She hadn’t shown any interest, but the fact that she was around his age, somewhat attractive, and female discomfited him more than it should. It wasn’t like having a girlfriend or whatever Vanessa was to him meant he couldn’t be around other females. She was a coworker. A fellow ranger. He stopped about ten feet away and stared at her. Dark hair in a braid. Normal female figure. She was tan, like him, not pale like Vanessa. He had no idea what color her eyes were—not brown like Vanessa’s, if he had to guess.
Nope, he felt nothing. There was no reason to feel like he should keep his distance. This strange and almost innate hesitation was a remnant of an odd couple of days without sleep. And being with Vanessa. And leaving her sleeping in his bed. Where he wished he was.
“What are we looking at?” he asked as he stepped closer.
She snorted and shook her head. “Something insane.” He caught the scent of her perfume or deodorant or shampoo—a musky sweet scent that was nice, but did nothing for him. He didn’t want to grab her and press his nose into her neck like he did whenever he was close to Vanessa and, to his knowledge, Vanessa didn’t wear anything scented—probably because it’d drive her crazy…or she was allergic to perfumes. Could be either.
Sammy looked over her shoulder at him with squinted eyes.
“What?” It would be strange if, today of all days, she started coming on to him.
“Nothing. You just…seem different.”
“Different like how? Like I look different or I’m acting different or what sort of different?” Different like she could tell he’d spent the night with a werewolf? Different like he was falling apart because now he was keeping it secret that he spent the night with a werewolf?
Raising her eyebrows, she fought a smile. “Well, you are acting different.” She seemed to shake it off and returned to staring at the ground. “What’s the matter, Hansen? Have a hot date last night?”
“What makes you think it was a woman?” He blinked. “I mean, not that it would be anything other than a woman.” Okay, so he should really stop talking. Or change the subject. “So, what is it you’re staring at?”
She gestured in front of her as he crouched.
Okay, maybe he hadn’t needed to ask. “Lots of tracks,” he said vaguely.
“Wolf tracks.”
“Could be dogs or coyotes.”
She shook her head. “No, look how big these are…and they’re elongated. Also the pattern is straighter. Definitely not dogs.”
“Coyotes?” He didn’t know why he was trying to throw her off. He was playing the same game Vanessa was with him.
“Nope, coyote tracks would have tighter and less round digits. I know wolves and these are wolves.” They were definitely wolf tracks. He’d seen it at a glance, but he’d been hoping the other park ranger wasn’t as familiar with them. There weren’t many packs in this area—of real wolves. And really, now he could say he “knew” wolves too—if not for that cold shower it would have been in the biblical sense even. Well, not wolves per se—whatever Vanessa was.
“So a few wolves went through here.” He stood up, trying to act like it was nothing. It was insane, but he felt protective of Vanessa’s secret. Maybe that was the same reason she was acting like he was crazy.
“A few?” She looked at him over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised incredulously. From her expression, Sammy felt like he’d failed an important test—also he noticed her eyes were greenish, brownish. Vanessa’s were brown—deep brown—and he liked them narrowed and squinty as she prepared some angry retort.
Sammy tossed her braid over her shoulder. “A huge pack…and traveling more like a herd. I’ve never seen this many. I didn’t know we had so many around.” She narrowed those greenish-brownish eyes. “You know, Frank…guy that owned that house before you, he had a degree in zoology. He had a real talent for tracking animals.” She gestured at the ground. “I don’t know that he saw a single wolf in the forest the whole time he was here.”
Dane covered a smile by itching his nose. “Not a single one?” He’d already one-upped his predecessor without even trying. Of course he couldn’t tell her that. He’d have to keep playing stupid. And okay, his degrees were in geology and forestry, not zoology, as evidenced by the fact that he’d had to Google how long his girlfriend would be in heat. If he’d known he’d be crossing species to date, he might’ve switched majors.
“Of course, if wolves don’t want to be seen, they won’t be, but I didn’t think they’d come out like this—especially not this close to town, or this close to the road.”
Hell, they lived in town. He’d slept next to one last night.
She stood and looked back at the deep grooves of the tires on the other side of the ditch. The police department had already dragged the car away, but the soft ground still retained the print of where it’d been. “I don’t like how close these are to where that woman disappeared.”
That sobered him right up.
“Her boyfriend claims she’d decided to move back east—only he wasn’t going with her, so I guess he’d be an ex. Anyway, doesn’t look like she caught a flight and no one back east has seen her.”
“What does the sheriff say about her ex?”
“Jordan Hill? Oh, Travis says it’s nothing to do with him. Jordan has been pushing the sheriff to look into it. The sheriff thinks she was transported magically somewhere and didn’t bother doing anything with her car.”
The sheriff could kiss his ass. He should have stayed that night and helped search. Of course, if he had, he wouldn’t have met Vanessa. Who was a wolf. He looked down at the prints again. Damn. Vanessa couldn’t have anything to do with this.
“But they don’t think it was anything to do with the ex?” He’d be the first person Dane would suspect.
“It wasn’t Jordan,” Sammy said, shrugging, and staring at the tracks again.
An abandoned vehicle. A whole load of wolf tracks. A missing woman. A sick feeling settled in his stomach.
“I don’t like this,” she said again. “There’s so many of them. I’ve never seen this many wolves out at once.” She picked up her radio. “Hey, we’re going to scout the area around here. There’s been a lot of what looks like wolves around. Can you ask Travis if he ran across any wolves while they were out looking?” She smirked a bit and said to Dane, “I’m just curious what he’ll say.”
“You don’t think it was wolves that did this, do you?” Dane asked. He didn’t even want to think it—didn’t want to consider it, but that black wolf would have ripped him to shreds if given the chance.
She shrugged.
There was silence on the other end. And then Ross from dispatch cleared his throat and asked, “Have you seen any?”
“No. Just prints. A lot of prints.”
“Well, I should touch base with Travis before you look around. Maybe you should leave it be though.”
“We found a bunch of wolf prints near where a woman went missing and you don’t want us to follow them?” she asked—in a voice that conveyed how stupid she thought that was.
“Why would wolves have anything to do with a missing person?” The question left Sammy and Dane blinking at each other.
“Are you serious?”
“Let me just check with Travis first.” Ross sounded almost desperate.
She frowned. “Never mind. You can go ahead and let the sheriff’s department know we’re going to look over the surrounding area.” The minute she’d let go of the button, she muttered, “You and I can handle a few wolves.”
“Just be careful then,” the dispatcher said over the radio, making Sammy smile.
“Aww…Ross. Are you worried about us then?” she asked.
“Just don’t want any more missing persons.” Ross was around her age and single. There had been a few times when it seemed like they were flirting or at least Ross was making an attempt. Maybe he’d moved to romancing her over the radio. Dane wasn’t one to judge a courtship—not now.
She was back
to smiling, but he was pissed off. He should’ve forced Vanessa to tell him a little more about the local wildlife. Yesterday’s brush with nature in his front yard left him with more questions than answers in regards to how friendly the local pack was. Maybe that was the wolf Travis had tried to warn him about.
Clipping her radio to her belt, Sammy tossed her braid over her shoulder. “So, we’ll start here and follow these prints as best we can.”
The image of the black wolf flashed through his head. “Armed, I think. I’m getting my shotgun.”
…
The slam of the front door made Vanessa jerk awake and something pointy stabbed at her palm as she reflexively crushed it in her fist. Opening her hand, she saw a key. Apparently Dane had meant what he’d said about her coming and going.
“Hello, Dane?” a female voice called from the entryway. “I let myself in with the key. I don’t know if you’re here somewhere…” Her offhand tone suggested she didn’t actually think he was. “I’m here to get my cat.”
Vanessa slid to the edge of the bed quietly. Whoever this woman was, Dane had given her a key too. Maybe he gave every woman he knew keys. She set the one in her hand on the side table. It’s not like she could carry it back with her when she shifted anyway. Also apparently he tossed them around like Mardi Gras beads.
“Lucifer?” the female called, approaching the room.
Okay, maybe she shouldn’t be sitting on Dane’s bed in just his shirt. Then again, maybe she should. Dane would have to be hers…at least for right now. If this was in the pack, and another female was interested in a male she wanted, Vanessa would take that she-wolf down by the scruff and hold her until the female submitted and relinquished claim—and that was without the scent-match. Just because she typically chose running didn’t mean she couldn’t be scrappy in a fight. Since this was a human, that seemed excessive, but she was still going to call dibs, and hopefully, this chick would back off before she had to get ugly.
“Luci—” The woman poked her head around the corner and stopped and stared at her. “Oh.”
Oh, wow, see, this is why it might have been good to have a working sense of smell, and her allergies weren’t providing that. Siblings often had similar scents, and she might be hiding in a closet right now instead of meeting Dane’s sister wearing only his shirt.
“Uhh,” Vanessa said.
Dane’s sister gestured over her shoulder. “I’m, uhh, looking for a cat, but clearly he isn’t here…I mean…in this room…where you are…”
“Dane put him downstairs in the mudroom. I’m allergic. Deathly allergic.”
Most people wouldn’t have reacted to this with a wide grin. It concerned her that Dane’s sister did. Was she hoping to kill her off via cat later on?
“My name is Christa,” his sister said, striding forward with her hand out.
Oh, they were shaking hands now. Okay. His sister had a nice firm grip for someone shaking hands with a mostly naked person whom she’d found in her brother’s bedroom on this giant bed.
They were still shaking hands…and now Christa raised her eyebrows.
She winced in embarrassment. “I’m Vanessa. I’m your brother’s…” Mate. Shifter. Bed-buddy. “Friend.”
“How did you know I’m his sister?”
“You look alike.” They did. Mostly. His sister’s eyes were green, and she wasn’t nearly as…hot. Also she was thin—really thin—like she’d blow away in a good breeze. But they had the same color brown hair, which Christa had twisted into a haphazard knot that matched her Grateful Dead T-shirt and jeans with holes in the knees. Younger sister. Early twenties if she had to guess. And she’d just walked in and found Vanessa in her brother’s bed.
Wow, this was awkward. At least his sister had stopped shaking her hand. Vanessa crossed her legs and tried to act like she was in a dress and not just a T-shirt. The shirt covered all the important bits, but it wasn’t how she’d have chosen to meet her mate’s sibling.
Christa nodded. “We do look alike.”
The silence had teeth. Big teeth. Sharp teeth. Dane might rescind his offer to let her come over whenever she wanted.
His sister cleared her throat. “So, I’m going to go collect my cat and get out of your way.” She started backing from the room. She nodded one last time and, well, she didn’t run, so apparently she wasn’t too freaked out. She was even whistling as she moved down the hall toward the downstairs.
Jumping up, Vanessa went to Dane’s dresser and opened drawers, looking for something. Thankfully, he favored boxer shorts, and she pulled on a pair so at least she wasn’t commando in front of his sister. Another drawer turned up black biker shorts—which, really, Dane? No. Just no. She pulled those on, partly so he couldn’t have them, but they also weren’t such a bad fit.
Since she didn’t find a bra—which was good because that would be gross and need to be killed with fire—this was the best she could do under the circumstances.
Lucifer was yowling his way up the stairs.
“Oh, quiet. You’re fine. I swear he’s been feeding you too much if anything. You weigh twice as much as when I dropped you off.”
Vanessa stepped out of the hall as Christa came through the door leading to the mudroom. Lucifer was in her arms, but putting up a decent argument. Then, in a classic horror movie moment: he stopped moving and complaining, his head swung to stare at her, and his eyes narrowed.
Here she was, more than ten times his size and a wolf in her spare time, and she froze at that look. That spawn of Satan knew he could kill her. He knew it! You could see it in his eyes…and in that satisfied smirk.
“Oh, hey, he just wanted to say good-bye, I guess,” Christa said, misinterpreting the cat’s smug moment of triumph. “It’s a shame you’re allergic. He seems to like you.”
“Yeah. It’s too bad.” It was the biggest lie she’d ever told, but how did you tell an owner that their beloved pet was more than aptly named? That thing was the reincarnation of the devil.
Just as they were to the door, Lucifer jerked toward her. Vanessa jumped back, and for a moment, the wolf in her panicked and tried to force the change. She gripped the doorframe and willed it back.
Christa had been preoccupied with her handful of pure evil and hadn’t noticed that her brother’s houseguest twitched and had a feral moment. “Aww. He wants to come play.”
Yeah, he did. He wanted to play with her mind or dance on her soul in the pits of hell. One of the two.
Christa looked up. “You’re really allergic?”
“Deathly.”
She nodded. “I figured. Dane sounded desperate for me to come get Lucifer suddenly.”
“He did?”
Christa grinned and waved. “Did you want to wave good-bye too?” she asked the cat.
Lucifer’s eyes slitted. Until next time, wolf.
She glared right back. Until next time, beast of hell.
“Well, okay then,” Christa said brightly, not catching the nuances. “I guess I’ll see you around…with Dane…probably.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Bye.”
Vanessa waved.
The door shut.
She sighed. That could have gone better. And she was pretty sure that feinted move from Lucifer meant he’d gotten in the last word. She went back for the key. She was dressed for a run—well, mostly…the lack of bra wasn’t ideal, but this way the biker shorts came home with her.
The run should have cleared her head, but instead there was this niggling sensation between her shoulder blades. If her allergy meds weren’t on their way out, she might’ve been more convinced she was being stupidly paranoid because of Cheri’s disappearance. She picked up her pace, and she’d never been more grateful to cross the threshold to her house. Resisting the urge to look over her shoulder, she did slam the door behind her rather forcefully.
Her phone was ringing, and she answered it as she went to grab a handful of allergy meds.
“Yes?” Lycans didn’t
care about niceties with each other. Even if it was the Alpha calling.
“Your human is following the trail of a pack of wolves near where Cheri’s car was found. Ross just called.”
Vanessa swallowed. “Why?”
“The sheriff’s department called in help from Forestry. Travis said he didn’t think he could put your human off much longer. I neglected to mention that you were effectively distracting him.”
“He’s following our pack’s trail?”
“Yes. They’re concerned the pack accounts for her disappearance.”
“He said that?” Dane thought they’d killed someone? Her face felt hot with the rush of panic and sadness and disappointment.
“Ross only spoke with the female with him—another ranger, Sammy.” He paused for a moment. “How much does he know?”
“Nothing.”
Jordan sighed.
“No, I swear. We’ve never even talked about Cheri. I had no idea he’d found the car until you told me. He knows I’m a Lycan, but that’s all he knows, and I haven’t even admitted to that. He found me as a wolf, put me in a cage, and I slipped out of form, and he had a naked woman in a cage. He put two and two together, but I’ve been trying to convince him he’s crazy.”
Silence. Finally, amusement laced his voice as he said, “This is a very strange relationship you have.”
She was less amused. Dane might think she’d killed Cheri. “What do you want me to do?”
“Well, he’s tracking us—go see how well he’s doing and, who knows, maybe he’ll turn up something we didn’t last night. Oh, and if you get done before four p.m. come in to the office because I need you to track down some permits for me. I can’t figure out your filing system here.”
She rolled her eyes. He was Alpha of one of the larger packs in North America, but he couldn’t seem to understand alphabetized files. “So, you’re not worried that Dane will tell the other ranger about us?”
“That he thinks he caught a wolf, and it turned out to be a naked woman? No, strangely enough, I think he might keep that to himself. But you might have some explaining to do if you plan on keeping him.”
“We’re scent-matched.”
Past My Defenses (Taming the Pack series) (Entangled Ignite) Page 8
