chapter two
Desire throbbed in his groin as Tabor watched Sasha run after Aden.
Interesting, he thought, rubbing his fingers over the scruff on his chin.
Once the two shifters disappeared around the boulders, he glanced at the she-wolf’s discarded dress laying haphazardly over a clump of dirt.
Little did she know that her flippant gesture of bravado had been viewed as an invitation, especially now that Tabor considered he’d been wrong about Sasha’s self-imposed celibacy having to do with pure-blooded snobbery. He hadn’t missed the way her face softened when Aden called out her name and strode up the hill.
Had she finally moved on, with a werewolf no less?
Tabor’s jaw slid to the side, considering the treetops beyond the knoll.
No, he decided, Sasha looked more like an adoring puppy than a satisfied she-wolf when she stared all moony at Aden. The werewolf was too thickheaded to notice that she looked at him like she’d bend the council’s rigid rules of courtship if it meant bending over for Aden.
The thought of her lifting her ass for another shifter pulled a deep growl, unbidden, from inside his throat.
Tabor set down his bow and arrow then picked up Sasha’s dress and shook off bits of soil and moss from the fabric. Lifting the thin scrap of cotton to his nose, he inhaled sun, earth, and female before folding the dress, remembering the way it had clung to Sasha’s full breasts. They were lovely in the nude, naturally, but bare breasts were such a common sight in Wolf Hollow that sometimes it was refreshing to see them covered—if only for the fact that he could then imagine seeing them uncovered.
He finished folding the dress and set it down gently on a smooth rock. His own clothes hung from a low tree branch at the edge of the knoll. Just because they lived outdoors didn’t mean they had to behave like savages.
Tabor picked up Aden’s jeans and shirt next, folded them, and stacked them on the rock with Sasha’s dress.
He couldn’t help liking the werewolf. Aden was popular with everyone in Wolf Hollow; even the purists had succumbed to his irresistible good cheer. The elders loved him because he put down vulhenas as easily as swatting flies.
And he’d complimented Tabor on his clean shot.
It wasn’t every day someone in the pack praised Tabor’s skill. In fact, it was just about never. Wolves and wizards had never mixed, not until Tabor’s mother wandered alone in the forest during the full moon and returned moonstruck and making no sense. She hadn’t been the same after that. Nine months after the encounter, she’d given birth to Tabor, the hollow’s first wolf-shifting wizard.
Born into the pack, Tabor had chosen to remain in Wolf Hollow rather than seek out his father’s people at Balmar Court up north, even after his mother’s death.
The recent memory of Olivia’s shame-faced distress at being caught romping with him filled Tabor with his own bitter distaste for the coquettish she-wolf. She’d acted shy and giggly when they were first paired up. Tabor had believed she’d formed a crush on him. They’d flirted and found ways to innocently touch. That’s all they’d done until today . . . until Olivia made the moves on Tabor.
Not that he minded, but he’d been taking it slow, thinking a bond might form between them.
His eye twitched.
Olivia had made her true intent clear this afternoon and shown Tabor exactly what she thought of him.
He should have felt relieved Sasha had interrupted them and he’d discovered the truth. But relief wasn’t one of Tabor’s go-to emotions. Indignation and pride had plagued him since the day he was old enough to understand bigotry among the pack.
The only relief he felt now was the softening of his groin.
Olivia didn’t deserve a long-lasting salute. He wouldn’t have remained hard at all if it hadn’t been for Sasha kicking up dust, all perky breasts, long, silky hair, and flawless, smooth, summer-tanned skin. She looked sexy when she was angry. Hell, she always looked sexy.
It wasn’t a thought he’d entertained until now. Then again, they’d never stood on a knoll together naked as Tabor brandished a king-sized hard-on.
She’d also never looked at him the way she had on the knoll—really looked at him—directly in the eyes as though seeing him for the first time.
In judgment, Tabor reminded himself, gliding over to the tree holding his clothes and slipping into his jeans.
Once dressed, Tabor made the solo trek back to the glade, the hollow’s gathering place.
The sun drifted lazily toward the tree line, filtering through the leaves and casting speckled light over the forest floor.
In another two days it would be the full moon, which meant every wolf without a mate would be on high alert at the crack of dawn. They had to protect the happy couples of Wolf Hollow during their monthly opportunity at procreation. Wolf shifters, in both animal and human form, could only become pregnant during the full moon. The closer to the exact second, the better their chances.
Wolf shifters didn’t require bygone almanacs to tell them when the moon reached its fullest. They knew the phases by instinct.
While infertility during the majority of the month made for a carefree romp without consequences, it was a problem for mates trying to help rebuild the hollow’s population.
Tabor’s friends Heidi and Peter were among the couples trying for a pup, though they acted a lot less crazy about it than other pairs since they already had two rambunctious little tykes.
The rich, mouthwatering scent of cooked meat reached Tabor’s nostrils as he approached the communal gathering place for the pack’s unmated shifters, a small clearing beside the Sakhir River. The glade provided food and entertainment during the full moon ceremony. Beneath nearby towering pines, shifters stretched out for a snooze in human form before dinner while others sat on large logs arranged around the fire.
The shifters on dinner duty bustled around the fire, finishing preparation on the evening’s meal. Smoke and steam rose from a great big cauldron above the fire. Tabor’s stomach rumbled at the smell of boiled meat. Francine, her belly almost as large as the cauldron, stood stirring the stew with a long wooden spoon, sweat glistening around her hairline.
Once a female shifter reached her second trimester, her body became incapable of shifting into wolf form until after she gave birth. With pure-blooded native wolf shifters, the opposite was true. When two purebloods mated, the female was stuck in wolf form the moment she became pregnant until she gave birth. Purebloods were considered the strongest wolf shifters in existence, but they were a dying breed.
Unless Wolfrik returned, or the elders convinced a pureblood from another pack to move to Wolf Hollow, Sasha might have to choose among the migrant urban wolf shifters—meaning Tabor had a shot, and when it came to hitting his target, he was dead on. Besides, after today he’d lost interest in callow she-wolves like Olivia.
He noted her standing under a tree talking with Camilla and Rosalie. Her back stiffened as he entered the glade and her mouth moved quickly. She grabbed her friends’ hands and pulled them away with her toward the fire. It was as though she was afraid Tabor would try and approach her. Olivia had no reason to worry; Tabor wanted nothing more to do with the narrow-minded bitch.
He continued into the clearing. Most of the single shifters had returned from assignment and lounged nearby awaiting the call for dinner. Zackary and his buddies had claimed a log on the far edge of the clearing where a path led to the river. They sat with their legs spread wide, leaning back, and speaking at top volume while watching the women prepare dinner.
It was a toss-up as to whether Zackary would notice Tabor walking by or stick to monkeying around with his friends like an ape.
Tabor didn’t get a chance to pass before the mongrel brushed his thick bangs out of his face and smiled with malicious intent. Like Aden, Zackary was one of the largest men in the pack. Unlike Aden, he was about as pleasant as a heaping pile of wolf dung.
“Hey, Tabor. What’s with the bow and arrow? Afraid to dirty your nails . . . I mean, claws?” Zackary glanced at his cronies, who howled with laughter.
Tabor’s fingers tightened around his bow. A surge of anger swirled through his belly like a brittle leaf caught in a whirlpool. The women continued tending the fire and stirring the pot, but Tabor could feel their eyes on him too.
When Zackary stopped laughing, Tabor spoke.
“A bow can come in quite handy,” he said, twirling it around his fingers and tossing it into the air. Tabor caught it one-handed without looking. His eyes were zeroed in on Zackary’s, a challenge in the slant of his brows. “You never know when a mad dog like your father might wander in and need putting down.”
A dark shadow passed over Zackary’s face right before he leapt to his feet and rushed forward in a blind rage. Zackary’s distemper should have given Tabor an advantage, but his own anger raged like the flames of a forest fire, unpredictable and out of control.
He tossed the bow and quiver onto the ground as Zackary charged. As impressive as the big, bad wolf looked, Tabor threw the first punch. He socked Zackary in the eye and followed it with an uppercut to the jaw. The brute bellowed, grabbed Tabor by the shoulders, and threw him to the ground. Upon impact, the wind was temporarily knocked out of Tabor. Before he had a chance to regain his breath, Zackary was on top of him, raining blows over Tabor’s head and chest. He took a punch to the face and felt his lip split. The taste of copper filled Tabor’s throat. He nearly gagged trying to swallow while pinned to the ground on his back.
Zackary’s friends gathered around, cheering him on.
“You can take him, Zack.”
“Make that dog eat his own words.”
Zackary grabbed Tabor’s throat, squeezed, and roared. Even in human form the brute was animalistic.
“I’ll do better than that,” he said. “I’ll take out his tongue so he can’t speak again.”
Light glinted off the rusty switchblade Zackary yanked open from his pocket.
Panic spiked through Tabor’s mind like a skewered squirrel thrust above the flames. He wasn’t about to lose his tongue. Unfortunately, Zackary outweighed him by nearly a hundred pounds.
“Formella lavita!” Tabor cried.
Zackary flew off him, dropping the blade and landing five feet away on his back, his eyes bulging in astonishment.
With the weight now off him, Tabor scrambled to his feet. He could have left it at that, but he didn’t. Zackary had poked fun at him one too many times.
Besides, putting Zack on his back was an opportunity Tabor simply couldn’t resist. He flung himself on top of the burly man-wolf and punched him in the face, hoping to return the favor of the bloody lip. A black eye would sweeten the deal. Zackary’s swagger would be greatly reduced if he had to walk around the hollow sporting bruises from a half-breed half his size. Humiliation was a much greater prize than pain.
But before Tabor had a chance to aim for Zackary’s eye, he was yanked backward. He swung his fist around, thinking it had to be one of Zackary’s friends jumping in.
Good thing Sasha released him and ducked in time or she might have been the one brandishing a black eye.
Once Tabor’s fist passed over her head, she popped up and grabbed his arm.
“Stop it!” she cried.
Behind her, Zackary snatched the blade off the ground and got to his feet, murder on his face. He gave two of his cronies a pointed look and the three of them stalked toward Tabor.
“What is going on here?” a male voice grumbled, stopping Zackary and his friends in their tracks.
Zackary pocketed the knife.
Tabor went still too. Garrick had that effect on everyone in Wolf Hollow with only a few exceptions, one of them being Sasha.
“I have it under control,” she snapped at the broad-shouldered, bare-chested man who barreled over.
Garrick glowered at the group with a tight jaw and cold eyes. He was short yet massive—like a boulder that would easily crush anyone in his path. He was one of the few elders who had not only survived the vulhena attack three years ago, but had come out of it without a single wound and more ferocious than ever.
“The boys had a small skirmish. It’s over now,” Sasha said.
“A skirmish? In Wolf Hollow?” Garrick bellowed. The veins inside his thick neck bulged. “We save the fighting for the vulhena. Do you understand me, Zackary?” Garrick glared in Zackary’s direction.
Zackary lowered his head and nodded.
Garrick glanced over his shoulder. “And you, Tabor, do you understand me?”
Tabor’s dignity prevented him from bowing his head.
“I understand perfectly,” he ground out between his teeth.
A vein throbbed in Garrick’s neck.
“Now tell me what happened here.”
“Tabor used witchcraft on me,” Zackary said, pointing a beefy finger at him.
Garrick’s head jerked up. “Magic is not allowed on fellow shifters. Magic,” he said, pausing for emphasis, “is not allowed for any reason. This is a wolf pack, not a coven.” He took a menacing step toward Tabor. “If you used your sorcery on Zackary, I will be forced to banish you from Wolf Hollow.”
Tabor felt as though an inferno had blasted up his throat and scorched his tonsils, turning his tongue to ash. His first instinct as a shifter should have been to take wolf form and deal with the threat using fangs and claws. Instead, his natural-born powers were called up from some dark, hidden place.
His mother had insisted he accept the gift he’d been born with and work on harnessing his abilities in private. No one else could know how powerful he was or they might send him away.
A valid point, but energy had already begun building in his chest and flared down his arms, making his hair stand up. He felt magic crackling like static electricity in his fingertips. There were half a dozen spells on the tip of his tongue, all screaming for a target, and Tabor had one: The man threatening to banish him from his home.
Sasha went very still beside him.
Tabor pointed a finger.
Sasha grabbed it, crushing his hand in her firm grip, but not before a surge of energy shot through Tabor’s fingers and shocked hers. Her body twitched. She released his hand as though having touched fire.
Tabor held his breath, aware this was it, Sasha would out him and he’d be banished from Wolf Hollow forever.
The issue of where he’d find a new home suddenly felt like a very real problem.
Sasha gathered herself and glared at Garrick. “From what I saw, Tabor threw Zackary off him. No sorcery was involved.”
Tabor stared at her slack-jawed.
Why the hell was she defending him again?
She strode closer to Garrick, stopping a few feet in front of him.
“And let me remind you, Garrick, that you don’t single-handedly decide the fate of pack members.”
Garrick’s lip curled back, showing gnashed teeth.
“Perhaps not,” he said, “but the council has always trusted my judgments. You, however, have yet to prove your usefulness.” He stared at her flat belly.
Red-hot fury surged through Tabor anew. With the exception of his mother, he’d never known anger on another’s behalf, but here it was, out of the blue, a manic desire to send Garrick flying backward into the nearest tree trunk for insulting Sasha. Worse, Garrick had done it in front of an audience, one that included his least favorite shifter . . . make that, second least favorite. Garrick had now taken the number one position from Zackary.
Even with all the anger raging through him, there was still enough room to direct some of it back at himself for taunting Sasha earlier about breeding.
Perhaps he could make up for that now.
The only thing that saved Tabor from casting a spell and getting banished on the spot was his indecision as to which spell to use. While he searched his mind, Sasha folded her arms across her chest and glared at Garrick.
“I’m sure the rest of the pack feels differently regarding my value when I have tracked down two vulhena this very day. How many have you killed in the last month, or even year?”
Zackary and his buddies studied the trees intently rather than look at either Garrick or Sasha. They hadn’t been dismissed, but Tabor knew they were wise enough to keep quiet and wait until it was safe to move away. Tabor glared at Garrick, prepared to shift and rip into him if he attempted to shame Sasha one more time. But Garrick’s shoulders relaxed.
“Two dead vulhena are worth celebrating,” he acknowledged. “It is fortunate that Aden was with you.”
“What’s fortunate—” Sasha started to say before Garrick cut her off.
“Let us prepare for supper. We have wonderful news to share with the pack, news which will especially please you, Sasha.” Garrick’s teeth glinted when he grinned. Before she could respond, Garrick turned to Zackary and his friends. “Come along, you hound dogs, get in line. Aren’t you hungry?”
They nodded gratefully. Zackary’s friends scurried away with Garrick on their heels. Zackary lingered behind to glower at Tabor.
“Good-for-nothing half-breed,” he said, low enough for only Tabor’s and Sasha’s ears.
“Better a half-breed than a halfwit,” Tabor returned.
Zackary sneered. “I’d sleep with one eye open if I were you, half-breed.”
“Come near me, and I’ll slip you a shrinking potion,” Tabor said, grabbing his own crotch for emphasis.
Zackary reared back. His head jerked when he looked at Sasha, expectation written all across his face.
“He’s joking,” she said in a sleepy voice that sharply contrasted with the tone that followed next. “But if either of you attempts anything on the other, you won’t have to worry about shrinkage so much as removal.”
Zackary’s mouth fell open. He closed it and nodded. “I, too, was only joking around,” he said, lifting his chest.
“Good,” Sasha said, sounding bored again. “You can join your friends.”
Zackary scuttled off without a second glance, leaving Tabor alone with Sasha for the second time that day. Tabor wondered if she’d noticed the care with which he’d folded the dress she now wore. It was a thin wisp of material only half covering her limber body. The fabric molded itself to her breasts. As with earlier, Tabor’s groin tightened with desire. This time he had the benefit of clothing, but pants could only hide so much.
The moment Sasha had threatened the removal of body parts, Tabor’s desire for the she-wolf had magnified tenfold. Even though she’d included him in the threat, he couldn’t help feeling it had been directed specifically at Zackary.
The way she dominated the brute with her calm gaze and sharp tongue was hotter than hell. That was when he knew he wanted her—not just in the physical sense. He wanted her as his mate.