Crying Wolf (Black River Pack Book 1) (6 page)

“Grace,” he began, instantly catching my interest. “I’ve gotten a couple of feelers sent my way about her. I’m not sure if they’ve actually traced her here, but her ex is definitely searching for her and he’s getting closer.”

“Fuck!” I hissed.

We hadn’t discussed her ex-boyfriend and what he’d done to send her running. Hell, we hadn’t really talked about anything over the weekend. Although I refused to take her until she knew what I was, we’d done just about everything else possible without sinking my cock into her pussy. I hadn’t planned to do anything more than satisfy her needs, but when she’d crawled across my bed and reached for my cock, I hadn’t been able to withstand the temptation to feel her lips wrapped around me.

Once we’d crossed that line, I’d had no desire to go back. We’d spent the last two days barely leaving my room, completely wrapped up in each other. For the first time since meeting Grace, my wolf wasn’t pushing for control. He was finally relaxed and almost sated. I hadn’t marked her yet, but after this weekend, I was convinced she wouldn’t be able to walk away from me. I was still concerned about her reaction to the news that I was a shifter, but after finally getting a taste of her, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would never let her get away even if she tried.

Spencer tossed a folder on my desk. “I pulled everything I could find on your girl, but there wasn’t much. She doesn’t have a record. Hell, she hasn’t even gotten so much as a speeding ticket. She turned twenty-one a couple of weeks before she showed up here. Her parents were killed in a car accident about a year and a half ago. She hooked up with a cop shortly after. Sam Carson. That’s where things get interesting.”

A growl escaped at the thought of my Gracie with another man. “And what did you find on him?”

“What makes you think I ran a check on him too?” he asked.

I looked at my brother, certain my exasperation showed in my expression. “Because I know you.”

“And it’s a good thing, too. Because my need to gather information means we may be a step ahead this time around.”

I snagged the next folder he’d tossed at me and ripped it open. “You found something?

“Fuck yeah, I did. He might be a brother in blue, but he has an internal affairs file a mile long. She managed to get involved with a guy who appears to have one hell of a temper.”

My head whipped up at that news. “Any sign his temper turned to Grace?”

Spencer shook his head. “Nothing conclusive. I checked hospital records and didn’t find anything unusual for her. But the weird thing is he reported Grace missing. Twice. First time was about seven months before she got here. Second was about a month later. The reports are in there.”

I read through them quickly, not finding any real clues as to how she disappeared twice and turned up fine days later. “She’s gone now,” I said, pointing out the obvious.

“But there’s no report out for her. So either he knew she was leaving or he was afraid to be reprimanded if her filed another report and she turned up later,” Spencer replied, his thoughts running along the same lines as mine. “And since he’s searching for her, my money’s on the latter.”

“She planned it,” I muttered before a bark of laughter erupted from my throat. “Grace knew she was going to leave and needed to make it harder for him to track her, so she took away his biggest weapon—his fellow police officers.”

“It was a brilliant plan,” Spencer agreed. “As far as I can tell, she’s been on the run for about seven months now. It looks like it slowed him down, but he’s getting closer to finding her now. The inquiry to my office was subtle, like he was feeling out this location, so I’m not sure if he knows she’s here. But what worries me is the fact that he took some vacation time. I checked with his precinct and he told them he had a family emergency and needed to use all his banked time. That tells me he knows he’s close to finding her and wants to be ready when he does.”

“How?” I growled. “I haven’t reported her social security number at the bar, she didn’t use a credit card to check into the motel, and she didn’t even have a cell phone when she got to town. How the fuck would he have managed to track her here?”

Spencer sat in the chair across from my desk. “You and I both know that, if you have enough determination to find someone and you’re willing to cross certain lines, then odds are you will find them.”

“She’s his prey,” I growled. “My mate is some asshole’s motherfucking prey.”

“Calm down, Hunter,” Spencer urged me as fur rippled across my arms.

My wolf wanted to be free to turn the tables on the man who dared to hunt my mate. The fear in her eyes when we first met, her resistance to me when our attraction was overwhelming, the lack of anything personal in the belongings I’d packed from that damn motel room of hers. All of it made sense to me now. He’d made her run for her life, and I was going to make him pay for it. Once I’d reined in my temper, I nodded my head to let Spencer know I was okay.

“He might have sent her running from him, but you need to remember that her path brought her to you,” he pointed out. “As fucked up as it sounds, he’s the reason she’s here now.”

“If you believe that for even one fucking second, then you’re an idiot,” I disagreed. “Fate brought her to me. If he weren’t the danger stalking her, then something or someone else would be. She’s my mate and we would have met eventually no matter what. And I don’t think you have room to lecture me about how I met my mate.”

Spencer grumbled a little, most likely because he knew I was right. I’d recognized my mate before even seeing her while he’d been sleeping with his for a year and didn’t realize it until last night.

“What are you going to do about him?” he asked.

I thought about everything I’d learned today about Grace’s situation. My first thought needed to be her safety. Spencer wasn’t just my brother and the sheriff of our town—he was also my beta and the enforcer of our pack. As such, I relied on him to take my back.

“I’m going to need eyes on Grace twenty-four-seven. Spread the word for me and make sure she’s covered,” I ordered.

“How’s she going to take that?” he asked.

“While you’re working on her security team, I’m going to be talking to her about her situation. It’s time she comes clean with me about her troubles.”

Spencer nodded his head in agreement. “It will definitely help, but are you going to tell her about your wolf or do the guys need to keep your secret a little longer?”

I had a feeling getting Grace to talk to me about anything personal—let alone the story of why she ran from her ex—was going to be difficult. Throwing in the fact that I’m a shifter when she didn’t even know we existed? No way in hell was it a good idea right now.

“No shifting around Grace until I give the all clear. It stays a secret for now.”

****

I found Grace in the kitchen of my house. The sight of her, barefoot and cooking, stopped me in my tracks. She must have sensed my presence because she turned my way with a huge smile on her face that faded when she saw my expression.

“I hope you don’t mind I made myself at home,” she said.

“Not at all. My home is yours,” I reassured her. “But we do need to talk.”

Grace removed her apron and washed her hands in the sink before walking towards me. After pulling out a chair for her, I helped her get comfortable. Once she was settled, I moved another chair so I could sit in front of her with our knees touching.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

I took her hands in mine before answering. “We didn’t talk much this weekend about what happened at the motel.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but I’m sure someone was in my room,” she started. “I don’t have any way to prove it to you, but it’s true all the same.”

“You don’t need any proof,” I said in an effort to soothe her. “But I do need you to tell me what brought you to Wolf’s Point and why you’re running.”

“I can’t!” she cried out. “Please don’t make me do this.”

My hold on her hands loosened and she pulled away from me. There was no way I was going to let her walk away from me—away from this conversation. I smelled the pain drifting from her skin, and my wolf whined at the thought of hurting her. It was the last thing in the world I ever wanted to do, but danger was drawing near and I needed more information so I could better protect her.

“Grace, I know it’s difficult to talk about the painful parts of our pasts. And I wish I could give you more time, but I don’t know that we can hold off if I’m going to be able to keep you safe,” I told her.

She jumped out of her seat and paced the room. After a couple of minutes, she finally came to a stop and climbed onto my lap. “How do you know I’m in danger?”

I sighed deeply, knowing that my response was likely to piss her off. “After your reaction at the motel Friday night, I asked Spencer to look into your background.”

She froze and her scent changed from pain to panic. It was enough of a warning that I had time to tightly wrap my arms around her before she jumped from my lap.

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” she cried.

I tilted her head so I could look into her eyes. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and her skin was pale white. Stark fear was etched onto her face and her heart was racing.

“I’m sorry, Gracie, but I’m doing what needs to be done so you can be safe here with me.”

She shook her head wildly in disagreement. “No. As soon as he knows where I am, he’ll come for me. And if Spencer reached out in an official capacity then he knows already. I need to run.”

I swiped the tears from her cheeks and cupped them in my palms. Pressing a light kiss against her lips, I waited for her to calm down a little before I spoke again. “There will be no more running, Gracie-mine. We stand together from now on.”

“You don’t understand,” she argued.

“Then make me understand,” I urged her. “Tell me what happened between you and Sam.”

CHAPTER 6

Grace

Just hearing Sam’s name on Hunter’s lips made me shudder. They were opposite sides of a coin—dark versus light. It was almost indecent to have that man’s memory sharing space with Hunter.

“I’m afraid,” I admitted.

Hunter’s arms tightened around me. “There’s nothing you ever need to be scared of anymore. I won’t let him or anyone else hurt you ever again.”

There was something surreal about having this conversation with him. I’d only known Hunter for such a short time. I tried pushing him away for most of it until the night someone had invaded my privacy and Hunter had swooped in to save me. Knowing he would drop whatever he was doing to rush to my aid sent my walls crumbling down, leaving me defenseless to this thing building between us.

“I know,” I assured him. “It’s not that. I just don’t want you to look at me differently because of what happened before I met you.”

“Gracie-mine,” he sighed. “There isn’t anything in this world that will change how I look at you. From the moment we met, I knew you were meant to be mine. Nothing in the future, the present, and sure as hell not the past will ever make me love you any less than I do right now.”

It were as if the world stood still at his words. Love. He’d just said that he loved me. “You love me?”

“Jesus, Grace!” he huffed. “What the hell do you think has been going on here?”

Apparently, Hunter was one of those people who also believed in love at first sight. And as crazy as it sounded, he’d renewed my faith in it too. Which meant I needed to do something I had vowed never to do again—place my trust in a man.

“I’ve been lying to myself about what was happening between us,” I admitted. “But I felt it the moment we met, too.”

“Thank fuck,” he heaved. “I know it’s too soon for me to ask you, Grace. But I need you to trust me. Tell me about what happened with Sam—what brought you to me.”

Closing my eyes, I rested my head against Hunter’s shoulder and began. “I met Sam at a time in my life when I was so incredibly lonely. My parents had just died and for the first time in my life, I felt like I had no one. He stepped in and filled that empty space. I thought it was love, but now, after meeting you, I’m not so sure. I think it might have been gratitude more than anything else.”

Hunter had been rubbing my back as I spoke, but his hand had stilled when I’d mentioned the word love.

“I can’t deny I was attracted to him at first sight, but I think I wanted so desperately for it to be love that I blinded myself to the reality of him.”

I paused to gather my thoughts and Hunter’s hands began moving again.

“How so?” he asked, urging me to continue.

“He didn’t just stop when that empty space was full. It wasn’t enough for him. He wanted all the parts of me. So he began nudging everything else out of my life—my job, my home, my friends—until the only thing left was Sam. I didn’t listen to the warnings from my friends. I should have known better. I should have paid attention to what they had to say, but I was so goddamn stupid!”

“No!” he spit out. “You trusted the wrong man, but you were young and you made mistakes. It sounds like he took advantage of you at a time when he should have protected you. That’s on him—not you.”

“Maybe,” I sighed. “It wasn’t until he hit me that I realized how wrong everything was between us.”

Hunter’s arms tightened around me and a threatening growl erupted from his throat. “He fucking hit you? Spencer didn’t find any police reports or hospital records, so I hoped like hell it never came to that.”

“Sam was too smart for that. He didn’t leave any cuts or bad bruises. No broken bones to be treated. Nothing that couldn’t be explained away easily if I filed a report. And he’s a cop, so it’s not like anyone would want to believe me anyway,” I explained. “I tried to run the next day, but he found me with my bags before I could get away. Threatened me and scared me half to death. He wasn’t the Sam I had known. He’d turned into a monster who would stalk me to the ends of the Earth if I tried to run again.”

“Stalked by danger,” Hunter whispered quietly.

“Yes. Sam is absolutely dangerous to me. And to you too if he finds me with you.”