More like dead in a ditch, Tu thought to herself. And she realized what a wake up call getting pregnant had been for her. If she’d continue to live her life like Luke, thinking everything was so insanely boring and that the world owed her entertainment… if she hadn’t learned to appreciate life’s true gifts like family and loved ones the hard way, she might have ended up where Luke was now: an abusive addict who could only whine on and on about what the world had taken from him.
He kept talking and talking… about how Tu had done him wrong, about how her father tricked him, about all the people who had taken advantage of him in Europe. Girls who’d only wanted him for the drugs he could provide, club owners who promised him the world if he’d pay to spin at their clubs, only to act like they didn’t know him once the drugs were gone or the evening was over. Then he moved onto to the friends who had bungled her kidnapping.
“It was supposed to be simple. They were supposed to grab you and then we were going to ransom you off to your daddy. Make him pay me that dowry and then some.”
According to Luke, their ineptitude had forced him to kill them, because Grady wouldn’t stop looking for them and he couldn’t trust them not to talk, even though he’d supplied them with a lot of meth and told them to stay hidden in Wolf Hole and keep their mouths closed.
Luke gave Tu a feral smile.
“But that all ends today. I don’t care how big you and Grady been prancing around all over Oklahoma. Our daddy still named me the king. It’s my crown and family members aren’t allowed to put in a challenge for their state crown. If Grady wants to be the King of Oklahoma, he’s gonna have to pay me. I want my original due. Your dowry. All of it.”
That was when Grady’s voice popped into her head. “Tu? Where are you?”
“Grady? You’re okay. Oh, my God. Luke tranqed you! He’s still—”
This time Luke hit her so hard, pain exploded across the entire side of her face and by the time she managed to sit back up, her ear was ringing.
“Ow, dude!” she yelled. “What the hell?”
“You were talking to him. Nobody said you could talk to him! He’ll give in after a few days in the cellar, especially when he sees I’m serious about hurting you if he don’t give me what I want. Meanwhile, I don’t want you and him plotting behind my back.”
Once again it all came down to Luke and what he wanted. In his twisted mind, slapping around a pregnant she-wolf was completely justified because he’d been cheated out of the money he somehow deserved.
Tu tried to reach out to Grady again when the pain cleared, this time discreetly, but there was no answer, and she knew what that meant. Grady’s human was no longer there to receive her communications. Which threw a major wrench in her only partially-conceived escape plan.
Tu mentally cursed. Before his surprise resurrection, she had been upset with Luke and flat out angry at herself. But now the script flipped and rage bubbled up through her stomach, filling her head with so much steam, she could barely get words out she was so pissed off.
“You’re not going to get away with this,” she informed him. “And we don’t have to plot behind your back, Luke, because your plan won’t work. Grady doesn’t care about being the King of Oklahoma. If you want the crown, he’ll give it to you. He’s not going to pay you my dowry. Ever.”
“You might think that, but I saw how you two was up on that stage this morning. You’re the kind of girl only wants to be with a king, and he’s the kind of guy who’ll pay up to keep you cuz he’s always been stupid like that. You know he was the one who made all the arrangements when my mom died, even though she never done nothing but treat him like shit. Said she deserved better than what she’d gotten out of life with our pa. Stupid. Always thinking with his heart instead of his brain. And he’s been had a thing for you since we first met in Colorado. He tried to hide it, but I could tell. That defect watched you the whole time you was with me during that Thanksgiving dinner, wishing he could have what I had, and he kept on that way, even after I already run up in you. Wouldn’t even come up with me to Alaska to help me get you back! Hell, you was a hot widow. For all I know, everybody in Wolf Springs done rode it. But Grady, he’s a simp. He’ll pay me for that crown because he knows you’ll divorce him without it.”
Tu completely lost it then. She couldn’t stand hearing this drugged-out lunatic talk about her mate like that.
“Grady is not a defect or a simp! He is so much smarter than you, so much better than you. It’s not even a contest. And if you think I’d ever divorce him because he doesn’t have a crown, then you don’t know me. You don’t understand if he had been the one to claim me five years ago, I wouldn’t have ran. I would have stayed here with him, for the sake of our pup. But you… you’re mean and stupid and selfish—you’ve literally killed to get your way! The only thing you had going for you was your looks and your Oklahoma boy charm, and I can see you’ve traded those in for drugs. So if we’re having a conversation about who’s the biggest defect in your family, I’m calling it right now. It’s you. You’ll never get that money.”
She didn’t expect this assessment of his true character to go over well with Luke and she was right. Luke let out a growl and raised his hand again, so high, Tu could tell he was looking to inflict serious damage this time.
Grady’s instructions for handling unexpected attacks whispered through her head. “You know how you keep telling me to control the business conversation and not to let others provoke me? Same with fighting. Don’t let a wolf take you by surprise too many times. If he’s stronger than you, study him for as long as you can. Then make your move.”
Luke brought his hand down, and Tu made her move, throwing up her cuffs so his hand met silver instead of her face.
When he went reeling backwards, she followed, backhanding him across the face with her cuffed wrists, again and again while yelling, “How do you like getting backhanded, asshole?” while his skin burned, until he fell to the floor.
Then she ran. As fast as she could, out of the bedroom, toward the front door…
The smell of him changing into wolf form hit her just as she flew out of the house. And that was when she really started running, ducking her head as she concentrated on moving as fast as she could toward the tornado cellar. She didn’t dare look back, even when she could hear Luke’s paws pounding the ground behind her in heavy pursuit.
She almost didn’t stop. She couldn’t smell Grady’s human at all as she approached the cellar, which meant it was definitely out of service. And she didn’t even know if she’d have time to throw down the ladder, much less if Grady could figure out how to get up one in wolf pilot mode.
But she did know for sure she wouldn’t make it to the truck parked behind the barn. Luke’s wolf was closing in on her too fast.
Fuck it, she thought when she reached the cellar door. She put all her remaining strength into pulling it open, then she turned to confront the wolf barreling toward her.
Luke’s wolf was a horrific sight to behold. Ironic that Luke was technically the king of this mange state, because his hideous wolf actually looked like it had mange. It had huge bald patches all over its body, with pink, blistered skin. And the remaining stringy and matted grey hair wasn’t in much better shape. It looked like it was rotting off his body, a perfect match for the blackened teeth inside its mouth.
It was like watching a nightmare come straight at you, its eyes on your throat. Tu didn’t have time to throw a ladder down to Grady, who might or might not be able to use it. She barely had time to register what she was seeing, before Luke’s hell wolf was launching itself into air with its mouth open.
Tu threw up one flexed arm, prepared to protect her throat just like Grady had taught her, when a large silver wolf sprung out of the cellar, taking Luke’s wolf out in mid-air.
For Tu, it was like watching someone get taken out by a city bus. Luke’s body flew sideways and then the silver beast immediately went for his stomach, tearing out what lay inside w
ith a wet ripping sound, whipping the entrails into the snow with a shake of its large head.
Luke’s wolf screamed and screamed at first, but that all stopped when the much larger wolf went for his throat… Tu had to turn away then. Couldn’t watch the sights that accompanied the growling and ugly squelches of one predator being ripped apart by a much larger one.
But then the night suddenly went quiet. Deathly quiet.
Tu turned around. Luke had turned back to human form as all wolves did when they died… and the large silver beast was now standing next to the disemboweled, mangled corpse of its half-brother, its muzzle covered with blood.
Grady’s glowing blue eyes were trained on her.
His wolf was nothing like Luke’s or any wolf she’d ever seen, for that matter. For one thing, it was bigger, at least a full six feet high while standing on all fours, and way more muscled than any wolf she’d ever seen. Like a regular werewolf and the devil dog from Ghostbusters had decided to spawn.
Tu’s heart stopped, thinking of the PSAs her father had made to pregnant wolves and their mates over their kingdom town’s severe weather alert system right before full moon nights, warning them to stay inside at all costs, reminding them that even their loved ones would attack them in wolf form, that weres had no control over themselves. He made these announcements for a reason. At least once a decade, some poor wolf who couldn’t shift met a grisly end in this manner.
Tu tried to push a thought into the beast’s head anyway.
“Grady? Grady it’s me. Tu, your mate.”
Nothing. Like pushing words into a blank space. There was nothing human to work with. All she could feel was wolf. All she could see was wolf. All she could smell was wolf. And he was stalking toward her with bloodlust still in his eyes, slowly, in the way of predators before a pounce.
This shouldn’t be happening, she thought as she stared into the glowing blue eyes of her mate. Mated males weren’t supposed to be able to turn while their she-wolves were pregnant. It went against nature’s law.
But Grady, she remembered then, wasn’t a full wolf. He had a human mother and apparently if he got angry enough, the laws of werewolf nature just stopped applying to him.
His beast was fully in charge now and he could kill her. Right here, right now. He could do to Tu and his unborn child the same thing he’d done to his brother, because he was all wolf now and wouldn’t know any better. And despite the fact that it was her life in danger, sadness for Grady, the most wonderful were she’d ever known, crested over Tu.
She shook her head at the beast stalking toward her.
“Don’t do this,” she said to it. “Don’t do this to him.”
The wolf suddenly stopped in its tracks, its head coming up like… like it was listening. And Tu remembered then… Grady was deaf, but she didn’t think his beast was.
“Can you hear me?” she asked the beast.
The beast didn’t answer. Just stood there. But at least he was no longer stalking her. Tu dropped to her knees in the snow to beg him, not for her own life, but for Grady’s.
“Don’t do this to him. I don’t know how you got out. But you’ve got to go back in, because if you kill me, he will never recover. You will break your human, and I know you don’t want that—not really.”
The wolf growled, low in its throat, but Tu refused to back down.
“No,” she said, shaking her finger at the beast. “Bad wolf. Bad wolf. Give Grady back to me. Give him back to me right now.”
The wolf crouched down, and something went off in Tu. The beast didn’t have to pounce on her, because she pounced on it, falling over its back and throwing her cuffed arms over its head, so the silver chain burned into its throat. It thrashed underneath her, its powerful body trying to shake her off. But Tu held on.
“Give him back to me! I love him. He’s my mate. Give him back to me right fucking now! ”
Suddenly the beast bucked underneath her, its entire body undulating as magic overtook it. And then it was Grady beneath her. His human waist between her legs, his thick neck her arms were wrapped around.
“Tu? Oh God, Tu, are you all right?!”
She let out a sigh of relief.
23
Grady buried his brother’s body in the woods behind the farm. Far enough away and deep enough down that even a wolf with a super nose like him or Tu wouldn’t be able to smell him. Digging a ten-foot grave in the frozen earth was a bitch of a job, though, one that along with shifting after a night of dancing had his lower back aching by the time his task was done. He wanted his bed, needed to lie down and sleep this night off.
Still, he hesitated when he returned to his farm house bedroom, hovering in the doorway.
Tu must have picked up on how he was feeling because she sat up in bed and asked, “What’s wrong? Why are you scared?” with a worried look on her face.
He made a fist and lifted it, but before he could even get it to his chest, she rolled her eyes and said, “Seriously, dude? This again?”
“My beast—”
“Saved me and then gave you back when I put it in a chokehold.” She smirked. “I’m not scared of your beast. I think it knows who’s boss now.”
He waited for his beast to respond to that insult, but there was nothing. Not even a small tingle. It was almost as if it were scared to come out. And, not for the first time that week, he looked upon the she-wolf he had mated with wonder and amazement.
Tu simply patted his side of the bed. “Come on,” she said.
He laid down drawing her into his arms as soon as he was under the covers.
“It’s me who should be scared,” he said. “You’re tiny, but you’re not nearly as fragile as you let everyone think.”
He could feel her chuckle.
“You know, dude, I’m not that tiny. 5’6” is actually above the human average. It’s not my fault you’re gigantic.”
“I’ve been trying to think about the right thing to call you. You know, like one of those terms of endearment. I think ‘tiny darlin’ might be the one.”
“Don’t you dare…” she said, and he could almost feel her wolf growling inside of her.
Grady found he liked this reversal of roles, him teasing Tu as opposed to the other way around.
“Maybe that’s what we should call the reality show? ‘Tiny Darlin and Big Wolf.’”
She laughed. “Okay, well, I’d actually watch that, but in this case, the title would be misleading, because I’m not tiny.”
Grady chuckled, thinking she could protest as much as she wanted, but this ship had already sailed. It would be “tiny darlin’” from here on out, case closed.
He should have gotten right down to the business of sleep after that, but another subject came to mind. He must have become a better business wolf under Tu’s tutelage, because he found himself going against his sheriff nature to say, “I’m thinking if we tell everyone about Luke coming back from the dead, trying to use you to blackmail me into giving him your dowry, and then me shifting into a wolf and killing him it might confuse the hell out of folks. Could derail what we’re trying to do with the state pack...”
And Tu, proving herself a better queen than anyone would have predicted five years ago, answered immediately, “I’m all for a good bury job myself.”
He squeezed her from behind, loving that she picked up on where he was going without him having to say outright, “Let’s never speak of this to anyone.” They made a good team. But still, he worried about her.
“You promise you’re okay?” he asked, thinking back to the confrontation in the truck. It now seemed like it had happened days ago as opposed to mere hours.
However Tu’s voice was lighter when she answered him, like a great weight had been lifted off her psyche. “Yeah, I actually am okay. What happened with Luke and your beast… it was like a wake up call, like God called my bluff. When I was facing your wolf down, all I could think about was how much I wanted to live for you and for me. I want to live n
ow. I want to see how this story ends. Oklahoma, the baby, you and me, because… because I love you, Grady.”
Grady’s heart melted right into hers. He had heard her say this same thing when he’d been trapped inside his beast. In fact her “I love him!” had been what rallied his human. It had given him the strength to subdue the beast and return to her, just so he could say to her, “I love you, too.”
He said it now, “I love you, too… tiny darlin’.”
He could feel her laugh against his chest. But on the tail end of that laughter, came… “I’m not going to lie. I’m scared. More scared than I’ve ever been of anything in my entire life.”
“Me too,” he said, rolling her over so she could look into his eyes as he said, “Tell you what. Want to be more scared than we’ve ever been of anything in our entire lives together?”
He felt her giggle again, her body shaking as she delivered a breezy, “Sure, let’s do it,” that belied the many potential minefields on the road ahead of them.
But that “sure, let’s do it” was all Grady needed. He held his she-wolf close and let his eyes drift close with the assurance that the drama had finally come to an end and all was right with their world. At least for now.
NOW DIDN’T LAST very long. Grady woke up to the sound of Tu’s voice in his head.
“Baby, baby, get up,” she was saying. “Rafe and Alisha are at the door.”
Grady sat up and looked at the clock. It was just after ten, so that meant the king and queen of Colorado must have gotten up at the butt crack of dawn and motored here. But why…?
…and suddenly he realized he’d forgotten something kind of important. To get back in contact with Rafe and let him know what had gone down since last they spoke.
Tu had already pulled on a pair of jeans and was headed out the bedroom door.
“Alisha’s pounding on the door like she’s the police. She’s probably worried out of
her mind,” she said inside his head. “I didn’t exactly give her my two week’s notice.”
Wolf and Soul (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 3) Page 17