Loving Lucius (Werescape) (37 page)

Shit. So much for outsmarting them.

Marine's ears perked upright, his body tensing, and he turned in a nanosecond.

The male stood a good six foot. Maybe two or three inches over. Lanky. Still filling out. Young. But nearing twenty. He'd be allowed to mate in a year or two. Once Cousin Busybody decided who he was allowed to show interest in.

"Are you lost?" he asked with a voice as smooth as homemade whiskey.

Sure could use a sip. Not of him. But haven't had a drink of Forget It All since winter. And something made me feel a little more than edgy. "Is this the Western Fields?" Like I'd bump into more than one agricultural patch of civilization out here in The Wilderness.

He nodded, respectfully keeping his gaze where it should stay if he wanted to keep his nose clean. "Who sent you?"

So, this place is really top secret. "Augustus."

His black eyebrows pinched with question. "He sent a female?"

Leave it to Augustus to surprise us all. "Don't tell me you think females need males to look after them too?"

His brow arched with either surprise at being called a chauvinist or concern for my well-being. "No, ma'am."

He's kidding. Right? "Now, don't be
ma'aming
me." I leaned against the hard flat surface of my saddle's pommel. "I'm not much older than you." I'd let him wonder how old I was. Or he'd insist on calling me ma'am because I would be twenty-five in the fall.

"I'm sorry."

Such an apologetic tone more than sufficiently made up for his deadly insult. "It's alright. I eased back to sit in the hard welcoming saddle and scanned the field. "Where would you like me to leave these forty pounds of lead? That is if Augustus had the foresight to provide you lads with a roof to sleep under." I met the young man's blue gaze.

Paler than Augustus' bright blue eyes. This one wasn't his relative. Maybe one of the Shifter's sons sent to Augustus to learn how to do lab work in the underground community built by the US government before the alien invasion.

He waved a palm to my left. "If you'll follow me, I'll guide you to the path. It'll take you to the lodge."

Okay. Cousin Busybody at least took care of these excommunicated teens. I suppose their sires would be mighty pissed to learn Augustus hadn't left his charges with the normal protection of a building and a palisade. Even Shifters needed a secure outpost to lock away inside after sunset or spend the night fighting off alien creatures left to prey upon humans. Who wanted to do that when he could be snoozing the night away?

The young Shifter silently led Marine to the well-trodden path through a stretch of prairie. Since I couldn't think of anything else to ask, silence proved more than adequate. But where is this lodge? "Do you boys live in a sod house?"

He halted beside the leather of my knee-high brown deer-hide boots, his pale blue eyes studying mine.

Maybe he isn't certain what he should disclose? But, damn, how would anybody find a place that blends into the prairie so well? Camouflage. Shifters had mastered camouflage…

"You'll follow the trail for a good five miles. Augustus had the outpost constructed under trees in a forest for camouflage."

Oh, there's the magic word again.

"The distance from this field is to prevent alien spacecraft from stopping overhead and blasting the lodge as it projects its extermination beam," he kept talking. "You know. Just in case aliens think our field is too domestic for The Wild." He winked.

Just like Augustus right before he decided who I'd mate or when he set me up for other kinds of disaster.

My skin crawled.

He thrust a thumb down the trail. "Follow the trail. You'll find the lodge at the end. If you run across any Normals along the way, forget everything I've told you."

Crazy. But what can you expect from a teen? Even one about to enter the mating market.

A horse can walk about sixty miles a day. Since the summer days are long, about twelve hours, it would take about an hour to walk the path. Not that I could test the calculation without a watch. But the young man didn't lie. The outpost's on-end tree-trunk palisade made a patch of forest appear so dense a rider couldn't miss it once hearing about the fortress' location.

Marine's steady rocking motion never altered as if he hadn't noticed we'd almost reached our destination.

He probably just isn't tired, hungry, or thirsty yet. We'd stopped for a midday break at a dilapidated windmill that still had a working faucet. Marine sucked down more water than one would expect a camel to fill two humps and snacked on tall prairie grass while I took care of my sore tail end by stretching my legs.

A few weeks out of the saddle sure could lay a girl up for a day or two. Especially when her cousin decided she needed supervision.

Like I would commit suicide? If I wanted to die, I would have stayed with the bodies back at the Chippewa sanctuary. Normals never caught wind of the place. And I'd have just frozen to death in the winter. Alone. Peacefully. Without my nagging older sister. But no. I had to pack up as many supplies as possible and check myself into the asylum run by my sister's mate. Right where I should be. With the rest of the lunatics.

Marine snorted as if insulted by being lumped into the rest of the cuckoo's nest with my thoughts. I bet Augustus would take that lovely novel off the required reading list for his students if he knew I compared the story to his sanctuary's ambiance.

Marine snorted.

Probably an admonishment. I swear he can read my mind. I bet it has to do with our implied mating. What a thought! Since he isn't snorting, I don't have to worry about him reading that thought. Thank the stars.

We passed from blaring sunlight's heat into the overarching canopy's comforting shade. Toward another teen with a large black military-grade firearm. Probably loaded to the hilt. Shifters love bullets.

The young whelp eyed me.

Curiously. And nodded. Fine. Three steps later, Marine stepped through the open gateway and under the trees.

Someone had worked to cut the lower limbs away for a rider to pass free of obstacles.

Marine didn't veer any direction. He headed straight for the single lodge's two steps that led to the door.

Probably ready for a good night's rest. I'd give him that much. Even if it meant sleeping in this snake pit. Gods know I have no intention of providing the outpost's nightly entertainment by spreading my legs. I'd given up on the Shifter I loved years ago. Gone back to my family at the Chippewa sanctuary because Augustus began suggesting other Shifters when Hostillian wouldn't even look down at me.

Okay. Maybe I stood up to the man too many times? Maybe I should have acted a little more like a timid submissive female. But Hostillian wouldn't have looked at me at all if I hadn't made a fuss when he tried to intimidate me. Gods. I'd tried and tried to get his attention. I'd done everything humanly possible to run with the Shifters. That took a lot for a Normal male. But every breathable moment had to be invested in the effort if the fool was an even shorter Normal female. So, I, said fool, wasted my youth and wound up with a reputation that precedes me. No problem. I'd rather be a moron left alone than forced to mate a big hairy Wolf cock I had no intention of fucking because the Shifter wouldn't take no for an answer.

Marine halted at the bottommost step and sighed a quick snort that collapsed his ribcage between my legs.

Just enough change in my reality to knock me out of my internal diatribe.

The loathsome Augustus did this to me. Made my thoughts wander and obsess. August should have just forced Hostillian to mate me when I was eighteen. Hell, my cousin knew who I loved. Rather pined over. Aren't females rare? Shouldn't my needs have been met?

And where am I now? The cuckoo. Obsessing at some teen's doorstep in the middle of BFE.

I am so ridiculous. Why can't I forget the Big Bad Beast? And since when did the world go the way a person planned, AEI? I just needed to suck up the loss and move on. Deliver the bloody ammo, throw down my bedroll, and haul my tail out of here at sunrise. I threw a heel to the jarring hard-packed forest floor and struggled with an unbelievably heavy saddlebag of bullets.

Half. This is only half the load. Which had to weigh a hundred pounds. How did Marine manage hauling me, my gear, and two packs of ammo? Using both arms to support the dead weight, I climbed the squawking steps and kicked the solid unyielding door.

Okay. Kicking is not the most neighborly way to pound on someone's door. But my hands are full. And nobody knows I am Josie. Yet. The male who opened the door would just see a female and undoubtedly get all sweet and gentle. I'll just have to pretend to be as amiable.

****

Hostillian froze in his footsteps.
The long chocolate-brown ponytail dangling down the back of the only female who ever talked back, argued, got in my face from well over a foot beneath my nose lurks on my doorstep
, he noted, biting back a growl. Josie. What in the Gods-be-damned hell is she doing at my outpost?

Jaguar hustled toward her back.

Her stallion swung his head around to size up the teenager.

She turned at the horse's declaration of an approaching person.

Without Shifter senses, she didn't detect me where I stood near a gnarled tree trunk cloaked in shadow. All the better. Her arrival wouldn't go over well. The teens would be on edge with a female afoot. If I sent them out to keep them busy, I'd be alone with her. No Gods-be-damned way. Wolf isn't going to sit by and watch a pack of scraggly pups sniff and lick at who he fancies his female.

Over my maggot-eaten carcass.

Gods-damn the stupid thought. She isn't mine. Won't be mine. There's no way in hell I'd mate the only woman who made my Wolf froth at the mouth with lust like a rabid creature. Nothing makes my Wolf uncontrollable. Except her.

Jaguar strode up the steps, past her, towering over her shorter female form, and shoved the door wide.

But they stood there. Talking!

Mine
, Wolf snarled.

She isn't yours and will never be yours. Get over the fantasy.

Wolf growled and clawed frantically at the underside of my ribcage.

Futilely. I'd mastered caging the beast years ago. When that little female started acting like a warrior at thirteen and turned on me. Defied me in front of the other Shifters. The fool. She was as dangerous as nitroglycerin. Volatile. Too risky to mate. She'd get herself killed because she barked up all the wrong trees. Her mate would never live a peaceful moment. I certainly don't want to mate her. And the last stupid thing I'd do now is egg on Wolf's need to know what Jaguar and Josie said to one another by pulling Wolf into my ears to eavesdrop.

Josie disappeared inside the dark gaping doorway.

Jaguar retrieved a pack from her saddle and followed her.

Not the best of situations. Josie could take care of herself. But Jaguar has no idea that she could rip off his tail and cram it down his throat. I'd have to intervene or pay the price for losing one of my Shifter charges. Or at least his valuable nuts. The human race would die off without every Shifter in full form to donate genetic material for the greater good of the species.

****

The young Shifter retrieved the other bag of ammo and placed them on a long wooden table strategically placed positions on one side of the large central room.

Like a gentleman. "Thank you." I wasn't about to be rude even though they'd quickly decide I am, by reputation alone, once somebody inquired about my name.

"Augustus sent you?" The young male descended onto the bench flanking the opposite side of the table.

No sense acting mysterious. "Yes."

"Long ride," he noted, somewhat contemplatively.

More than outright blurting he couldn't believe a female rode two days alone. "Yes." What next? Am I mated? Or did I have any trouble on the trail?

"You heading back tonight?" he asked.