Page 12 of Plus-Size Mate

Carly was the worst kind of she-wolf, the kind who would take anyone to mate so long as they could provide for her and give her a high rank within the pack. She had targeted him because he was close to the alpha. She had targeted Hanson because he had been the hero who helped them rescue the pack from Karl Ryker when he had seen that Jack Blackwell could be much more beneficial to the people of Nightstar.

What was her interest in Will now? Was she simply trying with him in order to make Eddie jealous?

If she was, he wasn't about to let her succeed. At least, that was what he told himself as he headed out of the front door, picking up the witch's scent again.

Stopping on the porch, he closed his eyes and lifted his chin, drawing in that sweet aroma. What was it about her scent that had him so entranced?

It was much like the smell of the apothecary, and yet it wasn't nearly so overbearing. It was inviting, welcoming, warm.

Cinnamon and honey with notes of lavender and chamomile, a thousand different herbs upon her skin, every one of them more delicious than the last.

The scent was so beautiful it made his mouth water. The soles of his feet itched with the urge to run, yet run to where?

Run to her?

Perhaps he had been looking in the wrong place all along. Going after she-wolves had never gotten him anywhere. Maybe his mate wasn't one of them at all. Maybe, instead, she was a witch.

That’s ridiculous!he told himself firmly, yet there was no denying the urge he felt to return to the apothecary, to her…

“Eddie? Ed?”

The voice behind him was so startling that he almost slipped off the top step of the porch. Whipping around, he found Kane staring at him with a furrowed brow.

“Is everything alright?” Kane asked, crossing his tattooed arms.

Eddie cleared his throat and shook his head to try and remove the thoughts from his mind. “I was just thinking.”

“About?” Kane asked, his expression darkening.

“Nothing,” Eddie said a little too quickly, and the suspicion on his packmate's face only grew.

“You know, if something is bothering you,” Kane said, reaching out to lay a brotherly hand on Eddie's shoulder, “you can talk to me.”

“Thanks, but I'm fine,” Eddie insisted, shrugging off his packmate's hand. “Did you need me for something?”

Eddie was relieved to change the subject when Kane responded, “Jack's called a meeting for the senior pack members.”

Eddie sighed. It looked like he wasn’t getting that run anytime soon, after all.

“We'd better get inside then,” Eddie said, intrigued. Whatever this meeting was about, he was certain it had something to do with Winter.

And just like that, she was on his mind again. Everything seemed to lead right back to her. And it was damn infuriating.

As Eddie followed Kane inside, the large, tattooed werewolf looked back over his shoulder and asked, “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to talk about? You don't seem yourself today.”

Eddie cringed. In truth, he didn't feel himself today. In fact, since he had first laid eyes on Winter in the apothecary, something within him had changed. He just couldn't put his finger on what it was, or why it had even happened in the first place.

He couldn't afford to think about it now. They had more important things to worry about. And as he joined his other senior packmates in Jack's office, he became determined to concentrate on the latest threat.

He was a black ops soldier—at least, he had been before retiring—and he was well-trained in putting his personal feelings aside to get the job done. Yet, somehow, it felt like the hardest task in the world right now.

“Close the door,” Jack instructed the last wolf in. Hanson clicked the door closed and slipped in beside Elena, wrapping his arm protectively around her.

Eddie's stomach clenched at seeing them together, no longer because he disapproved of their union but because it brought up a jealousy within him he would rather not have. If it had been up to him, Carly would have been the one—at least before he found out her true nature.

I dodged a bullet, really,he reminded himself. What he wanted was what Hanson and his sister had, a fated mate, someone to share the rest of his life with.

But that kind of thing wasn't easy to come across. Looking around the room might have suggested otherwise; Jack and Bonnie, Zander and Layla, Kane and Miley, Hanson and Elena…

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