She leaned back, wincing at the pain the slight movement caused her. The darkness usually scared her. With only her smell and no ability to defend herself, she always felt the most vulnerable in the dark. Tonight, however, was a different story.
Michael had made no move to touch her in an unwanted manner and she had to admit lying next to him did make her feel less alone. She knew if anyone showed up, they wouldn’t get to her without him trying to kill them first.
She opened her eyes wide at the thought. It was an odd thing for her to think and she wasn’t sure how she knew it but it was true. Michael wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her tonight.
Exhaling, her shoulders sagged and tears fell from her eyes. Gods, when was the last time she could lie in a bed and know she’d been fine?
“Hey.” He pulled her against him in a gentle hug. His stomach pushed against her back. “What are these tears?”
“I think, if you want to know the truth, they’re relief.”
“Scarlett, I don’t want to frighten you, ever. But I have to tell you this and I want desperately for you to believe me. Whatever you’ve gone through, and I hope someday you’ll trust me enough to tell me about it, no one will ever harm you again.” He kissed the back of her head and she shivered, her core getting warm and tingly. “You’re my mate. I’ve waited two hundred and ten years for you.”
Now that was some interesting information. “Two hundred and ten?” No one in her pack ever made it that long. They all died from something long before then.
“Today actually. I am two hundred and ten years old today.”
“It’s your birthday?”
“For about two more hours.”
She sighed, feeling warm. “Happy Birthday, Michael.”
“Thank you. I got the best gift imaginable.”
“What?”
He laughed, low in his throat. The sound brought chills up her back. “You, Scarlett, I got you.”
“I might prove to be more of a curse.”
“No.” His voice was firm, unrelenting. It was easier to speak to him in the dark facing away from him. She didn’t feel like looking down this way. “I know curses. I’ve lived under one. You’re a gift from the gods.”
Tears pooled in her eyes again. She was like a weeping machine. He patted her hair, pushing his head up against hers on the pillow. “Go to sleep.”
“I never sleep very much or for very long.”
“You will tonight.”
As if on command, she yawned. “I am really exhausted.”
“I know. I can feel it. My wolf is pacing around like he’s caged because he’s so worried about your level of tiredness.”
She would love to know what that felt like. What did it mean to have two entities inside of you?
“Scarlett?”
“Yes, Michael.” She could feel her eyelids drooping down.
“What is your last name?”
“Knoll. Scarlett Knoll.”
The heaviness of sleep beckoned her and she wanted to roll around in it like a warm blanket, but she also didn’t want to give up this feeling of being held by this Hollywood handsome man. Of course, if he were to be believed they’d have lots of time to do this again.
“Stop thinking so hard.”
“Michael?”
He laughed. “Yes?”
“How did you get Seamus’ clothes?”
“I told him to give them to me.”
That was surprising. “And he did?”
“Almost everyone does what I tell them to do.” He rubbed her neck. “Go to sleep.”
Her eyelids closed.
Chapter 3
MICHAEL looked at the clock next to the bed. It was ten thirty in the morning. He’d been up for hours, but beautiful Scarlett still snored lightly next to him. From the moment she’d closed her eyes she hadn’t budged.
He’d slept lightly. At first, he’d kept waking himself up just to make sure he hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing and that she really was pressed up against him and after that because he wanted to be on alert in case of any of the pack members from this crazy place decided to make another try for her.
He wasn’t a betting man, except he’d place money on the idea that Scarlett had been hurt in ways he couldn’t possibly fathom. His wolf growled and he felt his eyes change. Shaking off the need to shift, the need to hunt, the need to kill who dared harm his mate, was not an easy task but he forced himself to do it. If she woke up and found him in his half-crazed wolf form she’d probably make a run for it, and it had taken a good hour last night of soothing words and simple movements to get her trusting him to begin with. Not to mention a passive-aggressive play of refusing to speak until she made eye contact with him. Fortunately, it worked.
She smelled like strawberries and he closed his eyes to enjoy the aroma for a few minutes. Normally, he didn’t lounge around in bed this late in the day. Only he wasn’t going to move a muscle until she woke up for fear of disturbing her. If she needed to sleep twelve or more hours, she was going to get that much sleep.
His wolf sighed. Her wolf needs help.
Haven’t you been paying attention? She doesn’t have one.
He never got a chance to hear his wolf’s response as his nose twitched. Three odors that shouldn’t have been standing outside his room wafted inside. It was Tweedle-Dumb, Tweedle-Dumber, and Tweedle-Dumbest. Otherwise known as Seamus, Todd and Barge, the idiots from the night before who had helped to beat up Scarlett and then thought to attack him. Hadn’t they gotten enough?
Scarlett’s eyes flew open and he could tell from her gasp and wide-eyed stare that she’d smelled them too.
He petted her head gently before kissing her forehead. “Relax, I’ll get rid of them.”
“Michael.” She sounded as if she might hyperventilate.
“I’ll get rid of them.”
Jumping out of bed, he didn’t bother to dress. He’d probably be shifting in a few minutes anyway. No need to waste the clothes.
He swung open the door, letting it bang against the wall. Sure enough, dressed and looking worse for wear—thanks to the fight they’d had with him the night before—were the three wolves he’d hoped not to see again. Inwardly, his wolf howled his pride that Michael didn’t have a mark on him. Unfortunately, it was clear they’d already started to heal, unlike his tiny mate who would take weeks, maybe months, to recover from her ordeal.
Yeah…he could go another round if they wanted to.
“Hi.” Barge was the first one to speak. He held a cup of coffee out to him. “We thought y’all might like this.”
What? His wolf was as confused as he was.
Todd stepped forward next. “And we brought one for Scarlett. She likes tea, so that’s what we got.” Todd held up the Styrofoam cup up like a child showing off his new Christmas present.
Finally Seamus held up a large brown shopping bag. “We thought she might like clothes so we went into her apartment and got some for her.”
Michael stared blankly at Seamus. “Are you telling me that you broke into my mate’s apartment and handled her clothes?” He paused as he narrowed his eyes, the full extent of what bothered him finally dawning on his brain. “Her underwear?” The very idea of Seamus’ grubby hands picking up her panties made him want to throttle the man right now.
All three of them dropped what they held and shifted immediately into their wolf forms. The tea and coffee spilled all over the floor. Whimpering, they fell to their stomachs, ears flat against their heads. Barge panted.
“What the hell are the three of you doing?” Michael looked left and right. Fortunately, there was no one around. One room was open with a housekeeping cart positioned outside the door. Damn, but that was close.
“Are you crazy? You don’t shift in public where anyone can see you unless it’s a dire emergency.” Michael groaned. He could feel a migraine starting to throb between his eyes. “Get in here.”
All three wolves stood and ran into his hotel room
. Michael picked up Scarlett’s clothes and closed the door behind them just as Scarlett shrieked. Grabbing the covers, she stood up on the bed, panic radiating from her. The wolves started whimpering again.
Michael silently cursed. He’d just woken up and already he was having a long day.
“Gentlemen, since you’re here, you can shift back and make your apologies to Scarlett. Then you can tell me what you want and get out.”
The sooner he got the hell out of New Orleans the better. Already he was missing the cool winds off the Atlantic Ocean. His pack might be cursed, battered and half-missing, but at least they weren’t entirely made up of lunatics.
The warm white light that came before natural shifts filled the room and the three men reemerged.
Seamus looked at him. “We were apologizing, Mr. Kane.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Michael will do. Scarlett doesn’t have a wolf. She can’t speak telepathically to you or hear what you say. You need to use words to speak to her. Apologize out loud.”
Scarlett interrupted. “Michael.” She looked back and forth between the three men before she spoke to him. “Nero taught the pack to shift into their wolf form and hit the floor as a means of apologizing. That’s what they did. I didn’t understand at first because I’ve never seen it directed towards me, but they did say they were sorry, right?”
“That’s a stupid rule if ever I heard one. Shift and drop to the floor? Do you guys go around town just shifting and dropping to the floor?”
Barge nodded. “For the most part, if we’ve done something wrong.”
Todd stepped forward. “Michael said to apologize aloud.” He stared at Scarlett. “I’m sorry, Scarlett, we should never have laid hands on you even if we were just following Zack’s instructions.”
The other three followed suit as Michael mulled over what was said. He turned to Scarlett. She was the only one in the room who made sense to him and even she spoke in riddles part of the time. “Who is Zack?”
When we get her home and out of here, we won’t have to put up with all these strange people darting in and out of conversation.
“No true Alpha presented itself after Nero’s death. Cole and Zack both want to hold the pack and are fighting for control of it.”
Todd nodded. “Everyone has taken sides. We aligned ourselves with Zack because he’s stronger. Scarlett is on Cole’s team.”
Team? He acted as if this was a sporting match and not life and death decisions.
Still looking at Scarlett, he was relieved to see the dark circles under her eyes from the night before had faded a bit and some of her bruises seemed better.
“Why did you side with Cole?”
“Because part of what Zack is preaching is that all latent and beta wolves need to be put to death.”
“So then you didn’t have much of a choice. What does Cole say?”
Barge interrupted. “Not much. He hardly ever talks, but he has a big house and he offered them his protection.”
Michael felt his eyes turn wolf. “I was speaking to my mate.”
Barge’s eyes got huge and Michael realized what was about to happen. He raised his hand. “Do not shift and hit the floor. Your silence while I speak to Scarlett will suffice.”
All three of the male wolves nodded. They really did seem to think with one brain.
“Which side did my sister take?” He wasn’t going to be searching for Angel anymore, someone else from Westervelt was going to have to do it. Michael had one priority and it was getting Scarlett out of here.
“Cole wanted to tell you about Angel.”
He nodded. He’d forgotten that fact. Only to spare his mate worry had he not insisted on being told about Angel last night. The truth was, he didn’t remember her and she’d been missing for thirty-five years. One more night wasn’t going to make that much of difference. Still, he needed to report in to Tristan so someone else could be sent to find Angel.
Seamus glanced at Scarlett. “He doesn’t know Angel took off?” Scarlett moaned and covered her face with her hands. Seamus looked back and forth from Michael to Scarlett. He was clearly confused about why she was upset.
Michael sat down on the bed. “It’s okay, Scarlett, you didn’t tell me. You didn’t break any rules and we’ll let Cole tell me where she went, shall we?”
He patted the bed and sat down next to her, putting her face against his arm so that he shielded her from the room. It was nice to have her physical proximity back even though Michael suspected it would be a long time until he had actual intimacy with her.
Now he had to deal with the three wolves who for some reason had come to make amends this morning.
“I’m going to tell you three something and you can do with it as you wish. The wolf pack functions like a very large family. There is the ultimate Alpha. He’s in charge. Then there are Alpha wolves, which I am and which I assume the three of you are if you’ve sided with Zack, even though you can’t win a fight to save your life.”
The three shifters stared down at the floor. A little shame might be a good thing for them.
“That’s not entirely your fault. Someone in the pack is supposed to teach the others how to fight. At home, I am one of those people.”
This seemed to get their attention and their heads shot back up. “Then there are the Beta wolves. Not everyone in the pack can be an Alpha. The Beta wolves are as important, maybe more so, than the Alpha wolves. An Alpha’s first instinct should be to protect the Betas, at all cost.”
Barge spoke up. “Why? They’re so weak.”
“They’re not weak, they just don’t have the same level of aggression an Alpha wolf has. They can still fight and at Westervelt we teach them the same way we teach the Alphas. A lot of them have other interests, like carpentry or technology or teaching. A true Alpha wolf never wants to hurt them. Ever. He or she always wants to keep them safe.”
Todd fell to his knees and to Michael’s ultimate horror started to bawl—big, pent-up tears flowing freely down his face. The blond haired man punched the floor. “I know that. I know that. I’ve always known that. They told us we had to dominate. If we wanted to live we had to dominate. Nero, Cole and Zack…they’ve made it so hard and my wolf has been so angry for so long.”
“In matters of heart and conscience, I tend to listen to my wolf. He usually knows the right thing to do.”
Barge and Seamus knelt down next to Todd. Seamus’ face was beet red while Barge looked sort of green. Finally Seamus looked up at him. “When our wolves finally come to us, the elders of the pack take us out and teach us how to dominate them. They taught us it was important to make our canine instincts subservient and part of the way to do that is to eliminate or, at the very least, make servants of the weaker members of the pack.”
It was like speaking to children who had been told the color red was the color blue. How did you undo a lifetime of neglect? You couldn’t and Michael wasn’t even sure he wanted to.
He stroked Scarlett’s hair. “Is that what Cole does? Makes you guys his servants for his big house?”
Against his arm, Scarlett nodded.
Michael turned his attention back to the three men now on the floor. “I’m not finished. There are two other groups to a healthy pack.”
You sound like your mother. You do realize that, don’t you? His wolf laughed at him.
In this area of life, she knew a lot of stuff.
“The first are the latent wolves. For whatever reason, their wolf halves never appear, but they still have some of our traits.” Without moving his gaze from the men who last night he beat up and today he had to school like teenagers, he squeezed his mate’s knee. “In most cases, it’s the scent. They can smell like we can. Some of them can do other things too. These members are a gift to have around. They remind us of our humanity, keep us from losing sight of the fact that we have dual natures and sometimes we have to be human too. When I was growing up, Westervelt always had five or six latent shifters in the pack. Most of t
hem got married and had full shifter children. They’re considered lucky and they hold as high a position in the pack as anyone else.”
Barge nodded. “And the other group?”
“The human mates of pack members.”
Todd gaped at him. “Y’all let them live?”
Scarlett whispered in his ear. “Zack killed my father and mother because Mom was human. He hunted them down, killed them and brought me back to the pack to see if I could shift.”
Okay, now Zack was dead. Michael felt his eyes turn wolf as he stood up. “Yes, we let them live. Come on, Scarlett, we’re going to see Cole.”
The three men jumped up from the floor. Todd spoke first. “We’ll come too.”
“Don’t you people have jobs?”
“No,” Scarlett answered. He was thrilled that his mate was speaking up so much. It meant she was comfortable. “Only the Betas and latent wolves have to work.”
“The Alphas just lounge around all day?”
She nodded.
“Of course. What else would they do?” He hoped his sarcasm translated into the brains of the other men. “Explain to me how Zack hopes to have any money after he kills off all the people who earn it?”
Silence met his question. Holding out his hand, he let Scarlett take it before he walked from the room.
“You guys can come. In fact, you can drive us.” He stared at them for a moment. “After, I give you some clothes, apparently.”
* * * *
Climbing out of Barge’s SUV, he regarded Cole’s house. It was big but it wasn’t spectacular. Nothing that intimidated Michael in any case. He’d been alive long enough to not particularly care for wealth displays. They were meaningless most of the time.
Stopping only to make sure Scarlett was okay, he took the stairs two at a time before he rang the bell. She followed right behind him, close on his heels, and the three wolf shifters he’d now somehow inherited as annoying little brothers behind her.