WYATT
I was sitting at my desk in my office when my assistant pushed through the door and stood quietly, waiting for me to finish my conversation with one of my lumber suppliers. I smiled at her and acknowledged her presence. She bowed and waited.
When I was done with the conversation, I hung up the phone and looked at her, waiting for her to speak. She had a few files in her arms that she brought forward and lay on the desk.
“Sire, the head of your security would like to have a word with you. He is waiting.” I nodded and took the files, opening it up. The top file was thicker than the one on the bottom. I recognized the one on the top as a businessman in the town near my village. He was crooked and someone we had been watching for quite some time. The second file was thinner. Curious, I opened it and saw a full-page photo of a beautiful woman.
She had glossy black hair that was pulled to the side in this photo. She was laughing at something someone said off camera and her face was relaxed and magical. She had a scar that ran from her hairline down through her eye and next to her nose. The injury had left that eye blind, and the iris was a pale blue which gave her an unusual glamour. The other eye was brown and sparkled with amusement. I took the photo from the file and leaned back, holding it up and studying it.
The head of my security slipped into the room and stood. I indicated the chair on the opposite side of my desk.
“My king, thank you for seeing me,” he said.
“Drop the formalities please, Earl,” I said. “It’s just you and me in here.”
He nodded. “Thanks, Wyatt. I see you saw the file on the girl.”
“Yeah, who is she?” I asked, putting the picture down. I opened the file looking for another photo of her.
“She’s a werewolf hunter. Jones hired her to come after you and the rest of the pack.”
I stopped, looking at him with shock. “Really?” I started laughing. “She has no idea what she’s getting into, does she?”
Earl shook his head. “I think we need to take this one seriously,” he said. “She’s the best out there. Took out Danny Elliot yesterday.”
I was impressed. Danny Elliot was a bad wolf who took great pleasure in stealing as much money from humans as he could. There were rumors he would torture them a little if they were reluctant to “invest” in him.
“He’s tough,” I said. “How did she do it?”
Earl shrugged. “No idea. At the airport inside security, so you know she had no weapons.”
Now I was really impressed. I picked up the photo and looked at it again. “Tell me about her.”
Earl was ready for that. I realized he must have put together her file. “She is twenty-one. She grew up in a family of werewolf hunters. The Thompkins?” I nodded. I had vaguely heard about them. Charles Thompkins was a big name about ten years ago. I hadn’t heard much about him lately, though.
“First kill at twelve. Trained all her life for hunting. Excellent with a computer. When she was eighteen, she all of a sudden got really serious about it. Trained harder and got more skills. Got a ton of requests and walked away from her family. I don’t have the impression that they’re close, though I think she might have a good relationship with her mother.”
“Isn’t there a brother in there, too?” I asked, trying to remember what I knew about the family. They had never gotten close enough for us to take much notice, but I do try to keep tabs on our enemies.
“Charlie. He’s good, but not that great. I don’t think he really has the stomach for it. He works some sort of finance job and helps out his parents on the weekends if they need it.”
“So Little Miss Thompkins is heading our way, is she?” I asked, softly, looking at her photo.
“Kacela,” Earl said. I looked up at him.
“What?” I was confused.
“Kacela. That’s her name. Kace. La. Kacela.” Earl spoke slowly. I nodded.
“That’s appropriate. Her name means hunter.” I finally put down the photo and picked up a few pieces of paper from her file. “What’s all this?”
“Just the things we have on her. No social media. She’s good with a computer so she keeps her digital footprint as small as she can. I have the basics, address, phone number. I have some photos of her on other’s F******k. Mostly from some guy named Emmett. Human. He is her assistant.”
I felt a pang of jealousy hearing about another man and that surprised me. I didn’t even know this girl. I reluctantly put down the papers and picked up Jones’ file.
“Anything new in here?”
Earl nodded. “We’ve got proof of the smuggling now. Nellie is about ready to quit her job, though. Said to tell you that she’s tired of the lumberjacks grabbing her ass.”
I chuckled. “Tell her she has my permission to go Lycan on them if she ever gets one in a dark alley.”
Earl laughed. “I’ll tell her. She’ll appreciate that a lot.”
I put both the files back on my desk and pushed back in my chair. “When is the hunter arriving?”
“Nellie said that Jones was showing the contract to one of his lawyers. She only caught a glimpse of it but he’s hired her to wipe out the entire pack. Her assistant is arranging for an apartment up here, so I guess she thinks it’s going to take awhile to get us all. She’ll be here tomorrow or the next day.” He smirked at me, and I shared his mirth. Lycans are exceptionally hard to kill and a human girl, no matter how many werewolf kills she has, wouldn’t stand a chance against one of us.
“What do you want us to do, sire?” Earl asked. “Nellie can take care of the girl when she arrives, if you wish. She will be discrete. Or I can send one of our warriors to take care of the matter?”
I picked up her photo again. “No,” I said softly. “Leave her alone and let’s see what she does.”
KACELAThe contract came back quickly, and even though I felt that something was off with Stephen Jones, I signed my portion and had Emmett file it. I knocked off early for the day, ordered some takeout and went upstairs to pack. Emmett had looked up the average temperature of the town I was going to be staying in and it looked like hoodies, leggings and jeans were going to suffice. Three flights and twelve hours of travel time later found me in the back seat of a car Jones had sent for me. It was a three-hour drive from the airport to the lumber mill. I was going to meet Jones first, then be taken to my little apartment that Emmett had procured for me. I was ready for a shower and a nap; traveling is my least favorite part of my job.“Are we almost there?” I leaned forward to talk to the driver. So far our trip had been very quiet. He had started to make small talk, but I discouraged it and just watched the scenery as it sped by. I found it exhausting to try to talk to someo
WYATTI was tapping my fingers impatiently, waiting for the phone calls that were supposed to be coming. I was usually a lot more patient, but these phone calls were thirty minutes overdue. Earl was sitting in the chair opposite my desk waiting with me. We were trying to figure out how to deal with this threat.The phone finally rang and I switched it to speaker. “Nellie?” I asked.“Yes, my king. I also have Jason here.” Jason was the driver for Stephen Jones, also one of my subjects. “Hello, Jason,” I said. “Hello, My King,” he answered. “I’m happy to serve you.”The kid was so formal. I looked up to see Earl smirking. He rearranged his features when he saw my glare. “Please report on the girl,” I said. Jason cleared his throat.“She’s pleasant enough, but untalkative. Most people jabber my ear off or want to talk the entire time. We sat in silence. No radio, nothing. She didn’t even wear earbuds.” I smiled. Jason was one of my younger Lycans, still aging in appear
KACELAI was dropped off at my new apartment by the driver of the car. While I signed a few papers and got a key from a nice older lady, the driver unloaded my suitcase and the trunk that contained all my weapons. “Just leave them there,” I said. The driver frowned at the stack on the sidewalk. “Mr. Jones said to help you get them into your new place.”I shook my head. “You got them here. Leave them.”He nodded, tipped his hat to me and then got into his car, slowly driving off. I looked around and then put the key into the lock, opening it.I stepped into a small foyer that contained a landing and a steep set of stairs. My apartment was located above a small florist shop, one block off from the main road. My entrance was to the side of the main entrance of the floral shop, located in an ally. It was quiet and private. No one would be able to observe me going in and out. In a large city, this entrance would be dangerous but in a small sleepy town, it was ideal.I dragged m
WYATTAfter Dr. Burst had left, Earl and I sat in silence, him tapping on the computer looking for more information about Kacela. I just sat. His phone rang and he answered it speaking briefly to the person on the other end. He disconnected and spoke to me.“I put a couple warriors on the girl. Alec is watching her tonight. He just called. She’s left for the diner.”I looked at Earl. “Do you want to. . . “He nodded and stretched. “Let’s go.”We took off our clothing, stuffing it into a backpack and then we shifted. Earl put on the backpack, and we took off, running for town. By car, we lived an hour outside of town. Running in Lycan form got us there in seventeen minutes. We shifted back, dressing quickly, and then I blocked the view so that Earl could pick her lock. He was quite handy, using one of his claws instead of tools. I mind linked Alec to let us know when she was on her way back.We relocked the door at the bottom but left the one at the top of the stairs ajar
KACELAI was pissed off that someone had searched my apartment already. I needed to change the locks, at least the one at the top of the stairs, as soon as I could. It wouldn’t happen tonight, though. Everything was already closed, one of the quaint things about small towns.I curled up on the couch with the files and started with Wyatt’s. His profile was pulled out for a reason, and I wanted to figure out why. There was just the basic information, his address, phone number, basic demographic information and a schedule that he tended to follow. There was nothing really remarkable about his file, though I saw that he visited the local nursing home every Thursday at noon. That was interesting. Tomorrow was Thursday. I knew where I was going to be at noon.I usually took some time to observe my marks before making any moves. Often, the client will give me poor or incomplete information and I liked to make sure I wasn’t walking into a trap. The rest of the week will be me gath
KACELAI could feel Wyatt’s eyes on my back as I stumbled away, trying to keep control of myself. My wolf was going crazy in my head. I haven’t felt her presence in over a year, and she was suddenly back, freaking out on me. She kept yelling ‘mate’. I was trying to silence her, not knowing if Wyatt’s wolf had alerted him. The effort made my nose bleed.The four-block walk was excruciating. Dali was getting stronger, and she was trying to take over. I had blood gushing from my nose, and I had a splitting headache. I finally made it back to the apartment and about fell into the door. My hands were shaking, and I had to try twice to get the key in before I could turn it. The door opened and I yanked the key out of it, stumbling in and slamming it behind me. I noticed I left a smear of blood on the back of the door. I would have to deal with it later. I locked the door behind me and looked up the stairs, putting one foot in front of the other. I made it up three steps before
WYATTEarl handed the zippered pouch to Kacela and I watched as her wolf refused to let her open it. I could see that it was important to her, so I opened the case and handed it back only to see her pull out a syringe and inject herself with an odd, green substance. I caught a whiff of the smell and realized what she had done. Wolfsbane. I watched in horror as she passed out. I looked at Earl, unsure what to do. He also looked horrified by what he just saw. “She needs a doctor,” he said.“Sure,” I said, sarcastically. “I’ll just drop her off at the emergency room and tell them that she took wolfsbane.” He shook his head impatiently. “She needs to be treated by our doctors.” I lost it. “I can’t very well bring her to our clinic, now can I? She’s been hired to kill us. All of us in case you forgot. Your profile was in that file, too. And you heard what Dr. Burst said. She could be alpha strong if she harnessed her wolf.”Earl shrugged, inspecting the case. “Looks li
KACELAI woke up to the beeps of the monitor keeping track of my heartrate again. This time I wasn’t in so much pain. I looked over to see a man fiddling with one of the machines. It had two large circles on the front that were turning, and it looked like my blood was going into it. I knew that it was cleaning the wolfsbane out of my blood and I began to panic.“Please, turn that machine off,” I begged, pulling at my wrist restraints. For some reason, being tied to the bed made the whole thing almost unbearable. “I’m sorry, miss, but I can’t. You need this. The wolfsbane almost killed you.”I turned my head away and the tears came unbidden to my eyes. I hated that I was feeling so weak. “Do you want to sit up a little?” Wyatt asked me, moving from behind the bed so that I could see him. He looked terrible, like he hadn’t slept for a long time.I just shook my head and turned away. I didn’t want to have to ask for anything. I didn’t want to owe the wolf I was destined to k
KACELA Later that night I was undressing in front of the full-length mirror. I frowned at my body. The scars were fading but I still had a few bad ones. The one that wrapped from my hip over the top of my abdomen was still ropey, even more so than the C-section scar. The scar on my face was also fading and I could now see light from that eye after years of seeing nothing but blackness. The doctors tell me that the mate bond is slowing healing me. I didn’t say anything to Wyatt. I was pretty sure he would use it as an excuse to mate even more, and I wasn’t sure I could keep up. That man was insatiable. As if he heard my thoughts, Wyatt came up behind me and nuzzled my neck, running his hands down the length of my side. I shivered. He was always able to make my body respond. “What’s on your mind?” Wyatt asked, nibbling my ear. I leaned my head back towards him. “I was just thinking about how fast the kids are growing up,” I said, a little sadly. Wyatt smiled. “Aella is o
WYATTFIVE YEARS LATERAfter having Aella, Kacela came home after two days. Dali had worked so hard to keep Aella alive that she was unable to warn us. When Dali didn’t show up after the first day, I insisted that the doctors give Kacela some of my blood to help the healing process along. They kept her for another day to be sure, but Dali came back and Kacela began healing quickly.The complications that Aella had didn’t keep Kacela from becoming pregnant again and we soon added twins to our little family. We spent most of our time trying to keep up with Axel and Luca. Even with the help of two full time nannies, we were exhausted most evenings when we went to bed.Our kingdom thrived. Kacela had a knack with the people and her office door was always open, literally. Sometimes she would come down in the morning to someone already waiting for her, needing her council or wisdom. I
KACELA I curled up next to Wyatt, happy. I dozed off but woke up a few times, uncomfortable. I finally decided to take a shower. I got up quietly so that I didn’t wake Wyatt. I slipped into the bathroom and turned the shower on, scalding hot. I stepped in and let the water rain down over my swollen body. This felt better. I was just sore everywhere, carrying all my extra weight. The doctors said that Aella was going to be a big baby. I wondered what sort of shifter she would be. When the species mix, like Wyatt and myself, you don’t know what the baby will be until they come of age. You can suspect; perhaps she will have wolf tendencies or Lycan strength at an early age, but you won’t know for sure until they shift. I hoped she was Lycan. I felt a breeze behind me and turned to see Wyatt framed in the doorway, looking concerned. “Are you okay?” he asked, quietly. I nodded.
WYATTUnlike Lia and Jarrett, we wanted to find out the sex of our baby. I was thrilled to find out that we were having a little girl.“What about Abigail?” she asked me, out of the blue one night. I had almost been asleep.“For what?” I asked, confused. We were in the process of hiring her assistant and I couldn’t remember an Abigail that had applied for the job.“For our baby’s name.” She paused a minute. “She needs a strong name.”“Like Kacela,” I murmured, snuggling into her and putting my nose in her neck and nuzzling. She groaned and I got hard, moving over the top of her. She opened her legs and I thrust in, hard and fast, satisfying both of us. I waited until her writhing stopped under me and then I let my seed coat her insides. I dropped beside her, both of us panting from the quick intensity of that coupling.
KACELAI could hear the commotion in the yard. I was waiting where Mrs. Woltkamp told me to wait, in the castle near the back patio doors. She said she would come for me when I needed to go out.There was a lot of pomp and circumstance with the whole celebration. The guests were fed, buffet style, and the kids were now playing in the yard while the servers cleared away dishes. After the coronation there would be dessert, drinks and dancing. I was looking forward to the dancing part.Little Emily tugged on my dress. I looked down and smiled at her, a cute little pixie in pink ruffles. She put her arms up to me, wordlessly. Her older sister was assimilating into the pack well and had picked up enough English to get her needs met. Emily rarely spoke, clinging to a few select people. I was honored to be one.I picked her up and held her, cuddling her to my chest while she sucked on her fingers
WYATT The morning of the coronation began rainy. Mrs. Woltkamp was running around, wringing her hands. She had checked the forecast numerous times and it wasn’t supposed to rain. I had reassured her that it was just a cloudburst, over in an hour. I was right. Kacela was incredibly nervous for the day. We had invited people from other pack. She was concerned that they would recognize her as the feared werewolf hunter. “Can’t we just do the coronation privately?” she had asked. I shook my head. “No. First, I’ve been waiting a century for this. I’m going to enjoy every moment of it. Second, it’s custom. I don’t think you want to insult other packs as your first political act.” She had quieted down, until she saw her gown. It was a sleeveless, low cut piece that showcased her muscular body incredibly well, but also showed her scars. “I’m embarrassed,” she said, qui
KACELA I helped Lia back to the blanket. I had no idea what to do and so I tried to mind link again, putting everything I had into it. I finally broke through. Hello, gorgeous, Wyatt purred in my mind. Wyatt. Lia’s having her baby. We’re down by the lake. You need to send help right now! I broke it off, needing to focus. Lia lay back. “I’m going to take a peek, okay, Lia?” I asked, praying I wouldn’t see what I was expecting to see. When I looked, I saw the baby crowning. Yep. She was right. The baby was coming. And I definitely didn’t want to see that. “I thought you said this little one wasn’t in position,” I joked, helping her lean back and lifting her dress. I looked around and found the bottle of wine that Lia had brought for me to enjoy with lunch. I had only drank about a quarter of it so I poured the rest on my hands and arms,
KACELA I’ve been married for three weeks, now. When we got back to the pack there were a few things we needed to take care of. Lia had named the girls Emily and Rachel and she had spent some time trying to find any relatives that they may have alive. When the extensive search pulled up nothing, she and Jarrett adopted them. There was a quiet ceremony for the girls to be adopted. We knew that they were shifters. My wolf could sense it and Dex was a little unsettled about the whole thing. We would find out when they aged what sort of creature they were. Lia was not worried. Neither was Dali. I worried enough for the both of us. My coronation ceremony was set for two weeks. The castle was in a bustle, planning for it, and I had relinquished most of the duties to the house mother. I didn’t particularly care about the color of my napkins, much to Lia’s mirth, so I left the finer details to Mrs. Wolt
WYATT After the surprise wedding, we went back to the hotel to celebrate. I had planned on celebrating in bed, but our guests had other ideas. We ended up at a restaurant in a private room, dancing, drinking and laughing well into the early morning hours. When we finally dragged ourselves back to the hotel, the front desk clerk nicely reminded us that checkout was at 10:00am. “Did you like the surprise?” I asked Kacela, somewhat worriedly. We hadn’t had a chance to be alone since the wedding and I began to have doubts. She responded by flinging herself into my arms. I picked her up and she wrapped her legs around me, grinding herself into my rod that was becoming awake. I put my lips on her, kissing her hard. “What is it that you want, Mrs. King?” I asked. “I want you to fuck me hard, Mr. King,” she whispered back, nibbling on my earlobe. That was all the encouragement I needed. I reached u