Wolfen (39 page)

 
"What the fuck is the deal with you two anyway?” Con growled.

 
"Damned if I know what the hell's wrong with him!” Xavier said indignantly. “He didn't mind enough to bow out."

 
"Of what?” Dakota demanded.

 
"We did a three way with Danika,” Xavier said, shrugging.

 
"You did a what?” Balin growled.

 
"You just couldn't fucking keep your mouth shut!” Jared growled.

 
"You're saying you both fucked her? At the same time?” Con demanded, outraged.

 
"Like I said, Danika suggested it. I'm not sure I'd have gone along the idea if I hadn't been horny as hell, but you guys were waiting—not much time. I figured we'd lose the chance if we took the time to fight over it to decide. And then somebody was going to come up short. I figured that was the reason Jared decided to go for it."

 
Con, Balin, and Dakota exchanged a look and turned to frown at Jared and Xavier. “She let you...? Which one of you...?” Dakota didn't finish either question.

 
"And you're saying this was Dani's suggestion?” Balin growled, obviously stunned.

 
Xavier frowned thoughtfully. “Sort of. She was pretty drunk. She seemed to get the idea that it was
our
idea and she said ok. She'd never tried it, but she was game to give it a try. I'd heard about humans doing it. I never figured it would appeal to me—it didn't especially appeal to me then, but like I said—not much time to make a decision. I just went with it."

 
"Jared doesn't seem to have come away from the experience very happy about it,” Balin said dryly.

 
"Don't know why the fuck not!” Xavier said, glaring at him. “He got the choice spot—well, I'm thinking that's debatable now. It's hard to imagine
better
. I might not want to try it again. I'm just saying I'm not sorry I did. When in Rome and all that. She's human. You can't be with a human woman and expect her to do everything
our
way, you know."

 
Balin glanced at Con and then frowned thoughtfully.

 
"An alpha doesn't share his mate. I don't, anyway,” he added when the others turned to look at him. “Other women, maybe, but not the one I've picked to bear my pups."

 
Xavier looked at him in surprise. “Well, we already did, didn't we? And it ain't like you won't know your own pup, after all. Besides, you don't have a mate—haven't before. I don't know how you can say you
don't
when you haven't had a mate before. Especially when the biggest majority do share the alpha female with their lieutenants, at least, to keep the peace."

 
"We need to settle which one of us she belongs to once and for all when we're done here,” Dakota repeated, ignoring Xavier.

 
"You're still assuming she'll abide by wolfen law and accept the male who wins,” Balin said tightly. “She's under no obligation to do that, not bound by our laws or customs and not susceptible to binding by the marks. She doesn't have to accept any of us."

 
"She already accepted
all
of us,” Xavier pointed out reasonably. “The woman always does the choosing. They just let us
think
it was our idea.
We
belong to her. She's our alpha female. We formed a new pack around her. The only thing we haven't decided yet is which of us will be the alpha of
this
pack."

 
Balin stared at him through narrowed eyes. “Sometimes you see things so simply it's downright scary, Xavier,” he muttered.

 
Xavier glared at him. “Are you calling me stupid?” he demanded indignantly.

 
Balin shook his head. “I don't know. You might be the smartest one here. I did bind myself to Danika,
knowing
she was human and wouldn't feel the same,” he said sardonically.

 
Xavier stared at him a long moment but finally decided not to mention the fact that neither he nor Jared had left Danika until they
had
marked her like the others.

 
A shout from one of the lookouts brought their attention back to their current situation. Standing, the five of them narrowed their eyes at a point just above the leaping flames. A handful of
weres
, they saw, were heading directly toward the safe house. They paused just on the other side, sniffing the air.

 
"That's the one thing you can always count on with fucking
weres
,” Con growled. “If there's a human within a mile of them they're going to go for the easy pickings."

 
Catching the scent of the humans inside the safe house, they began to howl and snarl, running back and forth on the other side of the flames as if in search of a place to cross.

 
"That's another thing you can count on,” Dakota said. “Stupid. How long do you think it's going to take them to figure out the fire goes all the way around?"

 
"I'm betting at least two laps,” Jared said tartly.

 
Another half dozen recently transformed
were
-beasts loped up to join the first pack and for nearly an hour they contented themselves with trying to tear each other into pieces. Finally, one of the larger ones grabbed a smaller beast, lifted him above his head and pitched him over the fire and into the safe zone.

 
"Shit!” Balin exclaimed, lifting his gun and taking aim. A half dozen bullets hit the dirt around the
were
-beast, kicking up clods of dirt as he picked himself up and looked around in confusion. He seemed oblivious to the bullets, or maybe just more confused by them.

 
"I don't know how well these are going to work with the silencers,” Con said in disgust. “The stupid fuck doesn't even realize we're shooting at him."

 
"The building isn't insulated enough to keep the people inside from hearing if we cut loose without the silencers. We can't afford to start a panic among the humans,” Balin said pointedly, taking aim again. That time when he fired, his bullet went through the beast's leg. Letting out a howl of rage, the beast leapt into the air and then whirled around to look for a target. Spying Balin, he uttered a challenging howl and headed straight for him. Another bullet, fired from someone on the other side of the compound, caught him in the hip. He plowed the dirt when his leg gave out. He didn't ignore the next hail of bullets. He froze for several moments, then whirled and raced back toward the fire ring. Unfortunately, he seemed to be as fearful of the fire as he was the bullets. He began to run back and forth, snarling furiously, leaping at the fire and then leaping back.

 
"I'll take care of it,” Jared said. Setting his gun down, he went into half shift and charged across the compound toward the
were
-beast. Sensing his approach, the
were
-beast whirled away from the fire and charged toward him. Jared leapt over him at the last moment, whirling as he landed and slamming a fist against the side of the beast's head. The beast staggered, his wounded leg giving out under him. Grabbing the
were
, Jared lifted him over his head and launched him over the fire. He landed almost dead center of the group howling to get in on the other side.

 
They went crazy, biting and tearing at the hapless beast as if Jared had tossed them their dinner. Jared watched in disgust for a moment and finally returned to the group. “That helped,” he growled.

 
"It was female, too. That's a fucking shame,” Xavier agreed.

 
"How could you tell?” Con asked wryly.

 
"I saw her tits."

 
"You're just dreaming of tits,” Jared said irritably. “It was male—just a small one and he wasn't likely to survive long anyway."

 
"How could you tell?” Xavier demanded.

 
"I grabbed a handful of cods when I tossed him over. I'm pretty fucking sure it wasn't tits."

 
"It looked like tits from here,” Xavier muttered.

 
They had around a dozen more breaches of the fire ring before dawn began to lighten the sky and the
were-
beasts, exhausted from rampaging all night, finally staggered off to find a place to sleep. Smothering the fire, the men assigned to help with the clean up stacked their rifles and headed into town. Balin, Con, Xavier, and Jared joined the search party. Dakota stayed behind with the handful of other men left to guard the safe house. The beasts weren't a problem at the moment. They would be shifting back to their human forms if they hadn't already since they had no control over their shifting yet.

 
The problem was, very few of them were going to remember anything and, if any of them were still able to get around, they were liable to go into a panic and try to get into the safe house to ‘escape’ whatever it was that had happened.

 
"Poor bastards,” Dakota muttered, scanning the bodies lying in the streets of the town.

 
Balin and his group scattered as they left the compound. Moving from one to another of the people they spotted, they nudged them to check for signs of life and moved on, searching for the dead. It was after noon before they'd canvassed the town.

 
"The place looks like a war zone,” Balin said tiredly when he'd settled beside Dakota and taken a swig of the water from the bottle Dakota offered.

 
"It
is
a war zone. What's the count?"

 
"Promising. Only six dead—so far."

 
Dakota digested that in silence. “It's still going to be hell explaining it to the survivors."

 
Con, who'd returned in time to hear at least part of the conversation, settled beside Balin and took the bottle of water. “We didn't start the war,” he pointed out.

 
"No,” Dakota agreed. “I still can't figure out what that crazy rogue bastard was thinking."

 
"We'll never know now, but I think the theory we came up with is as close a guess as anything else. I'm going to find a place to crash for a while. We've got another long night ahead of us and it's liable to start early when those
weres
wake up naked and bloody and discover the town's been trashed."

 
"We might as well go back to the camp and crash,” Xavier said as he joined them. “At least it'll be reasonably comfortable."

 
Con and Balin both glanced unconsciously toward the door of the safe house at his suggestion.

 
"Sure. Why not?” Con agreed. “I could use a shower. These fucking suits are hot as hell. The only good thing about them that I can see is that they're loose enough they don't have to be discarded before we shift."

 
They headed back toward the van they'd used to get to town but decided to leave it after all and collect their bikes instead. Balin loitered on his bike until the others had trooped inside their cabin. Dismounting from it at last when Xavier disappeared through the door, he headed for Danika's cabin instead.

 
He stood for a time in the middle of the cabin, merely savoring her scent that lingered over the place like the delicate scent of a flower, dizzying because the smell was so faint he had to struggle to capture it in his lungs. In a few days, it wouldn't smell like her at all and there wouldn't be anything left to tell that she'd ever been there at all.

 
Frowning at the bent of his thoughts, he strode to the bathroom to shower.