“IF HE THINKS HE CAN THREATEN YOU-”
“I know.” Sierra said again. She stroked his thigh lightly.
They sat that way for a long time; Joe breathing heavily, slowly regaining his calm, Sierra leaning her head on his leg, kissing him and stroking.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” he said quietly. “You, or any of my pack. It’s my job to protect them…”
Joe put his head in his hands.
“How am I going to protect them?”
Sierra stood up. She took Joe’s face in her hands and lifted it up to meet her eyes.
“You’ll find a way,” she told him. “We’ll find a way. It’s going to be alright. We’re not letting this slimy bastard beat us.”
She kissed him gently. Joe took her head in his hands and pulled her close, deepening the kiss. There was a hunger in him. An almost desperate quality in the way he kissed her. It felt like he didn’t just want her, but needed her, a need so powerful it could swallow her up. Sierra allowed herself to be lost in that feeling.
Joe stood and enveloped her in his strong arms. He buried his finger in her hair, locking her in his embrace. Sierra fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. She undid them slowly, one by one, letting her fingers trail across the muscles on his chest as she did so. She pushed the shirt off his shoulders and reached for his belt buckle. Joe’s lips moved to her neck, sending shivers down her spine as he kissed that smooth spot where her neck met her clavicle.
She had his pants off now, leaving him standing before her naked except for his black silk boxers, which clung to his muscular thighs. The boxers were pulled taut by his throbbing erection.
Joe pulled her blouse over her head. He knelt and kissed a line down from her navel to the top of her skirt, and in one deft motion pulled that off as well. Her body ached for him. She moaned as he ran a finger lightly across her panties; just the barest graze along her clit. It was torture. She pushed her panties off and he repeated the motion, just the lightest touch, and she moaned again.
“Please,” she panted, not able to articulate anything beyond that.
Joe smiled at her and obliged. He lowered his mouth and sucked on her clit as he slid two, practiced fingers inside her. She whimpered as those fingers stroked her g-spot.
Sierra pulled him up and steered him towards the bed, unhooking her bra as she did so and letting it drop to the floor. He stroked one thumb across her nipple and he continued to kiss her.
They fell onto the bed, tangled up in each other. Sierra hooked one leg around him and buried her hands in the hair on his chest. She pulled on it and he groaned appreciatively. There was fire smoldering in his eyes as he straddled her.
There was only the thin silk of those boxers between them now. They were thin enough that he pushed the tip of his cock into her, just an inch. One, agonizing little inch. The boxers were wet when he pulled them back out.
“Please,” she begged him again, “Please, please, please.”
He slid off the boxers, revealing his huge cock. He entered her ever so slowly. Sierra threw her head back as she felt him fill her up. She held his body close to hers as he thrust into her. He buried his hands in her hair again and kissed her desperately.
They lost themselves in each other. There was no more worry. No more Dorrian. There was only them, locked in this glorious moment together, building towards their fall.
Sierra held him tighter, her legs wrapped around him as she came, shaking. Joe whispered that he loved her and came a moment later. Sierra could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
They lay that way a long time, trying to catch their breath as they gazed into each other’s eyes.
Joe stroked her hair.
“What are we going to do?” she asked him.
He kissed her and held her tighter, lost for an answer.
*
“Sierra…Sierra wake up.”
Sierra opened her eyes groggily. She was still naked and tangled up in Joe’s sheets. Cinnamon was sleeping by her feet, snoring.
Joe was shaking her lightly, trying to wake her. He was showered and dressed in one of his better suits. Based on the half-light streaming through the window, it was just passed dawn.
“Sierra,” he prodded her, “You have to get ready now or we’ll miss our flight.”
Sierra blinked and tried to process his words.
“Our flight?” she asked. “Where are we flying?”
“Atlanta.”
She sat up in bed, fixing her tousled hair.
“Why are we flying to Atlanta?”
*****
Two hours later, they were sitting in first class on their way to Georgia. Sierra sipped her fourth cup of coffee, hoping the caffeine would kick in soon.
“Dorrian claims he has control of fifty-eight packs.” Joe said and he consulted a legal pad filled with scribbled notes. “The closest is a pack in Atlanta. Werewolves. The pack leader’s name is Pearl. She just so happens to be an old friend of mine. We’re meeting her for dinner.”
“And what do you hope to gain from this dinner?” Sierra asked.
“Dorrian’s a tyrant,” Joe said. “It’s not loyalty that binds these packs to him. It’s fear. Fear, mostly, or the strength of these other packs. If I can convince them to turn on him, he won’t have the strength to back up his threats. So we start with Pearl, and then we convince fifty-seven more Alphas.”
Sierra nodded and nibbled her in-flight peanuts.
“We won’t need fifty-seven more.” She countered. “We’d need…twenty. Maybe less. Dorrian’s a business man. We don’t need all of them. We just need enough that if he tried to take control back he’d lose too many people. We need enough that it’s no longer cost effective for him.”
Two hours later, they landed at Atlanta International Airport. As they stepped out the front doors, Sierra was hit with a humidity so thick for a moment she couldn’t breathe. She peeled off her coat and squinted up at the sun as Joe helped their driver load their luggage into the town car. Sierra climbed into the shaded car gratefully, sucking in the cool, air-conditioned air. Joe noticed and laughed at her.
“They have this thing here in Georgia,” he told her. “It’s called sunlight. Not sure if you’ve heard of it.”
Sierra rolled her eyes at him and reached for a bottled water, already missing the rainy skies in Washington.
The town car took them to their hotel, where Joe and Sierra showered and changed for dinner. Joe eyed her with lust and approval as she stepped out of the bathroom in a short, green dress and heels. She turned to the mirror to put in her earrings and watched Joe’s reflection staring at her.
“What?” she asked him.
Joe stood behind her and kissed a line from her neck to her shoulder.
“I think we can be a little late.”
Forty-five minutes later, they were back in the town car and Sierra was trying valiantly to fix her hair again. She finally gave up on trying to re-tame the curls and pulled it back into a loose bun.
Pearl lived in a sprawling old plantation house at the end of an unmarked dirt road. Bright green ivy crept up the sides of the white building. There were wolves wandering all over the property, most of them currently taking naps in patches of sunlight on the wide front porch. An old woman was waiting for them by the door. She wore a flowered dress that went well with her wide brimmed, pink sun hat and had her long, white hair neatly pinned in a bun. She looked like the perfect caricature of a southern belle. She smiled a broad, gap-toothed grin as they stepped out of the car.
“Well bless my heart. Joe, you are a sight for sore eyes.” She said in a heavy southern accent.
Joe took her hand in his and kissed it.
“You’re a vision, Pearl. Is that a new hat?”
“Oh you flatter an old woman,” she said with a smile. “And who is your lovely friend?”
“This is my mate, Sierra.”
Sierra tried not to let the terminology give her pause. Pearl pulled her into a hug.
“Well, it is a pleasure to meet you, sugar. It’s about time our boy settled down. I’m immortal and I still never thought I’d live to see the day.”
Pearl invited them in, pausing to scratch one of the wolves on the head affectionately before leading them though the grand front doors. She led them from the marble foyer into the dining room, where dinner was just being served. The table was resplendent in white linens and fine china. There was fried chicken, corn bread, cheese grits (Sierra had to ask what a “grit” was), and collard greens, along with plenty of sweet tea and homemade peach ice cream for dessert.
Joe kept the conversation casual throughout the meal, asking about how her pack was doing and where her adorable grandchildren were. Other pack members filtered in and out of the room as they ate, some staying to chat, others just eyeing them curiously before snagging a piece of chicken. It wasn’t until they were sipping an after dinner brandy in the parlor that Joe brought up why they were here.
“I’ve been approached by Dorrian Taylor about joining his Alliance,” he said.
Pearl’s smile stiffened. She took another quiet sip of her brandy.
“Pearl,” Joe said, “You are a singular and powerful lady, with a pack of over a hundred.”
“It’s almost two hundred now.” Pearl corrected.
“Why would you give an inch to this tyrant?” Joe asked.
Pearl looked offended. She wouldn’t meet Joe’s eye, speaking instead to her brandy sifter.
“Joe,” she said, “I want you to listen to me very carefully now. I don’t have any objection to Dorrian being in charge. I don’t see any call to stir up trouble. I know it’ll hurt your pride, but I advise you to give that man what he wants.”
“But you have a pack of two hundred,” Sierra protested. “We have eighty bears. And if we can convince others to join us-”
Pearl stood.
“Now, you listen, young lady. I don’t think you’re hearin’ me. I’m not interested in what you’re planning. I don’t want any trouble. And if ya’ll are planning to stir things up, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Pearl’s face was stern as she showed them to the door. She shut it behind them with a bang, and threw the bolt. The wolves on the porch eyed them as they made their way down the steps and back to their car.
“She’s scared.” Sierra said.
“Yes.” Joe said, shaking his head. “And Pearl isn’t scared of anything.”
Their car started down the long dirt drive, away from the plantation.
“We’ll keep trying.” Sierra said finally, breaking the silence. “There’s still fifty-seven more packs.”
“Yeah.” Joe agreed. “Maybe Pearl’s finally gone soft. We’ll keep trying.”
*
They gave up after the thirtieth pack.
No one wanted to talk about Dorrian. No one would hear a word against him. And most of the Alphas weren’t nearly as nice about it as Pearl had been.
In the basement under a bar in Baton Rouge, the Alpha of a pack of alligators had threatened to eat them if they didn’t leave immediately. The Alpha who had set up shop on a riverboat in New Jersey had simply stopped talking to them as soon as they mentioned Dorrian’s name. She sat in silence until they gave up and left. The Alpha in Bangor actually had them thrown out.
A few had at least spoken with them, but they all had the same message as Pearl. Each said they were perfectly happy with Dorrian in charge, and advised Joe to concede as well.
Six days after they set out, the jet-lagged pair boarded their flight back to Washington.
“What else can we do?” Joe asked her as the plane touched down at Seattle International.
Sierra sighed. “I don’t think there’s anything else we can do.” She said. “I think if we don’t want anyone to get hurt we have to give him what he wants.”
They went straight from the airport to Sleuth. Joe called everyone to a gathering and explained to them what was going to happen. Many people protested. There was a lot of shouting, and people throwing things as Joe had done. Many insisted they could fight Dorrian’s people off.
But then Joe and Sierra explained the full scope of Dorrian’s power, and how curiously unwilling the other packs had been to turn against him. Little by little, the protests quieted, until everyone arrived at the same foregone conclusion Joe and Sierra had. Without help from other packs, there was simply no choice but to give in.
Unable to form the words himself, Sierra called Dorrian for Joe that night, and told him they agreed to his terms. Dorrian said he would be there tomorrow morning, to speak with the pack and accept his surrender. Sierra hung up the phone feeling sick.
Neither of them felt like making love that night. Instead, they just held each other. Unable to sleep, they lay awake for most of the night, staring out the window at the moonless sky. Not talking. Just wrapped up in each other, thinking about what was to come the next day and trying in vain to think of a way out of it.
Sierra finally drifted off to sleep thinking about Pearl. Pearl, who had a pack of two hundred wolves, and wasn’t scared of anything. What had made her so afraid to fight back? What had they gotten themselves into?
CHAPTER 12
Someone was screaming.
Sierra stirred in her sleep, unsure if the noise came from real life or her dreams.
But it was definitely screaming. Somewhere in the distance, a woman was screaming.
Sierra opened her eyes. There were five, large, armed men in the cabin. One of them clamped a hand over her mouth. Sierra bit down on his hand, causing him to swear loudly and release her. She screamed.
Joe startled awake from the noise. He lunged at the man closest to Sierra, tackling him to the ground. One of the men rushed to assist his friend while the others made a grab for Sierra.
“RUN!” Joe screamed at her, before shifting and ripping the pinned man’s throat out in a shower of blood.
Sierra fled the cabin, barefoot.
Sleuth was in chaos. There were people screaming everywhere. One of the cabins was on fire. The light from the fire destroyed her night vision and she stumbled over a rock. One of her pursuers followed her out of the cabin. But it wasn’t a man chasing her now. It was a leopard. There were leopards running all over Sleuth.
Sierra ran towards the trees as fast as she could, the leopard hot on her heels. She needed to shift. It was the only way she stood a chance. Sierra gazed up in vain at the absent moon. She silently begged her body to shift, but nothing happened. The leopard closed on her and knocked her to the ground. He pinned her and bared his long, glistening white teeth at her throat.
Sierra heard a familiar cry. It was Brenda. Brenda was crouched next to a cabin, crying and screaming in terror as a leopard approached her. Sierra screamed and tried to break free. She couldn’t let anything happen to that little girl.
And as if it had simply been waiting for her command, her body responded. She shifted. It caught the leopard pinning her by surprise and threw him off. Now able to hear the thoughts of the shifters around her, she heard the leopard cursing her, and marveling that she managed to shift at the new moon. Sierra paid him no mind. She barreled towards Brenda, knocking the leopard aside with a swipe of her paw.
With Brenda safely tucked into a corner, Sierra stood in front of her, teeth bared, daring anyone to come near that little girl.
“Joe!” she reached out with her mind. “Joe, can you hear me? What’s happening?”
“The kids!” Joe responded. “They’re after the kids!”
Three leopards were approaching her, slowly. They growled softly and slunk towards her. Another jumped gracefully down from a nearby rooftop and joined them. They started to encircle her. Sierra tried to keep her eyes fixed on all of them, waiting for the strike and not sure what she was going to do once they did. She steeled herself for the attack. Brenda was crying.
The leopards crouched and then leaped at her, closing the gap between them. They landed on top of her, claws and teeth
flying. One of them landed on her back and sunk its teeth into her. With a howl of pain, Sierra moved violently and shook it off. The leopard flew into the cabin wall and slunk down, unconscious. The other three were not so easily dislodged. Within moments they had her pinned, glistening teeth bared at her throat.
Suddenly, the leopards were ripped off her. Sierra blinked the blood out of her eyes to see what had happened.
It was Joe. He had appeared out of nowhere, his shiny black fur reflecting the light of the fire. With a roar, he bit into a leopard’s head. Almost half the head disappeared in his powerful jaws. He spit out the bloody chunk of skull and moved on to the next one. The discarded leopard corpse phased back into human form. Joe’s claws ripped into another one’s white underbelly, leaving a trail of carnage in their wake.
“Sierra,” a familiar voice sounded in her head. “Sierra, darling, look at me. You may consider telling him to stop.”
Dorrian was in leopard form, curled up and almost lazily watching the chaos he’d created. Somehow, Sierra knew that pale yellow colored leopard was him. He was laying on the top of a cage mounted on a truck.
The cage was full of children. Their children. All the kids that lived in Sleuth. They’d even taken the babies, who were now clutched in the trembling arms of some of the older kids. Dorrian’s men were standing around the cage pointing guns at them.
“I don’t need them all.” Dorrian said to her. “You can shift and surrender now, or you can do it after I tell them to start shooting. It’s your decision.”
He yawned lazily.
“You too, Joe.” He added. “You will shift and you will come here and kneel to me now, or I’ll kill her.”
Horrorstruck, Sierra shifted back to human form. Joe stopped, staring at Dorrian warily. The remaining leopard shifted, grabbed a kicking and screaming Brenda, and headed for the truck. Joe made no move to stop him.
Shaking, Sierra walked towards Dorrian. He leaped off the roof of the truck, landing noiselessly on the ground. His eyes bored into her as she walked towards him, never wavering. He was smiling in a self-satisfied way, as if he had already won. Maybe he had won. He waited patiently for her to come to him. She stopped just inches in front of him.
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