by Moira Rogers
It jabbed at the heart of his worst fears, and it was a sign of his own insecurity that it hurt that much. He refused to let it show, only nodding. “Maybe I am. Who better to keep her safe from the hunters?”
But it only seemed to agitate the old woman more. “The hunters are gone. Cold, I said. Behind the plastic and scattered on the wind. No one left.” Her grip softened, and her other hand crept out of the blankets to stroke the back of Lorelei’s hand. “But you’re here.”
“I’m—” Lorelei cleared her throat and closed her eyes, but tears glittered on her lashes. “I can’t stay, Boz.”
The woman was a broken wolf. His instincts rebelled at the idea of bringing her into his pack, bringing her closer to Lorelei, to fragile Mae and young, tired Kaley. A broken wolf could drag a pack down. Zack knew that—that was why he’d left.
But the tangy salt of Lorelei’s tears was a knife to his gut. “The condo has two bedrooms,” he told her softly. “She can stay there.”
Lorelei opened her eyes. “Will you come with us? Colin and me?”
Boz rocked a little, gaze shifting from one to the other. “Tell the man. Tell him he don’t need to worry none. You found your her, but old Boz can’t touch the moon. Only the cold. Only the screams.”
Lorelei shook her head and stroked the woman’s hair. “You can leave Memphis. We live on a farm, you know—there’s trees and grass, even a pond.”
Can’t touch the moon. It was one way to explain how a wolf this fractured had crept along in the shadows without revealing too much. A woman so fractured that her wolf didn’t rise at all. Shane would have been able to tell him if the whispers of such things were more than just rumors, but looking at Lorelei, Colin didn’t need to ask.
Lorelei knew.
He cleared his throat. “There’s not much room in the Corvette, but we can all fit for the ride to the condo. We can get some food into her, and you can ask your questions again.”
“I don’t need to.” She zipped up the small backpack and tucked it under the blankets, close to Boz, who’d resumed her rocking and staring. Lorelei rose and folded her arms over her chest. “She already answered them. I know where to go.”
Colin hesitated. “You don’t think she’ll come with us?”
“No.” Lorelei turned away. “I don’t know how many times I’ve asked. She never has.”
The thin thread of relief shamed him, but he was honest enough to admit it in the quiet of his own tired mind. “We can come back before we leave,” he offered, nonetheless. “We can try.”
She nodded and wiped her cheeks. “Come on.” The words drifted behind her as she started down the sharp incline toward the road below. “There are warehouses in Whitehaven. Christian used them.”
After giving Boz one last searching look, Colin hurried to catch up with Lorelei. “What did I miss?”
“Behind the plastic—that’s what she said, right?”
Boz had said so many things that he hadn’t been able to pick out the ones that had meaning. “Cold. Does that mean they’re dead?”
Lorelei rubbed her hands over her arms through her jacket. “When Christian killed someone but needed to wait to dispose of the body, he’d stick it in a freezer.” She met Colin’s eyes. “The warehouses used to be meatpacking plants.”
Shit. Shit. Without thinking, he slid both arms around her and eased her back against his chest. Just for a moment, but hopefully long enough to erase some of the cold. “Tomorrow,” he told her, making his tone firm. “Tomorrow is soon enough to go look.”
She stood in his embrace, tense and unmoving. “Scattered on the wind. If they’re all gone or dead, what the hell happened to that man on the farm?”
Something different. Something worse. Invisible death from an unknown source, without the scant comfort of knowing why and how. Or maybe worse would be walking into the factory and finding familiar faces staring back at her, dead and cold, and knowing the predator hunting them would never stop.
No good options, not really. Just different kinds of uncertainty and pain, neither of which she should face with her emotions so frayed. “We’ll find out, Lorelei. Between all of us, we’ll find out. But we’ve done all we can tonight. I need food, and rest.”
“It’s getting late,” she agreed, her gaze tracking up to where Boz sat, rocking gently. “I could use a drink.”
The first and hardest lesson Colin’s father had taught him about life as an enforcer was never to dull the edge of pain with liquor. But Lorelei wasn’t facing an endless battle, just one night where her nerves could use a little fuzzing. “We’ll find something. This is Memphis. There must be moonshine around.”
“Booze and beer,” she corrected absently.
Colin kept his hands on her shoulders as he guided her toward the car. “Whatever you want, honey—”
“Don’t say that.” Lorelei whirled around, out of his grasp, her expression fierce. “Don’t call me that, and don’t act like I’m more than a responsibility.”
The words hit him low and hard, the pain so surprising he bit off a response without thinking. “Of course you are. You’re pack.”
“Pack?” she repeated. “That’s bullshit. You don’t trust me to have your back. I’ve seen the way you look at me.” She lowered her voice. “You think I’m just as broken as Boz.”
“The hell I do,” he growled. “God damn, woman.”
“So say it.” She stepped close, right up in front of him, her face tilted up to his. “Say you think I’m fine.”
A thousand miles of human emotion and pack instinct lay between the woman rocking blindly, her wolf caged, and the woman standing in front of him. But fine… If he tried to force out the word, she’d hear the lie on his tongue.
“You’re hurt,” he said instead. “Not broken. Hurt.”
Lorelei made a frustrated noise and tried to turn away, but this time he didn’t let her. He caught her shoulder and pulled her around. “I’m hurt too, all right? I’m not perfect. I’m not Jay or Fletcher, who can make the world right again. But I’m trying.”
“Stop it—” A sob caught in her throat as she slapped at his hand. She stumbled back a single step, and smoothed her hair away from her face with shaky hands.
This was hell. Tears and trembling and him frozen in the face of both, torn between the need to protect and the knowledge that his protection only made her feel worse.
Overriding both was brutal common sense, along with the survival instinct he’d trusted his whole life. “Get in the car, Lorelei. You can shout at me until you’re hoarse if you want, and I won’t touch you. But we need to get out of here.”
She didn’t argue. She didn’t say anything as she climbed into the passenger seat, buckled her safety belt and stared out the window. Colin counted himself lucky the car was still there—in one piece—and took his place behind the wheel in equal silence.
He’d shamed her somehow. He’d belittled her, made her feel weak and small. Or maybe the night had done that—he could read between the lines well enough to see she’d lived not so differently from the people they’d met tonight. Homeless and scared on the streets, maybe even as a wolf.
The only way to bring them back to level ground was to strip away his own armor. “I saw my first dead body when I was eight.”
He caught it in his peripheral vision, the way her hair flew as she turned to face him. “You what?”
“I was eight,” he continued, like they were having a conversation. Just chitchat. “My father had a job come up that he had to take, but my aunt was sick, so I couldn’t stay with her like I usually did. He brought me with him and told me to stay in the car, but I didn’t. Because I was eight.”
“Was he a werewolf too? Was that the job?”
“He was.” Colin tightened his grip on the wheel. “I wasn’t. I was born human, like my mother.”
She was barely breathing, her slow, shallow breaths harsh in the quiet of the car. “What happened?”
“My father had to
put down a rogue, a wolf who was hurting girls. Hunting them, looking for a mate to turn or something, I don’t know—but he cornered the bastard and put him down. And he was getting ready to bury the body when I got bored and went looking for him.” The memory should have faded over the years, like so much of his youth, but he could still smell the dirt and the blood, could see those unblinking eyes staring up from a head wrenched to an impossible angle.
“No,” she whispered, contradicting her own question. “Colin, you don’t have to.”
He shook his head. “It’s who I am. It’s how it all started. Maybe I should have been traumatized, but my father clapped a hand on my shoulder and he said, ‘It’s okay, Colin. We got the monster. It won’t hurt anyone else.’ And I believed him. That’s all I’ve ever known. Trying to get the monster before it hurts someone else.”
She reached for his hand, her fingers barely skimming his before pulling away. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right.”
“No, it was fair and right. That’s not why I’m telling you this.”
“Why, then?”
“Because it’s not fair that I get to go tramping through your past, and you don’t know a damn thing about mine.”
Lorelei stared at him for long moments and finally shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what to say. That never happens to me, except with you.”
It didn’t sound much like a compliment, but a pretty damn smug—and entirely human—part of him radiated satisfaction. “Good,” he replied lightly. “That makes us square.”
She worried her lower lip with her teeth. “Does it?”
“I never know what to say, either. But I’m an alpha, honey. Not knowing what to say has never stopped me from blundering into a conversation. I’ll try to get better.”
Her head hit the seat. “Sometimes I just get so tired.”
“Well, there’s an easy cure for that.” He could tuck her into bed and forget to wake her up for twelve hours, twelve blissful hours free of him and his confusing conversation. Twelve hours where he knew she was getting exactly what she needed.
“Thank you.” The soft murmur barely reached his ears over the purr of the engine.
It felt almost like victory.
Chapter Six
The aroma of bacon, eggs and scorched pancakes woke her. Lorelei rolled out of bed, rubbing at her bleary eyes as she made her way down the short hallway to the kitchen.
Colin was there, swearing at the stove as plumes of smoke rose from the griddle pan. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and she blinked at the broad expanse of his back. His jeans had ridden down, almost indecently low on the muscled swell of his ass, baring the strong lines of his hips too.
She cleared her throat and reached past him for the knob controlling the stove eye. “Heat’s too high.”
“Damn it.” He scowled at the pan and used a bent spatula to scrape up the blackened pancake. “I haven’t done this in about twenty years.”
“Then let me.”
His frown deepened as he brandished the spatula like a weapon. “I should learn to do this. Eden glares when us guys don’t help cook.”
If he wanted to learn, so be it. “Okay, what did you use to grease the pan? Butter or oil?” His awkward silence was answer enough, and Lorelei reached for the refrigerator door. “We’ll start over.”
She went through it step by step—heating and greasing the pan, and pouring out the small mounds of batter—all the while trying to ignore the warm press of his bare arm against hers. When bubbles began to break through the surface, she flipped one pancake, then handed him the spatula.
A tiny smile tugged at his lips as he repeated the motion on the other two. “So I guess my first mistake was thinking that warm cooks and hot cooks faster.”
“Mmm, sometimes all hot does is burn.”
He laughed shortly and continued to watch the pancakes. “Words to live by, eh?”
She leaned against the edge of the counter and watched him. “I think so.”
If her perusal bothered him, he gave no sign. All of his attention seemed fixed on the task at hand with an almost endearing level of attention, as if producing an edible breakfast was the most important task in the world. He didn’t glance at her when he spoke again. “Did you get some rest?”
She hadn’t expected to, not after the stress and pain of the last few days, not to mention the trials to come. But she’d slept deeply, and if she dreamed, she didn’t remember. “I did, thanks.”
“Good. This condo’s meant to be safe, but it feels a little…” He shrugged. “Depressing, I guess. Faded scent of a dozen different wolves, all of them rolling through here alone.”
Lorelei had been in far less comforting surroundings. “It’s not so bad.”
“I guess not.” The spatula hovered over the pancake as he frowned again. “How do I know when it’s burning?”
She peered down into the pan. “They’re done. Need a plate?”
He nodded to the cupboard next to the fridge. “There are some in there.”
What the cabinet held were three mismatched plates, one with chips along the edge, and several varieties of paper plates. A search of the utensil drawer yielded the same—a handful of cheap or disposable items. It was clear this was what Colin had meant. People had come, stayed for a night or a week, but they’d never made themselves at home.
“We were lucky to find a spatula,” he told her as he transferred food to the plates. “Probably means Ryan Whelan’s been through here at some point. He’s the only enforcer I know who loves to cook. Leaves fancy kitchen shit behind him like a trail of bread crumbs.”
Lorelei bit the inside of her cheek to hide a smile. “Then we are lucky. Now we can have pancakes.” She pulled the fresh carton of orange juice from the refrigerator, poured two glasses and sat down at the table.
“Assuming I didn’t screw up the batter,” he grumbled, but there was amusement under it as he bumped the box of baking mix with his elbow on his way to the table. It was already set with salt and pepper and torn-off paper towels to serve as napkins, and he smiled as he sank into the other chair. “I called Green Pines this morning to check in. Everything’s fine there.”
The words surprised her, not because she hadn’t expected that everything would be all right at the farm, but because she hadn’t thought to wonder. Somehow, being with Colin made her feel safe, as if she didn’t have to worry about such things.
But of course she did. They all did. Lorelei nodded. “That’s good.”
“I guess Mae and Kaley got some big order from a store in Dyersburg, thanks to the fair, so they’re busy in the barn. Mae promoted Fletcher to head of the mail room.”
“Errands to the post office?” She set her juice aside and looked up to find him staring at her chest. She ducked her head and caught his gaze. “Hi.”
Colin started and jerked his gaze away. “Sorry,” he rasped, then cleared his throat. “Sorry, I wasn’t—”
“Pretty sure you were,” she countered. “Honestly, if anyone gets to stare, it should be me.”
His lips twitched. “Jay’s feeling the urge to drive down here and kick my ass, and he doesn’t even know why.”
He clearly liked the thought of her, hungrily drinking in the sight of him. “Does my attention flatter your ego?”
Colin shifted in his chair. “No, not thinking with my ego at this particular moment.”
“Really? Enlighten me.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be pretty hard to do, since I promised my alpha I wouldn’t chase you.”
“I remember,” she teased. “I don’t think I made him any promises of the sort, though. Which means I can do whatever I want, yes?”
His gaze jumped to hers, and the look in his eyes—for one moment it was nothing but unchecked hunger and glowing gold, the wolf fighting to join the hunt before Colin squeezed his eyes shut. “Anything you want,” he agreed in a rough whisper, and she couldn’t tell if it was a challenge, a warnin
g or a plea.
It didn’t matter, because it drew her in, wouldn’t let her go. Her chair scraped across the floor when she rose, but the sound of her heartbeat drowned out everything else as she rounded the table. “I can stare at you all day long. I can flirt.” She leaned over until her lips brushed his ear. “I could even kiss you.”
His body went rigid, his bare skin radiating heat. “I don’t know if I could be expected to hold to any promises, not if you kissed me first.”
“Yeah.” He smelled good, like leather and spice, and she wanted to nestle closer. Instead, she straightened. “That’s why I’m not going to. I don’t want to be the evil temptress who foiled all your noble plans by not keeping her tongue to herself.”
Before she could back away, he looped an arm around her waist and turned his head. Just turned his head, but his breath blew against her belly through her thin pink tank top, and in the next moment he had his face pressed against her as he inhaled sharply and exhaled on a soft growl.
An unfair move, deeper and more compelling than a kiss because it was pure instinct. She answered with her own, pulling hard at his hair as she swallowed a whimper.
He nudged the hem of her shirt up with his nose, and his stubble scraped her skin. His breath tickled over her, warm as he spoke. “You trust me.”
“I trust you,” she agreed softly.
She felt his smile, his lips curving just above her navel. “You feel safe?”
“Yes.” At least she could give him that honesty. “I wish you did too.”
He shuddered under her touch and pressed closer. “I feel something better.”
“Something against Jay’s rules?”
“No.” His arm tightened as he shoved the table away and twisted, tugging her to sit across his lap. His face found her hair this time, and he nuzzled the side of her throat. “I feel like I’m home.”
The admission warmed her even as she realized it wasn’t about her, not specifically. He had a pack, a place to belong, things she’d taken for granted over the past few years. “I understand, Colin. I really do.”
Another shudder rocked through him, and he settled one hand at her hip, fingers splayed wide. His thumb edged under the hem of her shirt again, but he seemed focused on pressing close to her neck. “Good. Because the rest of it is very against Jay’s rules.”