What A Wolf Dares (Lux Catena Series Book 2)

by Amy Pennza

  Remy didn’t seem to care. He continued stroking down her back, his hand moving over her hair and along her spine. The gentle contact lifted the tiny hairs on her arms. It had been a long time since anyone had simply held her—just basic person-to-person contact with no strings or expectations. The clean scents of lemon and peppermint filled her lungs. Underneath was the subtle, bracing note she sensed before.

  At last, she caught her breath.

  Remy eased away but stayed on his haunches, his gaze level with hers. A big, wet splotch on his shoulder turned his gray T-shirt black.

  “Oh my gosh,” she said, scooting back on her seat. She swiped moisture from her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

  He tilted his head—a wolflike gesture that might have made her smile if she wasn’t so mortified. “For what?” he asked.

  “I can’t believe I broke down like that.” Now that she was upright, her sinuses decided to make their presence known. She darted a look around the kitchen. “Do you have a tissue?”

  “You bet.” Remy rose with the wolf’s fluid grace. He disappeared down a hall she hadn’t noticed before, then reemerged with a Kleenex box. “With lotion,” he said, setting it in front of her.

  A hiccuping laugh escaped before she could stop it. “Thanks.”

  “I only buy the best,” he said, resuming his seat.

  She blotted her nose and crushed the tissue in her palm. What now? How did she start a conversation after snotting all over his shirt? Fortunately, he saved her by speaking first.

  “My foster mother always said tears are the superhighway of the soul.”

  “She did?”

  He nodded. “It’s not good to hold on to negative emotions. Crying is the fastest way to release them.” He smiled, and his eyes grew distant, as if he was remembering something. “She also said that’s why men have such a hard time expressing their feelings. They’re too full of shit.”

  Sophie snorted a laugh. A few seconds ago, she would have thought it impossible to find anything funny right now. But he’d put her at ease. “I didn’t know you had a foster mother.”

  His smile faded. “Not in the usual way. My folks are still alive. Dom’s parents took me in as a teen when my Gift first manifested.”

  Understanding swept her. “Your parents aren’t Telepaths.” She made it a statement. It was the only reason werewolf parents would surrender their child—even a teenager—to someone else. Fostering was a common practice, but offspring were too rare to just hand off unless the parents died prematurely. There were no single parents in the werewolf world. The lux catena saw to that.

  “Healers,” Remy said. “Both of them. It’s something of a family tradition.”

  “Until you.”

  “Until me.” He pushed a hand through his hair, the movement showing the hard curve of his bicep. “It was a shock to my parents, to put it mildly.”

  He said shock, but it must have been more than that. Why else would they send him away? All her life, she’d heard other wolves describe Telepaths in a negative light. If they weren’t “weak,” they were “sneaky” or “manipulative.” No one ever said anything good.

  If she heard those things, what did Remy hear?

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say “I’m sorry,” but she stopped herself. That was a statement of solace or regret. He had no reason for either of those emotions. His Gift was beautiful, and their talk in the car had been one of the most magical experiences of her life. His words had flowed through her mind like a warm river, stealing away the heartache and anxiety. Suddenly, it was important he knew that.

  “I liked it when you talked to me,” she said. “In my mind.”

  His eyes gleamed. He let his arm fall slowly back to his side. “On the way to Vermont.”

  “Yes.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment. She held her breath, prepared to hear his telepathic voice again, but he was silent. Even so, the air between them felt…thicker. Electric. Her heart sped up.

  At last, he spoke. “Sophie…I think it’s time you tell me what happened there.”

  “I…” She looked down, where she’d balled the tissue in her fist.

  “It’s Asher, isn’t it. Your husband?”

  Unbidden, her wolf roared to the surface, its snarl loud in her mind. She jerked her head up. “He’s not my husband.”

  Surprise flared in Remy’s gaze. “You lived in Burlington for two months—”

  “We’re not bound. We never completed the ritual.”

  His lips parted, and for a moment he looked speechless. Then he swallowed. “Does your father know?”

  Panic jolted down her spine. “No, and he can’t find out. He’ll just send me right back.” The thought made her stomach clench. What would that reunion look like? Asher would make sure she paid for humiliating him. She squeezed the tissue. “I won’t go back,” she said, more to herself than Remy. “I’d rather die.”

  Remy’s expression shifted. Where there had been surprise and concern, now there was something darker.

  Menace.

  It vibrated off him. Blue rolled over his eyes, and a muscle in his jaw jumped. The little hairs on her nape lifted. When he spoke, it was careful and deliberate—like he had to plot each word on a map.

  “Did Asher hurt you?”

  It’s not for me. His anger wasn’t directed at her. She knew that in her heart. Convincing her head was an entirely different matter. Her brain knew what happened when powerful males got angry. Instinct demanded she lower her eyes. It’s what wolves did when confronted with a more dominant pack member. But her human half had learned the hard way not to lose focus in the face of danger. She took a shaky breath and forced herself to meet his gaze. “We weren’t compatible.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  The tension ratcheted higher, filling the room like invisible smoke. Her throat went dry. It was hard to breathe, like a heavy weight had settled on her chest.

  Trapped.

  She stood so fast her head spun. Dimly, she registered that her hair no longer covered her breasts, and her oversized shirt slipped off one shoulder. Modesty flew out the window. What did it matter when her world was falling apart? “I can’t talk about this.”

  “Wait.” Remy shoved back from the table and shot to his feet. He reached for her.

  It was an innocent move, but her muscle memory kicked in. As his shadow fell over her, she ducked.

  His fingers missed her arm, latching onto her shirt sleeve instead and tugging it down as she cowered away from him and froze.

  He stopped cold, his attention on her upper back.

  She followed his gaze, but she already knew what he saw.

  Slowly, he lifted his eyes to hers. Anguish flashed across his face.

  “Oh, sweetheart. What did he do to you?”

  * * *

  Nausea churned in Remy’s gut. He stared at Sophie’s back where her shirt had slipped, revealing a rounded shoulder. She hunched away from him, one hand raised as if she expected to ward off a blow.

  “Sophie…” His voice came out like a croak.

  She straightened and stumbled back, dislodging his fingers from her shirt. She tugged the neckline higher, covering her shoulder and upper back once more.

  No matter. He knew what he saw. Angry, red puncture marks scattered across her skin. There were dozens of them—each pair a neat distance apart. They were strategic in placement, like the hash marks a prisoner might make in a prison cell to mark the days. Some were more faded than others, which meant they were older.

  There was only way one to get bite marks like that. Someone had held her down and inflicted them deliberately…precisely. That the wounds were there at all meant the abuse had been consistent and ongoing. Sophie’s body would have healed a lot of the damage, but werewolf regeneration could only handle so much. Given enough sustained trauma, the body started to conserve its resources.

  Rage swept him. Deep in his mind, his wolf paced and snarle
d. It wanted to hunt the bastard who hurt her, to inflict the same kind of thoughtless cruelty.

  Sophie stepped backwards, one hand clutching the fabric at her throat.

  Get control. His anger was making things worse. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, hoping she wouldn’t dash up the stairs while he wasn’t looking.

  When he’d stuffed his anger down as far as it would go, he opened his eyes. She watched him, and some of the wariness in her expression faded.

  “Sophie, please, I’m sorry.” He walked to the table and touched the back of her chair. “Will you sit down with me? I won’t touch you, I promise.”

  “I know,” she said, but she didn’t move. Her eyes roved over his big shoulders, and she seemed to suppress a shudder.

  Damn. Normally, his size was an asset. Right now, though, he’d give just about anything to be a few inches shorter. Moving slowly, he resumed his seat. There. Maybe now she wouldn’t feel threatened.

  It must have worked because she came to the table and sat. She pulled her hair over her shoulders so it fell over her breasts.

  He looked away, but not before he registered the faint shadow of her nipples under the plain, white cotton. What on earth had possessed him to give her one of his undershirts? After he and Dom had brought her into the house, Remy carried her upstairs. His first instinct was to put her in his bed, but he swerved toward the guest room at the last second. He didn’t bring dates home often, but personal scents lingered a long time. The Trackers he knew claimed they could identify a wolf’s presence years after the person had been there.

  Sophie didn’t need to wake up in a bed that smelled like him and another woman.

  He wasn’t going to think too hard about why that mattered to him. And he sure as hell couldn’t think about the way she filled out his sweatpants, or how the only thing separating him from her breasts was a thin layer of cotton.

  Right now, he needed to know exactly what Asher had done to her.

  She held herself rigid, her fists clenched in her lap. The mangled tissue peeked between the fingers of her left hand.

  “Sophie,” he said.

  She looked at him, and he was struck anew by the beauty of her eyes. Large and round, they were a soft, rich brown. Spaniel eyes. The expression popped into his head. Maybe he’d heard it somewhere before. Wherever it came from, it suited her. Despite the pain lacing her expression, she had an indelible…something. It was a heady mix of vulnerability and sweetness that pulled at him like a current tugging at the shore.

  “I’ll never hurt you,” he said. Out of nowhere, he had an urge to push that reassurance toward her. In his mind, he reached for his telepathic voice. Immediately, intense pressure filled his skull. He winced.

  Sophie gasped. “What is it?” She leaned forward, one hand outstretched.

  “Nothing.” He rubbed his forehead. “Just a little burnout.”

  “Burnout?”

  He dropped his hand. Nausea roiled his gut, but he ignored it. She was more important. “It happens to Telepaths sometimes,” he said. “No one really understands why, but it’s almost like the brain can’t handle too much mental speech.”

  Surprise flitted across her face. “So you can’t use your Gift?”

  “Temporarily. Burnout usually doesn’t last long for me.”

  “What’s it feel like?”

  No one had ever asked him that before. Telepaths knew the feeling well, so they had no need for a description. As for non-Telepaths… it was better they didn’t know the limitations of his Gift. But somehow, the ordinary rules didn’t seem to apply to Sophie. He thought about it. “Do you like ice cream?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Right answer.”

  She gave him a watery smile.

  “It’s kind of like an ice cream headache, except it lasts longer, and it comes out of nowhere.” He tapped his head. “This one fired up last night, when you—” He stopped, and his throat went dry. In the chaos of leaving the club, finding her, and then bringing her home and settling her in, he hadn’t thought about her calling out to him in his mind.

  Maybe because it was impossible.

  “When I what?” she asked.

  The last of the pain faded from his head. Should he bring this up? She didn’t seem to have any idea what he was talking about. Besides, they had more important things to discuss.

  But then her face paled. Her voice was a thread of sound when she asked, “You heard me?”

  And there it was—confirmation that her call was real. There was no point in denying it. “I heard you.”

  She gave her head a little shake, almost like she was trying to convince herself it wasn’t real. “I don’t understand…”

  “Neither do I. Does Telepathy run in your family at all?” Maybe his little bout of cyber stalking hadn’t been as thorough as he thought, and he’d missed important details about her bloodline. A handful of wolves, like Max, had a secondary Gift. Maybe she was one of those.

  Sophie laughed, but there was no humor in it. “No. My father would have disowned me.” As soon as she said it, she covered her mouth with her hand, as if she wanted to stuff the words back in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s fine.”

  “No, you don’t understand.” She lowered her hand. “I didn’t say that because I’m biased against Telepaths. My father wanted a son. When he didn’t get one, he chose the next best thing, which meant marrying me off to the strongest Finder available. He even considered Max for a time.”

  NO. The thought was so strong, it almost jumped from Remy’s mouth before he could stop it. Deep inside, his wolf paced, agitated and ready to pounce. Remy clenched his jaw.

  Sophie gave him an odd look. “Are you okay? Is it your head?”

  “No. I mean yeah. I’m okay, though.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Here she was with bite marks all over skin and who knew what other injuries, and she wanted to know how she could help him. Their conversation had gotten off track.

  He made his voice as gentle as possible. “No, chère. I don’t need help. But you do. Let me help you.”

  She looked toward the window, her mouth trembling. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  God, he just wanted to gather her into his arms and hold her. But she was fragile right now. Asher Benton had seen to that. Whatever that bastard had done, he was going to pay for it. Rage scalded Remy’s gut. He took a deep breath. Sophie needed calm. His anger had already spooked her. Later, he could free his wolf and let his animal side take over. For now, he had to muzzle the beast for Sophie’s sake.

  She still gazed out the window, her dark eyes unfocused.

  “Start where we left off,” he said.

  She faced him. “What do you mean?”

  “The car ride. When Dom handed you over to Benton’s wolves.” That was another thing Asher was going to answer for. He hadn’t even bothered to show up to collect his bride. When the trail of SUVs had pulled into the half-circle drive in front of the Vermont pack’s sprawling mansion, a group of Hunters had stood on the front steps, their expressions grim.

  As the vehicle rolled to a stop, Sophie had sucked in a breath. “He’s not here.”

  Remy looked at her. “Who, chère?”

  Her heart picked up speed, the soft thumps loud in his sensitive ears. If he could hear it, other wolves would, too. “Asher,” she said.

  Before he could respond, Dom opened her door and extended a hand. “I’ll take you to them.”

  “I’m going, too.” The words jumped from Remy’s mouth. He fumbled with his seat belt.

  Dom’s eyebrows pulled together in a frown. “That’s not necessary—”

  “I’m going with her.” Somehow, he managed to hold Dom’s gaze as he disentangled himself from the belt and popped his door.

  “Remy…” Dom’s telepathic voice held a familiar note of warning. What else was new? Dom usually found a reason to disapprove of everyth
ing he did.

  Remy rounded the back of the vehicle and stopped next to Dom. He smiled at Sophie even as he talked directly into Dom’s head. “She’s nervous. She trusts me. Let me go with her.” He looked at Dom. “It’ll make the hand off easier.”

  Dom held his stare. “Somehow, I doubt you’re motivated by altruism right now.”

  Remy drew himself up, ready for a fight, but Dom faced Sophie. “Ready?”

  Her gaze bounced between them. “Is…everything okay?”

  “Of course,” Remy said before Dom could change his mind. He plastered what he hoped was a reassuring smile on his face. “We’ll walk you up.”

  She let Remy help her from the car. Vanilla swirled under his nose. She looked at the Hunters on the steps, and her heart pounded faster.

  “It’s okay,” he said in her mind. “I’m here.”

  She met his eyes. But you won’t be. It didn’t take a Telepath to read her thoughts.

  One of the Hunters descended the steps. “Beta,” he said, acknowledging Dom. “Thank you for escorting our future Alpha’s mate safely. We’ll take her from here.”

  Remy’s hackles rose. Take her from here? Like she was a package they were delivering? He opened his mouth, but Dom spoke first.

  “Where is your future Alpha?”

  A muscle ticked in the Hunter’s jaw. He was obviously high-ranking, and his wolf didn’t like the hint of challenge in Dom’s voice. Remy smiled inwardly as the Hunter visibly reigned in his wolf before replying, “He had other matters to attend to.”

  “Other matters?” Dom’s tone made it clear nothing could be more important than greeting Sophie.

  “He’ll return this evening.” The Hunter flicked a look at Sophie. “In time for the ceremony.”

  A small sound jolted Remy back to the present. Sophie stared out the window again, her face pale. In her lap, her fingers worried at the tissue.

  His hands itched to cover hers, to still the nervous movements, but he couldn’t risk frightening her again. He cleared his throat. “Sophie.”

  She looked at him. “Yes?” she said, her voice ragged.

  He had to force the next words out of his lungs. “What happened when Asher came back that night?”