Masked By Danger by Christa Wick

Chapter Five

Two-hundred miles later,Cade opened the van's side door and braced against the look on Iris's face.

He expected anger, a blazing white fury. Instead, he discovered a trembling fear that darkened her purple gaze until it was almost black. Slamming the door shut without removing her, he turned on his heels and barked at Mathis.

"Bring her inside!" Reaching into his pocket for his house key, he slowed his steps and lowered his voice to a register he hoped Iris could only feel and not hear through the van's steel frame. "Respectfully or I'll rip your throat out."

Opening the door, Cade stepped into the house's dark interior. His hand hovered over the light switch. He didn't want the light on, didn't want to look in her eyes and see that she was afraid of him.

She had no reason to be.

He blinked, his chest tightening as he remembered holding her down in the van, his hand ripping the front panel of her pants as he fought his wolf to keep from slicing deeper.

She had to realize he had contained himself—strangled the need triggered by the ball burning, cock gripping, full-on rutting odor of a she-wolf who was not only a female alpha but his mate, a woman he had loved as long as he could remember.

A woman who had once welcomed his soft caresses and hard kisses…

With the house remaining unlit, he watched Mathis guide Iris out of the van. Her lips quivered as she said something, her face turning toward the driver so that she spoke straight into his ear.

Cade heard only one word, the only one he needed to hear.

Hank.

"Dead," Cade barked, his voice as cold and dead as his father. "Happened about a month after you skipped out. You wanna tell me if that was a coincidence?"

He watched as her face hardened. He flipped the lights on and pushed the door open a little more before he moved deeper into the living room. As soon as Iris crossed the house's threshold, Cade stopped Mathis with an upheld hand.

"Go to the latents' dorm and round up some clothes and supplies."

Iris turned toward the door, her hands and jaw moving as if searching for a way to make Mathis stay.

Reaching past the she-wolf, Cade slammed the door. She jerked, the silver necklace around her throat bouncing upward then catching on the edge of her blouse's neckline. His fingers itched with the need to rip off the piece of jewelry. He gripped her shoulders, uncertain of his next move.

She stiffened beneath his touch.

"Time to talk." The order rumbled through him with mixed motives. He wanted to talk her right into his bedroom, to remove the clothes that held the scent of other men, to lovingly wash her body, then bury himself between her soft thighs as he nuzzled her pale neck, moving lower to part the folds of her sex and lick her into submission.

Tightening his grip, he turned and directed her toward the couch. "Sit."

She obeyed, but instantly seized one of the oversized couch pillows and clutched it against her torso. The fleeting anger that had lit her gaze a few seconds before reverted to fear. Scowling, Cade yanked the pillow from her and nodded down the hall.

"Perhaps you should shower first," he suggested dryly. "You're getting bits of Detective Harper all over my furniture."

Violet fire erupted in her eyes as her face turned stony again.

He nodded, satisfied. An angry mate he could handle. A fearful one clawed at his gut with a burn worse than any fire, bullet, or silver could conjure. He watched Iris rise silently from the couch, his posture stern but his every sense targeted on her until she slammed the bathroom door and locked it.

Alone, he sank onto the couch and pulled the pillow to his nose.

There were no actual bits of the dead man on the pillow or furniture. The fabric, however, had soaked up Iris's scent like a sponge dipped in perfume. The mingling of cloves and oranges with the deeper musk of her heat stirred his cock to full hardness.

Sighing, he lowered the pillow from his face, pushing it down his chest and stomach until it rested firmly against his swollen cock. The sigh turned to a growl, the sound vibrating so low he knew it would penetrate the walls and even the fall of water over Iris's soft body.

Another low, rumbling quiver of noise moved through him to pass over his shaft like a lover's fingers. Eyes closed, he imagined his mate in his shower.

For as long as he’d known her, Iris had never quite looked like a shifter, her sweet body too soft, her face too round. But he’d been able to smell the wolf in her when others hadn’t—not even the grandmother raising her.

He and he alone had been able to see the shift that never fully materialized as it shimmered beneath her skin, fighting to break out.

Now, all these years later, hell, there was zero doubt that Iris was all wolf. Just as there was no arguing the fact that she was in heat.

…And just down the hall from him, with the warm water kissing her naked body, touching her where his mouth and hands should be preparing her for his cock.

Tossing the pillow aside, Cade stood and took his first step toward the bathroom.

His right foot dragged forward, his usual iron will fighting the desire to shift. Body shaking, he took a third step, right hip dipping, ankle rolling outward as the other foot started to move forward.

A tentative knock landed on his front door.

He sprang backward, landing expertly behind the couch in a tactical position before laughing at himself. Mirth blurred his vision. He rubbed roughly at his cheek, laughing some more and shaking his head.

Maybe Mathis was right and he was turning into a pussycat. He sure as shit had just jumped like one. And how the hell did someone make it to his front door without him knowing it at the first crunch of tires on his drive?

Oh, that's right. His entire focus had been on Iris, on the lingering scent filled with her heat and the memories of her yielding flesh the last time the two of them had been alone in their youth. They had been so close to completion that time, their hands venturing beneath one another's clothing to stroke and tease where they had never ventured before.

She had climaxed, his fingers drenched with her juices, sticky when he brought them to his tongue to taste her for the first—

The intrusive knock landed again. Damn it, of all the shitty timing. "Coming!" he barked, prowling toward the door while his wolf sought out the energy of the person knocking.

Right off the bat, he knew it wasn’t Mathis on the other side of the door, whom he’d expected to return with the clothes.

In fact, the energy wasn’t male at all. No, this energy was undeniably female, shifter. Not to mention unmated and trembling...

What the hell?

He yanked the door open to find Joelle Perry holding a small duffel bag of clothes in front of her like it was a silver shield that could protect against Cade's ire.

"Mathis said to bring this!" she blurted.

Hearing Joelle's voice shake worse than her hands, Cade closed his eyes and cursed Mathis. He understood why his second had sent someone else, but he'd made a bad choice.

Mathis could have chosen any other female wolf, or a mated male, even one of the latents. Instead, the prick had sent a nineteen-year-old wolfling who had been sniffing around Cade since her first heat—a move that reeked not of stupidity but sabotage.

Grabbing the duffel, Cade jerked it toward him. She held tight to the bag, the momentum pulling her into his house.

"Leave, Joelle. Now.”

She dropped her gaze, refusing to challenge a pack alpha directly, even if Cade wasn't her alpha. He and his team were only temporarily living among the New York shifters. Joelle had been born to them.

"I thought all new latents were supposed to go to the Fielding house," she prodded, her body sidling close to his again, her small breasts thrusting forward and up to lead the way.

He could hear the question lurking beneath the little she-wolf's challenge, could see it in the way her body twitched with a poorly concealed need. She wanted to know if the woman she had brought the clothes for was a latent whose scent marked her as Cade's mate.

"My guest isn't a latent and you need to go now." He fought the urge to growl at the wolfling, knowing the energy running through his body was too confused by Iris's proximity for the sound to come out right.

The way his day was going, his mate would exit the bathroom to find Joelle on her knees, the gusset of her jeans soaked through, and her pert ass bobbing in the air in supplication for Cade to take her if he risked any dominant sound.

The girl's delicate nose lifted to scent the room. "A regular human?"

His right brow slowly rising as he breathed deeply, Cade shook his head. How could she not smell what Iris was? Did the silver mute it completely for another she-wolf? Maybe it was the water and soap covering Iris's lush body as she washed away the evidence of her dead partner?

He wanted to tap Joelle's pert nose and ask the girl if it was defective. There was no missing Iris's scent. Even with the wolfling drenched between her thighs, all Cade could focus on was his mate's smell, the cloves and oranges, the sweet, deep odor of the heat that would let him put a pup in her as soon as he could get Iris to spread her legs in invitation.

With the duffel as a barrier between them, he tried to steer Joelle out of his house. "Time for you to go, cub."

"Not a cub." A weak snarl bubbled past the young woman's pouting lips.

Just then the click of a door opening from down the hall caught Joelle's attention. Frowning, she gazed past his shoulder to see who was coming out of the bathroom.

Instantly, her gaze widened in shock, before her expression clouded over, her lip curling up. “Is that your robe on that…that…woman?"

Cade had half a second to laugh at the possessive tone to Joelle's question before a sudden blast of heat slammed into his back—the explosive wave of energy about as subtle as a wrecking ball.

Hot damn.