by Reine, SM
Tate’s face was slack with confusion and horror.
“Don’t forget,” Levi said again. He walked away, leaving Tate to his tour buses and giant American flags.
The bus sank underneath Tate’s feet as he climbed inside. The door to the driver’s compartment was still open, so he could see that Wilhelm wasn’t there; he must have been having a second cigarette outside, since smoking wasn’t allowed in government vehicles.
Tate slid the door shut behind him. The bus was comfortable on the inside, and would have been more than enough room for one or two passengers. It had a couple of couches that folded into beds and a full kitchen in back. But the bus was usually occupied by far more than just one or two people. The entire tour had a staff of eighteen: a hairdresser, someone who handled Tate’s wardrobe, analysts, a documentary team, security, some assistants. When they were on the road, it was far from comfortable.
But the only person on his bus at the moment was a member of his security team, who was absorbed in his laptop. Maybe Tate could actually catch fifteen minutes of sleep before they hit the road again.
Tate dropped onto the opposite couch, tipped his head back against the tinted window, and closed his eyes.
Who was he kidding? There was no way that he would be able to get any rest while his nerves were still jangling from Levi’s kiss.
Levi. God, it had been years.
He had looked incredible. Handsome, smoldering, angry. And kissing him was just as good as Tate remembered—except for the fact that Tate’s platform with the Office of Preternatural Affairs included anti-gay sentiments. He was supposed to be the poster boy for honesty, innocence, and purity. A victim rising above the trouble.
A victim who was considering jumping off the tour bus so he could find his ex-boyfriend again.
Levi had claimed to be a werewolf. Could it really be true?
“Took you a while to get back,” the security guy finally said, closing his laptop screen. He had a deep, pleasant voice, and so much gel in his hair that his coarse blond curls were plastered flat against his skull.
Tate probably should have admitted that he had been speaking to a werewolf. Security wanted to know whenever something preternatural came within a block of the bus so that the team could take care of the “threat.” But whether or not he was a werewolf, Tate just couldn’t classify Levi as a threat. He would never hand his ex over to the OPA’s men.
Especially not someone as scary-looking as his head of security, Cain Blacksburg.
“I was just getting fresh air,” Tate said. “What are you up to?”
“Doing some research.” Cain took an audible sniff of the air. “You have werewolf all over you.”
Tate’s cheeks heated. “I can’t smell anything.”
“That’s because you’re human.” He said that word like it was a racial slur. “Who were you in contact with?”
“Must have been someone I shook hands with at the event,” he said, knowing that Cain would hear the lie in his racing heart. Having a werewolf as his head of security was terrifying, but who better to protect him from the supernatural threat than one of their own?
Cain leaned forward, braced his elbows on his knees, and fixed Tate with a cold stare. “Who are you protecting?”
“Nobody.”
“Fine.” Cain grabbed a platter off the kitchen counter and brought it to Tate’s side. There was a tattooing gun, blue latex gloves, and a needle on the steel tray. “Take off your jacket. We’ll finish your tattoo before we get moving again.”
Tate shucked his coat and rolled up his sleeve, baring the black outline of a bleeding apple.
FIVE
Letting off Steam
Midnight had come and gone, but Rylie couldn’t sleep. The moon was itching at her, getting under her skin, tugging at her breast. It wasn’t quite the full moon again. That was still two days away. But it had been a long time since she had turned into a wolf, and it felt like the moon was becoming impatient.
It didn’t help that Seth took up more of the bed than usual. He was sleeping with a pillow hugged to his chest and his feet hanging off the end, and there wasn’t enough space to get comfortable. The air in the room was too hot, too close. She was suffocating.
She slipped out of bed without bothering him and went to the window. Outside, the waxing moon was growing, just like Rylie.
Her gaze fell to the hills, and she realized with dull shock that someone was looking back from the burned ruins of the barn. She couldn’t make out any details in the night, but she knew it was Abel. Nobody else could make her feel hot and cold all at once with a single glance.
He was waiting for her.
She bit her bottom lip and glanced at Seth. He rolled onto his back, and one of his arms flopped into the space that she had vacated. His brow creased, like his sleeping mind registered that something was wrong, but it didn’t bother him enough to make him wake up.
Rylie put on a pair of oversized cowboy boots and sneaked into the hallway. The entire pack was sleeping in the house again, and there was barely enough empty floor for her to walk. Peter, Daven, and Anilizia were lined up in the hallway, head to feet, leaving only a few inches of carpet exposed. The floorboards creaked softly when she stepped past them, and one mumbled in his sleep.
There were more werewolves in the living room. Bekah was on the couch, while Crystal and Pyper occupied the space in front of the TV. A glance into the kitchen showed that Trevin and Kiara were spooning on an air mattress in front of the cabinets. Rylie felt a twinge of jealousy at the sight of it. Not at the fact that they had hooked up—she was happy for them. But she was definitely jealous over how peacefully they slept.
And because their relationship was so uncomplicated.
Rylie stepped over Pyper’s legs, opened the front door, and slipped outside.
Her boots crunched on the thin layer of snow, which had melted during the day and refrozen into a sheet of ice. Even with the grace of a werewolf, her heavy stomach unbalanced her, and she had to be careful to keep from slipping.
Abel paced outside the barn wearing a snug black tank top and jeans. It showed off his shoulder rig and dual handguns, which Bekah said he had been carrying constantly since his escape from Cain. He looked meaner than usual. Harder. Like he wasn’t going to let anyone catch him off his guard again.
The fact that he didn’t smile when he saw Rylie made her hurt a little inside.
As if they had come to some kind of silent agreement, Abel sauntered into the burned barn, and she followed him. It wasn’t any warmer in there, but at least nobody would be able to see them.
“I haven’t seen you in a long time,” Rylie said. “Weeks.”
“I’ve been around to help Scott and Stephanie get ready for their spell, but I gotta lay low to avoid Levi. I’m trying not to punch his face in.” Abel grinned, like the idea excited him. “But he hasn’t been around for a few days, so I’m free to roam. Have you been watching the news?”
No, she hadn’t been watching any TV, but she had heard more than enough from Bekah. She didn’t want to hear it from Abel, too. “That’s what you want to talk about? The news?”
“Seth says I’m not supposed to be talking with you at all. He says…” His eyes flicked down her body and fell on her stomach. “He says I’m not supposed to ‘upset’ you.”
“But we have to talk someday. We have to talk about…everything. I mean, we’ve been at the same ranch for weeks, and we haven’t seen each other or spoken since the wedding.”
He bowed his head close to her neck and inhaled deeply. The exhale was hot enough to send shivers down her spine. “I’m not the one avoiding anything, Rylie.” His voice was a fraction deeper than before.
She folded her arms, as if they could act as armor between her and Abel. “Stephanie thinks that I might already be more than four months pregnant. She’s trying to get the hospital to let us do a scan.”
That seemed to kill a little of Abel’s confidence.
&nb
sp; “Five months?” he asked. She could see him attempt the mental calculations. “No. That’s not right. We started mating on the night the barn burned.”
Rylie’s cheeks flushed. “You mean our wolves were mating.”
“There’s no difference between us and our wolves.”
“Except that I have no control over my behavior when I’m changed. I can’t even remember anything I’ve done. If we did…mate…then it wasn’t something I chose,” Rylie said. “Like the winter I got silver poisoning, and I murdered all of those people—”
Anger contorted Abel’s features. “You think mating with me is like murder?”
Rylie couldn’t stand that much emotion from him. She paced a few feet away to give herself room to breathe.
Being around him was a little bit like murder. She was dying on the inside, struggling to keep her heart beating, fighting a battle against herself. Every time she was around Abel, it was like her human side died a little bit more and gave the wolf that much more room to conquer.
That was the problem: as much as she loved Seth, her wolf loved Abel, too. And even worse was that her wolf felt like it needed him.
“That’s not what I’m trying to say,” Rylie said, too delayed and too feeble to sound believable. “But we don’t even know if you and I were mating.”
Abel took her arm and spun her to face him. “You want to talk? Let’s talk. Let’s lay it all out right now.” He pulled her against him, and she thought for a second that he was about to kiss her. “Cain had pictures of us mating.”
All thoughts of kissing vanished in a wave of shock.
“Pictures?”
“He took them on the night of the barn fire.” Abel’s eyes searched her face. “I dominated you. I owned you.” He bit out every word with a growl. “We mated.”
She felt like she was going to faint. Rylie was suddenly grateful for his grip on her arms, or else she might have fallen over in the snow and ash. “What do you mean by…dominated?”
“I bit you. I pinned you down, and I took you. The Alpha. Do you know what that means?”
She swallowed hard. “It means that you beat me in battle. Does that mean… Are you the Alpha now?”
“Werewolf packs have two Alphas,” he said. “A female…and a male. A mating pair.” Her face fell, and her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest. Seeing her expression made Abel’s eyebrow furrow. “Is it that bad? The idea of being with me?”
Rylie shook her head and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “No, Abel. It’s not. I just…” There was no way to explain it in a way that Abel would understand. He saw them being together as inevitability. She saw it as having a choice taken from her. Just one more part of her life lost to some stupid werewolf curse.
She sagged against the wall, sank to the snow, and covered her face with her hands.
Abel flopped beside her and propped himself up on his elbow. All of his tough pretense melted away. He managed a smile, and it made him look like the guy that had been her lone friend and companion for two years while Seth was at college. “What are we going to do, Rylie?”
She sighed. “I asked Stephanie to perform a paternity test. We’ll know soon.”
“We don’t need a test,” Abel said, gentle but firm. “I already know. I can smell it on you. What are you doing out here anyhow?”
“I couldn’t sleep. It’s too hot in the house, and way too crowded.” She sighed as she flexed her fists. “And it’s been too long since I turned into a wolf. It feels like my beast might explode out of me at any minute.”
The corner of Abel’s mouth lifted in a smirk. “Let’s get out of here.” He gestured toward the fields. “Let’s just…go. Let’s run, like we used to do. You don’t have to change. We’ll go as humans.”
She stared at her feet and wiggled the toes of her boots into the snow. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I’m barely in control of myself.”
Abel snagged her hand, pulled her to her feet, and led her outside. “Then funnel it into me. Give me your energy.”
“You mean…?”
He dropped his shoulder rig and guns on a piece of dry wood, then stripped his shirt off over his head. “Turn me into a wolf.”
Abel had been attacked by a werewolf long before Rylie ever met him, which left one half of his face twisted with scars that ran all the way down his chest and ribs. But some of those were thanks to a fight he had lost against Rylie, too.
She caught herself staring at him, but it wasn’t just because of the moonlight gleaming on his damaged skin. He was muscular and powerful. Seth wasn’t a lightweight, but Abel made his brother look like a boy.
Her wolf rubbed against the inside of her ribs, demanding to be released.
“Can you handle being a wolf between moons?” she asked.
Abel’s eyes glowed in the darkness. “Even if I couldn’t, I’d do it for you anyway.” His deep voice sent chills down her spine, and she had to tear herself away from his gaze.
Rylie opened her arms to the moon and let her head fall back on her shoulders as she drank in its silvery rays. When she felt the change creep over her, she channeled all of that energy into Abel instead.
Bones crunched as his face extended into a muzzle. His spine grew extra vertebrae to become a tail. His knees popped and reversed. He peeled his jeans off with hands that were shifting and shortening, and after a few minutes, he fell onto all fours at her feet.
As soon as Abel’s transformation into a massive black wolf was complete, all of Rylie’s tension vanished, as though she had just enjoyed an hour-long massage. She sagged against the wall. Abel butted his head into her hands, and Rylie couldn’t help but smile as she stroked the ruff of fur around his face.
Then he took a few steps away and bowed on his forelegs, inviting Rylie to play. She laughed.
“Okay, Abel. Let’s run.”
Seth woke up early the next morning to do chores and exercise. Rylie wasn’t in bed with him, but that was no surprise. She had spent more than one night in Gwyn’s room ever since her belly started getting big enough to take up half of the bed on its own.
He watched the news on the black and white TV in the kitchen as he ate the previous night’s leftovers. There had been another preternatural-related riot, this time much closer to home: Greenville, just four hundred miles away. Practically in their back yard. A whole house of nightmare demons had been burned to death by vigilantes.
That was much too close for comfort. Seth’s appetite vanished, so he tossed the rest of the roast beef into the trash.
By the time the sun touched the horizon, he was laboring in the snow to fix a hole in the fence near the highway. With that complete, he shed his jacket and set out for a jog around the property.
The Gresham Ranch used to be filled with cattle, long before Scott Whyte converted it into a werewolf sanctuary, so there was plenty of open space for him to exercise. Seth punched the air as he ran, working the knots out of his shoulders. It was cold, but not so cold that a good run wouldn’t warm him up.
He was down by the pond when he found the paw prints.
Seth hesitated by the shore. His gaze followed the indentations in the snow to the place they disappeared between hills.
The full moon was still a couple of days away. There shouldn’t have been any wolves to make paw prints.
Seth’s adrenaline spiked as he thought back to Yasir’s text message about Cain being in prison. Wild visions whirled through his skull. What if Cain had broken out of the Union prison, come back to the ranch, and started stalking them at night when everyone was asleep. Or worse—what if he had come back to kidnap Rylie?
His pace picked up as he followed the trail. He had left his rifle in the bedroom, but now he regretted it. If Cain was at the ranch again…
But when he found the wolf responsible for the footprints, it wasn’t the brother he had been expecting to see.
A big black wolf that Seth immediately recognized as Abel was cu
rled underneath the trees, sleeping with his nose under his tail. Wrapped within the furry warmth of his body was a slender blond figure. Rylie’s head rested on Abel’s massive flank, and his legs encircled her protectively as they slept.
They looked restful. Content.
The sound of Seth’s approaching footsteps made Abel lift his head.
Seth punched him across his stupid furry muzzle.
It was like striking a brick wall. The shock jolted up his entire arm to his shoulder. But the wolf’s head smacked into the ground from the force of the blow, and that was satisfying enough to make up for how much it hurt.
The wolf’s surprised yelp woke Rylie instantly. “What’s going on?” she asked, rubbing her face as Abel got to his feet.
There was murder in Abel’s golden stare, but Seth didn’t give him a chance to regroup. He lunged at his brother and tackled him to the ground.
The snow softened their landing. They hit and rolled, and Seth twisted to keep Abel’s kicking legs from sinking into his stomach. Those silver claws were sharp—almost as sharp as his teeth.
Abel bit at Seth’s leg. He snapped his boot into Abel’s mouth.
“What are you guys doing?” Rylie shrieked, snow in her hair and horror on her face.
Seth closed his hands on either side of Abel’s jaw and forced it open so he couldn’t bite. “I told you—to stay—away!”
Rylie got to her knees. “Stop it!”
Abel and Seth flipped over and over. Somehow, Seth ended up on top, and he braced his knees against Abel’s ribs to pin him down. He slammed his fist into Abel’s skull again. He was a kopis, a legendary hunter, and his strength was immense…especially in the midst of a jealous rage.
But even a human hunter was nothing in comparison to the power of a werewolf.
Abel thrashed and bit Seth’s leg. It wasn’t hard enough to break skin, but the fangs pressed into his calf.
Rylie was still shouting, but all Seth knew was the fight. The anger. The hatred.
Abel’s fur began to ripple.
It was even harder to wrestle with a werewolf as he shifted back into human form. Every time Seth grabbed hold of a limb, it would change size and shape. Bones popped, fur fell to the snow, and within moments, he was punching Abel’s stupid ugly face instead of that of a wolf.