A Pack of Two

by Jacky Russell

  I ducked my head, my face getting hot. I must have looked like a weakling to her. I pushed off the bed, no longer willing to buy into the fantasy I had created. A woman like this didn’t want damaged goods like me.

  “Hey, where you going?” She stood between me and the door.

  The genuine pain on her face sucked the life from my soul. None of the kicks or punches hurt nearly as much as the way she was looking at me right now.

  “I shouldn’t have come here,” I said lamely.

  “Why did you come?” she asked. There was no accusation or anger in her voice, only concern.

  “I wanted to thank you for fixing the fax.”

  She took a deep breath, the rise and fall of her breasts making my own breath catch. She turned her back, busying herself with bandages.

  “You could have called,” she said before spinning around to face me.

  My hand that was resting on the door handle fell limply by my side. As much as I knew how this would turn out, I didn’t want to leave her.

  “I wanted to see you again,” I answered, giving her the opportunity to call me on my ridiculous obsession.

  “I wanted to see you, too.”

  I gulped for air like a fish out of water.

  She stepped toward me, taking my hand in hers. “Now that we are both equally uncomfortable, can I clean you up a bit?”

  Her smile was friendly, so sincere it turned me to mush. The way I kept losing my ability to talk, Breanna would probably think I had some type of speech impediment.

  She apologized over and over for the actions of the werewolves at the gate as she wiped the blood from my knuckles and face. She insisted on bandaging my ribs and holding ice to the blossoming bruises around my eye.

  The powerful vibration of a master vampire preceded a vigorous knock at the door.

  “Sergeant Welker?”

  “Come on in, Sime.”

  A tall, blond vampire marched into the room. Breanna didn’t flinch as she maintained the icepack against my cheek. Nothing in her scent suggested she was afraid of the vampire now scrutinizing us.

  “Lucas Benelli, this is Major Simon DuChard, my CO.”

  The vampire nodded eloquently. “Are you injured, Mr. Benelli?” He sounded French.

  “Yes, he’s injured,” Breanna snapped. “Ten against one isn’t exactly fair.”

  The fact she was defending me made me warm inside. Not a lot of people defended me.

  “Nothing vital, Major DuChard. It was a misunderstanding,” I answered.

  Breanna’s eyes lit up. “Misunderstanding, my ass. Aaron and them were being shithead bullies and they got their asses kicked.” She paused to adjust the ice bag. “And they’ll get them kicked again when I’m done.”

  The vampire scowled. “Sergeant Welker, may I speak with you outside?”

  “Not now.”

  The vampire’s shoulders slumped, his irritation flooding the room. I’d already caused enough trouble and didn’t need to add to it.

  “I’m okay,” I said, forcing a smile. “Go ahead and talk to him.”

  She took my hand and placed it against the ice pack. “Hold this. I’ll be right back.” She snorted before walking past the vampire and out the door. God, she was beautiful when she was angry.

  Breanna brooded over my scrapes and bruises for almost an hour before she walked me to my truck. Her unit was departing in a few hours and rather than getting rest, she was fussing over me. Major DuChard assured me Breanna was in no danger of retaliation from the soldiers I had fought. Actually, he’d insisted he would be protecting the werewolves from her.

  I made it to work on time and was putting the final touches on the new estimates when Alpha power shook the building. Bull-like breathing announced my father’s presence on the hall.

  “Lucas!”

  I was rolling up the blueprint and placing the estimates in the folder as the door flew open. Josef should have been pleased. We were coming in under budget.

  “Alpha,” I answered, his power threatening to suffocate me.

  “Why did you cut short the meeting with Burlesconi? I spoke to him this morning and he said you left your dinner meeting without an agreement.”

  My wolf bristled at the accusatory tone. “Something came up. I called and rescheduled the meeting. He didn’t sound upset.”

  Josef turned and stalked to the door, his body shaking. “What came up?”

  I opened my mouth to answer as he turned back and stormed to my desk.

  “And why were you on the military base? You have no business there.” The desk shook with the force of his rage. “Is that what happened to your face? A human teach you a lesson for being with his whore since you seem incapable of satisfying a woman of your own kind?” And then he delivered the dagger to my heart. “You were with a woman, I hope.”

  Why was I doing this? Nothing I said would be the right answer. “I think it’s time I leave Italy. This isn’t working and we both know it isn’t going to get any better.”

  He stared out the window. “You can’t run from everything, Lucas. It is time you took your role in this pack. I have neither the time nor the desire to fight you every step of the way. I gave you the most desirable woman in the pack as your mate, yet you refuse her. I offered you a place as my second-in-command and you parade your disrespect by not bothering to attend any pack functions.”

  “Not going to pack functions has nothing to do with disrespect for you. I don’t want to be a part of this pack. I don’t know how many times I have to say it for you to understand. I only came home to help you with Benelli Enterprises, period.”

  He didn’t bother to turn around. “I hope whatever was so important last night was worth it, because you cost this company a twenty-million-dollar contract. Your brother would have never done something so selfish and irresponsible.”

  He walked out the door and I grabbed the edges of my desk to keep from chasing him. Why did I keep doing this? I should throw my clothes in a bag and catch a plane to somewhere, anywhere but here.

  When I was working as an agent for the Divine Council, I had the legal right to move freely from pack territory to pack territory. Now, because I lived in Italy, I was a member of the Italian Pack and not welcome on other pack territory. My father wouldn’t release me to join another pack and the life expectancy of a lone wolf was less than a year.

  Maybe lone wolf wasn’t a bad idea after all. I’d be a target for other Alphas angry with my father and he had plenty of enemies. At least I’d be away from here. The way my mom had been acting, she wouldn’t miss me either.

  Pent-up rage bubbled to the surface as I flipped the desk, sending papers and pens flying. My phone slid across the floor to safety but my laptop wasn’t so lucky. I sank into my chair and buried my head in my hands, the desk flipping incident not making me feel any better.

  “Mr. Benelli?” Clara asked, peeking around the corner. “Are you all right?”

  She frowned at me like a kid who had broken a window. She leaned down and retrieved the blueprint. Maybe she didn’t see the silver flakes in my eyes but she knew I had lost control again.

  “I’m sorry, Clara.”

  “Mr. Benelli, I may be out of line and you may certainly fire me if you so choose, but I think you should go back to your Divine Council job. This business is not for you. You are not happy and no matter what you do, your father will never be satisfied.”

  Her words crashed on my head like a brick wall. “I was stupid to come back.”

  Cloth rustled as Clara crossed the room toward me. “Not stupid, just not in your best interest. You’ve never been a pack wolf, Mr. Benelli. Why did you think things would be any different this time?”

  I couldn’t look at her face. “I didn’t think things would be different. I only came back to help with Benelli Enterprises. I wasn’t exactly a joy as a child, so I thought I owed it to my parents to help.”

  She stood to the full height of her five-foot-one frame. “You owe them nothing,
particularly your mother.” Tiny flickers of silver flecked her eyes as she swiped a handful of pens from the floor. Clara patted me on the shoulder and I did my best not to flinch. My wolf did not approve of her touch, even in kindness.

  “You will never be happy in Italy.”

  She was right but I couldn’t walk away. I didn’t care about the pack, but I did wish my father and I could get along. We’d never be as close as he and Nic had been, but I’d hoped we could at least eat dinner together without arguing. So far, that had not happened and it didn’t look good.

  I grudgingly returned my desk to its upright position and gathered the broken laptop.

  “I’ll take care of this, Mr. Benelli. You should take the blueprints to your father. He’s meeting the client at Coraleon’s.”

  My wolf rumbled at the thought of being in the same room with my father. Clara held out the roll of blueprints and I took them gingerly. Coraleon’s was only a ten-minute walk and fresh air would be good. Clara was gathering up my mess as I flashed out the door.

  “Mr. Benelli?” she called before I rounded the corner.

  I glanced over my shoulder.

  “Be sure to check your messages.”

  “Thanks, Clara. Will do.”

  After dropping off the prints to my surprised father, I drove out to my house for lunch and a run. My wolf needed to kill something other than my father.

  Almost forgetting Clara’s advice, I quickly checked my messages and found several. Only one mattered. Breanna had called. Bravo Company pulled out early this morning and she’d called to say goodbye.

  Now I really needed to kill something.

  Chapter 9

  Breanna

  The flight to wherever the hell we were going was terrible. The turbulence bounced us like boobs on a treadmill and the monotonous droning of the motors made me want to stab my eardrums. Without warning, the plane took a sickening drop.

  “Where are we?” All I could see were clouds and trees. Lots and lots of trees.

  “Paraguay,” Simon replied without opening his eyes. I hated takeoffs and he hated landings.

  “South freakin’ America?” Aaron asked in disbelief.

  “That would be correct,” Simon answered.

  Great. Mosquitoes and snakes. Whoopee.

  “What the hell are we doing in bumfuckin’ Paragum?” Aaron grumbled.

  “It’s Paraguay and you’ll be briefed when we land,” Simon said.

  Aaron took the hint and didn’t say anything else. Simon wasn’t normally grumpy, but when he was, everyone left him alone.

  We all sat in silence as the big plane lumbered along the landing strip. The werewolves stirred first, gathering their belongings as the rolling slowed. The vampires and lone elf always waited until the plane was completely still before moving.

  I waited as well, not because the movement bothered me but because I was usually sitting with Celeste and Simon and it seemed rude to hop up while they sat rigid in their spaces.

  Once the plane stopped, the familiar weight of an intense gaze began. “I’m fine, Simon.”

  He placed a hand on my shoulder. “You have strong feelings for this Italian wolf, do you not, Breanna?”

  I shrugged, preferring not to go there right now.

  “When there is time, I wish to speak with you regarding your wolf. There are things I believe you should know.”

  Oh hell.

  There was no way he was going to walk away and leave me hanging like that. “What does that mean?” My words came out harsher than I intended.

  Simon gave me a puzzled look before switching to the “apologize or I’ll not say another word” look.

  “Sorry, Sime. I’m tired.”

  He gave me a long, hard look.

  “Yeah, I know, not your fault. I had no reason to snap at you.”

  He bowed his head in a graceful vampire acknowledgement. “We will speak of this matter when we have privacy.”

  I was dying. “Is it bad?”

  “Not particularly.”

  I argued with Simon until he disappeared into the darkness. What did he know about Lucas? I knew next to nothing, other than his name and he worked in a big brick building in downtown Vicenza. Just thinking about how hard his chest had looked in that dress shirt was enough to make me need a very cold shower.

  “Hey, Bre,” Aaron called as he wandered into the dirty barracks we were using for the next few nights. He dropped his sleeping bag onto a bunk and a cloud of dust appeared. Bedbugs. Yuck.

  Unrolling my sleeping bag and ignoring the itchy sensation on my leg, I noticed a cockroach scurrying along the wall. Ug, I hate bugs.

  Earth witches should embrace all Mother Nature’s creatures. Yeah, well, I ain’t making friends with a freaking roach.

  The other werewolves trickled into the cat-puke-green barracks. Scientists could have discovered new strains of mold and mildew in this place.

  Simon entered, followed closely by the other vampire members of Bravo. Celeste quickly scooted past the vampire parade and hurried to me.

  “Come with me,” she said. “Simon wants to talk to you.”

  I followed her outside and into a dank, dreary office space several hundred feet away. Within moments, Simon was directly behind us, closing the door and making sure we were alone.

  “Okay, Sime. Talk to me.”

  The vampire motioned for me to sit and I plopped, very unladylike, into a chair. Celeste perched on the arm of the chair Simon had chosen.

  “Your wolf is the son of the Italian Alpha.”

  My guts bubbled.

  “The Alpha announced several months ago his son was to be mated to a woman within the pack.”

  So the telephone bitch was his girlfriend. Should have known he was too good to be true. Double damn.

  “Your wolf has declared he will not take the woman chosen for him. He is defying his father and for that there is turmoil within the pack.”

  Turmoil within his pack? Pack turmoil was not a happy thing for werewolves. There was something about the pack bond thing that made them more open to each other than non-pack wolves and other supernaturals. I didn’t fully understand it, but the wolves seemed to love being in a pack.

  “He is not highly regarded within his pack, but none of my sources know exactly why. There are many rumors regarding his lifestyle choices, but the vampires of Italy hold him in the highest regard. He was at one time an agent for the Divine Council, but resigned his position to return to Italy and help with the family business.”

  He left the Divine Council to return to a pack that didn’t like him? What was up with that? But something else Simon had said bothered me more.

  “What do you mean by lifestyle choices?”

  Simon arched his platinum eyebrows, his crystal blue eyes hooded. “My sources did not go into details.”

  “You are not telling me he’s gay, are you?”

  “I am merely repeating the information I was given.”

  “He is not gay.”

  Celeste hopped from the chair arm and flitted toward a window. “Perhaps he likes both. Would you be okay with that?” she asked with her arms crossed.

  “I, um, I, well, I don’t really know.”

  Simon watched me curiously before speaking. “Have you spoken with your wolf?”

  I shrugged. “I left a message before we flew out but–oh shit, I haven’t turned my phone on since we landed.” I dashed out the door and to the barracks for my bag. There was no service inside the dilapidated building so I took off up the hill. The wolves yelled at me, but I kept running.

  Finally, at the top of the hill, my phone registered a single bar of service. The message icon wasn’t on. Lucas hadn’t called. I plunked onto a rock and looked up at the stars. Of course he hadn’t called. Every time he talked to me, something bad happened.

  The phone suddenly lit up in my hand, the message icon flashing like a beacon. I fumbled with the keys before finding the right buttons to play the message.
<
br />   The computerized lady announced I had two messages. The first was a hang-up and my heart sank a little. The next began with a long pause and I almost deleted it until his rough, heavily accented voice came through the speaker.

  “Hello, Breanna, this is Lucas, Lucas Benelli.” A heavy sigh followed by what sounded like rustling clothes. “I hope your trip goes well.” Another uncomfortable pause, followed by a grunt. “So, uh, if you have a chance, give me a call, any time. I’ll have my phone on.” Heavy breathing like he wasn’t sure what to say. “Be careful out there.”

  I replayed his message three times. His accent and the roughness in his voice, geez, sexy as hell. Damn, what was wrong with me? Sitting on a rock in the dark playing a voicemail over and over? Really? You’d think I’d never had a guy call me before.

  So, yeah, it had been a long time since I’d had a date. Even longer since I had a date with someone I wanted to get to know. I didn’t date the guys in Bravo and, with my work schedule, meeting someone wasn’t exactly easy. I’d dated a vampire once, but my dates were usually humans just because they were no threat and their intentions were so completely obvious. Even a witch liked to feel wanted sometimes. Of course the humans had no idea I was anything other than a female soldier serving in a rather obscure military unit. It was easier that way. No strings attached.

  But Lucas was different. With him I liked the thought of strings–hell, I’d even consider ropes and chains if that was what he liked. He knew what I was and never batted an eye. I’d heard the Europeans weren’t exactly keen on witches and the werewolves were particularly negative, but Lucas wasn’t like that.

  He’d said he was friends with a white witch. I didn’t know any white witches, but had heard they were all beautiful and could cast spells to heal. Hell, I couldn’t do much more than toss fireballs, ask the animals for help, and call up water-thin protection spells.

  I listened to his message a couple more times before working up the nerve to call him. He answered on the second ring.

  “Ciao.”

  “Hi, Lucas. It’s Breanna.”

  “Hey!” He sounded happy. “How are you?”

  The small talk chit-chat took over for a couple of minutes. I told him about the plane ride, and a little about our mission. I left out the potential bed bug issue and anything else a civilian shouldn’t know.