“Yes, you are right.” Marcus covered Roni’s mouth with his hand before she had the chance to object.
Nick’s brows rose in surprise. “In that case, I was obviously wrong to assume that you intended to use her and dump her like a secondhand toy, wasn’t I?”
“Yes, you were.”
“Well then, I’m thinking that it’s time you and I spent some time together, Fuller, clear up our ‘misunderstandings,’ show there are no hard feelings.” His smile was deceptively pleasant.
Roni bit hard into Marcus’s hand and tugged it away. “Wait a cocking, fucking second!”
“After all, you marked her and now you’re staking a temporary claim on her—that practically makes you one of us. Why not spend some time here, get to know us better?”
“Nick, don’t you dare!” Her brother had given a similar speech to her first real boyfriend . . . then he’d beat the shit out of him during a “friendly game of softball.” Friendly, her ass. The guy had been close to sobbing when it was over.
“Sounds good.” Marcus was kind of looking forward to whatever the Alpha had in mind. He had some anger to work off with this male who had repeatedly tried to come between him and Roni.
She gawked at Marcus. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
“Oh, come on, Roni, it’s just a bit of male bonding.” Eli was grinning from ear to ear.
She snorted. “‘Bonding’ is the last word to describe—”
Eli raised a hand. “Shh, honey, it’s time for the men to talk.”
Marcus looped an arm around Roni’s waist as she tried to launch herself across the table at Eli. “Nick’s right, sweetheart, we need to make it clear there are no hard feelings.”
“Why don’t you go with Shay to Phoenix Pack territory, Roni?” Nick’s eyes didn’t move from Marcus. “You can act as an extra bodyguard for Shay. She’s helping them get everything ready for Grace’s party tonight. I’m sure they’d love to have another set of hands.”
Roni snickered. “Leave him at your mercy?” She shot to her feet, pulling Marcus upright. “No, we’re leaving now.” But no amount of pulling on Marcus’s hand made him move.
Sighing, Marcus gently drew her to him and rubbed her nose with his. “It’s okay. You can kiss me better later.”
“But—”
Shaya appeared and guided Roni away. “Come on, let’s just leave them to it. It’s a guy thing, sweetie. Don’t even try to understand it, you’ll just hurt your head.” Jesse and Bracken, acting as bodyguards for Shaya, trailed behind the females as they left the lodge.
That was when all eyes honed in on Marcus. “So, how do you ‘bond’ around here?” In other words, what violent activity did they have in mind that would give them a chance to put him through a world of hurt?
Nick smiled. “Follow me.” He stood and left the kitchen, the other males of his pack right behind him.
Eli sidled over to Marcus as they strode after Nick. “Sure you want to do this? I don’t mean deal with us. I mean deal with Roni. She’s more of a challenge than all of us put together.”
Marcus grinned. “That she is. In which case, I have to ask, what did you do that inspired her to trap you in a headlock?”
“Put talcum powder in her hairdryer. But only because she hacked into my Twitter account again.”
“What exactly did she Tweet?”
“Word for word? ‘Anyone know what it means if you get a thick, yellowish discharge dripping from your dick? It’s sometimes crusty, if that helps.’”
Marcus burst out laughing. Damn, that female was entertaining. His female.
“So that’s something for you to consider: it’s really not us you need to worry about if you upset her. Roni always gets even.”
Roni checked her phone for about the twelfth time in the last six hours, but there was still nothing from Marcus. Something to indicate he was okay—or, at the very least, conscious—would be great. She’d tried calling others from the pack, but none of them had been of any help. As far as they were concerned, Marcus needed to prove that he not only saw her as more than a bed buddy, but also that he was worthy.
“He’ll be fine, honey,” Lydia assured her while helping Taryn pin up a huge “Happy Birthday” banner in the living area.
“You don’t know my brothers.” Roni shoved the ninth lollipop of the day into her mouth.
“We all have to run the family gauntlet. There’s really no way of getting around it.”
Taryn nodded. “Yup. Trey almost strangled my father to death once. They got past it eventually, but neither likes the other. Greta did her best to scare me off, as you know. Now she just does it for fun.”
Jaime blew up yet another balloon. “I don’t get along with any of Dante’s brothers, so I wouldn’t worry that Nick and Marcus aren’t friends. Thankfully, Gabe and Dante get along, though. Gabe and I are close, so that’s important to me.”
Shaya came to aid Roni in wrapping Grace’s gifts. “You’re surprised that Marcus stayed behind, aren’t you?”
Roni snorted. “Aren’t you?” she asked around her lollipop, but it was a rhetorical question.
“Sweetie, he walked through the door, made a beeline for you, and kissed you soundly on the mouth in front of your pack and family.”
“Really?” Taryn seemed excited.
“That kind of public display coming from a guy like Marcus, who avoids relationships like the plague, says a lot about where his head’s at.” Shaya stuck a huge bow on the gift Roni had finished wrapping.
“The question is,” began Jaime, “where’s your head at, Roni?”
When Roni didn’t answer, Shaya gave her a gentle smile. “Okay, I get that you don’t really like to confide in anyone other than Derren . . . but I have to admit, I’m totally jealous you don’t talk to me. I can be petty like that.”
Roni’s mouth twitched into a smile. She took out her lollipop. “It’s nothing personal, okay. I’m the type to work things out by myself. I talk to Derren because it’s the only way to make sure he comes to me when he needs to talk.” The guy had some seriously dark demons.
Shaya nodded in understanding. “All right. So what have you worked out?”
“I’ve worked out that Marcus annoys me.”
Lydia laughed. “In what way?”
“He defends me. And he makes me share stuff. And he respects my strength. And he doesn’t make me feel like I need to change.”
Jaime made an “ah” sound. “He’s making himself important to you, and you’re not too happy about that, because losing him would hurt. Yeah, I get it. I was determined not to mate with Dante. But he got through all my defenses, the jerk.”
Back then, Jaime had stopped shifting because her wolf was so traumatized, she attacked anyone around—viewing them as a potential threat. But her wolf had been fighting to break free, and Jaime had known that if it happened, her wolf might turn rogue and have to be killed. As such, she hadn’t wanted to mate with Dante—not even when she’d discovered they were true mates—for fear that if she were killed, he wouldn’t survive the breaking of the mating bond.
“I did my best to keep Nick at a distance,” said Shaya. “I was just so mad at him, so hurt. But he smashed down every wall I had up. Dominant males are good at that. It’s not possible to catch them; they’re too elusive for that. But when they decide a female is going to be theirs, they won’t stop until they have her.”
Roni rocked back on her heels. “Whoa, it’s really not that serious between me and Marcus.”
Lydia gave her a wan smile. “I know you probably won’t want to hear about his sexual history, but let me just say I’ve known Marcus a long time, and he has never been so totally into a female before.”
“When he does that thing where he focuses all that charm and dominant male energy on you, Roni . . .” Taryn fanned her face. “Yowza.”
Jaime laughed. “May I just say we’ve loved that you haven’t made it easy for him.”
Lydia nodded. “It’s
about time he had to work for something. And he has worked for you, hasn’t he?”
Roni couldn’t deny that he had. She was private, unsociable, and awkward, but he hadn’t let her keep him away. He’d persevered, practically hunted her down. And now he’d publically staked a temporary claim on her. But she wasn’t going to make the mistake of thinking he was around for good. “He’s going to want his mate.”
“Dante didn’t,” said Jaime, tying ribbons on the ends of the balloons. “He thought she’d be someone who couldn’t accept that he was Beta, who’d want him to choose between her and his position. One of the reasons he decided he wanted to imprint with me was that he realized I’d never make him choose. It turned out imprinting wasn’t necessary, but you get my point.”
Taryn spoke then. “Not all shifters are set on finding their mates. Some don’t like the idea that they’re not in charge of their own path. Some have a preconceived notion of what their mate will be like, and they reject it. And some choose to imprint, aware that there’s a possibility they’ll never find their true mate anyway.”
“You have to consider that Marcus has been circling you since you guys first met,” said Shaya. “It’s clearly more than casual sex to him. That’s not something you can blow off.”
Roni got what Shaya was saying: if things continued to be so intense, the next step would be imprinting—and it could even happen without Roni or Marcus consciously causing it. How had they gone from discussing Marcus’s safety to the subject of mating? Uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had headed, Roni shoved her lollipop back into her mouth.
Shaya sighed, her smile affectionate. “Okay, I can take a hint. But let me just say that I know letting yourself care for someone is majorly scary, and I know it’s appealing to throw up some barriers, but it truly isn’t worth it—he’ll just knock them down.”
“One last thing.” Jaime’s expression was serious. “There was something Dante once said to me before we realized we were mates, when he knew I was contemplating ending the whole thing before I got hurt. He said, ‘Maybe it’s fucking doomed, I don’t know. But don’t you want to know?’ That was when I realized I had to know. So I guess you have to decide what your answer is to that question.”
Roni said nothing, honestly unsure. But she needed to find the answer, because Marcus would expect her to make the same temporary claim on him, particularly considering how bold and assertive dominant females were. His wolf would expect it too—hell, her wolf was expecting it—and dominant males never settled for anything less than what they wanted.
The trouble was that, as she’d told him, she was truly bad at relationships. Roni wasn’t good at expressing how she felt or giving emotional feedback. Wasn’t what anyone would call cuddly or affectionate. Shifter males were protective, liked to take care of their females, liked to feel needed. Roni was self-reliant, fiercely independent, and had been raised to never need a male for anything. As such, she tended to clash badly with her partners.
It had never mattered much to her before—beyond general annoyance anyway—because she’d never really cared for any of them. But Marcus . . . it would matter with him. She didn’t want to hurt him and didn’t want him to look at her the way her mother looked at her—like she lacked, like she wasn’t good enough. Even the idea of it made her want to hold back.
But to do that to protect herself would be cowardly, wouldn’t it? Cowardly and selfish, and she’d like to think she was neither of those things.
It would be unfair to him, because he’d never given her any reason to believe that he thought that about her. He never seemed to be judging her or laughing at her. Her quirks didn’t seem to bother him, nor did the fact that she wasn’t girly. And although he defended her, he didn’t do it in a way that suggested he was “the boss” or that he didn’t see her as his equal. In fact, it actually annoyed him when people dismissed her strength.
Damn the asshole for making himself matter to her. But did he matter enough to publicly stake a temporary claim on him in return? Matter enough that she had to know if a relationship between them would be doomed or not?
She feared that, yeah, he actually might.
Getting to his feet, Nick spat blood on the ground. “You’ll pay for that, Fuller.”
“You ran face-first into my elbow—what did you think would happen?” Marcus’s wolf bared his teeth in a feral grin, liking the sight of the Alpha hurt. He also liked the sight of Zander’s broken nose—super fast or not, the guy couldn’t escape a male wolf who suspected he had a thing for his female.
It had quickly become apparent that the “friendly game of football” had merely been an excuse to launch balls at Marcus’s head, constantly tackle him to the ground, and for every male there to pile on top of him in what appeared to be an effort to crush him to death.
He was covered in bruises and bumps and gashes, had pain radiating from the shoulder that he’d minutes ago popped back into place, and was pretty sure some of his ribs were broken. Also, he’d almost passed out twice. Clearly they were hoping he’d have “special needs” by the time this was over.
Nick arched a brow. “You sure you don’t want to run along home?”
“You sure you don’t want to accept my place in your sister’s life?”
“Roni can do better.”
“So can Shaya.”
Nick actually smiled. “You’re right, she can. But she’s mine.”
“And Roni’s mine.” Marcus briefly slid his gaze to Zander as he said it, who raised a brow, seemingly amused.
“I’ll admit you have balls—there aren’t many guys who’d willingly take on my sister.”
Panting and using the back of his hand to wipe away the blood dripping from a huge gash above his brow, Derren nodded. “But he’s clearly tougher than we gave him credit for. You’ve got a skull like granite, Fuller.” Well, he’d know, since he tried to head-butt Marcus and it kind of backfired—the idiot almost knocked himself out.
Flexing and cradling his jaw, Eli nodded his agreement. “He’s got a fist like granite too.”
“I’ll bet everything I own that Roni’s right hook is better,” said Marcus.
Eli laughed. “I can assure you from past experience, it is.”
“He’s starting to come around!” shouted a badly bruised Kent from where he squatted beside a moaning Caleb. The guy had been out cold since the ball collided with his head, thanks to a solid throw from Marcus.
Zander popped his nose back into place. “I say we call it quits. Roni will kill us if we rough him up any more than this.”
“Yeah. I’d rather not have salt in my coffee again.” Eli shuddered.
Derren looked at Nick. “What do you say? Truce?”
All the Mercury wolves turned to their Alpha. Nick was staring at Marcus studiously. “If you hurt even a single hair on her head—”
“Haven’t we been over this already?” Marcus sighed. “You’d have to get through Roni to get to me, and I’m pretty sure I’d be dead by that point. At best, you can hope to play football with my severed head.”
A smile curved Nick’s mouth. “I can work with that.”
CHAPTER NINE
Should he have found it kind of endearing that Roni seemed caught in her worst nightmare simply because a stranger was talking to her? Probably not, but Marcus did.
He’d arrived home twenty minutes ago to find that the party was in full swing—a mix of the Phoenix wolves, the Mercury wolves, and some of Grace’s relations from her childhood pack.
After taking a shower to wash off the mud, blood, and grime from the “friendly game of football,” he’d pulled on some clothes and headed to the living area. Now he was leaning against the doorway, smiling to himself as one of Grace’s relations chatted on and on about designer shoes to a clearly uncomfortable Roni.
He was just about to go and rescue her when Trick appeared at his side, wearing the oddest expression. Marcus had no idea what was going on in that mind. Trick seemed
like an open book, but in reality, he wasn’t easy to read.
Trick took a swig of his beer. “I saw you and Roni the other night.”
It was obvious what Trick meant¸ and it rubbed Marcus the wrong way. “Really?” he drawled, his voice a little menacing.
Trick smirked slightly. “You don’t like that I know what she looks like when she comes, do you?”
“No, I don’t.” His wolf was particularly pissed about it, which was unexpected, given that his wolf liked and trusted Trick. He and Marcus had scratched each other’s itch from time to time and even shared females. But if Trick were hinting at sharing Roni, it wouldn’t happen. Possessiveness roared through him at the very idea of it, almost making his claws slice out.
Trick casually leaned against the wall. “She marked you.”
“Yep.”
“And you marked her.”
“Yep.” When Trick just looked at him, Marcus sighed. “Trick, if you’ve got something to say, say it. But if you’re about to suggest sharing her—”
“That’s not what this is about.”
“Then, what? Do you have a problem with Roni or something?”
“Not at all. I like her. Tough, shrewd, fast—just my kind of girl. But she’s not your kind of girl. She’s very different from your usual type.”
“What does that matter?”
His expression completely serious now, he asked, “Have you considered that she might be your mate?”
Okay, that wasn’t what Marcus had expected him to say.
“You like her, Marcus. I mean like her, like her. You’ve never been so hot for anyone before, never been possessive or jealous. But your wolf wants to take a swipe at me right now because I’ve seen her naked, doesn’t he?”
No, he didn’t want to take a swipe at Trick. He wanted to gut him.
“If you were anyone else, I’d let you work it out by yourself. But you’ve got more issues than Playboy—without a kick in the right direction, you could head down the wrong one. I wouldn’t like to see that happen.”