Chapter 8

Her heart pumping at twice its normal speed, Bella fled the fire. The searing heat singed her fur, the pads of her paws, and choked the breath from her. And then he appeared, the gray wolf, a large, fearless juvenile, intent on only one thing: grabbing her and carrying her across the swollen river.

She whimpered and Devlyn tightened his hold on her. “Bella, you’re safe.”

The nightmare…the damnable nightmare that she’d had for years.

She ran her hand over Devlyn’s arm, wrapped securely around her waist. Folded over her like a butterfly’s protective cocoon before hatching, he made her feel safe and secure—until he turned her over to Volan.

“Did you sleep well?” he murmured against her hair.

“Yes. And you?” she whispered back, not entirely ready to shrug off the relaxed state she was in despite the vivid nightmare.

“I had an ache when you squirmed against me.”

She smiled.

“You seemed restless and whimpered in your sleep. Are you still having nightmares about the wildfire?”

“Sometimes.” She kissed the palm of his hand.

His chest swelled against her back. “You have other nightmares?”

“Sometimes.” Those nightmares she didn’t want to discuss with Devlyn. She worried he’d rashly take action against Volan for what he’d tried to do to her as a youngster.

“Nightmares about what?” he prompted.

She shrugged a shoulder. “You know how nightmares are. You often can’t remember them when you wake.” She glanced at the window. The lightness of the sky indicated they had another couple of hours before they went to the club.

“Devlyn, you said Argos had taken you in. What happened to the rest of your family?”

He ran his hand over her hair in a sensual caress that sent another wave of desire sliding through her. “They died.”

“In a wildfire like mine?”

“No.”

She waited for an explanation, but he didn’t seem to wish to speak of it any more than she wanted to tell him about Volan. Yet curiosity caught hold. “Devlyn? What happened?”

“Men killed them. Set our house on fire. I’d gotten into trouble earlier in the day for playing in the creek without letting anyone know where I was. My father made me sleep in an outer building, where we stored leather goods, to punish me when we all lay down for our afternoon nap. My four younger cousins snuck out to stay with me. Their parents had died in a flash flood three years earlier.”

He paused.

“Devlyn?”

“I heard the screams, but flames already engulfed the house. I couldn’t save anyone, not even my brothers.” He took a deep breath. “We were triplets, did everything together, along with my cousins, except for the morning I’d played down by the creek.”

Bella listened quietly, envisioning the heat of the flames devouring everything in her path the day Devlyn found her. She blinked away the tears.

“My cousins and I didn’t leave the smoldering remains of the house for days, somehow thinking that if we stayed long enough, we’d wake and discover the horror had been an ugly nightmare. Then hunger forced us to change into our wolves and we ran.

“For weeks we survived on our own, living off the land, not daring to turn into our human forms in the wilderness. We never would have survived, yet the phase of the new moon was fast approaching. I knew inevitably we’d have to face new perils soon.”

Chill bumps covered her arms. She could imagine how he must have felt—not much older than she when she lost her family, all of them alone, having to protect his younger cousins in the wilderness, terrified, and worse, his heart aching for the only family he’d ever known. She’d never have survived that long had she been on her own at such a young age.

He took a ragged breath. “We kept moving west and then we ran into Argos and some of his pack hunting and he took us in.”

“I’m sorry, Devlyn.” Her heart ached for him. The painful loss of her family had never faded entirely from her memories. “I didn’t know. You must really hate humans for what they did to your family.”

“The human males, although in truth it was probably my uncle’s fault. He’d gotten into a drunken brawl in town and killed two men. At least I suspected it was because of his rash actions that men came out to the ranch and burned the house.”

Now she could understand why Devlyn grew angry when she said she wanted a human male for a mate. “You’ve been right about me all along, Devlyn. I could never find a human that interested me.”

He traced her breast with his fingers, triggering a lustful desire to have him make love to her. “I know,” he said softly. “That’s why you have photos of us all over your fridge. But more of me. And a bigger one beside your bed.”

He was never going to let her live that down. “You’re so arrogant. No female could ever put up with you.” She pulled the comforter over her shoulder. “I bet if you could get away with it, you would say the original lupus garou was a gray.”

“He was,” Devlyn said with conviction.

She looked over her shoulder at him. “You can’t be serious.” But his expression was completely resolute.

“Sure. The first was a gray. I can’t imagine you’d ever heard otherwise. Somewhere along the line, a smaller gray female turned a redheaded Scot and he started a pack far away from any of the gray clans. Their pups were smaller, some gray, some more red. The reds began to turn other redheads until they were able to find mates among the lupus garou.”

“Bull. Ancient Scots were big men, not small.”

“No, really.”

“You know, just because you’re bigger and stronger doesn’t mean you were first. My grandfather said the first lupus garou was a red—that he was a berserker, a Norseman, who prayed to Odin, the Scandinavian god of war and death but also of poetry and wisdom. Odin could change into any form he liked, but a bear and a wolf were his best known forms. He was thought of as the ultimate alpha wolf when he turned into that beast. The berserker human was a redhead, and after losing his wife and children to a raiding party of Norsemen, he beseeched Odin to give him the power to right the wrong done to his family and his people.

“Odin took pity on the Norseman and gifted him with near immortality by extending his longevity, and the ability to change into a wolf—a red wolf—whenever the moon made its appearance.”

Devlyn kissed Bella’s ear. “All right, same story, except the Norseman had dark-brown hair and amber eyes, and he was a hulking brute of a man. Big, not small like a red.”

Bella grunted. “He was a red.”

Devlyn didn’t say anything for several seconds, and she thought he’d fallen asleep. But then his hand slipped under the covers and caressed her shoulder. “Is that why Vernetta knocked out your baby teeth? Because you tried to convince her that the first lupus garou was a red?”

Bella growled, the memory still making her angry even after all these years.

“Was it? When Argos brought us male juveniles home from a hunt, you were pacing in Argos’s cabin, your mouth bloodied, gaps where you should have had teeth, your eyes feral. Vernetta said you fought with her about the legend of the origin of the lupus garou kind, but she wouldn’t say what you said, and you’d never speak of it to any of us, not even Argos.”

“Well, she was wrong.”

“She sure as hell was. If Argos hadn’t stopped me, I would have knocked her teeth out in retaliation, except hers were all permanent. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Argos so angry as when he found out what happened to you either.”

“You should have seen how angry I was!”

Devlyn leaned over and licked Bella’s shoulder. “I did. You couldn’t eat anything solid for a couple of weeks. And until you could, Argos wouldn’t allow Vernetta to eat anything solid either.”

Bella smiled. “She was pissed.” Then her smile faded. “The first lupus garou was a red.”

Devlyn chuckled. “Whatever you say, Bella honey. Whatever you say.”

Figuring she’d never change Devlyn’s stubborn mind, she pulled back the covers. “I should check the computer to see if Ross responded.”

“All right. I’ll fix us something to eat.”

“Hmm, a man who cooks. What else could a girl want?”

His hand drifted to her belly.

“A lot of loving…I know. But we’ve got to get going. Do you have a change of clothes?”

He burrowed his face in her hair as his fingers dropped lower. “Brought my bag in this morning.”

His actions heated her, but she fought fulfilling the yearnings. “Have anything black?”

“As dark as the midnight sky when the moon is new.”

“Okay.” Turning, she kissed his lips.

He didn’t kiss her back, only gave her a half smile. She assumed he didn’t want to get too worked up if he couldn’t relieve his ache for her. She was a little disappointed, loving the way he showed her the intense side of his feelings for her. But he was right…keep it cool.

After slipping out of bed, she yanked her panties on and fastened her bra. Then she had another notion. What if they lived in hiding, like she’d done for so many years? What if she could convince Devlyn to give up the pack and remain with her here, or wherever he wanted to go, but some place far away from the threat of Volan?

The idea seemed reasonable to her, but she figured Devlyn wouldn’t go along with it. Not with being a male lupus garou. Hiding wasn’t in his nature. Plus, he’d already told her how important his family was to him. But they could start their own family and find their own territory to establish.

He climbed out of bed and headed for the hall, turning to smile at her as she folded her arms and looked him over. “Chrissie would die if she knew you cooked in the raw.”

“He’d do something else, but his selected mate’s not agreeable enough yet.”

Joining him, she raked her fingernails down his chest in a teasing caress. “Keep it up and maybe you’ll change my mind.”

“I intend to keep it up and change your mind.” He snapped the elastic of her bra strap and then strode down the hall.

One hot lupus garou, but he couldn’t be hers unless he met her demands.

Once he reached the kitchen, she entered her office, turned on the computer, scanned the messages, and found Ross’s note.

Meet me at Millie’s Ice Cream and Sandwich Shop at six tomorrow evening on First Street. Ross

See you there. Rosa

She tapped her fingers on the desk and then headed for the kitchen. “Ross wants to meet me at a sandwich shop tomorrow evening at six.”

Devlyn pulled out a package of German sausage links. “How about these?”

“Looks good.” She glanced down his naked torso and then up.

He shook his head. “You are one bad little red wolf.”

“Yeah, I know. And I really do apologize for being so wicked. Forgive me?”

He chuckled under his breath. “Nooo, but I don’t think you’re going to give me what I want to make up for it either.”

She cleared her throat, switching to a much tamer subject. “So what do you think about Ross?”

“He’s afraid of the competition. He’d rather go for you without the others around, which makes me suspect that he could be the killer.”

She ran her hand over Devlyn’s well-muscled buttocks. Instantly, the muscles tightened, and he growled.

Ignoring his protest, she kissed his shoulder. “But you think he’ll be at the club still?”

“I’d bet on it, Bella.” The sausages sizzled in the pan, and he poked them with a fork. The spicy aroma wafted through the air. Her stomach rumbled. “He’ll want to see what kind of move the other guys make and how you react. Not to mention, he’s probably dying to see what you look like in human form.” Glancing back at her, he raised a brow. He continued to stir the sausages. “How do you think you’re going to prove who it is?”

“I’ll ask them what they think of what happened.”

“Has the latest killing even been on the news yet?”

“Oh heck, I don’t know.” She hurried into the living room and turned on the television.

After flipping to the local nightly news, she held her breath as the newscaster pointed to a map of Portland where four locations were circled in red. “In the most bizarre case in the history of Portland, Oregon, the killings of four young women—all midtwenties, all natural redheads, every one of them no taller than five foot five, one every day for four days, ending three days ago—have baffled police. Preliminary reports in the ongoing investigation show a wolf did the killings.

“In other news—”

Bella shut off the TV and collapsed on the sofa.

“Are you all right?” Devlyn called from the kitchen.

“Four women have been murdered, Devlyn.”

“I heard.” He joined her in the living room and pulled her to her feet, his eyes dark, intense, worried, his hands rubbing her arms in a gentle sweep. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes.” The word was nearly a whisper.

“I don’t want you to do this if you’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid. I just don’t want to see anyone else get hurt.” Her gaze met his. “If he doesn’t kill tonight, it’ll mean he’s one of the ones who contacted me, don’t you think? He’ll wait to see if I agree to be his mate?”

“Maybe. Unless it bothers him that you’re being choosey. He might still try for a human female then.”

“Oh,” Bella said, rubbing her temple. “He can’t kill as a wolf tonight. Not until the quarter moon appears.”

Devlyn took a deep breath and led her into the dining room. “Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking. He won’t be able to for another four days.”

“We have to find him before that can happen.”

“He can still kill them as a human.”

“But he probably seduces them first in his human form and then tries to convince them to experiment with something really wild, don’t you think? Then he turns into the wolf and they go ballistic. But for now, he may have relations with them until the change is possible.”

“You might be right, but I really don’t want you mixed up with this maniac.”

Bella didn’t want to be, either, but she was sure that she already was.

* * *

After eating, Devlyn and Bella returned to the bedroom to dress so she could face the crowd of female-hungry reds. She frowned at the meager selection in her closet—meager mostly because she worked out of her home or took a run on the wild side on the weekends in the woods sans clothes. “We should arrive early, don’t you think, Devlyn?” Bella pulled a slinky emerald-green dress over her head. “I was going to wear black, but I’m not in the mood. What do you think?”

When he didn’t answer, she glanced in his direction.

“You look good in that, Bella. Too good.” His expression was brooding but mixed with a wolf’s lust.

“Do you want me to wear something else?”

“Do you have anything ankle length with a high neck and long sleeves? Preferably black…and baggy?”

“No. How can I catch the killer if I hide?”

“I don’t want you exposed to him in the first place.” He buttoned his black shirt with jerky movements.

She figured he didn’t want to expose her to the other reds either. “Devlyn, none of them is coming home with me tonight…only you.”

She applied green shadow to her eyelids and blush to her cheeks and then grabbed fistfuls of red curls and held them against her head. “Up or down?”

He groaned. “Wear a black wig. Or a big floppy hat.”

She released her hair. “Okay, down…less work.”

“I really don’t know how you talked me into this.”

“You love me.”

“If I had any sense, I wouldn’t allow this,” he grumbled, his brows knit in a hard frown.

She crossed the floor and grazed his mouth with hers. “You’re an angel. My guardian angel. And you’ll watch out for me. But, about my question, should we arrive early?”

For an instant, his smoldering gaze held her hostage, then glancing outside, he shook his head. “We’re already too late for that. Ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be, under the circumstances.” She squashed the urge to shudder and pulled a shawl over her shoulders.

* * *

When they arrived in the vicinity of the club, they parked a quarter of a mile away from the redbrick building in an attempt to avoid others seeing their vehicle or that they were together. She walked to the club ahead of him, the music already beating a gypsy rhythm to stir the dead. Cars filled the parking lot to capacity; others spilled into the road, silent against the curb.

She entered the club first, while Devlyn lagged a short distance behind.

A kaleidoscope of colored lights flashed overhead as the music pounded in her ears. She imagined she wouldn’t be able to hear anything for hours afterward. The scent of perfume, cologne, and sweaty bodies wafted in the air, but it was a minute before she picked up the smell of a lupus garou nearby. Too nearby.

“Rosa,” a deep voice said.

A chill prickled the nape of her neck and she turned. “Alfred.”

“You’re fashionably late.” His chestnut eyes studied her too intensely, looking from her hair all the way to her strappy heels. He’d added some kind of greasy stuff to his hair, making it appear darker, less red. He seemed taller than he had at the zoo. She glanced down at his shoes. Elevated.

Alfred offered to take her shawl.

Once she removed it, his face brightened. “Certainly worth waiting for.” Then a dark shadow crossed his face. “I saw Nicol here, though. He said he was meeting you also. I told him to try back some other time.”

He seated her at a small round table for two near the highly polished dance floor.

“A gray lupus garou pack raised me, Alfred. I haven’t been with my own kind since I was small. I don’t want to select a mate from the first red wolf I meet.”

He waved for a bartender and then turned back to her. “I see. The red alpha pack leader isn’t good enough for you?”

So Alfred was the pack leader of the local red lupus garou. But she noticed at once that his smell wasn’t the same as the smell of the one who’d been in the apartment where she and Devlyn had discovered the murdered girl. That was good. He’d want to find the rogue as much as they did, then.

“Actually,” she said, “that’s some of the problem. A pack leader is already after me—of the grays.”

Alfred’s eyes widened. “He’s not from around here. Can’t be. We have no grays in the area.”

“No, from Colorado, where I lived originally.”

He relaxed. “It’s not his territory. Not to worry. A gray from another area won’t have any success here with our females.”

She wished his reds could do away with Volan. Then she’d offer herself to Devlyn as his mate. Although she assumed he wouldn’t like it if the only way he could have her was if reds from another pack killed Volan. Of course, if Alfred and his pack eliminated Volan, Alfred would be sure to think that he could claim her.

Wishing life were less complicated, she took a slow breath. “As pack leader, why haven’t you already found a mate?”

“They’re either much too young or much too old. You can’t imagine what a stir you’ve created with your sudden appearance. We had no idea that a lone female was in the area. You must keep an awfully low profile. And we never fathomed you’d escape from the zoo. We had planned to storm the place to rescue you later that night.” He turned to a bartender. “A beer and…”

“A Bloody Mary,” Bella said.

He smiled and then grew serious. “So, who stole you away from the hospital? A gray?”

“Yes. He had orders to return me to the pack leader in Colorado. But something else came up.”

Alfred fisted his hands on the table and snarled, “No pack leader from another territory has any say here.”

Despite his outburst, Bella kept her words cool. “He’s a gray. So far, Volan’s been unbeatable.”

The bartender returned with their drinks and Alfred paid for them. Bella sipped hers while Alfred raked his eyes over her in too leering a manner. “He won’t be welcome. If he arrives here, I’ll have a committee give him a grand send off.”

Pack leaders—well-thought-of pack leaders—took the lead. He should be the one making plans to take Volan down. Already her estimation of him had sunk to the depths of the Marianna Trench.

She made no comment concerning his threats about Volan, which seemed to make him uneasy. Did he assume he hadn’t said the right thing to win the red’s heart? He had that right. He’d have to look, act, and feel like Devlyn to get close to her.

Alfred cleared his throat. “I thought maybe tomorrow night we could—”

“I have other plans.”

He tapped his fingers on the table, his eyes narrowed, and his lips formed a thin line. “I don’t want a long courtship. I need a mate.” He spoke abruptly, like a pack leader used to getting his way.

But with her, he had to tread lightly. She wasn’t one of his pack, and she had no intention of ever being one. “And I told you I’m not going to choose a mate when I haven’t seen some more eligible bachelors. Mating for life means something to me.”

His eyes darkened and he frowned.

Despite his look of aggression, she wouldn’t back down. She glanced around the club, hoping to catch sight of Devlyn. Leaning against a pillar near a set of tables, he observed her from the east side of the building. Her whole body thrilled to know he served as her protector, but it was the way his gaze locked with hers, mesmerizing her, claiming her, that stirred her to the core.

She gave him a knowing smile and then turned to Alfred. “So, where’s Nicol?”

He pointed in Devlyn’s direction. “The curly redhead who’s nursing a drink at the table over there, fuming and watching every move we make.”

“Ah.” She caught Devlyn’s eye and then motioned to the red-haired man with her head.

Devlyn nodded and moved in to sit beside Nicol at the table.

She searched for Argos but, regretfully, saw no sign of him.

“Looking for someone?” Alfred asked, touching her hand as she held on to her glass.

She pulled away from his icy touch, concerned Devlyn might overreact to Alfred’s attentions toward her. “An old friend. He wished to speak to me about some problem, but I don’t see him.”

“How old a friend?”

“Ancient. He’s about seventy and retired as our pack leader before I became a teen.”

“If you’re referring to this gray wolf pack from Colorado, he’s not one of your kind. We are.”

She leaned back in her chair, not liking the comments he made about her pack. It didn’t matter how different they were. They took her in and cared for her when she would have died without their help. Alfred hadn’t even asked how her family perished and she ended up with a gray pack. He seemed more interested in getting her to agree to be his mate than anything else, but didn’t he know that meant trying to convince her she was someone special?

He reached his hand out to her. “Let’s dance.”

Her heartbeat quickened. She’d have to dance to keep up the charade, but she didn’t want to, not with him. She glanced back at Devlyn.

“Nicol won’t ask you. I am.” Alfred still held his hand out to her, and she took a deep breath, weighing her options.

* * *

Devlyn watched every move the slick red lupus garou made toward Bella. Twice, he’d had the urge to break up the party, claim her for his own, and take her away from the club—damn the reason they were here in the first place.

When Alfred reached his hand out to Bella, Devlyn knew he was asking her to dance. The thought sent a shard of ice straight into his heart. He wanted no one else near her feeling the heat of her curvy body and smelling her sweet scent.

Nicol spoke, distracting him. “She sure is hot.” He looked over at Devlyn. “Got yourself a mate?”

“Yeah,” Devlyn said, and it was no lie. Bella was his mate, if he could only convince her she wanted only him. But dealing with Volan was another matter.

“You didn’t bring her?”

“She’s preoccupied with work right now.”

“Ah. So what do you do?”

Devlyn considered the man’s calculating brown eyes and his unruly mop of red hair. “Leather goods. You?”

“Professional hunter. Take folks into the wilds—the rougher the terrain, the meaner the prey, the more they love it.” Nicol’s eyes darkened with a hint of malice.

Devlyn returned his attention to Bella. “You’re not here much of the time, I take it.”

“I’m here and then I’m gone. I still need a mate, if that’s what you’re getting at.” He pointed his beer at Bella and Alfred. “Now that’s what I was supposed to be doing.”

“He’s your pack leader?”

“Yeah. But from the looks of it, she’s taking it really slow.”

“What’s your leader like around women? Is he aggressive?”

“Don’t really know. He’s never had a lupus garou the right age to pursue.” Nicol gave a smug smile. “But she sure is keeping him at arm’s length. His face is even reddening a bit.”

Devlyn knew his must have been too, as hot as he was getting. He downed his drink and then ordered a bottled water to chill his blood.

When Alfred tried to move his hand lower down Bella’s back, Devlyn rose from his chair, ready to force one red male to cool it with his intended mate.