“Fine.” Tu snatched her purse back and gave him a mocking bow complete with a swirl of her hand. “If it pleases the beta king, I’ll carry a tranq gun, even though I know what I’m doing and I totally won’t need it.”
She was right about not needing the tranq gun. It wasn’t nearly big enough to handle the job. The first thing out of Bobby Joe’s mouth when they entered the big meeting room was, “What the hell were you thinking mating this black bitch after what she done to your brother? And who the hell do you think you are bringing a goddamn nigger into my town?”
And it had it only gone downhill from there. Grady couldn’t hear any of it and there were too many people present to read anyone’s lips but Bobby Joe’s. However, seeing was enough. People came out of their seats, their faces turning red, they were shouting so hard. And Tu… she didn’t help. He tried to shove her behind him, but she kept breaking away, shouting words he couldn’t see at the crowd. Words that incited the pack leader.
“What did you say, girlie?” Bobby Joe asked, his hand going down to the revolver at his hip.
Grady didn’t give him a chance to use it. He dropped his jacket and pulled both his Smith and Wessons out of their holsters. He kept one pointed at Bobby Joe and one pointed at the rest of the town as he herded Tu out of there, pushing her with his elbow down the stage stairs and toward the door.
But did Tu reach for her tranq gun so she could help get them out of this mess? No, of course not. Instead she kept on shouting, to the point that a few of the angry townspeople looked to Bobby Joe with confused expressions, like “is she serious?”
Whatever she was saying, it was vexing the pack leader bad.
“Get her out of here!” he screamed at Grady. “Get her out of here right now or I ain’t going to be responsible for what I do next.”
That was the last thing he was able to lip read before finally getting Tu through the open door, where he re-holstered one of the guns and used his free hand to push Tu toward the car behind him. He was using his own body to shield her from the crowd, yet he could sense her still shouting more words at the angry mob who’d just chased them out of the town hall, some who now had their guns raised themselves, tentatively jiggling them in the air as if they were trying to figure out if they could shoot Tu without also hitting their king, which was an offense punishable by death outside of a challenge fight.
“Tu, shut up!” he pushed into her head. “Whatever you’re saying, stop. You’re getting them all riled up.”
Tu kept on shouting, like he hadn’t said anything at all. And she wouldn’t stop, not after he dumped her into the Silverado’s passenger seat, not even after he shut the door. Instead of putting on her seatbelt like a sane person, she rolled down the window and shouted more words out of it.
He gunned the engine and backed the truck up, before peeling out of town like a bat out of hell.
“Gotdammit, Tu!” he said, yanking her back down into the passenger seat. “Put on your seatbelt!”
“Oh, yeah. Totally forgot. Safety first,” she said, and out the side of his eye, he could see her pull the strip of canvas across her body, before suddenly slumping back into her seat.
He looked over at her. Was she hurt? Had someone shot her without his knowing? But no, there was a huge, goofy grin on her face. Like she’d just won the lottery.
“What the hell were you thinking back there?” he demanded. “And why are you smiling? That was a fucking disaster.”
Tu rolled her head over to face him. “Was it a disaster or a triumph?”
“It was a disaster, Tu. I couldn’t read their lips, but Bobby Joe nearly pulled a gun on you and I think the only reason some of the other townsfolk didn’t try to put some silver in you was because they were honestly trying to figure out if you were nuts.”
His assessment of the situation only made Tu smile bigger.
“Yeah, that’s going to make for a good story. A King Tikaani rule of business—give everyone you meet a story to tell when they talk about you in the future. I bet people are already on the phone with their relatives in other towns, telling them about meeting the new queen. Everybody’s going to be dying to meet me after that.”
And now it was Grady’s turn to wonder if she’d gone completely nuts.
“So that’s your idea of a great first impression?”
She folded her arms with delighted satisfaction. “Yep. That back there was better than anything that’s ever happened on Rap Star Wives. I mean they pulled guns! Who does that? Let me tell you, if this was a reality show, our ratings would be through the roof!”
“But it isn’t a reality show,” he said, because it was becoming more than obvious that she needed the reminder.
However, Tu didn’t seem to be listening to him any longer. She opened the glove box and pulled out the pack map of Oklahoma.
“So I’m thinking we can stay at a hotel tonight. Any nearby that you like?”
“Tu, you’re hearing me right? This is Oklahoma we’re talking about. Not ‘The Real Wolf Queens of America.’”
“Dude, I would never call our reality show the ‘Real Wolf Queens of America,’” she said, like he was the crazy one in this conversation. “We’re going to have to come up with a better name than that. Hey, tell me more about this pack town right next to the rebar factory, River Wolf. It looks like it’s only about thirty miles up the road.”
“I dunno. They’re like most of Oklahoma. Poor. Keep to themselves. Mostly blue collar except for the meth population. Run by a wolf called John Fargas. Don’t know how much longer the factory will be open, though. When I was doing my investigation into your kidnapping, John mentioned the human owner was looking to sell, but hadn’t found any takers yet.”
“Hmm, is this John Fargas on meth like Bobby Joe?”
“Not that I know of. He smelled clean every time I dropped in to see if he had any news to report. He’s the floor manager at the factory and no one’s ever challenged him for the pack leader job.”
“Okay, let’s go check him out.”
“What?”
“Let’s go to River Wolf tomorrow morning. Straight into the second episode of our still to be named reality show. I love when series premiere with two back-to-back episodes, don’t you?”
17
Grady knew it was a dream because he could hear snow crunching underneath his feet as he ran across Wolf Lake. And also because the three-story Alaska kingdom house sat in the foreground, a flat front without any sides, like it only had two dimensions. A for sure facsimile of the place he’d only ever seen in pictures. But that didn’t stop him from continuing to rush forward across the frozen lake.
Tu was standing on the harbor, in the same red sequined dress and blue moon boots she’d been wearing during her first heat.
“Grady! Help me!” she was yelling, not inside his head, but out loud into the wind, which carried her plaintive words to him. “I need you!”
He had to help her. He had to get to her. Grady ran as fast as he could.
“No, she’s my girl!” another voice yelled out.
Then he tripped over something. Pitching forward and landing hard on top of the snow-covered lake.
He looked over his shoulder to see what had taken him down.
It was a body. A dead body. More specifically…
“Luke?” he said out loud, his voice as clear as it often was in his head, before he tried to speak words, only to have his human and wolf refuse to work together to get them out.
He crawled over to the body, which had several bloody holes in its chest, but that wasn’t enough to keep Luke’s corpse from raising its head and saying, “She ain’t yours, Defect. She’ll always belong to me.”
Grady jolted awake, breathing hard, his lower back tingling…
But no, everything was all right. He was in a hotel about five miles down the road from River Wolf with his new wife in his arms, naked except for the thigh-high wool tights she’d worn under her dress—the ones he’d insist
ed she keep on—and snoozing safe and sound. At least for now…
As much as he liked the feel of Tu’s naked body halfway sprawled across his own, he carefully lifted her so he could slip out of bed. Then he took a long, hot shower, focusing on things other than the danger Tu might be putting herself in again by going to River Wolf. Like the way her hand had felt on his dick last night, when she was talking about all the reasons he should trust her and follow her lead during their River Wolf meeting… stroke… how she had learned from the best… stroke… and he’d see… stroke… he’d definitely see.
He got hard again just thinking about how much “effort” she’d put into her argument, and how long into the night she’d kept him up in more ways than one, pleading her case. No, she hadn’t gotten much sleep, he’d thought, as he pulled on his jeans and another thermal, and he shouldn’t bother her this morning, no matter how luscious she looked lying in the hotel’s bed. He went downstairs, mostly to keep himself from following through on one kind of hunger by satiating another kind at the continental buffet.
After eating his fill, he grabbed a couple of bagels for Tu and headed back to the room, stopping by his truck to grab the old, red flannel hunting jacket he kept in the back seat for those days when the weather turned unexpectedly cold. Not exactly the best look for a king, but it’d have to do until he could buy another bomber to replace the one he’d dropped back in Wolf Hole.
Remembering that situation got him all tensed up again. He was going to have to think of a way around his Tu manipulating him with sex problem, he thought as he came back through their hotel door and set down the paper bag with the bagels and cream cheese he’d brought her.
However, all thoughts of River Wolf and Tu controlling him through his dick disappeared when her fear scent hit his nose. He turned toward the bed, but she wasn’t in it. His eyes quickly scanned the room. He couldn’t see her anywhere else in the room, which was strange because he could smell her as clear as if she was standing right in front of him and announcing her presence. Her fear scent was so strong, it was clear wherever she was, she was scared out of her mind.
“Tu?” he pushed into her head, his lower back tingling as Grady fought to suppress his protection instinct. The last thing this situation needed was his beast taking over.
No answer. And he walked further into the room, thinking maybe she was in the bathroom. But then he saw her… crouched down beside the bed in nothing but a towel. The red wrap dress she’d probably been planning to put on after drying off was in a fabric puddle just a few feet away, as if it had been dropped.
She looked terrified.
“Tu, are you all right?” he asked, crouching down to reach out to her.
She shrank away from his touch, flinching like his hands were made of silver.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, truly alarmed and worried now.
Her voice finally pushed into his head, small and trembling. “Could you please… please take off that jacket?”
He immediately tore the jacket off and threw it over the bed.
“There it’s gone,” he said, after it disappeared out of sight. “Can I touch you now?”
She nodded, her lips clamped together, like it was all she could do to keep the hysterics at bay. And he grabbed her up quick, needing to comfort her, maybe even more than she needed to be comforted.
Or maybe not. She clung to him and he could feel her heart beating like a rabbit’s against his chest.
When it finally slowed down after a few long minutes, he asked, “What’s wrong? Why were you hiding behind the bed?”
She didn’t immediately answer, but then he felt her take a deep breath and words sounded in his head.
“The guys… the guys who kidnapped us.”
She didn’t finish but Grady could guess the rest of it. Red flannel hunting jackets were pretty ubiquitous in their state.
“They were wearing hunting jackets, too?”
“Yeah. When you came in, I thought… and the tranquilizer gun you gave me was in my purse on the other side of the room.” Her arms tightened around his neck like he was the only thing keeping her above water. She was shaking like a leaf now. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m acting like this, even though I know it’s you now.”
“It’s all right,” he told her, rubbing her back. “Anybody’d have some PTSD after what you went through last year. I’m here… just hold on to me until you feel okay again.”
She did, burying her head in his neck, like she was too embarrassed to let him see her face, but holding on nonetheless. So long that eventually he said, “You know, we don’t have to go to River Wolf. Or even back to the kingdom town. We could keep on driving until we get somewhere warm. Have a honeymoon—that would set us apart from your sisters, wouldn’t it?”
He could feel Tu laughing at the specter of having the honeymoon that her sisters, who’d both been dramatically mated, hadn’t. But inside his head she said, “No, I want us to go to River Wolf. We have to. It’s important to me that you’re not poor forever.”
She said those last nine words in a way that brooked no argument and she let him go, adjusting her towel as she stood up, as if to say, “See, breakdown over. I’m back.”
“Okay, we can still go to River Wolf,” he said, rising to a stand. “But on two conditions.”
He ticked them off on his fingers. “One: whatever you do when we listen to the radio, I want you to do that in River Wolf. I know you liked that drama back in Wolf Hole, but that was a shit storm for me and I’m not going to walk into another situation like that without some back-up from you.”
Tu fingered the top of her towel where she’d tucked it in, and he quickly pushed into her head, “This isn’t a condition I can be sexed out of, Tu. It’s either this or we’re heading home.”
Her hand dropped from the towel’s tuck.
“Fine,” she said.
She was lying. He could see right through her.
“Promise me.”
And she let out what looked like a big huff of air. “Okay, I promise I’ll keep the walkie-talkie open, but if I do, you’ve got to be cool. If you hear something you don’t like or don’t understand, you can’t let on. We’re a team when we go in, and you’ve got to act like that.”
He nodded, more than liking the thought of being on a team with someone after trying to handle the crown’s business on his own for nearly a year.
“I can do that,” he said.
Then he moved on to the next condition. “Two: I want you to start getting up early with me for fighting lessons before breakfast.”
Now she was the one who looked surprise. “You want to teach me to fight?”
“I want to teach you to defend yourself, starting tomorrow. I plan to protect you no matter what for the rest of your life. But for all we know, the guy who ordered your kidnapping is still out there. If something does go down, I want you to have more options than hiding behind a bed.”
This time there was no argument. “Okay,” she said. “I’m cool with that. Whatever.”
She reached down to pick up her wrap dress and underwear like she was so over this conversation and had only agreed to his second condition to get him off her back.
“I’ll go get ready in the bathroom,” she said, turning her back to him.
But right before she entered the bathroom, she peeped over her shoulder, meeting his eyes for the first time that morning.
“And… um… thank you.”
He held her gaze, thinking she might not have realized it herself yet, especially not after this setback, but she was getting better. She was definitely healing.
“You’re welcome,” he answered. And left it at that.
18
Apparently Tu had decided against sending John a warning text on his phone, because surprise was written clearly across the pack leader’s hangdog face when he came out to the front office of the rebar factory after the older she-wolf receptionist called for him over the PA system. Like many
human-owned businesses in wolf towns, the factory was fully staffed by wolves who’d managed to shut out any humans applying for a job over the years.
John said, “Oh, hey, King Grady, this is a surprise.” Then he looked at Tu. “I’m sorry, I don’t…”
John openly stared at her in such a way that Grady wondered if the man, sequestered as he was inside the mostly white pack town with a small Hispanic population, had ever seen a black she-wolf in person.
But Tu stuck out her hand and introduced herself with a shrewd smile.
“Hi, I’m Tu Wulfkonig, the new Queen of Oklahoma. Could the king and I have a few minutes of your time?”
John must not have had contacts in Wolf Hole or Wolf Haven, because he looked pretty flabbergasted as he said, “Oh, okay. Sure, sure, come on back.”
Hearing Tu say his last name along with hers did unexpected things to Grady’s heart, and he found himself following along behind her like a dog at its master’s heels, even though he’d meant to take more charge of the situation this time to keep it from becoming another Wolf Hole.
The pack leader’s office was itty-bitty and Grady suspected it might have lived a previous life as a closet before John’s brass name plate got slapped on the door.
“Sorry,” John said, as Grady squeezed into one of the ugly green guest chairs. “Owner’s not big on me spending a lot of time in here. Wants me out on the floor as much as possible.”
“That’s totally all right,” Tu assured him, turning her seat so she was facing Grady directly. “But if you could turn your seat so our king can see your lips when you’re talking…”
“Oh, sorry,” John said again, as if just now realizing Grady was still in the room.
“Why are you making him turn so I can read his lips if you’re already transmitting the conversation?” Grady asked Tu.
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