“I’d prefer to stick to the original plan,” I countered just as my phone trilled from the passenger seat. And even though, instinct demanded that I keep my attention tuned to the stranger, I still couldn’t resist glancing down at the screen.
“Eric is mine,” Ransom had texted, making me shiver and peer out across the nearly empty parking area to figure out how the alpha had known I was balking at the pickup. There was nothing to see, however. Just the ticket booth, the waiting ferry, and a couple of empty vehicles parked off to one side.
Which meant Ransom was guessing, playing cat and mouse with me. Too bad for him that I was a fox instead of a mouse.
A fox who noted what Ransom hadn’t said as much as what he had said. The exiled alpha had been the one to invite me into his not-quite-territory in the first place, and he hadn’t issued an ultimatum telling me to ride across with Eric or go home without the offered meeting either.
Which meant Ransom wanted this get-together as much as I did. Had as good as handed over leverage to use against this shifter guarding the virtual gate.
While I pondered, the unnamed werewolf had been padding around the vehicle like a stalking panther. And the fact that he wasn’t hovering directly over me made it just a little easier to expose my neck as I leaned over to pop open the lock on the passenger-side door.
“I’m not getting on a boat alone with a strange werewolf,” I said once I’d straightened. “But if you want to ride across with me on the public ferry, then I’m game.”
Chapter 17
Thirty minutes cooped up in Old Red alongside a simmering werewolf felt like three hours. But it was better than the alternative—jumping out of the parked vehicle and letting Eric wander around behind my back.
So I stuck it out, made the bare minimum pleasantries, and allowed the shifter to guide me to my destination after the ferry workers finally ushered us off the floating prison on the other side. “Left,” Eric grunted as we turned onto the main street, rolling past huge houses with green, sweeping lawns and lakeside vistas. Ransom might have left Atwood pack central with nothing more than the clothes on his back, but he appeared to have landed quite solidly on his feet.
“Here,” Eric said at last, as we passed an ice-cream parlor crowded with hungry tourists then a small but well-maintained city park. My guide barely waited for the car to slow before opening his door and hurrying down the sidewalk away from me. By the time I’d pulled the key from the ignition, he was already out of sight.
“Now what?” I murmured, sniffing the air surreptitiously. It would be hard to find Eric’s scent in the midst of all of these tourists, people pressing past me as I blocked the flow of the human tide....
But I needn’t have worried. Because as I turned in a slow circle, I caught sight of Ransom watching from behind a restaurant’s plate-glass window. The elder Atwood brother was cupping a mug of coffee, his shoulders hunched ever so subtly. As if being a pack leader in exile was harder than he’d initially assumed.
Or maybe that was just my imagination. Because as our gazes snapped together, my breath caught in reaction. This wasn’t the look of a beaten-down pack leader; it was the stare of a two-legged predator trying to decide whether I’d be better eaten with biscuits or toast.
Run, run, run, instinct told me. And I had to forcibly pry my fingers away from the car door to prevent myself from hopping back inside and gunning it out of there.
We were separated by thirty feet of air and a thick pane of glass, so Ransom couldn’t smell my terror. Still, he must have noted the change in my demeanor anyway. Because his mouth spread into his characteristic smirking smile. Then, crooking a single finger, he raised his eyebrows and motioned for me to approach.
“SICK OF MY BROTHER already?” the elder Atwood sibling greeted me as the door whooshed shut behind my back. My muscles tensed in reaction, the reality of being stuck inside a nearly empty restaurant with an alpha werewolf who smelled of fur giving me the urge to turn on my heel and hurry back the way I’d come.
I was done retreating however. Instead, it was time to attack.
“This isn’t about your brother,” I countered as I padded forward on the balls of my feet, magic whirling invisibly around my fingers. “This is about loose lips and strangers suddenly knowing that clan Atwood has taken in two kitsunes. How did that information go mainstream, do you think?”
“Perhaps you should ask my brother,” Ransom countered, bringing the conversation back where he clearly wanted it to stay. “But—wait—Gunner doesn’t know you came to speak with me or you’d never be here unguarded. So what does that make you for sneaking out behind your alpha’s back?”
A mate rather than a sycophant, I wanted to answer, never mind Edward’s assessment of the matter. But, instead, I merely shrugged and murmured, “A fox.”
Despite my best intentions to hold myself wolf-like and tall, I couldn’t prevent my body from swiveling as I spoke, cringing at having my identity outed in a public space. Because I wasn’t on Atwood turf any longer where pack-leader compulsion required that kitsunes be treated respectfully. Good thing the restaurant really was as empty as I’d initially supposed.
Ransom’s laugh brought my head back around to face him. “A cagey fox,” he agreed, pouring a packet of sugar into his coffee then stirring the liquid around with a plastic straw. “But you want something, now don’t you? Which means you’ll give me something in return.”
Ah, here we go. Slipping into the booth across from him, I leaned forward despite the instinct that told me not to squeeze myself into an enclosed space with an alpha wolf. “Perhaps,” I answered. And since werewolves were big fans of dominance rituals, I met and held his gaze for several long seconds after that.
Ransom had eyes exactly like his brother’s. Deep and brown and not quite dark enough to appear black even in dimly lit corners. Also like his brother, Ransom smelled of Atwood ozone, the scent so sharp it made the hairs inside my nostrils itch.
Unlike Gunner, however, Ransom was always on the hunt for an overt show of submission. “I want your debt,” he told me now, voice smooth as silk caressed by sunlight. “Like the debt you owed my brother, to be called in whenever I wish.”
I shook my head, not so much in rejection as in denial of the situation. Because what Ransom apparently failed to realize was that, by coming to him for a favor, I’d already accepted that I’d owe a brand new debt to this exiled werewolf. Accepted that...along with the wedge I knew it would form between myself and his brother, the same brother who called himself my mate.
“No?” Ransom prodded.
“You’re an idiot,” I answered, my words unheated. “Yes, I will be in your debt to the degree you help me track down this kitsune’s history.”
As I spoke, I pulled out my cell phone, Oyo’s picture already drawn up on its screen. I didn’t have any image of my grandmother, but Kira had snapped this shot after our bonding ritual then had texted the image to me for use in my questioning.
I didn’t explain any of that to Ransom, however. Instead, I angled the phone in his direction while bracing myself for smug recognition. After all, the feelers Gunner had put out this morning suggested the neighboring packs were, indeed, sending an unusual number of messages back and forth between the clans. Which pointed a finger at the brother who had means, motive, and opportunity to throw the original Atwood pack to the neighboring wolves.
But all I got from Ransom was cold intensity. “Name?” he demanded as he stared at my phone’s screen.
“Oyo,” I answered. I hadn’t thought to request a surname while she was human so I had nothing else to provide other than a reiteration of my original request. “Do you have any idea who might know that foxes now live within Gunner’s pack?”
“No,” the exiled alpha answered, head shaking as his resemblance to Gunner deepened. Then, giving me the answer I wanted but for a reason I couldn’t quite decipher: “But I certainly intend to find out.”
Chapter 18
D
espite my relatively benign conversation with Ransom, I was no more confident that werewolves would leave me alone when I emerged from the restaurant than I had been going into it. Sure enough, the air when I stepped out onto the sidewalk was redolent with fur, and I found my feet moving faster than I’d intended as I scurried back toward my car.
Inside, I flicked the locks, turned the key in the ignition...then noticed that the engine-temperature gauge wasn’t as cold as I’d expected after a prolonged resting period. Biting my lip, I considered popping the hood and checking coolant levels. But I couldn’t afford for Ransom to see inside the trunk if I went rooting around for the requisite tools....
Meanwhile, during those few seconds I pondered car repair, a mob of werewolves had already materialized, traveling rapidly toward me from opposite ends of the street. Sandwiched in the middle were dozens of human tourists, bound to spook at a shifter altercation that could attract the attention of non-shifter police.
So I’ll deal with potential overheating on the ferry, I decided. After all, that shifter-free zone was only a few minutes’ drive away.
Backing out of my parking spot, a werewolf snarled from inches behind my taillights. Slamming down my foot to pull forward away from him, I almost ran over the one familiar shifter standing two-legged in front of my car.
Elle. She was brown-eyed just like Gunner and Ransom, and now that I knew her heritage I could easily see the resemblance to both brothers in her face.
In human parlance, Elle was my sister-in-law. She was also my mentor and one of the most friendly werewolves I’d ever met. During stolen afternoons spread across the previous summer, we’d talked about everything from kitsune magic to girly gossip. And, in the process, we must have started building a pack bond because I now felt my body lean toward her as something immaterial tugged at my gut.
“Meet me at the ferry dock. I’ll buy you a coffee,” the other female mouthed, the words easy to pick out despite the smeared glass of my windshield. In that moment, it was hard to remember that we hadn’t written or spoken since Elle and her mate left with Ransom rather than staying in Atwood clan central with the rest of us.
Our incipient friendship had been frozen by the stubbornness of two pack leaders, Gunner mandating that no exile could return even for a visit and Ransom retaliating with the order that no communication was allowed between the two clans at all. So Elle and I had lost the chance to talk, not only about shared interests but also about the fact that I was the one responsible for her twin brother’s death.
I’d never been able to make that loss up to her, but Elle must have found it in her heart to forgive me anyway. Because her eyes now crinkled up into a smile, and I felt my own face opening happily in response.
This moment was our chance to thaw our relationship. To place it in the sun, water it, and watch it grow.
And yet...I couldn’t do that. Not when Elle and I had made our respective decisions about pack affiliation months earlier. Not when I risked so much by parking Old Red on Kelleys Island a minute longer than I absolutely had to.
So shaking my head then averting my eyes from Elle’s crestfallen expression, I drove away from her down the street.
I MADE IT APPROXIMATELY a quarter of the way back to clan central before a white cloud started gushing out from beneath the hood of my vehicle. Oops. I’d let the disappointment on Elle’s face sidetrack me, and now Old Red was paying the price.
“Shh, quiet, you can do this,” I crooned at my ancient sedan as I pulled her over to the side of the highway. Was that steam or smoke emerging through cracks in the metal? It suddenly looked more like the latter, with gray twisting up to spiral through the white.
“No! You can’t do this!” I demanded, forcing myself not to pound on the steering wheel. “You know why you can’t do this....” Even alone in the vehicle in outpack territory, I couldn’t quite make myself mention the precious cargo still stashed in the trunk.
I could do something about the upcoming disaster however. Ignoring the wind of a passing tractor-trailer shaking the vehicle around me, I frantically pulled levers at my feet before thrusting open the door. A car honked in protest, swerving away but still coming far too close for comfort. Meanwhile, my attention flew straight to the gas tank and I swore loudly—I’d opened the wrong metal lid by mistake.
Hopping back into the driver’s seat, I looked down this time as I hunted for plastic handles beside my feet. There. I wasn’t quite breathing as I located the appropriate lever then emerged a second time.
Emerged into smoke that choked me even as I raced away from the front end of the vehicle. Had noxious gases gathered in the rear compartment that wasn’t intended to carry passengers? Had...?
“Breathe.” Gunner emerged from the trunk, his arms settled around me even as he drew me away from Old Red at a trot. Together, we fled as fleetly as two-legged shifters are able to. And despite the fact that he had spent hours hiding in the trunk to provide backup without spooking his brother, I was the one shaking as we raced backwards away from my car.
Gunner is fine, I reminded myself. Get it together. And, finally, the alpha’s solid presence beside me was enough to provide breathing room in which to glance back over my shoulder at the smoking car we’d so recently left behind.
“It’s not going to explode,” my mate promised. Then, rightly understanding my body’s twitch, he corrected himself. “She. She’s not going to explode. But Old Red might not be quite the same after this.”
And that was okay as long as Gunner was safely beside me rather than asphyxiating in the trunk of the still smoking vehicle. I squeezed his hand hard enough to be certain I wasn’t dreaming...then I buried my face in his shoulder so I wouldn’t have to watch the devastation of what had been my pride and joy the day before.
Old Red wasn’t much, but she was my first stab at self-owned transportation. It was hard watching her erupt into a cloud of smoke.
“You probably want to know about Ransom,” I murmured into the fabric of Gunner’s sweatshirt, attempting to distract myself.
“I do. But first let me call a tow truck.”
Which—capable werewolf—he managed to do without dislodging my limpet-like attachment to his body. The moment of letting him fix everything served as a balm to my soul.
Still, I wasn’t used to being dependent on anyone else to solve my problems. So by the time Gunner hung up the phone, I was ready to take a peek at my car—no longer smoking quite so badly—then to answer the questions that had to be rolling through Gunner’s head.
“He didn’t know anything about Oyo, but he said he’d ask around for us.” Then, taking a step backwards without separating our intertwined fingers, I relayed the part I would have been worried about in his place. “Your brother looked tired but healthy,” I informed him. Ransom had also appeared predatory and wolfish. But the tiredness, I figured, was what Gunner most wanted to know about.
“Leading a pack is hard work,” the alpha beside me rumbled, pulling me back up against his skin.
And now that I thought about it, Gunner boasted the same predatory stance his brother did, along with the same world-weary cant to his neck. So maybe Old Red imploding would lead to something good after all. Because Gunner sorely needed a break from his pack, craved a little time to forget how badly divided formerly close friends had become.
“What if we got a room and dealt with transportation in the morning?” I suggested before Gunner could place the call he’d queued up to his second-in-command. Sure, someone could come get us...but would it kill the pack for us to steal one evening for ourselves before that occurred?
I held my breath, expecting Gunner’s responsibilities to take precedence over his own wishes. Only, this time I turned out to be mistaken.
“That’s the best suggestion I’ve heard in hours,” my mate rumbled. Then, preventing me from answering in the easiest way possible, he bent down to complete our far-too-often-interrupted kiss.
Chapter 19
Unfo
rtunately, everything crumbled once we reached our rundown motel on the seedy side of town. The problem wasn’t the accommodations, either. In fact, by the time we checked in, I had eyes for one thing only: the bed.
It was queen-sized, just right for two people who liked each other and hadn’t been in the same zip code for an entire season. Plus, Gunner and I had shared a house with keen-eared shifters even when we cohabited, which added to my body’s frustration by quite a lot.
So, toeing out of my shoes, I took his hand and tugged him in the appropriate direction before shedding layer after layer of clothing. “Mates shouldn’t spend so much time away from each other,” I murmured, reaching over to tug Gunner’s head down so his lips were within reach.
But his neck didn’t bend as predicted. Nor did his clothes magically fly in the opposite direction the way I willed them to. Instead, Gunner’s hands landed on my shoulders...and, very gently, he pushed me away from him until I fell into a seated position on the edge of the bed.
“Gunner?” I started, then went quiet so I could hear what he was muttering.
“Allen was right, the bastard,” he growled, his words clearly not intended for me.
Allen not Edward? I remembered Edward calling me a concubine—understandable given his antipathy toward fox shifters. But I’d thought Allen liked me. The geeky werewolf certainly seemed willing to come when I pulled on his pack bond.
I was about to request clarification when Gunner finally met my eyes and offered exactly what I was about to ask for. “We aren’t mates,” he said, his simple words hitting me like a bombshell. “Well, you’re my mate, but I’m not yours.”
THE DETONATION EXPLODED deep within my belly, and like any wounded fox I lashed out in an attempt at self-preservation. “What are you talking about? I moved in with you, didn’t I? I let myself get beaten up by werewolves. What greater commitment do you need than that?”
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