Wolf's Secret (Alpha's Hunger Book 2)

by Carina Wilder

  I reached for him, wrapping my hands around his neck as I saddled him with the responsibility of keeping us afloat. His erection, which seemed to be on the hunt for my body, pressed into my belly, reminding me how much I missed having him inside me. “You’re a brat,” I said, my voice tensing from the pleasure of his touch.

  He threw me a crooked, accusing smile. “You love it and you know it.”

  “I do love…” I stopped myself. “It. I love it.”

  The truth was that I wanted to say I love you, and I am perfectly, resplendently, stupidly happy right now. Let’s never leave this idyllic place. But for some reason, I didn’t. I couldn’t say the words.

  I swam away from him, tears in my eyes as I struggled with the conflict that wouldn’t let up inside me.

  The truth was that sometimes, loving him scared me more than any gator ever could.

  Chapter 19

  When we’d finished our swim and thrown our now-damp clothes back on, Tristan drove us along a series of winding roads that skirted the bayou. Giant, untamed trees with lush green foliage surrounded us, guardians scrutinizing anyone who dared slip into the wilds of Louisiana.

  “What’s our next destination?” I asked.

  Before Tristan could answer, a series of small buildings appeared along the road in the distance. A crumbling house here, an old building that looked like it might once have been a church there.

  The place was a ghost town.

  “This is where we went to school, believe it or not,” he said, pointing to a set of stone ruins. “When we actually made it to class, anyhow. Over there’s where the general store used to be. We bought our supplies there—anything that our family couldn’t grow or hunt.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “What exactly did you hunt?”

  “We hunted anything that moved,” he nodded. “Squirrels, like I said. Muskrats, gators. We fished too, of course.”

  “Wow, and I thought you were kidding earlier. So, you were basically some kind of wild mountain man.”

  “More like mountain boy,” he replied. “Minus the mountains.”

  “That’s too weird,” I laughed. “I can’t get my head around that image at all. You’re so…I don’t know, well-groomed.”

  “When you have no money, you do what you need to survive,” Tristan replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “When I got away from this place and started working—I mean really working—it changed my life.”

  “So you left home?”

  “I did. It took a while. Krane and I were expected to help out around our home—my father had died of typhoid, and of course my mother wasn’t well. I did odd jobs for people at first—mostly construction—just to help put food on the table. Eventually, when she died and left us the property, I looked for more ambitious contracts in locations that were farther away. I wasn’t tethered to our land anymore.”

  “The house—is it still yours?”

  Tristan nodded. “It is, believe it or not,” he said. “Ironically enough, it’s mine and Krane’s. It’s one thing we never fought over, probably because neither of us particularly wanted it. Still, for some reason, we’ve never been able to let it go.” He pushed out a heavy sigh, like he’d been holding it in for ages. “Anyhow, I finally landed a job with a wealthy land owner. I thought for a time that I had it made.”

  “Where did you work?”

  “I’ll show you, if you like. It’s not all that far from here, at least not by car.”

  He drove for a time, slowing down once to point out an ancient oak tree in the middle of a pretty field to our left. “That, by the way, is where I had my first kiss,” he said, mischief playing across his features. It was sort of sweet to see him recall the days of his youth, though I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to hear about kissing other women.

  “Really?” I asked, trying to push away the jolt of jealousy that insisted on assaulting me. It didn’t make any sense to envy someone who’d probably been dead for a hundred and fifty years.

  “Really. I was all of eleven years old at the time.”

  I laughed, slightly relieved to realize that I’d envied an act of utter innocence.

  “Don’t mock me,” Tristan scolded. “It was the most intensely sensual one-second peck on the lips that any boy has ever experienced.”

  “Uh-huh. What was her name?”

  “Josie Picard,” he all but sang, pretending to swoon at the thought of her. “I still remember her freckles. It was like a Cheetos bag had exploded in her face.”

  “I’m pretty sure they didn’t have Cheetos two hundred years ago, Tristan.”

  “No, you’re probably right.” He hit the accelerator, distancing us from the ancient memory.

  “Josie Picard, you said? Her name sounds French.”

  “It was. This whole territory was a French colony, remember.”

  “Right, I’d all but forgotten my American history lessons.” A thought crossed my mind. “Wait a minute—Wolfe isn’t a French name, is it?”

  He shook his head. “No. My original name was Leclair.”

  “Leclair?” I asked. “Why didn’t you keep it?”

  Tristan went silent for a few seconds before replying. “Let’s just say that man died a long time ago. It didn’t make sense to keep his surname.”

  “But you grew up speaking French?” I asked.

  “I did,” he said. “As well as English. My parents wanted us to be prepared for anything, any job, whether we needed to speak one language or the other. They didn’t want us to be excluded from society for seeming too much like we belonged to one side. I was too young to understand our local politics and the conflicts that were raging around us all our lives. Krane and I spent our days oblivious to it all, hunting in the woods, wading through the bayou, helping our mother around the house. Not until I got older did I start to realize how insane the power struggle had been between the colonies who’d taken over our country…not to mention the power struggles that had always remained secret.”

  “You mean the power struggle between shifters,” I said quietly, hesitant to broach the topic.

  “Yes. Though I didn’t know that shifters existed. Not until I went to work for the man known as Demarche and learned the hard way.”

  I looked at him, waiting—hoping—for more. But I knew perfectly well that if I asked him to tell me about it, he wouldn’t. I’d learned from experience that Tristan never said more than he wanted or needed to.

  He went silent for a few minutes as he steered us down a series of roads so narrow and hidden that I wondered if they showed up on any map known to man. After a time, he silently raised his right hand and pointed towards a location in the distance.

  At first all I could see were trees. But as we moved along, I spotted a long, overgrown driveway that led away from the road to an ancient manor house which had probably once been very beautiful.

  An immediate sense of dread overtook me. I could only have described it as the irrational feeling that the place was haunted with memories of wrongdoing, evils gone unchecked. My body tensed, my fingers digging into the seat’s upholstery.

  All I knew was that I wanted to get as far away from the place as I possibly could.

  I’d never felt that way about anything in this world, despite my fair share of past traumas. Never had I taken one look at a place and sensed with an abiding fear that it had to be the residence of pure malice. But Demarche’s plantation said it with a vengeance. Stay away. Do not come any closer, or you’ll regret it.

  Tristan pulled the car to a stop some distance away. “That was the plantation where I worked,” he said, his eyes fixed straight ahead, like it was too hard to look back towards the place. “Krane and I were employed there for a time. We built an addition on the main house, as well as some outbuildings in the back.”

  “Something tells me it wasn’t the best experience,” I replied, clasping my hands together to keep them from trembling.

  “On the contrary, actually. At first, it was the best; it was
everything I’d ever dreamed of. Solid pay, respect from a man who was one of the most powerful in the south. I was so excited to be working for him.” He turned to look at me. “But so fucking naive, too.”

  “What happened there, Tristan?” I asked, my voice hoarse with concern.

  “The worst days of my life happened,” he said enigmatically. “A fate I wouldn’t wish on my greatest enemy.”

  “Why? Was it where…?” The words quaked. I was pretty sure that he knew the question I was going to ask, and I was completely sure that I didn’t want to know the answer.

  “That’s a story for another day,” Tristan said, hitting the gas once again, a surge of detritus flying up behind our rear tires. “All I want right now is to forget the old memories…and to make some new ones with you.”

  Chapter 20

  We drove in tense silence for some time, the shadow of the Demarche plantation fading like a veiled memory into the distance. I couldn’t help wondering what it was about the place that had made it feel so haunted, so terrifying. Maybe it was the fact that my blood seemed to have turned cold the moment I laid eyes on it. Or the simple fact that it might have once held the secret that had led Tristan to become what he was now—a shifter with a hidden history, a man whose soul was concealed behind an immovable door whose key had been discarded lifetimes ago.

  “I thought I’d take you into New Orleans for a nice southern dinner,” he told me after a time, jarring me out of my dark thoughts. “Have you ever had jambalaya?”

  I shook my head, stunned at how casual he sounded now. For a deeply troubled man, he’d managed to return to normalcy awfully quickly.

  “Nope. Remember—I’ve never been here.” I leaned forward to watch a large owl flap over the road from one tall tree to another, signaling that evening had come. “This whole place feels so strange,” I murmured, “like there’s an energy to it that I can’t quite figure out. It’s…witchy…or something.”

  “They say all the Parishes are haunted,” Tristan said, “by more than mere ghosts. The old stories say it’s the memories that walk under the trees at night. Shades of the past, never releasing, never disappearing. They’re part of the air down here. Every inhale pulls them in, every exhale pushes them out. But they never leave you, not really.” With the last words, his voice grew thin, like some weakness had overtaken my lover. Maybe he didn’t feel so normal after all. “I’d almost forgotten how acutely I can feel them. How clearly I remember, even after all this time.”

  I glanced over at his profile. For the first time since our arrival he looked tense, worried, like he felt that something awful was going to happen. Something had him on edge, though I had no idea what.

  I reached over and laid a hand on his forearm. “You said you want to make new memories,” I said, “and we will. I promise. Let’s focus on that for a little bit.”

  “You’re right,” he replied, taking hold of my hand, lifting it to his lips and kissing it. “I’m so damned grateful to have you here with me. It’s not an easy place to come back to.”

  No, I thought. I don’t suppose it is.

  The drive into New Orleans led us straight to the French Quarter. It felt like we’d driven into another country entirely from where we’d been only minutes earlier. Suddenly we were in tourist central, drunk young couples wandering the streets wearing brightly colored t-shirts with cartoon crawfish emblazoned on them, loud music blasting out of nearby bars.

  The city’s signature iron railings, shuttered windows and hanging ferns greeting my eye everywhere I looked, picturesque relics from the past. I imagined the days when Tristan had been a young man, when candles would have flickered in second-story windows and horse-drawn carriages made their way down cobbled streets. The French Quarter was like a time capsule—though judging by the number of strip clubs we passed, at least a few of its elements had altered over the years.

  Tristan pulled the car up in front of a little restaurant called Le Coq d’Or. A golden rooster stood proudly on its sign, beckoning us to enter. Large floor to ceiling windows opened onto the sidewalk, a series of small round tables all but jutting out in front of passing pedestrians.

  When a waiter gestured to us to take a seat, we grabbed one of the tables and sat down side by side to people-watch. Most of the passersby seemed to consist of couples holding hands, pointing this way or that or studying their phones, trying to figure out which way to the Café du Monde or the nearest jazz club.

  “I like the vibe of this town,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “Something about it feels totally different, but totally familiar at the same time.”

  Tristan threw me a quick smile, but I wasn’t sure if he was enjoying himself or still tense with thoughts of his sordid history. He still exuded a nervous energy that told me all was not well with him or the beast that lived inside him.

  “Did you ever live here?” I asked, trying to pull his mind away from his worries and into something more like small talk. “In the city, I mean?”

  He nodded. “I did, for some time, after…after it happened.”

  “After the change, you mean,” I said softly, shifting my body towards his.

  He nodded. “Yes, after the change. It took me a long time to get my body and mind under control, but eventually I moved here to help rebuild.”

  “Rebuild?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

  “New Orleans had a massive fire in 1794,” he said. “It took years to reconstruct the buildings that were lost. I accumulated a team of men who could help me and set to work. It was how I started making my fortune.”

  Just then, a waiter who couldn’t have been older than nineteen came and took our order. Tristan asked for shrimp jambalaya and two beers.

  “So the change was really hard,” I said. I already knew the answer. Marcus and Kara had told me enough to gather that it could be a hellish experience.

  “It was agony,” Tristan said. “Every single day was torture.”

  I reached over and took his hand in mine, pulling it to my lips then pressing it to my cheek. “I’m sorry.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s not your fault.” He pulled his hand away and took a swig of the water the waiter had poured for us. “Nights were the most unbearable.” His eyes moved up to the darkening sky, like he was cursing it for its past cruelty.

  I looked around, searching for anything to take our minds off the subject. Down the street, a man was dressed as a creepy clown, juggling a set of colorful balls shaped like skulls while tourists took selfies with him. Across the way, I could hear a terrible cover band butcher the song Margaritaville.

  Some jazz town this was.

  “There are so many people here,” I said absently. “I wonder if it’s always like this.”

  “Pretty much, as I recall from my last visit.” Tristan scanned our surroundings, nodding just as absently as his eyes roved up and down the street. But after a few seconds he froze.

  Something—or someone—to our left had caught his eye.

  I turned to see a man standing on the sidewalk several feet away. Irritated tourists made their way around his stationary form, glaring at him for taking up valuable real estate, though he ignored them. Apparently he was interested in only one person.

  The man had dark hair, bronzed, leathery skin, and a set of broad shoulders. His pale, frightening eyes locked on my lover, and the expression on the stranger’s face said Get out of my fucking town, you infiltrator.

  I could all but feel the hatred oozing from his pores.

  I knew perfectly well what he was, though I’d never seen a shifter who looked quite like him. Whereas Tristan was polished and elegant, this man looked like he’d just stepped off the deck of a pirate ship. His face glistened with sweat, his hair a messy dark tangle that may or may not have been greasy with neglect.

  There was a wildness to him that I’d never seen in another shifter.

  “Who is that?” I asked, turning back to Tristan, who was still staring, his eyes na
rrowed and deathly bright. I could see that his wolf was on high alert, ready to explode from inside him at any sign of threat. I could only imagine what would happen if the two of them went at it on a busy New Orleans street at the height of tourist season.

  “All you need to know is that he’s someone I was acquainted with a long time ago,” he replied, his voice a cross between a growl and a whisper. “Someone I should have killed long before you were ever born.”

  “Killed? Why would you kill him?”

  Tristan didn’t answer, and when I turned to look again, the man was gone.

  Frustration bubbled up inside me. I didn’t like when he ignored my questions. I was tired of his secrets, his insistence on closing himself off from me. I pressed my hands into the table, trying to force my growing anger to subside. “For God’s sake, Tristan—” I began.

  “Don’t ask me about him again, Ariana,” he all but shouted, his voice tight in his chest. His eyes still glowed brightly, and I could tell that he was fighting to keep his wolf at bay. “Just…don’t. Please.” With that, he turned in his seat to gesture the waiter over. Apparently he’d unilaterally decided that the topic was officially closed.

  “Excuse me, when’s our food coming?” he asked when our server approached. I clenched my jaw, trying not to scream with pent-up frustration.

  “I’ll check,” the young man replied, a look of fear in his eyes as he took off for the kitchen. I didn’t blame him; Tristan looked like a man out for blood.

  “Let’s just try to enjoy our meal, all right?” my lover said when we were alone again.

  As I nodded I felt myself slouching in my seat, cowering, like I’d seen Marcus do more than once when a powerful shifter had been in the vicinity.

  All of a sudden I wanted to kick myself for being submissive and letting him have his way. I’d done it too many times. What about me? What about what I needed? What about the fact that I wanted more than anything to understand him, so I could actually begin to share my life with him?