Healer's Choice g-3

by Jory Strong

  Aryck fought the urge, already thinking it would be best to bathe before going into camp rather than to openly acknowledge what had happened between them. He needed to speak with his father, to Nahuatl, and, if necessary, the elders, not just about the possibility of alliance among the Weres but allowing Rebekka to remain in their lands and belong to the pack as his mate.

  It could be done. Perhaps it had been done deep in the past, in a story the elders held in their memories but chose not to share.

  Frustration rumbled through him at not being able to speak openly about the future. To make promises. The Jaguar threatened to claw its way through his gut at the possibility the needs of the outcasts in the brothels might hold the greater power over her.

  Aryck’s arms tightened on her. If she thought to return to Oakland, then she was mistaken.

  He nuzzled her ear and felt a shiver of renewed desire go through her. It soothed the Jaguar.

  “We’ve got to get back to camp,” he told her. “I need to speak to my father.”

  Her arms went around his waist and her body melded to his. She turned her head, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. “I know.”

  He couldn’t release her without taking her lips fully. Expressing his hopes and desires in the only way he could at the moment.

  She softened further against him. Yielded to the thrust of his tongue. Answered the command of his two souls that she accept, submit.

  Her response calmed the Jaguar’s wild emotion even as she roused the man’s desire to take her fully, hardening his cock in readiness for it. He ended the kiss, released all but her hand, unwilling to let her go completely as they headed toward camp.

  “Jael said something about a human en—”

  “No!” he said, stopping, tugging her into his arms again and touching his nose to hers. Letting her feel the full weight of an enforcer’s stare. “It’s not for you to worry about. The Wolf baited me. Nothing more. He’d no more allow you to go to the encampment than I would. You’re too valuable to risk, and the humans there aren’t to be trusted. Only caution on the part of the alphas has prevented us from attacking and driving them from our lands already.”

  “They’re salvaging?”

  “It appears so. We’re playing a waiting game, hoping they’ll leave when they’ve found what they came for or found nothing of value.”

  He tilted his head, giving in to the temptation to kiss her once, twice, a third time to reduce the sting of the words that had to follow. “This is Were business, Rebekka. Don’t interfere in it.”

  She stiffened and pulled out of his arms, though she didn’t try to take her hand from his. Jaguar and man both churned in discomfort, hating even the tiniest of her emotional retreats. In an effort to recapture the closeness, Aryck said, “Tell me about your life in Oakland.”

  Rebekka shot him a look, part disbelieving and part hopeful. But her voice contained pure challenge. “I live among Were outcasts.”

  The tightness in his chest was immediate. The subject of outcasts was not one a Were took lightly. He managed to keep any hint of it from his voice. “Tell me,” he coaxed, squeezing her hand.

  She did. Describing the various brothels and talking about the vice lord, Allende, who offered protection, but at a price. Speaking of the things that were an everyday part of her life, the injuries she healed. The red zone, the maze that no longer stood. Oakland itself.

  Aryck found himself growing more worried. Not just at the horrors she saw daily and the danger inherent in her life among humans, but at how much she might believe she was needed by those the ancestors had judged. How difficult it might be for Rebekka to leave her world for his.

  It was almost a relief when they neared camp and one of the more private bathing spots. He wanted a few minutes of additional pleasure with her before pack business claimed his attention, a few minutes to convince her body, if not her mind, of how much better a life spent with him would be over the one spent healing outcasts.

  He stopped at where the trail split away, carried Rebekka’s hand to his chest, and rubbed it against his nipple. “This path leads to a stream with a pool. We can bathe together before I leave you at your cabin.”

  She was instantly nervous, shy again despite the intimacy they’d already shared. “I don’t have a towel. Unlike you, I can’t change form to shake myself dry or walk around naked until the air does it for me.”

  Aryck laughed, taking her hand to his mouth and nibbling on it. “No one would object if you wore only skin. In fact, the males would enjoy it.”

  He would enjoy it. And while the Jaguar wouldn’t tolerate another touching her, having others admire her lush form only added to the satisfaction that would come with claiming her fully. “If you insist on a towel, we can come back.”

  Her eyelashes lowered to hide her expression, but she didn’t say no. They continued on, the trail ending at the clearing behind the alpha’s cabin.

  Guilt intruded at once again putting desire before duty, his subconscious choosing this route so he wouldn’t fail his pack. If he slipped into the water naked with her, he wouldn’t be able to leave until she was fully his.

  He realized it would be better for her to bathe without him, for him to wash the most telling scents from his skin elsewhere, then find his father. Aryck stopped, reluctantly releasing her hand. At her questioning look, he said, “You tempt me to forget my responsibilities. I’ll join you when I can.”

  He pointed to an opening several yards to the left. “Take that path, then the first right, followed by the third, and you’ll end up just beyond the cooking pit of your cabin.”

  “If I return to the pool, will there be others bathing there at this time of day?”

  “You’ll know before you reach the deep portion of the stream. It’s a place lovers go and, as you have reason to know, Jaguars aren’t quiet in their passion.”

  She took a step away from him and he found he couldn’t let her leave without one last kiss. He snagged her wrist, halting and turning her in a smooth movement, placing his mouth on hers just as the cabin door opened.

  His father’s dismay slammed into him through their mental link. Melina’s low, savage growl reached his ears.

  The Jaguar’s hackles rose in reaction to the threat it contained. Aryck ended the kiss and released Rebekka, noting the discomfort in her eyes when they flicked to his father and Melina before she made her escape.

  He hadn’t wanted to so flagrantly defy his father’s wishes when it came to Rebekka, but there was nothing to do about it now. The scent of sex clung to his skin. The scratches marking his back screamed she’d been lying beneath him.

  “Leave us,” Koren told Melina.

  She glowered at Aryck, eyes burning with seething emotion, making him fear for Rebekka’s safety. “Harm Rebekka and you’ll meet me in the challenge circle.”

  “The healer’s safety has been guaranteed while she’s on Jaguar lands,” Koren said, adding weight to Aryck’s warning, though he tempered it by adding, “She’ll be gone in a day or two, as soon as Phaedra gains the knowledge contained in the journal.”

  Melina gave a slight nod, acknowledging Koren’s concession to her pride, and what Aryck thought was his father’s continued support of her as the female who would bear his grandchildren.

  Never. Aryck found it difficult to believe he’d once wanted Melina even as an outlet for physical release.

  She stalked away, gone from his thoughts even before she disappeared from sight.

  “You coupled with the healer,” Koren said, dark anger seeping into his voice.

  As enforcer, Aryck couldn’t claim it was none of his father’s business. And because Rebekka was human, it mattered all the more.

  “Not yet.”

  “Not ever then. I didn’t lose my mate to have you throw away your own life by ending up an outcast.”

  It was a low, ruthless blow. Guilt and fury rushed into Aryck with the reminder his mother had died giving birth to him. His fingers flexed, th
e Jaguar sheathing and unsheathing phantom claws at the savageness of the verbal attack. “It won’t come to that.”

  “So you’re a shaman now?” Koren asked, his expression unchanging, his body posture all but inviting Aryck to challenge him physically so he could demonstrate why he was alpha and his will was pack law.

  “I believe the ancestors want her to remain here, as my mate.”

  Koren laughed. “You’re thinking with your cock.”

  Aryck snarled, kicking off his shoes in unconscious preparation for a fight. “Without the ancestors’ intervention we wouldn’t have known of her existence. There were others who could have been sent to retrieve her, but it was me who had to go.”

  “You’re rationalizing so you can fuck a female you know is wrong for you. In this you’re my son.”

  “My choice is not the same as yours. Look at the value Rebekka has already brought to the pack. The cubs are healed. The Wolves acknowledge a debt to her. There is more.”

  “Things as enforcer you should have shared hours ago?” Koren said, his voice silky menace. “But instead you failed in your duties, became sidetracked by lush curves and soft skin, by a slick channel and an alluring scent.”

  Aryck bridled at the charge but couldn’t deny it, not when moments ago he’d felt the sting of guilt in the wake of nearly giving in to the temptation to delay further. Only his pride had kept him from seducing Rebekka earlier, taking her with his cock instead of his fingers after she made him lose control and come with only her hand. Had she been willing initially, he would have coupled with her repeatedly, not returning to camp until they were both sated.

  “I told you how it was with your mother. In the end my lack of control cost me. I’ll protect you from yourself to the extent I can. From this moment on, I assume the mantle of responsibility for the healer and forbid you from going near her while she is on our lands.”

  The Jaguar screamed to life, flashing in Aryck’s eyes. He didn’t try to suppress it or hide the truth from his father, that man and beast were unified in their desire for Rebekka as a mate. “And when she leaves our territory?”

  “Then you will have to decide how badly you want her. Whether you desire her enough to follow her to Oakland and lose your position as enforcer, and very likely your place in the pack.”

  The threat shocked Aryck, making it feel as though ice coursed through his bloodstream and settled in his core. His mind froze for an instant but thawed with the recognition of scent. His father’s worry blended with the sharp tang of anger and frustration.

  “I intend to speak to Nahuatl.”

  It couldn’t be forbidden.

  Koren shrugged, and his emotions fell away. “Do so. If the ancestors have plans for the healer, then they will make them known. Until then your first duty is as enforcer. Or do you wish to step aside and let another claim the position?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell me what happened in Wolf territory.”

  They’d reached a place of both stalemate and compromise. Aryck accepted the opportunity to move past the issue of Rebekka—for now.

  “It’ll be easier to show you,” he said, and, with the touch of his mind to his father’s, condensed the important images and conveyed them in a brief stream of information.

  When it was done Koren said, “You did well to take the initiative and suggest the possibility of alliance. I will speak to Nahuatl and Phaedra first, then to the elders individually, sharing this information with them and drawing on their memories. Take a few others and swear them to secrecy. Search our lands for signs disease has spread here, and for evidence the humans might be responsible for what happened in Wolf territory. Then see if you can draw the attention of the Hyena and Coyote enforcers, and if they, too, might support alliance.”

  It meant a delay in speaking with Nahuatl about Rebekka. It meant his father would speak to the shaman first.

  Aryck pushed away his uneasiness that the ancestors would be influenced or change their minds before he could make his case to the shaman and ask for Nahuatl’s intercession with them, or the guidance necessary for him to face them himself in a Petitioner’s Rite.

  He glanced in the direction Rebekka had gone. When he returned, he’d speak to Nahuatl and, if it was still necessary afterward, get word to her about his father ordering him to stay away from her. There was no time now. More was at stake here than his desire to take her as a mate. “I’ll leave immediately.”

  Twenty-one

  REBEKKA wrung her panties and bra out one last time before turning toward the place where the rest of her clothing hung draped over low branches. She glanced around, feeling selfconscious at the prospect of leaving the deep pool.

  Her hand slid over her belly, trailing heat in its wake. Her channel clenched as she remembered the hot spray of semen jetting from Aryck’s cock, the look of sublime pleasure on his face, and the heady feeling that had come from making him lose control.

  Her clit stiffened with the memories and she played with it, stroking the underside and across the tip, imagining it was Aryck’s fingers, Aryck’s tongue.

  A blush stole up her neck and across her cheeks as she pictured him between her thighs, black hair whispering across her skin, his mouth doing exquisite things and making her feel feminine and desirable.

  Twice she’d told him no.

  She wasn’t sure she would give him the same answer the next time.

  Was it love?

  Or simply lust?

  Was there any way to know for sure without risking her heart? Without yielding her body?

  Her fingers left her clit and settled on the tattoo, tracing it without looking down at the ugly mark. Her heart thundered at the very prospect of revealing it and witnessing his reaction.

  She’d half hoped Aryck would join her in the water, his arrival forcing her to let him see the tattoo. To tell him about the laws still upheld in places in the San Joaquin and about stepping out of the caravan bus when the settlement police were there to collect the sin tax. He’d listened as she told him about life in Oakland, though she’d only told him about her life among outcasts, not about her mother. Or her father.

  Fear threaded through her heart. She had other secrets to reveal.

  Soon, she promised herself. Once she was more certain of him.

  Weres were physical, earthy beings. He might be acting on lust alone, with no thought beyond experiencing shared pleasure.

  Rebekka left the water, grabbing up the towel on the bank and hurriedly drying herself. A few steps took her to her clothing.

  She hung the wet panties and bra on a branch, then dressed. The weight of the journal against her thigh reminded her of the promise to Phaedra.

  Was it only this morning she’d agreed to share the knowledge contained in it? So much had happened since then.

  She pulled the book from her pocket, wondering if Phaedra had gained permission for her to remain with the Jaguars. Doubt crept in as Rebekka remembered Koren’s expression when he’d stepped out of his cabin. The alpha didn’t approve of Aryck being with her.

  A chill swept through her. What if Koren sent her away this very night?

  It wouldn’t come to that, she realized. Ice replaced the chill as dread returned.

  He wouldn’t send her back to Oakland, not with disease threatening. She was needed here, more now than before—even if she’d brought the devastation with her.

  “There’s no proof I did,” she whispered, speaking out loud to give the words the ring of truth.

  The healer’s journal documented the horrors of biological and germ warfare let loose during The Last War. The Jaguar cubs had already stumbled on one weapon; who was to say there weren’t more on these lands?

  The knots of fear and worry and dread loosened as Rebekka saw a different possibility. She was here when she was needed the most, with the journal and the amulet, both given to her by the Wainwrights—her father’s allies.

  If war was coming, as the witches claimed, then what s
ide would the Weres stand on?

  She couldn’t suppress a shiver as she remembered those moments when she healed the Wolves, when she’d heard the drumbeats of the Were ancestors. Hope slipped in as she thought about her argument with Aryck and his claim that being made outcast was the result of having the eternal soul cast from the shadowlands.

  If there was any truth in it, then shouldn’t the ancestors be able to restore those in the brothels, so they could shift fully between forms? Shouldn’t she be able to gain intercessions on the outcasts’ behalf as a result of the healing she did here? If she could, then there would be no need for her to return to Oakland. A future with Aryck would be possible—assuming that was what he wanted.

  Old insecurities resurfaced. She wasn’t sure a man was capable of being faithful to only one woman over the course of a lifetime together. Wouldn’t the temptation to stray grow more acute the longer a Were was with someone who had only one form? Was it even possible for the permanent bond both Phaedra and Levi spoke of to exist between a Were and a human?

  Rebekka’s elation tumbled away with the thought of Levi. If the Were ancestors could restore those viewed as outcasts, wouldn’t the Lion shaman have already approached the ancestors on Levi’s behalf?

  He couldn’t be blamed for being twisted into a monstrous shape by a human using witch-charmed silver. Instead of being exiled from the pride, Levi should be rewarded for choosing a human shape so he could work to keep others from ending up in the maze as he waited for the chance to free Cyrin.

  Rebekka put the book in her pocket, deciding to seek out Phaedra. While she shared the information in the journal, she could ask about Were ancestors and outcasts.

  She found Caius and Canino at the cabin. The Tiger was sprawled underneath a tree while the boy was practicing with a slingshot.

  Caius hugged her in greeting, rubbing his cheek against her shirt. She leaned down and kissed the top of his head.

  “Phaedra sent me here to wait for you. I’m supposed to show you the way to her cabin. She’s cooking a meal.”

  Rebekka’s stomach rumbled with the reminder of how long it’d been since she’d eaten. “I’ll be right out,” she said, going into the cabin long enough to leave the damp clothing in a place where it could dry.