Chapter 11
11
JOHNNY
A half hour into the drive, Lyssa fell asleep, her head tilted to the side. My wolf preened that I’d fucked her into exhaustion. Because that was exactly what I’d done. The only reason I wasn’t out cold was that my wolf was so riled that our mate was found and that we were bringing her home. I’d turned the radio down and just settled into the peace of having her with me as I took the ever-quiet back roads.
Lyssa had packed a quick overnight bag. I’d wanted to tell her to pack all her shit, but I figured that would be too much.
When I’d asked, “Are you sure you don’t need anything else?” she’d hesitated then grabbed a cardboard box from under her bed, blushing.
“What’s that?” I’d asked, taking it from her, so she didn’t have to carry anything. “Whoa-ho!” The top of the box was open, and it was full of packaged sex toys. Dildos. Padded handcuffs. A leather paddle. And more.
My wolf celebrated the fact that they hadn’t been opened. No one else had used those toys on our mate.
“Yep,” she’d said then gave a little shrug, playing off the fact that she had a slew of sex toys tucked beneath her bed, and she’d decided to share them. That meant she wanted to use them. With me.
Fuck yeah.
“Lyssa likes it kinky,” she said, talking about herself in the third person.
“Then I like it kinky, too,” I’d said with a wink.
Fuck, yeah. I couldn’t wait to use those toys on her. Couldn’t wait to get horizontal with her again.
When I drove beneath the Wolf Ranch archway, I sighed in relief.
Setting a hand on Lyssa’s thigh, I murmured, “Wake up, baby.”
Yes. I had my mate, and we were home. My wolf was soothed to know that she was safe here. Not knowing where Chapman was made me and my wolf antsy. She worked for the fucker. Probably didn’t know he was a shifter. Certainly didn’t know he kidnapped females and trafficked them. With her at this ranch, no harm would come to her. It was my job as enforcer to keep the whole pack safe, and it was my job as mate to ensure she was protected and happy. That combination meant I was a little intense about it.
I wanted to show her the bunkhouse. Hell, I wanted to show her my bed. Our bed.
First though, was introducing her to Rob.
She was the reason I didn’t communicate with him as I should have. Plus, she was human, and she knew nothing about shifters. The only way I wasn’t going to get my head ripped off by him–figuratively and perhaps literally–was that she was my mate. I’d seen one guy after another involved with the ranch do stupid shit when they found their mates. Including Rob himself.
Still, I feared my alpha’s wrath but also had a newfound disregard for him because Lyssa was my mate. MY MATE. She came first. She was my priority. She was my life now.
Lyssa stirred, blinked. Looked around as I bumped down the long drive to the main house. “We’re here?”
“Yeah. I gotta stop in and talk to my boss.” My alpha. “You can meet everyone.”
Her eyes widened. “Meet everyone? Who is everyone ? I’m not dressed to meet a bunch of people. I didn’t even have a chance to dry my hair before we left and–”
I couldn’t help but be amused but could understand her nervousness. “They’re going to love you. And I like your hair like this.” I reached out and tugged gently on a thick tendril. “Wild, just like you are.”
She blushed then tugged down the visor to look in the mirror. After a bit of tussling with her hair, she seemed satisfied with it although it looked exactly the same to me.
I parked at the side of the house. Based on the other trucks, Rob and Colton were here. Boyd might be, too, but he often parked by the barn.
Coming around the truck, I helped her down. Kissed her once to reassure her although it was more because it’d been a few hours since I had my lips on hers.
I knocked on the side door then walked into the kitchen. While this was where Rob, Willow, Colton, and Marina lived, it was also the backbone of the ranch. Everyone, regardless of role, often ate around the huge kitchen table. It sounded so obvious, but this was how everyone connected.
“Hey!” Marina stood on the far side of the island in front of a stand mixer. It was spinning, kneading something delicious. The room smelled of vanilla and coffee. Marina was Colton’s mate, and Audrey, Boyd’s mate, was her sister. And human. She was much younger than Audrey–and Colton. Closer to my age, she had long brown curls and a delectable interest in baking.
“Morning.” I tugged Lyssa close and wrapped my arm around her waist. “Marina, this is Lyssa. Lyssa, this is Marina. She’s… dating Colton Wolf.”
Marina eyed Lyssa with nothing but warmth–and curiosity. The fact that I said dating was an easy tell to Marina that Lyssa didn’t know about shifters, otherwise I would’ve called Colton her mate . “Hey there! Nice to meet you and happy to have another girl around. Want some coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”
I looked down at Lyssa, who nodded, so I went and made us both a cup.
“What are you making?” Lyssa asked Marina.
“Oh, this is for a five-year-old's birthday cake. It’ll be space-themed. Then an anniversary cake.” She cut herself off. Laughed. “I make a lot of cakes.”
“Is this your business?”
Marina nodded. “Yeah, but not officially. Just word of mouth. I don’t want a storefront in town as that’s a ton of work, and, well, I like to be here with Colton. But in a small town like Cooper Valley, I get plenty of requests.”
“I’m impressed.”
Marina cocked her head. “Do you like sweets?”
Lyssa waved her hand through the air. “Who doesn’t?”
“Johnny, I like her already.” Marina winked at me.
I gave a sly grin in return as I handed Lyssa a mug. “Want milk or sugar?”
She shook her head. “No, black’s fine. ”
Colton came in and kissed Marina on the temple. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, his usual work clothes. At this time of day, I wasn’t sure if he’d recently come in from chores or was heading out.
Rob and Willow followed not far behind, hearing the conversation. I introduced each of them to Lyssa, and Rob and Willow poured themselves fresh coffee.
“So, where did you and Johnny meet?” Colton asked. It sounded like an innocent question, but I knew they all hung on the answer. I wouldn’t have brought a female back here unless she was my mate. Not to the main house especially.
“She, uh, works for Mitch Chapman up at his ranch.”
“Oh?” Colton’s brows shot up, clearly having heard about him from his brother. He turned his attention to Lyssa. “How long have you been working for him?”
She glanced away. “Oh, um…not long. A few months. It’s a…transition job for me.”
She sounded uncomfortable. Looked it, too. I smelled the tinge of anxiety that belied an untruth. But what would she be lying about?
Ah. I remembered what she’d said about her real profession and jumped in to put her at ease. “Lyssa is a special effects designer.”
“No kidding!” Marina exclaimed. “Like, for movies?”
Lyssa nodded. “Yes.”
I kicked myself for not already knowing the answer. I still had a thousand things to learn about the female I was going to spend the rest of my life with–the first being how to convince her of the fact that she was mine.
“So, who do you work for?” Willow asked. “Can you do that remotely?”
Again, Lyssa seemed uncomfortable. “I, uh, worked for a company in Hollywood, but I quit recently before I came here.”
Rob sent me a look.
Like me, he caught her hesitation. Almost as if she didn’t want to share something. But it could be anything. Maybe she got fired instead of quit. Maybe she just didn’t like being grilled by my pack mates.
Maybe this was all moving too fast for someone she just met yesterday. She thought she was having a wild fling, and I brought her in to meet the family. I guess that could be awkward.
I should get her out of here. We needed to get to know each other out of the sheets. In them, too.
But Rob was in grilling mode now. “How do you like ranch life? What does Mitch have you doing over there?”
Lyssa’s eyes widened, and she made a jerky movement that resulted in spilling her coffee on the kitchen floor. “Oh, whoops!” She looked around wildly for a towel.
“No worries.” I grabbed one from the oven door handle and mopped it up, trying to put her at ease. My mate was getting jumpy. I didn’t want her to regret coming here with me. “Okay, enough grilling of my girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?” She turned her face up to mine, surprise etched in the rise of her dark shapely brows.
Oops. Did I freak her out? At least I hadn’t said mate.
I gave her a lopsided smile, trying to ease the tension. “Hot date? New friend? What do you prefer?”
Our gazes tangled and held, and a more confident smile widened her cheeks. “I don’t know. Let’s go with hot date . Lyssa is all about hot dates.”
It was cute that she talked about herself in third person. Weird, but cute.
“Well, everyone.” I looped my arm around Lyssa’s waist. “I’m going to take my hot date on a hot date. Or something. While I also work,” I added and lifted my hat off in Rob’s direction.
“Yeah, speaking of work, let’s just chat in my office for a minute,” Rob said.
I looked to Lyssa.
Willow plopped onto a high stool in front of the island and patted the one beside her for Lyssa. “We’ll keep her company.”
“You good?” I asked, making sure.
She sank onto the stool and nodded, holding up her mug .
“She’ll be fine,” Marina vowed. “We’ll tell her about the time you fell off your horse.”
Lyssa’s mouth fell open.
“She’s kidding,” I told her with a wink. “Never happened.”
It had, actually, when I first arrived. I was a farm boy from a Nebraska pack, not a cowboy. I grew up riding tractors, not horses. Of course, if it made Lyssa smile, I didn’t mind Marina poking fun at my expense.
I kissed the top of Lyssa’s head–even though it was more boyfriend-y than hot date-y gesture and followed Rob into his office.
“Shut the door.” He settled into his desk chair.
I did, then I took the seat across from him.
“Chapman’s in the wind. None of the enforcers found any sign of him,” Rob told me.
I scratched my head. “Can we get Levi to look into him from a law enforcement perspective? Checking flight records, things like that. If the guy’s on vacation in Greece or something, it’d be a waste of time continuing our search.”
Rob leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Or you can try to get it out of that girlfriend–or hot date–of yours.”
I swallowed. “Yeah, I know, but I hate the idea of violating Lyssa’s trust by putting her in the middle of this. ”
“She’s already in the middle of this. How long’s she been at her job?”
I thought back to what she said. “A few months.”
“And what happened to the previous caretaker?”
I’d considered the same question the day before but not so closely. My wolf growled, and I clenched the arms of the chair until they cracked. I swallowed then asked, “You think the job is a…a feeder for his trafficking?”
Meaning Chapman hired women to work on the ranch, isolated them from family and friends, maybe even hired women based on a lack of those things then made them disappear. Holy shit.
“It’s a possibility,” Rob admitted.
“But Lyssa’s human.”
“The Council hasn’t worked with human law enforcement on this. It’s possible human females have disappeared as well. The Council jurisdiction only covers shifters.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, then flung to my feet. Paced.
“So about this mate of yours.”
“Yes,” I replied, but warily. I had never once since I came to Wolf Ranch five years ago gone against my alpha. Not only because he was, well, the alpha, but because I was afraid I’d be banished again if I did anything wrong.
But Lyssa was my mate, and I would cross him for her .
“Does she know about us?”
“Of course not. I just met her yesterday.”
“Are you sure she doesn’t know about our kind?”
“No.” I spread my hands. “What do you want me to do–ask if she knows her boss turns into a wolf when he’s not selling females?”
“I don’t know. You’re a smart guy. I’m sure you’ll figure out some way to find out everything she knows and doesn’t know.”
A stone sank into the pit of my stomach.
My wolf didn’t like this. Manipulating or using my mate didn’t feel right.
But I was an enforcer now. Like an alpha, my job was to protect and defend the weak. Finding Chapman was the utmost priority, even if I had a mate.
Hell, especially because I had a mate. Because the sooner I eliminated any and all threats to her, the better.
“Listen, take a couple of days off from the ranch to focus on her. Get her to bond with you and find out everything you can about her, Chapman, and his ranch.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Do whatever you need to do.” He uncrossed his arms, leaned forward and gave me a pointed look. “Make her fall in love.”
I scoffed. “Two days is a little short to make a human fall in love, Alpha. ”
He made an impatient gesture. “I know, but get it rolling. I want her marked. The sooner the better.”
I couldn’t help but smirk. I even felt a blush creep up my neck. “I really do want to mark her.”
He chuckled. “Think with your head for a minute, not your dick.”
I blinked. Wasn’t he referring to me marking my mate? That definitely involved having her underneath me, naked and squirming.
“Two days,” Rob repeated. “By then, the moon will be full. If she’s not on board by then, you’ll have to be careful you don’t lose control and mark her without meaning to.”
I swallowed. Shit. Yeah.
“What if she doesn’t want to stay? If I can’t make her fall in love?” I asked, suddenly worried I wasn’t enough of a mate for her. That I was a killer. That I’d been banished from my pack and family. Was I even worthy? “She thinks this is a fling.”
Rob shrugged then gave me a hard look. “Figure it out.”
Fuck.