For Life (19 page)

“They intend to make a fool of you. Bob wants to show our pack that Malta werewolves are idiots. Your standing in front of everyone letting those three bastards attack you will add proof to his argument.”

“Traditionally, the draw of first blood allows the coward to save face after attacking without announcement, and it also gives the den opportunity to satisfy their revenge.”

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For Life

“Which is why it will make you out to be the fool.”

“In this case, since your pack knows what kind of werewolf Pete Wagner was, it will show that the rest of his den are cowards. They didn’t come seek me out. I stepped forward and agreed, through a mutual party, to allow them to draw first blood.” Josie had a feeling that by tonight the
lunewulf
pack leader would see the error of his ways. It would be amusing to see how he would try to cover up his fuckup. “When we arrive at your ceremony park tonight, your pack will see that you are now free of the bondage of a bad mating. I hope a few of them notice that you’re moving up in the world.”

Maura shook her head. “You’re the one who is something else.”

She didn’t buy his explanation. Her thoughts were so clear it was as if she spoke out loud.
I hate it that he
’
s impossible to sniff out
.
And I know he
’
s capable of expressing emotions
.

I
’
ve smelled his lust and his happiness after fucking
.
I
’
ve smelled his anger
.
Why won
’
t he share
what he
’
s thinking with me
?

Her thoughts brought him pause.

She’d figured him out but didn’t realize it. He saw what she didn’t. His feelings were irrepressible when he was with her. Maura surfaced emotions inside him that were too strong to contain. Once again he studied her profile as he parked his car in front of the den. As he suspected, the welcoming party was here. Although party hardly described the hostile feelings leaping off his pack leader. Maura glanced over at him and pushed her long hair over her shoulder with slightly trembling fingers.

“Who all is here?” Maura tensed and straightened as she turned her attention to the males lingering outside his den.

Every muscle inside him hardened. The urge to run them off, protect his bitch and do whatever it took to calm the tension suddenly consuming her hit him harder than if one of them had pounded his face with a fist.

He kept his tone and emotions calm for her benefit. “Dimitri, our pack leader, is the one leaning against the truck. You’ve met him before. And you already know Nicolo.

Neither one of them will give you any grief.”

“They don’t look very happy to see us.” Maura seemed to disappear inside his leather coat.

Josie parked his car and took in the thoughts of both males who quit talking about him the second he pulled into his drive. He smiled at her, then took her hand and pulled her to his side as he opened his car door.

“They won’t bite. You have my word.”

“I’m not sure I’m in the mood for another pack leader,” she groaned.

“This is the last one.” He wasn’t in the mood for another pack leader either. And he sure didn’t feel like dealing with Dimitri’s attitude. He let him know as much with a low growl as he approached the two males, holding Maura closely to his side. “Are you two lost?” he asked.

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“Not funny.” Dimitri smelled like he always did—angry. His thoughts were just as dark and depressing, except this time Josie was the cause of it. “When were you planning on discussing your visitor with me?”

Nicolo sniffed the air and then raised an eyebrow, giving Dimitri a side glance.

“Does she smell like a visitor to you?”

“You get away with a hell of a lot, Josie. This isn’t going to be one of them.” Dimitri stepped away from the truck, crossing his arms and blocking the path to the den. “I don’t even want to hear what has happened between you two. Take her back to her pack right now.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Josie held Maura close and stepped around Dimitri and Nicolo so they could get inside.

“Josie! Yes, it is.” The hardness in Dimitri’s tone almost matched the coldness of his thoughts.

Josie looked down at Maura, who looked wide-eyed at all of them. He hated the smell of fear on her. She had to know he would never send her back.

“Go inside,” he told her quietly, then brushed his knuckles over her jawbone. “Let me talk to these two alone for a minute.”

Maura nodded, glancing quickly at Dimitri and Nicolo. He could kick Dimitri’s ass right here and now for talking like that in front of her.

He waited until she was inside before unleashing his wrath on Dimitri.

“We’ve already dealt with our share of pack leaders today, Dimitri. Bless this mating or get the fuck out of my yard.” Josie straightened, staring at the werewolf he used to wrestle with when they were pups.

“You’ve already told Bob Abbey about this?” Dimitri asked, dumbfounded.

“Got his blessing too.”

“What?” Nicolo’s jaw dropped. “I fought tooth and claw to get Heidi out of that pack. Someday you’re going to have to tell me how you do it.”

As usual, Nicolo’s temperament was as laid back as Dimitri’s was riled. It amazed the shit out of Josie that they came from the same den.

“I killed her mate,” Josie told him.

Dimitri’s thoughts exploded in his brain a fraction of a second before his fist came down on the roof of his truck. “What the fuck did you just say?” he screamed, then lunged at Josie. “You just sauntered into their pack and killed her mate?”

“I drove.” Josie leapt to the side when Dimitri tried pounding his face. He ducked in order to avoid a punch that once he would have taken and returned with another.

Josie lost interest in showing respect when Dimitri unleashed his temper on him.

“You’ve gone too far this time, Josie.” Dimitri swung again, this time clipping the side of Josie’s face. “All your life you’ve played this omnipotent game with every werewolf around you, simply because the gift runs so strong in your blood. Well, motherfucker, don’t think I can’t make your blood stop running.”

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Dimitri despised the gift. He blamed it for destroying his den, his life on Malta and the only happiness he believed he would ever experience. More than once since they arrived in the mountains, Josie caught Dimitri thinking that it was cruel, twisted fate that made him pack leader. He thrived on the opportunity to pick up the pieces of their broken pack and rebuild the reputation of Malta werewolves. But he blamed the gift for making his job such an uphill challenge. And he was jealous as hell of Josie and all others who possessed the gift when Dimitri didn’t.

And it wasn’t because their previous pack leader, Bruno Tangaree, refused to bestow the gift on Dimitri. Very few werewolves knew that Dimitri had tried to learn the gift. As a pup he went to his pack leader’s home just like Josie did. Dimitri fought so hard to master what was taught and just couldn’t figure out why it never worked for him.

If Josie didn’t spend so much time with Dimitri and hear his thoughts almost daily, he might not have stumbled onto that deeply hidden truth. Dimitri would never openly admit it, and even now as he bulldozed into Josie, knocking both of them into the snow, Josie knew the attack was based more on jealousy than trying to prove a point.

He forced Dimitri’s thoughts out of his head and focused on what his pack leader was doing to him at the moment. If he didn’t, he would get the crap beat out of him.

Somewhere in the distance, Nicolo yelled at the two of them to quit acting like pups.

“You going to take the stress of your day out on me?” Josie asked, shoving Dimitri off him and jumping to his feet, ready for his next blow.

“Stay the fuck out of my head,” Dimitri hissed.

“Then clear your thoughts long enough to hear what I’m saying to you.” Josie shoved Dimitri and pent-up energy rushed to life inside him.

He lunged into Dimitri, ready to return the attack. Following his own suggestion to chill out didn’t appeal to him at the moment. Dimitri attacked him and instinct screamed to life inside Josie, demanding he take down the werewolf who dared to physically assault him. Not to mention being attacked over something he believed was right pissed him off to where he saw red.

Josie grabbed Dimitri, clutching his jacket with his fists and shaking the crap out of him. “Her mate dumped her out on the highway just outside our territory. He threw her away.” If he could shake him hard enough to rattle Dimitri’s teeth, he would.

The two of them glared at each other, eye to eye, while Dimitri fought to keep what Josie just said out of his head.

Goddamn it
!
He just pranced into that lunewulf pack and took that bitch because he wanted
her
.
Now I
’
m going to have to defend Josie
’
s actions to that fucking pack leader
.
And that little
bitch he just shoved into his den
—
there
’
s no way he
’
s going to let her go
. Dimitri’s thoughts were as clear as if he spoke aloud to Josie.

“You’re right,” Josie said, responding to his thoughts. “I’m not letting her go.”

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“Get the fuck out of my head.” Dimitri brought his arms up and slapped Josie’s hands away from him. “No matter what you hear me thinking, werewolf, that doesn’t change the fact that I heard about this
lunewulf
bitch through the grapevine and not from you.”

“Forgive me. Maura needed to deal with some matters in her den.”

“Have you seriously only known her for a day?” Nicolo asked. Usually the

werewolf stayed quiet, pondering everything he heard and taking his time forming conclusions.

Josie switched his attention to Nicolo, not ready for the question since he had all his attention on Dimitri’s thoughts. “I met her when you two did, a few months ago.

Yesterday morning was the next time I saw her.”

“You mate with a bitch after knowing her for a fucking day?” Dimitri didn’t buy it.

“She was kicked out of her den, of her pack. Her mate was a creep—you remember how beaten she looked the first time we saw her.”

“Heidi told me that Maura often had bruises on her.”

“So this is a mating of convenience?” Dimitri crossed his arms, staring hard at Josie.

“You, who’ve fucked every available bitch who would lift her tail for you, suddenly decide to give up the life of a slut and take a female into your den because she’s abused and neglected? How fucking kindhearted you suddenly smell.”

“There’s more to it than that.” Josie ignored the negative thoughts Dimitri had about him.

All of it stemmed from Dimitri being so damned coldhearted that no bitch would touch his tail even with his title and rank. The one bitch who did sniff him out, Rosa, would never get through that brick wall Dimitri built around his heart. The male was dead inside. And Maura thought Josie was a pain in the ass when it came to sharing how he felt. Compared to Dimitri, Josie was a tidal wave of emotions.

“You’re going to tell us that after one day you’ve fallen in love with this bitch?”

Nicolo cocked his head, determining the answer to his question as he studied Josie.

“You loved Heidi after one day.” Josie remembered being stunned when he’d first heard Nicolo’s thoughts when the young
lunewulf
bitch who was now his mate chased him down and stole his heart.

“So you’re saying you are,” Nicolo prompted.

Josie stared at his den, reaching out with his mind to learn what Maura did at this moment. “Something has happened,” he said slowly.

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For Life

Maura stood inside the dark den and watched the three males disappear into the woods. Her heart still raced so hard after watching Josie and Dimitri go at it in the snow that it hurt. Then as if nothing had happened, the three of them left the den, heading into the woods together. Males were the same no matter what breed they were.

“Well, this is lovely.” She turned, taking in the layout of the living room.

The furniture, the bearskin rug on the floor underneath her boots, the unfinished wooden walls surrounding her—all of it smelled like Josie. The only place where the aroma differed drifted from his bedroom. She took one step toward the short hallway and the opened door with his large bed just beyond it. Maura breathed in the thick, pungent smell of their sex and knew without looking that the blankets and sheets were twisted and unmade on his bed.

Was this her den now too?

“Shit, wolf man. What have we done?” There had been no discussion, no intimate moments building until the two of them proclaimed their love for each other. “Aren’t you supposed to love someone you mate with?”

She pictured the intense way Josie looked at her when she challenged him in the car earlier. And then again when he asked her if he should talk to Bob about their mating.

Both times she ached to know what went on in his mind. Those dark eyes of his and that determined, hard expression Josie probably mastered years before meeting her revealed so little about him.

There was a lot of like between them. Or was it lust—or both? Josie did something to her insides that no werewolf ever did to her before. In the short time that she’d been here with him, she’d picked up on a few of his characteristics. Some of them were more obvious than others. She noticed how his face changed around his eyes when he worked his way into a werewolf’s mind. And she was aware of how blank his

expression went when she demanded to know his thoughts. Like it would hurt him to open up to her.

Well, if it was so damned painful for him, why did he insist on their mating?

“It wasn’t like this was my idea.”

Heading over to the wood box next to his fireplace, Maura stacked logs, stuffed newspaper, then used the long lighter to start the fire. Watching the flames jump to life, take form and change colors, Maura relaxed on her haunches and let her thoughts continue to wander.