Haven

  Haven

  By Karen Lynch

  Text Copyright @ 2017 Karen A Lynch

  Cover Copyright @ 2017 Karen A Lynch

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Designer: Nikos Lima

  For my family

  You’ve always been my haven.

  About Haven

  Things are going well for Roland Greene. High school is behind him, he has a sweet new ride, a good job, and he’s making plans for his future. At eighteen, he’s one of the strongest werewolves in his pack, and he already has more vampire kills than most wolves have in a lifetime. Life is good. Almost.

  It’s time for the annual pack gathering. Wolves from all over Maine come to take care of pack business and socialize – and to find mates. Everywhere Roland turns there are unmated females, and as the Alpha’s nephew, he’s prime mate material. The last thing he wants right now is a mate, and he’ll do all he can to stay a free wolf.

  Until he meets her.

  Acknowledgements

  As always, I thank my family and friends for their unwavering love and support. Thank you to Melissa Haag and Ednah Walters for being the best beta readers and friends a girl could ask for. I can’t imagine doing this without you. Thanks to my PA Sara Meadows for putting up with me, and to all my readers who make this worthwhile.

  Table of Contents

  About Haven

  Acknowledgements

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Author Note

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Roland

  “She’s finished?”

  I smiled broadly at Pete as I cut the engine and got out of my newly restored sixty-eight Mustang GT. “What do you think?”

  He whistled and walked around the car. “She’s beautiful, but I thought you were going to paint her red.”

  “I changed my mind.” I ran my hand along the Acapulco blue paint job. “Every Mustang in town is red. I wanted mine to stand out.”

  I’d bought the car from Dell Madden’s uncle back in January for fifteen hundred dollars. He’d kept her in a shed all these years. What a crime. I’d spent the last six months working on her in my cousin Paul’s garage in my spare time. The car had needed a ton of work, and I’d used up my share of the money Sara had given me in California, but man, this car was worth it.

  Pete nodded appreciatively. “Well, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about blending in. I take it you’re driving us to Justin’s?”

  “Yeah, unless you want to take your car.”

  “My car?” His eyes widened when I pulled a set of keys from my pocket and tossed them to him.

  “The Escort is all yours, as promised. I even gave her a tune-up for you.”

  Technically, the car Jordan had given me before we left California in January had belonged to both of us, but Pete had agreed to let me keep it until the Mustang was ready. It wasn’t like we’d had a lot of places to go since we got home anyway. Between school, training, patrols, and working at the lumberyard, there hadn’t been a lot of time for anything else.

  “Sweet!” He grinned and twirled the keys. “But I’d rather take your car this time.”

  I laughed. “I thought you’d say that.”

  “Nice ride, man,” called a new voice.

  I turned to see Kyle and Shawn Walsh walking up the driveway toward us. The two men were cousins, but they looked enough alike to be brothers. Both of them had straight black hair and matching smiles – or scowls, depending on their moods.

  “Dude, who’d you steal this baby from?” Shawn joked as he checked out my ride. “Hey, is that the original interior?”

  “Looks good, huh?”

  Kyle patted the hood. “What do you have under here?”

  The front door to the house opened, and my cousin Francis stuck his head out to scowl at us. “You guys going to play with Roland’s new toy or join us for the meeting?”

  Pete and I exchanged a look and followed Kyle and Shawn into the house. It wasn’t Francis’s sour mood that got us all moving; it was the knowledge that Maxwell was waiting for us inside. Our Alpha didn’t like to be kept waiting, and the last thing I wanted was to piss him off today. I’d been on the receiving end of his temper enough this year to last me a lifetime.

  Maxwell – Uncle Max – was sitting in his usual chair by the fireplace when we filed into the large living room. Uncle Brendan, his Beta, sat on the other side of the fireplace next to Pete’s mother, the Alpha female. Every other seat in the room was occupied and so were most of the places to stand. Pete and I leaned against the archway where we could still see and hear everything.

  “Now that everyone is finally here, let’s get started,” Maxwell said in his deep, rumbling voice. He stood and pinned me with a hard stare before his gaze swept across the room. Tall and broad, and built like a grizzly with reddish-brown hair to match, he was the toughest and most intimidating man I’d ever met. But then, it took a strong man to be the Alpha of a werewolf pack, especially a pack as big as ours. I didn’t envy him that job one bit.

  “First order of business is the pack gathering. We’re going to have more wolves than usual visiting this year, and we need to make sure there is room for everyone. Anne?”

  Aunt Anne stood. She was short next to Maxwell, but she could be as fierce as her mate when she wanted to be.

  “The guesthouses have been cleaned and aired out, and we have enough beds in them for forty people, with air mattresses for the children. Plus, we have a dozen RVs they can use, and some people are bringing their own. It’ll be a tight fit, but we should be able to accommodate everyone who shows up.”

  I tried to ignore the pit that opened in my gut every time someone brought up the annual gathering. Pack members from all over Maine came for the month-long gathering to discuss pack business and socialize. That wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that every unmated female in the state would be here, hoping to find a mate.

  The last few years, I’d hidden out at Sara’s place during the gatherings, but that was out of the question this year. Pack meetings were mandatory for all wolves eighteen and older. Not to mention the Knolls would be very crowded for the next few weeks, making it impossible to avoid every female. All it took was for one of them to get my wolf’s attention, and it was game over.

  Maybe I should ask Sara if I could rent her place for the summer. I needed my own space, and I could afford it with my job at the yard. The pack provided homes for its members, and we had half a dozen new houses under construction now. I could ask for one of those since I was an adult now, but that wouldn’t help me with my current dilemma. Living at Sara’s place couldn’t get me out of every pack activity, but at least I’d be able to escape from the Knolls when I wasn’t required to be here.

  “…and we’ll spread out the patrol rotations with all the extra wolves on hand.”

  Maxwell’s voice jerked my attention back to the meeting, and I glanced around, wondering what I’d missed. My eyes met Pete’s, and he gave me a warning look before he turned his head toward his father again.

  “Now that business is taken care of, I have an announcement to make.” Maxwell crosse
d his arms, looking even more imposing, if that was possible. “We haven’t had much trouble in Maine, at least until last fall.”

  A murmur went through the room at his words, along with a few low growls. No one would soon forget the vampires invading our territory last year, or the crocotta attack less than a mile from the Knolls. Things had been quiet since Sara left, but the pack had been on edge since last fall.

  “If recent events have taught me anything, it’s that we’ve become complacent in the last few years. We must always be ready to defend our territory and the humans who live here.”

  “Damn right,” muttered Francis, who was a few feet from me. If my cousin had his way, the pack would probably be living off the grid in some remote part of Maine and killing anything that crossed our borders.

  “Over the winter, I’ve thought a lot about this and how to ensure we are never caught off guard again,” Maxwell said. “The last Alpha, my uncle Thomas, ruled the pack with an iron fist, but he and his enforcers kept our territory safe.”

  Whispers spread through the room again, and I got a sinking feeling in my gut. He couldn’t possibly be thinking about bringing back the old ways. Enforcers were the strongest fighters in a pack, and next to the Alpha and Beta, their word was law. A lot of packs still had them, but we’d all heard the rumors of brutality and abuse. It was one of the reasons Maxwell had abolished the role when he became Alpha. He was a tough leader, but a fair one, and he abhorred unnecessary violence.

  He held up a hand, and the room went quiet again.

  “Let me put an end to the rumors before they start. There will be no enforcers in my pack, not as long as I am Alpha.”

  I let out the breath I was holding.

  Maxwell continued. “I’m going to reinstate an older tradition used before there were enforcers, something the European packs still do. Instead of a single Beta, we will have as many as I deem necessary. This will spread the responsibilities around, especially for the groups that live separately from the main pack. The new Betas will have the same authority Brendan has now.”

  Pete and I stared at each other. More than one Beta? I wondered how Brendan felt about this. I looked over at him to find him nodding, seemingly happy about the whole thing.

  “Who will the new Betas be?”

  I wasn’t surprised that Francis was the first to speak up. If there was one thing he wanted in life, it was more authority in the pack.

  “Brendan and I will choose the Betas over the next month or so,” Maxwell said. “The gathering will give us a good opportunity to observe candidates. I’ll send word out to the rest of the pack, and anyone here who is interested in being a candidate can let Brendan know after the meeting.”

  I saw Francis, Kyle, and Shawn exchange smiles, and I had an image of the three of them as Betas. Francis was four years older than I was, and he’d been trying to boss Pete and me around since we were little kids. I didn’t even want to imagine how life would be if he outranked me.

  Kyle and Shawn were tight with Francis, and they used to look down on us, too, until Pete and I killed a pack of crocotta last fall with Nikolas and Chris. Since then, the Walsh cousins were a lot friendlier. That didn’t mean I wanted them telling me what to do, though.

  As soon as the meeting ended, Pete came over to me. “Multiple Betas? Wonder what that will be like.”

  I looked at Francis, Kyle, and Shawn who were the first ones to go to Brendan. “Not good if those three are in.”

  He lowered his voice. “Dad and Brendan know how Francis is. They won’t choose him if they think he’ll cause trouble. And you have to admit, he does care about the pack.”

  I let out a puff of air. “Well, all I care about right now is a boat and a certain redhead I’m meeting up with at Justin’s party. You ready to head out?”

  Maxwell had pulled strings to get Pete and me back into school after we’d been gone for a month, and the two of us had put in a lot of nights working on makeup assignments for credit. On top of everything else, it had left no time for dating. When Justin Reid had invited us to spend the afternoon on his father’s sailboat, followed by a party at his place, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to make up for lost time.

  “What redhead?”

  “Taylor White. She’s been trying to hook up with me since March.”

  Pete shook his head. “Lucky bastard.”

  I grinned because I was feeling pretty good today. I had my Mustang, I was no longer under house arrest, and I had a gorgeous redhead waiting for me.

  We headed for the door, but I came up short when a heavy hand landed on my shoulder. I looked back to see Maxwell and sighed inwardly. I’d been so close to escaping.

  “Where are you two off to in such a hurry?”

  “Going out on Justin’s boat,” Pete said.

  I half expected Maxwell to tell us we were still grounded. Instead, he said, “You forgot to tell Brendan you want to be considered for the Beta program.”

  My mouth fell open, and I didn’t try to hide my surprise. Me, a Beta? I’d just graduated from high school. Not to mention, Maxwell had spent the last six months telling me I had to grow up and start behaving like an adult. Was this another one of his tests?

  Pete scoffed. “We don’t have a shot at being a Beta over some of those other guys.”

  Maxwell motioned for us to follow him into the kitchen. He was wearing his lecture face, and I bit back a groan.

  “You two have Alpha blood in your veins, and one day, one of you could take my place. Being a Beta is a good way for you to start learning to lead this pack.”

  Whoa! Back up. Alpha? Lead the pack? What the hell was he talking about?

  I couldn’t hold back the laugh that burst from me. “Are you serious?”

  Maxwell’s brows drew together. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

  “Last month you told me I was so slow in training that my grandmother could outrun me, and now you think I could be Alpha?” I shook my head. “No offense, but yeah, I think you’re joking with us.”

  He crossed his arms. “I didn’t say you’d be ready for that job anytime soon. Neither of you have shown many Alpha traits, but you’re still young. There’s hope for you if you don’t screw up again.”

  I looked at Pete, who seemed as shocked as I was by his father’s statements. Obviously, this was all news to him, too.

  “What if I don’t want to lead the pack?” I had some ideas about what I wanted to do with my life, and none of them included being Alpha of the pack. Or Beta, for that matter.

  Maxwell shrugged. “Some of the best leaders are the ones who don’t want it. They do it because they know they are the right person to do the job. They do it because their pack needs them.”

  He turned to go back to the living room. “I expect to see your names on the Beta list.”

  “Great,” I muttered after he left the kitchen. “Let’s go, Pete.”

  Most of the members had cleared out when we went to find Brendan, except for a few stragglers talking about Maxwell’s announcement. Brendan didn’t appear surprised when we grudgingly asked him to add us to the list. If anything, he looked amused. I was glad someone was enjoying this.

  “I wouldn’t mind being a Beta,” Pete said after we’d climbed into the Mustang. “But Dad’s probably making us do this as some lesson about responsibility. No one is going to pick you and me over the older guys on that list.”

  I relaxed a little. “You’re probably right.”

  Turning the key in the ignition, I smiled at the smooth rumble of the powerful V8 engine. Satisfaction and pride filled me at the work I’d done on the car. Until I’d started restoring the Mustang, I’d never given much thought to working on cars. But now that she was done, I felt a little pang of disappointment that I wouldn’t be working on her tomorrow. There was nothing like bringing a classic car back to life.

  There was also nothing like being free for the first time in months. Tonight was all about having fun. Tomorrow I’d worry about
the Beta program, the pack gathering, and the unmated females who’d be hoping to snare a mate.

  I suppressed a shudder at the last thought and put the car in reverse.

  Emma

  “Here you go, miss.”

  “Thank you,” I said quietly as the shuttle driver set my suitcases on the landing at the top of the steps. I reached into my carry-on for my wallet, but he waved it off.

  “The woman who arranged your ride took care of it all,” he said before he headed back down the stairs. “Have a nice stay.”

  I watched him get into the blue airport shuttle van and drive off before I pulled a set of keys from my bag and faced the door. Taking a deep breath, I unlocked the door and pushed it open. My hands trembled from nervous excitement when I grabbed the handle of my biggest suitcase and rolled it into the apartment.

  My new home.

  I dragged the second suitcase inside and closed the solid steel door, sliding the deadbolt home. Dropping my carry-on beside the luggage, I went to explore the apartment.

  The first room I found was the kitchen, and as soon as I saw it, nostalgia filled me. The pale-yellow walls and white cabinets took me back to the kitchen in the house my family had owned at Virginia Beach. We’d go there in the summer, and every morning, I’d make French toast for my sister Marie and me, and then we’d go hang out on the dunes. She loved to collect shells and play Robinson Crusoe while I painted. I wondered if she still…

  My throat closed off as I ran to the window. It looked out over a bay that was nothing like the view from our old summer house. My fingers clutched at the granite counter as my heart began to race and the dizziness threatened.

  Relax. Deep breaths, I told myself, inhaling slowly, breathing from my diaphragm as Margot had taught me.

  It took long minutes before my pulse returned to normal and the room stopped tilting. I relaxed my grip on the counter and closed my eyes for a moment.