by Terry Spear
***
Meara’s heart was still beating a million miles a minute as she screamed and ran into the woods, shoving aside branches, climbing over a fallen tree trunk, and traversing limbs torn from trees in a recent storm. Okay, so she didn’t think she could run away from an armed nutcase, but she did think that Cyn might just chase after her and not shoot her.
She was right. The only sounds were his heavy boots clomping on the woodland floor, his heavy breathing, and his heartbeat accelerating as he quickly closed the gap between them way too fast. He was six-two, and his lengthy stride was gobbling up the ground in a hurry, nearly giving her heart palpitations.
In the horror movies, the woman always looked back just before whatever was chasing her got her. She wouldn’t look back. She was afraid he’d strike her in the head with the butt of his weapon, knock her out cold, and then haul her off to some undisclosed location. But she wouldn’t look back.
Not until she heard the sound of a wolf in rapid pursuit of Cyn. He was quiet, but still she knew the sound of a wolf running on four padded feet, knew the way he moved when he was chasing his prey, knew beyond a doubt that he would kill Cyn before he had a chance to turn and fire off a shot.
But if Finn didn’t reach him in time, Meara had to ensure that the shot Cyn tried to fire went wild.
She looked back and saw Finn racing to her aid, his fur swept backward from the breeze and the run as he tore toward her. Or toward Cyn. Finn’s gaze met hers for a second, as if making sure she wasn’t injured, as if telling her she had nothing to worry about, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, panting hard, his eyes narrowed with anger.
Cyn had stopped and rapidly turned and, in a SEAL way, readied his weapon to kill his pursuer.
Meara had to stop him. She couldn’t slam into his hard body and make any difference, she didn’t think. She grabbed a sturdy branch lying on the ground, probably torn off in the last big storm they’d had, and ran up behind him. He heard her, but he ignored her, knowing the real threat was the wolf in front of him.
She swung the branch at Cyn’s head with all her might, connected with his ear and head, and distracted him just enough to make him miss his shot.
She was sure he wanted to kill her now, but one pissed-off wolf lunged at him, and Cyn didn’t have a chance.
Finn’s jump knocked Cyn on his back, and Cyn dropped his weapon. He reached for a sheathed knife, but Finn was too quick, biting him in the throat, and ending his murderous reign. For a moment, he sat panting over the body, but then he looked at Meara and then again at Hunter’s house.
“Rourke,” she said.
She raced toward the house, but Finn woofed, then headed to where his clothes were. She turned and watched him, confused. He poked at his pants, and she ran back to where he stood over his clothes. When she found his lockpick, he bowed his head and raced back to the house. She ran after him, trying to catch up and fearing Rourke would never make it on his own. She was damned glad to hear the growling in the house, which meant he was fighting for his life but still alive.
***
Chris bit Rourke in the cheek, causing sharp pain to rip through his face and pissing him off. What if he was disfigured for life?
He snarled and growled and fought tooth to tooth with the sub-leader. He tasted blood, his blood and Chris’s.
That made him even angrier. What if he chipped a tooth or, worse, lost one?
He hadn’t fought wolf-to-wolf much, but thankfully, the instinct came to him naturally. When Chris growled at him again, Rourke gave an even lower, deeper bass-sounding growl, rumbling from low in the belly. He pulled back his lips and bared his sharp canines. And when Chris clashed with him, the two stood on their hind legs, forelegs thrashing for a better hold, heads swiveling to get a bite in where it would count.
This was not a game, like he’d played with the other wolves, which had just been a practice for a real hunt. This was a battle to the finish.
Oh, if only he could be the victor and write about it in a news story!
Rourke bullheadedly shoved Chris out of the bedroom where he’d been confined by the bed and dresser. Now in the more open living room, they bumped into a table, sending a candy dish and pale-pink and green candy squares flying. Next, they upset another table and sent a lamp to the floor where it broke with a loud crash. Rourke realized now how important having a place of his own could be, not an apartment where next-door neighbors could hear the disturbance, if he ever again had the chance to get into another wolf fight, and call the police.
Chris was a tenacious bulldog of a wolf, though. He kept going for Rourke’s throat, and Rourke kept twisting his head around to counter the attack, biting and snarling even more aggressively than Chris. He thought it was because Chris was always quieter. But the growling made Rourke feel more at home with being a wolf, more in control of his situation, better equipped to fight another wolf who wanted him dead.
They both banged into the couch and then the coffee table. Rourke kept trying to get hold of Chris’s throat, but the wolf was as adamant about keeping him from doing so as Rourke was about protecting his own throat. They danced again on their hind quarters, sparring and fighting, then down again with Rourke persisting, pushing, and trying to wear Chris out. But Chris wasn’t wearing out, damn him. Rourke was.
Somehow they’d ended up back in the bedroom.
But then Rourke got a lucky break. Chris backed into a clothes tree, and it began to fall on him. When he turned his head slightly to see what he’d run into and probably where to go next to continue the fight, Rourke had his chance. And took it.
With Chris’s head turned, Rourke grabbed for the sub-leader’s neck and bit down hard.
***
Meara reached the back door where Finn circled her, anxious to get inside Hunter’s house to rescue Rourke. She was so nervous that she fumbled with the pick, finally managing to unlock the door and shove it open. Finn rushed into the house, both of them expecting the worst. Finn would have to kill Chris, and Rourke would already be dead.
The place was a wreck: end tables on their sides, a candy dish broken to pieces, and the remnants of pastel after-dinner mints scattered all over the carpet. Chris and Rourke’s scents and the smell of blood wafted into the living area as soon as they entered. But there were no sounds of anything. The place was quiet as death.
Then Finn ran down the hallway and entered a guest room. Meara waited, expecting to hear more growling as Finn fought with Chris. But then Finn poked his nose out of the room, smiling like only a wolf could.
“Rourke,” she cried. He had to be all right. She rushed to the guest room as Finn headed through the living room and exited the house. As a wolf, Rourke was panting on the carpeted bedroom floor, while Chris’s dead body lay near the bedroom window, a clothes tree on top of him.
She wiped away annoying tears and wrapped her arms around Rourke, pressing her face against his cheek. His tail thwapped enthusiastically against the floor. She didn’t want to give him ideas and finally released him. She also didn’t want Finn to see her hugging Rourke when he returned and get any wrong ideas.
She wiped away more tears and smiled at Rourke. “Thanks for learning the truth, and…” She choked on the words and gave him another hug. She was still hugging him soundly, so grateful he was alive, that she didn’t even hear Finn come into the room.
But Rourke saw him and immediately rose, as if getting ready for a new confrontation.
“Where’s the evidence, Rourke?” Finn asked, fully dressed and looking relieved that Rourke was alive but angry about Chris and his evil doings.
The papers. She’d forgotten all about them. Rourke licked her hand, then hurried out of the bedroom and down the hall to the living room. She suspected he couldn’t shift back.
He poked a paw at the couch, and Finn shoved his hand between the
cushions and pulled out a handful of evidence—plane ticket, tarot cards, photo, financial statements. He handed them to Meara, but she shook her head. “Let Hunter see them.”
Then with new worry, she ground her teeth. “Hunter.”
“They’re fine.” Finn pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Hunter said two men hit them at the house, but everyone’s fine. Except for the two men. And the house.”
“What happened to the house?”
“The two men were demolition experts. They blew it up.”
Meara gaped at Finn.
“Of course, Hunter’s more than furious that Chris was involved. He and the others are driving up here—all but Bjornolf—and Hunter will take it from there.”
“Bjornolf had already left, I thought.”
“Apparently not. He hung around to make sure the guys didn’t need his help. And then he heard there was a runaway teen in the pack and he wanted to look into the kid’s disappearance.”
Meara’s mouth gaped again. “Bjornolf?”
“Don’t start getting ideas that he’s a nice guy, Meara.” Finn pulled her into his arms and kissed her cheek. “If you were afraid Rourke was going to have a time finding a mate, after they learn what he did here today, the unmated females will be flocking to him, wanting a chance to be that mate.”
Rourke grinned with a silly, wolfish smile. Meara gave him a small, weepy smile back. Now she knew why Tessa had a fondness for the man who was now a wolf. He truly was a welcome addition to the pack.
***
Finn and Meara returned to her place and discussed all that Chris and Cyn had been responsible for—the fire that had destroyed their homes, the mutiny Chris had encouraged, the murders of innocent victims—all so Chris could be a pack leader when he didn’t have the courage to fight Hunter wolf to wolf for the position. And so Cyn could pocket a bundle of blood money.
Meara continued to obsess about all that had happened as they entered her home. “The safe house was demolished,” she said, shaking her head. “What will the owners say?”
Finn ushered her into her living room, sat her down on the couch, and pulled a throw she had hanging over the arm of the couch onto her lap. Then he went into the kitchen and began making her a mug of mint tea. “The owners will say that the home can be rebuilt. That none of us could have been replaced. Nothing else really matters, you know.”
“They won’t care anything about us, except to be furious that we brought this down on them,” Meara moaned. “Even if insurance covered it, which I highly doubt, the home would still need to be rebuilt.”
“I’ll just sell off the property. The location and land will still bring a good deal of money. Prime oceanfront property, worth a mint.”
“You? You said it was owned by a friend of a friend of a friend.”
“That’s how I had to buy it to keep the ownership hidden so we could use it as a safe house.”
“It was your home? You mean, here I made the remark about whoever the owner was must have decorated in all yellow to chase away the Oregon gloom, and all along it was your home?”
He carried out a cup of hot tea for her and tucked a straggle of hair behind her ear. “And I said the owner must be from California. To which you looked to the ceiling as if unable to believe I would say such a thing because you are from northern California. But it was my interior decorator’s idea. She’s from southern California like me and said yellow would help brighten the place.”
Her lips parted, then she frowned. “That’s why you knew where the brandy was located. And the master bedroom. It was yours.”
“Ours. Was ours.”
“Who was staying there before we arrived?”
“A Navy SEAL and his new bride—I reimbursed them sufficiently so that they were able to pay for an island adventure.”
“Your poor home.” Then she managed a smile with a gleam in her eyes. “So just how much will the land be worth if you sell off the property?”
***
Two days later, confident the pack would be secure without his being there, Hunter returned to Hawaii to be with Tessa while Finn and Meara settled into her house before they took off on their own honeymoon. Allan, Paul, and Anna had left for places unknown. And Bjornolf had run down the runaway teen. Seemed the runaway had wanted to start his own wolf pack—teen only—but couldn’t get any takers. Bjornolf had talked him into SEAL training when he was old enough. Bjornolf was now taking a break somewhere in the South Pacific, or so he said. But for all they knew, Bjornolf could be lurking just down the road.
Rourke was the hero of the pack, and at least three of the females had taken notice of him. They all wanted to mentor him, and he didn’t mind being mentored any longer in the least.
All that was left was a Caribbean cruise that Meara and Finn would take when Hunter and Tessa returned, only they’d extended their trip to three weeks instead of two. That left Meara and Finn exploring the coast close to home and each other.
After a brisk swim in the Pacific, Meara and Finn returned to the house for a hot shower. Meara was glad that Hunter had always watched out for her and that she hadn’t ended up with the wrong wolf before Finn showed up to steal her heart.
She hadn’t thought of showering with Finn, given the economical ones he always took, quick and over with in no time, and although she didn’t like to waste water, she enjoyed the heat and steam or a simulated rain shower for a relaxing time. Water-tile body sprays in the wall provided an adjustable massage, working wonders on taut muscles, too.
But once she headed for the glassed-in shower stall, Finn walked into the bathroom to join her. Admiringly, she slid her gaze over his sculpted nude body, his skin salty from the sea just like a SEAL’s should be.
“What happened to taking a brief shower?” she asked, hoping that he didn’t think she would want to do the same.
“Hmm,” Finn said, “I like to conserve water, and sharing a shower with you sounds like a good deal.”
She smiled and switched on the digital interface, mixing water, light, and sound into a pleasing symphony of pleasurable sensations, and then stepped into the shower. “But,” she warned him, “I don’t believe in turning off the water while I’m soaping my body.”
Finn entered the stall and pulled the door closed, then gathered her into his arms under the heat of the running water and kissed her upturned face. “I’ll be the one soaping that gorgeous body of yours. And the water stays on.”
Releasing her briefly while she shampooed her hair, he poured vanilla-scented body wash into his hands and began a careful and methodical soaping ritual. His large hands started at her throat, spreading the scented wash all around her neck, down her shoulders and breasts, pausing to lift and massage. Then he worked in tiny circles over and around her nipples while she made a mountain of soapy curls on top of her head and chuckled at the diligence he showed in making sure her breasts were thoroughly cleaned.
He smiled at her as she began to thoroughly wash him, too, her fingers massaging his neck and shoulders, lathering the soap all over him as the water continued to rain down on them, taking the soap with it.
She gave him the same attention to detail, her forefingers running over his nipples with delicate precision, making them as sensitive as hers, she was certain, from the way his erection poked her in the belly. He hugged her against his body to reach her back and soap all the way down to her buttocks. She found his rubbing against her like this more erotic than she could imagine. She tried to reach around to soap his back, but he was too tall and broad.
He laughed at her futile efforts.
Then he added more soap to his hands and shifted to her waist and down between her legs. “Hmm, Meara,” he said, kissing her cheek, sounding as though he’d found wolf heaven, a version of SEAL heaven, as the hot water forced streams into thei
r backs or sides, depending on which way they moved.
And then he was leaning down, soaping her legs as she lathered his head. That gave him pause as she used her fingers to massage his scalp from the hairline to the back in tight little circles and then did the same thing on the sides until every inch of his scalp was stimulated, the blood flowing freely to every follicle.
When she was done, he rose and slid his hands into the mountain of soapy hair she’d created on top of her head. Then he began to give the same delicious massage to her scalp, his fingers working her into a relaxed state of bliss, only she was also hot and needy and wanted him inside of her now. She soaped her hands again, wrapped her fingers around his erection, and slid up and down, up and down, watching the way his eyes darkened to midnight, hoping he would not be able to resist taking this to the next step.
“You’re melting,” his voice rasped, and she was, under his ministrations, ready to slide down onto the shower floor, spread her legs, and beg for him to finish her off.
Then he was rinsing her hair and the rest of her body and himself until they were squeaky clean and free of soap suds. But he didn’t stop there as he slipped his fingers between her legs as if making sure she was soap-free there, too. His fingers gently assaulted her, ratchetting up the strokes over her clit until her body was shaking with need and wanting fulfillment, the desire so rampant that she’d do anything to reach the pinnacle.
Before she could demand that he hurry, she felt the uplift as the climax hit, and he knowingly smiled but didn’t wait for her to come back down. In one swift movement, he lifted her and penetrated her deeply. Her body held him tight, contractions wrapping her in a cloak of heated bliss. Then he began the steady thrusts, deeper, his mouth on hers, their tongues and bodies wet and slippery and beautiful.