Now he was at the rope portion, in which he’d have to swing Tarzan-like from rope to rope through the treetops until he got to the next section of the obstacle course.
He grabbed the last rope and launched himself from a tree limb. As he swung, he realized the rope was giving way.
The rope snapped, and he plummeted towards the ground. He twisted and clawed, and just barely managed to catch himself on a tree limb as he fell.
He hung there, heart pounding. That rope had been sabotaged. He needed to make it to the end and tell the Trials Monitors immediately so they could stop Austin from going after him.
But who knew what other traps had been laid ahead of him? Should he skip the rest of the obstacle course? Under pack charter, that might disqualify him.
Cursing, he climbed to the ground and raced through the forest to the next obstacle – a teetering rickety bridge, with a rope hanging overhead to steady himself, dangling eighty feet in the air over a river. He glanced at the rope. If someone wanted to sabotage the bridge, they’d probably also have messed with the rope, knowing he’d grab at it if the bridge gave way.
He couldn’t rely on the rope. He shifted into wolf form so he’d have a lower center of gravity and hurried forward. As he did, the bridge began to sway.
As he reached the end of the bridge, he heard a tearing sound, then the bridge dropped from under his paws. With a mighty leap, he landed on the rocky outcrop on the other side, shifting into human form in midair. He caught a rocky outcropping, and painstakingly hauled himself up. The jagged rocks viciously scraped his arms, and blood poured from his wounds as he flopped onto solid ground.
No time to waste. He raced full speed to the finish line and quickly warned the Monitors. Unfortunately, Austin had started on the course the second Grant had finished.
Then he went to speak to the Elders. The Monitors took a helicopter up and stopped Austin partway through the obstacle course.
The games were temporarily halted while the Monitors swarmed over every inch of the rest of the course, testing for more sabotage.
When the ropes were examined, it was clear they’d been cut by a knife – sawed partway through. The most likely culprit was either Grant or Jerrold, since they’d gone first, but there was always the possibility that somebody had snuck onto the obstacle course and sabotaged it.
All four competitors were called before the Elders, in a tent on the sidelines. The accusations flew thick and fast.
“Grant went first, and everybody knows how desperate he is to win,” Jerrold snarled.
“You made it through the obstacle course just fine, so how could I have done it?” Grant growled back. “You went right before Cliff. Obviously it was you.” He looked at Herbert. “This is a unique circumstance, not covered in the pack charter. In a case like this, the Elders’ vote decides the matter. We need a truth challenge. We need to interview all the competitors. I’m happy to go first.”
“He’s only saying that because he knows it’s strictly forbidden by the charter.” Jerrold’s lip curled in scorn.
“No challenges of any kind to any competitor,” Phineas said in a fussy, self-righteous tone. “That’s the law.”
“Maybe Cliff did it, to throw suspicion on the rest of us,” Jerrold continued. “Or because he was losing.”
“Me?” Cliff scoffed. “My time was excellent; I was being tracked throughout the entire course, so you know I was ahead of both you and Grant. As for me doing it, I came seconds from death, twice. I nearly fell a hundred feet to the ground.”
“Well, we only have your word for that last bit, don’t we?” Jerrold said. He glared at Grant. “My money’s still on Grant, though. Possibly conspiring with his other brothers,” he said to Minnie.
Grant snorted. “Everyone knows that when I win, I do it fair and square.”
“Everyone knows that you claim that.” Jerrold glared at him.
“Leave us,” Oswald said to them. “We will summon you when we make a decision.”
Half an hour later, they called the four men back in.
They would not do a truth challenge. It would violate the pack charter.
It was going to take the rest of the day to check over the entire obstacle course to ensure that it was safe for Austin. Austin had offered to go anyway, because he was a reckless ass, but the Elders had refused. He could go in the early evening once the course had been checked, and this time they’d station Pack Guardians along the entire length of the course to ensure that it wasn’t sabotaged again.
Chapter Twenty
Cliff had just come out of the shower when his bedroom door banged open, and his face fell when he realized it wasn’t Taylor. It was Taurus, the Hidden Hills Police Chief. Cliff bit back a curse. He’d hoped to take advantage of having the afternoon off to spend some time with Taylor down at the local swimming hole, but apparently that wasn’t happening. Well, maybe if he hurried.
“We found Patrick’s cousin,” Taurus said. “We’ve got him in the station downtown. James is truth-challenging him right now.”
“On my way.” Cliff muttered a curse under his breath, but sent word to Taylor that he’d be late and headed down to the station.
Patrick’s cousin, Fergus, was a skinny, sullen teenager who leaned against a wall and stared down at the ground when Cliff stalked into the interrogation room where he was being held. Cliff felt his hackles rising immediately.
“Acknowledge your Alpha!” Taurus cuffed him on the back of the head as they walked into the room.
“Yes, sir,” Fergus mumbled. Then he flicked a quick, miserable glance at Cliff. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he muttered defensively.
Just like a spoiled-brat human teenager. Except werewolves didn’t have the luxury of being entitled, whiny adolescents, because when they did things like run away from their packs, they risked the safety and security of the entire werewolf race. If people knew that werewolves existed, they would panic. The government would step in. Werewolves would be kidnapped, studied in laboratories, imprisoned…and this little punk wanted to pout and feel sorry for himself.
Cliff would be within his rights to kill him on the spot. Most Alphas would. His father would have.
“Report,” he growled at James, who was standing in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest.
James nodded. “He didn’t turn Taylor; he has no idea who she is. He hasn’t harmed any humans. He’s been hiding in the woods living off wild game ever since he ran away from his pack. He left his pack because his stepfather, the new Alpha, regularly beat him so hard that his bones broke. No other pack would take him because they’re afraid of his stepfather.”
“He killed my dad and married my mom,” Fergus blurted out. His eyes glittered with hatred and unshed tears. “My mom could have said no, but she wanted his money.”
“Speak when spoken to!” Taurus barked, and cuffed him again, so hard that Fergus almost fell over.
Fergus let out a yelp of pain and stood very, very still, braced for another blow. Just like Leota had when Jerrold had hit her. Hopeless. Expecting more abuse. Life was pain and fear for people like them.
Still. He’d left his pack and committed the cardinal sin of risking exposure. If Cliff didn’t kill him, the Elders would very likely weigh that against him in the event of a tie during the Alpha Trials.
He looked at Fergus. “Did we speak to his pack yet?” he asked James.
“Yes. His stepfather requested that we deliver him to them for public execution. Or we can save them the trouble and do it ourselves, as his stepfather put it. I also spoke to one of his ex-schoolteachers. Apparently he was a quiet, withdrawn boy who never caused any trouble in school or out of it.”
For some reason, an image of Taylor’s face swam in front of him. He knew what Taylor would want him to do if she knew about the situation. He could imagine the horror she’d feel if he killed Fergus.
He glared at Fergus, who hadn’t moved. Fergus didn’t beg, or whimper, or try to fle
e. He accepted the inevitable.
Years of Cliff’s childhood flashed before his eyes. His father viciously beating him and his brothers for every infraction, real or imagined. His father beating Austin so hard he’d nearly killed him. The hatred and contempt he’d felt for his father. Finally standing up to his father and beating him to a pulp when he was in his early teens – after his father put Austin in a barrel and rolled it into a river while their mother stood and watched and sipped her morning martini in a dreamy, alcoholic haze. Grant had barely pulled Austin out in time as their father lay bleeding and choking on the ground.
His father had started avoiding home after that. Sulking, traveling around the country, boozing and womanizing. It had been the beginning of a long, slow slide into alcoholic and drug-induced dementia after that.
Cliff heaved a sigh. “We have farms on our property,” he said to Fergus. “I’m sending you to the Cassell farm to be a stable-boy. You will behave with respect. You will do your work. If you try to leave pack lands, you will die. Have you finished high school?”
Fergus stared at him in shock, too astounded to answer. Taurus moved to hit him again.
“Don’t,” Cliff growled. He understood Taurus’ anger. Taurus’ brother was Serafina’s late father. He had no love for humans, and anyone who risked exposing them to humans was a mortal enemy. However, Cliff would also take into consideration the abuse Fergus had suffered.
“No, sir. My stepfather pulled me out two years ago. Said I was too stupid to learn anything and it was a waste of resources.”
“You will go back to high school starting in September. And I expect to hear that you worked your ass off all summer long. You have no room for screwing up. However, nobody will punish you unless you’ve done something to earn it, and they will consult with me first. Got it?’
“Yes. Sir.” Fergus’ eyes brimmed with tears, and he started to shake.
“Take him,” Cliff said to James, who nodded ever so slightly in approval. James was like Anita – always wanting to help people. Stupid, soft-hearted mutt. Between James and Taylor, they’d have Cliff singing Kumbaya and drinking from a pink cup with unicorns dancing on it if he wasn’t careful.
As Fergus and James headed for the door, Fergus turned back to look at Cliff.
“There was something,” he said to Cliff. “When I was in the woods, I found a woman’s shoe and purse with blood on it. It was an hour east of Bismarck. I marked the spot with a stick, and when I went to town I made an anonymous call to 9-1-1. Then the next time I was in town, I read that they’d done DNA tests and the blood was from a local prostitute who’d been reported missing. I don’t know if it’s got anything to do with the lady what got bit, but it was just something strange.”
“That could be useful info,” Cliff said to Taurus. “See what you can find out.” They had the ability to hack into the human police databases.
Then he headed out to find his mate.
When he got back to his room, though, he found Taylor locked in the bathroom.
“You can’t come in,” she called out, and she sounded ready to cry.
He felt a surge of worry. “Taylor. Talk to me. Did someone hurt you? Tell me who, and I’ll rip their spine out.”
“Nobody hurt me. I’m fine.” She sniffled. “Please go swimming without me.”
“I don’t want to go unless you’re with me. Open up.”
There was a pause, and then the door was open. She wore a bathing suit – and a towel wrapped around her waist, draping to her ankles. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, avoiding his gaze.
Cliff felt a surge of frustration. What to do? He had no good role models there. If his mother had refused to speak to his father, his father would either have hit her or stormed out of the house, picked up some random woman and flaunted her right in front of his mother’s face. That was not gonna happen here.
What would James do? James would sit back and be patient. Stupid James.
“Come sit with me, then,” he said, gesturing to a grouping of chairs by his big bay window. “When I’m with you, I feel calmer and happier. Please.”
Silently, she followed him and sat down, several chairs away from him. They sat there in silence for several minutes, and finally she looked up at him. “How are you doing, by the way?”
He met her gaze. “Stressed out. Worried that I might have to kill one of my brothers at the end of the trials. Nobody can best me in combat. Grant is excellent at a lot of things, but he’s a stubborn ass, and I’m afraid he’ll refuse to surrender if I have him pinned down. We clash a lot, but I don’t want to have to kill him.”
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Well, my problem seems stupid in comparison.” She pulled her towel up a little bit. “My legs are hairy.”
“And?”
“They’re not a little bit hairy. I look like a damn Sasquatch, and I shaved this morning.”
“That’s what’s upset you?” Cliff roared with laughter, until he saw the look on her face.
Damn, humans were complicated.
“Every single woman looks like that now. The full moon is in a little more than a week,” he said. “I’m a werewolf. Why would I care about hairy legs?”
“But I just… I just…” She dropped her towel. “Doesn’t this disgust you?”
He walked over to her.
“Taylor. Because I love you, I love every last thing about you. Everything about you is beautiful to me. I don’t care if your legs are hairy or if you have morning breath. You are my everything. Let me make you feel beautiful right now,” he said, and scooped her up in his arms.
He carried her over to the bed.
His clothes quickly joined the towel on the floor, and Taylor’s self-consciousness melted into helpless giggles as he tried to take off her bathing suit, cursing Lycra in a range of incredibly inventive ways. Eventually she took pity on him and peeled the suit off, tossing it over her shoulder and wrapping her arms around Cliff as they tumbled onto the bed together.
He was hard and ready for her, and he slipped easily inside her, hissing through his teeth when he was seated all the way inside her. He briefly closed his eyes, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, reveling in the sensation of his thick cock filling her.
They moved together in a sweet, intimate rhythm, murmuring each other’s names, tasting, experiencing, achingly sensitive to each exquisite contact. When Taylor came, emotion swelled inside her, and she looked up into Cliff’s whiskey-colored eyes and saw love shining back at her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Austin successfully completed the obstacle course once it had been checked over.
Three more days of trials went by, with various tests of speed and endurance. The men each had to race a certain distance, timed, lift stacks of weights, throw hundred-pound weights twenty feet, and climb hundred-foot-high rock walls.
During the day, James and Anita sat with Taylor for several hours and had her do meditation exercises to prepare her for being a werewolf. Chantelle sat and watched, weirdly fascinated.
Finally, bright and early, the competitors were getting ready to go hunting. They’d shift into their wolf forms and bring back big game for the Elders’ inspection and approval. It was an ancient tradition, from the days when the Alpha’s hunting prowess might be the only thing that kept the pack from starving during a long, cold winter. These days it had no real meaning, but werewolves were hide-bound by tradition.
The Bronson brothers were gathered at the starting line, sipping coffee and swapping insults. Jerrold stood apart from the group with his own men huddled around him, shooting threatening looks at everybody. Taylor was there, and Anita, Mandy and Chantelle had come for moral support.
“Prepare to get your asses kicked.” Grant gloated to his brothers.
“I’m prepared to stab my own eardrums out rather than listen to any more of your bragging.” Austin looked disgusted.
“Big deal,” Grant scoffed. “They’d grow back. Now stabbing y
ourself in the gut, that takes balls.”
“Boys,” Taylor said, “why don’t you just whip them out and measure them and get it over with?”
“I would, but I don’t want to make Austin and Cliff cry,” Grant said, and swaggered off.
Chantelle, Taylor and Anita exchanged glances that were part amusement, part exasperation.
“Would his eardrums really grow back?” Taylor asked.
“Oh, definitely. For someone with the Dominus strain, they’d grow back in a few days. For the average werewolf, they’d grow back in a few weeks.”
“So you’re what’s known as a healer, I’m told,” Chantelle observed. “Could you help them grow back faster?”
Anita scoffed. “Doing major healing is incredibly draining. If they stabbed themselves? Bleed away, boys, mama’s got better things to do.”
The starting whistle blew, and the men shifted in a flash and ran into the woods.
The women wandered off. The finish line festivities would start up in about an hour. The men weren’t expected to return until at least noon.
Rusty and Truman, both carefully avoiding each other, followed Chantelle as the group of women trudged off to the downtown coffee shop. It was a twenty-minute walk from the edge of the forest back into town, but the weather was perfect, in the high sixties, and they chatted and joked as they walked.
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