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  The Wolf’s Surprise Babies

  Shifter Dating Service: Book One

  A Paranormal Romance

  by Jasmine Wylder

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

  Thank You!

  Also by Jasmine Wylder

  About the Author

  Dedication

  To my loved ones B & B, who encouraged me to fly toward my dream:

  Let’s soar.

  Chapter One

  “Oh, hell no!”

  Lizzie Hendrix stared at the report on her desk, her pale cheeks flushing with rage as she read what was written there. After all the work and effort she’d put into this dating agency, it was finally off the ground. True, it was her cousin’s project since he was paying for it and was the face of the agency, but she was the one who put her heart and soul into it. She was the one that babied it out of its infancy and managed all the ups and downs.

  Now, as she was working hard to remove the sleazy sex hookup reputation her agency had gotten after just a few months on the market, she finds this.

  Pressing her fingers to her forehead, Lizzie snarled under her breath. Not for the first time, she wished that she had been born a shifter like her cousin was. It was rare for a shifter to have a child that wasn’t a shifter, and she hated the fact that somehow the genes had skipped her. If only she was a dragon, she would go and find the man responsible for this mess and burn him to a crisp.

  The last thing she needed was the media to get wind of this—one of the most popular men in the agency was part of the mafia.

  It was bad enough that people weren’t taking this seriously. Bad enough that she had gone through five different advertising agencies who all insisted on making sexy ads, rather than the fun, ‘find your happily ever after’ ones she wanted. Bad enough that she had spent the last few months digging through records, trying to find one couple that had met and were still together to run a campaign with (one that looked real but still prettier-than-average, because that’s what people wanted). No. Now, this had to happen.

  Lizzie stared at Philip King’s profile pic, staring hard as though that was going to change his face into one more benign. Of course, it did nothing. It was him, and nothing she did was going to change that. Great. Just what she didn’t need. He was using his real name even! Records indicated that he received almost three hundred percent more messages than the average user. Only a handful of other men had better tracks than he did.

  Her agency was for the paranormal. So that men and women in the paranormal community could find their mates. Humans were carefully vetted to ensure they weren’t just looking for quickie hookups before they were allowed to join. Apparently, they needed a more stringent application process for the paranormal side of things, too.

  “Varton needs to know about this,” she muttered to herself as she grabbed her phone, but before she could call her cousin, her gaze landed on her planner. Normally, it would be her keeping Varton on track, since she was his secretary, but things had changed a little lately.

  Namely, Varton’s wife and mate, Melodi, was pregnant. And right now, they were at an ultrasound. At thirty-five weeks, their expected daughter was quite a bit bigger than a baby normally would be at this stage, and they had to make sure that Melodi would be able to deliver naturally. Varton tried to be tough about it, but Lizzie knew he was worried for Melodi and the baby, even if the doctors assured him they both were perfectly healthy.

  Chances were the baby was extra large because she’d end up being a dragon shifter like her father, but Varton wasn’t going to take any risks.

  Lizzie sighed as she leaned back in her chair. With so much happening in his personal life, the last thing Varton needed right now was to deal with this, too. They had had some business with Philip King in the past—nothing illegal, Lizzie assured herself—and so this was something she could deal with herself. Right?

  Varton will be furious if I go around messing with the mafia on my own. But Melodi is a cop, surely cops’ families are off limits?

  Whatever the case may be, she wasn’t just going to sit around twiddling her thumbs while Philip King ruined her dating agency. This was her first big responsibility, and if she was ever going to graduate from being a secretary (she didn’t need to keep an eye on Varton anymore, since he was married and completely devoted to Melodi) she needed to prove to herself that she was capable of taking care of this sort of crisis.

  So she stood, smoothed her hair to make sure there were no flyaways from the bun she wore, and grabbed her purse. Her high heels clicked on the tile floor of her office as she headed for the door. Outside, her temporary PA sat at her desk, eyes riveted on her screen as she typed away madly.

  “I’m headed out,” Lizzie said, trying to muster all the casual self-assurance that Varton oozed when he was deviating from what was planned. “No calls.”

  “But Miss Hendrix—"

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” she interrupted, wincing a little at how much she knew this would fluster her PA. Varton had done this often enough to her that she had decided she would never do it herself when she got into this position. And yet, here she was… “You can take a break and get yourself an early lunch if you want.”

  She strode into the elevator, trying to look like she had all the time in the world. If she could just get to King, talk to him. Explain what she was going for and why he was going to be ejected anyway. Well, maybe she could get him to voluntarily withdraw, especially if she offered to return his sign-up fee to him. If she could get him to do that, then maybe they could avoid a media scene. She could only shudder at the thought of how those vultures would take this story and run with it.

  When she got to the garage, she eyed her sleek red car doubtfully. Varton had bought her the Mustang for her birthday. She had never liked it, though she hadn’t said so because Varton had been so proud of himself, but she didn’t want to risk getting it trashed in the part of town that King lived in. Not only would it be a disappointment to Varton, but he’d also be upset with her for going to that area anyway.

  She could almost hear him. New York is a big place. Why go there? You’re lucky you weren’t mugged or murdered or worse.

  With a sigh, she pulled out her phone. Taxi it was. The cheapest one available—that shouldn’t draw too much attention, right? Although it would mean she was going to be away more than an hour. After all, not even taxi drivers knew the shortcuts she did. Oh, well… it wasn’t as though she was on any real timeline. She didn’t have any appointments today.

  Soon enough, she was in a yellow cab, swiping through her phone to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. Her hands trembled slightly as she thought about what argument she could use to entice King to withdraw.

  Her fingers hesitated over her email. She’d gotten a message that morning from the private investigator she had hired not long ago. Iro
nically, she had hired him to investigate Philip King. At the time, all she’d been worried about was King’s young daughter. Bethany was a sweet, bright little thing and deserved much better than a life with a criminal father. Lizzie was determined to see her freed from that sort of awful life. Just pointing at the man and saying he was part of the mafia wasn’t enough to get his daughter into a better situation, she knew that, and nobody would listen to some random single woman who was completely unrelated to said child if she sued for custody.

  So, Lizzie had determined to do what the police, it seemed, could not. Find enough evidence of King’s criminal activity to get him locked up. Melodi would say that King wasn’t bad, considering some of the others out there, but maybe that was the difference between her and Lizzie. Melodi stuck to the law, and concentrated on the really bad ones, wanting to protect everybody. Lizzie didn’t have that—she couldn’t protect everybody, she knew that. But she could try, at least, to protect one child. Even if protecting that child meant removing her from her father.

  Lizzie sighed as she turned to look out the window. Maybe King did love his daughter. She hadn’t seen enough to know one way or another. But he was a selfish man, even so. What sort of loving father would consistently put his daughter in danger of being connected to the mafia? If King pissed off the wrong person, Bethany would be the target.

  And there were plenty of nights when Lizzie woke up from a nightmare of Melodi telling her that she was too late, that Bethany had been killed. Maybe it was silly, being so attached to a child that she had hardly spent time with. Lizzie didn’t care. She had always wanted to be a mother, and her maternal instincts were kicked into overdrive when it came to Bethany.

  She was broken from her reverie when the taxi came to a stop. “Here we are.”

  Lizzie thanked him, paid him, and stepped from the taxi. The driver peeled away at once, and Lizzie grimaced; she should have seen that coming. With a shrug, she headed for the door of the house she knew King lived in. As she did so, she adjusted the fit of her business suit on her curvy frame. The neighborhood didn’t look as sketchy as she had anticipated, but it wasn’t one that she wanted to spend a lot of time in either. As soon as she was finished with her business here, she’d call another cab.

  There was no answer when she rang the bell. When she knocked, she heard some movement coming from inside.

  “Philip King, my name is Lizzie Hendrix,” she called, in case he thought she was some sort of rival mafia coming to get him. She rapped on the door again. “I need to talk to you about your membership with my dating agency.”

  She listened; there was scuffling on the floor, but it didn’t sound like someone hurrying to answer the door. She frowned as she fisted her hand and pounded on the door this time. If he thought ignoring her was going to get her to give up and just walk away, he had another thing coming. She didn’t care what he was up to. She had a mission here and she wasn’t leaving until she saw it through.

  “I can hear you in there,” she snapped. “Answer this damn door or I’m going to walk right in.”

  Silence.

  “Fine then!” She rammed the door with her full weight as she turned the handle. She ended up entering more forcefully than necessary and staggered a few steps as she entered.

  Her heel snagged on something and she went flying. Only to land inches from a beaten, bloody face with wide, glassy eyes. The skin was white as marble, and Lizzie could almost feel the cold coming from it. She screamed as she threw herself away from the corpse and looked up to see a man standing above them both. A knife was in one hand as he glared down at her. Blood was dried to the blade, and more blood clung to the man’s chest and neck.

  Another scream burst from her throat as the man lunged, teeth pulled back in a snarl. The blade swiped the air at Lizzie’s face, and she threw a hand up to defend herself instinctively. The knife clattered to the floor, and a meaty hand grabbed her wrist. As she screamed again, the man threw her into the wall and slammed a hand over her mouth.

  ***

  Philip had just come back from the hardware store, getting everything he and Kavan needed to take care of the corpse in his living room before Bethany came home, when he saw Lizzie Hendrix enter the house. A curse burst from his throat as he leapt from his truck, barely remembering to turn the engine off first.

  The last thing he needed was some self-righteous, rich, know-nothing poking around. When the scream echoed from the house, he knew he was too late to stop her from finding out about his surprise visitor. Another curse flew from him as he dashed up the steps and slammed the door shut behind himself. Kavan had the woman, one wrist locked in his hand while the other pressed firmly over her mouth.

  The corpse lay at their feet, rigid, the fear that flickered over his face in his last seconds of life still etched there. Lizzie’s own eyes showed twice the terror. He could smell it on her, and his wolf snarled, wanting to beat Kavan to the ground for threatening a woman. It was an instinct that still kicked in after all the many long years he had been with the family. Something that he doubted he was ever going to be free of. Usually, he saw that as a good thing.

  Now, though? Not so much.

  Everything hung in the air for a second. Kavan twisted to look at him, his gaze half-afraid, half-questioning. His hand muffled continued screams that Lizzie was trying to push out. Her gaze turned to him, too, terror and pleading and a great deal of other emotion in her face. Her hair done in its rigid bun, her high-heeled feet pushed to one side, the tear in her pantyhose and the purse that lay on the floor, it all was ridiculous in this situation. She shouldn’t even be here, and yet, here she was.

  If she had just stayed away, now he wouldn’t be faced with such a tough choice. They couldn’t just let her run off and tell the cops what she had seen here. But they also couldn’t do anything to bring Varton Kirk and Melodi Wall down on them! Melodi might be a cop and bound by all those limitations, but Varton was richer than God. He could do anything to get revenge on the people who hurt his beloved cousin.

  Which meant that hurting her was completely out of the question—not like he’d considered that an option. He had a creed, and there were some instances when honor came before family.

  He narrowed his eyes at Kavan. “Let her go.”

  Kavan blinked at him, then his cheeks flushed red. “After what she’s seen here today? That’s not going to fly, and you know it.”

  “I know why you’re here, Craig.” That was the name of the dead man. He tilted his head a little toward the knife, hoping that Lizzie was too distraught to notice. If Kavan would just catch on and act his part, they might be able to get out of this in one piece. “Now let her go.”

  Kavan hesitated for just a moment longer before he lunged for the knife. Philip dropped to Lizzie’s side, spinning her away from Kavan and toward the door. She wouldn’t get far in those heels, and they had to make this believable. Putting on his best bravado, Philip shouted, “Run!” before he dove to tackle Kavan.

  Kavan let out an exaggerated grunt as Philip sent him flying. They feigned wrestling for a few moments until the click of Lizzie’s heels were well outside. He twisted the knife from Kavan’s hand and threw it hard into the wall before punching him in the face. Kavan hissed as he rolled away, and Philip kicked the door shut to ensure Lizzie didn’t see anything else and grabbed a handful of Kavan’s collar.

  “What are we going to do?” Kavan murmured, his eyes wide once more as he gripped Philip’s shirt. “You know the rules about witnesses.”

  “I know. But this one’s got special privileges.” Normally the family wouldn’t spare even a woman, but he wasn’t going to sell his soul for them. They weren’t even his real family, and it wasn’t as though they had done anything to instill a special sense of loyalty in him. Kavan needed an explanation, though. The kid wasn’t much younger than Philip, but Philip at least had something outside of the mafia. He had Bethany. Kavan didn’t have anything to hang onto, to keep his humanity intact. “She’s
Varton Kirk’s cousin. We hurt her and he’ll hire an army of mercenaries to come after the family.”

  “Fuck,” Kavan hissed under his breath. He cast a terrified glance at the door. “What are we going to do?”

  “Leave it to me.” Philip released him. “You clean up this mess,” he gestured at the corpse on the floor, “I’ll make sure that the girl doesn’t talk to anybody. You tell the family, you tell them I’ve got it covered. Got it?”

  “Fuck!” Kavan released him and dug his hands into his own hair. He panted heavily, but Philip didn’t have any more time to reassure him.

  This sort of thing happened. It wasn’t ideal, nobody liked it, but it did happen. He patted Kavan’s shoulder and then darted out of the house, making sure to slam the door shut behind himself.

  Apparently, Lizzie was faster than he had given her credit for. She was already in the truck, turning on the engine. She screamed when she saw him, but he took it as a compliment. Without a word, he darted to the passenger side and leapt in. Lizzie froze, apparently forgetting that he had just saved her from the madman with the knife until Philip threw the truck into reverse.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he urged, keeping his voice calm. “Or do you need me to drive?”

  Wordlessly, she slammed on the gas, taking them roughly out onto the street. Philip calmly put his seatbelt on, then reached over to put a hand on her trembling shoulder. She flinched at his touch but relaxed soon enough when he didn’t withdraw. This was going to be easier than he thought. Businesswomen tended to be stubborn and even harsher than businessmen, but her scare seemed to have taken the edge off her need to be the toughest one in the room.

  “That man…” she said in a trembling voice.

  He tightened his grip. “Craig, you mean?”

  She nodded, not knowing that she was referring to the dead man.

  “He was sent to take me out.” The lie came easily. Philip was used to telling such falsehoods, after all. He couldn’t remember the last time he had told Bethany the truth about where he was or what he was doing. The guilt still hit him hard when he lied to his daughter. This woman, though? There was no reason to feel guilty about lying to her. “I’m sorry that you got involved in this. You shouldn’t have been there… he was waiting for me because they… they found out.”