Call of the Wolf (9 page)

Surprise flickered through her. They not only seemed perfectly at home in the kitchen, they worked together with a bare minimum of discussion ... as if preparing for a cookout was something they'd done a thousand times before. Wondering if she was only imagining it, Abby looked for a pot and paring knife and finally settled at the table to peel the potatoes. She was working on the third one when Seth, after a brief search for another knife, found a peeler, grabbed a potato and skinned it in about five seconds. Tossing it to Cameron, he grabbed another. Cameron dropped the potato he'd caught onto the cutting board and reduced it to half inch circles with the knife so fast the knife was little more than a blur. Abby paused in the act of putting down the potato she'd just finished peeling, her jaw sliding to half mast in it surprise.

Cameron flicked a glance at her, waggled his eyebrows up and down, and grabbed another potato.

Abby bit her lip to keep from smiling and picked up another potato.

"Don't get so busy showing off you whack your finger instead of the potato, Fontaine,” Adrian drawled. “I expect finding a piece of you in her potatoes won't set too well with Abby."

"Bite me,” Cameron growled good naturedly. “Boy, I was doin’ this when you was still suckin’ your mama's tit!"

Jerico, who'd just returned, laughed. “Yeah, but he was still suckin’ tit when he was grown!"

Adrian grinned, sliding a glance at Abby. “Actually, I ain't seen no reason to quit. I'm pretty fond of tit."

"Your ma ain't beat you off, yet,
mon ami
?” Cameron murmured provokingly.

"Knock it off,” Seth growled, but his eyes were gleaming with amusement.

Adrian shot Cameron a bird.

Cameron grinned at him. “No romance,
mon ami
! I ain't ‘in’ to puffin’ cigars."

Adrian cupped his genitals in a crude gesture and mouthed ‘bite me.'

Abby pretended she didn't catch that, struggling with a mixture of shock and amusement to keep from laughing at their ribald ribbing. Seth rescued her by taking the potato and knife she held and finishing it. “We can finish up here. Why don't you go on out and relax?"

Abby didn't especially want to. As bawdy as their humor was, despite the fact that she found it a little too shocking to be completely comfortable, she still found it amusing. She also found the camaraderie between them intriguing and she didn't particularly want to be left out. In any case, she was the hostess, wasn't she?

She got up from her seat, but shook her head. Grabbing the pot now filled almost to the rim with cut potatoes, she moved to the sink to wash them and fill the pot with water.

Cameron, having examined the steaks, apparently decided he wasn't satisfied with the seasoning.

"Hey, man, don't get any of that shit on mine, you Creole bastard!” Adrian growled in a low voice. “The last time you seasoned the fucking steaks, I shit fire for a week...."

He broke off when Abby shut the water off.

Pretending she hadn't heard that either, she moved to the stove with the pot. It clicked when she turned the knob but didn't light. Adrian moved up beside her with the box of matches while she was looking around for them. Nudging her aside, he set the pot off the stove, grabbed the burners and removed them, and then opened the top of the stove. She held it up while he struck a match and lit the pilots.

"Sorry,” he murmured.

Abby sent him a questioning glance.

He shrugged. “I forget to watch my language."

Abby scanned his face. Objectively speaking, she supposed he wasn't as classically beautiful as Seth, but he was a damned good looking man for all that, and attractive beyond his dark good looks. “Actually,” she said, “I think I like that y'all are comfortable around me."

She realized as soon as she said it that she honestly did. They behaved almost like ... brothers—a family—throwing barbs at one another, but taking it good naturedly. And even though she hadn't felt comfortable enough to join them, they'd still made her feel like a part of it, not an outsider.

He grinned, displaying a dimple in his cheek that multiplied his sex appeal several times over and abruptly made her extremely conscious of the fact that she was surrounded by four men that each had more raw, animal magnetism in their little finger than any man she'd ever met before in her life.

Four of them.

What were the odds, she thought, bemused?

Or was it just her?

Setting the fire on high, she turned away from the stove and assisted in clean up. When the salad had been mixed and shoved into the refrigerator to chill, the potato peelings and vegetable discards disposed of, and the table wiped down, Abby adjusted the fire under the potatoes and followed the men as they trooped outside. She studied them surreptitiously as they settled companionably in the chairs ranged around the grill, content just to listen to them talking among themselves while she examined the earlier thought.

It had been damned near two years, she realized with a touch of surprise, since she'd enjoyed any kind of intimacy at all and she'd done her utmost to put her last relationship from her mind. If she discounted that, at
least
two years.

In all honesty, though, she didn't think she could put the attraction down to the drought. Seth was pure eye candy.

She shrugged that off. There was a lot more to him than that—a lot—but still, eye candy, like she wasn't used to seeing, sheer male beauty personified. Cameron, his complete opposite in coloring, was just as classically handsome—they
both
were—classically handsome, possessed of almost what she wanted to call aristocratic features, but the appeal they exuded went way beyond skin deep, well beyond features so perfectly formed they almost didn't seem natural. She had the feeling that they would've been just as attractive to the female of the species if they hadn't been half as handsome as they were. It wasn't anything she could put her finger on, but she
felt
it so strongly that it had pierced the cocoon of self-absorption and terror that had insulated her from everything and everyone for so long that she hardly knew how to interact with people any more.

Adrian and Jerico had it, too—the animal magnetism that kept her buzzing whenever she was near them even though she was hardly aware of it, or at least hadn't been at first. They were more ‘boy next door’ good looking. Actually, she supposed with wry amusement, more like ‘boy from the wrong side of the tracks’ good looking. Even though Jerico was almost as fair as Cameron, he still managed to exude the dark and dangerous appeal women tended to feel when they were with the ‘love and leave ‘em’ type they absolutely couldn't resist trying to capture, even knowing the chances were that the man was just going to make them miserable.

She shouldn't have felt the least bit comfortable around them. Truthfully, on many levels, she actually wasn't. On a purely primal, chemical level, just being around them was enough to keep her body on slow simmer, the sort readiness that left her wide open for any seduction they might take it into their heads to try. One kiss, she suspected, and she would be putty in their hands.

Hell, Seth hadn't even kissed her and she'd been putty in
his
hands!

Intellectually, she also wasn't comfortable. For all she knew the four of them were as bad, or worse, than Mikhail. She didn't think they were, but she was savvy enough to realize that she just didn't want to, that she'd already been seduced by their potent sexuality into wanting to ignore any warnings her reasoning mind threw out.

Seth being a cop didn't preclude that assessment, unfortunately. There were just as many, or maybe more, corrupt men that used the law to their advantage as there were honest ones.

And even if he was true blue, the fanatical cops were almost as bad as the criminals, willing to use any low down trick to ‘get their man.'

It bothered her that they seemed to know each other so well. In all fairness, she realized she'd jumped to the conclusion that they didn't when she'd discovered Cameron, Adrian, and Jerico were only visiting, but they certainly hadn't made any attempt to disabuse her of the notion.

She didn't
know
that they knew each other, for that matter, but it seemed to her that their behavior suggested a longstanding connection.

Maybe that even explained the seemingly impossible circumstance of happening upon four such dangerously attractive men, together, at the same time, when she might go years without meeting even one that held a candle to any of them. Birds of a feather?

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Chapter Seven

Abby fell asleep on the couch. She struggled against the lure as long as she could. They'd had a pleasant meal together—more than pleasant—fun, something she hadn't had in forever. The steaks were perfect—everything was.

It had made her uneasy when she discovered Adrian had produced a couple of cases of beer, but it didn't seem like any of the four drank enough to manage more than a slight buzz. After sitting around the table for a while, they'd finally gotten up to move to the living room. They'd flipped for kitchen duty and Cameron had ended up with clean up.

Seth, Jerico, and Adrian had sauntered into the living room. She'd stayed long enough to rake out the plates and stack them, gather up the empty beer bottles, and wipe the table down. By the time she'd finished, Cameron had washed the dishes and stacked them in the dish drainer.

She was a little disconcerted to discover her guests were in no hurry to leave, but despite her reservations about the men, their company was far more appealing than spending the evening by herself. Plopping down on the couch, she'd listened to them discussing the upcoming festival and previous festivals they'd attended, feeling comfortable, well fed, and lazy.

And then she'd nodded off.

An arm settled around her shoulders. “We bore you to sleep,
chère
?” Cameron murmured near her ear.

Abby struggled to open her eyes for a moment and finally gave up, snuggling a little more comfortably against the hard shoulder he'd settled her against. “No,” she sighed. “I'm sorry. I'm just so tired. I thought I'd rest my eyes."

"We should go."

She recognized Seth's voice.

"Don't! I'm listening."

Cameron chuckled and she felt her lips curling in response to the pleasant sound. He shifted her around until he could get an arm under her and stood up. Dimly impressed by the fact that he'd managed such a feat, Abby struggled again with the conflicting desires to doze off once more and to wake up and prevent them leaving. “I won't be able to sleep by myself,” she muttered.

"Is that invitation,
chère?"

Was it? Warmth tingled through her at the suggestion even though it had been far from her mind. He plopped her down on her bed when she didn't answer. Grabbing an ankle, he pulled off her tennis shoe and sock, dropped that leg to the bed and repeated the process with the other foot. He leaned over her, propping on his hands on either side of her and then bending his elbows until he just brushed against her. “You want help with the jeans?"

Abby frowned at him without opening her eyes more than a slit. “I don't think so,” she murmured, rolling onto her side.

He leaned closer, until his lips were just above one ear. “Baby, I didn't miss nothin’ last night."

She shivered as his heated breath caressed her sensitive ear, felt her belly tighten. “Pretend you did."

"
Je ne pense pas ainsi, amour.
Already, it's one of my fondest memories.” Straightening, he popped her butt lightly. “Sleep,
chère.
No one's gonna bother you. You're safe."

Doubt flickered through her mind but vanished almost as quickly. She
felt
safe, she realized, but before she analyze it, a curtain of nothingness fell over her.

* * * *

"What are we doing here,
mon ami
?"

Seth glanced at Cameron and then looked up at the moon in the sky. “Watchin’ over Abby,” he said finally.

"You know that isn't what I meant."

Allowing the curtains to fall back across the window, Seth glanced at him again. “I don't know. Waitin'."

"For the moon to fall? We gonna tell her when we get her to the gatherin'?"

Seth's lips tightened. “You think we'll get her to the gatherin’ if we tell her now? She's just begun to feel safe with us."

"Exactly. We build her trust, and then break it? You think this is gonna make things work out? She's human, Seth. The mark of the wolf ... it only works on our kind. You know this."

"The matin’ works on them, as well. The child would be a bond."

"Maybe."

Seth looked at him angrily. “What do you want me to say? There's no other way. It works ... or it doesn't and we all lose."

"Three of us is gonna lose anyway,
mon ami
. You, me, Adrian, and Jerico ... we're not a pack anymore. We have packs of our own."

Seth frowned at him. “And you're tellin’ me this, because...?"

Cameron snorted. “Because you've called the pack in, Seth. You know it. I know it. We all know it. We all feel it. We just pretend we're only here to protect Abby and watch our own interests—to guard her from the others."

Seth lifted a hand to rub his neck tiredly. “She could be in danger, Cam."

Cameron nodded. “I agree. But you didn't call your lieutenants in to help guard her. You called us."

"You called upon yourselves,” Seth growled. “My men
are
out there."

"But not here. Any other time an Alpha had staked out a female, he'd have his lieutenants helping him guard her ... because they'd have as much at stake, the Alpha female being the pack breeder."

"You think I need lessons in pack protocol?” Seth snapped irritably. “We may be a little backwards here in the boonies, but we aren't that god's damned backwards!"

Cameron shook his head. “Prickly. It's Abby that ain't used to this sort of life, brother, though I've never understood why humans are so fond of the big cities. I've got no quarrel with your territory. It's a sight more fittin’ for Wolfen than the cities. Here you can run free. You don't have to hunt a park, or dodge cars,” he muttered with a wry chuckle. “You worried she won't stay even if you win the challenge?"

Seth grunted instead of answering.

"Me ... I'm thinkin’ Abby ain't the kind of woman that's gonna take a shackle easy. She's thirty two an’ ain't been pinned down by no man yet. She's used to doin’ things her way an’ havin’ her way."

Seth sent him an assessing look. “There's still time to look around for another potential mate. At least you can be sure
they
are lookin'."

Cameron grinned at him. “Nice try,
mon ami
! Did you choose?"

Seth stared at him a long moment and looked away.

"It's in the blood. I doan no why or how she got under my skin either. I just knew ... like I always heard it was. The one comes along that's supposed to be, you know."

Seth frowned. “That's supposed to be if she's one of ours. I've never heard it said about a human woman. Not that I haven't met plenty of human women I wanted to fuck. But the matin'—that's supposed to be the call of the wolf."

Cameron uttered an amused snort. “That's what they say,
mon ami
."