GIANNA

Over the next couple of days, Cruz continues to work the MC case off and on. From what he shares when he comes home, his team is closer than ever to arresting the leaders of the Breed MC. My week with him has gone well. I keep telling myself that. Cruz takes me upstairs—and in the kitchen, on the floor, pretty much anywhere the two of us end up tangled together—and the sex is amazing. Some of the hottest I’ve ever had, truth be told, and Luc had already expanded my horizons plenty in our time together.

The more I get to know Cruz, the more I like him. More than like him. He intrigues me even as he kind of scares the fuck out of me. He won’t let me hide from the truth of what happened that night we almost took down the Breed MC.

And the truth is that he and Luc staked me out as bait for wolves. Sure, I let them do it. That option had the highest chance of succeeding. We needed to get the biker club on record committing various felonies that included kidnapping, assault, and weapons trafficking. I wanted them to pay—needed them to pay—and I’d gotten my wish.

Cruz’s guys had arrested a half dozen males, and the District Attorney had charged them with eighty-six felony counts. It should have been a recipe for happily ever after, except Luc had apparently planned on skipping the arrest portion of the night in favor of the punish agenda. Do not pass Go, do not collect one hundred dollars. Cruz’s way of solving our MC problem is the way I’d do things.

So we’d been skirting around our differences there, and then I’d gotten cold feet and put our relationship on ice until the court date and Cruz’s insistence on being the one to watch over me while I was in protective custody. For a month, I’d avoided Cruz—and I’d avoided Luc.

I miss the hell out of Luc.

I’ve spent way too much time imagining what he’s doing while I’m not there with him. It’s not that I think he’d find himself a replacement for me—after meeting his brothers and their girlfriends, I believe that he believes one hundred and ten percent in his family’s fated-mate-blue-moon-bride legend. But what if he’s sick and tired of my making him wait? It’s not as if he’s the kind of guy who takes orders anyhow—so why isn’t he chasing me? Why is he suddenly hands-off and willing to leave me in Cruz’s arms?

Not that I need his permission or that it’s a question of let. Shoot. Even in my head, I’m not entirely sure I mind his take-charge attitude, and that’s something I need to change ASAP.

So calling Luc is stupid. Plus it’s not as if he’s easy to reach. I know the man has a cell phone—I programmed my number in it myself—but he’s not so big on answering. To my surprise though, he picks up on the second ring.

“Shug,” he says, his voice low and rough.

And just like that I melt. Being here without him—that isn’t what I’d choose.

“I miss you.” The words slip out of my mouth before I can bite them back. I don’t know why voicing my feelings out loud makes me feel anxious and like crap, but it’s the truth. “Come out here.”

There’s a pause he doesn’t rush to fill up with words, and I have a good idea why. It’s not my place to invite him to Cruz’s home. I’m no werewolf expert, but some rules are entirely too clear. Cruz’s pack and Luc’s pack do not mix. Ever. They respect each other from a distance while carving up the parish into territories. On the other hand, I’ve seen wolves from both packs mingle at Dag Breaux and Riley Jones’s wedding. Fur didn’t fly that day, and no blood was spilled as far as I know.

“That’s not something I should do.” His whiskey-rough voice carries down the line. He’s not one for cell phones and phone calls, but he’s made an exception for me. “Port Leon is Cruz’s territory.”

Five words, but Luc might as well be speaking Greek.

“This is a free country,” I argue.

“For humans,” Luc agrees, and I can hear the smile in his voice. It pisses me off, his insistence that there are two sets of rules, one for humans and one for wolves.

“The U.S. Supreme Court disagrees with you there. Cruz can’t own Port Leon. He can’t stop you from setting foot in town.” Any more than you can reserve the bayou as your own private playground.

Luc’s shrug is practically audible. He has no intention of arguing with me about this. “Life’s not fair, shug. You got to know that by now.”

Fact-finding, I remind myself. Figure out what I’m working with here. After all, Luc drove out to Cruz’s place the day I arrived and the world didn’t come to an end. “Does Cruz have wolf traps on his property? Some kind of woowoo bayou magic?”

“I got a free pass—sort of—on accompanying you to Cruz’s before,” he says, and I wonder again if our connection has given some kind of secret mind-reading abilities. “Cruz wasn’t happy about it, but I didn’t stick around, didn’t push too hard, so it worked out okay. Wolves are territorial,” he continues, as if his werewolf lecture explains everything. Maybe it does in his world, but he’s the one who made the mistake of dating a human. I require actual words rather than masculine grunts. If he wants me to honor his rules, he needs to explain them first.

Another thought occurs to me. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not territory. I’m not a tree you need to pee on to stake your claim.” He snorts because, yeah, that’s a gross mental image, but I’ve got a point to make. “I’m my own woman, and if I want to see the two of you together, that’s what I’m going to do. You and Cruz said you wanted to try being together with me.”

“Uh-huh,” he says and then falls silent. That’s not the rousing reaffirmation I’m look for. I twist his ring on its chain, searching for the right opening.

“So do you have to get into a pissing match?”

“I’m bein’ honest with you,” he says.

I guess he thinks that helps, and it’s not as if I want him to lie to me. After all, lying’s not relationship material. But if we’re going to make this work, the three of us need to spend time together. Otherwise, Luc and Cruz, they’re like two opposing baseball teams slugging it out—and I’m the ball. They won’t mean to hurt me, but they’ll be so focused on competing, on getting the ball where they need it to be, that they’ll forget. About me. About us.

“We can’t make this thing work,” I argue, “if you’re on one side of the bayou and Cruz is on the other. Relationships aren’t like timeshares or fractional ownership.”

“You really wan’ us to be roommates?” Luc doesn’t even bother to hide his skepticism.

Uh, yeah. If the three of us are going to be together in a relationship, we need to spend the time together, getting to know each other. Instead, I’m still part of a couple—it’s just that the guy holding me is tag-teaming another guy.

“Try,” I say and hang up on him.

LUC

Gianna’s words echo in my head, leaving me with two choices. I can rise to her bait and go to her in Port Leon—or I can play this smart and avoid the woman I love for the rest of the week. Gianna thinks I haven’t seen her since she chose to go with Cruz.

She’s wrong.

Fuck, but I can’t keep away from her, not even when it would be the smart thing to do. She’s the one who brought up Cruz, and the thought of the other wolf touching her makes me see red. I’ve spent way too much time already imagining his mouth on her skin, kissing and tasting her breasts, the soft curve of her belly, her sweet pussy. Any more thinking and I’ll just have to kill the guy and put him out of my misery.

He feels the same way about me.

Gianna doesn’t understand the first thing about wolves, mating, or the blue moon. She’s made that perfectly clear. What she does know is what she wants. Or what she thinks she wants. My paying an uninvited visit to the Jones’s enclave is either suicidal or homicidal, depending on who you ask. Sure, I could pull some of my brothers into this mess, ask them to accompany me so I’m not walking into a den of hostile werewolves with no one at my back, but this is personal. Gianna’s not pack business, not yet.

So I go alone.

If I made my destination clear, I’d have at least two of my brothers guarding my ass like a fucking honor guard and the exclamation point at the end of the I’m here to fuck my girl sentence. I can’t stop picturing Cruz getting her naked, taking advantage of her sweet hunger. She needs to make up her mind fast, choose soon, because all the pretty words about sharing and figuring out a way to make our threesome work are just that. Words.

I’ve been out Cruz’s way more than once because I need to see. I have to know. It puts me in stalker territory, and I don’t like myself. I want her back. All the way back. Each time I shift, it gets harder and harder to return to the man. That’s the Breaux curse right there. We lose ourselves in our wolves, shifting longer and longer until there comes a night when we don’t shift back. I lost a brother that way, centuries ago, before I brought my pack here to the Louisiana bayou, and I’ve done everything I can to make sure my brothers have their mates and avoid the same fate.

I shift, the change effortless. It’s like taking a step sideways. One minute I’m the man and the next, I’m shucking those human trappings and sliding into the wolf’s body. Fur ripples over my human skin, my bones shaping and reforming as I fall into my wolf. The bayou explodes around me, the wolf’s senses even finer attuned than the man’s.

The night’s velvety, the darkness wrapping around me as I slip into the shadows. A gator bellows somewhere not too far away, slipping into the still waters. Hunting. Loving. The animal’s life is straightforward, and everything is simpler for the wolf too. I’m hunting my mate, and I leave all the reasons not to go after her behind with my human self.

Dre falls in beside me, loping along on four legs, as I near the edge of our territory. I snarl, nipping at his hindquarters. He’s not coming with me, not tonight. Dre protests, but too fucking bad. I’m the Alpha of our pack and eventually my wolves listen. It’s that or challenge me for the leadership, and we all know how that would work out. It’s not that Dre and the others aren’t capable of leading, but that kind of control isn’t what they want. Still, he forces me to drive him back a second time and then a third. Eventually he falls away, point made, and I’m alone again.

Gianna.

I don’t need a blue moon to find her now. She’s under my skin, deep in my heart, and I’ll always be able to find her.

I run for a good hour, my paws eating up the swamp, before I draw near Port Leon. The small bayou town is the heart of Cruz’s territory, a weather-worn, silvered collection of clapboard houses and sleepy businesses. It’s not as if there’s an actual boundary line between his territory and mine, but there’s a definite divider that I’m aware of. The scent of the land itself seems to change, and the closer I draw to his family’s plantation, the thicker and more humid the air grows.

The werewolf lurking by the side of the road doesn’t belong here anymore than I do. I’m upwind, and he hasn’t scented me yet. He’s a large, rangy wolf, ropy with muscles. A scar bisects one ear and brands his face, the ravaged skin a souvenir from a fight gone wrong. He’s still alive though, which means he’s hard to kill. That’s okay. I am too.

I circle around. Not my territory, not my kill, but Gianna’s just up the road and this wolf is a threat. The roar of a motorcycle coming up the road has me falling back into the shadows, and that gives me a ringside seat for what comes next. As the biker tears around the bend, the other werewolf launches himself at the rider. The bike slides across loose gravel, the engine cutting out as the rider throws himself clear, twisting and shifting. I’ve got myself a werewolf party, and none of the RSVPs are mine.

The black wolf slams into the lurker wolf with a fierce growl, teeth tearing at the other animal. I inhale. One MC werewolf… and one of Cruz’s. I recognize the family scent, so I’m betting that’s Jace, the wolf Cruz had inserted into the MC. He certainly fights like a son of a bitch, so I should back the fuck off. Not my fight.

Except that I scent more wolves coming up the road fast. Jace-or-whoever-he-is sinks his teeth into the other wolf and blood sprays. He’ll be outnumbered when the new party guests reach him. I put the start of Wolfaggedon at approximately nine seconds out. I should keep going, should take my straight shot to Gianna. Except I can’t help but admire the black wolf’s brutal takedown, even if it’s not going to be enough. And it’s going to leave the road wide open to Cruz’s lair—and Gianna.

Well, fuck. It looks as if I get my fight tonight after all.