Mark of the Wolf (14 page)

She cleared her throat. “Maybe we should
knock?”

There was an abrupt noise from the other side
of the door and she heard a bolt drawn back. Then the door opened
and she was caught by surprise, staring wide-eyed at the figure who
stood there.

She figured it was Isak himself, but only
because the name fit him. The man who stood in the doorway was
tall, taller even than Gareth, with a thin wiry build — tough but
narrow. His hair was long and white-blond, and icy blue eyes looked
down at them, fringed by pale lashes. His face was stunning in a
uniquely European way, with wide, pronounced cheekbones and a
strong nose. There was something sharp and devilish in the quality
of his smile.

And he
was
smiling.

“
Took you long enough!” the man
barked, his voice an even tenor.

Gareth was silent, obviously surprised, then she saw a
tight grin spread across his face. “I suppose you
would
be expecting me,” he
murmured.

“
For the last seven years! Where the
hell have you been?” The man stepped forward and clapped Gareth on
the shoulder, then turned to lead him inside. “Come in, come in, my
house is your house, old friend.”

Maddy followed after, quiet and anxious. She
definitely felt like an intruder, trespassing on something that she
wasn’t really a part of. She closed the door behind her as the men
walked into the living room. They filled out the small space with
their broad shoulders and deep voices. Isak’s floor was wooden and
polished, his living room immaculate with a cheery fireplace and
comfortable-looking couches. She could see a dining room with a
tall table and bar stools through an open doorway, and through that
was a glimpse of a neat kitchen. Another door led off down a long
hallway.

Isak and Gareth traveled through the main
room and into the dining room, where they sat down in the tall
bar-stool chairs. Maddy hovered awkwardly in the background,
quietly listening. She felt like she was eavesdropping.

“
After you left, things made a turn
for the worse,” Isak was saying. He gave Gareth a meaningful look.
“Kane isn’t the most sympathetic of Alphas… he has allowed several
new wolves to join the pack that we don’t approve of. They’re
vicious sons of bitches, no respect for the Laws.”

Gareth nodded. “I believe I had a run-in with
a few of them back in Black River,” he murmured. “And I saw Jesse
and Malcolm down at the gas station.”

Isak didn’t smile, but there was a slight
twinkle in his eye. He said, “I've already heard about that. Kane’s
already got your message. News travels fast in this town.”

“
Always has,” Gareth
murmured.

Isak leaned forward seriously then, his
eyebrows drawn down. “I can only think of one reason why you’d be
here now, Gareth,” he said. “It’s a long time in coming, I think.
Well overdue.”

“
Kane initiated it,” Gareth replied.
“He attacked my lifemate.”

“
Your…?” Isak’s eyes widened. He
blinked, then turned to look at Maddy for the first time. His blue
eyes were intense and quizzical. “She is Marked,” he said, sounding
a little stunned. Maddy squirmed uncomfortably. He turned back to
Gareth. “But she’s human.”

“
The universe works in mysterious
ways,” Gareth replied, a slight smile hovering around his mouth.
When his eyes turned to her, they glinted with warmth. “A wolf
cannot choose his own mate. It's simply natural.”

The words might have been insulting under any
other pretext, but the look he gave her was so hot that it sent a
shiver down to her toes. Maddy swallowed, realizing her body was
responding to him even now in a stranger’s dining room. She tried
not to show the response too obviously.

“
Marked, but unclaimed,” Isak
murmured, drawing Gareth’s attention back to him. The two men
shared a glance. “You don’t intend…?”

“
I do, and I would leave it at that,”
Gareth returned.

“
A human? Really?” a new voice
interrupted. “That may cause complications.”

The voice was female and came from the other
side of the room where a new figure stood at the kitchen door.
Maddy’s eyes widened in surprised – she hadn't heard anyone come
in. The woman was tall, perhaps six feet, almost the same height as
Gareth, and she was so stunning that she could have walked out of a
magazine cover. She was perhaps twenty-six, with long legs clad in
tight-fitting jeans, a revealing tank-top, high cheekbones, blue
eyes, and long, silvery hair just a shade lighter than Isak’s. The
two could have been twins, their coloring was so similar. She
smiled thinly. Her eyes remained cold.

“
Yvonne, you remember Gareth,” Isak
said after an awkward pause.

Yvonne’s smile widened. “How could I forget?”
she purred.

Maddy frowned, her discomfort intensifying
tenfold. She didn’t like being dismissed or talked about as though
she wasn't even in the room. The tall woman walked directly past
her, swaggering in her high-heeled boots, her hips tipping
provocatively. She didn’t spare her a glance – rather, walked
directly up to Gareth and leaned on the table in front of him.
“What brings you back to town? Been a while, babe.”

“
Likewise,” Gareth said, his voice
having gone flat. Maddy tried to see his expression but couldn’t
around Yvonne’s tall frame. She didn’t like the way the woman
talked to him, but she felt like she had no ability to
interject.

“
He’s going to challenge Kane,” Isak
said, “in case you weren’t already listening. The fight should be
prepared by tomorrow, the full moon. Perfect timing, really. Kane
is eager to finish this. We should move fast, gather all of the
wolves who we know will follow us. There is power in
numbers.”

“
Wonderful,” Yvonne purred again, this
time her hand moving to rest on Gareth’s shoulder. Maddy still
couldn’t see Gareth’s reaction and she wasn’t about to start
craning her neck. Everything inside of her was begging that she
step forward and plant herself firmly between the wolf-woman and
the man who was supposedly her lifemate – but she couldn’t bring
herself to move. She didn’t know what the situation called for, and
werewolf etiquette was turning out to be far different from the
human kind. The incident at the gas station proved that.

It was Gareth who spoke next. “How is Kane by
the way, Yvonne? Last I remember, you two were getting along just
fine.” His voice carried innuendos that Maddy didn’t know how to
interpret. She thought the tone was sarcastic, but Yvonne leaned in
further, now pressing her body against Gareth’s shoulder.

“
Things didn’t work out,” she said in
a low voice. “Couldn’t compare to you, babe. He didn’t have
your…
expertise
.”

Maddy felt like she had been slapped in the
face. She was confused and innocent, but not stupid. The woman’s
blatant flirtation was obvious, and she felt like an even bigger
idiot. Had she and Gareth had some sort of relationship before?
Then what was all this talk about lifemates? Did it even mean
anything? And why wasn’t Gareth pushing her away? The woman’s hand
was still on his shoulder, her breasts still pushing into his arm.
Maddy looked down as her face flushed, overwhelmed by her mixed
feelings. She didn’t know how to react. Maybe it was some sort of
werewolf game?

She glanced up and found Isak looking at her,
his eyebrows drawn down into a frown.

“
Yvonne, Gareth and I have things to
talk about,” he said, his voice carrying a growl of warning. “Why
don’t you girls step out of the room for a moment? Make
friends?”

Maddy looked up, wondering what she was
supposed to do. Yvonne removed her hand from Gareth’s shoulder,
raising an arrogant eyebrow. She turned, flipped her hair, and
flounced off to the kitchen. Maddy hesitated for a moment, unsure
of where to go, then she caught Gareth’s meaningful gaze. Wherever
she ended up, she wasn’t supposed to be there, so she followed
Yvonne to the other room, not knowing what else to do.

She shut the kitchen door behind her,
figuring the two men needed privacy. Then she turned to look around
the kitchen. It was a cheery yellow color, with tiled floors and
white cupboards, and a window looking out into the backyard, though
it was night outside. She was surprised to see raindrops hitting
the window. It was raining, though not too hard.

Yvonne went over to the counter and took down
a glass, then pulled a bottle out of the fridge. She started mixing
herself a drink. When she was finished, she turned around,
brandishing the drink in one hand and a smirk on her face. Her cold
blue eyes looked Maddy up and down, not hiding their scrutiny, and
then she sneered, obviously unimpressed.

“
What are you, fifteen?” she asked
snidely.

Maddy frowned, unsure of how to respond.
“Eighteen,” she said.

Yvonne snorted, then turned around again,
taking a deep sip of her martini. She picked up a magazine from the
counter and started flipping through it. It took Maddy another
moment to realize she was being ignored. She shuffled her feet
against the ground and looked down at her old jeans and dirty
sweater, then back at Yvonne’s stylishly casual outfit, designer
jeans and knee-high suede boots.

Questions about Yvonne's relationship to
Gareth buzzed around her head, making her more and more frustrated.
She bit her lip, clenched her fists and tried to douse the jealousy
inside of her. But she needed answers, and as long as she and this
woman were alone, she would try to get them. It would probably be
less intimidating than asking Gareth, anyway.

“
So… you know Gareth?” she asked,
appalled by the squeak in her voice.

The woman flipped a magazine page and didn’t
answer.

Maddy cleared her voice again, this time
steeling her nerve. “Obviously you had some sort of relationship –
what, were you guys friends, or…?”

Yvonne paused, then turned, crossing her arms
over her chest. She smiled in a way that reminded Maddy of her
blond enemies back at high school. She prepared herself for an
insult, but none was forthcoming.

“
Yeah, we fucked,” she said, her grin
widening. “We were going to ‘settle’ together, if you know what I
mean, but he was going nowhere... and I needed to find myself a
real man. That’s the thing about good ol’ Gareth. He talks a lot,
doesn’t do much though. I bet he was just working at some car shop,
huh?”

Maddy’s mouth went dry; she didn’t know how
to respond. Yvonne laughed at her silence. “Typical. Well, those
days are over. Things didn't work out with the last few guys and
now I’m on the market for a new mate. How convenient that he should
come back in town. Who knows? Maybe he'll become Alpha.”

Maddy felt sick and dazed, not sure what to
believe. Gareth had dated Yvonne? “But I thought… about the
lifemate thing….”

Yvonne laughed again, this time shrilly, no
humor in her voice. “Lifemate? You? You’re a human. Wolves don’t
have human lifemates. It doesn’t work that way. You think the pack
is ever gonna accept you? Or that they’ll accept Gareth if he
chooses you?” Her sneer widened, if that was possible. “Why would
he pick a girl like you when he can have a woman like me? He's just
lonely. Once he's Alpha, he's going to forget all about you.”

Maddy felt stunned. Her eyes widened and she thought of
Gareth’s words only a few seconds before –
“A wolf can't choose his
mate.”
But
what did she really know about lifemates? Apparently it was
possible to have a relationship between werewolves even if they
weren’t “meant to be.” She didn’t understand anything, there seemed
to be no rules in this new world, only exceptions.

She looked at Yvonne again, her beautiful
starlight hair, her sparkling blue eyes. She was Gareth’s age, they
had more in common, a common background, a common history. She was
the outsider here, just like she had always been. And Yvonne had a
point – she hadn’t considered how the wolves would react to her
presence. They didn't seem very friendly so far. What if Gareth
changed his mind after becoming Alpha? Maybe she would mess
everything up for him. Maybe he would ditch her once he realized
she was useless.

And he hadn’t pushed Yvonne away, after
all.

Feeling sick and betrayed, she put her hand
on the kitchen door. She felt like she was suffocating, she needed
air and space and somewhere to run. Except that this wasn’t her
father’s cabin in the middle of the woods; this was Davenport,
where she didn’t know anyone or have any place to go. But she
needed to get outside at least.

She opened the door, feeling Yvonne’s cruel
smile on her back. The wolf-woman laughed low in her throat, a
final taunt.

* * * *

“
They’ll expect you to Change her,”
Isak said seriously, his blue eyes intense. Gareth still felt
slightly uneasy. He had been expecting a far less welcomed
homecoming, but his old friend had taken him into his house readily
enough, showing nothing but support. Things must be very bad with
Kane. If Isak's words were true, then more than half the pack was
ready for a new leader.

“
It’s her decision. I won’t force
her,” he said, thinking of Maddy. The pack would have to adjust to
having a human female as their Alpha, but it had been done before,
and he was confident that they would follow him readily enough,
especially with Isak’s support. Isak’s father had been the old pack
leader before Kane. Isak had backed down from being Alpha; he was
strong, but not quite brutal enough. Kane didn't like keeping the
son of the old Alpha around, so Isak had been pushed to the edges
of the pack. He would have been exiled by now just like Gareth of
Kane could find a good reason.