by Dannika Dark
While Lorenzo lit another fire, I switched on a dim lamp on the dresser before taking a seat in his leather chair. The intricate carvings on the bedposts caught my eye, and I studied them while he sat on the edge of his bed, his hands on his knees.
He glanced behind him. “Did you make up the bed?”
“The bed doesn’t get made up by itself.”
Lorenzo threaded his hair back. “I have someone who does that.”
“One of your pack makes up your bed?”
“Something wrong with that?” he asked in irritation.
I swallowed down the urge to drift from the matter at hand. “How did you know about the attack?”
“Caleb called with the details. I would have made it here sooner, but the police pulled me over.” He kept an accusatory gaze on me, his eyes briefly lowering to my flannel shirt again.
“Tell me what my father said.”
“Ivan confirmed only one of the men in his pack left with Fox, so it looks like he picked up rogues along the way. Unless he was already friends with them in Oklahoma. I heard he associated with panthers.”
I shrugged. “He’s been known to have a drink at the bar with them. Maybe here it’s no big deal, but up where I came from it was. People were paranoid about attacks, and our local Council was good for nothing.”
“I made your father aware of your condition.”
“What else did he say?”
My words hung in the air for what seemed like decades.
“That Fox is a cunning man who can’t be trusted. I’m concerned because he took the next strongest pack member with him, and he’ll have a beta to support him in this motley group. I can’t fathom why anyone would follow a wolf who is not an alpha. It won’t be long before there’s dissension and they try to take him down.”
I rubbed my thumb over a cut in the the armrest. “And?”
Lorenzo threaded his fingers through his hair and stood up. “I don’t think Fox will try it again. Caleb has everything under control with his checkpoints. We took out three of his men, so if that’s half his pack, then we’ve gained the upper hand. Either way, that’s not a number to sniff at.”
Lorenzo was avoiding my question and knew exactly what I was asking. I was glad my father had given him any information at all, because that man had a temper and sometimes people never got past introductions. Not to mention Lorenzo was Native American, and my father had been known to say derogatory remarks about them. Never around my mother when she was alive—that behavior had started soon after her death. But what I wanted to know was why Lorenzo had incinerated me with his gaze when he barged in through the front door.
I glanced up at the skull and crossbones tattoo prominently displayed on his upper left arm, thanks to his dark green sleeveless shirt.
“Tell me why you really got that tattoo, Lorenzo.”
He faced the fire. “Humans use this symbol on warning labels of poison. I want people to look at me and see danger. I don’t want my pack to think I would hesitate in punishing those who betray me.”
“I spent time with your pack. These men respect you, but like children, they crave your respect. Your compassion. You are a father to them.”
“You should take care how you advise me to lead my pack. You are hardly in a position to talk about pack loyalty.”
“What did my father say!”
“That you’re a whore!” he yelled back. “He called you Poison Ivy and said you bedded with Fox. And here this whole time I thought I was protecting you from a man who would corrupt you.”
I struggled to stand and met his gaze. “He did corrupt me.”
Lorenzo gave a tight-lipped smile and shook his head. “The Packmaster’s daughter sleeping around. You shamed his standing in the pack that he couldn’t even control his own daughter from tempting his men. And to have lain with a man before your change…”
“I won’t lie and say that I didn’t have sex with Fox, because I did. But not of my own free will.”
My knees weakened and I knelt on the bearskin rug, overwhelmed with rage. I wanted to keep this part of my past buried and had never imagined revealing it to anyone.
Lorenzo knelt before me, his eyes startled. “Did I hear you correctly?”
I rested my hands on my thighs. “I grew up looking at Fox like an uncle. We had a rowdy pack, and he always watched over me. They often went out to the bars or restaurants, and as I got older, I wanted to join them. But they left me home with the children. One evening, everyone had gone out for a celebration, leaving the little ones behind. Fox returned and said something about the party being boring. He said he’d take me to town if I didn’t tell my father. I was young, and it sounded exciting to get out. But my father never allowed me to go anywhere on my own. Maybe a part of me rebelled with Fox’s offer.”
“That’s not healthy for a young Shifter. Children need to experience the world and mingle with humans to get used to them.”
I touched my braid and nodded in agreement. My leg ached, so I leaned on my right side and stretched out my leg. “I put on a nice dress, and we went for a drive. There was a full moon that night. I remember because it kept watching me through the dirty windshield of his truck.”
Lorenzo rubbed his eyes with one hand.
“Fox took me to a little diner and we had hamburgers. I can’t even remember what we talked about, but he ordered milkshakes to go. Then on the way home, he suggested stopping by the lake, so we did. I’d never been to the lake at night, and it was so beautiful. The way the moonlight shone on the water, the quietness. I sat down and drank my shake, making small talk. He kept telling me how pretty I looked—how I’d grown up to look just like my mother. Fox and my mother were pretty close from what I’d seen, so I trusted him.”
The fire crackled and I waited. Maybe I didn’t need to tell the rest of the story because it was self-explanatory.
“And?” he pressed in a gentle voice. When I didn’t answer, he reached out and lifted my chin with the crook of his finger. “Finish.”
I swallowed hard. “He tried to kiss me. Said he’d show me how to kiss a boy the right way. I pushed him away and felt teased about the whole thing because he kept laughing. He didn’t make it seem like I should have been scared of him—like we were just horsing around. Fox told me Shifters didn’t like shy girls and said they’d put their hands on me, like this.”
I placed my hand on my upper thigh and curved it between my legs. Lorenzo’s face hardened, the bones in his cheeks sharpening.
“Then something about it started to feel very wrong. I was naïve, Lorenzo. Almost as soon as I stopped laughing about it, he pulled up my dress. When I asked him to stop, Fox pushed me onto my stomach.” I stopped talking as the moments flashed in my mind from years ago—my milkshake tipping over and soaking into the ground, the smell of dirt, my panties pinching my skin as they were yanked down, the sound of his heavy breathing. “I went home with a dirty dress and threw it away so no one would know. I was ashamed—afraid I might have tempted his wolf and it was my fault. After that night, Fox didn’t speak to me.”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed as he kept them centered on me. “Something isn’t right. If you didn’t tell anyone, then why did your father imply you slept around?”
My God, I couldn’t open up to him like this. It was too much. “Think what you want about me, but I’m no whore. Fox is the only man I’ve ever been intimate with.”
“You call that intimate?” he roared. Then he launched to his feet and paced toward the window. “You’re not telling me something.”
“I think I’ve told you more than enough,” I said wearily. “Rebecca is an interesting woman.”
He turned around. “What did she say to you?”
“Plenty, but not much after I saved her from having her throat torn out.”
Lorenzo slowly approached, taking a seat in his chair behind me. I turned so my feet were facing the fire and I looked at him.
“I’m not certain whether you’re
being humorous or not,” he said dryly.
“A wolf got inside the house and lunged for her. I’m sorry if the spear on your wall had any sentimental value, but it’s probably out in the front yard somewhere now.”
His eyes widened and he leaned forward. “You speared a wolf?”
“I’m relieved you don’t have white carpeting.”
Lorenzo rocked with laughter, and it warmed me.
“What will happen to those wolves?”
His eyes glittered with intent. “If they had a pack, we’d return them to their Packmaster. Since they do not, their bodies will hang on the property line to serve as a warning.”
“I certainly hope they were all killed in animal form,” I added. Shifters remained in whatever form they died in, be it human or animal.
“Tell me, why is it you do not weep for what he did to you?”
I gripped the rug with my fingers. “I’ve wept enough tears for that young girl. She would be ashamed to know I had grown into a woman who couldn’t stand with her back straight and her chin high.”
Lorenzo leaned on his left arm. “You speak of her as if she were another person.”
I took a quiet breath. “In many ways, she is. When something marks us, it changes who we are, and we become different. Are you not different than the young boy you once were? I sometimes ask advice from the older version of myself, hoping she’ll send me her wisdom in my dreams. I mourn for that young girl, because on that night, she died. But without her loss, I wouldn’t be here.”
“I sometimes think I could listen to you talk for days,” Lorenzo said wearily. His eyes hooded and he took long blinks. “You are so different from your father.”
“He always said I had my mother’s tongue,” I said with a sly smile.
“And what did you inherit from your father?”
I considered that for a moment. “Perhaps his warrior’s heart. It surely wasn’t his good looks.”
Lorenzo chuckled sleepily.
“Maybe you should shift,” I suggested. “How long has it been?”
He yawned and rubbed his face. “Days, I guess. I can’t shift with you here.”
“Sure you can.”
It was common for alphas to be able to remember their entire shift, and in some cases, share control with their animal as one stream of consciousness. But like the rest of us, they could close their mind and go to sleep. My mother used to tell me that centuries ago, Shifters never had to sleep. They would change into their animal form at night and allow their human mind to rest, and in the morning, their wolf would sleep when they switched back. Now such practices were no longer necessary, and our wolves don’t roam as freely as they once did.
So I began to sing an old hymn my mother had taught me that had been passed down through her family. A tune that would coax out a wolf, one often used when an alpha wasn’t around and someone needed to heal but was too weak or stubborn to shift.
“I don’t like that a man did that to you,” he said under his breath, so low I almost didn’t hear it.
His eyes slanted down and he tipped his head against the side of the chair. Lorenzo sleepily watched me sing, and I began to notice the twitching in his face. His wolf was trying to come out.
And the Packmaster succumbed.
His pants fell to a heap on the floor on top of his shoes, and a large grey wolf shook his head and emerged. He stood at my feet and lifted his nose, taking in my scent.
Goodness, he was spectacular. It’s as if he were made of the purest snow and someone had sifted dark ashes over him, blanketing the top of his coat. His ears and snout looked like they’d been dipped in ink, and his fur was a little white over the tops of his eyes, making them more pronounced.
His wet nose glided up my leg as he approached me. I lowered my eyes, and Lorenzo’s wolf startled me when he began licking my mouth. I closed my lips and tried to turn away, but he wouldn’t stop.
It made me giggle. “Well, Lorenzo, it looks like your wolf likes me.” I knew he could hear me in there, if he hadn’t fallen asleep. I stroked the soft, thick fur around his face and nuzzled beneath his jaw.
I’d never submit to Lorenzo, but you had to treat the animal within each Shifter with its due respect. I fell on my back and he stood over me with his front paws on either side, looking about the room. I rubbed his chest and felt the vibration against my hand when he released a howl.
And in an unexpected twist, the tables were turned and Lorenzo’s wolf sang me to sleep.
***
The next morning was my third day in the Church pack. Someone had left a cart of food outside the door, and I rolled it into the room. Lorenzo was still in wolf form, and I let him loose in the house after he barked at the door.
His house. His rules.
When he left, I shifted once more and when I returned to human form, I realized my leg would not heal any further than it already had. There was no more pain, only limited mobility. I’d never be able to run as fast as I once could, and I would always walk with a limp. I just hoped my wolf got around better than I did, but I feared for her being singled out and forced into an omega position by the pack. I had equal rank with Izzy, and Lexi was the alpha female. The social order was necessary to keep the pack unified.
Around noon, I decided to go back downstairs. Someone had left a change of clothes for me on the food cart. I slipped on a dark green skirt with rows of patterns on the crinkled material. It reached my ankles and looked pretty, but the white T-shirt was tight and outlined everything, so I draped my braid across the front. I didn’t like revealing outfits that showed off my breasts, and while the shirt concealed them, it also accentuated them. A slight chill was going to draw a lot of attention.
This time when I went to meet the pack, I used the stairs. It took a little longer, but I was learning how to move my body differently to accommodate for my disability.
A boy in his upper teens and an older girl were looking out the front window. “It’s snowing!” the girl said. “I can’t believe it!”
“It won’t stick,” an older wolf argued from his spot on the leather sofa. “It’s too early in the season, not to mention it never snows around here. We’re not living in Alaska, kids. So enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Can we go outside?” the girl asked.
“Hell no,” Watcher barked out as he walked in from an adjoining room on the right. He was tall and menacing, but the kids seemed to warm up to him.
“Please,” the girl said, clutching his arm. “Just on the porch.”
“It’s too dangerous. We’ve got a rogue pack out there.”
“Jesus, Watcher,” the man on the couch complained. “Just let them out for a minute or they’ll hold this against you for the next ten years until it snows again.”
The kids looked at him expectantly. I wondered why there weren’t any young ones in the house, especially given that I’d seen a few mated couples.
Watcher lifted a knit hat off a hat rack and slid it over his head. “Come on, let’s go.”
They both ran to a coat closet and put on their jackets so fast you’d think they were going on a trip. When the door swung open, a biting wind crept in and I shivered.
“Cold out there, huh?” the guy from the couch said, his eyes on my chest.
I folded my arms.
“So what’s wrong with your leg?”
Ignoring him, I went into the room to my right. A beautiful cream-colored rug stretched across the floor, and several chairs were lined up against the walls, facing each other. Windows spanned the left wall and the one straight ahead. I cautiously took a seat on the right by the entrance to stay away from the wolf lying on the rug. He eyed me suspiciously, as did a few of the others.
“We heard what you did last night,” one of the men commented. “I’m sure Lorenzo has given his appreciation, but I’d like to give mine. Not everyone here likes Rebecca, but she’s family.”
The white wolf lifted his head and his lips peeled back, revealing his ca
nines. He wanted to intimidate me. I wasn’t part of his pack, so it was inappropriate for him to try to rank me.
I ignored him and replied to the man in the right corner with the black ponytail. “I’m just glad that I could help. They’re here because of me, so I’ll do what I can to protect your pack while I’m in your company.”
“Excuse me?” the woman across from me said. A single curl fell out of the messy knot clipped on her head. She had on a white sweater that made her dark features stand out. “Those assholes were here because of you?”
“I know their leader,” was all I could offer. “Lorenzo is aware of it. Don’t worry; I’ll be leaving here tomorrow, if not sooner. You have a strong pack, and he won’t try again.”
My heart raced when the white wolf stalked toward me with his ears back.
“Jonus!” One man leaned forward but made no attempt to get up.
The wolf didn’t listen. He was just three feet from me, growing more aggressive with each passing second. Then his tongue curled over his front teeth.
I stood up as fast as my body would allow. “I will not submit to you,” I said, refusing to yield. “Back off.”
“Jonus, she’s a guest,” the man said, as if the wolf could understand him.
The growls that rolled out had everyone on edge. When one of the men stood up, the wolf turned his head back and barked ferociously, making him sit. Then I realized he must have outranked all the Shifters in this room.
If he thought I would shift into my wolf just so he could dominate her with some posturing, he was mistaken.
The tension thickened when Lorenzo’s grey wolf approached from behind. His toenails clicked on the floor as he took heavy steps toward the white wolf, positioning himself between us. The other wolf crouched low, licking at Lorenzo’s jaw before rolling onto his back with his belly up. Lorenzo locked his mouth around the young wolf’s snout, baring all his sharp fangs.
When he growled, I smothered a laugh. There was no need for him to continue this showy display of dominance, so I touched his back and whispered, “Thunder, that’s enough.”
He curled around and stood beside me, taking a position against my injured leg. In fact, Lorenzo’s wolf sat beside me the entire time I spent getting to know his pack. The man with the slim ponytail went by Aaron, and one of the women in the room had a high-paying position as a financial advisor. Most of them were friendly, but I could tell Lorenzo’s presence changed the way they behaved.
