by L. A. Banks
He simply stared at her, meat sizzling on the spit beside him. If he threw back his head and howled, she’d lose it. He seemed to know that and it made his expression become more serious. No. It was only a mental whimper.
They couldn’t allow the trail to Dexter to go cold; the brass had already delayed them enough with questions and reports and bureaucratic nonsense. Then again, a general had had his face ripped off in his own home, so a paranormal inquisition was bound to be had. It also didn’t matter that she and Hunter had blown away almost all of the offenders involved. The brass wanted everyone and everything involved in “the situation,” as it was termed, “cleaned up”—code word for “exterminated”—with vials of missing Werewolf blood toxin returned. The Shadow clans wanted that, too. Yeah. She and Hunter could do that; the exterminating part, without question. It was the returning the missing vials part that was going to be problematic, especially with Hunter in his condition. Ultimately she had to have a conversation with Shogun, but if another male approached her—especially a Werewolf—right now, at least, there’d be bloodshed. For all she knew, he might even snap at one of his own pack brothers.
If only Hunter would stop looking at her like that . . .
They had to remain focused, now that they’d gotten last night out of their systems. He had to understand that the edges of her brain were catching fire with him staring at her as though she were breakfast.
Finding the vials would take time, some diplomatic negotiations between other paranormal species, which often required bargaining chips or deadly force, not that it mattered to her much which way things went. But the process was time-consuming. They had to strategize. She hated that part of the gig, the diplomatic part. Most times diplomacy failed. It didn’t work in the same human terms people had come to expect. Working with entities was not like sitting down at a UN summit. She could only imagine what a session at the United Council of Entities would be like. However, on the flip side, the way human-nation negotiations had been going lately, voting at the UCE might actually be a more civilized process.
What the brass would have to begin to accept was that preternatural species were an alien culture to theirs, and each one had their own history, culture, belief systems, abilities, and prejudices. That’s where the similarity between those so-called supernaturals and humans stopped. The same rules didn’t apply. They took negotiations to a whole different level. Deadly force was acceptable at the bargaining table, which, truth be told, was more effective than sending whole nations to war. Still, she’d have to get used to seeing a supernatural world leader jump across a table to rip someone’s heart out. Oh yeah, New Orleans was gonna be interesting.
She was staring at two hundred and twenty pounds of alpha male enforcer. How did one explain this part of her reality to the brass? Clearly one didn’t. Sasha swallowed hard and looked away from Hunter as she came close to the fire and warmed her hands over it.
Negotiators were also enforcers—in fact, that was part of the negotiation most times. Entities from the demon realms didn’t do things just to be nice or for the greater good. One had to show them how it was in their best interest, or let them know that you could kick their ass, and then had to be prepared to back up the challenge if your bluff got called. Hunter was most definitely a bluff buster, not that she was so shabby herself, but damn.
Opting for humor as an escape clause from the volatile, Sasha dramatically finger-combed her tangled hair away from her face, picking twigs out of it to make them both laugh.
“Good morning. I made breakfast,” he finally said, his voice mellow and gracious. He shook his head, chuckling, and walked back to the fire.
She let out a slow breath of relief when he turned his back. The sexual standoff had ended. For a moment she thought he was gonna go straight wolf on her; it was all in his eyes. Instead of imagining the glory of that, she tried to focus on the metal cups on the ground filled with instant black coffee.
“Morning. Thanks,” she said, trying to keep her voice as casual as possible as she picked up a steaming cup and cradled it between her palms. The heat felt good in her hands, even if the strong brew was bitter. She glimpsed the moose carcass in the brush fifty yards away and then sent her gaze toward the fire. “Some night, huh?”
He looked up from the fire he’d been poking with a stick and gave her a lopsided grin. “Yeah.”
She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow as he tossed her a bowie knife and broke the charred stick in half, offering her a skewered steak. True, it was an obvious lure for her to come closer to him, but she couldn’t resist.
Warily she approached him, half expecting that he might pounce on her like he had the night before. However, gentleman that he’d now transformed back into, he exchanged a steak for a quick kiss.
“Okay, you were right. We needed the break before pushing on. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
His smile widened as he walked away from her and pulled another set of thick, crackling steaks out of the flames. He sighed heavily as he rammed the spit into the ground, suspending the meat between them. “No, but I’ll take what I can get this morning.”
She didn’t respond. What could she say? Sometimes silence spoke volumes and she was hoping this would be one of those times.
He didn’t look at her as he settled himself on the ground beside her with his coffee and a meat-laden stick, and allowed his voice to bottom out on a mellow, philosophical tone. “I would have preferred to hear—”
“All right, all right, I get it,” she said, laughing. She set her coffee down hard, sloshing a bit of the ebony substance on the frozen earth before slicing at the hot, juicy meat. “But we’ve got to—”
“I know,” he said quickly, not looking at her, and then bit into his steak without cutting it, slightly burning his mouth. “Just a passing thought.”
She allowed a soft laugh to slip out around the next bite she took, enjoying the companionable silence between them while feasting beside him. Breathing, the sound of meat tearing, chewing, and the natural stillness of the snow-covered landscape, all of it was the way of the wolf. Under any other circumstances she would have fed him and he would have fed her, but that would have definitely started a Shadow dance this morning, something they didn’t have time for.
The sad thing was she couldn’t stop watching his mouth while he ate. It was totally ridiculous how much that one part of him had become her focus . . . loving the way the muscle in his jaw worked hard . . . the way the natural juices and hot fat from his steak made his mouth glisten—okay, she just had to stop.
“I collected some snow in the canteens and let it melt,” he finally said in his easy baritone, leaning back on his elbows as he chewed. Using the skewer as a pointer, he motioned toward a pile of heated rocks. “Water should still be warm.”
She noted where he’d motioned and tried to keep her voice even as she replied. It was so sweet that he’d remembered and had even gone to the trouble to warm it up for her. “Thanks . . . appreciate it.”
He gave her a sidelong glance, then bit into the last of his steak. “So did I. Thanks.”
Okay. There was no way to respond to that, so she would just eat the remainder of her breakfast, go clean herself up, and help him break camp. How the hell was this man gonna act this morning if she got naked in the wilderness? For that matter, how was she gonna act under said circumstances?
Sasha stood and stretched. Enough. Even with the cold wind whipping, it was a wondrously clear day. An intensely blue, cloudless sky seemed like it was made brighter by the stark white snow beneath it. That’s what she’d focus on, the beauty around her, despite the sudden, intense warmth that made her hair damp at the nape of her neck.
Reflex sent her hand there to lift her tousled mass of now too-long curls as she walked, hoping the cool breeze would provide relief. But her fingers collided with raw, sensitive skin that was healing. Damn, what a night . . . Then panic seized her as she felt for her silver chain and the amulet she rarely
took off, even to shower. When she turned to look at Hunter, his was gone, too.
“Max, last night . . .”
Her voice trailed off as he got up in one very slow but extremely fluid move and threw his stick in the fire.
“Yeah . . . I know.”
Her mouth went dry but she pressed on. “The amulets—”
“Were in the way,” he said calmly, his eyes beginning to take on a luminous amber hue.
In the way? The question shot through her brain so quickly that it must have shone in her eyes.
“I’m sorry. . . . I popped your chain by accident.” He smiled but it somehow didn’t reach his eyes.
She didn’t back up, didn’t move forward, but studied him very, very hard for a moment. “What happened to yours?” Why she couldn’t fully remember troubled her to no end.
“You don’t remember?” he asked in a low rumble that made her womb contract. “I don’t know whether to be hurt or flattered.”
Okay, something was definitely not right about this whole exchange. She glanced at his neck, the place where a thick silver rope should have been and was quickly becoming very, very worried by the deep, almost burnlike rash that she hadn’t noticed before. Scavenging for an explanation, she told herself it had to be a friction burn.
“If I pulled it off you like that,” she said, quietly alarmed, “I’m so sorry, Max. I didn’t mean to . . .”
He held up his hand and came closer, his gaze cornering hers. “Believe me, I’m not complaining.” His hands found her shoulders as he gently took her mouth. “Last night was fantastic.”
Yeah, okay, no argument there. But when he broke their kiss her eyes were fastened to the wounds around his throat. With trembling fingers she touched the very edges of the gashes, and instant alarm almost made her body go rigid. However, she tried to play it off and act like nothing out of the ordinary was rocketing through her screaming mind.
Shadow Wolves were supposed to be impervious to silver. Unlike the creatures they hunted, it was their ward, their difference, their protection. They were supposed to quickly heal from wounds, and a minor scrape from a popped chain shouldn’t have left an oozing sore. In fact, her hands had healers’ energy and shouldn’t have sent enough pain into the site to make him wince and drop his embrace.
“You okay?” Her eyes sought his.
“It’s just a little tender. No big deal.”
“Hunter, we have to go get them . . . if we dropped them along the way, ya know? They’re too important to just leave out here, especially on our way to a UCE meeting after we go get Woods and Fisher.”
He smiled a tense smile. “The chains broke in the tent. I wrapped them up and put them in the backpacks for safekeeping since the clasps are broken—we’ll get them fixed when we make camp with the clan. There’s always a silversmith around. No problem.”
He pecked her forehead with a kiss and she watched him walk away. It was a logical explanation, but his delivery was way too cool for her liking. Clan leaders needed their amulets to be able to hunt beyond demon doors. It denoted not only their rank as being stronger than a local pack leader, but Hunter’s signified his high rank as the North American alpha. Their amulets had been handed down within his grandfather’s clan for generations upon generations, and now Hunter couldn’t wear his? Broken clasp or not, it should have been shoved into his jeans pocket, on his person, in a vest, somewhere easily accessible, and not at the bottom of a backpack. Uh-uh.
Plus, the scent from the wounds that lingered wasn’t right at all. Memory stabbed into her brain as she walked toward the canteens completely freaked out. Images of Rod’s demon-infected Turn battered her mind as she clumsily retrieved the water Hunter had left. The Werewolf scent she’d also picked up was slight. Maybe she was psyching her own self out. That had to be it, buggin’ because her hormones were all over the map. But Rod broke out like that, too, if silver even came near him. What the fuck was happening? Hunter was a Shadow Wolf!
Her hands were shaking so badly that she could barely grab the canteen’s straps.
“I’m gonna take a short run while you wash up,” Hunter called out. “I think that’s best.”
The sound of his voice nearly made her jump out of her skin. Any other day, she would have laughed and shot him a sarcastic one-liner. Today all she could do was swallow away anxiety and speak softly. “Okay, baby. See you when you get back.”
Nausea made his stomach roil. Sasha had to believe he was just giving her privacy. Terror caused his heart to slam inside his chest as he ran. He always knew this day would come. Fate was a cruel, merciless bitch. Impressions stabbed his mind with each footfall until the cramps made him stop, bend over, and hurl.
Panting, sweating, he kept his eyes squeezed shut. Images collided against one another inside his brain, forcing him to bite his lip to keep from crying out. His mother. Her full womb. A huge predator. The sound of her scream. Flesh tearing. Sudden cold. He was on a blanket of snow, wailing. His grandfather took aim. There was a loud noise. Hunter’s body recoiled. He was supposed to be a Shadow Wolf, not this hybrid blend of good and evil.
He pushed himself away from the tree and staggered toward fresh snow and dropped. He had to get the scent off him before he reached his pack brothers. They wouldn’t understand. Doc Holland was too far away, so was his grandfather, Silver Hawk. Sasha wouldn’t understand. Why was this happening after all these years? What had triggered the dark wolf within?
Only three times before had the battle within his blood occurred. When it did, his grandfather had been there as an ally. Silver Hawk became the wise pack elder, Silver Shadow, and had sweat with him until the purge was complete. So had Doc Holland the first time he’d gone into convulsions as an infant. They’d said it happened the moment the umbilical cord had been severed from his mother’s dead body. Doc gave him the antidote as a last-ditch effort that worked. The next one Silver Hawk anticipated in a vision quest, removing him from the pack to take a spirit walk as his body changed from a boy’s to a man’s. It had been the most humiliating transition in his life but had saved him execution at the hands of his own pack. Then Doc had shot him up with meds just as he’d approached his twenty-fifth birthday, just before his alpha maturity spike . . . and he’d battled from top pack rank to top clan rank . . . all under one full moon—unheard of. They hadn’t spoken of the incidents since.
And, yet, the old man had tried to warn him in his very innocuous way, telling him that severe environmental or emotional disturbances could affect the delicate truce within his metabolism. Foolishly, or maybe stubbornly, he’d ignored the warning to let Sasha go out of phase before pushing onward. The old man had been right. He’d never been half of a mated pair, had never experienced the intensity of a she-Shadow heat, because he’d been shunned as a potential mate within the multipack North American clan. Even if Sasha hadn’t formally claimed him with words, her body had—they were operating as a single entity, which had been enough.
Absolute defeat seized him as he tried to use handfuls of snow to purge the Were-scent oozing from his pores. But it would be in his hair, his skin, and now his clothes. His mouth tasted horrible; he understood Sasha’s previous concern. They needed hot water, soap, clean clothes. Going into an armed Shadow Wolf pack camp trailing infected Werewolf scent was beyond dangerous—it was a death sentence. Suicide for them both. Pushing ahead past a local pack to find a Shadow Wolf clan encampment made up of many local packs would be no different than putting a nine millimeter to their skulls and simply pulling the trigger.
Hunter stood still and then slowly turned to study his location. That was all there was to it; they’d have to travel through the Rocky Mountains, come out on the Canadian side, borrow real facilities, then and only then try to make contact with his home pack.
As soon as she was sure that Hunter was out of range, Sasha ransacked the backpacks until she found their amulets. He’d shoved them to the bottom, rolled in layers of clothes. The clasps had been broken. She t
ook shallow sips of air, gently trailing her fingers over the tender spot at the nape of her neck and then up the back of her scalp to where a small knot had formed, trying to focus, trying to remember.
They had transformed on a Shadow run. He’d picked up the trail of large game—a bull moose. It was too big; she’d tried to signal him. Hunter was larger than she’d remembered when he’d transformed again; two hands higher at the shoulders, larger jaw, barrel chest. His eyes held something in them that frightened her.
Sasha shoved the amulets back where she’d found them and began to pace inside the tent with her eyes squeezed shut. “Oh . . . God . . .” It was coming back in fits and starts, jags of horror that she wanted to forget.
He’d outstripped her on the run. The animal they hunted turned and lowered its mantle. Hunter went up on his hind legs. Sasha opened her eyes and hugged herself with a start, breathing hard. He hadn’t brought it down like a wolf. One powerful swipe from a forepaw had snapped a damned bull moose’s neck!
How could she not remember? How could she not remember! How could she not remember? She tore around the tent looking for weapons, blood pressure spiking when she couldn’t immediately find them.
Cupping the back of her head, she bolted out of the tent. Panic perspiration made everything she wore stick to her skin. Images of Hunter crouched over the carcass, snarling as he devoured the animal’s heart and liver, brought her other hand over her mouth to keep from hurling. She could see it all clearly now—blue-black night, steam rising from fresh-kill that had been opened and gutted. Oh, God, oh, God, when did she fall and hit her head?
Backing away . . .
She’d come to a skidding halt. Their eyes had met. She was so stunned that she’d changed back into her human form and stood. He did too, then cried out and yanked the chain from his neck. She’d spun to run, caught a low-hanging branch, and went down. Then she was inside the tent. His arm was anchored around her waist. She squeezed her eyes shut again, remembering his impassioned voice choking out a ragged apology behind her.