Her Wanted Wolf (6 page)

He had the feeling he’d fallen down Alice’s tunnel and his hunt had somehow
turned into the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

Chapter Five

Through the dense darkness, Drew trotted behind Sabine and her
sisters. He cocked his head on occasion to listen for any out-of-place sound or
scent that hinted at danger.

Nothing broke the nighttime symphony of hoots, insect clicks, and rodent
chitter. The absolute lack of sound from the women’s paws hitting the ground as
they wove through the trees made his paw treads seem unnaturally loud in the
stillness.

Drew hung back a few yards behind the female wolves. His sore pride and
the persistent ache in his groin put him in a pissy mood.

He was all too aware that his reaction to Sabine presented him with a
problem. The effects of her lure screwed with his head, but he still panted
after her like a horny teenager who hadn’t tasted his first woman. He’d never
been this punch drunk on a woman’s scent, ever.

The only cure for his ball-aching need would be a quick tumble with her.
But she’d probably rip out his throat before she lifted her tail for him.

The best way to handle the painful problem between his legs was to keep
his distance from the mouthy little witch and hope his erection would subside.

His decision didn’t stop him from stealing a surreptitious glance at
Sabine, who ran in the lead. If the way she flashed her tail was any
indication, she was furious. Damn. The girl had a chip the size of the Stanley
Cup on her shoulder.

In the shadow of a mountain spur, Sabine shimmied into a woman and rose
to her feet. She turned to face him and held herself like a haughty ice queen
before a peasant barely worthy of her attention.

Drew transformed and took his own sweet time to amble over to Sabine’s
side. He knew it would annoy her, but for some reason he couldn’t resist
ruffling her fur.

Several conflicting emotions flitted across her face. Finally, she lifted
her head until their gazes clashed. Her hot blue glare carried a shitload of
animosity. Still torqued over the fact he’d gotten the best of her, he’d bet.

Welcome to the club, honey
. Hungry, sore and fucked up by the
feverish need for her rampaging through him, he was not in the best of moods
himself.

Sabine reminded him of a kitten in a hissy fit, fur raised and spitting
mad. He’d have to watch himself around her. She’d nail his hide to the wall for
a trophy given the chance.

Drew raised his brow in question.

She flicked him an annoyed glance. “Ishbel. Ala. Go on ahead, please. I’d
like a word with our…guest.”

Sabine waited until her sisters disappeared before she spoke. “I’m asking
that you agree to whatever my father wants. That way he can die in peace.” Her
voice cracked, but the intonation was an order rather than a request. “Why
would I agree to anything you ask? You obviously don’t think much of my
abilities.” He braced his legs apart, and watched Sabine’s reaction. She lifted
a solemn face up to his. “You won’t have to actually do anything. He wants us
taken to safety, so agree to his request, and I’ll take care of the rest. It
will be easier all around if you play along and then go on your merry way.”

There was no soft plea in her voice, or look of enticement in her
expression aimed at securing his agreement.

Her straightforwardness appealed to him more than if she’d used her
feminine wiles on him. He’d be suspicious if she tried.

“If I give my word to him I must keep it, one alpha to another.”

Sabine let out a
tsk
of impatience. “Fine, but it might be
something neither one of us can live with. Balthazar is stubborn and intent on
having his way. I’ll do whatever he asks me to do, but in my own manner, not
his and certainly not yours. I’ll take you to him now.” She gestured for him to
follow.

Stifling a grin, Drew trailed in her wake. Sabine was as prickly as a
cactus. If he had the time, he’d love to pluck her thorns.

Curious, Drew studied his surroundings. He observed that the Silverwolves
had cleverly tucked several small dwellings within a copse of trees. Logs
carefully chosen for color and shape integrated well into the surrounding
foliage. Tufts of miniature ferns grew out of the hand-mixed mortar of mud and
grass, filling the pockets between the staves. The air held no concentration of
the odors you’d usually find in an area where a group of people lived to give
away the location of the settlement.

As impressed as he was by the Silverwolves’ craftiness, it wasn’t enough
to distract him from the sight of Sabine’s fairy-pale hair swishing above
the cheeks of her full butt. The sleek muscles in her thighs and calves flexed
as she marched away from him, agitation in every step she took. An image of
those very same legs taut and bunched, clamped over his hips, seared into his
mind. Already hard, his body reacted by releasing spoor in the air.

Sabine shot a tight-lipped sneer over her shoulder. He stared at her with
a cool unapologetic stare. It wasn’t as if he could hide his responses. She
sniffed and turned away.

Crap, his attraction to the little shrew grew by the minute, damn it, but
her dismissive attitude toward him irked to no end. She showed as much sexual
interest in him as she would a slug on a stump. Her reaction to him should be
quite the opposite. As a mature she-wolf, the instinctive call to bear a cub
should be running rampant through her. Why did her lack of interest in him
bother him so much?

Sabine stopped by one of the shelters. “My father is in here. I’ll go see
about some food for you.” Sabine opened her mouth to say something more, but
snapped her mouth shut so hard her teeth clicked.

Drew stepped into the small, one-room shack. A few coals glowed in a fire-pit
at the center of the room. The only items that personalized the space were the
piles of crumbling books stacked against the walls. Resting on a simple bed,
supported by ropes laced over a rustic wooden frame, lay a wolf, his pelt
patchy and thin with age.

He was old, very old.

A sense of awe filled Drew. The thick powdery odor of an ancient’s
essence hung in the air. The skeletal were’s shallow breathing told Drew the
wolf didn’t have much time left.

The were stirred.

Palsied tremors shook him during his achingly slow shift into a man.
Paper-thin skin stretched over his regal face, from which a pair of rheumy,
washed-out blue eyes studied him.

“Ahh, a Lunedare. Good, good.” Relief tinged the whispered words and a
wispy satisfied smile parted Balthazar’s parched lips.

“You know of my pack?” Drew sank to his knees beside the rustic pallet.

“I ran with a Lucan Lunedare when we first came to this continent. I can
see you are puzzled that this pack still exists. Several centuries ago, I came
to believe our kind had begun to adopt and adapt to the ways of man to our
detriment. We discarded too many of our customs. I broke away from the packs
and concealed our scent trails.” Balthazar paused to catch his breath. “In my
arrogance I chose isolation, foolishly believing I’d preserve my clan and our
way of life.” Balthazar’s eyes drifted into a dreamy vagueness. “Now my family
is going to pay for my lack of foresight. My line ends with these women. The
Silverwolves will be forgotten.”

Drew dipped his head as a sign of respect to Balthazar. “No, you are
remembered. We howl your name when we honor the lost packs. The stories of your
clan’s brave exploits are retold at our campfires. How is it you’ve survived
for so long?”

A small smile twisted Balthazar’s bloodless lips. “A quirk of nature. My
grandmother was a
multimorph
and I’m the twin of one. Through them I’ve
inherited the gift of an extended life span.”

“Our supreme alpha
,
Justice Ambervane
,
will welcome the
women. His mate is our generation’s
multimorph
. She’ll be happy to
reunite with her distant cousins.”

“The supreme alpha is not here, is he? But you are. My time is short.
With my final breath, I ask a boon, alpha to alpha. Take one of my daughters to
mate. Save them.” Balthazar’s urgent plea came out in short, labored wheezes.
He reached up and gripped Drew’s arm with spidery fingers, a silent, frantic
entreaty.

Drew’s father had drummed the preservation of werekin into his head from
the moment he could understand they were on the brink of extinction. The last
time the clans took a count, there were less than twenty thousand werekin
worldwide.

“It’s not necessary for me to take your daughter as a mate. I’ll
assimilate them into my own pack or they can mark out their own territory on
any land I own. That is my gift to your family to welcome you back into the
fold.”

“Not good enough. The Silverwolves don’t have the numbers to defend
themselves against a marauding force, and don’t pretend they wouldn’t be
vulnerable even within your domain. The older women are set in their ways, as I
am. They will only follow you if we have a familial connection or if you put me
down to become their alpha. It’s no longer safe here with these newcomers
snapping at our heels. Sabine tells me they stink of something freakish. My
family will need to move on to give the younger ones a chance for survival.
Will you do as I ask?”

“I can’t do it the way you want. But I’ll protect them.” Drew raked his
hands wearily through his dusty hair.

“You are already mated?” the old man demanded.

Drew lips tightened. “Once, but I lost my mate.”

“I’ve had two mates. I loved and mourned each one as if she were the only
mate I ever had. It’s unnatural for a man to be without a woman,” the Ancient
chided.

Drew grinned. “I never said I lacked female company.”

A fit of coughing shook Balthazar when a chuckle slipped from his parched
lips. “A true wolf. Sabine would be my choice for you. She is strong and will
be a fine consort. She isn’t corrupted by human sentimentality. In her lives
the best of what we are.”

“It wouldn’t be fair to your daughter. I’m a virtual stranger. You don’t
know what kind of were I am. My vow as the Lunedare alpha is that I’ll keep
them safe.”

The old man didn’t know what he asked, the kind of life he attempted to
arrange for his child. Drew loved once, and that part of him died with Christa.
Any other woman he mated with would be short-changed.

A fierce demand burned in the old man’s eyes. “What is your word, if your
actions don’t hold true to the core of our beliefs? You are more than a man. In
you resides your spirit kin, the wolf. Have we moved so far away from what we
are that you’d leave twenty of our women in peril? We are meant to live by our
instincts, not by emotion. The strongest of those instincts is to survive. Has
yours been so watered down that the perpetuation of our race is no longer
paramount?” Balthazar sagged back on his bed, and turned sluggishly onto his
side to face the wall. “Then let us die. The loss of the Silverwolf pack is the
harbinger to the end of our race. Maybe I’m to be proven right after all, and
my fears have become a bitter fact. We have become more man than wolf.”

Drew slumped back against the wall. Mental and physical weariness washed
over him.

Shit. There was no way he could leave the women to fend for themselves.
Balthazar pricked his pride, shamed him, and called on his sense of duty to do
right by his diminishing race.

Sabine said she’d do whatever her father asked her to do, no matter what.
He doubted she had any inkling what Balthazar had in mind. He’d resisted his
family’s pleas to take another mate to sire cubs for the Lunedare pack since
Christa’s death. Maybe a political marriage would shut them up. Fucking a
stranger meant there was less chance of engaging his emotions.

Drew grinned ruefully. He couldn’t describe his reaction to Sabine as
dispassionate.

Remembering his body’s reaction to her filled him with a guilty kind of
remorse. Christa’s face, with her sweet mischievous grin, filled his mind. It
gave way to his last memory of her, her face waxen in death, cold to the touch.
Lifeless. And all his fault.

Fuck, if only he could let Christa go. Some part of him felt he did not
have the right to go on without her.

Yet, here he was very much alive. Bound by guilt to a dead love with his
blood raging with need for another woman.

Chapter Six

A savory bouquet mingling with Sabine’s scent reached Drew before he
heard her barely perceptible footsteps on the other side of the wall. He looked
up as she eased through the doorway with two earthenware bowls in her hands.

To Drew’s embarrassment, his belly gurgled like an unclogged drain when
the fragrant steam spiraling up from one of the bowls wafted past his nose.

Lips pursed to control her smirk, Sabine passed him a hand-molded clay
dish and spoon. “There’s plenty more. You look half-starved. Why haven’t you
been eating?”

“The scent of any kill I made might have given my presence away.” Drew
lifted the spoon with trembling fingers and took a tentative bite of the gamey
meat.

Wild sage and rosemary burst over his tongue. Drew almost moaned with
ecstasy, but he managed to stifle the urge. He started to shovel the hot rabbit
stew into his mouth so fast it seared his tongue. The hunger he’d ignored far
too long took over, and he ate ravenously.

“It’s all going to come back up faster than it went down if you continue
to eat like that,” Sabine warned tartly.

She was right.

His shrunken stomach rebelled at the sudden influx of food and spasmed
painfully. Drew swallowed hard to keep his gorge from rising.

Sabine slowly shook her head back and forth. Drew recognized the gesture
her gender perfected to inform men, wordlessly, that they were acting like
idiots. It was better than the despised eye-roll or the pleading glance to the
skies for divine intervention, he supposed.