But the woman was working her own agenda.
Wolf.
“I-I didn’t mean—” She broke off, shaking her head and sending those silky locks flying. His nose was working again—he’d felt lost for a time without the onslaught of scents teasing him—and the heady fragrance that was Erin filled his nostrils.
“What did you mean then?” Her mouth was close. Tempting and close and he would not kiss her. Not now. Because, dammit, he couldn’t help but wonder…what other secrets was she keeping?
She wet her lips.
Damn her. That swiping pink tongue had his c**k jerking.
“Do you—do you remember what you told me about Lones?”
No, he had no idea.
His expression must have said as much because she glared at him. “How screwed up do you have to be,” she quoted, “to get kicked out by the pack?”
Okay, he remembered. Jude tried real hard not to wince. So he’d been a hardass on the Lones, but after that Feral butcher who’d killed his family—
“I got kicked out.” Said with dignity. Said with a stare that was straight and unflinching. “They thought I was weak.
Unworthy.” A pause. “Not fit for the pack. When I couldn’t shift, they threw me away.”
His hands clenched into fists. It was either ball ’em up or grab her again and hold tight. And he couldn’t hold her, not yet.
She’d kept this secret from him after he’d bared his soul to her.
He should have seen this coming.
He says I’m his mate.
Because the bastard after her was a wolf. Just like she was. Like to like.
So why the hell was the beast inside him screaming that she was his mate?
No way could a woman be a mate to two shifters.
“My mother took me to my father’s house. Dropped me on the doorstep without a word, and left.” Memories trembled in her voice. “She’d kept me from him for fifteen years, because while they were mates”—Erin said the word like it was a curse.
Maybe to her, it was—“she didn’t love him, because he wasn’t pack.”
He tried to think. Hard to do, when she was so close and his fury still rode him. “You could have just been delayed.
Shifters don’t change until puberty. If you were just fifteen—”
A slow motion of her head, back and forth. “I don’t change, Jude. The claws and the teeth are all I have. All I’ll ever have.
There’s no running in the woods for me. No beast who can break through the surface. There’s just”—her hands lifted, fell—“what you see. And that wasn’t enough for the pack or for my mother.”
The mother who’d appeared tonight, more than ready to attack him. “Why is she here?” He didn’t believe in coincidences.
“I don’t know.”
He snorted.
“I don’t.” Erin exhaled on a hard breath. “I haven’t seen her since then—until tonight, anyway. I-I remembered those eyes.” She straightened her shoulders. Stiffened her spine. “My father was scared of me because he was scared of her. He loved me, I know he did, but I think he was always worried the wolf would come out.”
“Your dad—you said he was human?”
“He was a shaman for his tribe. He was used to helping people. When he first met my mother, she was hurt. He told me she’d been attacked by vampires. He wanted to help her, but in the end, she didn’t want to be helped. She wanted the blood and the violence and pack. ”
And she’d taken Erin into that world.
Then tossed her out.
Bitch.
“My father was psychic. He could see things, change lives.” She blinked quickly. “He was a good man.”
Erin had loved him. No denying the emotion in her voice. “What happened to him?” he asked, because there was so much pain there.
“He was killed. One of those horrible wrong place, wrong time things. He was mugged. Caught one night coming home.
The guy stabbed him and my father bled out on the street. On the filthy street, with his eyes wide open.” Her lips twisted. No smile this time. “I saw it happen. My damn dreams. But by the time I got there, it was too late. He’d left me, too.”
He jerked her into his arms. “I’m pissed as hell at you,” he growled, but held her all the tighter. What was she doing to him? What?
“I couldn’t let you kill her,” she said, words muffled against him.
His side stung, but no way was he gonna let her go. “Yeah, well, sweetheart, looked to me like she was the one wanting to do the killing.”
No response.
“And if that gnome with the gun was anything to go by, she’s made a habit of hunting folks at that bar.” A wolf who hunted humans was a wolf that had crossed the line.
Rogue.
Her pack wouldn’t take her ass back if she’d gone Rogue.
Erin’s head lifted. Her long lashes were spiky, wet. “I don’t know what’s going on anymore. I just want things to go back to normal.”
Ah, normal. That word again. The one she liked so much. “Not gonna happen.” His nose twitched. So many scents assaulting him now that his enhanced smell was back. But, what was—
Hell.
He pushed Erin behind him and glared at the door.
“Jude!” Erin’s nails scraped down his arm. “It’s her!” Looked like Erin’s sense of smell was working, too.
This time, he could catch the lighter, feminine scent of the wolf shifter. Yet knowing that it was Erin’s mother on the other side of that door didn’t make him relax his guard for a second. No, it only made him tense more. “Stay back.”
He grabbed the doorknob. Wrenched it open—
And came face-to-face with Erin. No, not his Erin. An older version, one with faint lines around her eyes. One whose face was more haggard, whose hair was a bit shorter.
And whose eyes were more yellow than gold.
Sonofabitch.
She stared at him, measuring him. Then one black brow shot up and she said in a voice too much like Erin’s, “You gonna stand there staring all night, cat, or are you gonna let me see my daughter?”
Detective Ben Greer eased under the bright yellow line of police tape, his gun holster pressing into his side. He’d had exactly two days of vacation—two days of sitting on his ass and going insane at the cabin—and then he’d gotten the call about Donald Trent.
Trent. Like he’d ever forget that bastard. He’d put down ten to one odds that the guy had offed his wife a few months back. Not that Ben had enough evidence to prove it, though.