What This Wolf Wants (18 page)

You continue down this road, you will die.”

“We all die, Jackie,” he said softly.

“But most of us don’t go looking for it.”

His mouth opened. Slammed shut. He looked away. “I met your uncle. Twice. There was something, different about him. Dark.

Uncontrollable. His beast had a tighter rein on the man than the man had on the beast. Some people are just like that. Shifters, human, males, and females. The darkness takes over and they get addicted. To danger, drugs, sex.” He turned back, staring at her, hard. Eyes filled with intense emotion.

“Until something slaps them in the face and they wake up.” Yeah, she knew her uncle had been different. Darker. Addiction had it’s own scent and while she couldn’t sense the same darkness in Zan, she knew he relished danger. “Please. I saw the way you looked at Dean and Kaylie’s. You were excited about Shider. The stupid games, the hunt, taking down prey, that’s what turns you on.”

“You’re what turns me on. My woman. My
mate
. At my side. In my arms.”

“Bullshit.” She hissed.

“Oh, so now you think you know me well enough to tell me what I was thinking or how I was feeling? Who’s throwing out the bullshit now, Jackie?”

Seething, because he was right, dammit, Jackie swiveled on her heel, presenting him with her back, and shoved her hands in her hair.

He came up behind her, turning her gently. Two fingers lifted her chin. “I’m a dominant male shifter. I like to be in charge, to hunt, to win.

You know that. You’re own alpha is like that and you don’t have a problem with him.”

“As he’s not my mate, the point to moot.”

He sighed, a long heavy breath that fanned her bangs. “Why can’t you get past your preconceptions and see
me
? I
need
you to see me. I’m not like your uncle. What I do, my job, doesn’t define me.” Her shoulders tensed. “And how can I be sure of that?’

His thumb traced her lower lip. “Give me a chance. Give us a chance. Get to know me.”

Her eyes wanted to shut. Damn him. He was making her melt with his touch, his words. He sounded genuine. Ready, willing, and anxious even, to make a go at a permanent relationship.

She just didn’t know if she had it in her. Years of expectations and beliefs couldn’t be erased so easily. Years of a different kind of addiction.

The irony didn’t escape her.

She swiped her lips with her tongue. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Try.”

Chapter Seventeen

After a lovely dinner Jackie spent over an hour chatting and cleaning up the kitchen, with the very pregnant and beautiful Marion. The men closed themselves off behind a heavy and solid wood door that Marion told her was once the dining room. Since the kitchen was large enough to easily accommodate a setting of twelve, the dining room had been converted into a conference room. Or war room. Depending on the topic at hand.

Once the kitchen was spotless, Marion took Jackie on a tour of the house and showed her where Jackie’s room was. When Jackie caught Marion yawning, she coaxed the fair-haired girl to bed, explaining that she had no problems entertaining herself until her grandfather sought her out after his meeting as he’d told her to wait for him. No doubt the old man wanted some alone time. All the better to grill her.

She wandered out onto the back patio, feeling like she was wading through pea soup, the humidity was so high, and had barely settled into a lounge chair with a glass of tea when the general found her. He eased into an adjoining chair. “So you and Sutton, eh?” A flush crept up her cheeks. “No. Not really.”

“No or not really?”

While her grandfather might move in shades of gray, it was only black and white when it came to his woman-folk. Double standards were well and alive in the Chavez family. Her father was just like him. And her younger brother. The thought made her smile. “I don’t know.”

“Hmmm. You’re mates.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“But you’re not sure about him.” Another statement.

“Correct.”

Now he reached out his hand and grasped hers. “He’s not like Rafe, Honey.” He spoke of his deceased son. “The beast he carries is strong. Very strong. But it hasn’t yet taken control of the man. He’s been fighting the darkness over the last year or so.” At Jackie’s sharp look he raised a brow. “I take it he didn’t tell you?” Her jaw clenched. Damn hypocritical wolf. How dare he be upset with Jackie for keeping secrets when he had his own. “No. He didn’t tell me.”

“Ah.” He leaned back more comfortably in the chair and rested his hands on his abdomen. “Probably embarrassed. You know how male shifters get when they go year after year without finding a mate. It’s like a light begins to die in them. Some can live their whole lives without their mate just fine. Some go psychotic. I think it all depends on the strength of the beast. And the man. Like an internal war that never has a cease fire.” He sighed. “I can’t imagine it’s an easy cross to bear.” Sweat trickled between her breasts. Already she missed the cool, crisp mountain air, and the evening breezes that made the pine trees sway and leaves dance. She missed the scent of clean forest and scurrying animals. The summers in Virginia had always been a trying time for her.

The air had felt too thick, the scents cloying.

Her first step into Woodcliff had been nearly ten years ago on a skiing trip and she’d fallen in love. Not one to do anything on the fly, she’d visited several more times, in the summer, spring, and fall, and had decided four years ago that the charming town was for her. Soon after, she’d moved there permanently. While she had family in Virginia, her home, her life was back in a small town nestled in the mountains.

Wrapping her arms around her middle she stared out over the backyard. Off in the distance she could just make out a tall brick wall and followed it until it disappeared behind a large copse of trees. Safety or a prison? To keep people safe you had to keep danger out. While the barrier was far enough away to not be intrusive, it was still close enough to make her feel edgy.

“Everyone has a cross to bear, whether they know it or not. Accept it or not.” She finally answered her grandfather.

“And the way we take on that burden defines us. Shapes us. It can strengthen us or make us bitter.” He paused. “Rafe never loved Mona. If he did, he would have never left her. And any love Mona may have felt for my son died long before he did.”

Jackie couldn’t look at her grandfather. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“You shouldn’t be. I’ve seen the way Sutton looks at you.” She snorted. “That’s just the mating heat. Hormones.” A deep, raspy chuckle escaped the man. “That’s, no doubt, part of it, but great sex doesn’t make a man’s eyes flash like that when he looks at a woman. Anger, desire, possessiveness, and exasperation. Only one thing makes a man as stupid as a loon, stubborn as a mule, and as strong as steel.”

Panic niggled, as did so many other emotions. She pressed her lips tight against the urge to ask, but curiosity finally won out. “And that is?” An easy smile lifted her grandfather’s lips. “Love.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jackie sputtered. “We haven’t known each other long enough for Zan to love me.”

“When it’s right, it’s right.” He turned to her. “And, tidbit, nature is declaring it right between you two.”

She held herself tighter and pressed back in the chair, hiding her feelings from her grandfather, and herself. “Yeah? Well nature sure screwed up between Rafe and Mona.”

She regretted the words as soon as they spilled from her lips.

Bringing up the life and death of this man’s son to back up her own reticence was cruel. But the old man had a backbone of steel and a forgiveness that made her feel shallow in comparison. He twisted in his seat and lifted her chin with gentle fingers to face him. His blue eyes were kind and knowing when he said softly, “Nature isn’t wrong, tidbit. It’s people who screw it up.”

Chapter Eighteen

Jackie’s legs raced under her as she bounded down the side of the road, the swing of her heavy ponytail dancing madly with every step. The stitch in her side was annoying, the sweat gleaming on her dusky skin from both the run and the summer sun bothersome, and the fact that the spontaneous jog had done nothing to ease the tension in her body, was more than infuriating. While running was far from a passion of hers, both woman and wolf needed the physical catharsis to combat the raging needs of the body.

With a glance out of the corner of her eye she evaluated her running partner’s condition. Joe Fieder had suggested a run shortly after breakfast, a meal both Zan and Scott had been absent from. It was over warm breakfast burritos that Jackie learned both men had left in the early hours of the morning to reconnoiter Shider’s whereabouts.

It should have been a simple matter of waiting at the airport for the chartered plane Russell spoke of last night carrying Shider and his men from Denver to Richmond. Except that plane landed in Houston with mechanical issues. By the time Scott hacked into the airport’s database to find out why that plane never landed at the scheduled time, the three men were gone.

The General left after breakfast to meet up with his wife and Jackie’s parents, informing Jackie he would keep mum about the current situation as it would only upset the females and cause her father to come charging to her rescue. It was later, as Joe caught Jackie digging a groove into the carpet of her room with her continual pacing, which had prompted him to suggest the run. Needing something to occupy her time, Jackie agreed.

While Marion and Russell had been nothing but kind, this wasn’t Jackie’s home and she certainly wasn’t comfortable alone in the place with virtual strangers. She hated the feeling of abandonment and would have voluntarily done just about anything to get out of the cage she felt she was in.

“I still can’t believe that bastard got one on Zan.” Joe said now as they turned right at a street corner.

The need to defend Zan rose up hard and sharp. “Well,” Jackie huffed out. “If Shider hadn’t been seen or heard from in close to two years, who’d expect him to show up in the middle of a forest high in the Rocky Mountains? Besides. Zan had other things on his mind.”

“Distractions are deadly. It’s one of the first things we’re taught in training.”

If she had claws she would have swiped them over the young man’s face. “It’s not like Zan was on an assignment and became distracted by the scent of bacon. Besides, where was your intelligence on the man?

Your team, and others I understand, had him on a wanted list. Why didn’t anyone know where Shider was? That kind of information would have come in handy, don’t you think?”

Joe grunted in either agreement or irritation at the team’s missed opportunity. Either way, Jackie felt vindicated on Zan’s behalf. Zan might be a strong, masculine, intelligent shifter, but he couldn’t know everything, and because of some flaw in his team’s communication and surveillance, he’d unknowingly been in danger for God knew how long. And that made her furious.

“Never would have tagged Zan otherwise.” Joe stated, pulling Jackie from her thoughts. “He’s one of the best damn soldiers I know.”

“Mmm.” She really wasn’t in the mood to hear Joe extol Zan’s virtues. She’d already discerned those for herself, along with his flaws, and she still jumped to his defense at the first sign of dissent.

Truth be told, Jackie knew she was at the edge of the abyss. If she took that last step and allowed herself to fall, who knew what waited at the bottom with Zan. The only other option was to turn around and head back the way she came, just as she’d planned.

And that was suddenly a depressing thought.

“And silver bullets?” Joe continued. “Shit. What is that moron thinking?”

Startled out of her painful thoughts, Jackie turned her mind to Joe’s question. “That he’s trying to kill a werewolf. Speaking of which,” her voice rattled with each step. It was difficult for her to run and talk at the same time, but Joe, to her irritation, wasn’t even breathing hard. “I understand the whole wounded animal concept, that because Zan is hurt he’ll head home to heal, but why do you think Shider will attack tonight?

Mythically speaking, werewolves are at their strongest on the full moon.

Wouldn’t it be better for Shider to wait until Zan is at his weakest?” A shrug. “Asshole likes his animal trophies, as did his father. Saw a room full of them when we raided his place two years ago. Shider knows, obviously, that Zan can be man or wolf regardless of the moon phase, but he probably thinks the full moon will render Zan more of the creature of legend; half-beast, half-man. He won’t be able to resist seeing for himself what Zan will become during the full moon, and take it down.”

“Perfect.” Could Joe hear the sarcasm seeping out?

“No worries, Doc. Even though Scott and I won’t be able to remain in human form, once the moon comes up, we will be on the grounds. Hunting the hunter.”

Jackie knew from Zan that the younger soldiers didn’t yet have the ability to hold onto their human form during the full moon and wasn’t all that surprised. She could count on two hands the number of shifters in Woodcliff that were strong enough to leash the beast. And that was among a pack of nearly two hundred. The ability to control the wolf to that extent required near alpha-like power, and just like his brother, Zan had that strength in abundance.

A soft breeze picked up, feeling deliciously cool on her overheated flesh. Flesh that was normally a few degrees cooler than the human average. But right now, thanks to the run, the sun and the full-blown result of the mating heat, she felt oven-baked, only wetter.

They turned another corner and headed once again along the street LunaWatch was located on. Which made her wonder. “Will Russell stay with Marion?”

“Yep. And Zan with you.”

She tripped over her own feet. “What?”

Joe slanted a “duh” glance her way. “Mates almost always stay together at the full moon, whether the males shift or not. The wolves won’t travel far as they hunt, the need to protect and remain near is too instinctive to dismiss. And the ones who can remain human, well, they have more, eh,
primitive
things to do with their mates at the full moon.” Jackie felt her face flame at the not-so-subtle hint. Joe thought Zan and Jackie would be rolling around the sheets all night long. Male shifter instinct was to hunt, protect and mate with their, well, mate. Somehow she kept forgetting she was a mate. Zan’s mate.