“Which wolf?”
Elizabeth blinked at the question. Why did that make one bit of difference to Drea?
In this case, wasn’t one wolf going to be as good as another? Liz turned around to regard the lobby where she was sure a certain wolf-shifter currently harassed a man who had smoked too many cigarettes in his life and who didn’t know how to be polite to those less fortunate than himself. “Rex Kane.”
Silence met her words for a moment before Drea spoke again. “Well then, yes, I’ll take your trade. All of you for the … information … Randolph Kane, the youngest son of the royal family of the Westervelt Wolves, possesses. Yes, I think he’d do nicely. See you tomorrow.”
The sound of the dial tone made Elizabeth’s stomach lurch. This was what she’d needed, what she’d hoped would happen. However, the sound of dial tone made goosebumps appear on her skin. She bit down on her tongue to stop tears from coming out of her eyes. Rex would smell them, and there was no way she could let him know her plans—not until tomorrow.
Chapter Nine
For the tenth time, Rex looked around the small motel room and sighed. With every intention of giving Elizabeth the bed, he had some serious reservations about the cleanliness of the floor. Perhaps it would make more sense to sleep as a wolf.
Because my fur deserves the dirt more than your sensitive skin?
He laughed and looked up at the closed bathroom door. Elizabeth had retreated into the bathroom as soon as they’d entered the monstrosity calling itself a hotel room. She’d been in there a few minutes and he was starting to worry about her. Liz needed to eat. So did he but he could go a long while between feedings thanks to his wolf metabolism. She couldn’t. He clenched his fingers together, stopping himself from busting down her bathroom door to make sure she was fine. He was really starting to lose control of his instincts. Rex couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this close to the edge.
Mate. You’ll feel better.
I can’t just mate. She barely even likes me.
Not true.
Rex rolled his eyes. He did not need relationship advice from a canine.
Why not? You’re doing such a bang up job of handling things yourself?
Just then, the bathroom door opened, and Elizabeth stepped out into the room. He wished he’d thought to get her some clothes to wear and some toiletries while he’d been convincing the man who ran this place to give him food. “Feel better?” She smiled. “Sure.”
There was something off about her smell. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was.
Truth was, he hadn’t slept long enough. Just a quick rejuvenating power nap to try to heal some of his wounds. His wolf had been anxious the whole time. Neither of them had particularly liked leaving Elizabeth unprotected. As soon as he’d been aware enough to realize the car had stopped, he’d forced himself back from the blackness of sleep to make sure she was fine.
Fortunately, nothing had happened while he’d been out of it. Now, however, his senses were still not up to par. That would take some more time, maybe a real night’s sleep, which, he suspected, he would not be getting any time soon. “Hungry?” He took a step toward her, wanting to feel the warmth from her body radiating toward him.
“Actually, I am.” She yawned. “And, clearly, tired. Did you manage to get anything to eat?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Did you doubt my ability to provide for you?”
“Rex.” Her voice contained laughter when she spoke. “This isn’t a caveman must provide for his woman kind of a thing. I was simply trying to find out if there had been any food to get.”
“Cheese.” He pointed to the small table in the corner. “Bread and butter. Not much, not what I’d like to be feeding you right now, but sustenance nonetheless.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” In two strides he’d crossed the room to the table to pull out the chair for her to sit in. She paused before sitting down in it, and he watched as a blush crossed her cheekbones. Was she unwell? “Are you fine?” He hadn’t forgotten the whack she’d taken to the head during the car accident. When this was over he still intended to have her properly looked at by a doctor.
“Yes. I’m just not used to being treated so nicely.”
Unable to stop himself, he dropped to his knees by the side of her chair. She gasped.
“Elizabeth, by the gods we believe in, I swear to you that you will get used to being treated like a lady. Anyone who dares to treat you otherwise will answer to me.”
“Rex.” Her eyes filled up with tears, and the scent of unhappiness wafted through the air. It was repugnant to his soul. He reached up to stroke away the tears from her eyes.
“Here, you need to eat. It will help you to feel better.” He hoped that was the case. Rex would do just about anything to relieve her of her sadness. Reaching up, he broke a piece of cheese off. “Eat this.” When she would have taken the food from his hand, he stopped her. “Please, let me.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You want to feed me from your hand.”
“If it is okay. I don’t know if it’s something you’d hate. I have a hard time with modern manners. I have this need to take care of you.” Elizabeth stared into his eyes, and he wished he could read her thoughts. All he could smell was sadness, which continued to eat a hole into his heart.
Please, Elizabeth. He was glad to see he could speak into her mind again. His wolf abilities were returning, albeit more slowly than he would have preferred.
She nodded, her mouth opening slightly. Bit-by-bit Rex fed her pieces of the cheese and bread. Each bite she took made his cock grow harder, and he hoped the towel wrapped around his waist would continue to hold. If he had to, he could take clothes from the proprietor of the hotel, but he preferred not to bother the man again. Besides, anything that took him from Elizabeth’s presence was to be avoided at all costs.
After a few minutes, she grabbed his hand. “Aren’t you going to eat?” He shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”
“How can you not be?”
“My eating needs are different from yours.” The last thing Rex wanted to do at this moment was to go into an explanation about his metabolism and what he needed to eat or when he had to consume food. An intimacy was forming between them. He could feel it pulsating in the air, like he could reach out and actually touch it if he tried. Although, he wouldn’t dare make the attempt in case it spoiled the moment.
“I think you’re lying. I can’t smell it like you can. I think you’re not eating because you want me to eat.”
There was some truth to that, but if he had to really eat, he would have gotten more food from the man at the desk. “I really am fine.”
She nodded, taking his cheeks in her hands. “I appreciate you wanting to take care of me. No one has wanted to in so long. I promise you, however, I am a grown up and can feed myself just fine.”
He smiled, looking down. It had been a strange instinct, not one he’d ever had before. She’d let him indulge but he was going to have to restrain himself from doing it again. “I know you can.” He nodded and tried to pull back but she stopped him, which surprised him. Why would she want him near her when he’d acted so oddly?
“When you speak in my head, it’s like a caress on my soul.” Her blue eyes held his eye contact and he felt his heart beat fast against his ribs. “At first I hated it and now I can’t seem to stop myself from wanting you to do it again.” Like this?
Her sigh moved through him like a burst of warm air. “Just like that.” She got off the chair, moving to kneel directly across from him. “I’m not good news.”
Stop it.
“I think you believe me to be better than I actually am.” No.
It had been such a long time since she’d had someone to support her. Rex could imagine she’d lost sight of herself somewhere along the line. He could see the goodness radiating from her—not something he would have expected to be true of a witch.
Elizabeth was the kind of wo
man to venture into the woods and use just a stick to defend him. She would endure countless years of servitude under a horrendous curse to keep her family safe. Yes, she was as good as he believed her to be.
He might have railed against this at first, having not wanted to deal with the fact she was a witch, but now he was simply immensely grateful she lived in the universe and she was his.
She touched his face, a gentle stroke down the side of his cheek. “Tell me why your family thinks you’re a traitor.”
He nodded. She had the right to know. “I’ve never been very good at keeping my mouth shut.”
That’s for sure.
He ignored his wolf. “My father basically ignored me. I have a sister I can’t remember who is thirty years younger than I am. I only recently found out she existed.”
“How can you not remember her?” Her eyes were huge as she stared into his.
“I suffer from periodic amnesia.”
She gasped. “What?”
“I’m kidding. I’m sorry. Bad joke.”
To his surprise, Elizabeth giggled. “I shouldn’t be laughing. This is serious. I’m trying to understand.”
“I can’t remember my sister because of a spell my mother did to protect the unmated women from us. She was worried about protecting them. The spell should wear off when there is no more danger. Clearly, we’re not over the danger.”
“If you saw her would you remember her?”
“Maybe.” He sighed. “When Tristan found his mate I remembered her mother, who had been with us before the curse. I remembered Malcolm’s mate Jana, as well. I think it depends on how much I had to do with them beforehand. I would have to see Angel to know if I remember her.”
“And you haven’t seen her?”
He shook his head. “No. I got sent away to find a witch before she got back home.
I’ve only heard about her vicariously.”
“That was some major spell.” Elizabeth chewed on her fingernail. “Why do you guys need a witch if you can do serious magic?”
“We can do certain things but we are really limited in other ways. We cannot stop our father from sending his made wolves into Westervelt.”
“You need to put up a block. Once upon a time, I could have done it. I’m not powerful enough now, but it is powerful.”
Rex sighed. “A witch’s spell to block a witch’s spell.” Elizabeth chewed on her lower lip. “This is complicated.” He knew he could end the conversation here. She was thinking about spells now, she wouldn’t spend another moment thinking about the accusations against him. But he’d told her he would tell her so he would, even if it made this quiet moment end too soon.
“When Tristan was kidnapped by our father’s people and eventually locked in a wolf cage for years, he was supposed to be meeting me. I was late. I didn’t really have an excuse. If you want to know the truth, I was buying beer.” She raised an eyebrow. “For some all-night wolf kegger?”
“I don’t drink anymore. I swore I never would again. I don’t think I had a problem but I was incredibly irresponsible. We knew to be careful and I wasn’t. Tristan suffered because of it.”
Of course, that was how Tristan had met Ashlee. If he hadn’t been in the cage he wouldn’t now be mated with children and alpha of their pack. But none of that changed the fact Tristan, Rex’s older brother who he had worshiped for years, had thought he was the traitor to their pack.
“When I finally found him, after pursuing him relentlessly, he nearly killed me because he thought I was the one who had betrayed him.” Elizabeth nodded. “Must have hurt like hell.”
He swallowed through the lump in his throat. “I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my feelings.”
“I know what you mean. I don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on how it hurts when someone flinches or screams when they see me. Even if you didn’t think about it at the time, you were hurt.”
“I suppose.” He leaned back, uncomfortable with how vulnerable he felt. Wanting to tell her what had happened and actually experiencing the pain were two different things.
“You suppose?” She leaned forward.
“All right, yes. It hurt like hell.” He looked away, unable to meet her blue eyes. Not when he was so damn exposed.
“And you’ve never really gotten over it.” She touched his face, turning him back to her.
“I’m afraid there is more.”
“Someone else accused you of being a traitor?”
He leaned back, his head touching the side of the table. “Tristan again, but this time with the support of the whole pack with him.”
“Why?”
“Someone was betraying the pack. I happened to pick a bad time to start spying on Tristan and the mated pairs.”
Yes, you did. But you had your reasons and they were valid.
His wolf had never said that before. He agreed with his decision to follow Tristan around and see what was going on?
They had their reasons but they weren’t behaving very pack-like, in my opinion.
“Why did you do it?”
He wished he could take it back and never tell her any of this. Rex could have conceivably gone his whole life and never had to tell her. Why had he done this? Oh yes, her right to know. “We had a traitor in our mix. Actually, more than one.” She nodded. “Right.”
“And all of a sudden only mated couples were trustworthy. Everyone else was being kept out of Tristan’s loop.” He could still remember the weeks leading up to his decision to find out information being kept from him. It burned in his belly now as much as it had then. “Like the fact that some members of the pack had met their mates made them inherently more dependable and less likely a traitor? This seemed like nonsense to me. It was a mated man—my father—who got us into this mess and continued to cause us trouble.”
“Why didn’t you say something to Tristan? Tell him how you felt?” He snorted. “That’s not how the pack works. He’s the alpha. He tells us how it is and we do what he says. The fact Tristan is pretty benevolent for an alpha makes things slightly easier, but he’s not exactly touchy feely with anyone but his wife and children.”
“Better to follow him around in some clandestine attempt to gain information he didn’t want you to have?”
Her tone was light, but he could see in her eyes she thought he was out of his mind.
Elizabeth’s blue depths said she thought he’d been very, very wrong in his actions. She was in good company. His whole pack had agreed. “They caught me and they beat the crap out of me before making accusations about treason.” She reared back. “Well, they shouldn’t have resorted to violence.”
“We’re part animal.”
Elizabeth did a good imitation of the snort he’d made earlier. “I think you pull out the animal card when you want to justify acting like Neanderthals.”
“Neanderthals?” Rex couldn’t stop the laughter overtaking him. He would love to tell Tristan, Cullen and the others they were cavemen. The looks on their faces would be priceless.
She tilted her head to the side as she attempted to imitate him. “Oh, don’t blame me, baby, for being a jerk. I’m an animal. I can’t help it. I bet your wolf has better manners than you do.”
I knew there was a reason I loved her.
“You just made his day.”
It was amazing how right she was about his wolf. His four-legged half was often better adjusted to life than he was. Easier to get along with, more polite.
“So, after the second accusation things got a little hard on you, I imagine.”
“Correct.” He stretched his arms over his head to stop himself from grabbing her and pulling her against him. So far, she’d initiated small touches between them. He didn’t want to ruin it by overdoing things too soon. “And my chance to redeem myself in the eyes of the pack is to bring back a witch to help us, by any means necessary.”
“Except you’ve already delayed doing so, haven’t you?” Was he an open book?
It??
?s the mate thing.
His wolf’s words made his heart rate increase. Was that what it meant to be mated?
To be understood by another person so well, you almost didn’t have to tell them how you were feeling? They just knew? And if so, how in the world could his father have done what he did, and how could his mother have worked so diligently against her mate?
He shook his head at the thoughts. There would never be answers to these questions.
“Tristan had some choice words about my delay. I can’t blame him. They’re in the middle of endless battles. He wants you on Westervelt. Yesterday.”
“Oh, Randolph.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Don’t. I’m not worth it.”
“What?” He couldn’t follow her train of thought. Not over the roar in his ears that had started when she’d begun to cry. All he could think was he had to stop her unhappiness. Somehow, he’d caused it and he hadn’t meant to.
Acting out of instinct rather than thought, he leaned over and kissed her. In the past, his kisses had contained simple meanings. The first time it had been to jar her into using her powers. He’d been the one who had been rattled. The second time had been to say goodbye, in case he died in battle.
This time? All he wanted in the world was to consume her until all rational thought left both their minds.
She froze under his lips. He considered pulling back even though heat had begun to travel in his body so immensely he thought he might be consumed by it, and that would be a fine way to die. His cock jumped to attention, swelling under the blanket keeping a barrier between them.
But then she kissed him back, a moan starting in her throat. The sound took away all reason from his thought. She wanted him too. She pulled back, her mouth already swollen from their one kiss, her eyes filled with passion. “I shouldn’t do this. I know it will be a giant mistake. But I want you, Randolph Kane, like I’ve never wanted anything in my life.”