“Christa…Christa…Christa…”
She was just sobbing too loud to acknowledge him. If he’d been there, he would have either grabbed her and shaken her or kissed her to stop the crying.
“Christa! Cover your mouth so you can hear me!”
She gasped. “I cannot believe you just said that!”
At least he’d insulted her enough that she stopped crying and started waiting for the next imbecilic thing to come out of his mouth. “I did choose you.”
“You didn’t!”
“Seriously, woman, I took in your cat. I acknowledged you as mine in front of the pack. I fought with Dane to keep you. You’re living in my house—which I wholeheartedly want. I’ve asked you to sleep in my bed. I’m calling you at all hours of the day and night. I just told a dozen females to back off today because I’m matched. Short of branding you as mine, I’ve chosen you.”
“You took in my cat to get rid of me.”
It wasn’t the appropriate time to laugh, but he did anyway, and a moment later he heard her sigh.
There was a smile in her voice as she said again, “It’s just…weird without you here.”
“Well, when I am there, it sounds like it’ll be even stranger because I plan on chaining you to my bed.”
“Really?” She sounded intrigued.
“No. I don’t have chains. Ropes and duct tape, but no chains. Besides, I’d be afraid of hurting you, so I’ll just hand those over to you and lie down docilely.”
She laughed, and he’d never heard anything as beautiful. Her crying had made shreds of him, but this felt healing.
“I have never been called a white rabbit, by the way,” he said.
“It was meant to be a compliment.”
“Really?”
“No, not really. I was hoping the insult to your honor would be too much for you to bear, and you’d come home immediately to challenge me.”
“Did you get me ice cream?”
“Either that or I got me a whole lot of ice cream.” He heard the freezer door open, and she popped off the top of the ice cream while opening the silverware drawer. A moment later, she said around a mouthful of ice cream, “Better come home soon.”
“You’re eating that straight from the carton.”
“Yep.”
“What…were you raised by wolves?”
She laughed so hard that she choked and had to get a drink of water before she could talk again.
“Are you doing better?” he asked as she sipped water.
“Yeah. I think this empty house is getting to me. I’ve always had roommates or family living with me. This house is so lonely. And it’s worse at night. The wind pushing across it makes this creepy ghost sound.”
“I’m not usually there much at night.”
“You’re going to leave me here alone when you get back, too?”
Her horror had him responding even before he’d thought of what he’d say. “No, I just haven’t had as much reason to stay. Now I do.”
“Oh.”
“If you want, I can sell the house and get someplace smaller.” He’d rather not, but he’d also do anything to keep Christa happy.
“Really?”
“Of course.”
She sighed. “No, it’s a beautiful house. I just need you back in it.”
“I need to be back in it, too.” He paused a moment. “What are you wearing?”
“Nothing. I always strip down just before eating ice cream. It adds a layer to the experience…or, rather, it takes off a few layers.”
“I’m going to hold you to that, Christa.”
He heard the rustle of clothing. It sounded like she was actually taking off clothing. “What are you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing?” He heard more rustling and snaps and zips. And then she went back to eating ice cream. “Wow…cold.”
“Christa!” His voice was guttural with desire, and the pound of his pulse in his ears was a deep bass drumbeat. Travis was probably laughing his ass off at the scent of arousal pouring off him. She was killing him.
“Mmm. There’s a whole other carton of ice cream, Jordan. Better come home before I eat it all.”
His mouth was dry as a desert. “So, I’ll call you after I shower and eat?”
“Mmm. I’ll head straight to bed and wait for you.”
He closed his eyes. If only…
After they hung up, it took twenty or thirty deep breaths before he felt comfortable going into Travis’s house.
Travis was dropping pasta into boiling water, but he looked up to say, “So, knocking boots with Dane’s sister, huh? Hard-core. Way to have the final word in that contest.”
…
Lack of sleep caught up with her, and she crashed waiting for Jordan to call. When the phone started ringing, she bolted upright, screaming, “Holy crap!” Her surprise offended Lucifer, and he jumped off the bed, hissing at her.
Taking a deep breath, she answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Are you okay? It sounds like you had to run for the phone.”
She dropped back onto the pillows. “I fell asleep with the phone right next to me, and it woke me up. I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“You’re tired?”
“Yeah, a little…but I think that jump-started my adrenaline.” She could go lift a car if she wanted to. The thing with the window hadn’t freaked her out as much as the phone ringing.
“I should let you get back to sleep.”
“Don’t you dare! I will never forgive you if you don’t tell me a filthy bedtime story.”
He laughed. “I’m having trouble finding somewhere private.”
She could hear him opening and closing doors.
“I’m thinking Alphas should have soundproof rooms in their house.”
“Say hi to the wife from me!” she heard in the background.
Jordan’s reply was an obscenity. “That was Travis. He finds my inability to resist you amusing.”
“It’s weird that he called me your wife…isn’t it? It’s crazy that because I stayed I’m therefore married. I expected there to be more demarcation in my life between single couch-surfer to wife of a sugar daddy werewolf king. Dane said most of you still get married, and he married Vanessa.”
“Most do. In fact, I’m a registered clergy so I can perform those ceremonies. Though I’m hoping not to be on that end of things at your marriage.”
“So we could get legally, officially married tomorrow?” What a strange thought.
“No.”
She frowned.
“I mean, we could, but it wouldn’t be legally recognized because there’s a three-day waiting period in Washington State, and we’d both want to go in to get our marriage license.”
Oh. The mechanics of getting legally married sounded a lot less romantic than the married-at-first-scent method of the Lycans. Although it might make this a lot less surreal if there were an actual moment she was married—and not a series of moments including one where she threw shoes at him. It was like a shotgun wedding in that way.
“Did you want to get married?”
Her heart stopped in her chest. “Is that a proposal?” she asked slowly. She’d expected it to sound more…something. It’d sounded almost offhand.
“No. No, I hope I could do a better job than that and not over the phone. I was asking if you wanted to have it legally recognized. I should have asked if you wanted a marriage ceremony. I know some women have these big weddings planned in their minds.”
“No. It sounds stressful and like a lot of standing and walking and…exhausting.” That was one thing her mom would understand—they all tried to minimize her stress so that her MS didn’t flare up more often.
“Something small then?”
“Yes. Maybe.” Though honestly, when Dane had eloped she’d sort of thought he had the right idea. It was over and done, and their names were on the papers. A ceremony marking when they were officially together would be good. T
hat might reinforce the idea that Jordan really wanted this—and that she wasn’t forcing him to be with her—but nothing big, nothing that took planning. Just her and Jordan pledging to be together. That was it. And then maybe this would all feel real.
“Actually, if we did it legally, it’d look less criminal if I ended up chasing you down to Mexico. It’ll give me a ‘sentimental’ defense when I have to explain stalking you to the judge.”
Christa grinned. “Isn’t it in your nature to stalk what you want?”
“Yeah, but generally judges don’t take the ‘I’m a wolf’ defense very seriously…or they toss it under an insanity defense.” She heard a car door slam.
“Did you find someplace private?”
“Hang on. Let me see. Travis, what’s two hundred and ninety-nine squared?” he said in a normal voice. Then he sighed. “I have no idea if he’s right or not, but he did answer.”
“Did he say ‘eighty-nine thousand four hundred and one’? I bet he didn’t because only an idiot would answer a question in this situation.”
“Hmm. He says to stop being so judgmental. Also, yes, he did answer that.” He covered the receiver. “And I’m not going to ask her that.”
“Even I heard that,” she said. “What did he ask?”
“You know, I really saw tonight going a different way. I should have driven out into the middle of nowhere before calling you.”
“Apparently. Now tell me what he asked,” she said. Whoever this Travis guy was, he was tangling with the wrong alpha female.
Jordan laughed. “He says you are an Alpha. He’s enjoying hearing me ordered around. And I’m not going to play a game of Jeopardy between you. He finds it hilarious that I’m with Dane’s little sister, and ran me through twenty questions earlier. Mostly I told him none of his damn business, but I did tell him you were a college graduate. I think he assumed you’d majored in astrology or something.”
She scowled into the phone and considered hanging up. Yeah, she’d seen tonight going a different way, too. He’d refused to answer Travis’s questions other than ones regarding her intelligence…and then it sounded like he’d been defensive. He was real proud of the new wife.
“Christa?”
She kept scowling. And then he’d really dug a pit with that last comment.
“Christa, you didn’t major in astrology, did you?” he asked quietly.
“No, of course I didn’t. It’s hard enough to find basic classes in that—and really, what would they teach me that I didn’t already know? But no one offers majors in that. I majored in psychology, moron.” Then, she did hang up.
Seriously? Sure, astrology was a pseudoscience, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t help you figure out what you really wanted from life. It was why she read her clients their horoscopes. Half the time their interpretation of their horoscope was more telling than dozens of questions.
The phone rang a minute later. She debated not answering, but her curiosity over what type of recovery he’d attempt made her pick up.
“Hey, Christa…Travis said he’d go take a long shower because he didn’t want to hear me grovel.”
She waited.
“Hell, I will be groveling. I’d hoped he was kidding.” He sighed. “I swear I just heard you roll your eyes.”
“Wow, your hearing is good.”
“I’ve never actually groveled before. I’m not even sure I’d apologized in a decade before I met you. I once tried to get your brother killed by the pack, and I never even apologized for that. Of course, it helped that I was in wolf form, so the fact that I left without biting him counted as an apology.”
“Jordan?”
“No, I will. Give me a moment to work up to it.”
“Actually, I’d rather you just talk dirty to me if he’s giving us privacy.”
He exhaled heavily. “Oh. Good. I have no idea how to grovel.”
“For the record, you leaving without biting me would count against you as far as apologies go.” In fact, depending on where he went from there, she might even count a bite as an apology.
He laughed. “Well, good, because once upon a time there was a sweet female who smelled like brown sugar and vanilla, and she wore a red hooded cloak and she made the mistake of walking in the woods belonging to the Big Bad Wolf…”
With a sigh, she pulled the covers up around her. “Wait…wait…wait. First, what did Travis ask?”
“Would you like me to go and get him out of the shower?”
She got from his overly polite tone he was implying she was being ridiculous, but she still said, “Okay, after you tell me this story.”
Her hearing wasn’t quite as good as his, but it sounded a bit like he said “damn stubborn Hansens,” but then he restarted his story, so she let it go.
Chapter Ten
They made it back to the patch of blood just as a mist of light rain started falling.
“How did you catch that trail?” Travis asked as they caught their breath beside the bloody earth. “I mean, I’d have picked it up about a mile ago, but not as soon as you did.”
Having to move in human form had cost them time, but they’d wanted to collect samples along the way and to take a GPS. When the clouds slunk across the sky, they’d run in sprints, stopping periodically to check for scents other than Colby’s.
“I’ve got skills you’ll never even dream of,” Jordan said, crouching beside the blood.
“I don’t know why Troy kept challenging you. I think he actually improved your skills.”
Jordan grinned. “He did. I should thank him for that. I think he’d appreciate it.”
“Yeah, thanks, I’d rather deal with this one homicide.”
“Oh, you think he can take me?”
“No, I’d never bet against you in a fight. I’m betting Troy would get himself killed long before he gave up.”
Jordan pulled on gloves this time. “Well, once he was dead, I’d call it done and not wait for him to call uncle. I’m not a sadist.”
Jordan watched Travis survey the scene and waited for him to come to the same conclusion he had about Colby’s murderer.
Travis inhaled deeply. “Maybe you’re not… I can’t say the same for whoever we’re tracking. It’s like—whoever did this soaked themselves in Colby’s blood and then ran around. I can almost smell another scent, but they’ve done an exceptional job at masking it.”
“No way a human could manage to cover their scent like this. Something about it smells familiar—like I smelled it earlier today, but not in those bags of clothes we went through before coming out here.”
“And no way a Lycan could stop through here and not recognize the scent of blood. Vanessa in the middle of an allergy attack would smell this much blood.” Travis dropped his pack. “Well, I can see your prints here, but this other print…” He pulled out a tape measure. “This is too big for a wolf—or most of our females.”
“Most of them?”
“Alanna wasn’t wearing heels. She really is six feet tall. Her prints are the same size as some males’. Lara and Kelly are almost as tall.”
“So, we have three females and…how many males?”
“Seventeen…if you include me.”
Jordan raised his eyebrows. “I’m willing to rule you out.”
“If you feel good about that…” He pulled out a camera and gave Jordan a flashlight to aim at the prints. A few pictures later, he said, “Nineteen of my pack and the possibility we have an outside Lycan.”
“Neither of which explains this.” Jordan gestured at the blood. “I feel like they’re trying to distract us.”
“If they are, something should have happened already…and you saw all my pack—besides Ross—who checked in.”
“Maybe they’re hoping to scare your group into…”
“What?” Travis asked when Jordan didn’t finish.
“I have no idea. And your pack wasn’t exactly terrified.” When they’d been in the lodge, the group had been almost festive
at getting together. There’d been some tension and concern when Travis had been in front of them discussing the murder, but they’d shaken it off almost immediately.
“Colby was new and pissed off a lot of them—and every last one of my pack has this ‘I’m invincible’ thing going on.”
Jordan groaned and stood up. “This is aggravating.” Even though it had seemed unlikely, he’d hoped familiarizing themselves with the pack’s scents would lead them to their murderer. He’d had this fantasy of going home to Christa tonight—far more vivid and inventive after that bedtime story. But it had been a fantasy, apparently.
“Okay, let’s analyze this logically,” Travis said. “Let’s assume Colby was the only intended victim. Maybe it was related to that off-wolf forum, and maybe it wasn’t. Either way, why would a Lycan in my pack attempt to convince us there was a poacher but lay this trail that could only have been a Lycan?”
“Who hated Colby?”
“This week?” Travis asked wryly. “It’s been like wrangling preteen girls. And it’s not even just the females. I actually heard Kyle tell Merilee that Troy wasn’t his friend anymore. I had no idea what I was signing up for when I volunteered to start a Rainier pack. There are times when I want to start off our meetings by shouting, ‘Girls, we don’t pull hair.’”
Jordan flattened his lips to avoid smiling.
“Colby had this innate ability to find a pressure point and poke at it. I’ve heard rumors he got tossed out of the Black Tusk pack.”
“So it could’ve been any of the nineteen, is what you’re saying.”
This Weakness For You (Entangled Select Otherworld) (Taming the Pack) Page 16