Chapter 2
Olivia Crowley
Kieran freaking Holt.
I already knew he was a son of a bitch, but casting some kind of crazy lust spell on me? Really?
My entire body is pulsing with desire. My heart hammers in my chest, my nether regions are damp, my nipples swollen and rubbing against the thin cotton fabric of my blouse. My hands are shaking.
It’s mortifying. How dare he? And why?
Kieran stands up from his chair in one swift motion. “You want to find out what’s wrong with your brother? Walk with me.”
His sister, the pack’s strongest, best healer, who hadn’t even condescended to examine my brother when he came, flashes him a startled glance.
The girl who looks like a teenage version of the sister is watching the drama, eyes bouncing from Kieran to me and back again.
The big beefcake guy, who is clearly related to Kieran, says, “Uhhh…what?”
The short, gray-haired woman with the pad of paper and pen resting on the table in front of me must be the pack secretary, Teresa. She’s staring at me bug-eyed, mouth open in shock at my terrible behavior.
I know there are Alphas who would rip my face off for what I just did.
I don’t care. These bastards are ruining my brother’s life.
Kieran’s sister is widely known as the strongest healer in the country and they were literally his last hope.
We went massively into debt to borrow the money for the payment, and with the interest on the debt I don’t know how I’ll ever repay our loan-shark lender Gary.
Kieran strolls out of the tent without bothering to check if I'm following. Because of course I'm following. He holds my brother’s fate in his hands.
Anger churns in my belly. I drove all the way from Mississippi to give this bastard a piece of my mind, to make him as miserable as he’s made us – and now he’s dangling hope in front of me like a carrot leading a donkey?
And yeah, I’m the ass in this scenario.
I follow him out into the market. The noise and the smell wash over me — booths jammed together, cider and fried dough, sizzling meat on a grill, a country band playing. Hundreds of shifters crowd the aisles, but they part like the Red Sea as he walks by. Not once does he say ‘Excuse me’.
We reach an empty space near the end of the market, by the Moonstone pack’s section, and he slows down and turns to face me. My heart skitters in my chest, as I brace myself for bad news.
“Are you playing games with me?” I demand. My hands tremble. Please don’t be playing games with me.
He shakes his head, his expression cool. “Call your brother and tell him to return here tomorrow. We’ll have a cabin ready for him. This may take a little while.”
I take a deep breath, clenching my fists. I want so badly to feel hope again, to believe that my brother has a future.
My brother’s inability to shift has cost us…everything.
When Stephen turned fourteen, our father, humiliated and furious that his son couldn’t shift, drove him hundreds of miles from our packlands and dropped him off – right next to a human town, too.
Humans and shifters may have an uneasy peace with each other since the Shifter-Human Accords of the 1960s, but inter-species relations are still fragile.
My brother didn’t dare go to human social services and ask for help – if they’d found out he was a shifter, even one who didn’t know how to shift, who knows what would have happened?
For months, he slept in alleys and dumpster-dived and wore the same clothes every day, living in a hostile city with not a friend in sight. I was frantic with worry, not knowing if my baby brother was alive or dead.
Our mother, who has always enjoyed the perks of marrying into a wealthy family, didn’t even try to fight for him.
She knew it would cost her her marriage, and her shopping privileges.
She’s obsessed with fashion, with buying things, with turning heads, so much she sneaks off into human towns to buy the things she couldn’t get in shifter towns.
I was seventeen when it happened. When my brother reached out to me through one of his pack friends, and I told my mother I was going to go get him, she said that if I did, I was dead to the family.
So, now I’m dead, apparently.
And that’s how my brother and I ended up moving in with another pack in Mississippi, eking out a meager living and always feeling like outsiders. That’s why my brother was always an object of pity, of curiosity.
“I can get you the money for your fee in a day or two,” I say, struggling not to let my voice shake. The money’s going to be an issue, and I’m already in debt forever, but I will do literally anything to help my brother.
Kieran shakes his head. “No fee. But there is a condition.”
“Name it,” I say, and then I quail. Maybe I shouldn’t have spoken so fast. What would a mage want from me? My soul? My internal organs? Eye of newt, but instead, eye of Olivia?
“You need to stay here too.” And he turns and walks away again, plunging into the crowd.
As I hurry after him, I stumble and bump into a produce booth, knocking over a stack of melons. I gasp in dismay as the melons roll off the wooden shelf. Kieran spins around and waves his hands at the melons as they tumble. They quickly drift back up onto the booth, rearranging themselves.
Show-off. Ooh, look at me, I’ve got powers.
“Slow down!” I call after him, but he ignores me, heading for a booth that sells sandwiches.
I stifle a groan of frustration. I’m light-headed, exhausted after the drive, and whatever lust-spell he’s cast on me isn’t helping either.
“Two roast beef sandwiches, two orders of fries, and two lemonades. Put it on the Shadowpine tab,” he instructs the woman behind the booth, and she scurries off to get his order.
“Please,” I interject.
He arches an eyebrow at me. “No need to say please. It won’t help. Either I’ll have our mages re-examine your brother’s case, or I won’t.”
Seriously?
I give him an exasperated look. “I’m not saying please to you. I am pointing out that you would traditionally say please when you make a request.”
“I would? You don’t know me very well.” He gestures at a picnic table. “Sit.”
This guy. “Should I also roll over and play dead?”
He arches an eyebrow, looking coolly amused. “Whatever you Mississippi shifters do to entertain yourselves is fine with me.”
I let out a low, rumbling growl as I march over to the table. My poor wolf is going crazy, running around in circles inside me, and I pray that I don’t spontaneously shift. If I do, I’m not sure if my wolf would bite his face off or hump him. And I’m not sure which would be worse.
The humping. Definitely the humping.
Minutes later, he’s sitting across from me and setting down a food tray. He shoves a sandwich and fries at me.
“For me? No thank you.” I’d assumed he double-ordered because he’s a big guy with a big appetite. And my fates, is he big. Those biceps – they’re begging for me to run my fingers over the curve of them. That broad chest is just – no.
I mentally slap myself upside the head. It’s the spell. There’s no way I’m actually attracted to this rude, arrogant, heartless, wolf-hole.
“Eat it, and then we’ll talk. Your blood sugar is low.” And he takes an enormous bite of his own sandwich.
He’s not wrong. Maybe that’s part of the reason why my hands are shaking. However, I’m in no mood to be told what to do.
“I’m not hungry,” I say stubbornly, ignoring my stomach’s low, rumbling growl. He sets his sandwich down and stares at me. It’s obvious that if I won’t eat, we won’t talk.
Reluctantly, I take a bite. The roast beef is succulent, the horseradish tangy. He picks up his own sandwich and starts eating again.
Still, I’d rather swallow a beehive than admit that he’s right. “If I’m shaky, it’s because of the spell that you cast on me.”
He looks at me questioningly. “Spell? What spell would I have cast on you?”
I take a swig of lemonade and inhale a fistful of French fries. So salty and greasy, so good. Okay, yes, I was hungry.
After I finish chewing, I lean in and lower my voice. “The lust spell that you cast on me because you wanted to mess with my head, you absolute dirtbag.”
“Lust spell.” His eyes are gleaming with amusement. “You think I cast a lust spell on you.”
“Well, obviously. I mean I…” My voice trails off. I mean…it has to be a spell, right? I’ve seen plenty of handsome men before. I’ve never reacted like this. I’m not a horny teenage boy, for heaven’s sake.
His mouth is curling up in a smile.
“You’re a mage,” I protest, flushing with embarrassment. “Obviously it’s a spell.”
“Do you know anything about mages?” Amusement drips from every word.
I frown. Mages tend to be rare. It’s a genetic mutation.
The Shadowpine pack has an unusually high number of mages; I’m not sure why.
“I mean…I’ve met truth mages and healing mages; those are the most common ones, and at a fair I saw a fire mage who could start fires with his mind, and I knew of a power mage who could drain power from magically charged healing runes, kind of a useless talent, really… ” I’m babbling.
“Have you ever known a mage with more than one power?” he continues and shoves some fries in his mouth.
“Well…I’m no mage expert,” I say cautiously.
“No, you haven’t, because there is no such thing.
We have one power. And my power, as you clearly just saw, is telekinesis.
I’ve never known of a mage who could cast a lust spell.
There might be a way for a talented herb mage to cause overwhelming lust by creating a potion and slipping it into your drink, but that would be highly illegal.
Like death penalty illegal. You must know that.
It’s illegal to cast any spells that control the free will of another shifter. ”
My heart clenches in my chest.
Does that mean…there’s no spell?
“What, exactly, are you trying to say? I feel completely…”
He flashes an evil grin at me. “Please, describe how you’re feeling right now.”
My cheeks flame with heat. “I will not!” I splutter at him.
“Shall I tell you how I’m feeling?” His voice is a low, sexy growl.
“I could not possibly care less.” But oddly, I do want to know how he’s feeling. And I want to know what he’s feeling. Why? He’s not only a complete stranger, he’s also a complete bastard. Why do I feel this strange, urgent pull to know him completely, inside and out?
I attack my sandwich again and stifle a low moan of pleasure as the tangy spiciness of the horseradish stings my tongue. Okay, I was very hungry.
“Well, we both know that’s a lie, but anyway, I am feeling exactly the same way that you are. Want to know why? Never mind, you do want to know, but you’ll try to deny it. Which is adorable. I’ll tell you why. Because you’re my fated mate.”
I choke on my sandwich, and he leaps up and moves so swiftly it’s a blur, standing behind me and pounding on my back. I gulp down lemonade and blink watery eyes at him.
“I’m sorry, you think what?” I splutter.
I swing my legs out of the seat and jump up from the picnic table.
He grins fiercely at me. “And now you’re going to storm off. Which is marvelous. You know why?”
I refuse to answer. Clutching my lemonade, I stalk away from him.
He’s right behind me. Damn those long legs of his; I can’t get ahead of him.
I’m practically sprinting, but he’s right next to me now without even breaking a sweat or sounding the least little bit out of breath. He leans down and growls into my ear, “Because you know how we wolves are, princess. We love a good chase.”