A Cub For The Billion-were (Alpha Billion-weres Book 2) Read online

  “Why are both of you pretending you can predict what I say?” Taylor complained as Grant walked off, heading for the True Brew microbrewery. They could follow him or not. He was hoping not.

  Mandy gave Taylor’s arm a sympathetic pat. “Because you’re predictable. Lovable, but predictable.” They hurried to catch up with Grant.

  “So we’re getting beer before noon o’ clock now?” Taylor said as Grant turned down the herringbone brick path that led to the True Brew.

  Grant gave her a dirty look. “Mandy and I are getting beer before noon o’ clock. You’re going someplace where you can’t annoy me. I wonder what time the space shuttle is blasting off today.”

  “Now, now, be nice to my friend,” Mandy said reprovingly. “Remember, I came here as a favor, and I like her better than you.”

  Several pretty girls walking down the path towards the brewery started to move past them, then stopped and did a double-take as they openly checked Grant out.

  “Omigod, omigod, aren’t you Grant Bronson?” one of them trilled, fluttering her lashes at him. “I saw you at the XXXtreme Sportsapalooza in Sweden last year. You were soooo hot!”

  Grant was the public face of Bronson Sports Performance, a billion-dollar company that produced sports enhancement products that were snapped up by everyone from top athletes to gym jocks. Their products were secretly made with highly diluted werewolf blood.

  When Grant wasn’t at the pack’s small, werewolf-only town in Hidden Hills, North Dakota, he was traveling the world. Taking part in extreme sports events, schmoozing with the CEOs of the companies who distributed their products, plastered all over the pages of magazines and social media. And fending off the advances of Alpha groupies desperate to be able to boast to their empty-headed friends that they’d bedded one of the Bronson brothers.

  Mandy put her arm around Grant’s waist and flicked her fingers at them. “Move along, basic beeyotches. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

  Grant flashed the girls a wink and a grin that was so fake and automatic, it was like flipping a switch. “Sorry, girls, got my hands full with this one.”

  The girls looked disappointed as they headed through the door. As soon as they were gone, Mandy removed her arm.

  Taylor stopped walking just outside the door and gave Grant a speculative glance. “I’m beginning to get an idea,” she said.

  “Keep it to yourself,” he suggested, none too politely.

  “By the way, weird thing happened today,” Mandy said to Grant. “You’ve never hit a woman, have you?”

  “What?” Grant and Taylor said at the exact same time, exchanging glances of astonishment.

  Grant shook his head. “Hell, no. I mean, trust me, I’ve been tempted…” He glanced at Taylor, who used her middle finger to adjust her sunglasses.

  “This woman came up to me a little while ago while I was at the pharmacy, and said she’d seen us together yesterday. Then she asked me if you were treating me okay, and if you’d ever hit me. Seriously. I laughed so hard I peed myself a little. Then I told her no, if you tried, there wouldn’t be enough of you left to sweep up with a dustpan.” That was true. Some werewolves had freak powers. Mandy’s was super-strength.

  “Did you ask her why she’d ask that?” Grant could hear the edge to his voice. Sure, there were plenty of rumors that he was a bad, bad boy who left shattered hearts in his wake, and that was the way he liked it. Any woman who thought she was going to snag him as a mate and a daddy to her cubs was sadly mistaken. But why would anyone think he was enough of a cowardly little bitch to hit a woman?

  “Yes, and she didn’t answer. Just asked if you were a decent person, and I said, in comparison to what? Then she left.”

  “Thanks for the ringing endorsement,” Grant said sourly, and Mandy responded with a sunny smile and a wink.

  Then she glanced around to make sure there was no one else within earshot. “Oh, one other thing. She was human.”

  Grant shook his head in confusion. He’d dated a lot of women over the last few years, but as far as he knew, he’d parted on good terms with all of them. He mostly stuck to werewolf females, although from time to time he’d be seen in public at some nightclub opening with a human female on his arm.

  “I have no idea who it could be. What did she look like?”

  “About five five, brown hair, kind of Midwestern farm-girl-looking. Freckles. Thick scar on her face. Her name was Celeste. I know because I was in a store where she was shopping a little earlier, and I saw her using her credit card.”

  A sharp jolt stabbed through him. For a brief moment there, when he’d heard Mandy’s description, he’d thought it might be Jennifer.

  He hadn’t seen or heard from Jennifer in seven years. It would be a crazy coincidence for her to show up here in Colorado. There was no reason that Jennifer would be asking Mandy if Grant had ever hit a woman, but the description sounded like her, and it might explain why his wolf had been so unsettled the last couple of days.

  But no. It was a woman with a scar, whose name was Celeste.

  They’d started to walk into the bar when Taylor’s cell phone pinged. She pulled it out of her purse, looked at it, and bit out a curse. She waved at Grant and Mandy to follow her back outside.

  Standing on the sidewalk, she showed them the news article on her phone. “I set up Google to alert me for any mentions of werewolves in the media,” she said.

  “Well, fuck me very much,” Grant groaned when he saw the picture. “This is a capper to a perfect day, and it’s not even noon. Maybe we can top it off with a nice plague of locusts.”

  The news article featured a picture of an enormous wolf. It was standing in an alley in downtown New Jersey. The wolf had supposedly chased a bunch of teenagers who were smoking pot in the alley, and one of them had paused to snap a picture of it. “The Wolf-Man Cometh!” the headline blared.

  There weren’t even any packs in New Jersey, because the state was too populated. There were a dozen major packs, and an estimated sixty smaller packs scattered across the country, but they were all located in states with low populations and enormous tracts of forest land, so they could escape detection and could safely shift on the full moon.

  So that meant that this was yet another lone wolf. Risking the lives of every single werewolf in the world.

  Of course, the headline writer thought it was joke. Humans didn’t know about werewolves. But there had been an unacceptable number of near exposures recently, and that was the reason for the emergency national pack meeting at the Mystic Lodge, ten miles outside town. Packs from all across the country had sent pack members and Alphas to meet up and address the situation head on.

  Werewolf packs out of necessity lived in small, isolated towns and kept to themselves whenever possible. Because of that, a lot of packs were severely lagging behind humans when it came to technology and communication, some more than others. Grant’s pack had chosen to be in a business that put their family in the public view, so they’d stayed up to date with technology and had members who were experts in social media and computer security. They were here at the meeting to help everyone else get up to speed.

  Since time immemorial, there had always been werewolves who didn’t fit in with their packs.

  Some of them, instead of finding other packs to take them in, went rogue. Some of them were too feral to fit into any pack. Whenever possible, those wolves were hunted down and killed, but a few escaped. There was also an underground group called The Network, who helped hide lone wolves and smuggle them to safety. Selfish bastards. They were putting every werewolf in the country at risk with their foolish idealism.

  And these days, with traffic cameras and cell phone cameras on every corner, there were just too many near exposures.

  Normally, packs operated like their own little kingdoms, with their own laws and traditions, ruled by their Alphas and their Elders, who enforced the pack charters.

  But the packs were finally accepting that they need
ed to cooperate with each other. They needed a national database of all pack members, to start with. It would help in numerous ways that went beyond keeping track of rogue wolves. They could also pool resources such as healers, and Truth-Makers, and seers, and they could set up a mating database.

  There were a number of packs who still stubbornly clung to the old ways, however, so the atmosphere at the lodge was already heated before the meetings had even begun. And with so many Alphas in one place, the whole damn town was in danger of succumbing to testosterone poisoning. Grant told himself that maybe that was why his wolf was so restless.

  The official start date was tomorrow. It was two weeks before the full moon, though, so they had plenty of time – if the stubborn old fossils could ever learn to play nice with others.

  Taylor sighed. “I need to call Cliff. You two play nice and don’t bite anybody.” She glanced around quickly as she said that, to make sure she wasn’t overheard. These days, who knew when a human might overhear her and take it the wrong way?

  * * * * *

  He sat outside at a table in the shadows, pretending to look at his laptop and secretly watching his Beta and his Omega conspire against him.

  They stood across the patio, drinking coffee, plotting his death. They were trying to look casual, but he knew what they were up to, and he knew that he didn’t have much time now. They were starting to suspect the nature of his weakness, and they’d be making their move soon.

  His Beta glanced his way. He saw it from the corner of his eye, and his hand unconsciously drifted to the pistol concealed in a shoulder holster under his jacket. The pistol had silver-coated bullets – his only protection these days. If his men knew that, he’d be dead within seconds.

  The solution was so close, it nearly drove him mad. Close enough to touch.

  He’d show them soon. Any day now, the precious substance would be his, and he’d slash a pathway through those who’d dare to plot his overthrow. He’d kill their mates, their cubs, their brothers and sisters…and he’d make the traitors watch, before he killed them. The thought of the screaming and crying and pleading brought a twisted smile to his face as his fingers randomly played across keys on the laptop.

  He looked up and met his Beta’s gaze, and his Beta submissively looked down, but there was a sullen hint of defiance there. And his Omega was hiding a smirk.

  I will taste the blood of your children. Let’s see who’s smirking then.

  Chapter Three

  Celeste wandered through the lobby of Mystic Lodge, trying to figure out why the heck security was so tight. It looked like a normal group of people – men and women wandering through the building, chatting, talking on their cell phones, flirting with each other…not doing anything sinister. But she was getting very odd looks, and she couldn’t figure out what kind of group this was.

  She’d found Grant in the small town of Pineview a few days ago, when she’d searched for his name on the internet and a picture of him shopping downtown had popped up on a social media site. She’d driven to Pineview with Jeffrey, seen Grant driving in town, and snuck a GPS tracker under his car when he was shopping. That was how she’d found out he was staying at Mystic Lodge.

  After getting her fire inspector disguise together that morning, she’d left Jeffrey at a drop-in daycare in Pineview. She’d promised to come right back, but he’d sat in the corner, sullen and furious. She hated to leave him, but she was afraid if she brought him here and Grant rejected him to his face, he’d be heartbroken. Leaving him in a safe place for a few hours felt like the lesser of two evils.

  She was fortunate that she’d showed up prepared, because she never would have been able to talk her way in otherwise. Her job at Harrison, Inc. had involved testing site security at major corporations. She’d showed up in various disguises at supposedly secure buildings and talked her way past the front desk receptionists, past security guards, past janitors. She’d been part of a cleaning crew, or with a catering company, delivering flowers or birthday cakes or pizza…and nine times out of ten, she’d waltzed right in.

  To get into Mystic Lodge, she’d dressed up as a fire inspector. She had an excellent fake ID printed up. When the guard at the gate had informed her that the event had been booked for a private group and she’d have to come back next month, she’d threatened to contact the County and get the lodge shut down for non-compliance. She’d also promised that she’d make the inspection quick and it was really just a formality, so he’d reluctantly let her in – after retreating to his booth, calling up to the lodge, and making her wait for a good twenty minutes. It was like he was warning them that she was coming, giving them time to hide and cover up…what?

  She’d figure it out one way or another.

  And now she was being followed around by the woman who’d apparently been assigned as her babysitter. Yasmine. A very pretty woman with long, shiny, blue-black hair, perfectly penciled eyebrows, and an annoyed expression. She was practically stalking her – literally, like a cat would stalk a mouse.

  “Excuse me. Will you be much longer?” Yasmine snapped at her.

  “It will take as long as it takes,” Celeste said coolly.

  “Which is how long, exactly?” Yasmine stepped much too close to her, trying to intimidate her. Good luck with that. Celeste had spent her entire childhood and adolescence not only being the new kid at school every few months, but being the new foster kid with the mismatched, patched-up clothing. She’d had her share of beatings, until she’d learned how to defend herself and Jennifer from the kids at school, from the kids in their group homes, and from their own foster parents.

  Instead of backing up, Celeste took a step towards Yasmine and bumped into her. Yasmine made a weird snarling noise, almost like an animal, then glanced around self-consciously. “What the hell are you doing?” she bleated.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought this was National Don’t Respect Anybody’s Personal Space Day. I was just joining in.”

  Yasmine’s lip curled in contempt. “You haven’t told me when you’re leaving.”

  “No, I haven’t. Oh, crud!” Celeste glanced down at her clipboard.

  “Now what?” Yasmine said with irritation.

  “I totally lost count of how many exits I’ve inspected. Now I have to start all over again from the beginning.”

  Yasmine arched a perfectly penciled eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be writing it down?”

  “Under normal circumstances, yes, I would, but somebody keeps hovering directly over me, bumping into me so I can’t write and getting in my way. It’s starting to make me think you all have something to hide. Do you have something to hide?” She raised her voice very, very loud as she said that, drawing disapproving glances from several people who were walking by. One of them, an older man who’d been hovering in the background, hurried over.

  “Yasmine. Back off and let her do her work so she can leave. You were asked to show her around, not get in her way. If you can’t do your job, let me know. We can always send you home.” The man gave her a look of contempt that showed that Celeste wasn’t the only person annoyed by Yasmine’s behavior.

  “First I’m going to go use the ladies room,” Celeste said. “I assume you’re not going to follow me in there,” she added to Yasmine. Before Yasmine or the older man could answer, she hurried off to use the bathroom.

  Once she was in a stall, she shut the door, sat down on the toilet seat, and set her clipboard down, massaging her temples. What was going on here? What was Grant doing here, and what were these people up to? The air was bristling with tension, and everywhere she went, conversations stopped mid-sentence and people watched her with wary, suspicious eyes.

  She wondered if it had something to do with Jeffrey’s odd…condition. She’d asked Jeffrey about the pointy teeth and pointy ears – which had vanished almost as soon as they’d appeared – and he’d muttered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” When she’d tried to push the issue, he’d said, “I need to go pee. Right n
ow,” and hurried off to the bathroom.

  That was one of the things she’d planned on asking Grant Bronson about. That was until she’d repeatedly left messages for him at the Mystic Lodge over the past few days – and he’d ignored every one. Messages telling him that he had a son.

  Was he really that hard-hearted? Could there have been some mistake? Maybe he wasn’t getting the messages?

  She needed to know what kind of man Grant really was before she decided whether she should tell him about Jeffrey. If he was a drunk or a drug addict or if he beat up his girlfriends – she wouldn’t subject Jeffrey to that.

  So she’d spent the last ten days stalking Grant, both online and in real life, while she and Jeffrey lived in motel rooms.

  What she’d found out wasn’t exactly reassuring. He was a total Casanova, always being photographed with beautiful women on his arm. She could see why. Even caught in the harsh flashes of the paparazzi’s cameras, he was heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Chiseled features, dark hair worn just a little too long so that it was allowed to curl, and a sly curve to his full pink lips that matched the wicked glint in his narrow, dark-lashed eyes. Eyes the color of whiskey. He was obviously used to breaking hearts, and she had no intention of letting him break Jeffrey’s.

  He traveled all the time, too. How could he possibly be a good father for a little boy?

  If his public persona was to be believed, he was a smug, entitled, obscenely wealthy ass.

  But on the bright side, she hadn’t seen any indication that he’d ever hit a woman. Jennifer had claimed that Grant beat her, but then, Jennifer had lied about everyone and everything.

  It was unlikely that someone as famous as him had been physically abusive and managed to sweep it under the rug.

  But what would she do if Grant refused to step up to the plate? Then Jeffrey’s choices were the foster system – never in hell – or her.