“You wear a lot of perfume,” Harrison said, eyeing her as he took a swig of his beer.
Audrey choked down a gulp of the nasty drink and stifled the urge to barf. Beer wasn’t her favorite unless it tasted like a fruit—something she’d explained to Harrison as they’d joked back and forth online. Maybe he was testing her.
She hadn’t exactly told him what she was yet because, well, telling people about her inner animal usually caused them to flee. And if she was honest, she still wasn’t ready to tell Harrison, even though she was actually looking him in the face after two months of bonding. Being a shifter was a secret she liked to keep as hidden as she could. Perfume masked the scent of her fur, and from the confused look on Harrison’s face, it was working like a gem. She choked down another swig. “So good,” she rasped out.
“What kinda girl doesn’t like beer?” Harrison asked.
“Hare-Bear,” the groupie called again from much closer. She slid her arms over his shoulders and rested her cheek between his shoulder blades, a possessive smile on her face as she glared at Audrey.
“Get off him before I rip those ridiculous eyelashes off,” Audrey said blandly, her hands clenched on the bar top.
Harrison snorted but didn’t move to shake off the woman. Her inner beasty was snarling to rip out of her skin and filet the handsy woman.
“I like beer,” Eyelashes purred.
“If I give you my leftovers, will you leave?” Audrey asked, sliding her beer across the counter toward her.
“No thanks. I don’t want herpes.”
“Well, it would only be fair since you’ve probably given me, like, six airborne STDs since you’ve wandered over here.”
“Both of y’all are going home without a werebear dick,” Clinton offered through an empty smile. “Might as well retract the claws.”
Harrison heaved a sigh. “Holly, get off.”
“I’m trying to,” she whispered against his ear. Her painted red lips puckered against his earlobe, and that was enough.
“Whoa,” Kirk said, gripping Audrey’s arm before she poured her beer on the skank’s head.
Harrison cracked an amused grin, hesitated, then turned and cupped the back of Audrey’s head. His eyes flashed with challenge the second before he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers.
“Asshole!” Holly shrieked. The sound of her heels clacking away allowed Audrey to relax into the kiss.
Harrison eased back to end it, but she had wanted this so badly since the day he’d first responded to her message on the matchmaking site. Standing between his legs, hand resting on his powerful thigh, she chased his mouth with hers and slid her palm up to his chest. He gripped the back of her neck and angled his face, deepening the kiss, and if she wasn’t careful, she was going to purr and give herself away. His tongue brushed the seam of her lips as she nestled in between his legs. Audrey parted for him and let off a tiny moan as she tasted him. She was soaring, her body going numb everywhere except where they touched. Harrison’s arm snaked around her back, and he dragged her closer as he pushed his tongue into her mouth again. God, he could kiss!
But then he pulled away abruptly, searching her eyes. She felt utterly dazed from his kiss, but he looked alarmed, and his heartbeat was pounding where she’d rested her hand on his strong chest.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
Silly man playing silly games. Audrey smiled, so happy and relieved he was even better in person than online. “I’m your mate.”
Chapter Two
Audrey whats-her-name had lost her damned mind. Or maybe she’d never had it to begin with. Her voice was completely honest as she’d uttered those words. I’m your mate. What the hell?
“I beg to differ,” Clinton said from way too close.
“Back off, man,” Harrison gritted out. He released his grip on Audrey’s body. He’d been holding her too tight, but the scrawny little human didn’t even bat an eye. Maybe she had high pain tolerance. If she knew how riled up she had gotten his bear with her little fifteen second French kiss, she would’ve been running for the hills. He wanted to take her in the back office and bend her over Jake’s desk. Or he had until she had shown her crazy.
He was no one’s mate. Never was, never would be.
Her perfume was making him dizzy, so he shook his head hard and stood. He needed to get away from her. She was fogging his mind. He’d kissed her to piss Clinton and Holly off, but he hadn’t expected to get lost in it. That wasn’t what he did. He was the careful one. The collected one. He had to be in order to bear the pain of losing his crew one by one. Clinton had done that, chased everyone off. Maybe that was why he’d lost his control with this woman. He had finally started to show how badly he was hurting. Shit. He needed to get out of here, far away from the gorgeous brunette with the thick southern accent and the curves for days. Fucking sexy, tight dress…and those legs. Heels. He’d never liked the spiky shoes before, but on Audrey he wanted them lying on the floor of his trailer.
She was bewitching him. He was vulnerable, cracking, breaking, and she was here clawing her way into his head and making him feel much drunker than he actually was.
“What’s wrong?” She looked worried, and genuine concern tainted her words.
“I don’t know you,” he gritted out.
Her face fell. “Don’t say that. Please. I’m the same as I’ve always been.”
“Lady, I don’t even understand what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen you before tonight, and you’re acting way too familiar.”
“You tell her,” Clinton said like a fucking cheerleader.
Harrison wanted to break his neck, but instead, he pulled his wallet from his pocket and threw down a ten dollar bill for Layla.
“Why are you acting like this? I don’t understand what I did wrong. You were the one who asked me to come here.”
“No, I didn’t. I’ve never met you before tonight.”
She looked so utterly confused, she must be mental. She really thought they had some kind of rapport, some kind of relationship. Groupies were aggressive sometimes, but this was different. All the beauty in the world didn’t matter if she was a nutcase. She reached for him, and he stepped out of range. God, he wanted her to touch him again, but she wasn’t safe. Audrey was a danger to him and his crew. “Clinton, if you don’t wipe that smile off your face, I’m going to pitch you off a mountain.”
“No women at the trailer park. That’s the rule,” the asshole sang.
“I don’t understand,” Audrey said, and now her pretty brown eyes were brimming with moisture.
He wanted to retch but didn’t know why. He hadn’t drank that much.
His bear was scratching at his skin, and he was in serious danger of an uncontrolled Change. “I have to go.” Harrison ripped his gaze away from her pretty pursed lips and wove through the crowd. With every step away from her, his stomach hurt worse. She was a witch or…something.
“Harrison?” she asked from behind him. Her voice sounded so hurt. So disappointed.
Clenching his hands, he shoved the door open and escaped into the night. Only the farther he got away from the witch, the worse he felt. Gripping the tailgate of his truck, he dragged in a lungful of cool air. After a minute of focusing on the long line of women waiting outside of Sammy’s, he turned over his palms and stared at his shaking hands.
He wasn’t hers. He didn’t belong to anyone.
Whatever that woman was doing to him, it was dangerous—not only for him and his crew, but for her as well. Shifter groupies thought they wanted a piece of him, but they didn’t really understand the danger. He was an alpha, and one who was reeling and struggling to keep a crew under him.
And Audrey, that crazy, little, fragile human had no business teasing a wounded predator.
Chapter Three
She’d been duped.
Audrey didn’t know how or why yet, but she’d been tricked into coming all the way out to Wyoming for a man who didn’t exist.
> Unless…
Maybe this was Harrison’s way of keeping their relationship casual. Or maybe he didn’t like the way she looked in person. Or maybe he didn’t like her accent, perfume, nail color, smile… There were a billion things that could’ve made him decide to pretend he’d never talked to her before. But if that was his game, he was extraordinarily good at it because his eyes had been so solemn and shocked, and his tone so honest. I’ve never met you before.
The thought of last night’s meeting made her double over the steering wheel with embarrassment. She’d never said the word mate out loud, and clearly, she’d used it wrong.
It sucked being a shifter, stuck between the human and supernatural worlds, and fitting in with neither.
Audrey turned down the country station on the radio and spread the crinkled map across the steering wheel. Even if her cell phone had gotten good reception in the valleys between the towering mountains that surrounded her, the GPS had basically laughed at her when she’d entered in Boarland Mobile Park.
She understood the need to live out away from people like Harrison and his crew did. It was easier to Change without people knowing, watching, asking questions, judging…hating. As she maneuvered the final switchback and turned onto a gravel road, she was struck by how beautiful this place was. Some of the trees were dead and brown, but a majority of the evergreens here stood tall and strong with rich green needles that painted the landscape in a myriad of earthy colors. Audrey reached out the open window and let the crisp breeze run through her fingertips. She lived out in the country in Texas, but the landscape didn’t touch this. Thorny mesquite trees didn’t hold a candle to the hill country she found herself in now. It was May, and sunny, and the sounds of cicadas and birds were a constant song here.
She rode the brake and slowed down as the entrance to the trailer park came into view. Across the road, there was a massive, arched sign that read Boarland Mobile Park. Only that had been crossed out in bright red paint, and over it was written Missionary Impossible.
What did that mean?
The second she laid eyes on the destroyed park, she regretted showing up uninvited. There were six ancient trailers, lined up three in a row on either side of the road, and settled lengthways. The dingy white paint was chipped on each, and the roof shingles were years over good use. Entire sheets of disintegrating shingles had fallen off one trailer and lay on top of the overgrown landscaping that looked to be the biggest mutant weeds she’d ever seen in her life. Some would be taller than her if she got the mind to stand beside them. There were three sun-bleached, plastic flamingos toppled over in one of the weed-riddled yards, and a plethora of old tractor parts sat in a pile at the end of the trailer park. Two rusty old cars were up on blocks and looked like they hadn’t been worked on in years, and instead of a door, one of the singlewide mobile homes had a stack of old tires in front of it. The road was made of gravel that had washed out, and various potholes tried to swallow her Jeep before she pulled to a stop in front of a giant anthill that had been built in the middle of the road.
This place looked like an abandoned ghost town. Or at least, it would’ve looked like one if Clinton wasn’t sitting in a duct-taped, plastic lawn chair at the end of the road, drinking a beer and glaring at her. He wore a trucker hat, aviator sunglasses, a white T-shirt two sizes too small and the tiniest pair of yellow shorts she’d ever seen on a man. Yellow and white baseball socks clad his hairy legs up to his knees. He wore old sneakers and had shaved the facial scruff he’d worn yesterday into an 80s style mustache. God, this was weird.
She cut the engine and got out, but as she opened her mouth to say a polite greeting, he lifted a finger to shush her, bent over his creaking chair, then pulled an old metal sign out of the dirt beside him. In exceptionally shitty handwriting, it read no girls allowed in the trailer park.
Fantastic.
“I came to talk to Harrison,” she said in a voice that sounded tired, even to herself.
“Girl!” someone yelled from one of the trailers, startling her.
The tires in the doorway of the nearest trailer toppled over, and a giant, behemoth of a man scrambled over the make-shift door he’d just gladiator-kicked down. “Oh, my God, there’s a girl. In the park!” He jammed a finger at Clinton. “I swear if you screw this up for me, I’ll bleed you, Gray Back.”
“Don’t call me that!” Clinton yelled. “And she ain’t even here for you, Bash. She’s here for Harrison.”
The dark-haired titan with the bright green eyes pointed both index fingers at her with a big grin on his face. “I’m gonna make you pizza rolls. You want wine? I have, like, six boxes of wine. Don’t leave!” He turned to rush back inside, but spun at the door. Pressing his hand to his chest, he arched his dark eyebrows and slowed down. “I’m Sebastian, but everyone calls me Bash. I’m gonna feed you now.” He kicked a wayward tire out of the way and disappeared into his trailer.
“I’m Audrey!” she called after him.
“Nice to meet you, Audrey!” Bash called in a muffled voice.
“Where is the rest of your crew?” she asked Clinton.
Clinton gave her a feral smile. “I chased ’em off.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and leaned against the front of her Jeep. “You won’t be chasing me off. I’m only here to sort out what happened with Harrison, and then I’ll be headed back to Texas.”
“I love Texas,” Bash called from inside of his trailer.
“I don’t,” Clinton muttered, crossing his arms.
“Have you ever been there?”
“No.”
Bash wrestled his kitchen window open. “I’ve been three times. Pretty girls, big hair, and southern manners. I bet you say ‘thank you’ and ‘you’re welcome’ and help old ladies across the street and shit.”
“Uuuh, yes, but I don’t think that’s just a Texas thing. I think that’s a decent person thing.”
“Right.” Bash smiled vacantly, then disappeared into the dark kitchen.
“Sooo,” she drawled out. “Where’s Harrison?”
“Everyone says I’m the fucked-up bear who belongs in the Gray Backs,” Clinton said, angling his head. “But maybe I’m the normal one.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Harrison is patrolling the boundaries of Boarlander property. Do you want to know why?”
“Sure.”
“Because he don’t sleep. He don’t feel safe. His bear won’t settle unless—”
“Clinton!” Harrison barked out from the tree line between two trailers. “Stop talking. Now.” He was clad in only a low-slung pair of jeans with holes at the knees. As pretty as his eyes were right now, all bright and the color of a summer sky, that wasn’t what held her attention. He had the face of an angel, yes, but his body had been mangled. His entire torso was rippling with muscle and covered in scars, both from claws and what looked like about a dozen bullet holes. She took a step closer to the door of her Jeep.
“You know the rules, alpha,” Clinton gritted out. “No girls in the—”
Harrison opened his mouth and roared so loud it shook the ground beneath her feet. It was horrifying to hear such a feral noise from a man.
Clinton stood and chucked the sign into the woods like a Frisbee. “I challenge you for alpha.”
“You just challenged me yesterday, asshole!” Harrison bellowed.
“You’re failing to uphold your own damned rules. That’s weak, Harrison. Change!”
Harrison hooked his hands on his hips and glared at Audrey. He let off a long sigh that tapered into a terrifying snarl. “Get in your car and leave.”
“I have something to talk to you about.”
Clinton was stripping out of his eighties-style clothes and grumbling about how, “I have to do everything around here.”
Harrison scrubbed his hand down his face, and his eyes blazed even brighter. “Lady—”
“Audrey.”
Another growl. “Audrey. This is no place
for you, and we have nothing to say to each other.” His attention flickered to her Jeep, then to her face, then he frowned at the back window, which was still rolled halfway down. “What did you do to your seats?”
She grimaced and wished she’d remembered to roll her windows back up when she’d stopped. The real story was she’d Changed accidentally in her ride and shredded the seats in her fury at being trapped. “An animal got in there,” she murmured, sticking as close to the truth as she could.
Clinton was stripping out of his pants now, and when he was through, he angled his face from side to side, stretching his neck, or popping it perhaps. He bounced around, punching at the air.
“Again?” Bash asked from the open doorway where he held a red plastic cup of what smelled like un-fine wine. “Clinton, he’s bested you three times this week.”
“I’m like the little engine that could,” Clinton growled, eyes on his alpha.
Bash shook his head. “Audrey, you should take cover.” He sounded so disappointed, so sad.
“I don’t want you to fight.” She was panicking that this was somehow because of her. Harrison was already covered in scars, and this really wasn’t how she’d imagined this place would be. She’d thought it would be like happy-go-lucky shifter land, but it was dark, gritty, and the bears fought too much.
Harrison spat on the ground and unbuttoned his jeans. “If I win, no more alpha challenges. This is for everything.” He said it quietly enough, but the impact of his words was instant on Clinton.
“You won’t challenge me back if I win?”
Harrison shook his head slow as he shoved his jeans down and kicked out of them. Harrison was all smooth rippling muscles, overlaid with a patchwork of scars that made him look dangerously beautiful. Warmth filled her stomach the moment she laid eyes on his long dick, swinging between his legs.
“Oh, my goodness, that’s your dick.” Audrey scrunched up her nose. “You’re naked.” Stop. Talking!
Harrison ghosted her a bright-eyed glance. “Get in the Jeep.”