by Zoe Chant
That was assuming manpower that Stephen might or might not have. It depended on how much of the pack was tied up on a job and couldn't be recalled. But the worst case scenario still didn't include someone scouting around the building as he lay in bed.
Joshua opened his eyes and sat up. Then he shut the window. Relying on your luck was a good way to make this the one time in a hundred that the worst happened.
The room he was in was...nice, he guessed. He didn't know much about interior decorating. His little sister would have liked it, though. The rafters were visible, and there were lots of dark wood panels. The curtains were pale yellow and translucent. He closed them anyway. The bedspread matched and had little flowers embroidered on it. Cute. He wondered if Anna had picked them, or if it was the choice of whoever in her family owned the place. He wondered if this was the only bed. At least there was a separate bedroom.
Joshua would probably have to explain the werewolf thing to Anna. He wondered if it would be better for her if she ran screaming to where she couldn't be protected, or if she stayed and was there when his pack inevitably caught up with him. He was pretty sure it was the first. He really didn't want her to run away screaming, though.
Hold it, he told himself. You've had two conversations with her and both were when you were feverish. You barely know her. Maybe you'll loathe her when you're in your right mind and be on your way. Maybe she'll loathe you. Maybe a meteor will fall from the sky and crush Stephen's skull, for that matter. Or, more likely, he might conveniently be hit by a car.
He was cheered up by the thought that maybe no one besides Stephen was going to die. Joshua pulled the blankets back. He was about to try to put weight on his right leg when he spotted the crutches leaning against the wall.
Thoughtful. Joshua levered himself up with the crutches and swung out to the door of the bedroom. He was glad that he already knew how to use the damn things from when he was hurt in Iraq.
He spotted one door opposite him in the main room. It looked like the only exit, although there was a window along the wall to the left of him. It looked big and close enough to the ground to get out of in a hurry.
There was definitely only one bedroom in the cabin. The main room was fairly large, and there was a loft that might have a second bed. There was a couch and a desk with a laptop and at least five different open notebooks piled on it. Anna stood in the kitchenette with her back to him. She stirred something on the stove that smelled excellent. His wolf stirred in the back of his head, sniffing at the meat. He caught the thought, venison?
He'd never had venison. He'd never gone hunting for deer before. Only people. He winced at that thought and called, “Hey?”
“Morning, gorgeous,” she said. She grinned. It looked nervous. “I'm glad you're up. Are you feeling better?”
“Much, thank you,” he said. He took another step into the room, locked eyes with her, and almost fell off the crutches.
His wolf roused from sleep. He heard a howl in his mind as clear as reality. The room seemed to swim with the scent of her skin. He wanted to run to her and crush her into his arms. He wanted to dig his fingers into those curves and fuck her over the cabin table. He wanted to bury his hands in that gorgeous curly hair, lay his head in her lap and listen to her sing. He wanted her as his mate, beside him forever, to patch up his wounds and confront his enemies like she had before. He wanted to tear out Stephen's throat over just the possibility that he would ever go near her.
Shit. Shit. He steadied himself with the crutches. He couldn't lower his gaze from Anna's eyes. They shone like molten bronze. A smile played on her perfectly shaped lips as she watched him watch her.
What kind of cruel trick was fate playing on him? He had found his mate now, of all times, when he was probably about to die. When he might get her killed, too?
He had to calm down. He had to act like a nice, normal, not crazy person so she didn't run away and walk straight into Stephen's search for him. And he had to explain to her what was going on.
It took everything he had. Still, he collected himself and broke their locked gazes. He walked to the table and sat down. It was a small card table with two chairs, one folding and one the missing desk chair.
He glanced around to check that no other windows were open. “How long did I sleep for?” he asked. It was dark, but that didn't say much.
“Almost ten hours,” she said. “I got you home around one in the afternoon and it's ten forty-five at night now.”
“I feel better,” he repeated. “Less feverish.”
That fever was probably why he hadn't realized she was his mate. He should regret that – if he knew he could have run before he dragged her into this mess. But somehow, he couldn't bring himself to wish he hadn't found Anna.
She deserved to know everything about the situation. The choice to risk it or not had to be hers. He didn't know what he wanted her to choose.
“Sleeping probably helped. How long were you running for? You looked exhausted.” Anna smiled at him over her shoulder, then turned back to the stir fry.
It was easier to think without her eyes on him. “A few days, I think.” Wolves didn't have great memories for concepts like time and numbers. “Maybe a week? Not more than that, anyway.”
“Wow.” Anna shook her head. “And you were running on that leg the whole time? I guess that's why it got infected.”
“I hope it heals quickly.” He glanced around the cabin a second time. This time he looked for any hint of personality to tell him who this woman really was. Who his mate was. He knew she was beautiful, strong and sexy, but who was she?
She was an academic. Studying...something about prehistoric animals and humans? So she must be intelligent. Joshua had never been to college himself. She liked dogs, and she wasn't scared of them. She was the type of women to go up to a stranger in need and insist on giving them help. Kind, caring. She could take care of an infected knife wound in the back of her car with no warning. Resourceful didn’t quite cover that.
It added up to a woman who would be a wonderful alpha and mate, exactly the kind his wolf might want to start his own pack. But he probably wouldn’t live that long.
Joshua shook off the thoughts. He would rather think about Anna.
They waited on the stir fry in companionable silence, Anna stirring the food and Joshua examining the cabin. There were posters on the walls. Some were of animals and some were of landscapes. A bookcase by the computer desk. He would go over to look at it in a minute, when he felt better about standing again. Clothing half hanging out of a trunk. The clothes were mostly practical, hard to stain stuff for the woods. He spotted at least one scrap of neon pink lace hanging off of the corner, though. The computer had a rainbow sticker on it. He squinted but couldn't read it.
“So,” Anna said.
Joshua turned back and watched her open the cupboard above the stove and retrieve some sauce bottle. He looked at the contents of the cupboard – a lot of spices, way more than he had names for. He inhaled to save the mixture in the air in his memory. She was a serious cook. Or at least whoever stocked the cabin was. Scenting the food instead of the spice cabinet suggested it was her.
“Yeah?” he asked. He felt like he should get up to help her set the table, but he wouldn't be able to carry anything on the crutches anyway. “Thanks,” he said belatedly.
“You're welcome.” She smiled, but it faltered and quickly failed. “But, um, what exactly did you and your brothers do? Why do they want to kill you and anyone you talk to? What the hell is going on?”
He resisted the urge to take a bite of the food to stall answering. He didn't want to piss her off. She deserved to know this, and he had to explain before he could tell her the rest. “To start with, I'm a werewolf.”
“Guessed,” she said.
He choked and spluttered on the sip of water he'd taken. “You what?”
“You came across me as a strangely friendly wolf in an area where there aren't any wild wolves. You had an in
jury to your right hind leg – that was you, right?” When he nodded, she went on, “And the next day I run into an exhausted man with eyes the same color and the same leg injured in the same place. And then his brothers show up and sniff the air for his presence and say he's been there twice. I might just be losing my mind, but...”
“You're not losing your mind.” Joshua grimaced. “They did that in front of you? Really?
Anger rose in him again. His packmates had scared his mate. He tried to focus on the fact that
his mate had figured out what he was before he could tell her. She was definitely smart.
“They barely realized I was there at all, except for the blond guy.”
“Stephen,” Joshua said, tensing. “He was there, himself? He saw you?”
“I don't know who Stephen is, but the guy had chin length blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. He was about half a foot taller than me, not as tall as you. And he was a complete patronizing jerk.”
“Sounds like Stephen,” he said with a sigh. “Stephen is the alpha. The man in charge, who turned me into a werewolf.”
“You weren't born as one?” Anna asked.
“You're taking this pretty well.”
She shook her head. “I think I'm still in shock. The emotional kind, not the scary call an ambulance kind. This is crazy, but denying it isn't going to do me any good, is it?”
“No, it's not.” Joshua drew together the points he really needed to tell her now. Her words made him want to take her into his arms and hold her. “I was a soldier in Iraq. When I got sent home at the end of my service, I couldn't deal with civilian life. I was jumpy all the time, couldn't live by myself but couldn't stand my family, depressed, that kind of thing. I almost broke my niece's arm when she woke me up shaking me.” He shook his head.
“I decided I had to leave. When I did, Stephen found me. I guess he has some contact in the VA who tells him about people he might be able to recruit.”
“Recruit to be werewolves, you mean?” Anna shook her head in disbelief.
“Yeah. Recruit to be werewolves.” He finally took a bite of the meal. He really did not want to talk about this next part.
The venison was excellent. He closed his eyes as he chewed. He took his time to appreciate Anna's cooking, but finally he had to go on. He might get her killed because of this. She needed to know. “Stephen runs what he calls a pack, a unit of werewolves. There are between twenty and fifty total he's in charge of. I'm not sure because he never had us all together at once, and the number was always changing.”
“People left?” Anna asked.
“People died. Sometimes they died on jobs, sometimes Stephen killed them, or one of his enforcers, because they... misbehaved.” Lily's blood on the tile floor. Dean's battered body. He shuddered and gripped one of his wrists in the other. He dug nails into his skin, trying to stay present. “Anyway. He – recruited me. Like I said. Gave me this speech about how I was like an animal like this, running and scrambling to survive, but I could become more. More than human or animal. About how I could provide for my family, too. My mom can't work. I sent my paycheck from the military back to take care of her and my little sister, but once I was out there was a lot less money. I don't know how he knew about that.”
Joshua picked at the hem of the T-shirt and realized for the first time Anna must have changed his clothing. He was wearing an oversized shirt with a fish on it and sweatpants. He wondered whose they were. Did she have a boyfriend already? Then he wondered if she'd enjoyed undressing him, and what she thought of the view. Then he dragged his brain back on task.
“So you accepted?” Anna asked.
He laughed bitterly. “I fucking jumped. I was a wreck, I'd been thinking about – about doing something drastic, and he gave me what I thought was a miracle. It took three minutes, Anna, a three minute speech of bullshit and I signed away the rest of my life.
“He made the work sound honorable, like – more of the same, what I'd done in the military. Only better because it wasn't about domestic politics, it was about what really needed to be done. And our superiors would be on the ground with us, aware of what was really going on. But it was just mercenary work, no better than gang wars. Killing for the highest bidder.” He took a strangled breath. “I've done some really horrible things, Anna, before and after I became a werewolf. I wouldn't blame you if you threw me out of this cabin to fend for myself.”
Anna looked down. He felt his heartbeat pounding in anticipation. He wasn't even sure what he hoped she would say.
“He killed people who tried to leave,” she said.
“Yeah.” Joshua stared at his plate.
“And you tried anyway.”
“He killed my best friend.” He'd thought of Lily as a substitute for the sister he'd never see again. “I decided I'd rather be dead than keep working for him.” He closed his eyes. “I just wish – I wish I could do something, besides die.” Something for all of the people who hadn't yet been driven to his desperation. Something for the people who had already died, whose families would never know what happened to them.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “I don't think – it sounds like you got taken advantage of by a really horrible person when you were a mess, and then he forced you to carry out orders by at least killing and torturing people in front of you. I can't blame you for that.” She met his eyes. “I think the fact that you got away and you're here talking to me is kind of incredible. I don't know if I could do that.”
“No!” he choked out. There were visions of things he didn't want to contemplate in his mind's eyes. “I made a stupid fucking mistake and I got people killed for it. And I didn't even leave for years, until he hurt someone I cared about. I'm just – ending the damage I can do now.” That was the best he could hope for. He might want to do something besides die – but it was hopeless. He had no hope, no future, and no right to drag Anna into his mess.
“By running away and getting him to kill you, you mean?” Anna asked. “He's just going to find a replacement for you, isn't he?”
Joshua nodded jerkily.
“And he would have found a replacement as soon as you died if you refused the first time,” she said. “You got into this to try to get your life back and feed your family. That's not evil.”
Joshua didn't answer. He felt a horrible urge to try to put the memories into words to make her gasp in horror. He didn't want to hurt her. Instead, he slowly got his breathing under control, then his heart beat. He stared fixedly at the patterns in the wood grain behind Anna's head.
When he was calm, he took another bite of the food, then a few more. It had started to go cold. Finally, he thought back over the conversation and realized something was a little bit off about it. “I feel like you've had some version of this conversation before,” he said.
Anna rubbed her face tiredly. “I have a brother and two cousins who are military or ex-military, and I helped raise all of them, so they call me when they have problems. It's not – I mean, it's not really the same. But I've heard the 'I signed my choice away to get money for my family and I'm a monster now' speech a couple times before, yeah.”
“I hope I'm not bringing up bad memories,” he said.
“It's okay,” she said.
They settled into silence for a few minutes and concentrated on the food. Now that he had the time to notice, Joshua realized he was starving. He finished the plate and got up to get more. He just barely remembered to ask Anna if it was okay before he scraped the entire rest of the pot onto his plate.
She laughed. “Go ahead, there's plenty more meat in the freezer. I'd have made more if I realized you ate like a wolf, too.”
“Well, running for my life took a lot of energy,” Joshua said. He realized then that there was more he had to tell her before he could explain that she was his mate.
He sat back down first. He didn't want to drop the plate if his hands started shaking. “As for the pack. They'll come after anyone I talk to because they want to
ensure there are no witnesses. If there's no sign of me after long enough, Stephen will probably conclude I collapsed and died of exposure. They know I'm hurt and I was raised in the city with no clue how to manage in the woods, so it won't seem strange.”
“Okay, good, I was starting to wonder if we were going to have to come up with some crazy plan to fake your death.” Anna smiled weakly. “How long is long enough? I assume he's going to want to be very sure?”
“Probably a few months,” Joshua said. “He'll have people watching all of the towns in the area, especially the doctors. If he has the people he'll have them on the highway tollbooths, too. I don't know this area very well, is there a route out that doesn't depend on toll roads?”
“Yes,” she said immediately. “You'd have to take back roads, but you could do it.”
“High elevation?” he asked.
“Some.” Anna frowned.
“Then he might try to stage a road closure, at least for the next few days while the chance of me surviving outside without help drops. I'm not sure I'm worth that much to him, though. He loses people all the time. The only thing he'll be really worried about is me exposing them.”
“You mean, going to the police?” Anna asked.
Joshua shook his head. “Going to the news, more like. Showing off what I can do and telling the public there's a band of werewolf mercenaries. Local police aren't equipped to deal with something like Stephen. You'd need international authority.”
“Right.” Anna brushed her hair back from her face. He saw it was drenched in sweat. Guilt hit him for scaring her again before he realized that it might just be the heat. He still felt oddly chilled from the fever.