Wolf Rock Shifters Books 1-5: Five BBW Paranormal Romance Standalone Novels (49 page)

B
efore he’d even attempted
to sit down, Dascha could see that the window seat on the London-bound 737 was far too small for a wolf shifter. As far as he could tell, it would even have been insufficient for a slightly taller-than-average eight-year-old.

But after all, this was the beginning of his penance, and he reminded himself why he was currently crammed into a giant metal tube like a sardine, surrounded by hundreds of humans who were insane enough to do this for pleasure.

He squeezed into the seat, his elbows pinning themselves to his sides as another, much smaller passenger eased her way in next to him, leaving the aisle seat empty, apparently for some invisible person who never materialized—and yet nothing seemed to compel her to move one over, to leave him a little breathing room. He averted his gaze, wanting to avoid eye contact or any risk of conversation, staring instead out at the plane’s long white wing and the tarmac beyond.

All right. So for the next several hours personal space would not exist, though perhaps he could still find a way to catch some shut-eye during the course of the overnight flight. But for now, Dascha accessed his mind in an attempt at a mental escape, contemplating the logistics of the daunting task ahead of him.

“
E
stée was
last seen weeks ago,” Cecile had told him as she’d provided the wolf shifter with her younger sister’s last known address: an apartment that she shared with an English housemate. “If something’s happened to her, if someone’s trying to hurt her…find whoever it is. Kill them if you must.”

Such words could only have come from a protective sister. And a tiger shifter, at that. Dascha had promised whole-heartedly to find Estée, and he fully intended to make good on his word; after all, he couldn’t afford to stay in the town’s communal doghouse any longer. The pack would kick his ass to the curb if he screwed up again, and he didn’t entirely blame them for it.

He hadn’t always been a great guy, or even a moderately good one, and the last few months had only served to prove his own shortcomings and vulnerabilities. His pack was displeased with him, to put it mildly. And this was his chance to make things right; to prove his worth, to show his strength and to assure them that he wasn’t in fact the most selfish jackass west of the Mississippi.

In his defence, he’d been hit in recent months by a perfect storm of problems, the sort that slam into a young shifter when he hits a certain point in his life:

1.
Coming of Age in a Wolf Pack.

There is a hierarchy within every pack, of course: the most powerful wolf is the Alpha. Everybody knows that. The other wolves respect his position.

And in Wolf Rock, the most powerful was Tristan; no one disputed it. But when the Alpha had needed to leave town, he’d left Dascha in charge, to make decisions and lead their peers through any issues that might arise.

Perhaps Tristan had too much faith in him, or perhaps the timing of Dascha’s substitute leadership had simply been unfortunate. But when a crisis had struck that required the pack’s aid, the temporary leader had been incapable of taking on the responsibility thrust in his lap. In fact, he’d been worse than useless.

Perhaps it was the naïve arrogance that comes from youth, but Dascha had never quite grasped the responsibilities involved in a leadership role, or in looking after others. In the case of a pack such as theirs, this was often a matter of life or death, the stronger protecting the weaker against threats. And if an Alpha couldn’t do that, he was marked for life: unworthy. Un
trust
worthy.

He’d failed on every front. But it hadn’t entirely been his fault.

Which brings us to:

2:
The Mating Rituals of Shifters.

Dascha’s hormones had reared their ugly head at exactly the wrong time in a case of what was known as Male Heat. He’d met a woman just before Tristan had thrust him into the role of substitute Alpha: She’d been an unsuitable one, who wasn’t ever meant to be his mate—which he knew
now.
She was no one, really; simply another shifter who happened to arouse something that had sat dormant deep inside him. And it wasn’t entirely his fault that he’d found her attractive; it was just one of those things, like faulty wiring setting a fire inside a wall, destroying everything in its wake until something came along and stopped it. Or the more ugly alternative: ravaging those walls from within, causing the structure to implode.

The nameless woman had known immediately that they weren’t meant to be and had rejected him outright, leaving him a sweating, raging bundle of canine testosterone, unable to satisfy his needs by any means. It wasn’t as simple for his kind as hopping into bed with a bottle of lube, a men’s magazine and a free hand; his body had needed to bond, and his flesh, his very instincts had failed him.

And getting over
that
had been like shrugging off a heroin addiction: hours of sweating, shaking, fever and pallor that made him resemble a victim of some nasty virus that could claim his life.

Most of his male friends were great at blaming their problems on women, but for them it was usually a girlfriend or wife; temporary issues causing stress which could be alleviated with some mind-blowing makeup sex, like who would take out the garbage or clean up the dishes. This was different: his out of control wolf hormones, combined with the female shifter’s immediate decision not to give him the time of day, had caused a sort of madness to set in.

His pack, who relied on him for guidance during Tristan’s absence, took all of it for a sign that he was nowhere near ready for any level of responsibility. He needed more experience, they insisted.

And despite the fact that it wasn’t his fault, he didn’t blame the pack for failing to get it—none of them had experienced this sort of untempered male wolf heat. Somehow, they all seemed to live fairytale lives that synced up in perfect harmony, as fate handed them ideally suited mates so that they could live in carnal bliss in treetops, log cabins and caves in the mountains, while Dascha suffered a fate that made blue balls look like a walk in the park.

It was probably only kindness that had prompted their Alpha, Tristan, to send him away to England on this important errand, which had the potential to redeem him. Dascha supposed that Tristan had thought it would give him a chance to clear his head, away from the stress of his usual surroundings, and to allow his pack members to see that he was willing to pay his penance for having fallen down on the job.

And so Dascha was now serving his time in the capacity of some sort of traveling Golden Retriever, sent to another continent to sniff out a missing girl.

Woman,
rather. And unfortunately, from the looks of the photo he’d been given, she was a very attractive one. Like her sister, Cecile, Estée was a white tiger shifter. In human form, she was fair-skinned and dark-haired, full-lipped as well as full-breasted, and overall, tragically, stunning. She had curves in all the most enticing places, from what Dascha could see in her photos, and somehow that had only made his job more daunting.

Why couldn’t she have been a hairy dude named Biff, who enjoyed Cheetos and video games?

But Dascha was resolute; he wouldn’t fall into the trap again. No more letting his body go nuts over a beautiful female. This time he’d resist the animal urges inside him. And it wouldn’t be difficult, either; all evidence dictated that Estée was a spoiled little rich girl, not at all his type. Alluring eyes and pouty lips couldn’t make up for an annoying personality. And no woman who looked like that could be an angel.

That wasn’t the point, of course. The real point was that she was a resident of Wolf Rock, or at least had been until she’d left town in a huff. Dascha didn’t know many of the details, but had heard that her departure had something to do with a conflict with her rich father. No doubt the man had told her she couldn’t buy a brand-new diamond tiara and she’d thrown a hissy fit over it. Then again, Cecile was no princess; she was hardy to the core and down to earth. But
she
wasn’t the runaway. Estée was.

But Dascha didn’t wish her ill, even if she did turn out to be a stuck-up princess. To him she was a mere object; at least that’s what he told himself. She was nothing more than a plain brown canvas suitcase to retrieve in London and carry back, its precious cargo unharmed so that daddy could give her hugs and tell her how worried he’d been and that yes, of course she could have all the sparkly things she wanted.

And how hard could it be to find her, right? A woman like that would stick out like a sore thumb in London or anywhere else. No doubt he’d locate her within forty-eight hours, get her ass on the next plane back to Colorado and boom. Done. He’d wash his hands of the whole thing, the pack would forgive him, pat him on the back, and that would be the end of it.

And so, dressed in his jeans, leather motorcycle chaps, a leather jacket and white t-shirt, he’d climbed onto the airplane, escaping one life in favour of another, temporary one. His clothing had been made by a tailor in Wolf Rock who specialized in shifter gear; garments made to tear away from the body during a shift so they didn’t get completely wrecked. This was a relatively new phenomenon and one for which the pack was grateful. It had saved them thousands of dollars in ruined jeans and t-shirts over the months. Hopefully the tearaway clothing wouldn’t be necessary; maybe the entire trip could be spent in human form, his wolf temporarily forgotten.

Dascha had packed only enough luggage to last a few days, utterly confident that it would be more than enough time to complete the mission.

Confidence was sometimes a beautiful thing. But sometimes it bit people—and shifters—right in the ass. If he’d known what fate had in store for that ass of his, he might well have gone back to bed instead, and told the pack to leave him the hell alone for one more day.

“
L
et
me tell you about my granddaughter.”

After only an hour of flight, the six thousand-year-old woman seated next to him had already droned relentless streams of facts about her life. As she fidgeted with the seat tray, Dascha was convinced that she was pulling it over her lap in an attempt to create a barricade, ensuring that he would be trapped by her side for at least several hours; enough time to listen to, oh, a fifth or so of her extraordinarily detailed life story.

During the moments when he wasn’t searching her face for an expiry date, he fantasized about leaping over her into the aisle and sprinting the length of the plane, tearing handfuls of his dark hair out and screaming, “Why won’t she shut her food-hole? WHY?”

She’d recently had a knee replaced, he learned.
And
a hip. As far as Dascha could gather from her tales of being cut open and filled with round chunks of titanium, her skeleton was made mostly of metal by now. She was amazing; like some sort of robot that never,
ever
stops talking. In a tragic twist of fate, the doctors had somehow forgotten to wire her jaw shut.

Her
arthritis?
Now, that was another matter entirely, and she’d touched on it on at least four separate occasions, explaining to the shifter how she’d tried everything from acupuncture (apparently she’d been naked during the sessions—an image which he could not scrub from his mind, for all his efforts) to massage (naked again) to something called “cupping,” which he wanted to know nothing about.
Nothing.

He’d managed to alter the train of conversation only by asking her to tell him about her family members. The hope was, of course, that there would be less talk of nudity and of shoving needles and anything else into her flesh. He ground his broad jaw as she continued to allow the words to flood forth from her never-tiring, flapping lips. He smiled when necessary, wondering how much damage he would do to the rounded fibreglass airplane wall if he smashed his forehead repeatedly into it. Smashing his fist through the window would also have been appealing, but seemed ill-advised at best.

“My granddaughter is twenty-two,” she continued, her voice warbling. “Oh, you two would get on so well.” She knew this how? He hadn’t gotten more than a sentence in. “She writes poetry about cats; she loves them so very much. She has five. Do
you
like cats? You must. I sense that you’re a kindly soul. All kind people enjoy cats.”

“I’m more of a dog person, really,” he growled from behind clenched teeth. “I’m somewhat allergic to cats.”
And women.

Inside, his wolf bared its fangs impatiently, itching to get on with his assigned task; to get the hell off this aircraft and hit the ground running. The time spent cooped up in this metal prison was torture, reminding him more and more of his heat and subsequent withdrawal symptoms.

He knew, of course, that it wasn’t the elderly woman’s fault that England was so far from Wolf Rock, or that he had a raging animal inside him, urging her to be silent. But somehow, rational thought wasn’t helping to curb his aggravation. He wanted so badly to shift into his fur-coated form and to pace the aisles, growling, gnashing his teeth at anyone who looked at him the wrong way.

“Well, it’s a shame that you’re not fond of cats. Because I just know that she would love you, with those handsome eyes of yours. They’re so blue, aren’t they? If I were eighty years younger, I’d be all over you like white on potato salad, I would.”

“I…thank you,” said the shifter, undoing his seatbelt. That was about all he could take. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to visit the restroom.”

“Oh! Are you going to shave?” asked his co-passenger, who eased her tray up with all the speed of a snail who’d been given an overdose of sleeping pills. “I hope you are, because that scruff of yours makes you look as though your mother doesn’t love you.”

“No, I’m afraid I’m not planning on shaving any part of me.”
If anything, I’m about to sprout coarse fur all over my body and bite your throat, Lady.

“Oh. Well, that’s too bad,” said the woman as Dascha’s muscular legs straddled her own in a failing attempt to extricate him from his noisy prison.