Oh hell. No way. He was not going near anywhere near any other children. “One more thing. I haven’t seen Drew all day. Do you know where the dominants are?”
“Before Colt charged out this morning in the middle of breakfast, he said something about there being a crazy bear and a cub trying to get onto pack lands.”
Betty forgot her own issues for a second. “You’re kidding.”
“Weird right?”
“You have no idea.” She placed her hand on Tasha’s shoulder. “If you feel like it, go and find a dominant. I don’t care which. Let them know that Drew’s mate is going to kill Archie Bevin. Brutally. No exaggeration. If they don’t want me to, they’re going to need to stop me. Now.”
Killing Archie would change everything between her and Drew. There would never be a way not to tell him the whole truth. And she would risk Magnum being right, as he was occasionally known to be. Drew already thought she was half out of her mind.
“Thanks, Tasha.”
“But…Betty….” Her friend’s voice trailed after her as Betty full-out ran on her human legs toward where she hoped her target would be. There was a time and a place for retribution. Her mate had shown it to her when he’d killed Magnum and set them all free.
The time had come to free herself.
She skidded to a stop outside of the schoolhouse. The kids were out for a holiday. Another human tradition Saja had suggested. Winter break. The building was empty except, her nose told her, for one man inside.
Betty steeled her shoulders. She wasn’t terrified Elizabeth Holden anymore. No, she’d mated the male who became Alpha. She ran the pack, kept it alive when it would have folded under Magnum. Grown males cowered when she looked at them the wrong way.
Well, maybe only some did.
The point remained.
Betty Tao wasn’t afraid of this…nothing.
She walked inside. “I’m shocked you had the balls to come back here.”
Unsure whether her scent or voice announced her first, she did get pleasure at Archie’s jolt. He stood completely still after before turning around to face her.
No signs of the fear she wished for appeared in his expression. His scent, however, spoke a different story. The acrid smell of fear drifted toward her, only adding to the moment.
“You smell like I must have. When you backed me in the corner. Touched my breasts. Licked my neck. Told me not to tell.”
Archie crossed his arms over his chest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Bad time to lie, Archie. I’m Alpha female of this pack. And you and I are due a conversation. Here’s a hint. Your best-case scenario, I let you walk out of here alive, never to come back. Worst, no one ever finds the body.”
The schoolteacher charged forward. “Does Drew know how mentally unstable you are? I will not stand here and be accused of utter nonsense.”
“No. You’re not going to be standing at all.” Betty lunged forward, shoving him back; her mouth watered for his death.
Chapter Four
Drew stared at the scene before him as best he could from the back of a line of dominants and Gee who had stuck themselves between him and the bears. Ryker had found her trying to get onto pack land with her cub earlier in the day.
She’d retreated and stood just over the edge of their territory, though they were trying to communicate with her. Although Ryker, and maybe even Gee, might have preferred if he gave the kill order—over the border being still too close. The deep bass of her roars echoed through the trees.
Why had the bear even shown up?
“Okay, gentlemen. You need to move. I promise to let you shove yourselves and your one life to give in front of me if the bear looks at me funny. You forget, I’ve already seen this woman and child up close and personal. She tried to kill my mate. I want to look her in the eyes.”
Colt and Ravage exchanged a look, which could only be called a cross between annoyed and not happy, although they both obeyed. Drew shook his head. He was grateful they cared. Happy packs meant the dominants protected the Alpha. If only he could keep reminding himself not to feel boxed in.
Ten years on his own had left him with some lone-wolf tendencies he might never get rid of.
Striding forward, he didn’t miss how Ryker flanked him, giving him enough space not to be claustrophobic but not enough to get slaughtered by the bear. Pausing next to Gee, he studied the bears.
“So she’s here.” Drew rocked on his feet. “Do I kill her?”
“This is a first for me. As far as I know, she’s never done this before. She stays on the mountain with the kid.” The bear rarely admitted to knowing nothing.
Something didn’t make sense. “How exactly old is the kid?”
“No idea. Some bear shifters stay children for hundreds of years.”
“Really?”Well, he learned something new every day. “Your daughter didn’t.”
Gee leveled a glare at him. “We’re not all the same breed of shifter, son. I can’t understand what she’s roaring either. Not that I would want to. Bad enough when she’s in her human form.”
An uncomfortable pressure pushed on Drew’s shoulders. “I didn’t mean to sound racist or assume all bear shifters were the same. That was downright ignorant of me.”
The bear shook his head. “Do you suppose I want to hug it out? You didn’t know. Now you do.”The female bear roared again, and Gee nodded toward the scene. “What do you want to do?”
The rage he kept buried in his stomach to be a different Alpha than his father had been surged forward, replacing some of his amusement. What did he want to do? “I want to kill her. She attacked my mate.” Glancing at Ryker, he raised a palm. Not Magnum, never him. “But hold off on that, please. I’d like to know why she followed us here, or if she’s just so rabid she needs to be put down. I don’t have time for this. We’re supposed to be getting ready for a Winter Solstice run and instead what I have here is some deranged were-bear whose language you don’t speak roaming my borders for no apparent reason except to roar at me. What. Does. She. Want?”
The bar owner stepped away from him and yelled directly at the bear. “Hey, Matilda, you came all this way. How about shifting and giving us all a break here?”
After a moment, the she-bear turned into a human-looking woman. Drew stared at the raving lunatic who had tried to kill his mate. She had long, straight, stringy gray hair desperately in need of a wash. The smell of filth made him want to gag. Her bear musk hadn’t been much better—but her human form reeked. But he was Alpha, so he controlled himself. Behind him, one of the dominants retched. It was all Drew could do not to laugh.
Again, the Alpha problem.
He stepped forward until he stood shoulder to shoulder with Gee. “Your name is Matilda. Apparently.” The last he directed at Gee. The old man could share more than drips and drabs. “I’m Drew Tao. Alpha of this pack. What do you want here? My patience is low. You attacked my mate yesterday. I am not in a very forgiving mood.”
She pointed at Drew. “Your mate threatened my cub.”
He shook his head, annoyance wearing away at what little patience he had for the exercise. Being fair only went so far. “You’re lucky it’s almost Christmastime and I’m in such a holiday mood. Or I’d cut off your head for what you said and feed it to my pack the next time we run. We didn’t do anything to your cub, nor would we have. I didn’t even hurt him when I could have. So screw yourself, lady.”
“Matilda, if you have a point, make it,” Gee snarled. “I have a bar to run.”
The cub shifted fast. Like his mother, the boy needed a bath. And two stinky, not bathed were-bears were twice the disgusting. Drew’s eyes watered. Maybe he could just douse them both in bleach.
On two feet, the cub was small with dark hair and darker eyes. He didn’t look like his mother, but who knew how she had appeared before she’d gone gray.
“Did you say Christmas?” For all of hi
s filth, the child’s dark eyes lit up when he spoke, eliciting a fresh dose of Drew’s compassion. He never could resist making children happy. “Hey you’re the guy who threw the stick.”
“Threw the stick?” Ryker’s sotto voce monotone made the question almost humorous.
“Never mind.” Drew talked to the child. “Yes, my pack is going to celebrate this year. Or at least we would be if your mother would get to what she wants.”
Matilda pointed at him. “You’re Alpha.”
“Is she slow, Gee?”Drew nodded at the woman. “As I said. Drew Tao. Alpha.”
“You didn’t used to be.” She seemed to be struggling for words, her mouth opening and closing. When was the last time she’d been in her human form? He’d heard of this happening to wolves when they didn’t change back from their canine selves enough. “Another Tao. Taller. Wider.”
“My father.”Drew cleared his throat. “He’s dead.” I killed him.
He pushed the thought away. No regrets where Magnum was concerned. He’d always be the shifter who took out his own dad. For B. For the others. For the future. For the smell of the happy pack.
“I always wanted a Christmas.” The cub kicked a rock.
His mother didn’t respond, addressing Drew again. “He had something of mine, and I want it back.”
“What would that be?” Drew was over this conversation. Magnum had taken many possessions that didn’t belong to him. But why on Earth he’d have taken something from the woman Drew had to deal with on a day when he’d rather be doing almost anything else, he had no idea.
“My slide. My r-r-red sled,” the woman finally finished.
Drew paused without answering. “Your red sled? Like with which one would go sledding?”
The preposterous suddenly became absurd.
“This is what happens when you go to Shifter Mountain,” Gee muttered in a low undertone not likely to carry past he and Ryker. “You bring the crazy back.”
Matilda scowled, her fingers curling into fists. “Yes. I used it to get down the hill in the winter. I want it.”
Drew was going to get a headache. “Was it a slide with some kind of special properties making it more of a slide than any other of the same kind?”
“Drew.”Gee took him by the arm, and they walked together to the side. “You’re trying to find logic where there isn’t going to be any. She had a slide. Magnum took it. And, before today, history would indicate that not having the slide kept her on the mountain.”
Gee’s words made sense, sort of, of the senseless. “One more question. Why didn’t she simply get a new one?”
“Look at her. Do you think she has money?”
He still wanted to kill the shifter for hurting B. Yet his desire for retribution warred with the need to either get her back her sled or give her fifty dollars to go buy one. He turned around and a roar sounded from the woman. He raised an eyebrow at Gee.
“She didn’t like you turning your back on her.”
He shrugged. “I have enough to do with wolf egos. No time for hers.” Particularly when he was helping instead of walking away. “Does anyone know anything about a sled? Magnum took it from this woman, and she wants it back.”
The dominants all stared at him as though he had two heads. No one moved. With a last glance at Ryker, who shook his head slightly to indicate no, Drew sighed loudly.
“Colt, I have a job for you.”
His overzealous cousin would be the perfect one for the job. He was too slash and burn to put up with any crap, which was what the situation needed.
“Go buy a sled for this woman. She is going to stand here and not move. Or leave and come back to this spot. She is not going to for anything in the world cross that line because if she does, Ryker is going to kill her.” He made sure the woman nodded when he said those words. “You are then going to give her the sled. And,” he added, for good measure, “get her son something for Christmas. Santa’s coming early this year.”
Colt cocked his head to the side. “You’re serious, my Alpha?”
“Unfortunately, cousin, I am. Make your Alpha happy and figure out how to get these two happy so they don’t have to be killed. And, by the way, Shifter Mountain, or whatever it’s called, is off limits to all wolves again. So I don’t next have to deal with half-mad squirrel shifters charging down here wanting retribution for their nuts.”
A commotion sounded behind, and he turned around with a groan. Something else was about to go wrong. He just knew it.
Tasha ran into the clearing. Panting, she clutched at her chest. “Problem. We have a problem.”
Colt darted to his mate and pulled her against him. “What’s wrong?”
She met Drew’s eyes. “Betty says she’s going to kill Archie Bevin. And she’s dead serious. I can smell it.”
***
Betty held Archie on the floor while he cowered beneath her. He hadn’t even fought her. They were still in their human bodies. All she’d done was shoved.
The knocking him down, the holding him in place, all of it had been too easy. She wanted to kill him, needed the drive she’d felt outside to end this man’s life. Only the pressing desire was gone. He trembled. Tears filled his eyes. Where on Earth was his Wolf? Was he only tough when his victim was a young girl not sure of what to do?
“I swear, I haven’t done it in ten years. Not touched a young girl since then. I think it was the pack. Magnum, his craziness. It infected me.”
“Funny.” She sighed loudly, wishing she hadn’t told Tasha she would kill him. There was bound to be a scene, and she could have perhaps avoided the issue since Archie wasn’t going to give her even a small amount of trouble.
“Funny?” His voice trembled.
“You left here sixteen years ago. Your inappropriate need to touch young girls didn’t stop when you got away from Magnum. Nor did anyone else here who remained pick up the problem. I guess it’s not funny, like ha-ha funny, more like strange, or weird. Do you understand the difference?”
Her wolf cooled, leaving her pretty much exhausted. Only she wasn’t done, so she couldn’t fall apart.
Drew’s strong, in-control scent hit her before he spoke. “I doubt he does, sweetheart.”
She didn’t turn around. “It would be easy to kill him. I could move my hand and snap his neck. Only, I won’t. Because it’s too easy, too sad, and because I love you and won’t destroy what you’ve built here.”
“Did I hear you correctly? He touched young girls? You?”
Betty stepped away from Archie and looked at Drew for the first time. “A long time ago. And he’s pack again. So, unless you’re going to take a page out of Magnum’s book and start sending those you oathed away, then I guess I’ll have to live with it.”The group of dominants behind him only added fodder to how much she wished she’d handled things differently.“I’m sorry I made a scene. I’ll just go home. Stay there for a while.”
“Betty….” Drew whispered her name.
She’d done nothing but cause him pain for days. “Maybe I’ll go to Sioux Falls until after the holidays are over. I’m clearly not cut out for Christmas.”
***
Drew breathed through his nose. He needed to go after his mate, but first he had to deal with the creature on the floor. Not knowing all of the details yet, he couldn’t make a decision about exactly what the dealings would involve.
But something would be happening.
Rage surged through his veins and he understood in that second it would be possible for him to become Magnum if he let the evil inside. His father had acted without consideration. And never cared about the consequences.
He wouldn’t become the monster, which was not to say he couldn’t dance the line. This male had, at some point, put his hands on Drew’s mate.
“You came back here, and you took an oath, to me and my pack.” Drew strode in front of Archie, a male who, only a week ago, he’d welcomed into the one place on Earth
which mattered to him, to the only family he’d ever known, to breathe the same air as his sweet mate who each day showed more layers of a tortured soul he wanted nothing more than to make better with his love.
Archie’s voice shook. “I was told you were forgiving people.”
“For some things, there is no sorry enough. She’s my mate.” He stood. “We’ll decide what to do with you later. I’m not my father, but I’m still a wolf.”
He turned to see nearly all of the dominants and Ryker behind him. The only one not present was Gee. The old bear probably stayed with Matilda. His Enforcer would never have let him run into a fight if he could assist him. “Hold him for me.”
Drew didn’t wait to see Ryker agree. The thing about the Enforcer was he could always be counted on to do what was right.
And sometimes Drew just needed to know shit would get taken care of.
***
Betty let the water pound on her back in the shower. Magnum had ordered her to not tell Drew. So she hadn’t. And she’d all but forgotten about what happened. Of course, the whole pack would soon know, if it didn’t already, because she’d lost her mind.
Her mate pulled the shower curtain back, and she opened her eyes. Maybe she’d known he was home, maybe the day had dulled her senses. Who knew?
“B.” He reached out and stroked the side of her face. “You okay?”
“I actually am okay.”She grabbed her towel and pushed past him. “Although I doubt you’ll believe that.”
He was silent as she wrapped herself up in the old cotton towel she should have thrown out years ago. Nothing was ever as soft, even if it was raggedy. Someday she’d feel up to tossing it in the trash. Seemed kind of wasteful.
“I have a tendency not to believe things when they are lies.”
Seeing no point in delaying what he wanted to hear, she spoke quickly. “He touched my breasts. Other parts of body, but not my vagina.” Her mouth ached from gritting her teeth too much. “I told your father. He was my Alpha. I didn’t know better. All I remember thinking was I didn’t want my dad to know. Magnum threw Archie out right then and there. Then he told me not to tell you. If I did, you’d never want to mate me for anything other than pity.”
Wolf's Holiday Page 5
