A Pack of Two

by Jacky Russell

  “Does that wolf have any idea what you did to get rid of the Malandanti?”

  “No, he hasn’t regained consciousness.”

  “Good, at least we won’t have to try to explain that. By the way, how did you get rid of them?”

  “I called a friend.” The back of my fingers brushed along the wolf’s bruised cheek. He moaned softly and licked his lips.

  “Breanna, you need to let the Bravo wolves deal with this. The Italian Alpha is one of the most powerful werewolves in Europe and could easily believe you attacked this pack wolf.”

  “I’ll be careful.” I signed off and looked down at the injured werewolf. His grip, even in his weakened condition, was substantial enough my bones ached. I pulled a cloth from my fatigue pocket and dabbed at the blood trickling from his mouth.

  His eyes fluttered opened, pure silver boring into me. The werewolf, his wolf fully ascended, watched me warily. He was human in body but wolf in mind and that made him very unpredictable. He was injured, but had enough strength that he could easily snap my neck if he felt I was a threat.

  “I mean no harm,” I said.

  The silver eyes never wavered from mine. In wolf language, direct eye contact was a display of dominance, a solicitation for a fight, a demand for submission, but oddly there was no threat in his stare. Somewhere deep inside me, something snapped to attention, as if my soul had awakened for the first time.

  He squeezed my hand harder. My bones threatened to crunch. He held his breath and clenched his teeth until I placed a hand on his forehead.

  “Shhh, easy, Wolf. Shhh, easy.” I stroked his forehead while his breathing resumed and his jaw relaxed. “Easy, Wolf, I’m here to help.”

  He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, his grip loosening a little. My heart beat wildly as his thumb rubbed tiny circles on the back of my hand. My body reacted to his touch, yearning for more, wanting to caress his lips, his chest, his…

  “Thank you.” He sounded like he’d gargled with glass.

  “You’re welcome.”

  He opened his eyes, now tinged with brown, and smiled weakly. “What happened?”

  “You ran off the road. Your bike’s over there. Pretty much totaled, I’d guess.”

  He turned his head and groaned at the sight of the charred Ducati. I chuckled and the brown eyes captured me.

  “Why are you helping me?”

  I wiped the blood from his face and shrugged. “You had a cool bike.”

  He reached for my face, gloved fingers softly caressing my cheek. I was lost in his eyes, helpless as a mouse with no hope of escape as his fingers travelled along my jaw toward my chin.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Breanna.”

  “Breanna. A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

  “You must have hit your head when you crashed.”

  He clenched his eyes and gritted his teeth, a semblance of a laugh rumbling in his chest. “Ow,” he choked, coughing up fresh blood.

  “Sorry,” I said, wiping his pain-twisted face.

  He smiled but it didn’t touch his eyes. I wished I could do more to help him. My grandmother would have known how, but his injuries were beyond my magical abilities.

  “Some other wolves are on their way to help get you to the hospital.”

  I expected him to look relieved but he didn’t. He hacked up more blood. I eased him farther onto my lap and held his head until the coughing fit passed.

  “You need to save your strength, Wolf.” I wiped the blood from his face, my fingers lingering along his jawline.

  Silver tinged his espresso eyes. “Will they hurt you for being here?”

  What an odd question.

  I brushed back his hair. “No, they are soldiers in my unit. They won’t harm anybody unless I tell them to.”

  He smiled and my heart thundered loudly enough every living thing in the forest could have heard it. He had the most beautiful, perfect white teeth. “I’d kill them if they hurt you.”

  “Brave words for a wolf in your condition,” I muttered before finding myself lost in a sea of brown.

  “I’m Lucas.” His voice was weak, his eyes dulled with pain, but there was an aura about him, unrelenting dominance. “Lucas Benelli.”

  The man was too hot for words. It really had to be illegal to look that good in a leather riding suit.

  Holy cannoli.

  Before I could formally introduce myself, the bright glow of headlights shone over the cliff above us. Tires squealed to a stop, followed by voices yelling for me.

  “Sounds like the cavalry is here,” I said as the voices grew closer. “Down here, fellas.”

  Rocks rolled and I shielded Lucas’s head with my body as Ordy and two other werewolves plunked into the clearing. They were all empty-handed.

  “Did you forget something?” I asked as they got closer.

  The soldiers looked at one another like I had asked for the top speed of a charging wildebeest.

  “You guys plan to kiss him and make him better? Where the hell are the backboard and the first aid kit?”

  Lucas tightened his grip on my hand. Alpha-like dominance filled the air.

  “It’s okay, Lucas. They’re friends.” I laid my hand against his cheek and urged him to look at me. “I give my word they mean no harm.”

  Desperation flickered to fear before the silver took over his eyes. His wolf surged, trying to force a change, but a change in this condition would kill him.

  “Lucas, can you hear me?” I motioned for the approaching wolves to stop. They did.

  Nothing but wolf looked back at me.

  “Wolf, listen to me.” The silver eyes watched apprehensively. “If you force the change, you will both die. Let me help and you will both live. I swear no one will harm you.”

  His gaze flickered from me to the waiting werewolves. “Stay.”

  I nodded and the silver slowly receded. He sighed heavily.

  “Thank you.”

  I motioned for my wolves to come forward but their eyeballs were bugging out of their heads. The impatient snap of my fingers made them resume their approach. Lucas death-gripped my hand.

  “They’re going to help lift you and slide the board under your back, all right?”

  His entire body tensed but he nodded. As the soldiers neared, Lucas fought with his wolf for control. I laid my free hand against his cheek and his wolf settled. “Easy, Wolf. You have to trust me.”

  Lucas blinked and for a fleeting second he reminded me of a scared little boy. Yeah, a scared little boy who could rip my throat out if his wolf surged at the wrong time. Of course Ordy and the others would immediately kill him, but that would be a waste.

  We got him loaded onto the chopper and I sent the boys back to the Humvee. They argued, saying Simon told them to ride with the injured werewolf. I wasn’t about to leave him–not that Ordy or the others would hurt him, but Lucas wasn’t comfortable around them.

  “Breanna?”

  I looked down into his handsome face. “Uh huh?”

  “Are you an angel? I mean, I must be dead or something, right?”

  Being a witch and a woman in the military, I'd been called many things, but never an angel. “I’m not an angel and you most certainly are not dead.”

  His face softened. “I think you’re an angel.”

  He thinks I’m an angel? Damn, how hard did he hit his head?

  The chopper ride took fifteen minutes. We needed to go to a hospital equipped to tend injured werewolves. The human pilots looked a little surprised when I ordered them to fly to a hospital farther away than their normal flight pattern, but one look at the stripes on my shoulder garnered me a curt “yes, ma’am” and the chopper took flight. They had no clue their injured cargo was a supernatural.

  The hospital helipad was on the roof and a team of medical staff, all Elvin folk, were milling about. Naturally gifted healers of the supernatural world, the peaceful blue-eyed, blond-haired elves were always the ones who took car
e of injured werewolves, vampires, or whatever other non-human came through the doors.

  The humans thought supernaturals were of a religious faith that did not believe in any type of blood testing or transfusions. It wouldn’t be cool for some third-year medical student to come across the undead blood of a vampire or the ramped-up metabolism of a werewolf. It took keeping the right people in the right places. The Divine Council, the ruling body of the supernatural world, did a great job of managing all the details.

  We hadn’t talked during the ride to the hospital, our hands locked together. His wolf was quiet. His breathing was soft. His heart had calmed. As the elves circled the chopper, I softly kissed his forehead.

  “We’re here, handsome.”

  The lost little boy look was back. “Can’t you come in?”

  It felt good to be wanted, even if it was by a werewolf delirious with pain. “Probably not a good idea,” I answered, hoping my voice didn’t crack.

  “Okay,” he said, “but can I see you again?”

  Brown eyes swallowed me.

  “Take care of yourself, Lucas Benelli.” I brushed another kiss on his forehead as the nurses wheeled him away. His fingers slipped from mine as he disappeared behind the enormous double glass doors of the hospital. It took every ounce of strength I had to climb into the waiting chopper.

  He’s gone. Suck it up, buttercup, and move on.

  “To the base, ma’am?”

  “Yeah.”

  He thought I was an angel?

  Every instinct in my body said I should go in the hospital and make sure Lucas was all right. He was injured. He was vulnerable.

  He needs me.

  I banged my fist against the chopper door. An unknown witch among supernaturals would cause nothing but trouble and Simon would wring my neck if I got all of Italy in a tizzy.

  I was under orders not to engage. Going in the hospital would be further engagement. Damn.

  As the chopper lifted, I slipped on my headset. Simon would be furious and I needed to get a hold on myself before we landed at Camp Ederle. He would blast me for disobeying orders and doing something plain damn stupid like riding to the hospital without any backup. He would be right, of course. Simon was always right.

  I settled into the back seat and rubbed my hand. Lucas had held on so tightly he’d left bruises. Holding werewolves’ hands as they were transported for medical treatment wasn’t new, but with Lucas, there was something that ate at me. The sadness and fear in his eyes made my chest hurt.

  I should not have left him.

  An invisible rope tugged me to go through the double doors of the hospital. I could wait with him for a little while. Hold his hand while the doctors checked his injuries.

  Too bad I didn’t have an invisibility spell. Wonder if they’d have noticed an owl?

  With muscles bunched, I was ready to leap from the chopper when a wave of power swept across the helipad. An Alpha werewolf, probably the Italian Alpha, was in the building. Anger–no, make that rage–coursed through the air. One very pissed-off Alpha was on the premises and a lone witch was not what he needed to see.

  Chapter 2

  Lucas

  The sharp smell of antiseptic assaulted my nose and bright light needled my eyes. My mouth tasted like cotton and what the hell was wrong with my leg? Had a train hit me?

  “Lucas? Can you hear me?” The worried words of my father rattled in my head. Why didn’t painkillers work on wolves?

  “Turn the lights down, Josef. They’re blinding him,” my mother chimed in her feathery soft voice. “Lucas, you’re in the hospital. Your father and I are here.”

  The fuzzy figures of my parents standing over me came into focus.

  “Tell us what happened.”

  “Oh, Josef, please let the boy wake up before you interrogate him,” my mother snapped. Only she could get away with talking to the Alpha of the Italian Pack in such a manner.

  “Gemma, I am only trying to determine what course of action I should take.”

  “Hey, Mom.”

  My mother leaned down and smiled. “Oh, honey, we were so worried.”

  “What happened?” my father demanded as he moved to the foot of my bed.

  “I crashed my bike.”

  Josef Benelli slammed his hands on the bed railing. “Why were you on the mountain road?”

  And here we go.

  “I’d been to see Tristyn.”

  Not what he wanted to hear.

  My father snorted and rubbed his temples. “Why were you not with your mate?”

  I tried to sit up but stopped abruptly as sharp pain slashed across my side. “Tessa is not my mate.”

  “You are to be joined at the next full moon,” Mom said as she perched on the chair beside my bed. “The Alpha has declared as such.”

  I lolled my head in the pillow. “I can’t have a conversation with Tessa without it ending in a fight. How could I possibly take her as my wife?” I meant the question rhetorically but my father answered.

  “You do not need to talk to her. You need to bed her and produce offspring for the life of the pack.”

  Now I knew why he and Mom fought all the time. My father wasn’t exactly up on modern thinking.

  “Is that why you went to see Tristyn, because you’re worried about your impending mating?” My mother’s brows knitted, her gaze darting from me to my father.

  “No, I went to watch the hockey game.”

  My father crossed his arms and frowned. “Lucas, it is time you took a greater role in this pack and spent more time with your own kind. I have tried to indulge your desire to maintain a friendship with Tristyn, but it is time you dedicated yourself to your pack.”

  “This isn’t my pack.” Was there a jackhammer in my head?

  Silver flakes appeared in his blue eyes. “You are the son of the Alpha. It is your role in this pack.”

  “Josef,” my mother interrupted. “Please don’t do this now. We almost lost Lucas tonight.”

  My father bowed his head, slowly calming his wolf. “We will discuss this when your injuries have healed. I will post a guard outside your room tonight. The doctors said you should be able to go home tomorrow. Your mother will prepare your room and you will stay with us.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair. Every conversation with him ended in a fight. “I’ll be fine at my house.”

  “It was not a suggestion, Lucas,” he replied as he turned to the door. “Your mate is waiting to speak with you.”

  My wolf stirred at the sharp words of my father. We’d done nothing but fight since I returned over a year ago. At the time, coming back to Italy had seemed like the right thing. Now, not so much.

  Mom watched quietly as my father left the room. “He is worried. You could have been killed tonight.”

  “But I wasn’t.”

  She pursed her lips. “Lucas, you need to try harder to work things out with your father. He loves you but he doesn’t understand why you stay so far from your pack.”

  “You know why I don’t go around the pack.”

  She handed me a cup of water. “You are an adult now. Stephano forgave you years ago. It is time to let go of your deranged childhood notions and take your place in the pack.”

  The ghosts of long-buried memories strained against walls that kept them confined in a rarely visited part of my mind. I’d worked hard to lock them away and now my mom was coaxing them to escape.

  Thanks for being on my side, Mom.

  “They weren’t notions.” I put the cup back onto the tray and watched her face. She didn’t believe me now any more than when I was ten years old.

  “You were confused about your…your…desires.”

  The walls quivered but the memories stayed inside. Even twenty years later her disregard for what had happened sent shockwaves through my stomach. How could a mother not believe her son?

  “What happened had nothing to do with my desires.”

  She crossed her arms. “Stephano has scars y
et he has worked hard to remain a part of his pack.”

  I had scars, too.

  She crossed the room to the window. “Stephano could have asked the Alpha for your life, but he chose to forgive your indiscretions.”

  “Just leave me alone, Mom. I don’t want to talk about this.”

  Her shoulders heaved. “Your father deserves more from his son.” Tiny flickers of silver appeared in her eyes. “It is up to you to right the wrongs of the past with your father and your pack. Any other Alpha would have killed you for what happened, but Josef saw fit to let you live. You have no idea how trying that time was for him and the pack.”

  She stormed out, leaving me with an even bigger headache. I should have kept my job with the Divine Council and stayed away from this place. Trying to rebuild the relationship with my father was not worth all this. It didn’t matter what I did. I was not my brother.

  Tessa Del Vigglio burst through the door, practically knocking it from its hinges. The statuesque blond bombshell turned her wicked blue eyes in my direction.

  “I thought you were working late and now I find out you were at that freak vampire’s house. What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded, shaking a perfectly manicured red nail at my face.

  “I’m doing fine, thanks for asking.”

  “You’re an idiot. You were supposed to be with me, helping plan our mating ceremony. I’ve had it with you. My father is on his way to speak with the Alpha about your behavior. Do you have any idea how many wolves wanted me as their mate and your father declared I was chosen for you, to bear children for the future Alpha?” She threw her hands into the air in true drama queen fashion.

  I gritted my teeth and looked out the barred window, so tired of this conversation. “I am not going to be the next Alpha.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Of course you aren’t. You don’t have the balls to lead and nobody would listen to you, anyway. I deserve so much better than a pathetic loser like you. If your father wasn’t the Alpha, I wouldn’t have given you a second glance and you would have been dead the day you returned to pack territory.”