Seer: Reckless Desires (Norseton Wolves Book 8) (4 page)

He didn’t
have
to be indigent.

The fact that Leonora had seemingly chosen that life grated at him.

Running into the woods with a baby…

She had to either be desperate or nuts.

He took the bags from the clerk and waited at the end of the hallway for her.

“Desperate or nuts,” he muttered.

It was high time he found out which.

Leonora took another sip of water and stared at Arnold’s profile as he drove silently.

They were somewhere in New Mexico. He’d told the truth about
that
much. That was all she knew. If she’d had one of those fancy new phones like his, she might have been able to open a map app and see their exact location.

Probably doesn’t matter, anyway.

Her being far away from home was a good thing, actually. She hadn’t exactly left Wolverton with the blessings of her “husband,” or anyone else. She wasn’t supposed to leave town unescorted, and up until her great escape, she’d never left at all.

Cringing, she settled lower in the seat and shifted Kinzy to her other arm.

So tired of the silence.

“Been lucky so far, right?” she said. “No cop’s pulled us over for not having a seat for her.”

“Oh, they probably can’t tell she’s back there.” He glanced at her in the rearview mirror and put his gaze right back on the road. He had to be pushing the truck to seventy, and apparently they were making very good time. The man was a machine of some sort.

“We’re higher off the ground than most police vehicles, for one thing. For another, she’s on your lap. They can’t tell you’re holding her. Risk would probably be higher if she were upright and staring out the window or something.”

“I never bothered to buy her a seat. Didn’t think I’d need one. Lady wolves from my town so rarely ever go anywhere.”

“Yeah, that’s the case across the board. I think most of the ladies in Norseton have driver’s licenses, though. My sister does, for sure, but she hasn’t lived in a pack for a long time.”

“Where was she?”

“With me. We both left our pack at fourteen.”

“Why?” Leo knew she was pushing her luck, peppering the man with questions the way she was. Ladies were supposed to be seen, not heard. And to be
seen
as little as possible, at that. They did their best to stay out of the men’s way, but every now and then, paths crossed, and some jerk got his knickers in a twist.

“I was sent away from my pack, and she went with me. We’re twins. Until she died, our mother raised us to do pretty much everything together. After that, all me and Petra had was each other.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I don’t know what that’s like, losing someone. I’ve been lucky, I guess. At least with
that
.”

He shrugged and glanced into the mirror again.

His eyes were so dark that she couldn’t make out the pupils in them. They should have been menacing, but they just weren’t anymore. They were warm and…
curious
.

She was curious, too. Not staring at him was hard, and if she’d been the slightest bit decent, she wouldn’t have wanted to. After all, she was married.

Kind of.

He fixed his gaze back on the road, and that quiet descended into the truck cab again.

She was capable of quiet, for the most part, but the lack of noise had always made her uncomfortable. She was a talker. Her mother always cringed whenever Leo opened her mouth.
You’re gonna get yourself in trouble, Leo
, she always said.
One of these days, you’re gonna open your mouth and some impatient wolf is gonna snap. Don’t make the same mistakes as me. Save your words for home. Do all your talking with me, okay?

So, that was what Leo had done up until Samuel showed up in town looking for a mate to collect.

She rubbed her eyes and sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Arnold asked.

“Nothing. Just thinking about stupid wolf stuff.”

“The moon pulling you to shift already? I’ve never heard of anyone being sensitive so early in the day, but I guess you’re new to it.”

She grimaced. Grunted.

“How long?” he asked.

“Not long. The dirt bag bit me right after Kinzy was born. My milk had barely come in when he did it. I was so angry.”

“What the hell did he do that for?”

Leo might have been wrong, but Arnold sounded to her like he didn’t approve of what Samuel had done. She could hear the judgment in the cadence of his words. Any other male wolf she knew might have high-fived Samuel for his accomplishment.

She let out a breath and stared at the desert zipping by outside her window. “That was his M.O., I guess. The way he always does it.”

“What do you mean
always
? How many times has he been married?”

“Depends on who you ask.”

“I’m not following what you’re getting at, Leonora.”

“Leo,” she said flatly. “The only person to call me Leonora regularly is Samuel.”

“And who is Samuel?”

“The wolf who bit me.”

“Your husband.”

“That title is what’s up for debate.”

She didn’t turn to look, but she was certain that if she’d risk a glance up to the mirror, Arnold’s brow would be furrowed. And she’d feel defensive and like she needed to explain herself, when—in truth—nothing that had happened had been her fault.

She’d followed the rules. She’d done what she was supposed to with varying degrees of compliance.

Until she ran.

“You got a story you want to tell me?” Arnold asked.

“Don’t know. You got one for me?”

“
Mmm
. I’m sure I could think something up if you insist, but I suspect whatever you have to say will be far more entertaining.”

“Try me,” she said.

She wanted to trust him—needed to trust
someone
—but she had a baby to worry about. Leo needed to be careful with her words, like her mother always warned her.

“Um. How ’bout you tell me something first?” Leo said.

“Is that how we’re gonna play it? Okay.” He made a clucking sound for a few seconds. Drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Smiled a little, even, and she was pleased to see he was capable of working his face that way, though she hoped he did as little smiling as possible. The dreamy sight made her eye twitch and tits hurt.

“All right,” he said. “Maybe this is cheating, though. It’s really more of my sister Petra’s story than mine, but at least you know how we ended up in Norseton. We started in Oklahoma.”

“What happened?”

“We were making our annual drive to our mother’s grave. I was asleep, and Petra was behind the wheel. One minute, I was dreaming about porterhouse steaks and mashed potatoes, and the next, the front of the truck was making out with a big tree, and my sister was laying on the ground ten feet from the front. Flew right through the windshield. Me, I just got pinned.”

“Gods! What happened?” She clutched her chest over her thrashing heart. Exciting stuff like that didn’t happen around Wolverton. Wolverton may as well have been the sleepy town of Mayberry.

With werewolves.

“Someone called 9-1-1, I guess. I remember someone cutting me out of the truck, and paramedics whisking her away.”

“How did she survive that? Even for a werewolf—”

He chuckled. “Yeah. I know. I guess, Petra and me, we’re just built of sturdier stock than most. Typical of my grandfather’s line. You can never tell how the genetics will shake out when you’re a halfsie, though. We were lucky.”

“You’re only half wolf?”

When he didn’t immediately respond, she worried that maybe she’d gone and stuck her foot into her mouth again, but she risked a look up into the mirror, anyway.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Don’t apologize. I was just trying to get a read on you.”

“Why?”

“Some folks behave a certain kind of way when they find out you’re not pure.”

“Yeah, well, some folks behave a certain kind of way when they find out you’re battier than a barrel of Louisville Sluggers.”

“You talkin’ about
you
?”

“
Wheee
.” She sighed and let her lips sputter. “Ditzy blonde. That’s me in a nutshell. My father used to say that I talk the way a fish breathes—that I just can’t stop. He was wrong. I just need to talk to people sometimes. I don’t think he understood that. Or maybe most other wolves are better at shutting up than I am.”

“So, what?” Arnold asked through clenched teeth. “He thinks the fact that you talk more means you’re stupid?”

He might have been trying to get a read on
her
, but she was having a hell of a time getting one on him, too. She didn’t know why what she said would have peeved in him in such a way.

She fondled the end of her braid and shrugged. “Stupid. Yeah. I think most wolves would accept that assessment as truth.” She cozied her back against the door, slung her right leg up atop the seat, and settled Kinzy into the crook of her right arm. Holding a baby for a short drive was one thing, but Leo’s arms were starting to go leaden due to the length of their trip.

“You gonna tell me what happened?” he asked.

From her low position behind his seat, she couldn’t see him anymore, and she was glad. If she were looking at him, she wouldn’t be able to force her brain to think up a good lie if she needed to.

She sighed again and slung her free arm across her eyes. “Does it really matter? All that’s important is that I’m not there anymore, and you’re not gonna let me flee.”

“Yes, the story matters. Stories always matter, because our pasts mold our power. And if you get to Norseton and decide you want to leave, no one’s going to hold you there, including me.”

“Then why are you taking me, if the probability is so high that I’ll leave?”

“Because I have to.”

“Says who?”

“I didn’t pull the strings, Leo. I’m just going where they tug me. Sometimes, those strings make me move other people into the places they need to be, at least for a while. If you want to leave Norseton, you can leave. Folks will worry about you, but at least we’ll have given you the chance to make a choice about where you’d like to be.”

“So, that’s what you think you’re doing? Kidnapping me so you can give me a choice?”

“No. I’m taking you to a safe place so you can see for yourself how a functional pack runs—a pack that’s a little more integrated into the community it lives in.”

“And if I decide to stay, then what?”

He gave no immediate answer, but she was starting to get used to that.

She pulled her arm away from her eyes and sat up so she could see him. “Well?”

He was grinding his jaw and flexing his grip tighter around the steering wheel.

Probably not a good sign
.

“Trying to make up a good lie?” she asked, exasperated.

“No. I just can’t imagine why anyone would want to leave once they get there, unless they were afraid of being a little bit normal for a change.”

“Werewolves don’t get to be normal.”

“No. We get to create our own version of normalcy, though. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want Kinzy to have that?”

Leo expelled a petulant
harrumph
, and then slouched away from his mirror-reflected gaze again. “Don’t bring Kinzy into this.”

“She’s already in the mess. She’s right there in your arms, and in this truck. Obviously, things weren’t going so well for you in Wolverton, or else you wouldn’t have run off with a tiny baby to the middle of no-damn-where, so what’s your deal? Where were you running to? Or what were you running
from
? You gotta tell me some things.”

“No, I don’t,” she muttered. “I didn’t ask you to pick me up. I don’t even know how you found me. You claim the folks back at home didn’t send you. And you claim you’re not working in any official capacity, and yet you honed in on me as if I were a missile on radar. How? And
why
?”

“How? Because that’s my gift.”

“Pardon?”

“Same way I can survive inside a pickup truck that gets squashed like an accordion. I’m the descendant of powerful wolves. I see things. I have sight.”

“Sight?” She didn’t think he was talking about how well he could see the road he had the truck screaming down. But what he was talking about didn’t exist. Psychic stuff wasn’t real.

“My mother had them, too, and my grandfather. It’s why folks left them alone, for the most part.”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“I don’t see what the good of that would be.”

“Okay, but even if I believed you really had the sight, why would you be getting images of me?”

“The visions aren’t supposed to make sense, but I’ve learned that ignoring them isn’t wise. They always guide me to where I need to be, or where I can help someone. Last time I ignored one, I nearly got struck by fucking lightening. Didn’t see
that
coming.”

Wide-eyed and more than a little petrified, Leo settled Kinzy atop her chest and stroked her downy hair as she slept.

Yikes
.

Leo had always thought the Wolverton pack was a little less backward than some, but she could admit every member had his or her biases about the outside world. Until she’d met Samuel—or had been
forced
to meet him, rather—she hadn’t had much interaction with women from other packs. The only ones she’d met were new brides brought in from distant groups, and they were always expected to integrate quickly and leave their old ways in the past. The ladies rarely talked about their old packs, but Leo had always gotten the impression that nothing was all that different about them—that they were all filled with the same kinds of plain-old wolves.

In a nutshell—people like Arnold weren’t supposed to be real.

Maybe he’s not
.

She narrowed her eyes and stopped patting Kinzy’s head.

Maybe he’s just feeding me lies.

If that were the case, she could lie, too. Just until she knew talking was safe. For all she knew, he could have been testing her just to see how ditzy she really was.

She wasn’t falling for his ploy. The less she said, the better. If she were lucky, he wouldn’t have anything to report back to whoever had sent him.

Lacking ammunition against her, he’d have to leave her alone. Keeping a lady wolf who
technically
belonged to a man from another group could get a pack in a lot of trouble. Leo was counting on the fact that her stoic abductor knew that.

She pinched her lips, closed her eyes, and forced herself to ignore him sitting so close to her.

She couldn’t, though. His energy thrummed like a homing beacon and compelled her to open her eyes, to look, to talk, to know him.