Jennifer Ashley: Lone Wolf

Maria went to the doorway to watch, as did every other Shifter in the bar. Ellison turned the man loose at the edge of the parking lot, halting as the man jogged across the dark street and got himself into a pickup.

“Y’all don’t come back, now,” Ellison called after him. “Hear?”

The truck roared to life. The man peeled out onto the quiet road, squealed around the corner, and was gone.

Ronan laughed, the loud sound filling the bar. Ellison strolled back inside and high-fived first Ronan then Spike. Ellison’s laugh joined Ronan’s in loud, rich warmth, and Spike added his grin. Liam stood back and watched the three with a fond look an older brother might give mischievous siblings.

Ellison let out a Texas whoop. “Good fun, Liam. You all right, Maria?”

His cowboy boots crunched on the glass in the middle of the room. Maria, shaking from anger, fear, and watching Ellison’s eyes soften to warm gray as he looked at her, lost her temper.

The human man had unnerved her, and the Shifters surrounding him like stalking beasts had reminded her too strongly of the Shifters who’d held her captive. Shifters were Shifters, and Maria would never be safe.

She swept a shaking finger and a scowl around the four men, ending at Ellison. “ Locos . You’ll bring the police in here, and then they’ll close the bar, and I won’t have a job. I need this job.”

She ended shouting up at Ellison, who blinked his gray eyes then turned up his grin. “Now, sweetheart, it was good fun, and that asshat is too scared to do anything to retaliate. He’s gone.”

“I could have taken care of him, until you had to step in with all your muscles.”

No, no, the term was muscle in. That’s what they said on TV shows—Maria was learning all her American slang from television.

Ellison started laughing again. “Yeah, me and my muscles to the rescue. Don’t leave out Ronan’s. His are pretty hefty.”

“You gobshite,” Maria snapped. Liam was also teaching Maria slang. She retrieved the tray from the floor and held it up like a weapon. “If he tells the owner I made trouble, who will get fired? Me. You don’t even work here.”

“Now, honey . . .”

Said in that Texas drawl, in Ellison’s deep voice, the endearment made Maria warm inside, threatening to assuage her anger. Which was why she raised the tray and started for him.

Liam’s big hand yanked the tray from her hands. “Take a break, child.”

Maria opened her mouth to let her hot temper have its way, but one look in Liam’s eyes made her close it again. “I don’t need a break,” she said. “I’ll clean this up and get back to work.”

“I’ll be cleaning it up,” Liam said. He jerked his thumb at the office door in the dark rear of the bar. “You. Break. Now.”

No one argued with Liam. Not for long. At least, no one but his wife, his brother, his father, his nephew, and now his little girl, who couldn’t even talk yet. Maria raised her chin, turned her back on the Shifters, walked past Ellison, shoes crunching broken glass, and slammed her way into the empty office.

Ellison started after her and found Liam in his way. “Let her go,” Liam said in his quiet voice. “Give the lass time to catch her breath.”

Ellison eyed the office door between him and Maria, a barrier he needed to break down. That Liam formed another barrier made him growl in irritation.

Maria lived in Shiftertown under the Morrisseys’ protection, staying now in Liam’s brother Sean’s house. She’d been brought here by Liam’s dad a year ago after she’d been rescued from the feral Shifters down in Mexico. She’d then gone to stay with her brother, who lived way out in El Paso and who had sponsored her to get her a visa. But the brother had made it clear that he, like her parents still in Mexico, considered Maria ruined goods and a disgrace to the family.

Maria had returned to Shiftertown after six months, and Liam made sure she got hired on at the bar he managed. In her off time, Maria cleaned houses, ran errands, and looked after cubs for Shifters who paid her. She worked nonstop, her energy amazing. Ellison’s sister had said, with a laugh, that Maria could be a Shifter with stamina like that.

Liam brought out a broom from behind the bar, then the great alpha Feline, leader of his pride, his clan, and all of Shiftertown, went to work sweeping up the glass. Spike, one of the most formidable fighters in Shiftertown, grabbed a mop and started helping him.

Another Lupine stopped next to Ellison—Broderick, who was in the second wolf pack in Shiftertown. Ellison’s pack was very small. Most of his clan had died out in the wild, their immediate family going just before Shifters took the Collar, leaving Ellison, his sister, and his sister’s tiny cubs alone. Shiftertown had been good to them, letting the boys, Jackson and Will, grow up unharmed.

“She’s ripe,” Broderick said. He was watching the office door, behind which Maria rested, his gray eyes intense.

Ellison tightened, the wolf in him tense, readying itself to take down a rival. Ellison kept his voice mild when he said, “I think she smells pretty good.”

“I mean she needs to be mated. Soon. Now.”

“I know what you meant.” Asshole. “But she’s off-limits.” Liam and Dylan had made that clear. “To you, to me, to all Shifters.”

“That’s bullshit. This is a Shiftertown full of mateless Shifters. And she’s fair game.”

Ellison didn’t bother to answer. Fair game was a female without a mate, a clan, a pack or pride. A female whose mate had died and who had no family to return to was considered fair game, as was a female stolen from another clan. Unmated, unprotected. Shifter leavings was another term Ellison had heard.

Maria wasn’t quite the same. First, she was human, and second, she was definitely under Morrissey protection.

Good thing she was. As soon as Maria had returned to Shiftertown, intending to stay a while, male Shifters had started sniffing around. Maria had formerly been mated to a Shifter, she smelled of Shifters, and Shifters were desperate for mates.

Including Ellison.

“She’s off-limits,” Ellison repeated with a growl.

Broderick laughed. He was tall and rangy, with a buzz cut and white gray eyes. “And don’t you just hate that?”

Ellison did. Maria was lovely, with her black hair, red mouth, and lush hips outlined by the black leggings she wore to waitress, but Ellison saw the bleakness in her eyes. Her life had been destroyed by Shifters, and she was hurt, and she grieved.

He eyed the blank panel of the closed door, knowing Maria was hurting behind it. He wanted to go to her, put his arms around her, and say, Hey, sweetheart, it will be all right. I’ll fix everything for you.

But he knew he couldn’t. The Shifters who’d captured Maria had sequestered her—Shifters in the wild in ancient times had locked their females away from all others in the same way. She’d been imprisoned against her will, hurt, terrified—nothing that would heal easily, if ever. The best Ellison could do right now was turn Broderick away from the door and let Maria have some peace.

“Ellison.” Annie, another waitress, passed Ellison with a tray of drinks to replace the one Maria had lost. “You have a phone call.”

Ellison put his hand on the cell phone in his pocket, but it was silent. At the bar, the human bartender briefly held up the house phone, then set it down to pour the next drink.

Ellison didn’t want to take his eyes off Broderick, but he knew that neither Liam nor Spike would let anyone into the office with Maria, especially Broderick.

Ellison made his way to the phone, thanked the bartender, and picked up the receiver, wondering who’d call the bar, not his cell phone.