Wild Fire (Wilding Pack Wolves 5) - New Adult Paranormal Romance (5 page)

Zoe had a hard time keeping her eyes off Troy.

“You sure you’re all right?” he asked, for the fourth time. He was driving her up to the River family estate in the mountains outside Seattle. The car’s headlights sliced through the nighttime forest.

“Yeah, it’s just still kind of a blur.” She tore her gaze away from his square jaw and concerned eyes and looked back out the window.

They had only stopped long enough to grab clothes from her apartment and get Troy’s car from the fire station, and now they were headed into the hills. The River family estate had been a safehouse during all the troubles with the Wolf Hunter… until he had somehow discovered the location and outed it along with the rest of her family. But her cousin, Terra, and the rest of the Riverwise security company were working to fortify it, taking a stand against the Wolf Hunter and his threats. And her cousin, Daniel, seem to think it was a safer place for her than the open campus of the University of Washington. Or her apartment. Which was why Daniel was in the car ahead of them, leading the way up the mountain.

What she couldn’t figure out was why Troy insisted on driving her.

With his short-cropped dark hair and broad shoulders and determined yet incredibly sexy green eyes, he was an alpha wolf, if she’d ever seen one. He was a firefighter and a shifter healer, but the reason why he was driving up the mountain was to join Daniel and the effort to capture the Wolf Hunter. And apparently to help her get settled at the estate.

The reason why she’d agreed to ride in his car… well, that had to do with her extreme inability to keep her eyes off him.

This was such trouble for her.

“See? I told you that you were in no condition to drive.” He slid a sideways look to her with a small grin. “Never argue with the EMT.”

“I’ll try to remember that.” She forced herself to look away from that smirky grin and ignore the tightness low in her belly that it caused. Troy was hot—she could see that even better now that he wasn’t covered in firefighter gear. His muscles bulged out of his polo, his jeans rode low on his hips, hugging him like they were in love, and not only had he saved her from a burning inferno and almost certain death by asphyxiation, but he had seen her
naked.
And she could tell by the way he kept sneaking looks that he was attracted to her. All of it had her wolf sitting up and panting, begging her to pull over to the side of the road and climb into the lap of this hot alpha wolf.

None of which she could do. She wasn’t even sure what his deal was, anyway—was he really that idealistic, signing up for the cause, driving her up the mountain just for a chance at going after the Wolf Hunter?

“You really don’t have to come babysit me up here in the mountains, you know,” Zoe said, trying to put a little bite into her voice to counter the craving her inner beast had for him.

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not going to be babysitting you. Daniel says once you’re settled, he could use some help with this team he’s putting together. And I told you, I’ve been dying for a chance to help. Besides, I’ve got vacation stored up—my crew can cover for me well enough for a few weeks.”

A few weeks?
She was hoping all of this would be over long before then. Her father had stayed at the University, working into the night to help with the cleanup and to get busy on rebuilding the lab. He promised to get her any equipment she needed, as long as she left the University and came up here, where he was convinced it was safer. Zoe wasn’t convinced
anywhere
was safe, not until they caught the Wolf Hunter and ended this madness. She only hoped she could end her own personal struggle with her inner white wolf in the meantime.

She looked back at Troy’s clean-cut, good-looking face as he studied the winding mountain road. If she somehow managed to eliminate the white wolf inside her, would she even want someone like Troy?
Probably.
He was incredibly gorgeous and brave and the sort of genuinely good person she admired—but if she wasn’t a wolf, he was unlikely to be interested in
her.
Wolves mated with wolves. Getting rid of her white wolf would mean getting rid of all the parts of her that were
wolf
.

It was a small price to pay.

He noticed her watching him and gave her a small smile. “So I have to ask—do you have a mate?”

She blinked, startled that somehow he was reading her thoughts. “That’s kind of a personal question, don’t you think?” She dragged her gaze back to the window again, staring at the darkened forest whizzing past them.

“I suppose so,” he admitted. “But I already know your big secret, Zoe Wilding. I didn’t figure
that
was a secret, too. There wasn’t anything online about you and your mating status, so maybe I’m wrong about that. Do you have a secret mate on the side?” He was smirking at her now.

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not looking for a mate. Not interested.”

That hiked up his eyebrows, and he looked genuinely surprised. “Not interested?”

It didn’t make a lot of sense—every wolf, growing up, heard about how mating was the ultimate in everything. Love. The ultimate sex. The foundation of the pack. Given that female wolves were relatively rare, the idea of a female wolf who didn’t want a mate
was
pretty startling.

She shook her head. “Nope.” He could make of that what he wanted.

“Is it because…” He winced a little. “Because you’re different?”

Heat rushed to her face. “I’d make a fine mate, thank you very much.” She glared at him before turning back to stare determinedly out the window.

His voice softened. “Yes, you would. That’s not what I mean.”

She reluctantly sneaked a peek back at him—he didn’t know half the reasons why she didn’t want a mate, and she wasn’t about to tell him. But he’d gotten a rise out of her far too easily.

“I just meant… well, you’re a white wolf,” he said. “They’re rare. I know Grace Krepky is one, but I’ve never heard of another… until you. And apparently you have some kind of magical powers that are seriously impressive.”

She frowned. “No one knows I’m a white wolf, okay? My dad doesn’t know because… look, it’s a long family story.”

“And you don’t want to share.”

“It’s none of your business.” The heat was rising to her face again.

“Fair enough.” But he didn’t look too happy about it. “I told you before, Zoe, I’ll keep your secret. But you can’t fault a guy for being curious about a beautiful woman. And whether she’s mated.” He gave her a small flirtatious smile.

She like that smile way too much. “I don’t know… I think reading up on a girl online could technically be classified as stalking.”

“Stalking?”
He pretended to be aghast. “Is that any way to treat the man who saved your life?”

She could barely hold back her smile, so she just shook her head and looked back out the window. “You’re right. I should be nicer to you. You know all my secrets.”

She was teasing, but when he didn’t say anything, she was forced to look back at him.

All the humor was gone from his face. “Zoe, I know you don’t know me, and all I can do is give you my word. But I’m not going to spill your secret. If I were the kind of guy who would do that, I would’ve done it already. And I’m not angling to get anything from you. Well, not angling to get anything
more.
You’ve already hooked me up with Daniel Wilding, for God’s sake. The guy is a legend. As far as I’m concerned, we’re even. And your secret is safely tucked into the category of things I never plan to discuss with anyone outside this car.”

She wasn’t sure she entirely believed him, but it was reassuring to hear.

“I believe you,” she said quietly. “And you should know, there are more white wolves than just me and Grace. No one knows about me, but the others have been out for a little while. Within the Wilding family at least.”

“Really?” He looked excited. “Do they all have your kind of magic?”

She didn’t know how to answer that—she honestly didn’t know what kind of magic she had, or that the others had, for that matter. “I don’t know. And I’m not planning on finding out. None of them know about me, except Grace. And I just want to get back to my research, okay?”

“Okay.” Troy gestured up ahead where Daniel’s car was pulling into an open dirt-packed parking lot in front of a large log cabin building that had to be the River family estate. She’d heard about it, but she’d never been here before. “Looks like we’re here.”

The house spilled light into the darkened forest that surrounded the rambling, two-story building. There was clearly construction going on at the outer edges. Zoe had heard there were horses on the estate, as well as several private cabins in the back and extensive land that the River family owned. But what caught her eye were flashes of light illuminating the forest behind the house. They were intermittent, almost like flashlights for a nighttime hiking party, only they were too bright.

“What’s that?” Troy asked, eyeing the lights as he parked next to Daniel’s car.

“No idea.”

Daniel quickly exited his car and waved them around to the side of the main building, toward the lights. “Troy, I thought you might want to see what we’ve got going on here,” Daniel said with a small smile. “And Zoe, I don’t think you’ve seen this in action before.”

She had no idea what he was talking about, but the excitement in his voice pushed back the fatigue that was crowding in on her. They tromped out to a field off to the side of the main building. Several people stood in the middle of the low-cut grass while brilliant balls of blue fire zipped through the air. Zoe’s mouth fell open, and Troy had a blank look of utter surprise.

As they got closer, she recognized her cousin, Noah Wilding—he was Daniel’s younger brother and the first to really display the witchy powers inherent in being a white wolf. He was tossing blue orbs of light back and forth with Kaden, her cousin Terra’s new mate—he was also a white wolf, possibly a half-brother to the Wolf Hunter just as Grace was possibly a half-sister, assuming they all had the same paternal ancestor.

Another white wolf, Owen Harding, was there—he was mated to her cousin Nova Wilding and had been through the experiments Agent Smith had conducted on shifters along with Noah. Both of them had been subjected to the many serums Agent Smith had formulated in his attempts to create a super soldier. Something about the experiments triggered the white wolf inside each of them. Most of the data Zoe had were labeled by patient number and not by name—but Zoe knew Noah and Owen were somewhere in the mix. In a way, knowing what they had gone through and that it had triggered the white wolf response inside them only doubled Zoe’s determination use the data in some positive way. But with her lab destroyed, she was substantially set back.

She suspected that was at least part of the Wolf Hunter’s intention.

A girl Zoe didn’t recognize was directing Owen and Kaden and Noah in their magical play, or she supposed it was training. Daniel pulled ahead of Zoe and Troy, waving to the group in the field to get their attention… and to keep them from sending blue magic balls blasting their way as they approached.

Troy held back a little and leaned to whisper in her ear, “Can you do this?”

“No!” she hissed. Maybe she could, maybe she couldn’t—but she certainly didn’t want to talk about it, not in front of these guys.

“Come on,” Troy said, keeping his voice low. “You should join them.”

“I said
no.”
She gave him a warning look.

He held up his hands. “Okay, okay.” Then he dropped them and hurried ahead to catch up with Daniel.

Noah broke from the group and strode over to give Zoe a hug.
“Shit,
Zoe, I’m so sorry about what’s happened.” He was younger than her—only about twenty-one—and he’d already been through so much. He pulled back to look at her. “Oh my God, what happened to you?” He was looking at the half of her head where the hair had been burned short—she had to be looking pretty ragged and weary at this point.

“I’m fine,” she said.

But his eyes hardened with a kind of anger. “We’re going to get this Wolf Hunter guy, Zo,” he assured her.

“I know. It must just be my turn to be targeted by the jerk with the daddy complex,” she said with a wry smile. “I’m pretty sure all five families have been hit by now.”

Her brain was genuinely still frazzled by the attack and a nearly hour-long ride in the presence of Troy’s hotness, but by her count, all five of the original Wilding brothers had their families attacked at one time or another. 

Noah and Daniel’s father, the evil Colonel Astor Wilding was in jail for his part in the experimentation on shifters, but that hadn’t stopped the Wolf Hunter’s minions from trying to kill Noah with a car bomb while he was investigating the WildLove attacks. 

Owen’s mate, Nova, had actually lost her father, Arthur Wilding, to just such a car bomb, and one of the Wolf Hunter’s hate-group members kidnapped her. 

Kaden’s mate, Terra Wilding, had been targeted directly for her art depicting the citizens of the city of Seattle, both human and shifter. Her father, Donnie Wilding, was a software development tycoon, but he’d pretty much stayed a recluse while his daughters had been kidnapped one at a time… which made him a serious loser in Zoe’s book. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had some white-wolf-asshole DNA in him. 

Even Marco Wilding, the runaway son of Frank Wilding, had been targeted by the Wolf Hunter along with his entire pack, one of the downtown shifter gangs. The Wolf Hunter had failed to kill Marco, and her cousin was turning things around down there with his new Adopt a Shifter company, which was pretty damn cool. 

The only Wilding family that hadn’t been hit, so far, had been Zoe’s—and now with the firebombing of her lab, she hoped the Wolf Hunter wouldn’t be going directly after her dad. Either way, she and her father were now brought fully and publicly into the conflict.

Only Zoe had been working behind the scenes with Grace from the beginning.

Man, she was tired.

Noah didn’t press her while she was ruminating about all this. “Well,” he said, stepping back to gesture to the people gathered in the field, training with their magical arts, “the Wolf Hunter’s got some serious shit to deal with now. This is some real firepower here. We’re finally learning how to actually use it without, you know, burning down the entire forest.” He smirked.