by Bonnie Vanak
The powerful scent of blood wafted on the wind. Picking up the trail again, Grayson growled low in his throat. He headed east, eager to kill whatever threatened his Katy.
He entered a clearing and saw the blood source. A deer, its sightless eyes staring at the moon, its throat torn out. Grayson loped closer, and sniffed the carcass.
Fur rose along his sleek body. Grayson scanned the area, his extraordinary senses screaming danger. He scented nothing but deer blood and the faint, sweet smell of flowers. No other animals’ forms, nothing around him on the ground.
But he felt something, or someone, watching him.
Uneasy at leaving Katy alone, Grayson loped over to the nearest tree and lifted his leg, marking his territory. He growled at the air. Stay away from her.
Grayson sniffed the air again, picking up a new scent. Iron and cold snow, mixed with freshly mown grass. The Belcher pack alpha.
Perhaps the alpha was widowed, searching for a new mate. He didn’t know, for he’d been gone far too long.
If the Belcher pack alpha had heard of Katy’s origins, he could have coaxed Charles from the Mitchell pack to kidnap Katy, bring her to him to be his new mate. Katy was young, very fertile, and would give the male many sons.
Grayson had no choice now. He had to find his pack, get information. He could not protect Katy alone if a rival pack was after her. He sent a telepathic message to his best friend, Chase.
What do you know about the Belcher pack alpha?
Chase immediately answered back. Dude, you’re back. Been too long. What’s wrong?
I need to know about the Belcher pack alpha. Is he widowed? Looking for a new, powerful mate?
Yeah, heard something about that. Why?
Come quickly as you can, and gather the others.
Chase and the pack were hunting on the pastoral grounds where they made their home, about a half day’s travel from the cottage in the woods.
You okay? Chase asked.
Yeah. But hurry. I have a young, vulnerable female with me.
The line of communication cut off, but Grayson knew Chase would heed his request, and get their alpha, Cedric, to the cottage.
Angered at the idea of having to involve his pack, Grayson shifted back to Skin. He snarled at the air, and in his fury, released his magick.
Two bluish-white balls of pure energy sailed into the ground, creating a large crater.
Trembling, he stared at his hands, knowing his magick had amplified ten times since his last visit to this world. He had become much more powerful.
Katy did not know what he was, or who he was.
What would she choose when she found out he was not a normal Lupine? Or, for that matter, when she discovered exactly what she was?
Chapter 10
When Grayson returned to the cottage, he didn’t join her in the bedroom. Instead, he bathed in the indoor/outdoor shower. When she heard him come back inside the cottage, moving about, she waited a minute.
Frustrated, she crept out of bed and opened the door. Grayson was fast asleep on the sofa, the silver sword lying within reach on the nearby table.
Returning to bed, Katy sighed, and settled in for a restless night.
There was no mystery about the effects of the Dark Kingdom on her libido. With magick powerful enough to run appliances, the kingdom had infused her body with enough Lupine hormones to make ten normal Lupines crazed with sexual need. It cranked up her heat from simmering to volcanic.
Never had she felt this blistering need for sex. Burrowing under the soft covers, she sighed and drifted into a dream filled with images of a nude Grayson, growling as he flung her onto the bed and then prepared to mate with her…
When she awoke in the morning, sun streamed through the window. The beams danced on the floor, turning blue and lilac. Tiny whispers filled the air and she realized that fairies danced in the beams outside her window. Enchanted, she climbed out of bed, stretched out a hand to touch the light, watching the fairies dance in the sunshine.
Another faint memory surfaced. Laughing and twirling in the sunshine when she first woke and seeing fairies giggle as they joined her.
Dropping her hand, she shivered. How could she remember something so unusual as this when she’d never been here before?
Troubled, she went into the shower, and then emerged in a soft towel. As she gazed around the bedroom, Katy wished she had a fresh change of clothing. She could not conjure clothing by magick without shifting first.
As she turned around, she was shocked to see clothing laid out on the bed. It had not been there a minute ago.
She dressed in the forest green gown of silk, delighting in the slippers on her feet. It was if the fairies had conjured the clothing for her.
Katy went into the kitchen. The window over the sink was opened to allow a cool breeze inside. Bare-chested, Grayson was at the counter, cutting up links of sausage. She hovered in the doorway, admiring the view, the strong curve of his biceps, the trim waist and abdominal muscles and the narrow hips.
He turned, and her breath fled. His chest was…whoa. Dark hair covered his thick chest. Not an ounce of fat on this wolf.
Grayson’s intense blue gaze met hers. He handed her a plate filled with sausage. “Eat. You’ll need your strength for later.”
Later, as in what? He seemed too uptight for sex. Grayson prowled the kitchen, looking out the window as if expecting someone.
Katy ate in a hurry, hungrier than she realized. When she finished, he took her plate and dumped it into the sink.
“They’re here,” he told her.
Looking out the window, she gasped at the sight of about eighty people milling about on Grayson’s lawn out back. No warning. No sound, nothing. Her own pack was quiet and Aiden, their alpha, was especially stealthy when it came to slipping in and out, but Aiden couldn’t mask his scent. This was incredible.
Silent as mist, they had arrived. They all looked different, with various stages of height and weight, yet somehow they seemed united, as one large force.
It was their scent, she realized. Even though their scents were all individual, a distinct fragrance of sharp cedar threaded through them like a fishing line holding many lures.
Grayson pulled on a charcoal T-shirt. “I have to go greet them formally. Haven’t seen them in many years.”
“This is your pack?” she asked.
He nodded. “I called them here.”
“It’s why you refused Aiden. You have your own pack. This is where your loyalty lies.” She suspected Grayson had secrets, but this was a huge one. Did he mean to stay here with her and never leave?
Or would he return her to the Skin world and his own ranch?
“This is my world, Katy, but I’ve been absent a long time. My alpha, Cedric, is more than eight hundred years old. We are free to come and go as we please, but when we are here, we belong to the pack.”
He took her hand. “Come, meet them. I asked them to come here because the one who orchestrated your kidnapping is here in Wolf Haven, darling. I’m positive of it. And I’m going to flush him out.”
Her heart beat faster from his touch and her own nervousness. “What if they object to me? I’m an outsider.”
Grayson lightly squeezed her hand. “They won’t. And I’ll be right here with you.”
Katy balked, sensing a greater intent with him. “I’m not from your pack. Why won’t they resent me intruding on their world?”
He gave her a steady look. “Because you’re with me, and I will tell them exactly what you are to me, Katy. You’re going to be my mate.”
Katy blinked, startled at the new possessive tone of his voice. Grayson had always been friendly, but never this…primitive. “Oh? And do I get a say in that?”
“Reckon you do.”
And then he fisted a hand in her hair and gave her no time to think, act or even breathe before his mouth was on hers. Hot, demanding, possessive. His tongue swept into her mouth, staking a claim. This wasn’t a sweet kis
s, or a reassuring one. It was passion and fire, a male’s need firing her own sexual arousal. Katy clung to him like a life raft in a storm, weakened with desire. Her nipples saluted the inside of the soft dress and the space between her legs ached for him to fill it. Grayson slid his left hand over her breast, gently squeezing and kneading until she moaned beneath his mouth.
When he released her, his eyes glittering amber with the rise of his wolf, she almost collapsed.
“Tell me you don’t want me,” he murmured.
Unable to think straight, let alone speak a coherent thought, she backed off. Grayson’s kiss made her female parts howl with need, and she could not deny the powerful attraction between them. Sex wasn’t a luxury now—it had turned into a necessity to ease the ache of her body.
But she couldn’t let her own lust turn her into a mindless robot, eager to spread her legs and surrender her will to this powerful male.
She pressed a hand to her head, finally gathered her scrambled thoughts. “There’s more to being someone’s mate than sex, Grayson.”
He slid a hand over her cheek, caressing her skin with the edge of one thumb, making her tremble with fresh need. “I know, sweetheart. But for the purposes of meeting my pack, I have to state my intentions. You’re young, ripe and ready for the taking, and I won’t have another male sniffing around you. There are fewer females here in the Dark Kingdom, and few in my pack.”
Gone was the laconic Grayson who was amicable and friendly. This male was savage and nearly feral in his sexual need.
“What about Aiden? I belong to his pack. You can’t take me away.”
“Already worked it out with him. He gave me permission.”
Outraged, she glared at him. Maybe she was grateful for his protection, and she wanted him deep inside her, every inch of that hardness that had pressed against her soft belly, but being mated was another matter. “What makes you so certain I’ll agree to this? What if I decide to march back out there without you?”
“You can’t. Too dangerous.” Grayson clasped her hand. “Come on.”
He was right. Trying to navigate through that dark forest alone gave her a sickening feeling. And that cave…
For now, Katy had no choice but to follow his lead.
The air outside his cabin seemed warm, but the stares of the Lupines sanding quietly in the green expanse of grass in the back chilled her blood. They looked like normal Lupines in Skin. There were males in jeans, with polo shirts, some males wearing cargo shorts and one in hunting gear. One even wore neatly pressed trousers and a blue silk shirt. The females wore long dresses of blue or green, their hair pinned up or loose. All the pack members were different, but she sensed their power like a humming electrical line.
They were not normal Lupines. There was something “Other” about them, just as there was with Grayson.
Grayson put a hand on her shoulder. “This is Katy. She was kidnapped by someone in her pack in the Skin world and brought to Gerner’s brothel. Someone in Wolf Haven organized this. I scented the Belcher pack alpha near my cottage, and I suspect that alpha’s the one who ordered Katy’s kidnapping.”
Stunned, she turned her head to look at him. “Who is this person and why didn’t you tell me about him?”
Gently, he squeezed her shoulder. “I needed my pack here first, to protect you, sweetheart. The Belcher pack is larger than ours, and I can’t protect you by myself if we face war from a rival pack.”
A pack war, over her? She shuddered, hating the thought. “Why me? I’m no one special. There are females here.”
Grayson’s gaze became heavy-lidded. “None as special as you.”
Murmurs rippled through the pack like wind. One Lupine detached himself from the crowd and nodded at Grayson. “Welcome back, man.”
“I’m no man,” Grayson deadpanned. And then he laughed, went to the Lupine and clasped his forearm. “Chase. Reckon you’re pissed off because I took my time returning.”
Chase put a hand over his heart. “You never called. I waited and waited.”
Grayson laughed, a deep, reassuring sound.
“I missed you,” the other Lupine said.
Grayson’s smile dropped. He drew her forward. “Katy, this is my friend Chase.”
Chase gave a formal bow. “Welcome to our world, Katy.” He had merry brown eyes, a shock of thick, dark hair spilling down to his shoulders and looked wild, but she liked him.
A shorter male wearing cloth trousers and a leather vest pushed forward. Gray-haired, with thick, dark brows set over dark eyes, he did not smile. An air of authority clung to him, and something else. Instinctively she knew this was the pack alpha. Older than the others, he swept her over with a scrutinizing look. It made her skin crawl as if ants burrowed beneath it.
Grayson stepped forward and hugged the male like a son greeting his father. Cedric hugged him back, but there was a coolness in his gaze when the alpha released him.
“About time you returned home to us. I thought you’d be home sooner, after my little talk.”
What little talk? Katy wanted to ask, but seeing the guarded look on Grayson’s face, decided against it. Pack politics were delicate matters, and she had no idea how things operated in this world.
Grayson gave a polite nod. “Cedric, this is Katy. Katy, this is our alpha.”
Katy tried to conceal her revulsion as Cedric took her hand. Gray-haired Cedric was heavily muscled, and looked wilder than the others, as if he’d been living a long time as wolf. He was barefoot, and the tops of his feet were hairy, along with his toes. She glanced at his hands. Same with those. It was as if he’d shifted, and some parts of his body forgot what it was like to be in human skin again.
Though the alpha made her want to run away, even to the dark forest, years of pack living drilled into her. Forcing a polite smile, she struggled against the need to yank away her hand. “Hello.”
“My dear Katy,” Cedric crooned. He pulled her closer and smiled. Katy tried to tug her hand away, but he refused to release it.
“Let her go,” Grayson protested.
The alpha did, and then Cedric turned with whirlwind speed and raked his claws across Grayson’s face. Katy cried out and rushed forward, but two other men grabbed her arms.
“I’ve been searching for her ever since Gerner informed me she escaped. Thank you for delivering her to me. Now back off. The female is mine.”
The alpha gave a sinister smile. “Mine to fuck and breed with.”
Chapter 11
Katy cried out and lunged against the grip of the two males holding her fast, but they were much stronger than her. Grayson staggered backward, blood streaming down his cheeks. The alpha had just missed clawing his eyes.
Oh damn, she knew it had been a bad idea to come out here. Every instinct had warned against it, but her Skin side said this was Grayson’s pack and she had to be polite. Katy struggled in the arms of the two men, who held her firmly.
“Cedric, have you lost your damn mind?” Chase asked.
“Shut up,” the alpha said, his gaze never leaving Grayson’s. “This doesn’t concern you.”
Waves of sexual arousal radiated from him, along with male aggression…and something else. Something so dark and tainted it suffocated her throat.
Whatever had happened to Cedric was not normal or natural.
“Cedric, let her go,” Grayson said quietly. How he could be so calm with the bloody claw marks gouging his skin?
“Never,” the alpha snapped. “She’s mine.”
Grayson fisted his hands. “You’re the one who had her kidnapped.”
“It was easy enough to convince that weak fool Charles to bring her to the portal, in exchange for gold. All I needed was a pawn, and hanging out in the Skin world, as disgusting as it was, gave me the opportunity to find an insider to where she lived.”
“Cedric, man, what the hell are you talking about?” another Lupine yelled.
“Shut up,” the alpha said. “Katy is one of us, and she
belongs to me.”
“No, I don’t.” She struggled in the grip of the two males holding her fast.
“Oh, you do, my dear. Why else did I allow Grayson to take you to the Skin world? I was waiting for the moment when you’d turn twenty-one and come into your full power. I have planned this for a long time, Katy. I’m certain you will enjoy being with me. I am a most exquisite lover. I’ve had many, many years of practice.”
Her heart beat faster, but not with arousal. Pure terror arrowed through her. She’d been kidnapped and brought to a brothel in the Dark Kingdom to satisfy the lust of this…thing.
Not a Lupine. Not an ordinary one. But a Lupine who had lived more than eight hundred years and was corrupt from the inside out.
“You won’t have her,” Grayson snapped.
Cedric let his talons lengthen. “I am the alpha. She belongs here with me, the strongest male, to take her and breed with her.”
Katy bristled. “I am not a steak. I make my own choices.”
“In the Dark Kingdom, females know their place,” the alpha said calmly.
Blood still streaming down his injured cheek, Grayson looked at her. “In the Dark Kingdom, females have their own defenses to fight off males who would hold them against their will. Katy is still innocent of her powers. She received no training. She doesn’t yet know of her powers.”
Powers? Katy’s instincts tingled. This place, which seemed so familiar. The feeling of isolation back at the Mitchell Ranch, as if she never would quite belong…
Did Grayson mean she was from this world?
Her gaze swept around the rest of the pack. They looked uncertain, but the alpha ruled them, and they would not interfere.
“You chose the Skin world, Grayson. Your life is there. You are no longer pack,” Cedric sneered.
“And you are no alpha who protects females.” Grayson gestured to the pack. “You forgot the number one rule of pack: never put your own needs before the others. If you need a mate that badly, why would you steal one?”