Quest (Shifter Island Book 4) (10 page)

She also seemed delighted to give him her prime rib.

Not until after the dancing had started was Allison able to get away from the head table. Because it was hard to see Luca’s table once people had crowded onto the dance floor, she skirted around the edge of the room thinking that when she got there, he would have already gone.

But no, there he was, all by himself.

“Where’s your friend?” she asked him with a bit of a grin.

“She went to the toilet,” he said. “Her name is Eloise. Twice widowed and once divorced. That’s a little alarming.”

“I guess so.”

He got up before she could say anything else, and nodded hesitantly toward the dance floor. “Is this something you’d like to do?”

“Maybe one song.”

Her satin pumps had been torturing her toes all day long, and truth be told, what she wanted most was to soak her feet—and the rest of her body—in a Jacuzzi, no matter what she needed to do to find one. Then she noticed that several women had discarded their heels and were dancing barefoot. Her grin got wider as she kicked her shoes off and pushed them underneath Luca’s chair.

Then she was in his arms, being swept around the dance floor.

It was a very loud, up-tempo song, and most of the other couples were dancing with some distance between them, but Luca ignored that and held on to her as if it were a waltz—or maybe a tango. He paid almost no attention to the actual rhythm of the song, as if he were in a world all his own.

When she looked into his eyes, he drew her into that world, and the music faded into something far away, almost unnoticeable. All she was aware of was his arms around her, the expression of deep pleasure on his face, and the strength with which he guided her around the other couples.

That song ended and another one began, and they kept dancing.

Until someone interrupted.

It was Ernie, Matt’s cousin, her partner for the evening. He stood there sizing Luca up for a minute, then put together a grin.

“My turn,” he announced.

He’d been polite, if a little loud, up till now. But she’d watched him gulp down three or four drinks and fumble his way through the best man’s toast, and he was clearly past the point where he’d graciously accept being told
no
. She did owe him a dance, she supposed—and she could see the photographer looming nearby, wanting to take a picture of the two of them dancing together.

“Just this one,” she told Luca.

Only the fact that she’d had a couple of drinks herself saved her from walking away from Ernie once they’d started dancing. She had no idea whether or not he’d been clumsy to begin with, but the alcohol definitely didn’t help. He stepped all over her bare feet, stumbled a couple of times, and burst out laughing for no good reason. She was aware of the photographer’s flash going off half a dozen times, and thought with an inward groan that these particular pictures weren’t going to be keepers.

The song came to an end, and she tried to step away, but Ernie clung to her arm and said, “Nah.”

“My—” she started. “I need to—”

“You’re my
date
,” Ernie said loudly. “How ’bout you act like it?”

She looked around for Luca, hoping he’d sweep her up and carry her away, but he was nowhere in sight.

Going outside accomplished very little; even with the door closed behind him, the music pounded the air around Luca, and he wondered how far away he would have to go to find some silence. The wolf was straining inside him, begging to be released so that they could run far from this place—but there was nowhere nearby with enough cover.  There were a few trees at the edge of the property, but beyond them Luca could see a lot of lights.

He could leave for a while, he supposed. Allison seemed to be enjoying herself, and the party was likely to continue for another several hours. In that amount of time, he could walk to the edge of town, shift and run free for an hour or so, then come back. She might not even notice he had been gone.

And what would that mean? If she didn’t miss him?

With the heavy beat of the music echoing inside his head, he walked over to the low wall that surrounded the parking lot and sat down. To soothe himself, he started to think of all of his favorite places on the island: spots where he could look out over the ocean and watch the surf, or where he could lie in the sun and rest.

The chair in front of the fireplace in his parents’ house.

His bed.

These past few days had offered very little rest; even when he was in bed with Allison, sleepy and sated after mating with her, the unfamiliar smells and sounds, and the knowledge that humans were nearby, had kept him close to wakefulness. He felt the strain of that now, felt as if his body had been stretched and pulled in a thousand different directions. It was taking its toll on the wolf, as well. They were both worn out.

A burst of high-pitched laughter brought his attention back over to the doors, where a man and a woman were stumbling out into the parking lot. Giggling and clutching each other, they made their way over to a big SUV, and the man fumbled open a door to the back seat. The woman crawled inside, then the man.

They didn’t bother to close the car door.

The sounds and smells of their mating weren’t hard to pick out. It tempted Luca to open his pants and relieve some of his rising stress—he would have done exactly that back on the island, and no one would have cared—but here, that would be inappropriate. Possibly even dangerous.

He couldn’t even lie down on the other side of the wall, where the grass looked to be very soft, and sleep for a few minutes. That, too, would have been fine on the island. But here…?

There were too many rules. Too many
foolish
rules.

He had to settle for closing his eyes and thinking of the island. Running and playing with his brother. Helping the adults in the gardens while he was growing up, and taking responsibility for his own plot on the day he turned twelve. Wondering which of the young females would one day be his mate.

Talking, and sometimes arguing, with his father. Helping his mother with her chores.

Did they miss him? he wondered. Or had they simply gone on with their lives?

“Hey.”

The voice made Luca open his eyes. There was a man standing a few steps away, fists braced on his hips. He wavered a little, which seemed to indicate he had already drunk too much alcohol, and the look on his face said he didn’t intend to be friendly, that he hadn’t approached Luca to chat.

“What’re you doin’ with my car?”

The car that seemed to be in question was a good eight or nine feet away from Luca. “I’ve done nothing with your car,” he said.

“Then what’re you sitting here for?”

“I came out to get some air.”

“You’re right next to my
car
.”

It looked to be an expensive vehicle. It was spotless, and had been diligently polished. Brand-new, Luca supposed. Black. Mammoth, and doubtlessly very heavy. It, and the way the man was brandishing the keys he’d pulled out of his pants, said a lot about the man himself.

“You know how much I paid for that? Do ya?” the man demanded.

Far too much
, Luca supposed. “A great deal, I imagine,” he said quietly.

“What, are you some kinda priss or somethin’? ‘A great deal, I imagine’? What’re you, the queen?”

There was no winning this, Luca understood. The man needed to humiliate him, and the reason for that had nothing to do with Luca or that huge black car. Something had happened to this man—possibly inside, at the party; possibly somewhere else—and the need to exert his dominance had taken over his ability to think clearly, to act reasonably. Being near the wolf always made that sort of thing worse.

The wolf would be glad to fight with him, if Luca set it free.

That was tempting. The animal was still stinging from Micah’s attack; it hadn’t had a chance to assert itself in weeks. They had both come very close to death, and now they were trapped among the humans, suffering all this noise, these bad smells, the crushing lack of freedom.

If there had been a way to shift where the man wouldn’t see it, and then confront him, scare him a little…

“Hey! Hey, Greg, man! What’s goin’ on?”

Luca risked a glance in the direction of the building’s front doors. Three more men had come out and were drifting toward him and the angry man, whose name apparently was Greg.

“Asshole’s loomin’ around my
car
,” Greg said.

Two of the men were dressed in tuxedos. They were members of the wedding party, Luca noted. Friends of the groom. As they came closer, he saw that one of them was Ernie, Allison’s “partner,” the groom’s cousin. They all looked to have been drinking too much, and seemed anxious to take part in whatever sort of skirmish Greg had gotten started.

Four against one. Those weren’t good odds, if Luca couldn’t turn the wolf loose.

“You got a problem, pal?” said the groomsman who wasn’t Ernie.

“Way too close to my goddamn car,” Greg said, fondling his keys. The points were sticking out between his fingers. He was clearly turning them into a weapon, something he could use to gouge and scrape. “And he’s not wantin’ to back off. Told him, and he’s just sittin’ there. And—” He paused, giving his friends a meaningful look. “He’s pretty full of fancy talk.”

Ernie snorted a little. “I know him.”

“Yeah?”

“Didn’t even have any friggin’ clothes for a wedding, Matt said. He was gonna wear jeans and a t-shirt or some such shit. To my cousin’s
wedding
.”

Earlier in the day, Ernie had been polite and reasonably friendly. Now he was anything but, and that was certainly due to the presence of his easily riled friends. And the alcohol, of course. The wolves of Luca’s pack had a good many stories to tell about alcohol-fueled fights—how too much drink could turn a reasonable person into a bully. Jedediah, one of Luca’s father’s closest friends, had a number of scars from just such a fight, one he’d blundered into during a trip to the mainland.

Luca figured he had enough scars already, thanks to Micah.

But he knew he couldn’t just walk past these men. They were too stirred up now; they’d never let him go. One of them would feel obligated to push him, maybe shove him to the ground.

They might hold him there for a while.

One of them might be drunk enough to decide to piss on him.

And all of this at a wedding. At the celebration of Matt and Julie’s marriage.

Because he had little choice, Luca pivoted on the wall, swinging his legs over to the other side. That put the wall in between him and Greg’s gaggle of friends. It wasn’t much protection, since it was only hip-tall, but it was better than nothing. It would slow the others down long enough for Luca to get away if he moved quickly.

They wouldn’t chase him. Their mates were still inside the building. They wouldn’t risk being spotted by someone who’d call the police.

Or would they?

“You gonna run now, fancy-pants?” Greg jeered.

That almost guaranteed that they intended to chase him if he ran. If he walked, they’d probably settle for jeering him until he was out of sight—and they’d keep an eye out for him, to make sure he didn’t come back to damage Greg’s car.

That would mean abandoning Allison.

For a little while, he told himself. If she realized he was gone, she’d know he’d gone back to the motel.

The question was, would that be all right with her?

Another wolf would understand.

But Allison was human.

Before he could make a decision, a flash of bright color drew his attention back to the doors once more. One of the bridesmaids had come out, and her obvious anger made Greg look like a child fussing over a broken cookie.

She sped across the parking lot faster than any raptor Luca had ever seen diving after prey, and seized Greg’s arm in a grip that was truly impressive for such a small woman.

“Is THIS what you’re doing?” she yowled. “After you
promised
me?”

The other men quickly backed off, removing themselves from the confrontation—but they hovered near enough to watch what was happening, near enough that they wouldn’t miss any of even the smallest details. A couple of them were grinning. Pleased, Luca supposed, that Greg was the target of this little woman’s wrath and not them.

“Baby,” Greg said.

“Don’t you ‘baby’ me. You
promised
me.”

Greg gestured at Luca with his free arm. “He was—”

“What? Breathing? Existing on the same planet as you? I told you, if you pulled this shit one more time—”

She seemed to realize only then that Ernie and the others were watching. If anything, it made her even angrier.

It amused Luca sometimes that the smallest of animals could puff themselves up and through attitude alone defend themselves against larger, stronger predators. Surprise had a lot to do with it. The woman was wearing a fussy dress much like Allison’s, and her hair and makeup were done in such a way as to make her look fragile and ladylike, but this was clearly no one to toy with.

The other men were watching her, not him, so Luca allowed himself a small, fleeting smile.

“You figure this is all right?” she barked at the men. “Out here hassling people in the parking lot?”

The groomsman who wasn’t Ernie grinned at her and shrugged one shoulder up toward his ear. “Whatever, ya know? It’s just guy stuff, Isabel. Defendin’ the turf. Guy’s gotta do what he’s gotta do.”

For a moment, Luca thought Isabel might actually explode.

Then she snatched her hand back from Greg’s beefy arm. “One night,” she said. “I asked for one night to have fun. That band’s not half bad, and the food is really good. My friend wanted us to help her celebrate, and I thought we could have one decent night without the bunch of you acting like sixth graders. Could you just
please
go back in there and act like normal human beings?”

But it was too late. More people were coming out into the parking lot—and one of them noticed what was going on in that other car, the one the man and woman had climbed inside so they could mate. Seconds later, the man was hauled out by his heels and thrown to the ground with his pants tangled around his ankles. He’d only been on the ground for a moment when another man kicked him viciously in the belly, then hauled him up and punched him in the face.

Inside the car, the woman began to scream.

In less than a minute, the parking lot was full of people: men in dark suits, women in colorful gowns. Some of them began filming the brawl with their cell phones; others made calls or sent texts. None of them seemed to be at all interested in stopping the fight…

Until the bride came out, with Allison a few steps behind her. By that time, a dozen people were involved in the fight. The woman inside the car was weeping. Many of the people watching had drinks in their hands, and as the crowd surged back and forth to avoid being punched or trampled, many of the drinks were slopped and spilled. Julie’s white gown was sprayed with something dark, and in her distress she backed into someone who spilled their drink on Allison.

Other fights began to erupt, and more punches were thrown. A couple of people slipped on the spilled liquid and went down hard. Hands were stepped on, dresses were torn.

Some of the women started to sob.

Luca had never seen the likes of this before. A distant part of him wished he had a phone so that he could send pictures and video to his packmates; more than likely, none of them had ever seen anything like this either.

But there were no phones on the island. The wolves would find out about this only if he went back there and told them.

That seemed like a very good idea.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Luca caught another flash of bright color. He dismissed it at first, and then he realized it was Allison.

Running away.