20

MAYTE HARI

What the hell was that?” I demanded once we were out of Cory’s hearing range, which took a while. My voice was shaking.

“That was you trying to help Cory.” Mayte didn’t turn around. I wasn’t sure where she was going, and it occurred to me that I might not want to follow her. We were somewhere on the outer fringes of the paw’s territory, and I was so emotionally unsettled and caught up in my own head that I hadn’t noticed when Mayte started smelling like lust. Also, while my thoughts were churning and whirling, I suddenly realized that my eyes were staring at her ass. It was a nice ass, heart-shaped and strong and firmly curved.

My god, we were in the middle of a mating ritual. Cory had just challenged me for Mayte, and I had put him down. She was my prize. My mind was hurtling down a dark road, and very old and primal instincts were trying to grab the steering wheel.

I gritted my teeth. “It might help Cory. But that wasn’t me.”

Mayte made a dismissive noise and smacked an overreaching tendril of bush out of the way. “Maybe it was your shadow self.”

“I need to be alone.” I didn’t stop walking, though.

Mayte reached her hands under her shirt while she continued to stride forward. “That’s the last thing you need.”

What was she doing? I mean, I knew what she was doing, but why was she doing it? “Mayte, stop. I need to think.”

“That’s also the last thing you need.”

I wasn’t sure you could have two last things, but Mayte’s hands emerged from under her shirt and flung her bra backward in my direction. I caught it wordlessly and stopped. We were in a copse, a relatively clear opening surrounded by trees with low-hanging branches and weeds with delusions of grandeur.

Mayte turned around as if completing a dance move and peeled her shirt off in one continuous motion.

“Dear Penthouse,” I said a little hoarsely, “I never thought this would happen to me…”

Mayte’s only response was to kick off her shoes, toss me her shirt, and begin unbuttoning her pants. She was brown and strong-looking, with athletic, smooth shoulders, small, firm breasts, and a sweet curve to her hips. Her eyes were a deep, rich hazelnut green and her cheeks and jaw were round.

Her panties were faded, soft-looking, and faintly pink.

“Mayte,” I said while she rolled her jeans down over hips that were moving in a slow sinuous sway. “This isn’t you. This isn’t us.”

“You think too much,” she said.

“This is some kind of pack instinct.” My voice sounded like it was scraping against a cheese grater. “Just like what I did with Cory.”

She squatted down and pulled her panties over her knees in a businesslike fashion. “We’re a clan. Not a pack. And you have too many hang-ups.”

I growled. “This isn’t some sex-is-evil thing. I like sex. Consenting adults. Honesty. Individual responsibility. I get all that. But I am not doing this. Not when I just hurt a kid and something that’s not me is trying to make me do it. Not when you’re not you.”

“This is me. I miss someone too.” Mayte finished stepping out of her panties with uncharacteristic daintiness. “I maybe miss him more than you miss whoever it is you keep thinking about. But you know what? I was missing him before any of this happened. Love sucks and you can’t control life. You can’t control other people, either. You just have to take whatever you get and be grateful.”

I suddenly couldn’t form words. She wasn’t wrong.

“I like you,” Mayte continued. “You like me. It’s time we screwed our brains out until we’re not so sad anymore.”

She looked at my crotch then, boldly. “Your body knows it.”

“Yeah. See you.” I turned around and ran. Flat-out ran. It was possibly the most undignified, embarrassing thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve never been what you might call a smooth master of decorum. But I did it. Hurtled through the woods, pulling in softball-sized gulps of air, and counting on my longer legs and shod feet to get me away from her. Five more seconds and I was going to be cradling those smooth brown ostrich egg buttocks in my hand, pulling her tongue into my mouth, pressing her breasts against me and feeling those erect nipples…

I ran.

It was one reaction she wasn’t ready for. It took more than a few moments for Mayte to yell my name, and when she did it was almost a question. A question I had no intention of answering.

Not like this. I wasn’t doing anything major while I was freaking out, not until I knew what the hell was going on with me. I wasn’t. Dammit, I wasn’t.

I was still running when I encountered Bernard and two other werewolves, one of them Uni-brow, the guy who had driven me away from the lodge. More LWRC rifles were in their hands as they waited motionlessly. Bernard was kneeling and pointing the automatic rifle at me, though he quickly shifted his aim slightly to the side when he saw who I was. The other two werewolves were standing behind him and didn’t do me the same courtesy.

“Who’s after you?” Bernard hissed.

I halted. “You can put the rifle down. It’s not that kind of threat.”

“Then what kind of threat is it?” But he lowered the rifle until it was pointed at the ground.

I heard Mayte call my name in the distance. We all heard her call my name.

“A woman,” I admitted. I could feel my face, blushing furiously. “I’m shy.”

Some expression twitched across Bernard’s face before he got it under control. Then another. His guards didn’t have quite as much self-control.

I ground my teeth. What had happened with Cory was still too fresh in my mind for me to see the humor. “Go ahead and laugh.”

Instead, Bernard rose and grinned, the smile frozen because his mouth was stretched as wide as it could go. “I don’t know if this makes you the dumbest man I’ve ever met or the smartest. But don’t tell my mate I said that.”

It was only then that I realized the significance of the bulletproof vests they were all wearing, the KA-BAR knives sheathed at their sides, the HK45 sidearms, and the camouflage fatigues.

“Who’s chasing you?” I asked.

The smiles went off all their faces then, blown out like candles.

“Let’s wait for Mayte,” Bernard said. She was audibly getting closer. “I was coming to get her too.”

“Because she used to be an MP,” I said.

In answer, he removed his rucksack and took a thick belt from it. The belt was threaded through the holster of a Beretta M9, a canteen, and a sheath holding a silver steel knife. The silver steel knife that had been sheathed in the armor I’d stolen from the Templars. A werewolf killer. “Here. Your expertise is needed elsewhere.”

“Knights?” I picked up the belt. I wasn’t sure what I’d say if the answer was yes.

He shook his head. “We don’t know what it is. That’s why we need you.”