Mind Mates (Pull of the Moon Book 2) Read online

The loading dock was a bay of three big roll-up doors. He gestured at a window beside them. “There’s a new hire starting Monday. Make sure the shipping manager emphasizes the visual check, that the truck in the bay is the one expected. Not just via camera, because outside feeds can be interrupted. But manually, through the window.”

  “Right.”

  “Okay, I think that’s it. I hope that’s it.” He speared fingers through his hair, his gaze faraway, probably mentally reviewing every single procedure in the store.

  “Dr. Light, I’ve got it. You can leave knowing I’ll take care of everything.”

  She dared to grasp his free wrist, intending to urge him toward the front exit.

  He wore a short-sleeved Techie Titan polo shirt beneath his sweater vest. Her fingers barely circled his warm, bare skin. His size plus the lightest sprinkling of hair crashed into her, making her highly aware that this was an exceedingly masculine wrist.

  A frisson of holy crap shook her.

  He blinked. His hand dropped from his scalp, and he smiled uncertainly at her.

  Even that bare curve of mouth practically demanded a nibble, calling to a place deep inside her, a lush primitive paradise so beautiful and uplifting it made her whole body rise in return, including her lips. She smiled back.

  His gaze darkened and dropped slightly, to her mouth.

  Her heart pounded faster, and her lips swelled under his regard. Her blood began to whoosh in her ears.

  Is he going to kiss me?

  He leaned closer, still staring at her mouth. His intense gaze, shining through his glasses like a summer sun, was starting to raise goose bumps along her skin, as if his hot hands were running over her flesh. She remembered the warm rasp of his finger on her jaw and shivered in delight.

  Nearer.

  Breathing was getting difficult. His nostrils flared as if he was breathing harder too.

  A tink of nail against glass made her jump.

  She turned toward the sound. At the window, Bruiser glared.

  “Next time I see you with him, I’m killing him.”

  Crap on a claw.

  Chapter Three

  Emma dropped Dr. Light’s wrist, fast, and straightened away from him. Smiling a purely professional smile, she briskly clapped her hands, a “chore done” gesture. “I’ve got it. Have a good trip. A safe trip.” She whirled and practically ran for the front of the store.

  Before she’d gotten two steps, he caught up. His big hand cupped her elbow, warming it.

  “Sorry about that. Is Bruce someone special to you?”

  He’d noticed Bruiser at the window, and he’d noticed her reaction.

  Yikes. Normally Dr. Light’s being that smart and observant was sexy. Now it was plain dangerous. “Special? Well, he’s sort of head of our family. But he’s not…I’m not…we’re not involved romantically.” Her cheeks heated. Why had she felt the need to say that? Was she still hoping Dr. Light would be interested in her that way?

  Her wolf gave a little yip. Yes. Duh.

  Sassy wolf.

  “I see.”

  She skewed another glance up at him. That “I see” had sounded almost…satisfied.

  Nonsense. She was imagining it. Surely if he were interested, she’d have smelled it. Or, more mundanely, if he were interested, he’d have asked for her phone number.

  Then he said, “Before I go, let me give you my direct cell phone number,” and her heart goosed into race—until he added, “In case you have questions Carol can’t answer. Give me your phone?”

  She slid it out of her pocket, swiped away the lock screen, and handed the phone to him. He thumbed in his number and offered it back to her in such a way that, when she took it, her fingers brushed his, sending a sweet thrill through her belly.

  Purely professional, she reminded her belly. You’re imagining it. He’s not interested.

  But as he dropped off his Techie Titan badge and left the store, his walk was almost jaunty, as if giving her his personal number had been one of the important things on his to-do list.

  She shook her head. She was seeing what she wanted to see, simply because the idea of him being interested in her made her tummy tumble and her lips swell and her whole body sing.

  Her phone’s alarm chirped. Half an hour already? If she didn’t want to unleash Bruiser’s temper, she’d better leave herself.

  But she delayed in Base, reviewing everything Dr. Light had told her, really simply remembering his hands moving over the machines and the shape of his lips as he talked, and drawing in his lingering scent.

  So it was closer to five than four when she stepped through the front doors.

  “Fuckin’ took you long enough.” Bruiser stalked out from the side of the building, where he’d obviously been lurking. He grabbed her wrist and hauled her toward his jacked-up pickup, the riced-up vehicle more for showing off than anything useful, made mostly of chrome and penis envy.

  Dr. Light’s grip had been warm and sexy. Bruiser’s hand on her arm was cutting off the blood flow.

  She tripped along in his wake. “Why’d I join your pack again? Seeing as you get most of my money and all I get is grief?”

  “You’re a mouthy little bitch.” In wolf culture, the word wasn’t quite as damning, but he raised a threatening hand along with it. “Don’t need your money. The pack is rich.”

  Emma had heard rumors that the treasury was full of jewels, gold, and some very famous, very pricey paintings, but she’d never seen any of it. Since none of it was liquid, he did need her money.

  So instead of cowering, she bristled. “We had an agreement. I temporarily join this pack, and you send a portion of my pay home to my mother. You are sending cash to my mom, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Bruiser made one more threatening swipe, then dropped his hand to chirp open the truck. “Get in.”

  She hoisted herself into the passenger seat and stared out the window while the wolfman put the monster in gear, only crunching three parked cars pulling out. Not really, but he did scrape a bumper or two.

  Why had she come to Michigan? Oh yeah. Because they’d needed the money.

  With her father dead, her older brother jailed, Emma had to become the breadwinner. No jobs in her little northern Wisconsin town, so she picked her birth pack in Michigan, trying to find some comfort, some memory of home. But it wasn’t the same here without her father.

  “Why’d you come into town today, anyway?” she asked. The trip from the wolf compound near Scottville to the Muskegon Choice Buy was an hour via US 31. While the pack was close enough to the big city to have a supply of jobs but far enough that they could escape most of the problems of urban crowding, it wasn’t a short drive. Two pack-subsidized buses ferried workers daily from compound to jobs and back. She really wished she’d taken one home.

  “I needed some kit for my truck. But the store was closed.” Bruiser’s tone was surly. “What kind of store closes during the day? Nerd guy’s gonna lose customers that way.”

  She bridled at that but only said mildly, “He doesn’t own the store.” He just made all the decisions like he owned the store. She frowned.

  By intimidating the rest of the traffic on US 31, Bruiser made good time. A little after six he pulled into the compound, ostensibly a condo community but really shared pack quarters. He jerked to a stop in front of his building.

  Emma hopped out and started for her own small efficiency on the other side of the complex.

  “Oh no, you don’t.” He chased her, snared her arm in a brutal grip, and dragged her toward his building’s entrance.

  She tried to pull free, but he only fastened on with a second hand and hauled faster, his hands twisting like a snake bite.

  “What are you doing?” Her arm started to tingle he was holding her so tightly.

  “What I should’ve done long ago. Nerd boy’s attention was the last straw. Time you understood your place in my pack.”

  A chill of premonition hit her. He’d had an agenda after
all, coming to the store today. Bravely, she said, “What’s to understand about temporary?”

  He didn’t answer, dragging her into the condos’ shared lobby. A couple residents were getting their mail.

  “Let me go.” She raised her voice, hoping the other wolves would help her. “I said, let me go.”

  Bruiser slapped her face. “I said, mind your place. Now shut your pie hole.” He dragged her toward the door bearing a big gold 1A.

  Heart thudding, cheek smarting, she yelled at the other wolves. “Help me!”

  The male wolf leered. The female looked sympathetic, and Emma’s hopes rose, but then the she-wolf turned her back and shuffled through her mail.

  “You can’t do this.” Bile rose in Emma’s throat as Bruiser unlocked and opened his door.

  “Of course I can. I’m alpha. My word is law.”

  “In this day and age? That’s antiquated.”

  “You and your fancy words. I said, shut your pie hole.” He dragged her inside and bolted the door.

  While his attention was off her, she yanked loose and ran. She fled through spacious living areas that would fit a half dozen of her efficiency, head twisting to find escape.

  “Damn it!” Heavy footsteps pounded after her. He was on her in seconds, cornering her outside an ominous heavy metal door. Seizing her nape with one hand, he grunted open the door with the other. “No more Mr. Nice Alpha.”

  A dark room was revealed, curtains drawn, a couple of shadowy cots visible. “Wh-what’s this?”

  “A safe place.” He kicked her inside hard enough to send her sprawling. As she scrambled to keep her feet, he slammed the door shut—a metallic click telling her he’d locked it.

  “Safe for who?” she muttered. What kind of bedroom locked from the outside? Her eyes adjusted and she saw the manacles welded onto the bare cots.

  Oh yeah, a bedroom designed to hold Bruiser’s prisoners. Many modern alphas used the mundane legal system to uphold law and dispense justice, but tradition was still a potent force in wolf shifter society. As alpha, Bruiser’s word was law, although even most traditional alphas were careful not to be tyrants; the best, in return for their pack’s absolute trust, treated every individual with deep caring and a sense of service.

  Not Bruiser, though. Her spirits fell. He was more the tyrant variety.

  The window curtains billowed, breeze laden with the stink of a commercial-size garbage bin. Her hopes leaped. The window must be open. If it was big enough, she could climb out and escape. Eagerly she parted the panels.

  Metal bars striped the opening.

  Emma didn’t scare easily, but the feeling of cage turned her flesh to ice.

  Call on my power, her iota wolf crooned.

  “Because shredded curtains and broken cots would be so helpful,” she muttered to herself.

  Think. She forced herself to put aside fear and be logical. She wasn’t completely helpless, not as long as she had her brain and some freedom of movement. All she had to do was leverage her advantages.

  Okay, she was small—maybe she could escape through the air vents? She found one in the floor, about four by twelve inches, but no matter how she wedged in, her head wouldn’t go through.

  A covered vent in the wall looked bigger. Her adrenaline surged, and she pawed through her pockets for her multitool switchblade, last month’s Choice Buy bonus—handed out by Dr. Light, so she carried it everywhere until it finally lost his scent. Extracting the tool with shaking fingers, she cranked off the screws and peered inside.

  The metal sleeve angled sharply down, but her head fit the hole. Heart pounding, she slid her arm and one shoulder in—and stuck. She pushed forward as hard as she could, exhaled and tried again, but stayed stubbornly stuck. Bracing against the wall, she barely managed to muscle herself out, accumulating a faceful of scrapes which immediately healed.

  Frustrated, she dug through her pockets. Wallet, pocket lint…and her phone. Duh. I can call for help.

  But who? She mulled it over as she put away the multitool. She hadn’t made any close friends in the couple months she’d been with Bruiser’s pack, certainly none she could count on to brave his wrath.

  Someone from her mother’s pack? The beta, Mason, was a relative. He might come for her, but there was a Great Lake in the way. He’d have to drive around the lobe of Lake Michigan through Chicago traffic, and that might take as long as a day. Even if Mason took the ferry, he wouldn’t arrive for six or seven hours.

  Did she have that much time?

  “Bruiser,” she shouted through the door. “Why are you doing this?”

  Clomping shook the floor. The alpha had been elsewhere in the apartment, but shifter ears insured he’d heard her. He yelled, “Because I didn’t like how that nerd was looking at you. You’re mine, and I’m going to make sure of it. You’re going to be my mate. When the moon rises tonight I’m performing the Succuba Imprimo.” His laugh faded as he walked away.

  Her breath froze. Succuba Imprimo qualified as mating—barely. The ritual bound two wolves together. But since he was an alpha and she an iota, it would really seal her in his harem and make her his slave.

  Enslaved. Forever. To this grunting, sweating, pig of an alpha. Serving his every whim, and from the rumors, his tastes ranged from unpleasant to gross to mutilating.

  Not a cherished female, but chattel. An owned thing to be used and thrown away.

  She trembled. Yeah, she didn’t scare easily, but that goosed her adrenaline to top gear. She had to get away.

  Spinning around the room, she assessed. Door locked, windows barred, vents inaccessible. The room was used to hold big males captive—how could she break out?

  Unless she could circumvent Bruiser’s harem ritual by finding her actual mate in the few hours until moonrise…yeah, she was screwed.

  Okay, then, so she had to call for help. Who was nearby that she could trust?

  Dr. Light’s smiling, blindingly handsome face came to her.

  The tightness in her chest eased. Gabriel Light was strong and capable, and she had no doubt he’d help her if she called…and she had his direct number. Hope sang in her breast.

  Until the memory of Bruiser’s growl knifed her. “Next time I see you with him, I’m killing him.”

  The wolfman hated Dr. Light. If she called him, she’d put him in danger. Sure, he was strong and capable, but pitting a human, even a strong and capable human, against a wolf shifter—especially an alpha who wouldn’t fight fair—was as good as killing the human herself.

  She’d never do that to Gabriel Light.

  But then she had no one. Spirits plummeting, she forced herself to prowl the room, looking for a weakness. For nearly two hours she pulled at bars, tapped floors, walls, ceiling, looking for any weak spot—but there was nothing. No trap panels in the concrete floor, and the walls clonked like cinder block.

  Her eyes stung as she fought back tears. She wished she’d never come here. She wished she’d stayed with her mother.

  She wanted to go home.

  Home. Her heart clenched with soul-deep longing.

  Her phone rang, startling her. She fumbled it out.

  “H-hello?”

  “Emma.” Dr. Light’s voice was tight with concern. “What’s wrong?”

  * * *

  Gabriel took his responsibilities as owner of the Choice Buy seriously. Each employee, when hired, was offered a comprehensive benefits package including a free emergency bracelet engraved with allergies and medical conditions, plus a toll-free number to call if they were in any kind of trouble. Many wore the bracelet twenty-four-seven.

  The bracelet had an added benefit—a touch of magic. If the employee felt him- or herself in immediate danger, Gabriel’s phone would chirp an alert. Thanks to basic human nature, he got an alarm from one employee or another a couple times a month.

  So he wasn’t surprised when, while waiting in line with a hundred other cars to board the ferry, his phone signaled.

  Not simply a
chirp, but a whooping red alert.

  Gabriel’s battle-mage training ensured he didn’t fluster easily. Instead he went the opposite, cool and focused. He drew the phone smoothly from his pocket, knowing he’d linked the alert spell to an app that dialed the employee directly. All he had to do was press Talk.

  Cool burst into hot shock when he saw the caller ID of the employee in trouble.

  Emma.

  He punched the green call button, his finger trembling slightly. When she answered, he barked, “What’s wrong?”

  “N-nothing?”

  “Don’t lie to me, Emma. Don’t ever lie to me.” He clamped down on his impatience to save her now, throttling back his gut-clenching fear to keep his tone calm and reassuring, for her. “Tell me what’s wrong. I can help.”

  “I’m sorry, but…” Her high, tight voice said how scared she was. “I c-can’t get you involved.”

  “It’s Bruiser, isn’t it? I mean Bruce.”

  Sucked-in air. “How did you…?”

  “Routine follow-up with your employment application.” He cursed himself, damned the rampant emotions roiling in him that had let the alpha’s real name slip out, a slight sign to a smart woman that he knew about the magical community, very slight, but Emma was very smart.

  “Bruiser…it’s a nickname.”

  “I know. What did he do?”

  She hiccupped a laugh that didn’t sound amused at all, but rather on the edge of hysterical. “He locked me in his room.”

  “He what?” Wolves were high-handed, and alphas dictatorial, but few crossed the line into downright felony. “Why?”

  “H-he thinks he’s going to m-marry me.”

  Wolves didn’t lock up their wives, their mates. They’d never violate a wolf’s sacred pair bonding that way. Bruiser must be submitting her to a cheaper, degrading version of mating the worst of the alphas sometimes indulged in—concubine stable.

  Pretty, feisty, smart little Emma, locked away and reduced to a sex slave? She’d quickly wither and die.

  He knew enough about wolf culture and ritual that this wouldn’t be something she could deprogram. If Bruiser completed the ritual, Emma’s life would be over.