The first tear didn’t escape until her face was buried in the dusty mattress. She fell asleep with wet eyes and a sore heart. She felt like something in her was shattered. Ass, she thought, slipping into sleep. I guess werewolves do cry, after all.
CHAPTER THREE
Eventually the sun rose, bringing with it the end of their time together in the Den House. Good, thought Beth as she glared at Gareth curled up in the corner. Exactly as she had last seen him. He hadn’t appeared to move at all during the night, his head buried in this tail, his breathing deep and even.
Her hip cracked as she shifted to a sitting position and his eyes flew open, meeting her soft gaze in the twilight room. Caught off guard, she hadn’t had time to settle a mask of indifference on her face, letting him see exactly how tired and worn she felt. Time for a little acting, she decided, clearing her throat. Gareth tensed as she stood up, letting the thin blanket drift to the floor.
As if I’m about to look for a repeat performance? Just thinking of what she had allowed to happen during the long night made her face flame and her mind buzz with unwelcome thoughts of his strong arms and hot kisses. She shrugged them off, refolding the moldy blanket roughly. Let him make of it what he wished. She wasn’t even going to discuss it with him. He was just another juvenile, really. He needed to grow up.
She, on the other hand, felt as though she’d aged a decade in the few hours since his rebuff. The soft whine brought her eyes back to his wolf face and she wondered if it was remorse she could see floating in his eyes. No, she decided. It was probably the fear of what she might let slip to her Den Father making him act like a chastised pup. Whatever, she refused to let him ruffle her fur.
He rose swiftly and trotted to the door, no doubt wanting to be as far from the scene of the crime as possible, as quickly as possible. Well, she did too, damn it. Never before had she felt so stupid. How could she have let him make such a fool of her? Making a fool of people was her job. She sniffed, deciding there were no words she needed to speak to him, and shimmered effortlessly.
Immediately his mind-voice assailed her. Time to go, Little Wolf.
Don’t you call me that, Guardian. I am your charge and you will not address me in such a fashion. I have a name. Use it.
He looked at her sharply, ears flattening. And you will not address me in such a fashion, Beth, he sent to her, not bothering to disguise his disgust. No matter what else, I am a Guardian, and I am entitled to respect. Ears still flat against his head, her Guardian trotted into the dense wood.
Sighing, Beth followed, thinking the next couple of hours were going to be very uncomfortable.
Ouch. Her nose stung all of a sudden. The sharp tang of a strange wolf rushing up her nostrils, sending fight or flight signals to her brain. Gareth froze a moment later, hackles raising, and growled into the distance. What is it? she asked him.
Tall Grass pack wolf, was the swift reply. Do not stray, Beth.
I won’t, she confirmed, already regretting her impulse that forced him to use her real name. It was too much of a grown up thing, and this morning of all mornings, she wanted to remain a juvenile for a little longer. Mating was just too complicated.
A rustling ahead, too far to be any immediate danger, alerted her to the location of the other wolf. He raised his head from a thicket, blood glistening on his muzzle, licking his face. He growled, hind legs tensing. He was huge. A rolling mass of hard-packed muscle, stalking across the small clearing they stood in, his massive red shoulders rising and falling with each step. An old scar ran length-ways along his sleek side, and Beth would put good money on it being from another wolf.
Ten yards from Beth and Gareth, he came to a halt, shimmering within seconds to stand before them, as massive in human-form as he was in wolf-form, with the same scar running from his hip to his breastbone. He snarled, as if not used to his human throat, and afforded them a view of his elongated canines. Doesn’t spend much time in human-form, Gareth sent to her. Be very careful. He could be a rogue.
She wondered why Gareth didn’t shimmer to speak with this Were. The only reply she got from him when she pressed the matter was a warning growl. Oh for the love of...I’ll do it myself, she decided.
Before her Guardian had an inkling of her hasty decision she shimmered, nodding slightly to the larger were. “Greetings, stranger,” she said softly, her words carrying easily in the silence of dawn. “We are of the Loam Floor pack. Your scent marks you as Tall Grass pack. May I ask why you have entered our territory?”
“Didn’t know,” he replied, shock evident on his face. “Quarry ran here. I chased. Didn’t know you were here.” Beth noticed a quick flash of guilt in his eyes.
What the hell did that mean? “Pardon?”
“I mean,” he paused, considering. “I didn’t know this was your territory. Apologies, I did not mean to stray so far from my Den.” His giant head swiveled to glare at Gareth. “You want to tell your Bonded to stand down?”
Bonded? Huh? She glanced at Gareth, who was still growling softly, hackles vibrating. Oh, he meant Guardian. Strange, she’d never heard them be referred to as Bonded before. “Gareth,” she whispered coaxingly, noting his stance, a fight seeming imminent. Just what they needed right now. The Tall Grass wolf could probably tear Gareth’s head off his shoulders and use it as a chew toy.
With obvious reluctance, Gareth’s hackles smoothed out and his ears perked up. To look at him you wouldn’t guess he’d been ready to fight to the death seconds before. “I will take my leave,” the giant Were rumbled in a deep bass like distant thunder. Beth watched his powerful arms heave the carcass of the fox to settle it dangling over one shoulder as he stalked away, picking up speed as if wishing to be far from here.
“Well,” she whispered, glaring at Gareth. “That went well.”
He stinks of lies, her Guardian’s voice whispered through her mind as soon as she shimmered.
Why would he lie? she replied. You think he was here on purpose? A scouting mission, perhaps?
I don’t think so, he told her. He was telling the truth when he said he hadn’t mean to wander here. The lie only came into play after he said he didn’t know you were here.
His confusion was evident in his body language, as he tramped through the undergrowth, uncaring of any who might hear his approach. Good thing we’re not hunting, she thought, miffed.
The strange wolf bothered her the whole way home. What could he have been hiding? And why? And if the blood-feud with the Tall Grass pack had run so deep and so long, why hadn’t there been blood shed? The whole situation stank to high heaven, and it was doing her no good to wonder. It’s not even as if I can ask David about it, either, she thought in disgust. I’m not mated. I’m not privy to pack business.
Annoyance eating at her, she stomped along with Gareth, taking no notice of her surroundings until they popped out of the wood by the banks of the creek. Her creek. She glared at him. What did the wolf want? A replay of yesterday?
She wished it were possible. There were a few things she would like to rewind and erase in the past twenty four hours. Chief among them, the disaster of last night. She groaned subconsciously, diving into the freezing water to clear her mind.
Shimmering on her upward turn, she broke the surface in her human-form, scrubbing the earth and blood and most of all the scent of him from her body. If only it were so easy to scrub him from her mind.
David was furious with her for pulling yet another disappearing act. She’d never seen him so angry. She’d been under house arrest since loping into the Den House the morning before, Gareth hot on her heels, a whine in his throat.
David had looked from her to him and back again, reminiscent of the night before by the boar’s carcass, and a low growl trickled from his still-human lips. He’d looked fit to kill. Gareth had crawled low on his belly toward the enraged Den Father, and unexpectedly, David backed away, storming out of the kitchen into the clearing beyond.
“I think perhaps it’s best you l
eave, Gareth,” said Bea from the hallway. “We won’t be requiring your services today. Beth is under house arrest. And I’m sure your own Den Mother and father will be waiting to see you.” She’d nodded toward the window, where the angry strides of David had come to a halt in front of the now un-smiling face of Gareth’s Den Mother.
Beth had wondered what was going on – she knew she’d just missed something, but was at a loss as to what. If only they’d include her in pack business, she might have a notion of what had made such a proud wolf like Gareth crawl on his belly toward her Den Father. She didn’t waste her breath on a goodbye for the treacherous wolf, instead opening the fridge and pulling out the makings of a sandwich. Man, she was half-starved!
“Beth, you should clean yourself up!” snapped Bea the very second she closed the door on her Guardian’s retreating form. “You look a fright, and that’s being polite.”
“Gee, thanks,” she’d replied sarcastically. What had she ever done to this woman to make her hate her so?
“This is no time for your childish rejoinders.” Bea pulled her apron from her waist and checked her reflection in the mirror, before wrapping a shawl around her thin shoulders, fluffing her salt and pepper hair and following her husband into the clearing. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, but her only audience was her sandwich. Bea had already left, picking her way across the packed dirt to stand at her husband’s side. There had been much animated talk going on, David’s arms swinging wildly this way and that, his head shaking from side to side in denial and anger.
Why couldn’t she just accept the pack laws? Why did she have to cause so much upset for her dear Den Father? She would, she resolved, be the paragon of virtue and trust and obedience from now on. She couldn’t keep destroying David’s trust in her. Or fueling Bea’s hatred. It wasn’t healthy in werewolf society.
Sandwich forgotten, she’d flopped into the kitchen chair, putting her head in her hands and felt her eyes tear up. She had to stop embarrassing David like this. He was all that stood between her and the rest of the pack. He was her protector, when all was said and done. And he was her claim to pack-life. If her Den Father turned her out, she doubted anyone would take pity on her enough to take her in. Not knowing the trouble she’d brought to David.
“None of your sniveling, girl,” came the bitter demand from behind her. Beth twisted in her seat to face Bea. She hadn’t even heard her re-enter the house, so lost in thought and self-pity had she been. “You are under house arrest until and unless we decide otherwise.” Satisfaction gleamed in her ice-blue eyes, her thin lips framing the words with relish. “You will not leave the confines of this Den House. You will not speak with anyone from outside. And you will not allow anyone entry. Is that understood?” she snapped.
“Yes, Den Mother,” Beth had replied, accepting her punishment, knowing she deserved it and far worse. If only they knew what really happened, she thought dejectedly. There wouldn’t be a Den House in the pack open to me, then.
“And put some clothes on while you’re about it!”
“Yes, Den Mother.”
She fluffed her pillow for the fourth time, trying unsuccessfully to get into the book she’d borrowed from David’s collection. It was useless; she just kept replaying the events of that morning over and over in her head. There was definitely something she’d missed. What is it?
Three days now, she’d been trying to figure it out, and it was driving her to distraction.
A soft rap on her bedroom door interrupted her reverie and she sighed, closing the un-read book. “May I come in?”
“Yes, Den Father, of course.”
David had been to check on her three or four times each day, no doubt expecting her to have flown out the window to freedom. No chance of that, however, she had promised to play by the rules, no matter how hard. Even though her mind buzzed with the incessant call of the pack, allowing her to overhear normally private musings. This was the part she needed to get away from.
How the other purebred women coped, she didn’t know. Could they choose to ignore the meaningless ramblings of someone else’s mind? Or were they too, prone to flights of freedom from time to time?
“How are you getting on?” David settled himself on the edge of her bed, looking anywhere but at her. His hair hung over one eye and he shoved it roughly behind his ear.
“Fine,” she replied. It was a lie, and he would smell it, but she doubted he wanted to hear the truth of the matter.
“Have you,” he cleared his throat awkwardly. “Have you anything you need to tell me?” He did look at her then, his face so open and sympathetic that she found herself pouring her worries out of lips that would no longer stay closed. She was driven to distraction by the call of the pack. She felt cooped up, caged, and out of sorts like she was missing part of herself, and she was bored to tears! She told him all this, and more. Drawing each woe out so as to offer him the maximum insight into her mind.
“Missing something?” he questioned carefully. “Missing what?”
“I don’t know!” she countered, exasperated. How could she explain a feeling? “I just know that being under house arrest doesn’t agree with me, but I daren’t leave for fear of bringing you any further trouble or disgrace!”
“So you do know,” he whispered, mouth pulled into a frown. “This complicates things.”
“What? What things does it complicate?” How could he think she didn’t know the shame she brought on not only her own Den Family, but the Den Families of all who had been assigned as her Guardian in recent times. She had ditched them all, leaving them in her wake, eating her dust, laughing and mocking them, never realizing until recently the embarrassment involved in reporting to her Den Father that they had failed him. Guardians were not supposed to fail in their job, which was why they were Guardians.
“Everything, it seems,” he answered her eventually, sighing deeply and crossing his arms on his beefy chest. “Gareth cannot be your Guardian any longer.” Well she knew that much, and even agreed with it. “And you will have to meet with the Alpha and put yourself forward for mating. It’s time. You know that now.”
She would not argue, no matter how much she wanted to. David always knew what was best for her, even when she did not. He’d always done right by her. Never steered her wrong. So be it, she thought, her heart shattering. I will reconcile myself to being the bargaining chip I’ve always known myself to be. “Yes, Den Father.”
“Soon,” he replied, taking her hand in his own, much larger one. “I will no longer be your Den Father, and you will be a Den Mother in your own right.” He gave her a quick, uncharacteristic hug, squeezing the life from her for one wonderful moment. “Forget about him, Little Wolf. He may not gain even the ear of the Alpha, much less anything else.”
Huh? “Who, Den Father?” Something was not right here. She was still missing something.
His eyes snapped to hers, as if she was being deliberately obtuse. “Gareth, of course,” he told her, face set.
“I wouldn’t want him to gain the ear of a gnat, much less the Alpha!”
The deep rumble of his laugh poured through the room. “Always the wild-cat, even for a wolf,” he teased.
Beth sat in confusion as the bedroom door eased closed behind David. What was going on here? Why would he think she’d want Gareth to approach the Alpha concerning her mating? Unless... oh God. He knew. He knew about the night in the Den House. The night when she’d almost... oh God. Could things get any worse?
~~~~~~~~~~~
Apparently, they could get worse. Much worse. Two weeks had gone by, along with her first heat, and she was scheduled to meet with the Alpha this afternoon concerning her mating ceremony, in which she would be presented to the community as a female ready to mate. It involved a lot of dancing around a fire, shimmering between wolf and human-form, showing off her best attributes. There would be a sparring session, in which she would face the Alpha female of the pa
ck, and prove herself capable of defending her Den House and her future cubs. And there was an examination to be performed by the pack healer, to ascertain that her virtue was not to be questioned.
A lot of preparations had to be made, and a lot of practice with her old instructor, Patina, to be done. She could not possibly dance for the pack without honing her skills. Patina was meeting her in the woods tonight. She would bring the drums, Beth must bring the sass. Sass, she had, in spades.
The short walk to the Alpha’s Great House seemed to take forever. Snippets of gossip reached her ears, and scraps of reflections reached her mind. She wished she knew how to tune them out. The gossip, such as she heard, wasn’t very awful in any way – unless truth hurt, which it did. There were whisperings of herself and Gareth, much of which she didn’t catch. But she had a pretty good idea what was being said. Foolish Little Wolf, falling for the wiles of an attractive Guardian.
The bits and pieces that filtered through to her mind however, they hurt. The derogatory terms the other un-mated females referred to her in were nasty and plain untrue. She was still un-mated, no matter what they believed. Things with Gareth hadn’t progressed quite that much in the short time they’d had together.
It felt like the walk of shame, if she was honest. People staring, some pointing, others giggling and still others, gathering in the shadows beneath the trees, assessing her. The un-mated males. They discussed her as if she was a side of beef. “...hot to trot...wouldn’t mind taking a shot at her...drive a man half crazed...how far Gareth got?” She tried not to hear it. Tried not to listen. But it was impossible.
“...all the way probably!”
“...Den Father...furious...”
“...her great stamina...in bed...”
She wanted to put her hands over her ears. Surely they knew she could hear them. Wouldn’t someone put a stop to it? She felt like a scarlet woman. Passing one of the un-mated males in question, she could sense his hunger in his scent, see his interest in his gaze, and feel his desire in the air around her. She tensed.
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