| |
With that kind of Meaning on the table, how could I refuse? I even let the wily old wolf drag me back to his clan headquarters for dinner. Then I watched in bemusement as his mouse-like wife silently set me up for the night in their spare bedroom...a change of scenery that I soon came to regret.
I thought I’d made the right decision, though, when I woke atop a well-padded mattress with the scent of frying bacon drifting into my semi-comatose nostrils. Home, my wolf informed me, the first word he’d deigned to offer in quite some time.
Not our home, I countered. Still, my feet didn’t carry me outside to pound pavement, despite that habitual exercise being an unalterable part of my daily routine. Instead, I found myself drifting downstairs to investigate the tantalizing aroma that had left me with an uncharacteristic smile on my face.
The scent emanated from the rear of the house, an area that might as well have been a cloistered harem for all the notice Stormwinder had taken of it when giving me a tour the previous evening. Hours later, the stairs and hallway between bedroom and kitchen were pitch dark, but a welcoming triangle of light illuminated floorboards and marked the entrance to the latter room as I followed my nose toward the center of pre-dawn activity.
Just outside the door, a melodious chuckle made me pause, abruptly torn between exploring further and taking to my heels. The urge to flee was a protective instinct born of my recent experience with Stooge and shored up by the conclusion that I could no longer trust myself around weaker beings. Because even though the kitchen’s inhabitants were werewolves, they were female werewolves—softer, more fragile, and infinitely more breakable than myself.
“You know you want to!” one high-pitched voice rang out, laughter underlying her words. I shivered. The young woman obviously wasn’t speaking to me...and yet she was right. I did want to creep a little closer and observe this hidden world I hadn’t even known existed.
Despite my shod feet, no one had taken notice of my approach. So I took a few more steps forward until I could lean against the door jamb, hands in pockets as I enjoyed the view.
There were multiple females present, but my eye was unalterably drawn to the girl who had so recently spoken. Her scent and body language proclaimed her Stormwinder’s daughter and her brilliant blue eyes matched the older male’s piercing orbs in color if not in emotion.
“We have a meal to prepare,” a slightly older woman chided, but this second chef’s lips were pursed into a not-so-hidden smile. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, the brunette’s scent matched no one else’s in the room. Yet I found the aroma subtly familiar.
Ah, the son’s wife, I realized as pieces clicked together in my mind. The rest of the females were more easily identifiable as they slid loaves of bread into the oven while pulling together what appeared to be a breakfast banquet. The chefs appeared to consist of all of the ladies associated with Stormwinder’s household: Blue-eyes, a daughter-in-law, two older blood-kin daughters, and the middle-aged wife who I’d met the night before..
Of these, Mrs. Stormwinder was head hen, lording it over the younger females with a kind eye and an iron fist. The quartet rotated around the older woman like attendants feeding and guiding a queen bee, although in this case the young shifters were instead in charge of chopping fruit, scrambling eggs, and putting the last of the day’s baked goods into the oven.
It made perfect sense...and it made no sense at all. How could this vibrant, cheerful force of nature be the same shy, retiring woman who had served us dinner the night before? She’d avoided all of my conversational sallies at that time, merely smiling and nodding at every pronouncement her husband made.
Then, I’d assumed Stormwinder’s wife was painfully introverted. But now I wondered whether there might be something more malignant at play.
My legs were itching to stretch and run, but my hand won out instead. Tapping gently on the door frame by way of announcing my presence, I was rewarded when four pairs of dark eyes and one pair of blue immediately swiveled to take in my unexpected form.
Just as quickly, the dark eyes all dropped to the floor leaving Blue-eyes alone to meet my gaze.
She wasn’t the one to speak, though. Instead, Stormwinder’s wife greeted me with her head bowed and her voice as timid as it had been the night before. “Good morning, Mr. Green,” she told the floor. “Are you hungry? We can make you an omelet, a pancake, anything you wish.”
Beside her mother, Blue-eyes smirked at me, tossing long blond hair over one shoulder and capturing my full attention. Her scent was enticing, her curves delicious, but most of all I liked Blue-eyes’ spunky spirit. I found myself unintentionally mesmerized and entirely unable to look away.
“Mr. Green?” the older shifter prompted when I didn’t respond in a timely manner. Mrs. Stormwinder’s neck swiveled up ever so slightly so she could peer up into my face between dark lashes.
“You can look at me,” I told her, then expanded out my statement to include the rest of the women in the room. “You can all look at me.”
They didn’t, though, and my wolf stirred angrily beneath my skin. Stormwinder had appeared so controlled and polished the day before. But was that just a facade he trotted out when attempting to reel in outsiders? Was he really an abuser within his own home?
Scout the perimeter before determining your plan of action. My CO’s remembered voice eased my own abrupt anger, although my wolf was still growling beneath my skin. Neither of us knew exactly what was going on, but diving into the issue like a bull in a china shop wasn’t going to help.
Unfortunately, while I couldn’t leave with the issue unresolved, I also didn’t have the foggiest clue how to broach such a touchy subject. So I stood there with my mouth opening and closing as I ran through various potential words and rejected each in turn. Not my greatest moment by any stretch of the imagination.
In the end, it was Blue-eyes who put me out of my misery. “They’re showing you respect,” she explained slowly, as if to a child. “They bow their heads to honor the power of your wolf.”
“Angelica.” Her mother chided. Mrs. Stormwinder’s attempt to shush the upstart faded, though, once she saw I wasn’t annoyed by her youngest daughter’s tone of voice.
“And you don’t respect the power of my wolf?” I asked the girl, smiling slightly. I liked this Angelica with her supreme disregard for what I was now fuzzily recalling was a relatively common—if unsavory—characteristic of more traditional shifter packs. Females were required to bow their heads and avert their eyes in the face of powerful males.
The practice gave me the heebie-jeebies. However, the cheerfulness of the women prior to my kitchen invasion suggested Mrs. Stormwinder and her offspring saw no harm in the tradition.
Angelica wasn’t quite brave enough to answer my question head on, but she did raise one eyebrow by way of assent. “Are you hungry, Hunter?” she asked, emphasizing her use of my first name.
Stormwinder’s daughter was a flirt, and I had to admit she was adept at captivating male attention. Still...by my estimate, Angelica was also roughly eighteen years of age.
“I’ll eat later,” I told Blue-eyes, knowing my words were also being taken in by the sea of dark heads tilted earthward. “Right now I’m heading out for a run.”
***
THE MILITARY-MANDATED morning constitutional had always been my favorite part of any day on base. Jogging in human form wasn’t quite the same as running four-legged through the forest, sniffing the air in search of deer trails and pouncing upon the occasional field mouse. But stretching my legs and pushing until sweat streamed down my chest and back was definitely an effective second best...and far more socially acceptable within the human world.
Here in Stormwinder’s werewolf enclave, I probably could have donned fur and enjoyed the freedom I was so sorely craving. Still, I was uncertain about the guesting rules that governed those passing through the claimed territory of an alpha shifter. And I also wanted to maintain the focus of my human brain in order to mull over the female puzzles who had landed in my lap that morning. So I kept on my shorts and shoes and simply ran.
By two miles later, I was already in the zone. The sun was starting to rise behind my back, the dim silhouettes of trees all around resolving into limbs and leaves rather than mere outlines of their vegetative forms. I’d long since decided that any father who created a girl like Angelica couldn’t be abusing his womenfolk, and after that I’d allowed my mind to drift backwards to the memory of sharks and bombs and other thrills.
Which is all a long way of saying—what happened next was my own damn fault. I should have been paying attention to my surroundings rather than reliving the past. But I lowered my guard...and a trio of young males got the jump on me.
Two were in lupine form, darting out of the bushes to my right as I rounded a bend in the trail. But it was the third who I really had to worry about. He dangled by human arms from an overarching limb, dropping onto my back as I darted left to avoid being bowled over by his companions.
Before I knew it, the hard barrel of a handgun was pressing into the indentation at the base of my skull. My muscles instantly froze into place.
“Some soldier you are,” my attacker whispered into my ear. “Dad made a mistake when he chose you over me.”
