by V M Black
Werewolf humor. But it was a slap in the face that even a vampire would understand.
There was a stirring in the undergrowth, and his wolf senses pricked as the smell reached him. Rabbit. How long had it been since he’d let himself hunt in this form? The wolf wasn’t good with days and weeks, so only one answer came back—too long. And that was enough to send him bounding into the bush.
The rabbit never had a chance. Levi’s strong jaws collapsed its windpipe, smothering it in seconds. Greedily, he ripped the belly open, eating the offal that so offended human tastes and delighted those of the wolf, gulping them down in a few, quick bites. Then he lifted the rabbit’s limp body by the scruff of the neck and carried it back to the den where Harper waited.
His wolf’s brain thought, Mate. And his human mind said, Shut the hell up you freaking dog.
And then he arrived at the trailer door, dropped the rabbit, and shifted hastily before he could think anything even more stupid.
“Hey,” he said as he opened the door. But the living area was empty and the trailer was silent, almost unnaturally so. He could hear the dryer running through the closed door, but other than that, even his werewolf senses could detect nothing at all. Flipping the rabbit into the sink, he stepped inside with growing alarm, and then—
A sigh. Levi heard the faintest sigh coming from the back. He followed the sound to a room, pushing the door open. Harper was sprawled on a queen-sized bed that took up almost the entire floor space. She’d fallen asleep on top of the duck-patterned bedspread, hugging a pillow against her body with a towel still half wrapped around her.
Harper looked far smaller than she seemed when she was awake. Sure, all those luscious curves were still very much in evidence—and a lascivious part of his brain expressed regret that she was holding the pillow so tightly—but when she was awake, with her eyes flashing and her ready answer to every challenge, it was far too easy to forget how fragile she really was. How human.
She’d already faced down men with guns, a vampire, and two cars, when really, she had no business challenging any of them. It was his fight, not hers, a fight of one werewolf for his whole clan. She was only human, and it had been a mistake to ever let her get involved. When she got hurt, she stayed hurt. And if she stayed hurt, he’d never forgive himself….
Well, there was no avoiding it now. He’d dragged her into it, and she’d have to see it out until the end—or at least until he had a safe place to stash her. Which definitely wasn’t here. Until then, though, he should stay away from her—or at least out of her pants. The cut on her arm should have sobered him up when it happened, should have been more than enough evidence of just how vulnerable she was and just how impossible anything more than a casual tumble could be. He blamed his distraction and stupidity and susceptibility to those curves and, God, that smile and the gleam in her eyes….
He cut off that thought as he stepped out of the room, closing the door to and retreating back into the kitchen. He grabbed a kitchen knife from a drawer and started to skin the rabbit with more force than was necessary. He was stupid. An idiot. What did he really know about Harper, anyway, except that she was smart and sassy and was cool under pressure and, of course, a solid ten on any scale—
One of the cabinets yielded a fat cast iron Dutch oven. There wasn’t any fresh food, but there was some oil, with which he quickly browned the butchered rabbit, and some boxed chicken stock and some crushed tomatoes that he threw in with some salt and pepper, onion powder, and a couple of tablespoons from a big shaker labeled “Italian seasonings.” He put it on to simmer, covering it over, and lined up the cans of vegetables—corn, carrots, and peas. Not his first choice, but they’d do.
There was a buzz from behind the back door. The dryer. Stepping through, Levi found himself in kind of a makeshift shed added to the back of the trailer. His pants and jacket were draped on the open edge of the washing machine, still damp. He flipped the dryer door down and pulled out the rest in a great armful, hauling it inside and dumping it on the faded blue couch in the living room. He made an inventory of the clothes—his underwear, t-shirt, and socks and Harper’s panties, bra, new socks, jeans, shirt, and hoodie. It looked like it was all there.
He went to the jumble of objects from Harper’s purse that were set out on the counter. Still damp. He wanted to head out early, but the guns and ammo should at least be dry first. He looked at the SD card—and for a moment his heart stopped, because the card wasn’t there. The hair rose instantly on the back of his neck, but his nose told him that he and Harper were the only ones to be in the trailer for a very long time, and there was no fooling his nose.
Which meant that she’d taken it—taken it and hidden it, because she didn’t trust him not to leave without her.
The burst of irritation faded quickly as he realized that leaving without her would have been the smart thing, if she weren’t in such danger still. It was, in fact, exactly what he was planning. Just not yet.
There was nothing more to do for now except wait. And wolves were very good at waiting. Levi shifted into his wolf form, ignoring the label that his brain wanted to give Harper’s smell, and curled up in front of her door. And he slept.
***
Harper staggered out of the bedroom just as he added the can of carrots to the stew, her hair a wild red cloud around her head and the towel clutched haphazardly around her body.
“Oh, my God,” she said blearily, rubbing her eyes. “You’re hot and you cook. Will you marry me?”
Her carelessly tossed out words sent a stab of something into his gut—panic, he decided, it had to be panic, because it certainly wasn’t poignancy or regret or wistfulness or anything that sentimental or foolish. “Depends. Are you planning on giving me the SD card back?”
She blinked at him. “Yeah, sure.”
“Then I’m all yours.” He gave the pot a final stir and ladled the stew into to two bowls, shoving a spoon into Harper’s before handing it to her.
She took it, the towel sliding to expose even more of the curve of her breast. Levi considered telling her that her clothes were dry.
Yeah, right. Either she’d figure out that he was in his t-shirt and underwear or she wouldn’t. He certainly wasn’t going to encourage her to put clothes on.
“I’m so hungry,” she said, sitting at the table and loading a huge bite of stew onto her spoon. “All I had yesterday was a few French fries and half a hamburger.” She blew across the steaming surface once, then ate it too quickly, causing her to wave and blow frantically as the scalding liquid hit her mouth.
“It’s hot,” Levi said helpfully, leaning against the corner of the counter as he took up his own bowl and ate a much more careful bite.
She rolled her eyes as she swallowed. “It’s so good!”
Levi snorted. “Is it the canned veggies or the stale herbs that you like so much? I think you’re just really hungry.”
She held up a chunk of rabbit, frowning at it. “Where did you get the meat? What is it? Some kind of game? Uncle J.T. usually cleans out the freezer by the end of the season.”
He just smirked at her. “Around.”
“Oh?” she said, the crease between her eyebrows deepening. Then she said, “Oh! Really? Don’t werewolves have to, you know, follow hunting season and all that?”
“Never met one who did,” Levi said, amused by the idea. He didn’t tell her that hunting was a part of the drive of the wolf-form, and the need to hunt was one of the things that forced werewolves to shift—sometimes at inconvenient moments, such as on a day when there was an important client meeting or a stakeout.
“I thought you might’ve left,” she said between bites. “You know, the way you headed out of the bathroom and all.”
“Yeah,” he said. Levi didn’t like this conversation, and the fact that she was naked certainly didn’t make it any easier. “About that. There’s a lot on the line right now, and stuff like that, well, it makes things more complicated.”
�
��You mean that you don’t want to fuck anymore,” Harper said, her eyes going flat.
God, how he hated to see her like that, her vivacity replaced with something brittle and hard. But it was for the best—really for the best, because if he pursued this thing with her, only worse would come.
“No, I get it,” she said. “You’ve had your fun. You’ve played your game and gotten what you wanted. I’ve had this dance before, and I know how it ends. There’s only one problem. If you walk out that door right now, well, there are some pretty bad guys after us right now, and I don’t know what they’ll do to me. So call me clingy if you want, but you can’t ditch me yet.”
“I’m not ditching you, Harper,” Levi said. “And it’s not like that. It’s because there are guys after us that I think this whole thing is a bad idea.”
“It’s a bit late for that.” Her words were hard and ugly.
All Levi wanted to do was to wrap her in his arms and tell her just what he really thought—how amazing, beautiful, clever and far too brave she was. But that would just make matters worse. It wasn’t fair to her how much danger he’d put her in, and it definitely wasn’t fair to lead her on anymore when he knew in his heart of hearts that nothing could ever come of this.
Not if he was smart.
But when he looked at her, with her angry, closed face, the hurt in her eyes that she was trying to hide, he wanted to be a fool.
He took a deep breath. “Look, I just want to keep you alive, okay? This whole mess is my fault. Including your car, which is totaled now, remember? You should be mad about that, not mad that I think that getting more involved is a bad idea.”
“And who says I’m not?” she snapped. Her bowl was empty. She stalked over to the sink and washed it with short, angry motions, shutting the cabinet a little too hard after she put it on top of the others.
“Harper—” Levi said, then he stopped himself. It was better this way. “I rinsed your boots as best I could, so they don’t have any grit in them, but they’re still wet. The rest of your stuff is dry, though. We’d better get going. It’ll be dawn in a few hours, and they’ll figure out that we’re not dead soon enough.”
“Sure thing,” Harper said, going over to the pile of laundry on the couch and jerking on her clothes. Levi tried not to feel regret as those luscious curves were covered up. “What’s your brilliant plan? To make for the highway and hitchhike in your socks? Or as a wolf?”
“I found the jon boat when I was out last night,” he said.
Harper stopped in the middle of one angry movement, her sock halfway on her foot. “That’s my Uncle J. T.’s. We can’t just take his boat without asking.”
Levi shook his head at her. “As I see it, we can either take his boat or we can throw ourselves on the tender mercies of that vampire.”
“Isn’t he dead?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t count on it. In fact, with a nine mil, I’d bet hard money that the only permanent effect was to jog a few memories loose.”
She seemed to think about it for a while—actually think about whether it was preferable to borrow her family’s boat without permission or get chased down by the people who wanted her dead.
He would have been more exasperated if that kind of loyalty wasn’t peculiarly touching.
“All right. Fine. But I’m leaving a note. And you cleaned up, right? I mean, this is my cousins’ place, and we shouldn’t leave a mess—”
“Harper, we’re on the run from a killer vampire and an entire multinational criminal organization,” Levi said distinctly. “You get that, don’t you? And you’re worried about leaving a mess at your cousins’ place?”
“They’re family, and family’s important,” she said. “Even if I want to kill my stupid sister sometimes. At least clean up the food and tie up the trash. We can’t pack it out, but I’ll apologize in the note, in case they come back before I get a chance to clean up.”
Levi shook his head, wondering if maybe she wasn’t part werewolf, after all. “I’ll get to it if you pack everything back into your purse. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said, putting action to her words.
Everything disappeared into Harper’s purse again—the reassembled and reloaded guns, the ammo inside zip-top baggies, her wallet and phone and surviving makeup, and everything else that didn’t go into his jacket. He put on his damp motorcycle leathers, then found a plastic tub for the rest of the stew, and at her insistence, he scrubbed the empty pot and dried it.
At his suggestion, the SD card went into her hip pocket inside its plastic bag and the coin purse. Whatever happened, she’d be staying human-shaped, so that seemed like the safest place for it.
Before they left, Levi put on his damp pants and jacket and shoved his socks in a pocket. Harper raided the fridge, adding a six pack of Yuengling into her purse.
“Can’t drink the river water,” she said in response to Levi’s raised eyebrow. “And I already checked for water bottles.”
Oh. Well, she probably couldn’t.
Levi made sure that Harper left first, then wadded up the note she’d left and tossed it in the trash. He felt a small pang for tricking her, but Harper and her family were both safer if Mortensen’s men didn’t realize that the fugitives had any relationship to the owners of the trailer when they were tracked there. And Levi didn’t have any illusions that they wouldn’t be.
By the time they stepped into the clearing, the moon was low on the horizon, and the night shadows were long. Harper immediately stumbled over a fallen branch in the darkness, and Levi shot out and hand and steadied her.
“Don’t tell me,” she said. “You can actually see in this, even as a human.”
He smiled at her. “I’m not ever really human, Harper. I just look like one. This way.” He led her down the path toward the river, guiding her with a hand on the shoulder.
For once, she gave no snappy retort, following along in silence. Any thought that he might have chastened her into silence was dispelled by a look at her face, which was set in concentration. Far more likely was the possibility that she was simply trying not to trip and fall.
The jon boat was hidden in the trees well above the flood line, turned upside down and raised up on blocks. The trolling motor was covered under a tarp, and Levi loosened the knots in the rope that held the cover fast and pulled it away.
“Step back,” Levi ordered, and he levered it carefully onto his back so that the hard metal of the rear bench rested across his shoulders.
“Are you sure you can manage it?” Harper asked.
Levi smiled at the concern in her voice. “No problem, babycakes. You just get the oars.” He balanced it on his back as he took the trail the last hundred yards down to the river, his feet sinking into the soft earth. He set it down on its side, raising the motor before rolling it onto its flat bottom.
Harper stood behind him, oars in hand.
“Get in,” he said.
Wordlessly, she did, stepping from the shore into the boat and settling on the front bench. Levi rolled his pant legs up, gave the boat a push to launch it, and climbed in just as the end cleared the bottom and floated free. He lowered the trolling motor and held his breath as he turned the electric switch on.
It started, and he allowed himself to relax fractionally, pointing the boat downstream as he raised it halfway to its maximum speed. The shores slipped by at the speed of a moderate walk. He could go faster as a wolf—but of course, he couldn’t sleep while walking, and he couldn’t carry Harper all day as a wolf without exhausting himself and, most likely, attracting unwanted attention. For all that there were woods on both sides of the river, they were in central Pennsylvania, and there were houses and cabins and farms a no more than a few hundred yards away at all times.
“How long will the battery last?” he asked.
Harper had been watching him silently. Now she shook her head. “I really don’t know. We’d use it all day, but of course we were mostly just going out and dropping the anchor
to fish an hour or so before trying out a new spot.”
He nodded. It was as good an answer as he was going to get. “Until it runs out, could you take the tiller? I didn’t get much sleep.”
“Sure thing,” she said her voice perfectly neutral as she moved to the seat beside him.
“Give me a nudge when the battery dies, and I’ll take over,” he said. The boat seemed to be waterproof, at least so far, so he slid to the bottom, shifting aside her purse.
“No problem,” she said.
Stretched supine on the cold aluminum, Levi closed his eyes and let sleep come.
Chapter Five
“It’s dead.”
Those two words penetrated Levi’s consciousness immediately and completely, bringing him awake. He opened his eyes, wriggled out from under the edge of the bench seat, and sat up.
It was full morning, the sunlight glittering on the surface of the river. The night’s chill had already burned off, and when he looked over at Harper, there was a faint sheen of sweat on her upper lip beneath his oversized sunglasses. Her hair was completely dry, even the spots she’d slept on the night before, and she’d taken the opportunity to brush it out and apply a layer of gloss to her lips.
He had to admire her attention to that kind of trivial detail in the face of danger. He looked down at her hands, and sure enough, even her nails were perfectly clean.
“Anyhow, the answer is two and a half hours,” she continued.
“What?”
“Two and a half hours. That’s how long the battery lasted,” she said, nodding to the trolling motor, which was now still and locked into its raised position. “It’s nearly eight o’clock.”
And if their pursuer hadn’t figured out that they weren’t dead yet, they would soon enough. With the help of Mortensen’s own loyal werewolves, they’d find the trailer long before noon.