Page 8 of Bad Blood Wolf

Chapter 4

Jasmin woke up the next morning still thinking about the White Tornado. Brody Jameson.

Why the fuck had he kissed her?

Before, he was nothing to her. Less than nothing. An enemy, in or out of the cage. A Nashville wolf.

But dammit, now she wanted to know things about him. Why he fought, if it didn’t make him feel better. Why he looked so sad and defeated, even when he won.

Why losing the money was so devastating to him. What kind of trouble he was in.

Why a single kiss filled her with wild heat, and made her want to wrap her legs around that taut waist and feel him thrust inside her…

Oh, no. A big ‘hell no.’ No way was she messing with a Nashville wolf.

Even though Bastian had called him a traitor, which meant he couldn’t be all bad, right? Because the Nashville pack were professional-level douches. So a traitor to the pack might even be a decent guy.

She wondered what he’d done to make them hate him. She wondered if there was any way she could help him get his money back, and get revenge on those thieving assholes who’d stolen from them both.

No. Not wondering. Not caring about the wolf. His problems were not her problems, just because he’d jumped into that fight thinking she needed him, or some shit.

She did not need an outcast wolf. What she needed was coffee, so she could think straight and mornings didn’t suck so much.

She stretched all four legs and Changed out of jaguar form. She couldn’t sleep as a human—not since they’d escaped from Alexander Grant’s cells. That’s why she still lived in a converted shed while everyone else had trailers, or lived in the main cabin.

Her cat needed a Spartan space, simple and clear and uncluttered, and open to the outside. All she had was a futon in the corner, which worked for sitting or sleeping. A couple of side tables, and a shelf on the wall for her books. A small dresser and a few hooks for her clothes.

The crew had helped her insulate her shed for the winter, and added a woodstove in the corner opposite the bed to keep her warm. Flynn, their lion-shifter alpha, and Tank, their grizzly bear Protector, were contractors, and they’d built her a big skylight in the roof, one that opened all the way and was big enough for an escape route.

Now she didn’t have to leave the shed door open at night, like she had before.

She pulled on some sweats and a hoodie, wincing as they caught on the scabs from her fights. Some of those would need most of the day to heal. She shoved her feet into a pair of rubber clogs and opened the door.

And was assaulted by Christmas.

She’d trained herself to tune out the noise from the rest of the crew, so she hadn’t been paying attention to what was going on outside.

The compound was a big circular clearing in the middle of the acres of forest land that made up their territory. The main house was a gorgeous two-story log cabin with huge windows, originally built by a billionaire who didn’t like to rough it on his hunting weekends.

The same billionaire who’d held them captive for months and tortured them. Payback was a bitch.

The cabin had a wraparound porch and a state-of-the-art stone-built barbecue area and fire pit. The rest of the compound wasn’t so fancy.

The outbuildings were rough boards, and dirt paths led to the secondhand singlewide trailers where Xander the panther and Sloan the snow leopard lived. Beat-up trucks were parked at haphazard angles wherever there was space—or wherever the drivers had felt like leaving them.

And right now, it looked like Santa’s sleigh had exploded mid-air and rained decorations onto the ground.

The sleigh itself—a cheesy plastic version—was lying sideways on the porch roof, with the reindeer dangling off. Boxes of lights were scattered everywhere, waiting to be put up. More reindeer dotted the ground—the kind made out of wire and lined in lights—mixed in with colorful two-foot-high elves and nutcrackers.

Holy Christmas hell.

Lissa. This was Lissa’s doing.

She was Tank’s mate, the newest member of the crew, and she was obsessed with holidays. And family. And turning the crew into some demented version of The Waltons or some other smarmy Hallmark-worthy TV show.

Right now, she was setting up a line of inflatable snowmen along the edge of the fire pit, assisted by Tank, who was so fucking besotted he’d do any idiot thing for her. She looked tiny next to his huge bulk, and ridiculously girly in her pink winter jacket and bunny boots. Her face was all rosy with the cold, eyes sparkling as she gestured to Tank.

Lissa finished anchoring a snowman and began walking back to where Tank was inflating the next one with his air compressor. A hunting knife flew out of the oak tree across the clearing, towards the snowman Lissa had just set up, and landed point-first right between his eyes. There was a loud ‘pop,’ and the snowman began deflating with a hiss of air.