It was Cole’s turn for eye rolling. “I’ll go borrow something for you; just take a shower. Will you be okay if I leave you for twenty minutes?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you really think I’m that weak?”
“I never said, or meant . . . ”
“I’ll be fine. It was a bad dream from the stress. It’s over. I want to stop talking about it.”
He put his hands in the air. “Fine. I’ll be back.”
Forty-five minutes later, Jane was wearing jeans, her boots, and a blue sweater, which looked ridiculous with the pink hair, but at least she didn’t look like a punk rock call girl.
Cole put in the security code for the steel door on the other side of the den. His hands flew so fast over the keys she couldn’t have figured out the code even standing right beside him watching. Now she had to meet the pack, who, despite her cleaned-up appearance, was probably going to think she was a whore.
The bite marks Paul had left would likely never heal. There was one on her throat, bites on her breasts, her hips, her thighs. After her shower, while Cole was in the kitchen, she’d looked at them and the scars on her back in the mirror. He hated vampires, and she was a walking advertisement for his enemies.
“Time to face the firing squad,” Cole said as the door slid open.
“Yay,” Jane said dryly.
He just looked at her. What? Was she supposed to cower and whine and weep and moan 24/7 just because they’d had a few rocky hours in the beginning? Now that the immediate danger with the wolf seemed not so immediate, she was feeling embarrassed over her weakness. The tough Jane mask fell back into place like an old and welcome friend.
The tunnel between Cole’s den and the rest of the caves was longer than Jane had expected it to be. She wondered if his seclusion from the pack was a safety precaution. One didn’t stay pack alpha for twenty years without being smart and probably paranoid to the point of insanity.
They arrived at another steel door, and he punched in a second code.
“Welcome, Cole,” a computerized female voice said.
Jane stood frozen in the doorway, unable to move into the room. There were dozens of people, no . . . wolves, packed in together.
Most were wearing jeans and T-shirts, a decided fashion downgrade from the dramatic glitz and glamour of the vampires. Some were playing cards. Some were rough housing. One girl was eating a whole can of Pringles at a rapid pace.
All the wolves were loud and rambunctious. It was a little overwhelming, and suddenly Jane wasn’t sure how to act. Being a vampire groupie had taken months to get just right.
“Go on,” Cole prodded. She took a few tentative steps into the room.
One of the wolves near them growled at Jane, his eyes glowing golden even as he maintained his form. The other wolves looked up, and within moments there were several unpleasant growls being aimed her direction.
Cole moved her behind him, seemingly unconcerned, and let out a growl that could better be classed as a roar. It was so loud every other wolf in the room immediately fell silent, a few whimpering.
“That’s enough!” he said. “This is Jane. She’ll be staying with me for the foreseeable future.”
One of the male wolves looked insulted. “She smells like vampire.”
Jane blushed. This group was not subtle. She’d thought she’d been faced with everything, but vampires were just . . . different from this.
“Ed . . . ” Cole warned.
“I call them like I see them,” Ed said. The wolf looked to be about mid fifties, his hair graying at the temples. But Jane knew, given the slower rate of therian aging, he must be much older. A hundred years at least. His face was set in lines indicating perpetual grumpiness. Jane took a step back at the glare the wolf shot her.
“She isn’t one of them.”
“Well, she’s a vampire groupie then,” one of the female wolves said with obvious disdain.
Cole growled. “She’s not one of those either. She is a friend of mine and therefore a friend of the pack. Is that clear?”
They all nodded, a little too quickly. Ed’s nod was slower than the rest. She wondered how safe she was even with the alpha standing in front of her.
Cole looked over the group of wolves then spoke. “Rhonda.”
A perky blonde stepped out from the crowd. She was dressed a little sexier than the rest, though no one seemed to notice.
“I need to speak with you.”
She glided over to him. “Yes?”
“I need you to take Jane shopping. I’ve got to attend to the pack meeting.”
Rhonda’s lip curled into a sneer for a split second before she planted a placating smile on her face. “Anything for you,” she purred.
“Good.” He handed her a credit card and pulled something golden out of his pocket that looked like an ancient talisman attached to a long leather cord. “If you run into any trouble that you can’t handle, use this. And tell Cain she’s off the menu. She’s mine. I want you back in four hours, no longer.”
He looked from Rhonda to Jane, then led Jane down the tunnel out of hearing range. He produced a sheathed knife from his pocket. “She’s the omega, the weakest wolf. She’s loyal to me, but just in case.”
He’d given her silver.
Cole stared off in the direction Rhonda had taken Jane, berating himself for letting her out of his sight. Rhonda had always been the weakest of the pack; he’d rescued her from bullies as a pup. She’d understand how Jane felt in all this and be someone safe.
And if he was wrong, he’d given Jane a knife to protect herself. He must be out of his mind giving silver to a human to use against one of his pack. If the others discovered he’d given her a weapon, it could get ugly.
He was losing his edge. Maybe he shouldn’t continue as alpha if his concern was for Jane’s safety over a member of his pack.
It was four hours. Even in some bizarre alternate reality in which Rhonda was hunting humans, she wouldn’t kill this close to home, and she sure as hell wouldn’t kill when she was the only possible suspect and had to know the consequences from Cole.
He turned to see Blake, the pack beta, sitting on a crate watching him. “So . . . are you fucking her?”
Every eye in the cave was on him, waiting for his reply. “No. Not that that’s any of your business.”
“Hey, it’s my business if you bring someone in here who could turn against us. We’ve been trying to get you to settle down and take a mate. What’s wrong with Rhonda? You know she loves you.”
“We grew up together. She’s like a kid sister to me.”
Blake snorted. “Like a sister isn’t the same as being a sister. And baby sis’ is all grown up now. Have you seen the legs and rack on her? Put the poor girl out of her misery and mark her. At least then the temptation to screw the human wouldn’t be there. Everyone saw how you were looking at her.”
Had he been looking at Jane that way?
“Jane is not a threat to us. She despises the vampires as much as we do. She’s under my protection.”
“I just don’t think . . . ”
Cole stalked across the room to stand in front of the beta, using his considerable size as an easy intimidation tactic. “Blake, would you like to challenge me for pack alpha?”
The beta wolf’s eyes grew large, and he threw his hands up in surrender. “Shit no. I’m not that stupid. I prefer life.”
Cole nodded. “Good, then. The discussion about Jane is over. Any other objections to her being here?”
The room was tense. It was obvious his word wasn’t good enough this time. They all thought him compromised because he hadn’t taken a mate. They were probably all right about that. But he also knew he was right about Jane. She wasn’t a threat to them, and he’d become invested in giving her a place of safety.
“I understand your reservations and why you have them,” he began. “And if I were in your position, I would be worried as well. But just give her a chance. Get to know her before you decide she shouldn’t be here. Some of you know first-hand what the vampires can be like. And believe me when I tell you, she’s probably had it worse than any of those few of you who’ve been in that unfortunate position.”
That got the desired reaction. Just a month ago one of their own had been jumped by some of the vampires and taken in for questioning. Where was the den? How did they get out of the city? Calling them terrorists. Please. Terrorists produced terror. The only scary thing the wolf pack was doing was avoiding assimilation into the police state Borg. Their resistance was only a threat to the vampires and others with the same agenda of control.
The wolf in question, Deric, looked down at the ground. Cole knew he’d been close to cracking when they’d reached him. “You didn’t talk though. That’s the important part.”
Since Anthony had taken over, the vampire had been determined to get the wolf problem under control. The vamps had excellent PR, presenting themselves as refined and civilized, as the salvation of the preternaturals. Meanwhile, the wolves were characterized as a pack of savage beasts, intent on maiming hapless humans and everyone else who stood in their way.
Cole looked around the room, his eyes locking briefly with each member of the pack before moving on. The problem with being the alpha was that few would maintain eye contact with him for more than a second. It was too often seen as a challenge for dominance, and no one wanted to challenge him. They’d all witnessed what happened when a wolf challenged.
Was the pack afraid of him? He hadn’t thought they were. He certainly wasn’t the bastard the former leader had been. Rafe had been truly abusive, living up to the werewolf stereotypes. Cole had thought he’d come off differently. Perhaps not.
Wolves were faster than most of the other preternaturals, even vampires in some cases. Stronger than a lot of them too. They hunted in packs; they traveled in packs; they hung out in packs. It was rare for someone to get the drop on one. But Deric had been the exception that proved it could happen if they weren’t all incredibly careful.
Since that time, the rules had become stiffer and penalties for breaking them harsher. It was what he had to do to keep them all safe.
“I’m considering moving us out of Cary Town, somewhere where we won’t be a target. I’m not sure the danger is worth it anymore.”
One of the wolves in the back spoke up. “But what about what they’re doing? If everyone just goes along with these rules they’re setting up, supposedly for everybody’s safety from the humans, they’ll start branching into other cities. Eventually they’ll have control of everything.”
Another wolf added his voice to the discussion. “Don’t be such an alarmist, Mara. We’d still have access to the demon dimension.”
Mara turned toward the other wolf. “There’s no hunting there. No places to run. We can’t live there.”
Cole raised a hand, and the wolves fell silent. “I haven’t said we should give up the fight. Only that with Anthony in charge, it’s not as safe for us as it was under the old administration. This vampire is more ambitious than his predecessor. Even with the stronger security in place, it’s only a matter of time before someone gets caught.”
“I don’t want to leave. This is my home,” a teenage girl said. “Why do any of us even have to go into town at all?”
Cole stared at her for a moment.
“Lucy!” Her mother looked horrified by her daughter’s outburst and at the same time scared for her.
Shit. The pack was afraid of him. He’d been protecting his status to protect them, but it clearly hadn’t been interpreted that way. Jane might be the best PR he could get within the pack, assuming he could convince them she wasn’t out to destroy them all.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” He hadn’t thought of it because it hadn’t been an issue until three months ago. Deric’s capture had caused massive levels of stress for everyone.
“Thought of what?” Blake said.
Cole was glad he hadn’t been the only one. “No more going into town unless you have direct permission from myself or Blake. From here on out, if you aren’t in the hive, you are to be outside the city limits. I’ll have to get more portal charms from Cain but I think I can swing it. We can hop portals from here in the main den.”
No one in the pack knew exactly how he’d struck the arrangement with Cain. Most demons didn’t mingle with preternaturals that had humanity in their veins. But he’d helped Cain out of a bind once. Demons were unkillable, true immortals on this plane. Unlike vampires. But that didn’t mean they didn’t get into tight and unpleasant spots. Plus he thought Cain found the whole thing amusing and liked undermining the vampires. The bastard half-breeds.
***
Jane’s muscles coiled in tension as she sat in the passenger seat of Cole’s Mustang, the black wool fabric covering her eyes. How was she supposed to defend herself against a rabid werewolf if she couldn’t see it?
“Sorry, but I forgot to ask Cole about that, and I’ve never known him to allow anyone outside the pack into the hive without it.”
“No, it’s fine,” Jane said a little shakily, hoping she didn’t sound as scared as she felt. Oh hell, Rhonda could no doubt smell it on her. And if she was the weakest of the pack, it might mean she was the least in control of the change. Jane concentrated on thinking happy thoughts. Peter Pan thoughts. Whatever she had to do to make sure Rhonda didn’t sprout fur on her.