“Freeze.”
The shifters, the air, and even the beer in nearby bottles responded to Hunter’s command. I could feel my teeth chattering despite my comatose wolf. And when the uber-alpha grabbed my hand and yanked me toward the exit this time around, I paused only long enough to scoop up my sword before obediently stumbling along in his wake.
The outside world embraced us in a cloud of humid warmth and I gasped in a long breath, only then realizing that I’d forgotten to breathe for the last several seconds. Or perhaps my autonomous nervous system had also responded to the uber-alpha’s command. Whatever. It just felt good to be alive.
My relief was short-lived. “Unhand her,” came Ginger’s familiar voice, laden with an equally familiar snarky overtone.
I straightened, taking in the scene before me. My entire pack now stood between us and our idling station wagon, three angry shifters plus Lia and Quill off to one side looking a bit befuddled. My comrades had clearly been ready to storm in and rescue me from the barflies, so it hadn’t taken much effort to transfer their aggressions to the uber-alpha who still clutched my hand in his over-sized mitt.
I considered pulling my fingers free, knowing the gesture would soothe my pack’s ire. But I couldn’t quite talk myself into severing our contact. There was just something about Hunter’s solid warmth that made me feel better after that heart-stopping display inside.
Plus, I wasn’t quite sure I could move yet. Good excuse.
“I think you have the wrong idea,” the uber-alpha said quietly. He might have squeezed my fingers very subtly at the same time, as if he didn’t want to relinquish our bond quite yet either. But his attention remained riveted on my pack and a low growl underlay his words. Hunter didn’t like to be challenged.
After scanning all five faces, the uber-alpha apparently decided that Ginger was the one in charge. His gaze locked ominously with the trouble twin’s...which is when I noticed that she was still entirely naked. Even clad, the teenager’s perfect curves had been known to turn males of both shifter and human persuasion to stone, so I thoroughly expected my companion’s eyes to wander south rather than maintaining their challenge. But, instead, Hunter’s attention remained resolutely focused above the teenager’s neck.
Maybe he checked out the merchandise while I was gasping for air? It was the only reasonable explanation.
And, more relevantly, if my brain was up to snarky mental comebacks, chances were pretty good I could talk again. So, with a shiver of regret, I released Hunter’s hand and herded everyone else toward our waiting vehicle.
“I don’t know how long the freeze will last,” I said, “so we need to make tracks. Ginger can drive. Quill, you’ll come with us?”
The cowboy shifter tipped his hat at me in cordial assent. But despite his good manners, this still wasn’t quite the way I’d planned on picking up new pack mates.
We couldn’t really afford to trust the newcomer sight unseen, so I shot a questioning glance at Glen and was relieved when my most solid pack member nodded back. My second then proceeded to subtly rearrange seating order so Cinnamon took the middle back seat, separating Quill from our weakest member—the twins’ younger cousin. At least that thorny issue had been easily taken care of.
I kept one eye on the closed bar door, wishing we could just jump in the car and make tracks. But a speedy escape was impossible when our vehicle was already stuffed to the gills with all of the pack’s worldly possessions. Some decisions would have to be made if we wanted to clear space for extra bodies.
Still, after three weeks of living in each others’ pockets, we worked together like a well-oiled team. So it took mere minutes to clear a space in the far-back for an extra shifter to perch. Out went the cooler containing tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch. Out went the huge tarp we needed to keep our tent dry when camping in a soggy spot.
Out went a tremendous duffel bag full of Ginger’s clothes. You’d think as skimpy as her preferred garments were, they wouldn’t take up much space. But the trouble twin’s tank tops and short shorts made up in quantity what they lacked in bulk.
“Hey!” the clothes horse protested, and I shot her the stink eye in return.
“You and your wardrobe fill a similar square footage,” I answered. “It’s up to you who stays behind—you or your clothes.”
Our banter was normal, but the worried glance I shot toward the bar door was not. Which was probably why Ginger gave in so easily. “Whatever,” she grumbled, averting her gaze. But she still obeyed my veiled command, pulling the bag open and picking through in search of something to put on in case we ran across human cops who would be confused by a naked driver.
Although, actually, that might be a good way to avoid the ticket we invariably ended up with when Ginger was behind the wheel.
Second-to-last problem solved, I turned back around to face Hunter at last. He was still two-legged, but his face was averted from my little pack as if he were preparing to shift back to lupine form and flee the scene as soon as the car left the lot.
Taking a deep breath, I touched the uber-alpha’s bare arm to capture his attention. “How about you?”
Truth be told, I was even more torn about inviting this abnormally strong werewolf along for our grand escape than I had been about including the cowboy shifter in our little band. Because Quill was a known entity—an outpack male likely looking for a mate and a bit of power. Trouble, but in a manageable (and cute) package.
Hunter, on the other hand was a conundrum, but one whose motivations were beginning to show through the murk. After all, how could he have shown up right in the nick of time to save our hides after weeks of separation if he hadn’t been following us around in the first place? That suggested a level of dedication to the project that I suspected vastly exceeded the stick-to-it-iveness of the average outpack male.
And then there was the issue of the tremors my handsome stalker regularly sent down my usually shiver-free spine. The intense physical reaction to Hunter’s presence didn’t bode well for my own future sanity.
Still, the uber-alpha would be in as much danger as anyone else once the outpack males woke up, and I had a feeling that even his intense alpha dominance wouldn’t hold the angry werewolves off for long. My stalker had almost certainly arrived on foot, and I doubted he could outrun his opponents indefinitely. So there was really only one ethical decision here.
“Hunter?” I prompted.
“Do you want me to come with you?” he countered.
The uber-alpha was the furthest thing from weak, but something about his words brought to mind the insecurity that had underlain my former pack leader’s first interactions with his mate-to-be. Hunter was a bloodling as well, I now realized, and as a result he probably wasn’t the most adept at human social behavior. Perhaps some of his semi-psychopathic mannerisms stemmed from simple discomfort while wearing a two-legger’s skin.
You’re reaching, I admonished myself. But, still, I nodded even as I heard the first angry shouts emerging from inside the bar.
“Yes, I want you to come along.”
***
Ginger drove like a mad woman. We screeched around curves, blew through red lights, and once we were on the interstate our intrepid driver did an admirable job of pissing off truckers by cutting in front of them and then slamming on her brakes. Amid all the mayhem, the trouble twin slowly but surely shook every last barfly off our tail.
And, then, once the final outpack male was a distant memory, the real trouble began.
“So, what are your intentions toward Fen?”
Glen’s throaty murmur from the far-back area of the car barely carried to my shotgun position, and Ginger cleared her throat irritably. Her lupine-assisted ears wouldn’t have had any trouble picking up the conversation, but she knew as well as Glen did that my own hearing wasn’t similarly enhanced.
Agreeably, the latter raised his voice when he continued. “Well?”
Widely spaced streetlights above the highway cast alternating bands of light and dark, and I took advantage of one of the latter to swivel in my seat and glance across the car’s inhabitants without being too obvious about it. Lia was sound asleep with her head on Cinnamon’s shoulder, and her pillow looked only vaguely more aware of his surroundings. But Quill nodded a greeting from directly behind my seat. And the two shifters in the far-back were erect and alert, bristling with barely contained antagonism.
“My intentions?” Hunter’s voice was quietly sarcastic, as if Glen was an overzealous waiter who had dared to ask for his movie-star customer’s autograph. “I’m not sure I understand your question.”
“Oh, I believe you do,” Glen countered. “We’ve smelled you around our campsites from the beginning. You never come close enough to invade a traveling territory...not quite. But you’re always there. Watching. Waiting.”
This was news to me, and I shot a glance at Ginger. A well-placed streetlight illuminated the trouble twin’s unsurprised face, proving that she had also known about our stalker’s presence.
The teenager shrugged apologetically as she met my eyes. “Didn’t seem relevant,” she answered my unspoken question.
It didn’t seem relevant that the uber-alpha who had pushed us so abruptly out of Wolfie’s safe clan and into outpack territory had been dogging our heels for the last few weeks? No, what Ginger and Glen really meant was that there was no point in worrying their so-called pack leader since my mild alpha dominance couldn’t do anything about the potential danger. Hunter’s menacing uber-alpha skills were entirely out of my league.
But now wasn’t the time to delve into that issue. Not when our car contained two strange werewolves who might or might not have ulterior motives for befriending us. Hunter and Quill didn’t need to know about the rot at the core of our little pack.
Instead, I held my breath and waited to hear how Hunter would respond to Glen’s demand. It didn’t take long, and the uber-alpha’s words carried so admirably that it was clear he was aware of his larger audience. “And why do you care?” the uber-alpha demanded, his words projecting an almost tangible bite. “Are you her father? Her brother? Her mate?”
In response, Ginger’s hands twitched on the steering wheel and suddenly our tires were vibrating across the rumble strip and out of the right-hand lane of the highway. I lunged for the plastic-coated wheel across the trouble twin’s suddenly frozen form and righted our progress.
“Hunter!” I demanded through clenched teeth.
“Oops.” The word was so quiet I almost thought I’d imagined it, but then Ginger’s hands abruptly tightened beneath mine, proving that the uber-alpha had relinquished his control over the car’s inhabitants. Meanwhile, a gasp from the far-back suggested that Glen had regained the ability to breathe as well.
Any sane shifter would have backed down in the face of Hunter’s extreme alpha dominance and obvious lack of human control. But Glen instead answered firmly, if a bit breathlessly. “I’m Fen’s pack mate. I deserve to know.”
“Pack mate.” Hunter rolled the word around in his mouth, tasting it as if he’d never considered the notion before. “Is that why you followed a weak halfie woman into outpack territory? Not because you’re looking forward to wresting away her position and becoming an alpha in your own right? Not because you want to claim three beautiful women as your own?”
Glen’s strangled growl was the uber-alpha’s only reply, and I thought for a moment that we were going to have to stop the car so I could place my body between the two males in an effort to prevent bloodshed.
But, instead, I saw Hunter pat the other shifter on the shoulder in an almost-apologetic expression of cordiality. “No, I guess not,” my stalker continued. “Well, then I’ll answer your question since you’re Fen’s pack mate.” The subtle emphasis on the word “pack” wasn’t lost on any of us.
Then Hunter’s warm, deep voice embraced me out of the darkness. “I never have seen the point of a pack,” he mused, his voice becoming quieter but not so much so that I couldn’t catch every word. “But,” he finished, “Fen is my mate.”