Wolf's Fake Bride (Shifter Marriage Service Book 1)

“I’m still thinking about it.”

“Fair enough. More wine?”

Jo looked at her glass, noting that it was almost empty. She had really swilled it down this last time. Whatever, she thought.

“Yes, please.”

King poured her another glass and refreshed his, as well, returning to sit across from her. It was getting late and she wondered how much longer this was going to take.

“Getting tired?” he asked, as if he had sensed her thoughts.

“A bit,” she admitted. “Maybe too much wine.”

“Would you prefer to continue the discussion tomorrow?”

“No. I’d like to finish tonight. I may need to look elsewhere tomorrow. There is still a lot I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s cut to the chase then. There is something important you need to know about me and the members of the club.”

Jo studied his affectations as he looked down at his hands and then back up toward her. She expected him to tell her about some criminal element. They were, after all, bikers. She had no doubt that her current landlord would not approve of this association, but he was offering her a lot of money.

“We’re shifters.”

“You’re what?” she asked, squinting her eyes as if that would help her to understand what he meant.

“We are shifters. We can change shapes from human to wolves.”

Jo laughed. Clearly, he was just yanking her chain now, adding a bit of levity to this lengthy, serious, discussion they had been having.

“I’m quite serious. Can I show you?”

“Sure,” Jo replied, still thinking it was some sort of prank.

King stood and began stripping off his clothes. She looked away, regretting now having agreed to discuss any of this. He was quite plainly off his rocker and now he was getting naked for some weird perversion she would have to thwart. She found herself wondering if the driver truly was in the front room and if he would take her home if she insisted.

“Look at me,” King told her, his voice full of authority.

Jo slowly turned toward him, though still trying to avert her eyes from looking directly at his perfect physique. He was completely ripped and, though she tried not to notice, amply endowed. Her eyes quickly grew wide as a crackling noise filled the air and his body began to contort, changing. His nose was growing outward as he fell onto all fours. Hair began to sprout heavily from every surface of his being, until she was no longer looking at a man, but an impossibly large black wolf.

She considered running, not believing what she was seeing and, at the same time, terrified by it. Had he put something in her drink? Was she hallucinating now? Fuck.

“It’s real,” a woman’s voice said from the doorway.

Jo jerked her head toward the woman, the one that had greeted her at the door. Where had she come from?

“Go on, touch him,” the woman continued.

“I . . . I . . . No.”

“It’s still King. He’s just in wolf form now, but it’s still the same guy inside of there. He can’t talk to you, obviously, but he’s in there, just the same.”

As if to demonstrate the point, the wolf began to slowly move forward, his head bowed submissively. Jo stood frozen as it approached. Pushing his nose against her hand, he encouraged her to stroke his fur. It was like any domesticated dog trying to get someone to pet him. She finally did so and felt calmer as she looked into the animal’s eyes, noting they were the same soulful brown she had observed when she had met King.CHAPTER FIVEThings moved fast after the formal signing of the papers. Jo had gone down all the bullet points of what she had agreed to and what she had not agreed to. There wasn’t a lot. No sex. No kids, real or fake. Deal breaker clauses. It was all covered.

The plan for bringing her into the fold was simple. She was new in town. She would visit the biker club where his pack hung out and he would hit on her, making their “first” meeting public, so there wasn’t a question of how they met. They would begin to date and then elope, returning to announce their marriage. It would be quick, within the first two months, but they would have become inseparable as far as anyone could see and no one would find that amiss.

In order to establish her as a woman of her own means, she would be given half her fee up front and would buy a house and a car. It was the only requirement as to what she would have to do with her money and since it was something she would have done anyway, she didn’t have a problem with it. She immediately made an appointment with a local realtor to purchase a house for herself and purchased a brand new car from a dealer one town over.