Chapter Thirteen

 

The morning sun that poured through the window had a bright, golden quality. Celeste lay there in an empty bed, eyes half open.

Jeffrey had, amazingly enough, agreed to sleep in the room next door with Mandy. He was entranced with her after having seen her beat the stuffing out of Truman the day before.

The door to the room swung open. Celeste smelled coffee, and she heard Grant padding across the room towards her. He’d brought her coffee in bed. This guy was a keeper.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him and smiled, until she saw the serious look on his face.

“Good morning, trouble.” Grant set the coffee down on the nightstand kissed Celeste on the neck.

“Good morning, hairball. Thanks for the coffee.” She sat up, grabbed the ceramic mug, and took a sip. “Ah. You even remembered how I like it. Hot and sweet.”

“Just like you.” Grant winked at her, but his smile was troubled.

“Something wrong?” Celeste asked. “Any news on the people who ambushed us?”

Grant sat down next to her, and the bed squeaked under his weight.

“Still nothing. There was no report to the police, so that means someone swooped in with a cleanup crew pretty quickly and removed the bodies and the cars. The license plates that Truman memorized? They were fake. There’s no such number in the registry.”

“Well, that sucks.” She took a bigger sip of coffee.

Grant nodded. “That’s not all. There’s been another lone wolf attack on a human. It was in upstate New York, yesterday. A wolf that was too large to be a real wolf killed a poacher. His drunk-ass friends ran to the cops, and told them they saw the wolf turn into a man.”

“Crud.” Celeste set the mug down on the table. “So what happens now?”

“We want to give the human authorities a little time to do their preliminary investigation, finish the autopsy and all that. They should get most of that done today, so we’ll fly there tonight, go out to the attack site in the dark when there are no humans around, and see what we can find. Maybe we can scent something. We’re taking William – he’s got an extremely enhanced sense of smell. Talbot’s the computer expert. He’s going to stay here and hack into the police database to look at their reports.”

Worry twisted inside her. “Who else is going with you?”

He named half a dozen people, including Truman, and his attorney Reynaldo from the Reno pack.

“Be careful,” she said quietly. “Come back to me. You big jerk.”

“I will,” he said. “You big nag.” He slid back into bed next to her. “I don’t have to go ’til later, though.”

“Oh, now you want to get all kissy-smoochy? I thought I was a big nag.”

Grant flashed her a look of wide-eyed innocence. “Did I say that?”

“Approximately thirty seconds ago.”

“You’re still new to the ways of werewolves. ‘Big nag’ is a werewolf term for sexiest girl in the pack.”

“Jeffrey will be waking up soon,” she warned him.

“Then maybe we should move this party to the shower.”

Once in the shower, the warm water washing over them, she took his face between her hands and kissed him. He was scratchy with morning stubble and she smiled against his mouth. When she pulled back, his dark eyelashes were beaded with water. He blinked it away.

She let her hands play over his shoulders and down his chest, and he moaned when she smudged her thumb against his flat, coppery coin of a nipple. He tensed with anticipation as her hands traveled lower, and when she reached his hard, heavy cock, he let out a helpless moan. She wrapped her fingers around his silky length, stroking him firmly and enjoying the feel of him as his cock twitched in her palm.

With her other hand, she cupped his balls and squeezed gently, feeling them tighten and draw up, licking her lips as she saw a glistening drop of silvery precum form on the head of his dick. She smoothed her fingers over it, spreading it to use as lubrication as she worked her hand up and down his shaft, wringing another harsh moan from his throat.

As she stroked him, he dipped his head to taste her breast, drawing her nipple into his mouth, rolling it against his tongue, sending bolts of excitement zinging through her. His eyes were closed, his expression one of fierce concentration. She rubbed her fingers over the slick slit in the end of his cock and was rewarded with a harsh intake of breath, his mouth stilling on her breast.

The water was warm and felt good rolling over her body, chased by Grant’s touch. As she stroked his length, he grew harder and impossibly harder, and she felt an answering arousal making her stomach flutter and her pussy clench. She stroked him faster, wanting to see the expression of pleasure-pain on his face when he came in her hand, spattering her fingers and wrist with his creamy cum.

Or in her mouth as she swallowed around him and drank him down…

She moved to sink to her knees, but Grant stopped her.

“Not this time,” he told her, his voice hoarse with the strain of holding back. “I need to be inside you.”

His cock was throbbing in her hand, and he gently removed her hands from him and guided her to wrap her arms around his neck. Then he turned her so her back was against the cool tiles of the shower wall. The contrast with the hot water made her shiver.

Grant lifted her with his hands beneath her thighs, bracing her weight with his body, and the head of his cock nudged her slippery pussy before he pushed inside her

She crossed her feet at the small of his back, locking her legs around him as he moved inside her, burying his face in the crook of her neck, his breath rapid and labored against her skin.

He pushed inside her firmly, then pulled back out exquisitely slowly, dragging his cock over her G-spot. Her pussy was slick and swollen, and she welcomed each movement of his hot, hard dick inside her with a gasp of pleasure.

The sparks of pleasure in her core became crackling lightning, then a wild storm of electricity, powerful and elemental and out of control, burning her up from the inside out. And as she came, Grant thrust harder, his rhythm stuttering, heart thundering against hers as he gave a tortured groan and found his release inside her shuddering body.

* * * * *

When they flew into town the next evening, the media was having a field day with the story. Fortunately, the two men who’d witnessed the wolf attack had been staggering drunk when they’d run to the police, so their credibility was shaky. They were also petty criminals who had admittedly been poaching when they saw the wolf attack, and they had gone from the police to the media, trying to get money for selling their story, which changed with every re-telling.

Unfortunately, though, the dead poacher had been thoroughly mauled by a creature that seemed to be too big to be a wolf, and the paw-prints leading away from the scene were larger than those of any known wolf.

And it was a slow news week, so the media was going crazy. Websites were selling “werewolf specials” – boxes of allegedly silver-coated ammo at fifty dollars a bullet, and paper targets with the silhouettes of “werewolves” printed on them. There were werewolf recipes on the popular recipe websites, and sales of T-shirts and werewolf costumes were through the roof.

They’d already checked with the only pack in the area – a small pack located four hours from the attack site. Every single pack member had been accounted for and there was no chance that it had been any of them.

They were a couple of weeks away from a full moon. That was the only time that werewolves lost control, compulsively turned into wolves, and would be liable to attack a human. So whoever had carried out this attack had done it deliberately.

Late that night, they drove to the wooded area near where the attack had happened. There were no back roads, so they were forced to park on the side of the road, where they shifted and ran into the woods until they reached the attack site. They could all still scent the werewolf who’d been there. Enormous paw-prints were further proof that the attacker had been were, not a regular wolf.

Then William kept his head down and began moving through the forest. He led them back to the road, a short distance from where they’d parked their car. He stopped and shifted back into human form, and the rest of them followed suit. They were naked, and there was a chill in the night air, but it didn’t bother them. Werewolves weren’t bothered by extreme temperatures, even in human form.

“The trail ends here,” William said. “He left in a car. And I’m picking up the faint scent of a second werewolf. He didn’t do this alone. Someone drove him here and let him out, and then he headed into the woods and killed that hunter. When he returned, he took the same path back to the road.”

“Would you recognize him if you ran into him again, in human form?” Grant asked.

William nodded. “Yeah, I would. It’s just a matter of finding him.”

They started to head back up the road towards their car, then Truman froze and held his hand up. “Wait,” he said. “You hear that? ’Copters.”

In a flash, they’d shifted and run back into the woods. Helicopters buzzed overhead. As they raced through the trees, they heard the sound of machine-gun fire.

The men in the ’copters were shooting at them.

Truman let out a howl of pain, and Grant smelled sizzling flesh. He turned and ran over to Truman, clawed at his shoulder, and dug the bullet out. He stifled a yelp as the silver burned the pads of his paw, and frantically scraped it off into the dirt.

Then they heard shouts coming from a short distance away. “This way! This way!” a woman’s voice yelled.

Werewolves. There were other werewolves in the woods with them.

They ran towards them. The werewolves were in human form, and armed. They aimed rifles at the ’copters, shooting back, and the ’copters quickly veered off.

Grant nodded in thanks to the half-dozen werewolves in front of him. “Thanks for having our backs. How did you happen to be out here?”

“Just out for a stroll.” One of the men flashed a grin at him. “You should probably head back and get a healer to look at your friend.”

Truman sniffed the air. “You smell familiar. What pack are you from?”

“The Deep Woods Pack.”

“There’s no such pack,” Grant informed him. “You’re lone wolves, aren’t you?”

The guy shrugged and glanced at his friends. “I don’t feel too lonely.” His grip tightened on his rifle.

“There’s a group of you. Why don’t you form an official pack?” Grant asked, exasperated.

“Maybe we don’t like governmental interfering bullshit.” The man’s voice turned hard. “Maybe an official pack-” he spat the word out as if it tasted foul “-hunted down my brother for being mentally ill, instead of finding a way to safely confine him. And maybe it’s none of your fucking business.”

“You do realize that all these lone wolf attacks risk exposing you as well us?” Grant snapped at him. “If people know about the existence of werewolves, none of us are safe.”

“Hey. We came out here. We saved your asses. Now go home.”

“Who were those people who just attacked us?”

“No idea. We’d like to know that too. And before you ask, no, the lone wolf who killed the poacher wasn’t one of ours. We’re not even from around here.” The small group was moving backwards, away from them.

“How did you know to come out here and save us?” Grant called out.

But they’d turned their backs now and were walking away.

Technically, Grant and his men would be within their rights to attack the entire group and do anything they wanted with them. Kill them. Interrogate them.

But the group had just saved their lives, and Grant sympathized with them, to an extent.

The other men with him were looking at him for guidance.

“Let’s go,” he said.

* * * * *

By noon, they were back at the lodge, in the largest meeting room, with every Alpha and Elder in attendance. They sat on folding chairs facing Cliff, Grant, Talbot and Ford, who stood on a raised platform.

Cliff addressed the group, his eyes glowing with anger.

“Someone is targeting us, working to expose us,” he grated out. “Maybe someone from the Network. Maybe humans. But we have got to set that database up.”

“This is all awfully convenient,” Anthony snapped at him. “Yet another mysterious attack.”

“It wasn’t awfully convenient that one of my pack members nearly died out there,” Grant said angrily.

“So you say. Whoever shot at him sure had bad aim.” Anthony’s lip curled in a sneer. “And you boys admit that you let a group of rogues escape, instead of killing every last one of them. If there were any rogues there. Who knows what really happened in the woods? Maybe Truman shot himself.”

“I’m not with their pack, I’m from the Bent River Pack,” William called out. “Reynaldo’s with the Reno Pack. We all saw the same thing. How many of us do you think are in on this conspiracy?”

Anthony held his glare for a long moment, then finally looked away in disgust. “Looks like all the other packs are giving in. Bunch of pussies. My pack isn’t signing up for any damn central registry. The rest of you idiots do what you want.” And he got up and walked out of the room, with his pack members following him.