by Leela Ash
But to Derek’s surprise, Joshua leaned away from Drake and shook his head as he did so. “Don’t try to heal me, my boy. Not this ailment. It’s poisonous enough to kill even you, Drake. There’s nothing you can do for me.”
All five men gathered around him, surprise etched in to all their faces except Bo’s. “He’s right,” Bo swallowed.
Everyone looked at him.
“He has Takun poison,” Bo added.
In the ensuing silence, an ant’s sneeze would have been magnified a billion times. Takun poison was the one thing that could kill any creature under the sun, whether shifter or human. It was so rare and so deadly and it killed in a matter of weeks. And Joshua was right; if Drake took the poison into his own system, even his dragon blood wouldn’t be able to save him. There was only one thing known to eradicate Takun poison and that was the Elderwood Silken Staff. But it had been passed down over the years as shifter-lore and no one really knew if it was true or if such a staff even existed. As far as he knew, no one had ever seen the staff.
Heck, Derek hadn’t even believed Takun poison existed because he had never seen anyone with it.
“How the fuck did he get Takun poison?” Derek demanded, glaring at Bo. “You were here the whole time! How could you let this happen?”
“What the hell?” Jack grated, also directing a glare at Bo.
“Hey! Hey! No fighting! It wasn’t Bo’s fault,” Joshua wheezed. “I did this to myself.”
“He sure did. He wanted to be a hero!” Bo said with biting sarcasm and for the first time, Derek realized the strange undercurrent of anger he had been sensing from Bo since he arrived hadn’t necessarily been directed at Kelly at all but at Joshua.
If Derek was angry, Bo was in a tightly controlled murderous rage!
“You know I called to tell you something was up with the old man?” Bo said to Derek. “The whole place was becoming overrun with stray cats and dogs. I didn’t think anything of it until the Masons commented that the Salem witches had a conference coming up in the area for the first time in a century.”
Derek felt chilled to his bone. Weirna shifters were on friendly terms with the Salem witches, but as far as he knew, wherever the witches went for their once-a-century conference, they left a trail of dead shifters and humans in their wake. It hadn’t always been so, according to the old books he had read. But since Nabradia, their current queen, had been in power, she had proved to be one bloodthirsty wench. She had ruled for three centuries now and in all that time, the Salem witches had become more powerful, and those loyal to her had become more cruel.
“Joshua knew about it and he thought he could handle it on his own,” Bo finished, bending a disapproving glare on the shrunken old man.
“Nabradia is trying to get a new Tiara all on her own, without the Coven Assembly,” Joshua wheezed. “That Tiara will give her incredible power to be able to turn the entire earth into one big tortoise if she so desired, and she told me herself it would have to be washed in the blood of a hundred virgins and she hoped to get her hands on it shortly after the conference. She’s evil enough to want to burn the whole earth to ashes just so long as she could rule the ashes.”
“Nabradia is an old friend of yours,” Luke countered.
“Not anymore! She gave me the Takun poison,” Joshua said.
“So, you’re saying Nabradia is a danger to everyone now? What do we do?” Jack droned.
“And how do we cure your poison?” Drake added.
“I think it’s obvious, some of you would have to attend the conference and find out where Nabradia hopes to get the Tiara from,” Joshua wheezed, struggling to his feet, one hand clutching his chest.
“And the poison?” Derek demanded,
Joshua looked at him silently, but the complete lack of hope in his faded blue eyes told Derek that Joshua Cox fully expected his ailment to kill him.
If it was the last thing he did, Derek vowed to himself, he would discover a way to save Joshua.
As the old man shuffled into his bedroom, a thought struck Derek, “This must have been why that bear from the Archstone Tribe tried to attack me. They thought we sanctioned the conference and they’re afraid we want to get more powerful than we already are.”
“What bear?” Drake demanded. “When?”
Derek caught Bo’s look and sighed as he realized his friend knew exactly when the bear had come to attack him.
“Could it be he attacked you because you were shtupping some common human?” Bo spat.
“Keep a civil tongue in your head when you’re speaking about Kelly.”
“Who’s Kelly?” Luke wanted to know.
“No one,” Derek declared.
“Someone,” Jack countered. “At least, judging from how ready you look to rip Bo’s head off!”
“Guys, we’ve been separated fifteen years. Do we really want to mark our reunion with a fight?” Luke interjected. He was always the voice of reason; the peacemaker.
Bo and Derek, on the other hand, were each as headstrong and hot-blooded as each other. Drake was the very worst; he could go from cucumber-cool to volcano in a nanosecond, and they all took delight in telling him it was the dragon fire in his blood causing it. Jack was the mountain lion in the pack; strong, powerful and unpredictable. He could switch moods faster than a chameleon changed colors and sometimes, it was impossible to tell if he was sad or happy because of his poker-face.
When everyone fell silent, Luke continued with a glance at Derek, “We need a plan of action. We have so much to do and a very short time, so you need to decide who does what.”
No one demonstrated surprise that he had directed this last at Derek. It had never been said formally, but Derek was sort of the leader of the Damaged Pack.
And besides, if anyone could save Weirna and Joshua, it was The Pack.
14.
Someone was following her; it wasn’t her imagination and whoever it was, wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding it, Kelly decided two evenings later as she shut the doors of her flower shop.
For that matter, she wasn’t certain they wanted to hide it. Earlier, when she had been ringing up a customer’s purchase, she could have sworn she had seen a man peeking over the hedges. Then, later, when she had been replacing some fresh flowerpots, she had caught a flash of movement.
Last night, when she had gone to send a postcard to Therese and Tom, she had felt she was being followed.
It wasn’t Derek; he wasn’t the sort to creep about. He would have walked right up to her and said whatever he wanted to. Besides, she wouldn’t have such goosebumps if it had been him.
Was it Jason? Could he have trailed her here, she wondered?
She let out a frustrated breath of air, letting her hair fly as she trudged to her truck. She missed Tom; he seemed to be the only sanity in her world these days, and he was so far away.
She missed Derek too, she admitted to herself. Since that first day she had run into him and met his unfriendly buddy, Bo, he had been avoiding her. She didn’t know where he lived, but he sure as hell knew where she worked and lived, and he had made no move whatsoever to approach her.
She drove home, lost in thought, and it wasn’t until she was parking her truck on her sidewalk and locking it that she noticed the still, silent man standing a few yards away, watching her with an intensity that raised every hair on the back of her neck.
With an embarrassing squeak of fright, she fled up the gravel path to her doorway. She had been looking over her shoulder as she ran, and a startled scream escaped her when she slammed into a hard, masculine body right in front of her door and promptly went sprawling.
The floor rose to meet her face, but a pair of strong arms deftly caught her a few inches before she hit the ground.
She came up already clawing and scratching but when she looked up at the owner of the hands holding her, she almost sobbed in relief. Derek!
She had never been this relieved to see anyone, she thought as she flung herself into his
arms with a glad cry.
He looked so handsome and good right now that she could eat him!
“Why were you running like that? You could have broken your neck!” he scolded, giving her a slight shake.
“I thought I saw someone just now,” she whispered, her lips pale with fright.
Derek’s head came up immediately and he looked in the direction she had indicated. She saw him sniff, then he grinned at her as he delivered his dire news, “You’ve picked up a stalker, all right. The good news, though, is that he’s human.”
“And that’s supposed to reassure me because…?” she demanded.
He chuckled, giving her the sort of indulgent look she usually reserved for Tom. “Get in the house. I’ll check it out.”
He bounded off the front stairs, and on shaky legs, Kelly cast about for something she could use as a weapon to help him if it came to that. He wasn’t invincible, after all. What if the stalker had a gun?
She spied her heavy metal trash can standing off beside the flowers lining her door path. She picked up the lid of the can gingerly and crept forward toward the sidewalk, her eyes round with fright as she peeked around the flowers to where the stalker had been standing.
She was gripping the can lid so tight that her knuckles were white and achy, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t see Derek or the stalker. Oh no, what if the man had hurt Derek?
She straightened to her full height and started forward when Derek appeared right in front of her as though out of thin air.
He startled a scream from her throat. She tried to stifle the sound, but it had already escaped.
His disbelieving gaze went from the trash can lid in her hands to her white face and he asked, “What were you going to do with that? Brain the guy?”
“Well, yeah!”
He scoffed as he snagged her keys from the ground and put the key in the keyhole, “What was he? The size of a toadstool?”
“Didn’t you see him?” she asked, hurt at his sarcasm as she followed him into her living room.
“He’d beat it before I got there,” he announced. “But I’ve picked up his scent now. He won’t get far, don’t worry.”
Derek slapped on the lights and the interior lit with cheery warmth.
“I’m not worried,” she denied automatically, and then she realized it was the truth. Something about having Derek with her took away her fears and insecurities and made her feel safe and protected.
He gathered her into his arms and looked deep into her eyes, “Kelly, I like that you feel so safe around me.”
Her eyes slid away from his. She did feel safe around him, and wasn’t that the foolhardiest thing? The man could turn into a wolf! What if he was dangerous? What if he harmed her?
“I would never hurt you, Kelly. I thought you knew that,” Derek whispered, gently holding her chin with his forefinger and thumb.
“You read minds too?” she whispered, her eyes shining with all the love in her heart for him.
“You have expressive eyes,” Derek told her.
He bent his head and kissed her eyelids. Kelly’s eyes drifted shut, a sigh escaping her lips as familiar sensations she had tried to suppress came rushing to the fore. Derek’s lips move to her cheekbones, dropping light kisses and moving to her temple.
Kelly moaned softly as his hands rose to caress her breasts through the soft material of her cotton shirt. One large hand splayed across her buttocks and she groaned anew as she pressed closer against him.
“I have thought of nothing else since you fled from Kenya,” he groaned, burying his nose in her luxuriant mane of fiery tresses.
“Me too,” Kelly gasped.
Really? What about his black beauties? Her subconscious snickered.
Kelly stiffened in his arms and Derek drew back and looked at her questioningly.
“You had so many local beauties to keep you company, even while I was there. I doubt my leaving made any difference.”
He dropped his forehead on hers with a groan of dismay, “Only you would bring up other women at a time like this.”
Kelly jerked away from him, “I will not be fooled twice.”
Derek grabbed her shoulders, “Stop, all right. You weren’t fooled even once. There has never been anything between me and any of those girls. Heck, I haven’t touched a woman since Marjorie.”
The moment the words escaped him, he looked as though he wanted to bite off his tongue.
Marjorie again? The same name Bo had mentioned.
“Who’s she?”
“My ex. She was my first love; it ended fifteen years ago when she found out I was a wolf.”
Kelly licked her lips, incredulous at what he had revealed. “And you haven’t touched a woman since?”
“No, I haven’t, nor have I wanted to. Until you.”
Sincerity blazed from his eyes and before she knew she had decided to move, Kelly was streaking across the space that separated them and slamming into his arms.
A grunt escaped him, and he toppled onto the couch behind them, taking her with him as he fell.
Kelly sat astride him, a naughty grin on her face as she reached for the hem of her top and lifted it up and over her head. Her breasts were shoved together so invitingly by her Wonderbra that Derek’s eyes widened with masculine interest.
“I’m going to give you the ride of your life, tonight, soldier. I hope you’re ready,” Kelly cooed.
He was so ready he was in danger of bursting the front of his pants!
His hands grabbed her slim waist and he pulled her forward.
Twining her arms around his neck, she fitted her soft, pliant body against the hardening contours of his as her lips opened under the passionate onslaught of his.
His hands kneaded her breasts as he rolled her onto the couch. Kelly wrapped both legs around his waist, her tongue twining with his in a wild exotic dance that curled every last one of her toes.
Her body began to jerk and vibrate as desire hummed unchecked through her veins. Deft hands unsnapped the buckle of her jeans, pulled down the fly and pushed the jeans all the way down her long legs and off her ankles.
Derek spread her legs and dipped his head between them. Kelly groaned as his lips and tongue began to stroke her nub.
Derek dipped one finger into her pussy and began to stroke in and out of her as he continued to lick her.
“You taste amazing, baby. So sweet, so sweet,” he breathed against her soft, wet pussy.
Pleasure knotted deep in Kelly’s belly, the flames stoking higher, higher, higher, until she was writhing and bucking in Derek’s arms. A knot of tension started deep in her stomach, spread to her thighs, centered on the core of sensation between her legs and before she could make sense of it, a delicious glow washed over her as pleasure shot through her until she was bucking and grinding against his hand as she came in crashing waves of pleasure.
Derek repositioned himself between her legs, and with a grunt, slammed straight into her wet willing pussy.
He raised Kelly’s legs to her shoulders as he continued to love her, stroking in and out of her.
He threw back his head and released a mighty roar from deep in his throat. His eyes turned pure silver and Kelly stared in fascination and a little fear. Was he going to turn now?
His teeth changed as she watched and he bent forward and with a loud growl, licked her neck.
She shut her eyes, waiting to feel pain, but all she felt was more excitement as danger mingled with passion.
His hands dipped into the juncture of her thighs and he began to enter in and out of her faster.
“Yes! Yes! Don’t stop!”
The glow of pleasure on her face was pure aphrodisiac to him and he drove deeper and faster until she began to scream and sob his name again.
With a grunt, he released, pouring his warm seed straight into her waiting womb as his cries mingled with hers.
15.
Waking up beside Derek, Kelly decided, was the most amazing feeling in th
e world. His chest was furry and warm beneath her cheek, his nipples were flat and hard beneath her searching fingers, and he smelled of man and musk.
She couldn’t tell if he was awake because his chest was rising evenly, and she hadn’t raised her head from his chest to look up at his handsome face.
Kelly experimented by flicking her tongue against one nipple. His sharp intake of breath told her he was awake, and she lifted her head from his chest with a wide grin.
“You’re awake!”
Something troubled and dark fluttered beneath his eyes before his gaze quickly became shuttered. “Yes, Sunshine, and so are you,” he observed, chucking her under the chin.
Kelly wrinkled her nose at him.
“What are you doing today?” he asked.
“I’m dreaming up ways to either ravish the handsome man in my bed some more, or go to work and make some money.”
“Where’s Tom? When’s he coming home?” he laughed.
Kelly’s smile faded. “He’s been with Therese, and I’m beginning to think he should stay there. I have been having this feeling of being followed and yesterday, I saw someone outside my house.”
“Yeah, him. I got…distracted,” he said. The suggestive gleam in his eyes told her what had distracted him, and she hid a blush.
“I don’t have a clue who’s following me or why,” she said, worrying at her lower lip with her teeth. “And I think I noticed it even before we came to Africa. That was part of why I jumped on Therese’s offer to travel.”
Derek straightened slowly, “Well, at least, now we know it has nothing to do with The Pack or any other shifters.”
“The Pack?”
“The Damaged Pack. We’re a family,” he told her.
Kelly frowned in confusion. “Why use that name?”
“Drake is the dragon among us. He’s the only one of us who’s been a shifter from birth. Someone once saw him turn into a baby dragon and called his mom ‘damaged goods’ and everyone else in town picked it up. The name stuck, and he’s always had a chip on his shoulder about it. We decided to use the name Damaged Pack to make him feel less bad about it. And that was even before we all became shifters like him.”