“Standards!”
“Want me to find a dictionary, blondie?”
“I want you to be a realist,” he growled.
“In other words, drop your pants and save your life.”
“Anything sounds bad if you say it like that.”
“Forget it.”
He pounded the steering wheel, which groaned alarmingly. “Damn it, Sara, you are the most hardheaded, stubborn, infuriating, annoying, stuck-up, curliest, annoying—”
“Curliest?”
“Aw, shut up. Fine, it’s your head. We’ll sleep out in the woods again, no touchie. And again. And again. Homo sapiens, man, fucking hot-house flowers, I swear to God.”
“I am not,” she said automatically, inwardly crushed. She’d sort of been looking forward to a shower. And a bed. She’d gone camping quite a bit as a girl, but now that she was in her late twenties, her idea of roughing it was a Super 8 and a hair dryer.
She cleared her throat and then asked timidly, “Can’t—can’t you just tell them that because I’m not a—a werewolf, you’re still working on getting me into bed?”
He hesitated, then shook his head. “Our kind doesn’t make a life-commitment without, uh—”
“Sampling the merchandise?”
“Uh, yeah. I mean, it’s a totally natural thing to us. We don’t have this whole Victorian attitude toward sex that you guys do. And the thing is, I wouldn’t bring a casual date to a safe house.”
“Oh.”
He shrugged. “So, okay. We’ll keep camping. I guess I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that, but I thought it’d be worse if I didn’t say anything until we were at the house.”
She actually shivered at the thought. “No, that’s a good point. Well . . . what’s a safe house like?”
“It’s a house where a werewolf family lives and they take in guests a lot. People on the run, or on a mission, or even making a go-see trip to the Cape to meet Michael and Lara.”
“Lara being . . .”
“The next Pack leader.”
“Oh. You don’t run a patriarchic society?”
“I don’t think so,” he said doubtfully.
“Who’s Lara again?”
“Michael’s daughter.”
“Ah! Dynastic, then. Never mind. So it wouldn’t be . . . weird . . . if we just showed up at this place and asked to spend the night.”
“No. It’d be normal.”
“But we’d have to share a bed.”
“Yup.”
“Actually, we’d have to do it before we showed up at the safe house, right? So the other werewolves could tell we’d been intimate? Not that it’s any of their damn business,” she added in a mutter.
There was a long pause, and then Derik answered, sounding almost like he was strangling. “Yes, we’d have to do it before we showed up.”
She drummed her fingers on the seat and watched the scenery go by. “Well. I’m really not that kind of girl.”
“Oh, I know,” he said earnestly.
“But you’re kind of cute.”
“Really?” He seemed pleased.
“In an overbearing, totally obnoxious sort of way,” she explained, watching him deflate a bit. “And we are on a mission to save the world.”
He didn’t say anything, just pulled into the BK parking lot.
“We could talk about it, I guess. I mean . . . I’d like a shower.”
“And I’d like for you to have a shower.”
“Bastard,” she muttered.
18
THEY WERE STILL DEBATING THE MERITS OF LOVE-MAKING—OR not—when he pulled up to the Kwik N’ Go. “Gotta use the phone,” he explained.
“How?”
“Huh?”
“The phone,” Sara said. She still reeked strongly of bug spray, but driving around for hours with the windows open had alleviated some of the damage. At least he could think about kissing her without gagging—a crucial step. And the wind had tossed her curls around and around; she looked like an adorable red dandelion. “You can’t use your cell phone, for obvious reasons. But how are you paying for a phone call to the Cape from here? You can’t use your credit card.”
“Oh.”
“And you can’t call from the safe house?”
“They’d hear me anywhere in the house,” he admitted.
“Oh. Creepy. I suppose calling collect is out of the question?”
“Only if you don’t mind a bunch of werewolves tracking you down.”
“Okay, well, let’s try this.” She hopped out of the truck and walked up to the pay phone on the sidewalk. “This works for me sometimes,” she explained over her shoulder. “I used pay phones a lot before I got my cell, and it usually worked out.”
She picked up the receiver, listened, then asked, “What’s the number?”
He told her.
She tapped in the number, listened, then handed him the phone. “It’s ringing.”
He took the receiver from her, staring. It was ringing. “Won’t it ask me for change, or—”
“Wyndham residence.”
“Oh, hi, Moira. Listen—”
“Derik! Hey, where the hell are you? How’s it going? Are you okay? Michael’s been going out of his mind, here! Me, too,” she added.
“Tracking her down has been a little harder than I thought,” he said with a nervous glance at Sara. Thank God, thank God Moira wasn’t anywhere near him. She’d smell a lie, and then kick his ass righteous. He’d deserve it, too. He couldn’t remember ever lying before. It was a waste of time in the Pack. It made him feel like a real rat turd now. “But I’m closing in. Just wanted to let everyone know I’m okay. Got that? I’m okay, everything’s fine right now. Tell Mike, okay?”
“Okay, honey. Things out here are fine, too. We’re basically hanging around, waiting to get the word, you know? So you take care of yourself, okay?”
“Sure. Um, patch me through to Antonia?”
“Sure. She’s had a migraine since you left,” Moira warned, which made Derik cringe—Antonia was a bear when she was feeling fine—“so I’m not sure she’ll be good company, to put it very, very mildly, but here she comes, so hold on to your fur.” There was a click as he was put on hold.
“I guess this phone’s screwed up,” he said to Sara. “It’s not asking for change or anything.”
“Guess so,” she replied, looking smug.
“You’re scary,” he said, and then, “Hello?”
“What are you doing? Owww!” Antonia complained. “My head, goddamn it!”
“Well, don’t yell if you’ve got a migraine,” he said reasonably. “Listen, Antonia—”
“You chimp, what the hell are you doing?”
“Saving the world,” he replied shortly. “My own way. And don’t call me that.”
“But she’s right there!”
“Duh. Listen, don’t tell Mike, okay?”
“Aw, man, Derik, you’re killing me,” she complained. “You are fucking killing me!”
For a moment he actually thanked God that Antonia had a persecution complex. She was one of the few Pack members who would actually consider helping him deceive Michael. Moira, for example, would never, ever do it. She’d feel bad, she’d apologize the whole time she was kicking his ass and then dragging him by the scruff of the neck to take his medicine, but friendship was one thing, and Pack was Pack.
“Look, Antonia, I wouldn’t let you twist in the wind on this. We’ve got a plan. I’m pretty sure it will work.”
“Pretty sure? Owww!”
“Look, I must be on the right track, or you would have ratted me out to Mike by now, right? I mean, your visions must be showing you that something’s going right. Right?”
Sullen silence.
“Right,” he repeated, on slightly surer ground. “So, listen, I’m okay, she’s okay, and we’re gonna get the bad guys and save the world. See, I think the bad guys will accidentally trick her into destroying the world, so if we take care of them
, we take care of anybody else.”
“And how the blue hell do you know that?”
“Well, I don’t. Know it, exactly. You know, like you know two plus two makes four. But I feel it. I mean, I know Sara would never do something that bad on purpose. So the bad guys must do it, or trick her into doing it, or something.”
“You’re talking out your ass. And besides, you’re not an alpha, Derik,” Antonia pointed out through gritted teeth. “It’s not your call. I mean . . . you could run a Pack, but Michael’s the boss of this Pack, and he told you what to do. And you’re not doing it.”
“Just . . . don’t say anything yet, okay?”
“Derik . . .” This was more a howl than a groan.
“Antonia.”
“You’re fucking crazy, you know you’re crazy, right?”
“Just do this one thing for me.”
“Sure,” she snapped. “The first favor he ever asks me in twenty-two years, and this is it!”
For a moment he was startled . . . Antonia was so annoying, so bitchy, so harassed because of her visions, it was easy to forget she was still just a baby. She was barely voting age, and look what he was asking of her!
“Thanks,” he said, because that was her way of saying yes. “I owe you one.”
“You owe me twenty, you big, stupid, lumbering, asshole moronic—” He hung up on her. The conversation had gone as well as he could have hoped; no need to drag it out.
“Okay,” he said, letting out a deep breath. “I bought us some time, anyway.”
Sara smiled at him. It was the first smile of the day—they’d spent the afternoon screeching at each other in between bouts of fast food—and it knocked him out all over again, how gorgeous she was, how funny, how cute, how—“Yeah, sounds like you did. Thanks. What do you say we go find this safe house of yours?”
“Great,” he said. “Showers all around.”
“Enough rubbing in how bad I smell,” she muttered, trailing him to the truck.
“I just meant that I could use a shower, too.”
“Sure you did.”
19
THEY HAD EATEN (TWICE, IN DERIK’S CASE), DRUNK cocoa, and roasted marshmallow after marshmallow. Sara knew if she gobbled one more soft white squishy candy she would explode. But she couldn’t stop herself from eating them.
Quit stalling, she ordered herself.
Ugh, she answered herself.
“Okay,” she said thickly, noticing Derik was watching her with amazement. “Let’s do it before I lose my nerve.”
“How romantic,” he commented. He was crouched over the fire, balanced on the balls of his feet. “Are you all right? You look a little . . . bloated.”
“Do me,” she commanded, and stripped off her shirt. Her belly, bulging with marshmallows, pooched out over the waistband of her jeans. “You know you want to.”
“Uh . . . right this minute? I wouldn’t bet the farm. Maybe you should lie down.”
“No, no, no. We’re gonna do it. We have to do it, to save the world.” She groaned and massaged her belly. “And to sleep in a warm bed tomorrow night. And to have a shower! Think of it, all that warm water . . . and soap, think of the soap!”
“I can’t do this,” he announced. “It’s too much like taking advantage.”
“You’re right about that, but I’ll be the one—hurp!—taking advantage. Now get over here.” She painfully wiggled out of her jeans, then lay, gasping like a landed trout, beside the fire.
Derik was trying not to laugh, and as a result his face had gone an alarming shade of apple-red. “I don’t think you’re up to this tonight,” he gasped.
“Aw, shaddup, when I want you to think, I’ll yank your leash.”
“Now you’re just being mean.”
“Whatever works, pal. Now strip.”
“Oh, it’s like that? Strip?”
She reached out and cupped the warm bulge in his jeans. “Like you’re not dying to.”
“Well, that’s true,” he said, and quit arguing, and in a minute he was naked, and helping her out of her bra and panties—
“What’s burning?”
“Your bra . . . sorry.”
—and then they were rolling in the grass beside the truck, kissing and groping and moaning and for a minute Sara forgot about her grotesquely distended belly, and the mosquitoes munching on her legs.
And then he was easing inside her and that was fine—it was a little uncomfortable, because he was large and she wasn’t ready, but it was all right, because she just wanted this over with, but oh, oh, she hadn’t expected it to feel good, she hadn’t expected . . . expected this.
He rocked against her, obligingly smacking the mosquitoes he saw on her, and then his rocking speeded up, and she wriggled in the grass to give him better access, and then he stiffened all over, the cords on his neck standing out like steel.
“Ooofta,” she said when he collapsed over her.
“I swear,” he mumbled into her neck. “I swear I’m usually much better at this.”
“No, no, it’s all right. Speed impresses me!”
“Sara, you’re killing me.”
She laughed, and stroked the back of his neck.
20
“HI, I’M—JON?”
Sara poked him in the side. “Your name’s Derik,” she whispered.
He ignored her—and embraced the red-haired man in the doorway so hard, the poor guy left his feet. “Jon, you son of a bitch! I thought that was your scent!”
“Never mind my mother,” the other man replied, laughing. “Or my scent. And put me down. Derik, what the hell are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Sara. “This is my fiancée. We need a place to crash for the night. Okay?”
His old friend’s face lit up like a moonrise. “Shit, yes, okay! Can you stay longer?”
Derik shook his head and trailed the shorter man into the house. Sara, after a doubtful look around, followed. “Got to get to the coast. Long story, which I won’t bore you with. What are you doing in Kansas?”
“Hi,” Jon said, extending a hand for Sara to shake. “I’m Jon; Derik and I grew up together, and he’s still got no manners at all. Welcome to my home.”
“Thank you,” she said, jerking her head to get her hair out of her eyes. She thought about trying to straighten the mess and immediately dismissed it as a lost cause.
Jon was a redhead, too, except his hair was a rich, deep auburn, cut brutally short, and his eyes were the green of old Coke bottles. He was a couple of inches shorter than Derik; in fact, exactly her height. It was disconcerting to say the least, being able to look him straight in the eyes. His pupils, she noted clinically, were enormous. She had to swallow against the sudden blockage in her throat. Were all werewolves so . . . unsettling and charismatic? And green-eyed? “I’m Sara,” she managed at last. “It’s nice to be here. Nice to meet you, I mean.” She noticed Jon trying not to wrinkle his nose, and sighed. “I’ll let you two catch up. Meantime, can I use your shower?”
“SO, WHAT THE HELL?” DERIK HAD POLISHED OFF the last of his steak tartare, and was now rooting through Jon’s fridge for a beer. “Last I heard, you got mated, Shannon was pregnant, and you were off to see the world. Now you’re here? And where’s the rest of the family?”
“Visiting Shannon’s mother.” Jon shuddered. “I decided to pass. I don’t like talking to grumpy old women who are hairy when the moon isn’t full. I’m sorry you couldn’t see my cub, though.”
“Heard you had a girl? Katie?”
“Mm-hmm. She’s got my eyes and Shannon’s brains, so that worked out nicely.”
“Very nicely,” he agreed, still rooting. “Listen, how come you left in the first place?” Ah! Hello, beer, my old friend, I’ve come to glug you once again. He twisted the bottle cap off—werewolves disdained bottle openers—and took a deep drink.
“Oh, yeah, that’s the stuff. Oooh, baby. Anyway, how come you le
ft? We all wondered.”
“Well, you know how it is.” Jon had been tipped back in his kitchen chair, now he brought it forward until all four legs were on the floor. “I mean, you’re not there now,” he pointed out. “You can love the Pack but not necessarily want to be with them every second. I needed a little space. The mansion, big as it was, felt crowded after I mated.”
“I can relate. Mike and me almost got into a huge fight before I left.”
“Over what?”
“Over nothing.”
“Come on, cough up.”
“It was stupid.”
“Did it have anything to do with you being an alpha now?” Jon asked quietly.
“What, did Moira put it in the newsletter?”
“No. You’re different. You walk different, stand different . . . even smell a little different. I bet Michael knew before you did and just waited for you to figure it out.”
“Well, we almost tore each other’s heads off. I had to get the hell out of there before I did something really stupid. Even for me.”
Jon pondered that one in silence, while Derik finished the beer. Finally, he said, “It’s a dangerous business, I guess. Sometimes. You’re lucky you didn’t really fight. The last thing you need is to be running the Pack. Also,” he added matter-of-factly, “Jeannie would have shot you in the face.”
Derik shrugged.
“And now you’re with that cute, curly haired redhead.”
“Yeah.”
“Human, huh? Well, congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“You don’t seem like a happy mate-to-be, you’ll excuse me for pointing it out.”
“We’ve been fighting a lot.” Finally, an unvarnished truth! “She might be having second thoughts.”
Jon shook his head. “She hasn’t even had first thoughts. How long have you guys known each other?”
“Never mind.”
“So, less than a week.”
“Never mind, you nosy S.O.B.”
“Swept her off her feet, huh?”
“Something like that,” Derik said lamely.
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