Her Wanted Wolf

by Renee Michaels

  Sabine stirred beside him. Her body curved into his, her head on his chest with an intimacy he savored. Drew turned his head and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

  She blinked sleepily up at him. “Are we there yet?”

  Drew nodded absently. He loved the look of her when she first woke up, with her hair mussed and her mouth soft and kissable. Sabine stretched languidly with an unconscious sensuality. Need for her kicked up in his belly and shot down to his cock, tightening the denim over his crotch.

  “Yep, come on, sleepyhead. Let’s get you to bed.” Drew slid out of the van and helped her out. They turned when they heard the creak of a door opening behind them.

  A woman stepped out into the light wearing paint-spattered overalls and the rattiest Converse high-tops he’d ever seen. She walked across the black and white tiles with a regal grace, a clipboard clutched to her chest. She studied them with cool green eyes, her honey-gold skin gleaming in the morning light. She tilted her head in greeting.

  Royal rounded the truck to join them. “Drew, this is Nara, my ahhh…”

  “Yes, Royal, what exactly am I to you?” The acid in her tone had Royal bristling beside him.

  “I could say, you’re a pain in my a…but I’m too much of a gentleman, so I’ll settle for thorn in my side,” Royal bit out and took the three shallow steps in one leap. “Welcome, Drew, alpha of the Lunedare pack and his mate, Sabine. Were you able to get the place ready for our guests?”

  “As requested, even though you called me at two in the morning. I’m sorry to say it was a bit expensive,” she said sweetly, not looking in the least bit regretful as she handed Royal the clipboard. “I had to call in professionals for a rush job in the middle of the night.”

  Royal glanced down at the bill and choked out, “Who the hell did you call to set the place to rights, Martha Stewart?”

  “She wasn’t available, but look on the bright side. The renovations are complete and the house is ready for occupancy, that is, if you’re ready to listen to reason.”

  “Forget it. I’m not turning this place into a B&B,” Royal snapped, still glaring at the piece of paper in his hand.

  Nara let out a rude pfft through her teeth. “Fine.” She flounced past the Sinclair’s alpha, mumbling, “Blockhead,” as she stomped down the porch steps.

  Royal’s head jerked up, his eyes blazing and jaw clenched.

  Holding her hands out to Sabine, Nara said warmly, “Welcome, are you hungry? We have hot pecan rolls dripping with icing, a personal fave. Steaks ready for the grill, or we can whip up omelets if you prefer. If not, I’ll show you to your suite.” Her voice was gracious and warm, a one-eighty from the way she spoke to Royal.

  Sabine looked up at Drew, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “Seems I’m not the only she-wolf who has ideas of her own,” she murmured before she stepped away from him to answer Nara. “I am a little hungry. The rolls sound good.”

  “Good, if you’ll follow me, I’ll set you right up.” Nara started to usher Sabine to the front door but she paused when the other vehicles pulled in behind the one they’d arrived in. The rest of their party poured out of the SUVs and looked around to familiarize themselves with the landscape.

  Rick hopped out and grinned. “Yo, Nara, love of my life.”

  “Rick, were of my dreams.” She flashed him a brilliant smile and skipped over to leap into his arms. “I baked a batch of sugar buns, just for you.”

  “Marry me.” He kissed her lavishly on the mouth.

  Nara laughed. “I’d be selfish to keep you all to myself.”

  “You’re the best of she-wolves. Generous, beautiful, and you bake like an angel.” Rick beamed down at her, in full flirt mode. “What more could I ask for in a mate.”

  “Tell that to some people.” She shot Royal a scathing glare over her shoulder before she turned back to the rest of the travel-weary weres. “Come on in. Coffee is hot. It’ll take no time at all to get the food on the table.”

  Sliding her arm around Rick’s waist, Nara pulled him up the stairs, collected Sabine and headed them into the house.

  The scent coming off Royal was a volatile mixture of frustration, anger, and suppressed sexual need. Royal, the king of cool had the hots for the snarky little were, Nara. Drew had never seen him twisted up over a woman. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up. He had to ruffle Royal’s fur some more.

  “So just who is Nara, your sister, cousin, what? She and Rick look really cozy,” Drew asked casually, trying his damnedest to keep a smirk out of his voice.

  Royal’s brow lowered into a scowl. “Who is she? She’s my freaking destiny.” Royal grumbled heavily like a man who was fighting the inevitability of his fate. He ripped the bills from the clipboard, shoved the invoices into his pocket and stalked into the house.

  Drew chuckled and followed him.

  Yeah, fate shoveled crap at you, but every once in a while it tossed you a gem. He located Sabine in the milling crowd and made his way to her side.

  * * * *

  Sabine traipsed down the wide curved staircase in baggy overalls, her hair tucked up under the bandana tied around her head, and a Gimme cap over it. Her feet were shod in pristine sneakers that needed to scuff up a bit to look lived in. At first glance, she looked a like a teenaged boy, until you took a second look and noticed the curve of her breasts and hips under the snug T-shirt she wore.

  Drew tugged the cap down over her forehead. “Ready for your foray into the big city?”

  “Oh yes, Nara says there’s a place near where we’re going that sells something called peanut brittle. Which she informs me we can’t come to Georgia and not sample. You should take me there.”

  “More curves for me to enjoy.”

  “Not a chance. You burn off the extra calories every chance you get.” She tried to purse her lips, but they softened into a feline satisfied smirk.

  “Yeah, I do, don’t I?” Sabine wasn’t the only one who was feeling more than a little smug. They’d made love after their nap, and he was feeling loose and limber, ready to take on anything.

  Drew escorted Sabine out of the house and opened the door of the small car Royal had provided for their journey to the waterfront. Ugly as sin, coated with dull grey primer and a few rusty patches showing through the paint. It suited their purposes because it was inconspicuous, and a far cry from the flashy vehicles they’d used the night before.

  Rafe and Ishbel already occupied the back seat. A palpable friction simmered off the couple leaning on the doors to put as much distance between them as possible. The seat between them was apparently a no man’s land neither one was willing to breach.

  Sabine lifted a dubious brow at the unprepossessing compact. “What’s this?”

  “This is what you’d call a rust bucket. It will fit right in where we’re heading.” He helped her into the passenger seat and rounded the car to take the driver’s seat. He started the ignition and the engine purred to life. “The body of this car might look like crap, but the inner workings are tuned like a Stradivarius. Royal says this baby will move like a rocket if we need it to.”

  Drew headed east to the coast, leaving behind the rolling greenery. He drove through the marshland until the ocean came into view. The road wound along the coastline, giving Sabine her first glimpse of the Atlantic. The gusty late afternoon wind kicked up four-foot white-capped waves.

  Boats bobbed on the water and surfers skimmed over the breakers like flotsam.

  “Why on earth would anybody want to do that?” Sabine asked, her tone suggesting only the insane would.

  “It’s exhilarating. You have to try it. With our inherent agility, it’s easy to master.”

  “Easy way to drown yourself too,” Sabine prophesied darkly.

  Sabine grabbed his thigh, pulling his attention from the road. He glanced at her pale face and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  She was perfectly still. “I’m not sure.” Sabine twisted in her seat and looked back at Ishbel wh
o nodded.

  “What is it? Tell me,” Drew demanded. He scanned the area. There was nothing in sight to cause alarm. However, the fact he couldn’t see a were, didn’t mean there wasn’t one in the vicinity. There was enough brush along the roadside to hide an entire pack. Drew sniffed for wolf spoor.

  “Don’t you smell her? Your sister, her scent is on the wind, faint, but it’s there.”

  Heart pounding, Drew pulled onto the side of the road. “Is she nearby?”

  Sabine closed her eyes and drew in shallow testing breaths. “Her spoor is fresh, but it comes from a distance.” Sabine let out a shaky laugh before her brow wrinkled into a frown, and when she opened her eyes, they were full of worry. “Drew, she carries a cub.”

  Black boiling rage swamped him. His hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles shone whitely under his skin. He heard the brittle sun baked steering wheel crack.

  “Those fuckers. They raped her.” He’d expected it, had vivid nightmares about it, but he’d pushed that particular fear to the farthest recesses of his mind. To have proof of his sister’s abuse was a kick to the balls. He felt queasy, lightheaded, and sick in spirit.

  “That, I can’t tell you, but in the faint whiffs I’m able to catch, there is no fear in what she emits.” Sabine bit her lip.

  “If you ask me, her scent is infused with happiness.” Ishbel patted his shoulder from behind. “You should take comfort in that.”

  “Are you sure?” Like a drowning man, he grasped at the idea. It was something to hold onto, not much, but something tangible. Ishbel said Aimee was happy. It made no sense.

  “As sure as we can be from this distance, the wind is strong and diffuses the potency of her essence.” Sabine rubbed her hand over his aching heart.

  Drew got out of the car and put his face into the wind. Desperate for some reassurance, he dragged in great draughts, filling his lungs with the salty air. There she was. It was a mere whisper of her scent trail, but nothing more.

  He bent down to face Sabine. “How can you tell that she’s carrying from this distance?”

  “We are Silverwolves. We are more sensitive to the subtlest nuances in a fragrance. Get back in the car. You’re sending out signals like a lighthouse. Even I might not be able to mask your scent.”

  “Should we stage a hunt from this spot?”

  “No, the scent is too indistinct here, if we go the Redmavens’ den, I can pick up a stronger scent trail and track through that.”

  Frustrated, he slid back into his seat, restarted the car, and swung out into the traffic. He ignored the angry blares and gestures from the other drivers. Drew floored the gas pedal and aimed the small bullet of a car toward Savannah. One way or another, he was going to get some answers by nightfall.

  “Throttle it back, man. No sense in getting into a wreck when we’re so close to getting Aimee back,” Rafe cautioned.

  Drew picked up the banked anger in his primo’s voice. It held the same hunger to mete out reprisals drove him. Reluctantly, Drew eased his foot off the accelerator.

  A laden silence filled the car for the rest of the journey. He flew through the city, focused on their destination. It didn’t take him long to find a small strip mall several blocks from where the little blips on Rick’s GPS gizmos gave away the Redmavens’ location.

  Drew checked to make sure his cell was off. Every time a phone rang, heads turned. Weres could pick up the vibration when it was in silent mode. Another way to draw unwanted attention he didn’t need. He pulled on a ball cap and slid on a pair of wraparound shades before they all got out of the car. Sabine came over to him, slipped her small hand into his, and adroitly masked their scents. He barely felt the faint muting of his sense of smell before it returned to normal.

  He took a good sniff. The air was rife with Redmaven spoor and a more freaked out set of assholes he never smelled. He caught their confusion, and somebody was really pissed. The rage he felt was akin to his own. Which seemed out of place, considering, as far as the Redmavens were concerned, they held an ace. His sister.

  Shit, something was up.

  He stared across the hood and met Rafe’s grim expression.

  He glanced down to see Sabine’s nose twitch in slight pulses. “You okay there?”

  She shrugged. “There are so many scents to read. The noise is an added distraction. It’s a little overwhelming.”

  Yeah, there was an effluence of odors bombarding them. The Savannah River flowed into the ocean, not too far from where they stood. Briny water mixed with river water, oily exhaust fumes, a concentration of human emanations, and the moldy sweet stink of garbage filled the atmosphere with a particular pungency. The cacophony of blares, toots, and honks from the traffic could overload the senses if one weren’t used to it. It never occurred to him that this would be a problem for her, but she’d spent most of her life in unpopulated areas, far away from the polluted cities.

  “You smell the Redmavens, don’t you?”

  “Oh yes.” She wrinkled her nose. “Hard to miss them. The air reeks of their panic. What do you make of that?”

  Rafe tilted his head at two weres loitering on the corner a block away. “Don’t know yet but we aim to find out. Mutts at three o’clock. From their vantage point, they can see anything approaching from four directions.”

  At a glance, the pair of Redmavens appeared not to have a care in the world. But, if Drew read them right, they were as jumpy as freshman coeds at a frat party. The weres scrutinized them, before their gazes moved on to look over the people moving briskly along the streets.

  Drew and Rafe shared a grim smirk, nothing lingered in the air that would give away the fact that they were werekin to the Redmavens.

  “Do you think it’s because they caught the scent of the Sinclairs they are so uneasy?” Sabine whispered and shoved her hand into her roomy pockets.

  Drew shrugged, studying the Redmavens. They kept looking over their shoulders like they expected the Devil to clap his hand on their backs at any minute.

  “No, I don’t think that’s it. The Sinclairs’ presence wouldn’t elicit this kind of response. The Redmavens have a history with the Sinclairs. They’d be on the defensive if they thought Royal was gunning for them.”

  “Think we should follow the plan?” Rafe set his butt on the hood of the car and pulled Ishbel down beside him. He crossed legs at the ankles and rocked back as if he was shooting the breeze.

  “We should at least go in close enough to find out if Aimee is here, or if we need to double back. We could use that to our advantage.” Drew took Sabine by the elbow. “Is there anything of Aimee in the area?”

  Sabine bravely inhaled and grimaced like she had a bad taste in her mouth.

  She let out an irritated huff. “I can’t tell. The miasma of fragrances is making it difficult. It will get easier.”

  The determined glint in Sabine’s eyes gave Drew pause. He’d seen that expression on her face once before, a second before she taken off down the ravine without him.

  “Don’t even think of going off on your own.”

  She lifted a pale brow. “Why would I? That would defeat the purpose of me being here, wouldn’t it?” She tugged on his arm. “Come on, this will be a good trial run for us. If we’re going to cover the Lunedares en masse tonight, I want to inure my senses to the odors that permeate the area. We don’t want to make even the smallest change and inadvertently alert the Redmavens that something is off.”

  No, they didn’t. Drew laced his fingers loosely through Sabine’s and ambled down the street with Rafe and Ishbel behind them. He kept a sharp eye on the two men scanning the area at the intersection across the street from them. The four lanes of traffic between them was an intermittent barrier at best. Not that they needed it. The four of them were virtually invisible to the Redmavens, thanks to Sabine and Ishbel. As soon as they were out of the Redmavens’ line of sight, they increased their speed.

  The shops they strode past sold a mishmash of goods, heavy o
n the industrial, but peppered with older established stores, which would never change locations. There wasn’t much for her to see, but Sabine took quick glances through the plate-glass windows as they walked by.

  The wind picked up, carrying with it a concentration of were-spoor. Patrols were out in full force. They were hunting somebody. A group of weres drove by in a beat up pickup truck. Drew’s body quivered with his aggression. Rafe was as perturbed. Tension came off his primo in waves.

  Drew’s eyes connected with a human passerby. The man’s eyes widened with fear and he scampered out of their way.

  Sabine groaned and gave him a poke in his belly with her elbow. “Down boys, don’t scare the natives. We’re getting closer. The Redmavens’ den can’t be far off. Don’t draw attention to us.” She pulled Drew to a stop and lifted her chin, a look of pure bliss sliding across her face. “Hey, do you smell that? Candy.”

  He almost grinned. “You would smell that, wouldn’t you? We can buy some brittle now to add to the impression that we have a reason to be in the area.” It would also give him time to get a hold of himself. He was on the verge of running off half-cocked.

  “Good thinking.” She pointed to the confectioner’s sign swinging hypnotically in the breeze. Sabine skipped forward, pulling him along with her.

  A bell tinkled over their heads as they passed through the door and stepped into a decadent haze, rich with the scent of melted chocolate, butter and sugar. Tart berries, caramel, and coconut added another sinful layer to tease their noses. The display case was a candy-a-holic’s wet dream, with row after row of glossy handmade candies.

  But that wasn’t what made him twitchy. The familiar scent of his enemies was strong in the small space. To add to his unstable state of mind was an element mingling with the Redmaven spoor which was all Aimee.

  Drew murmured into Sabine’s ear with a harsh growl. “She’s been here.”

  Sabine’s nostrils flared. “No, not her.” She looked over a few of the people in the shop with a studied nonchalance, but he felt her exhilaration. “A man, a were, who carries the scent of her on him like you carry mine on you. It reveals their intimacy, and he’d had recent contact with her.”