Read Terry Spear’s Wolf Bundle Online
Authors: Terry Spear
Terry Spear’s Wolf Bundle (63 page)
But the families of those who’d died—Ritka, Angelina, Hosstene, and Uncle Sheridan—wouldn’t be so easily appeased. For them, although they recognized their family members had committed grave injustices, many felt their actions somewhat justified. If Larissa hadn’t been mated already, then had an affair with Joe, most likely none would have committed the crimes. Some had voiced their dissent, and he assumed they might leave the pack.
He glanced at his cousins, Uncle Sheridan’s four grown sons. For some time now, they’d been conspicuously absent from any of the pack goings-on. Had they known about their father’s complicity?
Connor, the most light-hearted one of the bunch, looked Darien’s way. For the briefest of moments, he appeared sad, but he quickly hardened his expression and turned away.
Yep, ripples of dissent were already stirring, but Darien had dealt with problems like these for years. He’d deal with these, too.
Lelandi looked up at Darien and smiled, not in a sweetly innocent way, but in one that said she wanted some alone time with him. He rubbed her arm and leaned over and gave her a kiss.
Sam quit orating a story and Darien looked up and found every eye in the room on him.
“Lelandi’s feeling tired.”
Several smiled.
He rose from the couch with Lelandi. Loving every bit of her, the feral and the tame, he swept her up in his arms to whoops and cheers and headed to the stairs.
“You are so subtle, you know?” she said in a harsh, low voice.
He grinned. “You should be proud of me. I didn’t say I was taking you to bed to ravish you.”
She groaned and he laughed.
Several downstairs laughed and Sam began telling another story. And Darien, well, he was going to make sure Carol’s prediction came true. In nine months, he’d be cradling an armful of triplets. God, how he loved Lelandi. His dream had finally been realized.
“About Carol,” Lelandi said as Darien deposited her on the bed.
He growled low. “Now is not the time to discuss pack business.” He straddled her, his rock-hard erection straining for release, and she gave him a coy smile.
“
This
is pack business,” she reminded him.
“Believe me, from now on I’ll be taking care of a lot more of
this
kind of business.”
“Darien, I was thinking. I want to be a psychologist.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“You’d have to go away to college. So no.” His dark eyes challenged her as he quickly divested her of her clothes.
“I can take it online. When Larissa needed help, a psychologist had to come from Green Valley.” Lelandi ran her fingers through Darien’s silky hair, but she could tell from his hard expression, he wasn’t buying her pitch.
“I still say no.” He jerked off his shirt.
“Why?”
He climbed off the bed and ditched his boots and jeans. “I don’t want you talking to crazy people.” Returning to bed, he leaned next to her, and massaged her breast. “They can become infatuated with their doctor, believing the doctor loves them because she listens to their concerns, she cares about them. And one as attractive as you…” He shook his head.
“I could help people deal with grief and all kinds of different anxieties. I need to have something to do.”
His hand shifted to her belly, and he caressed her with a gentle touch. “You’ll have plenty to do.”
She growled.
He grunted. “All right. Get your degree online, and then you can see female patients,
only.
”
She laughed. “I can just hear what your people will say.”
“
Our
people. If a guy wants to see you, he’ll have to request an audience with either me or one of my brothers first.”
“That’ll cut down the number of male patients I get.”
He offered a devilish smile.
She touched his face, then leaned over to kiss his lips. “Hmm, Darien, my dream lover. Make the dream come true again.”
“It already has, sweet Lelandi. It already has.”
With that, he swept her into their own private world, vowing to take her for a romp in the woods in their wolf states later that evening to fulfill Carol’s prediction that men and women dressed in wolf skins made love beneath the pale light of the moon.
The End
To my mother, daughter, and son who cheer me on and believe all my books should be made into movies. And to my editor, Deb Werksman, who inspires me every step of the way. Thanks to all the help my Rebel Romance Writers give as they encourage my writing daily. And to my fans who write to me and encourage me to continue creating more wolfish tales.
Copyright © 2009 by Terry Spear
Cover and internal design © 2009 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover photo © Jupiter Images
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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WC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
I dedicate
To Tempt the Wolf
to the veterans who have served their country, to my son, who will be joining their ranks, to my father, who had been a prisoner of war and retired with the USAF, to his uncle, who died as a prisoner of war, and to my mother and all other women who have also served their country.
S
UCKING
UP
OXYGEN
,
THE
FLAMES
SPREAD
OUTWARD
, devouring thirsty timber and underbrush, perfect fuel for the firestorm. The winds picked up force, and Tessa Anderson’s adrenaline surged again as she snapped the last of the photos for the magazine. The summer drought had continued on through the fall and winter, leaving the California forests desert-dry, and now either a careless camper or an arsonist had turned the woods into a fiery inferno.
What in the world was she doing risking her life to photograph this disaster?
Coughing, her eyes filled with smoke, she reminded herself she needed the money to help defend her brother. Then in the haze, the silhouette of a wolf appeared—gray, like the smoke, a phantom. Watching her. Stalking her? Wild animals knew better than to linger with danger threatening. Only a human would be dumb enough to stay put.
His uncharacteristic actions made her back toward her vehicle. Having been fascinated with wolves all her life, she knew his behavior wasn’t natural.
A tremor stole up her spine. He looked just like one she’d seen before. The one who’d attacked before.
Snapping a picture of the wolf, she bumped against the passenger’s side of her Escort. As soon as she fumbled for the door handle, he crouched, readying to spring like a coiled snake.
Heart thundering, she jerked her door open and jumped inside. Before she could shut the door, the wolf’s hulking body slammed against it, knocking it closed. She jumped back.
Snarling, he bared his wicked canines. She scrambled over the console and twisted the keys in the ignition, her skin prickling with panic. Tires spun on gravel as she whirled the car around and headed for the main highway.
A half mile later, she came across a home in the direct path of the fire. An SUV was parked in the driveway. Its trunk lid was open and the back filled with boxes. Reassured that the occupants were leaving, she tore on past.
Her main concern now was returning to her brother’s trial and praying he would be found not guilty.
Hunter Greymere shoved four more suitcases in the SUV while his twin sister rushed out of the house with another box of dishes, her face and clothes covered in soot.
The air was so thick with smoke, Hunter choked, fighting to draw in a breath of fresh oxygen. “Meara, enough! Get in the vehicle. We leave now!”
Black plumes of smoke spiraling upward indicated fire had claimed another of his pack member’s homes and was growing ever closer to his own. Ash rained down like a light gray snow flurry. The smoke blocked out the sun, but the flames lit the sky with an eerie orange glow.
Meara shook her head and dashed for the house. “We have to get the safe.”
Seizing her arm, Hunter pushed her toward the vehicle. “
Get
in the SUV! I’ll grab the safe.”
The look of mutiny on her face meant she would
disobey him. He didn’t have time to make her listen. Running in a crouch so he could breathe, he grabbed the steel box from his bedroom closet and carried it through the hazy living room. He crashed into Meara, stooping low, her arms filled with another box.
“Out, now!” he growled.
The blaze crackled, incinerating the old forest and homes in its path. The emerald green woods, already rusty with trees that had died from insect infestations and drought would soon be blackened. And the home they had lived in for two hundred years would vanish in a roaring ball of fire. No time for regret now.
The super-heated gases singed Hunter’s throat and lungs, and he chided himself for staying as long as they had. After climbing into the vehicle, he turned the fan on high, but the car was already so filled with smoke, his eyes and throat burned. Meara’s amber eyes glistened with tears as she covered her mouth and nose with a wet towel.
“We’ll be all right, Meara.” Hunter gunned the accelerator and sped toward the highway that would take them to Oregon, nearly hitting a Ford Escape in the fog-like smoke in front of them. The driver apparently had the same notion, but was not driving fast enough for Hunter’s liking.
“Hell, who is that?”
“Oregon plates. Some idiot human camping out here? Who knows.”
“A woman? By herself?”
He peered harder into the smoke and made out a crown of flame red hair cascading over her shoulders. Intrigued, he wondered if her face was as enchanting
as the waterfall of red curls. But then he scowled. She shouldn’t have been here in the first place.
He followed her as she hightailed it out of his territory in an attempt to keep ahead of the eye of the firestorm, and
him
. And for an instant, he felt like a predator stalking his prey. “At least we got all our people out.”
Meara didn’t reply.
She didn’t adjust well to change. Moving from the Scottish Highlands over two hundred years ago to the untamed California wilderness hadn’t set well with her. But change was inevitable for the
lupus garous
. Meara had been lucky they hadn’t had to move as much over the years as many of their kind, hiding the fact that once they reached eighteen, they aged only a year for every thirty.
“Where are we going?” she asked, staring out the window at the vast ancient pines that would soon suffer the fate of their steadfast companions.
“To Oregon. Uncle Basil called earlier this morning while you were helping others pack. He’s retiring to Florida. The cabins on the Oregon coast are ours now.”
“Florida? Are there any of our kind there?”
“Real red wolves on St. Vincent Island off the Panhandle of Florida.”
“
Real
red wolves?” Meara snorted. “I didn’t think he liked mixing it up with red wolves,
period
. But
real
wolves?”
“He said he found a pack of gray
lupus garous
near the Everglades.”
She shook her head. “So what’s he going to hunt there? Alligators?” She let out her breath. “I don’t want to move to the Oregon seacoast.”
Hunter didn’t respond. It didn’t matter where they
went. Unless it was back to their home in the woods, she wouldn’t be happy. Not until she had time to settle in. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take as long as the last time.
Hunter finished his shower at Uncle Basil’s home, nestled in the woods overlooking the rugged Oregon seacoast, but couldn’t get the smell of smoke out of his nostrils, and his eyes and lungs still burned. Nothing had gone as he’d planned. Not only was Meara refusing to speak with him—as he expected—but his people had mutinied as well.
As soon as he joined his uncle in the living room, he realized the day wasn’t going to get any better. Not the way his uncle gave him a warning look.
Once Hunter assured himself Meara couldn’t hear them from the laundry room, he settled on the leather couch. “So what
didn’t
you tell me when you offered this territory for my pack?”
Uncle Basil sat on his suede recliner, looking like he had aged ten years since the last time Hunter had seen him, his hair grayer, longer, his beard shaggier, his amber eyes tired. Which meant his uncle must have had some real trouble.
“
You
have a problem you’ll have to deal with. One of your neighbors has been taking pictures in our woods. It wouldn’t do for her to catch you shapeshifting. I tried to buy her out, but she won’t budge. First her grandparents, and now she and her brother live in the house about twelve miles south of us on the coast. You’ll need to make her understand she can’t trespass on our land any longer. Of course, if your pack doesn’t return from
where they’ve scattered, it’ll be just you and Meara enjoying the area in your fur coats. But when you lease the cabins to other grays, the risk will become greater. Up until recently, the place has been a safe haven for them, but this woman…” Uncle Basil shook his head.
Hunter knew damn well his uncle normally wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate her if she could expose their kind for what they truly were. “You mean, the
woman
will be at risk.” When Uncle Basil didn’t say anything in response, Hunter swore under his breath. “You couldn’t do it, and that’s why you’re retiring?”
His uncle avoided looking at him.
Hell, as if Hunter didn’t have enough troubles to contend with. “All right. I’ll take care of it. Are you going to have supper with us before you leave?”
“I already ate. Got a ticket on the next flight. I left a couple of salmon steaks out for you. Place is stocked with food so you won’t have to shop for a while.” Uncle Basil stretched his six-foot-two frame. “Looking forward to sunshine warming these old bones. Hips are bothering me something fierce. Figure the cold dampness might have something to do with it.”
Then he leaned forward. “Your mother and father would have been proud the way you’ve managed to keep the pack safe all these years. Your people will return. Give them time. Just be sure and take care of the woman. Her brother most likely is going to prison for murder, but the woman’s still a threat, unless she decides to move. Tessa Anderson’s the name. Take care of it. And soon.”
He stood and gave Hunter a fatherly embrace, then said his good-byes to Meara. Hunter waved as his uncle left in his old pickup, wondering why he hated to buy
new vehicles as much as Meara hated to change where she lived.
Hunter walked to the picture window overlooking the Pacific Ocean and stared out at the gray day, the cold, fog, moisture—in stark contrast to the dry, burning heat and smoke of their abandoned home. Regret and relief warred with his emotions.
Meara slipped up next to him. “I don’t like being here.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
Knowing full well she wouldn’t appreciate any attempt to console her, he headed into the kitchen and tossed the salmon steaks into a frying pan. He was determined to enjoy their newly acquired cabins, even if his sister didn’t like it. Not that they’d had much choice. Settling with the insurance company would take forever and most of their savings were tied up in mutual funds.
“It reeks of fish here. How Uncle Basil could have ever stood it…I didn’t remember why I hated this place whenever we visited. But that was it. The strong odor of fish and rotting seaweed.” She opened a kitchen cabinet door, peered in, and then slammed it closed, rattling a couple of others.
“Eventually, you won’t even notice it.”
She opened another cabinet door and pulled out a can of spinach. “I want a mate! How am I going to find one way out here? You’ve made sure there are no other
lupus garous
in a four-hundred mile stretch of land.”
So that was some of the trouble. Not that he’d had much luck finding her a mate in California either because she’d been so choosy.
“
That’s
a bit of an exaggeration. Besides, when we
rent the cabins, the grays will come from all over the country and you can find a mate.”
He hoped. Never having discussed Uncle Basil’s clientele with him, he assumed his uncle advertised on the Internet and in magazines that would help draw a crowd from all over. All Hunter had to do was tweak the ad to let alpha male leaders who were without a mate know his sister needed one.
Hunter flipped the steaks, seared them for a minute, and then tossed them on the rose china that had been passed down two generations. “What did you want us to do? The arsonists destroyed the forests and moving north to Oregon was the best thing we could manage.”
She didn’t reply and he sighed. “So, five members of our pack moved into the vineyards in southern California. What kind of a life would that be? We’re used to hunting in woods during our nighttime excursions. No other
lupus garous
live in the area, so no worry about encroaching on another pack’s territorial rights. Besides, Uncle Basil decided it was time to retire and was glad to gift us the land and cabins. It couldn’t be more perfect.”
“So what’s this
really
about? Uncle Basil never once mentioned he wanted to quit the business,” Meara said.
“We were happy in California. He knew unless something like this happened we wouldn’t have moved a foot out of there.”
She peered out the window. Her spine straightened and her mouth dropped. “I’ll be right back.” She flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulders and headed outside.
He strode to the window and looked out.
“Hell.”
It was
the
woman. Had to be. Tessa Anderson, the photographer. Petite, swallowed up in a white parka, she trudged toward their house with a camera strap slung around her neck. The camera bounced between her full breasts, which were accentuated by the snug fit of her pale blue turtleneck. Her jeans outlined curvy legs, and suddenly he had the most lascivious thought, wondering what was wrong with him at a moment like this, to be envisioning this woman naked with her long legs wrapped tightly around him.
A pink ski cap hid her hair, but her brows were red, her green eyes sparkled with fire, and her cheeks and pert nose were rosy from the cold. Full, sensual lips shimmered with pink gloss that begged for a man’s caress. Her eyes garnered his attention again. Expressive, vibrant, full of life, yet a subtle sadness marred them.
Why was she wandering the woods alone when the night would soon cast her into darkness? Why here? Unless she had made friends with Uncle Basil and had come to see him.
Hell.
No wonder he couldn’t get rid of her himself.
Meara quickly confronted her, and Hunter raised the window to overhear the conversation. Even though
he
planned on talking to Miss Anderson, it didn’t hurt for Meara to tell the woman the error of her ways. At the very least, giving Meara some control over their lands would make her feel more at home here.
Meara raised her hand to the woman in her path. “You’re trespassing.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed and her brows knit together in a tight little frown. “Uncle Basil said I could
take pictures out this way during the winter because he didn’t have any B&B guests this time of year.”
She had Uncle Basil’s permission? What was the crafty old wolf up to?
“
Uncle
Basil?” Meara asked, her voice rising.