Magda looked at Ayden. Had his packed asked him these questions and doubted his answers? Ayden’s expression remained blank. His eyes were still flat. He looked pale.
“I don’t have a pack,” she answered.
“There are more of you. Where are they?” the other male pressed. This Cariboo was young, possibly younger than Ayden. His strawberry blond hair was tousled from the wind and his eyes bright and opened wide. He frowned when he stared at her through the barbed wired window she stood behind.
She didn’t understand. Ayden knew the answers to all these questions. “Only my littermates. But they aren’t like me,” she added, needing to protect Liesa and Katrin but knowing without being told that her life depended on her not lying.
“You want us to believe that you and your littermates are the only fucking Malta werewolves out there?” the puckered-face male barked. He took a step toward her. “Tell us where the rest of you mutts are or you’ll be praying you were left alone in that shed.”
Ayden didn’t move. He made no attempt to stop the stocky male, who not only smelled of anger, but when he moved closer it became clear he just smelled mean. The strawberry blond male standing next to Ayden glanced at him. Ayden never quit looking at Magda. She almost wished he would. The pain that had stolen the glow in his eyes ripped at her soul.
“I’m not pure bred like you are. I’m half Cariboo lunewulf.”
“Tell us where they are!” the male roared.
Magda swore she felt the heat from his breath as he came closer to the window.
“I haven’t been there. I’m not sure.”
“Lying bitch!”
It was impossible to hide her fear. Obviously Ayden had refused to out her litter. But apparently he had no intention of stopping his pack from torturing answers out of her. If she were to die today, she would die with honor.
“I’m not lying,” she said, her voice low and for a moment silencing the ugly mother fucker who glared at her while damn near seething at the bit. “I haven’t been to where my litter is now. Although even if you were somehow able to sniff them out, all you’d find is a den full of Cariboo lunewulf. My littermates look just like you.”
For a moment the male glaring at her sobered. He paled, which made the scars on his face stand out even more.
“Are you saying that there are Cariboo out there with evil power inside them like you have?” he growled.
Magda thought she smelled fear. If she had, the icy breeze quickly stole it away. In the next second, the grotesque male roared and lunged at the front of the shed. She backed away from the window, and further into her prison when the door frame noticeably rattled.
“Lying evil, half-breed bitch!” The lock on the door shook and made almost enough noise to match the loud roar from the male. “Even if we don’t find out where the rest of you are, you’ll die today before you hurt anyone else in our pack.”
Hurt? Magda stumbled backward until her back pressed against the wall opposite the door. The male said hurt. Was Ayden’s littermate still alive?
The door flew open and the large male lunged inside the shed. Her eyes had adjusted to her dimly lit surroundings over the past few days. Even though tall trees surrounded them, more light than she’d been used to flooded the shed. All Magda saw was a smelly, luminous shadow leaping toward her.
“No!” she screamed.
She wasn’t sure if she squeezed her eyes shut, or not. It all happened too fast. If she had, when she opened them, the puckered-faced male had flown backward out of the shed. Magda ran to her freedom. Large arms imprisoned her the moment she stepped outside.
With only the one window offering her a view of her surroundings, she hadn’t been aware of the cliff not too far beyond the trees outside the door to the shed. Before the male who grabbed her blocked her view with his large chest, Magda saw the puckered face male fly backward through the trees. His arms and legs were flailing. In the next moment he tumbled off the edge of the cliff.
“Fucking tail!” the strawberry blond gasped. His voice sounded very far away.
“Calm down.” It was Ayden. He sounded much closer.
Then Magda realized she was fighting her captor. Tears stung her eyes and blurred her vision. She kicked and scratched but the powerful arms only squeezed tighter.
“I can’t breathe,” she gasped.
Instantly she was freed. Ayden cupped her face and brushed her hair back with his fingers.
“You’re okay,” he assured her.
Magda pressed her hands against Ayden’s chest. She ran them up his arms, touched his face, and worried it might be the last time she touched him.
“Is your littermate alive?” Her heart thudded in her chest. As desperately as she needed to smell the truth, she dreaded knowing it.
When Ayden nodded her world crumbled underneath her.
Once again strong arms wrapped around her. “God damn it! She’s so thin. Were they starving her?”
“I swear I didn’t know she was here until this morning.” The strawberry blond male walked around both of them and glanced inside the shed. “Looks like granola bars and jerky.”
“What is this place?” Ayden still held Magda but now looked over her head at their surroundings. “Puck was a waste of werewolf flesh to have a cage like this.”
“You know the pack is only going to stink of more fear when it’s howled that she killed him.”
“Sure he’s dead?” Ayden asked, and at the same time released her.
She hugged herself, watching as Ayden and the other male traipsed along the path of broken branches and debris Puck’s body had created when he flew backward. The two of them stopped and looked down.
“I’d say he’s dead,” the other male said.
“Georgie, you know she acted in self-defense. What werewolf wouldn’t attack if cornered in a cage?”
“Most attack with claws and teeth,” Georgie said. His laugh was half-sincere when he walked back to Magda alongside Ayden. “You don’t look like you’re only half Malta werewolf.”
“My mother was a Cariboo lunewulf just like you,” she said, and smelled the male’s nervousness.
“Was?” Georgie asked.
“My sire and mother were burnt out by humans three months ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you.” She dared look up at Ayden.
He was sniffing the air around them and looking toward the trees. When she glanced in the direction he did, Ayden’s attention returned to her.
“They told me you were dead.” With a quick movement, Ayden yanked her into his arms again. He kissed the top of her head. “You and Anthony are both alive. I think I can handle anything now.”
This getting light-headed anytime she smelled good news really needed to stop. She tried hiding her dizziness by leaning into Ayden. She was scared to think that she might have the opportunity to get real used to being right where she was now.
“I was right next to you the other day when he said she was dead,” Georgie said. “A male who doesn’t smell of a lie when he is doing just that shouldn’t be mourned.”
“If I hadn’t demanded to see her body, who knows what might have happened. I’ll tell his litter,” Ayden announced, but his words didn’t smell of remorse.
“The pack is still going to be scared. You know that. Shit, Ayden, what were you thinking?”
Magda had her cheek against Ayden’s chest. His heart beat solid next to her ear. She studied the male who now focused on her. He didn’t smell of animosity and his nervousness seemed to be gone.
“I was thinking that since I love her I should make her my mate.”
Ayden’s den was a nice looking cabin, well cared for, with the ground around it cleared and maintained. Although Magda didn’t see any other dens around them, the smell of fear and anger still lingered on the mountain. Georgie had left them when they reached the first road, one probably used more for tractors than vehicles. Although some litters would own trucks
in order to haul supplies up the mountain to the pack. One of those trucks was parked alongside Ayden’s den when they reached it.
He opened the door and a flood of warmth coming from a glowing fire in a large fireplace burned Magda’s cold cheeks. She stepped inside and stared at a male sprawled over a couch. He looked a lot like Ayden.
“What the fuck?” the male growled. He pushed himself to a sitting position but then groaned and reached for his ribs.
Looking up, he snarled at Magda and his eyes turned silver. His teeth extended, which he showed off when he curled his lip, his snarl growing louder.
“Get…her…out of here.” His words were garbled and he hesitated before using her gender, as if he’d given a moment’s thought to calling her something else.
Magda didn’t move. The smell of hatred and animosity was stronger than she’d ever smelled it before. She swore she almost saw the waves of his negative emotions coming toward her like an angry ocean.
“She’s not going to hurt you,” Ayden said, closing the door behind them. He put his hand on Magda’s back and forced her a step closer to the injured, and outraged male.
She knew better than to approach the werewolf in this state. No matter if this was Ayden’s littermate and she now a member of this den. The male looked like he wasn’t trying that hard to fight off his urge to lunge and attack.
“Because she did such a good job of not hurting me the first time.”
“You took her off guard,” Ayden stated. The noticeable exasperation in his voice made it sound as if it wasn’t the first time he’d howled this.
“Startle the bitch and you might lose a limb,” the male growled. “Why the hell did you bring her here?”
“She’s my mate, Anthony!” Ayden roared. He stomped over to a counter that separated a kitchen from the larger room. Ayden grabbed his saddle bag, which still bulged from the items he’d put in it when they ran from Banff. “And this is my den,” he added a bit quieter. “You’re my littermate and you two will officially meet.”
Magda didn’t like the way Anthony’s gaze slowly traveled over her. She knew she looked like shit. There’d been no way to clean herself in that shed, and her hair fell down her back in a tangled mess. When Anthony returned his attention to her face, his eyes were no longer silver. His teeth had returned to their human size. But his expression was twisted in strong disapproval.
“This is the female I kept smelling on you,” Anthony said, his tone flat.
“Yes.” Ayden returned to her side. He’d pulled some of her clothes out and also had a folded towel tucked under his arm. “Let’s get you showered and cleaned up,” he said, his tone soft and gentle.
“I see why you refused to tell me who she was. Proof of your humiliation. No one in the pack would have sniffed you out as less honorable if you’d refused to mate with her,” Anthony called out when Ayden guided her down a dark hallway.
“He’ll come around,” Ayden whispered after closing the door behind them and flipping on a light in a small bathroom.
“You so sure about that?” Because Magda wasn’t. Very few werewolves, other than Ayden and those on her mountain that her sire had known, came around. She hated that Ayden would now have to learn how to get accustomed to always smelling mistrust and hatred.
“Anthony is more open-minded than he smells right now.” Ayden reached for the sweatshirt she wore and pulled it off her head. He did the same with her other layers underneath. “Right now, he’s in pain and his pride is hurt. You’ll see.”
Chapter Sixteen
Ayden undressed Magda, taking his time to inspect and make sure there were no bruises or injuries. Puck’s litter would all die if there were any sign she’d been abused. Not that locking her in a fucking cage buried high up in the woods behind Puck’s den wasn’t abuse.
“They told me you were dead,” he whispered, pain resurfacing just as sharp as it had hit when Puck had first told him. “I can’t believe I didn’t smell a lie.”
“I thought I would die. And I was so scared that I’d killed your littermate and you wanted me dead.”
He heard the weight in her words. Magda was dirty, even under the layer of clothes she had on. He guessed she’d slept in her fur. But even during the day, buried up in those trees with little light hitting that steep part of the mountain, she probably half-froze.
“Anthony was pretty beat up.” Ayden hadn’t known the level of fear and pain before that he’d experienced when he’d slid into Anthony’s motionless body on that terrible night. He’d sniffed over every inch of him, made pretty good guesses as to what bones were probably broken. “I ripped off the saddle bag. We’ll have to get another one when we leave for your littermate’s den. I was able to carry him on my back to our pack. And trust me, I was more than a little pissed that the rest of those fucking males who had agreed to run with Anthony when he sniffed out the howlings that I was with a Malta werewolf, herded you up the mountain and left me alone to tend to Anthony.”
He sensed that Magda chose her words carefully when she spoke again. “There were three, maybe four—I don’t remember—Cariboo males who forced me up that mountain. I knew we were climbing but there was so much white fur around me, and all I smelled was incredible anger. I didn’t know where I had been taken. Then I was shoved in that shed and left there.”
Ayden guessed that as asinine as Puck was, and in spite of being the meanest damned werewolf Ayden had ever known, the male still hadn’t the balls to kill Ayden’s mate. Which was a damned good thing.
He ran his hands down her naked body, stroking her underneath her arms down to her hips. She was noticeably thinner. He spotted fading bruises on her shoulders. Magda didn’t want to howl about what his pack had done to her. It cut deeply. He’d been so positive that if he loved her, those he cared about would smell the good in her and accept her. No one in his pack had bothered trying to sniff her out. She was a Malta werewolf and that was enough for them to condemn her. If he hadn’t demanded that Magda’s body be brought to him, would they have let her die there?
Magda had been right. Ayden had been wrong. She understood, and accepted, that she lived in a world where everyone she met would hate her on sight. Ayden lived in a world completely opposite. Anyone who had ever caught wind of his scent immediately straightened. They respected and honored him no matter how well they knew him. He had been whelped and raised with howling of him being pack leader. Ayden had proven his level of ignorance and short-sightedness to his brand new mate, which had resulted in her being caged and humiliated with the deepest level of dishonor.
“My beaute noire,” he grumbled, straightening and staring into her soft, dark eyes. There was dirt on her face and her long, black hair was tangled and stringy. She was still the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid eyes on. “I beg you to forgive me.”
She blinked and her lips, which he noticed were chapped and cracked, parted slightly when she looked up at him. “Forgive you?” Magda instantly smelled confused. “I almost killed your littermate.”
It was true. She had. Her actions were justified and held honor. He’d been a stupid werewolf too damn proud and convinced he knew the world he ran in to hear Magda when she’d continually howled the truth to him. Ayden shook his head, wondering how he would ever make this up to her. Lowering his mouth to hers, he tasted her, and fought his urge to take more.
“I do believe you possess more honor than my entire pack combined,” he whispered, brushing his lips over hers. Then turning her, he reached and turned the water on, stopping the tub as he did. “You humble me, Magdaline.”
He shouldn’t let her continue to smell confused. It had been a terrible few days for both of them, all of which he fully accepted the blame. It tore even deeper into his pride when he smelled the truth about himself. All his life he’d run believing he knew how right and wrong smelled. He had always known honor. Accepting how wrong he’d been brought on enough pain. But knowing he wasn’t werewolf enough to howl the truth of his
poor judgment damn near brought him shame. Was sharing his thoughts with Magda even enough? And if not, how would he show her?
Ayden knelt outside the tub once Magda sat in the rising water. He held her back when she sunk down until her hair was wet. When he lathered it with shampoo, he watched some of the strain from her face disappear. Silently, he vowed to somehow give her a life of peace. He would make sure she hunted without fear and relaxed in their den at night completely content. It was the least that he owed her.
“You looked so dead inside when I first saw you outside that cage.” Magda’s eyes were closed. Her thick, black lashes draped toward her cheekbones, droplets of water holding them together.
Ayden lifted the bottle of conditioner that he’d brought to the bathroom with them and poured an ample amount into his palm. He cradled her head at her nape while massaging it into her scalp. Then helping her straighten, he began lifting her long, heavy black strands and scrubbed the conditioner into her hair until it piled on top of her head.
“I never left Anthony’s side that first day. Our pack doctor had assured me he’d live but he was in a lot of pain. It was hard hiding the smell of my own pain, though. I had been told my pack members had killed my mate. By then I had also heard the howling of how Anthony had rounded up those other males and was on a hard run to hunt me down and free me of the Malta werewolf bitch I was running with. My pack believed I had strayed. As furious as I was with Anthony, I was equally pissed at my pack for thinking so little of me to not trust my judgment in who I ran with.”
Magda lifted her hand from the water and rubbed soap from her eyes. She blinked and looked at him. “Did they smell disappointed in you?”
It hadn’t been disappointment as much as anger. The truth of that terrible night had spread across his mountain faster than wild fires. His pack was scared. Howling began all over the place and by the second day most were convinced they needed to go on a group hunt to sniff out any other Malta werewolves.
With Her Capture Page 18