5: Hood - Pack Trust

by Carys Weldon

  Anyhow, if I get pregnant, I’m disappearing into the night. You can bet I’m not putting my kid on the list. Well...that is...unless it’s Hood’s.

  He’d kill me if I ran off on him. Hunt me down and frigging rip my head off.

  Not that he cares about me. But he’d care if I got pregnant.

  High I.Q., specific physical requirements. Selected specially for the program.

  I wonder who I’ve been assigned to. I know they’ve got me lined up for somebody unique. Hood’s keeping too close an eye on me. I thought it was this guy named Jack that they brought in, but I was wrong.

  They hooked him up with Hood’s sister, Fera. That was about the biggest surprise I’ve had in a long while--ever since I got bitten.

  See how tired I am? The nightmare wants to sneak up on me while my eyes are open now. Ah, I’m rubbing them again.

  I’ve gotta find that bitch before somebody else does. Not just to get Hood’s appreciation, either. I could just strangle Jack for running off with her. I might, if I can, hunt them down. He better pray it’s not on a full moon. He’ll be a dead man if I go crinos on him.

  The flight lists are endless, blurring together. I’m seriously falling asleep at the keyboard.

  Whoosh. The electronically controlled door startles me, but I don’t have to turn around to know who walked in. There’s a creep climbing up my back. One of those static impulses that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? It’s gotta be Hood. He’s the only one that does that to me. He probably thinks I’m ignoring him, but I’m tuned into every single move he makes.

  Closing my eyes briefly, I struggle for composure, steel myself for the next attack. Oh, he doesn’t full frontal you. He’s way too smooth for that. Testing me. Seeing what I’ll do for him. Pushing me to the limit.

  I want to rip his throat out.

  Every step he takes, I have to inhale. Breathe, girl. Don’t let him know what he does to you.

  Stretching my neck a little, I spare a glance in his direction. Damn. Even to my tired eyes, he looks hot. All I can manage is, “Hood. Nice of you to drop by,” but I’m thinking how much I hate him. I mean, he knows I’ve been waiting for him.

  For two freaking days.

  He’s too calculating, knows which of my buttons to push. Slipping up behind me, he puts his hands on my shoulders and starts to massage. That stiffens my back, and my resolve to resist.

  “Relax.” His voice is velvet, coaxing and his fingers, they’re just--heaven. “Any luck?”

  “No.” I can’t think when he’s near me. The only thing that goes through my brain is, how can I get him to fall in love with me? Trust me? Want me for more than a romp?

  The hands dig deeper, forcing the tension from my muscles. It’s all I can do not to melt under his touch. And he’s just warming up.

  Yeah. We sleep together. His familiarity gives it away, doesn’t it? He expects it. I never turn him down.

  I’m all in, but he doesn’t get it.

  I wish I knew what he thought.

  Click. Click. Click. Page down. Keep working. Don’t let him distract you.

  I want to ask where he’s been. I’m pretty sure he went to Pack City--the wolf reserve we set up in North America. P.C. is what we call it, not the name the public uses for it. Can’t divulge that. It’s a neutral zone for werewolves to heal up, find asylum. I won’t go into the politics, but suffice it to say that Jack pulled a big fucking no-no when he stole Fera out of there. He’s got the whole damn pack of garou, the whole pack, up in arms. I know they’re gearing up to hunt him down. That’s why I’ve got to find them first. They’re gonna climb off an airplane or a boat somewhere and face a frigging death squad.

  I’m not just looking out for their lives. I have other reasons why I need to be the one to find them first. Not to mention Hood would reward me big time for that.

  That thought literally makes me wet.

  Who’s purring? Me? Or him? I swear he can smell every change in my body chemistry. Gotta distract him.

  He doesn’t talk a lot, actually. A man of action. One of those guys who carries silence around like a gun, so you end up running your mouth, telling him everything you know? That’s the big grip a girl has to learn. How to play poker with a straight face.

  Getting him to talk is a trick in itself. So, conversation--

  “Ah, man, you can keep that up all night.” It came out on a sigh, I know, but I can’t help it. He’s doing magic on me. It was the best I could come up with.

  Never stopping, he leans to my ear and kisses just below it, pausing to inhale right before he does it. That’s the wolf in him. Always gotta appreciate. How sexy is that?

  I’m telling you, there is no defense from a garou in a mood, and I can tell by his approach what he wants. As much as he’d like me to find his sister, Hood is all over being a man with instinct in overdrive.

  He probably smelled me the minute he walked in the door on the bottom floor. I was down there just a little bit ago, getting a little fresh air. Watching the parking lot for him, wondering where he was.

  I’m always thinking about sex with him. Hot and hungry. Lonely and needing attention from him. No one else really does it for me. So what if he sniffs a bit, catches a whiff, then beelines it for me because that’s in the air? Or because sex is one of his main drives? I’m cool with it. I mean, I’ll take what I can get.

  Trying real hard to pretend disinterest, I shrug, click another screen.

  Thank God he doesn’t stop.

  His lips trail down my throat, forcing me to close my eyes, tip my head and moan. He answers that with a little growl. One of those things that come from deep down in his ribcage. I can tell he’s just starting to get his fire going.

  I’ve gotta make him work for it. Fighting the urge to turn into his arms, I struggle to lift my eyelids and click again.

  “I don’t know how you do it, Giselle.” It sounds like silk, sleek seduction. I love to hear my name on his lips.

  “Mm.” Yeah, it sounds more like reciprocal appreciation. I’m telling you, it’s impossible not to swoon. He’s got his hands on me, and his lips on my neck. I force myself to add, “What’s that?” My voice is husky.

  He’s talking about going without sex for days. If I’d had it, he’d be able to smell it on me.

  Lips back at my ear, he says, “Come to bed.”

  I want desperately to know where he’s been. I can smell more than one female on him. I try not to focus on that. But I don’t have much luck. I’m jealous and hurt over it. I wonder if he does that to make me angry? Sleep with someone else, more than one woman, and then come to me. He knows I can tell.

  You can’t be bitten and not have heightened senses. It’s the first gift of the curse. You can smell everything, and from a mile away. And your eyesight gets better. Your stamina improves. Your muscle tone firms up. That may be from your increased urge to run.

  I can’t say anything about where he’s been. I’m not his keeper. And he doesn’t like being questioned. It’s a real good way to get myself on his bad list. Been there. Hated that.

  He reads my mind. So I have to concentrate when he’s with me. Reading the names. Just do the introspective thing in between--when he’s miles away from me. But still, he knew I was pissy and he thought it was funny.

  He chuckled, bit the lobe of my ear and said tightly, “You remind me of a cat.”

  I have my own feline type grace. Everybody says I move with something they can’t quite imitate. I say it’s because I’m a total woman, not a freaking wolf-blood. But, anyway, bringing it up--that’s an insult from a dog. Foreplay.

  “Fuck you.” Click. Click. Click.

  Spinning my chair without warning, putting his hands on the arms, and his face an inch from mine, he waited for the full effect of his intense gaze to sink in before he said, oh so quietly, “That’s exactly what I had in mind, Giselle.”

  It was a battle of wills. I wanted nothing more than to be in his arms, and he w
anted me there. But I was mad at his neglect, his cheating--not that he owed me monogamy--and his alpha sex appeal commandeering, ah, that made me furious. It was a matter of principle to look him in the eye, something I don’t think many people did, and come up with a suitable retort. It took me a minute.

  A long minute while I looked at his black eyes and knew he was trying to pin my brainwaves. But while he was gone, I lined myself up for a new experiment he didn’t know anything about. A freaking mind-blocking serotonin derivative. He was fresh out of luck if he was looking to read my mind then. I had to let a slow smile creep onto my face...about the time I think he figured out that he wasn’t getting in my head.

  He had to admire me, I think, as much as he hated me. I could see wonder cross his features very briefly before his gaze hardened even more.

  As it turns out, I didn’t have to come up with anything clever. He surprised me by saying, “You are one fucking beautiful bitch.” And he kissed me hard.

  Now, I have to explain this...Hood’s kisses are more like assault. He plunders your mouth. It doesn’t matter if you try and fight the urge to give in. Not that you can fight for long. Or that you’d ever really want to.

  It’s just an act you have to try for. You know, a little self-preservation?

  My chair’s tipping back and he’s all over me, and before long, I’m clinging. That’s about the time he pulls up, when he has me gasping and wanting.

  Letting my chair come back to upright, he looks in my eyes again, satisfaction on his face. He knew he could get me hungry, licking my lips, and that makes him completely proud of himself.

  The perfect time for a good retort. So I respond with a small smile and a killer gaze. “You must’ve been practicing.”

  A clever cut that lets him know that I really am furious with him. Brilliant, right? Of course, it backfired.

  He calculated his response before asking, “Can you taste where I’ve been?”

  I could, but I resisted the urge to spit. What could I say to that?

  Chapter Two

  A million things ran through my mind. How much I hated him. How much I hated myself for falling in love with him. How much I needed to show him that he would always come back to me. Or why he should, anyway.

  I reached up, grabbed him by the tie. As he pulled away, I came up out of the chair. One fluid motion.

  He realized that stepping back would tighten the noose and empower me a little bit, of course, so he didn’t give me the satisfaction. In fact, he crowded me, wrapped his arms around me, pulled me up into his chest with no escape, clamped his hands on my ass and pulled me against him with a little more force than was needed.

  Things are like that between us, all the time. Sexual tension steals our air, forces us to be aggressive. Enhanced DNA. You can’t fight the friggin’ facts of life. Once you have it, your animal tendencies come to the fore. Fighting it just makes you miserable. Embracing it just makes you crazy. Fucking crazy. Go ahead and laugh. We think it’s funny, too. I’d write a book on it, but you can’t put that on a cover. Can you?

  Anyhow, I pulled on his tie, forcing his head down, so he’d kiss me again. See how we play? I was the one putting the moves on there. Like I said, his air supply was a little snug. I made sure there was no question who was plundering who that time. He could grope me if he wanted, but I was the one doing the kissing. I mean, the real kissing. He might have lowered his head, but my lips--there’s an art to softening them up, to making a man want everything you have--my lips did their job. I practice elsewhere, too.

  I wasn’t really strangling him. And he could have got out of my hold with very little effort. He outweighed me by what? A hundred pounds? Hood’s not puny and I’m no Amazon. So don’t think it was like that freak choking thing.

  I put my tongue in his mouth and I made damn sure that when he walked away from me, that I was the only thing he’d be tasting. Or thinking about. I don’t care how many other women he fucks. I know he’ll be thinking about me and how they all compare.

  Okay, I do care. But you know what I mean.

  Within seconds, I let go of the tie and snaked my arms up around his neck, pressing my whole body against his, crushing breast to chest. He wanted sex? I’d give him that, and then some.

  You see, if he’s screwing around, he’s doing garou. For the most part, Hood’s a racist, a Lupe supremacist. That’s what I call him in my head. As far as I know, I’m the only woman, real woman, Hood sleeps with. Ever slept with.

  And that gives me a slight advantage over him. I don’t think like garou do. I don’t respond like a typical bitch. Never mind that I have their DNA in me now that I’ve been bitten. I have a few moves he can’t get anywhere else.

  Hood didn’t need any more invitation. He scooped a little, and the next thing I knew, his hands were under my skirt, gripping my ass cheeks fully, letting his thumbs slip under the garter straps.

  Yeah, I wear that. Suspender hose. Just for him. Though, I don’t think he realizes that it’s just for him.

  He rumbled in his chest again. A sure sign that he’s totally turned on.

  Which is really the only reason I backed off to look him in the eye. I could feel his erection against my belly. There was no mistaking the pressure he was applying to keep me against it.

  I pretended to taste my own mouth. Licked my lips like I was thinking and maybe not too sure about what I was tasting. Like it was a bad flavor. Or his kissing didn’t sit well.

  Wary, his lids narrowed. His gaze went from my eyes to my lips and back.

  Lying, I said, “Maybe you need to go back and practice some more.” I pushed against his chest. Like I would really send him into the arms of another woman on purpose. Yeah, right. But you gotta front. Ya know?

  He never lets me go that easily, so of course, he squeezed my ass and bounced me against him again. I watched his nostrils flatten. He could have been inhaling a full draw off a cigarette and holding it in, the way his chest tightened before he exhaled.

  Smelling the heat of my desire? You betcha. Double-checking that I hadn’t been in bed with someone else? Oh, hell yeah. This time, I didn’t disappoint him. Told ya, been on his bad list. Didn’t like it.

  Hood grinned then, and I’m telling you, if I hadn’t been weak in the knees already, I would’ve been then. Sheer appreciation filled his eyes, and his sense of humor resurfaced.

  He whispered, “You can’t fool me, Giselle, I know what you want.”

  I wanted him to take me. To claim me. To make love to me like he’d never done before, like he’d never done to another woman. I wanted him to put his heart into it, not just every ounce of his physical prowess. But I’d settle for whatever he wanted to give me.

  I taunted, “Prove it.”

  “Maybe you should ask for what you really want.”

  That had me shaking my head. “I don’t want anything.”

  I was lying point blank, so it was no surprise that he didn’t trust that answer. It checked him, I think, for me to be so obviously lying, and looking him in the eye, but I knew he couldn’t read my mind because of that pill I’d taken. He loosened his grip and stepped back from me. Just a step, but it made me feel like I’d made another mistake.

  “Everybody wants something, Giselle.”

  I denied that. “Not me.”

  Hood is the great studier. It’s kept him alive a long time. Not that he’s old. He’s in his prime. His whole life is a poker game, though, and everybody he meets and does business with is holding a card he needs. It’s just a matter of time before he takes that card from them. That’s why I had to hold my cards close to my chest. Or, rather, protect what I knew. And I knew one thing; that as long as I kept him guessing about me, he’d keep me close--so he could keep an eye on me.

  I could never let him guess that I was head over heels in love with him, that I wanted nothing more than to snuggle up to him and give him his precious, perfect, DNA-blessed, supreme race. And everything else I could, too.

 
Loving is a weakness to him, I think.

  The only person he ever loved, as far as I know, is his sister, Fera. And she’s been nothing but a worry. I don’t think he plans to let anyone else get that close. But then, he didn’t have a choice with her. Their parents died when they were young, and he had to take care of her.

  Don’t get me wrong. Hood cares about a lot of people, keeps an eye on a lot of people, watches out for every garou on the planet--in one way or another. And...when I say that he’s a racist, I don’t mean that he has a thing against skin color.

  He has a thing against weakness. He doesn’t tolerate it. Color means nothing to him. So don’t go and label him like that. He wants a race of the strong and brilliant. The best of all breeds brought together.

  Okay, he has no use for cats. But you know what I mean, don’t you?

  Don’t even get me started on the bastets. You do know about them, don’t you? Cat people? Their world organization isn’t as strong as ours, but maybe that’s because we’re above them on the food chain. I hear they’re getting their shit together. I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear more about them in the future. I just thank God one of them didn’t bite me. But then, I don’t know that they transfer DNA like garou do. Hm. I might have to check into that.

  “What are you thinking about, Giselle?”

  I blinked like an owl. Innocent. Very happy that the serotonin derivative was working. “Cats.”

  “You want a pet?” Total distrust in his eyes now.

  “Maybe.” I used to like cats--before I was bitten--but I find they aren’t too fond of me now. Go figure.

  “Slip down to the lab a little more often, that’ll put you off that.”

  He meant--go down to the place where they do experiments on felines. Oh, sure. PETA would have a heyday with Lobos if they had any clue whatsoever. We are careful to label all our products ‘Not tested on animals’. Those labels should actually read, ‘Not tested on animals that survive to tell about it’. Or by anyone brave enough to tell. We wouldn’t hurt a puppy to save our lives.

  “I could get you a pup.”