Wild (43 page)

They were all sitting in the living room, across from the huge stone fireplace. Waiting, as Phelan had just stated, for him. And not pleased by that fact, he surmised from all the eyes that were now on him.

“Bite me,” was Malec's quick reply as he kept moving toward the front door. “Let's get going before the sun comes up.”

“And now he rushes us,” Phelan was saying, but Malec didn't turn to address him again.

He was cranky as hell, his body rigid with the release he'd been denied last night. It was the first time Malec had ever been turned down. The first time he and Channing had been turned down for a threesome. To be fair, it was the first time they'd approached a human, which could have had a lot to do with the response they'd received. But Malec wasn't in the mood to be fair.

His balls were so tight and sore, his dick remaining hard no matter how many times he cursed Caroline's name and her succulent lips. He'd wanted those lips on his cock last night. After he'd kissed her in that dark hallway, that fact had only been further cemented into his mind. But when Channing had come back to the truck alone, Malec had known that wasn't meant to be. He thrust the key into the ignition with all the pent-up energy that woman and her denial of them had caused and was cursing when Channing climbed into the passenger side.

“Should have known better,” Malec had said as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Should have known not to fuck with a human.”

A few moments later Channing had replied, “You should have known better than to approach her on your own. That's not how we normally work.”

“She's not our normal target,” Malec had snapped, his temples throbbing with the headache he knew would stay with him throughout the night.

“I agree with that part,” Channing said. “She's a human, and that makes her totally different from the others. But she's sexy as hell. Her ass was so soft and pliant. I wanted to pull up her skirt up and fuck her right there in that hallway.”

Malec groaned at the thought. He would have loved to watch Channing taking Caroline from behind, watching the pleasure on her face as Channing moved slowly in and out of her, stretching her wider and wider. That was one of his favorite things about a ménage: he could watch the woman receive pleasure. When he was the one giving it to her, it was sometimes hard to see it firsthand, but watching, hell, that made him even hotter than participating.

Even with that thought, Malec knew without a doubt that he wanted to be inside of Caroline Douglas. He wanted her mouth on him and his on her. He wanted her much more than he should have, and that caused him even more worry than the matter at hand.

“You good?” Channing asked, coming up beside him as they walked into the forest.

“I'm fine,” Malec replied.

“You're a horrible liar,” Channing continued. “But if it makes you feel any better, I think she's going to come around. I could see it in her eyes last night. She wants us.”

Malec was on the verge of groaning out loud at that thought when a scent hit him, and he went completely still. His head lifted to the early morning air, nose twitching as he inhaled deeply.

“He's here,” Malec announced seconds before his teeth elongated, forehead stretched, and sideburns grew thick.

A low, deadly growl came next as sharp nails extracted from his fingers. Beside him, Channing must have picked up the same scent because his lycan also appeared, eyes glowing a vivid light blue in the dark of the forest.

“This way,” Blaez said, stepping before Malec and Channing, taking his place at the front of the pack.

His dark hair had grown longer with his shift, body even broader than usual as he stood staring into the depths of the forest, looking for the one that carried the scent.

“Another lycan,” Phelan added with a growl, his lycan the most menacing looking of them all, with his bushy brows, bright eyes, and perpetual scowl.

The lycans moved together this time, each of them looking in a different direction, spreading out so that they formed a circle with Blaez front and center.

The forest had gone totally quiet. They were at a higher elevation here, near tree lines, so there were various animals that occupied this space. But in the last seconds there had been no nutcrackers squawking loudly or thumping their wings audibly, no rubber boas slinking along still attempting their nocturnal hunting habits before the sun made its appearance. There was also no movement from the bigger mammals in the area, the deer, elk, or lynx, likely because they all knew the lycan stranger was there too. And they knew what he was capable of.

His scent was strong, filtering through the moist air. Malec inhaled deeply, closing his eyes and opening all his senses to this task. The lycan was here. Malec could not only smell him, he could hear the insistent pounding of its heart. His eyes opened with that thought, head turning quickly in one direction, where he immediately caught sight of another pair of glowing eyes. Malec took off running. “Over here!” he yelled to the others.

They all moved through the lines of trees, standing tall and proud in this majestic setting. Their feet might have made a sound over the leaves and dirt-lined forest floor, but for the speed in which lycans moved when running. If someone were watching they'd barely see a blur of movement, not the human bodies with wolf features traveling quickly through the early morning.

He'd only seen eyes at first, and then they were gone. It was running, Malec thought, and he was damned sure going to catch it this time.

Cutting through the closely lined trees, jumping over downed branches, teeth bared and chest pumping with adrenaline, he moved with only one thought in mind—catch this sonofabitch!

Channing howled, the sound cutting through the haze of fury and determination in Malec's mind. The howl came again, and Malec turned in that direction. He moved toward his pack mate, at the signal that beckoned to each of them. Coming to an abrupt stop in a clearing near a grass-covered ledge that dropped down to a waterfall and the rolling creek that dumped into Blackfoot River.

“It was here,” Channing said, pointing down to a large rock near the edge of the cliff.

The others closed in, each looking down at the huge slab of rock that protruded from the ground. Blaez knelt there, rubbing his clawed fingers over the scratches that cut right through the hardened surface. Malec knelt beside him, glaring down at the markings that looked just like the ones he'd seen on the deer and the lynx.

“It's him. He's the one attacking the animals,” Malec said.

Blaez nodded. “He's a Solo.”

The admission had Malec's head turning sharply to the alpha. “Are you sure?”

Another slow nod and a low growl from Blaez. “I'm positive. These are the only markings. There's only one scent. He's acting alone, without an alpha's direction. Without a pack.”

“Dammit!” Phelan roared from behind them. “First Hunters and now a fucking Solo. What next?”

As if in answer to his loudly spoken question, there was an awful screeching sound that echoed throughout the air. Above, the still-dark sky crackled with deep, booming thunder before a bright stream of green shone down like a pathway. From the brightness the screeching came again, and then the huge black-and-gold wings that flapped in the air as the bird made its quick and loud descent to where the lycans stood.

“Shit!” Phelan cursed, stepping in front of Blaez.

Malec came to his feet, turning his back to Blaez and blocking him just as Phelan had. Channing stood to the other side so that Blaez was out of view.

The bird, larger than anything he'd ever seen before, swooped down, landing its taloned feet on the ground with a thud that shook them like an earthquake. Its head was that of a human, turning back and forth, beady black eyes glaring, and long golden hair flowing down its back. It opened its mouth and screeched again. Phelan lunged forward first, and the harpy extended a huge wing, knocking him back on his ass. Both Channing and Malec roared at that point, snapping their hands down at their sides so that the sound of their sharp claws releasing was a warning for the bird.

Phelan was hurrying to his feet as Malec felt a nudge behind his legs. A glance down showed that Blaez had shifted into his wolf form. He was large and black with eyes like bright blue jewels.

The bird screeched once more before lifting off its feet, landing right next to Phelan. The lycan swung at the bird's human face, only to receive another swat by the harpy's wing, and this time the attack of its talons scraped over his chest as he fell back to the ground. Channing and Malec ran toward the bird with the thought of assisting Phelan, but the lycan jumped to its feet once more.

“Tell Eureka I said to kiss my ass!” Phelan spat at the bird, this time using his claws when he swiped at the wing that had twice knocked him down.

The sharp nails nicked the bird, sending feathers flying and the bird howling in pain before lifting from the ground and flying back into that eerie green abyss. In the next seconds they were ensconced in darkness once more, the quiet of the forest surrounding them.

“What the hell was that?” Channing asked.

Phelan was clearly not pleased as he stared down at his ripped shirt before looking back at them. “A freakin' harpy,” he replied distastefully.

“Looking for you?” Malec asked.

“No, although I've met this particular one before,” Phelan replied. “She's probably looking for Blaez and was most likely sent by Zeus, which means he knows Blaez is close by.”

Channing nodded then. “That's why he shifted so that she wouldn't recognize his lycan form. They have no idea he's a demigod and what that means.”

“But they know he's in this area now, most likely because of those Hunters we killed. They know they're close to a Devoted pack,” Phelan said.

“And so does the Solo,” Malec added.

*   *   *

Caroline was having a shitty morning.

Really, from the two pairs of stockings she'd ripped because she'd thought wearing a skirt into the office was a good idea, to the weird and awful sound her car had made during the entire ride to work. And now, to Olivia's incessant commentary on what happened last night and what she believed should happen next.

“You guys totally looked like you were about to strip naked and get it on right in the middle of the dance floor,” she was saying, one leg crossed over the other, red polished toenails sparkling through the open-toed sandals she wore.

Caroline continued to act like she wasn't paying attention, while wishing there actually was a button she could push that would totally tune out the woman's voice. Problem was, there wasn't, and so she heard everything Olivia was saying and felt as if someone was dragging several pieces of chalk annoyingly down the chalkboard.

“I mean, I'm not as repressed as some of the folks around here, and I gotta admit that seeing those two hot-ass guys get it on with a woman—even if said woman is my boss—was hella arousing,” Olivia continued. “And the way you were standing there, I thought you were totally into it.”

“I was into the dance,” Caroline tried to rebut.

“Uh-huh,” Olivia replied. “I think you were trying to make it seem like that until finally you just had to get away. But I'm telling you that you should go out to that lodge and see them. If not, you should definitely go for the Malec guy, the one that keeps coming in here, because he's got a thing for you. I can see the way he looks at you when he's in here, and believe me that look has nothing to do with the animals.

“The other guy,” Olivia continued, uncrossing her legs to turn toward the desk and the phone that was ringing on it, “he's sexy too. Did you see his eyes? Like he's looking right into your soul, and when he smiles, ahhh, swoon.” She ended with a sigh before grabbing the phone and rushing through the greeting.

Caroline would have taken this opportunity to escape, but Olivia finished with the call too quickly.

“You know I told you that people are curious about what they're doing out there, right?” Olivia asked her.

Caroline looked up and over to where Olivia's desk was situated in the front part of the office. Caroline had taken refuge off to the side, behind a counter where the file cabinets were housed. She'd made files for each of the animals that had died because she'd wanted to be completely thorough in her documentation. Now she had to file them, but the system that Olivia had instituted was beyond any alphabetical or numerical filing system Caroline had ever encountered.

“Who is curious about what who is doing?” she asked, hoping to maybe confuse Olivia into being quiet. It didn't work.

Olivia sighed in exasperation.

“The hot guys that live out there in that lodge. They're, like, surrounded by the woods too. You can't even see their place until you're right up on it. Ernie, he delivers the mail, and he says whenever he has to go out there, he's totally focusing on his GPS because he'd get lost on those dark back roads, and you have to actually drive through a road they created that goes right into the woods.

“Anyway,” she said with a wave of her hand. “That was Nora Bentley from the beauty shop. She was at the bar last night, and she wanted to know if you spent the night with either—or both—of those guys.”

Caroline almost groaned. But she'd learned a long time ago to not let the ignorant gossipers know that their words were cutting her like a hot blade. Without even realizing it she'd squared her shoulders and come to a complete stand.

“First of all, who I sleep with or take home is none of Nora's or anyone else's business. And second, it's just rude for her to call here and ask you those types of questions. This is a place of business, and I will not have gossip running in and out of here like we're … well, for lack of a better comparison … the beauty parlor.”

“Don't get all snippy,” Olivia said, raising her hands as if in surrender.