Dire Needs: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan (11 page)

“
This is a bullet wound.”

“Yes.”

“Were you near my house when those men started shooting?”

He nodded, and she wanted to ask why, but she didn’t. It seemed almost rude, considering he’d saved her life. The female in her also gained satisfaction that he’d wanted to see her again.

“I already took the bullet out—just needs to be cleaned,” he told her.

“Now you’re a doctor too?”

“Little bit.”

She cleaned him up and bandaged the round wound, which was already on its way to healing. “There you go. This needs to be changed daily.”

He was watching her with heavy-lidded eyes that were deceptively lazy. This man was anything but.

“Thanks for saving my jacket.”

She felt her face flush. “Those men were holding it. I just… freaked.”

“I guess it was your good-luck charm.”

No, that’s turning out to be you,
she wanted to say, but she held that back because it was too soon to tell.

She had nothing to go back to, and her stay would be short, no matter what. Maybe she could get used to being a biker chick. God knew she wanted Rifter. So she could be freaked or spend the rest of her time living, and doing so above the law seemed both appropriate and appealing.

“I obviously have some kind of brain tumor, and that’s why I’m hallucinating things I can’t have possibly seen. I also can’t fight you and your brothers. I won’t go to the police, and I know you don’t trust that. But they wouldn’t believe my story anyway. I don’t even believe it. But
those men said to put me in the van and to call Mars,” she told him. “Where were they going to take me?”

“You’re safe now, Gwen,” he said, and she couldn’t accept that non-answer. The next confession came out of her mouth before she could stop it, but maybe it would make him understand why she needed to know everything.

“My mother was killed by fire. So were my aunt and uncle. Now my house explodes, right after a strange woman chants and shows me a pentagram. So I really hope I’m losing my mind or else—”

Or else the possibilities were too frightening to say out loud.

“I’m a dangerous man to be around. But you knew that already,” Rifter said.

She couldn’t deny that she knew it, not when it drew her to him like a moth to the flame. Literally, at this point. “And I feel like I’m a dangerous woman to be around,” she countered.

“This isn’t about you. I have a lot of enemies.”

“And now so do I.”

“As far as the rest of the world’s concerned, you died in that fire,” he said bluntly.

“There’s no one in the world who’d care,” she said quietly, hadn’t expected him to drag her toward him or hold her tightly.

“I goddamned do.” His voice was gruff, the emotion behind it real. Her body pressed against his hard one. She fit between his opened thighs, her head level with his chest, and she looked up to catch his gaze.

It was smoldering. Her body was tugging her down a dangerous path as his erection pressed her—and he looked completely unashamed about that as he repeated quietly, “I goddamned care.”

She wasn’t
really aware that she’d started to trace a finger along the tribal tat near his collarbone until he actually shuddered a little under her touch. She wanted to trace it with her mouth and fought that urge, instead moving her hand to the outer square of the bandage.

When she looked up at him, he was watching her with a heat in his eyes that ripped through her body like a fire.

“You gonna kiss it and make it all better, Doc?” he breathed.

Yes, she thought she might. And when he brought his mouth down on hers, she melted for him. This was so easy, probably the easiest thing she’d ever done. Her tongue played against his as the kisses deepened. She was ready to climb him, to let him take her the way she’d wanted to last night.

His hands roamed her body, brushing her breasts over her shirt, and she squirmed impatiently, allowing his hands to move underneath the fabric. Her own tugged at his shirt as well, and she touched her palms to his warm skin.

God, she felt like she was touching fire… and she liked the burn. He didn’t seem to mind either—his body seemed to quake at the touch.

He’d pushed her shirt up, her bra aside and took a nipple in his mouth, sucked hard enough to make her stifle a cry of pure pleasure. Her hands held his head and she was climbing his lap, aided by a strong arm wrapping her waist.

Straddling him on the stretcher, his face buried against her chest, her face buried in his hair, she felt the orgasm start to rise in her. Her body was strung as tight as a bow and it wouldn’t take much. He played her easily, his mouth suckling her nipple, and the wet between her legs called for his touch.

She wanted to be naked. Right now.

“Rifter,”
she murmured into his hair. His response was to grind his arousal against her, the rock-hard erection pressing between her legs, the scent of pine needles and cold air and a tornado of complete want spiraled out of control.

She felt the orgasm in her womb—deep contractions that rocked her with the same kind of pleasure she’d felt that morning. But this was better because she wasn’t alone.

Rifter started to take off her jeans, but Liam picked that moment to stir, the monitor beeping alerting them. She and Rifter broke apart quickly, and she tugged her shirt down and went to Liam’s stretcher. When she took his hand in hers, he opened his eyes and stared into her face for a long moment, like he was trying to remember who she was“You’re all right,” he managed finally.

“You’re okay too. Just try not to move too much. I stitched you, but they won’t hold if you try to go out and save random women.”

He smiled a little. “Didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“Feeling better, Liam?” Rifter asked, and the younger man nodded. “Good. Gwen, you can go with Cyd—he’s waiting for you in the hallway and he’ll get you food and a place to rest.”

She turned toward the door, which was still closed, but she heard voices in the hallway a bit too clearly.

“They’re coming for him,” she heard Jinx say, and realized they were talking about Liam. She heard muttering and caught bits of conversation among the cursing.

“… knows he’s alive.”

“… trappers working with the outlaws, like he said.”

When she turned back around, Rifter was staring at her.

“I need to stay with Liam,” she told him.

“Your stomach’s growling and you’re exhausted. And
my brothers and I have to talk some business with him—we’ll call for you if there are any problems.”

She relented reluctantly. “Don’t wear him out.”

Rifter’s lips curled, like he was holding back a laugh, and she pushed past him into the hall, still feeling his mouth on hers.

N
either Jinx nor Vice commented when they saw Rifter, partly because they were focused on Liam, but Rift knew they’d smelled the arousal in the air. No doubt they’d caught his scent on Gwen.

He was marking her—subtly—but it was there. And he couldn’t have stopped it if he tried.

It was frustrating because he needed to have her, and he knew that could never happen. Brother Wolf was pissed about that because he’d been marking her too, in his own way. Because as strong as Rifter’s urge to mate with Gwen was becoming, Brother Wolf’s urges to become Father Wolf were far more primal. For Brother, a mate was a source of more wolves, and that would make him truly complete.

Stray had remained with Harm, Jinx told him in passing, which Rifter was grateful for. But he wasn’t sure how long that wolf would retain his self-control—he would head to see Harm for himself as soon as this conversation was over.

Now they circled Liam’s bed—the stubborn young wolf was trying to sit up, but Jinx stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Relax—your wound was nasty.”

Liam stared down at the line of black stitches at the
wound, which already appeared to be healing. “I have things to do.”

“You need our help, so start talking,” Rifter told him with a low snarl, because the young wolf looked ready to bolt.

“I need to get back to my pack—to lead them. There’s chaos among the Weres now, and I have to stop it before it spreads outside of New York.” Liam was growing frustrated, but he remained respectful.

Chaos was an understatement.

There were werepacks scattered across the United States and the rest of the world. The main pack, which would now fall under Liam’s control, was in New York City, with the other large packs being in Texas, California and Wisconsin.

Discontent among the pack members was normal. For the most part, the alpha orders were to be followed without question, but living so close to humans and their ways had put a different spin on their lives.

Alphas would run their own packs while still following the rules of the king. But the main problem the outlaw pack had was that they found the old ways Linus adhered to far too restricting.

Join the goddamned club,
Rifter had growled when Linus told them that. Rifter had also been privy to several werepack meetings about the subject, listening in from outside to ensure that the Weres all spoke their mind.

Teague and Tals, along with Walker, were the major problems.

“We’re wolves—we’re supposed to hunt and kill,” Teague argued. But Linus had quashed their talk of rebellion without the Dires having to do much but remain in town. There had been little to no talk of the outlaws until a couple of weeks ago, when Linus and Liam had
been kidnapped, their wereguards left dead around their New York City brownstone.

The outlaws hadn’t publicly taken responsibility for any of this thus far. “Have the outlaws tried to take over your pack?” Rifter asked Liam now.

“That wasn’t their first goal.”

“What was?”

“The outlaws wanted to turn the Dires over to the weretrappers,” Liam said quietly, and Rifter felt a collective, palpable pain rise from the Dires that surrounded the young wolf, whose father had died for them.

“Who?” Vice demanded.

“Tals. Teague. Walker.” Liam shifted in the bed, his eyes lupine as he spoke of the wolves who had murdered his father. The death was so fresh it burned in his eyes, and the Dires waited, giving him the time to regroup and stop the imminent shift.

Total control over his wolf was not something a Were could ever have, but if Liam was to lead, he would need more of it than the average Were, especially under this kind of pressure.

Weres turned younger—at sixteen as opposed to the Dires’ twenty-one. An imperfect system, Rogue had always said.

After several tense moments, Liam’s eyes returned to full human, even as a thin sheen of sweat covered his chest. “They started quietly recruiting rogue wolves from other packs to join their cause—they believed that if my father sold you to the weretrappers, the Weres would be left alone. This was their plan—my father was trying to tell you, right before he got kidnapped.”

“It’s one thing for them to say it, another to actually do it,” Rifter said.

“Either way, I’ve got to start taking back control by calling those three out,” Liam countered.

“They won’t
respond to the old ways,” Rifter told him. “Besides that, it’s too public. And we’ve got enough of the humans breathing down our necks.”

“Or with their tongues down our throats,” Vice muttered, barely getting the last syllable out before Rifter threw him across the room. Vice hit the wall with a satisfying crack of plaster meeting skull and rebounded, landing right in front of Rifter, but with a few respectful feet between them.

“Wolf, I will take you out right now,” Rifter warned, his voice low. “We have too many problems for infighting.”

Vice nodded, and a hand on his shoulder from Jinx helped. But Rogue was somehow the only one who could fully control Vice and his many excesses.

Rifter turned his attention back to Liam. “Linus had been challenged before. He’d always fought and won.”

“The outlaws blindsided him this time. He was murdered in front of me. If I don’t take the pack over…,” Liam started.

“You’re in no shape.”

“Then get me ready,” Liam challenged, and Rifter had to push him back down because Gwen would have his ass if the stitches split.

Since when do you worry about a woman’s opinion?

He shook his head, and Vice looked at him strangely. “What?”

“Just waiting for you to react to what Liam said about the outlaws selling out Weres to the witches and trappers for profit. Because once we’re under the weretrappers’ care, so to speak, there’s nothing to protect the non-outlaw Weres from selling their own kind out.”

“Is that true?” he demanded of Liam.

“My father confirmed it in the week leading up to his death. At first, the outlaws wanted to out the Weres to
the human population. They believed it would take away some of the weretrappers’ power because they also want to out the witches. My father disagreed. They knew they wouldn’t be able to do it without his consent, and that’s why they killed him and planned on taking out the entire council. Tals and Teague were having private meetings, telling the rogue wolves, ‘Why should the witches get all the benefits? We didn’t start this—the Dires did. We shouldn’t have to take on their burden while they’re off partying.’ They’re angry wolves, more intent on killing than following the old ways, which makes them quite dangerous. The Weres like killing humans and have taken to selling their own kind to the weretrappers in exchange for protection. Some of them have started to work as bodyguards for both witch and weretrapper.”

“Rebellion—using the weretrappers to get what they want—could they be any stupider?” Vice asked.

The trappers had started as good humans, but their purpose had evolved over the years. When the pre-Extinction Dires killed human families, the families bonded together, intent on keeping humans safe from the wolves. When the Dires were taken out by the Extinction and the Weres were created, the weretrappers began hunting them, not caring about the difference in breeds.

Over time, the trappers began to realize the power they could have if they were able to harness the power of the Weres. Now they regularly captured Weres and experimented with ways to keep them under their control.