Beneath a Blood Moon (53 page)

“Won’t be a lot to do until the meat thaws, but of course. Do you enjoy cooking?”

“I don’t mind. None of my recipes are going to impress Sanders, though.”

“I’ll be impressed no matter what you do,” my mate murmured in my ear.

I squealed, whirling around with my heart in my throat. Smirking at me, he kissed my cheek.

“Don’t do that,” I begged.

“Pay more attention,” he scolded, nipping my chin in rebuke. “Unacceptable, allowing me to sneak up on you like that.”

Chuckling, Desmond hopped up on a stool, looking over the mound of submerged packages. “I think you’ve pulled out enough for Richard’s appetite at his worst plus all of us, Wendy.”

“I saw how much Sanders ate yesterday. I’m not taking any chances. I will not be defeated by these two puppies,” she swore.

“I made the mistake of underestimating a pregnant woman’s appetite once,” Desmond informed me, propping his elbows on the counter. “It took a week for her bites to heal. We should try for another puppy, Wendy. You could keep Sara company.”

“Keep dreaming, Charles. It would be rude to impose on Sanders when he has Sara to worry about. If you’re really nice, I’ll let you ask him next year.”

“Don’t be stupid. Of course I’ll help if you want to add to your never-ending stream of puppy troubles,” my mate replied, grabbing a stool of his own and sitting as close to me as he could. “If you really want to try for a puppy this rut, by all means do. Between Desmond and I, I’m sure we can handle it.”

Wendy made a thoughtful noise. “Two Alphas with pregnant bitches is not wise for anyone.”

Desmond smiled at his mate. “It’d be the greatest Christmas surprise we could spring on our daughters. Imagine it. We’re at Christmas dinner. We’re pretending to exchange gifts. Instead, we inform Nicolina and Lisa they must fight to determine who loses their room to the new puppy on the way. We’ll arm Sanders with a camera.”

“You better take their guns away first,” my mate muttered. “I’ve handled multiple pregnant bitches at the same time. It won’t be a problem. Anyway, you could ask Richard for help, too. I don’t know if he has any bitches making a serious effort this year. You’ll make him really happy if you get him involved.”

“And give him ideas,” Desmond muttered, his eyes narrowing. “I like it. I suppose asking that daughter-stealing mutt for a little extra security is not a bad idea. Maybe a baby brother or sister will make our girls want puppies of their own.”

Wendy drummed her fingers against the counter. “Charles.”

“Yes, dear?”

“Maybe I already took advantage of you for a puppy. I guess you’ll find out in a few weeks,” she taunted.

Desmond’s nostrils flared as he breathed in. “You wouldn’t.”

“You stay there and keep your nose to yourself. Sanders, you come here and have a sniff,” Wendy ordered.

My mate hesitated. At Desmond’s growl, Sanders slinked off his stool. “Why am I being dragged into this?”

“Sara doesn’t know what scent to smell for. It’s far more fun if I drag you into the middle of it and leave my mate to wonder while he sleeps on the couch tonight as punishment for being pushy.” Smirking, Wendy beckoned my mate over with a wave of her hand. “I haven’t had my hug from you yet, either.”

Wendy cajoled a smile out of my mate. Pausing to kiss my cheek, he went into the kitchen, caught Desmond’s mate up in a hug and held her close, bending down to press his nose against her throat. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”

“Not jealous?” Desmond asked me, nudging me with his elbow.

I frowned at him. “Why would I be jealous?”

“She’s gorgeous and touching your male.”

“Are you jealous such a gorgeous male is touching your female?” I retorted, arching a brow.

“I will be if he doesn’t confirm my mate is taunting me.”

“Sanders won’t be saying a word. You won’t, will you?”

“Not a single one, I promise,” my mate replied. “I’ll enjoy watching Desmond squirm all night, wondering if he has been ignoring his nose. Don’t worry, I’ll stand guard upstairs tonight—just in case.”

“Sanders,” Desmond growled.

Releasing Wendy, my mate held his hands up in surrender. “I promised.”

Desmond sighed. “Fine.”

“Go back outside and play with your fish, boys. Better yet, go find something useful to do with yourselves until dinner is ready.”

Helping Wendy cook dinner involved a knife, a cutting board, and an endless stream of things to cut into chunks. I liked the way the sharp blade thunked against the wood.

“If you want to control a male Fenerec, a puppy is guaranteed to keep him close to home where he can’t cause any trouble,” Wendy informed me, pausing in her chopping to toss another package of thawed meat onto the counter beside me. “First, he’ll hover during the entire pregnancy, keeping any threats and competition away. Once the puppy is born, the male’s entire life revolves around caring for the newborn. For the first week or two he’s the primary caretaker while the female recovers as a wolf. Most Fenerec-born are formula fed through the first few weeks unless another bitch had her puppy earlier and offers to nurse. The pack will often share baby-tending duties to let the male get rest, too—especially in the case of an Alpha.”

“Why is it hard on the Alpha?”

Wendy sighed, set her knife aside, and turned around to face me. “I’ve seen Richard and Sanders both collapse for as long as a week after the last puppy of the year was born. Charles makes runs to packs whenever the Alpha is down for more than a couple of days to help stand guard over the puppies. When Seattle’s pack went on a puppy spree a few years back, Sanders was out of action for almost two weeks; he didn’t dare shift the entire time because he had so many females relying on him to control their wolves. If he shifted, he worried they would sync with him and shift as well. So, he went through the same hell they did.”

“Does avoiding shifting hurt?” I asked.

“Like hell. Avoid it long enough and changing can become lethal—or make the Fenerec run wild. It’s always a risk. Sanders always makes certain he’s present for the bitch’s first transformation to make certain she won’t run wild. I believe Richard does the same. You’ll be invaluable for Fenerec wanting puppies once you learn what to do.”

“Why?”

“For the same reason Sanders didn’t run wild after a month of being a wolf, Sara. You were there keeping him human—at least a little human.”

“What would have happened if he had run wild?” I whispered.

“We probably would have been forced to kill him. There are few witches capable of restraining a wolf as old and dominant as Sanders. We were hopeful when we found you at the Mississippi. Wild wolves tend to attack anything that moves. The only thing a wild wolf knows how to do is fight. We should have known you had shed out. We probably would have been able to catch you both then and there if either Charles or I had been with the contact team.”

“I thought you said Sanders had broken Desmond’s ribs hitting him like he did.”

“Well, yes. You were frightened, and at that point, your mate wasn’t in the mood for talk. He had one job to do, and that was to protect you, which he did very well. He didn’t run wild completely, but he was wild enough! That’s why you’re so special, Sara. Without you, your mate probably would have died.”

I sighed. “Without me, he wouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place.”

“I wonder about that. They wanted you, but why? Was it because they wanted you, or was it because you are close to Sanders? With a pack as strong as Seattle’s, it’d take Yellowknife’s pack to mount a successful challenge. If you catch the Alpha, you have the pack. If you catch the Alpha’s female, you have a good chance of catching the Alpha—especially if he loses his head. All it would have taken was a Fenerec watching Sanders for five minutes to know he was trying to court you. If it’s a group who had been working with that sorcerer, Sanders was probably the target from the start, and
you
were the one caught up in the resulting mess.”

If anything, Wendy’s admission made it worse. “Doesn’t that mean you’re at risk now, too? Desmond’s our Alpha now.”

Wendy grimaced. “We’re always at risk, Sara. That’s just part of who we are. Our job is to take over entire packs if needed. Any wolf capable of that is wanted by everyone. Fortunately, we tend to have a lot of Inquisitors lurking around, keeping an eye on the property from a distance. At least these arrangements will make the Shadow Pope happy. With Sanders and you staying here for a while, a full-out assault would be necessary for someone to grab you. Should they try, we’ll win, and we’ll put an end to this once and for all.”

“Do you know who is behind all of this?”

“Not a clue. Whoever it is, though, they’re good, and that’s a problem. Once word spreads you two were recovered, I hope they panic and make a mistake. Until they do, I don’t know if we’ll be able to catch them.”

By the time the stew was finished, I wasn’t hungry.

My wolf, however, thirsted for revenge, and I played along. Our mate was her target; she remembered his theft of our deer and the other animals we had killed. She remembered his bites, and with him human again, she was ready to exert her dominance over him.

To keep Wendy happy, I took a bowl of stew and kept it in front of me, pretending to eat while I listened to the table chatter. Richard sat across from me, with Nicolina across from my mate. Everyone else watched Richard and Desmond as they discussed the fate of the SUV.

“It’s old,” Richard declared, chomping at his spoon as though his enthusiasm for his food proved some point. “Shoot it and be done with it. I’ll even go with you to the dealership. When your SUV is older than Sanders’s truck, it’s a problem.”

Laughing, Desmond pointed his spoon at his son-in-law. “Stop instigating a car war. It’s not hard to have a vehicle older than his truck, Richard. It’s new.”

“I miss my old truck,” my mate grumbled, poking at his stew.

“Damn it, Sanders! I already said I was sorry,” Nicolina complained.

Pouting made my mate all the more handsome, and I forgot about my plan to steal his food, enthralled with staring at him. “What happened to your truck?”

My mate pointed in Nicolina’s direction. “She happened.”

“Someone please explain to him it was
not
my fault.”

“I love you very much, Nicole, but I’m pretty sure it was your fault,” Richard replied.

“Maybe if you hadn’t been distracting me, I wouldn’t have hit his stupid truck!”

Desmond cleared his throat. “In my daughter’s defense, you had been taunting her quite a bit, Richard. Perhaps if you hadn’t immaturely used a quartet of rabbit’s feet, she wouldn’t have felt the need to fling my baseball bat at you.”

“I was trying to give her better luck,” Richard replied, narrowing his eyes at his mate. “It didn’t work.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t given me the rabbits without their feet, I wouldn’t have hit his truck instead of you.”

Snickering, my mate propped his elbows on the table, staring at Nicolina. “Tell them what happened to the feet.”

While he was distracted, I stole the large chunks of deer meat from his stew, leaving him with nothing but vegetables. Wendy watched me, arching a brow. Burying my plundered meat at the bottom of my bowl, I nibbled on my vegetables and waited for my mate to discover the theft.

“Give me a break. Stuffing bloody rabbit feet under my pillow is not going to give me good luck.”

“I don’t know, it gave
me
good luck. You missed me with the bat,” Richard replied.

Sanders snorted. “At the cost of my truck.”

“And at the cost of your dinner, too,” Desmond said, pointing at my mate’s bowl. “Pay more attention.”

Sanders stared at his stew before turning his attention to my bowl. His eyes narrowed as he searched the dark broth for any evidence of his meat. With a puzzled expression, he met my gaze.

I deliberately reached over and took one of his potatoes, all without looking away from him. “I’m sure your truck deserved it.”

Nicolina laughed. “See? She’s on my side.”

“Let this be a lesson to you, Sanders. Never steal your mate’s kill. You may end up standing there, sighing and drooling pathetically, all the while wishing she’d share, but never, ever steal your mate’s kill. You have chosen poorly,” Richard said, once again smiling at Nicolina.