Chasing a Wolf: Moonbound Series, Book Four (5 page)

E
motions flooded from Lani
, taking Tomás by the throat and cutting off his air. He’d been surprised, but she was terrified. It didn’t show on her face, though, and he tried to breathe through the severity of her fear.

Zolin whirled away and stalked toward a big rock that cut the clearing in half, towering well over their heads. Still spearless, he’d used the only weapon he had to kneecap Tomás, but he hadn’t engaged in violence.

“Can he do this?” Tomás held up his wrists and looked at the green pattern on his skin, glistening in the moonlight.

A grip of terror smacked him, coming from Lani, and he reached for her, but she backed away from him, staring at her own golden skin, and the green swath that cut a path around her wrists.

“I told you, you have to claim her,” Zolin said, not turning around. He put one big hand on the rock and paused. “You weren’t going to do right by her.”

“Who says I wasn’t?” Tomás narrowed his eyes. “I just… needed a minute.”

“Zolin.” Lani’s cry tore through the air. “How could you do this to me?”

“You already married him. What did you expect?” He climbed the face of the rock, his bare feet pushing him up over the top. “I’ll keep watch while you set her straight, Tomás. Then we can return to the village and complete the ceremony.”

“Complete the ceremony?” Tomás looked at his…new mate…shit, that was weird.
New mate
. But the tattoos didn’t lie. He hadn’t been aware that someone else could force a bond. He should’ve been on the lookout for it. But Lani’s response to his kiss had confused him, jumping right into sex, from zero to a hundred in half a second.

She rolled her eyes. “The sex tent,” she said with a gesture up the mountain.

“More sex tent?” Tomás choked out. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you people and your sex tent.”

“It is what should have happened after we…after I…” She closed her eyes and a flash of guilt crashed into him.

Her emotions were so…violent. None of them subtle. This emotional bond was going to take some getting used to. His mother used to say something to him about sending emotions to a mate…could he do that with Lani?

He thought about touching her in comfort, but with Zolin looking down from the rock, he didn’t want to do anything physical until he had more control over himself. Tomás wasn’t totally sure that the drugs had worn off yet. He still couldn’t promise he wouldn’t get an erection just from her looking at him with those golden eyes of hers.

Instead, he stared at his new mate and tried to push a comforting feeling toward her. Her back stiffened and her head snapped back.

“What was that?” Lani grabbed at her chest. “What did you just do?”

“I was trying to comfort you.” He fisted his hands to keep from reaching for her.

“I don’t need comfort.” She stepped backward, her legs shaking. “I need to find my mother.”

“You need comfort.” Tomás gentled his voice. “I can feel how frightened you are. You don’t need to be frightened of me.”

Lani fixed him with a furious glare. “I’m not frightened of you.”

“Well, then you don’t need to be frightened of Zolin anymore. He can’t hurt you.”

“I was never afraid of Zolin. He lo—” Another stab of guilt that didn’t show on her face. “He has been trying to get me to bond with him for years.”

Tomás glanced up at the top of the rock, but the big warrior had moved off, out of sight. The rock was long enough, he could have been only a foot farther than he’d been before, but he wasn’t visible. Tomás had no doubt he was still up there, though. He meant to escort them back.

“Why wouldn’t you bond with him?”

She shook her head. “This isn’t helping. You promised me we would find my mother. This should change nothing between us.”

Tomás choked out a laugh and dropped the pack from his back. “Sure. Bonding is just a phase. It’ll pass.”

“I don’t care about phases. I care about my mother. The whole purpose of this plan was to—”

“Force me into helping you. Got it.” He shook his head and tried not to let the regret flood his heart. He couldn’t help it. Whether it was the drugs or the magick or the fatigue, he didn’t know, but between trying to fight off her assault of emotion and his desire for her, he had no defenses remaining.

Tomás dug in the pack for his bottle of water and took a long swig. But it was full, and the water was sweet, like the water from the spring had been. He looked at the hard plastic and held it up to the moonlight. She must’ve filled it.

The preparation that had gone into this plan of hers…either she was completely desperate, or crazy. Maybe a little of both.

Either way, Lani was his mate now. And while he was a tiny bit amazed that he’d landed such a beautiful woman, he couldn’t help the tiny nagging feeling that the reason she’d chosen him was because she knew he’d be easy to discard, being American and a stranger.

Had she known that he wouldn’t see sex the way Zolin might have? That he wouldn’t see it as claiming? Had she planned to be done with him? Was that where her fear came from?

Lani stepped toward him and picked up the pack. “No time to waste. It is still eight hours to Choaca.”

Tomás chuckled. “If you think I’m going to walk another eight hours like this… hell to the no. I was ready to sleep back when we—well, the second time, anyway.”

Her eyebrows drew together and the deepest wave of sadness he’d ever felt took hold of him, through her. “You’re sad that we… about the sex?”

The whites of her eyes flashed at him. “Stop feeling me.”

Her posture was so tight and defensive, Tomás had the strongest urge to wrap his arms around her to calm her. Pushing emotions hadn’t worked. Words hadn’t worked. Maybe touching her would. “I can’t help it, Lani.” He reached for her. “The bond did it, and your emotions are… whoa… I mean, they’re everywhere.”

Her eyes closed when his skin met hers and the briefest flash of relief came over her. The least powerful thing she’d felt since they bonded.

Was she relieved at his touch? Or relieved not to be talking about her emotions?

“I can’t feel yours.”

“That’s because yours are overwhelming you.” He slid his hand up and down her naked shoulder. “That’s why I tried to calm you.”

She looked down at his hand. “Now?”

“Now what?” Tomás continued to stroke her, trying to push more calm into her, but the jumble that tumbled into him sent him stepping back.

When the contact of their skin broke, she raised her eyebrows in a question he wasn’t sure he understood.

“You’ll be fine,” he whispered. “We’ll sleep. In the morning, we’ll go and look for your mother and I’ll call my team. Maybe you can even tell me what I need to know.”

Her hands laced through his and she stepped toward him. He felt a jolt of desire pooled in her stomach, the tiniest of emotions, when she slid his fingers over her nipples. Again, the movement was so strange to him, like a gunshot had started a race without him and he was left at the gate.

But the desire in her ignited his own, and he squeezed her nipple, watching the look on her face.

Yet, the emotional response underneath was small in proportion. Tomás squeezed the other nipple between his fingers, through the material of her dress, and waited for the passionate assault. It never came.

He could distinctly feel the coil of his own desire unfolding in his abdomen, but hers did not respond.

She reached for the tie of her dress and the material fell over his hands, down the golden perfection of her shoulders.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, letting the dress continue to fall to the ground. Every movement of her body enchanted him. Her breasts bounced just a touch when she stepped back, taking his hand. She pulled him down onto the ground with her and Tomás’ head began to spin again.

Was it the drugs, making him feel so intensely?

He latched his lips onto her neck and made to reach between her legs when she flipped him onto his back. He grunted at the hardness of the ground beneath him, and his hands were suddenly full of hers. She brought his fingers back to her breasts again and then guided him quickly inside her, bunching the material of his tunic up on his hips. He opened his mouth to voice his shock, but the hot, wet slide of her pussy around him took his breath.

Tomás kneaded her breasts, and watched for her desire to spread. She was wet enough. Lani began to ride him and he was suddenly too aware of his surroundings. There was no feeling at all. No emotion. Just raw sex.

He reached down and stilled her hips. “Lani.”

She opened her eyes and glared at him, fear crawling between them. “Am I doing it wrong?”

“God, Lani. No.” He sat up and put his arms around her, pulling her into his chest. “You’re perfect.”

She put her hands on his pecs and pushed him backwards. But this time, he was ready for the move and held tight to her.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Tomás met her eyes and tried to calm his desire enough that he could sense what was going on inside that pretty head of hers. “I want to know why you do that.”

“What?” She squirmed against him, discomfort rising to meet his curiosity.

“Why you shut down your emotions whenever I touch you.”

One graceful eyebrow arched, and she shook her head. “I don’t shut anything down.”

“But you’re not feeling…anything.” A wave of his own frustration pushed at him, and he hoped she couldn’t feel it, but he saw it land when she stiffened her back against his hands.

“I am doing sex on you.” Her words were so wooden, so emotionless, it struck him full in the chest.

Tomás opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t make words. He relaxed his hands around her and leaned back. “Is that what you think I want?”

“That’s what men want, isn’t it?”

And the final knife twist. He reached for her dress and put it in her hands, pushing her to her feet. “I wasn’t trying to have sex with you when I touched you, Lani.”

“You weren’t?”

“Maybe we should just get some sleep. These drugs you gave me, or Zolin gave me, or whatever… I can’t think straight anymore. And all your emotions. Can we just…” He got up and brushed the dirt from his clothing. “I’m going to go sleep over here, and you sleep over there, and we’re going to sleep all this off and make some clear-headed decisions in the morning.” Tomás dug around in his pack and found the blanket. “You take this. I think the cold will do me some good.”

Her confusion wasn’t as overwhelming as her fear had been, but he couldn’t put two thoughts together with all this feelings swirling around him. He needed sleep and space and…a lot of fucking tequila.

They would get to Choaca the next day and he’d call Maggie. Or his mother. Or his father. Or someone who could explain what in the hell was going on.

C
itlani opened her eyes
. Morning had arrived and it was time to get moving again. She slid carefully out from under the blanket, leaving Tomás to sleep a few extra minutes. She’d tried to sleep away from him, but she’d tossed and turned, unable to calm herself during the night. Not until she’d moved to sleep next to Tomás had her brain finally shut down for a few hours.

Zolin had no right to link her to this stranger for her whole life. Sex and being married was manageable, but bonding meant he could
feel
her. Her mother had told her never to bond. Never to give a man so much control over her life. Now this stranger could look inside her soul, find her from anywhere in the world, and it was taking everything she had to mentally hold back the mudslide of magick that was trying to invade her mind from his.

It was too much.

He was asleep now. The waves of magick trying to meld with her thoughts were quiet for now. She sighed and sank to her knees next to the small campfire a few feet away from him. Zolin must’ve started it this morning.

She glanced up at the big rock where he’d spent the night. But he wasn’t there. A heartbeat across the clearing drew her focus. The big warrior was approaching, with two rabbits hanging from his belt.

He dropped them at her feet and turned away.

“Why did you stay?”

Zolin sat and leaned against the big rock. His eyes were dark, but they weren’t angry anymore. “I promised your mother I would look after you.”

“He is bonded to me,” she growled. “You made that choice for us. You don’t need to stay.” She rubbed the green tattoos that wound knotted double bracelets around both her wrists.

“I will get you safely back to the village.”

Citlani frowned, pulled her knife from the sheath on her calf and began to clean the rabbits. A little meat in the belly would make the long hike they had ahead of them go much smoother. The last place she intended to go was back to the village. Tomás had said he’d help her. She just hoped her mate would follow through on his promise. Zolin was more than a little intimidating.

She’d finished skinning the rabbits and had them sizzling on a spit over the fire before Tomás stirred beneath her blanket. She glanced over her shoulder as he stretched and groaned.

“Damn I miss beds.” He rolled toward her and met her gaze. “But that food goes a long way toward making up for it. Smells good.”

Citlani smiled, pride filling her chest. She might not know how to handle this thing growing between them, but at least she could satisfy his basic needs. Sex. Food. Maybe there could be more eventually. Maybe when the boulder of magick pushing down on her soul eased up. When was that going to happen? She wasn’t sure she could keep it out much longer. But the idea of being able to exchange emotions made her stomach flip flop.

She closed her eyes and focused on her mother’s face. Finding her was the only task at hand.

“You’re scared again.” Tomás spoke softly as he sat up. He moved to sit next to her and reached to touch her arm.

Remembering that her retreat had made him feel rejected before, she didn’t move. His fingers grazed her skin, leaving a trail of fire as they went, that shot straight to her core. She liked his touch, enjoyed it even, but at the same time, it made her want to run and hide. How could she want something and be terrified of it at the same time?

He pulled his hand away and frowned.

Her heart sank. She couldn’t bring herself to let his emotions inside, but he had no trouble
feeling
hers.

“One step at a time, yes?” Tomás turned the skewer the rabbits were on and rolled his neck back and forth, cracking vertebrae loudly. “I really do miss beds.”

“Mats are not that much better than the ground. Just cleaner.”

A chuckle rolled from her mate’s chest, and the sound eased some of the tension building within her. Perhaps being near him while he slept had pulled them closer than she’d intended.

Still, she planned to sleep next to him again. Once he was asleep, she could lie with him without him ever knowing. The pull that yanked at her soul was only pacified by his nearness.

Citlani had felt the same calm when in the presence of her mother, but not to this degree. Being near Tomás was different. The feeling was much stronger. So much more intense.

“The food is ready. Please eat, we should start before the sun gets much higher.” She pulled the rabbit off the fire and laid it on a flat rock next to Tomás. Then pulled the second rabbit down and carried it to Zolin. “Thank you for the food.”

He took the skewer and nodded.

She retreated back to the fireside and sat across from Tomás as he tore pieces of the roasted rabbit from the spit.

“Sit with me,” he patted the ground next to him. “You need to eat, too.”

She shook her head and he narrowed his eyes. “Explain, Lani.”

“I eat when you finish.”

“Well, I’m not from here and I want you to eat with me.” He ripped off a large piece and handed it to her. “Eat. Then we go to Choaca.”

It wasn’t custom, but he had a point. He was an outsider. Perhaps their women ate with them. She smiled and took a bite of the rabbit, wondering what else might be different with a mate like Tomás.

“You are going back to the village,” Zolin growled, stomping from his place by the large rock and crouching beside the campfire. “This one needs to speak to the elders, and you can’t go to Choaca. It’s not safe.”

“She’s my mate, thanks to you. I promised to help her find her mother and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Zolin’s eyes flashed gold and he snarled.

Citlani sucked in a quick breath and edged around the campfire closer to Tomás.

“Look, I’m perfectly capable of protecting her. I have friends that can help locate her mother. Everything is going to be fine.”

“No. You do not understand. Citlani cannot return to Choaca. She cannot leave the mountain. Ever.”

Ever?
Was he touched by the gods? The man was making no sense. Why couldn’t she go to Choaca? Or leave the mountain?

Tomás stood and Zolin did too, towering over her mate. Tomás wasn’t a small man, but Zolin was a giant. The two men stepped away from her and she remained, quiet and forgotten beside the fire.

The men in the village always tried to speak away from the women, thinking they wouldn’t hear, but when quiet surrounded a conversation words always traveled. Especially when the listening ears belonged to a wolf.

“Citlani’s mother was not of our tribe, originally. The chief took her in nearly thirty summers ago. She was pregnant by a monster and had no family. The man who took her seven days ago, he is the same monster. She said he would torture Citlani if he found her. His heart is blacker than demons from hell.” Zolin spat at the ground and said a short verse to the sun god. “She made me swear to never let her daughter leave the mountain again. Then she ran.”

Air caught in her chest and wouldn’t budge. In or out.

Zolin knew much more about what was going on than he’d revealed previously.

She jumped to her feet and stormed over to both of them. “She ran!” Citlani shoved Zolin’s arm and snarled, sucking in a deep breath. “So she wasn’t taken? You lied.” Her voice rose and she screamed. “You abandoned her to be caught by a monster.”

“Lani,” Tomás spoke gently, reaching for her.

Citlani shook and moaned. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she tried to sort through everything. Her mother had run? Had left her? Told Zolin to hide her from what…who?

T
omás focused
all his calm on his mate. He could feel her resisting him, but he didn’t have time to give her all his attention. The broody warrior was padding from foot to foot in front of him, watching Lani like he intended to grab her and run.

“Why in the hell did you lie to her?” Tomás growled at him.

“This is not your concern.” Zolin’s shoulders dropped and his chest puffed out. “I was given an order by the chief’s wife. My only choice was to follow it.”

“Wait.” Tomás’ mind spun.
Thirty years
. Zolin had said Citlani’s mother came thirty years ago.
Pregnant by a monster
.

That meant she wasn’t the chief’s real daughter?

But…no.

He took his mate by the shoulders and focused on her face. Molten eyes. Sharp, angular features. How could he have missed this? She looked just like them. Marco DiSanti. Elise Blanchard.

“Your father,” he whispered. “Is the chief your father?”

Lani swiped at her wet cheeks, her anger abating slightly. “Not by birth. But he claimed me as his own.”

“We do not speak of it. She has been made one of us. Children of the volcano.” Zolin made the volcano god sign again and swiped his face to one side.

Tomás dropped his hands and turned on the camp. He darted to his pack and dug for his phone. The battery was running low, and there was no service. Zolin had warned him, there would be no amenities once they left Choaca.

But he needed to talk to Maggie.
Immediately.

“What are you doing?” Lani’s voice seemed to have picked up a touch of his calm, but he’d lost his.

He stuffed the blanket into his pack, grabbed his water bottle, shoved his phone in the front pocket of the satchel, and took Lani by the hand.

“We’re going to Choaca. Come with us, or don’t. But she’s my mate now and I say, we’re leaving.” Tomás ignored Zolin’s roar and ran down the mountain.

At first, Lani’s emotions were swirling and unfocused, but the farther they ran, the more driven she was.

She dropped his hand and ran in front of him. “This way.” She pointed off to their right. Soon, they’d left the denser forest and were on something of a worn path.

They ran for what felt like forever, but the trail just continued to wind its way down the mountain. Tomás’ lungs burned and his feet hurt, but he felt clear-headed for the first time in more than a day.

He had to get to a place with cell service, and then he needed to call Maggie and get the whole team to Choaca. Fast.

The man who had impregnated Marco’s mother and Elise’s mother had also fathered Lani. The monster Zolin spoke of was the same man who had run a brothel of kidnapped werewolves. Were the men of this little Huichol village the same men from the mountains who had promised to bring down vengeance?

He and Alex and some of the others had been visiting villages in the mountains for weeks, looking for a place where there werewolves. But there were more wolves in the mountains of Jalisco than they’d all expected, and it hadn’t been easy to find wolves who knew anything about a statue and a book in Guadalajara—which was more than 100 miles away.

Tomás smacked his forehead and stopped his progress. How could he have been so stupid?

He rested his hands on his knees and bent over, panting. His father would’ve seen the resemblance right away.

“What is wrong?” Lani’s breath came quickly, too. “We are still hours from Choaca.”

“I need a minute.” He shook his head.

“Why?” Her features were so open, so innocent. There were things about her he already found endearing, but this was becoming his favorite. She genuinely didn’t understand him, and it was adorable.

He took her face between his hands and stared into her eyes. Into the same eyes that he’d seen on Marco for the thirteen years he’d been going to the Vegas strip to check in on him.

Tomás had been only eighteen himself when he’d seen the unbonded wolf for the first time. Marco’s mother had notified Tomás’ father—as the Vegas pack alpha—that her son had begun to shift, and Tomás had been the one tasked with watching him.

He hadn’t actually met Marco until a month ago, when they’d first discovered the connection between him and another unbonded wolf in New Orleans. But he had been watching Marco for years.

How could he have missed the similarities?

Tomás ran a thumb over Lani’s cheekbone. “I don’t think I can explain it to you.”

“But your emotions are strong.” She gazed at him, earnestly. “Does this mean you want sex again?”

He forced a breath out between tight lips. Whatever village women had taught her to watch for signs of men wanting sex…they’d really done a number on Lani. Then again, having a mother who’d been raised as a prostitute obviously had also created something in her he didn’t understand.

“I don’t need sex right now, Lani.” Tomás continued to slide his fingers along her face. “I just want to stand like this.”

“But you are aroused.” She put her hand on top of his. “I can feel it now, you remember.”

A small smile took his lips and he wound his fingers through hers. “I can be aroused, and not need to have sex with you.”

Inside her, he could feel the tiniest coil of desire begin to unwind. She liked touching him, too, it seemed. But he needed to show her the emotional side of their relationship was just as important as the physical. Especially now that he was learning more about her and where she’d learned her patterns. Why she was who she was.

He pressed his lips to the soft underside of her wrist, just where the bonded tattoos were.

She sucked in a breath and the desire in her grew more powerful.