by Amy Pennza
“Stop it!”
A few more steps. She needed him to stay put.
He stepped forward.
She stopped. “You’re right.”
His brow furrowed. “About what?”
“About me…and my Gift. I should be more committed to preserving the race.”
His eyes widened. He clearly hadn’t expected to hear that.
She chanced a look over her shoulder. The drop was less than a foot away. One hundred feet below, the river was a narrow ribbon of orange fire in the dying sunlight. She faced him. “We shouldn’t allow weak wolves to threaten our existence.”
He nodded, then his eyes darkened. “I can’t let you live.”
She held his attention. “Do what you have to do.”
In her undergraduate psychology classes, she’d read about “slow motion perception,” a phenomenon people described as time seeming to slow down during moments of high stress or brushes with death. The theory was that the brain’s functions sped up, which made it seem like external experiences slowed. As Aiden came at her, she perceived everything in perfect clarity. Droplets of blood streamed from his face in a graceful arc. His neck muscles strained as he gritted his teeth. He lowered his right shoulder. His words echoed in her mind. “You would have done whatever it took to keep defective genes from weakening the race.”
I intend to. The thought rang like a bell.
At the last second, she dropped to the ground.
Aiden’s legs struck her back. His momentum pitched him forward. He screamed as he fell over the edge.
She scrambled to her feet. Aiden’s body tumbled and hit the dry riverbed with a sickening thud. He didn’t move. She took a trembling breath. “Starting now.”
Snapping twigs made her spin around. Max burst through the trees in wolf form. He Turned in midair and hit the ground running.
“It’s all right!” She flung out her hands. “It was Aiden. I… I killed him.”
He blurred past her. Cool air brushed her cheek. He peered into the gorge for a second, then gathered her into his arms and walked them back from the edge. “What happened?” He held her at arm’s length and checked her for wounds. “Are you hurt?”
“N-no. Please, Max, just hold me.” Adrenaline burned through her like a wildfire, and she started to shake.
He wrapped both arms around her, his grip squeezing her ribs, but she didn’t protest. She pressed her cheek against his warm chest. “He s-sent the email to Jonah and N-Nathan. He wanted them to seek me out.”
An eerie stillness settled over Max. His voice turned deadly. “Why?”
“He hoped you’d see my Gift as a threat. He believed having a Bloodsinger around, Turning latents, would weaken the species. So he decided I had to die.” She pushed at his waist. He loosened his grip enough for her to lean back and look up at his face. “I couldn’t let that happen, Max.”
He stroked her hair from her face. “How did you push him over, petite?”
“I didn’t. He rushed me, and I…I don’t know. A weird calm came over me, and I knew exactly what I needed to do to defeat him. I waited until he got close and then ducked. He tripped over me.”
He nodded. “I’ve heard of such things. The lux catena kicks in. Helps you protect your mate.”
“It wasn’t the bond.”
A shadow crossed his eyes. “I know it’s still hard for you to accept, but the bond is complete now—”
“No.” She cupped his jaw, felt the bristly hairs she’d come to cherish. “It wasn’t the lux catena.” She took a deep breath. “It was love.”
Shock flared across his face. For a second he was speechless. Finally he murmured, “What did you say?” His voice was so low she had to strain to hear it.
“I said I love you.” She smiled. “Did you not understand? Here, let me say it another way. Je t’aime, Maxime.” She stroked his jaw. “Je t’adore.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Sans toi, je ne suis rien.”
A slow smile spread across his face, softening the hard features. He lowered his mouth to hers. “Ah, petite. I am nothing without you, too.”
An Excerpt from What a Wolf Dares
What’s next in the Lux Catena series? Keep reading for a sneak peek from Remy’s book, What a Wolf Dares.
She had to run faster.
Sophie Gregory had no idea how long she’d been running. She lost track hours ago. Or maybe it was more than a full day now? After she escaped the compound, she’d run at full speed until well after the sun went down. After a fitful nap under a tree, she’d risen before dawn and run almost nonstop today.
The nap hadn’t been long enough. She needed more than a few hours in a cold Vermont forest to rebuild her strength. But she couldn’t afford to linger. For one thing, she was still in freaking Vermont.
Although, it was possible she’d crossed the Canadian border by now.
She stopped in a clearing, chest heaving, and turned in a slow circle. The setting sun cast shadows on the trees. The sack around her neck pulled at her shoulders, its strap tight across her back. Pine needles dug into her paws, which throbbed from the constant drumbeat against the forest floor. She narrowed her eyes, searching for any clue that might give away her location. Her vision was far sharper in animal form, but it didn’t do her much good now. The forest around Lake Champlain was vast and quiet—and there were no convenient signs or markings to let her know if she’d crossed into the Great White North.
Not that Canada was any sort of safe haven. Asher’s territory—or, rather, his father’s territory—extended well past the international boundary. Humans made such a fuss over their borders. Imagine what they’d think if they knew werewolves had been playing fast and loose with the continental map for centuries.
Deep in the forest, a twig snapped.
She froze. Every hair on her back lifted. Her heart seized, then pounded a furious rhythm.
If they caught her…
A whimper wound its way up her chest and into her throat. She clamped her jaws shut before the sound could escape, then twitched her ears toward the direction the noise had come from. Another twig snapped. She tensed, prepared to run.
Wait. If Asher’s lackeys had caught up to her, wouldn’t they have already pounced? It wasn’t his style to hold off on inflicting pain. She strained, listening for more sounds. If she’d been a Seeker, she could have pinpointed the exact location of the snapping twigs, maybe down to the exact tree. But superior hearing wasn’t her Gift. Instead, the best she could hope for was outrunning her pursuers. As a Finder, she was faster than most wolves. In short bursts, she appeared as a blur—even to a wolf’s eyes.
She’d never valued her Gift as much as she did right now.
But it wasn’t inexhaustible. She was tired, hungry, and cold. Her fur offered more protection than human skin, but more than twenty-four hours in the elements had taken a toll. She’d thought November in Northern Pennsylvania was cold, but it was nothing compared to the wet and dreary weather around Lake Champlain. The chill settled into a person’s bones and stayed there.
She gazed into the trees, her heart in her throat. Overhead, orange evening sunlight played over the gold and red leaves. After a second, a deer emerged on the other side of the clearing, its head crowned by impressive antlers. More twigs snapped under its hooves.
Sophie released a slow breath. The tension drained from her body. A freaking deer. If her father ever found out she’d quailed in terror over a deer, he’d never speak to her again.
“He’s never going to speak to you again, anyway,” said a little voice in her head. “Not when he finds out you ran away.”
Regret sliced through her. As soon as the emotion surfaced, she banished it to the back of her mind. Samuel Gregory had never slept with a knife under his pillow, his gaze on the door, praying the handle didn’t turn. He’d never felt hot breath against his neck while a heavy weight pinned him to a mattress. He didn’t know what real fear was.
But she did.
&n
bsp; Worse, he was responsible for her familiarity with that emotion. He’d delivered her into Asher Benton’s hands.
A shiver rippled down her spine, lifting the fur on her back.
Don’t think about it. She had other concerns at the moment, like putting as much distance as possible between her and Burlington. Technically, Asher’s compound sat twenty miles from the city center, but she’d calculated her route based on the biggest cities she could find on the map. She wasn’t much of a navigator, but even she could recognize the difference between a metropolitan area and a farm town. Modern cities had their own particular scents—a combination of car exhaust and the faintly sweet rot of decay generated by buried garbage.
Across the clearing, the deer turned and disappeared into the trees, its tail a streak of white against the bright fall foliage. Sophie bent her head. The strap around her neck slid forward on her shoulders, and the sack dangled toward the ground. For a second, its weight shifted higher on her neck, and the ache in her muscles faded. She hadn’t packed much—just a change of clothes, her ID, and the little cash she’d managed to steal—but the weight had seemed to grow heavier as she ran.
Probably the boots. Uncertain if or when she might have to switch to two feet instead of four, she’d brought her most rugged footwear. Supernatural healing ability or no, werewolves couldn’t regenerate toes lost to frostbite.
Or a husband’s threats.
The whimper tried to escape her throat again. She squeezed her eyes shut. Stop it. She couldn’t afford to dwell on Asher right now. What she needed was a distraction—something to keep her mind from sliding into a spiral of fear and despair. If she went down that path, she’d never reach her destination.
But her body didn’t care what her brain wanted. The tremors started in her legs and worked their way up. At the same time, her throat grew tight and tears burned her eyes. She shook her muzzle once, hard, but the familiar panic rushed over her skin, lifting her fur. Her knees loosened. A whooshing noise filled her ears.
Fight it. Keep moving. The thoughts flitted through her head, but seizing on one was like trying to grasp at a passing log as she was swept down a river. The panic knew her too well—and it always, always won.
Just as she was about to collapse, a deep voice shot through her head. “You’ll be all right, chère.”
The words were so loud and clear, her eyes flew open. She spun in a circle, but it was just her and the trees. The man behind the words wasn’t in the forest, but his voice was unmistakable, and his assurance was familiar.
After all, he’d said it to her before.
She let her body drop to the ground as the tension left her. It was foolish to linger, but so was running until she collapsed of exhaustion. She rested her muzzle on her front legs and let out a canine sigh. She didn’t have food or shelter, but she had her memories. She closed her eyes and let Remy Arsenault’s deep voice rush through her mind again.
“You’ll be all right, chère.”
The first time he’d told her that, she’d stood next to a line of dark SUVs on the Pennsylvania-New York border, wiping her sweaty palms on her jeans as her stomach threatened to reject the omelet she’d eaten that morning. Her escort—a group of Hunters handpicked to deliver her to the edge of her father’s territory—had waited a distance away, their postures tense and primed for a fight. Like all Alphas, her father surrounded himself with a small army of elite wolves called Hunters. Part security detail, part fighting force, they answered only to him and his second-in-command, the pack’s Beta wolf.
As a rule, werewolves didn’t enjoy venturing outside their territories. They especially didn’t enjoy mingling with wolves from neighboring packs. The phrase “does not play well with others” was an understatement. Hunters took this general trait and amplified it times a million, then threw in a few extra gallons of testosterone for good measure.
After riding in a convoy with them for two hours, her nerves were as ragged as the edge of an old dish towel.
Near the front of the vehicles, her father’s Beta faced off with Dominic Prado, Beta for the New York Territory and the wolf responsible for ferrying her to her final destination. The two had been locked in conversation for over twenty minutes as they hammered out the agreement that would hopefully stop anyone from dying or losing a limb as her caravan moved through New York on its way to Vermont.
The deep voice had startled her, and she’d turned…then craned her head back to take in the tall wolf standing over her. As she met his gaze, her breath caught.
He was gorgeous.
Not like “hey, he’s kinda cute” gorgeous. More like “I think I just spontaneously ovulated” gorgeous. Some people might describe his hair as “dirty blond,” but the dark golden color was a perfect match for his tan skin and leaf-green eyes. It hugged his scalp in a jumble of curls that begged a woman to run her hands through it. His square jaw and high cheekbones were saved from being too angular by a generous mouth and wide grin that softened his face, making him the poster boy for, well, boyish good looks.
Although, the boyish moniker only lasted as far as his face. Because from the chin down, he was all man. As in, six-and-a-half feet of ripped, Arnold-like physique. At just over six feet tall, she didn’t often get an opportunity to feel small. Next to this wolf, however, she was practically petite. He looked like he could fell a tree with his bare hands.
As she stared at him, dumbstruck, he leaned closer and spoke out the side of his mouth. “Although, I’m not too confident about those guys.” He jerked a thumb toward her father’s wolves. “I’ve heard it’s hard to walk with a stick up your ass.”
She looked at the cluster of wolves. One turned and caught her gaze, his mouth compressed in a thin, flat line. He frowned at the wolf next to her. “Got something to say, Arsenault?”
“Not to you.”
“Then maybe you should rejoin your pack.”
“No thanks.” The green-eyed wolf looked down at Sophie and winked. “I prefer the company over here.”
Her father’s wolf growled and took a step toward them, but the wolf next to him put a restraining hand on his arm. “Leave it alone, James. It’s just Arsenault being a dick.” He tossed a scornful look over his shoulder. “Again,” he added.
The first wolf let out another soft growl, but faced forward.
Sophie exhaled.
“He seems nice,” the wolf next to her said.
She met his gaze. “You’re Remy Arsenault.”
His smile faltered. But then he seemed to recover, and he shoved a hand through his hair. “I take it my reputation precedes me?”
Boy, did it. She didn’t usually pay attention to pack gossip—not like other girls her age, who always seemed to know who was sleeping with whom and how often. But even she’d heard of Remy Arsenault, werewolf playboy and serial dater. Although he was a Hunter and therefore a fighter, she’d never heard of him participating in the dominance contests popular among most Hunters. On the contrary, he was known for hopping in and out of beds more often than Goldilocks. Rumor had it he’d left a trail of broken hearts across a dozen or more territories. Still, women tripped over themselves to date him. Looking at him now, Sophie could understand why. The man would make some seriously beautiful babies.
And babies were the ultimate life goal of every wolf she knew, male or female. Their species had never been particularly fertile, but the past century had seen birthrates plummet. Although werewolves lived about fifty years longer than the average human and could reproduce well into their eighties and nineties, it was rare for a couple to have more than one child. Despite a slow aging process and immunity from all forms of disease, werewolves slipped closer to extinction with each passing year. As a result, most parents pressured their offspring to marry young and start trying for children as soon as possible.
She should know. From the moment she’d been old enough to understand the birds and the bees, her father had made her purpose in life clear. It was her destiny to be wed and
bred, and it didn’t matter if she wanted either of those things. The species needed her uterus, not her brains and certainly not her heart.
Remy watched her, a frown pulling his blond eyebrows together. “Hey. You okay? I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble with your pack—”
“No.” She shook her head. “You didn’t. Anyway, I won’t see those guys after today.” She hugged her arms around her middle. For some reason she blurted, “I’m on my way to get married.”
A soft smile touched his mouth. “Yes. I know.”
Ugh. Of course he did. He was from the New York Territory, where Maxime Simard was Alpha. He’d come with Dominic and the rest of Maxime’s wolves to escort her to Vermont, where her fiancé waited.
A shiver rippled across her skin. She’d only met Asher Benton a handful of times, but something about him unsettled her. Or maybe it was just the deep disappointment she’d seen in his eyes every time they’d talked.
She tightened her arms under her breasts and nodded toward the cluster of wolves. “Yeah, well, this is the unhappiest wedding party I’ve ever seen.”
His gaze strayed to the two Betas, who were hunched over a map they’d spread over the hood of the lead vehicle. He let out a dramatic sigh. “That’s probably Dom’s fault. He makes everyone unhappy. It’s a unique talent of his.”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. “Is that so? I thought he was your best friend.” As soon as she said it, she could have melted into the pavement. Way to reveal you’re a stalker, Soph. She cleared her throat. “Someone told me that. My father gave me a background briefing before I left. He wanted me to feel comfortable.”
If he smelled her lie, he didn’t show it. He just leaned against the SUV and stretched a long arm along the outside of the driver’s side window. “It’s true. Dom and I have been besties since we were little pups.”
The expression made her smile, even though it was inaccurate. Werewolves didn’t make their first Turn until puberty, which meant there was no such thing as a werewolf pup. Still, the image it conjured was adorable. She pictured a small, green-eyed wolf scampering through the forest on oversized paws, its fuzzy coat reflecting the sun.