“Nothing,” Theo and Holt said at once.
I looked searchingly at Rachel, who thankfully shrugged like it wasn’t a big thing. “The guys are kind of in a frenzy until they mark you, and even after that, they can be, um, overprotective, to say the least. Don’t worry—you hold the power. They’re hard-wired to keep you safe and satisfied.” Her lips twitched on the last word, and my nipples grew hard remembering exactly how satisfied they’d already made me.
Cord and Nash grinned, proud they could do both for their wife—mate.
“So, are you freaked out?” Rachel asked impishly.
“It takes a lot to spook me,” I admitted, which was the truth. This meth thing with my dad had me upset, but finding out my two boyfriends were actually wolves?
Somehow, I could roll with it. I grew up on a ranch—animals didn’t scare me. Not even big, ferocious ones. I had a healthy respect for nature and the natural order of things. Without knowing the particulars, I even understood what Bessie had been saying about them having a biological need to lock me down.
No one could buck biology.
“I think the mating in pairs thing is almost harder to accept than the shifter part,” Rachel said. “I mean, I love it,” she said quickly when both her mates looked at her, askance. “It’s just that my parents can never know. They think I have one husband. Nash.” She set her hand atop his, but gave a wistful glance to Cord. “That feels emotionally dishonest and weird. Seems like it will be even harder once we have kids. I mean, what if their grandchildren look just like Cord?”
“Again, not sure if you’re helping,” Holt said stiffly.
I laughed. “It’s fine. I want to hear it all.” I shifted in my seat, my pussy—and my bottom—a little sore from the night before. And this morning. What I really wanted to ask her was if I’d always feel so… well used. Naughty, too. “You ought to know that I’m pretty tough. It takes a lot to make me quit something.”
Theo and Holt looked at me with the moon in their eyes, and I realized I’d admitted out loud that I was already considering myself in.
It was crazy. Insane, really. I’d met these guys a matter of days ago, and we’d shared little more than a lot of hot sex, and a couple of meals together. But they were all in with me.
It didn’t feel that hard to picture myself all in with them in return.
They were Wyoming men. Of and from the land I considered home. Something about that seemed to fit. The rancher-shifter relations thing was a problem, but not an insurmountable one. Maybe I could help change the ranchers’ minds about wolves. Somehow convince them the wild animals weren’t a danger to the cattle herds. Or figure out a way to protect the herd that satisfied both parties. I didn’t know how, exactly, but it seemed like I could be a bridge between the two factions.
Maybe that was too optimistic.
Bessie brought our food, and we ate with an easy get-to-know-you conversation about what Cord and Nash did for a living—doctor and contractor—and Rachel’s plans for the future as a teacher. After we finished, I got up to use the bathroom, and Rachel came along.
“So, you have two lawmen on your hands. That’s pretty hot,” Rachel said when we were washing up and applying lip gloss in the mirror.
“So hot,” I confirmed with a laugh. “Although, they won’t use the handcuffs on me. They think I won’t like them.” I blushed, realizing what I’d just shared with a new friend.
“You never know until you try, right?” Rachel gave me a broad grin in the mirror and rubbed her lips together to spread her pink gloss. “How great that you never have to worry about one of them getting shot in the line of duty. Otherwise, I’d be pretty nervous when they went off to work.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
I hadn’t had that particular worry yet, but now, I probably would. God, they had dangerous jobs, and I’d never considered they might be killed.
“Because they can’t be harmed by bullets.”
My heart sped up as my eyes widened. What? “They… can’t?”
She shook her head, then turned and leaned against the counter. “Nope. You didn’t know that? Well, let me put your mind at ease. They—shifters, I mean—have superhuman healing properties. Nash got shot last year by my ex.” Her eyes filled up with tears and she took a moment to pull herself together. “It was horrible! I watched him go down, and he was bleeding. I thought he was dead and I was out of my mind with grief, but he was feeling better within a few hours.” She took a deep breath, calming herself. “It was incredible. There’s no mark or scar or anything.”
Wow. Like, holy shit kind of wow. “But I thought… wasn’t there a wolf that was killed by a rancher years back?”
Rachel’s eyes rounded. “Wow. I don’t know. I think if they get shot in the head it could kill them because there’s no time for the body to recover from that before they die. So maybe the wolf got picked off with a head shot.”
I shuddered, thinking how it must have been even more tragic to a community that believed they were immune to bullets to have one of their own taken from them that way. I would find a way to bridge the divide. Whether things worked out between me and these two guys or not, I needed to heal this rift.
HOLT
“I don’t like it,” Theo grumbled after he shut Ali’s truck door and gave the hood a knock. The two of us stood there like abandoned puppies as she drove off after breakfast at the diner.
“Me neither,” I agreed, my wolf practically howling at me to follow her.
We didn’t want to let our beautiful mate go back to her ranch today. Hell, we didn’t want to let our beautiful mate go, ever.
“She’ll be safe,” Theo said in that voice that said he didn’t quite believe it, but wanted to convince himself.
“Yeah. She promised she wouldn’t go near the trailer again, and I trust her.” I shot a glance at Theo. “We can trust her, right?”
He scrubbed a hand across his face as we walked toward his truck. “I think so. But she’s headstrong. I don’t like what she overheard at that trailer. There was a threat to her father’s life, which means hers won’t mean much either if she gets in the middle of whatever is going on out there. Her dad’s done a good job of keeping her out of whatever he’s up to, but she’s too curious for her own good.”
“We need to move on that shit. Today,” I vowed. We needed to get things straight down at the ranch right away, or we’d both go fuck-nuts crazy.
“Right. I’ll call the lab in Cheyenne to find out the results from the samples we sent in to be tested. Hopefully they’re back.” He put the phone on speaker as he drove us both to the sheriff’s office.
“You were right, Agent Decker,” the lab technician said. Judging by his voice, he was a young, eager sort. Proud of his findings. “Definitely traces of ammonia and acetone.”
“Email me the lab results right away so I can get a search warrant,” Theo barked.
Fuck, yes.
“I already sent it, sir.”
“Thanks, Eric. That’s all I need.” Theo ended the call and looked at me. “We have the proof. How quickly can you pull a warrant?”