And if you’re buying that one, Watson, then you’re a gullible idiot…as well as a liar.
Not enjoying that train of thought, Torrance focused on listening to Jeremy hook the nozzle of the pump into the gas tank, then nearly jumped out of her skin when his fingers rapped on the passenger-side window. She reached across the seat, lowered the glass and he crossed his arms inside the frame, one golden brow arching when he caught her strained expression. “Something wrong?”
She made a low sound of disgust, jerking her head toward the diner’s front window, where Mason stood waiting for their order while the blonde made eyes at him. “Do women always melt over him like that?”
Jeremy’s chest rumbled with a soft laugh. “Yeah, but don’t let it bother you, Torry. None of them have ever mattered to him, and Mason isn’t the type to fall in love and then wander.”
“Jeez, Jeremy,” she wheezed, completely stunned. “Who said anything about falling in love? I don’t believe in love at first sight. And he doesn’t even know me.”
“Oh, he knows you.” His hazel gaze sparkled with humor, smile lines crinkling sexily at the corners of those mischief-filled eyes. “If you don’t believe in love at first sight, then call it good ol’-fashioned lust at first sight. But it’s more than that. Finding a mate isn’t like being randy or having a bad case of the hots, though there’s no doubt that the hunger is there. It’s more…intense than that. Now that he’s found you, it’s not a matter of another woman turning his head—because she won’t.” He paused for a moment, as if carefully weighing his next words. “He could take another woman, but it wouldn’t be because he wanted her. He’d have to make himself do it, and in doing so, know that he was destroying the bonds he’d made with you—and that would be like ripping his heart out.”
Something in his voice was too personal, as if he spoke from experience, but he didn’t offer an explanation…and Torrance wasn’t about to pry.
“So, um, what exactly do you mean by ‘mate’?” she asked, feeling dazed by his strange words.
He gave her an odd, piercing look, rubbing his hand over his gold-stubbled chin. “I thought Mason might have explained that back at the shop, while you two were chatting in the parking lot.”
She shook her head, whispering, “Must have escaped his mind.”
The blond’s mouth twisted into a boyish smile. “Well, in our world, each male and female has a perfect other half, a life mate, who…completes them, as corny as that sounds. There are still those who believe that humans can’t really be mates to wolves, but they’re full of shit. I’ve seen too many successful unions not to believe that species doesn’t matter. All that matters is what’s inside.”
“And you think that Mason believes I’m his…mate?” she croaked, swallowing an uncomfortable lump of surprise.
“I don’t think it, Torrance. I know it. You are his—which is why Simmons will be so intent on having you. The bastard suspects you’re special, because Mason wouldn’t risk putting a woman in the middle of a Bloodrun unless he had no choice. In this case, he doesn’t.”
Her laugh sounded nervous and fragile even to her own ears. “I guess we’ll have to see about that.”
“Trust me, honey, he wouldn’t have pulled you into all this if he wasn’t completely convinced. It’ll all work out in the end. Just take a deep breath and take it one step at a time.”
“That may be easier said than done,” she muttered.
“I don’t know,” he drawled. “Something tells me you’re the kind of woman who can do anything she sets her mind to.”
Hah! Little did he know. Right now she felt like a woman who wanted to go and hide under her covers for about the next…say, twenty years. Needing to pull her mind off Mason and mates and masochistic werewolves who were trying to kill her, she said, “Can you tell me more about a Bloodrun?”
Jeremy nodded, the look in his eyes warning that he knew she was changing the subject but was going to let her get away with it for now. “Like Mason told you before, Bloodruns are what we do. If we want the chance to become a part of the Silvercrest pack, we have to kill a given number of rogue Lycans. When we reach that assigned number of kills, we can quit Bloodrunning, or hunting, and become members of the pack.”
Her brow furrowed as she asked, “And so you’re still trying to reach your given number?”
“Naw.” He grinned, flashing her his killer smile. “We both completed our required kills a long time ago.” His shoulders lifted in a casual shrug. “This is what we do. We were raised with the pack, so we know exactly what they’re like. Even when we were kids, they treated us like something to be ashamed of and swept under the rug. We couldn’t care less about becoming a part of Silvercrest.”
Torrance wondered if that was true—and despite the terror that filled her at the thought of an actual werewolf pack, her heart broke for the two boys who had been excluded because of some stupid, idiotic prejudice. She wanted to ask more, but Mason came through the door of the diner, carrying a drink holder that held three paper cups of coffee in one hand and a paper bag in the other.
“Nothing fancy,” he rasped in his whispery baritone when he reached the Tahoe, climbing into the backseat. “But I grabbed us some doughnuts to go with the coffee since we’ve missed lunch.”
“Thanks.” He handed her one of the sticky pastries and a cup, and she took a cautious sip, careful since she knew it was hot. “Oh, man,” she moaned. “I really needed this.”
“Yeah, me, too,” he said, wiping a smear of glaze off his lip with the back of his hand.
Too on edge to sit in silence with him while Jeremy replaced the fuel pump—especially after everything she’d just learned—Torrance searched for something to say. “So, is your cabin near your pack?”
He paused in the middle of taking a bite, saying, “They’re not my pack.”
Despite the mildness of his tone, his bitterness rang through loud and clear. “You really don’t like them at all, do you?”
“I’m nothing as far as they’re concerned.”
“Then why do you keep Bloodrunning for them?”
Raising his brows, he cut her a questioning look. “How do you know that I do?”
Torrance took a bite of the doughnut, surprised at how good it was, the sugary glaze melting over her tongue. “Simmons said as much yesterday, and I had an insightful talk with Jeremy while you were getting the coffee.”
“I’ll just bet you did,” he grunted, making another one of those totally male snorting sounds.
“I can guess he probably has a pretty sordid reputation when it comes to women,” she drawled, grinning. “But to be honest, he was a perfect gentleman.”
“Especially with you keeping your eagle eye on us,” Jeremy laughed, sliding his long body back into the driver’s seat. “I’d be willing to bet my favorite body parts that he had one eye on us the whole damn time he was in there, Torry.” Jeremy sent her a smug grin in the rearview mirror. “Mason doesn’t trust me as far as he could throw me.”
“Shut up and drink your coffee, you ass.”
The blond snickered, taking a sip of the steaming brew, before changing the radio to a soft rock station.
They merged back onto the highway while “Sweet Home Alabama” played quietly from the speakers, and Torrance waited before saying anything else. They finished up the doughnuts and sipped from the huge cups of coffee for a while, but when the lag in conversation seemed to thicken, a sense of uneasiness overcame her. Was he just the strong, silent type? Or was he irritated over the questions she’d asked about his parents? She didn’t know how to read him or his moods, but she wasn’t going to just sit there with nothing but her nerves for company.
“So this Simmons guy,” she blurted out, more sharply than she meant to. “He really hates you, doesn’t he?” Torrance winced a little on the inside, thinking that she really needed to work on her conversational skills. Talk about rusty!
“The feeling’s mutual,” Mason drawled with a hard smile.
“But what?”
She shrugged, trying to put her finger on it. “His hatred seemed more personal than that.”
“Death is a pretty personal thing, Tor. Simmons knows that Jeremy and I have been hot on his trail. His time’s running out. If I hadn’t been more concerned with making sure you were okay yesterday, I’d have gone after him then and ended it.”
“Still, I think there’s more to it.”
His head tilted a bit to the side, gaze shadowed by long lashes that most women would have killed for, but looked perfectly masculine on him, giving his gaze a sexy, decadent look. “What are you asking?”
She thought about it for a moment, trying to follow the niggling thread in her mind. “He hated you before this Bloodrun, didn’t he?”
He nodded, waiting for her to continue, while Jeremy pulled off the highway, taking the Tahoe onto a rural, private road that cut through the forest, and they started to climb the mountain.
Pulling her lower lip through her teeth, she said, “He told me that you took something from him, and now he was going to take something from you.”
His dark eyes cut back to the window, tension all but pouring off him in waves. “Five years ago, I killed his younger brother.”
“Oh.” A stupid response, but that wasn’t really what she’d been expecting. She’d thought, at the time, that maybe Simmons had been referring to a stolen girlfriend, a job…a prime piece of real estate. She hadn’t been expecting a dead family member.
Mason blew out a harsh breath, then explained. “As Bloodrunners, our main focus is on rogues, those who turn dark—who begin using humans as a food source. But, we’re also charged with keeping the Lycans’ existence secret. Simmons had a brother whose tastes ran to the…extreme. He hadn’t gone completely rogue, but the bastard started picking up underage humans, boys and girls…and treating himself to them. We hunted him, tracked him down, and caught him in the act. He fought back. Resisted our attempts to take him back to the pack for punishment.”
“The jackass wasn’t willing to take what the pack would’ve dished out,” Jeremy added. “So he attacked Mason.”
“And you killed him,” she concluded. “In self-defense.”
He took another long, slow sip of his coffee. “I sure as hell did, and enjoyed every minute of it. That sadistic asshole had it coming for what he’d done to those kids.”
Torrance went over the story in her head, looking at it from different angles. “So,” she murmured, “that’s probably why Simmons went rogue.”
“Huh?” He jerked so hard, his coffee sloshed out onto his thigh, making him curse.
Turning in her seat, Torrance curled her right leg underneath her body as she faced him. “He not only holds you responsible for his brother’s death, but he probably blames humans for his brother’s weakness, for getting him in trouble to begin with. Over time, that blame turned to hate…and the hate could have led to…what he’s become. Not to mention the messed-up stuff he told me about his parents. No wonder he and his brother turned out like they did. That is one messed-up family.”
He didn’t respond. Just stared at her, like he was trying to figure her out, solve a puzzle, unravel a code.
“Don’t you ever question why one of your kind turns?” she asked, unsettled and a bit embarrassed by his intense scrutiny.
“Why?” His broad shoulders lifted in a stiff shrug. “It wouldn’t change their fate. They turn, they die.”
“But it could help to understand their motivations,” she explained in a soft voice. “Even if they’re inherently evil, like Simmons. Or insane…like Simmons. It could help to make sense of things, see them for what they really are.”
“It could help, yeah—but the end is still the same.”
“It can’t be easy,” she murmured, wanting to keep delving deeper, uncovering his secrets, discovering more as she peeled back the layers one by one. But she knew he wouldn’t make it easy. “The constant hunting must wear you down.”
Another sip of coffee, followed by a roll of one shoulder. “Most end quickly.”
“I imagine they do. You’re…intense about your job.”
His hand stroked his jaw with a lazy motion as he stared at her from beneath his thick lashes, a strange, dazzling mixture of humor and lust suddenly spreading over his “dark angel” face. “I’m intense about a lot of things.” He sent a slow smile to keep company with the provocative words, and Torrance felt that smile deep inside with a physical jolt.
Then he reached out and covered her hand with his, curling his long fingers into her palm and rubbing his callused thumb over her knuckles.
Her breath caught, and something inside her melted at his touch. She didn’t know if she believed in all that mate talk, but she knew she didn’t want to turn away from this before seeing exactly where it would lead. She just had to find the courage to see it through.
“You’re worrying too much. And you’re staring,” he said with a boyishly crooked grin, his tone deep and dark and low. He drew in a slow, uneven breath, then another, and she knew he was pulling her scent into his lungs, savoring it. The eroticism of the act made her tremble, while her palm went damp around the heat of the coffee cup she still held in her other hand. “It’s going to be okay, Torrance. I won’t let anything happen to you. And I won’t hurt you.”
“It’s not that. It’s just that…even though I’m a bundle of nerves, I can’t deny that I like looking at you.” She was surprised at her bold admission, but lifted her left shoulder in a shrug that said so there.
It was a nice, warm, fuzzy kind of feeling to see his eyes flare with surprise at her words, his rugged face taking on a hard, hungry cast that told her just how badly he wanted to be alone with her—and she knew she should have been terrified. But she wasn’t. Mesmerized? Definitely. But for some reason, she wasn’t afraid. The sensual line of his mouth parted the barest fraction for the evocative rush of his breath, and his fingers squeezed hers tighter, drawing her eyes. “You have the most beautiful hands,” she murmured, meaning it.
Strong, rugged hands that led into powerful wrists. He’d pushed up the sleeves of his flannel and she could see that even his forearms were beautiful, with thick, healthy veins running between hard muscles and dark, golden, hair-dusted skin.
“They’re scarred and used,” he muttered roughly, and she couldn’t help but smile at the tone of his voice. She’d embarrassed him, the sharp crest of his cheekbones flushed a dull red, and it charmed her clear down to her toes.
“That’s part of what makes them beautiful,” she whispered, setting down her coffee, then running the tip of her index finger along an angry-looking scratch that slashed across the back of his fist, where a heavy vein had thickened, cutting a dark line beneath his sun-darkened skin. She turned his palm over, rubbing her thumb across his lifeline, and his body vibrated with a fine tremor as he sat beside her, the sinew and tendons in his forearm going rigid, as if he were struggling to hold himself in check.
Casting a quick glance from beneath her lashes, Torrance glimpsed a hard expression etched with hunger, his eyes dark…almost wild, lips parted for the harsh force of his breathing.
He was turned on. By the touch of her fingers upon his hand.
A sense of wonder spilled through her, like a comet rushing across the sky, vibrant and shimmering against the infinite blackness of space.
He started to say something, but whatever he would have said was drowned out by some sort of guttural cry. Or had it been a howl? It was eerie…terrifyingly stark. The kind of thing that made your stomach flip and every hair on your body lift in alarm—reminiscent of childhood fears and things that went bump in the night.
Mason tensed at the demonic sound, and from the front seat she heard Jeremy mutter a low, foul, four-letter word.
The same coarse word repeating itself over and over in her mind.
“Sounds like our pal Simmons is paying us another visit,” he rasped in a low, lethal slide of words, at the same time the forest filled with an entire range of those earsplitting, bone-chilling cries. “And this time, he’s brought friends.”
Chapter 6
Jeremy hit the gas and the SUV roared ahead, but they couldn’t outrun the guttural, demonic howls. The bestial sounds kept pace with the speeding Tahoe, following from the shelter of the trees bordering the private road as it grew steeper, meandering its way through the thickening, sun-dappled woods.
Torrance jerked hard to the side, slamming against her door as Jeremy took a bend too fast. Mason cursed hoarsely as he reached out, pinning her back with a rigid, muscled arm, holding her in place. She tried to brace herself, when an earsplitting crash boomed up ahead, and Jeremy slammed on the brakes. They came to a jarring, metal-screeching stop that had her seat belt cutting across her shoulder and abdomen, knocking the air from her lungs as her body lurched forward, then jerked back against the seat.
“Goddamn tree in the road,” Jeremy muttered, jamming the flat of his hand against the steering wheel. He turned in his seat, looking past them, through the back window of the Tahoe. “There’s another tree down a few hundred yards behind us,” he growled. “We’re going to have to fight our way outta here.”
“Looks like it,” the man sitting at her side agreed, his voice lower, more guttural than before, with something dark and violent roughening the edges of his speech.
Another howl echoed sharply through the dense, enclosing woods, sounding far too close for comfort. The wind surged, blowing low-hanging branches against the roof like sinister claws, scraping Torrance raw with fear—and she knew Mason could scent it. With a low rumble, he pulled her into his side and pressed a hard, quick kiss against her mouth. “I want you to get down on the floor, Tor, and no matter what you hear, you are not to get out of this car.”
Last Wolf Standing Page 9