Moments later, Hannah and her mate had shifted into wolf form and ran into the trees behind her father’s house toward her new life.

About Becca Jameson

Becca Jameson lives in Texas with her husband and two kids. When she isn’t writing, she can be found reading, editing, scrapbooking, running, swimming, biking or taxiing kids all over creation. She doesn’t sleep much…or sit down often…but she loves to be busy! To learn more about Becca Jameson, visit her blog or email her.

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Awakening Abduction

ISBN 9781419941504

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Awakening Abduction Copyright © 2012 Becca Jameson

Edited by Briana St. James

Cover design by Irene Adler

Photos: Fotolia.com

Electronic book publication August 2012

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