“I thought you didn’t care for me much.” Although if Cara had spoken the truth, Meara admired Tessa somewhat and had given her stamp of approval behind her back.
“I really have no choice, do I?” Meara offered her a wicked smile.
Tessa couldn’t tell if she was teasing or being truthful. Maybe a little of both.
“Hunter will be changing you. Then you’ll be our pack leader’s mate. So…” Meara shrugged. “I’ll have to live with it, or give you a hard time. And believe me, I’m very capable of it. Just ask Hunter. Are you alpha enough to take it?”
“I’ll have to be, won’t I?”
“So you’re going to be one of us?”
“I don’t see that I have much choice.” Yet if Tessa could have had a semi-normal life with Hunter, she would have jumped at the chance. Marriage meant getting along with the relatives though, but mixing it up with the personalities of a werewolf pack?
The doorbell rang and Tessa glanced back at the door. Please be Hunter and Leidolf.
“I’ll see who it is,” Meara said.
Tessa’s heart sped up. “Wait, let me come with you.” She tried to stand.
“No, you can’t walk on that foot.”
“You stay put, Tessa,” Ashton said, hurrying into the living room, zipping up his jeans, his chest bare.
Meara crossed the floor and peeked out the security hole. “Oh, hell.”
“Who is it?” Ashton asked.
“Uhm, three guys I know. If Hunter catches them here, they’ll be dead meat.” Meara opened the door. “Go home before my brother finds you here.”
“Come on, Meara. We’re planning on heading up to Idaho for a change of scenery. Come with us.”
“Leave,” Ashton said, joining Meara at the door, his voice as threatening as Tessa had ever heard it. “Now.”
He might be a pushover when it came to Cara, which made her wonder if Bethany had had the same effect on him. But when it came to most men, except for Hunter, he could get pretty physical.
Tessa couldn’t see the other guys, but she was dying to get a look.
“Are you going to make us? One lone male?”
“Two,” Rourke said, looking pale still as he made his way to the front door, a little unsteady on his feet. “Oh hell, they’re three of the ones Hunter and I smelled down by the beach. Why don’t you leave before the two alpha pack leaders return and rip you guys to shreds?”
One laughed. “Like there’d be two alpha leaders chumming together.”
Her head bandaged, Cara walked into the room and grabbed the rifle. “Here, Ashton. Want to go hunting?”
“Hmm, maybe you’d like to go with us,” another male said.
“I’ve got a mate. He’s the one now holding the loaded rifle,” Cara said. “So maybe you ought to run along like everyone says.”
“Do they know anything about the gray Ashton saw? My stalker?” Tessa asked from the couch.
“A stalker, you say, little lady?” one of the men said. “We might know something about it. Got some beers?”
“Oh, no. You guys just get out of here,” Meara warned. “If my brother catches you after you encouraged me to leave our cabin, no telling what he’ll do to you.”
“If any of them know about my stalker, I want to talk to them,” Tessa said, trying to make it off the couch. “So let them in.”
“No, we can’t.” Meara shook her head at Tessa. “Believe me, you don’t want to see what Hunter will do if he finds them here.”
Tessa sat on the arm of the couch and scowled. “Let them in now, or else.”
“It is her house,” Cara conceded.
“Then I’m leaving.” Meara folded her arms. “I won’t watch Hunter kill them.”
“I’ll go with them, we’ll talk, and then return. All right with everyone?” Jeesh, Tessa couldn’t believe she would have to leave her own house to interrogate possible witnesses.
“Then Hunter would really kill them,” Meara said. “No way are you leaving with them.”
“She’s not one of us?” one of the men asked, trying to look around the wall of people at the door.
Tessa caught a glimpse of the man who appeared to be in his midtwenties, black beard and shoulder-length hair, dark brown eyes. Cute. No wonder he had enticed Meara to go with him.
He whistled. “I’ve never heard of a human in a lupus garou pack.”
“Come in and tell me what you know about my stalker,” Tessa commanded and would have dragged him into the house, if it hadn’t been for her blamed ankle.
No one moved. Meara and the rest still blocked the three guys from entering. Ashton still held his rifle ready.
“Fine.” Tessa hobbled to the front door. “Let me out and I’ll speak with them on the front porch.”
Rourke grabbed her arm so she could lean against him. “You don’t even have your coat on.”
“Well, someone get it for me.”
“Oh hell, let them in.” Meara raised her hands in resignation. “If they’re too stupid to recognize the danger…” She shrugged and returned to the living room and collapsed on the recliner.
“Are you sure?” Ashton asked, still keeping the men at bay on the front porch.
“Let them in,” Tessa said. “It’s my house and my business. Besides, if Hunter learns you sent them away and they had information about the guy who’s trying to turn me, he’d be even more furious.”
The black-haired guy nodded. “I told my friends I thought that was what this was all about. Either that, or a pretty lupus garou female lived here on her own. Although we smelled a human female and suspected the gray got himself hooked on one of them instead.”
Rourke lifted Tessa in his arms and carried her back to the couch. “Might as well let them in, Ashton. Tessa’s right. If they know something about this gray and his brothers, and we chase these guys off, Hunter’s bound to be furious with us.” He cast Meara a sympathetic look. “Guess we’ll just have to hope he doesn’t kill them afterwards.”
“Maybe we can get whatever information they have out of them quickly, and they can be on their way,” Cara suggested, sitting beside Tessa on the couch.
Ashton motioned with the gun. “Get inside. You’re letting all the cold air in.”
“Like it’s our fault,” the black-haired guy said. “Jessup’s the name. These are my friends, Redmond, on account he’s got a red lupus garou in the mix way back when, otherwise he’s all gray. We try not to hold the other against him.” He gave Redmond a sly smile. “And Butch, cuz he chopped off all his hair, although we haven’t figured out why he would do that now in the dead of winter.”
Looking cross, Meara cleared her throat. “Now that you’ve made your introductions, tell us what you know about this guy and his brothers and then get your butts out of here.”
Redmond stood next to the fire, warming his backside and grinned at Tessa. “I can see why he’s got the hots for you. So, are you the one who’s getting her?” he asked Rourke.
Meara gave a haughty laugh. “He might want her, but my brother is the one who’s claimed her. Quit changing the subject and tell us what you know.”
“Thought we might have a beer while we’re talking.” Butch’s pale green eyes speared Tessa.
“No.” Tessa wondered why the guy seemed so familiar. The courthouse! His hair was cropped short now, not long like when she had seen him at the trial, she was pretty sure. And he stood a little taller now, not as sloop-shouldered. But the eyes… she was sure they were the same eyes that had watched her so closely. “No alcohol in the house.” Tequila, but not for the likes of them. “What do you know about my stalker?”
She noticed Rourke surreptitiously taking pictures of the three men using his phone. She knew if he put his heart into it he would make an excellent investigative reporter.
“He and his brothers aren’t from around here,” Jessup said. “Like most unmated males, they’re looking for a female. He saw you sometime and decided you were the one for him.”
“Have you met them? Talked to them? Know who they are?”
Jessup tipped his head to the side. “Yoloff is the one who wants you. The one with the broken leg, he’s Andreas, and Ren is the other. They’re from Arizona, not looking to settle down here. Too wet. I talked to Yoloff. He didn’t say what he was doing here exactly, but I knew it had to be over a woman. They plan to return to Arizona once they’ve finished their business here.”
Or Hunter finished with them. Tessa looked over at Butch. “How come you were at my brother’s trial?”
He stared her down as if he was trying to intimidate her, then finally shrugged. “Why would I be at a human’s trial?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
Waiting for his response, everyone watched him. Either Redmond and Jessup didn’t know their friend had been at Michael’s trial, or they pretended innocence.
Butch gave her a smirk. “Don’t know your brother, why he’d be on trial, or where it was held either. You must have mistaken me for someone else.”
“You wouldn’t have been at my house at some time or another, would you have? As an electrician? Plumber?”
He didn’t say anything.
Then Rourke jumped into the fray. “The three of you were at Bethany’s house. Why?”
Butch smiled in an evil way, turning his attention from Rourke to Tessa. “I thought we were discussing your stalker, Miss Anderson.”
“Seems you might know something about Bethany’s murder, too,” Tessa said, her blood stirring. “Where do you live? Why have you been in the area? Seeking mates, too?”
“Always.” Redmond winked at her. “Can’t blame us. When the urge hits us… Human females are one thing, but they’re not quite as feral as our own kind. No offense, miss.”