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  Major was going to be so pissed, but I had a clear shot at this bitch, and I wasn’t about to waste it. She’d sent all her wolves to fight us, and the cocky bitch left herself unprotected. I sunk my teeth into her shoulder, shaking her down to the ground. I didn’t have much time to get my point across. The pack would run to protect their alpha, and I knew I’d just put a gun to my own head.

  I showed her the same mercy she’d given me a month before. My fangs ripped through her flesh, no regard for the damage I caused. Hot blood splashed against my fur, smoke rose in the cool night. Her protests began as profanities, then faded to something truly feral as the pain rocketed through her. I knew exactly how she felt.

  Payback was a bitch named Ember Randall.

  Pain ripped through me. Claws, belonging to Ember and her wolves, slashed my fur. Teeth sunk into my flesh. But I wasn’t running from this fight. I wouldn’t flee from my own forest.

  “X!” Major roared. “Fuck!” My brothers pulled me away from Ember, the Channings warded off her pack.

  Ember lay motionless on the forest floor.

  “Is she dead?” Shea asked.

  Her fur rose. It could’ve been a breath or a breeze, too slight to know for sure. “No. Dead is too easy. I want to watch her leave our forest with her tail between her legs.”

  Chapter Three

  Chandra

  “Are they always gone this long?” I couldn’t tear myself away from the window, hoping X and his brothers would come back into view. They’d been away for just a few hours, but time was doing that funny thing when it dragged out indefinitely. The house was full, all the females were still here, but the silence was deafening.

  X’s declaration echoed in my brain ever since the wolves disappeared from sight.

  She’s my mate.

  Don’t get me wrong, I felt something, too. More than I’d ever felt for another person. He’d been a wolf, I’d been human, and the concept of forever seemed huge. We needed to talk.

  Delaney shrugged, holding court in the other window. Shea had taken a piece of her with him to the forest. I couldn’t imagine going through this as a human. I knew nothing of the forest except for what I’d witnessed in this house, but at least I had my animal instincts.

  Cass and I had shifted back to human already, no fanfare here. My first shift in the forest had been monumentally underwhelming. All this time I dreamed of running and exploring Sawtooth. Instead I’d been placed under house arrest, left alone to defend who I was when I didn’t have any of the answers. My heart hurt, and I wasn’t sure what it even ached for. Something that might not exist.

  Cass sat on the couch, her daughter sleeping with her head in her mother’s lap. Her eyes narrowed, she could feed me whatever bullshit she wanted, but Cass was on edge, too. I was right to worry. “You have no experience with any pack?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Just my parents. They moved to Atlanta before I was born, and kept me away from our family and any other wolves. If there are any in Georgia, I never saw them.”

  Cass’ lip curled up, skeptical. Honestly, I was exhausted. I’d been anxious about tonight, and nothing had been resolved. After I’d been here all month, taking care of her pack, her attitude didn’t exactly say thank you. I wasn’t looking for fanfare. That’s not why I took care of X or anyone else. I helped animals because it was what I was born to do, a way to be close to what I really was. Without my practice, I was broken. But all this suspicion was something I hadn’t been prepared for when I came here.

  “How come no one knows about you? Connie’s worked with me for five years. Never told me she had a niece.” Cass slid a menacing look to Connie. The two of them were in a constant tug-of-war.

  My aunt, who’d been dozing in the recliner since midnight, jumped at the mention of her name. “My sister and her mate left in the middle of the night without a word. I didn’t know she was pregnant. There was a huge scandal. We assumed foul play, because her husband had had some trouble with the Rykers. When she reached out to me, years later, she didn’t tell me about Chandra. I didn’t know about her until she called me to tell me my sister died.”

  That had been an awkward conversation. I knew my parents meant well, keeping me a secret, but instead I felt shame, having to explain who I was, as an adult, to my own family.

  Cass sighed. “I get it. My husband insisted we ‘contract’ Emma, that’s how the wealthy families refer to it. They contract wives for their sons. In the forest, we’re a little plainer with our language. My daughter has been sold to a man she’s never met. Walter—that was my husband’s name—shook the man’s hand, took a check and signed a contract. I had no say in any of it. Her mate is still a boy, and I’m doing everything I can to get her out of it. I know I’m putting her in danger, but my daughter is not for sale.”

  Emma snuggled in her mother’s lap, a smile playing across her lips in her sleep. That little girl didn’t have a worry in the world. Not now, anyway. I couldn’t imagine having to go through that. Not only on my own, but I could never wave goodbye to my daughter, knowing that was her fate.

  “Then why are you giving me shit?” I asked.

  “Because while you were in Atlanta, or wherever you were, we learned that we couldn’t trust anyone in Sawtooth Forest. I was sold, my true mate was beaten within an inch of his life, and we’ve had everything taken away from us. What you saw, when X was at his worst, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Stick around, you’ll see.” Cass adjusted Emma’s blanket, her expression softening when she looked down at her daughter. “How did you find out about Sawtooth, if your parents kept it a secret?”

  “After they died, I had to clean out their house. I didn’t belong in Atlanta, I knew that, but I didn’t know where to go. Tucked away in my mom’s stuff, I found the book that you’ve probably read to Emma a thousand times.”

  “The one about Sawtooth Forest and finding your mate?” Cass asked, even though she knew the answer. I nodded, and she sighed, her head falling back on the cushion. “There’s something magical about that story. It’s total bullshit but every wolf in the pack thinks of it as gospel.”

  “It’s beautiful.” The story grabbed ahold of me. That night I’d never felt so alone or needed my mother more, but in her death she’d given me the one thing she’d tried so hard to keep me away from—my identity, and the place I truly belonged. “I was thirty years old the first time I read it, and I cried like a baby. I was a veterinarian with a booming practice, I had a great boyfriend that I knew I’d never marry, a beautiful house, and I felt empty inside. Like a shadow walker. I read that book and I knew where I needed to be.”

  It took me almost seven years to find the courage to walk away from that life and come here. I never dreamed I wouldn’t be welcome.

  “That book lied to all of us.” Cass stroked Emma’s hair. “It’s a fairy tale that doesn’t exist.”

  “No, it didn’t. You’re with your mate.”

  Cass’ lips curled in a feral smile. “You have no idea what I’ve been through—“

  The door crashed open. The Channings and the Lowes had all shifted back to human. Now they were out of breath, covered in blood and dirt, and most of all, very naked. Occupational hazard of being a shape shifter, I knew that, but this was the first time I’d ever seen Xavier Lowe in his human form.

  It was worth the wait. All of it. The thirty-seven years I’d been rambling alone through the world, wondering what the hell I was and where I belonged. Hiding my shift. Wanting this. X’s dark brown hair brushed his shoulders, falling in front of his face. I didn’t expect he’d have a beard. Muscles rippled under the grime, and there were no signs of how close this man had been to death last moon cycle. And those eyes. Warm caramel, and just as addictive. They were the same as when he was a wolf, but in this new packaging, I couldn’t breathe when his gaze locked with mine.

  We had so much to say, automatically back to the place where X claimed me with those three words. I opened my mouth to tell him so
mething, anything, everything, but no words came out. The rules had changed and I didn’t know what they were to begin with.

  X came over to me. Determination and something that made my insides throb uncontrollably swirled in those incredible eyes. He pulled me into his body roughly and his lips crashed against mine in a kiss.

  I was too stunned to move. This gorgeous, naked man kissed me in a room full the people who, whether they wanted me or not, had become my whole world in such a short amount of time. I imagined this is what it felt like to be stuck in a snow globe, frozen in time with everything raining down around me. Like the decorative orb, it was magical.

  X didn’t give up. His lips moved against mine, coaxing them open. Just like those candy-colored eyes, he tasted salty, sweet, and a little bit forbidden. He’d been starving for this for much longer than the month I’d cared for him, and so had I. I hadn’t exactly been holding out for my true mate, but the way X touched me, his hand cupping the back of my head protectively, his thumb massaging my nape in time with the kiss, I felt like I’d never done this before.

  Thank God he held on to me. X probably thought I’d run, but this kiss had turned my knees to junk.

  “Come upstairs with me,” he whispered against my cheek.

  “X, I…uh…” I had no idea what to say. I forced myself to look away from him, to the rest of the room. They were probably aware of what we were doing, but they didn’t care. There were several similar reunions happening all around us. It was funny, this passion I’d craved all my life scared the hell out of me when I held it in my hands. “We should probably…”

  “Talk?” He grinned. “Believe me, there’s a lot of things I’ve been fantasizing about doing with you in my bedroom. How do you think I got through this month? I want to know everything about you.”

  I laughed, falling against him in relief. “Talking sounds amazing.”

  He led me upstairs, his hand in mine. The Lowes had a full house, and I’d been sleeping in his bed since I got here. Once X was well enough to move, he joined me. At first he slept at the foot of the bed, but in the last week or so, I’d wake up to find him curled up against my back. It had been really hard to get out of bed. Warm wolf snuggles were so good.

  I stood in the middle of the room, shell-shocked, like I’d never been there before.

  “Make yourself at home.” X smiled at me as he dug in a drawer for pants. I was sorry to lose the view, but still thankful he put them on. His body changed everything, like I knew it would when he shifted to human, but who knew he’d be so damn distracting? I knew my way around a naked man, for crying out loud. I settled on the bed. He sat beside me, and the smile hadn’t faded. I loved the way it made his eyes crinkle. He ran his hand down his thigh, and that pulsing returned, along with a ridiculous urge to follow the motion. “I’ve been dying to put on clothes all month.”

  “What do you prefer to be?” I asked. I was much more comfortable as a human, but I’d never relaxed enough as a wolf to have an opinion.

  “I’d probably get kicked out of the pack if I didn’t say wolf. Being a wolf is pretty damn awesome, when shit isn’t hitting the fan. But lately, the fan keeps splattering that stuff everywhere. We need those little dog boots not to step in it. And since I haven’t been human for a month, I’m biased. I miss doing all the boring, day to day crap that I’d probably bitch about if I never got a break from it.”

  I didn’t expect him to be so funny. My smile mirrored his. “Like what? You work with Major at the motorcycle shop, right?”

  “I do. I love building things, taking them apart, figuring out what makes them tick, and then making them even better. Motors, appliances, computers, whatever. It fascinates me, how two things that have nothing to do with one another can come together and make something greater than the sum of its parts. I suppose that’s what I love about the packs, too. On our own, we’re weak. We can kick ass, but we’ll never accomplish anything. That’s what I always tell Shea—now that he has a mate, maybe it will sink through his thick skull.” X picked up my hand, turning it over, considering it. “Sorry, a month as a wolf and I can’t shut up.”

  “Keep talking. I love it,” I said. X was nothing like his brothers. Even though I could understand him in his wolf form, he’d been quieter, moody. Not like this. “We’ve spent so much time together and tonight’s like a blind date.”

  “Right?” He laughed, curling up on his pillow. “I should take a shower before I get too comfortable.”

  “No.” I reached out for him, relishing the immediate reaction that surged through my skin. “I like it. I can’t lie. I’m….disappointed that I didn’t get to run with you tonight. I’ve never had a chance to actually be a wolf. I’ve had to hide my whole life, and tonight was no different. Tell me everything. And don’t mind me if I get too close.” I crawled beside him, shocking myself by being so familiar. I usually saved this kind of behavior for date three. There was no way to measure our time together so far. “I can smell the forest on you. It’s kind of sexy.”

  “Is it?” He rumbled, pulling me close like we’d been doing this forever. The only evidence we hadn’t was his heart pounding against my chest. “You’re not so bad yourself. Get as close as you want.” X studied my face, like he was seeing it through new eyes. “What do you mean, you had to hide?”

  Cass’ rejection still rattled me. “I asked you first.”

  That smile was going to become a new addiction. I didn’t have that kind of personality, but when I fell, I went hard. The smile faded, and his brow furrowed as the night replayed in his mind. “Major and Shadow didn’t want us to fight tonight. Their strategy was not to lose anything else. No wolves, no land. We’re in crisis here, Chandra, I don’t know if you realize that. The forest is being cleared every day, and even though this place sounds like a rent by the hour hotel lately, we had no mates. The man who bought Cass is dead, that’s the only reason she’s with Major. And Delaney’s not Shea’s mate, in the traditional sense. She’s human. This Montana pack can smell weakness, and we’re wearing it like cheap cologne. Dallas, Shea and I weren’t about to play defense. They attacked us, and it was personal. So we had our own message for them.”

  Now my heart was pounding, too. “Are you hurt?” He was filthy, but he didn’t smell hurt. It was an aroma that turned my stomach as a vet. When an animal needed more than I could give them.

  “Never felt better.” He clutched me, proving his full strength.

  It was getting hard to concentrate. “So what happened?”

  “We got them to retreat, which is huge. Even before last month’s shift, they’d been giving us shit. And now they’re trying to buy the town out from underneath us to build a resort. We attacked Ember, the female alpha. Not sure how much you’ve picked up on while you’ve been here. Their pack is the complete opposite of ours. She fights like a wolf three times her size, but we had her down for the count. It’s a beautiful thing.”

  “Doesn’t sound like that will be the end of it.” I sighed. “Do you ever have peace?”

  X pulled me in closer, and he didn’t answer right away. “The simple answer is no. There’s always something to fight for. But moments like this, lying here with you, knowing I can do it forever, that’s the stuff that makes it all worth it. That’s why we fight.” He kissed the top of my head. “I showed you mine, now you have to show me yours.”

  Chapter Four

  X

  Chandra stiffened in my arms. I’d waited so long to do this, hold her, but I’d come on strong. Too strong, probably. My feelings for her were frigging intense. She’d saved my life, but it wasn’t just that. It was the little things. The way she quietly stood up to Cass and Major, how gentle and understanding she was with Emma and Delaney, and the way she laughed at Shea’s dumb shit. Chandra belonged here, in my life. The Lowes weren’t an easy family to understand, and she’d made it look effortless.

  But something scared her, and I’d do anything to make it go away.

  She attemp
ted a smile, but it was thin and wobbly. It threatened to break, and no matter how good I was with my hands, I wasn’t sure I could put it back together the way it was. “I don’t know the whole story yet, but I think I’m the only unpromised she-wolf in the Sawtooth Forest packs.”

  My mouth fell open. As much as I hoped that was the case, I’d given up all hope of actually having a true mate, one that belonged to the forest, someone who could carry on all the things that were important. Pack and family. This gorgeous place we were lucky enough to call home. Major pissed me off, thinking Chandra would cause more harm than good in the long run, but a piece of me agreed with him, because I didn’t dare to fool myself into thinking there was another option.

  “Holy shit.” This was amazing. “How?”

  “Like I said, I don’t know the whole story. Only what Aunt Connie can fill in. Very few baby girls were being born, and the wealthy wolves had started buying them. My parents freaked out, left without telling anyone they were pregnant. There was no way to know what they were having back then, but Mom said she knew I’d be a girl, so they just got the hell out. They raised me in Atlanta, and I never saw another wolf besides them until I came here to take care of you.”

  “What happened when you shifted?” I couldn’t imagine not knowing any other wolves. We were social creatures, and we hated to be alone. That’s why I was thirty-two and still lived with my brothers. They were noisy and obnoxious, but they were awesome and my life would suck without them.

  Chandra’s eyes darkened. “We hid it. Stayed home, and it was weird and confusing. We lived in the middle of the city with nowhere to run. Now I know what I craved was forest, but I never had it. The whole reason I became a vet was to figure out what the hell I was. I kept up the lie, through college and even adulthood, because I didn’t know any other way. I lived with my boyfriend for five years and he never knew I was a wolf.”

  “He’s not still your boyfriend, is he?” I didn’t mean to growl, but fuck, the thought of another man touching what was mine sent an angry wave of jealousy rumbling through me like thunder.