4: Jack - In The Pack (10 page)

I chuckled. “Well, I would have had to be dumb fucking blind not to see that.” After all, I’d been fucking from the moment I walked into Lobos. Except for those blank days. And I’d just come off some of those. Woke up rested, hungry--for more than food.

“I’ve run the database and found a list of matches.”

“Something about the list bothers you?”

Did I mention that he’d already told me that he wanted me to mate up, and get a female pregnant? He’d mentioned that more than once. The bitches had told me that was the plan. And Giselle had been damn near wistfully sad over the fact that she wasn’t lined up for that job.

Hood skewered me with his gaze then, and said quietly, “I want you to take my sister.” He didn’t blink. He didn’t move. He just waited for my reaction.

I wanted to laugh it off with, “You really want me to be part of the family?”

But I sensed that an attempt at levity, or anything flip, could make him strike me down--he was that edgy.

I weighed my options. Okay. I could turn him down. He would either kill me on the spot, or offer me another bitch. Either way, I wouldn’t be on the top of his pal list.

I could take his sister, see how it went. But I knew if it didn’t go well, I’d be the one put down. There wouldn’t be any walking away.

That would buy me time, if nothing else. I said, “Why don’t you tell me about her?”

Chapter Five

“As you know,” Hood said, “we want to see what happens when you breed with a lupus-born female.”

I didn’t say, that seems unnatural to me. I knew it set unnaturally with him, too. We were of one accord on that. But Hood’s work, all he wanted to prove and disprove, hinged on that one experiment. The fact that he put his sister on the line absolutely astounded me.

Here’s a kicker. He said she was lupus-born. She believed she was. But now...I question all genetics. Call me a cynic. Nothing at Lobos is as it first seems. I mean, think about it...why would the pure-born want to breed with the freaks of their existence? Something isn’t quite right about that. Call me wary.

Telling me to fuck his sister, that was definitely screwed up. Especially when I heard on one hand that he was a fucking supremacist, and knew on the other hand that he was biting humans and creating unnaturals himself. It didn’t jive.

“Why your sister instead of one of the others?”

That was the crux of the discomfort between us, I knew.

He picked his words carefully, chopping up his answer between working his jaw. “Well, first of all, she’s about to come into her first change.”

That surprised me. “She’s young?” It never occurred to me that she was a teenager, but I had to wonder...how old?

His eyes flashed. He said, “You’re not old.”

Early twenties. Almost over my Olympian prime. Kind’ve funny that I was almost a has-been and I wasn’t much over twenty. Stupid.

Hood was a good-looking man. Not that I was looking, but I suddenly had an interest in
his
genetics. Maybe I should have before, after I found out what his bite had done. And before you go and get all weird on me and say that this smacks of incest all of a sudden, let me explain what I learned about the DNA dump that bite caused.

There is a basic lupine DNA that all wolves have. A bite drops that plus a hormone enhancing combination of other secretions. Male stuff, since I was bit by a male. Thank God I wasn’t bit by a female. I might have found myself exhibiting more feminine traits. That would have been a much harder adjustment.

So, there was nothing in his bite or the change in my system that would connect genetically like a brother to sister breeding. That part of the DNA was not transferred.

Yeah, I was catching up on Genetics 101. You should, too.

 
I’ve wondered, since then, if he selected several specimens, put them through the paces, and I graduated top of the class...which seems more likely than me being the only one. Maybe the others had been assigned to other females. I’m not privy to that info.

He explained, “I think you’ll like her.” Quickly, he added, “She’s nothing like the women here.”

“What makes her different?”

He had a hard time putting her into words. That, more than what he said, conveyed how hard it was for him to offer her to me.

“What’s her name?”

“She lives in a place called Pack City.”

I’d heard about the place already. Wolf preserve. Acres and acres, miles of natural habitat, protected by the government. I let him tell me about it.

“I go there sometimes to think, and clear my head.” He got more comfortable, offered me a drink, took one for himself. The fact that he prolonged telling me her name said volumes about his reticence--like he was still thinking of retracting the offer, if I gave the wrong answers during that last interview.

I tried not to let it bother me. I work well under pressure. “Nice scenery, eh?”

This knowledge, how special his sister was to him, dawned on me, and I knew he handed me power--although I couldn’t quite grasp what that meant at the time.

He smiled. “No smog.”

Now, I knew there were plenty of places where there was no smog. I also knew that there was a ‘no holds barred’ thing going on at Pack City, too. Just like Lobos.

Taking a sip of his drink, he said, “Miles to run. You’d like it there.”

“Probably would.”

“Look. When she goes crinos for the first time, she’s gonna go nuts. I don’t want any shit for brains taking advantage of her.”

“No brother would.”

“You don’t understand. She’s not...not just any bitch.”

“Of course not, she’s your sister.” I tried to understand what he was trying to convey to me.

He shook his head. “No. She really is the top.”

I tried to work through what I knew about pack behavior. I asked, “So, if she’s the top female in her pack...or capable of getting there once she gets older--if she lives that long--” Hood stretched his neck at the honesty I was laying out, but he didn’t interrupt me. “Then why isn’t the alpha male at Pack City sniffing her up?”

God knew I’d sniffed everything I could get near. I knew an alpha male running a pack would. Yeah, I was already thinking toward that whole deal. Breaking up the packs I’d heard of--in my mind. There were plenty of cities like this Pack City, dotted all over the global map. Which brings me back to Giselle...and her sudden disappearance. Nobody talked about it, but I knew Hood was as tense as ever.

But this discussion about Pack City, that came easy to him. He smiled a little when he said, “Leer and I go way back.”

“Leer?”

He nodded, downed better than half of his drink, swished some around his mouth before letting it ride down his throat. “Yeah. He just took a mate not too long ago. She’s a breeder. Anybody explained that to you?”

“Kin? Related genetically, but not a manifesting werewolf until...after late puberty. Right?”

“Something like that.”

“I heard
that
was something to catch.”

We shared wolfish grins and nodded into our cups, both thinking about chasing that kind of tail. You know, the almost impossible.

He said, “It’s hard to come by. The bitches usually track them down before we get a whiff. Very few ever reach puberty. We’re looking at chipping them at birth, and maybe putting them in safe places.”

That didn’t surprise me. Was there anything they weren’t thinking of doing? I pretended that his comment hadn’t sunk in. I could mull it over later. I said, “I don’t quite get the difference between them and the ones that are born human in the pack.”

“Most kin don’t shift. They just put out damn fine offspring.”

“Some do? Morph, that is?”

He shrugged. “Very few. Kayty does. Genetic throwback.”

“Kayty?”

“Leer’s wife.”

“Oh.”

“You’d like her. Took to the pack without a look back. You may find some common ground there.”

I chuckled. “You trying to get me killed--before I ever meet your sister?” I knew damn well that sniffing up an alpha’s mate would bring on a fight. I wasn’t quite ready for something like that. I liked to pick my battles, remember? And now that the shake was out of my system and the collar off my neck, I was thinking a little straighter.

“She and Kayty are friends.”

“Your sister smoothed her way?”

“Not on purpose, I don’t think, but yeah. Kayty realizes it. But--my sister doesn’t.”

I noticed again that he wasn’t telling me her name. I wondered why that was? Protecting her from me, in case I got loose, if I didn’t answer his questions right? Probably.

“They sort of back each other up.” That apparently rubbed Hood wrong, or something. He said, “I want you to break them up.”

I ignored that. At the time, anyway. “So, what does she look like?”

“Who? Kayty?”

I meant his sister, but I let him describe Kayty. He was dancing all around his sister. The more he two-stepped, the more I realized the import of what I was going to do for him.

It didn’t matter to me that he admired Kayty’s looks, and waxed on about her better features. He did say that she’d written out the story of how she managed to survive her change, and her introduction to pack life--called it Pack Takeover. From what I got out of it, it was a tribute to Leer. I didn’t think I had any reason to read up on what an apparent sex god he was. Legendary, from what Hood said.

Did I mention that I’d had plenty of time and opportunity to read through the interactive screens and database there at Lobos? Committed as much as possible to memory. That transcript had been in there, but I’d skirted it when I read the short synopsis. But Hood seemed to think it would give me insights that might help me understand...things. So, I’m going to read that first chance I get.

I sort of itched to leave him, to go surf through the pedigree charts, and birth records of Pack City, find out just how old his sister was. I wasn’t into pedophilia.

I’d already figured out how to access those type of records. I was curious about his sister’s name, and where she was born, too. You could say, looking back on it, that a higher hand had me interested already. Without even knowing her name, I was drawn to her.

But a part of me didn’t want to commit. Ya know?

That would not be the part of me that was really ruling the roost, so to speak. My cock was ready for something new. And I had a feeling that turning Hood down could just be...inviting a thrashing attack, if you know what I mean.

I didn’t want to waste any more time. “Tell me how to find her.”