The Bucklin Wolves Next Generation: Revelations by Jessica Ryan Page A

and that was just fine. It was what she had always wanted—to be the most successful one in her family.
    A sharp knock at the front door drew her away from her thoughts and empty suitcase. Who the hell was it? She glanced up at the grandfather clock sitting in one corner of the room. Whoever had left it there had good taste—it was beautiful, except for the gonging at random intervals. It had been forever since she had had to read a traditional clock, but she was pretty sure that if that was Seth at the door, he was two hours early. The meeting at City Hall had been at ten a.m. and they weren’t supposed to leave until close to four.
    I hope he’s not here to try to get some more. It would be just like a stubborn, pigheaded alpha to think with his cock and show up to try to get some afternoon delight after she’d just rejected him.
    She put her hand on the doorknob and looked at the ground, barely able to make out the figure standing behind the dark curtains on the half-light door. She could do this. She could be strong and she could stand up to Seth and tell him that she’d meant what she said earlier—hopefully he wasn’t wearing the t-shirt he had worn on their first date. It had accented his abs in an almost cartoonish way. He looked like he’d been airbrushed in a magazine.
    “Look, Seth,” she said, opening the door and looking up. Her words hung in her throat as she looked up, expecting to see the tall figure of Seth, and then scanned down to find a much shorter man standing on the front porch. He was a shorter man, but he was more dangerous than Seth or any werewolf she had ever met. It had been in the back of her head the entire time she had known him, and Seth’s reactions to him had just confirmed the fears she had.
    “Expecting someone else?” Jacko asked, pushing past her into the kitchen.
    Jacko was the leader of Blue Moon Security, the private firm that Mr. Sokolov had hired to keep an eye on his investments. Jacko had repeatedly told them no shifter could beat him in a fight and for some reason she believed him.
    She turned to look at his lean frame. He was nearly eye-to-eye with her and she was barely five foot eight. In a world of werewolves with full heads of beautiful, luscious hair, Jacko kept his cut close to his head, immediately setting himself apart from everyone else.
    She never would have expected that in a town filled with werewolves she would feel the most uncomfortable and the most unsafe around the human man she had brought with her. The werewolves looked cute and cuddly next to this guy.
    “What do you want, Jacko?” she asked, trying not to let her voice quiver.
    She failed. “Is that fear I hear in your voice?” he asked, moving closer to her and sniffing the air. “Or do I smell it in the air?”
    “You don’t smell anything,” Maribel said, clenching her fists more to keep herself steady than anything else.
    “Good,” he said, walking around behind her like a snake slithering over her shoulder. “You won’t be afraid of me, now would you?”
    “No,” she said, looking at the ground.
    “I wouldn’t think so,” he hissed, coming back around in front of her. He was standing so close she could smell his musk. It wasn’t like anything she had ever smelled before. It wasn’t chemical like a modern man nor was it earthy and rugged like the wolves. It almost burned her nostrils. The only word that came to her mind was ancient. He smelled like a dusty old tomb or a musty book.
    “You’re right,” she said.
    “I am,” he said, putting his thumb and forefinger under her chin to lift her eyes towards his. They almost looked yellow in the mid-afternoon light. “We’re friends. We’re on the same side. Right?”
    “Of course we are,” she said.
    “You aren’t lying are you?” he asked.
    “Why would I lie?”
    “I know you shared an intimate moment with Seth last night.”
    “How do you know that?”
    He smiled and shook his head. “Don’t ask questions,