“What does that mean?” she asked slowly.
He closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down. She didn’t know about their ways. Her ass of a brother had never mentioned them. She didn’t even think she was what it was patently obvious she was. “It means that tomorrow Troy and I will fight to see who is Alpha over the pack. If I lose, you can’t stay here. I can only protect you if I win.” Not to mention he might be dead. Not every victor accepted the forfeit of the loser’s life, but Troy would. Troy liked to kill the local livestock. He’d really enjoy the sanctioned kill of his opponent.
“I can protect myself,” she said in a somewhat shaky voice. Standing up taller, she cleared her throat. “Does this happen often? These challenge fights?”
“First time for me—though I’ve been expecting it since I became Alpha a little over a year ago. I picked up two members in my pack—well, inherited them from Glacier Peak. Two members who’ve seen themselves as Alphas since their first cut tooth.”
“And one of them decided now was a good time?”
“No, I showed weakness in their eyes by scent-matching to you and trying to protect you. Also, this is the time of year when female Lycans go into heat for three or four weeks, and the unattached males in the pack try to prove themselves. This time, he’s taking it a step further.” The microwave beeped behind him, and he took the cup out and set it on the counter beside his untouched one. Letting them sit probably wouldn’t drastically affect the flavor.
“What if I left…tonight? So it’s not like I’m a problem for you anymore?”
It caused a stabbing sensation in his stomach, and the wolf in him rose up and wanted to snarl. Mine. Mate. He shook his head. “This was coming. It’ll still happen, and it was bound to happen. But if you want to leave…I won’t have to worry about protecting you if I’m not successful.”
“Do you want me to leave tonight?”
“I should.” His brain refused to process it—to plan it. At any given time, he had a dozen plans for each scenario playing out in his mind. None of them involved her leaving. The first thing he should consider was the last thing he wanted.
“What if I stayed tonight?” She took a step closer.
He clenched his fists at his sides and fought the change.
Her eyes widened for a moment, so he knew she could tell…then her pupils dilated and she smiled.
“Are you accepting the scent-match?” he asked. Heat flashed through him, and a fierce desire to possess her, to own her. If she said yes, they’d be making love in this kitchen in seconds. His eyes strayed to the freezer. Not this kitchen. Somewhere else. Hell, the way he wanted her, the woods would do just fine.
She shook her head.
No. Of course not. That’d be too easy…and good…very good. His jaw tightened, and a long blink later, he’d put away the wolf.
Not.
Yet.
He picked her cup off the counter and stuck it in her hand, then gave her a spoon before picking up his. “Mm,” he said. Nothing cooled lust like rehydrated vegetables…or whatever was in this.
She watched him take a bite, struggling not to grin.
“This is terrible,” he said around the mouthful. It was like eating mushy salt. The soggy texture implied that there was something other than salt in this, but it was hard to distinguish what.
She laughed before eating it herself. “I knew you’d hate it.”
“What is this supposed to be?” he asked, showing her a floating speck of yellow.
It was dark. Too dark for a non-Lycan to see anything, and yet they were conversing as if it were light. She leaned forward and said, “That, Travis, is a piece of corn.”
“Allegedly. I’m not sure any of this is what it says it is. As if anyone knows what hydrolyzed soy protein is.” He tipped his spoon sideways and let the yellow thing fall back into the mix.
“I suppose you planned on having that leftover ravioli for dinner…with…what was that? A pesto sauce of some kind?”
He shook his head. “You went through my fridge, too?” Why was he surprised? She’d made herself at home and gone through his stuff. She’d even swiped some of his clothes. Though admittedly, the image of her wearing one of his shirts and nothing else didn’t bother him. Or it did. It bothered him a whole lot. It was a shame she wasn’t ready to accept the scent-match.
“Yep. That was before I realized people might put freaky, creepy things in their fridges.”
“Did you look in the freezer here?”
She pointedly didn’t answer him.
He dug through his soup with his spoon, looking for something recognizable. He might die tomorrow. He should tell her about his search today. And he wanted to tell her. It was probably an asinine idea, but he wanted to. Most mates discussed their days with each other…that was all it was. It was the scent-match. And…well, she’d pulled a gun on him. He had to respect that. He was beginning to think there might be more between them than the scent-match.
“I went back to Glacier Peak today,” he said, staring into his cup. He could feel her eyes on him.
“Why?”
“To look for your brother?” He looked up, meeting her gaze.
She licked her lips. “His body or…?”
He shrugged. “Well, I won’t lie—I was hoping for that. I don’t like to think what your brother might be capable of now that we’ve really pissed him off.”
“So you believed me?”
He set his cup of muck aside and crossed his arms. “I believe that you believe what you’re saying, but it was hard for me to imagine—having been there.”
“You trust…uhh believed me enough to go look?” He wasn’t so inept with female speak that he didn’t recognize that there was more to her question than face value.
He shrugged again. It was hard to believe her when she didn’t recognize she turned into a wolf, but he knew she legitimately thought she’d caught her brother’s scent. And she’d seemed to recognize that Travis was right—that her brother wasn’t who she thought he was. That was progress.
He held her gaze. He’d watched the staring contests between Christa and Jordan, and it’d seemed to be a sign they were meant to be together that she didn’t break first to show deference. She saw them as equals.
“And?” LeAnn asked, setting her soup to the side, too. She didn’t look away.
It made him smile—which was totally inappropriate for the subject matter and made her eyes narrow.
“If you make me guess, I’ll go get my knife.”
“It’s my knife, and our search proved…inconclusive.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your brother let loose a wolf he’d managed to coat in his scent…though I can’t even imagine how he achieved that. He did it to trick Jordan into following the wolf rather than rescuing his mate. He thought that Jordan would put the pack’s well-being over his mate’s. He thought her brother, Dane, would come for her—whom Ross also hated and planned to kill, and then he could sneak out and kill Jordan.”
“But Jordan didn’t chase the wolf? I thought the pack was all-important to you people…that it justified everything?” The fact that she’d chosen to focus on this and not on his search for her brother was telling. The way she said “pack” nearly had an accompanying growl.
He grabbed her hand and tugged her closer. “No. I won’t say that the pull of instinct and the pack aren’t strong, but there’s still a wild, stubborn streak inside us when it comes to our mating. I’ve heard others say that in our mind’s hierarchy the welfare of our breeding partner and thus the continuation of our pack supersedes almost everything else. That it all goes back to the pack being our top priority.”
“But you don’t think that’s what it is?” She was still meeting his gaze. If this wasn’t her brother’s place, he’d clear the counter with one mad swipe and to hell with everything—they’d be making love on the counter. But he had looked in the freezer…so that was no good.
“Well, I
’m much smarter than the others I’ve heard that from, and I can’t discount the fact that both man and wolf have primitive sides—and there’s much better odds of having wild crazy sex if your mate is alive.”
She picked up her cup of soup and handed him his. “Let’s hope, anyway…or you’re really freaky.”
He glanced over at the fridge.
She huffed out a breath and said, “You’re ruining food for me,” as she put her cup to the side.
“This is not food.” He set his cup down again and pulled her into his arms. “Pack up your stuff so no one else can swipe things, come to my place, and I’ll feed you some real food.”
She bit her lip, pretending to look indecisive. “I’ve never been to your place clothed.”
“Well, I vote we don’t ruin your streak then.”
Rolling her eyes, she punched his shoulder and pulled out of his arms.
“Do I get extra points for using the word ‘streak’ there?” he called after her as she went to go pack.
She flipped him off over her shoulder.
…
Two hours later, he’d talked her into an early bedtime so they could both catch up on sleep.
From where she lay on his chest, she asked him drowsily, “So, Jordan didn’t follow the wolf?”
“Not that day. He went in to rescue his mate and confronted your brother before tossing him out for another pack to deal with.”
“And they caught him?”
He sighed; the action made her brown hair stir slightly. He brushed the wisps down while tangling his fingers in it. He might not actually sleep tonight, but he wouldn’t regret that—especially not if he died tomorrow. He’d rather spend the night doing things other than sleeping, but holding her was good, too. “Today, we followed the trail of the wolf because there were too many scents surrounding your brother.”
“He caught up with the wolf, didn’t he?”
His hand stilled and he frowned down at her. “Yup. How did you know?”
“When he was teaching me how to track, he tried to mess with my head by following the trail of a pack of wolves. He stopped me just shy of cornering them in a den. He thought he was so clever. The next time he tried that, I had an air horn with me, and I snuck up on him and blew it right in his ear.”
There was so much there that astounded him and made him want to kill her brother all over again. Talk about throwing her to the wolves. “Your brother taught you to track him as a Lycan?” That would explain why she seemed even more attuned to his scent.
“Yeah. He said it would be more fun.”
Her brother was an ass. “But you didn’t turn into a Lycan yourself to track him? You’re sure?”
She lifted her head and stared at him. “You need more sleep. Trust me, I’d know if I could turn into a wolf.”
He wasn’t so sure. “Have you actually tried?”
“To turn into a wolf?”
“Yes.”
She laughed. “Sure I did. Isn’t that like a rite of passage for every girl…and their dog?”
“I’m serious, LeAnn.”
“So am I. Did you have to concentrate to turn yourself into a wolf the first time?”
No. It’d felt instinctual and it’d just occurred…and been somewhat surreal. It would be a million times more surreal if you didn’t know it might be in store for you—if you didn’t know your father and brother were Lycans. It might have scared the hell out of her so she liked to pretend it wasn’t happening. Or maybe she really didn’t want to be part of a pack the more she learned about them. But she was a Lycan.
“See,” she said, even though he hadn’t responded. “Wouldn’t it be funny if everyone was a Lycan but they never really tried so they didn’t know?” She yawned and it made her lips brush his bare chest.
“Is there anything I could do to convince you to accept the scent-match if I win tomorrow’s challenge?” He should tell her that she might be challenged herself, but she already wasn’t keen on the pack—and that wouldn’t help, knowing that there was the possibility some of them might want to kill her. And besides, only Merilee was in heat, and she was harmless, and LeAnne had no reason to be around her.
“Why? So we can have sex?”
“That’s one of the reasons.” A minor one, but he wasn’t ready to admit to the others or explain some of the complicated mind-set of pack animals. “Is there anything that would convince you that it’s a good thing—that we could make it work?”
“You don’t know me well enough to know that.”
He’d made her laugh over dinner. She’d caught him staring at her ass a dozen times. They were compatible. He wouldn’t have believed it, but he liked her…a lot, and the insanity was almost endearing at this point. “I know you.”
She turned away from him. “You don’t, Travis. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on in my life that you couldn’t understand and you wouldn’t want a part of.”
He wanted to shake her. Then tell me already. Did she not get that he wasn’t going to judge her? If she’d just let him in, he could help her. Hell, he wanted to be a part of her life.
Her turning away from him wasn’t as effective a deterrent as she might have thought. He pulled her tight against him, spooning his body around hers. She inhaled sharply and then sighed when his arm slipped around her waist.
Travis forced his arms to stay loose. LeAnn was like a spooked, trapped animal, biting mad and ready to bolt. She needed patience and understanding.
But he wasn’t an idiot, even if sleep deprivation seemed to be affecting him fairly drastically. He knew she was hiding something, even before he’d run her license through the system. Admitting he’d run checks on her background probably wouldn’t forward his cause, though. Telling her he’d passed all her information off to his computer hacker friend in Seattle definitely wasn’t something he’d consider. But this was like a game with them. It was like her finding his knives after he’d hidden them. Eventually he’d find out her big secret, and it would be nothing, and they wouldn’t even have to talk about it.
“Maybe I’m exactly what you need,” he whispered, kissing her neck.
“Maybe you are—but maybe I don’t deserve nice things.”
Go slow. Go easy. Or something like that.
He bit her neck, making her jump. “Maybe I don’t have to be nice.”
“Mm.” She arched against him, and her breathing sped up.
Yes.
Then she took a deep breath and said, “Go to sleep, Travis. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Damn.
Chapter Five
LeAnn went to get up, but his arm tightened reflexively around her waist, and she paused, hoping he’d go back to sleep. Waking up with him…implied things. Eating breakfast with him as good as branded them as a couple in her mind, and it’d be really hard to walk away from a relationship that wasn’t broken and unhealthy. Everything about Travis felt right and instinctual.
“Don’t,” he whispered, pulling her back against him.
Damn. But at the same time, some part of her had wanted him to notice she was leaving. No one ever cared that she left. He made her feel warm and safe. Her insides felt jittery with happy butterflies. This was dangerous. She couldn’t get used to this. It’d only make things harder in the long run. “I should go.”
“Where?”
She started to answer, but snapped her mouth closed. Okay, so she had nowhere to go. Finally, she sighed. “When you said your search was inconclusive does that mean my brother might still be alive and gunning for you?” That was the whole reason she hadn’t packed and left before he’d arrived. It didn’t make a lot of sense that she was trying to keep the huge muscular sheriff in town safe, but that was her excuse for staying another day. She couldn’t get on with her “repress my brother” plan until she knew he’d be okay.
“We found where something was killed and something escaped—and they both smelled like your brother. But that would mean about a dozen or more Lycans lo
st sight of your brother long enough that he swapped places with the wolf he’d released. It’s enough to make Jordan and Dane from Glacier Peak cautious, and they’re planning on going back there today to see if Ross had a vehicle stashed somewhere. There were a bunch of vehicles from the poachers, but Jordan didn’t remember any of them belonging to your brother, and it seems to me like they’d have contacted me to deal with it—since Ross was my pack. That doesn’t mean anything. Ross could have been on foot for a while or caught a ride at some point, but it’s a loose end that we’re both going to be figuring out today.”
“Would he come after you because you were his Alpha?”
“Up until he killed someone, I had no problem with Ross. He and I got along fine. He might feel betrayed, but his betrayal of our kind was far worse.”
It made her sick to think about it, and this wasn’t helping with her plan to pretend this was all some crazy nightmare. “But if he’s…insane…he might think that?”
“If I agree with you, will it be enough to keep you here?” He brushed his lips back and forth across her neck, and that ache inside her increased a thousand times.
“You probably don’t need my protection.” It was silly to even think he did. There were a dozen reasons he didn’t, in fact.
He moved to the side of her neck, where he kissed a path up to her ear. “Maybe I do.”
She started to roll her eyes, but he nipped the sensitive skin below her ear, and she moaned and closed them instead.
“LeAnn.” He flattened his palm against her stomach, pressing her against him. “I really want you.” He lit a fire inside her—her bones felt like melting wax, and yet her pulse was pounding like she’d run for hours. She couldn’t move. She didn’t move.
She bit her lower lip. They had passion and heat. They had that in spades. Whether it was this thing he called a scent-match or whether it was out-and-out attraction, she wanted him just as much. Slow and deep. Fast and hard. She wanted him. “And then what?”
“Hm?”
“You don’t even know me, Travis. And you belong to this pack that’ll turn on you as soon as stand beside you…and I’ve had enough of that in my life. No one stays. No one sticks around when it gets difficult. It’s better I leave before you want me to. I’m this complication in your life that you’re hot for.” She swallowed. “Less than forty-eight hours ago, you said I was the last person you’d want to be with. And I haven’t changed in that time.” It still stung that he’d said that—even if it’d been the truth. She blinked her eyes. Already he had the power to make her cry. This was dangerous. Travis Flynn was a dangerous man.
Crazy Over You Page 9
