Hot Springs Werewolf Complete Series (BBW Werewolf Erotic Romance) (15 page)

"How do you know they were werewolves?"

"I just... knew."

"Fen told me you and your friend were at the bar. I think he's got a thing for her."

"She has a thing for him too. Does he want her for his mate?"

It was meant to be a joke but I got the tone wrong and suddenly I felt awkward, like I'd been jabbing at Red for asking me to be his mate and then shifting and running away when I said no.

"Maybe. I changed the rules so he can ask her if she wants."

I looked down at my hands and wished I hadn't said what I'd just said. Okay Harper, just calm down. He likes you, you like him. It's okay.

As if he read my mind, Red reached over and patted my leg.

"It's okay Harper. It was my fault."

"Your fault?"

We turned right before hitting the center of town and drove down a street filled with clothing shops with a few restaurants mixed in.

"I didn't explain to you what taking a mate means to a werewolf. I got... overwhelmed."

Overwhelmed? I looked up from my hands to Red and saw he was frowning slightly.

"It's okay."

He kept talking as though he hadn't heard me.

"When a werewolf finds their mate it's an intense feeling. A desire to possess them, to have them, to be with them completely. Human love can feel like that too but for a werewolf it's animalistic. It's
need
, untempered by intellect or thought. When a werewolf needs it's like you needing food after not eating for days or water after a week in the desert. It's close to uncontrollable."

I felt goosebumps run up my arm and across my neck as he spoke. He was driving and looking straight ahead so maybe this was why he was so open. There were no barriers between us. He called me his mate. He needed me. I swallowed and cleared my throat.

"We're nearly there," Red said, turning off the road and driving through a tall gate that led to a long curving driveway.

"You need me?" I blurted out.

Red turned and looked at me for a moment before looking back to where we were going.

"I do, Harper."

I was in such a state of shock that I barely registered that we'd arrived outside gigantic mansion that was glowing with lights. There were even valets standing out the front. Red got out and came around to open my door, brushing aside the valet who'd walked over first.

"Ma'am?"

I took his hand and stepped out. Red handed his keys over and got a ticket in return. A moment later his truck was gone and we were standing out the front of the mansion, me blinking in the light and trying to get my brain to start working again.

"Look familiar?"

The front doors of the mansion were open and there was a doorman standing there, looking at us with a smile on his face. I looked past him and inside where I could see a staircase and a chandelier.

Add in a hundred years of dirt and rubble and leave the place open to the elements for fifty years or so and you'd have the Finch mansion.

"Looks like the mansion you're renovating."

"Built from the same plan. It's identical actually. Was built by the Guile family. Now owned by Toulouse."

Red took my hand and I followed him up the stairs, mostly on autopilot. We walked by the doorman who said something to me and I mumbled something back. I needed a drink or a bed to lay on for a few minutes. I tried to pull my mind back to the present but it was resisting and kept playing the moment in the truck over and over again.

I do, Harper.

He'd said it like we were getting married.

Married, mated - was there any difference? Marriage was for humans and mated was for werewolves?

We walked in under the chandelier and turned right, heading down a beautiful corridor filled with art and small nooks that held vases of flowers. The carpet was thick and plush under my heels and got to me finally recognize where I was and to pay attention.

"I think we need to talk more, Mr. Wolf."

Red looked back at me and winked and then gave me a cheeky smile.

"For you, Ms. Finch, I have all the time in the world. We'll find a room after we introduce ourselves."

There was something in his tone that told me he had a little more on his mind than talking. I felt my body tingle and knew I had a little more on my mind, too.

We followed the sound of soft classical music and the murmur of a crowd until we reached a set of double doors that opened into a large ballroom. Waiter and waitresses dressed in black and white stood on either side of the door handing out glasses of champagne to those who entered.

Red took a glass of champagne and passed it to me before taking one himself. I followed him in through the door, clutching the stem of my glass, feeling the coolness against my palm. As soon as we were inside, I took a gulp and sighed. It was delicious, not the sort of thing to gulp and exactly what I needed.

The room was filled with men and women dressed in elegant evening wear. Most of the men work black suits and white shirts and I saw a scattering of cowboy hats and boots. The girls were dressed mostly in dresses and skirts. I saw a tall blonde woman walk up to the bar wearing a necklace that glittered with diamonds. As I looked around I saw twinkling gems on rings and resting on necklaces all over the room. Certainly not the poorer people of Hot Springs here tonight.

Red turned to me and then put his mouth close to my ear so I could hear him over the general murmur and music.

"There are Toulouse werewolves here tonight. But the Guiles are here too. And you're with me. You're safe."

I smiled at him, wondering what he'd say if he'd known I'd punched crazy-eyes Ana in the face today.

"Because I'm yours?" I raised an eyebrow at him but Red didn't miss a beat.

"If you want, cheeky."

I took another sip of champagne and looked across the room to see Katy at the same time as she saw me. She squealed and rushed across carrying a glass of wine in her hand. She was wearing a little black dress with cleavage forever. Many pairs of eyes followed her as she jiggled across the room.

"Harper Finch what are you doing here?"

She stopped and appraised Red, looking him up and down as though she'd only just noticed him.

"And you must be the handsome cowboy."

Red took her hand and stepped forward to kiss her on the cheek. Katy went from fem fatale to blushing southern damsel in one second flat.

"Oh my," she said, going so far as to wave her hand at her face to cool off her blushing red cheeks.

"And you must be Katy. I've heard a lot about you from my friend, Fen. You know him?"

Katy almost collapsed into a hot puddle right then and there. She let out a squeak and her blush intensified.

"I think he's here tonight. Will you girls excuse me while I see if I can find him?"

Red squeezed my hand and then winked at me before vanishing into the crowd.

"Oh my god he is delicious how do you stand it? He's going to get Fen! For me!"

Katy gulped down the rest of her wine and looked around to see if Fen was anywhere in the room. When she didn't see him she looked back to me.

"You didn't tell me you were coming to this."

"I was going to. Slipped my mind yesterday with all the tourists."

"So you two are dating now? I thought you were broken up because he wanted you to be his girlfriend."

I gave Katy an abridged and very heavily censored version of what had transpired since Red came over to the my cabin and watched her eyes grow larger and larger.

"I don't know if we're a couple. Maybe. We could be."

"You should make him your boyfriend. He would be amazing. In bed. In the kitchen. In the yard. Everywhere."

"I agree!"

We laughed and clinked our glasses together. The champagne was starting to work on me, loosening up my muscles and making me relax. Yes, there were questions to be answered but right now I was at a ball with my hotter-than-hell neighbor and I was going to enjoy myself.

"Oops, my glass is empty. Be right back."

Katy was gone before I could ask her to get me another glass of champagne. I settled for drinking the last tiny mouthful, smiling to myself as the flavor played over my tongue. I love champagne although I never really got into knowing all the flavors or thinking about it that way. This glass was different. I tasted faint hints of cinnamon and berries and possibly even apple. This must be what they say when something is complex.

The champagne turned bitter in my mouth in the next second when Freyr Toulouse appeared. He was dressed in all black, just like he'd been at the dance and the first time I'd seen him in Greasy Manna. He was holding two glasses of champagne.

"Juliet."

He passed me a glass, taking my empty one and handing it off to a circulating waiter. I didn't want any drink he gave me but I took it out of politeness.

"Juliet?"

"Much longer before you run off to get secretly married and then drink poison?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Aren't you a writer? Romeo and Juliet. Montague and Capulet? Guile and Finch. See what I'm getting at? Mortal enemies."

"Mortal enemies?"

"Yes, mortal. Can be killed. Understand?"

"I really don't."

He looked down at me with those cold blue eyes and a smirk on his face and although he towered over me, I didn't feel afraid. I knew he was a werewolf but I just didn't care.

"Guile and Finch are just like Montague and Capulet. Rival packs. One killed the other. Guess which was which?"

"Guile killed Finch?"

"And now here is the New Finch in town, shacking up with Guile. What would your dear departed ancestors think?"

"The dear departed ancestors that the Guile pack killed?"

"Right. Ask that fat idiot Crisp if you don't believe me."

"Why are you even talking to me? I'm not the 'New Finch'. I'm here to work at Greasy Manna and write a book. My great-aunt rented a cabin for me for a year. I have no idea why you're so interested."

Freyr looked down at me, the smile slipping away from his face.

"You really think those lies are going to work on me?"

He turned and walked away before I could answer. A moment later Red appeared at my side holding two glasses of champagne. He smiled and then sniffed the air, the smile leaving his face as fast as Freyr's had.

"Are you okay?"

I looked down at the glass of champagne Freyr had given me. I glanced around and saw a potted plant. I stepped across and tipped my glass into it and then came back to Red, passing off my empty glass to a passing waiter.

"I'm wonderful," I lied, taking a glass from Red and sipping the champagne. "Can we find somewhere to... talk?"

The alcohol was definitely starting to work on me. I'd just had a weird and possibly threatening run in with a werewolf who definitely seemed to not like me but I just didn't care. I wanted to drink champagne and dance with Red and see if Katy met Fen. The same power that led me to punch Ana in the face was telling me there was nothing to be afraid of.

Red took my hand and led me through the crowd until we came to a door on the far side of the ballroom. There was a waiter guarding it and we stopped for a moment until a woman in the crowd asked him a question. As soon as he was distracted, Red slipped through the door with me close behind and then up a staircase.

We stopped around a corner and Red knelt to remove my heels, holding a finger up to his lips to keep me quiet. For some reason I found this funny and started to giggle and then tried to hold it in, which just made it worse.

Red hauled me down the corridor and around a corner and then pulled me into a room. It was a study. The walls were lined with books in dark shelving and a desk stood near the far window. There was a brown leather sofa with three armchairs in semi-circle in the center of the room.

I walked across the room and turned to face Red. Up here it was very much like the upstairs office at the Historical Society, minus the framed newspapers on the walls.

The framed newspapers! What did that one say about a mass killing at Finch farms?

Red closed the door behind him and put a finger to his lips again.

"I think we got away," he said.

"What were the mass slayings at Finch farm?"

"Did Freyr tell you that?"

"No, it was on a newspaper headline up in the Historical Society."

"I'm not really sure. As far as I know, the Finchs were killed and then what remained of the pack left the area. There have been no Finchs in Hot Springs until you came back."

"So that's why they call me the New Finch."

"I think so. Did Freyr say something to you?"

He did but I wasn't going to blurt it out to Red. I was tired of being in the dark but I was really tired of bouncing around the place, working on limited information. Freyr was a bad guy. Or a bad wolf. Whatever. He didn't have my best interests at heart and so it was safe to assume he was trying to drive a wedge between me and Red for his own benefit. I decided to change the topic.

"What happened the other night?"

"A wolf came and blew your house down?"

Red gave me a cheeky smile and I nearly went across to him he was so damn sexy.

"I mean with the biting and scratching and in the morning there was dried blood all over my bed but I didn't have a mark on me."

"You're a Finch."

"What does that mean?"

"The Finchs are werewolves. Faster healing, better senses, speed, stealth, other things."

"But I'm not a werewolf."

Red shrugged, a beautiful movement of man and muscle and he sipped his champagne. Again with the odd contrast. A suit, a cowboy hat and a glass of champagne. I couldn't get a grasp on what he really was.

"But your family are. And you could be. You just have to want to be one."

"Was that why I could hear your blood and smell everything? I heard the heartbeats of rabbits outside."

Red's smile dropped away from his face and he shifted uncomfortably before frowning and looking away.

"What?"

"Sorry Harper. That was my fault. I took you to the point of shifting without telling you it might happen."