by Sky Winters
What the hell was he talking about? “Sort of?”
His lips canted up. “I’m a semi-exile, I guess you could say.”
“Now’s not the time to talk in riddles, okay? I have to go. Jesus Christ, if anyone finds out about this—you could get hurt and I don’t want that.”
He looked at her, no expression on his face. “How so?”
Goddammit. She had to be honest. If she wasn’t, he would get caught in some bullshit he had never signed on for. “Drake, my dad was second in the pack over in East LA. It’s the biggest and most powerful wolf pack, as you probably know. My dad died with our Alpha; now we have Joaquin, and he’s screwing the whole hood.”
“I know.”
He knew? Of course he knew. She sighed. “I got promised to Joaquin back when I was a kid. I never had any say in it. My dad was about to call that off—he knew Joaquin was no good. But he died before he could, so his promise stands. It doesn’t matter, not to them anyway, what I want or who I don’t.”
His fingers gripped her chin and lifted it. “You don’t want Joaquin.”
“Not in my bed, not in my life, and not as my Alpha. If that means I have to be exiled, I can take that, but I have to tell you now that I can’t stay—not in your band or anything else. Joaquin’s not just selling drugs; he’s got plans to take over the city and he means to do just that. He’s power crazed and hungry. He’s also vicious, and he won’t hesitate to kill me or anyone else who gets in his way. You see, he wants kids, fast, heirs to his kingdom. Sons would cement his position, according to him, and well, our culture. It’s the whole machismo thing.”
“I get it, but I don’t want you to leave the band. Hell I need you.”
Her breath caught in her throat. He needed her in the band, but not in his life, was that what he was saying? “I know you probably can’t find another singer fast enough, but you might have to. I mean, until last night, you had no idea you had a singer and so nothing has really changed. You still need a singer.”
“I need a whole band.” His words were hard and his voice fierce. “You are one hell of a rhythm player and there’s something about us, Angelina, we just click. Not just as people but as players in the same song. I can’t promise you he won’t find you, but I can promise you if he finds you here, he won’t take you back, not without a massive fight and some death.”
Her heart sank. “That is exactly what I am afraid of. I don’t want death and blood. That’s why I don’t want to go back to the pack. There’s bound to be blood and now—well, now I pretty much put you into the middle of it. As much as I love Silver Lake,” and as much as I feel drawn to you, too, “I can’t do it. I have to go somewhere else, somewhere that Joaquin can’t touch me, or you, or anyone else I might come into contact with.”
Drake asked, “Angelina, do you want to stay here? With me, I mean?”
Shit. He really went to the heart of the matter, didn’t he? Her chin came up. “I have to go back.” She didn’t want to, but she had to. There was no way she could stay here. She had just slept with a sworn enemy, and she had a feeling that there was even more to that than met the eye. Drake was a bear shifter in exile and a biker at the same time, which meant he still rode with the MC that had bear shifters at its head. So there was definitely something he was not telling her, and she was pretty sure she did not want to know exactly what that was.
There was already too much at stake, even with Mario gone.
Mario!
She stood. “Shit. I have to get to the trails.”
Drake looked confused. “What?”
Say nothing. For God’s sake, do not give him a weapon. You don’t know if you can trust him, and you know damn well you can’t trust yourself around him!
Despite her brain’s warning, her mouth opened. “He’s my brother. He can’t shift. He’s wolf, mostly. He has never shown any sign of going human. I have other brothers, of course, all from the same litter, but Mario is the only one who doesn’t shift.”
Loss settled in, making her heart ache. She had no idea which loss was the greater—the loss of Mario to the wild or the loss of what had been a wonderful and far too brief dream of being with Drake and having the normal life she had always dreamed of, a life filled with music and passionate love.
Drake pondered that for a second. “You came from the same birthing?”
She nodded. “We did, and he can understand everything but he doesn’t speak. I was the only one he would ever try to communicate with in any way. He’s the only reason I didn’t leave before.”
“I see.”
She shook her head, sending her silky dark hair flying. “No, you don’t. You see, I was up on the trails—he had been leaving and wandering for a few years now, but he found a she-wolf and she was hurt. They left together. I promised to go back and look at her paw again. I think it was stuck in a trap at one point or another.”
“Shit, that sucks. Was she okay?”
She smiled at the real concern in his voice. “Yeah, and I will be, too.”
Drake said, “Angelina, you don’t have to go back.”
Tears threatened. She held them back. “Yeah, I do.”
She stood and wiped a hand down her side. She ached all over and not all of it was unpleasant either. The bruises from their wild lovemaking were there, just below her skin, already healing but still lightly painful. That pain would ease fast and she knew it, but she was not sure about the other pains that were careening through her just then.
There was something about Drake that made her want to stay. It was not just how they played together, or the way their bodies and voices and musical tastes blended either. He made her feel safe, something she had not felt since her father died. That was dangerous as hell, that feeling, because he was a bear and her enemy, even if she did not want him to be.
“You know we can’t, Drake. We’re sworn enemies; our kinds always have been and with good reason. We aren’t friends in nature, and we can’t be friends or anything else in this world either. Even if we thought we could be, you know damn well nobody is going to let us be. They will all come for us. Your pack and mine, and every other shifter pack—just to keep two different kinds from being together. It is not natural, and they won’t accept it. We can’t even be in the same band and you know that. It goes against everything about the laws we all have to live by.”
“I don’t care about the laws. I’m outside the pack now. I was,” he paused then said, “I was in line to be Alpha but I am sterile, or something. I couldn’t produce children and that is a requirement for Alphas in our packs.”
Angelina sucked in a breath. Her eyes searched his face. “Ours, too.” Her brain reeled at his words. He was supposed to be Alpha? That meant he was Magda’s!
Her voice held desperation. “You’re Magda’s son.”
“Yes.”
“Oh my God!” Now she was desperate to go. And fast. The last thing she needed to do was get caught up in whatever bullshit Magda was about to bring down. Antonio, her father, had had plenty to say about Magda, and none of it was very flattering. He had admired her courage and her toughness, but he had disliked, intensely, her quest for power. Magda had a serious hate on for humans, too, and that bothered Antonio. He had said, a lot, that he would not trust her if there were just the two of them left in the world because Magda was so blinded by the need to rule she would kill him in a short-sighted bid to be the last creature standing—and Angelina believed him.
Drake grasped her upper arms in his warm and calloused fingers. His touch sent thrills spilling all along the base of her spine and those little shivers raced upward. That desire came back, pooling liquid into her panties and making her squirm away before her body could betray her yet again.
He didn’t try to hold her. He let her go, but the phantom warmth of his fingers stayed imprinted on her arms. Her nipples stiffened, growing first taut and then tighter still until the hard ridges stuck up under her shirt in noticeable peaks.
Drake’s eyes
flicked downward then back up. Angelina’s emotions twisted between shame and lust, and she spoke sharply. “Look, I have to go. We can’t do this. I don’t know how we didn’t know. But we know now. I have to go.”
She stalked off, her head high as she aimed her body, which wanted nothing more than to turn around and run back to him as fast as it could manage, toward the front door. To her vast relief, he did not try to stop her.
**
Drake took a seat on the sofa. His brain reeled and his body ached with unmet need. The woman was a wolf, and she was right—it should have been impossible for them not to recognize each other, so, why hadn’t they?
Had he known in some small way and just overlooked it because he had been so eager to get her into first the band and then his bed? They should have called it off last night, as soon as they had figured it out, but they had not and now here he was—with no singer and no woman in his life.
Jesus Christ, it was a one-night stand. It was not like she was your life mate you fucking asshole.
The words did not help to clear his head. The smell of her lingered in the house. He sighed and stood, heading toward the kitchen to make some much-needed coffee but he paused before he got there.
She was going back to the trail, and that was all right—but what happened when she went back to East LA to join her pack? Joaquin would smell him on her and she would probably be killed.
He sagged against the doorframe as he considered that. Angelina had a death wish, maybe, or maybe she was just so desperate to get away from Joaquin and the cluster fuck her pack had become that she was willing to die for the right to be away from it. Either way, it would end with her death, and he cursed a few times then grabbed his keys from the coffee table.
She knew his car. The wolves of East LA would know his bike. It was a toss-up as to which was the worse choice to follow her in, but one thing was clear; he was going to follow her no matter what.
CHAPTER 6:
Angelina spent the night in a small and cheap motel, and then drove to the trails early the next morning. She was tired, confused and her thoughts were still chaotic as hell.
She hadn’t been able to go home, not with the smell of a bear still on her skin. That scent would linger. She had not been able to sleep, either, and she was glad to see Mario and the she-wolf had not gone far from where she had last seen them.
The she-wolf had a bloody trail near her muzzle, and Mario smelled of blood, so it was obvious he had been hunting to feed them again. Angelina set down the supplies she had bought at a local drugstore. “Hey, there. Um, so, Mario, can you let her know not to bite me?”
Mario gave one short bark and nosed the she-wolf closer. She limped and whimpered softly, and Angelina could see that the makeshift bandage was covered with clotted yellow stuff and thin strands of dried blood.
The she-wolf lay down. Angelina said, “Thanks,” and reached for the injured paw. The cloth came away slowly, and she winced as she looked at the cut. The infection seemed to be lessening but the cut was deeper than Angelina had imagined.
She cleaned it quickly and then took a deep breath. “Mario, I need to stitch it. I got these little glue stitches, but she has to be very still.”
Mario lay down beside the she-wolf, wrapping one arm over her in a gesture that many dogs, domesticated and street, used to show they were protecting another. Angelina said, “You two are a cute couple, did I tell you that yesterday?”
She had been worried that Drake’s smell might put the two wolves off, but it didn’t seem to. After she had applied the stitches, Angelina just sat there on the sun-warmed earth, waiting for the stuff to dry and looking at Mario.
He had changed, seemingly overnight. That human expression was still in his eyes, but there was a new wildness in there, too.
“It won’t be long, will it? You’ll go all the way wild, and you will either forget me or you will just not remember me on purpose. It’s okay, I understand.”
Mario regarded her. Angelina frowned. “Mario, I can’t come back. Those stitches will hold and they dissolve on their own after a while, so it’s no biggie there. I think your mate here is going to be fine, and so are you but I… well, I have to figure out what to do.”
She sighed. “I can’t stay in the pack, and I can’t run from them either. I am going to have to fight. I don’t want to, and I came up with a hundred schemes to stay out of a battle, but you know what? I can sense one coming, and I’m scared. I think the fight that is coming is way bigger than just the one between me and Joaquin. I think there’s a shifter war coming, and Joaquin is part of it. I think he is setting us up to be killed off so he can gain control. I have to stop him; I just do not know how.”
Oh, but Drake could help her with that, if she just let him—or could trust him. Not that she could do either. He was a bear and her enemy. Even if the two of them were able to get past that—he was Magda’s son, and Magda had a huge hard on for power. No way was she going to let any son of hers go rogue and outside the laws of nature and shifter.
The sun beat down on her head, and Angelina sat there for a long time. She poured water for the wolves and they drank. Then, slowly, Mario got up and made a low sound in his throat. He gave Angelina one last look and then he began to walk away. The she-wolf stood, also looking at Angelina for a moment. Her eyes held pain as she set her paw on the earth but she stepped down anyway and then turned to follow Mario.
“Goddammit. If I believed in omens, that would be one.” Angelina cleaned up the mess, burying the cloth and shifting sand and rocky soil over the remains of the bloody and gross water she had used to clean the paw. “I mean, she’s following him no matter how painful. Great. Good for her. They are both wolves so…”
She blinked. That was not true. Mario was not full wolf. He was something else, something outside nature. The she-wolf had let him choose her anyway, either because she was weak and needed him or because she was alone and any mate was better than none, or because the two of them were both outcasts and alone and a pack of two was still stronger than a solitary creature.
She started walking. She had choices and they were clear.
Drake wanted her—and she hated Joaquin. She knew she could not truly trust either of them, but could she trust Drake enough to try to have something with him? If she did, she would be able to at least indulge her love of music. Drake would not have her out on a corner acting as lookout or slinging dope. He would not tell her music was a waste of her time and life. He would never tell her to shut up and learn her place because if they were together, there were no rules for whatever they created. What they would be together was something that had never been done before.
She got in the car, cranking down the windows to release some of the heat that had gotten trapped within it. The sun baked the trails, sending long shimmers of heat mirages up. Angelina rested her head in her hands.
Everyone would be out of the house. Now was the perfect time to grab her stuff and run. She had friends in Silver Lake. She had some money set aside. She had a need to go. Exiling herself was the only option, but that would guarantee she was hunted. Joaquin would think nothing of crossing territory lines if she did. That would absolutely start a war, and she didn’t need that on her hands or conscience.
“So where the hell do I go?”
The question hung in the still air. Angelina cranked the car, muttering, “First, I go get my stuff. Then I go somewhere, anywhere. Not Silver Lake, and not into tiger territory. That leaves plenty of places. I hear Torrance is nice this time of year.”
She headed down the road, not noticing the motorcycle hanging back behind her, its rider carefully tailing her as she headed east.
**
The house was quiet. Angelina killed the engine and stepped out, her eyes scanning the front of the house. It was actually three houses that had connecting breezeways. The pack owned most of the street, and they had always taken pride in it and the neighborhood back before Joaquin had come to power. Now it looke
d seedy and sad, and there were broken bottles near the curbs. The old folks who lived a few streets over were overwhelmed by the new drug dealers and the addicts, by the heavy traffic of cruising cars whose passengers were looking to score and the unsavory element of pimps and hookers looking to be close to the illegal action.
Uneasiness swept over her as she walked toward the door. She scented the air but there were too many scents, both old and new, for her to be able to tell if Joaquin was there or not.
She paused, listening hard, still trying to smell him out, but there’d been a lot of traffic in and out of the house, as usual. She could smell him, and it was a strong fresh smell, but she could not tell if it was hours or minutes old due to the scents mingled with his.
Her eyes went back to the driveways and street. His car—a huge restored ’66 Caddy, was nowhere in sight. Joaquin didn’t allow anyone to drive his baby so he had to be gone.
Her fingers turned the key into the lock. Angelina didn’t close the door. She stood there, still listening and sniffing. Nothing. The smell of garlic and onions, eggs, and tomato hung in the air. Someone had cooked breakfast at some point then. Her belly rumbled at those scents, reminding her she had not eaten since yesterday afternoon.
She dashed to her bedroom. She closed the door and grabbed a bag. There was little she wanted beyond her clothes and the few photos she had of her and her family. It took all of about ten minutes to toss her shoes, the ones that were still in good shape, her clothes, and those pictures into the bag. She grabbed the old acoustic guitar. Its strings, stirred by the small breeze she created when she picked it up, chimed softly, a light whisper of sound that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up and goose bumps break out all over her skin.
She turned, her eyes going to the closed door. Was she imagining things or had she heard something out there, a creaking floor or a hasty step?
She hesitated but heard nothing for a few long seconds. Her eyes went to the door handle. She had locked it automatically, and her heart hammered hard in her chest as she saw the knob turn in a slow but deliberate way, one that she was most decidedly not imagining.