“Look, it takes a lot to change. Your wolf has to be robust enough to finish the change, or you could be stuck somewhere in between. I’ve seen that, and believe me, you don’t want that.” And neither did he.
“What you’re saying is if we didn’t have sex, I might have been able to control the wolf?” She was pissed. He heard it in the gruff undertone of her voice.
“You can’t control the wolf by starving her. All that does is turn her desperate. I’m sorry that having sex with me was such a hassle. But it was necessary—whether you believe it or not.” He knew he shouldn’t be mad at her. She was most likely tired and scared. But going from an
oh my God
to a not-so-subtle reference that she would rather not have had sex was too much of a swing for him.
Jason moved to his side of the bed and lowered himself into his chair. He wheeled into the bathroom and took a quick shower. No one had ever said finding a mate would be easy. Nothing worth having ever was.
“Hey.” A soft voice sounded from just outside the shower stall. He was getting slow. First Dane, now her. He was going to have to start paying more attention to those around him. “Look, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to insult you.”
If that was not trying, he’d hate to see what happened if she put her mind to it. “It’s okay. You can grab a shower; then we’ll get some sleep. If I know Donovan, he’ll be over bright and early. And we need to figure out how to introduce you to the rest of the pack.”
“You don’t think they’ll like me?” Her voice quivered. “Is it because I’m black?”
He opened the door and stared at her. She stood near the doorframe looking as if she didn’t really care. He wasn’t fooled. “No. Race isn’t an issue in the pack. We’re all different: skin color, hair color, and eye color. We get a lot of outcasts up this way, so anything goes.”
“Why wouldn’t they like me?” She pouted as if begging for him to kiss the hurt away. And her forehead scrunched as if she was going over her image in the mirror, looking for a reason.
“It wouldn’t be you. It would be me. A lot of them don’t think I should mate. I know, I know,” he said when she started making sounds as if she was going to argue. “We aren’t a couple, but since humans can be changed, and you are changing, they will assume you’re going to stay with me.”
“I thought wolves only had one mate. You know, soul mates.” She waved her hand in the air.
“Yeah. That’s if you’re lucky. Not everyone finds their soul mate. Wolves make the same mistakes as everyone else. We rush into a mating that is destined to fail. And when it does, both parties are miserable. But wolves mate for life. Most make the best of the situation. A few leave. Same as anywhere else, except there is no such thing as divorce for a wolf.”
“Basically you’re saying you guys only get one chance to get it right? One chance at happiness. If you jump too soon, you doom yourself.”
“Yes. That’s why we only have mating ceremonies twice a year, during the solstice celebrations. The entire pack shows up. Everyone has a chance to sniff out the potential mates, and if there are no objections, they are accepted into the group. It’s also when we welcome new members; most are new mates although we do get one or two loners looking for a permanent home.
“So because you turned me they wouldn’t be looking at me as a new member, but as the new-mate material for you?” She didn’t look like she liked that.
He nodded. “Don’t worry about it tonight. Just jump in the shower, then come and get some sleep.”
She moved past him toward the shower. He looked at her reflection in the mirror. Who would have thought he’d be reduced to trying to trick a converted human into being his mate? He watched her step into the shower and pushed down the little piece of him that told him he wasn’t being fair to her.
* * *
“Wake up, sleepyhead.”
Gio lifted her head, smelled the coffee, but refused to crack an eyelid open. “No,” she muttered into the pillow. Her entire body was limp and heavy. She didn’t want to wake up. Not to that voice. If she did, it would mean it had all been real.
“Donovan will be here soon, and it doesn’t look good.”
Doesn’t look good
? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Gio flipped the covers off her head and sat up. She smoothed her hair down and leveled him with a searing gaze. There was no window in this room, but she would have sworn it wasn’t much past sunrise.
“Define
doesn’t look good
,” she demanded as she pulled the covers up to hide her breasts.
“You know that visitor I had yesterday?”
“No. I didn’t know anyone but Donovan had been here.” She hoped no one else had seen her lying on the floor cuddling with the toilet.
“Suffice it to say, he’s not going to be your biggest fan.”
“Ahh. One of those people who don’t think you should mate. Gotcha.” Was that coffee he was holding for her? She lifted an eyebrow and looked from his face to the cup. “Is that for me?”
“No. You shouldn’t have any stimulants until after your first change.” He gulped more of what she was betting was some prime-grade stuff.
She had the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him.
“And no, Dane is not one of those who don’t want to see me mate. He’s the leader of the ones who think I should be dead.”
She stopped eyeing his cup and zeroed in on his face. “Dead as in dead-dead?”
“I don’t know any other kind, do you?” He smiled.
“Why are you smiling? He wants you dead, and he came over here yesterday. Shit if he wants you dead, I probably don’t even warrant a thought. So I’ll just be collateral damage when he comes back to finish you off?”
“Stop.” He wheeled his chair close to the bed. “He’s had three years to try to kill me. He hasn’t even tried.”
“Yet,” she finished for him. “He hasn’t tried yet, but that doesn’t mean he won’t.”
“Don’t worry about it. That’s what I’m here for.” A gruff voice came from the edge of the room.
Donovan
. Gio pulled the covers higher before she chanced a glance at the man. “Get dressed. I have more news.”
Jason moved to the dresser. He opened several drawers, pulled out clothes, and threw them at her. “Just put these on.”
“I still need underwear, and as much as I would
love
to wear some of yours, I think it’s time for Donovan to get my bag from the car.”
“Your car isn’t here,” Jason said without even turning around.
She didn’t like the sound of that. “Then where is it?”
“About seven hours from here, sitting at a truck stop. Someone will most likely steal it. But whatever the case, it’s no longer our issue.” He wheeled to the door and then turned to stare at her. “I told you that you couldn’t leave. That hasn’t changed.”
Gio was dressed and tearing out of the room in three minutes flat. Who the hell did he think he was, taking her car? No, stealing her car and then driving it somewhere to get re-stolen?
What was she going to do about Cel? Gio shook her head. She couldn’t think about her sister. Not now. She would worry about it when she worked all this crap out.
Jason and Donovan were in the living room, their heads almost bent together. They must not want her to overhear their conversation. She didn’t want to anyway, but the fact that they were being so secretive pushed her straight over the edge.
“Who the fuck gave you permission to take my car and things? What if I’d had something important like medicine in there?” She put her hands on her hips and started toward them down the small path between the coffee table and the other furniture.
“Well, we can’t make you disappear if we leave the car right outside the house, now can we? No doubt someone would search, and it wouldn’t take them long to find you. Kind of defeats the purpose?” Donovan said with more laughter than fear in his eyes.
She wanted to rush over there and bite him. Knock him down and take a chunk out of him for teasing her. Not only had they screwed up her DNA, fucked up the minivacation she’d planned to take after she told Jason off, but they’d stolen her fucking panties—the good ones—and now they had the balls to laugh at her?
She didn’t know what came over her. One moment she was staring down the small space separating them in anger, and the next she was flying through the air over the table with Donovan’s head as her main target.
He scrambled away at the last second, but not far enough. She knocked him to the floor.
“Gio,” Jason said, reaching for her.
She snapped at him. Then she heard a growl come from her lips.
Her lips
. She couldn’t control it. The colors in the room went from vibrant to a soft, cool, flavorless version, all the vibrant hues gone. Just like in the bathroom—what she lost in shades, she picked up in depth perception and her almost preternatural ability to see motion. Donovan was about to try to push her off. She could see the muscles in his neck bunch. She jumped off him before he got the chance to throw her.
He stood slowly, never taking his eyes off her. “She’s changing too quickly. Her wolf is too strong. You aren’t going to be able to handle her cooped up like this unless you plan on fighting or fucking every second until the solstice.”
“What do you suggest? You said Dane is watching. If I take her outside to run, he’ll know about her and—no doubt—pull something.” Jason backed away from her too.
It was almost a clear shot to the door. She didn’t know where she would go with no clothes and no car, but something deep inside was urging her to run.
Just run.
“He already knows. He threatened every female pack member and human who knows about us to stay away from you. Told them that if they don’t, they’ll be strung up naked to be a pack party favor at the solstice. I figure he knows you have a human here, because otherwise why not just talk to the pack?”
“Well, that’s fucking great,” Jason said. “So how many men does he having watching the house?”
“Enough that I have three of my deputies watching them.” Donovan didn’t look too concerned.
“If he captures her, he’ll kill her just to provoke me into a fight.”
“I told you we should never have admitted him into the pack,” Donovan pointed out.
The words floated over her as she kept an eye on the door. Well, not all the words. She caught the
kill her
and snapped back to attention.
Run. Run. Run
. There it was again. This time stronger.
Donovan moved closer to Jason and opened up a direct path to freedom. She watched the two men for a full minute before she ran for it. She didn’t glance behind her. When she reached the door, she threw it open and raced outside. The cool air hit her in the face and exploded into her lungs on that first breath. Gio had never been much of a runner, but it seemed effortless now. Legs, arms, breasts all moved in sync, and laughter bubbled up her throat as she ran.
Jason wheeled out the door just behind Donovan. Neither man had been expecting Gio to run. Once she was out of the door, her graceful gait carried her to nearby woods at an outrageous speed.
“This isn’t good. She can’t be running like this with Dane and his people out there,” Donovan said, shaking his head.
“Well, go get her,” Jason said, clenching his fists. It wasn’t as if he could chase her himself.
“The only way to catch her is to change. At best she’ll run from my wolf. At worst she’ll fight me. She got intimate with you. She’ll recognize your scent. You might get close enough to stop her.” Donovan glanced at him.
“I haven’t run in three years. Even if I wanted to try, how the hell do I run with one bum leg and another that can’t hold any real amount of weight?”
“Your wolf moved pretty fast when Gio first got here.”
“I have no clue as to how I did that. And besides, if I transform, the assholes watching us for Dane might too. Then Gio will really be in trouble.” Jason listened to his words and knew it was a losing battle. If those men watching Gio caught her alone, they’d get her anyway. “I don’t know how well this is going to work. Watch my back.”
“I always do,” Donovan said, moving back a few steps.