Luke was still beside me, but his face was unreadable. The wound in my neck throbbed once, hard.
Ruth took a step closer and Luke turned until they were toe to toe, leaving me outside their tiny circle. Her voice was low but firm as she reeled him in. “You’ve had a decade to live your own life, but Michael has had no time. You have to choose, brother. Pack or mate.”
They were going to thrust Luke into this morass of skinless. Force him to emulate someone he’d worked his whole life to differ from. That was just wrong.
The pang in my shoulder said it was wrong for us to separate as well.
So I forced my way into their conversation despite there being no obvious gap for me. “I can help you with your family, Luke, the way you helped with mine.” My hand rose until I could finger the bite on my neck. The pain there felt strangely good. The notion of living among skinless, daunting an hour ago, no longer seemed impossible. Being Luke’s backup was the right choice.
It wasn’t my decision to make, though. It was his.
Luke inhaled slowly. I waited for his blue eyes to meet mine, but they remained trained on his sister when he answered. “I have to deal with this on my own, Honor.”
Ruth’s muscles relaxed even as mine tightened. Still, I remained silent, allowing Luke to choose our path forward.
And he did...in such a way that no one could forget he was a skinless.
Kneeling down, he lifted his father’s panting body in human arms. The motion was gentle, but the old man moved restlessly as if trying to break free of his son’s grip.
The non-verbal complaint didn’t deter Luke. Neither did the puddle of blood on the leaves and the new stain of red on his own skin.
Brushing wrinkled fingers aside, he wrapped both hands around his father’s neck, at first gently then harder. And harder.
Veins stood out on Luke’s forearms. His father’s heels beat furiously against the leaf litter.
It took a solid minute for the old man’s eyes to glaze over. Apparently, the first step in solving the family dilemma was patricide.
Chapter 3
Michael howled at the same moment the old shifter’s head thunked down, lifeless against the soil. Had the boy felt his father’s passing?
No. When Luke and Ruth exchanged glances, the latter nodded. “I’ll slow them down. Get rid of the woelfin.”
“Honor,” Luke interjected. “Her name is Honor.”
But he didn’t argue with the “getting rid of” part. Instead, he shimmered down to four legs, his voice echoing inside my head as I used my pelt to follow suit.
“I’m sorry. I wish we’d met a year ago. Or a year later. But I have to do this. My family needs me.”
The cascade of images that followed were like scenes from a movie condensed to the point where the montage of actions made little sense. I caught the emotion beneath it, however. Luke was terrified of bringing a woelfin into a world where strangling wounded fathers was the wheelhouse of the good guys. He was walking into a hornet’s nest and couldn’t handle the notion I might get stung.
Thankfully, Luke knew a shortcut that returned us to Wolf Camp—Luke’s seasonal gathering place for confused skinless, currently nonoperational—in minutes rather than hours. Because I didn’t trust this new telepathy between us enough to use it for a difficult conversation. Instead, I shifted as soon as we reached a roofed picnic area. Here, no one but Luke could see the pelt curl away from my shoulders as I donned my human skin.
“You don’t need to protect me.” Without waiting for Luke’s reaction, I strode naked across the courtyard, heading into the closest cabin to gather up weaponry. Adrenaline exploded through me more powerfully than ten shots of espresso. I was ready to do battle as Luke’s partner. I was ready....
Luke’s hands on my shoulders stopped me in my tracks before I could push back outside. “I won’t ask you to be my sword maiden,” he told me silently, tapping his ear in warning that skinless could hear conversations from quite a distance away. “It’s too dangerous. The pack won’t react the way I did to your pelt.”
“I’m willing to take that chance.” I countered.
“I’m not. You can’t be here when they come.”
A tectonic rift opened in my stomach. That was the only explanation I could give for why I suddenly found it hard to keep my body erect. Three words were all I could manage. “I get it.”
And I did get it. After all, Luke and I had been acquainted for just over a week. He was skinless; I was woelfin. The only physical intimacy we’d shared was a theatrical, fake kiss.
Of course his family would call and he’d leave me to rejoin them. What had I expected? A vow of his undying love?
Luke growled rather than answering. He yanked me in closer, fingers biting into my biceps. Even with human nostrils, I could smell his barely restrained rage.
Then, he spat out his own three words. “No. You don’t.” Added on four more: “You don’t get it.”
His lips pressed hard and sweet against mine, forcing me to admit that he might just be right.
THE KISS—OUR SECOND, the only one shared without the intention of convincing an audience—would have been earth-shattering all on its lonesome. But the images that flowed into my mind along with the physical sensation weakened my knees.
Scenes from our shared past, but filtered through Luke’s memories. Our first meeting, when I literally fell from the sky...and for one split second he rethought his disbelief in angels. The instant bond that drew him to me, the sure knowledge that I was his pack.
“I’m yours.” His lips didn’t have to leave mine to make the claim. Still, he pulled back so he could see me, his breath feathering finger soft across my skin.
I wanted to draw him back in and kiss him forever. To suck up Luke’s sweet cinnamon and wrap my arms so tight he couldn’t get away.
But we were interrupted by a long, hard series of knocks. “Are you in there?” Ruth demanded.
Luke’s eyes closed, his lips curling into a reluctant smile. “Patience has never been your strong suit, Ruth.”
“I’ll be patient,” she countered, “when I’m dead.”
While they bantered, I forced myself to twist out of Luke’s grasp and clothe myself. Whether I stayed or went, I needed to maintain the illusion that I was one of the skinless. So I wrapped my pelt around my waist before pulling a shirt over my head. Tucking the shirt into jeans, I turned to face Luke once more.
“Does this outfit make me look fat?”
His eyes squinted into a sunset half-circle for one split second. He understood what I was asking and was amused by my wording. Then he reassured me with a single shake of his head.
There, that felt normal. So normal, in fact, that I opened my mouth to reopen the debate he’d staved off with his stealth kiss attack.
Luke was way ahead of me. “This will get much worse before it gets better. If you....” His words broke apart as a howl outside reminded us we were far from alone. I caught only bits and pieces of the rest of his explanation. Something about “choice” and “scars” and “more death.”
I wanted to pin him down and demand a real explanation. Or even to get the explanation he was trying to hurry through, unaware that the link between us was broken.
But the howls outside were growing louder. So I only asked: “You have to deal with this? For the sake of your family?”
Luke nodded.
“And would my presence here make things worse?”
Another, even more reluctant, nod.
I inhaled once, closed my eyes and wished the world was different. Then I exhaled and let dissatisfaction disperse along with the outflow of carbon dioxide.
“Okay, then.” I started packing. Not that I had much here in the first place. Some clothes, my sword, my cousin’s letter. Electronic odds and ends.
And, apparently, a set of keys. Or so I discovered when Luke’s scent enveloped me a second time.
“Take my car. Go as far away as you can. I’ll call
you when it’s safe. It might be...a long while.”
A long while like days? Weeks? Decades?
Luke didn’t need those questions however. As I squelched them, a pang ran through me. Starting at the bite in my neck and slithering lower. It felt both right and severely wrong at the exact same time.
Outside, a wolf yipped. Something told me this was neither Ruth nor Michael.
There was no time left for explanations and promises. No time for anything except reaching up and pulling Luke’s chin down until I could reach him.
Then I gifted him with a farewell kiss.
Chapter 4
“You’re washing it.”
The words were so full of disappointment that I turned from my spot in front of the bathroom sink to see who was speaking. Luke had left one moment earlier, and I’d granted myself what I sorely craved—a few seconds to wipe away the pain of parting with running water. Now, though, I released the liquid cupped in my hands. I’d been intending to splash it on my face. Instead, water gurgled down the drain as I twisted the faucet shut.
“Washing is a problem?” I asked the stranger who stood in the open doorway of my cabin. She was naked and sagging in the breast and belly areas, but wrinkles didn’t quite cover up pale lines criss-crossing her skin.
So Ruth wasn’t the only scarred female in the pack that had once belonged to Luke’s father. Was this the real reason he was sending me away? Did he think I was afraid of physical imperfections?
There was no time to ask those questions, however, when the woman in front of me was already answering my first one. “Of course not. It’s your choice.” She sighed. “Perhaps you wanted romance? You must understand why my grand-nephew was in such a hurry. I assume he asked your permission before he bit?”
My finger slipped down beneath the collar of my t-shirt, feeling for the wound that Luke’s teeth had created after his father barked at him. I couldn’t quite touch the raw flesh because my shed skin had pressed up against the affected area. As if my pelt was protecting the wound from my tentative fingers. As if my pelt liked the fact I’d been bitten.
“No, he didn’t ask my permission,” I answered the stranger—Luke’s great-aunt?—while trying to figure out why I’d accepted the bite without question. Why, if I was honest, I agreed with my pelt.
The trickle of sticky dampness on my neck didn’t feel wrong, even if its creation hadn’t been entirely Luke’s decision. Instead, it felt very right.
“Oh.” The woman’s features pinched together. “Well, that’s unfortunate. But you must understand why he chose the old way. The pack will think twice about touching you if you smell like their alpha.”
Before I could explain that Luke’s father had intended the bite to do more than protect me, my companion laughed the dry chuckle of someone who’s put their foot in their mouth. “And now I’m telling you things you know already. I’m sorry. Bad impressions all around today, I’m afraid. I’m Aunt May. Acosta, obviously.”
I wiped my hand on my jeans and accepted her shake. “Honor Warren.”
I wanted so badly to request more information about this bite that I was already supposed to know about. But Aunt May’s head cocked to one side, then she abruptly changed the subject.
“They’re coming.”
If I’d been one of the skinless, I would have heard something. A howl maybe? Or a voice in my head?
As it was, I had to trust Aunt May’s senses and Luke’s analysis of the situation. Grabbing up my duffel and Luke’s car keys, I pushed past the old woman and into the summer sunlight.
Hopping off the porch, I landed on driveway gravel just in time to be caught up in a tide of running wolves.
THEY STREAMED INTO camp. Furry heads, backs, and tails packed so close together it was impossible to tell where one ended and another started. I thought I caught a glimpse of Ruth’s scarred muzzle at the edge of the crowd, but Luke and Michael were lost in the midst of the skinless.
Until, that is, something fist-sized and furry flew out of the pack’s center, smacking to the ground an inch from my toe.
Aunt May’s arm slid around my waist as she tried to steer me away from the wolves. “I suspect he wouldn’t want you to see this part, dear.”
But Luke had been the one to toss the thing toward me. I’d caught the gleam of his black fur one second before the furry lump arced through the air.
Now speech emerged in my head, staticky yet familiar in Luke’s deep rumble. The intrusion smelled faintly of cinnamon as select syllables materialized into words. “...Alpha’s Hunt...sword maiden...tokens....”
I couldn’t tell what he was getting at, but I could twist out of Aunt May’s grip and kneel down to see what Luke had thrown in my direction. At first, the object was unidentifiable through the blood and mud caked around it. Then I turned it over and caught my breath.
This object was a paw.
Something else flew out of the center of the pack now, floating feather-light onto the top of a nearby cabin. There was no way I could climb up to examine it, but I understood what I was seeing. That second object was an ear. And based on the paw’s scent, both came from the wolf—the father—who Luke had recently killed.
Aunt May was right. This was what Luke hadn’t wanted me to be part of. Lunch tried to make a run for it and I swallowed down the sharp tang of bile.
“Is there a kitchen in this place?” Aunt May rested one hand on my shoulder, as if her joints were unwilling to let her join me near the ground but she wasn’t quite ready for frailties of age to determine her behavior. “You could use a cup of tea.”
Tea. The notion was unbearably strange while skinless frolicked around a carcass. An entire leg flew off to thunk wetly against a porch post. The yips of the pack resembled coyotes’ laughs.
And, in my head, Luke’s voice continued to whisper. “...Away...danger...I need...choice....”
I shivered. Luke had wanted me absent before this awfulness started. I turned...then froze as it became obvious that I’d been noticed by another member of his pack.
A gray wolf curled away from the roiling mass even as Luke’s voice in my head went silent. The stranger raised his snout, nostrils flaring. Then his lips drew back into a toothy snarl.
“Oh dear,” said Aunt May. The expression on her face was all I needed to understand the situation.
She wasn’t just chagrined. She was frightened.
Without hesitation, I drew my sword.
Chapter 5
I’d heard stories about skinless all through my childhood. In addition to being dangerous to woelfin, they were pretty hard on each other. Males tore rivals apart during power struggles. Females were married off to the highest bidder like so much chattel.
Nothing I’d been told, however, could explain why the only two skinless women I’d met looked like sailors who’d survived lashes from a cat o’ nine tails. Why the one beside me now quivered like a leaf in a storm.
“Get inside and lock the door,” I demanded, pushing Aunt May behind me. Whatever was going on, I’d protect her. I turned sideways like movie fencers did during battle, wishing my trusty knives weren’t stuck at the bottom of my duffel bag.
Because I’d possessed the sword in my hand for less than a day, and I’d spent most of that time running on wolf feet. Still...the blade was impressive enough to make the wolves advancing upon me hesitate.
Yes, wolves plural. In the few seconds my attention had been focused elsewhere, one skinless had turned into three.
They paced forward as a unit, pausing only when I swiped the air between us. All that accomplished in the long run, however, was prompting them to split apart.
Now I had two wolves attempting to flank me while one blocked access to the pack behind them. Not that I wanted to dive in there, even with Luke at the center. I was pretty sure the most recently ejected body part had been an entire head.
Instead, I retreated until my heels struck the cinderblock stairs behind me. Aunt May was still up there. I cou
ld see her out of the corner of one eye as I attempted to walk up the steps backwards. Could hear her as she called my name.
“Honor....”
“Inside,” I growled.
I had no idea how to use a sword, but how complicated could it be really? I jabbed at the closest wolf with my sword tip. Was gratified when he yelped. Was even more gratified when the squeak of hinges promised Aunt May had obeyed my command.
Unfortunately, focusing on one attacker let another slip beneath my radar. A thump. I spun. A white wolf stood on the step above me...and Aunt May was coming back out of the cabin with a pocketknife in one raised hand.
How she’d found a weapon—even such a puny one—so quickly was beyond me. Why she felt the need to insert herself into my battle was even harder to understand.
Because Aunt May was pushing eighty. Whatever her youth had been like, she was long past the age when it was safe to fall, let alone fight.
No wonder the skinless between us lolled his lupine mouth open into a smile. Then he shimmered upward into a naked, grinning man.
I RACED UP THE STAIRS, but the skinless was too fast for me. One moment Aunt May was holding the pocketknife before her to fend off his advance. The next she was cradling her empty hand while the skinless grinned at his stolen weapon.
Knife nabbed, he ignored the old woman and spun to face me. “Now would be a good time to surrender,” he growled.
His voice was like Luke’s, deep and full of carnivorous intention. He looked a little like Luke, too, if you ignored the short, straight hair so blond it appeared to have been bleached colorless by the sun.
Whether the similarity was relevant or not, I had no time to dig into the issue. Because a black wolf was at my knee, snapping and snarling. He would have taken off my kneecap if instinct hadn’t jerked me to one side.
Unfortunately, that evasion knocked me off balance. My gaze slipped back and forth between the armed man, who was likely to attack at chest level, and two lupine ankle-biters.
Alpha's Hunt Page 2