by Kate Douglas
I’ve seen Hal out at night a lot, but not like this. I wonder if he figures now he’s safe? The deputies didn’t do much of a search once they got Seth. I heard Hal was really helpful, taking them to the barn where the transfers were made.
Convenient, don’t you think, added Tinker, that he was so willing to lead the deputies in the opposite direction of where he’s headed now?
Sneaky little bastard, isn’t he?
Lisa snorted. Leave it to Tia.
They followed in the dark, padding silently along through the heavy brush at the side of the road. The trucks moved beyond the first inhabited wolf enclosure. The second was inhabited as well, but the third one, empty as far as Lisa knew, proved to be their destination.
She’d not had any reason to come this far for the past few weeks. There was a new lock on the gate and fresh tracks leading beyond where there shouldn’t have been any activity at all. Hal got out and opened the gate, and his companion drove the first truck through. The other two followed. They left the gate open and unlocked.
Four dark wolves slipped through the open gate and trotted along behind the trucks, staying to the shadows. Their dark coats blended perfectly. Even Lisa had trouble seeing her packmates.
When the trucks veered off to the left in the direction of a large meadow, Lisa led the wolves along a trail to the right. They climbed to the top of a small bluff covered in scrub and twisted, burned trees from a long-ago fire. Threading their way carefully through the tangle, they reached a spot overlooking the area where the men now worked under portable lights.
What the hell are they doing? Luc raised up for a better view.
Looks like they’re planting something. Or weeding…Gardening at this time of night? Tinker sat back on his haunches.
Lisa watched, fascinated that an idiot like Hal managed to keep something this big under wraps. I think it’s a pot farm. They’re actually working on the drip system. Look over there. She pointed in the direction of a couple of men who carried large rolls of black tubing. He’s growing marijuana. I’m almost positive. What do you want to bet he’s got patches in each of the empty pens? She stopped to do some calculations. From the size of this one, and figuring the number of empties, he could have close to fifty acres under cultivation under all the trees and native plants. He’s got water, and the land is fenced and private. It’s perfect.
We’ll need to take a better look during the day, but I bet you’re right. Tinker stretched. There’s not much we can do without evidence. Are the plants up yet?
It’s too early. They harvest in the fall. Probably just getting ready to plant. They’d need to get the drip system in first. This operation looks pretty sophisticated. I imagine photos would help. Once he plants, there’d be seed. We might have to sit on this for a while, until the plants are up.
Tinker turned and looked at Lisa. You seem to know a lot about this.
She sighed. You were in my head when we linked. Don’t you remember my previous living arrangements? I lived under a bridge in Florida for a while. Drugs were a way of life. There’s no reason to hide what I did, but I’m not proud of it.
Guess I missed that.
Lisa heard him sigh and saw him look away. Was he regretting that bond? Did Tinker wonder what kind of nutcase he’d hooked up with?
Luc turned around and headed back through the brush. The others followed. They slipped through the open gate and headed back toward Lisa’s cabin, but everyone seemed unusually quiet tonight.
About a mile from her cabin, Tinker stopped and turned to Tia and Luc. You guys go on. I want to talk to Lisa.
Tia and Luc headed down the trail without comment. Tinker sat and watched Lisa without saying anything, then suddenly shifted. She did as well, though it was cold out tonight. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, but it was as much from nerves as the cold.
“Okay. You want to talk. What about?”
Tinker stood apart from her, hands on his hips, held tilted to one side as he studied her. Lisa had no idea what he was thinking, what he wanted from her. Finally, he smiled, sort of a lopsided grin that told her he was every bit as confused as she was.
“Do you love me?” he asked. “I mean, really love me in the way of two people who plan on spending a lifetime together?”
What a stupid question! “Of course—”
“No.” Tinker held up his hand. The smile was gone. “I want you to think about it. Don’t just say what you think I want to hear. Think about what Lisa Quinn wants.”
She felt a chill run along her spine. There was something so deadly serious about Tinker. So final. “Does it really matter? We’ve linked. Doesn’t that mean we’re mates no matter what?”
“No.” He stepped back, putting more space between them. “Our link wasn’t complete. It happened before you shifted. As amazing as it was, I don’t think it was anything near the link Luc and Tia shared. Not what other Chanku have described. I realized it, talking with Luc. You still have secrets. There are things you haven’t learned. You don’t know how to block your thoughts. That’s something you would know after a complete mating link because it’s something I know. Neither of us has totally bonded with the other. You still have a choice, Lisa. You could choose to go on without me. Start your life fresh without me in it. Think about it.”
She stood there in the dark, shivering, her arms wrapped tightly, protectively, around her waist. Tinker waited with his arms at his sides, his body so dark he looked part of the night. She tried to imagine life without him and couldn’t. Tried to remember her life before Tinker and realized it never truly existed.
For so many lost years, she’d been Lisa, the druggie under the bridge. The one who dulled her miserable life with whatever worked, until the wolves called her. Until she climbed out of her personal sewer and found a job, then took the money from that job to come to Colorado.
As much as she’d loved it here, she’d never felt as if she belonged. Not until Tinker came into her life did she truly find a home. It wasn’t the place; it was the man. He was her home, her future, the one she wanted beside her.
Was there really any other answer? For once in her life, Lisa realized there were no more questions. Only answers, and they lay in the heart of the man she loved, in the wisdom and patience behind his amber eyes. She stepped forward and took Tinker’s hands in hers. His were warm; hers felt like ice. His long fingers wrapped around hers, and he held her tight, but he didn’t pull her close.
She looked up into his eyes, and their amber lights seemed to glisten in the moonlight. What could she say to him that would convey to him how much he meant to her? What words could convey the sense of love, of future, of hope she felt with him in her life?
Simple really, the words. Said with love, said in a way that told him she meant them. From her heart. With her mind.
I love you, Tinker. I need you. I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I’m not perfect, and I’ll never be as good as you seem to think I am, but I promise to be the very best I can be, for you.
He didn’t say a word. He reached for her, and she merely flowed into his embrace. He kissed her, and Lisa felt as if this were the first kiss they’d shared. The first time he’d held her. His body was strong and solid against hers, his arms around her protecting, holding. Loving.
When he shifted, it was the most natural thing in the world to shift with him. When he nipped her shoulder, pawed her back, and growled in frustration, she turned to him in an instinctual move that left her ready for Tinker to mount her, ready to take the sharp thrust of his wolven cock deep inside her body.
The sensations were so different, but the feelings weren’t. She loved him, whether human or wolf. She needed him.
His front legs caught her shoulders with sharp claws, and she whimpered with the force of his taking. She braced her legs to hold his weight and felt him deep inside, ramming in and out with pistonlike speed and strength, felt the solid knot of muscle that slipped past her vaginal opening, penetrat
ed her sex, and locked them together.
Then it happened. There, with bodies tied and trembling at the perfect peak of their shared orgasm. The link that was so much more than the first one, so much sweeter because it was expected, planned, wanted. Lisa opened her thoughts and her heart, shared her memories, her needs, her desires.
As did Tinker. Thousands of bits of his past, her past, his lovers and hers. She truly understood his relationship with Tia and Luc, knew how much he loved Mik and AJ, and in the learning, Lisa loved them, too.
She understood the abilities she’d not learned before—the way to block her thoughts when she needed to and how to send to only one person. All this and more found its way from Tinker’s mind to hers, became part of her thought processes, melded within her own synapses and knowledge.
Her legs collapsed beneath his superior weight, and Tinker tumbled to the ground with her, their bodies still connected, his cock locked in place, pulsing within her clenching, rippling sheath. Both of them panted, tongues lolling, eyes half-lidded. For a moment, Lisa let her mind go blank. She absorbed sensation without thought, the pulsing heat of an alien penis lodged tightly within her strange-feeling vagina, the unfamiliar reactions of her bestial body to that of her mate.
This was so different on so many levels. Sex for the sake of procreation, yet she’d not released an egg. Sex as dominance, yet he’d not tried to overwhelm her. Sex as a link that was more gift than anything, a key that unlocked so many different aspects of her new self.
That was the ultimate difference between this act and the one time they’d linked deeply before. This time it had been complete. A total fulfillment of needs, desires, answers.
Lisa stared into Tinker’s amber eyes and felt his deepest thoughts, his desires, his love. It was eternal. Complete. All for her. Erasing all doubts and removing the fears she’d harbored that this wouldn’t last.
Couldn’t last. How wrong she’d been.
As they lay there, linked physically and mentally, Lisa finally understood the concept of family. Finally understood the man who would be her mate, who would love her forever.
Chapter 15
It took a good twenty minutes before the knot in Tinker’s cock shrunk enough that he could pull himself free. Lisa whimpered when he slipped away from her body. They could have separated earlier, had they shifted, but there was no reason, no desire. The mental connection disappeared when they moved apart, and she felt suddenly adrift. Alone. After experiencing a most amazing union, she felt suddenly alone, lying close to Tinker with the deceptively cheerful sound of crickets all around.
Lisa raised her head and looked into Tinker’s eyes, and suddenly the bond was there, as fresh and vivid as it had been during sex. She’d shut him out without realizing.
Obviously, she still had much to learn.
He could lie here all night, staring bemusedly into the feral beauty of Lisa’s amber eyes. She chose him! She’d not been tricked, surprised, or coerced. Of her own free will, she’d chosen Martin McClintock as her mate.
He tried to remember the times someone had changed his life by choosing him. First his foster parents, then Ulrich Mason. Twice in all his twenty-seven years, neither time at his request, though he was certainly grateful.
However, grateful didn’t come close to explaining how he felt about Lisa. How did he thank someone for completing him, for making a lifetime decision based on a week’s experience? For loving him.
He felt something crack deep inside and wondered if it was the armor around his heart. Tears would have welled up in his eyes, but wolves don’t cry. Instead, he stood up, pointed his muzzle to the sky, and howled.
Tinker’s cry was torn from deep inside and echoed off the surrounding hills.
Lisa joined him. The somewhat higher pitch of her voice rose in counterpoint to his. Other wolves, the ones running almost free in the pens, joined in. Long, mournful cries, the occasional sharp yip, Lisa’s voice.
He could pick hers out from among all the others, even if she hadn’t been standing next to him. There was joy in her sound, love, and a bit of humor that they should be standing here in the dark, their noses pointed to the heavens, howling for all they were worth.
They both stopped at the same time. Shook themselves. Tinker gazed into Lisa’s eyes and discovered she felt as shell shocked as he did. The howling from the penned wolves died down, faded away. Once again, the steady chirp of crickets rose to hide the silence. Lisa leaned close and licked his muzzle, swiping her tongue across his mouth.
This was good. Very good. Tail waving in the air, Tinker turned and trotted back to Lisa’s cabin. She followed for a few minutes, then passed him on a wide spot in the trail and led the way.
Heart light, mind at ease, Tinker followed her home.
Tia and Luc waited on the back deck, freshly bathed and dressed, each of them with a glass of chilled Chardonnay. When Lisa raced up the stairs, Tia patted the spot next to her on the long bench where she sat.
Lisa shifted and, ignoring her nudity, sat. She grasped Tia’s proffered glass and took a long swallow just as Tinker shifted and sat on the chair next to Luc.
“We linked. The first one must not have been as complete. This was—”
“Amazing,” Tinker said. “Absolutely amazing.”
Tia laughed. “Can you block your thoughts better?”
“Damn, I sure hope so.”
“What now?” Luc stepped out of the shadows. “Do we report Anderson, or do we wait?”
“We need to report him. Thing is, I worry about the wolves. Even if we had the money to run it now that Dunlop’s in jail, what if the authorities decide to shut this place down? What will happen to the wolves?”
“Don’t worry yet. I’ve got Dad on it. He and Anton will let us know what they find out.” Tia leaned close, took Lisa’s hand, and kissed her on the cheek. She held out her other hand to Tinker, and when he leaned close, she kissed him as well. “I’m more worried about you two. When are you coming home to San Francisco? Luc and I have to leave by the end of the week. We don’t want to leave you here, Lisa—not you or Tinker.”
Lisa raised her head and looked into Tinker’s eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll work something out.”
Lisa and Tia both laughed. Lisa shook her head. “Uhoh. Looks like Tinker’s planning to wing it again.”
Lisa wandered out on the deck the next morning just after six. The others already sat outside, drinking coffee and talking quietly. Luc was holding court at the moment, waving his coffee cup around as he spoke. She was surprised to see them all so wide awake. They’d all slept together on the mattresses that still covered her front room, so exhausted they’d done nothing more than hug and fall asleep.
Her night had been totally dreamless. Refreshing. She’d loved the feeling of sharing her bed with her packmates, with her one true mate.
“I’d like to talk to Ulrich about Anderson’s little farming project, but I doubt we can reach him.” Luc sat in a chair across from the porch swing; Tinker was in the chair beside him. Lisa kissed Tinker and sat down next to Tia on the swing.
Lisa sipped her coffee. It was strong and dark, the way she liked it. A lot like Tinker. She smiled at her own timeworn analogy.
Tinker cocked an eyebrow in question, but Lisa kept her thoughts to herself. Thank goodness she was finally getting the hang of it!
Luc said, “You guys up to contacting Anton?”
It was a simple matter, the four of them holding hands and reaching out to the wizard. Lisa glanced around the small group and snorted. “We look like we’re praying.”
Luc said dryly, “Well, Anton’s a god in his own mind.”
“That’s not fair.” Tia nudged him with her chin but didn’t release his hand. “I’d like to see you say that to his face.”
He just did.
Oh shit. Luc’s face turned a dark red. Tinker laughed out loud.
You’re getting better at this. I sense more strength in your link, in spit
e of Mr. Stone.
Even Luc managed a strangled laugh at Anton’s dry comment. Lisa wondered if her stronger bond with Tinker helped boost their ability to transmit their thoughts. Anton’s voice in her mind felt amazingly intimate, and his immediate grasp of the problems eased much of her tension. With a man this powerful on their side, they could do anything.
I’ll get word to the DEA about Anderson’s activities as soon as you have some solid proof, and I’ll let Ulrich know what’s going on. Lisa, you really need to think about getting a telephone out there.
Thank you. Tinker smirked at Lisa. I’ve told her the same damned thing.
Anton’s laughter faded away as he ended contact. Lisa let go of Tia’s and Tinker’s hands and settled back in the swing once more. She wondered if she’d ever get used to what this body could do. Wasn’t it enough that she could become an entirely different creature? Mindtalking was just one more miracle.
Tinker, of course, was the greatest miracle of all. Lisa wrapped her fingers in his and felt as if everything was going to work out. It had to.
She’d never, not once in her life, been an optimist. Was this a new side of her nature as well? She laughed.
Tinker tilted his head and grinned at her. “What’s that about?”
“Everything. Nothing. All of this. I love you.”
Tinker smiled at her, shrugged his shoulders, and looked over his cup of coffee at Luc. “I don’t get no respect. She thinks of me and laughs.”
Luc held his cup of coffee out in a toast. “Get used to it. You mated an alpha bitch.” Tia punched his arm.
Lisa sat back and sipped her coffee. She’d crossed the greatest hurdle and come over it with a most amazing family in tow. Now all she had to worry about was the sanctuary, the fate of the wolves, Anderson’s pot farm, and how she could stay with the ones she loved.
Hal had locked himself in his office with orders not to be disturbed, and Millie was busy on her computer when Lisa entered headquarters. She’d already sent Luc and Tia off to scour the roads and sent a couple of volunteers to cover Seth’s jobs.