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Day 156 of the re-emerged Hat Island pack, Saturday, Nov. 9, Tennant Lake campground
Ryder watched Jake and Abby slowly leave the campground. “All right!” he shouted. “Let’s move this camp out of here. Brenda? You and Maggie get the RVs headed out. Benny? You and those six of mine, need to be behind your Alpha ASAP.”
Benny had gotten Maggie’s bike back from whoever had brought it down this far. Ryder hadn’t noticed. But Benny was already on the bike and heading after Jake. He wasn’t going to let them out of sight, apparently. His team of men followed closely behind him. Benny was known and Ryder had chosen men who’d been with him a while for that very reason.
“Alefosio, you get that embarrassing bus loaded up and get out of here too.”
Alefosio grinned and made short work out of getting the men loaded. All the gear was already stowed.
He turned to his second in command. “Close one, boss,” Diego said softly.
Ryder grunted. It could have gone bad, he acknowledged to himself. Timms was a brawler. He would have been willing to fight just for the hell of it, and then realized too late that he had gone too far. And he needed to know Ryder wouldn’t let that happen.
“Take Timms with you,” Ryder said. “Make sure he realizes he isn’t being banished, and I’m not mad. But he’s too hotheaded for this kind of work. Hell, I’m too hotheaded. But he’ll be better off in Horse Creek.”
“Will do,” Diego said. “How many are you taking with you?”
“I need another six to go with Mei and Cujo and the two vans,” Ryder said. “And you get all the others. Lucky you.”
Diego laughed and went to sort out their people.
Jessie was standing there waiting for him. “You’re riding with me,” he said gruffly. “Just hang tight. If you really want to go with us to Penticton, this will give you a taste of what it’s like.”
Jessie just nodded. Ryder turned to Cujo and Mei Tanaka. She kept the stillest face, he thought, fascinated a bit. Even with all of that chaos, she was just watching him, as if she found him a mildly interesting bug on the sidewalk.
“I’m going to put you on a bike too,” he told her. “Just like Abby. You lead out, your two vans and an escort follows you. Cujo? You riding the bike?”
“Sure,” Cujo said, smiling. “I’d love to.”
Mei shook her head. “You don’t even bother to ask if I can ride a bike, or who I might want to ride behind? Men, I declare.”
The two men stared at her. “Well, you can ride the bike of you want, and I’ll ride pillion behind you,” Cujo offered. She laughed, and relaxed.
“You would too,” she said. “No, I’ll ride pillion. And my car?”
“Can you ride?” Ryder asked, confused by the exchange.
Mei grinned at him. “You’ll never know, now,” she teased. “You coming with me, or going after the Alpha?”
“After the Alpha. I’ll have one of your Lost Boys drive the Prius,” Ryder said, setting the other issue aside. Let Cujo deal with her, and good luck with that. “You two have it under control, right?”
Mei nodded. She handed him her key fob. “I’ll get things situated at my father’s place, and then we’ll head for Hat Island. I’ve got this itchy feeling things aren’t right.”
Ryder took that feeling seriously. “Can you pinpoint it?” he asked, trying to keep his voice casual. “A problem with the men you’re taking to your father? The ones headed to Hat Island? Or the women?”
Mei considered the list. She shook her head. “Maybe it’s nothing,” she decided. She smiled at Cujo. “Let’s see what you know about riding a bike.”
Ryder watched the two of them walk off to the bike waiting for them. He glanced around to make sure someone wasn’t left bikeless — nope, his people were all good. Were Cujo and Mei a couple? He hadn’t thought so. He shook his head. Not his problem.
He spotted Diego, who was cleaning up the campground. Or rather, he was supervising the cleanup of the campground. Good enough. “Come on,” he said to Jessie. “Let’s get you a helmet.”
She followed him silently, and he worried about it a bit. It had been a while since a woman had interested him as much as she did. He always had a woman when he wanted one. And usually even when he didn’t much care, there was a woman available. But this was a woman who had come for him, pried a bullet out of him, and got him to safety. And who was fiercely determined to go after her man. He frowned at the last. Was that what she was doing? Did she even know?
He explained the basics of riding pillion, and she listened intently. He didn’t think she’d been on a bike before, and he wasn’t used to novices. “Just hang on tightly,” he finished his instructions. “The trick is to move as one body.” He didn’t play any of the innuendo games he had with Abby Stafford. He wasn’t sure why, except that Jessie seemed vulnerable. And he didn’t want to hurt her, or even make her uncomfortable.
He couldn’t remember the last time he worried about a woman like this. He wasn’t sure he ever had. She’s too young, he reminded himself. Yes, age wasn’t the same issue for shifters that it was for humans. But truth was, he’d been raised by a human mother, in a mostly human world — except for the slightly surreal weekends with his father and his pack in the hills. So to him, they might look the same age, but they weren’t. He was in his 40s. And she was what? Half that? He shook his head.
Someone in the pack had repaired his tires, he noted. He’d have to see about getting new ones in Seattle. He didn’t trust a patched tire, not on a bike. He hesitated. Did he trust the patch enough to even go that far? What was it, an hour? He could take the back roads and go slower.... Might find a shop in Marysville, but hell, by the time he got to Marysville, he was almost to Everett.
And he had Jessie to consider. Having a blow out at 70 mph was a death sentence, even for wolves, if they landed wrong.
“Hey Diego!” he called. “Someone swap bikes with me. I’ve got a woman riding pillion with me — and patched tires. That’s no way to treat a lady.”
There was laughter, and some rude comments, which Jessie ignored, although there were two bright red spots on her cheeks. It was Timms who rolled his own bike out to him — an apology, of sorts. Ryder just nodded and they swapped the two bikes. It wasn’t his bike, but it was a good one.
Timms stayed to help Jessie get on behind him, and something settled inside of him. He always felt better on a bike. He wasn’t trapped anywhere when he was on a bike. His wolf flashed him an image of Jessie. And yes, he’d admit it to his wolf, and only to his wolf, it felt good to feel that woman’s arms wrap around him tightly, her hands against his ribs. He grinned, because that wasn’t exactly where Jake had positioned Abby’s hands. He wanted to snicker, but then he might have to explain....
He felt Jessie press tightly against his back, her face turned to rest between his shoulder blades. Yes, all right, he told his wolf. She feels right, too. His wolf felt smug. Another image: one of Jessie’s wolf, clawing his back open. Bloodthirsty wench, Ryder told his wolf. And then he rode out of the campground.
***
MEI WAS HOLDING ON tightly to Cujo. It felt good, she thought privately. She firmed her lips. No point in thinking about it.
It does feel good.
Mei frowned. Cujo? Are you talking in my brain?
There was a feeling of laughter. Should have kept silent and just eavesdropped, he teased. But yes, up close like this? I can hear you through that link.
What link, she wondered. She focused inwardly like Abby had taught her yesterday. There was the dandelion burst, and damned if it didn’t look like that. Her pack bond. Her employment bond to Abby. Her family links. She could see them all clearer today than last night, as if they’d become more solid. Or maybe she was just looking now and she hadn’t before. Because there were some other links.
She frowned. She tapped one lightly — the one that looked the strongest. That’s the one you have with me, Cujo agreed. Not sure who else you’re linked to. Yui? Or you wouldn’t have been able to experience her nightmares like you did. And when you created that dandelion burst, you grabbed Jason and David. So you’ve got links with them some place. I don’t know if you can talk to them like this. Maybe if they’re up close? Because we’re really close right now.
Mei wanted to lean back, away from him a bit, but she really did know something about riding a bike and leaning back was the absolute wrong thing to do. We’re not mates, she said definitively. So what are we doing with a bond?
Benny says shifters have a wider variety of bonds and links to choose from than we’re taught growing up. Maybe it’s just that people don’t know. But he didn’t elaborate. I think Abby was planning to grill him on the way home in the van, but well, here we are.
Mei made a mental note to corner Benny herself. What did he mean there were more kinds of links and bonds? She’d decided the links— the dandelion burst — to the young men were temporary. And she’d carefully not allowed any links to form to the women.
But a bond with Cujo? She sighed. I missed you, she confessed.
Missed you too, Cujo replied. But you made your ‘no’ clear, and I can accept a no, Mei.
You have a mate! Mei said, and she was all riled up again. This man infuriated her! And she sensed he was amused by that thought. Was she like an open book to him?
Kind of, Cujo admitted. You’d better have Benny teach you how to block your links when you want to. Mei, Olivia and I have a mate bond, but we’re not monogamous. And even if we were, we could still be friends. But Olivia has a lover. More than one actually. And she’s not my only partner either.
Mei thought about that. Mates who weren’t monogamous? She didn’t think she’d like that very much. But what did she know? She knew four mated couples. Well, five, counting Synde and Ricci, and wasn’t that a headache of a concept? But Abby and Alpha Tanaka weren’t monogamous. Her parents were. And Yui and Okami were. She thought they were at least.
She could almost feel Cujo lurking in her brain. Well, are they? she demanded.
Far as I know, Cujo answered, laughing at her. Although she picked up something, a wisp of a memory. She frowned.
Cujo?
No, he assured her. Yui and I have never been lovers.
Mei discovered she was relieved by that. I wish we still had that beach cabin.
Cujo was silent for a moment. We could restore it, he said slowly. Now that Ricci is going to San Mateo with Synde, we could fumigate it. Make it ours again.
She giggled at the fumigate part.
Mei? Cujo said tentatively. Be very clear here. Are you asking me to share your bed again? Sometimes, maybe?
Was she? Every bone in her body — well more like a very important muscle in her body — was screaming yes.
Olivia wouldn’t care? she asked.
I told you, she has lovers, Mei. I’m fine with that. They make her happy. Why wouldn’t I want her to be happy? There was a pause, and Mei got a feeling Cujo was amused. Of course, I think she would be even happier if I were jealous about it.
Mei grinned. She bet Olivia would be, too. Olivia was a possessive bitch. She liked her. But she walked wary around her.
But yes, I’ll reclaim the cabin if you want.
Mei thought about it as she gave Cujo instructions to her father’s new house up in the hills above Bellingham. As they were pulling into the driveway, she decided. Yes. Reclaim the cabin.
Mei hopped off the bike, glad to put a bit of distance between her and Cujo. She didn’t know what she wanted, she admitted to herself. Dear God, was she supposed to ride all the way to Seattle like that? She shook her whole body, like a wolf shaking water out of its fur, and told herself to focus. She turned to look behind them. The two vans were pulling in with six bikers rolling in behind them.
“Better have them wait out here, until your father welcomes them inside,” Cujo suggested.
“I guess you do know my father,” Mei said, laughing up at him.
He looked a little grim. “Yeah, we know each other.”
Mei blinked a bit; she’d actually thought they were friends of a sort — although she thought her father was a decade or more older than Cujo. But she didn’t have time to sort that out. Not right now. She hung her helmet over one of the bike’s handlebars, and walked up to Jason who was getting out of the first van. “You’re in charge,” Mei informed him, probably needlessly, but she’d say it anyway. Jason was generally in charge no matter who thought they were running the show. “Keep everyone in the vehicles, and the bikers quiet until I talk to my father.”
Jason nodded. “Take Cujo in with you.”
Mei looked at him, quizzically, but he didn’t elaborate. Did he think she was in danger in her father’s house?
No, if there was one place she was safe it was here. She had a mental flash of a dinner party where her father had set her up with a young man. A man she had to kill later that night. She’d never talked about it with her father. Suddenly she wondered if Cujo and her father had talked about it?
Men. They always thought they knew better than you did, and yet most of the problems were caused by men. How did that compute?
It didn’t.
Mei squared her shoulders and walked confidently up the stairs to her father’s home. Well, really it was her parents’ house, wasn’t it? Strange how she never thought of it that way. But her father was larger than life, and her mother was a quiet woman, a successful artist, but one who rarely said anything, preferring to let her mate be the interface with the rest of the world. Her mother spoke to the world though her art. It was where Mei got her own creative instincts.
Both of them greeted her at the door, with Okami visible behind them. Mei raised her eyebrows slightly at him, but he didn’t give her any signs. She mentally shrugged and hugged her mother hello. She bowed slightly to her father and let him initiate the hug. They were careful with each other these last couple of years. Mei didn’t quite know why. She had another flash of the man she’d killed.
When the man’s family came after her, it was Cujo and Okami who protected her. She set that aside.
“So I have a gift for you,” she announced. “Sixteen young men, eager to work and to learn. They’re all yours.”
Her father closed his eyes, as if his head hurt, and then he sighed. “Well, take me out and introduce me. We’ve arranged rooms in the men’s hall out back. I gather you’re going to take the women into Everett?”
She nodded. “We decided it might aid the women’s healing if they didn’t have to deal with these young men any longer,” she said carefully. “The remaining young men didn’t want a college education, so we're sending them out to Odessa. Alpha Stafford seems to think that the Odessa or Mendoza packs would, ah, ‘inspire a change of heart.’” She snickered, and even her father laughed at that. “She believes in education, obviously.”
“Yes, I can see why she would,” her father agreed.
Mei looked around for Cujo, but he was standing back at the house looking at something with her mother — some of her mother’s art? No, that was actually one of her own pieces that hung inside the door. She wondered what that was about, and then focused on Jason instead. “Dad, this is Jason Wahlberg,” she said. “He’s an assistant security chief for Hat Island. The other driver is David White, one of our medics.”
More head nods. No offers to shake hands, however, unlike with Cujo. Her father had shaken his hand. Interesting.
Two men came around the corner of the house, and Jason tensed slightly. “My pack Second, and my pack master,” her father said. “I seem to have inherited a number of young male wolves in the pack changeover. A pack master is a must.”
Pete Craven had become the de facto Hat Island’s pack master — a steady influence on hot-headed young wolves. Although in Hat Island’s pack, the hot-heads weren’t young wolves, just a lot of lone wolves who were having a tough time adjusting to pack life again. Pete was their... teacher? Pack master, Mei thought with a shrug.
“Then these young men should fit right in,” Mei agreed.
Her father looked at Mei sourly, but she just grinned at him. “We need to get going. Okami-san? Are you coming with us?”
He nodded. “I will ride with Jason. Are you riding with Cujo or with us?”
Mei hesitated. Cujo had turned away to take a call. She frowned. What was so important that he would answer his phone in her father’s presence. Well, if she rode behind him, she’d find out. “I’m riding on the bike,” she said lightly. “Been a few years since I had the chance.”
Her father started to say something, but after a stern look from her mother, he shut his mouth. Mei grinned again.
“We need to go, unfortunately,” Cujo said, returning to the main group. “Moving this many people turns out to be more challenging that I expected when we left yesterday.”
“Not surprised,” her father said.
More hugs. Mei put her gloves and helmet back on and waited for Cujo to start the bike. She slid on behind him, and he eased the bike down the driveway, driving for all the world like a date wanting to show her father he was a responsible driver.
Exactly like that, Cujo agreed with amusement.
So tell me, Mei demanded. What’s going on?
That was Ryder. He’s worried about high ground.
Mei frowned. What does that mean?
It means something has triggered his military instincts, Cujo said grimly. And I don’t know if he’s in the here and now, or if he’s having a flashback and he’s back in Iraq. Either way, we’re about 30 minutes too late to do anything about it. But I’m sure as hell going to try.
Mei tightened her grip on him. Got it. Bat-out-of-hell time.
Cujo increased their speed.