Declaration of Courtship

by Nalini Singh

  Chapter 11

  HE ALMOST BROKE, but he couldn't, wouldn't, taint her with his pain, didn't want her to feel caged by his need. "Why don't you talk to me? I hear you're going out with your engineering crew."

  "Yes, a dinner to celebrate our early completion of the section 4B rehaul." She petted his shoulders in that affectionate way she had of touching him. "Want to come?"

  Yes. "No, you have fun. Shamus and I are planning to go shoot some pool." He would not monitor her life just because it drove him insane to not be certain if she was safe. "I'll come by and say good night if we get in at a reasonable hour."

  Dark eyes watched him. "I haven't forgotten."

  He knew she hadn't. He also knew this was his cross to bear. "There's nothing to worry about."

  The night was excruciating. Returning from the bar, he and Shamus got stuck in a traffic jam caused by some kind of protest and didn't get back into the den till after eleven. Aware it was too late to wake Grace up, he nevertheless went past her quarters, hoping against hope to see light under the door. But she was asleep...or not in. And there was no one he could ask to confirm without betraying too much, so instead he waited for dawn and turned up to take her out to breakfast.

  Where he held her for so long, she knew something was very wrong. He dodged her questions again, though he knew it couldn't go on this way forever. But today, he wanted only to bury himself in the wild joy of courting her. Because she was the bright light in the dark--his wolf swaggered around the den, so delighted with the woman who was his own that he didn't care who razzed him about being smitten.

  "Word is she's got you wrapped around her finger," his alpha said to him two days later, an amused look in eyes so pale, they were those of a husky given human form. "They're taking bets on what you'll do next to court her. I heard about the violinist."

  "This pack has far too much time on its hands," Cooper muttered, but even sleep deprived as he was, he was in too good a mood to be mad. Because Grace was letting him chase her--and his wolf did love a challenge.

  He grinned, thinking of the surprise he'd left her.

  *

  GRACE had to physically fight a hot red blush when she walked into her office to see the black box tied with a pink ribbon sitting on her desk. That wasn't what had heat blazing over her skin. It was the discreet symbol on the bottom left corner of the side facing the door--of a high-end lingerie shop.

  Vivienne whistled from beside her. "Oh, now the man is playing hardball."

  Grace had heard about the male wolves' exhibitionist tendencies during the mating dance, but Cooper knew very well she was shy about certain things. "I'm going to kill him," she muttered, trying to avoid the chief's and Paul's eyes as they walked past her office for the third time, necks craning.

  "Don't murder the man until you see what's inside."

  "I am not opening this here."

  "Come on, Grace." Vivienne nudged the door shut in the men's faces. "There, see? We're all private."

  Someone knocked.

  When Vivienne scowled and opened the door a peek, Emma poked her head inside, the glossy dark of her bob swinging across her cheek. "I had time before a class, and I heard..." Her eyes lighting up when she saw the box, she came in, shut the door, then hit the lock for good measure. "God, he really did do it. Even my guy wasn't this shameless."

  Grace's stomach did a little flip. My guy. That sounded nice. She'd like to call Cooper her guy. After she killed him. "He could've had this delivered to my room."

  "Please, Grace." Vivienne snorted. "The lingerie might be for you, but the message is for everyone else. Hands off sexy Grace. She's all miiiiiiiiine. Grr and snarl and grr some more."

  Grace glared at her as Emma dissolved into giggles...but when Vivienne started beating her chest, her teeth bared, it was all over. It was some minutes later that she wiped the tears from her eyes and, giving in to their wheedling, tugged on the ribbon. "Breathe a word of what's inside and I'll make sure the lighting in your room gets stuck on bright noonday sun all week."

  "Done."

  Emma hesitated. "Can I tell Shamus? Please." She pressed her hands together. "It might, you know, give him ideas."

  "Not a word."

  "Okay, okay." Miming zipping her lips, the other woman said, "Open it before I explode."

  They crowded around as she lifted the lid to reveal fine white tissue paper. Nestled within was a garment that made all three of them exhale in sheer pleasure. Rather than anything scandalous, Cooper had bought her a thigh-length nightgown in midnight blue, the straps ribbon-thin, the material cut so it would hug her body in all the right places, the fabric itself pure sin.

  "Oh, this makes me want to purr." Emma rubbed the midnight blue between her fingertips. "I'm dragging Shamus to this store until he gets the hint."

  Vivienne sighed again. "The man gets serious brownie points for taste."

  Grace stroked her hand over the garment, in love. She'd never have bought it for herself, would've considered it too decadent, too expensive. "Maybe I won't kill him," she admitted in a dreamy voice, imagining Cooper's big, callused hands sliding the straps from her shoulders, his stubbled jaw rough against her skin, his lips possessive.

  Vivienne nudged her shoulder, a knowing gleam in her eye. "Aren't you going to open the other packages?" She pointed inside the box.

  "No." Cooper only had a limited store of good behavior, and she was dead certain he'd used it all up on the nightgown.

  Her friends made disappointed sounds, begging pitifully, but Grace held firm, ushering them out the door, and locking it behind the two before returning to the box and surrendering to her own wild curiosity. She'd been right to worry.

  "I would," she muttered to him later that night, as she straddled him in the backseat of the SUV he'd signed out of the garage, "have to be in a very, very, very good mood to put on that teddy. It might as well be made of tissue." Instead of impossibly delicate red lace that would cup her breasts and glide over her abdomen with no intention of hiding anything.

  Cooper, sprawled half naked and magnificent against the seat, grinned. "I liked the hooks."

  "That's because they're on the back." Making it clear it wasn't a garment a woman was meant to either put on or take off by herself. "And what do you call that last piece?"

  "Panties." Knuckles running down the naked line of her breastbone to her abdomen, exposed due to the fact the sexy male beneath her had talked her into unbuttoning her shirt for him. "Definitely panties."

  Her thighs clenched. "What exactly is that teeny, tiny scrap of red meant to cover?"

  "Hopefully not much." He tugged at the waistband of the floaty knee-length skirt she'd dressed in tonight in a conscious decision that made her feel naughty in the most adult way. "Tell me you're wearing them."

  Arousal was liquid honey in her veins, thick and rich and oh-so-luscious "No," she said, playing with him. "I think I should punish you for how you've been tormenting me."

  Teeth on her lower lip. "God, I love it when you're bad, Grace." His fingers went to the bottom edge of her skirt, his hand spreading on her thigh in a caress of rough heat. "Can I?"

  Heartbeat jerky in her throat, she shook her head...and reached down to slowly, so slowly, bunch the skirt ever higher up her thighs. Cooper's breath was harsh, loud in the confines of the SUV, his eyes a wild yellow that traced every inch she bared. It was intoxicating, his raw desire made her feel like a sexual siren when she'd always thought her sensuality a gentle flame.

  There was nothing gentle about her need or her possessiveness where Cooper was concerned. He could arouse her with a word, a look, and she hungered for him to complete his claim, her body in a constant state of readiness. It wouldn't be long, she thought, before her wolf took that final step into absolute, unremitting trust.

  "Higher." A growled demand when she stopped near the top of her thighs. "I want to see."

  Skin damp with perspiration, she kept the skirt where it was. "What's my incentive?"
>
  Wild yellow blazing at her in the dark, the windows fogged up to enclose them in steamy intimacy. "I'll lick you until you come. Now, keep moving."

  Whimpering, she obeyed the order, saw him jerk his head up and check that the whimper was one of passion. Satisfied, he returned his gaze to the miniscule red triangle that shielded her from his view, his hand clenching on her thigh. "Take them off."

  Her legs quivered. Dropping her skirt, she leaned backward until she hit the back of the front seat, her chest rising and falling as she fought to suck in enough air to clear the haze in her mind.

  Muscular thighs rock hard beneath her, Cooper's hands closed over her knees. "You're going to make me wait?"

  She licked her lips, nodded. "You're being punished, remember?"

  "Then let me plead my case." Holding her gaze, he cupped her.

  She moaned at the proprietary hold, feeling herself grow more damp with every passing second.

  A brush of his thumb across the taut nub at the apex of her thighs, the pleasure piercing her to the core. She arched into his touch, even as an acrid sensation she didn't want to feel began to eat away at the sumptuous wave of passion, the wildness in her sensing the acute vulnerability that awaited if the wave crashed. Gritting her teeth, she tried to ride it out, but Cooper knew.

  Removing his hand, he tucked her against his body, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other on her lower back. She wrapped her arms around his neck and breathed in the rich earth and dark amber of his scent, her wolf rubbing up gently against his own in silent apology.

  His response was a low rumble of a growl. "It's my own damn fault for buying you those panties."

  Laying her head against his shoulder, she petted his beautiful chest. "Yes," she agreed, "it is."

  That got her a growl...and, "When are you going to wear the teddy?"

  *

  ABLE to feel herself hovering on the brink of that final, ineffable trust, Grace got up the next morning wishing the hours away so she could play with her dominant lover when night fell, but the day ended up being unexpectedly, dangerously long.

  "We have a serious problem at the hydro station," her boss, Barney, said around five that afternoon. "A computronic issue that only became apparent a couple of hours ago."

  The timing, Grace thought, couldn't be worse. The region was heading into a severe new storm, forecast to hit tonight. It was meant to be so bad that a team had been dispatched to bring the wild wolves that shared their territory into the den for the night. "Are Elizabeth and Diego up there?" she asked, referring to the two senior station techs.

  "Yeah, but they need someone from your team. The air system at the control station is acting glitchy, CO2 alarms on the fritz, and they have to batten down the hatches, spend the night babying the computronics."

  Dangerous, Grace thought, if the air filters failed and carbon dioxide built up in a contained area. Unlike the den, the below-ground control station had no natural airflow conduits to negate the risk, and the storm would make heading outside just as bad a choice. "Den's got generator backup," she said. "It'd be safer to recall them."

  "I suggested that, but Elizabeth says if they leave the problem, it could end up crippling the station, take weeks to repair. That happens, den will be reliant on the backup battery units in the critical systems--generators are only meant to run for a few days at most." He rubbed his forehead. "We won't go dark, but things will function at minimal levels at best. If the solar panels hadn't been damaged...."

  Grace knew even with the pack's scientific manufacturing arm putting a rush on the specially calibrated panels, it would take at least another week to get everything in place. "Paul's our air expert," she said, hating the idea of sending any of her people out in this weather.

  "I tried him, but he's not in his quarters and he didn't file a schedule. Figured you might know where he's working."

  That was when Grace recalled why she hadn't seen Paul today. "Damn, I forgot. I gave him a couple of days off so he could go to his father's birthday party in L.A. He left this morning."

  "How about Jenson?"

  Grace shook her head. "Jenson's still apprentice level." He might panic under the kind of pressure at the station. "I'll go--air is my secondary specialization, and I have plenty of on-the-ground experience." She frowned. "Jenson should be able to deal with anything that comes up here, but call Paul in L.A. and have him provide remote backup and guidance. If you can't get hold of Paul, call Zang at the San Rafael den or Shae at the main den."

  Ten minutes later, she threw an overnight bag in a truck and sent Cooper a message.

  Heading to hydro station. Staying overnight.

  Chapter 12

  SHE WAS TWENTY minutes away when he called on the car's system.

  "Are you driving up alone?"

  His protectiveness warmed her. "Yes, but the winds are manageable." Though she could feel them buffeting the heavy all-wheel drive vehicle she'd signed out. "I'll be safe under shelter before the storm breaks."

  "Call me when you get to the station."

  "You stay safe, too." She knew he'd be the first one out in the fury if anything happened. "Have you got a satellite phone?" Proving the adage that trouble came in threes, the main comm tower had gone down forty minutes ago, leaving a huge dead zone as far as normal mobile reception. The only good news was that thanks to underground cabling, the den's hardwired lines remained functional.

  "Yes. You?"

  "No, but Elizabeth and Diego both do." Personnel who worked regularly in isolated areas were issued them as a matter of course after a packwide mandate.

  "Take care, Grace. I'll be pissed off otherwise."

  For some reason, that bad-tempered statement made her smile. "Same."

  She reached the station as the wind was kicking up, and found the techs both outside, attempting to coax a wild wolf and her tiny pups out of a tree hollow that wouldn't protect them from the raging force of the storm. Aware the female would react better to her, Grace waved Elizabeth and Diego away and held out a hand. It took ten minutes in the driving rain before the wolf gripped one of her pups in her teeth and gave her to Grace. Grace cuddled the pup close and led the mother--who gripped the second pup by the scruff of its neck--into the station.

  "Could I borrow one of your sat phones?" she asked after they'd dried off and created a nest of blankets for the wild wolves. "My cell's got no signal." She'd double-checked to be certain.

  Red hair in a halo around her face, Elizabeth glanced at Diego with a distinctly guilty expression. "I forgot mine in the rush to get up here, but Diego's way more organiz--"

  Loud swearing from her partner. "I had it in my pocket, must've lost it while we were outside."

  Since it was their sole means of communication with the den, they decided to go back out into the now-pitch-black night to look for it--only to be shoved back inside by the gale force wind that turned even the smallest object into a deadly projectile. A heavy broken-off branch nearly took off Elizabeth's head before Grace wrenched her out of the way.

  "Hell!" Shoving the door shut with their help, Diego bolted it, leaving the branch where it had crashed into the opposite wall. "That's it, we're stuck here till the storm passes."

  Grace thought of the concern in Cooper's voice and hoped he wouldn't worry too much when he didn't hear from her, even as her wolf fretted about him in turn. "I better get to work on the air"--she picked up the wolf pup clawing at her work boot, took it back to its exasperated mother--"or we'll have to open a window."

  The other two laughed but it was strained--built into the side of a small hill, with only a doorway to reveal it was there, the control station had no windows. All three of them knew that with the unpredictable air glitches, there was no way of knowing for certain how much breathable air was left in the bowels of the facility, two levels below this one...the area that housed the sophisticated computronics needed to run the hydro station.

  *

  COOPER carried in the soldier
who'd broken his leg when he slipped in the muddy terrain and deposited him in the infirmary. "Are they all in?" he asked Shamus, using a towel to wipe off the wet, a touch of blood saturating the fabric from a piece of debris that had whipped across his face.

  "Yes. Or accounted for--few are bunkered down in the perimeter shelters, but they've called in and nobody's alone."

  The words did nothing to ease the ugly knot in Cooper's abdomen. "Any word from the station?"

  Shamus's expression turned grim. "No, but we've had no power fluctuations, so--" He stopped talking as the lights flickered. A second later, a low hum filled the air, the generators kicking in.

  Bile coated the back of Cooper's throat, a cold sweat breaking out along his spine. "I'm going up there. You're in charge." He knew the senior soldier could handle anything that occurred in his absence.

  "Jesus, Cooper. Be sensible."

  "Would you be if it was Emma up there?"

  "Shit." The other man shoved a hand through his hair. "Take the armored all-wheel drive. Thing's a tank."

  Cooper shook his head, impatient to start moving. "I'll make better time in wolf form, be lower to the ground."

  "If you need to bring someone back..."

  Someone hurt...or dead.

  He nodded, unable to voice the thought that was a razor in his throat.

  Shamus walked with him to the garage. "Turn on the tracking signal so we can keep an eye on you."

  "Done." As he drove, he tried to focus only on the weather and the track, in spite of the scrabbling panic that clawed at him, filling his mind with images of fire and melting flesh.

  He knew that was stupid, that even if something had gone wrong at the station, it would've involved a slow suffocation as the air turned to poison, not an explosion. It didn't matter. Fire was his horror and it was what haunted him.

  Crash!

  Wrenching the wheel, he barely avoided the tree smashing to the earth, his wolf's eyes scouring the wind-and rain-lashed dark for signs of further danger.

  Be safe, Grace. Be safe.

  They were the most agonizing three hours of his adult life, the journey taking twice the time it should have. When he pulled up in front of the door of the control station, it was to see the vehicle he knew Grace had checked out of the garage flipped over and smashed into a tree.