Gypsy Wolf (Strange Lake Falls Series Book 5) (4 page)

Chapter 7

Lucas stood at the door watching as his friend drooled over Diana. “How do you know who she is?”

Lazarus went to make Diana a cup of hot tea. Lucas didn’t like how his friend was fussing over her.

“I’m the historian, the pack leaders and the council send me encrypted information to document. The commune is included in that. I dare say I probably know more about Diana than she does.”

“Do you know about my mother and her people?” Diana sat up straighter, now way too interested in Lazarus.

“I know that they came from a very powerful lineage.” He stopped to go to his bookshelf and pull something down. “Here, this is a book about the Romany. It has some of the first families listed. You came from the Rapsodi family. There are only a handful of them left now.”

She ran her finger gently over the family tree that listed her true name. This was the closest she had come to finding out about her family.

“Look, we didn’t come here for a family tree lesson. We have to meet with the council in a few days to counter a mating claim.” Lucas gave a brief summary of what had happened to Diana when she was younger, staying light on the details. He explained about Kilian’s attempt to make his claim with the council.

“So he’s trying to use the First Claim Law to force Diana to accept him.”

“There are laws supporting him on this?” Diana asked, her disappointment clear.

“I’m afraid so. It is an old law put in place years ago, when our males had to go to war and didn’t want to come back to find their female mated to another. The males would make an incomplete claiming mark, and then they were expected to finish the claiming when they came back from war. It also helped the females, because if the male didn’t come back, the female would still be able to mate another if she chose to. Usually the female was in agreement with the first claim mark. The council will have to hear his claim.”

“So that’s it, because he bit me when I was a kid they’re just going to hand me over to him?” Diana asked dejectedly. Lucas didn’t like seeing her like that.

“That’s not going to happen,” Lucas told her, putting his hand on her shoulder. He turned his eyes to Lazarus. “How do we fight a First Claim Law?”

Lazarus rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “There’s death, but you would have to get close enough to Kilian to do that and I am sure he has made sure he is protected at all times. However, the best way to fight a First Claim Law is with a second claim—True Mate.”

“Second claim?” Diana asked, interested.

“Yes, another wolf bites you over the same spot, and fully claims you when you accept his seed. Then you go forward to the council and tell them that you are true mates. True mates take precedence.”

“That would work? I get someone else to bite me and go before the council and say the second claim is a true mate?”

“Pretty much.” Lazarus answered. “I could offer myself . . .”

Lucas stepped between Diana and Lazarus. “That’s not going to happen.”

Lazarus stood up and faced him directly. “Are you going to claim her for your own then?”

Lucas shook his head. “It won’t come to that.”

“What if I was just bitten, by any wolf? Does he have to leave his seed?” Diana asked.

“Well, that’s normally how the second claiming worked in the past, but it doesn’t have to require the seed. Would you like that, little Diana? Would you want my bite?”

“Are you offering?” she asked, standing up.

“Yes.”

“Hell no, that’s not happening.” Lucas was losing control over his wolf. His eyes were glowing and his canines had lengthened. The image of Lazarus biting his Diana was too much for him.

“Diana, could you step outside into the garden while Lucas and I . . . discuss things.” Lazarus said as he and Lucas stared at one another.

“I’ll go outside but don’t fight. You’re friends, and trust me, friends are precious and hard to come by.” She felt the heat in her cheeks when they looked at her, but she refused to leave until they promised not to fight.

“It’s okay, Diana, we’ll behave ourselves,” Lucas reassured her. She opened the door and left them alone.

“You want her for yourself, so why are you fighting it, Lucas?”

“She’s in trouble, I’m just trying to help.”

“Right, so you won’t mind if I bite her and give her the second claim?” Lazarus moved to step around him, and Lucas grabbed him by the neck and lifted him up in the air.

“You touch her and you die.”

Lazarus tried to shrug. Lucas set him back down. “So what will you do? Let the council force her to mate with this guy?”

“No.”

“Then you plan to mate her yourself?”

“Damn it, I don’t know. I’m supposed to breed with a full werewolf. Our people need shifting werewolves.”

“Do they? If Diana were interested in me, I wouldn’t care if she were a
lesser
werewolf. I wouldn’t care if she were human. She is beautiful, smart, and powerful.”

“She comes with complications,” Lucas told him.

“All I would care about is whether she wanted me.”

Lucas thought about what his friend said. He had never heard Lazarus speak this way before. “You’re different now.”

Lazarus went to the window and looked out into the garden at Diana. “I am. Having the woman you love murdered in front of you and being unable to save her will do that to you. Take my advice, my friend, claim your gypsy wolf and have lots of gypsy puppies. Never take one day for granted.”

“Lazarus?” Lucas went to stand by his friend. There was such pain and longing on his face when he looked at Diana bending over to smell flowers.

“My mate loved roses. She was a master gardener.”

Lucas watched as Diana started heading back their way. “So if she is claimed a second time, the council would have to override the first claim?”

“The council would have to rule that the second claiming was a good claiming, a better claim than the first. If she were pregnant, that would be a no brainer for them. They would never end a claim if it succeeded in breeding.”

An image of Diana pregnant with his child filled his head. He couldn’t shake it and it didn’t bother him; in fact, he liked the idea.

The door opened and Diana poked her head in. “Do we have a plan yet?”

Lucas nodded at her. “We have a plan.”

Chapter 8

“No.” Diana crossed her arms over her chest as they drove out of Las Vegas.

“It’s the best way to protect you, Diana.”

“You don’t even want me.”

“After last night, you should know that’s not true.”

“That’s not what I meant! That was sex. You’re talking about claiming me as your mate, Lucas. That is completely different.”

“I don’t see a problem here.” He pulled over at a gas station and turned off the car.

She sighed. “You’re trying to be a white knight rushing in to save me. This isn’t your fight, Lucas.”

While he went into the store, Diana got her cell phone out and called her friend Roxanne. She told her everything that was going on.

“Come back here. Ric will back you up.”

“I’m not putting you or your pack in danger. Kilian and my father are crazy. I can’t predict what they will do.”

“Diana, you’re my family. I want you here with me.”

“I’ll let you know how it goes with the council.”

“When do you have to meet them?”

“In two days. We’re stopping to check in on Lucas’s pack first.”

“If you don’t call me, I will come get you,” Roxanne swore.

Diana laughed. “I expect no less, sister of my heart.”

She hung up feeling a little better. At least she had somewhere to go if things turn ugly with the council. What was she going to do about Lucas? He was so intent on doing what he thought was the right thing. She just had to show him that mating her would be a huge mistake for him.

*****

Lucas seemed to get more energized the closer he got to his pack. They were renting a farmhouse with a few acres they could use to run and hunt. They also made money helping the local farmers with their harvest.

Diana was surprised to find someone like Lucas was willing to act as a farmer’s hand. It must have shown her face.

“I come from a royal line, but the money is long gone. The last bit of it I spent to bring my pack here to the United States. Unfortunately, we have had to depend on the generosity of the council to get by.”

“The council is known for using their generosity to get what they want. I think Alpha Ric also suffered the same predicament not long ago.”

“I feel responsible for not taking better care of my pack and our finances. I am ashamed to say that I always assumed the money would be there. I trusted the wrong person to manage it and he took off with a large sum. It’s frustrating to be a royal in the werewolf community, but now I am a supervisor of my team of workers. The worst part is having to find odd jobs in between the end of harvesting and the planting of next season’s crops.”

“The commune suffered a few years like that, totally dependent on the council and other packs to give us handouts for food and clothes and money. That all changed when we received a soothsayer who was also a financial whiz. It was her pack’s biggest mistake, sending her away, but our biggest blessing. She helped us invest the little bit of money that the council sent us and soon we became financially independent.”

“Why wouldn’t you use your fortune-telling abilities to help you improve your livelihood?”

She laughed. “We can’t use our powers for our own personal benefit. It doesn’t work that way. I wish I could have used my abilities to predict where Kilian and my father were hiding all these years.”

“When you spoke to Kilian, did he say your father was with him?”

She shook her head. “No, and that scares me even more.”

He parked the car behind a pickup truck in front of the house and frowned. “They should be out at old Jamison’s farm right now.” He got out and closed the door behind him.

“Denny!” he shouted as he ran up the steps.

She felt awkward following him. He seemed to have forgotten about her. She heard voices as she entered through the open door. She stopped and looked at the scene in the living room. Three large men had clearly just jumped up off the couches and were now tucking their shirts into their pants.

“What are you doing here instead of working the farm?” Lucas asked.

“The rest are there, we’re just relaxing a bit, Alpha.”

“Denny, you are my second in command and I told you I expect everyone to pull their weight around here.”

“We are, but that farmer isn’t paying us enough. If we let the women do a few little side jobs, we could bring in more.”

What he said made Diana cringe. She knew what his side jobs were. Diana was outraged, but no more than Lucas.

“Have you made the females sleep with men for money?”

One of the other males stepped forward. “No, Alpha Lucas. Denny has talked about it for a few days, but everyone else is against it. The females have threatened to leave if they are forced to do it.”

“Out! I want you to pack your bags and leave, Denny. If you two want to follow him, get out too.” Lucas kicked a chair into the wall with a loud crash.

“You can’t make us leave our pack! Where will we go? What kind of Alpha are you to let your pack suffer in squalor like this?” Denny whined.

Diana stepped out of the way when Lucas grabbed Denny by the back of his shirt and dragged him to the front door. “Get out now!”

“What about my stuff?”

“Darrell and Vinny, go upstairs and throw Denny’s stuff down to him. If you step one foot back inside this house, I will take that as a direct challenge for Alpha status and fight you to the death!” He slammed the door behind him.

Diana stood as still as possible, feeling like this was the worst way possible for her to be introduced to Lucas’s pack. He finally looked at her again, and she couldn’t hide her reaction, stepping back against the wall at the look in his eyes.

He visibly tried to calm himself. “Diana, I am beyond furious with my pack, but I would never hurt you or let anyone else hurt you. Some of them are newer to my pack, additions I made once I moved to the United States.”

“It’s okay.”

He stepped closer to her. “You don’t seem to believe me.”

She took deep breaths. “It would be easier to accept if your claws and canines retracted.”

He looked down at his hands and seemed to be surprised that his claws were indeed out. “Sorry about that.” He forced them to retract and then looked up into her eyes.

“What now?” Diana relaxed a little.

“I need to call my pack in for a meeting.”

“Great.” That was just what she needed, to meet more of this crazy pack of his.