Damn Vaughn. Hands clenched on the steering wheel, Luke took a deep breath, willing his grumbling wolf to settle down, because his agitation was only adding to Isabelle’s. Her pulse hammered against the column of her throat and the scent of her wolf filled the truck’s cab. If she shifted now without consciously initiating the change, there’d never be any trust between her and the wolf.
Without signaling, he pulled the truck off the road.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“We need a breath of fresh air.”
They weren’t far from his cabin or the pack house. If they walked through the dense copse of trees, they’d be able to enjoy the cold breeze rippling over the lake, carrying the scent of cedar and pine, and of snow-covered earth.
Opening his door, he chanced a glance at Isabelle. The glare she sent his way made his wolf hunker down and cover his snout with a paw. The beast’s raised brow said, You’re on your own.
Coward, Luke told him, earning a huff of indignation.
He walked around the front of the truck to Isabelle’s door. She flung it open, almost catching him in the stomach, and slid out. Anger rode her sharp cheekbones in a red flush. Like her wolf had last night, she paced in a tight arc, her boots grinding against the dirt and gravel on the side of the road.
Seconds ticked by as she prowled, her scent colored with temper and fear. Then, as if she’d closed a door on her panic—and her wolf—Isabelle straightened, in control once more. Speaking quietly, as if to herself, she said, “I have no idea how to handle you.”
That made two of them.
A shining black Ford Expedition hummed down the road and slowed as it neared their truck. Luke waved at Stefan and gestured for the older wolf to continue on. Stefan shrugged, then tossed off a salute.
“This road leads to the pack house. There’s always a stream of people coming and going,” Luke said. He took her hand and pulled her toward the trees. “Come on. There’s a better place through here where we can talk without an audience.”
Isabelle sighed. “Fine.”
Evergreen boughs brushed their heads as he tugged her along the snow-and-pine-needle-covered path. Luke had to duck to avoid the jutting limbs of Douglas fir and western hemlock, but their dense coverage meant the snow was little more than a dusting along the trail.
While they walked, he was as attuned to Isabelle as his own body. Every single hitch in her breath, each footfall resonated within him like the echo of his own heartbeat.
And she was afraid.
About thirty feet in, the thick copse gave way to a stand of spindly lodgepole pines and the meandering shore of Black Robe Lake. The overcast sky lay like a cozy gray blanket above them, turning the clear water slate-green.
Isabelle pulled her hand from his, her eyes darting to a group of crows swooping in and out of the trees on the opposite shore. She scanned the scene Luke found so peaceful with an intensity and vigilance that raised the hair on his neck.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sniffing for danger. His wolf’s ears pricked, listening.
“Luke, I don’t know what the hell is going on.” She scrutinized him. “I think you’re probably a good guy.”
“Gee, thanks.”
She ignored his comment. “So, I’m trying to use my head and not act out of fear and bigotry. I get that my upbringing was totally messed up and I have a skewed perspective on things. But every bit of logic in me says I should grab my family and run.”
Run? The hell she would. His beast growled in agreement.
“No one would have hurt you, Isabelle. I wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“Right. Since I arrived, Freddie’s helicopter has been sabotaged, and at least three people have been murdered. You told me there’re others missing. You keep stepping between me and your pack and acting like I’m in danger. I’m not supposed to find that threatening? What about Hank and Abby?”
Shit, she was right. With his own actions and reactions, he’d added to her trauma.
She stopped in front of him, her boots nearly touching his. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” Admitting that cut as deep as claws. But she misunderstood.
“Come on. You’re going to have to cut me some slack and ignore it when I get freaked. I can’t help my physiological responses. But just because I’m afraid doesn’t mean I’m some useless coward.”
Of all the things he’d expected her to say, that wasn’t one of them. “Isabelle, it’s my job to protect you.”
“Why? Because you’re the Alpha?”
Because you’re mine, he almost blurted. “It’s not that simple.”
“Well, simplify it for me. Is it because I’m a woman?”
A bark of laughter escaped him. “Have you met Rissa? Or her mother? Or my mother, for that matter? Any one of them, and a dozen more females in the pack, would rip my balls off and serve them up as Rocky Mountain oysters if I ever suggested they needed special protection because of their gender. Sugar, I may be dumb, but even I am not that brand of stupid.”
“Oysters? What—ew. Is that really a thing? No. No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” A shudder sent her ponytail bouncing. “All right. Then what’s with the caveman act?”
He scrubbed a hand over his aching head. Isabelle wasn’t ready to hear about being his mate yet, but she still deserved the truth. At least as much as he could give her. “I’m a dominant lycanthrope. Part of it is it’s simply my nature to be protective. You must understand that. You’re the same way. From the moment you got here, you’ve been guarding someone: Freddie, your passengers, Rissa. Some people—human or shifter—just need to take care of others. Like Abby and Hank.”
Her eyes went wide again at that, and an almost-smile brightened her face.
“I’m afraid you bring out the Cro-Magnon in me, sugar. It’s not because I think you’re weak. Hell, you’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. But, well...you just inspire the instinct. Can’t it be as simple as that? I want to take care of you.”
“I don’t really let people do that.”
“I’ve noticed.”
She gave him a dry look. “What’s your problem with the sheriff?” she asked, throwing another curveball at him.
Luke sighed. “Vaughn is...” Different. Secretive. Maybe a bad guy. “Complicated,” he said, finally. “His mother is an eagle shifter.”
“Huh? I thought he was a werewolf.”
“He is,” he said. “It’s not uncommon for lycanthropes to have human mates. But it’s rare for shifters from different animal breeds to get together.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “A lot of people believe the child of two different shifters will turn out...wrong. Evil, maybe. It’s superstitious bullshit, but it leaves a mark, you know? Vaughn’s always been a bit of an outsider because of it.”
“Sounds like I’m not the only bigot around here.”
Luke winced. “It doesn’t help that Vaughn hasn’t always lived here with the pack. When his dad died, his mother, Rose, took him back to her own people in Arizona. He spent his summers here, but he didn’t make a lot of friends. Honestly...he just rubs my fur the wrong way.”
“And...?”
Observant little wolf. “And, he might have arranged for Dean to not be at the morgue last night.”
“Christ,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “What was Vaughn talking about? What happened to his uncle?”
A blade of regret stabbed him in the heart, reopening barely scabbed-over wounds. He took a few lurching steps toward the water, his boots crunching over the icy ground.
“His uncle, Darren, was our sheriff and Beta. Until he was murdered.”
Isabelle sucked in a short breath. “When?”
“A little over a year ago. Fifteen months. Fifteen months and eight days ago.” It felt like yesterday. “He wasn’t the only one.”
Bile burned the back of Luke’s throat and he sucked in a hit of his mate’s scent. Her presence alone calmed the roiling storm in his heart.
“My dad, Greg, was our Alpha,” he continued. “We’re not sure why, but he and Darren went out to one of the more isolated areas of the territory. It wasn’t completely out of the ordinary for them to make a spontaneous patrol like that. But...” He shook his head. “We know that somewhere along the way, they met up with Dean’s sister, Maggie, and Rissa’s youngest sister, Tara.”
A perfect picture of the bright young females laughing, dancing, and raising hell flashed in his mind. Tara, with her red curls, looked so much like Daphne, it hurt sometimes to look at the other female now. And Maggie...his clever, sharp-tongued cousin—
“Luke?” Isabelle touched his arm and he squeezed her hand, keeping it in his suddenly ice-cold fingers.
“Maggie and Dean are my cousins, you know. Their mom and my dad—well, doesn’t matter.” He laughed, heard the slightly manic quality to it, tasted the bitterness. “Maggie was a pain in the ass. First class. I mean, a giant tagalong and scold. Never shut up. And oh my God, the mouth on her. She makes you sound like Pollyanna.”
Isabelle smiled at that.
“Yeah,” he said. “You two would have got along fine.”
He kissed her knuckles, rubbing them over his lips. His wolf pressed against his shields, seeking their mate’s touch, too.
“What happened?” she asked, stepping closer, lending him her gentle heat.
“The girls were out camping, something they did all the time. They must have come upon my dad and Darren on the trail. It had snowed a lot the week before, but the area was stable. Or at least, it should have been. We’re very careful about watching out for avalanche conditions.”
“Guess you’d have to be, out here,” she said.
He nodded as his stomach churned. “My mom knew something was wrong right away. She felt it through the mate bond and just knew.” The dull, resigned echo in his mother’s voice still haunted him at nights.
“I wasn’t here,” he said, laying out his sin. “I was out of town looking at some property. I’d dragged Dean along—” His throat tightened with self-hatred. “My dad and I—we—”
Isabelle wrapped her arms around his middle and laid her head on his chest. Luke sucked in a shocked breath. How could she stand to touch him? Didn’t she see how he’d failed?
He didn’t deserve her understanding. But he was a selfish bastard. Which, of course, had been the problem then, too. Guess he hadn’t changed much, because he dropped his face into her hair and breathed her in.
Drawing back, he looked into Isabelle’s eyes. They were swimming and full of sympathy. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “It was supposed to look like an avalanche. Just another accident in a dangerous place. But bullet wounds leave a mark. So do claws.”
“Shit,” she breathed.
“Their bodies—”
Darren’s big, tough body, crumpled and crushed beneath sheared-off trees. A pair of neat holes in his shirt over his heart. Tara’s red hair a dull flame against the snow. One side of her face a mask of torn, raw flesh. A scorched bullet hole in her stomach. Maggie’s bright green eyes, cloudy in death, staring at the pitiless blue sky, from a head turned awkwardly on a broken neck. And his father—
Christ, Jesus, his father. Luke had only managed to identify him by scent.
“They smashed my dad’s face in like a tin can. And—”
The words died in his mouth. How could he tell his mate, who’d just witnessed another man’s evisceration, about what had been done to his father?
“Motherfuckers,” Isabelle said, startling him. Her eyes glowed gold.
“Yeah.”
“Who was it?”
There. The linchpin of his shame. “I haven’t found them yet.”