by Dannika Dark
He made a soft sound and, not being able to see his face, I couldn’t tell if it was a grunt or a laugh.
“I’m leaving early in the morning to speak with your father.”
I tried to push him away and he gripped tighter. “No you aren’t!”
“I think it’s time we find out how sly this Fox is. You can argue or listen. Let me know when you’ve made your decision.”
I poked him hard in the side and he sucked in a quick breath. “You are a callous wolf.”
“And you are a cantankerous wolf,” he said with a gentle squeeze of his arm.
Our silhouettes flickered on the dark windowpane from the firelight behind us. “You could ruin my standing with my father. Austin should be the one—”
“Cole is busy protecting his pack from rogues. He can’t afford to lose one man.”
“So you’re going to leave me alone?”
He turned me around and I winced each time I moved my left leg. “A Packmaster doesn’t respect a man who prefers to do business over the phone. A face-to-face is out of respect. My car is fast, and I’ll leave before your shiny friend up there has gone to bed,” he said, pointing back at the moon.
We reached the bed and Lorenzo helped me in, draping a dark blanket over my legs. “You’ll shift tonight twice more, and tomorrow you’ll do nothing but rest. Food will be brought up—the kind that will keep and not require anyone to bring you more. No one is allowed up here, so under no circumstances will you open that door.”
“Yes, Thunder.”
Lorenzo peeled off his shirt and knelt on the bearskin rug.
“You still haven’t told anyone I’m up here, have you? What if there’s an attack? If you sent your second-in-command to stay with Austin, who is in charge?”
“Maybe I should put you in charge.”
“Not a bad idea,” I murmured. I watched Lorenzo lower his head as if in prayer.
After a short rest, he prepared a drink mixed with medicine. Lorenzo coaxed my wolf out and I shifted twice more. When I awoke late in the evening, I found myself alone.
To the left of the bed was a food cart filled with all kinds of things to eat. But what caught my attention was a small tub of cream cheese sitting on the nightstand and a dreamcatcher hanging in front of the window.
***
Lorenzo lifted his mirrored sunglasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He’d been driving for hours, heading toward Oklahoma to speak with Ivy’s father, Ivan Kizer. Lorenzo had instructed the high-ranking wolves to keep the pack on full alert in his absence. He wanted to get home before dark, so he didn’t stop for food. The human state troopers loved pulling over expensive cars, so he had taken his oversized black truck to blend in with the locals—the one with the skull and crossbones on the back window.
Why am I going through all this trouble for a woman who’s not even in my pack? The obtrusive thoughts drifted away when he recalled how elegant Ivy looked with her loose hair brushing against her body like a soft whisper. Maybe it was her regal posture or how she’d lift her chin with pride, but he began to suspect that his instincts were right about Ivy. She was an alpha female. He’d met quite a few in his time, but most were outgoing and loud. Ivy had a quiet intelligence about her, although in his presence, she was hardly quiet. She accepted her lowly rank in the pack, yet he couldn’t help but think about her behavior at the restaurant when she’d supported her Packmaster. Even Alexia, Austin’s mate, hadn’t made such a move. But then again, Alexia was ignorant of their ways and didn’t understand the nuances that went on within a pack.
Ivy did, and it impressed him immensely.
He’d never met such a pure spirit—an unpicked flower whose petals were wild but whose roots were strong. If her father had recently handed her over, then she’d just gone through the change. Lorenzo wondered if she’d experienced her first heat cycle. He shifted in his seat as the thought of her flooded his veins with desire. It felt as if his pants were constricting him. Hell.
Why of all packs did she have to end up with the Cole brothers? Just the thought that one of those mongrels might be the one to mark her purity made his insides twist into knots. It was not as if Shifter women went to their mating ceremonies as virgins, but they often abstained until they went through their first change. The age of maturity to a Shifter was based on when their animal’s spirit linked with their own. That often occurred in their late teens or early twenties, varying by individual. It was only a matter of time before a man would try to bed her.
Lorenzo spotted the turnoff to Ivan’s house and headed up a long driveway. He noticed a couple of sports cars in the crowd of vehicles, as well as a giant garage farther ahead. He zipped up his leather jacket to the collar and stepped out, the blustering wind biting at his face like icy fangs. Wind chimes released a melodic cry from the porch, swinging chaotically as if giving a warning.
He stepped up to the door and knocked several times.
When it eased open, a man with salt-and-pepper hair appeared in the doorway. He scratched his scruffy beard and looked him over. Lorenzo could sense he was the alpha, and Ivan looked like a rough man who had lived a long life.
“You must be Church,” he said in a Southern drawl. His voice was as rough as he looked. “I didn’t know you were an injun.”
Lorenzo bristled at the racist word. How peculiar for a man who had mated with one and had a daughter of mixed descent.
“Well, well.” Ivan assessed Lorenzo from head to foot. “Come inside before your nose falls off. Damn cold this winter. Makes me glad for central heating,” he said with a cackle. “I can remember the days when we spent mornings chopping wood and shoveling snow.”
Lorenzo closed the door behind him and felt the immediate warmth of the house. It had a Southern flair and seemed unusually quiet for a pack den.
“Just about everyone’s in town. I cleared ’em out so I wouldn’t have suspicious eyes looking over my new guest. Come with me,” he said, leading Lorenzo into a smaller room.
Musty books with weathered and torn spines filled the bookshelves. On some of the shelves along the wall were curious artifacts, such as a tarantula in a glass orb, a small skull, rocks, coins, and spurs. Antlers from various animals were mounted on the wooden walls as trophies. Lorenzo lifted a realistic-looking scorpion and touched the tip of its tail.
“I had it preserved,” Ivan said, taking a seat in a red chair with a small table beside it. He began packing a pipe. “Damn thing killed one of the pups in my pack. I let that be a reminder to the women to keep an eye on their children. You don’t say much, do you? Sit down.”
Lorenzo took a seat in one of two chairs facing him and watched Ivan strike a match.
After a few puffs, Ivan sat back and tapped one of his boot heels on the hard floor. “So tell me how it is that Cole lost my daughter and you came to find her.”
“A man named Fox was hunting her. She tells me he was your second-in-command.”
Ivan growled and scratched his bristly jaw. “If you see him, feel free to send him my regards with a bullet to the head.”
Lorenzo chose his words carefully. “I can easily deliver that message for my own reasons. Perhaps mine trump yours.”
Ivan narrowed his cloudy eyes, taking a few puffs from his pipe. “Injuns are sly like the devil. I once saw a native lure a rabbit out of a hole by singing. Damndest thing I ever saw. I’ll tell you my issue with Fox because it’s no secret around here. I found him digging in my drawers and going through my computer files. I didn’t tell my men where I sent Ivy when I traded her off a year ago, and Fox seemed to be the only man who couldn’t rest easy with my decision. That’s when I knew.”
“Knew what?”
After a long inhale, Ivan looked Lorenzo square in the eyes. “That he was the one who turned my daughter into a whore.”
Lorenzo leaned forward, nostrils flaring. “He what?”
Ivan closed off a little and averted his eyes. “That’s why I had to send Poison Ivy away. I
wasn’t about to have my own daughter become the pack whore. She deceived me, and while I can’t turn my back on her, I don’t think I can forgive her for the embarrassment she put me through.”
Lorenzo clenched his fists, biting back his rage.
“So you see, once I found out who had betrayed me, I threw him out like scraps to the dogs. He’s lucky I didn’t string him up from a tree and skin him alive. Doing that to my second-in-command would have stirred up the pack, and I’m sure I would have lost a few men. So instead, I kicked him out. Oh, Fox wasn’t happy about it one bit. He got real comfortable with his rank in this pack—maybe too much. I kept his damn sports car though,” Ivan said with a dark chuckle. “Now that thing I plan to skin alive. Once he gets settled, I’m going to mail him one part at a time. Maybe if he’s handy enough, he’ll figure out how to put it back together.” Ivan rocked with laughter and ended it with a snarly snort.
“It seems Fox has gathered up a band of rogues and formed his own pack.”
“Yeah, he talked my third in rank into stupidly going with him. That’s why I’m looking outside my pack for another second-in-command to replace him. No one in this pack is fit to hold that position. I’ve been around long enough to know that if you bring in too many strong men with the intention of always having a backup in case your top dogs defect, you’ll end up with a bunch of wolves fighting each other for rank. I don’t mind bringing in new blood to fill the position; there are plenty of qualified candidates in the area, and it’s about time I shook things up around here. Maybe he’ll get some of these sorry asses to look for a job.”
“Are you not concerned that Fox is now in our territory and hunting your daughter?”
Ivan set his pipe down and stretched his legs. “I wouldn’t worry about Fox, not unless he’s managed to convince the crazy fools following him to act on his wishes. It’s real hard for a non-alpha to boss around a bunch of nomads. But he’s conniving. If he wants her, well… I can’t do anything about that.”
Lorenzo shifted in his chair. Why would her father make such an unfeeling statement? Fox had no claim on his daughter just because he’d put his cock in her. That image invaded his thoughts and he drew in a deep, calming breath. “Ivy was injured by a car while in wolf form, and I’m offering her temporary shelter. She’ll return to Cole in another two days, and then she’ll be his problem. I’m not certain he’ll be able to fight off this rogue pack. Cole has many weak points, namely the humans they’ll be protecting within his house. He also doesn’t have the numbers if Fox has a substantial pack.”
“Humans?” Ivan’s lip curled in with disgust. “Cole’s family was one of them hippy-dippy kinds, traveling about and never settling. His father’s a good man, but I’ve had my doubts about Austin holding a pack together. Still, I gave him the benefit of the doubt when I sent Ivy to live with him.”
“I sent him my second-in-command to fight off any further attacks until I can return your daughter.”
Ivan chuckled. “You are one dumb injun.”
Lorenzo launched to his feet. “With all due respect, if you call me that once more, we’ll settle this Shifter style.”
Ivan knew what that meant: a challenge in wolf form. He sucked on his teeth for a minute and gave a low grunt. Ivan might trump him in rank, but Lorenzo’s wolf was young and undoubtedly the fiercer of the two. It was an alpha’s right to challenge another Packmaster when he was insulted. It wasn’t a fight that would go to the death, but it would leave one of them in a submissive position that would look bad to that man’s pack.
“When you called to tell me you were coming up, Church, I foolishly thought you were going to ask permission to mate with my daughter. If I didn’t know better, I might still wonder about that. The way I see it, you should have returned Ivy to her Packmaster. But you didn’t. You offered him your second so you could keep Poison Ivy around. You’ll never be able to scratch that itch. Tell me how fast it took her to climb into your bed?”
“You’re a repugnant man.”
“Maybe so,” Ivan said, rising to his feet. “But that girl took away the only thing that meant something to me in this world. My mate. I’m not about to go into personal details with the likes of you, but I only have parental obligation toward that woman. My advice is that you return her to Cole before she brings you to ruin. I sent her to stay with Cole because that girl needs to learn how to be submissive, and I trust Cole enough that I know he’ll make sure to do that. He’s got a willful mate who won’t put up with that kind of thing in her pack, so between the two of them, they’ll keep her in line. Now that we’ve cleared the air, why don’t you tell me why you’re really here? I don’t like deception, and I’m feeling like a man deceived. If it’s not my daughter you want, then what sent you all this way from Austin fucking Texas?”
Lorenzo glanced down at Ivan’s snakeskin boots.
“Like ’em?” he asked, tipping one foot out to the side. “These came from a Shifter who made the mistake of crossing me.”
“There’s one thing you should know about me, Kizer. I’m not a man who likes to be threatened. If you do it once more, I’ll shift in this room and tear out your throat. I came on behalf of your daughter to find out more about this Fox character. He’s not just an issue with Cole, but we don’t like rogue packs sniffing out neighboring territories. If they’re successful at a hostile takeover of Cole’s pack, then Fox becomes my problem. I’m a man who likes to keep his grass cut low so the weeds don’t take over. You said he took one man from your pack, but no friends outside your home?”
“Not that I know of. Fox likes to run with other Breeds.” Ivan paced toward the window and rubbed his nose. “Not many around here mingle with other animals, but I’d seen him commiserating with panthers and the occasional grizzly. It didn’t look good on our pack, but I couldn’t really do a damn thing about it. What they do outside this house is not my problem unless they bring it through my front door.”
Lorenzo pinched his chin, realizing Fox could be a bigger problem than he’d first realized. If he ran with other animals, then he could have formed a multi-Shifter pack, and that could be a dangerous situation to control. That valuable piece of information just made the long trip to Oklahoma worth it.
“I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me, Kizer. Here’s my number if you wish to call your daughter.” Lorenzo placed his business card on a small table and Ivan peered over his shoulder before turning back to the window.
Deciding he’d overstayed his welcome, Lorenzo swaggered toward the door.
“And Church?”
Lorenzo gripped the doorknob. “Yes?”
They met eyes.
“No matter how I feel about her, she’s still my flesh and blood. If you disrespect her, then you disrespect me. You tell her… tell Ivy to be a good girl.”
A blanket of silence fell between them before Lorenzo spoke. “I have no desire to harm this young woman, but consider passing along the message yourself. I’m sure she’d like to hear a kind word from her father.”
Chapter 9
Tired of lying around in nothing but Lorenzo’s silk robe, I went through his drawers and found an oversized button-up shirt that fell just above my knees. The red and black material was super-soft flannel—a garment he’d worn and washed a million times over. I couldn’t imagine Lorenzo wearing something so cozy and inviting, but it smelled like him.
I liked this secret side of Lorenzo and wanted to nose through more of his things, but my leg kept me from doing that. Each drink of his medicine seemed to help the pain subside, but I couldn’t move as nimbly as I once had.
I walked with a limp.
The cream cheese he’d left out hit the spot, and I eagerly consumed the entire container, sating my wolf’s inner craving. There was also peanut butter, bread, a small jar of raspberry preserves, crackers, fruits, and a gigantic bag of assorted nuts.
The view from his bedroom window was magnificent, and I spent a generous amount of time in a curved
chair, admiring the scenery. The room had no phone, and if not for my leg, I would have been pacing the floor.
When the horizon swallowed the last drop of the sun, I devised a plan. Lorenzo had ordered me not to open the door for anyone, but the needs of my own pack came first. Austin was the only alpha who could order me around, and I had to find out if they were safe. My family could be in danger. What if I had useful information that could help them? Since I was under Lorenzo’s personal protection, then his packmates couldn’t touch me until they heard back from him.
The hallway outside Lorenzo’s room was spacious and empty. I approached the staircase ahead and glanced over the banister, realizing we were higher than the second floor. Goodness, I’d make an entrance as memorable as a drunken Fred Astaire if I went down that way.
“Now what?” I whispered.
When I looked left toward the back of the house, I noticed an odd door against the far wall. The wood was different from the others, and lovely etchings in a pale gold were on both narrow doors. A black button on the right caught my attention. An elevator!
I limped toward it, putting more weight on my right leg. I needed to get that under control because if I met with his pack, I didn’t want to show them my weakness. When I slowed my pace, the lameness became easier to conceal. I pressed the button and stepped inside the mirrored room, watching the doors silently close. A red carpet scratched at my bare feet, and the interior looked gold. I laughed to myself, wondering if Lorenzo was kidding about the gold toilet. He had a dry sense of humor, so it was hard to tell when he was being funny.
I anxiously wrung my hands, waiting for the doors to open. My sleeves were rolled up to show them I carried no weapons. What if they’re waiting for me with daggers in hand?