Thrown to the Wolves (Black River Pack Book 3) (2 page)

“Course they do, dream girl,” Spencer murmured as he nuzzled her neck. “My brothers aren’t fools, and you can trust in the fact that we will figure this out.”

“Figure what out?” I asked.

“When I left my pack, I knew that my mom had died with the alpha’s son and my dad had been injured. Before I left the area, I had been told he was gone too. All this time, I thought he was dead, so I never looked back—never tried to find him. But he was in the dream I had last night. He’s alive and he’s coming here,” she explained.

“Isn’t that good news?” I asked, confused by why learning that Eliza’s dad hadn’t died would be a bad thing.

“Yes,” she sighed. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to know he’s alive, but he isn’t by himself and there’s trouble on his heels.”

“You know I’ll help any way I can,” I offered, still unclear as to why they were worried about my reaction to her dream.

“Let her finish,” Spencer said.

“I saw him with a woman in my dream. She’s young and she’s been hurt. Badly enough that she could barely walk. My dad was helping her, and it seemed like they were trying to get away from someone or something,” Eliza explained.

“So, your dad’s with a young babe?” I joked.

“Parker,” my brother growled out in frustration. My habit of cracking jokes when I was nervous always drove him nuts.

“It’s not like that,” Eliza whispered. “She’s not just any woman.”

“Then who is she?” I asked.

“Your mate,” she replied. “I think my dad has been searching for me and finally found out where I am. I think he’s on his way here, and somehow, he has your mate with him.”

“My mate?” I echoed back, my head reeling from what she’d just said.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “My dream ended with a stream of images, and most of them were of you and this woman together in the future.”

My heart raced at the thought of finally finding her—the woman who was destined to be my mate. My brothers liked to tease me about being a bit of a white knight because I had a habit of helping women who were in distress, but I couldn’t stop myself from doing it. Ever since our grandmother had told me that my mate would have been discarded by her family, I’d struggled with the knowledge that she could be out there somewhere, desperately in need of help, without my being able to give it to her. So I’d compensated by aiding other women in the hope that someone else would be there for my mate when I couldn’t be. If Eliza’s dream was right, then I might not have to wait much longer.

“When?” I rasped out. “Were there any signs pointing to when she would be here?”

“I can’t be sure,” Eliza said with a look of apology on her face. “But I feel like it might be this winter.”

“Thank fuck,” I whispered, a huge wave of relief rolling through me.

“I wish that were all I saw,” she murmured. “It looked like they were in trouble, and it’s going to follow them here.”

“What kind of trouble?” I demanded, ignoring the frown my brother sent my way at my tone.

“I think my dad helped her escape from a bad situation, but they didn’t get away easily. She was injured pretty badly, so maybe they left a trail of some kind that will lead right to our door,” she explained.

“Then I’ll need to be ready,” I said as I stood to pace the room.

“I think you meant to say ‘we’ there, little brother,” Spencer corrected.

“She’s
my
mate,” I argued. “
My
responsibility.”

“Yes, she’s your mate,” he agreed. “But that makes her my sister,
and
I’m the pack enforcer. It also makes her the sister of our alpha. Plus, if she’s with Eliza’s dad, then whatever the hell is going on is my business too.”

I knew that what Spencer was saying was true, and my brothers and I had always faced problems as a team in the past. The idea that my mate was out there somewhere right now, injured and in need of help, was killing me though. My wolf was straining against my flesh, trying to get out so he could hunt her down, but I knew it wouldn’t be that simple. If it had taken this long for Eliza’s dad to find her—and they were running from trouble—then odds were they wouldn’t be easy to find. Now wasn’t the time to let my pride get in the way of being smart.

“I think
we
are going to need help,” I admitted. “Someone who has the contacts we don’t to see if they can find out where they are, why they’re running, and what kind of trouble is following them here.”

Spencer squeezed Eliza before setting her down next to him on the couch so he could stand too. As he walked towards me, I saw the faraway look he got in his eye when he was thinking about the solution to a particularly hard problem. When his eyes locked with mine, they held determination and a hint of resignation. I knew I probably wasn’t going to like the answer he’d come up with.

“The McMahon clan,” he said. “They know people in all the right—and wrong—places. If anyone would be able to sniff out a lead on Eliza’s dad and your mate with the limited information we have, it would be them.”

“Fuck,” I hissed. “Those crazy bears are our best bet? Then we’re screwed.”

“Yeah. They aren’t real big on helping outsiders,” Spencer agreed.

“And we definitely qualify as outsiders since we’re wolves and not bears,” I grumbled. “How the hell are we going to get them to agree to help us out?”

“Does it help that, right before I woke up, I saw an image of you holding a bear cub in your arms, Parker?” Eliza asked.

“It could mean anything,” I murmured. “But if we can convince the McMahons that your dream impacts the bears somehow, then they might be willing to help us.”

“Did you see anything else about bears in your dream?” Spencer asked her.

Eliza closed her eyes and sat quietly for a moment, her head tilted to the side while she thought. Suddenly, her eyes popped open, and she looked at me in shock.

“I think she might be bear, too.”

I was certain I’d heard her wrong, since a wolf being paired with a bear wasn’t something I’d ever encountered before. “Who? My mate?”

“I’m not sure because the images I saw of her when she was young were of her surrounded by wolves. It doesn’t really make sense, but I have this impression she isn’t wolf but bear. She doesn’t look like any she-wolf I’ve ever met before, either,” Eliza answered.

And that’s when it hit me—Eliza knew what my fated mate looked like. “Describe her to me,” I requested, my throat tightening with emotion as I spoke. “Please.”

“Oh, Parker,” Eliza sighed. “She’s beautiful. At first glance, you might think she is wolf because of her coloring. Her hair is long and a caramel-brown color, and her eyes are so dark they look almost black.”

“But when you looked more closely, you saw something that made her seem different from other she-wolves?” I asked, impatient to hear more about my mate.

“Curves,” she answered. “I hope you like them because your mate has them, and that’s why I thought she didn’t look like a she-wolf. She could be bear based on the female ones I’ve met before, and that’s why I saw you holding a bear cub in your arms in the dream. Although she seemed kinda small for a bear.”

“Small and curvy?” I repeated.

“Well, it was hard to tell because she was hunched over when my dad was helping her walk,” she replied.

Her answer brought me back to what was important. It didn’t really matter if my mate was short or tall, curvy or skinny, bear or wolf. What mattered was that she was in danger and I needed to find her as soon as possible.

“We tell the McMahon clan about Eliza’s dream, and we make sure they understand that she thinks my mate is a bear shifter. It’s the easiest way to ensure they are willing to help us,” I told Spencer.

He raised his eyebrows as he looked my way because it was unusual for me to take the lead with either of my older brothers. Hunter was my alpha and Spencer was my enforcer—but this woman was my mate and she was in danger. That trumped everything else.

“You want me to call them or do you want to do it yourself?” Spencer asked.

His question let me know he understood where I was coming from. If it were Eliza in the same situation, he would insist on calling the shots even if he were having this same conversation with Hunter.

“Do you have the number?” I asked while I tugged my cell phone out of my pocket.

Spencer pulled up his contacts and handed his phone over to me with the information for Carrick McMahon on the screen. He was the head of his clan and rumored to be the biggest black bear shifter in America, whose beast tipped the scale at close to six hundred pounds. He had a fierce reputation amongst the shifter community, and even though it was common knowledge that he liked to limit his contact with non-bears, he’d managed to collect favors from just about everyone over the years.

Carrick had never taken a mate, but he did have three sons he’d raised on his own. Triplets who had come from one of the humans he had taken as a lover. It was a strange quirk that a man who was so vocal about bears sticking with other bears had tended to stick with human women over the years. Nobody knew why he hadn’t taken a she-bear to mate, and he wasn’t volunteering the information. Unfortunately, he wasn’t shy about his animosity towards wolves, so I wasn’t looking forward to asking him for help.

Chapter 2

Annora

“She’s not staying here. This way, she gets a new home and she will have managed to pay me back for all the years I’ve raised her lazy ass.”

My father’s voice carried through my bedroom door. It was locked from the outside—a new measure he had taken the day after my mom had dropped her bombshell about my conception. If I’d thought I’d had no freedom before that day, I’d learned very quickly how wrong I’d been.

I had been ordered to keep my mouth shut and my head down while he figured out what to do with me. The rage in his eyes whenever he looked at me convinced me to take his warning seriously because I didn’t want to give him any reason to punish me. I didn’t think it would take much to send him over the edge.

My mom wasn’t much better. I’d tried talking with her a couple of times, but she could barely look me in the eye. She wouldn’t answer any of my questions, and I was afraid to push too hard because I knew my father would be livid if he found out I was asking her anything about my conception.

What I found the most confusing about this crazy situation was the apology I saw flash through her eyes each time her gaze did lock with mine when I had been expecting to see sadness or anger or fear. I couldn’t understand why she would feel the need to gain my forgiveness. Then I figured that maybe it was because she knew things were heading towards disaster for me with the man she had mated.

“A new home?” my mother hissed her response. “You can’t call living with those heathens a home. What you’re suggesting is a forced mating with a man who is known for his brutality. How would we even know she would be safe with them?”

“It wouldn’t be forced if she accepts my decision, which she’ll do if she knows what’s good for her!” he roared.

It sounded like he didn’t have any doubt that he’d be able to get me to do what he wanted. He’d trained me to obey his commands over the years, so I could understand why he’d think I’d go along with his plan—whatever it was. However, after I’d spent the last few weeks knowing he wasn’t my real father, my eyes had been opened to how wrong our relationship had always been. He didn’t really care about my happiness before, and now, he cared even less. I was just a pawn for him to use to his advantage without a care about my well-being.

“But the rumors about him are horrible. He sounds like a monster,” she halfheartedly protested on my behalf as I heard them move downstairs.

Their voices didn’t carry as well from down there, so I had to place my ear against the door in order to hear them.

“We’re lucky he wants her,” my father replied. “Do you want him to come after me for what I owe him? I’m your mate.”

“And she’s my child,” my mom reminded him.

“Your bastard child from the man who raped you,” he argued.

I couldn’t hear the rest of their conversation after the front door opened and closed. So I ran to my window, hoping their voices would drift up from the porch, but I must have missed the end of their argument, because my mom was walking towards her car. When she glanced up at my window, I could see the tears streaming down her cheeks.

Staring up at me, she mouthed, “I’m sorry,” before climbing into the car and driving away.

My mom wasn’t going to go against her mate to try to protect me, and even though I’d been taught to obey my father, I couldn’t walk blindly to whatever fate awaited me. Besides, he wasn’t really my father. Not anymore.

****

“Get in the goddamn car!” my father roared.

It had only been hours since my mom had left, and he’d just dragged me from my room, down the stairs, and out the door without saying a word. The rage in his eyes as he looked at me let me know he was angry enough to beat me if I disobeyed, but I couldn’t go along with what he had planned for me—even if I didn’t know exactly what that was.

Struggling against him, I tried my best to get away. “No!” I cried out as I jerked my wrist out of his grasp and turned to run.

He jumped after me and took me to the ground. “Eighteen years I’ve housed you, fed you, and put up with your lazy ass,” he rumbled. “Now, you have a chance to pay me back for everything I’ve done for you. So you will get your ass in my car and do exactly what I tell you. Because if you don’t, I’ll beat you until you’re willing to say yes anyway. And then, when I get home, I’ll make your mom pay for your insubordination.”

If his words hadn’t scared me, the evil promise in his eyes certainly would have. I didn’t have much energy left because I’d barely eaten in days. And as the scent of his rage hit my nostrils, I felt more defeated than I ever had in my short life. I didn’t see any way out of this mess other than to go along with what he was telling me to do. So with my head dropped low, I stared at the ground as I slowly moved towards the car and climbed in.

After an hour into the drive, the silence started to get to me. He’d barely glanced my way the whole time, and I could practically taste the tension in the air. Not knowing where we were going or what was going to happen to me was driving me crazy. Thirty minutes later, I couldn’t take it anymore.