He blinked and the illusion vanished, no doubt some play of light from the brewing winter storm. Although he’d seen a lot of weather since he’d come north, most of it far beyond anything he expected from home, something about the thunder and snow was downright creepy. Straightening his sleeves, he’d reached for his coat when the knocking began again at his door, although this time it was more cop knock than the vicious thumping from before. “I said to go away!”
“Uh, no.”
Recognizing the voice, Lynwood stomped to the door and threw it open. “What? Are you here to kick my ass? Because if you are, just whatever. Fucking kick my ass and let me get on with my day. I’m not in the mood to talk about it, so hit me and leave, okay?”
Charley leaned on the doorframe, hands tucked into his signature gray hoodie. “Is there a reason I should kick your ass, rogue, or is it an open-ended offer?”
Snorting, Lynwood moved back to the couch. “Like I said, either hit me or let me go. I’m not in the mood to talk.” He grabbed his bag and faced off with Dara’s second. If the pack planned to kill him, they would’ve done it already. If the pack planned to rough him up, he’d heal. Nothing they could do to him would hurt as badly as her rejection, anyway. “Well?”
The other man pulled out his fingernail file. Meeting Lynwood’s gaze, he said, “Snick,” before Lynwood looked away. Lynwood didn’t want to smile.
“I’m pissed off. Don’t try to amuse me.” Lynwood figured saying it probably took a bit of the punch from the words, but he didn’t care.
“I’m not here to kick your ass. Although, the fact you thought I came to do so makes me wonder what exactly you messed up since we last spoke, but I’m not interested in relationship drama. Where’s Dara?”
Since the other man blocked the doorway and didn’t look as if he planned to move any time soon, Lynwood slumped into a chair. “I don’t know.”
“Try again, rogue. I tracked her scent here and it is fresh. Where’d she go?” The slow repetitive sound of the file soothed Lynwood for some weird reason, or perhaps it was the presence of pack.
He’d forgotten how having other wolves around could be almost comforting in the silent the acknowledgement he wasn’t alone. “She left. Told me to leave.”
Charley snorted. “As I said, please don’t fill me in on the relationship crap. I’m her second. I can tell when she is in trouble and—”
Shooting to his feet, Lynwood rushed him. “What do you mean? Is she in trouble?”
“Would I have tracked her, knowing I might find you both bumping uglies, if she wasn’t?” As he put the file away, Charley gestured with his head down the hall. “You want to come with me? I need to find her before anyone else does. I’m not sure who in the pack is trustworthy and who isn’t…and she obviously trusts you, for whatever illogical reason.”
He could follow her directions and get the hell out of town, or he could intentionally ignore her order and go after her. If she was in trouble, maybe he could help.
Plus he’d get to see her one last time.
“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER Nine
She couldn’t believe the damned crow-looking thing got the jump on her twice, but it wasn’t as if the wolf was used to looking up for an attacker. Lying on her side, she again bled into the snow. If she lay here for a few minutes, she’d work up the enthusiasm to move.
Of course, the last time she’d tried to move, the gray dots swirling in her vision churned the nausea in her gut and made her flop back onto her side to curl into a ball, but maybe it would be better in a minute.
The night seemed to swirl around her, the fluttering fall of snow haloed by multicolored lights with twirling streamers like rainbow colored falling stars. She could almost hear each individual flake as it settled onto the ground and into the trees. While it should be a whisper of sound, softer than dust and inaudible, instead each thrummed like some tribal drumbeat in her head. If she stared hard enough, she could almost see figures dancing among the trees, shadowy things, painted like ancient warriors who’d come to watch her bleed out.
“Dara!” The voice was distant, hardly louder than the snow drums, but she scooched her head in the snow to try to face the direction of the sound. Moving wasn’t a great idea—the nausea—but it also seemed to make the snow accumulate faster on her eyelashes.
Or maybe the snow had been accumulating and her eyes had been closed? No, she’d been looking into the trees to watch the dancers, not sleeping. Biting her lip, she tried to clear her head, but couldn’t. The drums beat louder, heading toward a crescendo, and thunder seemed to shake the ground like a percussion section for the percussionists.
“Dara! If you can hear me, answer!” Charley. She recognized the voice. Lifting a hand, she waved toward where she heard the voice, but doubted he could see her. If he could see her, he wouldn’t be calling, right?
One of the dancers paused, painted face leaning toward hers with a menacing and gap-toothed grin. Batting her hand at him, she tried to speak, but her voice came out hardly more than a harsh breath of sound.
“Alpha sweetheart, where are you?”
Blinking fast, she managed to rid herself of the snow lashes enough to see. Everything was blurry and she still lay in the snow, but she could almost think clearly again. “Lynwood,” she mumbled. “Lynwood!” Her voice was still too soft to carry, but the thud of feet seemed to sound in the woods.
Or maybe it was the drummers?
Then he was there, arms almost painfully warm against her chilled skin. “You don’t listen for shit,” she whispered. “I told you to get off my lands.”
His open mouthed kiss against her temple was followed by his head resting against her own. “Yeah? Well, when you aren’t bleeding all over me, you can kick my ass and enforce your orders. For now, I need to get you somewhere safe.”
“I don’t need your help.”
Charley’s face swam into her view. “Tonight? We did need his help. I wouldn’t have found you; there wasn’t a trail. I have no clue how the rogue knew to come this way, but I’m glad he didn’t obey, weird as it is to admit.”
Grunting, she nuzzled her face into Lynwood’s neck. He smelled so damned good, like coffee rather than the chocolate of his skin color. Also, she hadn’t realized how cold her nose was until it touched his flesh. “Put me down so I can beat you into submission, rogue.”
“That’s my girl,” he whispered. The steady beat of his footsteps jarred her, making every damned one of her wounds throb to vibrant life. Then again, at least while she listened to his heart and the sound of his feet running in the night, she couldn’t hear the drummers.
But after a moment, she couldn’t hear anything as the darkness swallowed her whole.
***
“Why didn’t she tell me she’d been attacked before?”
Gritting his teeth, Lynwood looked at his hands, stained with her blood. “Look, man, you’ve worked with her much longer than I’ve known her. You’re her second. If you don’t understand her motivations, what makes you think I can guess why she does what she does?”
Why she’d come to him, why she’d admitted weakness to a stranger instead of her second—those weren’t the big questions for Lynwood, anyway. He wanted to know why she’d let him touch her, let him hold her, then banished him far more than he cared why she came to him instead of her precious pack. Bitterness forced him to add, “Maybe she doesn’t trust you.”
Charley’s hands stilled and he brushed her hair back. The other man knelt on the fluffy pink bathmat which came with Lynwood’s apartment and looked horribly out of place in the cheap bathroom. His expression as he looked at Dara could only be described as loving, something which twisted and awoke a green-eyed monster in Lynwood’s gut. Turning away from them, Lynwood focused on washing his hands. Let the pack clean her up this time, since she didn’t want him here anyway.
“I get it. You’re having some kind of pissy fit and, as I told you, I’d rather not hear about your rel
ationship crap. That said? You’re pushing it, rogue.”
Lynwood shook his head. “Do you love her?”
Even as he asked it, he couldn’t resist breathing deep of her scent. She wasn’t dead, but she was hurt. He called himself a bastard for picking at the other man—who obviously loved Dara or he wouldn’t have been trudging through the snow for more than an hour searching for a trail which they never did find—while she was injured, but invisible blades of glass seemed to writhe in his gut. He wasn’t pack, she’d told him to leave.
Sick little idiot that he was, he stood there, watching the water run pink with her blood. She’d been more than clear about her wishes in his regard, yet his only desire was to scoop her out of Charley’s arms and care for her. Mend her. Hold her and reaffirm she was truly okay.
Twice he’d found her laying in her own blood, and neither time had he been even a little useful in protecting her. Probably it was better if she was with Charley, since the other man obviously would do a better job of keeping her safe—had, in fact, until Lynwood came into the picture.
“Of course I love her,” Charley finally answered. His words caused a pain in Lynwood’s chest which he didn’t want to identify.
“Well, I’m already packed so…” His hand was on the doorframe when her voice stopped him.
“My head hurts.” Her voice came out broken, raspy, and before he’d considered it, Lynwood knelt at her other side.
“I love her because she’s my friend and alpha.” Charley’s voice was soft. Glancing up, Lynwood met his gaze for about a second before he had to look away. “But I couldn’t find her tonight.”
Lynwood swallowed hard. “Hey, sweetheart, how are you feeling—besides the head, that is?”
Lips curling up in a smile didn’t say anything happy, Dara answered, “I feel the bird has got to die, to be honest. Can’t believe he got the drop on me twice…” She coughed again, curling into herself and Lynwood caught her, rubbing her back.
“We’ve got a bath drawn for you—”
Charley’s hand braced on Lynwood’s shoulder. “You’ve got this. I’ll be by in the morning.” With those words, the other man stood to leave. Dara didn’t move when he rose, her fingers curling into Lynwood’s shirt as if to hold him in place.
“But—”
Charley grinned, wiggled his fingers at Lynwood and headed to the front of the house based on the sound of his footsteps. “Don’t forget to lock up, loverboy,” the wolf called before shutting the front door.
Scooping Dara closer, he squeezed her. It meant something, the fact Charley left her with him. “C’mon, sweetheart. We should be getting good at this. I wish you’d stop getting hurt, though, since this isn’t really my idea of a good time when I’ve got you naked.” Lifting her, he placed her in the water gently, but she didn’t release his shirt.
“Don’t get any ideas, Lynwood. This changes nothing.” But her fingers lingered across the wristlet she’d placed on his arm. “I’m still kicking you out of town.”
“Whatever makes you happy, sweetheart.” Picking up a washcloth, he began to stroke away the blood marring her creamy skin. “If you change, some of these are going to close up.”
Instead of arguing or agreeing, she nuzzled into his neck, practically pulling him into the water. “Can’t. Sleep.”
Cleaning her off, he allowed her to doze against his arm. Once he’d rinsed the wounds, he dried her and wrapped her to the best of his limited ability, wincing with every pained gasp from her. Once he’d done all he could, he carried her gently to his bed. This time, she didn’t fight him joining her. Sighing, she curled into his side. “You take first watch,” she whispered.
Nodding against her hair, he pulled her tight against him. “I’ll always watch, my alpha sweetheart. I promise.”
And he meant it. She could banish him all she wanted, but he wasn’t leaving this town until he’d found whatever kept going after her. He’d see her safe.
He knew he wasn’t a fighter and knew whatever kept attacking would likely kill him, but he’d rather die than leave her to face the darkness alone.
CHAPTER Ten
“Okay, I agree. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” She swirled her fingertips on his chest, loving the smoothness of his skin and the way it felt under the pads of her fingers. “Although I hate to admit you have a point.”
In a move she didn’t expect, since it hadn’t been his nature to move away from her when she’d allowed him to touch her, he rolled off the bed and tugged on a shirt he snagged from the floor. He didn’t speak, and for some reason it left her feeling really insecure.
She wasn’t accustomed to insecurity or doubt. No one ever managed to make her feel less than strong. Tugging the sheet up to her chin, she figured he’d never know she battled her own demons at his physical rejection if she didn’t tell him, so it probably didn’t matter. The bed smelled of him—coffee and soap and man. Inhaling, she allowed herself the luxury of enjoying it.
After all, she was injured. Gray dots still swam, ghosts on the edges of her vision, and twice in the night she’d woken to stare at figures outside his windows she was pretty sure weren’t there. Likely fever induced hallucinations, but disturbing nonetheless.
He stood next to the bed, the white tee shirt stark against his dark skin, and she watched as he seemed to gather his courage to speak. “I’m from Georgia.”
Running her tongue over her teeth, she wondered what he expected her to say. “That’s nice.”
He scrubbed a palm across his face before he stalked to the window. Clearly restless, he then paced back to the door before he again spoke. “Things are slower in the south, probably because it isn’t so damned cold. Anyway, my daddy was a farmer and my mother was a housewife. Our pack was spread out, the Alpha living in downtown Atlanta while we were simple country folk. I grew up loving the land, learning about animals and otherwise keeping to our community for the most part. I don’t remember how old I was when I realized the pack wasn’t just us and our neighbors—and the boss of us all lived in Atlanta.”
Rolling onto her back, she considered the ceiling. Probably it would be easier for him to talk if he didn’t have her gaze boring into him. “Okay.”
“I had a sister.”
Silence filled the room and she mentally noted he’d said he had a sister…past tense.
“Anyway, we were required, by local pack law, to report once a year to Atlanta to pay dues. I don’t know if you practice the same system up here, but it allowed the—”
“Dues mean Alphas don’t have to work. We can focus on pack business and, in return for us working for the pack full time, the pack ensures we’ve got enough to get by. Pretty common, actually, at least here in the States. It might irk some to have to pay into a leader they don’t know well, but there’s enough work for four alphas in most packs, so without dues we’d never be able to keep up with our responsibilities.” She understood pack structure and enforced it. Keeping a group as big as a pack tended to was full time work. She managed to get by without asking for much, but she wasn’t every alpha. She understood other packs might have leaders more consumed with material things than she herself was, but it didn’t make the rules wrong. Rogue or not, he wouldn’t stand there while she was injured and insult the very thing she’d spent most of her life defending.
He waved one hand in annoyance before pacing back to the window to look out at the snow coated alley. Since his back was turned, she figured it was a good time to see if she could sit up. The room only spun a bit, which she considered a win, so she let her feet drop over the side of the bed to land on the floor. Old, pocked wood felt cold under her bare feet, but the chill braced her a bit.
“I get that, and I’m not saying it is wrong. But when my sister was only sixteen, we went to pay dues as we did every other year.” Long dark fingers twitched, picking at the peeling paint on the windowsill. She focused on the nervous movement rather than the wave of vertigo standing caused. “My sister was re
ally beautiful,” he added.
Swallowing hard, her stomach flipped, but not only because of her injuries. “I take it that the alpha noticed her looks when you went to pay dues.”
His snort wasn’t amused. “You could say that. You could also say the alpha basically kidnapped her, and there wasn’t a damned thing we could do about it. She became little more than a sex slave to a dirty old man and, well, do you know what a wolf can do to stop the alpha from taking a daughter for yearly dues instead of part of the year’s corn crop?”
She wrapped her arms around his waist both for support and to comfort him with her touch. “Not all packs would think it was okay to take a sixteen year old girl from her home. Actually, most would find it disgusting and a sign of sickness in the alpha.”
His hands covered hers, almost hugging her to him. “Our pack felt it was his due. Or they felt it wasn’t their problem, since he hadn’t taken their daughters. Whatever, no one would do anything. My father, he fought the alpha—challenged him rather than turning over my sister.”
When Lynwood’s head bowed, Dara guessed at the outcome of the fight. “You don’t have to tell me any of this.”
“He killed my father while I watched. I couldn’t challenge him. See, that’s the problem with being a submissive…I couldn’t even meet his damned eyes for more than a few seconds. The bastard killed my father right in front of me, raped my sister—” Lynwood’s voice broke and the wetness on her hands must be tears. Nothing she could say would mend that particular wound, so she simply rubbed her face into his back and held him tighter.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, apparently my sister ripened with his child pretty quickly. We were sent notification on the farm.” His laugh was jagged, a sound full of pain. “I’m hardly more than a kid myself, trying to run a farm because he murdered my dad. To add insult to injury, he knocked up my kid sister and sent us a letter. As if we’d be happy to hear she’d bear the next generation of monsters like him. Very formal, very proud of his accomplishment and the coming baby.”
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