“Hunter’s moon. Right. When all the wolf packs gather for a big run.” Quentin gave her a long look. “And your Black Mesa pack has the biggest one in this part of the country. Doesn’t it?”
Abby inhaled, her beautiful eyes widening a bit. “Quentin, you know that’s a wolf thing—”
Normally, he would take the bait and argue that sort of point with her. But then he’d found out what the real truth behind the hunter’s moons were.
It was a time when many wolves found their true mates. And mated with them. Under the full moon.
The thought of it was slowly killing him. But she wasn’t ready for him to come to her pack. She wasn’t ready to let them know she’d found her mate, and it was a bear shifter. He didn’t want to fight with her over it. If he made her mad enough, she might decide being with a temperamental, possessive bear shifter was the wrong thing after all.
So he played it cool instead, much to the chagrin of his utterly enamored bear.
“Yeah, babe, I know that.” He shrugged with seeming nonchalance. “It’s a big run this weekend, and it’s important to your pack. I do listen to you, you know.” Hung on her every word was more like it, but he wasn’t about to admit that out loud. He dropped his guard with Abby more than with anyone else in the entire world. He just wasn’t quite ready to let her know that she pretty much had him totally whipped.
Not yet, at least.
He shrugged again, still trying to look as unconcerned as possible. “I’m just saying, have a great weekend, babe. Since I knew you’d be busy, I made some plans other than working myself.”
At that, Abby looked surprised. As if he didn’t notice, he went on. “You’d better be getting over the mountain to your pack. You’ll be late. Call me, l—”
Damn. He’d almost said the word out loud. The word that seemed too fragile for either one of them to say out loud.
Lover. Love.
Catching himself quickly, he said instead, “Later.”
It took everything he had to just jerk his chin goodbye at her, then casually turn away and head over to his closet like he meant to get dressed. After a long beat, Abby replied, slight confusion still edging her words. “Okay. Bye. I’ll talk to you later.”
Hearing the puzzlement in her voice squeezed his heart. He held firm, despite the distressed grunting of his bear. There was only one way he was going to win this amazing, perfect she-wolf for himself. Wait for her to come to him. Reining himself in so he didn’t turn around to run out the door after her to grab her up in his arms again, Quentin just listened as his stubborn, sexy, sweet little mate got in her car and drove down the mountain, away from him. Like she did every time, no matter how many arguments he’d presented to her during the past half a year since he’d first clapped eyes on her.
“You’re taking a big gamble on this one, Quentin Walker.” His voice muttered out savagely to himself, echoing in the suddenly empty cabin.
Because if she decided not to come back to him, he’d be alone for the rest of his life.
2
“So then he said—oh!” Abby interrupted herself with a soft exclamation. “The trees are turning more every day.” A delicate, bright yellow aspen leaf fluttered through the air above Abby’s head, landing in her lap as she looked up at the canopy of leaves overhead.
Megan, Abby’s closest friend, looked up as well. “I love fall.” Megan’s voice went dreamy for a second. Then she turned back to Abby, interest sharpening her tone again. “But don’t stop there. So then he said what?”
Abby resettled herself against the silvery white bark of the aspen tree trunk she leaned against. She and Megan were tucked beneath it in a far corner of the Black Mesa Wolf Pack den property. Abby wanted to talk to her best friend about Quentin. Her favorite topic of conversation, bar none. Every time she brought him up, she just felt—happy. Settled.
But that didn’t matter. Not when he was just an awesome guy to spend time with for now. An awesome guy, but a bear shifter. Wolves didn’t hang out with bears. Or mate with them. Not any wolves that she knew, at least.
Inside, her wolf howled and smacked her mind. Somewhat startled, Abby blinked. With a small frown, she went on. “Well, then he said he’s already got plans this weekend. I thought he was working. They work really hard, him and his brothers. It’s really impressive.”
“They’re all pretty impressive,” Megan agreed, smiling. “I can totally understand why you find him attractive. If it weren’t for Sean, I’d probably think they’re pretty hot, too.” Sean was Megan’s mate. Abby knew perfectly well that Megan had eyes for no one else. Even so, it was nice of her to acknowledge that Quentin’s bear shifter clan mates were also appealing.
“Right? I mean, even though they’re a different species. I mean, they’re still people, too. I mean,” Abby frowned again as she stumbled over herself. It had been happening a lot lately. “I don’t know what I’m saying. He’s an awesome guy. They all are. He’s just like—the most awesome. Even though he’s not a wolf,” she ended, bolstering her argument.
Bolstering it with what exactly, she still wasn’t quite sure.
This time, the glance Megan gave Abby was more speculative. Idly playing with the stalk from a pretty pink and white mountain laurel, she asked with what seemed like genuine curiosity, “Do you really see them as being that different?”
Startled again, Abby looked at her best friend. Slowly, trying to understand her own thoughts as they spun and darted around in her mind, she said, “Well, no. But—I mean, it’s just that we never really hang out much with them. With any other shifters besides wolves.”
It was true. Different types of shifters lived all over the world, and even right here in Durango, but the Black Mesa Pack tended to mingle mostly with other wolf shifters.
Megan nodded. “True. We really should, you know. I mean, all of us live with one foot in our world and the other foot in a completely human world. We all have a lot more in common than we don’t.”
Abby looked at Megan’s thoughtful face for a long moment as she digested those words. Her wolf spun and whirled around in her mind, suddenly as excited and flighty as Abby’s thoughts. “Huh. I never really thought of it that way.”
Megan shrugged, gently tossing the flower away. She leaned back on her hands as she lazily surveyed the woods around them. “Well, it’s surprising that we really don’t hang out with other shifter types that much. Then again, we’re the only ones who spend a lot of time in Durango. Since technically this is our territory, and the bears and big cats and whatnot don’t seem to come down here that often. It’s too bad, really. I meet a couple now and then. Sean actually knows quite a few of the bear shifters. But,” she shrugged, “I guess there’s more mingling in California. So many more shifters there.”
Abby smiled at that. After he’d met Megan, Sean had left behind his northern California pack for a new life in Colorado. He always said that over there, shifters intermated all the time. Small town Colorado living, though, was different. Abby didn’t know a single inter-species couple.
None at all.
Yet even that didn’t stop her from thinking about Quentin Walker, the sexiest, strongest, most amazing bear shifter ton the planet, pretty much every second of the day. Even though she knew it was hopeless. Around here, bears and wolves just didn’t mate.
“So.” Megan suddenly switched gears. “What about the hunter’s moon run? Are you ready for that?”
The abrupt change of subject, and the echo of Quentin’s mention that morning about the run, brought Abby up short. Feeling her heart flutter in her chest, she twirled the aspen leaf in her hands, her gaze roving over the tall, thick pine trees and the bright scatter of aspen trees whose leaves were turning at significant rates. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Megan said in a gentle tone, “are you ready to possibly get mated during it? There’ll be a lot of guys from other packs here for the run. You’re pretty, fun, and a good catch, Abby. Some wolf is bound to have his e
ye on you.”
The strangest sensation gripped Abby at those words. She felt vaguely like she was suffocating, perhaps on the verge of having a mild panic attack. Her breath shortened, her chest squeezed, and her mind constricted into a cacophony of angry barks and sharp whines as she thought about the formal hunter’s moon pack run.
The full moon of every October was commonly known as the Hunter’s Moon. Wolf packs, which naturally hunted, over the centuries had adopted the long light of this full moon night as an ideal time to bring together members from different packs for joyous runs in the mountains or deserts or canyons wherever they lived.
It was also a well-established run during which many lifelong mate pairings were made, as wolves from different packs met new potential partners. A chase that was a mixture of playful yet serious allowed wolves to prove that they could be a worthy mate. Naturally, a mating wasn’t going to occur unless the pair was actually meant to be. A lot of run hookups simply ended up as casual liaisons, or simple fun as friends ran together or caught up with members from other visiting packs.
But plenty of them resulted in true, lifelong mate pairings. Enough so that each hunter’s moon run was met with a certain amount of expectation. Of anticipation.
Abby was of an age when plenty of wolves mated. She had yet to meet her mate. He certainly wasn’t in the Black Mesa pack, she would have known by now. She hadn’t found him yet in any of the packs she’d ever visited in the vicinity, or even during her college stint on the East Coast.
So the chances of meeting her mate during a hunter’s moon run like the one coming up was better than not. While wolf packs all over the country and the world set up private hunter’s moon runs at this time of year, the Black Mesa Wolf Pack hosted what was by far the largest public run in the entire southwestern United States, drawing members from easily twenty or thirty other packs who traveled to spend a long weekend here. Plenty of them were already in town, staying either at hotels, or, if they were family members or close friends of Black Mesa wolves, invited to den here on the property itself.
So far, not a single one of the solo male wolves newly in town had caught Abby’s attention.
Only because she hadn’t run with them yet, she murmured to herself. That had to be it. Feeling Megan’s eyes on her, Abby managed to say, “I should definitely meet a wolf I’ll like during the run.” She tried to make her voice sound convinced, even as her wolf still bafflingly pummeled her mind with what seemed to be sheer vexation. “You’re right. I’m ready to be mated.” Gaining steam, she sat up straight, nodding her head. “For darned sure. I mean, what wolf wouldn’t want to join the Black Mesa pack? And I’m a catch. Heck, I’m a great catch.”
Even as she finished talking, Abby couldn’t help her voice as it dissolved into giggles at her semi-pompous tone. Megan snorted, then joined her, their laughter being answered by the scold of a bird in a nearby tree, which set them off even more. Eventually, silence settled over them again. The breeze flipped through the trees with that increasing sharpness that every day portended the deepening of fall. Abby closed her eyes, tipping her face up to the beams of sunlight coming through the branches above.
After another long moment, Megan spoke again. “Abby,” she began, then paused. She took a breath before continuing. “Abby, I just want to ask you something.”
Unconcerned, feeling lulled by the fading warmth of the light on her skin, Abby mumbled back, “Mm-hmm?”
But Megan’s next words had her snapping her eyes open and straightening up.
“Are you sure, absolutely, one hundred percent positive, that you haven’t already met him? Your mate?”
Abby shot Megan a look as her heart seemed to spasm again. Her wolf swept her tail through her mind, sending agitation skittering along Abby’s nerves.
“Because if I asked you right now whose face you’re picturing when I said that, whose would it be?”
Abby stared at her best friend, who was definitely not pulling her punches in this conversation.
She saw nothing but Quentin’s face. His broad, laughing grin, the hearty laughter that rumbled out of him when they were in bed together, when he was hanging out with his brothers and the other bear shifters over in Deep Hollow, when he was just enjoying his life up in the beautiful place he’d created on the mountain at Silvertip Ridge. His huge, burly strength, different from that of a wolf yet so intensely, oddly familiar and comforting that Abby felt more settled around him than any wolf she’d ever met. His strong hands as he held her close. His fingers, so big and thick yet so incredibly tender and dexterous as they explored every centimeter of her body, drawing out sensations and sounds from her that she’d never realized she was capable of producing before she met him.
Quentin Walker, bear shifter. Gorgeous, caring, sexy, safe.
Yet he was also a bear shifter. Not from her pack. Not from any wolf pack. He was just a guy she was dating. Yes, a guy she really, really, really liked. One whose face she could picture waking up to every morning, going to bed with every night, spending every second with for every day of the rest of her life.
But he wasn’t a wolf shifter. Abby didn’t know a single mated wolf who was not mated to another wolf shifter. Sure, they existed.
Just not in her pack.
Taking a deep breath, shaking her head to clear her visions of him, she answered in a voice she meant to be steady. But it came out shaky and uncertain no matter how hard she tried. “No one’s face. I—I don’t see anyone else’s face when I think of a mate.”
Megan studied her again for a long moment, eyes crinkled at the corners. She seemed on the verge of arguing. Abby never could keep a good poker face, and Megan knew that. In the end, though, all she said was, “Okay. Shall we head back to the den?”
Abby nodded, knowing that Megan had seen straight through her. During their entire, silent run back to the den, all she could do was see Quentin’s face in front of her. And think of the hunter’s moon run coming up in just a few days. The run during which she might meet her mate. Her wolf shifter mate.
Yes. Because any other shifter was just out of the question.
3
Quentin glared at his brother as he lifted his end of the huge beam, muscles and sweat popping out all over him. “Put your back into it, man! What are you, a half-grown cub? How the hell you can actually rescue people when you go out on your calls is beyond me, as scrawny as you are. It’s a damn wonder more of them don’t die out there with you on the beat.”
Cortez roared in fury, the sound of his bear bellowing out of his mouth. He put more than his back into it, he put every last remaining ounce of his strength into hefting the cut beam that might as well be an entire tree.
Hey, they were bear shifters. They could wrangle entire trees when they really wanted to. Like right now. Quentin grinned to himself, though he didn’t let it show on his face. Yeah, kicking his youngest brother around a bit had always been the way to get more out of him. It been that way since they all had been cubs, and probably would be that way the rest of their lives.
“Orgh—ugh—aaaaargh!” Quentin’s grunts and groans joined Cortez’s as they wrestled the enormous beam up the stairs and managed to lug it through the double front doors of the main building on the property. A wild party last week had resulted in cracking one of the ponderosa beams in the huge dining room. Quentin had been less than thrilled. Okay, he’d been pissed as hell. He’d grumped about it to every single bear and half the humans in town. He, of course, hadn’t been around for the party, having gone to Denver for a quick supply run. No, his youngest brother had gotten some stupid wild hair up his butt and invited the entire search and rescue crew he worked on, plus about ten extra people per crew member, up for the party. Apparently, it been a raging success.
Quentin wondered if his brother still thought as highly of his antics now that he had to help Quentin repair the damage.
The beam thunked on the floor with a resounding boom after the brothers had maneuvered it to the m
iddle of the room and set it down as carefully as they could. Which meant to say they dropped it. Wiping sweat from his brow and muttering darkly about the idiocy of letting heavy bear shifters swing from a wooden beam while they were drinking, Quentin sat down on the beam to catch his breath. Cortez flopped down beside him, gasping in his own breath with exaggerated drama.
Quentin narrowed his eyes at his brother. “We’ve still got a lot to do today, replacing the broken one up there.” He jabbed an accusing finger at the cracked beam overhead. Their parents, who had run the Silvertip Lodge resort since shortly after they had first been mated many years ago, were in the middle of a year-long, worldwide tour. Quentin, responsible elder of the brothers not to mention already manager of the lodge, had been left in charge during their absence.
Well, damn him for being responsible. Even though he was the oldest of all the hellion Walker siblings, he never quite appreciated how hard it was to wrangle his brothers until their parents had blithely taken off on a long-delayed sightseeing tour of the countries they’d always wanted to visit but never had been able to due to the endless responsibilities of running a small guest resort that was open year-round. Quentin had been the property manager ever since he’d come into his maturity. Yet all that experience hadn’t quite prepared him for the dubious honor of riding roughshod over his siblings. They were all grown ass man, for crying out loud. But they acted like damn spoiled babies every time he asked for a little bit of help.
Scrubbing a hand over his eyes, he enjoyed the sharp breeze coming in through the open door. Moving the beam from the yard had been a lot of work, and he and Cortez were both dripping with the sweat equity to prove it. The change of season finally seemed to be spanning over the mountain, a little later this year than usual. Fall was Quentin’s favorite season. Something about the crisp air, the changing color guard that swept through all the trees on the mountain, the new life that tickled through the town down in the valley as everyone seemed to emerge from the lazy days of summer into the renewed pace of fall life always made him feel alive.
Summer Shifter Nights Page 25
