Howl for It (9 page)

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Authors: Cynthia Shelly; Eden Laurenston

BOOK: Howl for It

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“Let them go.”

He looked up at her and she saw that his wolf eyes were slightly dilated, his fangs out.

“Go back, Darla.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not gonna let you do this.”

“Darla—”

“I’m not going to let you ruin our beautiful day by killing three men and burying them in the woods. I won’t allow it.”

Eggie stared at her and she stared back, unwilling to look away.

Look, she wasn’t a saint. She really didn’t mind the beating these men had taken. They’d deserved it and it would be a good lesson for them so that hopefully some other girl never had to face a similar threat. At least not from them. But Darla couldn’t escape the fact that when it was all said and done, they hadn’t actually done anything to her. Maybe they’d wanted to try. Or maybe they’d hoped to scare her into cooperating. Or maybe they’d planned to just harass her until she’d run off into the crowd. She’d never know and that was why she couldn’t allow this. She knew for Smiths there was no question about this sort of thing, but she wasn’t a Smith. Never would be. She would always be a Lewis and, more importantly, she’d always be Darla Mae.

“Come on, Eggie,” she urged, softening her voice and holding out her hand to him. “I heard Lynyrd Skynyrd might be playing later tonight.”

“I hate Lynyrd Skynyrd. It’s my Alabama cousins who like ’em.”

“Oh.” She shrugged, gave him a little smile. “Ooops.”

He looked away but she knew that was because he didn’t want to be relieved of his anger. She understood that. She got that way about her sisters. But she kept her hand out and her eyes on his face.

“Smith?” a black bear prompted, his foot now on the back of the neck of one of those men. One push of that enormous foot and that full-human’s spine would be snapped like a dry twig.

Growling, Eggie slammed his knife back into the holster on his thigh, grabbed the full-human by the throat and lifted him up. He rammed him into a tree and held him there. The full-human tried to fight him off but he might as well not have bothered. Eggie leaned in and whispered something to the male. Darla cocked her head, trying to hear him but she couldn’t make out a word, the pitch too low and Eggie too far away for her wolf ears to catch anything but muttering.

When the man literally pissed himself and then, based on the smell, crapped his pants, Darla was relieved she hadn’t heard anything. She didn’t want to know.

Eggie stepped back and dropped the man to the ground. He glowered down at him a little longer until he turned away—she knew he didn’t want to, knew how hard it was for him to do that—and walked over to Darla.

Darla still held her hand out and she wiggled her fingers at him, but Eggie shook his head. “Got blood on my hands.”

But Darla realized something about Eggie . . . he’d always have blood on his hands. Whether physically or metaphorically, he would always have blood on his hands or paws for the rest of his life. She knew that now. Understood it. And, as she reached down and grasped his blood-covered hand with her own, slightly calloused and scarred from baking and cooking over the years, Darla accepted that about him.

She had to because she knew now that she was in love with him. Whether she wanted to be or not, she loved him.

Of course, her sisters would call her foolish. Not because it was Egbert Ray Smith or because he was one of the Smith boys, but because he was her first. Because for Darla, there was no separating love and sex. They were one and the same for her, always would be.

She smiled into Eggie’s angry face, knowing his fury wasn’t directed at her, knowing without doubt or concern that she was safe with this dangerous, deadly wolf.

“Come on,” she said. “I’m starvin’.”

They came out of the woods after using a rag that Lloyd had on him to wipe their hands free of blood. It didn’t help with the scrapes and cuts they had from beating the men but that was all right. Maybe, if Eggie was lucky, no one would find the three and they’d die of their wounds. He knew why Darla had stopped him but he also knew men like that. Predator full-humans were, in Eggie’s estimation, the worst. Because food or survival had nothing to do with why they hunted. Absolutely nothing. But if there was just one female who could rein in Eggie’s love of putting down useless humans, it was Darla Mae Lewis and only Darla Mae.

As they cleared the woods, a large group of wolves suddenly stalked up to them and, going on training rather than instinct, Eggie and his teammates pulled their Smith & Wesson Model 59 semi-automatic pistols and aimed them at the wolves. The Pack skidded to a halt except for a darker-skinned She-wolf who kept coming anyway, but a tall male caught her arm and yanked her back, keeping her at his side.

“Darla?” the male demanded.

“Egbert Ray,” Darla sighed. “They’re my friends.”

Eggie sniffed the air and growled out, “Magnus Pack
wolves
are your friends?”

“I have lots of friends. Weapons down, gentlemen,” Darla ordered.

Eggie nodded at his team and he tucked his gun in the back of his jeans, under his denim jacket.

“Are you all right, Darla?” one of the Magnus Wolves asked.

“I’m fine. Just fine.”

Another one of the wolves pushed through the Pack, and stepped forward. And, with one look and a nod, Eggie recognized him as one of the Navy engineers who helped his team blow up shit when necessary. “Thorpe.”

“Smith.”

Ezra Thorpe had been part of the Magnus Pack since he was sixteen but he’d joined the Navy when he was twenty. He was, from what Eggie could tell, one of the best demolition experts he’d known. The wolf could take down an entire block with only a couple of strategically placed sticks of weak dynamite. He wasn’t real friendly but that’s why Eggie tolerated him. He hated real friendly.

“Smith?” the Pack leader of the young wolves snarled. “Egbert Ray
Smith
?”

Darla smiled and nodded. “It sure is.”

Eggie could be wrong, but it sounded like he heard pride in her response.

“Egbert Ray,” she went on, “this is Bruce Morrighan of the Magnus Pack.”

Eggie grunted at the wolf, staring until the rest of the wolf ’s Pack became antsy. But the wolf didn’t seem ready to move until his female tried to charge Eggie again. Good thing Morrighan was fast, though, or Eggie would have had no qualms about knocking this female out. He knew crazy when he saw it and that She-wolf was crazy.

“You’ll be all right?” Morrighan asked Darla while his Pack began to wander off.

“I’ll be just fine. Thanks, Bruce.”

“Howl if you need me,” he said before he walked away, dragging the She-wolf behind him.

Thorpe grinned and began to follow after the rest of his Pack.

“Hey. Thorpe.”

“Yeah?” he asked without turning around.

“You staying in Tennessee for a while?”

“Maybe.”

“Good.” And Eggie filed that away for later use.

When the Pack and the bikers were gone, Eggie faced Darla.

She smiled up at him. “Thanks, Eggie.”

He grunted and started walking, still holding Darla’s hand. As they moved through the crowd, Eggie said, “Found out why you were attacked in North Carolina.”

“Oh?”

“Uh-huh.”

Eggie stopped, pulling Darla up short. When she faced him, he asked, “Did you know you witnessed a murder in San Francisco two weeks ago?”

Darla blinked, frowned. “Huh?”

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

“T
his is crazy,” Darla said, stepping out of the car once Eggie had killed the motor. She closed the door. “Absolutely crazy. I think I’d notice if someone was killed right in front of me.”

She walked around the front of the car but Eggie was already there, stopping her from heading into his house.

“Maybe you blocked it out or something.”

“Eggie, I’m not some sensitive little flower that hasn’t been on a hunt before.”

“Hunting deer and seeing a man killed are two different things, darlin’.”

“I saw what you did on my father’s territory. Remember every bit of it, too.”

He winced and Darla shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t . . .” She started to walk around him, but Eggie caught her hips and held her. Leaning his butt against the hood of his car, he pulled her closer, between his legs.

“Listen to me, Darla. No one is saying you did anything wrong.”

“But I’m such a girl I can’t handle the stress of seeing someone murdered? Eggie . . . do you really think if I’d seen something, I wouldn’t have gone to the police? That I wouldn’t have done something? Anything?”

He gazed at her, eventually shaking his head. “You would have done something. No matter how stupid doin’ something might have been.”

“Exactly.”

“That response does not make me feel better, Darla Mae.”

“I know.”

He tugged her closer until the grill of his car stopped her. Darla put her arms around his neck and he wrapped his around her waist.

“Look,” Eggie said, “I don’t want you to worry. My teammates are taking care of this for me.”

“Taking care of what? They don’t have any details yet. Who killed who or why. Just that the police are looking for me as a witness to a possible homicide.”

“And my team will find out all the details—and then deal with it.”

“You mean start killing people.”

“Well, someone already tried to kill you once, so I don’t see what the problem is.”

“I didn’t say I had a problem with it. I just wanted to see if you’d be honest with me.”

“I can’t promise I’ll volunteer information. And sometimes I won’t be able to tell you something because I just can’t.”

“Top secret military stuff?”

“Pretty much.” Eggie hugged her close and gazed into her face. “But I ain’t gonna outright lie to you. Mostly ’cause it would be wrong. But also ’cause you’re smart enough to see through my bullshit.”

“Only because you’re not a very good liar.”

“It’s a flaw.”

No. It really wasn’t.

Darla kissed him and Eggie immediately responded. His arms tightened around her waist, his growl easing into her mouth.

When they finally pulled away from each other, they both frowned and looked toward Eggie’s front porch. His brothers stood there, watching them and eating the pie she had left in the kitchen.

She heard him snarl and Darla immediately pressed her hand to his chest. “Eggie.”

When she was sure she had him calm, she focused on the scruffy wolves cluttering Eggie’s porch. “Something we can help y’all with?”

“She’s so much more polite than her sisters,” Nicky Ray remarked. “It’s such a nice change.”

Eggie snarled again.

“Gentlemen?” she pushed, not sure how long she could hold him back.

“Momma wants y’all at Sunday dinner tomorrow,” Bubba explained.

“Did you leave any pie that I could bring?”

While still chewing, the brothers looked back and forth among each other before shaking their heads.

Not that Darla had any intention of bringing two-day-old pie to a dinner at Eggie’s Momma’s house but still . . . it was the principle!

Disgusted, she stepped away from Eggie and marched toward the stairs. “Guess I’m going shopping tomorrow.”

“Don’t need to,” Benji told Darla as she passed him on the stairs. “I think your sisters are all bringing pie.”

Darla stopped at the door, faced the Smith boys, her eyes narrowing. “Oh? Are they?”

The four males backed away from her. Not that she blamed them.

With a sniff, she stormed into the house, slamming the door behind her.

Eggie’s brothers shuddered after Darla slammed that door. Then they turned to leave—only to come face to face with Eggie.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Bubba lied. And the bastard was lying. “Why?”

“Whose idea was this dinner?”

“Momma’s. It’s not like she’s had any time to spend with her favorite boy.”

Eggie rolled his eyes. “She said that one time after drinkin’ and you
still
haven’t gotten over it, have you?”

“See ya tomorrow, big brother.” Bubba walked by him. “Can’t wait for the show.”

Bubba disappeared into the trees and the rest of them followed. With a sigh, Eggie went into his house—and found Darla going through all the cabinets.

“What are you doing?” he asked her.

“Seeing what I need to buy from the store tomorrow.” She faced him. “You do know what this is, don’t you?”

“You being irrational?”

“No. They’re challenging me.”

“Really don’t remember that being said.”

“You don’t know my sisters. This isn’t over.”

Eggie walked over to Darla and slipped his arm around her waist.

“Eggie . . . no.”

He didn’t answer, just kissed her neck.

“I’ve gotta make lists and . . . and things.”

Kissed her jaw.

“Eggieeeee,” she whined out, her arms reaching up and gripping his shoulders.