Chapter 21
21
JOHNNY
“She seems to be fitting in well.” Colton grabbed a beer bottle from the long line Cody, the owner and fellow shifter, set before us at the bar. He lifted it to his lips and took a long pull.
I grunted, not thrilled to be across the room from her. Especially not after that kiss. I wanted to be right beside her. Or better yet, with her on my lap or somehow pressed against my body. But Colton said Marina told him an important part of courtship for human females was having the guy vetted and approved of by other females. So I was hanging back, hoping the Wolf Ranch females were putting in a good word for me over there .
Still, it was killing me. The fact that we were one night away from a full moon made it all the worse.
I was able to keep my aggression and need to mark her down by consistently having my mate naked and under me all day. But now, she was surrounded by other males. My wolf wanted to destroy every single one who looked her way.
Every guy in the place had his eyes on her. In that skirt and those tits and that sweet smile? I needed to tell every fucker that she was mine.
“Yeah.” I tried to soothe my wolf. And my dick.
“What’s the matter?” Boyd slapped me on the shoulder. “You’re acting like Wes over there.” He tipped his head toward the foreman, who gave him a glare, which wasn’t new.
No one was affected by his disgruntled looks, since that was his standard expression. The guy had an impressive resting bitch face, except when it came to his daughter, Remy.
“No, all good.”
“What have you learned from Lyssa about Chapman?” Rob asked.
I frowned. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Clint asked. “Have you even tried?”
“I have, but I don’t want to alert her. She gets nervous when I ask about her work.” I paused, not sure if I should say anything more. But this was my alpha. I had to. “Something’s off.”
“What do you mean?” Rob asked, frowning.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just think there’s something off. I know I said it twice, but I can’t explain it any other way. It’s a feeling.”
Clint and Rob both went on high alert and glanced toward Lyssa with the other women. Marina was up first, the bull moving at one of the slowest settings. There was no way she was being bucked off.
“Should we look into her more? We can have the council data-digger investigate her,” Colton asked.
No, my wolf snarled.
I couldn’t take my eyes off my mate, who was watching Marina with a smile on her face. Did I want her to be investigated? To have a shifter hacker who lived in far off Arizona dig into her background? I took a deep swig of my beer.
“Yes,” Rob said.
Fuck.
I didn’t really want it. I hoped to have her trust me enough and our relationship that we were building to open up to me. To share everything. Good and bad. Hoped I could share my good and bad, too. Then again, my bad might have been far too much to share.
But if Rob said yes, then that meant yes.
“On it,” Clint replied. Out of the corner of my eye, he pulled out his cell and started typing. As a retired enforcer, he had the guy’s info literally at his fingertips. “I’ll ask him for backgrounds on all the employees at Chapman’s ranch, not just Lyssa.”
“Good,” Rob commented.
My wolf growled. I didn’t like anyone looking into her. Not even my own packmates. Definitely not some rando shifter in Arizona. But they were right. Her boss was trouble. We needed to know everything about her and anyone who worked for him. Especially if I was going to track him and deliver him to the Council.
“She doesn’t know I’m an enforcer,” I said aloud to no one in particular.
Fuck. What would happen when she found out I hunted and killed for a living? Could a sweetheart like Lyssa stay with someone with this much darkness?
Even if I walked away from the profession for her, it wouldn’t change what I’d already done.
The violence inside me that came out when I was defending someone. Or hunting a rogue enforcer like the wife beater from a few weeks ago.
It wouldn’t change what I was–a killer.
Marina remained on for the entire thirty second ride, then slid off and high-fived Becky who was up next.
“Of course, she doesn’t. Until you mark her, that stays to yourself.”
Rob’s words had me glancing his way. I swallowed .
Fuck. He didn’t think she’d take it well, either. “Shouldn’t I tell her when I explain about shifters?”
He shook his head. “No. After you mark her. She’ll need to know about our kind, so she understands you’re going to bite her and why. But the enforcer part has to come later.”
“What if…” I swallowed down my question.
What if she doesn’t want to be with me after she finds out?
What if, like my pack and family, she no longer looked at me the same way?
What if she rejected me? Banished me?
Rob raised his brows.
“Nevermind.” I shook my head. But his advice seemed backward. Telling her after I’d marked her meant tricking her into being my mate. Not being honest. That went against everything I believed in.
Becky didn’t last long on the mechanical bull since the setting had been much faster. She fell off onto one of the mats in a laughing heap. Even though she wasn’t hurt, Clint didn’t stick– he cut through the patrons to get to her.
Lyssa was next. I stood mesmerized as she stepped up to the bull and eyed it with the same expression men wore getting ready to mount a real, live one. Fear and wariness.
The women were in a line along the low wall that separated the main bar from the mechanical bull area. They were laughing and hooting at her, who was now sitting on the bull.
Fuck, her skirt rode up those shapely-as-fuck thighs.
Then the bull started to move. It was going so slowly it appeared broken. Then it picked up a little more speed, and she tried to move with it, but her motions were just as awkward as when she rode Chester yesterday.
From one second to the next, a smile spread across her face, her eyes lit with excitement. The bull moved even faster and her arm went up in the air for balance.
“She’s not bad,” Boyd said in my ear. He was the ex-rodeo champ, so he knew.
She wasn’t bad at all. In fact, she looked like a natural the way she lifted and lowered, her hips straddling the saddle nice and wide. Her tits bounced with each roll of the machine. She was sexy as fuck.
My wolf snarled and snapped because the Wolf Ranch women weren’t the only ones watching. Men all around were ogling her. They were seeing how she would look as a cowgirl riding a dick.
A cluster of men to one side were talking about her. Pointing, smiling, leering. And one made fucking motions with his hips as he talked to another. Then they high-fived.
I growled. I was going to kill them. All of them .
They had to be human. I didn’t know them. They’d never been to a pack run that I’d ever seen. If they were, being so close, they’d have recognized Willow, knew her rank in the pack, and would have been more deferential to the other marked females.
The machine slowed, then stopped, and Lyssa slid off to the mat, stood there by the bull as Audrey took a picture of her with her cell.
The man who wanted to fuck my mate approached the opening in the wall for her to pass through. Stood there and waited.
“No, fucking way,” I muttered and stormed in his direction. My hands clenched into fists. My eyes narrowed and probably went amber. I shoved people aside to get there.
The asshole grabbed her arm and pressed her against the side wall. Lyssa fought back, and it was like with Simi all over again. My vision narrowed and domed, seeing through wolf eyes. There was a roaring in my ears.
This guy was going to hurt her.
He was going to hurt my mate.
I had to stop it.
“Let go of me.” Lyssa tried to shove the guy away.
“ Hey. ” Willow grabbed the guy’s shoulder. She was part shifter and could fling the guy across the room if she wanted, but I didn’t give her the chance .
I shoved a high top out of the way and used my hand on a barstool seat to volley my body through the air.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” I snarled as I landed and yanked the guy off my mate. My fist connected with his jaw, and he didn’t just go down, he went flying.
I’d used shifter strength on a human–a huge rule breaker for my kind–but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
It was like when Simi got attacked, only worse. The images of my sister lying on the ground, her clothing ripped off her, wrestling with a guy two times her size flashed through my mind.
Only this time, it was Lyssa on the forest ground.
Lyssa’s clothes ripped off.
This asshole trying to violate her.
It wasn’t enough the guy was off her. I had to eliminate the threat.
Stop his beating heart.
I was going to end him.