Saved by Wolves (Shifters Meet Their Mate Book 1) (4 page)

The way he said “run-in,” she got the feeling they weren’t on the best of terms. Which was probably a good thing, if the Cats had struck a deal with the military and Blackstone. Still, she needed more information before she placed her trust in anyone. Blackstone had a long reach. “Where are we going?”

“We’re heading to our... home.”

His hesitation made her brain click into a higher gear, and a few things—like their unashamed nakedness—began to make more sense.

“What type of shifter are you?” she asked. “You’re not Cats.” They didn’t give off the feral energy the Cats had. No, their energy was smoother, less desperate.

A slight hitch in his step told her she’d surprised him, but he recovered quickly. “Wolves,” he said. “We’re part of the Half Moon Wolf Pack.”

“Half Moon?”

“Yeah, Full Moon was already taken, and our ancestors apparently had no imagination.”

“Un huh.” She ignored his flirtatious grin with effort. “The soldiers? And the Cats? What happened to them?”

“The soldiers are dead, and the Cats won’t cross into our territory, so you don’t have to worry about them.”

That was good news, although it was disturbing how casually he spoke of the soldiers’ deaths. Almost as if they weren’t... human. Which was ironic, considering.

She ducked her head as they passed under a low-lying branch. “Is your alpha part of the Shifter Council?” Not much was known about shifters, as they regulated themselves, but one well-established fact was that the Shifter Council made all of the laws the shifters lived by and was their main contact with the outside world.

“Of course. All of the alphas are, even the psychos.”

“Psychos?”

He grimaced. “Well, just one psycho, really. A power-hungry, money-grubbing, two-faced weasel with weak-willed saps to follow him.”

“Ah. Not a fan, I see.”

Marcus opened his mouth, but Jackson answered before he could. “He causes trouble,” he said in a deep, rumbling voice that fit him perfectly. Like a voice coming out of a mountain.

Psycho or not, trouble or not, it couldn’t be worse than what she’d left behind. “I need to talk to the council,” she said. “Can you help me?”

***

A
human going to a council meeting? The last time that happened, the council had been meeting with representatives of the human government. With the alphas’ enforcers and the human soldiers outnumbering the participants ten to one, the council chamber had been more like a war chamber than one to negotiate a treaty in.

Marcus stared into Kirra’s wide, expectant eyes, unsure of how to break it to her that an audience his alpha was a stretch, never mind one with the council. Jackson apparently didn’t have the same concern for her feelings.

“Are you a spy?” he asked.

Kirra’s body stiffened in Marcus’s arms. “A spy?” she repeated, genuine confusion in her voice.

“Or a murderer?”

“What? No, I’m not a spy or a murderer. Why is he asking me this?” she asked Marcus.

“The Cats said you were with a group of soldiers they suspected of spying. The soldiers told them you’re wanted for murder.”

She jerked her head away from his. “I’m not a spy, and I’ve never killed anyone.” She sent a pointed glare at Jackson. “No matter how much I’ve been tempted. Put me down.”

“You’re not wearing any shoes,” Marcus pointed out.

“Neither are you.”

“Yeah, but I have tough feet.”

“I don’t care. I came here because I have information for the Shifter Council, not to be accused of murder.”

It was too hard to walk with her wiggling in his arms, so Marcus stopped and waited for Jackson to draw even with them.

“What kind of information could you have for the council?” Jackson asked, crossing his arms and jutting his chin at her. Marcus sighed. He may as well have been wearing a sign that said he wouldn’t believe anything she said. Jackson wasn’t the most diplomatic person.

“The type I’m not about to tell just anyone,” she retorted. Maybe realizing that pissing off her escort wasn’t her best move, she switched her attention to Marcus. “What do I need to do to get a meeting with the council?”

“You need an invitation from an alpha.” He sighed. “I’ll introduce you to ours—no way to avoid that anyway—and we’ll see what he says. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“I believe in being prepared, not in hope,” she said. “Let’s go meet your alpha.”

T
he muscles in her calves burned. Kirra wanted to believe that Jackson was only setting a punishing pace because he was annoyed with her and wanted to make a point, but she was afraid the truth was worse.

She was out of shape.

Rope drills and daily five mile runs around the neighborhood hadn’t prepared her for hours of trudging through the woods, fighting mosquitoes and insane humidity. Her wet boots were back on her feet, providing protection from the sticks and thorns littering the path, but her socks were soaking up the moisture from them. A blister the size of a quarter was forming on her right heel, and she really regretted insisting on carrying her own pack. It was under twelve pounds, which had felt featherlight when she’d first packed it, but it seemed to have gained weight overnight. Maybe the men had slipped some of their own gear into it and were using her as their unsuspecting pack mule. She snorted at the thought. As if her muscle-bound rescuers needed her to carry anything. Marcus could probably carry an ox without breaking a sweat, and Jackson could carry the ox and the wagon it pulled.

Oxen and wagons. Pain, worry, and fatigue were making her delusional. She’d never even seen an ox, let alone seen a man carry one. 

Every time she had the urge to ask how much farther they had to go, she bit her tongue. They probably thought she was an annoyance they needed to get rid of as quickly as possible—no sense adding whiny to her list of faults.

She needed to focus on the positives—she was going to get the help she needed to rescue Francesca, and the men were wearing jeans they’d had in a pack they’d stashed along the trail. It was still hard to stop staring at their butts—she knew what the jeans were covering up, after all—but at least she wasn’t blushing every time her eyes drifted their way.

“Give me your hand.” Marcus’s warm voice startled her out of her thoughts, and she looked up to see him balanced on top of a rotten log blocking their route, his arm outstretched to help her up.

“Thanks.”

“Not that much farther,” he said.

“That’s good.” The sunlight was already fading, and spending another night in the woods wasn’t high on her list of things to do. She jumped down off the log, landing in the dirt with a jarring thud that sent a fresh wave of pain through her side. Her breasts bounced, and she longed for the support of the sports bra in her pack. She should have asked to stop for a few minutes so she could put it on, but she’d been too embarrassed to bring it up. Which was ridiculous. They were all grown-ups, and one—or both—of them had seen everything she had. Talking about bras should have been no big deal.

“Yeah, only another twenty, twenty-five miles,” Marcus continued in an encouraging tone.

Twenty or twenty-five miles? Even at their current pace, it would take hours to cover that much ground. It had already been four days since Francesca had been kidnapped. With every minute that passed, there was more of a chance her sister was in real trouble. Memories of being stuck with needles and locked in a tiny cell crowded her mind, and she sucked in a deep breath and forced her weary body to walk faster, until she was right on Jackson’s heels.

He stopped abruptly, and she stumbled into his back. Peering around him, she saw they’d entered a small clearing, roughly fifteen feet around.

“She’s tired,” Jackson said, looking over her head to Marcus.

“I’m fine,” she said, but he wasn’t paying her any attention.

“She’s going to collapse any second,” he grumbled. “And I smell fresh blood. It’ll attract predators.”

“Worse than you?” she said, and then bit her tongue at his steely stare.

“Worse than us.”

Kirra didn’t want to imagine what—or who—they were worried about running into. “I’m fine,” she repeated. “Let’s keep going.” She inched her way past Jackson, intending to lead the way. A hand on her shoulder made her pause.

“Jackson’s right. We’ll stop here for the night,” Marcus said. “Check your bandages and get some rest.”

“I need to get to your alpha. It’s literally a matter of life or death.”

He tilted his head and cast a considering look at the sky. “The sun’s going to set soon, and unless you have better night vision than the other humans I know, you won’t make very good progress in the dark. Even if we continue, we can’t talk to the alpha until morning anyway.” He shrugged off his pack and set about gathering wood for a fire, not waiting for her response.

Not ready to give up, Kirra turned to argue with Jackson, only to find he’d vanished.

“He’s scouting,” Marcus said from the middle of the clearing. He built a tepee of crumpled newspaper he pulled from a pocket of his pack and twigs, then used a fire starter to get it burning.

“What for?” Kirra let her own pack drop to the ground and searched through it until she found her food stash. Her stomach was a hollow pit.

“Anyone or anything that shouldn’t be in our territory.” He shook his head at the chocolate-covered protein bar she offered him. “Chocolate doesn’t agree with me.”

“Hmm,” she mumbled around a bite of the bar. “Why were you guys out here, anyway? I mean, I’m glad you were, I’m just wondering why.”

“We’re enforcers.” The way he stressed enforcers made her think she should know what it meant.

“I don’t know much about shifters. What does an enforcer do?”

“We patrol the boundaries of our territory and... deal with unwanted visitors.”

“Ah, so you’re kind of a cross between a guard and a forest ranger.”

Marcus’s lips twitched. “Yeah, but don’t say that around Jackson. He doesn’t like being compared to anything human. Gives him hives.”

“I got the feeling he doesn’t like me very much.” Kirra finished her bar, stashed the wrapper in her pack, and pulled out her wet clothes. Everything in the pack was damp from its dunking in the river, and smelled a bit musty. At least the papers inside were still dry in their waterproof pouch.

“Don’t take it personally. Jackson probably wouldn’t like you even if you weren’t a human.” He winced. “That came out wrong. All I mean is that there aren’t many people Jackson tolerates, never mind likes. Not much of a people person, our Jackson.”

Marcus gathered deadfall from the edge of the clearing and broke it into chunks small enough to feed into the fire, creating a steady blaze. Exhaustion weighed at her limbs—other than being unconscious, she really hadn’t slept in days—and after draping her jeans, windbreaker, tee, underwear, and second pair of socks over tree branches to dry, Kirra found a seat on a flat stone near the fire, accepting that they weren’t going anywhere until morning. Marcus settled beside her, close enough that every time she inhaled, his warm, heady musk assailed her.

“How about you?” she asked. “Do you hate humans?” Her voice was strange. Breathy and husky all at once. She cleared her throat.

Marcus tilted his head and grinned. “Me? No. I try not to hate anybody. Takes too much effort.”

Kirra poked the fire with a stick. “You’re lucky,” she said.

“Oh? You have someone on your hate list?” His voice was carefully neutral.

Kirra rubbed a hand over her eyes. “A few.”

Light footsteps behind her signaled Jackson’s return and saved her from the follow-up questions she could tell Marcus was dying to ask. For such a huge man, Jackson was light as a dancer on his feet. She had a feeling the only reason she’d heard him approach was because he let her.

“It’s clear,” Jackson said, hunkering down on the other side of the fire. His dark eyes bored into hers. “Why were the soldiers after you?”

“I told you, they think I have something they want.” She poked the fire again, stirring up ashes and watching sparks fly.

“What do you have?”

Superpowers the government wants to research and harness to develop unbeatable super soldiers. “I’d really feel more comfortable speaking to your alpha about this,” she said. It sounded crazy enough in her own head. Jackson, with his closed mind, would never believe her. Marcus might, but she couldn’t risk having them leave her behind. Better to wait and tell the alpha.

“You’re not going to get anywhere near the alpha until—”

“Ease up, Jackson,” Marcus interrupted. “I think we all need some food and a good night’s rest. We can discuss this in the morning with clear heads.”

Jackson surged to his feet, muttered something about taking the first watch, and stalked off. Marcus watched him go, shaking his head. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Jackson can be a bit intense, especially when it comes to protecting the pack and the alpha.”

“I understand. I’d just really rather speak to the alpha first.”

“Okay. No more questions tonight, I promise.”

He helped her change her bandage, then they sat in companionable silence, munching on trail mix Marcus produced from his pack. The warmth of the fire seeped into her bones, and Kirra took off her boots and socks. She draped the socks over the tops of the boots and angled them toward the fire so they could dry out overnight. A small, nagging voice of self-preservation and cynicism warned her that she shouldn’t be so comfortable with the men—they were virtually strangers, not to mention shifters. She was in the woods, essentially at their mercy. She shut the voice up. If they’d meant her harm, they’d had plenty of time to do that already. Like Marcus had said, it took effort to hate people. Fear was the same way. It would suck her dry if she let it. Occasionally you just had to trust your instincts, and her instincts told her she was safe. She was safe...

“Kirra? Kirra?” Someone was shaking her shoulder, and Kirra jerked awake, head snapping up.

Marcus rubbed her shoulder where he’d been shaking. “It’s okay. I was just afraid you’d topple into the fire. I’ve set up a bed for you over there.”