Rogue Wolf by Paige Tyler
Chapter 25
“Is Connor actually having a conversation with that cat?” Samantha asked as she watched the black cat sitting atop one of the tables near the line of grills, nodding her head knowingly as the SWAT cop said something. Though whether the man was talking to the cat or the steaks and burgers he was busy flipping, she wasn’t sure.
“Kat is probably telling him exactly how she wants her burger cooked,” Trevor said casually as he munched on a chip covered in salsa.
Samantha was sure Trevor was kidding, but when several other people around the picnic table with them made sounds of agreement, she wondered if maybe talking cats weren’t as bizarre as they sounded. Truthfully, she didn’t know anymore. Discovering that werewolves, life-sucking vampires, and reanimated corpses were all real had a way of messing with a person’s fundamental understanding of the universe.
Deciding to set the topic aside for the time being, Samantha turned her attention to the rest of the people hanging out at the SWAT compound for today’s cookout. Trey and a few other members of his pack were playing volleyball with a bunch of teenagers, goofing off more than playing any serious kind of game. People stood around the sand-filled court watching the game with one eye and the handful of young children chasing after a collection of excited and very happy dogs with the other. She was still trying to learn everyone’s name and accepted that it might take a while, but they already felt like family. The moment was rendered all the more surreal by the fact that at least half the people around the compound were werewolves and many of the others were friends, family, and mates of the aforementioned werewolves. And yes, she was still getting used to the whole “mate” thing. She was the mate of a real-life werewolf!
It was hard not shaking her head. It had only been three weeks since Louis’s home had burnt to the ground, putting an end to the Butcher case and changing her life forever.
She and Trey had no problem selling their version of reality to the detective in charge of the task force. Yeah, Chief Leclair had been there too, looking more than a little dubious for some reason, but with no physical evidence to prove them wrong because the fire in the basement had burned so hot there hadn’t even been anything left of the bodies, there’d been little choice but to believe their admittedly outlandish story.
As for the vacant position of chief medical examiner, they’d already offered her the job. She’d been thrilled—even if she wasn’t looking forward to all the political stuff that came with the title—and had immediately accepted, much to Hugh’s consternation.
“How was your trip to Alaska?” Bree Harlow asked, dragging Samantha’s attention back to the other people around her at the table. “Diego mentioned it was the second time you and Trey went up there in three weeks.”
Samantha smiled. She and Bree had struck up an easy friendship the moment they’d met. Bree was almost as new to the Pack as Samantha, meeting her mate, Diego, earlier in the summer. While it was incredibly easy to talk to Trey about anything, it was still nice to connect with someone experiencing the same stuff she was. It helped when Bree admitted she’d fallen for her werewolf in less than a week and now couldn’t imagine living without him. It made her whirlwind romance with Trey seem more normal, if that was possible.
“It was wonderful,” Samantha said, thinking of the long weekend she and Trey had spent together up there. “The weather in Homer is perfect this time of the year. Of course, that only made coming back to our hundred-degree heat here in Dallas that much worse.”
“Are your friends getting settled in okay?” Bree asked, sipping her iced tea.
Everyone in the extended Pack was at least somewhat aware of the situation with Kyson and Shaylee, though she doubted Trey had told any of them all the details. It had taken a few days for Samantha and Trey to come up with a new place for Kyson and Shaylee to live where they could get a completely new start. When the idea of letting them use her grandparents’ place up in Homer had first popped into her head, Samantha had almost dismissed it immediately. Who the hell would want to run away and hide in the middle nowhere in a place you had to wear long sleeves year-round?
But it turned out that the answer was obvious. Kyson most definitely would. And Shaylee would go anywhere the man she loved would be happy.
It hadn’t been all that difficult to get the two of them up there and settled into the big home. The hard part had been convincing the army and the VA that Kyson wasn’t dead. But after getting through the military bureaucracy—there was even a damn form for resurrecting a person erroneously deemed deceased—the rest had been a piece of cake. True, her parents weren’t thrilled when they learned she’d given the place to someone they thought of as a stranger, but she wasn’t too concerned about that.
“They’re doing well,” Samantha said, looking over at the volleyball court to see Trey lifting up a little boy so he could whack the ball over the net. The endearing image made her suddenly wonder what their own kids would look like. That out-of-nowhere thought had her suspecting falling in love wasn’t the only thing that happened fast when it came to werewolves.
“Shaylee already has my grandparents’ house looking more like a home than it has in forever,” Samantha added. “And Kyson is getting more involved in the running of the wilderness tourism business every day. I think being in a place like Homer suits him. And Trey even found a VA-certified PTSD therapist in Anchorage who makes house calls. Kyson has seen her twice already. He doesn’t like talking about everything that happened to him, but he’s doing it. That’s all that matters.”
She and Bree continued to talk about what life in Homer would be like for Kyson and Shaylee, with some of the other people around the table occasionally asking questions. Samantha couldn’t help noticing that none of those questions or comments came from Trevor or any of the other werewolves. In fact, it seemed like none of them were even paying attention to the conversation. They all seemed lost in their own thoughts, expressions pensive.
It wasn’t difficult for Samantha to guess why they were so quiet. She and Trey had spent hours talking about the subject last night. Zane and his mate, Alyssa, had gone down to San Antonio to investigate some kind of ritualistic murders about three weeks ago and hadn’t been heard from since. Samantha still didn’t know a thing about this STAT organization that Alyssa worked for, but according to Trey, they dealt with things that went bump in the night. It was shocking to believe anything could have gone wrong, considering Zane was a werewolf, but it was obvious the SWAT team was worried. Despite everyone having fun at the cookout today, Samantha could feel the tension in the air.
Samantha was talking to Bree about her teenage son—who was also a werewolf—when Connor announced the food was ready. The volleyball was on the ground two seconds later as everyone made a beeline for the grills. She got up from the table with Bree and the others, ready to get in the line with Trey, when her phone rang. She considered ignoring it, but then realized it could be the office, which was working understaffed at the moment, and pulled out her phone to at least check and see who it was. She frowned when she saw her sister’s name on the screen.
The urge to stuff the phone back in the pocket of her shorts was hard to resist, especially since she had very little doubt as to why Loralei was calling. Out the corner of her eye, she saw Trey glancing her way with concern clear on his face. No doubt he was picking up on the tension in her muscles, her slightly elevated heart rate, and the way her scent changed when she was anxious. She really wasn’t clear on everything he could do in that regard. It would probably take a while to pick up on everything.
She gave him a small smile and a nod, then thumbed the green button on her phone. “Loralei, hey.”
“Hey,” her sister said. “How was your trip to Homer? Did your friends get moved into Grandma and Grandpa’s house?”
“They did,” Samantha said. “It’s nice to see the place being used as a home again.”
“Yeah, it is. I think Grandma and Grandpa would approve, by the way.”
“Me, too.”
Samantha glanced at Trey to see him loading two plates full of food over by the grill. Even as Trey fixed a burger for her, he kept looking her way every few seconds. She smiled again and waved at him.
“Well, while you and Trey were up in Homer, I checked on the progress of those samples you gave me a few weeks ago, figuring you’d be eager for more info on them, but they weren’t there,” Loralei said. “The results I’d already collected are gone, too.”
Samantha didn’t say anything. She’d wanted to slip into her sister’s lab the day after they’d all escaped from Louis’s demented lab, but she and Trey had been too busy getting ready for the first trip up to Homer with Kyson and Shaylee, so they’d waited until they’d gotten back. It turned out that Trey was exceptionally good at breaking and entering. Knowing all of her sister’s computer passwords had helped, too. Within minutes, they’d taken everything Loralei had come up with.
She and Trey had quickly flipped through the results detailing what kind of prehistoric wolf DNA was blended so perfectly with his and the parts of his DNA strand that were no longer human at all. It was exactly the kind of stuff Louis would have drooled over.
It was also the kind of stuff she’d spent two years looking for.
And they’d burned it all. Every single piece of it.
“Don’t worry about the samples,” she told her sister. “Don’t worry about any of it. In fact, I want you to act like it never happened, okay?”
Loralei was quiet for a moment. “You broke into the lab and took everything, didn’t you?” she asked incredulously. “You know how crazy that is, right? What you’ve uncovered could change the world. Hell, it could make you famous.”
“You’re right. It would make me famous. Probably rich, too,” Samantha replied. “But it would also destroy the life of someone I love. So I’m begging you, Loralei, let this go. For me, please let it go.”
There was more silence, then a heavy sigh. “Okay, I’ll let it go.”
Samantha released the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. “Thanks. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”
“You’re my sister. You know I’d do anything for you,” Loralei said. “But are you ever going to explain to me what this is all about?”
“Someday,” Samantha said. But only if Trey felt comfortable sharing his secret with her sister.
Telling Loralei she’d call her later, Samantha put her phone away, then headed over to join Trey at the table, at the space he’d saved for her in front of an overloaded plate of food. There was no way she could eat that much. Of course, she’d already learned that Trey was always up for eating anything she couldn’t.
“Everything okay?” Trey asked as she sat down beside him.
She smiled and nodded, leaning her shoulder into his, picking up her cheeseburger and taking a bite. It was juicy and perfectly cooked. Connor definitely knew his way around a grill.
She was so relaxed and comfortable among the Pack that she didn’t realize someone had asked her a question until she glanced up from her plate to see everyone at the table regarding her expectantly.
Oh crap. What did I miss?
“What?” she asked to the table in general, not even sure who’d been talking to her.
Beside her, Trey looked a little panicked. Hopefully, it wasn’t anything embarrassing.
On the other side of the table, Hale gave her a knowing smile, like he thought she was trying to come up with a way to delay answering. “I asked what you thought about being The One? You never talk about it.”
From the corner of her eye, she caught Trey making a shushing motion in Hale’s direction with his hand.
“The one what?” she asked.
The whole table went silent. Everyone at the two tables closest to theirs went just as quiet. It was like Samantha had cast aspersions on the Super Bowl lineage of the Dallas Cowboys. That was when she realized they weren’t staring at her but Trey. And some of his pack mates—Trevor and Hale in particular—looked kind of pissed.
“You haven’t told her?” Connor demanded, his voice flat but his expression making it clear he was stunned. “Are you frigging kidding me? You’ve had weeks!”
Samantha looked from Trey to Connor and back again. Damn, she hated being on the outside of anything that everyone else obviously knew about.
“Tell me what?” she asked.
No one answered. Not even Trey. She was one the verge of getting a little annoyed when Trey stood up so quickly that he practically flipped over the bench she and everyone else was sitting on.
“We need to talk,” he said, his voice calm but edged with tension. Reaching down, he took her hand, urging her up from the bench. “Let’s take a walk.”
She fell into step beside him as he walked toward the far end of the compound. It was obvious that he wanted a little privacy and that scared the hell out her. Whatever he had to say must be bad, especially if he hadn’t wanted to tell her.
Samantha was practically hyperventilating by the time they reached the far end of the compound’s obstacle course, tears gathering at the corner of her eyes. Everything was so good between them. She couldn’t bear the thought of anything messing that up.
“We’re soul mates,” he said softly, turning to look at her. “Being The One means that you’re the one person in the world who I’m supposed to be with. The only one who can ever accept me for what I am.”
Soul mates?Things like soul mates belonged in romance books and fairy tales. But then she remembered there weren’t supposed to be werewolves, vampires, and monsters. Look how wrong she’d been about that.
Her head suddenly started to spin. After everything she’d learned over the past few weeks, hearing they were soul mates still threw her for loop. She couldn’t help it. The implications were…scary.
“What are you saying?” she asked, all too aware that every werewolf at the compound could listen in on their conversation if they wanted to. “That the two of us were destined to be together from the day we met? That we didn’t even have a say in the matter? That everything we’ve done—falling in love with each other and moving in together—wasn’t our choice?”
“It’s not like that,” Trey said softly, taking her free hand in his other one. “Fate—or whatever you want to call it—may have put us together, but there’s nothing predestined about it. We could have ignored what was right in front of us.” His mouth quirked. “And considering the fact that we danced around each other for almost two years, I think it’s safe to say we both did our best to screw up what fate was trying to do. If you chose to walk away from me after you found out I was a werewolf, there would have been nothing stopping you. Even after I said I love you.”
The thought of walking away from him made her feel lightheaded and she found herself tightening her grip on his hands a little. Maybe that was what it meant to be The One. But did that truly matter? Trey loved her and she loved him. That was the important thing.
“How long have you known that I’m your soul mate?” she asked.
“I’ve been attracted to you since the first time I saw you at that first crime scene,” Trey admitted, smiling a little, like he was replaying a happy memory. “But it wasn’t until our first date, when I realized your scent had become impossible to resist, that I knew you were The One for me.”
“My scent?” she repeated, caught off guard and more than a little curious. “What do I smell like?”
Smiling, he bent his head to bury his nose in her neck and breathe deeply. “Cherry blossoms and spring air after a light rain,” he whispered against her skin.
Yeah, that worked for her. There was no denying she loved him and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.
“If you knew all the way back then, why didn’t you tell me?” she said.
Trey suddenly looked like a little boy who’d been caught throwing his baseball through a neighbor’s window. It was impossible to stay mad at a guy who looked like that.
“I was already nervous about telling you I’m a werewolf because I was worried about how you’d react. If I dropped the whole soul-mate thing on you at the same time, I was pretty sure you’d run for the hills. Which I didn’t want since I was falling in love with you at the time.”
Ah, damn. This guy was good. “And after I knew you were a werewolf? Why didn’t you tell me then? Say, during that first flight up to Alaska.”
Trey looked so chagrined, he was damn close to blushing. It was adorable!
“I tried, but by that point, the lie—if only one of omission—had taken on a life of its own. And every day that passed made it that much harder to bring it up. I kept falling more in love with you and becoming more terrified you’d bail when you finally learned the truth. I had no idea how to climb out of the hole I’d dug for myself.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, dragging him down for a long, languorous kiss. On the other side of the compound, she heard cheering and clapping.
“That’s it, right?” she asked when they came up for air. “That’s the last secret you’re keeping from me?”
He nodded and kissed her again. “No more secrets. Promise.”
They were met with more applause and cheers when they got back to the picnic tables, which made her and Trey both laugh. They’d just sat down when the back door of the admin building opened and the SWAT team commander, Gage Dixon, strode out.
Trey and every other werewolf in the Pack tensed in the blink of an eye. Samantha wondered what was up until she saw the look on Gage’s face. The SWAT commander had always struck her as a formidable guy—she guessed being the alpha of a pack of alpha werewolves required that—but right now, he seemed even more intense than usual.
“I just got off the phone with Nathan McKay,” Gage said as he sat down beside his wife at the other end of the table. “He’s as concerned as we are that none of us have heard from Zane and Alyssa, so we’ve decided to do something about it. Mike, Connor, Trevor, Hale, and Diego—I want you to go to San Antonio and find out what’s going on.”
“When do we leave?” was the only thing Mike said even as Diego leaned over and whispered something in Bree’s ear. She looked scared as hell, and Samantha thanked God that Gage hadn’t asked Trey to go with them. Even Kat the cat looked upset.
“First thing in the morning,” Gage said. “I need to push through some paperwork and make it look like you’ll be taking part in a joint training operation with the SWAT team in San Antonio.”
As she and Trey were walking hand in hand to his truck after the cookout wound down, he was rather quiet and she wondered aloud if it was because he wanted to go with Connor and his other pack mates. But Trey shook his head.
“Mike and the other guys know what they’re doing. If they need any help from us, they’ll ask.” He flashed her a smile. “Until then, I thought we could go home and finish moving the rest of my stuff into your place. I’ve technically been there for a week and a half and haven’t unpacked a single box.”
Samantha laughed. “Works for me. Though I doubt we’ll get much unpacking done if past experience is anything to go by.”
Every time they started, they ended up in bed. Or on the couch. Or in the shower. Even up against the wall. Not that she was complaining.
Samantha spotted Bree and Diego heading to their vehicle with her teenage son, and she ran over to catch them before they left, telling Bree to call if she needed anything.
“Your packmates are going to be okay, right?” Samantha asked Trey. “They’ll be able to handle anything they run up against?”
Trey nodded as he helped her into the passenger seat of his truck. “Definitely. And if they run into trouble, they’ll call us in for backup.”
He must have picked up on her heart starting to beat a little faster at that announcement because he stepped forward and kissed her, long and slow, on the mouth. “But we’re not going to worry about that right now. Let’s go home and unpack my stuff.”
Samantha smiled and kissed him back, more than ready to head home with her soul mate.