Chasing a Wolf

As a fire erupts between them, igniting passion and desire, they don't realize that the closer they get to locating Kenna's mother the closer they are to danger.

With a vindictive traitor on their tail, they must battle their enemies while still fighting for what they discovered along the way—each other.

CHAPTER 1

The sex tent…

Thomas Rivers shook his head and pulled out his creased Gaelic dictionary, certain he had heard the words wrong. He flipped through pages and looked up the words the men kept repeating as they ushered him through the side pathways of the mountain town.

“I think you’re translating that wrong,” Tom whispered to the broad-chested wolf named Brachan, who’d met him in Choaca and guided him into the mountains.

Brachan pointed ahead of them. “Sex tent,” he repeated. “You’ll see.”

Nope. Hadn’t heard the man wrong.

“What the hell is a sex tent?” Tom hissed out the side of his mouth as he smiled at the two barrel-chested men who had practically carried him through the town.

Some part of him knew that each pack had their own handed-down spells from the Celtic ancestors. But he’d never heard anything before about something called a sex tent.

This was new.

His translator pointed again. “The tent for sex.”

A chill went through Tom’s body, even though the night was warm. He flashed a smile at a gray-haired woman who stood in the door of her home, holding a child back from running up the mountainside with the rest.

Children skipped ahead of them, laughing and picking yellow flowers along the path and tossing them at his feet. Far in the distance, drums rumbled and someone led a group in chanting Gaelic.

He’d considered many options, when they heard about the “men from the mountains” from the priest in Guadalajara. He’d never expected to see an entire town of wolves who still spoke Gaelic. Not in the mountains of Mexico. 

Not everyone in the town appeared to have Celtic ancestors, but nearly everyone spoke Gaelic, along with the Spanish he recognized from having been raised in a bilingual household in Nevada. He’d heard of packs in Canada who still spoke Gaelic and kept to the old ways. Why not Mexico? Maybe even elsewhere?

Wolves were so much bigger than he’d ever imagined.

He never should’ve turned down the second team member’s presence. There was the tiny problem with everyone, assuming he and Maggie would be the next to succumb to the lust bunny, like Rain and Nora had done, and Tom had chosen to go it solo because he didn’t like Maggie that way.

It wasn’t like what had happened to Rain and Nora. That had been Fated. He definitely didn’t like Maggie that way.

“You will wait here,” Brachan said. He walked through a group of people who had gathered around the outside of a big, brown tent. They milled around and murmured, but it was obvious this was a sacred space, like a church.

“I’m sorry, but can you tell them I don’t need to go into the sex tent?” Tom smiled at a redhead who locked eyes with him, but Brachan had moved so far into the crowd, Tom couldn’t see him anymore. 

The redhead turned away when a large, green-eyed man edged in front of her and Tom nodded. He didn’t want to encroach on someone else’s relationship. But there was something in the air… something sweet and spicy… and it was opening up some kind of receptor inside him.

Like a beacon had lit.

Suddenly, he looked at the flaps of the brown tent with curiosity. What exactly happened in there?

He was familiar with sex, of course. Who wasn’t? But… what was this place?

“Everyone goes in the sex tent when they first arrive,” Brachan said, emerging from the crowd again. “It’s tradition.”

Brachan was the only one who spoke English, even though several of the people around looked on with interest. No one spoke. Didn’t mean they didn’t understand, though. Thomas knew that.

This town was such an interesting mix of people… he didn’t know what to expect next.

Brachan slid open a vial and poured a viscous liquid over his hands. Before Tom knew what was happening, the big man had put hands on Tom’s face and head, spreading the fluid over his skin in quick motions.

“What the hell?” Tom asked, stepping back.

“It opens you to your mate.”

Tom tried not to react in some asshole way, but… what the actual fuck? “My mate?”

“If your mate is here, in this place, we want you to be open.” Brachan stepped back, admiring his handiwork, and everyone in the group looked on with interest.

“Feel anything?” Brachan asked.

Tom swallowed, glancing around the group, which appeared to be growing every second. Like every single street had been emptied, and every single woman had come to find out if there was a new man to be mated.

His family had some weird traditions, sure, but this might have been the weirdest thing he’d ever experienced.

An older woman called out something in Gaelic and Brachan shook his head, saying something back to her. She spit on the ground and stepped her foot over the grass, like she was grinding it into the ground.

“I don’t think you understand why I’m here.” Tom slipped his hands into his pocket, hoping he would look unassuming and that everyone would stop staring. “There’s been a big mistake.”

“No mistake.” 

Someone should’ve prepared him for this.

“I’m here looking for the men who helped a priest destroy a brothel in Guadalajara about thirty years ago.” Tom moved toward the man, as Brachan disappeared into the crowd again, gesturing for him to follow.

“You told me this already,” he threw over his shoulder.

“And you said your alpha could help.”

“Before you can meet the alpha, you have to go to the tent.” He said the words in Gaelic again. The Sex Tent.

Thomas shuddered. 

“We must know if your mate is in our pack.”

“My mate?” Tom laughed. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“I never joke.” 

“Then you are mistaken.”

“I am never mistaken.” Brachan stopped in front of the flap. 

Tom looked around. The crowd waited and watched, but no one touched him. He felt his pores opening and the sweet oil made him swoon just a bit. His blood pumped.

“Ah. You are ready.” Brachan pushed him inside the tent. “Good luck.”

Tom stumbled inside, the word mate ringing in his ears. He had long assumed he’d be the pack enforcer, as the alpha’s son, until he became alpha himself. When he had more responsibility, he would worry about a mate. Until then, the whole mate thing would make him run for the hills.

Only, he was in the hills. The mountains. The far-flung mountains of Western Mexico, among a pack he’d never heard of, and they wanted to rub him down with secret oils and send him into a tent for sex.

Not for sex, though. For mating. That was way too much responsibility for a twenty-eight year old single guy from Vegas.

“I can tell you a secret.” Brachan’s whisper came from just outside the tent.

“What?” Tom whispered back.

“I haven’t been in the tent myself, because I found my mate. But the men who have, always come out more than satisfied with their result.”

“I’m just trying to figure out if my mate is here, though, right?”

After a pause, the man whispered back. “Yes. Every new wolf who comes to our pack is first invited to sit in the tent while our women parade through. And if we find your mate, you have sex in the tent to solidify your bond, and then you become one of us.”

Tom couldn’t speak. He hadn’t prepared for this.  

“Your pack doesn’t do this?” Brachan asked.

With a laugh, he said, “They do not.”

“Well, we honor Magick above all. If Fate has a match for you, we would welcome you in to the pack and make you one of our own.”

Oh gods. Tom tried to force a smile. “Sounds great.”

“Stay there. As soon as our alpha arrives, the women will begin. Sit down. Wait for the women. Fate will show you the way.”

Tom looked around the low-lit tent. He saw a wooden stool on the other side of the tent and sat down. Energy coiled inside him, like he wanted to spring up and run. But the oil was working some kinda mojo. His blood was pumping hard through his veins.

He rolled his shoulders and tried to relax, but every piece of him was pulsing and on edge. Sure enough, when he looked down at the front of his jeans, he saw the ridge of his erection forming.

Fuckety-fuck.

Had that oil been laced with some kind of drug? The air crackled with magick and he felt high on something. The low glow of a small fire lit the area from the center of the room.

With a long exhale, he looked around the tent. It was empty, save for the fire and some vials. More of that aphrodisiac oil Brachan had rubbed on him? 

Shit. This was going sideways.

He tried to shake himself out of the onslaught of whatever drug had been rubbed on him, but he couldn’t keep himself fully in control. 

Focus. He looked around the tent again, but everything was wobbly. The light danced with the flickering fire. He kept his eyes on the flap where Brachan had pushed him through. The place the women would undoubtedly come through.

It was so strange, the oldness of this place. Everything else in the town seemed to be at least twentieth century friendly. But this tent was like stepping back into the wilds of Scotland. Complete with a sense of complete isolation.

He felt totally alone.

A rustle behind him made Tom’s head whirl around. Something slithered under the edge of the tent. Then it rose to a full height beside him. 

Tom shook his head and glanced back at the tent flap where Brachan waited, but no one had come through from the fire. Yet when he looked up, the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen hovered over him.

She had creamy skin and long, thick, dark hair that waved its way around her face and down the sides of her very naked breasts. Her erect nipples hovered in front of his face and he was tempted to take one of them in his mouth.

The young woman swayed from side to side in front of him, her breasts bouncing with each movement. Her eyes locked onto his, two golden pools of amber with dark, shuttered lashes.

She paused and stared at him, almost as if she’d been expecting someone different to be where he sat.

There was something about her. Something in the air shimmered around her. Magick. And he wanted her. No. Needed her in a way he’d never felt before. She was special. 

“I’m Tom,” he said, extending a hand. 

She didn’t respond. Instead, she looked behind her and put her hands on his shoulders. “Close your eyes. It will be easiest if you do not speak.” 

Easiest for what? His foggy brain attempted to assess her statement, but she moved closer and he couldn’t focus on anything except how her perfect pinkish nipples begged for his tongue. His wolf growled deep in his chest. Paced and pushed against his conscious. 

Claim her. The ringing endorsement from his beast stole his breath. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t really be his mate? Could she? 

She opened his pants and he felt air on his erection. His breath caught so fast, he thought it would never start again. He was so hard. Magick swirled around him. Her magick. His magick. Threads wound together pulling him closer. He wanted to taste her. Breathe in her scent. He wanted to know everything about her. 

“What are you doing to me?” He rubbed his face against the soft skin of her neck and breathed in her sweet scent.

“Binding myself to you.” 

Something wet and hot and…tight…slid down his cock. Tom’s eyes flew open as the other sensations whirled around him. Her thighs on his, her hands on his shoulders.

She groaned as she lowered herself even farther onto his erection. 

Tom grabbed her hips out of instinct, and found himself needing to drive his hips toward hers. She was perfect. She was his. Everything about her was perfect and right, but where the hell had she come from?

The woman took his hands in hers and brought them up to her breasts, where she left them. He couldn’t breathe. 

Between the drugs and the drumming and the tight grip of her riding him, he could only groan. The grain of the wood dug into his ass and he cried out.

She jumped off him, his dick popping out of her with a thwack. 

He missed the connection instantly. Wanted her back. Mine.

With a few steps backward, she raised her hands to her breasts. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” He stood, rubbing his tender ass. “That stool absolutely was not made for sex. It is not the sex stool.”

“It is the sex stool.” She dropped her hands from her breasts and Tom’s mouth practically watered. She had so much grace, in every movement, like a dancer. And her long, dark hair swirled around her and occasionally veiled her breasts from his gaze. It was intoxicating. She was intoxicating.

Mine. The soul-deep cry echoed in his mind. Mate. Nothing mattered more than finishing what she’d started.

“How about the sex floor?” Tom knelt on the smooth, dark dirt. 

She raised one eyebrow and walked toward him, taking his offered hand. “That’ll do.”

Her hands were on his shoulders again, pushing him to the ground, and she knelt over his groin, guiding his cock inside her once more. 

Yes. Perfect. He needed to be inside her like he needed oxygen. The squeeze of her, the rhythm, the beauty. His breath caught again.

Once she had him on his back, she put her hands on his chest and began to ride him with an urgency that made his wolf howl with pleasure. 

Outside the tent, voices raised just a touch, and Tom glanced at the tent flap, but it didn’t move. No one interrupted them.

The regal beauty bounced over him, her eyes closed, her head back, and her pace increasing with each beat of his heart. Soon, she had outpaced the thing and was panting over him. She found his hands again and moved them to her breasts.

Tom kneaded the perfect globes, taking her nipples between his fingers. She cried out. He continued to roll one of the sensitive peaks with his thumb and finger, and slid his other hand down the plane of her belly toward her pussy. His fingers disappeared between the folds of her sex and she bit her lip as she exploded in a moan.

He wanted nothing more than to turn her over and pound into her, but the orgasm coiling in his belly would not wait. 

When she cried out in her pleasure, she clamped down on him and Tom nearly exploded inside her. He held her hips and kept pumping as she went limp against him and curled on his chest like a rag doll.

Holy shit, that was hot. He hadn’t given a woman that kind of take-your-will-to-live orgasm in his entire life. He could sure handle this on a regular basis. 

Her panting in his ear was going to make him hard again if she kept it up. Possessive warmth spread through his chest and he wrapped his arms around her. He wanted to kiss her, but her face was away from his. He would kiss her next time.

Sex tent indeed.

Well-named, everyone. Well. Named.

She rolled her head to one side and wobbled to her knees, then used the stool to stand. With hesitant steps, she walked behind the stool and used a bowl of water he hadn’t seen to wash herself.

“There,” she said, once he was standing. “We should wash you off. We must leave.”

He found himself laughing. “Leave? Brachan told me to stay here.”

The young beauty shook her head and glanced at the tent flap, where voices crescendoed. She hurried to the back of the tent, behind the stool and got to her knees.

“What are you doing?” he asked, following her. 

The woman pulled him to his knees as well and he wanted to reach for her swaying breasts again.

Was that how this worked? Did he get to have sex with her again? Gods, he hoped they wouldn’t make him have sex with everyone who came in the tent. He just wanted her.

She stuck her hand under the tent and raised it into a very shallow opening. “You’ll have to crawl out first,” she said in English. “Before my father finds us.”

Tom jumped to his feet, shaking off the drug haze. “Your father?”

“Yes, he is the alpha.” 

The regal carriage made sense to him. She was the pack princess. Holy shit. He’d just fucked the pack princess.

She flapped the small tent hole. “Hurry, before they find us.”

Tom waved a hand. “Of course they’ll find us. They’re bringing in another woman when I call them.”

“No, they’re bringing her in now.” She pushed at his shoulder. “Hurry.”

He glanced back at the tent door, then to the princess who held up the edge for him to escape. “Why would they bring her in before I called them? What if we were having sex again? Don’t they wait for me to—”

“Just go.” She pushed him again and this time, he went head-first through the small opening. Her hands were on his butt, pushing him the rest of the way out. Then, in a moment, she crawled out after him. 

She reached for a piece of cloth that lay folded on the ground. She slipped the creamy, thin garment over her head and toed on some sandals.

“There now. Come,” she urged, pressing at his shoulder. “We must leave.”

“Leave, where? I need to tal—”

“No talking. Run.” The princess jumped to her feet and took off down the winding path that led away from the tent. 

He stared after her.

She stopped a few feet away and gestured to him. “Run. Now.”

Tom shook his head. “I can’t. I have a mission. And Brachan said, the ceremony…”

“There won’t be a ceremony now.” Her knee-length half-dress billowed and furled like the sail of a ship as she ran back to him. “Once they find out what you’ve done.”

“What have I done? Technically, I didn’t do anything. You—you did all the work.”

She sighed and took both his hands, pulling him to his feet. 

Tom still felt uncertain standing up, between the darkness and the drugs. He put out one foot to steady himself.

“You’ve just mated the alpha’s daughter.” She dropped his hand and pointed into the dark, away from the glowing fire in the tent. “Now. Do what I told you and run.”