“Morning.” He considered the delicate length of her arm, letting his eyes drift half-closed. If he roused enough to move, he’d have to acknowledge the lack of storm outside—the wind had quieted. He expected the snow would have done the same.
“I’d kill for a shower.” She yawned again then gave his shoulder a squeeze before finally pulling her hand away. The urge to grab her hand and put it back hit him so strongly he rose from his position to add wood to the fire.
“You don’t have to kill anything.” Ever. If it needs to die, I’ll do it. The internal agreement he sensed from his Wolf puzzled him nearly as much as his own response. He didn’t know this human, but neither he nor his Wolf cared. “I’ll start the generator, so it will heat the water. Then you can shower.”
“You have a generator?” She started forward, yelping the minute her bare leg came out from beneath the blanket. Yes, it had gotten too cold, and his gaze lingered on where she’d jerked the blanket back around her.
“Yes.” He finished loading the wood then favored her a mild look. “Stay.”
Thirty minutes later, he experienced a rough pleasure of her squeal of delight in the bathroom. The generator was old, but he’d maintained the equipment. He used it sparingly in large part because he liked a hot shower now and then. He had an outhouse located some distance from the cabin, but she’d not asked to use the facility. Once she’d settled into her shower, he checked the area then remembered the wolf he’d left in the snow.
It couldn’t be helped before, but he’d have to deal with Garrick’s body today. Making short work of the cleanup, he found himself listening to Saja in the shower. When her alto climbed with some song, he grinned.
The woman really didn’t have a quiet bone in her body.
So complete was his distraction, he wasn’t prepared for the thump of boots on his porch, which gave him a scant few seconds to recover before Drew knocked on the door. “Ryker, came to make sure you got through the storm okay.”
Surprise slid through him—no one checked on his welfare. After stalking across the room, he pulled the cabin door open to the Alpha’s grinning face, but before Drew could utter a word of greeting, Saja’s song grew. Surprise replaced the other Wolf’s smile as his nostrils flared. Ryker schooled his features to reveal nothing—not that he could hide her presence. Younger than he by more than a couple of decades, Drew had lived among the humans for ten years, only returning to the pack in the last few months.
The Alpha stepped inside the cabin, his gaze going to the chair, the suitcases, the fire, then finally back to Ryker as Saja let loose with another set of lusty lyrics amidst the sound of the water falling. Ryker kept his own counsel, offering nothing until he got a sense of Drew’s intent.
Humans weren’t supposed to be in Black Hills territory much less his cabin. Protecting the pack came first. The Alpha’s primary duty was the safety of the pack. Ryker’s was to enforce the law.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Drew said with a slow grin. “Why do you have a human in your shower?”
“She’s mine.” Meeting and holding his Alpha’s gaze, Ryker’s response had the effect of a bomb dropped into the middle of the conversation.
He’d found her. Until Drew confronted him, he hadn’t realized he planned to keep her.
Chapter Four
“Yours in what sense? You’re not cleaning her off to eat her? I think it’s been five, six decades since we performed a human sacrifice, right?” The amusement in his tone dried up at Ryker’s flat look.
The enforcer didn’t have a specific answer to his question.
“No, seriously, man, what’s the human doing here?” Drew’s face fell, the mask of the Alpha erasing the last semblance of humor. “Because you know she can’t be yours. Humans have always been forbidden.”
His sigh rumbling with a growl he refused to let out, Ryker motioned the other man farther inside.
“Her car broke down.” Then, before he forgot, “Garrick turned down your offer.”
Drew snarled, looking skyward. “Garrick was too far gone. I should have ended him myself. It feels like every Wolf needs a chance. We’re too broken, too destroyed to let anyone go without a fight. But still, I knew he’d crossed over. This makes my point. You, of all of us, know why your human in the shower is a very bad idea.” Drew paused, his eyes widening. “Shit, Ryker. Yours? As in your mate? Have you attached to a human?”
Mate? In the shower, Saja’s song climbed to a conclusion then gave way to one about ninety-nine balloons. The odd lyrics fit her. Fun seemed to explode in her tone. The unsettled feeling swamping him from the moment he met his little human on the side of the road snapped into place. The burn of mate potential should have left score marks on his chest, and only discipline kept him from rubbing the spot.
But he refused to tell Drew the whole of it. If he did, it drew a line. His Alpha would have every right to kill him. If he tried to take Saja, it would provoke a fight.
“It’s complicated,” was the best he could do.
“Well, then un-complicate it, Ryker. I want the human gone when the snow melts enough for her to be out of here. I’ll leave it to your judgment.” Drew shook his head. “Unless she’s your mate. Then we’ll have to talk about your…complication.”
Still turning the idea of her being his mate over in his mind, his hearing sharpened on the key phrase in Drew’s statement. I’ll leave it to your judgment.
“Her name is Saja.” Then he added, “She’s not a threat to the pack.” She wasn’t a threat to anyone. No one would be threatening her.
“Everyone is a threat, Ryker. Until they’re not. As soon as it’s safe for her to go, she goes. Don’t get me wrong. I like humans. I lived with them for ten years. But they don’t belong here. You know that. Hell, you might have even made the rule.”
The Alpha had a point. It was hardly safe for Betas like Tasha much less humans. His Wolf didn’t like it. Ryker didn’t like it. “As you say.” He nodded. “I’ll take care of it.” Soon as the snow cleared. “Her car is broken down on the old highway. It needs hoses and new parts.” They didn’t have a mechanic, but they did have Gee. Hell, even Ryker could probably make it work with the right tools.
The thought tasted foul, but he was too well used to burying his opinions to share that with Drew.
“So, when do I get to meet your human?”
Though his human continued to sing, the shower cut off. Every movement she made, from stepping out of the shower to the rasp of the towel against her skin, was audible to both of them. Shifting his stance, Ryker put himself between Drew and the bathroom door a second before it clicked open.
“I am in love with your shower. I have already decided to forgive you for not telling me I could use it last night.” Steamy air drifted through the room, carrying her scent along with the aroma of his soap. Ryker kept his gaze locked on Drew, his awareness of his Alpha’s every move. “Of course, I forgot to bring my clothes in here, so I need to grab a change of—”
Without turning away from Drew, Ryker braced his foot against Saja’s suitcase then gave it a shove. It slid across the floor, the faint scraping of the case against the wood loud in the silence. His Alpha’s eyes narrowed, a faint smile touching his mouth.
“Don’t mind us, ma’am.” Polite. Too polite, with a hint of what sounded like laughter. “Ryker was just telling me about your car problems.” Though he directed his words at Saja, his Alpha didn’t take his gaze off him.
The allure of her scent wrapped around Ryker. The burn in his chest increased. Drew needed to leave.
“Oh, that’s great! He’s been a real lifesaver. I would probably be dead if he hadn’t rescued me from the side of the road. I didn’t realize he had neighbors. I don’t suppose you have a phone?”
“Go change,” Ryker told her.
Drew hadn’t looked at her yet, but if she went off on another verbal tangent, he might. The flex of his claws inside his skin meant his Wolf was closer to the surface than it had be
en in a long time. No blood oath prevented him from attacking Drew—in fact, the younger Wolf had insisted after he’d defeated his father and taken the title Alpha that Ryker kill him if he even sensed Drew would follow in his mad father’s footsteps.
A distant part of his mind objected. Drew was not a threat to Ryker or the pack, but his Wolf disagreed. Drew had just ordered him to send Saja away. It was the reasonable, rational choice—it was the law. But it wasn’t what the Wolf wanted.
“I’m going to! If you give me a minute, I’ll be right out. Maybe I can use your phone? I don’t want to keep being a problem for Ryker.” She seemed utterly oblivious to the tension in the room, another reason she should go. Wolves needed structure, order—Saja was brilliant chaos with her constant chatter and challenges flung out without any ounce of concept of what she poked. Not that Ryker would ever allow anyone to her hurt her. She already carried a hint of his scent. If he embedded it on her, they’d leave her be.
Hell, Drew was right.
Mate.
The door closed once more. Drew gave him an almost sympathetic look. “You have a problem.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Cutting off a limb would be simpler, but the needs of the pack had to come first. Any other choice was selfish.
The Alpha studied him. “I can take her. We’ve got some off-road vehicles. It would only take a few hours to get her to another town. We can arrange for her car to be brought to her.”
“No.”
“Ryker—”
“I said I would take care of it,” he growled. This time he didn’t swallow the sound. “You have other things to do.”
Drew nodded. “When you’re ready, find me.” He said nothing else because, what was there to say? Instead of leaving though, Drew put a hand on his shoulder. “I mean it. When you’re ready, find me.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
Drew left as silently as he’d arrived. Ryker followed him out, keeping an eye on his Alpha until he vanished into the trees, heading back toward Los Lobos. A faint set of tracks showed four feet arriving, but only two leaving—so not only had Drew arrived without Ryker being aware, he’d come in wolf form. Dammit, Saja could have seen.
But she didn’t.
Still, the fact she could have twisted the knife, driving it deeper. Her presence was a threat to everyone….
His Wolf snarled inside his skin.
Her absence would be worse.
Saja ran a brush through her damp hair—she had a blow dryer in the suitcase, but considering Ryker had to fire up a generator to let her take a shower, she made do with a fierce towel dry and a good comb. The sound of the outer door opening then closing cut off the faint voices of the two men. Ryker hadn’t looked at her once, but his whole body had been rigid when she’d ducked out to get suitcase.
His friend hadn’t looked pleased either. When she heard the outer door open again, she stopped delaying the inevitable and left the bathroom. Her sexy-as-sin host stood in front of the now-roaring fire. Between the shower and the fresh clothes, she felt more like herself. She’d even shaved her legs.
It was the little things that mattered.
After rubbing her hands together, she picked up her suitcase. She didn’t make a full two steps before Ryker took it out of her hand, returning it to the spot next to the chair where she’d slept. Odd, it was the best night’s sleep she’d had in a long time—while she’d been in a chair, too. Shaking off the musing, she stole another look at her host.
His expression was dark, closed off.
“Did I get you in trouble?” Whatever had been going on between the two, Ryker hadn’t sounded happy when she came out. He looked even less so now.
“No.” One succinct syllable.
“I meant what I said. I don’t want to be a burden….” for you.
Facing her, he studied her with an intensity she felt all the way to her bones. Thankfully, she had the chair and set a hand on it to keep from falling. Everything in the room seemed to fade except for the man holding her attention. Heat licked along her skin. The thud of her heart vibrated against her rib cage. Wood smoke, pine, snow, forest, and man filled her every breath. She alternated between wanting to drown in the scent and running like hell. Danger threaded between the beats in her pulse.
Primal instinct warred with common sense. The little voice in her soul said, Run! Run fast. Don’t look back.
“Whatever you choose,” Ryker said into the torrent of sensations shredding her thoughts, “don’t run.”
The order conflicted with her sense of self-preservation. Saja tried to swallow around the sudden lump in her throat. “Why?”
A scuff of sound then Ryker stood in front of her. She’d stared right at him yet had barely seen him move. Retreating a step had no effect—he simply closed the distance between them. Adrenaline flooded her. A dim part of her mind recognized the knee-jerk symptoms of fight or flight, but it wasn’t terror crawling through her. Terror she could almost understand. Ryker was a stranger—a kind stranger who found her on the side of the road. One who’d literally opened his door to her. He’d proved his compassion, demonstrated his care repeatedly throughout the night, then again with the arrival of morning. The inexplicable attraction along with the desire filling her veins wanted her to push him—if he didn’t want her to run, then shouldn’t she do it? Shouldn’t she run?
If he had a great big red button that said Don’t Push, would you push it, too? The inner critic reminded her of all the choices she’d made through the years, the decisions to go places others didn’t want to be, even exploring a career which would send her to other like places—dangerous, dark, and forbidding locations. South Dakota didn’t even top the list of the scary places she’d been stuck.
None of those ever had a Ryker either.
When she continued to stand still, the man in question let out a slow breath. He leaned in to her, so close she could feel the stir of his breath. Practically taste him on her tongue. When he took a deeper inhale, her whole system went into hyperdrive. She really couldn’t help it. Darting around him as fast as she could, she fled.
Out the door and into the snow; the ice, cold against her bare feet, didn’t even slow her down.
Run.
She had to run. She didn’t make the mistake of looking over her shoulder. She didn’t want to know if he pursued, only she hoped he would.
What the fuck? For the second time in two days, her thoughts dipped down a weird and winding path. Welcome to Wonderland, Alice.
The burning sensation in her chest spread, making breathing more difficult. Her muscles pumped through the snow sucking at her legs. How the hell had so much fallen in one storm? It had been above her ankles at the cabin, but the farther she went she had to plow through the icy mess up to her knees. It leached away her warmth, but she was sweating, too. She had to keep running.
Every tree looked like the next. Where the hell was the road? He’d only run for a few minutes; they had to be close to the road. But there were no roads, no paths, nothing but trees and snow—and behind her somewhere, Ryker.
He was coming. She had no idea how she knew, but he was. She had to be…where? Whatever her brain tried to offer up stalled as she circled a tree and tripped over something in the snow. As she struggled to her feet, a low, feral growl ripped at the air around her. Everything in Saja stilled.
Survival instincts told her the sound wasn’t human. With agonizing slowness, she turned her head, praying every second what she thought she’d heard wasn’t reality.
Apparently, God wasn’t listening, however, because across the snowy expanse beneath another tree, a wolf—an honest-to-God, four-legged, dark gray wolf bared its teeth at her. Another low, throaty growl wet the frigid air, and all the panic she hadn’t experienced back in the cabin swam up to punch her in the gut.
Wolves. What did one do with wolves?
Don’t stare at it. She glanced down then felt around in the snow. If Ryker came after her, he’d run right into the anima
l. Her stupidity didn’t need to get two people killed. Her numb fingers encountered a rough object. She fumbled with it. A rock.
As weapons went, it was pathetic.
Another growl split the air, jerking her gaze up. The wolf stalked toward her, every step slow, deliberate. She could almost see the saliva dripping from its mouth.
Yeah, don’t focus on the very big teeth.
Another sound—snow crunching behind her was her only warning—Ryker. The gray switched its attention, its snarl growing louder. Saja jerked the rock out of the snow and flung it for all she was worth. It struck the gray on the side of his head then the beast roared and charged.
Oh, shit.
Throwing her arms over her head, she tried to make herself small, bracing for the horrendous feeling of teeth or claws or, God help her, both ripping into her flesh—only they didn’t come. The first growl was met by a second then a collision so fierce, she imagined she could hear bones clank.
She stole a look up. A second wolf slammed into the first, but unlike the gray, this one was the color of rusted leaves in autumn, deep brown with hints of gold. Red-flecked snow flew as the two wrestled, teeth, claws, and churning snow. Then the second wolf closed his teeth around the throat of the first. What followed was a horrible crunching noise before the gray went silent and limp.
The sight was the most terrible and awesome thing she’d ever seen. She was torn between cheering for the victor and throwing up. Before she could decide, the autumn-colored wolf flung the gray away from him then spun to face her. Sure, it had saved her, but that didn’t mean her ass was out of the fire.
A huff of noise. The second wolf headed straight for her. Scrabbling backward through the snow, she froze at the snap of his—definitely a he—teeth. Less than a foot away, the wolf paused. Saja squeezed eyes shut and held her breath; if it killed her, she could only hope he was quick about it. When it came no closer, she squinted her eyes open in time to see the air shimmer. Where the wolf had been, Ryker knelt.
Her mind refused to accept this sudden sharp curve in reality. She closed her eyes again, but when she re-opened them, her Native American god was still there. His intractable expression carried traces of anger and regret. After reaching her, he plucked her from the snow as if she weighed nothing. Then, for the second time in as many days, he took off running—only this time, he cradled her to his chest.
What a Wolf Wants (Black Hills Wolves Book 2) Page 4
