Willing Sacrifice (18 page)

We all hiked back to the campground in the dark. The group, as a whole, had a very sated feel to it, while Robert and I were wound about as tight as clock springs. We stayed further back while everyone chatted quietly ahead of us.

“Tonight we leave – you and I.” Robert whispered so no one else would hear.” The rest will stay in the mountains until we get back.”

“Where are we supposed to be going?”

“You've got a pesky ghost attached to you and I think I know just the person to help us with it, but I can't leave the pack alone at the house.”

I thought this over. “So where are we going?”

He flashed me a brilliant smile. “To meet my mother.”

Instinct took over and I grabbed the nearest tree in a tight hug. “I'm not going.”

Robert took me in with a look of surprise on his face. “Huh?”

I shook my head admittedly. “No way; moms hate me.”

“She's going to love you.” He tried pulling me away from the tree gently. I held fast.

“Sugar, she can help you.” He urged.

“How is your mother supposed to be able to help me exactly?” I asked.

“She's a witch.”

I thunked my head on the tree lightly. “You're a wolf/witch?”

“No, she is. It’s very rare.” He beamed proudly. “It's passed down through my line.”

“Please stop talking about your ancestry like you're a friggin’ German shepherd.” I begged.

He snorted a laugh, “Please Sugar, I am asking you to come with me.”

That caught me off guard. He hadn't asked me to do anything since I had arrived. He demanded a lot, but never asked anything. Slowly I lowered my arms from around the tree and took a step back. “Is it going to hurt?”

“Would I let anyone hurt you?”

“Hmm let's think shall we? You pitted me against every member of this pack to prove my worth to you.”

He was shaking his head slowly. “No, I was doing it so that you could prove your worth to yourself. We'd make a hell of a team and that seems obvious to everyone but you. You keep resisting and I think it has something to do with self-doubt.”

I stood rooted to my spot. “What do you know about self doubt? Did you read about it somewhere?”

“Sugar do you think I woke up one morning and thought to myself, I can beat them all. I will be the one to run this pack so Sugar will fall in love with me?” He didn't pause after that fun fact. “No, I told myself if I wanted you I had to work for it and I would get it because I worked harder than everyone else. I couldn’t afford to doubt myself but there were times that I did.”

He took a step closer to me. “But I didn't doubt your strength for one minute. I knew you would rise to the top.”

“I'm not there yet pal.” I reminded him.

He looked at me intently for a moment. “It's still my choice in the end Sugar.” He warned, “Don't think by throwing a fight you'll weasel your way out of becoming Alpha female.”

“You suck.” I said before crossing my arms and cocking my hip.

“Sugar sweetheart,” He chuckled, “I haven't sucked at anything my entire life.”

He was back, the Alpha confidence with a side of sizzling hotness and I hated myself for loving it.

Now I didn't actually know how far we were going until we boarded the non-stop flight to Oregon. Sure I knew he was from out west, but Oregon?

We arrived at Granes Pass in Oregon just as the sun was rising on the western seaboard. It was your typical seaside town, jam packed with factories and renovated Victorians smashed together and separated by nothing more than a shadow on either side.

Robert was looking relaxed as he eased the rental car through the busy downtown streets and onto a road leading away from the ocean and into the most beautiful forest I had ever... ever seen. We rode in silence as I looked out the window mesmerized. We turned onto a park reserve and he didn't say a word.

“How can you possibility live in a reserve?” I quipped.

“We don't, about sixty years ago the Alpha at the time was having a hard time paying taxes on five hundred sixty acres of land, so he offered the land surrounding us to be used as a game and forest reserve and they pay us now, in a long term lease agreement.”

“Wow; that's kind of brilliant.” I said.

“Well I had to get it from somewhere.” Robert smiled and puffed out his chest a little.

“Was that Alpha your grandfather or something?” He laughed, “No, it was my dad and I'm telling him you called him old.”

We pulled out of the trees and up to the biggest log cabin I had ever seen in person. Sure they have those impossible cabins of America on A&E, but this one was lived in. You could see where sections had been added on throughout the years and it only made it that much more beautiful. The logs looked as though they had been stained near black, with only the subtlest hint of the wood grain showing through. I wasn't sure if it was the age of the wood or done intentionally, either way it was breathtaking. The pink of the rising sun glittered off the face of the eastern facing windows adding that much more majesty to the home's presence.

I sighed.

Robert looked over at me with a little smirk. “You like it?”

I nodded.

“Well, come inside and meet the family.” He reached around and grabbed the duffel bag we were both using for luggage out of the backseat.

I didn't move.

“Sugar, I'll rip the door off the car if that's what I have to do to get you out.”

I got out.

We walked to the door and a few people poured out onto the porch to offer welcome. Robert hugged them all, showing affection he never showed at home. They all threw questions as to why Robert was home, before he ushered everyone inside.

His father stood just inside with Robert's mother standing beside him. I watched them hold onto one another like they might fall without the other’s support. They looked to be in their fifties, but from a quick calculation they were eighty-five or more.

Robert's family beamed with pride; he could do no wrong in their eyes. I wondered if I had gotten that kind of upbringing how it might have changed me.

“Mom, Dad, this is Sugar Coon.”

His mother rushed forward and wrapped her arms around my neck. She smelled so clean I wondered what kind of odor I might have been giving off after so long without a shower.

His father stood back and appraised me first with the eyes of an Alpha weighing in a possible mate for his son and then as a man appraising a woman's beauty, slowly he smiled. “She's every bit as lovely as you described son.”

I felt a blush heat my entire face.

“Does she speak?” His father asked playfully.

“Piss her off and she doesn't shut-up.” Robert said as explanation.

His mother wasn't paying attention to anyone in the room anymore. She was standing just in back of me looking out the antique glass of the hand carved front door. “You may not enter here beast.” She whispered, and I felt all the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention from the power held in her words.

She turned back around with a sad smile. “So this isn't an engagement visit is it Robert?”

“No, Mum.”

They continued to speak as if we were no longer in the room. “And who is that, Sugar?” She turned her attention to me.

“That's my dead husband.”

She nodded her head. “Okay my dear, you come with me.” She took my hand and led me up the stairs and into what I could only guess was a salon. It was a brightly lit room with books on every shelf, bright happy paintings and feminine furnishings clustered in the center of a massive pure white area rug. I felt like I would get the place dirty just by standing in it.

“Okay, sit down.” She said it with little to no demand in her voice, but just her voice was needed. I sat quickly in the closest chair to the door.

“Sugar, first off, he's not a ghost.”

When I didn't respond she continued. “A ghost can't attack you.” She pointed to the medallion around my throat. “He's hunting you dear and that necklace won't protect you for much longer.”

“What is he?” I asked softly. “I don't think he's Jack anymore.”

She nodded her agreement. “You're right, very little of what you knew of Jack is still in him, except for maybe his territorial nature towards you. You were supposed to die; you belonged to him.”

I had guessed as much but having another person agree with me made it that much more real.

“Have you heard of Hellhounds?” She asked.

“They retrieve souls, and bring them to Hell?”

She nodded again. “What did Jack do in life?” She asked rhetorically. “Jack caught the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind person. Now he belongs to him.” She pointed at the floor, “But the problem with Hellhounds is that they are all dead werewolves and dead werewolves are just as obstinate as live ones. He's hunting you because in his eyes, you still belong to him.”

“He hurt Robert.” I blurted out.

“Like I said, obstinate.” She shook her head sadly. “Well, until I get this figured out, he can't hurt you here; but that medallion around your throat won't protect you much longer.”

“So I can't leave?”

She looked around and held up her hands, “There are worse prisons.”

I was shown to my room, to shower and rest. There I looked down at the driveway from the upstairs balcony window, with my hands pressed against the cold glass to ground me.

Robert walked into the room and threw down the duffel bag. He looked worried and I knew it was because he didn’t want to leave the pack alone any longer than he had to. He came up behind me and pressed his hands over mine, as if my touch would reassure him that this risk and sacrifice was worth it. “It’s almost over.” He whispered into my ear.

“Until the next thing.” I pulled my hands down and they squeaked against the glass.

“What happens if your mother can’t figure it out? What happens if something happens to the pack? They come first.”

He turned me around to face him slowly. “Who said the pack came first?”

“Everyone.”

He shook his head. “Whether you’re human or wolf, family always comes first.”

I froze at those words. No one had ever said those words to me before and after a lifetime of being kept at arms length by family after family, I wanting nothing more than to hear those words said so easily but I wasn't sure I believed him. “I’m not family.”

“You will be.” His voice soothed. “We don’t leave until we get this figured out.”

“But what if we can’t?”

“Then this will be our home.” He fiddled with my necklace before wrapping his fist in it and using the strength of its delicate chain to pull me closer. “Until then,” He looked me over and cleared his throat. “I’m going to make you mine.”

I felt my eyebrows shoot up my forehead. “Your parents are downstairs.”

He nodded as he backed away from the window pulling me along with him.

“We need a shower.”

He shook his head, no and continued pulling. I felt panicked, but my brain was so foggy with thoughts of him naked and that slow dance we'd had I couldn’t come up with another excuse as to why we shouldn’t.

He stopped when he reached the bed. There was a foot of space between us and he dropped his hand away looking at me intently. “It’s your choice Sugar.”

“Is this a free trail offer? I mean, this doesn’t mean we’re going to be Mated or anything, right?”

“Usually it takes more than just the act.”

I took a step back and his eyes got real big and round.

“What are you doing?”

“You said it was my choice.”

He whimpered and flopped down on the bed.

I leaned forward and stretched out my neck to see him better. “Are you okay?”

He was breathing really fast and his hands were balled up in the bedspread but he nodded yes just before he lurched up and grabbed me, throwing us both onto the center of the bed.

I held very still when he slid up alongside me.

“You said it was my choice.” I warned.

“It is; it always will be, but you’re not even giving me a fair shot.” He retorted. “Let’s see what you say in, oh one minute. If you want me to stop what I’m doing in sixty seconds, then I will. No questions asked.”

We were both fully clothed, how much could he possibly do in sixty seconds? “Okay.” I said quietly then immediately regretted it.

He got to his knees and pulled off his tee-shirt.

“You’re cheating.” I said sounding very far away as I gazed enthralled by the beauty of his perfect abs.

“You didn’t set any ground rules.” He straddled my thighs and hovered above me for just a second. “I wish I could have done this part slower.” He lowered himself onto his elbow with one hand wrapping itself in my hair and his other hand fiddling with the button of my Levi’s.

My hands automatically shot down to my jeans just as the sound of tearing fabric reached my ears. Wolves aren’t very patient.

He massaged the skin of my ass and moved to my pelvis just before he kissed me. It was a deep, passionate, no holds barred kind of kiss. The kind of kiss that makes you forget you were counting to sixty and you knew sixty was a very important number. The kind of kiss that makes you forget what is so important about the number sixty. At this point I was lucky if I could count to ten.

“May I continue?” The bastard smirked over me with one of his hands just above the corner of, “Why ask at all?” and “Oh yes, please.”

He didn’t move an inch as he waited hovering above me. As an answer I reached down and snapped his belt buckle like a cracker between my small strong hands. “You owe me a new pair of jeans.”

I woke up during the night, with that feeling of being alone and being watched all at the same time. Robert wasn’t beside me. His side of the bed was cold to the touch; he had obviously left some time ago.

“Sugar.”

My whispered name startled me and I froze.

“Sugar Baby, you’ve been a bad girl.”

Jack stepped out of the shadows. “Can I come in?” I wanted to tell him, you are in, but parts of this weren’t making sense. “Jack, am I dreaming?”

He nodded, “You can run but you can’t hide.”

“I don’t belong to you, Jack.”

“The old witch didn’t tell you did she? You’re on my list Sugar, and only bad girls end up on my list. So, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You were already supposed to die anyway. Just come outside; we’ll go for a run together, then I’ll make it quick and painless. We’ll be together, the way it’s suppose to be Sugar.”

I sat transfixed with a combination of terror and exhaustion. How long could I outrun him? When Robert’s mother asked me what Jack did in life she was talking about his job as a bounty hunter for the Elders. But the truth was there was never anyone Jack couldn’t find. He was ruthless and I doubted death and his sense of retribution dulled that blade any. “No.” I breathed into the darkness.

“Why won’t you die!” He screamed, his face contorting into a mask of rage.

“Because you were never the one.”

The balcony doors blew open with the wind and I sat up in the bed fully awake. Robert was already closing them by the time I took my next breath.

“He’s still hunting me.”

Robert’s sleepy face hardened. “He can’t get you here, baby.” He crawled under the warmth of the blankets next to me.

“He can if I sleep.”

Without missing a beat Robert smiled. “Then, let’s not sleep.”

It took him less than ten seconds to convince me, as I remembered his touch from that morning, so we didn’t sleep until the sun rose.

I walked down the stairs and into the front entrance of the house. The kitchen was just off the main entrance and everyone was already seated at the table for breakfast. I felt a blush crawl up my cheeks as I remembered one person banging on their bedroom wall for us to keep it down during the night.

Robert beamed proudly and offered me the chair next to him at the table.

I sat down stiffly feeling shy, a trait not taken very well by the werewolves. “Good morning.”

An old woman sitting at the table scowled. “I’m surprised you can even walk without a cane after the night the two of you had.”

I choked on my juice while Robert patted my back and I gasped for breath. “Grandma, be nice. She’s not used to you yet.”

“What is there to get used to? Try getting used to the sound of a headboard plowing its way through your bedroom wall at three o’clock in the morning?”

I was still choking and at this point I was hoping it took so I wouldn’t have to look that old woman in the eyes ever again.

“Sheesh you sure are noisy for a girl who never talks.”