The Werewolf Tycoon's Secret Baby (The Woolven Secret Book 2) (13 page)

“I used to know a hunter named Sebastian. He died on this op.”

“Apparently not.”

“Whatever that thing is you guys saw, it’s not Sebastian. It can’t be. He was ripped apart, too. Hunted down, torn limb from limb.”

“The guy we met, he smelled like magick, werewolf, and death.”

“Sebastian Monk was a hunter. He knew Kate before I did. They met at a college party, if you know what I mean.”

Drew narrowed his eyes. “That piece of shit had his hands on her?”

“And his silver.”

“What?” he roared.

“No, no. He didn’t know she was a wolf. He was just kinky. When he realized what she was and she realized what he was, she transformed and escaped through the window.”

“Tell me the rest.” He steeled himself for the rest of Kate’s story.

Lenore downed another and finally, it seemed to steady her. “We stalked Royce to this club and he invited us to his country house. We thought the op was going so well.” She shook her head slowly. “He knew exactly why we were there. The party at his country house he’d invited us to? It was another hunt. That part we knew. He drugged me and put me in the dungeon to wait until the silver was gone from my blood. He was going to turn me. You know, the big slap in the face to the Breslins. To make my brother hunt me down and kill me. It was worse for Kate, though. She didn’t go down without a fight. She took many of his soldiers with her.”

“Why is this the first I’m hearing of this? If she belonged to the Woolven nation, we’d have acted.” He hand curled into a fist.

“Your brother knows everything up to Kate’s torture. While she fought well, she was caught. I couldn’t help her. They tore her apart over and over and over again. They allowed her to regenerate. To heal. Only to hunt her again. They did terrible things to her, do you understand what I’m telling you?”

They’d raped her. They’d killed her. They’d revived her and did it all again. He couldn’t get the imagery of them doing that to his Emmie out of his head and it was almost enough to push him past the point of control. His beast raged beneath the surface, clawed at his skin to get out.

But Lenore was telling him this for a reason. Some reason that had to do with Emmie. A reason that his logic had already latched on to, but his heart didn’t want to hear. His prime directive was to protect her and his son. Giving his beast free rein wouldn’t be in the best interest of that directive and it was enough to keep him caged, for the moment.

“I see your beast beneath your skin, Drew Woolven, and I need you to get a grip on that shit right now. I’m not done. What I have to tell you gets worse before it gets better.”

“I’m listening. My beast understands I can’t help Emmie or Noah if we surrender to the rage.”

“Good.” She gave him a half smile. “I like a logical beast.”

He tossed back the amber contents of the tumbler and poured himself another. “I’m ready.”

“Another hunter was undercover with DeVayne already. He’d worked a long time to get there. Starting in prep school. Long con, you know? He blew his cover to help us. He slipped me some silver so when my guard came to bite me, he was poisoned. Bastian got me to a witch who was able to pull the infection out of my blood, but in the meantime, he’d left Kate.” She pressed her lips together. “I’d left Kate.”

“You went back for her.”

“I did. And she was beyond broken. Physically, mentally, and spiritually. Sometimes, I wonder if I should’ve let her die. It would’ve given her some measure of peace. But I took her back to the witch.”

His brain made the connection again, but didn’t want to accept it.

“The only thing to be done for her was to wipe those memories away. Change who she was at her core. Even on a cellular level.”

“Emmie?” he whispered, his voice broken and hoarse.

“Yes. Kate became Emmie. When she awoke, she had the false memories of a new life the witch had given her and a deep, abiding fear of werewolves. The Alphas were told that Kate became someone—something else. But no details. To keep her safe.”

Something inside of him shattered. Instead of manifesting as rage, instead of shedding his human skin, he did something incredibly human.

He cried.

The tears fell and he was unashamed. Only a monster would be unaffected by the knowledge, and he was not a monster. The idea of his mate suffering so, abandoned and alone in the hands of a demon like DeVayne, it stabbed him a thousand times. He wished with every part of his being he could go back in time and save her.

Or even now, he would bear that pain, those memories for her.

He also knew without being told he could never, ever Turn her.

Drew grieved for Kate, he grieved for Emmie, and he wouldn’t deny he grieved for himself. For the future forever they could never have. Emmie would grow old and die and Drew knew he’d follow her. He’d stay with her always.

Lenore put her hand on his shoulder, and tears were bright in her eyes again.

He didn’t hesitate to pull her forward in the chair and embrace her. “You still saved her. It’s not your fault, Lenore.”

“But it is. Peter found us holed up in Paris and, for a while, he was her knight in shining armor. I was so afraid that he’d realize who she was. That he’d hurt her. It seemed she only felt safe with him. They fell in love and got married. I thought maybe he’d found his humanity in his love for Emmie. All the abuse she suffered with him, that was my fault, too.”

“No. She’s a grown woman who made her own decisions. You helped her when she asked you to, and that’s all you can do.”

Lenore gave a shuddering breath and pulled away from the embrace. “I really didn’t expect to find comfort in the telling. I expected…”

“Teeth and claws?” He looked at her knowingly.

“Maybe, but they wouldn’t be unwarranted. I accept that.”

“None of this was your fault. You were kids. You have to let go of that guilt. Someday, someone might be able to use that against you. And my son needs his Aunt Lennie. He’ll need everyone he can get in the coming days. He’s a born Alpha and the Woolven Heir.”

“You know I’d protect him with my life.” She nodded slowly. “Emmie, too. So you understand that even though she’s your mate, you can’t ever bite her. Not ever.”

Hearing the words spoken aloud were like silver daggers slicing into him again and again, but he knew the truth of them.

“I know.”

“Even if the Council demands it to save her life. If she were to remember, those memories would kill her, Drew. Or they’d break her so thoroughly, she’d be better off dead.”

“I’m going to kill DeVayne. He may have bought the votes from the Council that saved his life, but now that we’re at war, it’s open season.” He said this without passion, without rage, but with a calm finality.

“Someone needs to,” Lenore agreed.

W
hen Emmie met Blake Woolven
, this giant scary Alpha of the Woolven pack, he was crawling around on all fours of the boardroom, still man-shaped, with Noah howling in delight on his back.

“Mama!” He leapt from Blake’s back and into her arms.

The billionaire CEO of Woolven Industries grinned up at her from the floor, his blond hair falling over his forehead. She could see why Randi was smitten. He was hot. Not as hot as Drew of course, but hot.

Randi put a hand on her shoulder. “Something about those Woolven men, huh? We’re pretty lucky.”

Blake stood and pushed a hand through his hair and straightened his suit. “It has nothing to do with luck.” It seemed like even when he wasn’t looking at Randi, he was.

The look that passed between them was so intense, that Emmie almost felt like a voyeur for seeing it.

“But that aside, Emmie, it’s my honor to welcome you and your son to our family.” Blake put his arms around her and she was so surprised that she allowed it.

She was uncomfortable at first, but then remembered how touch oriented wolf packs were. The honesty of it. For them, it was about the familial bond.

Peter had always tried to make everything dirty. If she’d still been married to him, he’d have hit her if she’d hugged another man. But this was Drew’s brother, Noah’s uncle, and Alpha of their pack. This was important.

She returned the embrace and it did indeed feel like home. Like family. As if here in this place, with these people was where she belonged.

Where she’d always belonged.

When Lenore had first told her about her memory loss, she’d thought that she was a hunter, too.

But she hadn’t been, had she? No, that was all wrong.

She’d been like them.

Just then, it hit her full force. Everything she’d lost, everything that had been ripped away from her.

A single sob escaped her throat.

She’d been wandering for so long, so lost. She’d always felt abandoned, like a piece of her was missing, and it was. Lenore had told her it wasn’t a part she’d miss, but she did.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to cry,” Randi said, rubbing her back. “This is a good thing. I mean, I know we’re scary werewolves and everything…”

This caused her to sob harder.

“Randi, it’s… hard to explain.”

Emmie sniffed and pulled back. “You know, don’t you?” She searched his face and saw only concern there, not the pity she was expecting. Yet still, there was a knowledge in his eyes that shouldn’t have been there. “Does everyone know but me? Has everyone been laughing at me, or worse pitying me this whole time?”

“Emmie,” Drew began, reaching for her, the same knowledge in his eyes.

“Goddamn it,” she swore.

Mrs. Westwood grabbed Noah’s hand and said, “How about we go have some cookies?”

Emmie lifted her chin. She was done with this. She was done being afraid, she was done being the weak link. She didn’t want to be the one everyone had to protect. That was Noah. He was small and innocent.

Emmie was not.

She refused to be.

“You and me, Andrew Woolven. Right now.” She marched out of the door and no one tried to stop her.

“No, leave them be. It’ll all work out. I promise you,” she heard Blake say.

Drew grabbed her arm just before she made it to the front door. “Where the hell are you going?”

“To the maze. To the flower.”

“Emmie, you’re not ready for that.
We’re
not ready for that.”

“Yes, we are. I’m going.”

“No, you’re not.”

“How are you going to stop me?” She jerked her arm away from him. “You’ll have to put me over your shoulder.”

“I had this idea, Emmie. Of a family vacation in Santorini. Everyone. A candlelit ceremony on that beach. My ring on your finger. Kapari. Our honeymoon on a yacht…”

“But there’s no mention of your bite at my throat, is there? If I were any other woman, that would be your dream.” Her lip trembled.

“That’s not what you want, and it’s not safe for you. Christ, Emmie. Why would my dream include anything that would hurt you? Those memories would break you. Change you. I love you. The you who you are now. I don’t know any way to make that more clear.”

“What if it’s not my dream?”

“What is your dream? Tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”

“Right now, we’re going to the maze. That’s the way to my dream. I want to be with you. I want to be your wife. Your mate in all ways. I want this pack. This family. It was ripped from away from me.”

“Hugging my brother— the Alpha.” He hung his head.

“I belonged to this pack before, didn’t I? When put his arms around me, it was like coming home. A home I didn’t know I’d lost. What if one day, this was all just gone, and even if you didn’t remember it, you’d feel it, wouldn’t you? And what if you could have it back?” she cried.

“But you can’t! Not the way you want it.”

“Come with me to the maze.”

“And what? I doubt the flower is going to work on you. Even if it did, why? So you stop being afraid long enough to have sex? I want you willing and in complete control of all your faculties when you come to my bed.”

“No, so you can bite me,” she blurted. Yeah, she was terrified, but she needed to do this. She needed to reclaim who she had been so she could claim her space with who she wanted to be.

“Goddess fuck, Em. That’s the one thing I can never, ever give you.”

She wouldn’t be deterred. “Then come with me to the maze anyway. Do you really want me to be alone if it does affect me?”

“You’re the devil.”

“Not yet.” She knew she was making the right choice because even though he didn’t want her to do this thing, he didn’t put his hands on her. He’d grabbed her arm, gently, to get her attention, but he hadn’t physically put himself in her way.

He was primal. He was bestial. But he was the best man she’d ever known.

“Please don’t do this.”

“If it were you, what would you want? There’s no way in hell any of you would be content to let it lie. Not a single one of you. So why should I?” Emmie walked with purpose toward the manicured shrubbery and her future.

She didn’t care how afraid she was, she didn’t care about the darkness reaching for her, she was done with it. Emmie was done being afraid, done cowering in shadows.

She was done hiding from herself.

“Think about Noah.”

“I am thinking about Noah. I’m no use to him if I’m afraid of what he is, and I may not be afraid of him now, but he’s going to grow into a big, strong Alpha werewolf. He won’t be Emmie-sized anymore. He won’t look like a Pomeranian puppy with extra fluff. He’ll be a man. A wolf. He needs me to do this as much I need to.”

“I’m not biting you, Emmie. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. And how shitty would it be to leave me having to explain to our son why you’re not here anymore? Have you thought of that?”

She stopped walking. “Fine. Don’t bite me, but go with me into the maze anyway.” At the look on his face, she sighed. “Am I asking too much?”

“Maybe of yourself.” He closed his fingers around hers. “I’ll go anywhere with you, Em. But I can’t lose you.”

“If you can’t mark me, you can never really have me either, can you? And I can never really have you. Not in the way we were meant to.”

“It’s enough.”

“Not for me.” She turned to face him. “I’d always feel like a failure. Like I let you down. Like I let Noah down.” When he would’ve spoken, she held up her hand. “And like a part of me is missing.”

“Sex with me isn’t going to fix that.”

“No, but I want this.” What she didn’t saw was that she hoped it would awaken that dormant part of her, that it would give her herself back.

“Do you?” He reached out to brush his fingers across her cheek.

Instead of steeling herself for the punch that she’d always thought was coming from Peter, instead of being afraid of the pain a touch would bring, she surrendered. Emmie was able to enjoy the caress for exactly what it was—communication of affection.

There was no threat in his touch, no dominance. No taking. Only giving.

He was so perfect—too perfect.

There had to be a wolf inside of her somewhere. Something in her sensed that the other shoe, proverbially speaking, was never going to drop. A human woman with her experiences would always doubt.

But there was this voice inside of her, her intuition, maybe it was her wolf. It wasn’t a new voice, but she’d never been able to listen to it before. It was always garbled, or like noise in her head. Or she’d been afraid to believe it.

As they entered the maze, Emmie knew that when she left it, things would’ve changed between them irrevocably. There’d be no waiting to see if this was right, there’d be no backing away now. She was committing to being his.

Emmie wasn’t afraid, even though perhaps she should’ve been. Not of Drew, but because she couldn’t unmake this choice.

She thought about the timing. How quickly things had gone from her asking for space to demanding he mark her and she knew why—because she was his mate. His one.

And he was hers.

“I have to tell you something before we go any farther.”

“What is it?”

“I saw Sebastian’s cloak at the edge of our territory last night.”

“Was Noah with you?”

“Yes. And he marked the cloak.”

“He what?” Did that mean what she thought it did?

Drew gave her a half grin. “We all did. But it’s important to me that you know putting yourself at risk right now—”

“All the more reason. This will make me stronger. It will make
us
stronger.”

He didn’t say anything, but instead, followed where she led. It didn’t take her long to find the center of the maze. It was almost as if she knew the layout, had it mapped in her memory.

The flower itself was horrifically beautiful, black and glossy death. As its petals slowly unfurled, she was entranced. She wanted to touch it, no…
needed
to touch it.

Emmie reached out tentative fingers and, before Drew could stop her, she’d made contact with velveteen petals. She stroked down one long, soft petal and sighed with bliss.

“It’s carnivorous.”

A low humming sound filled the air and green, vine-like shoots curled around her wrist, dragging her hand back to the petal. It was purring! She stroked it again and the flower turned itself into the caress. It was almost like a cat.

“I’ve never seen it do that.”

“I guess I’m special.”

Some of the vines shot out and wrapped around Drew’s wrist, dragging his hand toward the petal, toward her.

“It seems it has some very set ideas about the way things should work,” Emmie said.

“So it does.” He stroked his fingers over her back of her palm the same way she’d petted the flower and the contact sent shivers of delight through her body.

She didn’t replay Santorini in her head this time. It was all about anticipation. She wasn’t trying to recreate her time with the fictional art student, she was here in the now with Drew Woolven. This was new.

The vines wrapped around them both, binding them together, albeit loosely.

“I suppose if its perfume doesn’t work, it will resort to other means.” Drew put his hands on her waist.

The flower kept purring until a fat, bumblebee buzzed too close and the flower abandoned its matchmaking duties for a quick snack, snatching the bee out of the air and downing it with a single chomp.

“Usually, the bride runs.” He pushed her hair away from her face. “But I don’t want to be the thing in the dark chasing you.”

“Kiss me, then.”

His lips were tentative at first, as if she were some fragile bit of porcelain or a doll he wasn’t supposed to be touching.

That was a microcosm of everything that was wrong with their situation, why she needed so desperately to find her strength. She wasn’t small and breakable—maybe that was a lie, but perhaps she could learn to be less breakable.

Less fragile.

Emmie didn’t want to be the useless bauble on the shelf.

She turned her face up to his, rose up on her tiptoes to kiss him back. God, was it good. Her knees were weak, and she couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t want to. Breath would take them into the next moment, and she wasn’t ready to leave this one. She wanted to stay in it forever. If she let the moment pass, it might never be as real to her again.

His hands tangled in her hair, and she pressed herself against him, loving the contrast of their bodies, the heat coming from him. No mortal male could give off that much heat and not die, but Emmie loved the feel of it. Loved feeling like they’d be incinerated together.

She pushed her hands underneath the hem of his shirt to trace the lines of his body with her palms. He was stronger now, more solid. The leaner lines of his youth were solid now, a wall of muscle of power.

He was built to break things, to hurt things, to crush them with his great strength, but he used his body to give her comfort, warmth, and pleasure. She could feel his leashed beast beneath his skin and, while she was still a bit afraid, she wanted this with him more.

“He senses everything you’re feeling,” Drew whispered on a ragged breath against her lips.

“You say he, but isn’t he only you?”

“Me, but to the millionth degree. I supposed it’s easier to refer to that part of myself as something separate. My human mind knows things, thinks things, but so does my wolf mind.”

“What does your wolf mind think of me?” She kissed the edge of his mouth, his jaw, his neck.

His arms tightened around her and he offered her his throat as she kissed it. She intrinsically knew what an honor it was, such an act of trust.

“Do you really want the answer?”

“Oh yes,” she said, nipping at his neck.

He groaned. “He wants to eat you.” Drew’s hands had slid down to cup her ass. “Does that scare you?”

His words caused something low in her belly to coil tight with need. “No.”

“Good.”

There was a part of her that wanted to run, a part of her that wanted to get his blood hot with the chase.

“Would you chase me if I did run?”

He buried his face in her neck. “Don’t ask me not to.”