by Cara Adams
Hawthorne swallowed, then sucked and licked Dylan, making sure she’d taken all of him, even while still trying to draw deeper breaths from the orgasm shaking her body. Talk about multitasking. Having two men make love to her at once was enough to fry her brain any day of the week.
Both men undid the handcuffs then sat her up and rubbed her shoulders and back, making sure her muscles weren’t stiff. They led her into the shower and soaped her gently, always keeping her under the hot spray. They were so generous and considerate like that. Even though there were two of them and both were considerably bigger than her, they never took the larger share of the water, but always cared for her first.
She stepped out of the shower, giving them more space, and toweled herself dry. “What food have you got, Maelor? I’ll go make us something to eat.”
“That explains why I’m so hungry. We never did eat, did we?” said Dylan.
Hawthorne laughed, and then went out into the bedroom to get dressed.
* * * *
Dylan was stacking the used dishes in the sink, trying not to laugh at Maelor’s expression as Hawthorne lectured him on the shopping he needed to do before they ate at his apartment again.
“The cream in your refrigerator was best before two days ago. Haven’t you heard of long-life dairy products? I don’t like my coffee black,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am,” chanted Maelor.
This time Dylan really did laugh, as did Hawthorne and Maelor, before Maelor jumped up and reached into his jeans pocket, pulling out his cell phone.
“Hi, Harry. Yes. Yes. Hell, yes. Okay. What did Cadfael say? And Mr. Vukic? Okay. I’ll come down to the level four parking lot entry door to let you in. Twenty minutes? No worries, see you then.”
Dylan wasn’t laughing anymore and he was hoping this was going to be good news not bad. Harry Harrison was the private investigator looking into the well-being center and Jackson Hamilton.
“Harry’s learned a few things about the well-being center and wants to talk to us. Cadfael suggested we all meet in the level six conference room. I’ve got to go open the door for Harry in a few minutes.”
Dylan looked down at his sweat pants and shook his head. “You said twenty minutes, didn’t you? Give me five to go back to my apartment and put on some proper clothes, please.”
“No more than ten minutes, okay?”
“Five is all I need. I’ll just grab stuff and get changed back here if I have to.”
Maelor nodded and Dylan raced out of the apartment, not even stopping to wipe his hands. He snatched up jeans and a button-down shirt, socks, and shoes from his apartment, and ran back down the hallway to Maelor’s room. Of course, his room was at the very end of the building. Mostly that was a good thing. When he was in a hurry, as now though, it wasn’t so much. Still, he really didn’t think he’d taken more than five minutes.
Dylan knocked on the door and Maelor opened it immediately, leaving as Dylan arrived. “I’ll see you and Hawthorne in the sixth-floor conference room in ten minutes.”
Dylan nodded. Hawthorne was tidying the kitchen still as he went into the bedroom and got changed. He dropped his sweats into the laundry hamper and then added the bed linens. There should be time to put clean sheets on the bed so they could sleep in comfort when they got back from this meeting.
Hawthorne stood in the doorway as he remade the bed. “What do you think this is all about?” she asked.
“Well, we know it’s to do with the investigation into Jackson Hamilton. But apart from that, either Maelor doesn’t know or else he wasn’t giving away any clues. Unless he said something to you?”
“No. I’ve met chattier clams.”
“Huh? Oh, silent as a clam. Is that a saying? No, hang on, it’s ‘clam up,’ isn’t it?”
“Whatever, he wasn’t talking.”
“We’ll know in a minute anyway. Let’s go.”
Dylan held her hand as they waited for the elevator and went down two levels. As they walked into the conference room he noticed the furniture had been pushed back against the sidewall, much as it had been for the Zumba class. For a moment he had a horrible feeling Marbella would arrive and start yelling at him to exercise, but then he got his head back together and took Hawthorne to sit on one of the chairs that had been placed at one end of the room. He stood behind her chair as her sister Willow arrived with Rhion. Willow sat beside Hawthorne, and Rhion copied him, standing behind Willow’s chair with his hands on her shoulders.
Dakota arrived next, in her security guard uniform, and remained standing, and finally Maelor and Cadfael came into the room with a huge man. Maelor was a big man, bigger than Cadfael, who was six foot, but Harry weighed more and was a good three or four inches taller than either of them. And Dylan was certain every ounce on the bear shape-shifter would be solid muscle. He was an imposing figure indeed.
Harry pulled the door almost, but not quite, shut behind him. Dylan sensed that his action was intentional, but couldn’t think why he’d do it.
“Thanks for letting me interrupt your evening. This is Harry Harrison, the private investigator who was instrumental in sending Bailey Hamilton to jail and who’s been looking into Jackson Hamilton’s well-being center for us.” Cadfael stepped to the side, leaving everyone’s gaze fixed on Harry Harrison.
Dylan wanted to touch Hawthorne, to reassure her he was here and would protect her, but that was stupid. Harry was on their team. That was a damn good thing. A man that huge, and a bear shape-shifter as well, wouldn’t be anyone a sane person would argue with.
“My people have been keeping the well-being center under surveillance for a while and we have a few other investigations going on as well, off-site. As you all know I work mostly within the shape-shifter community, and someone else asked us to check out a situation related to your request. All my work is confidential. The success of my business relies totally on the fact my clients can trust my associates and myself.”
Harry’s gaze swept the room and Dylan stroked Hawthorne’s shoulders to reassure her he was here. Damn, the man looked fierce. Surely he didn’t think anyone had stolen his secrets? Dylan had no information at all about the investigation and he lived—well, more or less anyway—with Maelor. Surely only Cadfael and Maelor would have been told any news? Unless Hawthorne…No, she wouldn’t have mentioned anything secret to anyone either. She was as eager as any of them to have Hamilton leave her alone to get on with her life.
Harry cleared his throat and Dylan inched closer to Hawthorne, leaving both his hands on her shoulders. She was a little bit tense under his touch, but she wasn’t giving off an odor of fear. He thought it was more that she was keen to hear whatever Harry would reveal, rather than that she was concerned about what he’d said. Good. Dylan loved her so much. He hated the thought of her being worried. Well, more worried than she already was by her disrupted life.
Harry clapped his hands together sharply. What the fuck was that for? Then Dylan noticed the door open a little wider and a fraction more. But no person was coming into the conference room and there was no breeze to make it move by himself. His brain had just connected the dots that the door had opened in response to Harry’s clap, but before he could fry his synapses trying to work out if someone had invented a gadget that could open doors in response to a specific sound, he saw the reason.
A brown wolf had stepped into the conference room and was standing just inside the door. An unknown brown wolf. He could recognize every member of their pack from one hundred paces, and this wasn’t a pack member. He was a stranger. And what’s more, he was frightened of them. He was here because Harry had told him to come, not because he’d chosen to join them of his own free will. But who the fuck was he?
He felt the tension radiating off Hawthorne, who was now leaning forward, staring at the wolf. Dylan stroked her back soothingly. He wasn’t sure why she was disturbed but she needed to know he’d never let anyone harm her. He’d give his life for hers if it ever became necessar
y.
Then the wolf did a very strange thing. It was almost as if he was trying to dance. He ran forward a few paces, then to the side, as he leaped into the air, all four feet off the ground at once. Not as if he was jumping over a fence, but more like he was pretending to be a helicopter, lifting off straight upward.
As soon as he did his strange leap, Hawthorne jerked out of her chair and stood up. “You’re my wolf. I saw you in the park. You jumped exactly like that. Who are you and why were you in the park? Why are you here now?”
The wolf stopped instantly, racing to stand huddled against Harry’s legs.
Willow turned to Hawthorne. “How do you know? Are you sure?”
All around the room people began talking at once. Dylan’s mind was still struggling to grasp what Hawthorne had said. From the outbursts all around him it sounded like twenty people were all talking at the tops of their voices even though he knew there were only nine of them in the room. He was too stunned to even open his mouth. All he could do was offer Hawthorne whatever support she needed.
“Sit down. You’re frightening him.” Harry’s voice cut through the room. Dylan thought if the wolf was frightened, Harry yelling at them wasn’t going to make him feel any better.
Harry took the wolf out of the room, which caused people to start talking again, but Dylan guessed the wolf was going to transform and put some clothes on, not disappear. He was right. Only a few minutes later Harry reappeared with quite a young man, wearing jeans and a blue sweater. The man had light brown hair, which meant his wolf fur color followed his hair color, as happened with many wolves, though not in his own case.
The noise in the room instantly stopped.
Dylan noticed the wolf still stood very close to Harry. It seemed as though he trusted Harry, but apparently not the rest of them.
“Okay, people. This is Lewis. Lewis, tell them your story. How did you come to be here in Ohio, and here with me today?”
“I, um…” Lewis looked up at Harry who nodded calmly to him. Dylan had to force himself not to lean forward. Hawthorne had sat down again in her chair, so he held her upper arms very lightly.
Lewis started again. “I come from a pack, a very small pack, in Wyoming. I was born and grew up in the Wind River Mountains. If you know Wyoming you’ll know there’s a whole lot of mountains there and not so many people. There are even fewer shape-shifters. There was only one other child when I was a boy, although he was five years older than me so we weren’t special friends or anything. We were homeschooled together until he argued with his dad and left when I was twelve. He wanted to look for another shape-shifter community, to meet other people. Unless we journeyed a couple of hours into town to the store we would go whole weeks without ever seeing another person. I realized later he’d wanted to find a mate. Or at least a girlfriend.”
No wonder the wolf was nervous. He evidently wasn’t used to crowds, even such a small crowd as this. Dylan had always had pack mates to play with as a child and adolescent. Now they were friends he worked with. It was hard to imagine not ever having someone the same age as himself to talk to. Five years was a big age gap to a child. It didn’t matter much once a person was grown, but the difference in a person’s interests between twelve and seventeen was huge.
He stroked his hands gently up and down Hawthorne’s arms and waited for Lewis to begin talking again.
“My parents are almost sixty. My dad wanted to stop having to work so hard on the farm but I didn’t want to take it over. I love the mountains but not enough to live there alone all the rest of my life. The only people left there are like my folks, getting old. Mom and Dad bought a small house down the mountain in town. He’s got a part-time job with the National Park Service. I could have worked for them, too, but decided to look for another pack of shape-shifters. Maybe find my own mate. So I came east.”
“Wyoming isn’t exactly next door to Ohio,” said Willow.
“No, ma’am, but the Greyhound Bus goes most everywhere.”
In that answer, Dylan saw a spark of the spirit the man must have had back in the safety and comfort of his mountains.
Lewis stood a little straighter, his voice a little more confident now. Dylan realized he wasn’t a small man, but was maybe five eleven in height and quite muscular looking. Likely working on a farm had built his muscles the hard way.
“I came east in stages, working a bit here and there as I traveled. I avoided the biggest cities. I don’t think I like cities, although I’m getting more used to people and noise. What I was hoping to find was other shape-shifters but I hadn’t really thought the situation through properly. How could I find a wolf when I could never be a wolf myself in human society? Anyway, I must have given myself away. A man recognized the wolf in me and invited me to his home. But it wasn’t a house. It was a jail. I was locked in a tiny room all day and all night. The only time I saw anyone was when he came to ask me endless questions. Where had I come from? Where was my family? Where were the women from my pack? I asked and asked to go home and it was only when I told him I would die if I couldn’t transform and run as a wolf that he even let me outside. At first two men led me on a chain all the time but after a few weeks they just walked beside me as I ran. And one day I figured out how to escape. I got away from them and scaled the wall as a human before changing back into my wolf to run away.”
The conference room was filled with noise as people asked questions and commented about what Lewis had said. But Dylan was silent. He held onto Hawthorne, feeling shattered by the way Lewis had been betrayed, by his loneliness and hopelessness, and by the internal strength that had enabled him to plan and engineer his own survival and escape. If Lewis wanted to join their pack, Dylan would be proud to welcome him as a member. He deserved to find peace and happiness again.
Harry held up his hand for silence and then Hawthorne spoke. “That’s when I saw you, isn’t it? You’d escaped from Jackson and were celebrating. That’s why he was chasing me, to try to get you back again.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, ma’am. I had no idea you were watching me or that anything bad would happen to you. I’m deeply sorry for what happened to you.”
“It wasn’t your fault. I’m glad you’re free.”
Lewis bobbed his head and gave her a shy smile, and then he looked around the room. “So what happens now?”
Dylan wanted to know that, too. Would Lewis stay with them? Or was he going to live with Harry and his team? And what about Jackson Hamilton? Was this a lever to catch him out in wrongdoing?
Chapter Eight
“I’d like to spend some time with you, Lewis, and get to know you,” said Hawthorne. The last hour had been a roller coaster of emotions and discovery, but really, nothing had changed. She still couldn’t resume her regular life. However, there was a very special link between her and this wolf, and she’d like to have an hour or two just to learn more about him and his story.
“I’d like to write down your family history as well for our genetic searches,” added Willow.
“Lewis will stay with us for a few days, but Harry has to fly home tomorrow. Tonight they’ll stay in Rhion’s apartment, and tomorrow Willow and Hawthorne can spend time with Lewis. Dakota, you’ll be there, too. Any more people than that might be too many for Lewis to accept just yet,” said Cadfael.
Hawthorne was surprised he was prepared to permit her and Willow not to have one of the men to protect them, but she understood Harry had a business to run, and Cadfael, Rhion, Dylan, and Maelor all had important work to do. Tomorrow was just another working day. Likely they didn’t even need Dakota there. Hawthorne couldn’t imagine Lewis attacking them. He’d been smart enough to run away before. If there was trouble he’d probably run away again. Not hurt people. She also knew Maelor and Dylan might not see things as she saw them. Well, too bad.
She was right. Maelor argued all night that he could replace Dakota and stay with them. It didn’t matter how often she pointed out that Cadfael was the managing dire
ctor of the mall as well as the Alpha of the pack and it was his decision. She also pointed out over and over again that she was sure Lewis wasn’t the type of person who would hurt her or Willow. Nothing changed Maelor’s determination to protect her. He was still arguing as she shut the door of apartment 7C in his face the next morning so he could go on shift.
When Willow arrived, only a few minutes later, she said, “Oh my goodness. Rhion really didn’t want us to talk to Lewis without him here. These wolves are so overprotective.”
“Maelor was exactly the same. But I don’t think we really need Dakota. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
“Me, too. Still she can join in. She might have some good ideas about questions we can ask him. She’ll have more knowledge about the wolf packs and security than either of us.”
Dakota arrived with Lewis at eight, and it was blindingly obvious to Hawthorne that the poor man was terrified of the three women. “Why don’t I make us all some coffee?” she said, walking over to the coffeepot and setting it going.
But Lewis shook his head no when she served the coffees. “Would you like a different drink? I have orange juice, or beer, or water. Or I could make you some tea.”
“Just water would be nice, thank you.”
His voice was barely above a whisper. This was going to be harder than she’d expected. Well, food usually worked to relax men. Hawthorne opened the refrigerator and pulled out a pile of salad vegetables, chopping them into bite-size chunks, and piling the pieces onto a plate. She added a tub of tzatziki dip and put that in the center of the table.
The four of them sat around the table, sipping their drinks and nibbling on the vegetables, until Willow said, “Lewis, we’re trying to discover why the werewolf packs have so few baby girls. We’ve been writing down family histories as far back as people remember. We’d like to do that with your family and any families from your pack. Is that okay?”
“I know there aren’t enough girls. But why does it matter so much? I mean, obviously there aren’t brides for the men. But what’s the point of writing it down? How will that change anything?”
