First Bite (The Dark Wolf Series) (37 page)

A wailing sound bubbled up from somewhere deep within. By the time it emerged from her throat, it was a long, lingering howl of purest anguish…

And terrible retribution.

Travis curled himself around Neva, placing himself between her and the night. He’d found them a shallow cave-like space beneath an overhanging tree on the hillside. She was too tired to make another Change, and he decided he could keep her much warmer if he remained a great furry wolf. She needed to rest, and as far as he was concerned, she could sleep for days if she needed to. He was in awe of what she’d achieved. She believed the power of the black stone was responsible for what had happened, but thanks to his grandfather’s teachings, he knew better.
It could only amplify something that was already there.
Neva had been the one to call together the natural energies around her and use them to deliver an amazing act of compassion. Instead of taking control of the wolves for herself, she’d freed them completely, now and always. It was a masterstroke, a brilliant move against Meredith. The bitch would have to start all over from scratch if she wanted to keep her little empire together. Except that Neva probably hadn’t given a single thought to any of that. She hadn’t planned it. To her, releasing Meredith’s army was simply the right thing to do.

Travis was so proud of her, he could burst.

He watched over her until the sun rose and flooded the cave with light. Neva rolled over and rubbed her eyes, and he couldn’t help but nuzzle her.
Go back to sleep. You don’t have to get up yet.

“But I have to
pee
,” she protested, struggling to climb over him.

Travis wisely got out of the way, and took the opportunity to shift back to his human form. When Neva returned, the sun was behind her, shadowing her features and highlighting the long blonde hair she’d adopted in order to pass for her twin. He frowned. “You’re going to change that back to your natural color, right?”

“I dunno. Blondes are supposed to have more fun.” She laughed as she sat beside him, and tried to push back the furrows in his brow with her fingers. “But after the last couple days, I’ve had enough fun to last me a long time. Maybe I’ll dye my hair red. Or hey, what about purple? I saw someone in Portland with the most beautiful violet—”

He groaned.

“Was that you or your inner wolf?”

“Both, I think.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We get the hell out of here. Meredith may not have an army, but she’s dangerous all by herself, and now we’ve
really
pissed her off.” He paused, as if measuring whether or not to say anything more. Finally he did. “It was too easy, you know. Way too easy.”

“What? What the hell was
easy
about these last few days?”

“Think it through, Neva. If Meredith had come after us herself, we’d never have escaped.”

“So why didn’t she?”

“Overconfidence,” he said. “She underestimated you. She expected you to—”

“She expected me to just roll over and let her have her way. Let her win. Just like always.” Neva rested her forehead on Travis’s shoulder. “You’re right.”

“Here’s something else I’m right about—she won’t make that mistake twice.”

“Jeez, are you
trying
to cheer me up?”

“Come on. We’ll walk back until we cross another trail that’ll take us someplace civilized. I know we passed a fork not that far back.”

Neva pulled a cell phone from her pocket. “Nope, that one would take us north, toward Meredith.” She showed him a map of the Damnation Creek Trail she’d pulled up onscreen. “Ta-da!”

He squinted at the small image. “So if we pass the point where we stumbled onto it, it looks like it heads southeast.”

“And the trailhead is right on Highway 101,” said Neva, tracing the tiny line with her pinkie. “We could hitchhike south from there.” She snapped the phone shut, folded her arms across her chest, and looked him straight in the eye. “If we’re still together, that is.”

Travis’s heart plummeted to his shoes. “I know you have some questions, but this isn’t a good time.”

“There
is
no good time. We’ve been on the run ever since you found me. So I’m asking my questions right now, at least the important ones. You told me that the Changeling code forbids the killing of humans. You said it was the highest law in your world, and I believed you.”

“It
is
the highest law.”

“I wasn’t about to take Meredith’s word for anything, so I want to hear it from you. She said you killed people. Is that true?”

He’d dreaded this moment. How many times had he rehearsed different things he could say to her? Reasons. Excuses. Explanations.
Anything
so she wouldn’t look at him with disgust, loathing, or worst of all, fear. In the end, there was nothing but the truth—and she deserved nothing less. He felt like the bleeding remnants of his soul were laid bare as he managed to choke out a single word. “Yes.”

“But you didn’t kill Meredith. You caught her by surprise. All it would have taken was a single bite, and you didn’t kill her.”

“What? No—Christ, she’s your sister. You don’t want her dead, you told me so yourself.”

She nodded. “Exactly. So I figure you’re not necessarily a murderer by nature. Maybe you should try telling me what really happened to you.”

The story didn’t burst out of him, not like when he’d returned to the bower, determined to make a confession. Instead it came out quietly and slowly, sometimes haltingly. Through it all, Neva listened—and when he looked down, she was holding his hand.

“That’s why you’re alone, isn’t it?” she asked at last.

“I’m related to most of the pack. If I’d gone back, they would have had to decide what to do with me—kill me or banish me. I was young, and I told myself it would be better to save them the trouble of having to make that kind of decision. I think I was actually just too ashamed to face them. I’ve often thought since that I should have gone back, should have tried to explain what happened. But they’d still have to make that decision, even after all these years. It’s the law.” For some reason, he suddenly remembered the cardboard sign he’d seen a homeless man holding outside a Denny’s, back when Travis had first decided to get Neva out of the hospital. “You can’t go back and fix the past.”

“No. But you can make the present and the future a whole lot better.”

He blinked at the simple wisdom. “Yeah, I guess that’s right.”

“So what am I going to do about my sister?”

“Simple. Stay away from her.”

“But she’s still out there, and maybe she doesn’t have an army at the moment, but it won’t take her long to recruit more
volunteers
.” Neva made quotation marks with her fingers in the air around that last word. “She’s going to steal more people’s lives. I have to do something.”

“Stay
far
away.”

“But—”

“Look, Meredith is beyond anything that you and I can handle by ourselves. She’s got a personal brand of dark magic going on that makes serial killers look like jaywalkers.” He repressed a shiver as he remembered the scaly demons with the enormous orange eyes. “I don’t want you exposed to that—she wants you for something, and whatever it is, it’s not good.”

“But I can’t just ignore the fact that she’s a murderer. She’s hurting people, killing them. If she were an ordinary human being, we could just call the police. But she’s not—and she’s getting more powerful all the time.”

“That’s why you can’t be the one to deal with her. If your twin has
you
, it’ll further her plans somehow. I need to talk to someone who works with magic, see if I can get some help to beat her at her own game.”

“Where the hell are you going to find someone like that?”

He spoke so quietly that only her Changeling senses allowed her to hear him. “I have to go back to my old pack.”

“
What?
You just finished telling me that they’d have to kill you or banish you.”

“I have to take that chance. Besides, banishment is just going to be more of the same. It’s already what I’ve lived with most of my life.”

“Yeah, well, what if they decide to kill you instead?”

“Meredith is a danger to everyone—human, Changeling,
everyone
. She has to be stopped, and it’s in the pack’s best interest to help.”

“And the
killing you
part?”

“Well, maybe I’ll be lucky and they’ll hold off until we stop Meredith.”

“I don’t like this plan at all. If you go back to your pack, I’m coming with you.”

“Listen, you don’t—”

They both jumped when Neva’s cell rang. She picked it up gingerly to look at the call display—then quickly flipped it open. “Baker!”

Travis’s inner wolf reacted at once. He wrestled it down as he asked, “Who the hell is Baker?” No way would his alter ego tolerate a rival.

Neva simply waved her hand and shushed him. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Really? That’s wonderful. Hey, where are you? Good, we’re heading south. I’ll call you when I stop someplace, maybe tonight.”

The phone hadn’t snapped shut before Travis was growling. He couldn’t help it. “Who. The hell. Is Baker?”

“For pity’s sake, he’s just a friend. He helped me get to Meredith’s to rescue you. He got his friend Riley out of the prison, too, and Zarita escaped with them, and then he found Sonje and Nathan again. They’re all down in Tucson.”

Travis’s wolf settled down as he digested all that. He was glad that Riley had gotten out. Poor bastard deserved something decent to happen to him. “I suppose you want to see them?”

“Of course I do.” She sat astride his lap and put her arms around his neck. “But first, I’d rather see
you
. Naked. Now.”

Neva nearly choked trying not to laugh. For the first time since she’d met him, Travis’s characteristic frown disappeared. In fact, his brows nearly reached his hairline in pure and pleased surprise. How long they stayed like that, she couldn’t say—she was suddenly being squeezed too tightly against his broad chest to see what his face was doing. His mouth was busy, however, kissing the top of her head, then roaming over her forehead, her eyes. His muscled arms released her, and he cupped her face so he could brush his lips over hers, teasing the corners with the tip of his tongue.

A shudder of arousal played down her spine, and she concentrated on capturing that elusive tongue and sucking it gently into her mouth. In and out. In and out. And in case he missed the suggestion, she rocked her pelvis in his lap. The answering bulge in his jeans was just right for rubbing against.

Travis released her face and sought one of her ears, breathing softly into it until he caught the lobe firmly between his teeth. Seizing her hips with both hands, he slid her rapidly back and forth over the front of his jeans. The sound of his breathing harshened. Wet with excitement, she gripped handfuls of his shirt and rode the rising wave of pleasure—

Until he stopped dead. She tried frantically to rub herself against him, but he merely picked her up by the waist and stood her on her feet. It was Neva’s turn to frown, half disappointed and half frustrated. “What the hell is—”

“Take off your jeans,” he ordered. “Just the jeans. For now.”

She eyed him as she complied. He’d stripped naked and sat down again. His cock was high and hard and welcoming, but again her expectations were diverted.

“Stay standing.” He kept his knees together and directed her until she stood straddling them. Slowly, his big hands rubbed circles around her hips and the sides of her legs, massaging gently up and down, dispelling all the tension from her muscles but building it unbearably in the untouched vee of her legs. Finally he slid a hand behind her and gripped her ass firmly. Neva moaned as her core clenched hard. Travis’s other hand began caressing her inner thighs, moving higher by degrees until a single drop of moisture ran down the inside of her leg. He caught it on the end of his finger and licked it off, his blue eyes on hers the entire time.

Two more drops trickled down. She was going to start screaming if he didn’t touch her soon. As if he’d heard her
thoughts—oh, crap, was she broadcasting again?—his strong fingers softly massaged her curls, then parted them. A long, low moan broke from her lips, and she had to grip his shoulders to stay on her feet as his fingers circled her clit and then slid slickly into her.

She lost it then. There was nothing she could do to stop her hips from pumping hard against his hand. She wanted, needed,
had to have
more—he gave her two fingers, then three, all the while keeping his thumb on her rounded clit.
Faster, faster…now, now, now!
Neva could swear that fireworks went off behind her eyelids as she finally reached the top of the elusive roller coaster and rocketed down the other side. Thankfully, Travis gathered her to him, holding on tightly as she shattered into a million pieces. Neva had barely stopped shuddering when he placed her arms around his neck and settled her throbbing core within striking distance of his rampant cock.

“Take me in,” he whispered to her. “Take all of me.”

A single bump from his rearing arousal nearly sent her over the edge again. She wanted it, wanted him inside her, but her orgasm had left her so
damn
hypersensitive…Slowly, gingerly, she eased over his smooth penis—velvet over stone—and pressed gently against it, shivering hard as every nerve ending in her body reacted to the unique sensation. She was soaking wet and more than ready for him, but still vibrating. She caught sight of him then, jaw clenched, the cords in his neck standing out, and a scattering of beads of sweat on his face and chest, from the strain of holding himself back—she was probably torturing him just as he’d teased her. Neva pulled off her shirt, pressed her breasts to his bare skin, locked her hands together behind his neck, and thrust her pelvis just so…