And yet, now, as I enjoyed this tête-à-tête with Crazy Wilder, I started to doubt my own decisions. Should my pack mates and I have fled last night, disappearing into the night with Wade and hoping that the ruckus would blow over before Justin tracked our newest member down? Had I opted to stand and fight for the right reason—to protect my pack? Or had I merely been thumbing my nose at a brother who had always acted as a thorn in my side?
The past doesn't matter, I reminded myself, channeling my inner wolf. I yearned for the simple familiarity of my lupine body, but I had a feeling that Chief Wilder wanted to strike a deal with me, or he wouldn't have been piercing through my skin with his cold, hard eyes, chin resting on one hand as he eyed me consideringly. The question was—could I live with the other alpha's deal or not?
Crazy Wilder liked to play with his prey, and I knew he would have gladly beaten around the bush for another half hour at least. But I was ready to shift and wanted to get this over with, so I cut right to the chase. "My brother and I are stupid pups. I get that. But useful ones, I'm guessing," I offered. "So what do you want from me and what are you planning to give me in exchange?"
For a moment, Chief Wilder simply glared, and I wondered if I'd finally managed to overstep my bounds and anger the wily old wolf. But then he erupted into gales of laughter that seemed to express honest amusement, and yet still didn't sound quite...right. I shivered, but didn't take my gaze away from the older shifter's watering eyes.
Minutes once again passed and I waited as patiently as possible. I'd laid my cards on the table, and now it was time to see whether Crazy Wilder would do the same.
"What's in it for you is simple," the All-Pack host said at last, speaking so quietly that the guards ten feet away were unlikely to make out his words, let alone any other shifter hovering in the nearby trees. "I'll side with you, back your play to make your little clan official, and then I'll let you walk out of here with your brother's prisoner as your own."
Exactly what I'd hoped for in the best-case scenario. Which meant that I was in deep shit since Crazy Wilder never gave something for nothing. "And for you?"
"I don't want anything right now," Crazy Wilder answered immediately, and his lips spread into a wide grin that almost made my teeth chatter. "I want...a favor. To be named later. At a time of my choosing."
Boy, howdy. I'd barely been paying attention in English class that day, but I was pretty sure that what Crazy Wilder was suggesting could be construed as making a deal with the devil. Chase would have told me to walk away from this bargain, to find another way to get what I wanted. Never promise an undesignated future favor, my milk brother would have chided me. There's always another solution. Hadn't that been the whole deal with Rumpelstiltskin? Or perhaps it was the moral of another story entirely? Reading never had been my strong suit.
But I wasn't living in a fairy tale. I was sitting across from the biggest, baddest werewolf around, and he had me over a barrel.
Plus, I could tell from how relaxed Crazy Wilder's shoulders were that he was enjoying playing with me...and that he didn't plan to take no for an answer.
So I did the only thing I could—I agreed...with one caveat.
"Okay," I said simply, stepping forward and subtly invading the older shifter's space in the process. Only the sharp inhalation of air through his flaring nostrils proved that I'd managed to get the old man's goat. "I'll agree to your terms. But only if you understand that you're making a deal with me personally, not with my pack. I'll promise you a future favor, but you'll exact your pound of flesh from me alone, not from anyone I call a member of my pack."
The All-Pack host rocked back on his heels, and for a moment, I thought I'd gone too far. Would the stronger alpha set me down and remind me that I had nothing to bargain with? Or would he find my spunk amusing, the same way I'd been heartened by Wade's refusal to obey my brother's commands when the latter was tethered to a tree via three chains and a metal collar?
As I waited to see which way Chief Wilder's mood would tip, I found myself holding my breath, and I forced myself to breathe normally once again. No matter what the older alpha ended up deciding, I'd find a way to get my clan out of here safely. My pack mates and I could relocate across the country if necessary. We would make things work.
But perhaps we wouldn't need to go to all that trouble. "Deal," the older alpha said at last. Then, with a motion so swift I barely saw his hand move before I felt the pain, Chief Wilder ripped through the scab on my wrist and sucked down my blood before pinching his own skin with human teeth and offering his blood in exchange. "Now swear," he ground out.
I didn't hesitate. What was the point when I knew I couldn't go back on my word, oath or no oath? Crazy Wilder was simply too powerful to cross.
"I, Wolf Young, swear to obey you, Chief Wilder, once for a favor of your choosing," I said, feeling the words seep into my wolf nature and solidify there like coagulating blood. Then I stood with feet rooted to the earth and watched as the devil walked away, a smug smile spread across his lined face.
And even though I'd sworn an oath I knew I'd live to regret, the anguish eased from my heart little by little as the older shifter passed out of view. Someday, Chief Wilder and I would have to finish this dance we'd begun, but for now I had more important matters to attend to.
It was time to track down the rest of my clan and make sure Fen didn't have our newest pack mate in a head lock. It was time to build bonds with other tribes to ensure my found family would be safe within the territory we'd soon be returning to.
In short, it was high time to start acting like an alpha. And not as a figurehead this time around, but as a real, live leader who would put the needs of his pack first rather than taking crazy chances for the sake of his own ego.
I guess those dreams of shark-wrangling will have to wait, I thought as I headed back into the crowd. But I felt a smirk rising up onto my face despite this surrender of my youthful flights of fancy.
After all, what could be more difficult than carving out a territory for my little band of downtrodden shifters between the properties already claimed by other bloodthirsty werewolves? Good thing my wolf and I thrived on a challenge.
Two Scents' Worth
Episode 3
Chapter 1
DELICIOUS.
I make it a policy not to distinguish between my wolf and human brains, but this time the animal half had gone too far. Our lupine nostrils flared as we sucked in the refreshing scent of the young woman wandering so enticingly alone beneath the leafy canopy. Drool dripped down our shared chin and those classic fairy-tale words popped into our head unbidden: The better to eat you with my dear.
Don't get me wrong. We didn't want to consume her...well, not precisely. She just smelled so damn good.
It's the lack of an entourage, I told myself, forcing my nose into the leaf litter in an effort to block out the girl's tantalizing aroma. I had to keep my wits about me because I couldn't really believe that this wasn't a trap. A pack princess alone and unguarded in the woods? Did none of her male relatives care that she smelled like sex on a stick to every male shifter within a hundred-meter radius?
Apparently not. And, knowing her father as I did, I couldn't blame the girl for giving her male relatives the slip.
Taking stock of my own body, I found my ears turned backwards with arousal and noticed that I was repetitively licking my front paws as I strove to keep less savory urges in check. The compulsion to spring from my crouched position beneath the spicebush and rush toward the pack princess was so strong, in fact, that I shifted into human form for the sole purpose of clearing my head.
Branches scratched against my bare bum and I rolled my eyes at my own behavior. I wasn't a teenage human unable to keep my eyes off a pretty girl, for crying out loud. I was a shifter and a pack leader, on a reconnaissance mission for the good of my clan.
Plus, my bloodling nature made it obvious that four legs were always better than two. So what was wrong with me that I fe
lt the need to declaw myself in the presence of this pack princess?
Luckily, now that the full depth of her aroma was muffled by my human nose, the woman was no longer quite so attractive. Meaning that the urge to hump every nearby tree was fading. Making progress.
Instead, I was able to pay attention to the factors I'd come here to discover. Yes, this pack princess was the correct age, her facial structure and coloration in the right ball park to be the werewolf who I'd spent the last three weeks tracking down.
"I, Wolf Young, swear to obey you, Chief Wilder, once for a favor of your choosing."
Those words, torn from my lips the previous winter, were the precise reason why I was now hunting pack princesses through a mountain wilderness. Against my better judgment, I'd promised this woman's father an undetermined future service, but I didn't plan to sit on my hands and wait for him to collect at his leisure. Instead, I was spending every spare moment seeking out the chinks in Chief Wilder's armor.
Chinks like his two estranged daughters, both living a dangerous but independent life style hidden in plain sight within the human world. One daughter down, one daughter to go.
Because when Chief Wilder called in his debts, I planned to have two aces up my sleeve. For the sake of my own pack, I'd be ready.
Chapter 2
VICTOR: YOU THERE or just drooling on your keyboard?
The words popped onto my screen unbidden and I rolled my eyes. Trust a hacker to think that text messaging and emails were for losers. Instead, my closest cyber buddy Victor considered it a challenge to hack into my private laptop and send write-messages directly to the command line. Never mind that the words' location messed with the coding work that paid my pack's bills.
Wolf: Here but busy. Gotta make a buck.
Despite my curt reply, I was actually glad to hear from the unruly hacker. He'd been a staple in my life ever since I'd traded an afternoon of yard work for this ancient laptop last year and entered the twenty-first century.
From our first virtual meeting, I'd gotten the impression that Victor was lonely. So I'd shrugged and mentally enfolded him into my pack. Not that the other programmer knew that was how I thought of him. Victor was a typical young human male who pretty much considered only his own best interests at all times. I'd never mentioned my fur and claws, and he'd never picked up on the not-so-subtle hints I tossed in his direction to clue him in to my otherness.
Victor's non-pack-centric worldview also made it tough for him to understand why I found it so imperative to take some of the financial strain off Tia's shoulders. But, despite not grokking my work ethic, my friend had come through by providing several leads that brought in a trickle of income and helped keep us all in gas money. In return, I'd performed a few random favors to keep his overly concerned parents at bay.
Unfortunately, minor website-design jobs weren't going to be enough to fund the project I was currently envisioning. So I typed a quick addition to my initial reply.
Wolf: Any leads on bigger jobs?
The deal was, I was still obsessed with my promise to the Chief. I'd learned the hard way that daughter number one was okay on her own. Plus, she rattled my lupine nature way too much to be incorporated into any future strategies.
On the other hand, a visit to daughter number two's residence had given me a firm plan of action for getting out from under Chief Wilder's thumb. The second pack princess was dead and had left behind a son being raised in the human world with no knowledge of his werewolf heritage. The potential for debt reduction was huge...as long as I could come up with two hundred grand to purchase the abandoned trailer park on the other side of the mountain and enfold the pup into my new territory.
But, as I waited for Victor's reply, I held out little hope that my cyber buddy would help me accumulate the much-needed down payment. He usually typed a mile a minute, and I'd expected two or three messages to be waiting impatiently once I shook the current brain fart out of my head. Instead, the terminal before me remained blank, cursor blinking elusively.
Which could mean only one thing. Victor did have a lead on something big, but he wasn't particularly keen on sharing it. Time to play on his competitive streak.
Wolf: Scared to share, huh? Think I'll pull the rug out from under your ass and leave you hungry?
Victor wouldn't be literally hungry without his coding, of course, or I wouldn't have prodded his pride. The young male still lived at home with two doting parents who paid for everything except his video-game addiction. Which is why Victor was usually so generous about sending job opportunities my way. Why work when he'd rather be playing?
Luckily for me, Victor's lazy streak won out over greed once again. Because a message hit my screen at last.
Victor: If you need dough, I'm on the trail of a whole bakery.
Rolling my eyes, I input a single question mark. Yes, Victor tended to type in complete sentences...but not necessarily in complete thoughts.
Victor: Gonna run with the big dogs.
I couldn't help laughing at the hacker's words, wondering what he'd think if he stumbled across my pack during one of our hunts. Half a dozen huge wolves bounding through the midnight forest. Splashes of blood brilliantly red in the moonlight. Sharp teeth and bone-rattling howls. The human would probably shit his pants.
Still, I followed the link my friend had provided at the end of his message and found I was viewing a wanted ad on the website of a podunk bank from small-town Ohio. First Ohio Bank and Trust was seeking a computer-security firm to upgrade their online banking portal and applicants were invited to speak with the bank manager in person at a convention this coming weekend. The salary wasn't exorbitant. But considering my pack lived mostly on poached deer and rabbit fur, it would be enough.
I could've checked my calendar like a pro, but there was no point. I was free. I was nearly always free.
Wolf: You going for the job? Wouldn't that mean getting out of your jammies five days a week?
Victor: Fuck you, dude. It's work-from-home. And the 'rents are starting to whinge about employment AGAIN.
Wolf: LOL. Well, then it's yours. You'll be the world's best anti-hacker.
I didn't want to cede what looked like a lucrative gig. But I considered Victor my friend even though I wasn't so sure he would have said the same about me. At least he'd given me an idea for another direction where I could look for pack-friendly employment. Surely First Ohio wasn't the only bank out there in need of a security analyst to revamp their online safety net....
I moved the mouse to click on a new browser tab. But before I could follow that thought trail, my gaze was drawn back to new words popping into existence on my terminal.
Victor: Hey, I'm up for a challenge if you are. No one's going to pick baby hacker over me.
I smiled. Seemed like human males responded to taunting just as predictably as shifter males. Next we'd embark on a dick-measuring contest.
But, meanwhile, my friend had a valid point—I'd only learned how to turn on a computer twelve months ago. Could I really handle online security for even a small-town bank?
Of course, unlike Victor, I hadn't wasted the last eight thousand hours playing video games. Instead, I'd fallen down the digital rabbit hole with a vengeance and was already proficient at multiple programming languages.
And, in the end, I knew I worked best under pressure. So I had a feeling Victor would come to regret his chivalry.
Wolf: You sure?
Victor: You scared?
It was decided. I would see Victor—and his bank manager—at MavCon.
Chapter 3
"WE CAN COME into the hotel with you if you want."
Chase—my milk brother, my best friend—sometimes felt annoyingly like a nanny. What was this, the first day of kindergarten?
It was bad enough that my entire pack had banded together and refused to allow me behind the wheel of a car on the way to MavCon. But I quickly got over that frustration when I realized my trip doubled as a chance for Wade and
Chase to shake off their usual responsibilities and spend the weekend in the big city. My companions had managed to line up a concert to attend while I was glad-handing bank managers, and I particularly enjoyed seeing a spark of joy come into the eyes of the young shifter who had been a half-starved, whipped puppy only a few months before.
But the trip made much less sense if Chase was going to insist on walking me to my hotel room as if I were incompetent. Heck, I was supposed to be the pack leader around here. So why did I get the impression no one trusted me to keep fur and fangs in check in a hotel full of humans?
Which wasn't to say my milk brother was wrong. Proving Chase's point, I found myself incapable of voicing my current combination of annoyance and appreciation in words. So I simply raised one eyebrow, knowing Chase could read every thought that ran through my mind with the ease of long practice.
I'm going in alone, I thought, flaring my nostrils. Don't forget that I'm the alpha, not you.
In response, Wade cringed back against his seat proving that he, at least, understood that I could rip the pair of them apart without skipping a beat. Unfortunately, my potential for mayhem was the precise image I was trying to work out of the kid's head after his traumatic experience at my brother's hands last winter. So I was much less heartened by his reaction than another pack leader might have been.
Beside me, Chase's mouth quirked up into a smug smile. The bastard probably provoked my show of anger on purpose to remind me what was at stake if I screwed up.
Fuck. That's so totally fighting unfair.
Still, I couldn't leave Wade cowering in the backseat. So I made sure my voice was calm enough to soothe the young shifter at the same time as I whipped out my cell phone and laid my best friend's worries at rest.
"You're on autodial." As if in reaction to my words, Chase's phone rang from his hip pocket, my finger having hit the proper buttons without even looking. I really wasn't incompetent with human ways...just not very practiced at them. "And I promise to call you, Mom, if I need you."
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