The Wolf's Mate Book 1: Jason & Cadence (9 page)

His mother perched on the arm of the chair.
"Isn't there something that you can share so she is aware that
you've loved her for so long? She has to feel the connection with
you. I know she was young, but she's still part wolf."

"I don't know what I could tell her without
breaking the decree. Every time I start to open my mouth around
her, the decree pops into my head. Callie said she feels like I
abandoned her. How could she not understand that I stayed away to
protect her?"

"Because no other wolves did what you did to
such an extreme, son. You were so worried about her safety that you
didn't just keep her at arm's length, you shoved her away as much
as you could. You were cruel, because you thought you had to be;
she didn't understand because your actions were so different. You
went from walking her to school every day to barely being able to
be in the same room with her."

"Dad, what did you say to her? That day? I
remember her running home and her hair was down. She never even
asked me about the marks. Which isn’t really in her personality.
She just doesn’t let things go. Ever.”

His father took a breath, two, in thought.
“When I sent you in the house, I picked her up off the ground and
looked at the marks, which were already healed but her skin was
tanned from the sun and they were pretty evident. I was worried
about her father calling the police. That would be something they
wouldn’t ignore for me, you know, it was just too big. I pulled her
ponytail out and told her that you were playing a game with her and
your teeth descended accidentally and grazed her skin. I told her
that if her father saw the marks and asked about them, that she
should say she fell playing at her house and scratched her skin on
that prickly rose bush at the side of the house. I threw my power
into my voice, told her it was nothing and made it a decree for
her. She’s wolf enough to obey.”

“Can’t he mark her again? If she was so young
and doesn’t understand what happened, can’t he just jog her memory?
Or mark her verbally now, like you did for me first?” His mother
looked at his father hopefully.

Jason knew the story well. In the high school
cafeteria, his father had announced to his mother during their
lunch period that she was going to marry him whether she liked it
or not, and she told him to go to hell and took off. He chased her,
tackled her on the football field, and marked her. She’d apparently
had a boyfriend at the time and he dumped her immediately because
he was afraid of him, and she took a tire iron to his father’s car
in retaliation. And left the tire iron on his front porch with a
bow on it. It was just a day, though, or two, before they were
together officially. She said she knew all along that they were
meant to be together.

"Because the first time a male marks a
female, if the female ignores it, then the male has to move on. If
he’d said in public that they belonged together, declared her his
mate first, and then marked her physically second, like he should
have, I wouldn’t have been able to stop anyone from talking to her
about it because it would have been common pack-knowledge. That’s
not what happened. And, you can't mark a female over and over; it
would be like forcing her into an arranged marriage, tying her
hands. The verbal mark is meant to claim. The physical mark is
meant to solidify the connection to the two, not to force a hand."
His father said what Jason knew, but he liked his mother's opinion
better.

"I can't lose her. I just can't." He sighed
into his hands.

"Fix it, then. Figure it out and fast. It's
only been a week and she has already picked Jake's females even
over Callie." His father said and Jason nodded, but how the hell
could he fix something so damn broken? Tense and at least as
unhappy as he’d been before he talked to his parents, he left their
home and shifted, leaving his clothes in a pile in the woods.
Hunting to let off some steam, he caught a couple tasty rabbits,
and then waited in the trees at her home until she finally came in.
She yawned as she opened her front door, and he listened with his
sharp hearing to her climb the stairs, flop down onto her bed with
a sigh, and fall asleep. He smiled inwardly because she'd looked so
damn cute in that outfit, but he wished she had worn it for him. He
could imagine her teasing him in that sassy outfit, calling him a
bastard and swinging her hips suggestively. She had a fantastic
body and knew exactly how to work it to her advantage.

When she was sound asleep, he shifted again,
dressed, and headed home to get some rest before clocking in to
work inside her home. He was going to be on her turf, and he was
going to do his best to thaw some of the ice he'd put around her
heart.

* * * * *

When he swung by Michael's trailer on his
motorcycle so that they could ride together, Michael burst out
laughing. Jason had borrowed a pair of overalls from his dad, which
Michael thought was hilarious. "Man, you are full on whipped. I'm
ashamed to be your brother."

Jason leaned over his bike, faked a punch
that Michael dodged and then connected with his shoulder when he
wasn't expecting it. Michael cursed. "She asked me to wear them, so
I did." He shrugged, already thinking he would ask her to wear
something for him some day. Something naughty, like that school
girl outfit but with no panties. Hel-lo.

The front door to her home was wide open and
he picked up the scent of coffee as soon as he walked up the front
porch steps. It was before 7, and he and Michael were accompanied
by Linus and Bo. They all commented on his overalls, but he didn't
care. To his surprise and pleasure, she was wearing overalls
herself. The kitchen smelled amazing, and not just because of her
sweet scent, but it smelled like brown sugar and spices. She pulled
out a tray of sticky buns from the oven and gestured to the table
with her free hand. "Sit down, guys. You've got a really long day
ahead of you." While she used tongs to pull the buns from the tray,
homemade judging from the flour dusted counter top, he pulled
coffee mugs from the cabinet and put the coffee pot on a coaster on
the table.

"Very cute, Jas." She said, using the
nickname that he'd only let her call him. She tugged on the
overalls. "Who knew you would be so…agreeable?"

"I'll point out that they're practical, and
you're also wearing them."

She looked adorable, too. She was wearing a
tantalizing black sports bra, and the overalls were fitted and one
strap was undone so that her breast peeked out, begging to be
touched and teased. The bare skin visible between the bottom edge
of the bra and the overalls was pale and perfect. She cocked her
brow at him and gave him a shove towards the table. They sat
together at her small table after Linus pulled a chair from the
dining room, the men plowing through the pile of sticky buns while
she drank her coffee.

"You look a little tired. Did you have fun
last night?" Michael asked.

She grinned. "Oh yeah. Those girls know how
to party."

After a short discussion about the club,
called SuperNova, she stood up and took the dishes to the sink to
wash them. Without looking back she said, "The paint and stuff is
in each room, and there are a couple ladders in the garage."

Jason made the motion for the guys to get to
work and he walked over to the sink and leaned back against it,
resting his elbow on the counter. "You're sticking around, right? I
mean, I know I'm your willing servant today and all, but you're not
going to just leave us to work while you go get your nails done,
are you?."

She laughed. "Servant, huh? Interesting.
Yeah, I'll be here. I have a few things to get done, now that I've
got this slave driver for a boss and my days are going to be
busy."

He chuckled, and cleared his throat, his
pulse suddenly hammering. "You know what I was thinking about the
other day?"

"Chasing rabbits?" She tossed casually,
rinsing the tray.

He shook his head as he laughed. "No. I was
thinking about when we were kids and we used to go hiking
together?"

Her eyes got kind of a far off and thoughtful
look, a small smile played on her lips. He knew he had her, then,
her mind going back to about the time that he marked her. He was
planning to take her on a trip down memory lane, try to draw her
mind to that one day so he could talk to her about it. She turned
like she would say something, and her phone beeped and he nearly
screamed at her not to answer it, but she did, and he could tell
immediately that it was Chris. She mouthed 'excuse me' and walked
out the back door, answering whatever question he asked with 'I had
a great time'. Groaning, he huffed into the front room and began to
work.

Around lunchtime, he went out to find her,
and she was in the detached garage that had been her father's
workshop, sanding down an old bookshelf. She looked up at him,
brushed her hair away from her face, and said, "I ordered pizza, it
should be here in about ten minutes, if that's okay."

Surprised, he nodded. "Thanks, they'll like
that."

He sat down on the metal stool next to the
workbench. "So why are you repainting the house? The paint in most
of the rooms seems okay."

She paused and then shrugged, but he could
tell from the change in posture that her reason was emotional. She
said with a carefully controlled voice. "I needed to make it mine."
He understood. Her father had been a drunk bastard and had really
tormented her towards the end of his life. He was horrible to her,
but he wasn't pack and he never actually laid a hand on her so no
one could really do anything to him, but sometimes emotional scars
are just as bad as physical ones. Jason had always hated her father
and had wanted to protect her from him, but he had been unable to
do anything except be there for her, but of course once she started
to hate him, then he'd lost that privilege.

She went back to work, and he left her,
afraid to push her, afraid not to. He was walking a razor’s edge
with her and everything he did was measured, every action backed up
by worry and indecision. They ate on the front porch in the warm
afternoon sunshine, probably one of the last few nice weekends
until winter took hold, and then went back to work. She'd smartly
ordered six large pizzas and had only gotten one slice for herself,
but she assured them that it was plenty.

They finished painting the house and cleaned
up about 7. He offered to take her out to eat for dinner and she
declined politely, skirting a glance at the others, and then
planting soft kisses on each of their cheeks with sincere thanks
for their help. Just like that, they were out on the front porch,
the door shut in their faces, and a weight like despair crushing
him. Michael patted his shoulder with a sorry kind of look in his
eyes and they all rode off together.

That night at the bar, he watched her and he
watched every male in Jake's pack watch her, especially Chris, who
looked at her like she was something tasty to eat. When she walked
in the door that night, she had looked around the bar, landed on
their booth and smiled slightly, and then went to work. He'd sent
for drinks from her, again, and she dropped them off with a quick
"hey guys" and was gone, caught up with Jake's pack like she was
part of them.

He caught the calculating gaze from Chris
across the bar as he sat with his own people, and knew that Linus
had been right. Chris was luring her to them, using his females to
give her the friends she'd never had. And they'd love her to be
their alpha, of that he had no doubt. She might be mean as a snake
when she was pissed off, but she was also wildly protective of
those that she cared about, Callie was a firm testament to that.
Cadence had been beaten bloody on more than one occasion defending
her weaker friend. From all the way across the throng of wolves,
Chris caught his eyes and the fucking bastard had the nerve to look
smug. He almost went postal, but he managed to stay in his seat
without throttling anyone.

To cement his growing unease, he watched
Chris call over one of their females and speak quietly to her, and
she grinned and nodded, and then she went over to the sound booth
and spoke to the DJ, part of Jake's pack. Her name was Carrie, he
thought, she was tall and plain, but blandly nice and that was what
Cadence reacted to. She climbed up on top of the bar and looked
down at Cadence, then squatted and held her hand out when a song he
had never heard before sounded across the speakers and Cadence
grinned and laughed, letting Carrie haul her up on the bar top. Two
other of Jake's females jumped up on the bar and the girls all sang
along with the song, something old that was about ugly women, and
they danced a coordinated dance like the electric slide but kind of
different. All eyes were on the girls, specifically Cadence, who
was wearing deliciously tight leather pants and a tiny halter top,
and she couldn't have looked more oblivious if she'd had a
blindfold on. Just like that, he saw her slipping away further, and
Chris' dark gaze at her, the desire wafting off him like some kind
of horrible cologne, was like a nail in the coffin of his future.
His future with Cadence.

To his surprise, she rang his doorbell on
Sunday night after he left the bonfire early. It had annoyed him
that she'd shown up with Chris, again, even though the damn thing
was at his parents' house and she could have walked there in less
than 10 minutes. The Garra pack was getting on his nerves, far too
possessive of his woman. To stop from doing something stupid, like
killing Chris and starting a pack war, he left.

"Is everything okay?" He asked, wishing he'd
shaved that morning.

"I came to plunder your closet for a work
shirt until I can order some for myself." She walked past him like
she owned the place, and he wanted her to feel like she belonged
there so he didn't give her any crap. She gave him a sly look,
"Unless you'd rather I wear what I wear at the bar."