Beside the fence was an alley. I transformed and quickly grabbed her, taking her to the alley.
“Hey, Adventurer Hero was fighting! Did anyone see him?” Someone called out. I don’t know who, and I didn’t care. No, yes I did, I did care. Maybe. “I swear I saw him, right here in our neighborhood.”
I lifted my lips from hers.
“Don’t stop,” Roxie begged.
“Roxie, you don’t understand.” I couldn’t help it as I inhaled her scent. Deeper. “People will come, they always do.” I kissed her again. “They’re never far behind.”
“Then leave with me.” Her voice was so hypnotizing; I could barely hear her.
“Not this time, Roxie.” I needed to stop kissing her, but it was like putting out a fire with lighter fluid. It couldn’t be done. Not only that, I was no longer in wolf form, and there was no barrier between us except her clothes.
Roxie’s body arched against the wall. “More.”
“No sex,” I warned her. “Just, this. No more, just this,” I reasoned with myself more than her.
“What the hell, Hero?!”
Oh, I knew that voice. From somewhere or other. They had found me again. I didn’t want to risk losing my tigress’ purring, so I stole a glance at the asshole who interrupted. Yeah. Uh, Bose. Shoot. I should be thanking my lucky stars that it was Bose who found me and not some kid coming out to find the missing Hero . . . but I couldn’t think about that. My mind was more interested in what was going on right now between me and my mate. She was so ready and wanted me.
“Stop, Hero!” Bose yelled once again, trying to move me. Move me? I tempered myself, but I wanted to kill him for that kind of insolence. Instead, I pushed him in the trash cans. With that crash, I moved back to paying attention to what was important. I moved up even closer to my mate.
“What are you going to do when neither of you can remember again, huh?”
Oh. Yeah. Yes, what was I thinking? Did I just push Bose into trash cans? I didn’t want to stop though; I couldn’t. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a night with her, in my den. For hours, I would just be with her. We would pound our bodies together in their glorious melody that the gods themselves would be jealous.
I knew we weren’t graced with that yet, and that our moment of bliss needed to end. Keep straight. There was something, some reason I couldn’t.
No. Oh fuck no! Reality was crashing around me. I saw Roxie Malone straddling me. Mortified. I had almost done it again? I had to save her, I couldn’t just let those wolves take her and kill her family, but this had been the price. I even made her sign that contract because I knew it’d happen. Wolf instinct is so strong! Roxie’s clothes were shuffled up. Here and there, leaving some tasty flesh open to my tongue.
No way! I had to change back to the wolf because of the feelings inside of me. So tingly and so euphoric, if I hadn’t, I feared I might do something else again in my human form. At least I hoped I had enough senses not to do anything rash in my different form.
There was no help though. Roxie hadn’t come to her senses yet.
“More,” she begged to me. Oh, that voice and that scent! Mingled with mine even stronger. No, I had to stay strong. I am an Adventurer, damn it! “No.” I gave her a small nudge of my nose on her forehead. She would be coming to her senses soon. I had to get this done, but since I changed into a wolf, fixing her clothes wasn’t half as easy.
“Get the hell off of her!”
I growled. A man, my age, growled back. I knew that kind of growl. I moved away, leaving Roxie. “Always coming out of the woodworks.”
“Leave her alone, why can’t you leave my Roxie alone!” He shouted at me. He didn’t transform. Strange. He wanted to fight in a human form? “I am Bladon.” He pointed at Roxie. “I am what she has always needed, not you. How dare you even touch her! If I could, I’d kill you.”
This project was different. Different than a regular project, and different than Roxie or I. “Who are you?”
“Just leave Roxie half exposed on a wall like some slut, that’s who you are! Pretend to be the world’s Adventurer, so you think you can get away with this?” He held his eyes closed and concentrated on me. Never.
I heard that never. Telepathy. Impossible! An X survived as well? “You’re an X?”
“You’re an ass! Give Roxie back her life. Give her back to me.”
Oh. I looked at Roxie against the wall still moaning and then back to the project X. Bladon. Someone had known about her, and someone had been protecting her. Maybe her scent could be dampened for the power of an X to take care of. I looked toward her again, and back to him again. The logical conclusion would be to tell Roxie to go to him if he could prevent the scent from getting her into trouble. It was obvious the way she wasn’t wearing her brooch, or didn’t even seem to know me, that he already used the forgetting powers of her scent on her memories for the last two days.
Every project had a gift, and the X’s had been internal. They had telepathy and limited power in manipulating the primal senses, including scents. A strong power that could easily be used for evil. Yet, with that gift, he had used it for good. “How long have you protected her?”
Bladon glanced toward Roxie. “I discovered her secrets when I was ten. I was too young to be seriously interested, so I became a protector of her pheromone power. After that, I didn’t want to break our friendship. Now though I’ve taken care of her for nine years. I deserve her, not some two-faced wolf that can’t control himself.”
Tell her parents to make her marry him, that thought ran through my head. It would free me to save the world again without worrying about these situations, and she would be safe at the same time. Some X’s were evil, but this one had proven to be good. For nine years. When I couldn’t hold on for one night! I looked back at Roxie, then back toward him.
“Go already.” Bladon shooed me off. “She is still aroused, I will bring her down from that cliff. She doesn’t need to remember this either, she just wants to be a normal human.”
Something else had been there though. I sensed he was lying beneath his bravado this time. Was his will not as strong or had I been right? Was Roxie reaching maturity and even he couldn’t handle her soon? “Do you know how many wolves will come after her?” I glared at him. “Did you ask her before using her scent against her memories. Did you steal the brooch I gave her for protection?”
“I am her protection!” He claimed. “I have dampened her scent control for years, and one day I was going to tell her the truth and make her my mate. When she was of a decent age to humans. Twenty-two, maybe even twenty-three.” His growl toward me became territorial. “I didn’t expect to return home and smell someone else on her. At nineteen.”
“Late for a wolf.”
“Early for a human!”
“Depends on the circumstances.” I didn’t want to let him gloat over his sense of control and righteousness. “Is her scent becoming stronger?” That was what it came down to. If the answer was no, I’d let them be. If it were yes though, an X could not protect her even with dampening for long. He may be closer in intelligence to me but I could not get along with an X any better than any others. Manipulation was their motto. “If you have cubs, how do you know they won’t be feral? X’s and Z’s have never mixed. If they were feral, I’d have to kill them.” Even now, this X. I could kill him, he bordered on predatorial. His eyes said he had killed before and he was staking claim on Roxie. That meant his thinking was still more in line with a wolf. In fact, he was probably the most enraged not at me having taken her, but the smell of me on her. Could I trust Roxie Malone to this wolf?
Then again, I had almost taken her again. Partly her fault though, she didn’t keep her distance. She was unaware so she fell to the instinct harder. “You want me to leave her to you?”
“Yes, damn it. Leave.”
“You could have taken on those projects alone?”
“Yes! Project Y.” The way he said that letter to me. I had always been
Hero, the White Wolf or Hero. I was not referred to as that.!
“Don’t ever call me that.” Before I could threaten further, I heard the moaning from Roxie turn into a scream.
Roxie adjusted her skirt and looked at her shirt. It was still messed up and only half buttoned. “What happened?”
“A project wolf,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry.”
“But I’m . . .” Her lips quivered. “I feel weird. Was I . . . taken?”
“No, never,” the X shouted. “Everything’s okay, Roxie. Nothing happened.”
Not again, he was still manipulating the powers of her scent against her. “That doesn’t help her,” I reminded him. “She helped instigate it because she didn’t know. She deserves to know what is happening with her body.”
“My precious Roxie doesn’t need to know anything,” he pleaded to no one. That weak voice, that wolf did care for her, but caring wasn’t enough. “Roxie Malone can’t even transform, she can stay hidden. I’ll dampen her.”
Leaving her to this X. While he dampened her arousal across her scent, I would have no more trouble with Roxie. I could focus back on what was important instead of only her. But a greater ethic was hanging in the balance. He used the other power of her scent against her. She should have only forgot the moments she had been aroused, but he was stretching it to erase days. I crossed my arms and tapped my foot, trying to think. I would be better off not being around her. Nothing could happen, and I could continue with my life, but at what cost? How many days of memories would she lose if she kept getting caught?
“It’s a better idea,” Bose interrupted my thoughts. “He’s controlled the situation all his life apparently.”
Appearances were deceiving though. There was a reason Y’s were created. Could I risk leaving her to him? An X could only fight so much, and this one in particular, he had way too little moral issue with wiping her mind. I had no such power over any wolf’s scent so I couldn’t stop him.
Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. Our genetically manipulated pheromones are why Roxie and I kept getting into this situation in the first place. It’s the reason that other wolves threatened her. The wolf cared. He was intelligent, but he was controlling. To humans, I seemed controlling, but I’d never stoop so low as to control what anyone thought. No one had that right.
“Hero,” Bose urged me again. “Hero.”
“I would have to kill you before you let go of the control over her.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I looked toward Bose. It was harder to kill projects at the other end of the spectrum. Too close to me. Not enough to want to get along with, but enough to feel for. I stared at him, long and hard. Reading him. “Can you handle the fact that I’ve mated with her?” I watched his eyes. Uncertainty. “She needs to have that brooch.”
“No. I can handle things from now on,” he insisted. “She can’t have that without knowing why she has it and its purpose. Out of the question.”
No. For the good of the world, I should leave her to him. Let them fight their own battles.
For the good of the soul of that Z though, I couldn’t. The project Z, she was too close of a match to me. Not only that, but like it or not I did mark her, and I couldn’t leave her that way. “No way.”
“Hero.” Bose used his scolding voice on me. “He’s done fine so far.”
“So far. Things will get more difficult. She is reaching maturation.” I looked straight at the X. “There is no guarantee you can handle what is coming, and I will not let the last single intelligent project be risked in that manner.”
“So superior,” the X growled. “I am intelligent. W’s are intelligent too, you are just too stuck up to see it.”
“You’re not right in the head.”
“I lived in a home. I got myself adopted. I am just as intelligent as you,” he challenged me. “I may not be drinking out of rich glasses of champagne but I could beat you any day.”
“You are so wrong.”
“I am so wrong?” The X pointed crudely at me as he held Roxie, barely conscious, closer to himself. “I am so wrong? How wrong is it to mark a mate and then leave her like this? No animal in nature ever would.”
“I am not an animal of nature.” I shook my head. This X was still quite clueless. “We don’t even come from nature.”
“We are still primal wolves, DNA manipulation or not.”
“No.” I glanced toward Bose in consent before I looked back at the X. “Parts of our DNA cannot be found anywhere in nature, so by definition, we have unknown alien DNA. We are genetically mutated with human, wolf and alien DNA.” I thought only humans were that clueless. I had secret access to the original documents that survived though. This X was just like the others, a drone who knew nothing.
“Fine, even if we are, you know what you should have done,” The X gloated. “Maybe the X’s were perfect, and the Y’s were too close to human.”
“Hero, enough.” Bose pulled his cell out in front of me. “Emergency, east end of this district. She is fine for now, we have to get out.”
Just leave her there with no memories of what happened because an X was slowly but territorially stalking her? I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have much choice. An emergency needed to be dealt with now. Lives could be lost if I didn’t move fast. “Take care of her and I will be back. This discussion is not over. You will not use her own pheromone power against her.” An X wasn’t going to do Roxie any good, and I wouldn’t just let him continue to manipulate her power.
Back in the official territory meeting headquarters, I had my head on my personal table. I was back in my human form, freshly clothed and showered. But even now, my body yearned for Roxie Malone. Would this never end? Not to mention this X project. I had not had to take out many of those, and this one had a name. Bladon. A home. Friends. Family. He went to school. Intelligent enough to blend into society.
Still he had the weakness of an X, he was feral. Nine years of being tame, but that scent in Roxie was ferocious. Could he still hurt her?
“Taking a young woman in an alley, the same woman as before,” Bose shouted at me. “I can’t believe you. This is not you. How could some scent possess you so much? You have to give in and let the other wolf watch her.”
They would never understand. If I couldn’t keep myself under control, how could he for much longer? I lifted my head toward Bose. Too many questions. “It just happened again. It was a risk, but I can’t leave her to another project. She is a project Z. She was made for me, and not the others.”
“She wasn’t made for you. She is a normal civilian,” one of the other territory owners said. “What if her parents find out what’s been going on? They would have a day with the press on a scope we’ve never seen before.”
“It wasn’t all my fault, she was in danger,” I shouted right back out at them. “Those wolves knew she had been a weakness. I took care of them, but they were right. She is a weakness. This X will fare no better when it becomes too strong. So, until I own that weakness, it’ll get worse.”
“Don’t even say that word,” Bose warned me, “you cannot own her. It’s not an option that we will allow. The publicity would kill the image we’ve worked hard to invoke.”
“I know,” I yelled back, this time with a choke. I sunk my head to the table. All the money in the world. I could give them millions to do what I want, but some would not bend. Without all of them agreeing to my wishes, it never worked. Yes, I had tried it before. It just didn’t work. Some were too honorable, and they all had to agree.
I could kill her. I could save her. I could leave her to the X. I couldn’t do anything that would actually save her though. I could easily buy her land out in the desert right beside mine, with security just as well. I couldn’t though because of the parent issue. Until she was twenty-three, she could not leave her parents. The opposite was true too, her parents could not legally let me help them that much. At a certain amount of money, it was considered interfering in their
duty to their own daughter.
Human rules were so stupid. I either had to buy or marry her. I did not want marriage just to get out of this situation, and buying was still off the table because of ‘publicity’. Not that she’d go for it anyway, no wolf would choose to be owned. “She was in danger, what was I supposed to do? Let them kill her family and take her? Even now, she’s still in danger. That X can only do so much. I am the most sensitive wolf out there, but her scent will get stronger and reach further. They will all come to her like the bloodthirsty werewolves they are.”
Bose folded his arms. “That’s just your mind searching for an excuse. She may have been a project, but she does not transform, and she is a citizen. She isn’t like others, so you don’t have to fight or bring her in. The X is interested in her. You need to leave her be.”
“They’ll do it again.” I stood up. “They’ll do it again and a tiny little X project is not going to deter them.” I glared at Bose. “I will keep my eye on her. I will save her when she needs it, and I will try to keep from doing something bad, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
“It makes you happy,” one of the female officials said. “You have an excuse to have her each time. You are just waiting for another project to go after her.”
“Don’t you say that.” I approached their round desk. “I don’t want to ever see her hurt.”
“You don’t even know her. You’ve just bent her over,” Bose reminded me right before I did something I had never done before. In my entire life.
I smacked him. Just for that moment, my inner instinct took over. Just for that second, that instant, I behaved like a project wolf once had. As my father once had. It wasn’t in anger or defending, but in correcting. What I had done was essentially a nose tap of discipline.
But Bose was not a wolf, and I had no right to discipline a human that way. I knew as soon as that second was over what I had done was wrong. “Bose.” I was human, but I had extra-long nails because of my wolf side. That gentle tap had left him a deep scratch on his nose that would never fully heal. He would be scarred the rest of his life. Shit. That wolf side of mine.
Wolf in Hero Clothing Page 5