by Terry Spear
“Looks good.” She glanced down his naked torso and then up.
He shook his head. “You are one bad little red wolf.”
“Yeah, I know. And I really do apologize for being so wicked. Forgive me?”
He chuckled under his breath. “Nooo, but I don’t think you’re going to give me what I want to make up for it either.”
She cleared her throat, switching to a much tamer subject. “So what do you think about Ross?”
“He’s afraid of the competition. He’d rather go for you without the others around, which makes me suspect that he could be the killer.”
She ran her hand over Devlyn’s well-muscled buttocks. Instantly, the muscles tightened, and he growled.
Ignoring his protest, she kissed his shoulder. “But you think he’ll be at the club still?”
“I’d bet on it, Bella.” The sausages sizzled in the pan, and he poked them with a fork. The spicy aroma wafted through the air. Her stomach rumbled. “He’ll want to see what kind of move the other guys make and how you react. Not to mention, he’s probably dying to see what you look like in human form.” Glancing back at her, he raised a brow. He continued to stir the sausages. “How do you think you’re going to prove who it is?”
“I’ll ask them what they think of what happened.”
“Has the latest killing even been on the news yet?”
“Oh, heck, I don’t know.” She hurried into the living room and turned on the television.
After flipping to the local nightly news, she held her breath as the newscaster pointed to a map of Portland where four locations were circled in red. “In the most bizarre case in the history of Portland, Oregon, the killings of four young women—all mid-twenties, all natural redheads, every one of them no taller than five-foot-five, one every day for four days, ending three days ago—have baffled police. Preliminary reports in the ongoing investigation show a wolf did the killings.
“In other news—”
Bella shut off the TV and collapsed on the sofa.
“Are you all right?” Devlyn called from the kitchen.
“Four women have been murdered, Devlyn.”
“I heard.” He joined her in the living room and pulled her to her feet, his eyes darkened, intense, worried, his hands rubbing her arms in a gentle sweep. “Are you going to be all right?”
“Yes.” The word was nearly a whisper.
“I don’t want you to do this if you’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid. I just don’t want to see anyone else get hurt.” Her gaze met his. “If he doesn’t kill tonight, it’ll mean he’s one of the ones who contacted me, don’t you think? He’ll wait to see if I agree to be his mate?”
“Maybe. Unless it bothers him that you’re being choosey. He might still try for a human female then.”
“Oh,” Bella said, rubbing her temple. “He can’t kill as a wolf tonight. Not until the quarter moon appears.”
Devlyn took a deep breath and led her into the dining room. “Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking. He won’t be able to for another four days.”
“We have to find him before that can happen.”
“He can still kill them as a human.”
“But he probably seduces them first in his human form and then tries to convince them to experiment with something really wild, don’t you think? Then he turns into the wolf and they go ballistic. But for now, he may have relations with them until the change is possible.”
“You might be right, but I really don’t want you mixed up with this maniac.”
Bella didn’t want to be, either, but she was sure that she already was.
After eating, Devlyn and Bella returned to the bedroom to dress so she could face the crowd of female-hungry reds. She frowned at the meager selection in her closet—meager mostly because she worked out of her home or took a run on the wild side on the weekends in the woods sans clothes. “We should arrive early, don’t you think, Devlyn?” Bella pulled a slinky emerald-green dress over her head. “I was going to wear black, but I’m not in the mood. What do you think?”
When he didn’t answer, she glanced in his direction.
“You look good in that, Bella. Too good.” His expression was brooding but mixed with a wolf’s lust.
“Do you want me to wear something else?”
“Do you have anything ankle length with a high neck and long sleeves? Preferably black…and baggy?”
“No. How can I catch the killer if I hide?”
“I don’t want you exposed to him in the first place.” He buttoned his black shirt with jerky movements.
She figured he didn’t want to expose her to the other reds either. “Devlyn, none of them is coming home with me tonight…only you.”
She applied green shadow to her eyelids and blush to her cheeks and then grabbed fistfuls of red curls and held them against her head. “Up or down?”
He groaned. “Wear a black wig. Or a big floppy hat.”
She released her hair. “Okay, down…less work.”
“I really don’t know how you talked me into this.”
“You love me.”
“If I had any sense, I wouldn’t allow this,” he grumbled, his brows knit in a hard frown.
She crossed the floor and grazed his mouth with hers. “You’re an angel. My guardian angel. And you’ll watch out for me. But, about my question, should we arrive early?”
For an instant, his smoldering gaze held her hostage; then glancing outside, he shook his head. “We’re already too late for that. Ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be, under the circumstances.” She squelched the urge to shudder and pulled a shawl over her shoulders.
When they arrived in the vicinity of the club, they parked a quarter of a mile away from the red brick building in an attempt to avoid others seeing their vehicle or that they were together. She walked to the club ahead of him, the music already beating a gypsy rhythm to stir the dead. Cars filled the parking lot to capacity; others spilled into the road, silent against the curb.
She entered the club first, while Devlyn lagged a short distance behind.
A kaleidoscope of colored lights flashed overhead as the music pounded in her ears. She imagined she wouldn’t be able to hear anything for hours afterward. The scent of perfume, cologne, and sweaty bodies wafted in the air, but it was a minute before she picked up the smell of a lupus garou nearby. Too nearby.
“Rosa,” a deep voice said.
A chill prickled the nape of her neck and she turned. “Alfred.”
“You’re fashionably late.” His chestnut eyes studied her too intensely, looking from her hair all the way to her strappy heels. He’d added some kind of greasy stuff to his hair, making it appear darker, less red. He seemed taller than he had at the zoo. She glanced down at his shoes. Elevated.
Alfred offered to take her shawl.
Once she removed it, his face brightened. “Certainly worth waiting for.” Then a dark shadow crossed his face. “I saw Nicol here, though. He said he was meeting you also. I told him to try back some other time.”
He seated her at a small round table for two near the highly polished dance floor.
“A gray lupus garou pack raised me, Alfred. I haven’t been with my own kind since I was small. I don’t want to select a mate from the first red wolf I meet.”
He waved for a bartender and then turned back to her. “I see. The red alpha pack leader isn’t good enough for you?”
So Alfred was the pack leader of the local red lupus garou. But she noticed at once that his smell wasn’t the same as the smell of the one who’d been in the apartment where she and Devlyn had discovered the murdered girl. That was good. He’d want to find the rogue as much as they did, then.
“Actually,” she said, “that’s some of the problem. A pack leader is already after me—of the grays.”
Alfred’s eyes widened. “He’s not from around here. Can’t be. We have no grays in the area.”
“No, from
Colorado, where I lived originally.”
He relaxed. “It’s not his territory. Not to worry. A gray from another area won’t have any success here with our females.”
She wished his reds could do away with Volan. Then she’d offer herself to Devlyn as his mate. Although she assumed he wouldn’t like it if the only way he could have her was if reds from another pack killed Volan. Of course, if Alfred and his pack eliminated Volan, Alfred would be sure to think that he could claim her.
Wishing life were less complicated, she took a slow breath. “As pack leader, why haven’t you already found a mate?”
“They’re either much too young or much too old. You can’t imagine what a stir you’ve created with your sudden appearance. We had no idea that a lone female was in the area. You must keep an awfully low profile. And we never fathomed you’d escape from the zoo. We had planned to storm the place to rescue you later that night.” He turned to a bartender. “A beer and…”
“A Bloody Mary,” Bella said.
He smiled and then grew serious. “So, who stole you away from the hospital? A gray?”
“Yes. He had orders to return me to the pack leader in Colorado. But something else came up.”
Alfred fisted his hands on the table and snarled, “No pack leader from another territory has any say here.”
Despite his outburst, Bella kept her words cool. “He’s a gray. So far, Volan’s been unbeatable.”
The bartender returned with their drinks and Alfred paid for them. Bella sipped hers while Alfred raked his eyes over her in too leering a manner. “He won’t be welcome. If he arrives here, I’ll have a committee give him a grand send off.”
Pack leaders—well-thought-of pack leaders—took the lead. He should be the one making plans to take Volan down. Already her estimation of him had sunk to the depths of the Marianna Trench.
She made no comment concerning his threats about Volan, which seemed to make him uneasy. Did he assume he’d not said the right thing to win the red’s heart? He had that right. He’d have to look, act, and feel like Devlyn to get close to her.
Alfred cleared his throat. “I thought maybe tomorrow night we could—”
“I have other plans.”
He tapped his fingers on the table, his eyes narrowed, and his lips formed a thin line. “I don’t want a long courtship. I need a mate.” He spoke abruptly, like a pack leader used to getting his way.
But with her, he had to tread lightly. She wasn’t one of his pack, and she had no intention of ever being one. “And I told you I’m not going to choose a mate when I haven’t seen some more eligible bachelors. Mating for life means something to me.”
His eyes darkened and he frowned.
Despite his look of aggression, she wouldn’t back down. She glanced around the club, hoping to catch sight of Devlyn. Leaning against a pillar near a set of tables, he observed her from the east side of the building. Her whole body thrilled to know he served as her protector, but it was the way his gaze locked with hers, mesmerizing her, claiming her, that stirred her to the core.
She gave him a knowing smile and then turned to Alfred. “So, where’s Nicol?”
He pointed in Devlyn’s direction. “The curly redhead who’s nursing a drink at the table over there, fuming and watching every move we make.”
“Ah.” She caught Devlyn’s eye and then motioned to the red-haired man with her head.
Devlyn nodded and moved in to sit beside Nicol at the table.
She searched for Argos but, regretfully, saw no sign of him.
“Looking for someone?” Alfred asked, touching her hand as she held onto her glass.
She pulled away from his icy touch, concerned Devlyn might overreact to Alfred’s attentions toward her. “An old friend. He wished to speak to me about some problem, but I don’t see him.”
“How old a friend?”
“Ancient. He’s about seventy and retired as our pack leader before I became a teen.”
“If you’re referring to this gray wolf pack from Colorado, he’s not one of your kind. We are.”
She leaned back in her chair, not liking the comments he made about her pack. It didn’t matter how different they were. They took her in and cared for her when she would have died without their help. Alfred hadn’t even asked how her family perished and she ended up with a gray pack. He seemed more interested in getting her to agree to be his mate than anything else, but didn’t he know that meant trying to convince her she was someone special?
He reached his hand out to her. “Let’s dance.”
Her heartbeat quickened. She’d have to dance to keep up the charade, but she didn’t want to, not with him. She glanced back at Devlyn.
“Nicol won’t ask you. I am.” Alfred still held his hand out to her, and she took a deep breath, weighing her options.
Devlyn watched every move the slick red lupus garou made toward Bella. Twice, he’d had the urge to break up the party, claim her for his own, and take her away from the club—damn the reason they were here in the first place.
When Alfred reached his hand out to Bella, Devlyn knew he was asking her to dance. The thought sent a shard of ice straight into his heart. He wanted no one else near her feeling the heat of her curvy body and smelling her sweet scent.
Nicol spoke, distracting him. “She sure is hot.” He looked over at Devlyn. “Got yourself a mate?”
“Yeah,” Devlyn said, and it was no lie. Bella was his mate, if he could only convince her she didn’t want a human. But dealing with Volan was another matter.
“You didn’t bring her?”
“She’s preoccupied with work right now.”
“Ah. So what do you do?”
Devlyn considered the man’s calculating brown eyes and his unruly mop of red hair. “Leather goods. You?”
“Professional hunter. Take folks into the wilds—the rougher the terrain, the meaner the prey, the more they love it.” Nicol’s eyes darkened with a hint of malice.
Devlyn returned his attention to Bella. “You’re not here much of the time, I take it.”
“I’m here and then I’m gone. I still need a mate, if that’s what you’re getting at.” He pointed his beer at Bella and Alfred. “Now that’s what I was supposed to be doing.”
“He’s your pack leader?”
“Yeah. But from the looks of it, she’s taking it really slow.”
“What’s your leader like around women? Is he aggressive?”
“Don’t really know. He’s never had a lupus garou the right age to pursue.” Nicol gave a smug smile. “But she sure is keeping him at arm’s length. His face is even reddening a bit.”
Devlyn knew his must have been too, as hot as he was getting. He downed his drink and then ordered a bottled water to chill his blood.
When Alfred tried to move his hand lower down Bella’s back, Devlyn rose from his chair, ready to force one red male to cool it with Devlyn’s intended mate.
Chapter Nine
BEFORE DEVLYN COULD RUSH TO THE PARQUET FLOOR, the music changed to a fast-paced dance and Alfred released Bella. Curbing his temper, Devlyn sat back down at Nicol’s table.
“Hell,” Nicol said to Devlyn and motioned to another man—about the same shorter stature, around five-ten, with brown hair tinged with red. “Ross is headed this way. Guess he’ll think I couldn’t score again.”
Devlyn took his eyes off Bella and stared at Nicol. “You said you hadn’t courted any lupus garou.”
“No, human females. They’re all right, but nothing like one of our own kind. Too tame.”
“Ever thought of changing one?”
Nicol’s eyes grew big. “Why would I want to do that?”
“To have a mate. I considered it a time or two,” Devlyn fabricated—anything to convince Nicol to talk about his relationships with human women. “I thought I might find the one I liked and then, if she were agreeable, change her. Like in your pack, we have a shortage of females who are the right mating age. So…yeah,
I’ve considered it.”
Nicol nodded. “Yeah, me, too. But it wouldn’t work. A human would be afraid.”
“Ever have a problem when you’re getting it on hot and heavy and then you have the urge to change?”
Nicol stared at the table, grabbed his beer, and chugged it down. “No…no, and you?”
“A time or two,” Devlyn lied. “You know, during the full moon.”
Nicol slid his gaze away and nodded at Ross when he sauntered over to the table. Devlyn rose from his chair and offered his hand in greeting. Ross ignored him, and, amused, Devlyn overlooked the insult and sat back down.
“This is Devlyn,” Nicol said, “and Devlyn, this is Ross.”
Ross sniffed the air and then frowned. “You’re a gray. Not from around here.”
“Yep.” Devlyn wanted to add, ‘Going to make something of it?’ But this wasn’t the time to act macho.
Ross’s gaze shifted from Devlyn to Nicol and then to Alfred and Bella. He rested his hands on his hips. “Man, that’s her, eh?”
“Yeah, as you can see, Alfred got to her first.”
Devlyn finished his water when Bella sat at the table with Alfred again.
“Are you going to ask her to dance?” Ross asked Nicol.
Nicol rubbed the back of his neck. “And start a fight? You know Alfred won’t let any of us near her when he’s around.”
Devlyn stood. “I’ll ask her to dance.” It was time to do something with that testosterone that made him testy where Bella was concerned.
“But you’re a gray,” Ross said, his voice astounded.
“And have a mate,” Nicol reminded Devlyn.
Inwardly, Devlyn smiled. “Yeah, well, it’s just a dance. Not a proposal.”
“He’s got to be crazy,” Nicol said under his breath when Devlyn moved away from the table.
“He’s a gray,” Ross retorted.
Yeah, he was a gray and he would dance with that hot little red number. Nothing would stop him, certainly not one horny red pack leader.
Now what the hell? Bella stared at Devlyn stalking across the floor, forcing dancing couples to move out of his way or get run over. He was going to blow their case, yet from the way he acted, it didn’t matter. She knew he’d have a fit when Alfred moved his hand lower on her backside. And she knew he would watch Alfred’s every move and not have missed the red’s action.
