I’m just playing the part. It’s fine. This is all part of the plan.
“I heard you crying the first night at the inn,” Ian confessed after a long time. “Why were you crying?” He leaned back to look at her and she found she missed his closeness and the soothing warmth his body offered.
He tipped her chin up asking her silently to look into his eyes. Nora looked into his blue eyes finding more warmth.
He’s just pretending. Shifters can’t feel.
“I miss my family,” Nora told him truthfully. One day soon when his pack was taken from him before he joined them, he would know why she tricked him when he looked back to this moment.
“Are they meeting you here? Do you want me to take you to them?”
Nora felt her mouth drop open. “You would take me to them? But, you don’t even know where they are. What if they are on the other side of what is left of this continent?”
Ian’s eyes were on her mouth as his thumb tugged a little at her bottom lip. “Yes, I will take you to them, Nora. Where are they?”
“You don’t even know me,” Nora heard herself say, her voice sounding much smaller than it ever had in her memory.
“I know that I cannot bear to hear you so sad and not do what I can to make you feel better.”
More lies. He doesn’t care about me.
“They are dead. We lived in Los Angeles when the attacks came. My family died getting me out of the city.”
“Did you see them die, Nora?” He asked his voice imitating sorrow, a feeling she knew he couldn’t possibly understand.
She met his gaze because it was the closest she would come to challenging him and his kind for what they’d done face to face without any weapons between them.
“Yes. The shifters killed them, bears and wolves.”
“I’m sorry you lost them,” he said.
Rage boiled in her veins like lava making his touch burn but just as she was about to jerk out of his grasp he changed everything when he said, “Shifters killed my family too. Errol was all I had left for a long time.”
Just like that the rage was gone, drained leaving no animosity behind. “How can that be? Don’t shifters look out for each other?”
Ian loosened his hold on her and took her hand instead. “Shifters are just like people, Nora. Some are good like you,”
I am not good, Ian. I know I am not.
“And then there’s people like the Nothings who are cowards too afraid to settle down or pick a side and make a stand. They are despicable and so were the Herod shifters who killed my family.”
“And you moved on after they were taken from you?”
Ian sighed. “No. I still miss them and I always will. I may have helped get rid of the Herod pack but it didn’t bring back my parents and my sister but I learned to live with the loss without letting it claim who they raised me to be.”
“Revenge I’m sure helped you to do that,” Nora said. “It’s why you helped kill the off the Herod pack, right?”
Ian shrugged. “Yes and no. I helped to get rid of them first because of what they did to my family and my pack secondly which became most important was to stop them from continuing to murder and torture.”
“They were the ones who marked your face?” At the mention of his scarring, Ian turned his face to the side hiding away the marked side of his face.
“Yes.”
“I’m glad you and your pack killed them all,” Nora said honestly. Fewer shifters, especially the kind that he was speaking of, the better.
Ian led her over toward some large boulders. “You must be tired from your ordeal. Sit down and rest.”
Nora sat down on the rock to please him but she wasn’t going to relax. If something set off the shifters Nora would be their first target.
Predators feed on prey, always have and always will.
“You’re wrong, Nora. We didn’t kill all of the pack of Herod.”
“Why not?” she asked. “How could you let any of them go?”
Ian didn’t grow angry as she expected him to. Slade always grew angry if ever she or anyone else dared question him. Maybe he was hiding his anger, or maybe he could not show what he could not feel.
His hand ran over her back in a comforting slow circle. “Do you see how happy my brother is, Nora? How much he loves his wife?”
Nora looked over again toward the pair finding them swimming in the waterfall. They seemed enamored with each other, that much was undeniable. “Yes.”
“Onyx was in the Herod pack and so were three others we’ve taken into our pack. It is not just to blame a family for a Father’s actions, a kingdom for following their king, or a pack for submitting to a pack leader.”
Nora stared at Onyx the girl with the long black hair. “You’re brother is in love with a woman who was part of the pack that killed your family?”
“It’s not so simple as that, but I admit I felt that way at first too.” Ian sat next to her strategically angling his scars away from her view.
I’m getting lost. I promised I wouldn’t get lost.
“Do you remember what happens when you are shifted into your wolf?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any control over yourself while you are a wolf?”
Ian scratched his chin. “Yes, but I share my body with a wolf spirit, that is why I am able to shift. Each shifter must learn to live with and control their wolf.”
Nora folded her arms. “So, you remember pushing your face in between my legs?” She challenged him, saying the words out loud if only to remind herself that he was lying.
Ian tried to cover his mouth with his hand before his guilty smile curved his lips but Nora still saw it. She swatted his shoulder before she could catch herself and then fell backward off the rock once she realized what she’d done. Surely hitting him would set him off.
Ian ‘s smile flipped and he frowned down at Nora. “Are you afraid of me?”
“I… I hit you and… I shouldn’t have hit you.”
He stood up the frown on his face growing deeper. “Why did you come to Freebasin if you do not trust shifters?”
Everyone stopped. Not just stopped talking, they stopped moving, stopped breathing. All of them looking at Nora and Ian. Was this it? Would this be the trigger that sent them into a feeding frenzy?
“I came to find out for myself,” Nora said because denying she didn’t trust Ian was pointless after she’d just launched herself onto the floor when he had not even made a move toward her.
You are blowing this mission, Nora.
Ian let out a slow breath and with him, it seemed the whole pack began to breathe again too. He hung his head and Nora swore she could see his mind working behind those blue eyes, and emotion swimming in their depths.
Maybe we were wrong about their emotional abilities.
He crouched down next to Nora and offered her a hand to help her up. “Thank you for being honest, Nora. I know it could not have been easy, surrounded as you are by shifters.”
“You’re right about that,” Errol said approaching them and Onyx at his side. “She’s a gutsy one, brother.”
Nora took Ian’s hand. She didn’t want to be on the ground with Onyx so close. How she could show her face when it was her pack that tortured Ian made no sense at all to Nora.
“That seems to be the way we like them,” Ian laughed.
Nora felt her heart jump with trepidation at his comment. He was stating out loud in front of the pack that he picked Nora, that meant he wished to mate with her, didn’t it?
“I know you don’t know us but if it means anything at all, Ian will never lay a hand on you,” Errol said. “Maybe in the future, we can get to know each other better.”
Nora smiled weakly. “If I’m still around, I think that would be nice.”
Some of the males of the pack laughed shaking their heads as though Nora didn’t understand some obvious factor.
“What’s funny?” Nora asked Ian unable to keep her eyebrow
s from creasing into a scowl.
“Nothing, really. They are stupid don’t even pay them any attention.”
He knew what was funny, but he wasn’t going to tell her. “Would you like to start back to Freebasin? I think Cara and Darian are about to get busy and that’s going to set off Killian and Angeline.”
Nora’s hand tightened around Ian’s.
Set off a shifter named Killian and Angeline? Are they called that because they are like an Angel that kills? Like the angel of death or something?
“Good, idea. Yes, I’d like to return.”
Nora held onto his hand until they were far enough away from the waterfalls that she knew her immediate worry would be Ian, not any of the others. He allowed her to slip her hand from his but the expression on his face grew strained. “Will you shy away from all men after your experience today with the Nothings or just shifters? Or perhaps just me?” He asked but did not interject a bitter or angry tone.
“Shifters killed my family,” Nora reminded him. “I am doing my best to give you the benefit of the doubt but it isn’t easy.”
He exhaled again, his fingers tracing absently over the scars on his face. “I will try to be patient, Nora.”
“Why are you willing to be so patient with me? You don’t owe me anything and we barely know each other.”
“Yes, that’s true but we do have chemistry together which will undoubtedly turn into more. Promise me something, Nora.”
Nora gasped shaking her head. “Chemistry? You got that out of a little flirting?”
Ian had her pressed up against a tree before she even began her next breath. His mouth captured hers swallowing up her yelp of surprise. When she pushed at his chest he collected her wrists and then held them together with one hand over the top of her head against the tree.
His other hand slid slowly down her arm. Ian’s mouth opened pressing against hers hard enough her mouth opened too. She gasped in his mouth as his tongue caressed hers. Ian’s hand reached her shoulder and continued down, his fingers brushing against her bare skin at the top of her shirt.
Heated goose bumps broke out over her skin, her breasts swelled against his hard pecs.
“Do you want me to kiss your neck?” he asked kissing along her jawline.
“No,” she lied. His fingers trailed down past her collar bone, the tips of them tracing the crest of the swell of her breast down into the valley between them and then up over the other crest.
Slade never touched her like this. Their lovemaking was always rushed and hurried. He was always so eager to just shove inside her and expel his heated spend into her body. It usually hurt but that didn’t matter because she trusted Slade. He loved her and was the only person in the world who did, and who could understand what she’d been through.
Ian’s fingers skimmed over sensitive nipples, she felt the heat of his hand through her cloak and shirt.
That shouldn’t feel so good. I shouldn’t want him to keep touching me.
Liquid heat pooled between her legs, her body betraying her. Ian sucked on her ear and the delicious sensation sent mini explosions of arousal down her body and into her core, where more wet heat gathered.
“I can smell how wet you are for me, Nora,” Ian said still pinning her in place. “You cannot lie to me. I will always know.”
“I want you to let me go.”
Ian pressed his chest back against hers and felt his hard length against her stomach. “I’m not trying to embarrass you, Nora. I want you too. See?”
His words added to the moisture between her legs. She whimpered, angry with herself at the physical reaction she was having to him.
Ian released her arms and stepped back. “I know that I am scarred, and perhaps not as handsome as you deserve. I will protect you and I love you like no other ever could.”
“Like you protected me from those Nothings today?”
Ian’s eyes closed but not before she saw the look of pain in his eyes. “I was trying to give you more time to heal from your pain before we-”
“Whatever your excuse is, I don’t want to hear it,” Nora said. “All I want is to try to overcome the loss of my family and come to terms with what happened to them.”
“I’m sorry I rushed you. You are not ready.”
Nora wanted to tell him that she would never be ready. That wouldn’t serve the purpose that she came for though, would it? She told him the truth. She needed to avenge her family so that she could try and have a normal life again. So that she wouldn’t have to live like a nomad, always wandering, always hiding or fighting.
“What is it that you want me to promise?” Nora asked him trying to get her mission back on track.
“Don’t ever lie to me. Not any more lies. Do you swear?”
Nora nodded. “I swear.”
His eyebrows lowered and he frowned at her. “That was a lie. I can hear the difference.”
“How?” she demanded.
“I’ve been around you long enough to tell the difference in the way you breathe, the way your heart beats, and in the way you do it so well with a face that looks sincere but does not reach your eyes, it doesn’t touch your soul.”
So, I have to mean it? How can I do that?
Ian started walking again so she followed him, thinking about how she could make this promise he wanted from her work. It took a lot longer to get back to Freebasin than it took to leave since she was on foot.
Once they approached the forest edge she stopped. “Will you swear to always tell me the truth in return?”
“Yes, I swear.”
“I can’t tell if you’re telling the truth,” Nora frowned. “It’s not fair.”
Ian turned so the were face to face. “You’ll see it in my eyes, Nora. You’ll know if you’re really listening.”
She didn’t know if that was true or not. She just knew that she needed to try to get information from him so she had no choice, really. Nora had to promise if she was going to continue.
“I promise that I will never speak a lie to you, but I cannot promise that I will always answer you either. If there is something I don’t want to share with you, for example, if I’m wet for you, that should be up to me.”
Ian smiled even though he had to see that Nora was still upset about what he’d done to prove that her body responded to his. “I agree to this promise.”
Nora led the way back through town after seeing the yellow flag hanging from the inn. That meant Slade was close and wanted to meet at their predetermined meeting place.
“I think I want to take a walk by myself, Ian,” she said slowing her pace.
“No,” he said nearly before she finished.
Nora turned toward him. “I’m not asking your permission.”
“I will follow at a distance but I promised to protect you. I can’t break that promise.”
“Fine. Let’s go back to the Inn,” Nora hissed at him but he was clearly unbothered by her anger.
“I should tell you, Nora. Seeing you riled up like this makes me want to finish what we started back there in the forest.”
Nora glanced around to see if anyone heard what he was saying to her. Though she supposed they wouldn’t care. “It makes me want to kick you between your legs, so I guess we’re at an impasse. Right?”
Ian laughed but then he stopped as the change in wind direction came. He took hold of Nora’s shoulder slowing her down too. “I smell Nothings. How many were there with you in the forest?”
“Two,” she said, “and one outside by the well. He was waiting to take his turn with us,” Nora answered honestly because she wanted to see if he was truly sincere about wanting to protect her. “There are many more Nothings here. They are staying at the inn.”
“I will go and make certain they leave. I want you to go to the town meeting house and wait for me there.”
Nora added in her mind that she would first go to meet Slade and then she would go to the meeting house. “Okay,” Nora told him. He nodded and turned back
toward the inn.
She had no idea how long she would have before he came looking for her. Nora raced through town finding the large stable house where the horses and livestock for the town were kept. Grabbing a bucket she filled it with water from an outside trough and took it with her into the barn.
The guards watching the livestock didn’t say or do anything about anyone coming or going unless they didn’t appear to have a good reason to be there. Once she was inside the barn she headed for the section with the donkeys and poured the water into their trough.
“There you are,” Slade said taking a hold of her wrist and pulling her into the shadowed corner next to the donkey stalls. He squeezed her breast a bit too hard and moaned against her neck as he pushed his erection against her thigh.
“I don’t have much time. I’ve made a contact with the shifters.”
Slade’s hand dropped from her chest and he leaned back. “Already? That’s great. How many are in the pack?”
“More than twenty. They’re wolf shifters.”
“More than twenty? Do they always travel as a pack? How did you get this estimate?”
“No, they don’t travel together. They came because the bell was rung and they came to protect….”
Me.
Guilt overwhelmed, Nora. Shock at this sense of betrayal made Nora take a step back.
“Is that all you have? Who is your contact? A woman?”
“No, it’s a male.”
Slade nodded his smile stretching his thin lips into the shape of a crescent. “That’s perfect. Have you bedded him?”
Nora had a flashback and could practically feel his hand at her breast and his hard shaft pressed to her stomach. “No. I haven’t had sex with him but he wants to, Slade.” Nora pressed her back into the corner to brace for his anger but his smile didn’t falter.
“That’s good. Get as much information as you can out of him.”
“But I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep him away. He’s very forward with his desires,” Nora said.
Slade nodded. “I knew a shifter would be with you. You are built to catch the eye of men. Sleep with him. He’ll trust you more and he’ll tell you more.”
In Love with the Enemy (A Rizer Wolfpack Series Book 4) Page 4