Beside me, Glen growled and I patted his furry head in consolation before jerking with my chin to suggest he shift. My usual backup was solid in human form, but his wolf sometimes had a tendency to overdo the chivalry. Today, I definitely needed him calm and in control...and that meant I needed him two-legged.
Once Glen’s body began to morph away from fur, I returned my attention to Ginger and asked the question I didn’t really want to hear the answer to, at least not right at that moment. Lia was looking on with wide eyes, which made for an unfortunate audience to such a grim conversation. But the girl was a halfie just like I was, and if she was going to wander through outpack territory then she needed to know what kind of dangers she faced. “Any others?” I asked quietly.
“At least half a dozen,” the trouble twin replied grimly. “There’s...”
“More like twenty.”
The growling voice came from outside our canvas walls and I was glad Glen had shifted seconds earlier or my right-hand man might have ripped through the fabric to fight off the intruder. We really couldn’t afford another tent, though, and I instantly understood that the voice didn’t represent any immediate threat. So I grabbed Glen’s wrist to hold him back and merely muttered “Once a stalker, always a stalker” under my breath.
My words eased the tension around me as my pack mates came to the same realization I’d achieved seconds earlier—that Hunter was the one hovering outside our den’s walls. Not that the uber-alpha should be easily dismissed, but at least he wasn’t actively working against us.
Or so I thought. Ginger apparently disagreed.
“You seem to know an awful lot about this serial killer,” she said grimly, raising her voice to make sure the words carried beyond the tent walls. “Care to elaborate?”
“To tell you about Daisy Rambler, eighteen-year-old half-blood who was so badly terrorized by her pack that she built a little hut half a mile away in the woods?” Hunter’s voice was cold now and I pulled the sleeping bag up to my shoulders in hopes the fabric would warm my soul. “To tell you that her family didn’t even realize she’d gone missing until she’d been absent for an entire week, that even then they thought she’d run away and hesitated to contact the Tribunal. That I found her by following the scent of carrion through the forest. And when I returned the rotting corpse to her clan’s loving arms her alpha didn’t even bother to build the girl a funeral bonfire. Is that what you want to know?”
The uber-alpha seemed personally affronted by the halfie’s mistreatment both before and after death and I had a hard time accepting Ginger’s insinuation that he might have somehow been involved in Daisy’s dismemberment. Still, it was hard to forget that Hunter had seemed equally caring and interested at our initial meeting and yet he’d still forced me out of my clan and into outpack territory the very next day. As an enforcer whose authority was backed up by our regional governing body, Hunter’s word was law both inside and outside of our pack, and he could have easily let us wiggle out from under the requisite punishment for our law-breaking three weeks earlier. So I had to admit I didn’t really understand his motivations at all. Maybe Ginger was right and our tagalong companion actually was conning our entire pack.
The inhabitants of the tent fell silent for a moment as we took in the uber-alpha’s words. Then, at last, Hunter spoke again. “Someone is killing halfies to steal their power, and you’re the strongest halfie around. Now can you see why I want you to go west, not east?” He paused as if trying to decide how to turn a command into a question, finally settling on: “Will you, Fen?”
My name on his lips did the job my sleeping bag hadn’t, providing the strength to straighten my spine and remember that I had a pack to protect. For a moment, warmth seeped through uncovered limbs as if the uber-alpha’s eyes were roaming across my body...which was a ludicrous fancy since Hunter was outside the tent and the early morning light was so dim he probably couldn’t tell which shape was me in the first place. Still, the uncomfortable feeling put a bite into my words as I got down to the business I’d already been planning to deal with as soon as my friends awoke.
“That’s none of your affair since you’re not a member of this pack,” I countered more harshly than I’d originally meant to. “At least not yet,” I added, mitigating my tone slightly. “Maybe you could give us some space so we can decide whether we want you following us around?”
Hunter huffed out a snort that said as clearly as words: And how would you stop me going wherever I want to go? But I heard no other sounds pushing into our temporary domicile. No receding footsteps. No slam of the car door as he crawled back into his own bed.
“Hunter?” I asked after a moment’s pause.
“I’ll wait,” he rumbled. And this time Glen wasn’t the only one to growl. Ginger had her hand on the zipper of the tent and looked intent upon heading out naked to whoop the uber-alpha’s ass, in fact, before I shook my head at the girl to bring her back into line.
The trouble twin flicked her long maroon tresses back over one shoulder in annoyance, but she conceded the point. Still, when she settled back down, the young woman made a point to slide closer to Lia as if she planned to protect her cousin with her life. “Let’s get on with it,” the redhead grumbled. “Can we vote Hunter out first?”
“No, Quill first,” I responded, ignoring the twin’s incendiary language. Truth be told, I hadn’t quite decided what I wanted to do about my own personal stalker, so the cowboy shifter seemed like an easier choice to start off with. “The question is, stay or go. Glen?”
My second-in-command shrugged. “Probationarily only, right?” he asked me. And, when I nodded, he mirrored my movement. “Okay, then. We could use more muscle around here. And we can always let Ginger beat him up if he sets his feet the wrong way.”
Glen had a good point. Our pack was light on wolf-power, with only him and the aforementioned Ginger really up to the task of protecting us from trouble in lupine form. Cinnamon was always willing to defend his sister’s back, but he was a lover not a fighter and tended to pull his punches. And Lia and I were, unfortunately, worse than useless in that department due to our half-blood heritage.
“Cinnamon?” I asked next, moving my gaze around the tent. The male trouble twin met my eyes for only a split second before turning to his sister and raising his eyebrows in question.
“Sure, I like him,” Ginger said, her voice purposefully loud as if she was speaking to Hunter rather than me. And her twin followed her lead, although without the attitude, voting in the affirmative as well.
We’d already reached the majority quorum required to allow Quill a spot in our clan, so the issue was pretty much settled. Sure, I had the right to overrule the others since I was technically the leader of our little pack. But, honestly, I liked the cowboy shifter too. He was polite, soft-spoken, and had paid for our campsite. He’d fit right in.
So I was shocked when I turned to Lia and found the girl shaking her head vehemently back and forth. Then, in the tiniest voice imaginable, she cast her vote. “No,” the girl whispered. “I don’t want Quill to come with us.”
“WHAT DID HE DO TO YOU?” Cinnamon demanded, scaring Lia even more by grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around to face him. I expected Glen to counter this display with his usual voice of reason, but my most steadfast companion instead lunged forward as if he planned to latch onto the girl’s other arm and replicate the trouble twin’s assertive behavior.
Before the kid could get ripped in half—and before the swearing outside the tent grew any louder—I slapped the guys down with my mild alpha dominance. “Stop it.” The words wouldn’t hold them in place like Hunter’s would have, but at least the bee-sting-level compulsion should snap my pack mates out of their posturing.
Sure enough, Cinnamon and Glen both inhaled deeply, the former unhanding the kid and the latter merely pulling her in for a brief hug before letting her go as well. Hunter was still muttering under his breath outside, a dull rumble that circled the tent
to stop mere inches away from our pack’s youngest member. But the uber-alpha seemed content to let me speak, so I ignored him and crouched down so my face was level with Lia’s. “Did anything happen?”
The kid shook her head slowly and it took a moment for her to gather her thoughts. “No, I just don’t like the way he looks at me.” I could barely hear the words with my human ears, but I had a feeling Hunter had picked them up just fine by the way his swearing changed over to a deep growl. Our uninvited guest must have turned wolf in his agitation.
“Did Quill say anything?” I asked now. “Try to get you to go off alone with him? Touch you where he shouldn’t have?”
“He shouldn’t touch her anywhere.” Hunter’s angry words proved he was human again. I was starting to lose track of his lightning-fast transformations, something an ordinary werewolf could do perhaps once in an hour if he was strong and well-trained. But nobody had ever said Hunter was an ordinary werewolf.
“Ignore the peanut gallery,” I said, filing the uber-alpha’s frequent shifts away to be analyzed at a later date. “Did Quill touch you, Lia?”
The kid kept her eyes trained on the ground and merely shook her head. No, it appeared her disapproval of the cowboy shifter was a gut reaction only. And while I didn’t like to ignore her intuition, everyone else seemed okay with adding Quill to the pack. Which suggested Lia was just young, inexperienced, and overreacting.
Yes, I’d seen Quill’s covetous gaze last night. But the cowboy shifter had also seemed to accept my admonishment and I’d noticed him keeping a greater distance from Lia afterwards. The unfortunate truth was that the girl was going to get those hungry looks from pretty much any outpack male. And given the fact that females were probably few and far between in his life, it was hard to hold the cowboy shifter’s initial reaction against him.
So I made the decision for all of us. “Ginger will train some manners into him,” I promised our youngest member. “And like Glen said, we’re only letting him in on probation. So if anything happens, Lia—anything at all—you can tell us and we’ll kick him out. Okay?”
“Okay,” the girl whispered, and I hoped I wasn’t making the wrong decision.
Still, the clock was ticking. Every minute we spent in the comfort of our tent debating our next move was another minute that the barflies could use to track us down. We needed to get back on the road ASAP, and that meant deciding which, if either, of the two strange males was going to ride along with us as we traveled to our next destination.
“So, Quill’s in, tentatively,” I continued. “How about Hunter? You can vote with thumbs up or thumbs down since he’s sitting right outside the tent and listening to every word we say.” I raised my voice in annoyance, but the uber-alpha only laughed. And my pack mates, as usual, ignored the nuances of my request.
“I like Hunter,” Lia said, her voice a little louder than it had been previously. “I want him to come with us.”
I rolled my eyes. The timid halfie was terrified of the charmer Quill but was thrilled to have an uber-alpha in the pack? I’d never understand the minds of children.
“Ginger?”
“Definitely out,” the red-head responded, her eyes sparkling with passion. “We don’t need him and we don’t want him.”
“What she said,” her brother quickly chimed in.
My gaze turned to Glen at last and he tilted his head to one side in consideration. I could see my beta doing the same math I’d engaged in a few moments earlier. If he voted pro-Hunter, then the tie-breaking choice would be up to me. And I somehow didn’t want to be the one to say that the uber-alpha had to go.
And yet...the uber-alpha had to go. He was too strong for our young pack to handle and we had too little understanding of his purpose in following us around to trust him at our backs. In short, Hunter was a danger to our clan, so we couldn’t welcome him into the fold.
Nodding his understanding of my dilemma, Glen sealed Hunter’s fate. “Tentatively, probationarily...I say no. Hunter is out.”
Chapter 7
I EXPECTED THE UBER-alpha to be annoyed. What I didn’t expect was the flood of invective that came surging out of his mouth, some of the words so intensely imaginative that Cinnamon felt moved to cover up Lia’s sensitive ears. Ginger, on the other hand, was clearly taking mental notes, and I had to admit the female trouble twin had a point. Hunter’s language was almost poetic in its pure, unadulterated filth.
“Dude, tone it down,” Glen growled. “We don’t want the campsite host to come back over here and check on us.” Not while you’re standing outside our tent buck naked, he didn’t have to add. We all knew that our attempt at appearing human was in serious jeopardy if the uber-alpha didn’t get himself under control. So this time around, I didn’t naysay my pack mate as Ginger pushed open the tent fly and stepped out into the morning air.
Then the trouble twin began to swear as well, which is when I fumbled for the sheathed sword I’d stuck down inside my sleeping bag and hightailed it out the door as well. The sight that met my eyes pulled a few choice words from my lips to join the invective soup before I started barking orders.
“Cinnamon, Ginger, you’re together. Glen and I will team up with Lia. Do what you have to do, but I want one of these invaders captured alive. We have to figure out what’s going on.” Finally, as an afterthought: “And please try not to wake up the cookie lady.”
At last, I returned the entirety of my attention to the outpack werewolves who were stalking out of the mist in lupine form. There were at least half a dozen large, menacing animals present, and the faint banana aroma that drifted off their bodies suggested some or all of the invaders had been present in the bar that Ginger led us to the night before. Our enemies had been beaten once and now didn’t seem inclined to hash out our differences with words. Instead, the shifters arrayed against us were out for blood.
Clothes flew off in record time, and soon I was flanked by five friendly werewolves, evening the odds somewhat. “Where’s Quill?” I asked, and in response Hunter jerked his chin toward the bathhouse barely visible between the trees. The uber-alpha didn’t bother to shift and elaborate, but I guessed the cowboy shifter had gone to take a shower while the rest of us were voting on his future.
Here’s hoping our newest member won’t be blindsided by a battlefield when he comes strolling back into camp, I thought. But I couldn’t really find it in myself to regret Quill’s absence. When it came right down to it, pack size wasn’t everything. Instead, if given the choice, I’d always go for fewer werewolves who I could really trust at my back rather than for larger numbers of loose cannons.
At the thought, my hand drifted down to settle upon Hunter’s head, although whether I was considering him a trusted companion or a loose cannon was up for debate. Immediately, the huge wolf craned his neck to gaze back up in my direction before returning his attention to the outpack shifters who were drawing ever closer to our small clan.
Despite my reservations, I had to admit that our newest companion’s presence made me feel stronger. Sure, Hunter epitomized unpredictability. But he also might turn out to be our secret weapon. Soon, the attackers would be close enough to be growled into submission without waking the campground host...assuming the uber-alpha felt like saving all of our skins rather than just his own, that was.
At the thought, I couldn’t prevent my fingers from tightening around one fuzzy ear in a silent plea for help. I didn’t really expect Hunter to understand what I was asking, nor did I expect him to obey even if he did understand. But, to my surprise, the uber-alpha accepted my subtle direction with alacrity.
I could almost hear the human words in his lupine bark as the booming sound rolled out across the campsite in near-visible waves. And the command should have frozen every enemy in his tracks. Even though the uber-alpha’s attention had been pointed in the opposite direction, in fact, Cinnamon and Lia cringed away from the noise, their feet growing a little unsteady beneath them.
But the outpack m
ales just kept advancing, parting the fog with their bodies as they drew ever closer on silent feet. Now I could see that each boasted a collar around his neck, a characteristic that struck me as distinctly odd under the circumstances. Equally odd, but more understandable, were the splashes of neon color nearly hidden by the folds of each lupine ear.
“They’re wearing ear plugs,” I said softly for Hunter’s benefit. That explained why the uber-alpha hadn’t been able to use his strong compulsion auditorily—the other shifters had arrived prepared for such an attack. But perhaps our not-so-secret weapon could still stare down each enemy individually if he could force the wolves to meet his eyes.
Hunter glanced up at me, and it was almost as if he read my mind. Nodding once, the uber-alpha set off toward the lead shifter, dancing around the latter as the enemy strove to keep his head averted. And rather than helping their compatriot, the other wolves parted to surge around the strange battle of wills and continue with their own advance.
Hunter’s ploy would likely work, I suspected, but it would take time to hit all six enemy werewolves one by one. The rest of us needed to pull our weight and defend ourselves in the meantime. So I unsheathed my sword and jerked my head to motion Cinnamon and Ginger away from the tent. In response, the duo slunk off to the side in preparation for flanking our attackers while Glen and Lia drew in closer to me.
Then the campsite descended into such savagery that I could no longer keep track of what each member of my pack was doing. There were wolves everywhere, the enemies’ strange silence making their curled lips and sharp teeth appear even more ominous. Two sprang toward Lia from either side in a pincer maneuver and Glen and I worked as a team to drive them back, he with his fangs and I with my sword.
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