Chasing a Wolf: Moonbound Series, Book Four (6 page)

But he didn’t indulge it.

“Why would you want to be aroused and not have sex?” Her voice was breathy, and he would’ve known she was turned on, even if he couldn’t feel her.

He liked knowing he could make her feel desire. Even if it was small. Unfamiliar.

He wanted her to want him more.

Tomás dropped his tone and pinned her eyes with his. “I will always be aroused around you.”

Her lips parted and her breath came more quickly. “You will?”

“I will.” Tomás took her hand and placed it over his heart, holding it there while his pulse pounded. “You are beautiful and sexy. And…you’re mine now. That will always turn me on.”

Tomás had to breathe for a moment while his desire grew. He didn’t want to make this about sex, and he didn’t want to jump-start whatever process made her take over and climb on him. He wanted her to feel her emotions. And his. “But that doesn’t mean I need sex.” He let his breath calm and touched her cheek again. “Otherwise, we would be having sex all the time.”

“And you don’t want that?”

He had to chuckle at the thought. If someone had asked him, a month ago, whether he would ever turn down sex with someone as hot as Lani, he would’ve told them to go straight to hell. But there was something about her.

“I want you to want it, too,” he found himself saying. There was something frightening about being that honest, but between the mate bond and Lani’s beauty, he wasn’t thinking straight any longer.

Crashing steps behind them made Tomás pull Lani into his side. He steeled himself for another fight with Zolin. But he’d made up his mind. They were going to Choaca, and they needed to get back on the road.

The big warrior was at least human this time, and hadn’t opted to track them down as his wolf. Although, he’d known where they were going. It shouldn’t require much in the way of tracking.

“Zolin,” Tomás said, holding out a hand, “Just leave us alone. We’re going to Choaca and I’m not going to listen—”

“I know,” he panted. “You’re going to need my help.”

Tomás arched his neck and backed up closer to Lani, wanting to feel her more solidly behind him. “What brought that on?”

“I can see that you are determined. But you are only one man. You cannot stand up to a monster on your own.”

He allowed himself a smile as he thought of the other members of his team. Maggie, Niko, Alex… as soon as he could get word to them, they would come as well. “I won’t have to, but I’m happy for the additional help. As long as that’s really what you’re going to do.”

A pained look crossed Zolin’s features, and he looked over Tomás’ shoulder. “She is not mine any longer. You were right to say that.”

“I’ll protect Lani.”

“We both will,” Zolin said, offering his hand.

“I don’t need protection,” she insisted from behind him and Tomás grinned. She probably didn’t.

“You will from this man.” Zolin pointed down the mountain. “Once you are within a mile of him, he’ll be able to sense your presence.”

A big, heavy thud landed in his stomach and Tomás sighed. Why hadn’t he thought of that? When he was close enough to his father, the man could track him down to a breath.

“That’s why her mother didn’t want her leaving the mountain.” Tomás nodded. “Once she knew where the man was.”

Zolin mirrored the gesture. “You will need help to defeat this man.”

He touched the pack that hung on his other side. His phone. He needed to call Maggie. He had to get his team on their way. Tomás pulled the cell out of the pack.

Still no service.

He’d have to run with the phone in his hand and try to find the first available bar. “Come on.” With his other hand, he took ahold of Lani. “We have to get to Choaca.”

C
itlani ran
, slowing her pace only enough to allow Tomás to keep up. He’d stopped a few hours ago and changed into his regular clothes. Why, she had no idea. They looked uncomfortable and the boots looked like rocks. His pace had slowed considerably since putting them on, but he refused to enter Choaca in the tunic.

She had to remind herself he wasn’t one of them. He was from a totally different world. Did that mean she’d leave her home?

Citlani paused as they entered a clearing. The city of Choaca lay before them in the valley, spreading its fingers across the land and all along the coast. This view was amazing, but the idea of never seeing it again made her sad. She’d spent her whole life on this mountain.

Now she had a mate. A mate that probably didn’t want to stay.

She shook her head and wiped her eyes. There was no time for those
feelings
.

She couldn’t feel her mother yet. Or they weren’t close enough to the city. Or her mother wasn’t in the city any more. Citlani choked back the fear clawing at her insides.

“Lani,” Tomás whispered before laying his hands on her shoulders.

She tensed, but didn’t pull away. His touch soothed her. Calmed a pain she carried around deep inside. She wasn’t ready to lower the floodgates and
feel
him like he did with her. But it was coming. Citlani could feel it pushing at the wall she’d erected, patiently eroding her doubts and fears.

“We’re going to find her.” He pulled a square black box from his pocket and held it up in the air. He’d called it a phone, and said he was looking for bars—whatever that meant.

“Does it see bars?”

“No, not yet. We have to get closer. Can you feel anything?”

“No. I remember what being near my mother is like, but I can’t feel that. And there is so much from you I’m keeping out. If I reach for something else, all of that will pour into me and drown me.”

Tomás rubbed her arm and tugged her backward against his chest. “Breathe in deeply. I promise it won’t hurt, Lani. But you need to do this. If the man who took your mother gets the drop on us before my friends get here, we could be in serious trouble.”

“It’s too much. I’m not good with new.”

“You’re good with me.”

“I pretend to know what I’m doing. I don’t know anything except what the women teach me. What you want is too much.”

He nuzzled the side of her neck. His warmth breath made her skin tingle. She
wanted
…something. His emotions pushed harder, squeezing through her barrier. Comfort seeped into her, coating her soul.

“Better?”

She nodded.

“I promise you won’t drown.”

Citlani wasn’t sure about that, but something in the magick swirling between them convinced her he was telling the truth. They were bonded. He’d promised to help her. Why couldn’t she just trust that?

“I’ll try.”

The rush that followed nearly put her on her knees. Magick swirled around her and through her entire being. Tomás’ emotions filled up that empty place in her soul that had always ached.

He completed her, but there was still so much more she didn’t understand about life about relationships. Her mother had taught her to fear intimacy, but Tomás embraced it.

Feelings of acceptance and love washed over her. He didn’t even know her and he was all the way in.

Willing to help her do anything she needed.

She gasped a breath in and out. In and out.

He was still behind her. Still holding her. It was overwhelming to
feel
so much, but she wasn’t alone. She’d never be alone again.

Tomás—being married, having a mate—was so much more than she could’ve imagined.

T
he sky
across the ocean reminded Tomás of a mural painting. Pinks and purples, blues, oranges. They’d come to the last rise on the edge of the city and the lights from the taller buildings lit up the coast like the Vegas strip.

He wanted to stand there and enjoy it with Lani—preferably without Zolin breathing down everyone’s neck. But they weren’t free to do that.

Tomás needed the Huichol to help him stand up to Lani’s father. They would have to confront the man, there was no doubt about it. He just wished they could’ve done it with her in Timbuktu, instead of the lion’s den.

“We’ll go to the market first,” Zolin said from behind them. “It will be closed, but if I must, I can shift in one of the dark corners.”

“Let’s hope it won’t come to that.” He took Lani’s hand and pulled her down the hill, toward a turnabout that turned into a street. “As soon as we find out whether her mother is here, I’d like to get her out of Choaca.”

It wasn’t safe.

“I have wondered if he might have taken her mother back to Guadalajara,” Zolin said. “Since that’s where you said this brothel was.”

Tomás’ insides roiled. He hadn’t been certain he should tell Zolin or Lani about what they’d found in Guadalajara, but the walk down the mountain had been so long, and he’d run out of excuses not to.

The thought of what might’ve happened if Lani’s mother hadn’t escaped… Tomás couldn’t stop rolling it over in his mind.

“Do you feel anything?” Zolin asked.

Lani shook her head. This time, when Tomás took her hand, she didn’t pull away, and walked beside him all the way into the street. They hadn’t walked more than a few feet past the first building when his phone began to buzz.

With a little squeal, she jumped. “Is it bars?” She looked across his body at his phone with wide eyes.

He glanced at the little window that popped up. Missed calls and voicemails from Maggie Gallagher. He swiped at the screen and went to listen.

“Call me right away. Alex found the men of the mountains.” Maggie sounded out of breath. Her next three messages were all more than a minute long. Should he call her back? Listen to the messages?

“Is it bars?” Lani asked again.

“It is.” He deleted the first of Maggie’s messages and tapped on the next one. Alex Sureda’s tone was clipped and angry in place of Maggie. They’d found the men in the Ascaro hills. Something about a kidnapped girl in the mountain tribes. He couldn’t make it out, with what sounded like the constant flap of wind across the words.

Lani pulled on his arm. “What is it?”

“My friend called and left a message, but I can’t understand it.” He touched the next line.

Alex again. More garbled talk about little girls and checking in and coming down from the mountain.

“Can you tell them to meet us so we can search for my mother?” Lani asked.

“Just let me listen to the last message.” He selected the most recent voicemail. Only forty minutes ago.

“Tomás, call me right now.” Maggie’s voice wavered, though the call was clear. “You should’ve checked in hours ago. Alex said you were meeting your guide in Choaca, but... Adrian. He’s there. We’re worried you might’ve run into him. He owns a hotel on the beach. A tourist resort called the
Puerto Villa
. If you get this message, meet us there. Otherwise, we’re coming up the mountain after you.”

A lump formed in Tomás’ throat as Lani’s wide amber eyes stared at him, expectantly.

Her father. The monster. He was in Choaca.

“What about the
Puerto Villa
?” Lani asked in Spanish.

Tomás realized for the first time that Maggie had been speaking English, so Lani couldn’t understand her. Thank God.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Zolin grabbed Tomás by the shoulder and yanked him backward. “Your face is ashen. She told you something. What did she say?”

“Nothing,” he repeated. But he was at an impasse. He couldn’t take Lani to the
Puerto Villa
, or even get near the place, in case her father could sense her. But he also couldn’t convince her that they could find her mother elsewhere.

Maggie wouldn’t have known about Lani’s mother, and he couldn’t think of a convincing lie. But he had to get her out of Choaca as soon as possible.

“You’re lying.” Lani touched his chest, just above his heart. “I can feel your deception, you forget.” She pushed on him with just the slightest touch. “What about the
Puerto Villa
?”

“I told you, it’s nothing. It’s just where my team will be. But I’ll call them and have them meet us up here.” He hit
call back
on Maggie’s message and the phone rang twice before she picked up.

“Tomás? Gods, where have you been?”

He looked at his mate, walking just ahead of him, and rolled his eyes. “You don’t want to know.”

“I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. Here. Hang on. Alex wants to talk to you.” A shuffle of the phone and the gruff voice of the Miami pack enforcer came on the line.

“My battery’s low. Where are you?”

“Tomás? We thought something had happened.” he said in Spanish.

“I’m fine. I told Maggie, it’s a long story,” he answered in Spanish. “Can you tell me what’s going on? Where are you?” He covered one ear. “It sounds like you’re in a wind tunnel.

“Smashed out one of the rental’s windows.” Alex grunted. “Long story. Where are you?”

“Choaca. When can you meet me?” He reached for his mate as her pace increased. Her fear was mounting. She must’ve felt his uncertainty, because she was more unsettled than she had been. He had to calm her.

“We’re almost there. Maggie was in Zamora and I picked her up on my way. Did she tell you we found him?”

“I got the message.” Tomás slowed his steps, hoping for a little distance away from Lani.

Alex’s tone lowered into a growl. “I found a girl in the mountains. She lived the first nine years of her life in Guadalajara with a man named Mr. Rossi. A man from Ameca dropped her with this tribe after Rossi abandoned her and told them to keep her always with them. Never to let her come down off the mountain, because the man might find her.”

Tomás’ insides clenched and released. “A familiar story.”

“You found one?”

“Sort of.”

Another growl from the enforcer. His anger built in wordless rumbles as the whipping wind howled behind him. “He was grooming her.”

The bottom dropped out of Tomás’ stomach and he fixed his eyes on Lani.
Nine years old. She was only a child
. Anger began to bubble up from inside him. “I don’t want to know,” he managed, clenching his jaw. “What’s the plan now? Do we call Rain?”

“I already did.” A tense pause with an animalistic hiss. “I wanted to kill the guy. But Rain said…the alphas said…we have to proceed with the plan.”

“We’re going to capture Adrian?” Tomás’ heart flipped and Lani perked up, turning her head to catch his eye. Was she reading his emotions now?

Dammit
. He was going to have to watch himself.

“Capture. Not kill.”

“How long until you get here?”

Alex and Maggie conferred under the howl of the wind again and Tomás reached for his mate. She didn’t draw away from him, and he pulled her into his side, cradling her as they walked, trying to calm her. But her heart was racing out of control.

“Maggie says it will be maybe half an hour. The rest of the team is all on their way. We haven’t been able to reach Niko yet, but he’s so far east, we’ll have to start planning without him.”

Planning.
Tomás hugged Lani tighter into his side and pushed calming thoughts toward her. She needed to slow her heart rate. For his sake, as much as hers.

“Then you’ll come to me?”

“No, I want you to meet us at the hotel. Adrian owns it. It’s called the
Puerto
—”

He cut him off. “Yeah, I know. I got Maggie’s message.”

“Do you know where it is?” Alex asked.

“There’s something I have to do first. I’ll meet you alone…” Tomás felt the rush of Lani’s heartbeat again. “Wait.”

He glanced down at his feet and stopped. They had been walking nearly the whole time he was on the phone, and were farther into the city than he realized. He could only see the tops of the trees that had produced them. “Stop.”

“What?” Alex asked.

“Not you.” He pulled the phone away from his ear. “Lani. Stop.”

But she kept walking. Tomás turned to yell at Zolin to follow her, but the big man had stopped to pick at something between his toes. He was hunkered down on the dusty street with his foot in the air.

“Zolin,” Tomás called. “Can you get Lani? I’m trying to—” When he turned back to point at his mate, he saw only an empty street.

“Who’s Zolin?” Alex asked. Loudly. Only Tomás didn’t have the phone up to his ear anymore. And they’d been speaking in Spanish.
Shit.

Lani had heard the whole conversation.

He whirled in a circle. “Lani!” But there was no answer.

“Who the hell is Lani?” Alex’s voice carried out into the open street, but Tomás had lost all sense of what was happening. He yelled her name again and still heard no response.

Silence and city noise and nothing.

She was gone.