“He’s going to do it again,” she whispered. “Jarvis, we can’t let him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That litter last night,” she began, and again pressed her hand to his chest. “They chased me. If I hadn’t pulled that tree out of the ground and dropped it on them, they would have raped me. You smell them. We have to stop that litter from attacking another female.”
Jarvis stiffened. The thought of another male touching his mate was enough to create a fiery rage inside him. “Who tried to attack you?”
“Last night,” she explained, whispering and continuing to sniff the air as she glanced around them. “There were three males who started chasing me. When it was obvious I wasn’t going to escape them, I attacked one of them when he charged at me. It drew blood and I couldn’t get all of it off my coat. But that just pissed them off more. They were all coming at me. Jarvis, I didn’t have a choice. But now there are other males who saw the dead male under the fallen tree. I guess two of them lived. But I smell one of them now. That’s him. We have to help those females.”
Someone ran over a wedge of rocks not too far into the trees from them. Jarvis spotted the figure, a male, and pushed Katrin behind him.
“Stay here.”
“No. I’m running with you.”
“Okay. But stay right behind me.” He took her hands in him and she looked up at him. The concern he saw in her eyes overwhelmed all fear he’d smelled on her a moment ago. “No one is going to get hurt.”
“Except maybe that rogue Cariboo who has no respect for females,” she snarled.
Jarvis pulled her to him, kissed her forehead and vowed silently to kiss a lot more of her very soon. “Stay close,” he ordered, then took off in a sprint across the rocks.
Katrin paced alongside him. He glanced at her once. It was just long enough to put the image of her alluring figure, with sensual hair blowing behind her and her pretty face tight with determination, to memory. Along with lots of great sex, every male dreamed of his female running by his side to hunt.
Katrin’s scent changed. He smelled her determination, and when she met his gaze, for that brief moment, he also smelled her happiness. Their scents became one.
Jarvis stuck out his hand, slowing Katrin as he slowed. The male they were chasing had stopped and now walked across a grassy meadow. It didn’t surprise him to see how disgusting the male looked. The Cariboo’s clothes hung on his tall frame, dark and wrinkled. Jarvis didn’t care how many days the male had slept and hunted in those clothes. But by the easy stench he left behind him, making him easy to track, it had been more than a few.
“Now don’t get skittish on me,” the Cariboo yelled, and slowed in the middle of the meadow. He held out his hands and beckoned. “Both of you come here, you sweet little females.”
“Who are you?” a female asked.
“Oh crap,” Katrin whispered and grabbed Jarvis’ arm. “Both of them are no more than pups. That mutt can’t get his paws on them.”
Jarvis agreed. He stared through the pines where they’d stopped after following the male’s stench. Two females, and the one who had just answered the male was a teenager. She gripped the hand of a younger female no older than ten. Jarvis’ hackles rose when the male continued beckoning to them. The faint smell of lust ripened his already disgusting scent. Katrin put one hand over her nose and looked up at Jarvis, her eyes large with questions as to how they should best get the pups away from that lowlife Cariboo.
“Oli, run to the den,” the teenage cub told her littermate. “Run real fast right now!”
The younger cub took off running but the male was faster. He leapt across the meadow and grabbed the younger cub.
“No! Let her go!” the teenager yelled, lunging toward him.
She leapt back when he tried grabbing her too.
The cub tried yelling but the male put his grubby paw over her mouth and kept a tight grip as he held her against the side of her body by her waist. The poor little female kicked frantically with her legs but was no match for the despicable beast.
“I told you to come here,” the male said, stalking the teenage female. “You don’t want your younger littermate hurt, now do you?”
The little cub squealed when the male squeezed her. From where Jarvis and Katrin stood, Jarvis smelled the salty aroma of the teenage girl’s tears.
“Stay here,” he told Katrin and stormed out into the meadow. “Let both of those females go,” he barked at the Cariboo.
The male spun around and snarled at Jarvis, his teeth growing in his mouth. He had a death grip on the poor little female, who was crying. Jarvis’ heart swelled painfully at the sight of her terrified expression.
“Who the fuck are you?” the man snarled. He then spun and pointed a finger at the teenager. “Don’t you move or I’ll kill your littermate,” he yelled.
“I’m Jarvis Alger.” Jarvis extended his hand to the female pup in the male’s grip, although he was still a fair distance from the two of them. “Put the female down and get the fuck out of here. What kind of male messes with pups?”
“I don’t know any Alger litter,” the male stated, ignoring the rest of what Jarvis said.
“You do now,” Jarvis said, and intentionally calmed himself so his scent wouldn’t further terrify the two young females. “And I told you to put her down.”
“Go on your way, Alger,” the male said, curling his lip. He was one ugly son of a bitch.
“I can’t do that,” Jarvis said. “These aren’t your pups.”
“How do you know that?” the male asked and sneered into what might have meant to be a smile.
“We aren’t!” the teenage female yelled from behind the male. “I’m Leta Mercy and this is my littermate, Olivia.”
“Shut up!” the male roared and lunged at the teenage cub.
Jarvis raced into the male when he grabbed the surprised teenage cub and knocked her to the ground. She started screaming and didn’t stop. Jarvis credited her on her knowledge of how to shake off a predator. Neither cub was going to get hurt this morning, though. He’d see to it if he had to break the male’s neck himself.
He bulldozed the male and sent both of them rolling across the meadow. As he’d hoped, the younger female wriggled loose in the scrimmage and raced across the tall grass, a blur in Jarvis’ side vision. There wasn’t time to check on either female. He glared at the male who hurried to his feet and turned his fangs on Jarvis.
“You’re messing with a private matter, male,” he snarled. “We don’t take lightly to that on this mountain.”
“I know what isn’t taken lightly on my mountain,” Jarvis emphasized and prepared to attack.
“Your mountain?” the male’s words were garbled from his extended teeth.
“I was whelped on this mountain—and don’t want the likes of you on it.”
The male looked past Jarvis. “Now what do we have here?” he asked, his voice turning disgustingly sweet.
Someone had moved behind Jarvis. He smelled Katrin and looked over his shoulder, turning enough to see that she’d raced into the meadow and now had both cubs wrapped in her arms. She was looking down, whispering to both of them. Katrin glanced up and met his gaze.
Maybe she shouted a warning. Jarvis wasn’t sure. The male lunged into him, taking advantage of the distraction. Jarvis went down. The ground came up hard to knock the wind out of him. At the same time claws and teeth were scraping at Jarvis’ exposed flesh.
As fast as the male was at attacking, Jarvis fought with just as much fervor. The male was limp in his arms before Jarvis got a good blow in. He shoved the male off him, struggled to his feet and looked in horror at the long branch impaling the side of the male. It had gone clear through.
When he looked at Katrin, tears stained her face.
“I couldn’t let him hurt you,” she cried out. Then she let go of the two cubs and fell to her knees in tears.
* * * * *
“We’re doing
the right thing.” Katrin’s voice was as void of emotion as her scent. “Those two cubs know our den. You told them your name.”
“I told that dead motherfucker my name,” he amended. “And for the record, I could have killed him myself.”
“I can’t stand by and watch another werewolf attack you,” she whispered.
So he’d noticed, twice now. Jarvis didn’t want to fight with Katrin. Not when the Mercy den was in sight.
And of all dens, why Mercy? Jarvis hadn’t sniffed out David Mercy in years. The male had run off the mountain before he and Jaeger had after some female. It actually surprised him to know he had returned. The two of them slowed when he spotted a cottage, which was buried thick in the trees not too far from his den—or where their den would be again if he ever got to finish building it.
“You ran with the cubs’ sire when he was a cub?” Katrin asked. “You’re sure this is the place?”
“Yes and yes.”
“I smell a lot of werewolves.” Her voice grew quiet.
When he glanced down at Katrin, she was looking up at him and not at the Mercy den. “Second thoughts?”
“You know this is the right thing to do,” she whispered, although with the breeze racing around the trees, it wouldn’t take long before someone smelled them standing just outside the nicely kept yard. “I can’t keep hiding. And I can’t keep running. No matter how far I run, my blood remains inside me. And I don’t want to live without you,” she finished, her voice cracking.
She looked down but Jarvis grabbed her chin and raised her face to his. “You won’t ever live without me, my little female,” he informed her. “That much I promise. But we don’t have to do this. We can leave the mountain. We can build our den anywhere.”
“This is your mountain. We aren’t running.”
Jarvis sighed. “Then let’s return to our den and howl this out for a day or two.”
“And wait for them to come to us? Which they will do.”
He worried they were in that den right now forming a hunt for his mate while the two of them stood outside and made the job easy for them. Jarvis would bite and claw to the death for Katrin. But he’d rather have the odds slanted slightly in his favor. There were a lot of werewolves inside Mercy’s den, and he seriously doubted it was a party.
“At least then we’d be on home turf.” Jarvis sighed. His words sounded cowardly even to him, and he’d like to think he didn’t run like a coward. “Fine. We go in.”
Gripping his mate’s hand, which was clammy and cold in spite of the good front she was putting up, Jarvis led the way to the well-worn path alongside the cottage. The front door to the den opened before they reached it.
“Alger,” David Mercy said. He grinned and stepped outside his den and closed the door behind him. “I’ll be damned, it really is you.”
It had been years since he’d seen his friend. Jarvis stared at the male facing him, at the weathered lines around his eyes, at how tall and muscular he’d become. And he smelled the worry that hung heavily on him. He wondered if this was how he would look and smell once he became a sire.
He shoved the thought out of his head. Before he would honor that line of thinking he needed to secure the safety of his mate, or there never would be cubs.
“I wish this was a social call,” Jarvis said, aware of Katrin trying to squeeze the life out of his hand.
“We wanted to make sure your cubs made it to your den safely,” Katrin said, her voice still scratchy.
Jarvis should have at least argued that he take her to their den for a hot shower before running here. His stubborn mate probably would have argued until he’d given in to her on that one too.
“I owe both of you a huge debt. This is your mate?” David smiled down at Katrin. “Leta and Oli are fine thanks to you, if I hear it howled right.”
“That same male attacked me last night,” Katrin whispered. “Your cubs shouldn’t have had to endure what they did. I’m sorry we didn’t sniff him out sooner.”
“You saved their lives,” David stressed, and returned his attention to Jarvis. “Leta told her mother and me a rather fantastic story.”
Jarvis sighed. There was no way around the truth and he would never dishonor his old friend by stinking up his doorstep with a lie.
“Which I’m sure had the smell of truth,” he said, and stared his friend in the eye while breathing in his scent.
“Do you remember Stefen Runner?”
Jarvis frowned. He hadn’t been ready for the question. He’d been ready to defend Katrin’s honor, and her life.
“Yes,” he said slowly.
“He and I went with Bennie earlier this morning to see where a tree had been unearthed and had fallen on him and his littermates. Stefen smelled the work of a Malta werewolf.” When David looked at Katrin, he didn’t smell accusatory. If anything, he smelled sad.
Jarvis had the overwhelming urge to yank Katrin away from David and run. She’d told him what had happened to her before he’d found her asleep on the mountain. He remembered her telling him she’d run out of the cave after listening to the males howl to each other and walk past where she’d been hiding.
“I’m Malta werewolf,” Katrin said, her voice clearer than it had been since Jarvis had found her. She stood taller and smelled proud as she spoke. “My sire was Malta werewolf and my mother was Cariboo.”
David studied her a moment and nodded. “So you’re responsible for Bennie’s death?”
“The male was about to take off with both of your cubs,” Jarvis insisted and took a defensive step between Katrin and David. “I argued with my mate all the way here that we were walking into a werewolf hunt.”
“And you are,” David said without hesitating.
Jarvis was sick inside. He didn’t see an out for him or Katrin.
“But my mate insisted we come make sure that your two cubs made it to their den safely.”
“Like I said, I owe you so much. It’s a debt I can’t repay.” David held his hands out in surrender. “You saved the lives of two females I would lay my own life down for. When the two of you have cubs, you’ll understand. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for either of you. Thank you.”
The door to his den opened behind David and the male spun around. If Jarvis didn’t know better, he might think his friend had been ready to help defend Katrin against whoever would step out of his den.
A young female with big blue eyes and straight, long blonde hair looked at her mate and sniffed the air before studying Jarvis and Katrin.
“Why are you standing out here?” she asked. She spoke, looked and sounded just like the teenager they’d saved from Bennie in the meadow.
“Molly, I’d like you to meet one of my best friends.” David reached over his mate and pulled their den door closed, then wrapped his arm around his mate. “You remember me howling about the Algers?”
“Yes.” Molly leaned against her mate and smiled at Jarvis. “Welcome to our den.”
“Jarvis Alger and his mate have come to make sure that Leta and Oli are okay.”
“How nice of you.” She had a pretty smile. “Now that both of them are the center of attention and aren’t being run off while howling around so many grown werewolves, I think both of them are going to be fine.”
“Molly, I’m Katrin,” Katrin said, and snuggled against Jarvis. “I’m not very presentable right now. The male who tried attacking your cubs tried to attack me during the night. Jarvis and I sniffed him out while returning to our den. I recognized his scent because he had led your mate and another male to where his litter had tried attacking me. When we smelled your cubs in the meadow, we didn’t get to them fast enough before that male had grabbed your youngest cub.”
Molly’s hand went over her mouth and her large blue eyes grew even larger.
“My cubs can exaggerate the truth from time to time but you’re howling it just as they did.” David glanced down at his mate and squeezed her tighter against him.
“J
arvis charged into the meadow to save your cubs,” Katrin continued, and looked up at him.
In that moment, seeing her personal fear mixed with an overwhelming amount of pride for him tore at Jarvis’ heart. He had to show Katrin she wasn’t going through this alone. She might be the one with the Malta werewolf blood in her veins, but he loved her and every bit of who she was. He wrapped both arms around her and crushed her to him before looking over her head at his lifelong friend.
“My mate has a hard time watching me fight another male,” he explained to David.
“My mate is the same way,” David agreed, and ran his hand down the back of his mate’s head.
“She saved your cubs’ lives,” Jarvis pointed out. “And a full-blooded Cariboo female wouldn’t have been able to hurl a branch through the air the way Katrin did and impale that waste of werewolf flesh who tried taking your cubs from you.”
“Wait a minute,” Molly said, understanding hitting her as she straightened and pushed free of her mate. “You’re a Malta werewolf?” she whispered, then hurriedly sniffed the air as if her words might cause everyone inside the den to come rushing out.
Jarvis wasn’t so sure whoever was inside might not be listening on the other side of the door. He fought not to back away from the two of them, and their den.
“Katrin is half Malta werewolf and half Cariboo,” Jarvis explained. “She was whelped on the mountain next to ours and ran to Prince George with her littermates when their litter was burned out. She and I met there and fell in love. We’ve just returned to the mountain and are rebuilding our den. We can smell that you have company, and we aren’t going to bring any more trauma to your cubs. But your litter is welcome to run up the mountain and visit us.”
Katrin looked up at him. She didn’t move in his arms and didn’t speak. Jarvis decided this was going to be the way of it. He wasn’t going to enter the Mercy den and try to convince werewolves he didn’t know, and who didn’t have a personal stake in what had happened that morning, that his mate was a good female. They had come to do what they had agreed to do.
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