Haunted Wolves: Green Pines, Book 2

by Moira Rogers

  And over the edge.

  Once wouldn’t be enough, not like this. His growl confirmed it as she shuddered through release only to find he’d shifted his grip. He pinned one of her hands to the mattress, their arms stretched above their heads, and his other hand swept down her body until his fingertips teased across her clit.

  Trapped and shaking, with no time to recover or come down. Lorelei rode the fresh surge of pleasure with a choked cry, followed by another and then another, until everything melted into euphoria, a storm of sound and touch and bliss.

  Until they were one.

  “With me,” he groaned, pressing his cheek to hers. The heel of his hand held her hips pinned as he rode her deep and hard, grunting with every thrust. “Once more, with me.”

  She couldn’t, not again—and then she did, a sudden, clenching twist so powerful it stole what little breath she had left. Colin swore, an obscene curse cut off when he stiffened above her, trembling as hard as she had as release took him.

  Lorelei lay beneath him, gasping, her forehead pressed against the mattress and her body close to his.

  He stilled at last, his face resting against her bent neck. “All right, sweetheart?”

  “No,” she muttered. “I can’t move.”

  Laughing, he rolled them both to their sides and situated her in a more comfortable position. “Better?”

  “That wasn’t what I meant.” She stretched out her quivering legs and brushed her hair back from her forehead before holding out her hand so he could see it shaking. “See?”

  “Smug.” Colin folded his fingers around hers and drew her hand up for a kiss.

  The sun was shining now, and sharp, bright beams pierced the dim confines of the room. “Dylan and Sasha will be headed back to Montana today. We’ll have to get up soon to help Jay and Eden see them off.”

  Colin stilled behind her, the warmth of his presence turning hesitant. Uncertain. “And Zack with them,” he said quietly.

  He always tensed whenever the subject came up, but he never pursued the answers he so obviously craved. “Why don’t you just ask?” she whispered.

  “It’s complicated.” He tucked his forehead against the back of her neck, and his words tickled the skin between her shoulder blades. “It’s a tangle. And it’s stupid.”

  “He and I—we’ve never been like that.” Lorelei felt awkward even saying it.

  “He’s important to you,” Colin said, sounding just as awkward. “That means he has to be important to me. And I want him to get better, but I want to beat the shit out of him too.”

  “So do I,” she admitted. “So does Mae. The only person who doesn’t want to smack him upside the head sometimes is Kaley, and that’s just because she can’t let herself be that angry with him. Not after everything that’s happened.”

  “Shane and I have been spending time with him since the night Kaley got caught in the spell.” Colin smoothed a hand over Lorelei’s hair, petting her, though it seemed to soothe him as much as her. “I think he should go to Red Rock, but I didn’t encourage him. I didn’t trust myself to, because maybe deep down, I’m always going to be a little jealous.”

  “That is stupid.” She needed to look at Colin, so she turned in his arms. “How can you hate him for not getting it done and be jealous of him, all at the same time?”

  The corner of Colin’s mouth quirked up. “We’re men, love. And wolves. We’re capable of fairly conflicting emotions.” He touched her face, tracing the curve of it from just below her eye to the edge of her mouth. “And possessiveness.”

  “Zack belongs to someone else. And I…” She covered Colin’s hand with hers, trapping it against her cheek. “I belong to you.”

  There was nothing dark about his eyes as he grinned down at her before leaning in to claim a kiss. In fact, for the first time since she’d met him, there was nothing dark or closed off about Colin Knox at all.

  If only she could say the same for herself.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zack was gone, but he’d left a legacy of newly built furniture that needed to be assembled, enough to give Mae and Kaley a solid foundation from which to build their business.

  And Kaley didn’t want to look at any of it. Or at Colin, for that matter.

  “She just needs time,” Mae told him in a low voice as she dragged him toward the back of the barn. She had her slender fingers wrapped around his arm in a surprising grip, and seemed unbothered by his proximity or the physical contact. That was a change, though the fact that she was clad in one of Shane’s sweatshirts wasn’t. His scent wrapped around and through her own, a warning and a shield.

  Not so different from his own scent around Lorelei—or hers around him. No wonder Mae was hauling him around like a tame family dog now. To her, he probably was. And he’d be damned if he ruined her moment of confidence by snarling over it—especially because Shane might punch his teeth down his throat for his trouble.

  “I can set furniture up later,” he told her as she shoved open the storage room door. Adorable confidence or not, he wasn’t much in the mood to be relegated to sorting smelly bottles in a dusty closet. Not if he could be spending the same time with Lorelei. “You don’t need—”

  “Oh, don’t look so worried. I’m not going to interrupt date night.” She released him only to rise up on her toes and fumble for the edge of a box tucked high on one of the shelves. “Here, I can’t reach that.”

  Colin reached over her head without thinking, and froze when she stiffened. Mae edged carefully to one side, taking herself out of the scant space between him and the shelf, and she didn’t look at him again until she had her back against the opposite wall. “The box,” she said quickly, covering the awkward moment. “It got mixed in with our soap supplies, but it’s actually some of the things my friend salvaged from Lorelei’s apartment. Can you take it to her?”

  The top of the box had been cut open, but the flaps had been folded securely in on themselves. Colin hefted the box and eyed Mae, hesitant to leave while her cheeks were still pale, drained of color. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, because she was one of Lorelei’s people, and that meant so much more now. The responsibility, the need to protect the people she loved because their hurts were hers, as well.

  Mae shrugged and burrowed into the too-big sweatshirt like it was armor. “It’s not personal,” she said after a moment, gaze focused on his ear. “I know Lorelei wouldn’t be with you if you were—” Her teeth snapped together, and she shook her head. “I’m okay, I promise. Go. Make her smile some more, okay? I missed seeing that.”

  The words were almost an order. “Yes, ma’am.”

  That won him a wide grin. He claimed it as victory and retreated through the barn, straight out into the brisk evening chill. He hurried across the backyard and up the steps, bundling into the house through the back door. Eden’s and Jay’s voices came softly from the kitchen, but Colin strode down the hallway without pausing and knocked on Lorelei’s door.

  She pulled it open, a ponytail holder in her mouth and one hand holding her hair on top of her head. She raised both eyebrows and stepped back, pulling the hair elastic from between her lips. “Come in.”

  Her throat had healed, with only the shadow of one or two bite marks lingering on her skin, marks that stirred his body in a primal, satisfying way. He smiled lazily, even as the rest of him sped up. “Hey.”

  “Hi.” She secured her loose ponytail and propped her hands on her hips. “What’s that?”

  “Box of yours.” He liked her with her hair up, with the smooth column of her neck begging to be nuzzled or licked. “It got mixed up in the stuff from Memphis.”

  She went oddly still, her gaze riveted to the box. “Give it to me.”

  The roughness of the words snapped Colin’s attention to her face. Moving carefully, he held out the box. “Are you all right?”

  She snatched it with shaking hands. “You shouldn’t have this. It’s none of your business.”

  His heart
lurched. Fear and anger shredded the room in a panic his wolf demanded they quell—a daunting task when he couldn’t imagine what could possibly be in the damn box that would provoke this reaction.

  “I didn’t look in it,” he said anyway, keeping his voice as even and reassuring as he could with his pulse rising along with her anxiety. “I just took it from Mae and brought it here.”

  “Good.” Lorelei set the box on the windowsill and turned, blocking it from his view.

  “Lorelei, honey?” He took a careful step forward, like inching onto thin ice. Only she was the ice, and it would kill him to hear her crack. “What’s—?”

  She growled through gritted teeth. “Don’t.”

  He froze. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t ask.” Her voice broke, and she covered her mouth to stifle a sob. “Get out.”

  Her pain dragged him across the room. “Jesus, Lorelei, talk to me.”

  “You can’t leave it alone, can you? Always pushing,” she hissed. She swept up the box, crushed it against his chest and tore open the flaps. “You want to see? Let’s see what kind of a sad, fucking life fits in a cardboard box.”

  Gripping the box with one arm, he tried to stop her. “You don’t have to show me—”

  She shook him off and flipped a fake leather portfolio onto the floor. “My college diploma. It took me years to finish because I was working full-time. Here’s my birth certificate, Social Security card—oh, the court paperwork when my doctors had me committed. Need to hang on to that.”

  He hadn’t known—not for sure—but he wasn’t surprised, either. Not after Memphis, after Boz. “You think you can scare me away?”

  But Lorelei only laughed, a hysterical sound that faded when she picked up a picture of a little blond-haired boy in blue overalls. “This is Robbie. He only liked chocolate ice cream, and he broke every crayon he ever owned.”

  His heart plummeted this time, straight through the bottom of his stomach. The boy had Lorelei’s beautiful blue eyes and the crooked, open version of her smile.

  She hadn’t told him so much. She hadn’t told him anything.

  “My son,” she confirmed, as though he had asked. Then she looked up at him, her eyes dry and red. “I killed him.”

  His lips were numb, but he managed one word, one he knew had to be true. “No.”

  “You weren’t there.”

  The ice was cracking under their feet, but he couldn’t back away and let her plunge into memory alone. Every time she’d clammed up before, he had relented, cursing himself for pushing too hard. Maybe that was the civilized thing, but her wolf would only feel the retreat, the abandonment.

  He wouldn’t abandon her now. Couldn’t, in all honesty, and maybe that wasn’t civilized, but he didn’t fucking care. “So tell me.”

  “The seatbelt…” Her eyes lost focus, like she was staring at something far away. Remembering. “They told me he died instantly, that he never felt a thing. But they would’ve told me that no matter what, wouldn’t they?”

  He’d told that gentle lie too many times to remember. “Maybe. Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

  She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “They said it was guilt. That that’s why I told them there was a man in the road, not a wolf. But I know.”

  Shit. “A werewolf?”

  Lorelei wrapped her arms around her body. “I’m sorry.”

  “It isn’t your fault.” The words came automatically. She had to believe that. He had to make her believe that, even if she never wanted to look at him again when it was over. “If a werewolf got you—”

  “He got me.” Power snapped through the room, crackling and defiant. “And then I got him.”

  Only one response to that. “Good.”

  Just like that, the angry energy vanished, and her shoulders slumped. “I didn’t want you to know. I don’t want to know.”

  The room was so quiet. He couldn’t tell if the danger had passed, or if they’d plummeted through the ice into deadly, freezing water. He couldn’t feel anything from her but sorrow and defeat, and the damn box was crushed against his chest, a wall of her making.

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” he said carefully, ignoring how the words felt like a lie around the edges. He didn’t care what she told him, as long as she trusted him enough to tell him to begin with. But there wasn’t time for his pain when hers lay so close to the surface. “I just care about you.”

  She laughed mirthlessly. “If it doesn’t matter, you have bigger problems than me and my crazy.”

  That struck home, and stung enough for the box to bend under his fingers. “Yeah. Never pretended otherwise, honey.”

  Guilt flashed across her features. “Just go. Be glad this happened sooner and not later.”

  “Lorelei—”

  “Get out.” Her voice cracked, then rose. “Get out, get out, get out!”

  They were in the icy water, without a doubt. It was the only explanation for how chillingly numb he felt as he set the damning box on the ground and turned to find Jay and Eden standing in the hallway, blocking his retreat.

  In complete silence, Eden stepped to one side, freeing a path for him to cross the hall to his own bedroom door. He couldn’t face sheets that smelled like sex and Lorelei, couldn’t face anything soft or warm or comfortable. So he stepped between the alphas, careful not to touch either of them, and turned toward the stairs. Toward freedom.

  Oblivion. “If she needs me to leave the farm, I will,” he told Eden quietly. She parted her lips to answer, and he bolted. Eden had made her loyalties clear from day one—the females of Zack’s pack were her highest priority, the ones who needed her protection and deserved her compassion.

  And he was what he’d always been. The wolf you called when you wanted to tear down something ugly, not build something beautiful.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She could see Colin from her window, crossing the side yard toward the woods.

  Already, the whole awful scene felt like it had happened to someone else, like Lorelei had only watched it from afar, a disinterested if sympathetic third party. Defense mechanism. Easier than having to face that she’d been the one to hurt him with her helpless anger and careless, mean words.

  As if any of it had ever been his fault.

  Eden closed the door, engaging the privacy wards and leaving Jay firmly on the other side. “Most of the time, I’d let it go at that. I don’t want to push any of you, but not talking isn’t working anymore.”

  “But you know what will, huh?”

  “No.” Eden crossed her arms over her chest, her stance firm but not challenging. “All I know is if you need someone to lash out at, it’s going to be me. I can do that for him. And you.”

  Except she wasn’t angry. She was scared. “I haven’t told anyone. Zack doesn’t even know.”

  Sympathy filled Eden’s gaze. “Lorelei, I guarantee there are things Zack never told you. Horrible things about his life on this farm. We all have scars, and we all hide them. Mine were in a police file for Jay to see, and I got mad when he went and looked, because then he knew all the ways I’d failed.”

  “You don’t understand.” Lorelei faced her. “If Colin knows—if anyone does—it makes it true. Real. And it can’t be. I—I can’t deal with it.”

  Eden unfolded her arms, but didn’t reach for Lorelei. She just spoke in a low, intent voice, one trembling with confidence. “Yes, you can.”

  “You don’t understand,” Lorelei said again. Her gaze fell on the box, and the corner of the picture sticking out of it. Nothing so simple as failure or heartbreak. The end of her world.

  Eden’s gaze followed hers, and she crouched in front of the box and ran her fingers along the edge, stopping just short of the picture of Robbie. “I don’t,” she agreed softly, looking up at Lorelei. “I don’t understand what you felt like or what you’ve been through. But I know how strong you are. I can feel it, just like you can feel me.”

  If only. “Being a wolf has
n’t helped me with this. It’s only hurt more.”

  Eden’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Why?”

  How could she explain the horror of being imprisoned, not only by doctors who considered her sick, but also by her own body? “When I was first turned, I couldn’t shift. Even when the moon was full.”

  “Oh, hell.” Eden’s gaze fell to the picture again. “How long?”

  The question could have had multiple meanings, but Lorelei ignored them all. “I need to find Colin.”

  Eden opened her mouth and then shut it again without speaking. After a moment she nodded. “Do you want me to walk with you?”

  “No, I—” The last thing she needed was another witness to her guilty conscience. “I should apologize for going off like I did.”

  “All right.” Eden tucked the diploma and commitment papers into the box before folding the flaps over. “I’m here if you need me, Lorelei. Always. No matter what you say, no matter what secrets you tell or hold back. This is your home, and it’s never going away.”

  Lorelei stepped forward without thinking and grabbed Eden’s hand. “You and Jay have never made me doubt that, not once. My stuff—it’s about me, okay?”

  Eden met her eyes with a smile. “That’s the part you guys never got a chance to learn, because no one ever taught it to Zack, either. Pack, Lorelei. It means never having to be as weak as you are alone. You get to be as strong as we all are together.”

  Maybe they could help her—but only once she’d started to help herself. “I’ll see you later?”

  “Of course. Don’t stay out in the woods too long.” Eden squeezed her hand. “I’m running into town to pick up dinner for everyone, since Mae and Kaley are still out in the barn.”

  “I’ll fix it, Eden.” The only promise she could offer, the only one she had left.

  The house was a mélange of scents, but she knew where Colin had retreated—to the woods. And sure enough, once she made it outside, it was easy to pick up his trail and follow it across the backyard.