by L. L. Raand
Drake said, “Sylvan is aware of your discomfort, almost certainly, but unlike me, she probably would wait for you to come to her.”
Andrea smiled ruefully and gestured to the sofa in the small sitting area. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“So you can tell I am…upset,” Andrea said, taking a bottle of water from the refrigerator, looking as if she needed something to occupy herself with while gathering the courage to talk about what was troubling her.
“That’s hard to ignore. You’re telegraphing much more strongly than I would’ve expected for a human,” Drake mused. “It must be the mate bond, strengthening your chemical connection to Pack in some way.”
Andrea sat down in an overstuffed chair opposite the sofa, put her water aside, and clasped her hands between her knees. She stared down at them for a moment, then met Drake’s eyes. “There’s no point in hiding it. I’m upset because Max refuses to accept there’s anything different between our bond and if he were mated to a Were.”
“Why do you think there is? You can feel your link to Max, can’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And to the Pack?”
“Yes.” Andrea smiled. “It’s really quite amazing. I know Max can communicate with Packmates telepathically, and sometimes he can with me. That’s new.”
“So there’s every indication your bond is growing stronger.”
“That’s not the problem.”
“Does this have anything to do with Max being gone for a week? Other than when he was driven by mating frenzy, this might have been the first time you’ve been exposed to him under the influence of Sylvan’s call.”
Color slashed across Andrea’s cheeks, and she grinned. “You mean his horns being so big he could barely get through the door without turning his head? That welcome home surprise?”
Drake laughed. “I don’t think that metaphor really works for a wolf. Besides, that tends to be a natural state for most Weres, but yes, the thought had crossed my mind you might have been unprepared.”
“The only thing that bothers me about Max and his needs is that sometimes he worries about me. That somehow I’ll be overwhelmed.”
“But you don’t have any concerns.”
“Believe me, I can handle him—anytime.”
“Good,” Drake said. “I’m sure you let him know that.”
“Oh, in no uncertain terms.”
“Then?”
Andrea let out a breath. “Max is my mate, my husband, in my way of thinking, and we’re starting off with some challenges. Like I said, Max refuses to accept that any of them matter, but one does. One has to.”
Drake nodded. “You’re talking about young.”
“Yes.”
“Weres and humans have been interbreeding for generations. Probably longer. There’s every reason to believe that you can conceive and carry Max’s young.”
“I know,” Andrea said, “and our young will be healthy.”
“That’s right, and believe me, Elena and Sophia will probably be camping on your couch for most of your pregnancy. You have nothing to fear.”
“Except I can’t give Max a Were offspring.”
Drake held Andrea’s gaze. “As far as we know, no. The Were characteristics are transmitted through maternal mitochondrial genetic material, which is how dominant females can produce young with other females. Max cannot, as far as we know, impregnate you with the appropriate genetic material.”
“He says it doesn’t matter.”
“Max is very honest, and he loves you.” Drake kept her tone even. She’d suffered some of these same misgivings herself when she and Sylvan mated. “You’re his mate, and he deserves for you to believe him.”
Andrea closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “I know, I know. And I do.” She opened her eyes, sadness swimming through the gold-flecked green. “I just want him to have everything he deserves.”
“He already does. His wolf chose you, and so did he.” Drake tilted her head. “Lean forward.”
Andrea raised her brows but did as Drake asked.
“Your eye color is changing.”
“Sorry?”
“You’ve got gold flecks in your irises.”
“Really? Is that important…What does that mean?”
Drake shook her head. “Right now, I have no idea. But I can tell you this—genetic variants are not only naturally present in the natural Were population, they’ve been introduced experimentally. We don’t know when those experiments began, or how many of us might be affected, or in what way. We don’t even know how many humans have been exposed. For now, I would say the verdict is not in as to exactly what your mating Max will lead to when you become pregnant.”
“How will we know?” Andrea asked quietly.
“You might not. I didn’t. We weren’t sure if I could bear Sylvan’s young, and if I did, if they’d be Weres, or even healthy. It’s terrifying, but our scientists and doctors are working on it. So my advice is to enjoy your mate as often as you like, and when the time comes, we’ll know.”
Andrea smiled. “I have to say that’s the best prescription I’ve ever been given.”
Drake rose. “Anytime you want to talk about it, come find me.”
“Thank you, Prima, I will,” Andrea said, her anxiety lessening.
Heading back to her den and Sylvan, Drake committed anew to protecting the well-being of the Pack. If that meant going to war for them, she was ready.
* * *
The Alpha was coming. Ash sat up on the cot where she’d been lying, staring at the ceiling, since Evan had escorted her to her room. Evan had said nothing, but she sensed his sympathy. Cybil and Ryan hadn’t emerged from the other room.
The Alpha entered alone and closed the door behind her. Ash dropped her head. “Alpha.”
“Do you have an explanation, Captain?” Zora said.
“No, Alpha.”
“No reason at all why you provoked one of Alpha Mir’s centuri, the captain of the Prima’s personal guard?”
“No, Alpha.”
“Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t send you back to Cresthome immediately?”
“Yes, Alpha!” Ash’s head snapped up but she kept her gaze below her Alpha’s. “I wish to carry out my duty, Alpha, and that is to defend you with my life. I would ask you to allow me to continue to do that.”
“And you can swear that there will not be a repeat of what happened.”
“I…” Ash squared her shoulders. “I don’t know, Alpha. I don’t understand it, but every time I scent her, my wolf demands I tangle. The need strips me of all control.”
“And you’ve never had this experience before,” Zora said.
“No, Alpha. I’ve been driven to tangle when your call is strong, or when a female is in heat, but I’ve always been able to control my wolf. I wanted to…”
“You want to what?” Zora said softly.
“I wanted…”
“You attacked without challenge. Did you intend to hurt her?”
Ash frowned. “No…no.”
“Well, she seemed to be intent on hurting you. Between the two of you, I couldn’t tell which of you was winning that tussle out there.”
“I wanted to bite her,” Ash confessed.
“I’m sure she wouldn’t be the first Were you’ve bitten in a frenzy,” Zora said reasonably.
“This was different.” Ash shuddered. “I wanted to leave a mark that everyone could see.” Pelt flared down the center of her torso, streaked between her hardening abdominals, and dusted the surface of her thighs. Her wolf reared up, ferocious and demanding release. “I wanted everyone to see I had taken her.”
“I thought so.” Zora squeezed the bridge of her nose. “Ash, hasn’t it occurred to you that what was happening was mating frenzy?”
“That’s impossible,” Ash said.
“Oh, why?” Zora asked.
“Because I don’t…She’s a Timberwolf,
she’s not Pack.”
Zora smiled thinly. “She’s an unmated female, and your wolf recognizes her.”
“No. It’s impossible,” Ash said flatly. “It’s just sex frenzy. Alpha Mir was broadcasting everywhere before we even reached the Compound. She was ready to take her mate as soon as we approached. That’s all. I wasn’t used to it. I’ll know what to expect next time.”
“Do you really think you can ignore the demands of your wolf and still function?”
Ash lifted her chin. “I will not have an out-Pack mating. Besides, she’s too dominant to submit.”
“Perhaps your wolf intends to submit to her,” Zora said.
Ash snarled.
Zora sighed. “All right, Captain, assuming Alpha Mir’s call caught you by surprise and that little display out there was just sex frenzy, we’ll give you another chance to prove you can control yourself and carry out your duties.”
Ash snapped to attention and saluted. “Thank you, Alpha.”
“Your wolf needs to run. Go.” Zora bounded across the room and swept Ash into a hard embrace. “Listen to your wolf, Ash. You can’t fight what’s part of you.”
Ash breathed in her Alpha’s scent, relaxed in the safety and security of Pack, felt the loneliness and confusion slip away. “Yes, Alpha.”
Zora nuzzled her cheek, let her go, and disappeared.
Ash waited until she heard the Alpha return to her own quarters before starting down the hall. She’d sworn she could control her wolf, but if Jace waited outside, she wanted to be sure the Alpha wasn’t around to witness her struggles if she was wrong.
Relief warred with disappointment when she stepped onto the porch and found a male standing post. Jace was gone.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“Is there a trail within the perimeter where I can run?”
“Follow the footpath between this building and the one on the right, and you’ll reach the forest. The trail circles the Compound.” He smiled. “It’s a big Compound. If that doesn’t work, maybe I can help.”
She raised a brow. “Help what?”
“I can’t leave my post yet, but I’ll be relieved in an hour.”
“I appreciate the offer, but no.”
He shrugged good-naturedly. “If you change your mind, just ask for Darrell.”
“I won’t.” Ash vaulted the rail and strode onto the path he’d pointed out to her. She shed her clothes in a stand of pines and left them in the cover of a rocky overhang next to some other hastily discarded shirts and pants, and let her wolf ascend. In seconds her paws struck warm earth and soft pine needles as her wolf howled with the joy of freedom.
Chapter Eight
“I know you’re out there,” Jace snapped. “You might as well come in.”
The door to her single room, a privilege awarded the centuri, opened and her twin stepped in. He’d been among the cadre accompanying the Alpha to DC, and she hadn’t seen him since his return. She’d sensed him among the crowd witnessing the aftermath of her tussle with Ash. Which meant he’d seen the Alpha discipline her in front of the whole yard. She tightened her jaw and glared. “What do you want?”
Jonathan, his golden hair and blue eyes matching hers, smirked. “I can’t leave you alone for an entire morning without you causing trouble?”
“Being first in the birth order—by seconds—does not make you my keeper,” Jace snarled. “And I wasn’t causing trouble. I was performing my duty and a renegade wolf attacked me.”
“Not exactly a renegade.” Jonathan leaned back against the closed door, his smile widening, his wolf clearly enjoying the game of taunt and tease. “The way I heard it, the visiting Were is the Alpha’s guest, and she challenged you.”
“She never offered challenge. She just—” Jace frowned, still trying to make sense of everything that had happened. She’d anticipated Ash’s approach from the moment Ash had left the room at the far end of the barracks and bounded down the hall. Ash had broadcasted a potent mix of pheromones and aggression, and Jace’s wolf had reacted strangely. She should have been in full battle mode, but her instincts had been clouded by a mixture of anticipation and a churning excitement in the pit of her stomach.
“So she provoked you into tussling.” Jonathan shrugged. “Hardly a first for you.”
Her brother was right again, and knowing it only added to Jace’s frustrated confusion. She enjoyed a good tussle, and nothing pleased her more than a dominance match, especially when she always won. Well, almost always won. She had yet to best Callan, but he was a more experienced warrior. And she wouldn’t even think of a tussle with the imperator. No Were would. The only wolf the imperator ever tussled with was the Alpha.
Jace tussled for the joy of physical contact and often ended her match with an offer to tangle. When the hormones subsided and her needs were met, she gave it little thought. But today had been different. She’d wanted to tussle with this stranger from the instant she’d scented her intoxicating blend of cedar and sun-drenched earth, wanted it so much the need still burned in her loins.
“We tussled,” Jace said defensively. “What of it.”
“And you let her get the best of you?”
“No!” Jace’s wolf bristled, ready to challenge. “The Alpha intervened before I could defeat her.”
“I heard she was about to bite you,” Jonathan said, his tone halfway between provocative and questioning.
“No way was that happening,” Jace said. But she wasn’t really so sure. When Ash had straddled her, sex burning against Jace’s thigh, her canines down, her eyes wolf-gold, her claws gouging Jace’s flanks, Jace responded in a way she’d never experienced before. Her glands filled to bursting, her sex throbbed on the brink of release, and icy pain lanced through her muscles and deep into her spine. The pain, the need, was maddening. She’d known somehow that the piercing power of Ash’s bite would have given her everything her wolf howled for—release, relief, paralyzing pleasure. Infuriated, she fought her instincts. She had never submitted to another’s bite. Oh, she’d been bitten, and done the same to others, but a bite during tangling meant no more than spilling. But to burn for it, to verge on madness without it—to be ready to expose her throat? She stared mutely at her brother.
“You wanted it, didn’t you,” Jonathan said quietly. “Why are you afraid to admit it?”
“Never.” Jace’s wolf howled, savaging her with tooth and claw. Ash had released during their tussle, her victus hot and powerful, but Jace had not. Pain scoured her nerve endings, her sex swollen and throbbing. Pelt rolled beneath her skin, her jaw lengthened, her limbs splintered and reformed, and her vision sharpened. Bunching her powerful shoulders, she bolted through the window, struck the ground running, and raced off into the forest.
Her wolf covered the ground in long fluid strides, the warm midday air pungent with aroma of prey—fox and rabbit, small ground animals, and mice. Deer bedded down in the shade of the thick undergrowth. But she hunted none. Her hunt was for something far different. She scented her, and the foreign scent of an out-Pack wolf Were should have stirred her battle lust, but the sweet-pungent trail Ash left in her wake inflamed her wolf with a flood of pheromones. Ash’s trail was fresh, and Jace scented another wolf following her quarry, stalking what was hers to claim. She howled a warning, issuing challenge, and diverted from the narrow path snaking through the forest to cut over the crest of the ridge to her left and intercept her prey. She would finish what Ash had started.
* * *
Ash searched for a place to confront the two wolves who’d been trailing her almost since she’d left the barracks. They were fast, but so was she, and as soon as she’d realized they were tracking her, she’d run into a stream and followed it downwind, making it impossible for them to catch her scent. They’d found her again, of course, but she’d circled back to the trail and, if she stayed on the trail, could be back at the Compound before they caught her.
She could escape a fight, if she wanted. But she didn’
t. She would not relent now. She was ready, and she wasn’t afraid of two wolves, or twenty. Her wolf had been frustrated over and over since they’d arrived in the Timberwolf territory, and then she’d been humiliated in front of the entire Timberwolf Pack, shamed in front of her Alpha, and, worst of all, denied what she had won by strength—she’d been denied the tantalizing satisfaction of claiming Jace in the instant of release. She had fought for it, fought Jace for it, and been denied. She would not be denied now—even if the satisfaction of winning a challenge with a pair of strange wolves would be a hollow victory. Her wolf wanted more.
Leaving the stream, she bounded up a steep embankment into a clearing ringed by fallen pines on three sides that formed a natural fighting arena. Sunlight filled the glade, and she put her back to the slanting rays. Her wolf lowered her back, shoulders bunched and muscles primed to leap. Facing the far edge of the clearing, she waited.
Two wolves, a brown and white streaked female and a larger, heavier silver-tipped black male, bounded from the forest and circled the grassy area, one breaking left, the other right. A simple tactic when the prey was outnumbered. They would strike at her from two directions in rapid succession, one seeking to take her down by the neck, the other to mount her and tear out her throat.
Ash growled, challenging them to try. She crouched, waiting for the first attack, her ruff standing up, her hindquarters quivering, her sex growing heavy and full. She wanted this. Needed it.
The male growled and eased farther to Ash’s left, seeking to draw her attention. Ash kept him in her peripheral sight, but she watched the female. The pair expected her to anticipate the first attack from the male, but that would come from the smaller, swifter, more agile wolf. With no warning, the brown female launched herself at Ash, aiming to land on her back and sink canines into the back of her neck. The force of the blow would pull Ash to the ground where the male could take her belly and then her throat.
Ash pivoted to face the female head-on and counterattacked, leaping to meet her in midair where her greater weight threw the female off balance. Grabbing the wolf by the throat, Ash dragged her down, her canines piercing through pelt into flesh, drawing blood. Not a crushing bite—she had no need to kill her, not unless they took the attack that far. Shaking her head, Ash growled, flinging the female from side to side and threatening to clap her jaws tighter around the female’s vulnerable windpipe. The female whined, her body going limp in submission.