Heir To The Pack (The Cursed Pack Book 1) (2 page)

She held back a sob.

He sighed, and looked
toward the window, then back at her. Sinking down on the rug, he said, “You
know, I really liked you, those three days. From the time I first saw you in
that bar, reading a book in the corner while everybody else sipped margaritas,
I wanted you.”

She'd known, as soon as
she felt the weight of his stare, and looked up. He'd come over and asked her
to dance. Men who looked like Dash did not ask her to dance. It had taken her a
long minute to say yes. But she'd been sent down to Mexico with instructions
from her thesis advisor to cut loose and enjoy herself, and damn it, she'd
deserved it after all those years of school.

They hadn't talked much
that first night. Danced and danced, and laughed, and, among it all, Annie knew
he wanted her. And she wanted him. The rest had been pure pleasure, an
experience like nothing she'd done before, or since. And doubted she ever
would.

Dash's words continued,
breaking into her memory. “I still like you. I had a great time, let myself
pretend there might be something between us and we might see each other again. I’ve
thought about you often.” He paused. “To be honest, every day, for a long time
after Cancun. I spoke about you to my family. I can’t believe you're here, like
a dream come true, although the timing is horrible.”

“You sound like you’re
apologizing,” she said. He’d thought of her. That meant something. She’d
thought about him, too, and not purely because of Jack. How could she not?

“I am.”

“What for?”

“There’s a few things. But,
Annie...” He looked back at her, looked directly into her eyes. “This is going
to come as a shock.”

She shook her head. “I’m
sure it can’t be that bad.” How could this get any worse?

“Well.” He paused. “I
wouldn't normally tell anyone this. But you were—are—special to me.”
He squeezed her hand. “I believe we had a connection that meant something. I
believe you are an honest person. And if you are, somehow, right about Jack, we
will need to trust each other.”

“Please,” she said. How
bad could it be? Annie waited, conscious of the proximity of Dash’s body. Heat
poured off him in waves, tickling her skin and deeper things. The filtered
sunlight from outside slanted across his face, putting him half in shadow.

The last time she’d been
kissed had been three years ago. By this man. Passionately, open mouthed, and naked,
as he said farewell at her hotel room door. She remembered what he looked like
under those clothes, although he’d filled out, grown up. She ventured he might
be thinking about that night, too.

Dash leaned closer, as
close as you could get without actually touching.

Annie wet her lips with
her tongue. He caught his breath, watching.

A woman’s high-pitched
shriek, coming from outside the open French doors, interrupted Annie’s train of
thought. She pushed away from him and raced to the doorway.

CHAPTER
TWO

Annie couldn’t immediately
see Jack, but Daisy stood far down the garden, her back to Annie, stiffly
upright. One arm extended out, pointing.

“Get back! Get away from
him,” she shrieked.

Her mother bear roused,
Annie ran through the door, over the paved stones and through the garden to
where Daisy stood. Jack sat on the lawn ten feet or so in front of her. He
waved his arms and giggled, as happy as Annie had seen him in months.

“Mama! Nice doggies, Mama!”

Her gaze traveled upward
from her son to where the “nice doggies” stood. Three of them. Big ones. Their
pelts varied in shade from grey to nearly white, and their eyes glowed gold and
pale blue. Ruffs of grey fur, almost manes, surrounded their heads.

She didn’t know a whole
lot about dog breeds. Perhaps these were huskies. They couldn’t possibly be
wolves, not here, not in broad daylight, not in a back yard, even in Montana.

All this raced through her
brain in a heartbeat.

Annie moved past her
mother, her heart thumping, her legs like rubber, her body moving slower than
she needed, like every nightmare she’d ever had about losing Jack. She snatched
Jack up out of harm’s way and held him close.

“Play doggies, Mama,” he
said, struggling and kicking, his tiny body writhing in her arms.

Dear God. “We don’t play
with strange dogs, Jack,” she said, rubbing his back with her sweaty free hand,
trying to sound calm. “Come on, let’s go inside.” As far away from the pack of
dogs as possible.

A movement in the corner
of her eye caught her attention, and she turned to see one of the dogs walking
toward her, head down, tail down, gaze cast at her feet.

“Sit,” she said, trying to
project command through her fear, but the dog continued to advance. Where had
Dash gone, and why hadn’t he warned her about these animals?

The dog stalked closer,
and finally lifted its gaze to meet hers. The intelligence she saw there sent a
cold shock of fear through her bones. Her pulse bounded to attention. She might
not know much about dogs, but she took one involuntary step back, twisting her
body to put herself between the dog and Jack.

The beast growled. Instinct
screamed for her to run, but she envisioned him leaping on her as soon as she
turned her back. He crouched down, low to the ground.

She had to protect Jack,
no matter the cost.

A huge black dog flashed
in front of her, grabbed the approaching dog by the throat and threw it to the
ground where it lay on its back, whimpering.

The other two dogs turned
tail and ran.

Now!
She backed slowly away, toward the
French doors, not taking her eyes off the beasts.

“Annie,” Daisy hissed in
her ear, and Annie nearly fell over. “Turn around.”

She looked over her
shoulder. Two more enormous dogs stood in the middle of her exit route, in the
doorway to the study. How many of them were there? A shiver passed over her
skin. She held her head high, set her jaw, and pulled Jack in closer to her
body, shielding him with her arms. She would not show her fear in front of
Jack. She would find a way out of this. And where the hell was Dash?

An unearthly growling came
from the huge black dog, making her turn back. Her attacker whimpered and
writhed uncontrollably, in what looked like an epileptic fit. Annie hoped to
God they weren’t rabid. A pack of wild dogs in the back yard was bad enough.

Frantically, she searched
for a way out, and spotted a brick path leading around the side of the house. She
edged toward it, noting the two new arrivals were fixated on the confrontation
between the black dog and his foe.

She caught Daisy’s eye. Time
to retreat. Together, they melted back toward the path.

Daisy seized a flimsy rake
leaning against the side of the house in both hands. Annie didn’t know what she
intended to do with it, but she’d seen Daisy mad and it wasn’t pretty.

No one stopped them, and
when they were around the corner of the house, Annie broke and ran in an
awkward lope, with Jack clutched to her chest, her mother following at her
heels.

As they reached the car,
she fumbled in her pocket for the car keys. Her fingers found them and pressed
the unlock button. The electronic beeping had never sounded louder. Annie
clambered into the back seat, juggling Jack, and slammed the door, while Daisy
threw down the rake and got into the driver’s seat. They were safe.

“Stupid car seat.” Annie fumbled
with the buckles as she tried to get Jack settled, the adrenaline from their
near-miss still surging through her veins. He cried, loud angry toddler wails
of protest, as she dug for the straps behind his hips.

She cried out when the
door beside her opened. She’d forgotten to lock it. But dogs couldn’t open car
doors, could they?

Dash stood there, naked as
the day he was born. No dogs anywhere she could see. She stared at his nudity,
trying to make sense of one more bizarre event in a day full of them. Through
her confusion, he still looked incredible—long, lean, and muscular.

“Annie,” he said. “I’m so
sorry. Are you all right?”

She opened her mouth to
say something, but only a squeak emerged. Why was he naked? Her rational brain
struggled for an explanation but retired, defeated.

“Young man,” Daisy said, “what
happened to your clothes?” She sounded tickled.

He shrugged. “There wasn’t
time. Sorry.”

 
“Time for what? You had time to take them
off! And where on earth did you go?” Annie said, every muscle in her body taut
with fury. “I wish you’d warned me. I can’t believe you sent Daisy and Jack out
into the yard with a pack of dogs! How dare you endanger them!”

“Dogs? What dogs?” He
looked puzzled.

She had to fight not to
roll her eyes. Was he kidding? He’d gone completely mad. Pack of dogs. Naked. What
was next? “The ones in your back yard.”

Dash laughed, and Jack
giggled in mimicry.

“Would you mind putting
some clothes on?” she hissed. His body was distracting her from shouting at
him.

“All right. I don’t have
anything out here. Can you give me a minute?”

Daisy rolled down her
window a few inches and offered him her lavender-colored rain jacket. Clearly
there was no way it would fit him as a jacket, so he tied it around his waist
with the sleeves, like an apron, or a bizarre synthetic fig leaf.

“Please,” Dash said. “I’m
really sorry about what happened. Come inside. I need to explain. And you all
look like you could do with some rest and something to drink.”

“Not now.” Annie's head
pounded with the start of a migraine. She couldn’t deal with any more right now.
“I need a bit of time to calm down and process. You probably do, too. Look,
here's my card. Let's talk tomorrow.”

Dash took the card. “Where
are you going? You don’t live nearby, do you?”

“We have a hotel. Goodbye,
for now. We'll chat tomorrow.” She closed the door and turned back to Jack, his
face wide-cheeked with a smile she hadn’t seen in weeks.

Daisy put the car in
reverse, turned around, and drove down the driveway. Jack waved at his father,
who stood on the gravel, his hulking body wrapped in the gently waving flag of
the purple jacket.

*
         
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*

As Dash watched them drive
away, he cursed under his breath. Was it actually possible for that to have
gone any worse?

He yanked the stupid
jacket off and stormed into the house. The kitchen and living room were empty.
Unsurprising, really, because after the little discussion he'd had with his
cousins in the back yard just now, they knew he was pissed. And nobody wanted
to cross a pissed off Alpha werewolf.

The remnants of his
clothes were in the den. Annoying, because he'd always liked that shirt, but he
simply hadn't had time to mess with it. As soon as he'd heard the scream, he'd guessed
what was going on and changed forms, not taking the time to remove his clothes,
and now they were torn to pieces.

He'd believed in the
strength of the connection between himself and Annie, thought about it, dreamed
about it—about her—for three years.

When they’d been
interrupted, he’d been on the verge of telling her what he was.
What a freaking idiot.

He stomped down the hall
and into the den to dispose of his ruined shirt and put on a spare pair of
track pants he kept in the drawer for times like these. Of course, he could
just wander around naked—it wasn't like anybody in the pack cared—but
who knew when more random visitors might show up.

He pulled on the track
pants and pitched his shredded shirt and pants into the trashcan. “I'm a
werewolf,” he whined in a high-pitched mockery of what he’d planned to say. Given
how she’d reacted to seeing the pack in the back yard, the only thing he could
be happy about was the fact he hadn’t had a chance to blurt that out and make
even more of a fool of himself.

“We know, dear. Or did you
think we'd forgotten?”

After all these years, she
could still sneak up on him. Aunt Elaine was famous for it in the pack. Pups
said she had eyes in the back of her head. “I wish you wouldn't do that.” He turned
to face his aunt. Of course Aunt Marjie was there, as well, because they were
glued together, or at the very least Velcro-ed, at the hip. “What do you want?”

“Oh, just to chat.” Elaine
tucked her silver grey bob behind her ears and settled her plump little body at
one end of his couch, her pink twin set in sharp contrast to Marjie's
lumberjack shirt. Marjie stalked across the room and threw herself down at the
other end, folding one long jean-and-work-boot-enclosed leg over another.

They were his dead
mother's sisters, lifelong best friends, and the Big Sky Pack's witches. And he
was still surprised by how different they were in every respect except two. First,
their loyalty to the pack, and second, their overwhelming desire to meddle in
every aspect of his life. These two things were related, of course, but that
didn't make it easier.

“So that was the famous
Annie,” Marjie said. “Tall, bony thing, not what I expected at all. But she
looks tough.”

Dash sighed. He wasn't
going to get out of this easily. “Just get it over with.”

Elaine pursed her rose
pink lips together. “Whatever do you mean?”

“The interrogation. It's
why you came here, isn't it?”

She merely smiled. “What
is it you think we're going to ask you?”

“Yes, that's Annie.” He
closed his eyes, seeing her again as he'd seen her in Cancun. Intensely,
sharply beautiful. She'd skewered his heart with a glance. He'd been there to
play, to get away from his father, to escape. And he'd found so much more.

Suddenly conscious of his
aunts' gaze, he blinked. “What about her?”

“You wanted to see her
again. And now she's here.” Marjie cackled. “And the boy. Never thought you had
it in you.”

“I didn't think it was
possible,” he said. That was what he'd always been told, the reason werewolves
played among the humans before mating with one of their own kind. No babies. No
attachments. No risk.

“There are more things in
heaven and earth,” Elaine quoted, her voice quiet and steady. “That's not what
concerns me.”

Dash knotted his fingers
into fists. “The timing sucks.”

His aunts watched him from
the couch. Elaine said, “Would it be better news after the Gathering? Or
perhaps later on, after you married Irina?”

That was the kicker. He
sank into the desk chair, and put his face in his hands. “Gods. Why this, why
now?”

“What did you tell her?” Marjie
sounded entirely too pleased with the situation.

“I told her I couldn’t be
his father.”

“Ah.” He couldn't
interpret Elaine's tone. “And how did she take it?”

“Badly.”

“Can't blame her,” Marjie
said. “I bet you dropped the news like a sack of potatoes. Not good at that
kind of stuff, are you?”

“Thanks,” he said, dryly. “I
always appreciate your commentary on my social skills.” He stared down at the
floor. “I guess I'm going to have to go talk to her again, aren't I?”

It was Elaine's turn to
weigh in. “Whatever you're going to do, you should do it soon. We have to leave
in a couple of days.”

It wasn't a lot of time to
work through something like this. The implications of having a son…he simply
couldn't get his head around it. And, what was worse, the kid was sick. He'd
have to talk to her, and come up with a plan. “Right. I'll handle it.” He didn't
need help. He'd caused this situation on his own, and he'd handle it alone.

“Courage, my boy,” Marjie
said, the grin splitting her face, revealing her crooked yellow teeth. “Courage.”

*
         
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*