Healer (Shifter Island Book 5) (4 page)

The wolf had never been so happy.

Of course it enjoyed running free through the woods, particularly if there was prey to pursue. On nights when the weather was fine and the rabbit population was high, the wolf could work itself into near-ecstasy loping among the trees and across the rocks. Add a good meal to that, and the animal was content for days.

Even among a small population—sixty wolves wasn’t many, all things considered—there were chances to couple just for fun. The younger females all appreciated what an older male could offer: strength, experience, the possibility that he would become an elder within the next few years. More than a few had told him outright that they’d be glad to commit to him as a lifetime mate, bond or no bond. To convince him of their worth, they all but threw themselves at him sexually.

Sometimes they actually did throw themselves. Off a bluff, across the road, onto his bed.

But this?

This, he’d dreamed about for years.

Deborah was lying naked beside him, her glorious body exposed for his pleasure. Her scent told him how much she’d enjoyed their coupling… and that she might be willing to let it happen again soon.

Perfect.

At least it would have been, if not for the matter of her son.

Any bit of news tended to make its way across the island at lightning speed, so Jed had no doubt that Gregory would find out about his mother’s…

What would the boy call it?

Indiscretion? Betrayal?

Whatever name he put to it, he’d know about it within a day or two, and if he currently had any qualms about battling a full-grown male, they’d disappear like smoke in the wind once he found out that Jed had bedded his mother. His wolf was too small and inexperienced to present any sort of challenge—or danger—to Jed, but he might do something foolish. Run too close to a precipice. Impale himself on the sharp end of a broken branch.

Jed himself had been somewhat lacking in common sense as a young wolf, but he’d never been driven by anger and outrage.

Deborah hummed at him a little, a sound of deep contentment. That was enough of a push to make him set aside all thoughts of Gregory—and all worries that she might suddenly come to her senses—in favor of resuming their lovemaking. Smiling, Jed rolled onto his side and lightly ran his fingers over her naked belly.

That skirt was in the way, he decided.

Luckily, she thought so too.

She got up from the bed just long enough to tug the skirt down over her hips and drop it to the floor, then step out of it. That left her fully, gloriously naked—and he had never seen a more spectacular sight in his life. The younger females he had bedded had been too slim-hipped, too small of breast. Deborah’s body was lush and full, richly curved in all the right places.

As he lay there admiring her, she pulled her hair out of its customary thick braid and let it fall over her shoulders and down her back.

He couldn’t think of words; all he could do was grin.

She kept her eyes locked on his as she crawled back onto the bed, arching her body to present her breasts to him, making it clear that those particular curves needed some more attention.

But before he could reach for them, she dipped her head and took him into her mouth.

That was so unexpected—and so intensely pleasurable—that he howled softly and thrust his hips up into that sudden warmth. Her fingertips stroked and teased his sac as she licked up and down the length of him, bringing him back to full arousal. When he was ready, she straddled his hips and took him up inside her, gripping him tightly as she shifted up and down.

This couldn’t end, he thought.

He’d do anything he needed to, to make sure that this would never end.

It did end, though, at least for now. They dozed for a little while, then Deborah stood up from the bed, gathered up her clothing, and pulled it on. She twisted her hair back into a braid with practiced fingers, then slipped her feet into her shoes.

“They’ll know, won’t they?” she asked quietly.

“The rest of the pack? Of course. They’ll smell it on us, unless you plan to dive into the sea and swim around in the salt water until the last trace of me is gone.” He shrugged a little. “I’m willing, if that’s what you want. But there’s no guarantee that we’ll reach the water before someone picks up the scent.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and groaned. Then she groaned again and lowered her head into her hands.

“It can’t have been that bad,” Jed said.

“It wasn’t.”

“I thought it was wonderful. So did my wolf.”

Clearly flustered, she turned to scowl at him. “I did too. But… it can’t be wonderful, Jed. I have responsibilities. I’m not one of those young ones you prowl around with when the mood strikes you.”

“Mood?”

He sat up, shook his shoulders to loosen them up, and looked around for his clothing.

“There’s no ‘mood’ involved,” he told Deborah. “The wolf needs to mate. You know as well as I do that if I deny it for too long, it could well decide to break free. I can’t starve it.” He paused, looking into her eyes. “Neither can you. You can’t tell me that your wolf has been content all these years.”

“My wolf isn’t your concern, Jed.”

“Even now?”

And just like that, the Deborah he’d become accustomed to over the past couple of years was back. All business. Flint in her eyes. This was the Deborah who was devoted to her son, to her duties as healer… and to the memory of Victor.

This was the Deborah who would be Victor’s mate as long as she lived.

“So, this means nothing,” Jed said with a sigh.

“Just… coupling.”

He collected his pants and shirt and pulled them on. When he was finished, he offered her a nod. “I’ll say nothing to anyone,” he promised. “They’ll know, but I won’t talk about it.”

“And my son? What about him? What about this… this challenge?”

“I can’t refuse to fight him now. I accepted his challenge.”

“If you hurt him—”

“I won’t. I told you I won’t.”

“See that you keep that promise.”

And with that, she hurried out of his house, leaving the rich scent of their mating lingering in the air.

Deborah crossed paths with only a few of her packmates as she hurried back to her house, praying that her son wouldn’t be there. She thought it was most likely that he’d be somewhere else—if not school, then some isolated place where he could dwell on all of his problems.

To her relief, the people she did encounter didn’t try to stop her, to tell her about some ache or pain they needed help with or engage her in conversation. At this time of day, everyone had something to do: finishing up their chores in the fields, the animal pens, or the gardens, tending to the smaller children, or beginning preparations for dinner. That left her free to scurry into her house and gather up fresh clothing that she carried down to the beach.

There, she stripped off the clothes that smelled of her encounter with Jed, tossed them aside on the sand, and strode out into the water.

The sudden cold made her shudder.

She refused to let herself mull over what had happened as she plunged into the surf. Out here, in the grasp of the ocean, it was dangerous not to pay attention. The water was fairly shallow for perhaps fifty yards out from the beach, but there were plenty of carnivorous beasts here, and the current was powerful. More than a dozen wolves had died in this very place over the years—some of them young, some older and less capable than they’d assumed they were.

So she swam with all of her focus on what was happening around her. Where the cold spots were. Which way the fish were swimming. Which way the currents were flowing.

She let the wolf—who was not at all fond of deep water—come closer to the surface to give her some additional strength, enough for her to stay afloat as she worked her arms and legs and let the salt water wash away that incriminating scent. Finally, she swam back toward the beach, ducked her head and scrubbed through her hair with her fingertips.

Soaking wet and sticky with salt, she walked up onto the sand and sat down in a patch of bright sunlight.

Then, at last, she let her mind wander.

Really, she should not have gone to Jed’s house. She should have confronted him somewhere more public, where her friends would back her up in demanding that he withdraw his acceptance of Gregory’s challenge. A grown wolf agreeing to battle a child? It was absurd.

And now…

Would anyone be able to handle how angry Gregory would be when he found out that Jed had coupled with his mother?

Victor would have been, she thought.

There’d been so little that had ever stymied her mate. Sometimes, she’d thought he was wiser than any of the elders, more capable of dissecting a problem and figuring out how to solve it. More often than not, the answers came to him immediately, as if he had an open channel to the gods.

So good
, she thought.
So strong.

Most days, she felt like she was neither of those things.

The sun began to warm all the places Jed had touched, and she couldn’t help but recall the way his kiss had felt, the way his fingers had explored her, mapping every inch of her skin.

He was nothing at all like Victor. Capable and strong, yes, but she often saw him lounging in the sun, or laughing with some of the other males. He never shirked his responsibilities, but he seemed… relaxed about them, as if he couldn’t quite take them seriously.

And now, he’d agreed to fight her son.

You should have sent him away the first time he smiled at you,
she chided herself.
You never should have given him the slightest bit of encouragement. Now, look where you are.

But there was that smile.

In its light, she didn’t feel like the healer, someone who might as well be as old as Granny Sara. Someone who was responsible for the wellbeing of every single wolf on the island, whether it was in the middle of a storm, the middle of the night, when she herself didn’t feel well, or when she was struggling with Gregory. Whenever Jed turned that smile in her direction, she felt like a girl again, free to spend the afternoon romping through the woods, chasing squirrels and butterflies until she felt tired enough to spend a while napping in the sun.

Then waking to couple with the nearest young male who caught her eye.

In her case, the young male had always been Victor.

He’d shown her all the best places on the island: where the prettiest flowers grew, where the view of the sunset was the most spectacular, where the moss was soft enough to lie on for hours while they stared up at the sky through the drifting branches of the trees. His lovemaking had sometimes been playful and swift, sometimes lingering and sweet, but always fulfilling.

Always a confirmation of their bond.

And then those men from the mainland had come.

They’d come here to hunt, despite all the signs that marked this island as private property, that trespassing was punishable by imprisonment.

They came with guns and loud music and large containers filled with ice and bottles of strong drink, and after they were finally gone, everyone in the pack wondered how they’d managed to avoid shooting each other.

Deborah wished fervently that they had.

Instead, they’d shot Victor.

They’d come across him in his wolf form, in a place out near the rocks where he had no means of escape. Laughing and hooting, they had backed him into a spill of rocks, and then two of them had taken aim.

A third one had taken aim with a camera.

If it had not been such a perilously hot day, they might have stayed longer, might have hunted down more of the pack just for the sport of it. But one of them had vomited over and over, and with a chorus of complaints they had decided to leave. Another of them had suggested bringing Victor’s body back to the mainland, where they could have his head removed and stuffed for mounting on someone’s wall, but his friends had informed him that the body was likely to stink.

Too friggin’ hot,
they said.
Not gonna deal with this shit.

So they had left Victor behind, and the moment they disappeared into the trees, the two wolves who had watched in horror and despair as Victor was killed were finally able to retrieve their murdered brother and carry him back to the settlement.

Afterwards, there were many questions.

Could the two who had watched have attacked the humans and driven them away? Deep in grief, they said no; there were too many guns. And an attack on humans might well have drawn the attention of the human authorities, particularly if one of them was killed. For the good of the many, they had had to stand by and bear witness, unable to rescue one of the best of them.

Those humans… they were the worst kind of humans. Nothing like Sara, or Aaron’s sweet new mate. Deborah had been careful to stress that with Gregory, who was then only four years old. Guns, she’d told him. Strong drink and guns had killed his father. Drink and guns and stupidity.

For whatever reason, those men had never come back. Deborah liked to think it was because they had drowned on the way back to the mainland, or had crashed their vehicle and died.

Surely the gods would grant that to a small boy who had lost his loving father.

She jumped when something touched her back and shoulders. She’d been too deep in thought to notice the scent of anyone approaching, and the noise of the surf had drowned out any sound they might have made.

Not Jed,
she pleaded silently.

She couldn’t face him right now.

It wasn’t him. It was Sara, who had just wrapped one of her many handmade blankets around Deborah’s shoulders and had taken a seat on the sand less than arm’s reach away.

“The wind is turning,” she said mildly. “I thought you might be cold.”

Deborah couldn’t quite meet her eyes. Even though she’d washed off Jed’s scent, and at any rate Sara was human and couldn’t pick up scents the way the wolves could, she was almost certain that Sara knew what had happened.

Sara might well be pleased for her—she always spoke well of Jed—but Deborah didn’t want anyone to be pleased for her.

Not now. It just wasn’t right.

“I wondered if you and Gregory would join me for dinner,” Sara said after a minute. “It’s quiet around the house, now that Micah doesn’t join me for meals. Daniel makes him eat all his meals in the gathering house, with the guards watching. It’s foolish, but…”

Maybe, Deborah thought. But Micah had stabbed Luca and left him for dead. It wasn’t as if Micah had stolen more than his share of apples, or some other childish prank.

He’d tried to murder another wolf.

Still, Sara was his grandmother. She’d taken him in after his parents had drowned. She had to be blind to his faults to a certain degree; for her to reject Micah would leave him with nothing. No one.

“I’ll come,” she told Sara. “I don’t know about Gregory.”

“I heard about the challenge.”

Deborah heaved out a long breath. “I don’t know what to do with him. I don’t—I don’t know how to make this right.”

“I think he has to find that out for himself.”

“Does he?” Deborah said sharply. “Will that ever happen? It’s been eight years.”

Sara smiled and reached over to tuck the blanket a little more securely around her. “Yes,” she said. “It has.”

“He’s nearly grown now. Almost a man.”

“Well…” Sara’s eyebrows went up a little. “It’s different among the wolves, of course, but to my eyes he’s still a boy. He still has a boy’s way of thinking that everything is black and white.”

“Some things are.”

“Are you forgetting?” Sara asked.

“Forgetting what?”

“That I was bonded too. Paul and I. Every time he walked off to do some chore or other, I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. It took almost a year for me to accept that he’d always come back—until he didn’t. He was the dearest thing in my life, bar none. I would have denied him nothing, and I promised him everything. And yet I can’t help but think that above all, if he still has a say in how anything goes down here, he wants me to be happy.”

Deborah jerked her head. It was more severe than saying to her friend,
I don’t agree with you.

Of course she agreed that Victor would want her to be happy.

But not with someone else.

Not with another male.

That was as much as saying the bond meant nothing. That it was no more important than the humans saying,
Till death do us part.

Death.

Drunken humans with guns.

She couldn’t bear any more of this day, she thought. So she slumped into Sara’s comforting arms and wept.