Page 36

Books had always been the single most important thing to Mabel Ann. Why shouldn’t they be?

Life in the smallest Pack in the western United States, having broken affiliation with the Macconwood Pack a hundred or so odd years ago, was hardly a hot spot for any other activity. Save fighting and fucking.

Mabel Ann abhorred violence and at twenty-six was still a virgin. For a Werewolf, she was certainly an odd duck. Probably had to do with the fact that while most she-Wolves were long and lean, Mabel Ann was a whopping five foot three and had more than few bonus pounds left over from her childhood.

Too old for it to be baby fat, she was, to put it simply, a plus size Wolf with a honky tonk badonkadonk that may very well have been the inspiration for the song of the same name.

She stepped outside the small library she ran for the Zapata Pack and was grateful it was winter. Though too short for her liking, it was cooler and drier than the rest of the year in the southwestern Texas town where she and the Pack made their homes.

Her cell phone buzzed in her pocketbook, but she was on chapter thirteen of this really steamy paranormal romance from one of her favorite authors, and it was just about to get good.

Whatever her daddy wanted could wait. Knowing him, he’d had her stepmother call with another blind date Mabel Ann would have to politely decline.

The phone buzzed, buzzed, and buzzed again, causing Mabel Ann to lose her train of thought, and her temper. Not unusual for the “ice queen” of the Zapata Pack.

“Where is it, dammit,” she grumbled, searching her enormous bag for the ridiculously small cell phone.

Why did she have so much stuff? Mabel Ann always liked a big bag. They were great for lugging along her eReader, work laptop, and even paperbacks when the mood struck her. The problem was it ended up becoming her dumping ground for things she didn’t want to deal with.

Notes from her father. Mail she didn’t feel like reading. And pesky notices from the Pack that she was due to submit to a sniff and mate test. Okay, so technically that wasn’t what it was called.

It was simply a compatibility test for true mates given in close proximity and with a lot less clothing than she thought necessary for such a thing. The two Pack mates would strip, shift, sniff, and if they were amenable, or if the Fates came down and zapped their asses, they would mate.

Her she-Wolf snarled at the idea of having to be sniffed. No way. She would not submit to that kind of humiliation. If her mate was somewhere in the Pack, she’d have found him by now.

“Aha!” she announced grabbing the thing.

“Afternoon Mabel Ann,” Georgie Smith called out from down the lane.

The long-legged she-Wolf was tall and thin, and prettier than a fresh daisy. She came strolling by near every day to have a chat with Mabel, seeing as how they were bosom buddies since preschool.

“Afternoon,” she said, trying to open the silly gadget that was still buzzing like mad.

“Here,” Georgie said with a slow smile.

That infinite patience of hers was said to pay off in the bedroom if the local boys could be believed, but Mabel never had the guts to ask.

Still, she had dry hands and knew everything about the shorter, plumper Wolf, including her passwords.

There was no one else in the whole Pack Mabel Ann trusted more.

“Thanks.”

“Well, you’re about ten minutes late to the party,” Georgie said and nodded towards the men and women who’d left their shops and pulled their cars over to chat excitedly with one another.

“Well, what’s going on?” Mabel asked, not bothering to read the email.

“Alpha Garra just sent an all pack alert. Seems we’re gonna have a High Alpha again.”

“No! They finally decided. Well, it’s about time,” Mabel Ann growled, her she-Wolf rising up quicker than the tide.

Her inner beast had been growing more unruly with every passing day.

Nothing like what the staid librarian was used to.

Their current Alpha had only risen to his position a few years ago, and he was so busy trying to placate his mate with trips to Dallas and San Anton, he’d been unaware of the difficult time his own Pack was having with all the recent changes.

“Yes, the Council of Shifters, um, the international one, I mean, not the locals, anyway they voted, and there is gonna be a new election,” she nodded earnestly.

“And guess what?” she asked, and Mabel was aware she was not going to be finishing her break with chapter thirteen after all.

Sad whine.

“What?” she asked politely.

“They are holding the election here!”

“Wait. What?”

Mabel Ann’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. The elections were being held on the Zapata Pack lands.

“But how? Why?”

“Who knows why, sugar? Let’s just enjoy it. I mean, can you just imagine all those big, sexy, foreign Wolves running around here in their Gucci and Armani,” she said, practically vibrating with energy.

“Imagine the conversation,” Georgie said with a sigh of longing.

“Sure would be a change from horses and farm equipment,” Mabel Ann replied.

Not that it mattered. Even if Georgie was right and all sorts of big city Shifters came to their tiny town to have this all important meeting, Mabel Ann was unlikely to find her match.

After all, who would want a chubby Werewolf who was all bark, no bite?

No, she was so not going down that road again. After her disastrous break up with none other than Santiago Garro, present Alpha of the Zapata Pack, himself back when they were teenagers, Mabel Ann had shied away from men.

It might seem stupid to everyone else, but she’d thought he was the one. Had even almost given him her virginity. She’d had it all planned out. The perfect prom weekend romance.

Except, like many Wolves, Santiago had been an athlete. While away at a championship game in Dallas, he’d had his first shift. And wouldn’t you know it, his fated mate was there in the very same hotel where he’d stayed with his team.

He’d shifted back to human, fucked her, gave her his claiming bite, and brought her back to the Zapata Pack lands. At eighteen, they’d been young, but no one could say no to a fated pair.

They were just too rare and special for such a thing. Santiago’s run of good luck hadn’t stopped then. The Alpha stepped down amicably, and Santiago, or Sonny, as he was called, rose to Alpha status.

He was young. He was gorgeous. And he was a total asshat, in Mabel Ann’s humble opinion. His mate of eight years had given him no pups, and she demanded to return to Dallas every fortnight to see her kin.

What kind of Alpha ran his Pack from a distance of almost five hundred miles every other weekend? It was unconscionable. Now and then, she’d caught Sonny looking at her with those amber eyes she used to love, all big and sad. Like he felt guilty or something about finding his mate.

Why should he? The Fates had their own ideas, and she was not one to stand in their way. Besides, they’d never professed true love to one another. And really, he’d been the only male to pay her any attention back then.

Of course, nowadays with Daddy’s fortune taking off, Mabel Ann had prospects coming out the wazoo.

All of whom she’d turned down with a firm no .

She was not the kind of woman to settle.

To date she had not participated in even one of the Alpha’s get naked and find your mate tests . She’d simply refused.

“Oh, by the way Crystal is hosting another sniff and mate event this weekend. She told me to tell you to come.”

“Yeah well, unless she uses her Alpha voice on me, I am not going, Georgie.”

“You say that, but maybe it’s not a bad idea, Mabel Ann. I mean, I’m not getting any younger either,” her best friend replied.

She had to be out of her mind. Not only was Georgie tall, and thin, with killer legs and even deadlier grin, she was a dominant she-Wolf and very much in demand. From her platinum locks to her plump red lips, baby doll blue eyes, and impossibly thick lashes, the woman was drop dead gorgeous.

Truth was, if Mabel Ann was not besties with Georgie, she’d have to hate her guts. No one was that perfect. Except, Georgie really was. Movie star gorgeous, and nicer and kinder than Mother Teresa.

How am I supposed to get a mate when Georgie is still single?

Georgie was saying her goodbyes when Mabel Ann’s phone rang. That was the only reason she’d forgotten to look down at the device before answering it, and she could have cursed herself for her stupidity the second Bonny’s voice sounded in her ear.

“Mabel Ann, this is the fourth time I called you this morning alone,” Bonny said, and not for the first time, Mabel Ann wondered how anyone could sound so nasal and high-pitched at the same time.

“Now, your daddy had a meeting with the Alpha today, and our Alpha fem is arranging a mate testing before this whole to do happens that High Alpha business,” she said.

“Bonny, I am telling you, just like I told my Daddy, and Crystal. I will not submit to a test to find my mate. If it happens, it happens, but I am perfectly fine remaining unmated?—”

“Oh, you don’t mean that, Mabel Ann, but if it’s your weight, honey, I found this new alchemist down in Starr County, and he says he can make the pounds come off just like that!”

The woman went on and on, but she did not hear a word. Mabel Ann was too busy trying to rein in her suddenly very pissed off she-Wolf.

OMG! She did not just go there.

It was no good. Her temper flared to life and Mabel Ann squeezed the cell phone so hard it crushed in her hands. Darn it. That was the third one in two months. Dropping the useless hunk back inside her bag, she closed her book and returned to her duties.

As head librarian, she was in charge of a substantial number of things, including acquiring new books. Today was the day the catalogs were updated, and she always looked forward to going through the offerings.

Shaking her head, she pushed all the petty things that annoyed her out of her mind. It wasn’t her fault this Pack was stuck somewhere in the previous century. But one thing was certain, Mabel Ann did not need any male to make her feel complete or valuable.

She was a woman of worth. Intelligent, dedicated, hardworking, and pretty too. She might not be thin, but as her beloved late mother used to say, skinny was not everything.

Mabel Ann had plenty to offer the right man. But what she really wanted was someone worthy of her. Someone with plenty to offer on his own. Why should she settle because she did not fit society’ standard of beauty?

The heck with all that. Mabel Ann did not suffer from a lack of self-confidence. She might still be a virgin, but that was her choice. Sighing, she looked back at the paperback copy of the paranormal romance from a local indie author she’d been reading.

Hard to believe a human could get it so right, she thought and shook her head.

Pack politics were one thing. She trusted her father and the Alpha to do their best when it came to this High Alpha business.

But as far as intricacies of the heart were considered, Mabel Ann would follow her own instincts.

“There will be no sniff and mate nonsense for me,” she muttered.

“What did you say Miss Williams?” Jimmy, a teenager who worked parttime in the library asked.

He was loading the heavy, wheeled cart they used to restock the returns a few feet away from her. But since he was a Werewolf too, Jimmy heard her clear as day.

“Nothing Jimmy,” she said, offering the boy a smile.

The skinny teen nodded his head and went back to doing what he was doing. Not a lot of teenagers hung around the library, but Jimmy had always liked to read. Too bad he wasn’t older, she thought with a rueful grin.

“If you ever need to talk, Miss Williams, I am here for you,” he offered quietly before pushing the cart towards the aisles.

“Thank you, Jimmy. I’m fine,” she said, and winked.

“If I don’t see you later, have a good night.”

“You too.”

Mabel Ann grinned and went back to work. There were only a few hours left till closing and she had a slew of books to order. She paused going through the self-help section.

Snorting a little, she pondered ordering a few dating guides and relationship books. The scandal that would cause!

She could see the Alpha now, storming in her library to tear down her display. She was not going to do it, of course. That would embarrass Sassy, and she loved her old man even if his new mate was a bit hard to take.

“I just don’t want you to be alone, Mabel Ann.”

She understood the sentiment. After all, who wanted to be alone? But her father, the Alpha, and his mate, all needed to understand one thing. Mabel Ann had standards.

Wolf males, in her opinion, were so damn macho. Always showing off for their females, like they were still in high school. Hell, Jimmy was more mature than any of them. The teenager was highly sensitive, well read, and more thoughtful than any of the adult males in the whole Pack.

Not that she was into robbing cradles. She was just saying. At least there was hope for the future females of the Zapata Pack. As far as Mabel Ann was concerned, she would simply have to be satisfied with book boyfriends and her Bob, her battery operated boyfriend.

Things could be worse.