She didn’t dare sleep. She had to leave at 12:30 a.m. in order to walk to the rental car she stashed behind a gas station, two miles from her home. It would take her approximately four hours to drive to the Louisville Airport.
Her parents went to bed at eleven, and her brother followed shortly. She heard them all moving around in their rooms as she sat on the edge of her bed and watched the clock. Finally, the house was silent. She dressed warmly, sprayed heavy perfume all over herself to mask her scent in case anyone tried to follow her through the woods at any time, left the two letters on her bed, and opened the window of her second-story bedroom. She dropped gracefully and silently, rolling in the snow and popping up onto her feet.
The two miles through the wooded area between the neighboring streets concealed her as she ran in near darkness, spilling out onto the main street and darting across an empty intersection where her rental car waited. The WAA had reserved it for her. She had picked the car up on Tuesday and parked it behind a deserted gas station.
She kept a sharp eye on her mirrors and drove as fast as she dared. She was positive that no one had followed her. Her frayed nerves and the thought of what would happen if the lynxes caught her fleeing kept her alert in spite of how little sleep she’d gotten during the week.
Almost free, she thought, as she pulled into the parking lot of the airport and walked to the American Airlines terminal. She looked around, scanning the nearly empty airport for anyone who looked familiar, and saw no one she recognized. Two men, wearing military-style pants and black jackets, stepped into view and motioned for her.
“R. S.?” the taller of the two said.
“Yes.”
“Do you have your cell, computer, or any form of ID?” the other asked.
“No.” She’d taken a chance on driving without her license and left it at home, knowing that she would have had to toss it out once she arrived at the airport.
“Good. Here is your new identification. Your name is now Brittany Caulfield. Our flight is preparing to board. Let’s go.” The taller one held out a driver’s license to her, and as she reached for it, a piercing roar ripped through the silence around them.
She darted her eyes around the terminal as the two wolves put their hands on her arms, urging her to follow them to the gate. The wolves were knocked away from her by three hulking figures who snarled warnings in deep, guttural words. She hadn’t seen Eli, Josef, and Adam for sixteen years, but she recognized them immediately. They threw the wolves around as though they were stuffed toys. The taller wolf went through a glass wall and hit the outside sidewalk hard. Josef hauled the other wolf over his head and threw him into the courtesy desk with a sickening crack.
Regaining her senses, she raced out an exit just as the airport security came running to the scene. She waved frantically at a taxi that was about to pull away. When it stopped, she jerked open the back door, threw herself inside, and slammed the door.
“Where to, honey?” a woman driver said.
“Anywhere! Just get me out of here!” Reika panted.
The car pulled away quickly, and Reika watched out the back window as Eli, Josef, and Adam ran out of the building and looked around. Their eyes locked on hers, and she knew they had seen her in the taxi. She was glad for the momentary reprieve when police cars with flashing lights pulled up in front of the terminal and she saw the lynxes scatter.
As the scene faded into the distance, she knew that they would only be temporarily detained from finding her. They would maim and kill anyone who came between her and them; she could see that clearly now. She had no idea how they followed her, except that they must have been watching her home.
Saying a silent prayer for the two wolves who fell trying to help her, she took in a deep breath and focused on her situation. She faced the front of the taxi and looked at the middle-aged woman.
“Can you take me an hour south and drop me off somewhere public and well-lit? And push the speed limit, please.”
“You in trouble, honey?” The woman met Reika’s eyes in the rear-view mirror as she pressed her foot on the gas.
“I don’t know,” Reika answered honestly.
She didn’t imagine her bid for freedom potentially costing two men their lives, and she hoped they had survived and she would, too.
Chapter 2
Bo fidgeted in the booth at Jake’s bar, his hazel gaze roaming over the Friday night regulars. He was positively bored stupid. He’d rather be cleaning his house than sitting in the bar. There wasn’t a damn thing to do in Allen on Friday night except hang out at Jake’s, and it was the responsibility of the older wolves in the pack to make sure the younger wolves kept their heads on straight. Alcohol lowered inhibitions, which in a human was not necessarily a bad thing. But add in the ability to shift into a werewolf, and a few beers could turn a mild-mannered person into a raging beast.
Bo drank, but only to dull the pain in his right leg. The effects of the alcohol were working less and less, though, which was good news for his liver, but not for his leg. Nights spent walking the floor in an effort to stretch out the cramped muscles meant he was exhausted more often than not.
Logan, fifth ranked in the pack, sat across from him and stared into the bottom of the tumbler that was half-full of whiskey. Logan had joined the pack a few months ago in the summer, and he was proving to be a good wolf to know.
Bo was going to be thirty on March 1. He hadn’t really thought he would be in his late twenties and not mated to some hot, little she-wolf, but here he was … alone on a Friday night.
Running a hand through his short, black hair, he sighed and checked his watch. It was nearly midnight, and tomorrow was the full moon. Each full moon, one of the high-ranked wolves watched over the younger wolves who were responsible for cleaning and preparing their full moon gathering place for their celebration. Normally, Bo watched over the younger wolves during the summer months because the cold aggravated his leg, but it was Linus and his mate Karly’s anniversary, and he’d asked for a favor, so Bo was stuck.
He could call his alpha, Jason, and tell him that his leg was bothering him too much. He knew Jason would tell him to take it easy and call another wolf to do it, or even do it himself, but Bo refused to give into the pain like that. If he couldn’t handle sweeping off snow and unloading firewood, then he needed to step down from his rank. And damn it, he’d worked too hard to roll over like that.
Eventually, though, his leg would force him to stop shifting, and then he’d have to step down. He didn’t look forward to that day, and he felt as if a blade hung over his neck, ready to cut him off sooner than he wanted.
“Hey, Bo,” a sugary voice drawled in his ear, and he cringed inwardly.
Schooling his face, he took a drink of beer and looked up at Lindy, one of the pack females. She was the same age as their alpha female, Cadence, who was a hybrid human-wolf, and married to Jason. He could smell lust rolling off Lindy, and underneath that, the chemical smell of her bleached-blonde hair and heavy, floral perfume.
“Hi, Lindy.”
He didn’t offer her more than that, because he knew what she wanted. She was what the pack referred to as a Toy — a she-wolf who would have sex with any wolf, any time. When he was younger and she wasn’t so jaded and used up, he’d tumbled with her. But not in a long time.
She cleared her throat, her lustful smile losing its brightness. “I thought you might like to,” she leaned down toward his ear and whispered, “take me home with you.”
Logan arched a brow at him but said nothing. Bo was a little surprised by her boldness, but then again she’d been trying to fuck her way into a mating with a highly ranked male for the last few months, and so far, that hadn’t seemed to work out too well for her.
Her hand landed on his shoulder, and he lifted it off. “Sorry, full moon duty tomorrow.”
She stuck out her lip and pouted. “Aw, maybe tomorrow then, lover?”
Be nice or not? He debated. Better to get it over with, lik
e ripping off a Band-Aid. “Sorry, Lindy. But thanks anyway.”
Her lip curled into an unpleasant sneer, and embarrassment heated her cheeks. She turned on her heel and stormed off, probably going to console herself with another, more desperate, wolf. He felt sorry for her. There was a time when he thought of her as sweet and innocent, but that certainly didn’t describe her anymore.
Logan snorted, and Bo looked at him. “What?”
Logan swirled the ice in his glass. “You said thanks.”
Confused, Bo asked, “What should I have said?”
Logan didn’t smile much, but he did now. “She offered to fuck you, and you said thanks anyway. Like she offered to knit you a sweater or something. It’s just — I don’t know, man, kinda funny.”
Bo scowled. He didn’t think it was rude to say thanks, but maybe in that situation, he should have just told her flat-out no. Oh well. Maybe now she wouldn’t keep asking him, since he’d apparently insulted her.
“You’re just jealous,” Bo said and grinned. Logan wanted to find his mate, as much as Bo did, but for both of them, their mates weren’t in the Tressel pack. Which sucked, considering that it wasn’t as if Bo ran across a she-wolf from another pack every day.
“I don’t think so. I’ll find my mate someday, and she won’t be a Toy who throws herself at everyone, either.” Logan finished his drink with two swallows and set the empty glass down.
“I feel the same way.” Bo tilted his beer back and finished it, ready to put a fork in the evening.
After stopping by the back of the bar to say goodbye to his former alphas, Peter and Tina, who were Jason’s parents, he climbed into his pickup, waved goodbye to Logan, who had walked out with him, and headed home.
Two years earlier, the Tressel pack had shared Allen, Kentucky with the Garra pack. The son of the alpha of the Garra pack had kidnapped and tried to rape Cadence, Jason’s wife. When the Tressel pack delivered pack justice to the son of the alpha and his cohorts, four wolves were dead. The Garra pack left Allen shortly after and headed South, and they turned over the deeds to their homes to the Tressel pack. Anyone who wanted to take over the paid-for, older homes, could do so easily. Allen was a small town, and between the active pack members and retired pack members, the town was about fifty-percent wolf, and the pack really wanted to keep it that way.
Bo had paid a fee to the bank in order to purchase the deed to the home of one of the wolves from the Garra Pack. Before that, he’d lived in a single-wide in the back corner of Allen’s trailer park. It had been easy enough to unload the trailer on one of the younger wolves, who was eager to move out of his parents’ home after he turned eighteen.
Tossing his keys on the kitchen table, Bo pulled off his jacket, hung it over a chair, and yawned. He remembered when he used to think that midnight was early. Not so much anymore.
Flopping on his king-size bed, he closed his eyes and prayed that his leg wouldn’t wake him up. Just one night, he thought. I just need one fucking good night’s sleep.
The dream came to him again, and he was caught in his past, the moment when his life skewed in a shitty direction, and everything he ever planned for his life went to hell.
He’d skipped school before, so when he overheard his older brother, Mack, telling a buddy that they were going to sneak into the old theater in the next town and watch an R-rated movie, Bo decided to follow and join in. Mack was three years older than Bo, and Bo idolized him. Seventeen year-old Mack had everything that Bo wanted at the tender age of fourteen — he was one of the strongest wolves in his age group, he had a fast car and a fast she-wolf on his arm.
That day, Bo snuck out after lunch period and walked from the high school down to the bus station and caught a bus to Greystone, where Mack and his friends were going to sneak into the Busman Theater. As he stepped from the bus station and walked four blocks down to the old theater, he caught sight of his brother and friends as they ducked into the alley between the theater and the grocery next door.
Bo didn’t think about the danger as he stepped down into the street; he simply stepped out and started jogging. He heard a shout and the blast of a horn, turning in time to see a car barreling down on him. He heard the breaks squeal as the driver stomped on them. Bo remembered throwing his arms up to protect his face as the car rammed into him, knocking him onto the asphalt.
He remembered the rush of wind as he was thrown twenty feet from the car and the sound of the first crunch of bone as he slammed into the pavement, and then everything went black. He woke up several days later in the hospital, fighting against incredible pain, because of his hopelessly mangled leg.
His parents told him he was lucky to be alive. Although too young to shift into his wolf form by two years, he still had an accelerated healing ability that, in fact, had saved his life. A human would have been killed. He hadn’t felt very lucky when the pain meds didn’t work because there were none that would for a wolf. He’d brought his fate on himself by doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. One wrong choice had effectively changed his life forever.
The numerous surgeries helped, and when he was able to shift at sixteen, his body naturally healed what it could, but the damage had been done. Along with an ugly scar — left behind by the surgeries — that wove down his right leg; the muscles were also damaged, and his joints ached constantly. It was a dull, insistent pain that he could ignore on most days. Some days, though, it made him want to cut his leg off and be done with the pain.
* * * * *
He was awake well before dawn, either the past rearing its ugly head again via the dream, or the pain in his leg, keeping him from the deep, restful sleep he so desperately needed. Sleeping pills didn’t work on wolves; otherwise he would happily addict himself to find a way to sleep.
What was worse, Bo thought, was that his libido had seemed to take a long-term vacation. The last few months he couldn’t get it up for anyone, and two months ago while one of the she-wolves had been blowing him in the storage room at the bar, his cock hadn’t so much as twitched. First his leg and then his cock. He just couldn’t catch a break.
He watched the handful of young teen wolves sweep the snow from the circle where the pack would gather on the full moon to shift and hunt together as one. The clearing was a few hundred yards behind Jason and Cadence’s home. Michael and his human mate, Shyne, lived in the home next door.
After downing the last of his coffee, Bo began hauling firewood into the freshly cleared pit that would be lit when the sun set. His thoughts wandered, and his wolf came to his mind, the furry beast growling lightly. Pausing, Bo tapped into his beast and felt as if a change was coming. The change could be anything, even just a storm. But still … Bo was beginning to feel that something might happen tonight. He just hoped to hell it was something good.
When the work was done, Bo sent the wolves to Jason’s house to ask if there was anything else the alpha needed, and then he headed home himself.
That night, as the moon rose in the sky, Jason called for the pack to shift and hunt, and Bo watched as the wolves around him shed their clothes and shifted into their wolf forms. Bo didn’t get naked in front of anybody except doctors. He couldn’t stand to see the pity, especially from women, when they saw his leg. Even when he had sex he always kept his pants on.
Jason, Michael, Linus, and Logan looked at him after they shifted and then turned and padded into the woods. They gave him privacy without being obvious about it, and he appreciated it. Alone, he stripped and shifted quickly, his bones cracking and muscles aching as he changed into his dark grey form. Shaking out his body, he grimaced at the twinge of pain in his leg. When he was younger, shifting gave him some relief from the constant hum of pain in his leg, but lately, relief escaped him. Pain had become a permanent part of his life.
He trotted off after his friends. As he neared the group, Linus caught a scent and darted off, barking sharply to encourage the rest of them to follow. Bo caught the scent of deer a few moments later as they r
aced through the woods to find their prey.
Something else caught Bo’s attention, and he skidded to a halt, the snow fluffing up around his legs. He turned and scented further, finding an enticing aroma coming from far in the distance. Whatever it was, he had to have it.
As he raced towards the scent, he heard his friends barking at him in question, but he ignored them. The woods rushed past him, the familiar surroundings of their pack territory morphing into unfamiliar woods.
He paused, scenting, and found blood on the wind and a faint echo of fear that caused his heart to speed up as he took off again. Whatever he would find was injured and afraid. This creature, whatever it was, was now the single most important thing in his life.
Crashing through a dense thicket, he halted as he came upon three cats — lynxes by the looks of the black tufts on their ears — who circled a she-wolf. They were just slightly smaller than him, buffed gold and covered with black spots. A wound gaped from the she-wolf’s side, dripping dark red blood onto the white snow. The three males circled her, snapping their teeth and snagging bits of her hide. She whimpered and lashed at them, her eyes wide with fear.
Bo’s hackles rose as he watched the she-wolf hold her own in a severely outnumbered battle, and he barked sharply to insert himself into the fight. She needed a champion, and he was just the wolf for the job. The three males turned to look at him and then turned back to her, hissing and growling. Bo realized the she-wolf was the one whose scent was calling for him. He didn’t take time to consider what it meant; only that she was in danger and needed to be saved. With a sharp howl, he stalked towards the three as the female struck out weakly, her fangs bared in fury.
The Wolf's Mate Book 5: Bo & Reika Page 2
