16. Odell
SIXTEEN
ODELL
I huddled on the couch with the quilt or two quilts bunched around me.
Images flitted through my head of guns, a panic room, marriage certificate, car, men dressed in black, a long drive, and now a wolf. There was no room left in my head for anything new, and I put up a mental “Full” sign.
But a spicy fragrance weaved its way to me, and my mouth watered. It’d been how long since the sandwiches in the car? And whatever I’d eaten while we were underground.
My tummy rumbled just as a pair of feet appeared, and I lifted my head. Curry and rice and a soda plus berries were on a footed tray. I sat back, and Hunter placed the tray over my lap. I attacked the food, the combination of spices lighting up my tongue. Shoving in the curry, my belly settled, and I took a sip of soda, the can hiding my eyes that alighted on Hunter.
“Talk.” I’d barked that order rather than speaking softly, but damn it, I was owed an explanation for the man becoming a wolf trick. It had to be a joke, a sleight of hand. But why? Whatever the reason, I’d hear him out before calling Aunt Louisa to come get me. I’d take my chances with Draven, though I’d worry about Uncle’s safety.
I should let my uncle take care of himself because he was the one that started this tragic chain of events. But though he’d betrayed me most of all, and also his wife, I couldn’t let those mob guys—I guessed the ones who’d shot at us—take their revenge on him.
I didn’t have the resources to protect him, and there was one person I knew who did: Hunter. So no matter his freaky behavior and his mob involvement, I’d have to ask him for a huge favor and secret Uncle away, maybe forever. Neither Aunt Louisa nor I wanted to be around him, but perhaps over time, we could… if not forgive him but leave the incident in the past.
“You have a lot of explaining to do.”
“True.”
He was clothed, and a tiny twinge in my briefs reminded me I’d enjoyed getting an extended peek at his substantial length.
Perhaps in another universe, we might have met at the restaurant where I worked, and he’d have left a sizable tip and his phone number. From there we might have dated, and that frisson of danger I experienced when he was close would be explained away by his mob connections. And once that was revealed, I’d have broken it off, sad our bedroom romps and late-night dates had come to an end.
“Odell.”
“Mmmm.” Conscious I had a euphoric smile slapped in my face, I replaced it with a frown.
“You weren’t daydreaming. You did see a wolf.”
“Not once did I think I was dreaming.” I straightened my spine, irritated at his condescending tone.
“Sorry, my mistake.”
His words punctured my annoyance, but he had to fill me in. Come to think of it, he’d been doing that all day. But him becoming a wolf couldn’t be explained away.
“Me and my family aren’t human.” He must have taken in my incredulous expression because he rushed on. “We are human in appearance, but we have an animal inside us.”
I tilted my head to the side, not only from disbelief but from exhaustion. “There’s that poem about a woman swallowing a fly. You trying to tell me you accidentally put a wolf in your mouth and now he lives in here?” I tapped his tummy, and he gasped.
“Explanations and history can come later.” He got up and flung off his clothes. Geez, this guy really wanted to show me his length. And holy crap, I got a better view than I had earlier. My mouth gaped, and if he’d been closer, I might have swallowed his dick.
But his cock vanished. No! Where’d it go? A sound came out of my mouth, not sure what, because the rest of him disappeared, and Hunter the man was replaced by a wolf.
Shit! Now what? I couldn’t get up, and if I did, my legs would give way. They were jelly, and I was a sitting target for a wild beast. The hairs stood up on my arms, and my skin was pin-pricked by goosebumps.
I couldn’t get my breathing under control. Huge jagged gasps of air flowed in and out of my mouth as my brain attempted to compute what I’d witnessed. But the animal was no more, and a naked Hunter was once again standing in front ofme. The threat level had decreased, but I couldn’t make sense of what I’d seen.
“Tell me that didn’t just happen.” I wanted it to be not real, but at the same time, I wasn’t dreaming and I wasn’t crazy.
“It did.” He pulled on his pants, hiding his very fine cock, and squatted on the wooden floor.
He rambled on, and I picked up pertinent pieces of information. Wolf shifter but there were other animal shifters. His family were shifters but not his brothers-in-law. They were like me, human. The kids’ status was as yet unknown. And shifters had lived among humans since forever. Before that, shifters had padded through the woods on four paws.
I rubbed my face too hard and my skin complained. “And Draven?”
“Same. He’s got his own wolf.”
“So—” Hunter opened his mouth, but I shushed him. “Let me think.”
Trawling back through the day’s events, I came to the conclusion that somehow the predicament I’d found myself in was because of shifter grievances.
“Draven, that’s an unusual name.” I’d never heard it before, not that it meant anything. There were millions of given names, and I’d encountered maybe a hundred.”What does it mean?”
Hunter squirmed and appeared more uncomfortable than he had since I met him. “Hunter.”
“I know who you are.” Maybe he needed the sofa, two quilts, and a hot drink.
“One of the meanings of Draven is Hunter. There are other interpretations, but that’s the one his family considered when he was born.”
“Hunter, just like you.” Shit. What were the chances of getting mixed up with two hunters?
“Nothing like me,” he spat out.
“Oh really?”
“Ummm, well… no, he’s a bad dude.”
I held up five fingers. “He’s mafia and so are you.” I curled one finger.
“Don’t do this, please,” he begged.
“Oh, I’m doing it. He’s a shifter, and guess what? You are too.” Another finger down. “And he kidnapped me and so did someone in this room.” Down went a third. Hunter seemed to shrink as I listed each item. “He wanted to marry me and you did too.”
“But I followed through.” His indignant tone had me giving me a little clap. I wished I had a medal to pin on his chest.
“Aww, you did. Well done, you.” Where was I? “And you’re both hunters.” I tapped my lips. “You’re correct. You’re nothing alike.”
Hunter pushed out his bottom lip. “You’re not a nice person.”
“Do you need a hug?”
His head shot up. “Do you mean that?”
I’d been taunting him, and his parted lips and eager eyes suggested he expected me to follow through. “Ummm, okay.”
I held out my arms, and he shuffled his butt over the floor. Leaning forward, I embraced him. Inhaling his scent and with his bare chest pressed against me, I closed my eyes and thought of home.
But that was stress forcing ideas into my head. This wasn’t home and neither was Hunter. Home was my aunt and had been Uncle too.
I swallowed, wishing the rest of the world would continue making its way around the sun and I could hide away. But that was kinda what I was doing here, and I had someone looking out for me. Two… not people but beings, if I counted his wolf.
“Do you know Draven well?” I mumbled into his hair.
“Not exactly.” He launched into an explanation about Draven and the Silverback pack. “He was a carbon copy of his father, the late Silverback Alpha.”
“Oh, the head guy. Like Flint is your boss. And whatever this is between you and Draven.” I twirled my finger in a circle, though he couldn’t see it because we were cuddling. “Is it because you’re shifters?” Somehow Uncle and I had been caught up in a mafia whirlpool of hate and revenge.
“Well, yes, but?—”
I pulled away and held up a finger.
Hunter scrunched up his face. “Not more fingers.” He pulled it down. “We did five. That’s enough, please.”
“Fine.” But he wasn’t going to squirm out of this. “How did he know you would be at the courthouse?”
“I suspect it’s to do with Stefan.”
“The guy you invited into the panic room. Smart.” But I’d liked him, and like me, Draven had treated him badly at the courthouse.
“He wasn’t supposed to come.” He glanced away. “Looking back, it was a stupid move.”
But we couldn’t get bogged down in blame. No, I could, but I’d keep it to myself. Nope, I shouldn’t. We were in a mess of many people’s making.
“Okay.” Draven forced Stefan to get Hunter to come in person.
“But there’s another piece to the puzzle that you should know.” He bit down hard on his bottom lip, a look that was surprisingly hot, and my dick reacted. But it was covered in a quilt or two, so Hunter had no idea my wayward length was swelling.
“And I don’t have an answer to this.” He inspected his nails. “This is hard to say.”
“If it’s about my uncle, you couldn’t tell me anything worse than what I discovered last night.”
“No. Somehow Draven discovered you were meant for me.”
Huh? Back up, I told my brain. What did he say? Meant for him? I’d heard that or something similar earlier in the day.
“Nope. I am me and?—”
He charged ahead, talking over me. “In the shifter world, many relationships are… ummm… preordained. Not all. But fated mates are determined by the universe or destiny, if you prefer that word.”
More new information knocked at the door of my brain, demanding to be let in. I didn’t want to hear any more, but he’d left me wondering what this had to do with… shit, no. Not Draven. He couldn’t be my destiny.
“We recognize our mate by their scent, and we fall into one another’s arms and mate.”
Shoot, not Draven, thank gods. But that left the man… the not-human who was the only other occupant of the cabin. The one who’d just said I was meant for him. And that word mate that had been bandied about in the panic room.
“Mate?”
“Partner, beloved. The person we walk beside until the end of our days.” He looked everywhere but at my face, and words tumbled out. “We mark one another by drawing blood, and a scar remains so all shifters know we’re mated.”
Draven had wanted to marry me, not cut me and have blood spurting out of the wound. I pulled my hand out from under the quilt and studied the scab that was forming on my palm.
I shoved my hand into Hunter’s face, so close his warm breath billowed over my skin.
“This? This is a mating… mark? You mated me because you’re a shifter, not to do with a mafia custom.”
“That’s right. But I did it to protect you. No shifter would come between us. Mating is sacred. Draven understands that, and he was trying to deliver the greatest hurt one shifter can give another.” He hurled the words out rather than spoke them.
That was the reason for his actions and dramatic flowery language. I was supposed to be his life partner.
I found my strength and stood, pushing past Hunter and pacing the floor.
“Can it be taken back? Like a divorce?”
“Well, that’s?—”
“Hunter, answer the damned question.”
“Humans can disregard the bond, but in the shifter world, it’s for life. Unless one of us dies.”
I was linked to this mafia man… this shifter… until I took my last breath.
I could freak out about us being mated and how I was going to finagle my way out of it. I’d need to look deep down inside and ask myself if I really wanted to.
But we’d come here to devise a plan to stop Draven and his cronies.
“So when and how do we figure this out?”