****
He had only questions and no answers. Fred’s cabin was small and scarcely decorated. After laying Lake on the bed and covering her with a blanket he found in the linen closet, he got a fire started and stared out the window.
A noise caught his attention, and he sniffed the air until he confirmed what he suspected. Deer were outside.
If they got in the way of his pack, they wouldn’t live through the night.
Beaux walked to the back of the cabin and stared at the woman sleeping in the bed. Was she resting? She still breathed, her heart beat, there had to be a way to bring her back from whatever this was.
His phone rang for the tenth time. Cyrus was nothing if not persistent, and he wasn’t good about taking no for an answer. But Beaux would not compromise on this.
“The children.” Lake darted upright on the bed, her pupils were huge and she gasped for air.
Beaux reached her in seconds, sitting down on the bed and gripping her shoulders to stop her shaking.
“Lake.”
She wasn’t really awake or she didn’t see him. Regardless, the way she twitched broke his heart.
“Lake, wake up. Now.”
If she were a member of his pack, she would obey his order. Wolves listened to their Alphas. But Lake had to accept their mating before she would belong to him or his pack. He couldn’t bring her back from wherever her mind had gone by simply ordering it. Still, it had seemed a good idea to try.
He had never been able to tolerate being ineffectual.
“The children. We have to get to the children. Hundreds of them. More each day. Forget me and get to the children.”
He pulled her into his arms, cooing soft words to her. Nonsense, really. He wasn’t sure what he said. Anything to make the pain she was in stop. After a few minutes, her shaking stopped, and, when he looked down, her eyes were closed again, and she breathed easily against his shoulder.
He stroked her blonde hair. Cyrus had told him she’d taken to wearing a black wig in Manhattan in case Beaux showed up to claim her. As if he would be fooled by such childish displays. Lake was stubborn, and, for some unfathomable reason, convinced she didn’t want to be mated. Or maybe she had really wished to be chased for a long time.
He hoped she felt the second way. However, the question plagued him all the time. Did she not want to be mated in general, or just not to Beaux?
Either way, he blamed Cyrus, even if doing so got him nowhere.
He laid her against the pillow, and she stiffened again. Kicking off his shoes, he decided to be done for the night. She needed him close, and he wouldn’t leave her.
Beaux stretched out next to her, spooning her from behind. It had been years since he’d laid next to a woman in such an intimate way. Had he ever bothered to hold any of his sexual partners since Sara had died?
It had seemed pointless. In their world, female werewolves used males for sex when their bodies went into heat. Conception could be prevented, but the need for intercourse couldn’t.
Why hold a woman who used you as much as you did her?
It hadn’t always been this way. Beaux placed his hands on her carefully, as chastely as possible.
“Once upon a time, my mate.”
He spoke as if she could hear him. Maybe she could. Perhaps only the moon would know what he spoke about. It didn’t matter. He needed to say these things to her.
“I was a different man than I am now, a different wolf. I was someone’s husband. Oh, we knew we weren’t True Mates. Let’s face it, finding a True Mate doesn’t happen for most wolves, does it? Sara and I settled for the human equivalent.”
Only he had lost Sara, and now he had found his moon-picked mate to spend the remainder of his days. With this female he hardly knew who remained an enigma to him even while he held her in his arms.
“She died. We were living in Ohio. I worked as a schoolteacher. The humans around us didn’t know what we were, and, though my Alpha knew I could be more dominant than he, I had no interest in pack leadership. Or at least I pretended I didn’t. That all changed when Sara was killed by hunters. Then I realized the ideals of my youth hadn’t been wrong. We needed to return to the old ways. Only by embracing who we really are can we flourish again. So, you and I, we will behave as we were born to, my mate.”
There could be no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Cyrus and his pack followed the letter of the werewolf law and thrived because of their decisions. Lake might object at first. She’d been raised in New York City. She knew how to pretend to be human. She’d grown accustomed to the half-life Cyrus let his pack endure.
She would have to be retrained in the way she considered things. He felt confident the moon wouldn’t have picked her for him if they weren’t compatible. With a little help, his mate would embrace their ways. He’d keep her safe and she’d never again have to fear the True Believers.
Beaux rubbed at his eyes. He’d reminisced too much. Thinking of the past, of the things gone wrong, did nothing to ease his way or his pack’s. The only path was forward.
“You’re going to be okay.”
Because he accepted no other outcome. The moon hadn’t given him Lake to lose her. They’d been born for each other. Sara had been a wonderful partner. He loved her while she lived, mourned her in death, and slowly, over time, let her go. Those days felt further and further away from him now. Things would be different with Lake. There would be no compromise. He closed his eyes, knowing he wouldn’t sleep. Tomorrow he’d figure out what to do.
Chapter Two
Lake stood apart, watching herself.
Well, she knew she wasn’t really witnessing anything. The drugs the True Believers gave her when they moved her location caused strange dreams. It had taken her a little while to deduce what was actually going on. The first couple times, before she had learned to keep some of herself distanced from the experience, she thought she had died and gone to some human version of hell.
Rejected by the moon, sent away from her people, Lake was trapped in an endless circle of nothingness. She wouldn’t have blamed the deity for keeping her out of werewolf heaven. Lake had certainly done her best to be as human as possible, to never embrace her birthright.
The first vision of herself ran by and she narrowed her eyes to try to see exactly how old she had been in that moment. Maybe seven or eight. Cyrus ran behind her. He’d obviously been letting her win. Never in her life had there been a time when her big brother, who eventually had become the Alpha of New York, couldn’t have caught her.
He’d made growling noises, and she’d shrieked. Lake smiled at the vision. Those had been good days. Before her parents had died.
Leaving her Cyrus’ burden—his Healer sister with no control.
The scene changed. She sat, reclined in her chair, twirling her hair between her fingers as the Pack Historian droned on and on about werewolf superstitions. His words still bored her half to death. Who cared what they did two hundred years ago? She wanted to be gone from lessons. There were biology textbooks to study and a career to plan. She wasn’t going to be leashed to one vision of destiny simply because some long dead fools had decided her destiny.
Warmth. Lake blinked and rubbed her arms. She felt comfortable. How could she be? In the six months since she’d foolishly been late getting from Manhattan to the pack’s hunting grounds for full-moon rituals, she’d not been anything except freezing.
Even in the heat of New Orleans she shivered the whole time.
Or maybe the freezing feeling began before they took her. Perhaps she could attribute the cold to leaving Montana. Lake pushed the thought from her head. Nothing she could do about what had happened now. She’d left Beaux. They never would have suited. Cyrus had told her plenty about him. The Montana Alpha would hate everything about her—especially her system overloaded by chemicals. Beaux was a freaky-deaky nature boy. She would repulse him.
Lake swallowed. She might never shift again. Caught in some half-life, neither human nor wer
ewolf, and totally fucked regardless. Somehow, she had to save the kids. She’d get it done. She was a Fennell, a proud werewolf lineage; her brother was Alpha, and she’d been born a Healer.
The bastards who held her wouldn’t break her.
Not ever.
She gritted her teeth. Somehow she had to hold onto her strength.
Who cared if it got a little harder every day?
The strange warmth she couldn’t identify intensified, and the kink she carried around in her neck eased a bit. Her hands tingled, and she yawned. A heavy drowsiness filled her head, and her eyelids weighted down.
Lake dropped to her knees. She should be fighting this, working to not give in to whatever the bastards out there in the real world were doing to her. Only she couldn’t muster the energy….
Her eyes closed, and the world went black.
Lake blinked awake. With her sight fogged up, it took her a moment to clear the blur occluding her vision. Werewolves never needed glasses, but who knew, in this strange new condition she found herself in, if she would now require visual assistance? Her head pounded, and the top of her mouth felt dry like she had swallowed sand.
Feeling like hell constituted her usual response to being drugged. What was different, however, was where she found herself this time. A bed? It had been six months since she slept anywhere except the ground or hanging from the ceiling by her wrists.
She rubbed at those joints. They ached so she must have been recently strapped up in the usual manner. Lake bit down on her bottom lip and breathed deeply. Her wolf senses were all screwed up. Not only could she not shift, her extra non-human abilities to scent out danger had gone all haywire, too. Sometimes they worked, mostly they didn’t, and her Healer gifts had fled almost immediately upon her capture.
She detected the faint drift of a scent in the air. A smell she hadn’t encountered since….
Lake threw the cover off her and dashed toward the open door of the room. The door was open…she’d been covered in an actual bed…she smelled sandalwood. Could it be? Beaux?
“You’re safe.”
She skidded to a stop. His voice moved over her like a warm bath on tired skin. Beaux Nelson. Her True Mate whom she’d fled from earlier in the year. He smelled of sandalwood and forest. A combination of aromas which shouldn’t have made her so hot because she didn’t even like forests and she couldn’t even remember ever caring about the scent of sandalwood before. Yet they did make her wet because they belonged to him.
Nature—or the moon—or whatever—had decided the two of them belonged together. Obeying orders or following rules she didn’t agree with wasn’t her strong suit—a big problem for a werewolf. She rebelled against the Alpha’s proclamations although her wolf self cringed in utter horror at her disloyal thoughts.
If Cyrus was to be believed, her True Mate was as old school as any werewolf could be. They were ill-matched. Nature had made a mistake this time.
Any chance their relationship once had no longer existed, just like the wolf she had been before the True Believers took her. Both had gotten too screwed up to be real anymore.
Still, his short, cropped, brownish-with-blond-underneath hair begged to be touched, while his sad, older-than-they-should-be brown eyes spoke of a history she wanted to know more about. He had a strong square jaw and high cheekbones surrounding a long, straight nose. Currently, he dressed like a woodsman in faded blue jeans and a flannel long-sleeve shirt checked in blue and white. Cowboy boots covered his feet. How could he look so tough and cozy at the same time?
“How long have I been here?” Her voice sounded hoarse, and, before she could say anything else, Beaux crossed the room to the kitchen and poured a glass of water, which he handed to her shortly after.
Lake took a sip. It helped the pain. She knew from way too much experience it would to take days to feel better, no matter how much water she consumed.
She looked around. They were in a small one-bedroom cabin. The ripped couch in front of the blazing fireplace had clearly seen better days. She could see the whole of the cabin from the kitchen to the bedroom simply by turning her head left and right. Where the hell were they?
“Overnight.” Beaux finally answered her question. She had forgotten the scratchy nature of his sexy voice. Over time she’d only remembered what the sound had done to her, how it had made her panties wet, and the fact that, as a werewolf, he’d known exactly how strongly she reacted to him. Conversely, she knew exactly how hot she made him. Beaux smoldered for her.
Nothing could be hidden—privacy didn’t exist in their world. Not when it came to sexual needs.
“You rescued me, then?”
She wasn’t sure what she should say. It had been many months since she had conversed beyond giving one-word answers during interrogation. Even those times were a blurry haze of uncertainty. Her brain felt like mush.
“Yes.”
Beaux stared at her, his brown eyes revealing nothing. She’d never missed her sense of smell more than right then. How was she supposed to know what he thought? Truly?
He spoke again. “Are you well? Do you need anything?”
“I’m not well.” Why lie? Who in her situation would be fine? “That being said, there is nothing you can do for me. Thanks.”
He took a step toward her and she moved away. She needed space. He couldn’t touch her. Not then. Maybe not ever. Her heart rate kicked up, and Beaux went still, hardly even breathing as he regarded her.
Her reaction wasn’t right. Beaux hadn’t done anything to deserve her fear, but damn if she could control the instinct. Her would-be True Mate scared the shit out of her.
When he finally spoke, it wasn’t what she expected. “Hungry?”
So, he wasn’t going to comment on her fearful display. Great. She didn’t know if she could do an emotional go-round anytime soon. Or ever.
“No.” She rubbed her stomach. “I’m not sure I could keep anything down. I’m queasy.”
“Fair enough.” Beaux returned to the kitchen. Eventually, he seemed to settle and leaned against the counter. Neither of them made another sound, and time stretched out between them like a giant wedge. She had no idea what to do. Should she run back to the bedroom?
Finally, Beaux broke the endless silence by speaking again.
“What have they been giving you?”
“Damned if I know.” She shrugged and walked to the window, which seemed as good a place to be as anywhere else. Snow covered the ground as far as she could see, endlessly white. The world looked like it had stopped, frozen in time. She took the first deep breath she’d managed to muster in minutes.
Beaux picked up a coffee cup and took a sip from it.
“Aren’t you a Healer and a Nurse Practitioner?”
She nodded. “I’m not a pharmacist. If they’d shown me a bottle with the name of the drugs on it, I’d figure it out. They didn’t, and I highly doubt whatever they injected me with was sold on any legitimate market. I’m not up on all the illegal concoctions of the True Believers.”
“Fair enough.”
He walked to the second window and stared outside, not making another comment. He stood utterly still. Was he always like this? Could he be in a room and almost not be there at all?
No. There would never be a time when she wasn’t fully aware of Beaux’s presence in the world. He made no unnecessary movements, and it threw her. Humans moved all the time, constantly jittering. She’d forgotten the sheer silence of the in-control werewolf.
A bird cawed outside and Beaux tapped on the window. “They’re all dead. The ones who had you.” He sipped coffee but didn’t turn to her, didn’t look in her direction.
She almost wished he would give her some eye contact, some way to lose herself in what she knew had to be his tremendous strength. Wolves didn’t become Alphas because they were weak. If she wanted to, she could let him shoulder the last six months for her like none of it had happened. If she asked, he would take the whole experience from her un
til the memories—the events couldn’t touch her again.
Only she wasn’t a coward, and she’d never been good at sharing her needs.
“Was it bad? Did you lose a lot of people?”
Her heart sped up at the word. People. Where was Cyrus? Had he been killed rescuing her? Why wasn’t he here? Wherever here turned out to be…
“No. It was remarkably easy. Too simple, really, considering the problems we had in finding you. They made it a downright cakewalk. No casualties on our side.”
He paused and she took a steadying breath. So, her family was okay. They just weren’t with her. Why?
Beaux continued speaking, still not looking at her.
“Any thoughts on why your rescue went so smoothly?”
She shook her head. “They didn’t share their plans with me.”
“I didn’t think so. The chance that they might have warranted the asking.”
“Sure.”
She finished her water and set down the cup. Pulling up as much bravado as she could muster, she took a step toward him.
“Where is my brother?”
“I would imagine he’s in New York, although keeping track of his whereabouts is not high on my priority list.”
No. The answer Beaux gave her made her want to howl. Only her throat hurt too much for the effort. Lake tried to make her tired brain function. She needed her pack. He had to be made to understand.
“Look at me.”
Something in her remained wolf enough to think to add “please” to the end of her sentence. He was a big, tall, dominant Alpha werewolf who, as Cyrus always put it, couldn’t get his ass out of the past long enough to notice what century they lived in. Did Alphas kill their mates for disrespect in his version of the world? She’d been through enough; she didn’t need to find out. She’d add “please” to everything she said if it would help.
Beaux turned his total attention to her, and the sheer magnitude of the force coming from his now-turned-wolf-eyes threatened to bring her to the ground. Her knees shook.
He raised his hand but didn’t move. “Lake. Don’t fear me.”