No, it wasn’t possible. She couldn’t feel any sicker.
“It’s just until I get you aboard the boat. You can change back to wolf form and go into a rejuvenating sleep to get well,” Drew murmured gently, his lips against her ear. She must look really banged up because the doubt in his voice told her how he felt. He wasn’t sure she’d be completely well again.
Sabine wasn’t so confident she would either. The gashes in her hip and her messed up leg were taking longer to heal than usual. What worried her most was she didn’t feel the warm soothing preternatural pulses of energy aiding the knitting of her bones and tissues.
Apathetically, Sabine shifted.
Ishbel’s horrified gasp confirmed the worst of her fears. Sabine looked down at her calf and hip. A horrified whimpering gasp escaped through her lips. Raw meat. Her wound glistened wetly. Scabs had barely begun to form over the wound.
“Christ almighty.” Drew glared up at Micah, accusation shooting from his eyes. “What kind of fucking anticoagulant do you people carry in your bite? She isn’t healing.”
Micah’s shoulders slumped as if someone had dropped a ton of bricks on him. His countenance austere, he faced Drew. “I’m not sure. I can only tell you what’s been hinted at, and I believe that’s just the start of our problems.”
“Problems? You don’t have any problems yet, son. But I can guarantee you are about to have a shitload of them,” Drew snarled, rising to his feet.
The pliant vessel undulated under them. The testosterone level rose between the two weres. Oh no, she was getting out of this thing before she got tossed into the black, unfathomable deep.
Sabine grabbed Drew’s arm to pull herself upright. Her good leg could support her weight. He turned and hauled her up, and the world bobbed and weaved.
She closed her eyes because she saw three of everything. “Could you at least get me off this floating lily pad before you two start pounding on each other?”
Drew’s lips compressed into a thin, grim line. “Wrap your arms around my neck and your legs around my hips.”
Shocked out of her misery by his words, she gaped at him. “You can’t possibly expect me to have sex with you now.”
Drew’s brows flew up. The furious fire had died, and his lips twitched. “I wasn’t, but now that you put the idea in my head, are you offering?”
The chuckles from the men brought a hot red flush to Sabine’s face.
“Arrhh, get me off this thing before I embarrass myself any more by throwing up.” She looped her arms over his shoulders and hitched her legs around his haunches.
Drew grinned at her, but she shot him a baleful glower. He tried to stifle his amusement, but it was there, shining unabated from his eyes.
The swift swaying climb up the rope ladder did nothing to improve Sabine’s mood. They swung like a pendulum, bumping into the rusted hull of the ship. Drew tried to protect her as best as he could but they collected a few abrasions on the way up.
When Drew set her down her down on the deck, she almost gave up a prayer of thanks. That was before she realized that the benighted vessel rocked in constant motion with the waves.
“When we get back to that mountain we live on I’m not setting foot or paw off it again,” Sabine groused. The throbbing in her leg eased a little. The more irritated she became, the better it felt.
“Drew!” A blur dashed past Sabine and twined itself around her mate. Drew buried his face into the girl’s sun-streaked blonde hair as she sobbed against his chest. It could only be his sister. Aimee spouted an incomprehensible string of words at Drew without pause, who seemed to understand every word.
“I thought you’d be glad to see me, Aimee mine,” Drew teased, his voice hoarse with emotion. He rocked her back and forth, giving and taking comfort from the soothing action.
Aimee finally wound down and allowed Drew to ease her back from him. “Of course I’m glad to see you.” She gave Drew a playful slap on the chest before she rounded on Micah. “Why didn’t you tell me you had made contact with my brother?”
“I didn’t want him whisking you off before he acknowledges me as your mate.”
The mumbled reply didn’t satisfy, and Aimee gave him a narrow-eyed look.
The girl was tiny and curvy, and all Lunedare with her chocolate-brown eyes, irises rimmed with the distinctive ring of amber. Her identifying scent was prevalently Lunedare. The tang of the were she’d taken as her mate impregnated her spoor, making her a Redmaven. As an added fillip to that, there was their cub binding her and Micah Redmaven, which, judging by Drew’s darkening expression, was not a good thing.
Sabine sighed. They’d be walking on the edge of a precipice trying to diffuse Drew’s righteous anger.
“You’re carrying a cub?” Drew’s stark demand brought a black scowl to Micah’s face.
“Yes, I am,” Aimee chirped, beaming at her brother, her happiness evident.
“Were you forced?” His gaze shifted to Micah, cold and challenging, which Micah met with a sphinx-like indifference to Drew’s unvoiced threat.
Aimee pulled away from her grim-faced brother and moved to stand by Micah. He rested his plate-sized hands over her delicate shoulders, a silent proclamation that they were a unit.
“Don’t be silly. I shamelessly threw myself at him.” Aimee looked up at Micah, and they shared an intimate smile. The were’s face transformed. He looked down at the tiny she-wolf with tenderness and healthy unbridled lust.
Sabine almost laughed, to see her unashamedly sensual mate squirm at the sexuality humming between his sister and the were holding her. It was a new side of him she’d never seen before.
Aimee faced her brother. “This is Micah, my mate.” She ignored Drew’s black scowl. “My choice, I’ve said the words, accepted his mate’s mark. It’s irrevocable.”
“He’s a Redmaven.” Hearing the damning denunciation filled Aimee’s eyes with pain. “Have you seen what he becomes when he shifts?” Drew asked her quietly.
Micah flinched as if Drew had lashed him with a whip.
Interesting, he hated what he was, Sabine thought. She didn’t know the were, but there was no mistaking his feelings for Drew’s sister. He also earned her admiration for liberating his pack, because if there were ever a set of weres who needed rescue from the amoral practices and neglect of their alpha, it was the Redmavens.
“Drew.” The admonishment in the single word brought a flush to Drew’s face. “You taught me that no prejudices were to be tolerated. Why can’t you let go of yours now, for my sake. I know what kind of man Micah is, who he is.” Aimee’s chin jutted out with the same inflexible thrust as her brother’s.
Obviously struggling with his emotions, Drew burst out, “Jaysus, Aimee, you’d have no life with him. The council has decreed that the Redmavens must pay a penalty for flouting. I doubt their bloodline will survive the blood-hunt.”
Aimee’s mouth dropped open, horror written on her face. She clasped her hands protectively over her stomach. “Will that include my baby and me, Drew?”
Micah caught her as she sagged back against him. The other Redmavens crowded around the couple. There was a toughness about them. Eyes filled with resolution glowed greenly with their lupine heritage. They were prepared to fight for their survival.
Sabine struggled to get her feet. “Enough. For Heaven’s sake, Drew, you’re talking the genocide of an entire family.”
“The only thing that’s stopping all the other packs from coming down on the Redmavens is the fact that I get first crack at them for taking Aimee. I would have been satisfied with putting down Bardo and the weres who actually had a hand in kidnapping her.” Drew looked over the silent Redmavens. “At this point, the most I can ask for is a reprieve for the women and children.”
Sabine protested, “That’s not good enough. You will have a lot of say in what happens to them. You can formally request for a pardon. I have studied pack law.”
Drew shook his head. “It would take a petition fr
om four alphas to accomplish that.”
“Justice would do it, if you asked. As will Royal. My father is another, and you are the fourth. Look beyond the fact that Micah is a Redmaven. Consider what courage it took to defy the tenets instilled in every were from birth. Blind obedience to your clan’s alpha. See the faces of his family. Read Micah’s spoor, Drew. In spite of what they did to him, the best of a werekin prevailed in him; the instinct to fight to ensure the survival of his family. Characteristics you share with him.”
Drew gritted his teeth in his aggravation, and her mate looked so beleaguered she almost laughed out loud. “Damn it, Sabine. What do you want me to do?”
“What you are struggling against, to do what you know is right. Save the Redmavens. Save your sister.” She bit her lip, a plea in her eyes.
“Whoa, hold up. Even if I wanted to, which I’m not sure I do, there’s nothing I can do to change their situation. Their pack is a hot mess.” The muscles in Drew’s jaw bunched stubbornly.
Aimee stumbled over to her brother and placed her hands on his chest. “Fix this for me, like you fixed my cuts and scrapes when I was little. I can’t lose him, Drew, please,” Aimee begged. “We don’t come to the table empty-handed.” Desperation thickened her voice. “You have no idea how deep in poop we’re going to be in if we don’t get our butts in gear. The Redmavens have a whole slew of chemicals to mess with how we smell, fight, and heal.”
“Shit, Aimee, here I thought I’d shoveled my way halfway out of the pile,” Drew grumbled and sent another threatening glare at Micah.
Aimee turned, snagged Micah’s arm, and tugged on it insistently. “Tell him, Micah.”
“He doesn’t want to hear diddly-squat from the likes of me. After all, I’m a Redmaven.”
The two weres glared at each other, neither one willing to give an inch.
Needing to break the tension, Sabine felt bound to ask, “If he doesn’t want to hear anything from you, maybe you can explain to me how is it I didn’t catch the trail of the weres we had that little skirmish with.”
Aimee planted her hands on her hips. “Listen to me. My hormones are raging, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to give birth to a cub without a central den when there’s a chance for us to reclaim his birthright. It can happen, providing you two don’t screw the pooch. So work together or I’m going to cop an attitude that’s going to make Katrina look like a summer breeze squall.”
“Sabine needs medical attention,” Drew bit out.
It was a delaying tactic if Sabine ever heard one. “No, it will keep. My wounds aren’t going anywhere. I’m entertained by seeing you try to avoid giving your sister what she wants. Besides, if Micah can provide us with some insight into Bardo’s strategies, I say we listen and be thankful.”
Aimee spared her a grateful glance. “Micah, come on, please, tell him! It would go a long way in getting your home territory back. Drew, you’ll do it for us, won’t you?”
Drew held up his hand like King Canute trying to send back the tsunami that was Aimee, back out to sea. “Now Aimee, that’d be asking for way too much.”
“Not if you take the information we have to Justice, as a show of good faith. Please, Drew, do you want your niece to be homeless? We’d be stuck on this boat, running forever,” Aimee wheedled.
“Niece?”
Aimee smirked slyly. “If you have an Achilles’ heel, it’s us girls. You won’t stand by and see your niece grow up without a home.”
“Reason enough to petition the counsel, on behalf of your sister’s new pack,” Sabine piped in and earned herself a dark scowl from Drew.
“She’s a Lunedare,” Drew declared, flatly.
“Sure she is, as much as I’m a Silverwolf?” Sabine interjected through the side of her mouth. Drew shot her a you’re-not-helping glare.
Drew was obviously beleaguered by Aimee’s pleas and her reasoning. He shot her an irritated look. “Not now, Sabine,” he bit out, tersely.
“Then when? Time is of the essence here, Drew.” Sabine turned to the silent brooding Micah. “In exchange for a boon from the Silverwolves, Micah Redmaven, tell me what we need to know, since my stubborn mate won’t ask.”
Aimee turned, wrapped her arms around Micah’s waist, and rested her head over his heart. “Winter is six months away. We’ll need shelter before it sets in, especially for the cubs, our sick, and our elderly. My baby is not going to be born on this tub.”
Micah sighed, expelling some tension from his rigid body. “What do you want to know?” He addressed Sabine to bypass any interaction with Drew.
“How is your pack mate able to mask himself?” Still he hesitated. “The Silverwolves are the only pack who have that inherent ability.” Micah’s eyes flickered with interest.
Micah snorted. “Let’s just say you’ve connected some dots for me. The pack splintered with orders to regroup when Bardo sent out the call. He headed east with his fore-fighters and a select few members of his pack. We stumbled onto an area where it seemed nobody could pick up our scent trail. I guess that was your doing. Milo started to take air and soil samples before Bardo sent us to Savannah to meet up with the rest of the pack. So here is what I think. Milo’s cloned whatever the hell you use to hide yourselves. And that’s not all he’s working on.” Micah trailed off, and a fraught, oppressive silence descended over them as they absorbed what they faced.
Sabine’s initial shock and dismay came off her in a billow. And she wasn’t the only one affected so badly. Ishbel reached for Rafe who gathered her trembling body into his arms.
Dizziness swamped Sabine.
“Oh, shit. It just gets better and better doesn’t it?” Drew’s anger seemed vapid to what she felt. It went deeper than mere anger for Sabine. The essence of her, the gift that was her family’s to command was stolen. She felt violated.
“Save your ‘oh shits’ for later,” Micah advised Drew, finally addressing him. “You’re going to need them. I have bad, worse and worst news for you. Milo is missing. Your mate’s bite marks should have almost disappeared by now, and that tells me Milo has perfected the serum he was working on to inhibit our ability to regenerate. If Milo can camouflage a wolf’s spoor and couple that with a way to prevent us from recovering from our wounds we are all screwed. I believe Rifkin has Milo, and therefore access to all the formulas he creates. Rifkin is worse than Bardo. Somehow I don’t think an ‘oh shit’ will cover that situation, do you?”
“Who the hell is this Rifkin,” Drew demanded, fuming.
“You made his acquaintance earlier. That big were who was about to take a big chunk out your hide before we showed up. Pity he didn’t get a shot at you before we showed up.” Micah’s feigned regret earned him a toothy smile with little or no sincerity.
“He could have tried.”
Micah shot him a ‘yeah right’ glance. “Anyway, he’s been lining himself up to take over my clan. And he’ll be hard to find now that we can’t track him.”
“Sabine and Ishbel knew something wasn’t right but couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Whatever Milo created has triggered some sort of stimulus that warns you something is off. You know when a were using Milo’s crap is in the vicinity.”
Talk about tossing a starving person a crumb. “Yes, you’re right. It’d be like doing the reverse of scenting out a were.” She and Ishbel exchanged a relieved grin. “So what are we going to do next? I can’t wait to have a little chat with this Milo about messing with people’s pheromones.”
“You are going to sleep to complete your healing.” Drew gathered her up into his arms and rose to his feet.
“But I’m not sleepy.” He ignored her protest.
“You’re wilting like a daisy on hot day.” Drew let out a scoffing laugh. “Got a spare bunk on this barge?”
“You can have our bed,” Aimee offered.
Well if she had to sleep to heal, she’d do it. But when she woke up, she was going on a hunt, a blood hunt on behalf of her birth pack. It was her
last thought as she drifted off.
Chapter Thirty-one
Sabine woke up with her mind racing and energized by the need to take some kind of action. What she had learned the night before played over in her head. She needed to find Micah and ask him more about Milo’s experiments, but a sleeping Drew had her wedged between him and the wall. He had one leg nestled between her thighs and one arm looped around her waist. She tried to wiggle from his hold but his arm tightened around her.
“Are you awake?” she whispered above his head and wiggled to make room.
With his face buried between her breasts, Drew mumbled a muffled plea, “For God’s sake keep still, I don’t want to fall onto my ass. I might damage something vital.”
“Was anything decided after I passed out?”
When he didn’t answer, she gave him a poke in his belly.
A sound somewhere between a grunt and sigh preceded his response. “Not much. I got in touch with Justice and dropped the whole mess into his lap. He’s going to need some time to browbeat the council into seeing things our way. He warned me it might be a little more difficult than we thought. There’s going to be a lot of resistance to the Redmavens reclaiming their ore-rich territory. Some of the local packs were mentally divvying up the land. It shouldn’t be up for grabs for a generation, but the consensus is that the Redmavens shouldn’t be allowed back into the fold, so they might as well parcel it up now.”
She lay still for a while digesting what she just heard and ran a bunch of “what ifs” through her head while Drew drowsed beside her. That burned off very little of the energy humming inside her. Sabine flexed her foot, tensing and relaxing the tendons in her leg. She felt a slight tug in the tendons, but she was reassured that her injuries were healing.
“I’m hungry.”
Eyes closed, Drew reached up and fumbled for something on the shelf above their heads. He took a package off it and handed it to her. A pair of yellow cakes shaped like bars nestled temptingly within the clear wrapping.
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