Pack of Her Own, page 10
“He promised to help me.”
Another car started to pass, then screeched to a halt, throwing up another spray of gravel as it pulled onto the shoulder. Twin bulbs on top of the old model Ford flashed in alternating red and blue as an older man climbed out. His stark blue uniform was pressed and creased in all the right places with a shiny badge pinned to his chest.
“Zeke,” I said, giving him a polite nod.
“Wren.” His frown deepened when he looked between Heather and me. “Was told you got in a bit of a dustup.”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
His eyes narrowed at Heather. “Clearly.” He glanced around then lifted his head, sniffing the air. “Please tell me there’s no need for a cleanup crew this time.”
I grimaced. “No, not this time.”
Heather stepped forward with a low growl. “Back off.”
A red glow bled into his eyes as he snarled, showing rows of sharp, shark-like teeth. I threw an arm between them but had to be impressed that she didn’t back down from him.
“Mutt,” he snapped.
“Corpse-eater,” she said with a snarl.
“Enough.” I came between them. “Are you going to give us a ride back to town or not?”
One second. Two. Three. Then Zeke backed off a step and nodded to the police car. “Get in the back,” he growled. “Doc Maru asked me to pick you up.”
He opened the back door, and I pushed Heather in before getting in behind her. Zeke got in and pulled off the shoulder and performed a tight U-turn to head back to Terabend.
“Natalie got there with Meg okay?” I asked him.
“Sounds like it. I got a call to come and pick you up. Said something was going on. Is there anything I need to be made aware of?”
I hesitated. It was my affair, and the ghoul who was the sheriff of our county didn’t need to know about it. But if this ended up all too much for me, then someone had to make sure the people of Terabend were going to be okay. Besides, if things got over my head, it was definitely something that would get back to Hikaru—and Zeke.
“Some asshole is trying to make waves. Werewolf business.”
He snarled. “If this business affects the people of the town, then it’s my business, too, Wren.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“Before or after there’s bodies to be taken care of?”
“I’m not asking you to do that.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” He glanced back over his shoulder to give me the stink eye. “Do you have any idea what I had to do when you showed up here? Half-beaten and starved with wolves on your trail?”
I ignored the shocked look from Heather and focused on the sheriff. “I did what I had to do, and I already apologized more than once. They kicked me out. They came after me even when the Alpha told them not to. I didn’t ask for all this bullshit! All I want to do is live my own life!”
“You are an Alpha werewolf,” he said. “You will never have your own life.”
My fists clenched tight enough that several knuckles popped. And yet I couldn’t argue with him. “I’ll keep myself out of all of it as long as I damned well can.” I knew I sounded like a petulant child, but there was nothing else to say.
“And the people living in town? Or that nice girl staying at the Gale cabin? What about them?” He slammed a hand on the steering wheel. “What kind of collateral damage are you willing to risk just so you can have your own life?”
“I’ll never let anyone hurt Natalie.”
“And if you’re not there? Like you weren’t with Meg this morning?”
“Fuck you! You fucking ghoul!”
He gave me a hard look through the mirror. “We are what we are, Wren. One of these days you’ll have to come to terms with that.”
I sat back, arms crossed, and fell silent. Heather gave me a curious look but was smart enough not to pry. Which I was thankful for, more than she would ever know.
* * *
Hikaru was waiting for us as we pulled in beside my Jeep. It looked a little dirty from the crappy road, but it seemed Natalie had made it back without any issues.
“It’s about time,” she said, taking my hand. “She’s resting, and we need to talk.”
I turned back to Zeke and Heather. “Stay in the car,” I told Heather. “I don’t want her to see you.”
Heather lowered her eyes, her hands still on the door. “Yes, Alpha.”
The title made me twitch and Zeke raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t.” I warned him before we headed inside. “Hikaru, is she okay?”
Hikaru gave me a hard look. “She is lucky, my friend. But if something like this happens again…”
“I’m going to make sure it doesn’t.”
She gave a short nod before leading me into her office at the back of the clinic. Zeke followed me, closed the door, and leaned back against it.
“Sit.” Hikaru indicated the chairs in front of her desk. I knew better than to argue with her. One of the chairs smelled like Natalie, like she’d just been sitting in it, and I took that one. Even without her in the room, that scent made my wolf perk up and try to run in circles. I felt my senses heighten, and Hikaru’s eyes narrowed.
“I never meant for something like this to happen, you both know that.” They gave each other a look that I couldn’t read, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I knew I’d brought this trouble to town. I’d put us all in a situation they wouldn’t be in if I weren’t here.
“Wren, we are more than aware of that,” Hikaru said. Zeke gave a grunt of acknowledgment, which was more than I thought he’d give. “And you do need to understand that we are here to help if it is required.”
“Speak for yourself,” Zeke said. I glared at the ghoul, knowing too well that if push came to shove, I couldn’t fight him and his family. And when they were done with me, no one would ever find even a piece of my body.
She glared at him. “This is our town, our sanctuary, too. You are not alone in this.”
I shook my head. “I get that, but this is my problem. I need to settle it.”
“It’d be settled if you left the county,” Zeke said.
“Ezekiel! Enough!”
“We had no problems here for decades!” The low growl in his voice rumbled around the room. “Then this mutt shows up, and we’ve had wolves and worse sniffing around like we’re an all you can eat buffet!”
I glared at him. “It’s not like I’ve been inviting them to fuck with me!”
“Zeke! If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head, then get out!” He grunted but didn’t leave. Hikaru turned back to me. “Listen, Wren, this isn’t an attack on you, and I’m not saying you need to leave or anything, okay?”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“We—”
Zeke coughed, and Hikaru shot him another glare. “I am only worried about you. We have worked hard to make this place our sanctuary, a home for those who don’t want to deal with the difficulties inherently found in most of the human world. It’s why we—I accepted you here with the rest of us. I do not blame you for the trouble that is coming down upon us. It was inevitable at some point anyway.”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” I said, unable to keep the shakiness out of my voice. “Ronan promised he would leave me alone if I left. You know I never meant to bring anything down on anyone else. I wanted to be safe here. To just have a life.” I hung my head. “I didn’t mean for Meg to get hurt just because she works for me.”
“Things don’t always work out the way we wish them to.” She sat forward in her chair, tilting her head until I could see the blood-red irises over her purple glasses.
“We have covered your ass for years,” Zeke snarled.
“I am aware of that.”
“These are not the first wolves to come here and try to start something.”
“None of them attacked a human, though! Whatever is happening now is new.”
“Zeke, just say what you need to,” Hikaru said.
He looked almost sheepish to be put on the spot like that. “I’m just saying that we never had this much trouble until she showed up!”
“Then why don’t you just kick me out?”
Hikaru raised her hands. “No one would do that, and you damned well know it.”
“Vadi would,” Zeke muttered.
Vadi was the genius loci who basically ran the town. I’d only talked to them a handful of times since they decided I could stay here. I still didn’t know exactly what they could do, but they knew about what was happening in their town at all times, and I feared doing something that would bring their wrath down on me.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, “you know I never meant to bring my problems with me.”
“We don’t want you to leave, Wren. Neither does Vadi. We just want you to be safe,” Hikaru said.
“You all would be safer without me.”
“Enough with the self-pity. This isn’t all your fault.” She glared at Zeke, who opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off. “But there is something else we need to talk about.”
I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”
“Zeke.” The name came out as a command. Zeke grunted again and then left the room, his heavy footsteps moving away from the office. She turned back to me. “We need to talk about what you’re doing with that young woman.”
I stiffened. “Meg? I’m not doing anything with her, she works for me.”
“No. Not Meg.”
My hands clenched the arms of the chair. “I’m not talking about this with you.”
Her grin showed off sharp fangs in the corners of her mouth. “We are talking about this right now. Because you need to hear it and you need to make a decision before it’s too late to go back.”
I waved a hand. “She’s just another fling. Like all the rest have been.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. Her scent is all over you. And you involved her in what happened this morning. You know better than to do that with someone who doesn’t know about our world.”
I shook my head. “I really do not want to talk about this with you. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it is none of your business. Natalie and I are grown-ass adults. What happens between us is between us.”
“I’m not asking for sordid details. I just need to know if this is going to jeopardize what we’ve all been trying to build here.”
“You know I wouldn’t risk us like that. I would never.”
“I know you wouldn’t mean to.”
I slammed a hand on the desk. “I know, I know—she’s attached! We’re connected. I felt it the night we met but didn’t even want to consider it. And she was in my dream, and she pulled a silver bullet out of my shoulder…”
“What?”
“She didn’t see anything!”
“How the hell did she pull a bullet out of you without seeing anything?”
I fidgeted. “Well, I mean I was a wolf at the time.” I told her the story, about hurrying away from the cabin to shift, then sticking around because I didn’t want to be far. How I hadn’t gotten a scent from the hunters at all, and that the pain of the bullet was so much that I couldn’t really remember much else from the night. “So, I had to fill in the blanks with what I gleaned from Natalie the next morning. You know she’s pretty good at what she does. I mean she got that bullet out really well.”
Hikaru only stared at me. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“She doesn’t know what I am!”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” She leapt to her feet, glasses falling to the desk as blood-red stains ran down from her eyes, over her cheeks, and down her neck. I froze, knowing now exactly what a deer felt like when it could smell the wolves nearby. “Not only did you not bother to tell me that you were shot with a silver bullet by hunters on the night of the full moon, but you let a human operate on you for it? Do you have any idea what we’d have to do if she saw you shift?”
I shot to my feet, slamming my hands on the desk. My wolf growled through my mouth, “Don’t you dare threaten my fucking mate!”
I slapped my hands over my mouth when I realized what I’d just said. My wolf backed off as the heat under my skin cooled. Hikaru slowly regained her human form as I stepped away from her desk and stared out the window.
“Oh, sweet Mother of Wolves,” I murmured.
“That about sums it up.” I turned back to her as she sat down, slipping her glasses back on. “This is a very dangerous position to be in, Wren. For both you and her.”
“Why? What does it even mean?”
“The fact that you have chosen her as your mate?”
I nodded. “But I didn’t exactly choose her. I mean my wolf did, and don’t get me wrong, I like her enough, but I mean, my mate? I—”
“If your wolf has chosen Natalie, then it will be difficult to change the beast’s mind. They tend to get focused on these things.”
“Would that…would that explain my dream?”
“What dream?”
“I had a dream of her last night, after I left the house. After she patched up my wolf. I thought it was just…just a dream. Is this…more Alpha stuff?”
Hikaru shook her head. “More a mate thing than an Alpha thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was having dreams of you too.”
I stared at her. “How do you know so much about shifters?”
“I know a little about a lot of things, my dear. Just enough to be dangerous.”
“What does it mean, Hikaru?”
“That’s not an easy question to answer. Wolves tend to be monogamous, and the shifters often follow this as well. Your wolf has chosen Natalie, and she wouldn’t have done so without knowing that you want her, too. You are in sync with your wolf, as you should be. And you both have chosen what you want, even if you don’t wish to believe it.”
“But it’s…it’s taboo. I mean, she’s human. I can’t mate with—”
My words failed when my gut twisted suddenly. Inside my head, my wolf howled in agony, and I crumpled to my knees.
“Wren!” Hikaru shouted and was at my side in a blink. I clutched at my stomach, moaning as she put her hands on my back. “Breathe, Wren, keep breathing.”
“What is happening?”
“I don’t know, but you need to focus, okay? Breathe and focus.”
“I don’t…I don’t get it!” Closing my eyes, I focused on trying to calm the wolf down. Her howling wasn’t helping things. Mate! she howled. Mine!
Then I realized this wasn’t coming from me. It was Natalie. Her panic. Her fear. Her pain.
“Natalie!” I screamed, throwing Hikaru off and heading for the door. “Where is she?”
Hikaru recovered and followed me. “I think she headed back to the diner.”
I sped out the door, forgoing the Jeep and running as fast as I could back to the diner. I slammed open the door hard enough to rattle the glass.
“Wren!” Leslie yelped, barely holding on to the coffee carafe. “What the hell?”
“Is Natalie here?”
She shook her head. “Who’s that?”
I growled and slammed a hand onto the bar. “The truck that was parked out here this morning, the vet clinic truck. Where did it go?”
Leslie’s eyes were wide and staring, but she pulled herself together. “It left an hour ago, maybe a little less. No one came in here.”
“Shit!” I turned to walk out.
“Wren! What happened to Meg?” Leslie called out after me.
“I’ll tell you later.” I didn’t give her a chance to argue. I was out the door and sprinting around the side of the building. A quick glance around told me I was alone, and I allowed the wolf inside to take control. With a single long howl, we took off in the direction of the cabin, leaving shreds of clothing behind. All I could do was hope Natalie was all right.
Chapter Eighteen
Natalie
It took everything in me not to turn the truck around and head back to Dr. Maru’s office to wait for Wren. She was going to be okay. They had someone out there looking for her. I knew I couldn’t sit there and wait for her, though. Being around all those people who knew her and knew this town and would sit and look at me like they expected something. I’d only disappoint all of them. Especially Wren.
I pulled onto the gravel road that led to the cabin, and a few minutes later, I parked the pickup. The cabin was familiar now and felt almost comfortable compared to being back in Terabend. There weren’t any other people here, just me and the cabin and some peace and solitude. I’d enjoy it for the rest of the day, then pack up my stuff and head back to the city in the morning. If I timed it right, Rory would be at the clinic when I showed up at the condo. I could grab my things and get the hell out of there. Maybe change my name and disappear.
In some ways, it wouldn’t be the first time.
The truck was barely parked before I was out and hauling ass into the cabin. I leapt over the bloodstain on the carpet and almost slipped on the hardwood floor. Luckily, I caught myself before I face-planted. The place was still a mess from Wren cooking breakfast and my quick wake-up and departure. I itched to focus purely on packing and getting ready to get the hell out of this place, but I couldn’t leave it all a mess. It wasn’t fair to Rory.
The rug was probably a lost cause, but I threw it in the bathtub and hosed it down with the showerhead anyway. Letting the heavy thing soak, I returned to the kitchen, cleared the plates, and filled the sink to start washing.
Washing dishes was a cathartic experience. It had been my chore when I was a kid, and one of the few times my parents left me to my own devices. The same thing had happened with Misty—she cooked and I cleaned up afterward. We’d had a dishwasher, but I almost always did it by hand. It was soothing. Pleasing. Something I could do without thinking, without worry.
