Mates: Prequel (Claws Clause 0)

With a nod and a silent promise to this woman that he would return for her later when she wasn’t so scared, he turned and started to jog away. Ten steps into his run, when he was far enough that her fear didn’t scald him, he felt his muscles tighten and his whole body bow. His clothes burst into tattered shreds as his wolf exploded into its fur, letting out a mournful howl as Maddox forced it to abandon its mate so soon after finding her.

2

Maddox didn’t go home. Instead, leaving his truck behind, he allowed his wolf run the entire way to his younger brother’s place.

Colton Wolfe didn’t live too far. A half hour’s dash through the woods that surrounded the aptly named Woodbridge, Colt made his home in a nearby Bumptown. He lived on the edge of the Zoo, the corner of the Para settlement where the shifters all congregated.

Like Maddox, Colt purposely left his father’s immediate territory, heading east to build a home a couple of towns over from the pack’s main headquarters. Since Colt had never been the biggest fan of humans, it made sense that he relocated to a Bumptown. Bumptowns—where “things go bump in the night”—might make Maddox itch, the way they were segregated and controlled by the type of Para you were, but Colt was happy.

There wasn’t a single human within miles of the secluded community.

Born an alpha wolf without a pack to lead, Colt slid easily into the top predator spot in the Zoo. With Maddox next in line to succeed their father, running the Zoo gave Colt’s wolf free rein to rule while also submitting to his father’s stronger beast. It was a perfect arrangement for all involved.

But, while he might be the big man in the Bumptown, Colt was still second to Maddox. Due to his place in the pack’s hierarchy, he owed Maddox his respect.

Then again, Colt was also Mad’s younger brother, so while the pack member sympathized with Maddox and his wolf over what happened in the park, he also let out a burst of laughter as soon as he discovered the extent of the awkwardness surrounding his older brother’s situation.

Even if Maddox wanted to hide it, he couldn’t. The instant he shifted back to a man, he was still completely naked and the erection had returned with a vengeance as soon as he was in his skin again. Not even the memory of her fear did enough to deflate it.

Colt got an eyeful of his brother and his bobbing cock, laughed again, then went to get him a change of clothes. Colt’s best friend, Dodge—the ghost who haunted Colt’s home—popped in as soon as Maddox was dressed. Once he’d gotten himself under control, the pair listened as Mad admitted to everything that had happened in the park.

The sudden shift. The even more sudden hard-on. The human mate. How Maddox spooked her enough that he turned tail and ran rather than approach her and risk scaring her even more.

Once he was done talking, Maddox paced the lengths of the house Colt constructed himself, torn between going back to the park and chasing after her or staying put, cooling off, and waiting until he was ready to make a better second impression before going after her again.

Dodge McCoy was a smart ass who, predictably, offered smart ass comments that Maddox pointedly ignored. Colt, on the other hand felt sorry for his brother. Because of that, and how he was begrudgingly submissive to Maddox’s wolf, he tried to offer the best advice he could. Too bad he knew even less about mates than Maddox did. At least Colt tried.

It didn’t last, though. A few days later, both Colt’s sympathy and his good humor seemed to have run out. And it was all Maddox’s fault.

Finding his mate was making the big shifter crazy. Being second in his father’s pack left Maddox already teetering on the edge. Knowing she was out there and his own impulsive nature had kept him from wooing her properly? It gave him that final push.

Colt told him to spend that first night on his couch, maybe start fresh in the morning. Nope. Maddox only made it a couple of hours before he wolfed out and decided to head back to the park. Once he got over his shock, he was determined to at least introduce himself to the woman, maybe get her name.

He promised he would stay in his skin, wearing Colt’s borrowed clothes; they were nicer than anything he owned and he was grateful for the loaner. When Colt realized that there was no stopping him, he offered Maddox his truck. Curious to see if he could already follow her scent wherever she went, Maddox turned him down. If she was his mate, he should be able to.

And he did.

He followed his nose—and his instincts—to a narrow two-floor house on a cozy residential street not too far from where Cilla lived. Even a block away, he immediately sensed that the dark-haired, green-eyed beauty he saw in the park was inside of there.

That was the good news.

The bad news?

She lived in a house that was so completely warded, Maddox felt the power of the magic crackling against the hairs on his arms whe

n he was on the sidewalk across the street from her place. He’d singe off all of his fur if he tried to force the ward and he’d still be stuck on the outside.

That bothered him. Maddox didn’t know enough about her to guess if she used such strong wards because she was afraid of something—he still hadn’t gotten the stink of her fear out of his snout—or because she was simply being careful. Didn’t matter. It was impossible for him to get any closer to her either way. Unless she coded him into the spell, he couldn’t even get near enough to walk up her drive, let alone knock on her front door.

Wards like hers weren’t unusual in mixed neighborhoods. Some humans were nervous enough about their Para neighbors that they paid witches to protect their homes. Sure, it was hypocritical, humans willing to pay one paranormal an exorbitant fee in order to keep other paranormals out, but Maddox was used to it. That’s just how it had been since the paranormals revealed their existence to the humans almost fifty years ago.

The wards also made him more sure that his mate was as human as they come. Except for the witches, paranormals didn’t need to rely on magic to protect them. Humans used bureaucracy and laws and red tape to save themselves—and, when that didn’t work, they paid for magic.

He didn’t mind if she was. Human, shifter, vampire… whatever. Maddox was so damn happy to have finally found her, she could’ve been anyone or anything and he wouldn’t have cared.

The wards might be a problem, but he forced himself to think on the bright side. Until he could figure out a way to tell her that she was his mate, at least he could rest easy knowing that she was protected. No one could get to her unless she willed it.

Telling himself that he was doing his due diligence as her future mate, Maddox decided to test the extent of the wards. They wrapped around her house, bordering the lines of her property, reaching all of the way to the fence that separated her house from the woods behind it. A thick copse of trees reached outward and he spent that first night patrolling it and marking the territory. Any other predators—paranormal or wild—would scent his wolf and steer clear of his mate’s home.