by Anna Craig
And yes, Tamsin was right. Cassandra most likely was somewhat confused about everything that had happened to her life in such a short space of time. Well. He could answer some of what would be her incessant questions. Then he could once again satisfy them both in a most decidedly speechless fashion.
Pleasurable anticipation spiking through him, Trevor turned toward the kitchen. “Is she bathing now? I must eat before I return to her.”
Tamsin huffed a knowing snort, fully understanding why he needed his stamina up. Before she could reply, a young female cub entered the kitchen from the back hallway. As soon as she saw them both, she dropped a nervous nod at Trevor, although her gaze fastened on Tamsin. “I did as you asked,” she said, her voice as skittish as her manner. “But she's not there. Or anywhere on the grounds or estate. I had the other cubs searching as well. We can't find her anywhere.”
Tamsin stopped short, apprehension instantly seeping from her every pore. Trevor tensed in natural reaction as well. His voice barked out, “Whom can't you find?” even though his skin shivered with the knowing of exactly whose name she would speak.
Restlessly shifting from foot to foot, the cub pushed out stumbling words. “The surren—I mean, your—that is, sir,” she babbled in a helpless jumble. At Trevor's icy look, the cub seemed as if she wanted the earth to swallow her whole. Clearly forcing herself to go on, she whispered, “Cassandra, sir. Your mate. We can't find her anywhere. She's gone.”
Chapter 3
The tunnel was dark. Really, really dark. Clutching the stupid plastic lantern while holding it up to act like a feeble beacon, Cassie made her way through the lava tube, tripping over the too-large shoes as well as the uneven ground as she went. Stupid shoes. Stupid lava tube. Stupid earthquake. Stupid surrender ceremony that led to her finding her freaking mate, oh my god a wolf shifter is my mate her mind burbled for the thousandth time. Stupid pack politics and jealous female wolf and crazy brother wolf and she was probably going to die for real now. Stupid stupid stupid.
Just great. From a simple yet secure little life, her quiet destiny set out before her as a soon-to-be college grad eyeballing freedom from her town's binding to the wolf pack, to now being a part of said wolf pack and running for her life. Really, who did this kind of thing happen to?
At least she wasn't naked this time. Even if she probably did look like some sort of hobo clown, dressed in oversized men's clothes. They smelled like Thayne, which made her skin crawl a bit. But clothes were clothes. It was a small victory in the total crazy her life had become over the course of a mere twenty-four hours. Frankly, she'd take it.
And then there was Trevor. Cassie's skin shivered with an altogether different sensation as she thought of him. Pure pleasure and the hope of seeing him again. Soon, please. The gorgeous, strong ripple of muscles all over him. Those stunning blue-green eyes that held hers each time he reached for her, touched her, stroked her body with hands that were gentle yet meant serious business. The softness to his features when he seemed to let down his guard a little bit.
Her mate. A gorgeous, huge, amazing wolf shifter. She still could hardly get her head around it, even though the unshakeable certainty that it was all true had settled so deep into the core of her very being that there was no denying it. She longed to see him again.
At the same time, she was kind of pissed off at him, too. Where the hell was he? Why had he left her all alone to be snatched up by those two maniacs back there? Seriously, what was the use in having a sexy-as-hell wolf shifter for a mate if the guy couldn't show up to save her ass when it most desperately needed saving? Really.
Concentrating on not stumbling, Cassie frowned. If she was going to be irrevocably tied to the Wicked Mountain Wolf Pack, she really should have certain benefits. Such as having her big, bad wolf protector able to keep an eye on her around wolves who seemed to think humans were worthless.
Picturing Trevor's aqua eyes, Cassie also thought about the shadows within them. He was sometimes so aloof. So stone-faced. But she could tell it was covering up something. She'd seen a few cracks in the facade—enough to be pretty sure Mr. Granite Man actually was wearing a facade, and often. The connection between them told her that, too. The mate bond, or whatever it was. Somehow, Cassie was certain Trevor hid something deep inside.
Something that seemed suspiciously like pain, and loneliness. God, how she wanted nothing more than to soothe that away for him. Which she would figure out how to do as soon as she found the darned man again. Or he found her. Which hopefully would be any minute now, because this was getting ridiculous.
Cassie suddenly stopped short and squinted ahead into the darkness. She thought she saw something. Something that looked like it might be...light.
Turning off the lantern to be sure, she closed her eyes for second to readjust them, then opened them again. Yes! The faint glow of daylight far ahead. Literal light at the end of the tunnel.
Fingers fumbling with the lantern in the darkness that surrounded her, she switched it back on again. Except nothing happened.
“What the hell,” she whispered. “Work, damn you.”
She flicked the switch back and forth, shook the thing, pounded on it with a fist.
Nothing. No light. Maybe the batteries had died.
Awesome.
At least she had that tiny sliver of real daylight ahead of her. All she had to do was carefully edge her way out of the tunnel toward it. Then maybe she could figure out where the hell she was, and then get the hell back to her wolf shifter mate and tell his “Sir this” and “Sir that” self off for letting her be taken by the crazies in his pack.
Cassie dropped the useless lantern and reached out her hands to the rough walls on either side. Slowly, she stepped one foot in front of her, then the other. The floor of the ridiculously long lava tube was jagged and very uneven, but she could make it. One slow step at a time so she wouldn't fall on her face on the way. Sure, she could do this. Turned out she was kind of tough after all, she thought, remembering how good it had felt to tell off that nasty Aliana. Yeah, being the mate of the alpha meant something, for sure. Ha.
Behind her, a noise froze the blood in her veins.
A low growl. Echoing through the tunnel. The growl of a wolf somewhere behind her.
Oh, shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
Suddenly panicked, all rational thoughts and reason leaving her, Cassie blindly bolted in graceless, lurching steps down the tunnel like the helpless prey she knew in her heart she was.
~~~
Trevor barked out another order, then another, chivvying the wolves and snapping his jaws without mercy at the tails and heels of the ones he deemed too slow in the search. Those whose tails got caught between his sharp teeth yelped and scurried off, angling out in every widening circles as they searched the grounds.
“That section of woods was empty, sir,” panted one of the younger ones who'd just come running up, tail drooping with the knowledge that his news would not please the alpha.
“Then keep searching around that section!” Trevor heard his own voice bellow with rage and frustration. He sensed more than saw the activity around him increase, keeping his own head bent to the ground as he continued to sniff for any scent of Cassandra. But it was like she'd been wiped clean off the earth.
“We'll find her.” Tamsin's voice was low and grim. The dark gray head of her wolf searched the ground beside his, occasionally lifting up to scan the distance as if she would somehow catch sight of Cassandra.
In a matter of moments after realizing his lovely Cassandra was missing, Trevor had the pack out looking for her in earnest. Almost immediately, one scout came back from the deeper woods just past the claiming meadow, a light scrap of material in his mouth that he silently dropped at Trevor's paws.
The little blue dress she'd worn to the meadow for the claiming ceremony. Trevor recalled without an ounce of regret how he'd assaulted her very willing body there while she still wore both clothes and shoes, so eager he'd been to
fulfill the final moments of claiming her for the pack and for himself. He'd left her sleeping there while still wearing it.
Assuming an impassive stance while he sniffed the dress, he scrabbled through those decadent recent memories to recall any dissembling on her part. A shred of uncertainty stabbed at him for a millisecond. She'd enjoyed it, hadn't she? She was indeed his mate, was she not? Surely she had been truly present throughout those moments in the claiming meadow, not to mention the night and day before. Surely she wanted to stay with him. She would not have simply left...would she?
Cursing silently, he shook his head. The memories of losing his first mate combined with the shock of finding a new mate had shaken his usual implacable resolve more than he'd thought possible. This was no way for an alpha to behave.
Tamsin bumped him with her shoulder, rather hard. As usual, and especially with his beta Jackson still gone, she was his rock, grounding him into the reality of his role of alpha and all that entailed. Mostly, it entailed possessing true strength and not losing any face in front of the pack. Wolf packs lived and died by the unshakeable certainty of their alpha. He could not show weakness. Not now, not ever.
Conviction settled over him. No. Cassandra would not have left on her own. Certainly not into the woods, and certainly not ripping off her dress on the way. As humans tended, she seemed to prefer clothing.
Huffing a bit at that silliness, also trying to dispel the unsettled direction of his thoughts, Trevor lifted his head and nose to scan the air currents yet again. Nothing but the heated grasses of the late summer afternoon, the wilder scents of the forest beyond, and the restless milling of wolves scenting and running all over the place, trying to find his mate. If he concentrated, he could even pick up whiffs of the human activity and structures far below them in town. But nothing of Cassandra.
With abrupt fury, the ground beneath them jolted hard. A few cries and startled howls bit at the air as the earth trembled and shivered, causing every wolf to stagger or stumble. Tamsin barked in surprise, immediately bracing herself on her paws. She dropped to the ground as another tremor rolled through, shaking not only the ground but the trees, loose rocks, and every creature around.
Trevor froze in place before dropping as well, riding out the small shocks, trusting the pack members to do the same despite the nervous whines that punctured through the noise of the shaking earth. All he could think of was Cassandra. Where was she? Was she scared right now, wherever she was?
A crashing sound followed by a wolf yelp somewhere in the woods told him a branch or rock must have fallen onto one of them. Nothing he could do but remain where he was, even though all he wanted was to find his mate and comfort her. She must be terrified.
Damning this cursed day to hell, he waited for the shaking to end.
Long moments later, it stopped. The forest, the sky, the ground, all were hushed with the eerie silence that always followed the occasional quakes. Living on top of a dormant volcano was not an exercise in any real danger, Trevor knew. He would never allow the pack to stay if that were true. But it certainly did spice things up now and then.
After another pause to be sure the current tremor was done, Trevor stood again, shaking himself nose to tail to rid the sensation of rocking that still lingered. Focusing on the moment, he looked back at the wolf who'd brought him the scrap of dress. Nervous under the hard gaze of his alpha, the young scout also got back on his paws, although his eyes darted around as if planning an escape route if the shaking began again.
“Focus,” Trevor said, his voice whipping out. “That was of little consequence to us. But my mate is still missing.”
The wolf whined a bit.
“What?” Trevor said sharply.
“I caught very faint scent of a wolf farther up the mountain, sir. But not one of ours.” Confusion laced his tone and covered his body as he doubtfully went on, “Though for some reason I thought I should recognize it.”
Trevor stared for a moment, not understanding. Then a terrible clarity dawned.
“Not one of ours,” he repeated, very slowly. He looked at Tamsin, who had also gotten back to her feet. She stared back at him for a moment before equal parts of comprehension and fury broke over her features in a snarl.
“One who used to be ours,” she said, voice almost lost in her growl. “Those bastards.”
With sickening lucidity, the pieces abruptly fell into place. Aliana and Thayne had been plotting for a long time on how to overthrow Trevor's alpha status and take the pack under their own control. Yes, Tamsin had known of their affair, but she hadn't thought it bled over into actually challenging and unseating Trevor as alpha. She hadn't realized the sheer depths of Aliana's desire to be alpha female.
“A fool. I was a fool.” Tamsin's voice was jagged with anger. “I thought it merely an affair of convenience between them.” Her ears stiffened straight up, the sign of a wolf hovering close to dangerous rage. She swung her head toward Trevor. “If they are involved, this means worse than just banishing.”
Dread licked at her tone as well. Thayne was her brother as well, and she loved him despite it all. But if this were true, it was an unpardonable act against the pack's alpha. And the alpha of a pack who wished to remain alpha could never let something like this pass unchecked.
This could be not only Thayne's own banishment, but his death sentence.
Cassandra's arrival must have been such a sweet, unexpected boon to Aliana's clever thinking, Trevor now realized with bleak understanding. She'd seen an opportunity, and she'd calculated how to grab it. Indeed alpha female material, he had to admit. Too bad her motives were utterly self-centered rather than focused on the ultimate good of the pack.
As for Thayne—snarling, Trevor pushed onward in single-minded determination, scouting the edge of trees around the claiming meadow once again for any signs that might have been missed. He'd always know of Thayne's desire to be alpha of one of the most powerful packs in the country. But he'd missed the full extent of his brother's strategic thinking. No, Thayne hadn't foreseen either Cassandra's existence or the truth of her being Trevor's mate. No one could have. But just as Aliana did, Thayne must have been quick to grasp how to leverage the situation to their favor. Of all the wolves in the pack, despite Tamsin's efforts to hide it, Thayne had known more of Trevor's nearly self-destructive pain after the alpha's first mate died. His thought process now became horrifically clear.
Take the alpha's new mate, and kill her. The alpha would not be able to withstand another assault like that against his own psyche. Once so very vulnerable again, Trevor would be easy to take down in challenge from Thayne, who would then claim the role of alpha with Aliana at his side.
The pieces fell into place with almost a clicking sound in Trevor's mind. Cassandra was not dead. As her mate, he would sense that. Flicking away remembered pain with the renewed practiced cold of years of hidden mourning, he focused on the moment instead.
“Everyone go into the woods.” Using his alpha powers to send the command to every wolf in the pack old enough to search, he infused a sense of urgency to it. “She has been taken into the woods.”
Chapter 4
Knees and hands screaming in pain from the repeated times she'd fallen to the rough ground, scraping and slicing the shit out of herself before her sheer panic made her rise and stumble-run onward, Cassie couldn't hear anything except her own ragged breathing. The light was getting brighter, thank god. She was getting closer to the end of the lava tube.
Hopefully then she could run in earnest.
Alpha's mate or not, the deepest instincts of an ingrained lifetime of human fear of wolf shifters weren't something she could completely erase in the course of barely a day. Her body had started to run before her mind caught up. That was a real wolf behind her somewhere, probably still growling and snarling and planning to slash out her throat for darned certain this time. Despite banging into the walls and the ground multiple times, Cassie really didn't care to stop and try to listen. All
she wanted was to get away.
So close to the end of the tunnel. Putting on a burst of speed now that she could see the ground and avoid obstacles, she finally careened out into the light, arms windmilling from her final effort to escape the dark. Tall, thick pine trees surrounded her, the mountainside sloping sharply downhill before her.
She might not know where the hell she was, but she knew downhill was a sure bet. The estate, Trevor, and safety lay that way. Hurtling herself forward, she leapt into the edge of the trees and began running down. Almost immediately, she realized flat out running wasn't going to work. The pine needles slipped beneath her feet, broken branches and toppled trees were in the way, and of course the undergrowth hindered her progress. A fucking gazelle she was not.
“Dammit, can't anything around here be easy?” she snapped, hearing the little quiver in her voice. A bird in the forest tentatively called back, sounding as concerned as she was. Nothing else moved or made a peep. Probably all the little animals were still frozen, sensing in their little animal ways that the earthquake might come back at any second.
Forcing herself to be careful but not slow, Cassie moved downhill as fast as she dared. She had no idea if Aliana was close or if her growl had simply echoed through the tunnel. She had no idea if Thayne had woken up. Then again, when she thought about it more clearly, she doubted Aliana would leave without Thayne.
Oh, great. That meant there were two wolves in the tunnel behind her, hunting her down. And here she was, running and tripping in oversized shoes trying to escape.
Crazy wolf politics. Screw that. She was getting out of this alive. Setting her jaw with determination, she kept heading down the mountain. Branches scraped at her, roots reared up in her path, the shoes flapped and flopped and threatened to trip her.
