by Elle Thorne
The fox’s ears perked. Her nose twitched. She studied Darby. Her lip rose a tiny bit, almost in a snarl, revealing a shiny canine. Then she focused on Jared and laid her ears back, lowered her body, and came closer. Though she limped, Darby couldn’t see an injury, so maybe—hopefully—she’d heal soon.
“Hi, Vix. I don’t mean you any harm.”
Why did saying it make her feel guilty? Because she clearly meant Jared harm. It was her purpose in being there after all. A bead of perspiration made its way down her forehead. It was fairly hot, but she had to wonder if the sweat was caused because her conscience was eating at her.
The little fox didn’t give an inch. Her eyes stayed wary and on Darby for a few seconds longer, then with more ear twitching, but she stepped closer to Jared. He tossed her a morsel of meat. Threw a handful more for the pups.
Darby wanted to toss them some food, and though she didn’t know a lot about foxes, she was certain Vix would smell her scent on the meat and possibly reject it. So she leaned back and studied Jared while he concentrated on the little furry family.
His brows, dark and winged, were drawn in a partial frown, as though something was weighing on his mind while he tended to the foxes. His eyes shone a bright blue brilliance which reminded her of Lake Tahoe, a body of water she’d seen from high up in the mountains when she’d been with her family at the ShifterFest one year. The only year she’d gone before her father found out—
She swallowed hard, the memory bitter. How her life had changed the summer when things became evident. When it was known how much of a failure she was to her alpha shifter father. His firstborn. His reject. His tainted blood offspring. His—
She was jerked out of her reverie. Still kneeling, but no longer paying attention to the fox family, Jared was staring at her, the crumpled bag in his hand.
“What?” she uttered. “What did I miss?”
“You were somewhere else. Somewhere far, far away. Where?” He rose to a stand and held his hand out for her.
Too far and too painful to recount. “Just thinking of a summer, long ago.”
“Must have sucked because it seemed like you were in physical pain.”
“Only if a broken heart can be physical pain.” She could have slapped herself silly. What was that? Why the hell did she say it out loud? This man brought up feelings and reactions which came before she thought them through. She took his offered hand, and a rush of warmth suffused her. Not the sexual kind, though God knew, it was simmering beneath the surface. Her total and complete attraction to him was not buried deep.
“Broken heart?” He pulled her to her feet, but in doing so brought her so close to his body, she could feel the heat of him against her.
She could sense the nearness of his wolf. Could feel his wolf was pressing to the top, right up against his skin, gleaming silver swirls in Jared’s sexy eyes. And the wolf was searching deliriously for her wolf. The scent Ellie gave her had given rise to his wolf’s primordial needs, just as Ellie said it would do. It was designed to make the wolf override the man. To Jared’s credit, it was a miracle the wolf hadn’t tried to make her his yet. He must have superlative control over his beast.
He was watching her. Waiting. Waiting for… what? Oh, shit. Right. She hadn’t answered his question about a broken heart.
She laughed softly, and, though it was forced, she hoped he couldn’t tell. “Oh, just a teenage crush.”
“Damn,” he chuckled softly. “A guy doesn’t want to hear the girl he’s trying to get with has another on her mind. One who broke her heart.” His gaze turned hooded.
Now she’d messed that up, and her head was spinning in confusion. Her feelings for him. Her attraction to this wolf shifter. The mission she was supposed to be on but wasn’t managing very well because her—what? Heart? Feelings?—seemed to be interfering. The driving urge to turn the flirt on surged within her. To be closer to him, and what scared the hell out of her was she didn’t want to do it for the mission. She wanted to do it for this tall, muscly, sexy-as-all-get-out wolf shifter. This was so very wrong.
No, what was very wrong was the way a set of cerulean eyes were focused on her lips. What was even wronger—damn, was that even a word?—was the way it was making her body react. Her stomach tightened, her breasts swelled, her nipples pressed way too hard against the fabric holding them prisoner. And what was wrongest—another made-up word?—was the way her lips tingled at the thought of his touching hers.
“It’s not like that,” she said on a breath. She couldn’t get enough air into her body. Or maybe there was too much air. It felt like she might float away.
“How is it?” his voice was softer, huskier, sexier, panty-wetting-er.
Oh, lord. She was in some kind of state, thinking crazy made-up words and wishing for nothing more than to taste him, to feel him.
“It’s—” Words failed her. Those lips of his. The scruff, just enough to probably leave her face—and thighs—raw if he went to…
Shit. She didn’t. Oh, but yes, she did. Her mind went right there, straight to naughty. Directly to deliciously, decadently wicked.
“It’s…” He repeated, his face drawing closer. His body eclipsing hers from the sunlight shining down.
A shiver washed over her.
Closer. Closer.
She could smell the man of him. The sex of him. The earth of him. The wolf of him. This was so wrong. So damned wrong and so damned right.
Time went from moving slow to moving fast. Faster than shifter-fast. It was fastfastfastfast. It was like a tornado swooped in and stole the slow. Ratcheted it up as though an infernal twist of a dial had thrown her into a tailspin of sensations, emotions, and passions.
His lips crashed into hers. His hand behind her neck dragged her closer until they were one. His lips took hers with a fierceness that belied the gentleness he’d just shown to the mother fox and her kits. And to Darby’s imminent amazement, it brought out an intensity within her that matched his.
She gasped in surprise at the torrent of emotions flowing through her, giving his tongue the precise opening it needed to gain custody of hers. To take what she wanted to give and didn’t know how to. Had never ever wanted to. A primitive call from deep within rose. His hand moved slowly to cup her cheek while his body pressed her against the boulder behind her. His thumb ran over her cheekbone, her jawline, her chin, holding, caressing, giving and taking while his tongue sought purchase to the very essence of her soul.
When he pulled away slightly, she leaned into the hard surface behind her, breath stolen, heart taken, soul seized. His eyes were on her, the depths of them swirling silver, but this was no easy casual meandering of silver ribbons in blue depths. No, this was churning, storming, twisting.
“Where is she?” His voice was a growl. Not a sexy growl. A confused, tortured snarl ripped from his very core. Torn from his wolf, she realized.
“Where is… what? Where is who?”
His hand was firm on her cheek now. No longer the gentle hand of a lover, but the questing hand of an inquisitor. His gaze penetrated, boring directly to her soul, seeking… seeking what?
“Your wolf.” The words were flung from his lips like an accusation. Like a death sentence.
Deep inside, something was crushed, crumbling like the walls of a building that had imploded. She knew what this was. This utter destruction. She’d felt a smidge of it—just a hint of it—when her father had rejected her, but this—what this wolf shifter was making her feel was total and complete.
She choked. Literally. She found herself gasping, trying to gulp air, voice box failing her, mind faltering.
What gave it away?
She sought for and fought for control and composure, not looking in his face, unable to deal with the accusation she knew was on his expression. It was evident in his voice. There was more than accusation, though. There was concern, confusion, betrayal.
“What are you saying?” She stalled for time. Time to think things through. Ti
me to come up with an answer which would suffice but not give anything away.
He scrubbed his face, the scruff there making a scratchy sound. The same scruff she’d felt against her skin only moments—an eternity and an ocean of emotions—ago.
He paced on the slim terrace in the crevasse, one created by boulders fashioned by erosion, eons, and maybe even giants. His circles were tight, his body brushing against hers as he took clipped strides, his mien a study of consternation.
“I smelled her,” he muttered to himself as he completed the circle and started another one. “I know I smelled her. Last night and this morning. But I don’t see her in your eyes. And my wolf can’t find her. He tried. He searched deep within,” he kept murmuring, as though she wasn’t even here, and yet he was talking to her. Or was he? He whirled to face her, arms over his chest. “Where the hell is your wolf?”
She focused on the stone they were standing on, refusing to raise her gaze to his, knowing he wouldn’t find what he was expecting to be there. He’d never find it. She’d never found it. This was the reason—
She couldn’t stop the sob ripped from her chest.
“I’d like to go now,” she barely managed to squeeze the words out.
She’d find another pack to infiltrate. Another one to betray. To use for leverage for gaining a place in her father’s pack.
Wait. No. Fuck no.
The hell with this mission. The hell with her father. The hell with it all. She’d make her way without a pack. She’d live among humans rather than reveal her secret. Her shame. It was bad enough her father and her birth-pack knew. No one else would need to.
Here’s to my fucking-never-after.
Tears burned her eyes, blurring her vision as she scrambled down the steep rock he’d carried her up. She stumbled. Caught herself on a tall boulder, then started down toward the base of the crevasse. She had no idea what she’d do when she got there. They were in the middle of the flatlands in the Virginia Range of Nevada. She had no friends here. No family. No car. No nothing. Just a wilderness of desert land and mountains surrounding this tiny oasis with its waterfall. It wasn’t beautiful. She took it back. It was ugly. Horribly ugly and heartbreakingly so.
Family. More tears burned. She had no family. Just Ellie, really. She wasn’t accepted by anyone else in the pack, only tolerated. A whimper was wrenched from her throat as she picked her way down the stone path. The harsh flooring created by the stones cut at her tender feet.
More than anything, she wished she had a wolf. Wished she had a way to run out of here. To make her way fleet-footed down the path.
She threw her head back and screamed her anger. Her agony. The unfairness to be born of a shifter and have no wolf.
She bellowed her rage.
Anger would not serve her. She had to keep moving. This was her lot in life. She took a step down the steep ridge.
The unfairness of life as a shifter-recessive.
To have the genes of a wolf.
But have no wolf.
No goddamned wolf. She choked back a sob, swiped at her tears and—
Was falling.
Chapter Nine
Frozen, Jared watched her. What had been on her mind when he’d been feeding the foxes? He’d cast a few glances her way, only to find her deep in thought. It seemed those remembrances she’d been dwelling on had put her in a melancholy state.
It had left him speculating about what the hell was going on. There was an attraction here. A very definite one. Clearly the woman in her wanted the man in him. And if his senses weren’t deceiving him, he could smell the wolf in her had a definite fierce desire.
A desire for his wolf.
He couldn’t have denied the kiss any more than he could have prevented the sun’s rising, the rain’s falling, thunder rolling, or lightning crashing. That kiss had been unlike any he’d ever experienced. He’d sunk deeper into the kiss, tasting her essence. Her lips were sweet and spicy and ripe with promises. She brought his wolf to the very surface, so close to bursting out of his skin, but then all of a sudden, his beast had pulled back and started to howl a heart-wrenching, soulful wail which tore their kiss apart and sent Jared into a mental nosedive.
His wolf couldn’t find hers. Couldn’t find the mate he thought he’d—
Wait. Mate?
Jared recoiled.
When did we go from sexy, want to jump your bones, and taste your body, to mate?
The wolf ignored him, disregarded his questions.
He—the wolf—had posed the question, prompting Jared to ask, “Where is she?”
That had not been Jared’s question. Sure, it stemmed from his mouth, but he wasn’t the one asking. No. His wolf, somehow, had risen close enough to the surface to present the inquiry.
Stunned. That was how the question left Jared. Dumbfounded. Speechless.
What the hell do you mean, where’s her wolf?
Her wolf was probably exactly where his wolf was. Deep inside. Though, his wolf wasn’t exactly deep at the moment. No, sir. The damned beast was pushing on his skin, wanting to shift, to rip through his flesh and take form.
Why? Why does the wolf want to do that? No use asking the creature. It was single-mindedly driving for a shift.
Jared pushed back, gritting his teeth, while trying to maintain a semblance of a conversation with the woman who’d taken him and the wolf to this chasm of feels.
“I smelled her,” he had told her through a clenched jaw, pushing his wolf back down, only to have the wolf slip through the defenses and try to change form again. Then he’d said, “I know I smelled her.” And he had last night and this morning. And he’d told her he couldn’t see her wolf in her eyes. And now his wolf couldn’t find her, though he’d tried. The wolf had searched deep within Darby. Then he’d uttered the final, accusatory, “Where the hell is your wolf?”
He couldn’t process what he’d thought or said next, or in what order, but abruptly she said she was ready to go.
Then she’d turned tail—a lovely tail it was, the way she filled out her dress—and began to traverse the tricky, stone-laden path. Was she nuts? She would slice and dice her feet on the trail.
Suddenly, she stopped, frozen in place, threw her head back and released a scream which shredded him. The cry was heart-wrenching, and it struck him in the gut. It tore him up and left his wolf the same way, except, deep in Jared’s mind, his wolf howled in unison with Darby.
And then she pitched forward. Tumbling, falling, bouncing her way down the steepness.
“No!” He ran after her, leaping from boulder to boulder. Shifter-fast, he blurred down the embankment. The sound of a crack—Darby striking the side of a large rock—spurred him faster.
Was that her head? Was it a bone snapping? He dove, headfirst, just as she was going to strike the boulder on the crevasse’s floor and caught her then landed with a hard crash into the unforgiving boulder.
Jared’s temple struck the edge, and, holding Darby in his arms, he yielded to darkness.
Jared groaned. In his mind, his wolf snarled and pawed at his brain to bring him to consciousness. The pain was unbearable, the claws scoring his brain, leaving him with a headache from hell. He opened his eyes. He was in the crevasse. The waterfall’s cascading lullaby blended with the frogs and crickets’ chorus which fill the twilight. In the near distance, the restless stomping of hooves in the ground reached him.
The chestnut stallion and his mares must be right outside. Keeping watch? he wondered. Luke had a special relationship with Rocco. Was that why the horses seemed to be standing guard? Did they realize he was in the same pack as Luke? Did animals think that way? His wolf would put this sort of thing together, but then again, his wolf was a part of him. If one knew something, the other knew it. Those mustangs weren’t shifters, so could they do that at all?
The sun had gone down, but a bright, mostly full moon lit the area. Not as though he needed the moon. A shifter could see as well in the dark as his shifter animal could
.
A scent filled his nostrils. One with which he’d become overly familiar with over the last 24 hours. Had it even been 24 hours since he’d met Darby? Not even been that long.
A warmth in his arms served to prompt the memory that he’d fallen trying to save her. And she was warm. He exhaled in relief. At least there was that. The metallic odor of blood filled his nostrils. Her blood, mostly. He listened for her pulse with his shifter hearing and picked it up. Slow and on the unsteady side.
“Darby,” he whispered, hoping she was awake, aware.
Nothing. He sat up slowly, grunting with the effort. He’d scraped his side up badly and ripped his shirt. Lacerations burned from his shoulder to his hip. These were nothing to a shifter. An inconvenience. He’d heal in no time.
But what about Darby’s injuries? And her reflexes? Those didn’t seem to be up to shifter standards. Compounded with his wolf telling him he couldn’t find her wolf, this left Jared perplexed. How hurt was she, and how would it affect her ability to heal?
Pushing the hair from her forehead, he studied the spot where she’d injured herself before. It had reopened and begun to bleed. Luckily, the blood had congealed. Yet, she was still unconscious, so she must have hit her head somewhere. He appraised her arms and legs, discovering her ankle had definitely been injured. He wasn’t a doctor, so whether it was a fracture or not, he had no way of knowing. Still, in his life, he’d recovered from worse, thanks to shifter healing. She should be healing.
One thing was certain. He couldn’t get her into the side-by-side and transport her. So, he’d have to call someone to come get them. He adjusted her so he could get his phone out, then contemplated who to call.
He wanted to call the Crooked Arrow alpha, his brother Keith. But what position would it put Keith in when it came to pack relations? Darby mentioned she was from Silver Peaks. Jared was no stranger to pack politics, and he knew the alpha of that area was a prick called Peter Moore. The bastard was always seeking to increase his territory. Would Darby being injured on Crooked Arrow land give him an excuse to start a pack war? To try to take over Crooked Arrow? Could he mobilize other packs into joining him against Crooked Arrow? With all of these questions in mind, he realized he couldn’t reach out to Keith. This would put him in an awkward position, and he wouldn’t have deniability. If he called any other Crooked Arrow shifter, they’d be honor-bound to report back to Keith. So, that alternative was out too.