“I’m sorry,” Dillon said. “I wasn’t thinkin’, neither.” He turned a gaze on Kyle. “But what happens when you go back and get questioned about your disappearance? You know it’s impossible to lie to an alpha.”
Kyle shook his head. “I’ll take care of it right now. Be right back.”
He shifted without another word, and his black wolf trotted out the tunnel to the entrance of the cave. Aimee glanced at Dillon, who just shrugged. Moments later, an eerie wolf howl sounded outside that was answered from a distance. Barks and growls between locations went on for a short time, and then she saw a pair of glowing yellow eyes lighting the dark tunnel from wolf height. Kyle barely missed a beat in transforming back as he walked into the rear room of the cave, water streaming down his body from the still-pouring rain.
“Damn wet out there,” he said, wiping his arms and chest down with his hands. He nodded to Dillon. “Catch any of that?”
“Not all of it,” Dillon said. He pulled up one knee and draped an arm over it.
“I told the pack that I got caught in the storm and am gonna weather it out in a shelter.”
“Giving you an alibi for tonight,” Aimee said.
“And it ain’t no lie,” Kyle went on. “Ain’t fit for man nor beast out there.”
Dillon raised a dark eyebrow. “And if you are specifically asked if you were with anyone?”
“Don’t see why it would come up.”
Dillon tilted his head. “Our woman over there has your sweater on. Plannin’ to march up to the pack with her beguilin’ scent all over you?”
Aimee shot a glance down at the red sweater, feeling a twinge of guilt.
“She can hang onto the sweater. I’ll wash both your scents off in the stream on the way back, same as always. It’ll work, trust me.”
Dillon sighed. “You’re the boss. I just hope to God you’re right.”
Kyle turned to Aimee. “Let’s get some water in you, feed you the jerky and trail mix I have stuffed in my jacket, and settle in for the evenin’.”
Her stomach growled at the mere mention of food, and Dillon laughed. “Guess that’s a yes.”
“Definitely,” she said. “And maybe while we’re settling, you guys can explain to me about wolf politics and why you’re sneaking around with Dillon.”
Chapter Three
Aimee awoke to gray light barely spilling into the dimly lit cave, her head tucked against Kyle’s chest and her arm circling his slender waist. His jacket was draped over her so that her nose was pressed to the heady scent of male and leather.
The thunderstorm had eased during the night. Even while it still raged overhead, it had sounded comforting with her safely in the back of the cave, tucked under the crook of Kyle’s arm. Her short curls were barely damp now as she lifted her arm from his waist to push strands from her face.
She lifted her face to see that he was still asleep, with his back propped against the cave wall and his chin on his chest. His head had lolled to one side, offering her a close view of the scar. Her fingers itched to stroke it, to trace over the mark his past had left behind. Had he gotten the scar while caught in the thrall of the full moon? Or had it happened before he’d been turned?
“My God,” a voice said from across the cave. “Are you always this beautiful in the mornin’?”
She glanced over to find Dillon awake, sitting cross-legged on the ground. His jaw was stubbled with the same dark scruff that clung to his upper lip, and his dark hair was tousled from sleep. Dirt still streaked much of his body, but both Dillon and Aimee had washed off the blood with rainwater brought in by Kyle the night before. Her stomach churned at the thought of kissing a man smeared in animal blood. How could she have gotten so carried away that she hadn’t even realized it?
“Good morning,” she said, pulling herself upright. “You had something of a busy night.”
He nodded. “But better than any I’ve had since the pack broke up.”
Dillon had been restless, phasing in and out of wolf form several times. Kyle had removed the animal carcass from the cave after the wolf had taken its fill, but the animal paced back and forth on the short leash of the neck chain, occasionally barking or growling in Aimee’s direction or staring into the tunnel. Then he would shudder and morph back, lie down on the ground and curl up to sleep. And this had been one of the “low” moons?
Several times she’d wanted to go to him, feeling the odd pull that might have been mere sympathy or might have been more along the lines of the draw Kyle had warned them about. He had kept Aimee on the far side of the cave, though, where they stayed awake for some time.
“Looks like you wore Kyle out.” Dillon grinned, and a mischievous twinkle lit his eyes.
“Kyle ain’t all that wore, thank you,” the other man said from beside her.
She turned to see his head still slumped to one side, but then his eyes popped open. “You’re awake.” She smiled.
“I’m a light sleeper.” He shifted his body, cracking several joints in his neck and arms. “Ready to find your way back to the real world?”
Dillon growled. “We gotta feed her breakfast, at least, before we go shovin’ her on her way.”
Kyle glanced at him. “We’re out of food, unless you’re plannin’ on huntin’ her up somethin’ we would eat.”
“We can cook it first.”
“That’s okay, really,” Aimee said, getting to her feet and trying to ignore the queasy feeling that stirred from the image of Dillon tearing into a raccoon carcass. “I suppose it would be best if I got on my way.”
“That eager to get rid of us?” Dillon said, that dangerous gleam still in his eye. “You need us as guides, you know.” He tugged on his neck chain. “Can I get the hell out of this thing now?”
“Patience, cowboy.” Kyle chuckled as he dug around in his jeans pocket. “You usually ain’t in such a hurry to get out of bondage.” He turned his head to Aimee. “In fact, he kind of likes it. Gets him hot.”
A little tickle licked at her stomach, but Dillon just scowled. “Yeah, well, it ain’t gettin’ me hot right now. I gotta take a piss.”
Aimee smiled. “Is he always this grouchy in the morning?” She wandered over to where her shirt had been spread out to dry. It was still damp, but not soaked anymore.
Kyle knelt behind Dillon’s back and used the key he’d pulled from his pocket to unlatch locks on his collar and torso chains. “Nope,” Kyle said. “Guess somethin’s got him riled.” He opened the collar hinge and slipped it off.
Dillon rubbed at his neck, which bore reddened marks. “Aside from spendin’ the night forcin’ my way back to human form a dozen times?”
Kyle went to work on the chains. “Maybe you were hopin’ Aimee would forget she was lost and stay here in the cave.”
The chains fell to the ground with a loud clatter, leaving Dillon with embedded marks crossing over his chest. He rose, completely naked, and stalked across the cave floor toward her while holding her in his unsettling gaze. This was the first time she’d seen him loose, not to mention upright and fully bare. Her mouth went dry at the sight. He was taller than Kyle, only by an inch or two but enough for her to feel engulfed when he drew up in front of her. His soft but long cock was close enough for her to reach out and touch. She curled her hands at her sides to ward off the impulse.
“I might have been thinkin’ somethin’ like that,” Dillon said, still staring at her.
Everything about him—his heavy scent, his glittering eyes, the sensuous rhythm of his breaths—pulled her senses into overdrive. Her heart jumped into a frantic rhythm. Kyle was right about Dillon. While Kyle commanded undeniably heightened attraction, Dillon’s very nearness was enough to all but obliterate anything else in her surroundings.
She swallowed. “I have to go, Dillon. People will be looking for me.”
“People?” He reached for her hand, and a tingle shot up her arm when he took it. He raised her hand between them and tapped at the back of her rin
g finger. “David, you mean. Your fiancé.”
“I told you, I haven’t given him an answer yet.”
“Might as well have, keepin’ his ring on your finger. You know, that could give him the wrong idea, the way you’re wearin’ it and flashin’ it around.”
She pulled her hand away. “I’m not flashing it around. And you don’t have the right to dictate what jewelry I wear.”
“No, but I have the right to do this.”
He pulled her to him and crushed her mouth against his. Her automatic reflex to struggle faded in an instant as the feel of his tongue sliding between her lips unleashed the first shockwave of desire in her.
When he yanked back, the gold in his eyes was flickering like candle flames and her pussy was already dampening with need. Damn it.
She sucked in a deep breath to steady her shaky voice. “And I have the right to leave.”
“Come on, Dillon.” Kyle came up behind him. “Let’s clean up and get her back safe.”
* * * *
The three of them were underway within the hour, striking out from the cave in the opposite direction from the way Aimee vaguely remembered coming. Their feet squished through the wet forest floor, and their breaths puffed out in front of them with every step. Aimee wore Kyle’s jacket and sweater to ward off the chill in the air, her own shirt slung over her shoulder. Though the rain had stopped, the sun was nowhere to be found behind a thick veil of gray and white clouds. The morning air was crisp enough to burn her nostrils with each intake of breath, though Kyle seemed to have no trouble striding along in a tank top and jeans.
“You’re quiet,” Dillon said to her as they navigated a small incline through a maze of trees and boulders.
“I was just thinking about last night,” she said. “About the things you and Kyle told me.”
“Hope it didn’t confuse you too much,” he said. A fiery blue gaze shot through her from under the brim of his hat.
She placed her hand on a flat, damp rock to help her maneuver through a tight crevice. “I was just wondering why, if there are several wolf packs in the area, nobody has figured out what you are and done something about it.”
“Everyone who works a ranch in these parts knows about the wolf problem,” Kyle said. “But only a rare few know the truth about the wolf problem. It ain’t that Shay Falls has an overpopulation of wolves. It’s that the wolves people think they kill get up and come back.”
She nodded. “You said that your pack doesn’t know about Dillon because they held animosity toward his old pack. But you never said why.”
Dillon cleared his throat. “My pack was wild, as you might have guessed.”
She shrugged, stuffing her clammy, chilled hands into Kyle’s jacket pockets. “Yes, but having a harder time with full moons than Kyle doesn’t tell me much about life in your pack.”
He pushed aside a pine branch in his path while she regarded his changed appearance. Dillon was altogether different now after washing up in a nearby stream and putting on the clothes that had been carefully folded in the corner. His dark brown Stetson shielded a good part of his face, but she could see his pensive expression while he considered her words. His tan suede jacket hung with fringe along the sleeves that swung back and forth with every self-assured step, and brown denims fit to every inch of his lower half like a glove.
“With Blaise as our alpha,” he said, “the rules we lived by were more typical of the old country than out here, where the few packs in existence try to blend with nature—and humans.”
She frowned. “The old country?”
“Our kind originated in Europe,” Kyle said. “The highest concentration of shifters live in Romania, Russia, and parts east.”
She nodded. “So Blaise didn’t want to live here peacefully.”
Kyle snorted. “He wanted to dominate the territory. He all but waged war on the mountainside, poachin’ human cattle ranches and battlin’ other packs for huntin’ and matin’ rights. Deaths did happen. He even took the occasional human slave.”
Her eyes widened and shifted back to Dillon. “What?”
“It’s true,” he said. “Though our history ain’t quite as colorful as other packs like to make it sound.”
“Colorful enough to give us reason to talk,” Kyle added.
“It wasn’t a life I wanted. Most of us didn’t.”
She blinked. “Were you ever, you know, with a slave?”
He shook his head. “Wasn’t never my style. I helped one of the others free a slave once. Blaise didn’t like that at all. Lucky for me, he never found out I took part in it.”
She sighed in relief. “So the pack broke up because you didn’t approve of Blaise’s actions?”
Dillon shook his head. “Weres have to submit to their alpha for as long as they remain alpha.”
She frowned. “So what happened?”
Dillon paused, propping a booted foot on a low boulder. “An outsider named Kade Winchester challenged Blaise for alpha rights. He killed Blaise and won the right to take over. His first official command as our new leader was to punish us for Blaise’s crimes. Our crimes.”
“How?” she asked in barely more than a whisper.
“He disbursed the pack, prohibitin’ us to be together anymore. Doomed us to wander alone unless we could find other packs willin’ to take us in.” He let out a bitter snort. “But not only ain’t there enough packs in these parts to take in our strays one at a shot, there sure ain’t a one that would help one of Blaise’s weres. Not a snowball’s chance in the Sahara.”
“They hated you that much?”
Dillon looked to Kyle with a raised brow. “Our orders are to kill on sight,” Kyle said, and her eyes widened. “The first time I saw Dillon, that was an order I planned to carry out.” He pursed his lips. “Then I saw what he was tryin’ to do.”
Dillon stopped short and growled. “Kyle, don’t.”
Aimee turned to him. “Don’t what? I’d think you wouldn’t want us to have secrets. I’m supposed to be your mate and all.”
His eyes flashed with a golden glimmer. “You’re supposed to be.” He flicked a glance down at her ring finger, then struck off up the hill again. She set her jaw and followed.
The conversation halted abruptly as the incline grew steeper and more cragged with outcroppings of rock. Aimee used taller rocks to steady herself during the climb. She sniffed repeatedly to conquer her numb, runny nose, and her hands felt stiff and cramped from the cold. No doubt she looked a mess.
An attempt to gain a foothold in what turned out to be a loose pile of leaves sent her off balance, and she slid backward with a shriek until Kyle’s hand shot out and grabbed her.
“Thanks,” she said as he pulled her forward. He kept her hand in his as they continued on, even when the incline leveled off again. His grasp was so warm and familiar. So strong and secure.
“Your hands are like ice,” he said gruffly, stopping to face her.
“That’s early morning in the mountains for you,” she said, offering him a guilty smile. “I had gloves in the backpack that went over the cliff.”
“Fuckin’ Caleb,” Dillon muttered.
Watching her closely, Kyle clasped both her hands in his and raised them to his mouth. He breathed out forcefully and rubbed circulation back into her skin. It felt like heaven, but it wasn’t only her fingers that warmed to his touch. Her stomach began a slow, steady churn that kept a close pace to the golden magic shifting inside his blue eyes.
“One other question,” she said to distract herself from the emotions spinning like a pinwheel in her chest. “If Dillon had an alpha that he had to obey—still has to, if he is forbidden to get his old gang back together—then how can you be his alpha, too? Can there be more than one?”
“There can only be one,” Kyle said, still rubbing her hands. “But a wolf can be claimed by another alpha. Stolen away, if you will. Any command given prior to that time remains in effect for so long as the original alpha lives. But un
less Kade challenged me to a fight and won Dillon back, he stays mine from now on.”
“And you can be an alpha while you have one yourself?” she went on, still not understanding the whole wolf society thing.
Kyle dropped her hands and sighed, a puff of steam roiling out from between his lips.
“That’s a sort of gray area,” Dillon said from much closer behind her than she realized.
She spun around to find him almost as close as Kyle, sandwiching her. She could feel the heat from both of their bodies, and it set loose a shiver inside of her.
“How so?” she asked, breathless from more than the brisk climb.
“There can only be one alpha,” Kyle said. “But because Dillon is kept outside my pack, I’ve been able to straddle a thin line.”
“For now,” Dillon added, and a heavy look passed between them. “The penalty if Kyle is found out would be harsh.”
The semantics spun around in her head, unable to resolve into any sort of logic. Still, one question stood out among the rest. She raised her face to Kyle’s. “Why did you do it, then? Why did you risk yourself to help Dillon?”
He swallowed and glanced at the other man.
“He sensed our destined bond the minute he saw me,” Dillon said. “The same way I felt it with you.”
The air grew thick as silence fell between them, and her breaths came heavy and with more difficulty. The urge to kiss Kyle for coming to Dillon’s aid, and to kiss Dillon just for looking so damn hot while he stared at her from under the tilted angle of his hat, slammed into her fast and hard. She flicked out her tongue to moisten lips blasted dry by the cold air.
Dillon saw her motion and moved toward her, but she stiffened. “I should really get going.”
“You’re already here,” Kyle said, pointing ahead of them.
“I am?”
She followed his motion with her gaze and saw a sloped roof a short distance down the hill. She shook her head in amazement. “So if I had just kept going and hadn’t happened to glance over at the cave at that precise moment, I’d have stumbled right over the ranger station within a half hour.”
Allister, J. Rose - Disowned Cowboys [Lone Wolves of Shay Falls] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 6