Perfect Mate (Book Two: A Werewolf BBW Shifter Romance) (7 page)

"Stop," Trax said. His voice brought Julia's protests to a halt. He stared into her eyes and spoke in a slow rhythm. "I don't want my mate to lie to me. Not... ever. You're a special shifter. One of a kind. And now you're mine."

"I have a mate already," Julia said, her voice choking. If they thought she was a shifter, then maybe she needed to try something different. "Damien. My true mate. He—"

"Did he tell you he felt the Calling with you?" Trax said. He laughed and stood up. "Smart wolf. Maybe we should have done the same. Try to convince you to come on your own."

Julia's mouth went dry. No. It wasn't possible. Damien wouldn't do that to her. But...

He'd told her Katherine was just his guide when they first met. That had been a lie. What else had he lied about?

"You're wrong," she said, but doubt had already crept into her voice.

"Doesn't matter now," Trax said. "You're mine."

He bent over quickly to caress her face and she winced as he lowered his head towards her lips. She drew back but he had her chin firmly in his hand. With the other he tore her dress. The seams cut into her flesh before ripping. Trax tossed the scraps of fabric aside and grabbed her breast, squeezing hard. She beat at his chest with her good hand, but he was too strong. He would have her, no matter what she did. A cry tore from her throat as he moved his hands down her body.

Then he paused, raised his head, and sniffed.

"Wolves," he said.

The driver swung the cabin door open to the darkness and inhaled. "Two of them. They're close. Do you hear that engine?"

"Damien
," Julia whispered.

Trax began to laugh, a slow chuckle that worked its way into thick bellowing laughter.

"A blind wolf coming for us! We'd better run!"

The driver laughed nervously along with Trax. The pack leader turned to Julia, his eyes gleaming green in the dim light of the cabin.

"Come, then," he said, cracking his knuckles. "I'll win you as my mate the traditional way after all."

Julia screamed as he pulled her to her feet, sending a fresh shot of agony down her arm.

"Come, bitch," he said. "You'd love to see two men fight for your affections, wouldn't you? Two packs, all fighting, all for
you
."

"No!" Julia cried. "Please, no!"

The two others followed Trax outside as he shoved Julia in front of him. She collapsed in front of the cabin and he picked up a dirty blanket from the side of the cabin where it had been resting on top of a stack of firewood. He tossed it over her.

"Cover yourself, my little bitch," he said, grinning. "Show some respect for your mate."

Seething with anger, Julia gathered the blanket around her shoulders tightly. The flicker of headlights shone for a brief second in the distance, bouncing as the car moved closer. The engine's noise grew louder and then stopped behind the hill.

They waited.

Julia looked up and saw the shadows walking over the crest of the hill. And, in the middle—

"Granny Dee?"

Trax stepped forward, his hands curling into fists at his side as the interlopers stopped just thirty feet away from the bonfire.

"Dejara," he growled. "What a pleasant surprise."

CHAPTER TWELVE

Damien braced himself as Jordan swung the car into the woods and down the dirt road. The scent of wolves was strong, and they knew they had found the right place.

"They'll scent us," he said. "Probably already have."

"Then let's hope they don't run," Jordan said. He rolled down the window. "Smells like three of them there."

"And the pack leader," Dee said. "If he's in human form, you won't scent him."

"We can't identify any purebred shifters," Jordan said, his voice starting to panic. "There could be dozens. How many were in your pack?"

"Not that many," Dee said. She didn't seem too concerned. "Once we get closer, I'll be able to sense if he and Julia are there. Same with any others."

They reached a steep hill and Dee told Jordan to stop the car.

"They're just over that hill," Dee said. "There's a small cabin."

"Not like it would have made it up that hill, anyway," Jordan breathed.

"Are they there?" Damien asked. Dee understood what he meant.

"Yes," she said. "Both Julia and Trax."

"Trax?"

"The pack leader."

"That makes four of them," Jordan said, worried. "Their four for our two. It won't be a fair fight."

"Only three," Dee said, opening the car door. "Don't you smell the scent of death?"

"Three, then," Jordan said. He and Damien walked alongside Dee as she started up the hill. "It's still three on two."

"Three on three," Dee said.

Damien inhaled sharply. He didn't want anyone to die for his mistakes. "You don't need to fight. She's my mate."

"She's my granddaughter," Dee said stubbornly. "Apart from that, you'll need me. There's no way you'll be able to take the leader down on your own."

"But—" Damien began.

"I may look old," Dee said, "but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. And senses get more acute as you age. You know that."

"Senses versus strength isn't a great match."

"Says the blind man," Dee cracked grimly. "Save your breath. You'll need it during the fight."

Damien focused on each step in front of him. He could feel Julia's anger already over the hill, anger and fear coming in clouded pulses so strong it made his blood boil. If this leader, this
Trax,
had hurt her...

They crested the hill and Damien sensed Julia right in front of him. The moment she saw him, a beam of hope pierced through her fear. It gave him courage, but it also gave him pause. That she could place such faith in him unnerved him.

"Three shifters, two men and one woman," Dee said under her breath. "The woman is strong. The leader is much, much stronger than either of them."

"I can sense it," Damien said. There was heat, too. A fire.

"I'll take the leader," Jordan said.

"No," Dee said, with a quiet certainty born of experience. As she spoke, both men knew that she was prepared for the fight ahead. "He is mine."

"We can't fail her," Damien said softly. "I would not be able to live with myself."

"Don't be so optimistic," Dee said, heading down the hill. "If we fail her, we'll all be dead anyway."

The other shifters waited for them at the bottom. Julia's surprise hit Damien hard as she recognized her grandmother. His heart began to beat fast and he breathed deeply to calm himself. Tension led to mistakes. To acting too quickly, on impulse. The last time he'd done that—

In his thoughts flashed the fight of two years ago, in the darkness as he was now. Lukas's legs had risen up and slashed down through the air, with powerful muscles behind them. Damien remembered falling onto his back, helpless to protect himself. The last thing he'd seen was the moon, and then he'd lost his sight forever.

He felt a twinge of pain along the scars that ran over his eyes. The razor-sharp claws had sliced them through, and all of Jordan's work hadn't been able to restore his vision. The flesh had grown back, and a golden haze had come over the surface of his irises, but he'd never be able to see the moon again.

The leader stepped forward, and Damien's fingers curled at his sides.

"Dejara." He addressed Dee as though they were old friends, and perhaps they were.

"Give me back my granddaughter, Trax," Dee said. "Then we'll go in peace."

Trax laughed. Julia's fear rippled through Damien's body, and he willed her to be calm. If her fear struck him at the wrong moment during the fight, he would be done for. She seemed to realize this, for she was struggling to hold herself together.

"Do you think I'm afraid to fight you?" Trax bellowed. "A weakling, a blind man, and an woman as old as the moon herself. You might as well cut each other's throats now and be done with it."

Damien sensed the wolves next to Trax beginning to shift, their scent growing stronger. Immediately he followed suit, as did Jordan. Only Dee and Trax remained human.

"May the fight be fair," Dee said, Damien knew she was raising her hands to the sky in prayer. "May the gods take those who fall."

Damien howled first, and the rest of the wolves joined him, their calls spiraling upward to the sky in a terrible harmony that flooded the clearing and bounced back off of the trees. Damien could almost envision the stance of each wolf by the reflected sounds among them. Then the pack leader began to shift, and he knew the fight was about to begin.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Julia gasped as Granny Dee stepped forward. The world went silent in her ears as she watched the pack leader talk to her grandmother. She was sure that any moment he would reach out and smash Dee with one hand, crumple her into bits. But he did not move close enough for that. He wasn't even confused by Dee showing up. And she realized as they spoke that his shoulders were raised tensely. He wasn't confused at all.

He was scared.

Damien and Jordan shifted along with the other pack's wolves, and although Julia had seen it twice before it was still a shock to behold. The horrific cracking of bone and tendon as the skeletal structures of the men shifted into that of wolves. Damien's face, his beautiful face, changing into the snout of an animal. And then fur covered them and they were all wolves, all of them except for the two standing in the middle.

Granny Dee raised her arms to the sky.

"May the fight be fair. May the gods take those who fall."

During all of this, Julia had not accepted what she knew in her heart must be true. Even as her grandmother prayed to strange gods, she wished that it would all go away, that she would wake up from the nightmare and go back to work at the library. She would shelve a hundred thousand books now if it meant the safety of her grandmother.

But then Granny Dee lowered her arms and stared forward into the face of Trax, and Julia knew before she shifted that she was not entirely human.

The leader changed first, his limbs bending and growing claws. Dark red hair sprouted and covered his torso. His body was nearly twice the size of Damien's, thick with knotted muscle. Julia did not pay attention to him, though, once she saw what her grandmother was becoming.

Dee's arms bent at the elbow and she fell forward into a crouch. Her clothes ripped as white fur emerged from her skin, her face growing thinner and longer. Julia gasped as Dee's lips drew back to reveal gleaming white teeth, and with a shake of the head the last of her clothing fell away from her. She stood in front proudly, a sleek white wolf with eyes that twinkled and told Julia that yes, this was the same person, this was her grandmother.

"Granny Dee," she whispered. The blanket around her shoulders slipped down slightly as her fingers went weak. She knew what this meant.

If Dee was a wolf, then so was Julia.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Damien stood in front of the male wolf, every sense of his at the ready. He could smell the scent coming off of the wolf's pelt, a mixture of sweat, fear, and fight. He could hear the leaves crackling as the wolf shifted his weight on the ground from one foot to the other. He was ready.

The first strike came to the side of him, and the noise almost made him jump before he could think. The female wolf had lunged at Jordan, and Damien could tell that the wolf in front of him had shifted to see the fight. Off balance for just a moment, it was the right time to make a move. Damien leapt forward and knocked into the wolf, rolling back before the jaws could snap at him. He yipped to keep track of the wolf's position.

The scuffling of paws told him Jordan and the female had broken apart. Dee and Trax had not yet started to fight, still circling each other in the middle. Neither seemed to want to make the first move. The initial seconds of the fight were crucial, once someone had gotten hold with a bite. Damien worried about Dee. She was so small compared to the leader, and although she seemed to have confidence in her ability, he could not help but be anxious about her survival. One blow from Trax's huge paws and she would be dead.

The wolf in front of him dug his claws into the earth. It was hard to keep the sounds separated now that there was so much going on, but Damien narrowed his attention to the space in front of him. A few feet were all that separated him from the other wolf. They circled, and Damien moved so that he would stand in between Julia and the wolf. The flames of the bonfire were hotter here, and he could feel Julia at his back, just behind him. He growled at the male wolf just as he lunged, and threw himself to one side.

It was not fast enough. The wolf snapped his jaws on Damien's scruff and got ahold of him by the neck. Then they were rolling and kicking, Damien letting himself go loose at just the right time to avoid his neck being snapped. The whole clearing erupted in howls and yelps as each of the pairs of wolves began to battle.

The leader had begun to fight Dee. Damien could hear the high-pitched yips and the light patter of her paws dancing across the earth. He could hear everything. Time slowed to a crawl and then he kicked out. A lucky strike. He felt his claws take hold and tear into the wolf's side, all the way down his leg. The wolf tried to stand but collapsed in front of Damien. He whimpered, his scent overwhelmingly that of fear. Damien knew that he was scared to die. Completely crippled, though, he was no danger to Julia or to himself, and Damien needed to help the others.

He turned back to the leader. Jordan and the female seemed equally matched on the other side of the clearing. They were both being cautious; a good thing. It was good for the fight to take more time, now that their group outnumbered the other pack. Damien did not want to see Jordan hurt.

The leader backed up, his haunches to the bonfire. Dee and Damien circled around on opposite sides, closing in on him in the middle. Damien knew that attacking from two sides was always more than twice as effective, and Dee seemed to have the same idea. But with the fire so close, they could not get near him without the risk of being thrown in if he were to shove them aside. Jordan and the female clashed again, rolling toward the trees, and Damien knew that they must act soon to finish the fight. Dee tensed, and Damien moved in just a microsecond after she did. Trax spun to face Damien just as he moved in for a blow.