Wolf's Holiday (4 page)

“Hello.” The bird man nodded to her. He had a long, hooked nose and eyes that were slightly too wide for his face. In a crowd of humans, he would stick out. His kind must have to stick to themselves. “Do not be afraid. I will not hurt you. I saw the bear was going to kill you, and I knew what you were. I made a decision then to rescue you.”

“Thank you.” Betty sank to her knees, suddenly not having the energy to stay upright any longer. Bird-man approached.

“I can smell your mate on you. I will tend to you, and then I will find him.”

Betty snorted, unable to control herself. Drew would really get a hoot out of being swiped off the ground by a bird shifter. He’d never want to tell anyone it happened. Something was wrong with her head. She wasn’t…clear…or focusing.

“Thank you.” Had she already said as much? “I think there is something wrong with that bear.”

The bird spoke in a monotone voice, as though he remembered words he’d said before. “She is possessed of evil spirits. To run into her and survive is to be given a second chance at living well, of doing things right the second time.”

Betty lifted her eyes to look into the birds. “I love stories like that.”

The world went black.

***

Drew knelt in the snow and looked at the red mess. He sniffed the air and knew what his gut had already told him, the horrible crimson display belonged to his beloved. Drew closed his eyes.
Blood, but no body.
He had to hold onto that thought.

Otherwise, the world lost all of its color, all of its purpose, all of its meaning. Betty Holden Tao was the reason he rose every morning. Even the ten years he’d spent away from her, he’d known she was safe.

He refused to contemplate any other outcome.

The bear was nowhere to be seen, and he couldn’t scent her either. The whole experience was beyond odd. Why had the bear attacked them like that and where had she gone?

He only cared as much as it would get him to his mate. Nothing else mattered.

“Drew.”

Pivoting, he braced for battle yet found only an older but much the same looking Stewart. Light-haired and dark-eyed, the man had always been a study in contrasts. Big nose, small mouth. Wide chin, think cheeks. Broad-shouldered, small-framed.

“Sir.” Drew choked out his response. “Where did you come from?”

Stewart seemed to be considering the question when his eyebrows rose slowly. “From my mother and father. The same as all of us. Not any of us can control where we start, only what we do when we finish.”

It had been a long time since he’d heard Stewart speak in his strange, considering way. His father had called it the philosophy of the moronic. Drew had thought Stewart saw the world in rainbows and wished he had some of the same.

“How did you know where to find me?”

His old friend smiled and then pointed up the hill. Drew followed with his gaze where he directed and saw the small cabin a distance away on a cliff. They’d gotten very close. With his hands threatening to shake from the utter terror of not knowing where B was, he shoved them in his jacket pockets.

“You saw what happened here? What happened to my mate?”

“No.” Stewart shook his head slowly. “I saw you and I came down.”

“So fast?”Had the man suddenly developed super-speed?

“I had help.” He pointed upward, and once again Drew looked where he was all but told. A large—no, huge—bird sat in the tree looking down at him. It took him a moment to realize what he looked at. He’d never seen a Hoopoe in person. In fact, he wasn’t, until right then, exactly sure they were real. Yet, there one sat on the tree staring down on him.

“Is that…?”

“My mate.” Stewart nodded. “She’s watching you.”

“You’re mated to a bird from ancient mythology?”

He nodded. Of course Stewart was. It made some kind of sense, a fact he’d appreciate more if his heart weren’t about to explode over B.

“Chia,” Stewart called. “This is Andrew Tao. He was born with such goodness. Can’t you see it around him?”

The bird swooped down and shifted until she stood in front of him. Tall, dark-haired with eyes that didn’t look human stared at him for a moment. “He is a man at a crossroads. You came because of the train.”

Stewart gasped. “Did you bring them the train?”

“It was time. The were-bear told us of your plans for Christmas. Stewart’s toys need to be with his pack again. They bring such heart,” Chia responded. “This is a year of rebirth for the Tao pack. Drew understood. He saw the train for what it was.”

Ryker was going to have a fit when he found out he had to monitor the sky and, even worse, it seemed Gee not only knew about the train but talked to Stewart, too. The cagey old Bear hadn’t said a word even though they all knew he’d have been able to hear their conversation outside the bar perfectly well.

Gee was never pack. He was loyal, but he kept himself apart. As far as the Bear was concerned, he got to share what he wanted and keep the rest to himself.

If Drew ever got to tell Ryker about any of these events—if he didn’t find B, Drew would die on the mountain; ten years without her was enough—he was sure the Enforcer would have words with Gee.

Chia moved with a gracefulness which leant the impression she glided rather than touched the ground when she traveled over it.

She knelt over the blood. “She fought the bear.”

Stewart whistled through his teeth. “Who travels this path with you, young Tao?”

“My mate.”

“Ah yes, Elizabeth Holden.”

Chia breathed in loudly. When she spoke her voice sounded sing-songy. “This is a great deal of blood. It would have killed her but….” She trailed off.

“But….” Drew wanted a response and he needed it immediately. It took every ounce of his strength not to order an answer from the silence.

“Paso.” Chia exhaled. “I can smell him. He is behaving very oddly for himself. He must have seen the fight and taken the girl.”

“Ah yes, we will go to him.” Stewart nodded. “Come with me, young Tao. We will go to Paso’s nesting place and see if your woman is there. In the meantime, we have much to discuss among ourselves. Chia will fly ahead and let her brother know of our arrival.

“Great.”Drew wasn’t going to feel better until he saw with his own eyes B lived and breathed. Patience had never been his forte and the walk wherever they had to go, whether it took a minute or an hour was going to feel like forever.

Chia changed again, becoming a bird once more. “We wondered how you could have gotten in and out of our territory without any of us knowing it. Now I understand you didn’t. Your train was delivered.”

“All things happen in the time in which they were designated. Chia sees things we can’t. Her view is from atop, ours from below. The same answer comes either way. Only she leads from her top chakra and I from my heart.”Stewart paused. “Where do you lead from, Drew?”

“At the very moment, Stewart, sir, I lead from nowhere at all. I’m afraid I will not be able to think again until I have my mate in my arms. Then perhaps I can answer your question more fully.”

Stewart nodded. “A true answer. And a telling one. The female has loved you since she first set eyes on you, since before perhaps. Why don’t you trust in B’s tenderness?”

“I do.”

His old friend shook his head. “I’m afraid you don’t, young Alpha. The good news is your doubts are fixable. And I know how.”

Drew was glad someone knew what the hell was going on. His wolf prowled inside of him, and his chest threatened to explode. His whole world would shatter if she died.
B, please be okay
.

His body buzzed when he ran up the stairs, leaving Stewart in his wake, and burst through the door of the oddly shaped oval house. Drew caught B’s scent before he saw her. She sat on the floor, sipping water from a straw and humming to herself. He dashed to her side. Drew knelt down just as she looked up and smiled at him.

“You.” She stroked the side of her face.

He buried his face in her hair, satisfying himself she was not an illusion. Though others surrounded them, he didn’t care. Only B mattered. “You okay?”

“This very strange bear tried to kill me.” She pulled away, sucking from the straw again. “Weird beast.”

She was covered in blood. He wanted to go back and find the bear and…rip it to pieces. Something was off with his mate. He sniffed her. Her scent didn’t touch him quite right. She wasn’t drunk. So what was going on? He sniffed the drink she sucked, and it made his nose burn.

“Is she on something?” He turned his head to look back at Chia and Stewart. Next to them a third man stood, who must have been the bird shifter Paso.

Paso nodded. “Yes.”

Drew waited and, when no further information was offered, he spoke again. This was going to be like pulling teeth, and it made his canines want to descend. “What is it?”

“Do you know a lot about herbs?” Chia asked. “If I assure you, she’s not in any danger but will heal further when she would not have otherwise, can that be enough? We are healers with the power of water divination. King Solomon would have died if not for intervention from our ancestors. My brother has used his powers for your mate. You will not question him.”

Drew had studied their kind in school years earlier. The tales featuring them were amazing, although he’d never believed them real. There were less happy legends about the Hoopoe. Like why they always hung out in graveyards. Drew didn’t want a debate. He needed answers.

He wanted to wring the information out of his neck, actually. Since his mate sat on the floor alive, he decided not to take his temper out on the bird. His Wolf moved closer to Drew’s skin, threatening a shift. The canine was watching, ready. They’d had a horrible day.

“The birds are very proud, Drew.” Stewart spoke plainly for the first time in two hours. Drew, who liked the man very much, had enough mumbo jumbo about respecting his mate and listening to the wind. As far as he was concerned, getting B the hell out of Dodge offered the best option.

“Thank you for your help.” Politics sucked. “You know, if you ever need anything, ever, you need only come to Los Lobos and ask.”

Chia nodded, making brief eye contact with Stewart and Paso. “We do need something.”

Of course they did. “What service can I render for saving my mate?”

Stewart walked forward and placed his hand on Drew’s arm. “It’s not a service. I want my toys to be in the hands of the wolf pups this year. I want to give the gift of happiness to as many as I can.”

“I can make that happen, of course.” Easily. “We don’t, however, live in a time when I can simply invite you on pack land and offer you sanctuary. I think you know my now-free-to-act-as-he-sees-fit Enforcer, Ryker.”

Stewart shifted the weight on his feet, the only outward indication of any discomfort with the wolf all other shifters feared. Ryker hadn’t earned his reputation lightly.

“But….” Chia finished. “You’re Alpha. And a good wolf, according to my mate.”

“I am those things.”Drew nodded. “You’re going to have to blood oath to me. Become pack. Then you can come and go as you see fit, Stewart. The Tao pack, my family, would gladly welcome you back.”

“He can be Santa Paws.” B giggled. “Get it? Santa Paws?”

Yeah, he needed to get her home.

“I never thought to have pack again,” Stewart answered, ignoring B. “We live simply here. Your father, he did not listen to his heart. I know you are not he. Your blood runs differently. Still, to be obligated for that kind of relationship again?”

Drew couldn’t say he blamed the male. “Then why reach out at all?”

Chia answered. “My mate needs to share his love.”

“The choice is yours. I can certainly deliver the toys for you. If your need is also to be there when they are delivered, I’m going to need a swearing. Or Ryker, old relationship or not, will cut off your head when he sees you.”

He couldn’t speak more plainly.

Stewart exhaled loudly. “It’s a risk for me.”

“Everything in life worth doing is.” Drew answered as Stewart once would have instructed him. “I can make it a nonobligatory oath. You don’t have to come to pack meetings, unless you want to. We’ll only call on you during the direst of circumstances.”

“I think I can live with that.”

“Of course you can,” B called out, choking slightly on his water. “Drew makes everyone happy. All of the time. Bends over backward for it. Forgets his own pain. If you need something, Drew provides it.”

With his chest tight, he looked around the room. “We need something to cut our hands.”

Chia’s hand changed into a talon. Drew stared at it for a second. When this was over, he might have a hard time believing it happened. “That’ll do.”

***

Betty would have given anything to wake with no memory of her day before. Only amnesia wasn’t part of the herbs she’d ingested, or it seemed. She rolled slightly to her left, feeling a slight ping in the skin on her back, which should have, for all rights and purposes, been all but destroyed thanks to the bear.

No matter how many times she shifted, she couldn’t have repaired such a life-destroying swipe.

In fact, she felt pretty…okay.

Drew stared at the ceiling next to her. “You feeling better?”

“Yes.” She sat, pulling the sheets up as though they could shield her from the conversation they needed to have. The movement made her back stiffen. Maybe she wasn’t as close to okay as she’d thought. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

He spoke through a jaw she could hear clenching. “Despite what you seem to think, I love you more than breathing. Of course I took care of you.”

A pounding on the door spared her having to answer as Drew leaped into the air. “Fuck, it’s Gee. He never comes to our house.”

She looked at the clock. “I’ve never seen him awake at six in the morning.”

Drew stormed from the bed and rushed to the door. She sat up farther. They were apparently going to have the kind of day where Drew’s responsibilities began at dawn, where she couldn’t even count on a few minutes alone with him to greet the day. What could Gee possibly need? He was usually the least bothersome of them all. She rubbed at her eyes. Maybe she should brew two pots of coffee at the same time.