Darkest Wolf (7 page)

He couldn’t help but feel deflated after his phone conversation with Tristan. It had started out well. He’d told Tristan he’d found his mate and she was a witch.

His older brother’s voice had brightened considerably at the news. They’d just had a massive battle Rex had missed and their sister had returned to them. Rex still couldn’t remember her. Their father’s plan to kill all the women had caused his mother to cast a spell hiding the unmated women from their father, consequentially making it so they couldn’t remember the missing females of their pack until they were confronted with them face-to-face.

At least that was how it seemed. Maybe one day—poof—all the magical barriers keeping them from their women would fade and the pack would suddenly recall each and every one of them. He didn’t consider that especially likely. When he’d told Tristan he’d had to go to Florida before he could come home, well, his announcement hadn’t gone well.

Try not to dwell on it. He’s stressed
.

I know
. Rex nodded.
But if I get accused of being a traitor one more time I might
decide to actually become one. Perhaps my father could use my help
.

His wolf sighed loudly.
You’d rip out your own tongue first
.

The sad part was his wolf was absolutely correct. He would never, could never, betray Westervelt in any way, despite what his brother thought. Rex would probably live and die being accused of all sorts of horrendous acts without ever committing even one.

He wondered if that made him pathetic.

No, just loyal to a fault
.

On his lap, Elizabeth stirred. He ran his hand through her luscious hair. It was thick and soft in his fingers. How could anyone—even a human—perceive it as anything else?

She groaned a second before she opened her eyes. Blinking, her face held the look of a woman who had no idea where she was. Eyebrows tilted downwards, her brown eyes looked dazed and unfocused. It couldn’t have been okay that she was struck with so much magic while she battled a concussion. Rex wanted to throttle those two witches. He might not kill them right away. He might torture them for a while.

“I don’t think I’m in the hospital anymore.”

He shook his head. “Clearly not.”

“And my head is on your
lap
.” She said the last word with such horror he would have grinned if he hadn’t felt such a tinge of longing in his gut. He couldn’t be hoping she’d want to be there. The idea was downright absurd. Other mated couples might enjoy some kind of emotional intimacy, but it was highly unlikely love would ever happen to the two of them.

He was a
wolf
and she was a
witch
. They’d be lucky if they didn’t kill each other.

“I stuck you here so I could drive and protect you from magical assault. I assure you, nothing happened you wouldn’t want. You were unconscious. I’m not, despite what you think, a monster.”

Why did his voice sound so tight? He cracked his neck to try to relieve some of the tension he felt well up in there. Rex didn’t suffer from human aches and pains, so what the hell was going on?

“Where are we going?”

“Florida.” Hadn’t he told her this? She jerked upward, and he grabbed her shirt with his hand. Before she could speak, he finished his thought. “By all that is sacred, do not let go of me. I will not have you losing consciousness again because those lunatics magically abuse you again. Do you understand? It’s simple. At least one hand on me at all times.

More would be better but one hand is the bare minimum. Do you understand?” She visibly swallowed, her neck muscles clenching. Finally, she spoke. “Yes.” As she reached out to put one hand on his arm, he felt himself relax. He hadn’t expected her to agree. Somehow, he’d thought she’d put up more of a fight, he would have to battle her to get her to do what she should do.

Not everything in life is going to be a fight, Rex
.

He didn’t like the pity he heard in his wolf’s voice. Everything
was
a fight. All of the time. From the moment he opened his eyes until he went to bed at night he fought for the right to exist. He was a dark creature whom no one wanted around. Just to exist was a trial. If he didn’t have to struggle against this witch for one moment, then he’d consider himself lucky. For the moment.

“We should not be going to Florida. That is the middle of their den. I can’t stand the thought of something happening to my mother.” Her hand shook on his arm. “Maybe I should turn myself in to them. They’ll probably just torture me for a few years.”

“This is all going to end. They are bullies. This kind of behavior has to be put to a stop. I will end it for you. Then we will go to Westervelt and you will help me.” She shook her head. “It’s never going to be simple. I promise you, if it were just a matter of standing up for myself, I would have done it years ago.”

“Hiding out from something does not make it go away. I know this for a fact. It will never end. It will only get worse.”

Elizabeth slammed her free hand on the console. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because we sat still for thirty years after my father destroyed nearly my entire pack.”

“I don’t understand. Tell me. Make me comprehend what you’re talking about.” Rex had never had anyone want to know more about him than Elizabeth. It was kind of … nice.

Mating happens for a reason
.

He ignored his wolf. “You know what happened almost forty years ago. My father, who was alpha of our pack, got together with a man named Claudius. They hatched a plan to make more of us, to create soldiers or something. I’m not sure what their ultimate goal at that point was. I was the youngest. Well, sort of. It turns out I have a sister I can’t remember but she was just a baby.”

An emotion he couldn’t identify flashed through her eyes. Elizabeth was such a consistent mystery to him. “Go on. Please.”

“They couldn’t get the pack’s support.”

Elizabeth interrupted. “I thought alphas had supreme rule.”

“They do. But there is an advisory committee of elders. If they all get together to go against the alpha, they can out rule him.”

“More democratic than I would have thought.” She mumbled her words and looked out the window.

“You have to understand how nearly impossible it is for a wolf to go against his alpha. Those elder wolves would have to feel in their hearts a huge amount of agony to even say no. It’s so hard on them.”

“Then only a very bad decision by an alpha would make the elders act.”

“Correct.” Rex rubbed his head. He felt tired down to his bones. “My father didn’t accept that decision. He found a witch. They paid her.”

“And?”

Her gaze had shifted to his face. He had her full attention now, which was good. She needed to understand how he felt about witches, about what one had done to his entire existence. “She put a curse on the island, on all of us. For a time, a male could not be mated. If he was, he would become consumed with the need to kill his mate. And that is what happened close to forty years ago. All of the mated males on Westervelt killed their women.”

“No witch would…”

He slammed his fist down on the steering wheel. “I assure you. One did. I heard you earlier when you insisted no witch would. I can promise you, this woman did it and there are others working for my father doing equally horrible things now.”

“Then they aren’t legitimately practicing the craft. The goddess does not want evil from us. It’s a perversion of the gifts. To do so would be to go against all we are taught.” He wanted to be moved by her words. How nice it would be to believe her. But all Rex could think was she was naive. Horribly and truly unaware of the nature of life even as she walked through her days with a curse distorting her features, put on her by the same group of people she now diligently defended.

Elizabeth held within her a good soul. She deserved better than to be paired up with him. Nevertheless, he had to take what fate had given him and make it work. At least until Westervelt was safe again.

You want her, Rex. Why deny it?

I want lots of things. I get almost none of them.

His wolf harrumphed.
Yes, but you actually
got
this
.

“Well.” He forced his mind back to the present. “It happened. The witch cursed us.

All but two of the mated men killed their women. Two of my uncles managed to kill themselves instead.” And Rex had admired them more than anyone else in his whole life.

They were strong and they hadn’t let anything—even a powerful curse—make them hurt their women.

“So all of those men have just been living with the knowledge they killed their mates all this time?” She sounded horrified, and he hated to tell her it was much worse than she imagined.

“We can’t live without our mates, once we’ve found them. Not for very long, not without agony. My aunts, the ones who weren’t killed, managed to endure for a while to keep the pack together but it was hell for them. When our mates die, if we do not die with them, we commit ritual suicide to join them. It’s a compulsion. We must be together in this world and the next.”

“By the goddess!” If he’d thought she’d sounded horrified earlier, he hadn’t understood the definition of the word. Her voice took a pinched quality that made him wince. “You’re kidding? Who botched up a mating spell and put a death compulsion in?” He shook his head. She just didn’t understand and who could blame her? He was likely to get his mate killed. Or, if his brothers were to be believed, kill her himself. Who knew how dark his soul had turned?

I do. Would you like an actual answer?

He tuned out his wolf. Sometimes it was hard sharing a mind.

You’re telling me
. His wolf snorted.

“It’s just how it’s always been.” He sighed. “I can’t explain it to you, Elizabeth.” He had to admit, he really liked saying her name. “Because I’m not really certain of exactly how the connection is made. Mated pairs never discuss it. There’s no rule you can’t, but no one does. It’s like their mating brings out some compulsion not to discuss it with others. I’ve tried asking and no one ever tells me. Also, they become part of some club the rest of us in the pack can’t belong to. Like they’re somehow more trustworthy than they were before the mating.”

“You sound sort of resentful about it. Something you want to discuss?” He shook his head. “No. Not ever.”

Elizabeth never needed to hear the tale of the time his brothers had taken him down and accused him of treason. Well, the second time they had. Who could keep track of how many times it had happened?

Not that he could blame them. They could probably smell the evil seeping out of his pores.

Chapter Six

Elizabeth stared out at the dark night from the relative safety of Rex’s stolen car. She was sure he’d done one of his “borrowing” tricks in order to get it, but seeing as she’d probably be dead if he hadn’t saved her, she didn’t feel like giving him a hard time about it.
At least not for the moment
.

In fact, she felt perfectly content to lie against him and not move at all. The slow and steady beat of his heart sounded in her ear from where her head pressed up against his chest. His arm brushed slightly over her hair. Every once in a while, when he would adjust the wheel, she would get to smell the masculine scent of his skin against hers.

In another life—if they were both just regular humans—she could really relax and just enjoy a drive through the country with her boyfriend. Instead, they were racing for their lives to get to Florida to avoid getting caught by the twins from hell.

“Your thoughts just became unpleasant.”

She looked up at his hard face. There was nothing soft about Rex. Even his jaw muscles looked tight. She wondered if he ever relaxed, even in sleep. Looking at him, she had to begrudgingly realize he would forever make all other men look weak and uninteresting. “My thoughts are my own.”

“I can smell your distress.”

She nodded. His nose again. “I was contemplating things, which of course made me think of the twins.”

“Tell me about them.”

“The twins? What’s to tell? They are spoiled and bratty. It’s weird to talk about them that way since they are grown women, but dealing with them is like dealing with children. They want what they want. Their mother makes sure they get it.” He nodded. “And when things go askew they punish you by using their magic since your own was suppressed thanks to the curse.”

“You’ve nailed it.”

She didn’t tell him about the beatings and the emotional abuse. Those were her secrets. The shame she hadn’t been able to protect herself from anything ever would stay with her for the rest of her life. For some reason, it felt pivotal to her Rex never knew that side of her.

Luck was never on her side but maybe, just maybe, this time she’d get to keep her secret shame her own and not have to share it with the world for their ridicule. Of course, given he was Rex, he could probably smell she wasn’t telling him something.

“We’ll stop them, witch. I promise.”

She rolled her eyes. “I hate that you call me witch. Change one letter and it’s a completely hurtful word.”

He laughed, which made her want to deck him. “Maybe in the first few minutes of knowing you, I meant it like that.”

“And now?” Her heart beat hard against her ribs.

“Now you’re
my
witch.”

She grinned, joy filling her soul at his simple words. The whole situation was nuts.

They both knew it couldn’t work between them, but it felt good to belong to someone again. Even if he was a half-crazed wolf who thought he ruled the world.

She wanted to kiss him. Horrified at the thought, she almost pulled away from him before she thought about the twins and their spells. Goddess, she might as well tell him.