Hood crooned to me through the worst of it between broken sobs and smoothing kisses, holding me tight. When it was over, he broke down to his manly form, stretched out beside me and kissed me and licked me all over. Healing touches, examining every scratch, every bruise.
It’s all on tape.
He doesn’t have to say he loves me. I know.
And not a day goes by that I don’t show him how much I love him, too.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t still give him fits, or take him to the edge of sanity.
Epilogue
“What’s going on?” There was a lot of movement in the halls, much more than I had ever seen before. I practically killed myself, getting through the crowd of stampeding human-garou in lab coats. “Somebody tell me what’s happening?”
Hood, from the down the hall, yelled, “Giselle!”
“I’m coming!” Fighting traffic. “What’s happening?”
He caught up with me. “The pack is coming.”
“What...pack?” My eyebrows went up. “From Pack City?”
We were jostled back and forth. He pulled me off into a room. “Wolf Enterprise has been attacked.”
“Wolf--?” I didn’t understand. “By who?”
“We don’t know yet. But--” I went to interrupt him but he shook me by the arms to get me to listen. “We’re going to have refugees flown here.”
“But--Kayty’s due any minute. They just brought her in by helicopter. She’s in labor.”
Kayty Smalls. Alpha female at Pack City.
Hood groaned. “That means Leer’s here, too. I’m sure he brought some of his people. Shit.” He ran a quick hand through his hair, looking out to the hall. “We’ve got to get some control.”
“Everybody’s panicking.”
“I am, too. The media’s gonna see the choppers coming and going. They’ll be at the door--” He was trying to get a game plan.
I suggested, “Put Jack on the satellite. Make up some story--” I couldn’t think of one off the top of my head. “Fera’s waiting in the hospital. I’ll call in the medical staff on hiatus.”
Of course we have a full facility. We chew each other up and spit one another out just for fun at Lobos.
We already had guarded gates and high profile security, and a more visible force would have really alerted the general public. So, suggesting anything like that was out of the picture. I had to ask, “If Wolf was attacked, does that follow that we will be, too? I mean, should we get in the tunnel--”
Hood kissed me hard. With a steely glint, he said, “Giselle, I would fuck you right now if I had time. Get the word out. All the unnaturals need to go below. You, too. Only lupus born aboveground.”
I panicked. “Me?”
“Wolf won’t understand about you.” He meant Mark Wolf, alpha and owner of Wolf Enterprises. Hood kissed me again. “But we’ll make him understand.” At the door, he turned, looked me in the eye and said, “He’ll love you, too, once he gets to know you.”
That’s as close as Hood has ever gotten to saying it.
Before he disappeared, he added, “I hope I don’t have to kill him to keep him away from you.”
The door slammed behind him. I knew already that Hood was on his way to give orders, to lock down Lobos completely, to prepare for a possible siege, and an internal war. Like we hadn’t already been through our own.
I closed my eyes, sent up a prayer and whispered, “Oh, God. The pack is coming.”
The End
Carys Weldon is a great fan of the White Wolf Gaming system, especially shape-shifters. She writes her horrific romance from a haunted hollow in the Missouri Ozarks, not far from Branson.
Carys has won over one hundred awards in the last three to four years. Of most recent note in Romance and Erotica: Third place in the RWA Inner Vixen contest with Confessions of a BBW Cover Model, Mays Reviews Over the Moon Award of Excellence for Chaos, and a second place recently in the Writer's Zone Erotica competition at OCW for The Wet Spot.