REGAN
Hidden...
All my life I've known who I am-I've known what I am. And chosen to be someone else instead…
My kind of shifter is supposed to be special, is supposed to do things I never could. I told myself it didn't hurt. I told myself that I could live the rest of my life without confronting the side of me I'd rather stay buried forever. Until Jackson Stone, the new alpha of Dawley, fixes his gaze my way.
He wants me, and makes no secret of his intention to have me. In his bed, in his heart, and as his Luna. A role that will force me to be who I never wanted to be, and who I never thought I could be. Mate. Omega. Heart healer.
Can I stand against the sheer force that is Jackson Stone, or will I crumble under his might?
By the time I realize that running from an alpha isn't the best idea I've ever had, it's far too late for me to do anything except continue sprinting through the Dawley-Stone pack forest.
From the shout that went up behind me once I took off, I'm not stupid enough to believe that the alpha of this brand-new pack, Jackson Stone, isn't right this second in full pursuit. So, I put my head down, watch for any vines, roots, or anything that looks like it'll trip me, and I run for my life.
I'm under no illusions about what will happen if Jackson catches up to me, and I have no intention of letting it.
All I need to do is open a big enough distance between us, shift, then I can continue the rest of the way to the rental beside the Dawley National Forest on four legs instead of two.
Once I'm there, I'm home dry since it'll be a few minutes to grab my bag and get the hell out of Dawley by any means necessary.
For the first ten minutes, I'm so tense, expecting a wolf, or the six-foot-plus-plus hotness that is Jackson Stone to tackle me to the ground that I'm not thinking of anything except a desperate need to get away.
Okay, so maybe I'm thinking of what it would feel like pinned beneath Jackson's muscled form, and I may have even hoped-for one tiny second-for it to happen until I remember what alphas are like.
Nope, that is not going to be my future.
But it doesn't happen.
By then, I'm feet from leaving the Dawley-Stone pack land and crossing into the National Forest, which is when I realize I'm not hearing a thing.
Despite my utter certainty that Jackson was chasing me, when I slow down and dart a glance behind me, there's no one there. There's no sound of twigs breaking or leaves rustling or anything. There's not even a cute rabbit bouncing along.
It's nearly six on a Friday night, and the forest around me is quiet. Which is a good thing, because I'd have a hell of a job trying to explain to any campers or hikers why I'm running through it in jeans, knee-high boots, a polka dot blouse, and my eyes wide with desperate panic.
I guess I could tell them the truth, that I think a wolf is chasing me, but somehow, that doesn't seem like it'll end well, for any of us.
Since I'm the only thing moving in the forest, I stop and bend over with my hands on my knees to catch my breath. I hate running as a human with a passion you wouldn't believe. It takes so much more effort than the ease of moving in my wolf shape. Still, I can't complain too much because I've achieved what I thought was impossible.
I lost him. Somehow, I lost him.
I drag deep mouthfuls of air into my lungs, a grin stretches across my face.
It's got to be all those heavy muscles slowing him down because God knows there's a lot of them.
I'm still grinning as I straighten… just in time for a large gray wolf to come out of freaking nowhere and take me down hard enough to leave me lying stunned beneath him.
From the gold-hazel eyes staring into my face, I don't have to guess as to who this wolf must be.
As I lay stretched out flat on my back, fighting to recover from the impact, the wolf standing over me shifts with a blink-and-miss-it-speed that always fills me with envy.
It would take me that long to change my nails to claws.
In bare seconds, I have a naked muscled man with whiskey-brown eyes and thick walnut shoulder-length hair pinning me to the ground.
All my efforts to catch my breath are wasted when I realize what is probing me in my lower belly.
I swallow hard.
"You know, darlin'." Jackson's heavy-lidded gaze sweeps over my face before settling on my lips. "It's not nice to take one look at someone and run. Some may even consider it rude."
Oh, God. His voice.
It's a sexy timbre that makes me want to clamp my legs together, and the combination of his low growl and the way he's staring at my lips is making me forget why I ran in the first place.
"I have my reasons," I snap.
Anger is good. Stick with anger, Regan. The angrier you are, the less turned on you'll be.
When Jackson lowers his head, I'm gripped by desperate panic and anticipation at the thought he's going to kiss me. As I take in his chiseled jaw, straight sloping nose, and full lower lip, my anger evaporates as need takes over.
No, Regan, hold on to the anger.
I force myself to remember how Jeremy gave Savannah a mate bite and tied them together without even telling her first. Okay, so they turned out to be fated mates… but still.
That's exactly the sort of alpha behavior I have no intention of letting into my life.
Then, there's Dayne and his insane overprotectiveness. Even though Talis is six months pregnant with his child and he knows she has no interest in any guy but him, he still insists on taking her into Hardin and picking her up again when she has breakfast with her friend Fisher on Fridays.
Talis was right. All of them are alpha dicks, and this one just chased me through a freakin' forest. If this isn't a sign of looming alpha dick behavior, then I don't know what is.
Jackson lifts a hand and runs it through my long, light auburn hair that to me is more honey-brown, but Talis is insistent it's more red than brown. "Reasons, huh? And what might those be?"
Yes, Regan, what reasons are those?
I part my lips to tell him… something. Only the moment I do, he brushes his lips against mine. It's a gentle feathering that has my stomach tensing and arousal simmering. Which is another sign I shouldn't be anywhere near this guy because I should not be responding this quickly.
Except I am. I'm also not doing a damn thing to stop him.
"You smell good, darlin'. Edible. Just like this golden skin I want to kiss all over."
I gulp.
When Jackson's lips touch mine again, my eyes flutter closed, and my anger abandons me. The tip of his tongue lightly traces the seam of my lips and there's no question what he wants. With a soft sigh, I open my mouth and let him in.
He angles his head and gives me the sort of kiss that has me shaking my head at all my former lovers at their complete failure to deliver.
But Jackson? He knows how to deliver. His kiss tells me in no uncertain terms that what he wants is me, and he intends on having me.
I swallow his low growl as I slide my hands up his muscled arms before looping them around his wide shoulders.
Jackson deepens the kiss, making me moan at the firm stroke of his tongue against mine. I'm working out how I can get undressed without breaking the kiss when his hand collars my throat in a mark of ownership and my brain wakes the fuck up.
My eyes snap open, and I bite his lip.
With a muffled curse, Jackson jerks his head away and glares down at me. "What," he growls, "was that?"
"Me telling you to back off. And take your hand off my throat." I grab it and try to peel it away.
His grip tightens. "No."
"I think the answer you meant was yes," I snarl, giving up on his hand and shoving at him instead.
It's a mistake.
There's no moving him. One shove of his muscled chest does nothing. It's like he doesn't even know I'm attempting it.
"Darlin', your wriggling is only doing one thing, and that one thing ain't moving me."
I stop struggling and glare up at him because the evidence of what my wriggling is doing to him is growing harder and hotter against my belly.
"Get off me."
Jackson raises his eyebrow but still doesn't move. "I see, so we're pretending I can't scent your arousal, are we?"
Uh, fucking shifter nose!
"I cannot be blamed for my body's natural biological response to a naked man pinning me to the ground."
Since I had no idea what I was going to say before I said it, I'm secretly pleased with how firm I sound, how in control.
But when the corners of Jackson's kissable lips kick up in a grin, I realize I haven't come close to convincing him of anything. "A naked man you're attracted to."
I roll my eyes. "Yeah, whatever. Just because-"
Jackson shifts, and at the press of his erection sinking firmly between my thighs, my eyes close and I fight back a moan. I fail.
Miserably.
The sound that emerges from my throat is so intensely needy that I'd be embarrassed if I wasn't so turned on.
Jackson groans, and when his lips return to mine, his kiss is harder, more urgent. I dig my nails into his shoulders as I curve my legs around his hips.
While I'd like to think this attraction, this need spiking through me is nothing more than a normal response to my having a bit of a dry spell lately, I know it's not.
Jackson Stone is exactly my type, and everything in me knows it. So much so that within seconds, I'm grinding myself against him, suspecting that he's not even going to need to slide inside me to bring me to climax.
"I told you he wasn't going to kill her," an amused male voice says from close by. A voice that can only be Jeremy Stone, Jackson's younger brother.
I bite Jackson's lip again, and he lifts his head. "Darlin', I didn't appreciate you doing that before, and I don't now."
"We have an audience," I snap since Jackson isn't paying the least bit of attention to the small group gathered a few feet away.
He shrugs. "They'll leave if we ignore them."
When he lowers his head to kiss me again, I shove at his chest. "Get off me, you neanderthal. Dayne. Make him move."
I jerk my gaze to the few members of my pack gazing down at me with not a small amount of amusement in their eyes.
Savannah, in particular, looks smug. After I brought up the poop in the sandbox incident and Jeremy found out, I'm not in the least bit surprised she wouldn't want to miss out on my ultimate humiliation.
"If I really thought you wanted me to, Regan, I would. But I have my doubts about that," Dayne says, sounding like he's holding back a laugh as his gaze travels down my body.
Shit.
I uncurl my legs from Jackson's hips, yank my hands away from him, and go back to ignoring the press of his erection against me. "I do," I blurt.
When Jackson braces his hands on the spongy soil on either side of my head, I shift my alarmed gaze back to his face. "Regan, huh? Pretty."
This close to him, it's impossible for me to ignore the heat in his eyes. But that's not all I'm fighting to ignore. It's the scent of him that has me wanting to nuzzle him because he smells so good to me.
Fall leaves, an open fire in winter, and spiced rum. All my favorite scents all rolled into one.
"Now, how about telling me what's running through that pretty little head of yours because something tells me it isn't me getting up. You thinking about what you want me to do to you?" Jackson murmurs.
What I want him to do? There are a million things I want him to do, and they all start with him sliding his thick, hard-
"Do you think we should leave them to get back to it? I feel like we're in the way," Savannah's voice cuts through my fantasy and, while I love her for interrupting it, I could kill her at the same time.
When I realize my hands have turned traitorous and returned to the heat of Jackson's naked back, I yank them away and glare at him. "I was convincing myself not to hit you somewhere delicate. You're lucky it worked."
To my surprise, the wide grin that flashes across his handsome face is boyish and utterly gorgeous. "If you did that," he says, and bends to brush his lips against mine, "you wouldn't get to find out what I want to do to you."
As I'm thinking up a comeback, Jackson pushes himself to his feet, using only the strength in his hands in a move no regular human could ever hope to replicate. It's a move designed to show off how strong he is.
Ignoring his outstretched hand, I climb to my feet and turn to stalk away, far, far away from Jackson Stone, because the man is dangerous. Lethal.
"Did you not want me to tell you?" he calls after me.
I grit my teeth and ignore Savannah and Talis' wide smiles as I stomp past them. "I want nothing from you, Jackson Stone. Nothing."
"Well, I want something from you, Regan Blackshaw." The steel beneath his drawl warns me this is no mere shifter I'm dealing with. "And I have every intention of getting it. We alphas always do."