Alyssa's Wolves (Wolf Masters, Book 4)(6)

That information should have relaxed him, and it did, marginally. But still the questions hung in the air. What the hell was she doing here with Reese and Charles? What did “spend the holidays with us” mean? And, how was Michael going to survive having her in the house without taking her?

He was going to have to have words with Charles later. For now, he’d just keep an eye on the trio and make sure no one touched his mate. As long as everyone kept their hands to themselves, it was all good.

Neither Reese nor Charles seemed all that interested in her. He’d seen his brother, Justin, and his friend, Trevor, with their mate. From the moment they’d met, none of them could separate. If they weren’t touching each other, which was rare, they were at least following each other around the room with their gazes.

It was the same with his second brother, Ryan. He and Alejandro had mated with Lindsey, and the three hadn’t come up for air for weeks after they’d met.

Charles and Reese barely paid Alyssa any attention at all beyond that which was deemed polite.

An entire week went by. Michael eventually assessed that whatever was going on with Alyssa had nothing to do with Charles and Reese. In fact, those two men almost immediately met and claimed another woman, Jessica.

The mystery behind Alyssa’s plight slowly unfolded. Michael spent a great deal of time with her, but he never let on what he knew. She was eighteen and completely unaware she belonged to him.

On Christmas day, two idiots from her pack showed up at the door. They’d been sent to retrieve her. Michael was furious. He wrapped Alyssa in his embrace, claimed she was his, and kissed her. The kiss might have been a little overboard. He’d intended to pretend, for everyone else’s benefit, that she belonged to him. The act was make-believe for everyone but him. She did belong to him. And when he kissed her, he lost all sense of reason for the eternity it seemed to last. He had to force himself to pull back.

Nothing up to that point could have prepared him for the way his heart slammed against his chest, and his blood pounded through his veins. His cock did not listen to reason, and he hid behind his mate to keep his erection out of everyone’s line of sight.

Even after the threat was over, and the thugs had left to inform the Oklahoma pack she had been claimed in Oregon, Michael could not rein in his desire.

In the end, he had no choice. He told his parents what had happened. Richard and Nancy Masters simply smiled. They’d known. Of course.

Seeing no other option, Michael decided to go away for a few years. His mate needed time. Time to grow up. Time to learn about life outside the restrictions she’d been raised with. Time to be loved by his family. He wouldn’t steal her youth by mating her prematurely, even though it broke his heart to leave her. As luck would have it, Alejandro, the man his brother Ryan shared a mate with, was from Spain. It was perfect. Michael would go to Spain and live with Alejandro’s family on their vineyard while Alyssa enjoyed a carefree life with the Masters.

When the time was right, he’d come home…





Chapter 1


Two years later…

“Bingo,” Tyler Evans muttered to himself. Finally, after two days of hiding between the trees staking out the Masters’ Oregon home, the subject of his private investigation emerged. “’Bout time.” He’d worried Alyssa Franklin would never come out of the house by this point.

Tyler’s arms ached from holding up a pair of binoculars for so many hours without bending his elbows, and his eyes could barely focus on anything each time he lowered the binoculars for a moment’s reprieve.

He’d know Alyssa anywhere. Granted, he’d only seen her a few times since they were much younger in Oklahoma and then only from a distance, but she hadn’t changed at all. Maybe her silky pale blonde hair was longer, but the only other difference he could see, even from this distance, was her smile.

Tyler remembered Alyssa as a quiet, mousy teenager who rarely allowed her lips to curve up at the corners, probably because she knew with each passing year she was getting closer and closer to a fate she couldn’t accept—marriage to Dwight Wells. Just the thought made Tyler cringe.

Alyssa nearly skipped out of the house, trailed by three other women, and her radiant face spoke volumes. She was happier here with the Masters in Oregon than she’d ever been with her own pack in Oklahoma. And who could blame her? Even having to separate herself from everyone she’d ever known, including her own parents, was a better fate than the one she’d been arranged to endure. Running away from home two years ago and reestablishing herself with a new pack in the northwest had clearly done her a world of good.