“Rest,” he answered unhelpfully. “Eat your vegetables. Get a good night’s sleep and keep your stress levels low.”
Beside me, Wolfie snorted, then continued shoveling a combination of steak, eggs, and bun-less burger into his mouth. “She shouldn’t be passing out,” he muttered, dropping a piece of fried liver into my upturned palm. The gesture should have been disgusting, but my wolf perked right up at the sight of the iron-rich morsel. Obediently, I slid it directly down my throat.
“No?” Hunter asked. His own choice of dinner was remarkably similar to that of my former alpha, but my mate had merely drawn a smiley face of ketchup across the offerings before losing interest in the grub. Unlike Wolfie, Hunter neither knew nor trusted Dale and wasn’t particularly keen on the one-body manhandling his mate.
“No,” Wolfie answered simply. For the second time that evening, alpha eyes met and locked, and I shivered as a wave of something rolled across my skin. Their gesture didn’t really feel like a stare-down, but there was definitely silent communication of some sort going on.
Abruptly, I realized that I didn’t particularly want Hunter and Wolfie to be talking about me behind my back. “We need to get home,” I said, attempting to scoot out of my seat, an impossible feat with over-protective males hanging over me on every side. “We’ve already left Wolf Landing alone for far too long. Who knows what Ginger will do if outpack shifters turn up with both pack leaders absent?”
“Well,” Hunter started, his eyes abruptly dropping to his plate. Rather than finishing his sentence, he bit into a massive sausage, suddenly far more interested in his food than he had been previously.
What the heck? Were my mandatory counseling session and physical exam insufficient secrets for Hunter to be hiding from his mate? What else had he neglected to mention?
To my surprise, it was Wolfie who broke the silence. The alpha’s booming laugh drew a smile onto my lips even though I had a sinking suspicion that I was part of the joke. But how could I not share the amusement of the wolf dancing beneath my companion’s skin?
“You didn’t tell her,” my former alpha said after a moment, when his mirth had faded enough to allow him to speak.
“Not yet,” Hunter muttered beneath his breath, his ears turning a magnificent shade of red.
How cute was that? Despite the fact that my mate was clearly keeping me in the dark on purpose, I couldn’t help reaching across the table to grab his hand.
“I’m not going to be mad at you, Hunter,” I soothed. “I already promised, remember?”
In response, my mate peered so intently into my eyes that for a moment I forgot that Dale and Wolfie even existed. Something between us shifted, slid, and reconnected in a new and better way.
The uber-alpha had found it easy, I knew, to shower me with thoughtful gifts and to guard my back in battle. How much harder, though, was it to stick out his neck from a relationship perspective, risking my wrath when he went over my head to call in reinforcements?
I valued Hunter’s bravery when he chose not to take the coward’s way out and let me suffer in peace. And our bond was so secure that I didn’t even have to speak the words, either aloud or into his mind, for Hunter to feel the warmth of my regard.
Immediately, his wolf began prancing with pleasure, my own beast meeting it pounce for pounce. And when Hunter finally spoke, his voice was the sure, firm bass I was used to. “I’ve called in backup to keep Wolf Landing safe until All-Pack is over. Terra and a few of her friends are already there and Wolfie’s going back to join them tonight.”
He paused and cleared his throat, then added, “So what do you say to taking the night off and enjoying ourselves with no bloodlings breathing down our necks?”
I let my mate dangle for only a second before gracing all three males with a wide smile. “Well, Dale did say to rest. Who am I to disobey doctor’s orders?”
***
Our old tent still smelled of Ginger, Cinnamon, Glen, and Lia...and not just because some of my original pack mates must have snuck away earlier in the afternoon to set the structure up in the secluded valley miles away from Wolf Landing’s constant interruptions. No, the richer undertones were leftover from when the faded purple canvas had sheltered all five of us in July, at a time when Hunter was just a scary figure hovering at the edge of our combined attention. Now, as I unzipped the door and crawled toward the electric lantern hanging inside, I realized how far we’d come in one short summer of independence.
“If you want, I can sleep outside and guard the entrance just like old times,” Hunter rumbled as he followed on my heels, mind tuned to my nostalgic thoughts.
A thick air mattress topped with soft sheets and down comforters had replaced the slender mats and sleeping bags we’d depended on back in the day, and I pulled my mate down beside me into the cocooning fabric. “You didn’t guard the lintel then,” I retorted, snuggling into his warmth. “I seem to remember that you slept in the car with Quill.”
My mate growled at the mere mention of the malevolent male, but his fingers were still playful as he pulled the zipper of my parka slowly up and down. The whir of opening and closing teeth reminded me that I had teeth of my own, and I nibbled along the knife-sharp edge of Hunter’s powerful jaw by way of retaliation.
“I fell asleep in the car, but I always woke up just outside your tent,” my companion murmured, his breath catching as I moved on to the erogenous zone alongside the cartilage of his left ear. “I lay there and dreamed of being inside,” he added, neither of us certain whether he meant inside the tent or inside me. “I’d run my fingers up and down your spine....”
Reaching beneath my finally-unzipped jacket, my mate suited actions to words, his fingertips bumping across each vertebra as if he were a concert pianist warming up for a performance. Sure enough, the motion set off cascades of harmony that vibrated through my limbs before culminating in a crescendo of heat at my core.
I wanted to relax into the burst of pleasure. But my grasp of language was already fading fast, so I took a deep breath instead and said the words I needed Hunter to hear while I was still capable of the effort. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what was going on sooner,” I started, only to be halted by my mate’s broad palm across my lips.
Sometimes I forgot the overwhelming power Hunter kept coiled up within his wiry frame. It was only in moments like these that I realized he and his wolf were a well-oiled killing machine and that the gentleness he assumed in my presence was the greatest gift imaginable. “Don’t apologize to me,” he murmured, one side of his mouth quirking up in memory of our shared joke from a few days prior.
I allowed myself to be silenced. Instead, reaching around his restraining hand, I unzipped the front of his fleece then tugged at his sweats. The clothes were baggy and far from flattering, but Hunter liked to be ready to shift at any given moment, and I now appreciated the gesture.
The nice thing about one-size-fits-all clothing, I mused as my mate lifted his hips and allowed me to draw away the only fabric shielding my greedy eyes from his chiseled musculature, is how easily it comes off.
“Well, that’s patently unfair,” Hunter growled, taking his hand away from my mouth so he could deftly remove my far more numerous layers of clothing with the same velocity a ten-year-old might use to unwrap his Christmas presents.
My head spun with Hunter’s speed and dexterity...and also with the thrill of sensation every time his fingers brushed against my skin. “Mmm,” I murmured.
“Better,” he breathed in reply once my skin, like his, was thoroughly exposed to the cold air.
For several moments after that, I lost my train of thought entirely. Tiny thuds of falling snow atop our tent’s canvas were the only sounds audible beyond the rustle of sheets and the whimper of panting breaths. Hunter’s hot lips traced a lacework of snowflakes across my face, my neck, my breasts, my shoulders and I lost myself in his embrace.
Only when I’d become a mass of yearning nerve endings did his fingers fi
nally skim down lower, drifting across belly and hips. I quivered in the wake of the sought-after touch, my moans joining the whisper of wind brushing snowflakes off the canopy above our heads.
“Cold?” my mate asked, misunderstanding my reaction. Before I could twist my tongue around a negation, though, I’d been swept beneath the covers, the lamp above our heads clicking off as Hunter drew me deep down into his den.
Five months earlier, the uber-alpha’s easy mastery of my body would have sent me shying aside, reaching for the throwing knives that even now lay abandoned beside my boots on the cold plastic tarp that made up the tent’s floor. Four months earlier, I would have hidden my wolf away to shield us both from the alpha compulsions that sat waiting on the tip of my partner’s tongue.
But now, I relaxed and allowed my animal half to join Hunter’s in joyous abandon. Beneath our skins, the beasts wound together, cavorting and spiraling in time with the twisting pleasure of our furless human skins.
“I don’t need an apology for past secrets,” my mate whispered between kisses, his lips like fire following the path his fingers had so recently blazed down the length of my unclad body. Each touch resembled a branding iron, creating invisible stamps that claimed me as his and him as mine.
Yes, there, I breathed or said or thought or sighed. I was tugging at his hair and shoulders now, pushing him past where he’d paused at my belly button, fingers joining tongue to halt a few critical millimeters away from their desired goal.
“You didn’t block me out, so we’re all good,” Hunter finished, absolving me of guilt in a crime I’d already forgotten about committing. Then, at long last, clever appendages slipped inside my aching core. Hard muscles slid across quivering skin. The scratch of incipient beard fled thighs and found neck as his shaft pierced me into oblivion.
In the distance, a limb cracked beneath the weight of falling snow. Two wolves howled from beneath our skins. And, from human lips, Hunter and I harmonized with our lupine natures’ songs, joined in ecstasy and abruptly whole.
Chapter 15
“Well that was a waste of a long drive,” I said as the Brooks clan’s gate clanged shut in our faces the next afternoon. I could only guess that this South Carolina pack boasted video surveillance and remote gate operation, otherwise the timing of our expulsion would have been just too darned coincidental. Still... “They couldn’t have at least come out in person to tell us we aren’t welcome inside?”
“Typical pack-leader snobbery,” Hunter responded with a shrug. He’d taken the rejection better than I managed to, calmly turning our vehicle around to head back toward the main highway without bothering to gripe or fume. “On to the Acres clan?”
I hesitated, unsure whether it was worth driving five hours to speak with a less likely pack leader when my top contender for that all-important fourth-ally slot had already snubbed us so roundly. My research indicated that the clan we were currently driving away from was so anti-Stormwinder that they’d attempted to secede from the Coastal All-Pack with both Byrds in tow three years prior. So why was Brooks now unwilling to even speak with me, let alone to offer his support at the gathering ahead?
Still, we had nearly three days to kill until All-Pack and there was no point spinning our wheels in the interim. So I pushed my annoyance aside then reluctantly conceded the point. “Sure, head in that direction. I want to check in on Wolf Landing first, though, just in case....”
There was no need to finish my sentence because Hunter’s eyes were already crinkling up into a stealth smile. My mate found it endlessly amusing that I’d already called home three times over the last twenty hours, despite the fact that Wolfie, Terra, and ten of the couple’s hand-picked pack mates were watching over Wolf Landing in our absence.
But Hunter didn’t know those ten pack mates the same way I did. I suspected the youngsters who we fondly referred to as yahoos were entirely capable of burning Wolf Landing down without the need for any interloper assistance whatsoever. So, once again, I attempted to push all potential disasters out of my mind before hitting number two on my speed dial.
“Wolf Landing, Ember speaking.”
And just like that, my heart rate lowered back down to resting speed and my shoulders relaxed against my seat. This wasn’t the voice I’d expected to hear, but I sure was glad to recognize the dulcet tones of Wolfie’s adopted daughter anyway. “Hey, there, kiddo. How’s my favorite bloodling?”
Over the last six months since being tossed out into the cold, I’d missed a lot of people from my former life. I’d missed Wolfie’s wisdom and Terra’s camaraderie, the yahoos’ antics and Tia’s mothering. Still, Haven’s official bringer of sunshine and smiles was at the very top of my list. Who wouldn’t be charmed by the pup’s obsession with genealogy, real or imagined?
“I’m awesome, Auntie Fen,” the kid said, granting me the title not as an honorific but because she considered me and Terra to be sisters of the heart. Deep down inside, I had to admit the insightful child was right. “I’m so glad I got to come along and meet my cousins,” she continued. “And they’re sure glad they met me, too, because I taught them all how to shift. Who wants to wait until you’re a yucky teenager to get the best of both worlds?”
And there went all those warm fuzzies, flushed straight down the toilet. I didn’t think Wolf Landing was ready for twenty newly transformed bloodlings, and I seriously considered asking Hunter to turn the car around and hightail it home as quickly as possible. “You taught all of them how to shift?” I repeated, then changed tacks. “Tell you what, why don’t you put Ginger on the line.”
“Oh, Auntie Ginger’s the one who gave me secretary duty in the first place,” Ember replied gaily. “She said it was my job and really important. Here, hold on a minute.”
After several seconds of rustling, the bloodling began laboriously sounding out the letters of what must have been a note from the trouble twin. “‘Fen, don’t worry,’” the kid parroted. “‘We’re having a ball. Only two fires and one stink bomb so far. No invaders. Take your time. Wolf Landing will still be standing when you get home.’”
Yeah, that was reassuring. No mention of whether the fires had been something to dance around outdoors or something to swear over indoors. No mention of how our prematurely shifted bloodling pack mates were responding to walking on two legs and to the invasion of their territory by so many outpack wolves.
Still, I had to trust that Terra and Celia, at least, would keep my pack mates alive...even if everyone else thought wreaking mayhem was the most fun imaginable. And I had to accept the message Ginger was sending between the lines too.
It was time to stop worrying about the minutiae and to start focusing on the big picture if I wanted to have a home to return to after All-Pack was over.
So I said my farewells to Wolfie’s daughter, then I pulled out my notes even as Hunter turned the car east. Because Ember had once been an unwanted bloodling not so different from the ones she was currently hanging out with, the pup’s dark future sidestepped only as a result of the hard work of caring alphas and cohesive pack mates.
Wolf Landing’s bloodlings deserved the same smooth sailing as they worked through their own childhood. But we’d only be able to offer that safe haven if I won over another pack leader to my cause and claimed the territory surrounding Wolf Landing for our own.
Time to work smart and fast. Because I could already feel our last opportunity swinging shut before me and I was bound and determined to wedge my foot in the door before it closed in my face.
***
Patrick Acres could have been Stormwinder’s mini-me. The easternmost alpha was suave and cordial, his power hidden beneath a genial exterior that would have set even a one-body at ease.
“Are you sure you don’t want to sit?” he asked Hunter now. Unlike Ron Brooks, Acres had escorted us into his home personally. His mate had offered tea and cookies before disappearing back down the hall, and I’d obediently dropped into one of the carved wooden chairs across fro
m my host.
Hunter, on the other hand, remained hovering behind my seat like a bodyguard...or like a barely animated gargoyle. His muscles had tensed into rock-like ridges and the expression on his face when he smiled was more lupine snarl than human grin.
I waited for my mate to speak, but he didn’t bother to reply. Instead, his eyes continued scanning the empty room as if I was a mafia princess who he expected to face attempted assassination at any moment.
Shrugging, I made apologies on my partner’s behalf. “I’m afraid Hunter isn’t really keen on socializing,” I hedged.
The tiniest spark of irritation flared in Acres eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. “Not a problem,” our host answered cordially. “It’s a pleasure meeting the region’s newest pack leaders anyway. I appreciate you taking the time to drop by.”
Pack leaders. Plural. Inwardly I cringed at our host’s unwillingness to acknowledge my solo claim to alpha-dom merely because I lacked that all-important appendage between my legs. Still, I was here to build bridges, not burn them. So I kept a smile plastered across my face with an effort.
Hunter, on the other hand, didn’t bother to dissemble. The barest hint of a growl followed by a powerful yet fleeting compulsion jolted the smugness right off our host’s face. And when our companion set down his beverage, the glass trembled a staccato against the nearby plate as he barely managed to prevent his head from bowing in instinctive surrender.
“Well,” the other pack leader said after a moment, once he’d drawn his former composure back up around his shoulders through sheer force of will. “I know you came here to talk business. Movers and shakers like yourselves wouldn’t just drop by to chew the fat with an old fart like me.”
His subsequent laughter was self-deprecating, but I felt my wolf waking beneath my skin anyway. Snake, she whispered succinctly within our shared body.
I nodded because I thoroughly agreed with her. Acres was a smooth, old snake...which was why I intended to milk his venom and use it for my own ends. First, though, I had to tune in to my inner reptilian nature so the cold-blooded bastard wouldn’t notice how badly I meshed with his way of life.
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