“It’s nothing.” It probably was nothing. She didn’t feel funny. Well, she felt different, but that was from eating a decent meal. She tried to change the subject. “Why aren’t you eating?”
He looked at the plate of barely touched steak. “I prefer my meat raw, but I didn’t want to gross you out. I’ll hunt later.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at her, and she dropped her gaze back to her plate, unable to take his intense stare any longer. “You thought I put something in your food.”
She shrugged, embarrassed now. “What are you going to do with me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
He stood and paced. “Did you not hear me tell Anthony I don’t abuse women?”
She mumbled, “Just because you said it to Anthony doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“Fair enough. But have I given you any reason to think I’m going to start beating on you or cutting you or anything else?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
She was silent for a few minutes, “Do I have to sleep with you? N-not that that would be horrible if you weren’t hurting me or if you didn’t share me with anyone.”
His jaw clenched. “Ask me again why I’m not sending you back there.”
She looked at him expectantly.
“No! Rape is abuse. See earlier statement. And even if I would sink so low, you don’t know werewolves as well as you think if you think we share. I’ll sleep on the couch. You can have the bed.”
He left her alone in the kitchen then. She was mortified by how the discussion must have sounded to him. How she must have looked. She wanted to believe she was safe here, but it seemed highly unlikely he’d just blow in and rescue her. She replayed the scene from earlier in the evening.
When they’d first seen each other in the bar, he’d given her a look. What was it? Interest? Curiosity? Was it sexual? She couldn't remember. The second she’d recognized him from his photo she’d looked away.
Why would he take her instead of ten thousand dollars? Especially when he said he wasn’t going to use her to pay off the debt. She took her plate to the sink and rinsed it off. Cole’s steak sat barely touched. She went through the cabinets until she found some plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. Then she finished straightening the kitchen.
“You don’t have to do that.”
She looked up to see him standing in the doorway. He’d changed into a pair of pajama pants. Cole didn’t strike her as a pajama-pant-wearing kind of guy.
“Well, what else am I supposed to do? How many years of housework will pay off Paul’s debt?”
He growled. “You’re not a slave.”
“Then why am I here? Why take me instead of the money?”
He ran a hand through his hair. It seemed to be something of a nervous tic with him, not that she could throw stones about nervous tics.
“I knew I’d never see that money. If I hadn’t taken you, he would have whored you out for it. I would have felt responsible. I couldn’t have taken money like that, even assuming I could intercept it before he gambled it away. And now I can’t let you go because you’d just go back to him. Abused women always do.”
Jane shook her head. “It’s not a matter of going back. It’s a matter of him not letting me out of his sight. He’d hunt me. And anyway, if it wasn’t him, it would be another vamp. They always find me. I can see them, and they’ll never forgive me for that.”
Cole tossed and turned on the couch. It was large, but not nearly large enough for his frame. His original intention had been to share the bed with Jane, but that would have created all sorts of problems. For one thing, he wasn’t sure if he could keep his hands off her, even if she had pink hair. And for another, whatever she’d been through, she didn’t need to feel that threat like she was constantly two seconds from attack.
Why did I make this my problem. I can’t save everyone. He’d never wanted control of the pack to begin with. He’d killed the former alpha in a mad rage when he’d caught him raping his mother. Then he was stuck with it. And the pack needed him.
The former alpha had been sadistic and cruel to nearly everyone in one way or another. It had taken almost a year before they’d felt safe again. Now he had Jane on his hands, another person who needed him. Another responsibility he hadn’t asked for.
She’d said she wasn’t a vampire groupie, she hated vampires, and she could see them. He’d flipped those three sound bites over and over in his head for the past hour trying to figure out what it meant. He should have asked for clarification. What the hell did she mean she could see them?
He stared at the ceiling of the cave, counting the little natural indentations. Almost as good as sheep. Sheep.
Damn, now I’m hungry. He listened to Jane’s breathing. She was asleep, but not deeply. Best to wait awhile.
He flung the cover to the floor and padded to the office. He’d do a bit of work, then if Jane had hit REM, he’d go hunting. Cole found the shattered cell phone on the floor and bent to pick up the pieces. No wonder he was freaking her out. He needed to get a grip on himself if he was going to have a human living with him.
“Stop obsessing over what you did, and deal with the choice now,” he said to the empty room. “No sense going over and over it. You rescued a human from a vampire in lieu of ten grand. You’re insane. Let’s move on.”
Satisfied with the self-talk, he dropped the cell phone bits into the trash bin and settled into the big leather swivel chair to work. He typed theriantype.com into the browser window and logged in as an administrator. If half the people who did business with his site knew the owner was a werewolf, they’d flip their lid. He filtered most everything through Mick.
He opened a second window to check email.
“Dammit, Dayne. You little whiner,” he muttered. There was an email from the Board of Magical Merchants showing Dayne Wickham had filed a discrimination claim. It was absurd. Was it discrimination when you didn’t sell a handgun to a career criminal?
Cole had only been a child when Dayne had gone on his psycho killing spree with the werecat tribe, but any ninny knew he was bad news. Freaky old hermit living out in the woods waiting for Hansel and Gretel to stumble upon the place.
He sent an email back to the board explaining his side of the situation. He didn’t have proof of the sorcerer’s misbehavior, but everybody knew he’d done it. It wasn’t as if they could keep records as closely as humans could without detection.
It was ridiculous to Cole that the preternaturals were so afraid of the humans finding out. But due to the human fear of the unknown and their increased technology, it wasn’t a war many felt they could win anymore.
If they could have gotten over their squabbles and joined together in the Middle Ages during the last major supernatural panic, they could have won. But the preternatural factions had been too divided back then.
The vamps had spent the last three centuries organizing and trying to make friends with everyone else. It had worked with everyone but the wolves. That bitterness ran deep.
The second email was from Mick:
Hey Bossman, um, Dayne was complaining that nothing had been done about his ordering issues with us. He filed a complaint six months ago, but we didn’t get it. It must have gotten lost. So when it was resent and finally reached the board and us, he was very put out and demanded we mention his complaint on our site. Instead of just the Lucinda Clearwater issue. Don’t be mad.
Mick
Cole growled and went back to the site to find Dayne’s complaint along with a response alerting and warning people about him. Oh, that was going to go over well.
If they had all been human Dayne could probably sue them, but he was the one who’d insisted they list the complaint. At least Mick wasn’t letting the sorcerer bully him.
Cole checked sales and handled the other complaints that had been forwarded. By the time he’d finished, another hour had passed.
He listened for Jane’s breathing again. Good. Deep sleep. His stomach was growling at him, and being in the same cave as a human wasn’t the wisest move at the moment.
***
Once outside and safe under the cloak of trees and darkness, he stripped his clothes off and buried them in the dirt. He turned his mind to the moon, his focal point for the change. The forest swirled around him in a blur of deep green, as his spirit was ripped away then slammed back into the new wolf form. He shook himself and fought back the sense of vertigo. Unlike most of his kind, he knew he’d never get used to the way shifting felt.
As a wolf, Cole was solid black, something he loved for the way it helped him blend in dark places. He’d planned to go hunting out of town. But first, since Dayne lived in this forest, he might as well sniff around the place and see if he could pick up the scent of anything interesting he could use to his benefit should the board not be satisfied with his word on matters. The smell of roasting werecat perhaps?
He slowed as he neared the cottage. The place was heavily warded. Even he would have thought twice about coming this way if he didn’t know about Dayne, assuming his primal instincts were warning him of a large, impending threat. He pushed past the feeling and crept to the back of the house. He smelled salt and heard a woman crying.
I knew it! Then there was a second female voice.
“Charlee, please calm down. I understand with Anthony,” she said the name with revulsion in her voice, “that you’re on a vampire sleep schedule, but you have to understand I have to open the bookstore in the morning. In six hours.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I just . . . He could do anything to her, and I can’t help. I should have paid more attention to what was going on. I knew Paul was bad news, but I didn’t want to believe he was hurting her. If I’d listened to my gut I could have kept her away from him, and this wouldn’t have happened.”
A chair creaked as one of the girls sat down. Where was Dayne in the middle of this sobfest? And why was there a human and another girl hanging out in the evil sorcerer’s lair, anyway? He took another whiff. A werecat? Why was a werecat making herself at home in Dayne’s cottage?
“Can’t Anthony get her back?”
More crying.
“Cole won’t give her up without a fight, and Anthony can’t get into a war over a human. He’s having issues with a few members of the coven who don’t support him having a human mate to begin with. It’s my fault. If he wasn’t with me, he could get Jane back. He told me he thought she’s probably safer where she is. He’s just making excuses. I can’t believe I saved his life.”
Cole’s furry eyebrow rose. Oh really? He hadn’t heard that part of the tale. Charlee had saved Anthony’s life? Seemed a lot of humans were saving him, and he was supposed to be the vampire king.
“Anthony’s not that bad. Let’s not forget he helped save Greta.” Dayne. What the hell? Had Cole landed in an alternate dimension? Was he being Punk’d? He looked around for hidden cameras.
“Yeah, and then the second he had my blood he went straight for Charlee. He could have killed her,” the werecat said.
Okay, that was it; hearing and smelling wasn’t good enough. He had to risk a window seat. Cole slunk around the side of the house to the first available window.
The crying redhead sat at a bar stool drinking something out of a mug, her unruly curls covering much of her face. Dayne stood behind the werecat with his arms wrapped around her, his chin resting on the top of her head.
“I mean, Jane and I weren’t best friends or anything. She’s a little hard to get to know. But still, I liked her . . . like her,” Charlee corrected. “You have to help me rescue her.”
The dark-haired woman pulled out of Dayne’s embrace and rested a hand on the crying woman’s arm. “The wolves are like shadows. No one can follow them to their den; the trail just ends.”
Charlee turned imploring eyes to Dayne. “What about a spell? You can track Jane with a spell. I’ve got stuff of hers.”
“Perhaps,” he said, doubtfully.
Cole was glad, not for the first time, that he’d thought to add a magical barrier of security. Some of the pack had argued hard with him ten years ago when he’d insisted on wards to protect the den, claiming it was too much work and expense, that no one could find the den with magic because no one would have any of their personal belongings.
Even if the cave was camouflaged and locked up tighter than Fort Knox, it was an extra measure of protection knowing they couldn’t be tracked through a spell. Least of all through a spell from Wickham.
Dayne looked right at him, and he moved away from the window. The sorcerer didn’t have fancy eyesight; there was no way he could have seen a solid black wolf outside at night. Still, he must have sensed the magic coming off him. Well, he’d been standing there for fifteen minutes or more. Plenty of time for Dayne to get a read on something fishy. The man didn’t have a reputation for nothing.
Cole wanted to stay to find out more, but the risk was too high. He turned and ran, putting several miles between himself and the cottage before slowing his pace. When he got back to where he’d shifted, he dug in the earth to uncover his clothing, shook the dirt off, and changed back.
Charlee clearly cared about Jane’s well-being, and Anthony didn’t seem bent on her destruction either. If he let her go, she might be safe. But he knew she’d never be safe as long as she was anywhere near the vampires. Even if Anthony was willing, he couldn’t constantly run interference for her. Cole could. What place could be safer than the hive?