Past My Defenses (Taming the Pack series) (Entangled Ignite)

by Wendy Sparrow

  The other males in the pack had moved away from her. She doubted Jordan had explained about Dane—he wouldn’t have had time, and more Lycans would have been smirking at her. She was scent-matched to a human, after all. They must assume she was being considered for alpha female with Cheri being…wherever she was.

  Travis made eye contact briefly with Jordan before bowing his head.

  “Yes?”

  “I had Tom check out the car.” Tom was standing beside him with his head bowed. He’d arrived the same time she had. “The damage done by the ditch didn’t seem to explain everything. He said there were nicks on the brake lines and power steering line so that they bled out as she drove. She probably panicked when the power steering dropped to manual and tried to brake and then lost control.”

  If this was a game, Cheri wasn’t the only player. There was no way she’d crawl under her car to cut the lines and put herself in danger.

  Travis cleared his throat. “Which puts a different spin on the bottle of bleach on the floor.”

  Everyone turned to stare at him, though they all kept their heads slightly bowed out of deference to Jordan.

  “The bleach was to mask the scent…of the car tampering…of whatever happened,” said Travis.

  A wave of apprehension passed through them. There was no reason to destroy the scent if only humans might be tracking her abductor.

  “This is how poachers destroyed the Coquihalla pack,” Carrie said. Her family had been pack members for generations and thus she felt allowed to speak out of turn. She was also a friend of Cheri’s—though the alpha female didn’t seem to take to any of them. “Friend” was more of a relative term. She disliked Carrie the least anyway, and seemed to confide in her occasionally. “First one and then another…and they masked trails with gasoline and bleach, and by the time they thought they were going to catch the poachers, seven dead or missing, and the poachers moved on.”

  Unfortunately, those Lycans from British Columbia only had twelve in the pack to start with. The remaining five had left to join another pack and taken with them the inability to live without feeling hunted. She’d heard of the carnage left behind when the poachers harvested a Lycan’s organs for wealthy benefactors on organ transplant waiting lists. Lycan organs wouldn’t give them the power to shift, but they were still the new hot item on the black market. The wealthy and entitled had been fed crap about their magical qualities. Their organs were stronger and came with a primitive rush…one long-stop high with a potent walk on the wild side.

  If there wasn’t a donor match or the harvest was poorly handled, the organs were sold for blacker, darker reasons than a kidney transplant. Lycans were currently being hunted as an ingredient—part of remedies for everything from sterility to hair growth.

  The fact that the organs had to be harvested when the Lycan was in human form meant that all of the human bodies recovered had shown signs of torture. There had been wolf mutilations occurring more regularly in the last couple years—which were either wolves mistaken for Lycans or Lycans that’d held strong and not shifted. It was a horror story that seemed too surreal not to be fiction.

  It couldn’t have happened to Cheri. These were things that happened so far away you didn’t believe them. At the very least, you didn’t think they could happen to you. Except a house cat took her down—poachers would have found her easy prey.

  Still…poachers…here?

  No way. There had to be a different explanation.

  “We don’t know it was poachers,” Jordan said slowly, staring them all down. “We’ll take precautions, but we don’t know it was poachers.”

  “Cheri said they might be coming. She told me,” Carrie said, shaking her head. “And she didn’t get out in time.”

  Cheri had mentioned poachers a time or two when they’d gathered. Vanessa’s patrol route had been increased due to Cheri’s insistence they be prepared. She hadn’t minded for the most part. Running twice as many miles a night had helped curb her wanderlust during the day.

  Frowning, Vanessa made pointed eye contact with Jordan. He raised his eyebrows. She rolled her eyes. Finally, he nodded in her direction.

  “Why would Cheri think that?” Vanessa asked. “Glacier pack is huge. We’re a strong pack. Poachers have only gone after smaller packs.” And Cheri wasn’t an alarmist. Why would she bring up poachers if she didn’t have reason?

  Everyone went still again. There was no group in the world who could hold as preternaturally still as a pack of Lycans.

  “It was possibly paranoia. Just because poachers have used bleach in the past doesn’t mean this was them, or that she was right.”

  She knew she was pushing her allotted acknowledgment but she said, “There are at least five packs between us and their last supposed Lycan kill—she had to have some reason to think that.”

  The others glanced at her, trying to get a sense of what deference was to be paid to her—whether she’d been chosen or not. Some things were instinctual, but there was still drama that was too human to “feel” out.

  Jordan held her gaze for far longer than she felt comfortable with, and she looked down. The patterns of submission and dominance were in their genetic makeup. It was said that parents could tell Lycan offspring from human offspring well ahead of their first change at puberty by the ingrained signs of deference paid to those above them. Finally, he addressed the group. “Disperse. Keep to groups. Jeff, grab five to go with you to check on the pack members not here and see if you can catch a trail of anything else out there hunting. The rest of you, go find out what you can. We’ll meet back here in two hours. Nessa, you stay.”

  The large meeting room that was almost never used for the contracting business Jordan owned emptied quickly. The males arced a wide path around her, assuming, for the wrong reason, that Jordan had singularly marked her with his attention. He had. He was probably going to tell her to stop being a brat because he wasn’t indulging a female mated to a human. Not this soon after it had happened anyway.

  She really, really hadn’t intended to pick Dane over Jordan—a human over an Alpha—but some in the pack might see it that way. It was going to be a strange week.

  Jordan waited until the door closed behind them. She kept her head bowed, even though she fidgeted. She fought deference and submission normally—her chin a little higher than the others, or sometimes her head was more tilted sideways than bowed. When it was just Jordan and her—well, she hadn’t ever punched him, so that showed respect. Of course, less than two hours ago, she’d gone for his throat when he’d threatened her mate. She and Jordan were on fragile footing now. She’d never felt nervous over her own welfare…it was this responsibility for Dane too now—it was intense.

  She’d never had to worry about anyone else before. She’d been a free agent—able to go wherever she wanted to. If she didn’t like a pack or the Alpha leading it, she could leave. She could run if she felt like running. There was power in having no ties, and being able to run away from a situation she didn’t want to deal with. She’d been a lone wolf—and now she was this.

  “You are lousy at submission,” he said, walking toward her.

  She let out a relieved sigh at his amused tone and lifted her head. “I’d apologize, but…”

  “It’d come off sounding a bit like your earlier explanation about your allergies?”

  “I can give you three reasons why it might.”

  He shook his head. “You’re lucky you’re off-limits as a mate now because I think I’d enjoy making you submissive—a little too much.”

  Since she’d laid claim so emphatically to Dane, they were both off-limits. In fact, by pack rules, regardless of how he felt about her, he wouldn’t be able to date anyone other than her, human or Lycan. It was forbidden. The scent-match was considered sacred. Luckily, among Lycans, it always seemed to be mutual—a pheromone they both secreted making the other theirs. She had no idea if it worked with Dane. She might have a fight on her hands to keep him as hers and
hers alone. And to keep the pack from killing any other human females who might show a reciprocated interest in him. She might want to warn him about that too. Eventually.

  Her pride couldn’t take that now. Not after the snoring thing. Hey, guess what, Dane? I’m yours. I was willing to die for you. What? You think I’m hot but you can’t put up with my snoring? Huh. Oh, by the way, don’t date anyone else or my pack will kill her. You’re stuck with me.

  She fought a shudder. She might never be able to tell him that. He’d seen her naked, but this was a whole different version of naked, and she wasn’t about to be that emotionally vulnerable. No way.

  “So?” Vanessa gestured at the doors to the downstairs den exit. “Should I go on the hunt too?”

  “No. You and I are following your instincts. Something hasn’t been adding up for a while, and I can’t nail it down. Cheri’s behavior leads me to think she is guilty of something, but the rest of this…doesn’t make sense.”

  “What was her ultimatum?” He hadn’t answered her before, but it might actually be important.

  He glanced over at her. “Your head seems clear. Your allergy meds must be working…and, apparently, being in heat isn’t affecting your sense of reason anymore.”

  It didn’t seem to be. That was nice. Maybe she’d stop hugging all males under a hundred years old for the remainder of her cycle. She wasn’t usually a hugger. Indulging her hormones within the pack hadn’t appealed to her this cycle or any previous cycles either, actually—a trip to Tijuana to mingle with some humans had seemed equally ill-conceived a week ago.

  And now Jordan’s attempting to capitalize on her fertile period had led her to Dane.

  Life was funny sometimes.

  Not funny ha ha…more like the sort of funny you wanted to drop-kick and punch in the face—that sort of funny.

  “She wanted me to get rid of you,” he said. “That was her ultimatum. She wanted you out before you went into heat.”

  She nodded. It figured. Whether it was personal or not personal, apparently she was a threat to Cheri feeling like Alpha. “If you’d asked me to leave, I would have left.” And she wouldn’t have scent-matched to Dane.

  He clenched his jaw. “I don’t give in to ultimatums…nor will I be dictated to.”

  Jordan held the door open for her as they went downstairs. He’d always been a strange mixture of polite human traditions and Lycan dominance. He’d once told her it was a remnant of a family with mostly human offspring. He was the only Lycan born to two Lycan parents. The genetics from the prior generations had turned cruel.

  She was the only child, Lycan or human, born to her parents—and they’d been older and had passed on.

  “Why did you tell me to watch for anything unusual on my patrol?” It was an odd thing to tell her.

  “Cheri’s behavior. When I last saw her, she told me I’d be sorry that I hadn’t listened to her. I wanted you on your guard just in case she was coming after you. Part of me wonders if she staged this scene to scare all of us as revenge, but her car being tampered with doesn’t fit with that.”

  “Would she do that? Scare us, I mean?” Seemed kind of petty. There were older members of the pack who now would be worried for their lives.

  She turned to see him shrug in the darkness as they got to the last step into the den. “Cheri was complex.”

  Vanessa would have termed it raging bitch. And everyone in the pack knew Jordan didn’t spend much time with her outside of when she was fertile.

  The others had removed their clothes in the den prior to changing and left them in piles. It was easier on their clothes—and made them easier to change back into. Jordan pulled off his shirt, and she spun away from him.

  He laughed.

  “It’s not funny. It all feels different now.” Everything felt different. Twenty-four hours ago, she’d been another member of the pack. Now, it was hard to even take her clothes off with another male present. She might even feel naked when she had her fur coat on—not that they had the full spectrum of human emotions in an altered state, but she might feel underdressed.

  “Would you like me to wait for you outside?” he said in an overly polite tone.

  She turned to glare at him over her shoulder and then jerked her face away. Yeah, he was naked. “Maybe that’d be best.”

  His deep chuckle ended a moment later, and she heard the padding feet of the Alpha leaving.

  “Having a mate is pretty damn inconvenient,” she muttered under her breath. Hopefully, she’d eventually find some perks to being tied to a single…human. Though when she thought of being with Dane earlier—there’d most likely be quite a few perks. Quite a few.

  If she felt naked on the run over, it was lost in the thrill she always felt in the primal pulse of speed and belonging to it. She was the fastest female—faster than most males in the pack, and if they placed as much emphasis on hierarchy in the Glacier pack, she’d probably be beta female, second in command, despite the impact of her allergies. She loved the rush—how the wind felt brushing her body. She felt like part of the wind. And even as a wolf, she was disappointed, a fairly human emotion, when they reached the former alpha female’s place.

  Rooting through Cheri’s house with her former lover was…awk-freaking-ward. She even threw on some of Cheri’s clothes rather than wander around her place naked.

  Jordan sniffed once and gave her an uncomfortable glance. “You smell like her and you—in heat. I’m attracted and frustrated at the same time.”

  Yeah. Good times.

  Luckily, he took searching the bedroom.

  It was dark outside, which was good because the town was crawling with Lycans, and since they didn’t have to carry around flashlights, the night was a good cover. The computer monitor felt blinding as she booted it up. It seemed strange that she had left so much behind, but maybe she’d planned to return and pack more. Maybe her leaving was an empty threat, and the car was a cruel joke.

  Huh. No password. Cheri had always struck her as more paranoid than that. But then again, when she’d gone to do penance for her slip with Jordan, Cheri had laughed it off and said that she knew Vanessa didn’t have a chance with him. She’d almost seemed to have forgotten it. Vanessa wouldn’t have. If Dane so much as even touched another…

  She shook her head. Less than twenty-four hours. She’d known him less than twenty-four hours. Her body and soul needed to stop screaming “mine” every few seconds. She looked at the clock and wondered what Dane was doing. She was so pathetic.

  Holy freaking slow computer. When were her icons going to pop up? Wait, it was done. There was just…nothing on this computer.

  “Jordan?” she whispered.

  He was at her side a moment later.

  “Why would she wipe her computer completely?” That was a lot of work to recover from.

  He snarled. “She wouldn’t—not if she was innocent. I’ll get this to someone and see what they can recover.”

  “It’s wiped.”

  “It booted up…there’ll be traces of what was on it. Hell, if this is a power trip, and she tried to scare us into thinking poachers were around…”

  “So you don’t think there are poachers in the area?”

  He shook his head. “We’re the strongest western pack.” There was no shortage of pride in his voice. “We’ll keep looking for Cheri for a whole different reason.”

  Vanessa nodded. “Should I go join the others?”

  “No. Go home. Go straight home. Or go join your mate. Just make sure you take your allergy meds with you—and tell him his cat’s days are numbered.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Vanessa?”

  She turned back to him.

  “Just because it’s not poachers doesn’t mean she’s not dangerous. She always feints left in a fight.”

  “How do you know that?” She’d never seen Cheri fight. Though honestly, she might’ve been able to take her. Cheri was much slower even if she looked stronger.

 
; Jordan grinned, his teeth a strip of white in the darkness. “Cheri was lousy at submission too.”

  Chapter Four

  He’d trained in an area that seemed to be made of matchsticks because he was constantly dealing with fires. He felt like his lungs were coated with smoke by the time he’d gotten out of there. The upshot was that he’d slept lightly ever since, and since his previous night was spent watching over a wolf who wasn’t a wolf, he’d gone to bed early.

  So when he felt the presence of another person in his room, staring at him, he jerked awake—even as awareness of who it was seeped into his consciousness. He glanced at his clock. Two a.m. He was going to be worthless mornings if this was her bedtime.

  “It’s creepy as hell to stare at someone while they’re sleeping. Also…on a side note, breaking and entering is a crime,” he said without looking toward her.

  She huffed out a breath in offense.

  He sat up just as he sensed she was getting ready to leave.

  “Vanessa.”

  In the light spilling out from a night-light in the bathroom, he could make out the outline of her standing there with her hands on her hips. “What?”

  Grinning, he pushed out of bed. Her blond hair made her easy to locate, even in the dark.

  “How’d you get in? The doors were all locked.” He waited to see if she’d admit to it.

  “Maybe you left something unlocked,” she said as he approached. Of course she wouldn’t admit to it. Maybe he would have been disappointed if she had.

  When he was only an arm’s length away, he stopped. “Nuh-uh. The only thing I left open was that pet door…and usually I slide the door’s panel closed at night so I don’t get any unexpected visitors. I didn’t close the panel tonight. I expected visitors.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I see you got the shirt I left for you.” He reached out and fingered the sleeve of his “Tree-Kisser” shirt. His sister had found it hilarious. He usually wore it to run in—under a sweatshirt. She was in front of his dresser, and he stepped forward, backing her against it and put a hand on either side of her. Leaning forward, he whispered in her ear, “You’re welcome here any time.”