The local alpha was tall and lean with a leathery face that bore multiple scars. Despite his lip service to the social niceties, his drawing-room manners did nothing to soften the impression his appearance made.
“No, thank you,” she murmured, silently counting the number of men in the room out of the corner of her eye.
Jessup’s house was a midsized cabin with several additions extending haphazardly off it. The central room was a massive kitchen. It opened directly onto a large dining area littered with a mishmash of tables and benches.
Everyone in Lunar Springs must eat here. That was what Jessup had called this tiny hamlet.
Denise desperately wanted to hold onto the easy bravado she’d had around Yogi, but couldn’t seem to in werewolf central. It might have been easier if there had been less men. Or if they’d been a little shorter.
Maybe the women are at work? The idea of the women bringing home the bacon to these hulking alpha males made her smile. She wiped it off her face when no less than six men smiled back at her.
To her relief, Oliver seemed to recognize many of the people. Yogi had explained in a whisper that cubs learned their pack members’ scents in their first few months—learned them and never forgot them. They could recognize an unfamiliar pack member from their scent even after years of absence.
But Oliver had been taken away, whisked upstairs for a nap after giving her a sticky kiss goodbye. Denise felt exposed without the comfortable warmth of his little body in her lap.
“Are you sure you don’t want to leave now?” Jessup asked Yogi, who was sitting stiffly in the chair next to her.
“I promised the chief I’d stay long enough to see Denise settled,” Yogi repeated. His face could have been carved from stone. His features were set so hard she was surprised he didn’t creak when he spoke.
“I’ll leave when she says it’s okay.”
She could feel the tension between not just Yogi and Jessup, but also Yogi and every other man in the room. Most of them were giving him dirty looks. The contempt in their eyes was chilling, but it dissipated when they looked at her.
What the hell had gone down between his family and theirs?
“I still want him to stay…” Denise trailed off as all attention was fixed on her again. “He’s the only person I know here.”
“If it would make you more comfortable,” Jessup offered with grudging grace.
“It would,” she replied quickly. Beside her, Yogi stretched, surreptitiously stroking her hand in reassurance.
Guilt and a flare of something else she didn’t want to name compressed her chest. She was starting to feel a tiny bit bad for insisting that Yogi remain with her.
“What happens now?” she asked, putting her hands flat on her lap. Now that they were finally here, she wanted to move things along.
“I don’t think I need to explain why secrecy is so important to us.”
“No.” After everything, she was crystal clear on the why. What she didn’t get was why they thought anyone would believe her if she ratted them out. Everyone would think she was crazy.
“If your kind found out about us—” Jessup began.
Denise held up a hand. “I said I get it…but this can’t be the first time a human has learned werewolves exist.”
Jessup’s smile was unnerving. “No, it’s not the first time. Each case was handled by the clan whose exposure was in question, which is why the chief has given me leave to decide what we do with you.”
“Only up to a point,” Yogi protested. “You know there are rules to this you have to abide by.”
Jessup’s mouth tightened a fraction, but Denise was starting to get annoyed too. “I already know I’m going to have to stay here until you trust me not to blab. What more is there?”
She gestured to Yogi. “He said there was a quicker way to get you to trust me.”
He turned to flash her a warning look. “Don’t go there, Denise,” he muttered from between set teeth.
Jessup grinned, acting as if she’d just handed him a gift. “I’m glad you asked…you’re unmated, correct?”
“You can’t ask her that,” Yogi protested.
“It’s not a job interview.” Jessup scoffed. “I can ask her whatever I want.”
Okay, she hated to admit it, but Yogi had been right. She didn’t want to go there.
“Nu-uh, no way.” Denise squirmed in her chair, eyeing the men with renewed anxiety.
“The chief was clear on this point.” Yogi’s tone was clipped.
“You asked for the shortcut,” Jessup said, holding his hands out expansively. “It’s a choice many women have made in the past.”
Yogi snorted. “It doesn’t work that way anymore. Forced matings are forbidden.”
“Who says it would be forced?” Jessup raised a brow. He turned to Denise, addressing his comments to her. “A heterosexual woman generally finds our kind irresistible. The average Were is strong, skilled, protective, and a good provider. It’s only the latest age of political correctness and ultramodern feminism that has made those traits less popular—on paper. In reality, a woman’s need for a strong male is ingrained. It’s biological.”
Yogi sighed audibly, but Jessup was just getting started. “You’re young and healthy. You do see yourself settling down and having a family someday, don’t you? Unless you prefer the company of females? Believe it or not, we can also accommodate that.”
Denise held up a hand, part of her unable to believe she was having this conversation. “I have a boyfriend.”
That didn’t faze Jessup. “But not a husband?”
Denise was tempted to laugh at his persistence, but this was too crazy.
“Where are your women?” she finally asked, blowing her hair out of her face with a huff.
“At their homes. But some communities are not blessed with an abundance of them. Were births skew to male. Luckily for us, we can breed with humans should the need arise. The vamps only wish they were so lucky.”
Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head. Did he just tell her vampires existed? “Holy shit,” she breathed.
“Enough, Jessup.” Yogi rubbed a hand over his face. “Denise is to be treated as an honored guest. Her discomfort—physical or emotional—is to be avoided at all costs. Those were the chief’s exact words.”
“Yes, but we both know what he didn’t say is what counts. And the quickest way out is in. All the way in. Besides, Denise must stay here regardless, so she may as well stay with one of the unattached males.” Jessup gestured to the men around them.
“You can bunk with me,” a big man in plaid offered with a huge grin.
“Why would she want to stay with your scrawny ass when she can stay with me?” another one said, slapping the man so hard on the back she felt the air shift.
The men continued to rib each other almost playfully. Denise’s stomach soured as she watched them. Her eyes passed over them until she glared at Jessup.
He waved at the men. “All are excellent hunters with good jobs. Pick one.”
Horrified, she shook her head.
Jessup frowned. “They’re really not so bad once you get to know them. I bet you’ll even like one or two of them. But if you’d like to see them in action—get a better sense of their attributes—then we can arrange that.”
“What the hell are you talking about now?” Yogi sneered. “Trial by combat isn’t going to impress a modern woman.”
Denise nodded emphatically in agreement.
“Actually, I was thinking something along the line of the fortitudo.”
Her head was starting to hurt. “What is that?”
“Part race, part obstacle course,” Yogi answered. “The oldest have puzzles and tests to get you from point A to point B. It’s basically like a scavenger hunt on steroids.”
She stared at them, horrified. “And I have to mate with the winner?”
“No,” Jessup assured her. “The winner merely has the privilege of being your host during your
stay here. They are not allowed to touch you without your consent. Chief’s orders.”
That was still not great. “And what if this host decides to break your rules?”
“He’ll be beaten and ostracized from the pack or killed outright—it depends on the severity of his transgression.”
Jesus. Denise put a hand on the table to steady herself.
“Of course, we could skip that whole rigmarole if you pick one out now,” Jessup said, gesturing to the preening men.
Two of them edged forward, standing in front of the others as if waiting for her approval.
Denise didn’t move. She was even afraid to blink, lest it be construed as agreement.
“No?” Jessup rubbed his hands. “Then let’s get started.”
15
“You’re leaving?”
Denise’s tone could have flayed his skin off.
Yogi was standing at the door of his Jeep, keys in hand. If Denise hadn’t decided to postpone checking in on Oliver after using the restroom, she would have missed him leaving.
He turned to face her, chest tight. “I was going to see the chief. My plan was to come back and see if you were okay with…”
“With whoever wins me?” she asked, a corner of her mouth curling up.
“With how things turn out,” he finished lamely. Yogi didn’t want to leave. He wanted to punch out every Avery who even looked at her. Except that would ruin all the progress he’d just made.
As tense as his reception had been, it had been a lot less ugly, and bloody, than he had been expecting. Jessup had even thanked him for bringing Oliver home. If Yogi played his cards right, he could bury this family feud now…except for one thing, of course. And it was standing in front of him right now.
Yogi put a hand under Denise’s chin so she would meet his eyes. “I need to explain something. For our kind, pack warfare used to be a way of life. Small grievances turned into big arguments. Eventually, those turned into challenges or outright warfare. Grudges got passed down for generations. The closest thing I can think to explain it would be to compare it to the feuds of the Scottish Highland clans. In fact, that’s our packs’ ancestral home.”
“And this is that big—the thing between your family and the Averys?”
He inhaled and nodded. “Truthfully, it’s not all on them. I can’t claim to be an innocent party.”
She crossed her arms and frowned. “You’ve gotten your hands dirty in this feud?”
“Well, thanks to the chief, no blood has been shed since I was born. However, there were some things—smears and innuendo I just let happen, mainly because I believed them. I don’t anymore. Now that my father’s gone, I just want this stupid thing over with. I have a younger brother and sister to think about. If I challenge the Avery’s claim for their right to ‘host’ you, it won’t be over. But I will if you ask me to.”
She sucked in a shaky breath, but she didn’t say anything.
“Denise…do you want me to race?”
She looked down, blinking rapidly. “Of course not.”
He nodded, half-wishing she had said something else. “What I can do is ask the chief to keep a close eye on the situation. If I tell him you’d be more comfortable being hosted by a female, he’ll ask Jessup to make a change.”
She wrinkled her nose and punched him in the arm. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”
Yogi’s mouth twisted. “Because I know Jessup. After he moves you into the home of a female, a pipe will burst or the roof in your bedroom will spring a leak. You’ll have to be rehoused. This will go on until you show favor to one of the men. Then you’ll be pushed to move in with him.”
Denise’s lips flattened. “Oh.”
A call went up. Jessup waved at them from in front of a group of men. One had a remote control in his hands. At their feet was a red plastic cross with four propellers.
“Is that a drone?” Denise asked.
16
Yogi was gone. He’d just gotten in his car and driven away.
After that happened, it was hard to walk around with a hollowed-out pit where her stomach should be.
“Here you go.” Jessup handed her a small tablet.
She took it with numb hands and looked at the screen. On it was aerial footage of herself and the men at the starting line.
“This is what the drone is for—to follow the race?”
Jessup smiled. “I admit, this kind of technology is beyond me. It’s what happens when you get to be my age.”
“How old are you?”
“A little over one ten.”
She gaped at him. He didn’t even appear to be middle-aged. “A hundred and ten years old?”
“We age well.” He shrugged.
That didn’t make sense. “But…”
“Is something wrong?”
“Why do you mate with humans, knowing they’ll die so much sooner?’
“Because they won’t,” Jessup said, patting her hand. “Our mate bond extends the life of the women we choose, be they human or some other short-lived Supernatural species.”
“How?” Denise was starting to feel dizzy as she tried to process this information.
He shrugged. “Just a few decades ago, I would have said it’s magic, but now I would say it’s both magic and chemistry. There are things that happen to a woman once we take them to mate—if the bond is true, that is.” He turned to the men. “I believe they are ready to start.”
Denise squeezed her eyes shut, trying to process all that information. “O-kay.”
A gun went off, startling her into dropping the tablet, but Jessup caught it with a lightning-quick move. He handed it back to her.
“You still need this.”
“Right,” she said, taking it and trying to focus on the screen. “I’m surprised there aren’t more of you out here watching.”
Only a few people were with them. There had been at least four times as many in Jessup’s cramped kitchen.
“They are watching, but from various parts of the course or on one of these,” he said, nodding at her tablet, his gaze intent on the tiny moving figures on the screen.
She blinked. The men weren’t men anymore. A pack of six wolves were running pell-mell up a hill that expert hikers would tread with care. As she watched, a black-and-grey mottled one was knocked off his feet by a larger brindled wolf.
Denise gasped as the wolf rolled down the hill.
“Don’t worry. Dave will be fine.”
She shot Jessup a disbelieving look. That fall had been brutal.
“See.” Jessup pointed to the screen. “He’s up and back in it.”
He was right; the black and grey was on his feet and racing to catch up to the pack.
“They’ll go up and down that mountain. At the bottom is a puzzle box with coordinates to the next location—which is across the gorge. Once there, they’ll scale the highest tree to get the final route. There’s a path that runs under the falls and down into the ravine. At the top of it is a flag. The one who brings that flag here is the winner.”
She gave him a wooden smile. Under other circumstances Denise might have been flattered that all those attractive men were vying for a chance to be her host. They didn’t even know she had money, which was the main source of attraction for most of the men she’d dated in the past.
Jessup kept throwing her expectant glances, and she wondered if he expected her to cheer.
Am I supposed to root for one of them? Seriously?
Even if she had been able to recognize the wolf form of any of the men she had just met, there was no way she could pick out an individual in that shifting and snarling mass racing through the forest.
She exhaled with a hiss, the sound blending with the sudden rumble of an engine. Her head jerked left, facing the source of the sound. In the next second, Yogi’s Jeep came screeching to a halt a few yards away.
Denise’s heart nearly stopped as he threw open his door. He flashed past them, shifting in midair with a
deep-throated roar. She didn’t see anything but a mahogany-brown streak as he raced up the hill after the pack between one beat of her heart and the next.
“Holy shit,” she breathed.
Jessup clucked his tongue. “And I thought the boy was reasonable.”
She grabbed his arm. “You’re not going to go after his sister and brother for this, are you?”
His look was condescending. “Unlike his father, I don’t punish the child for the sins of the parent. I actually think better of him for trying to get into this race. We’ve all smelled how he feels about you…but he’ll never be able to catch up.”
What the hell did that mean? “How he smells about me?”
Jessup started to answer, but another man came up and hailed him.
“Do you think we should send up another drone to follow Yogi?” the newcomer asked.
“Yes.” Jessup waved the man on. The teens at the starting line scrambled, getting a second propeller drone out of the back of a truck.
“Wait, you didn’t tell me how Yogi smells about me,” she said, trotting after the group.
They paid her no attention as they launched another quadcopter, scrambling to get the feed up and running. The drone zipped away, becoming a dot in the distance.
“I want to see that one,” she said, tapping at the menu of controls that bordered the camera feed in the center of her tablet.
One of the teens took the tablet and fiddled with it before handing it back. The monitor was now divided, showing the images streaming from both cameras. On the first feed, the pack had splintered, separating as the fastest and slowest sorted themselves.
Two wolves, the brindled black and a honey-colored one, were in the lead.
The second half of the screen was much harder to make out. Too many trees were blocking the way.
“Switching to infrared,” someone called out.
The tree-covered image stuttered. She could see a rainbow comet streaking across the blue and purple backdrop of the forest—it was closing in on the running form of another wolf.
“Whoa, wait. He’s much closer now,” she said, holding up her tablet.
Yogi was catching up. He was almost on top of the two wolves straggling at the tail end of the pack.
Kin Selection (A Shifter’s Claim Book 1) Page 7
