Past My Defenses (Taming the Pack series) (Entangled Ignite) (6 page)

She inhaled and closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the scent. Yeah, garlic would have to be off the menu if scents turned her on like that—her brown eyes were nearly black from her pupils’ dilation when she opened them. His brain snatched around for different questions, but all he could think about was how sweet she must taste.

A text came across on her phone, breaking into the moment. She shook her head as if she’d been in a daze and shot him a suspicious look. She knew he’d been stalling her. “I really
do
have to go.”

Once again, that strange certainty that she was his held him in place. She’d be back. He knew she’d be back. If she didn’t come back soon, he’d track down her phone number and ask her to return his shirt—the one clutched against her chest. She nodded and walked toward the front door.

“Vanessa?”

She turned.

“I like the way you smell, too.”

Her cheeks flushed, but he didn’t think it was a blush this time. For all her poise, she looked ready to attack. She spun away and a moment later, he heard the door shut—quietly. He almost preferred when she slammed it. There was something seriously wrong with him.

He walked to the back sliding glass door and stared at the smoke rising from the grill. The reflection of his face caught his attention. His gray eyes crinkled at the edges as he smiled. Gray, huh?

She’d be back.

…

When she’d gone home after the confrontation at Dane’s place, Jordan had been back on her couch, watching the fight on TV again—and this time, he hadn’t bothered with clothes, but he
had
laid down the law. And she’d kept her eyes above his neck. And Dane would never appreciate it. Actually, he should probably never hear of it.

Jordan wasn’t happy that Dane knew of their existence—a fact patently obvious when he’d called her by name when she was in fur form. But humans were so intermixed into their bloodline that Jordan couldn’t argue. Much. If “her human” told anyone, his life was forfeit. If Jordan thought Dane wasn’t a worthy mate, his life was forfeit.

Dane wasn’t to know of pack business unless the Alpha approved. He wasn’t to know any other members of the pack until Dane proved he could keep their secret. And when most men uttered the promise “if he ever hurts you, I’ll kill him” it would have been an idle threat; not with Jordan.

She knew Dane wouldn’t tell anyone—she’d sensed it. Also, she was still hoping to keep that part of her separate—somehow. If they never spoke of it, that would certainly make it easier.

As for her mate being worthy, Jordan hadn’t said it, but the fact that Dane had stood his ground and even threatened an alpha wolf because she might be harmed… Well, most in their pack wouldn’t have stood up to Jordan in either form. And Dane had only known her a short amount of time. So, either he felt really strongly about her, or he was an Alpha in his own right—or both.

“He may be your mate, but I’m Alpha.”

She’d nodded submissively. Her second act of submission in a short amount of time. She didn’t know she was capable of such things—but she was when it came to Dane.

“No one harms him, though.” She’d fought for that. She’d been willing to die for that—which was insane, but even without fur, it was something she felt on a deep level that she couldn’t understand.

She barely knew him.

She wanted to crawl inside his skin, but she barely knew him.

“No one harms him unless it’s me, and he’s under our protection if he keeps my rules.” He’d shot her a glance. “Or if you want out—it’s the only way the scent-match can be broken. You wouldn’t be able to do it yourself. If you don’t want to be with him…”

“That’s not going to happen.” The sun would set. The moon would orbit the earth and pull on the tides and on the Lycan world. Seasons would happen…and she would want to be with Dane. She felt it as certain as her next heartbeat and her next breath.

It was freaking insane is what it was.

And she still wasn’t completely thrilled about it.

He’d shaken his head. “I’m surprised you picked a human mate.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t as optional as that. As soon as the allergy pills cleared out my sinuses, I was as good as matched.” Shaking her head at the memory, she’d added, “You can’t imagine how…addictive his scent is.”

“I guess I can’t.”

“If life is fair, you will—and it’ll be some brainless human female who wears a lot of perfume.”

He’d laughed at that, and then fixed her with a look. “Your human is the one who found Cheri’s car. This isn’t his business. I’m expecting a call from Travis so don’t go far and keep your phone on you. If this is a game, Cheri’s pushed it too far, and there’ll be repercussions with the pack.”

Even if she didn’t care for Cheri, she didn’t want to see a Lycan-sanctioned reprisal for an immature act. Women did odd things in relationships. She’d just done the oddest thing ever—in her entire life.

On his way out the door, Jordan had added, “Oh, yeah, and he gets rid of that cat. It’s spraying its scent everywhere. I can smell the beast for a mile, and I’m not allergic. It’s gone within the week or I kill it.”

She might have to tell Dane about that. Or not. That thing had nearly killed her. Her conscience kicked her. Okay, fine, she’d tell him.

Now they were meeting at the office. Cheri seemed to have disappeared. No record of her on flights. Her family and friends in her former pack hadn’t heard from her. She’d just vanished. Vanessa was the last to arrive, and Jordan shot her a look over the others’ heads. It was an uneasy truce between them, but she’d staked her claim to Dane.

“I figured we’d track her from her place and from where the car was found,” Jordan was saying now to those members of the pack assembled in the meeting room.

The other males in the pack had moved away from her. She doubted Jordan had explained about Dane—he wouldn’t have had time,
and
more Lycans would have been smirking at her. She was scent-matched to a human, after all. They must assume she was being considered for alpha female with Cheri being…wherever she was.

Travis made eye contact briefly with Jordan before bowing his head.

“Yes?”

“I had Tom check out the car.” Tom was standing beside him with his head bowed. He’d arrived the same time she had. “The damage done by the ditch didn’t seem to explain everything. He said there were nicks on the brake lines and power steering line so that they bled out as she drove. She probably panicked when the power steering dropped to manual and tried to brake and then lost control.”

If this was a game, Cheri wasn’t the only player. There was no way she’d crawl under her car to cut the lines and put herself in danger.

Travis cleared his throat. “Which puts a different spin on the bottle of bleach on the floor.”

Everyone turned to stare at him, though they all kept their heads slightly bowed out of deference to Jordan.

“The bleach was to mask the scent…of the car tampering…of whatever happened,” said Travis.

A wave of apprehension passed through them. There was no reason to destroy the scent if only humans might be tracking her abductor.

“This is how poachers destroyed the Coquihalla pack,” Carrie said. Her family had been pack members for generations and thus she felt allowed to speak out of turn. She was also a friend of Cheri’s—though the alpha female didn’t seem to take to any of them. “Friend” was more of a relative term. She disliked Carrie the least anyway, and seemed to confide in her occasionally. “First one and then another…and they masked trails with gasoline and bleach, and by the time they thought they were going to catch the poachers, seven dead or missing, and the poachers moved on.”

Unfortunately, those Lycans from British Columbia only had twelve in the pack to start with. The remaining five had left to join another pack and taken with them the inability to live without feeling hunted. She’d heard of the carnage left behind when the poachers harvested a Lycan’s organs for wealthy benefactors on organ transplant waiting lists. Lycan organs wouldn’t give them the power to shift, but they were still the new hot item on the black market. The wealthy and entitled had been fed crap about their magical qualities. Their organs were stronger and came with a primitive rush…one long-stop high with a potent walk on the wild side.

If there wasn’t a donor match or the harvest was poorly handled, the organs were sold for blacker, darker reasons than a kidney transplant. Lycans were currently being hunted as an ingredient—part of remedies for everything from sterility to hair growth.

The fact that the organs had to be harvested when the Lycan was in human form meant that all of the human bodies recovered had shown signs of torture. There had been wolf mutilations occurring more regularly in the last couple years—which were either wolves mistaken for Lycans or Lycans that’d held strong and not shifted. It was a horror story that seemed too surreal not to be fiction.

It couldn’t have happened to Cheri. These were things that happened so far away you didn’t believe them. At the very least, you didn’t think they could happen to you. Except a house cat took her down—poachers would have found her easy prey.

Still…poachers…here?

No way. There had to be a different explanation.

“We don’t know it was poachers,” Jordan said slowly, staring them all down. “We’ll take precautions, but we don’t know it was poachers.”

“Cheri said they might be coming. She told me,” Carrie said, shaking her head. “And she didn’t get out in time.”

Cheri had mentioned poachers a time or two when they’d gathered. Vanessa’s patrol route had been increased due to Cheri’s insistence they be prepared. She hadn’t minded for the most part. Running twice as many miles a night had helped curb her wanderlust during the day.

Frowning, Vanessa made pointed eye contact with Jordan. He raised his eyebrows. She rolled her eyes. Finally, he nodded in her direction.

“Why would Cheri think that?” Vanessa asked. “Glacier pack is huge. We’re a strong pack. Poachers have only gone after smaller packs.” And Cheri wasn’t an alarmist. Why would she bring up poachers if she didn’t have reason?

Everyone went still again. There was no group in the world who could hold as preternaturally still as a pack of Lycans.

“It was possibly paranoia. Just because poachers have used bleach in the past doesn’t mean this was them, or that she was right.”

She knew she was pushing her allotted acknowledgment but she said, “There are at least five packs between us and their last supposed Lycan kill—she had to have some reason to think that.”

The others glanced at her, trying to get a sense of what deference was to be paid to her—whether she’d been chosen or not. Some things were instinctual, but there was still drama that was too human to “feel” out.

Jordan held her gaze for far longer than she felt comfortable with, and she looked down. The patterns of submission and dominance were in their genetic makeup. It was said that parents could tell Lycan offspring from human offspring well ahead of their first change at puberty by the ingrained signs of deference paid to those above them. Finally, he addressed the group. “Disperse. Keep to groups. Jeff, grab five to go with you to check on the pack members not here and see if you can catch a trail of anything else out there hunting. The rest of you, go find out what you can. We’ll meet back here in two hours. Nessa, you stay.”

The large meeting room that was almost never used for the contracting business Jordan owned emptied quickly. The males arced a wide path around her, assuming, for the wrong reason, that Jordan had singularly marked her with his attention. He had. He was probably going to tell her to stop being a brat because he wasn’t indulging a female mated to a human. Not this soon after it had happened anyway.

She really, really hadn’t intended to pick Dane over Jordan—a human over an Alpha—but some in the pack might see it that way. It was going to be a strange week.

Jordan waited until the door closed behind them. She kept her head bowed, even though she fidgeted. She fought deference and submission normally—her chin a little higher than the others, or sometimes her head was more tilted sideways than bowed. When it was just Jordan and her—well, she hadn’t ever punched him, so that showed respect. Of course, less than two hours ago, she’d gone for his throat when he’d threatened her mate. She and Jordan were on fragile footing now. She’d never felt nervous over her own welfare…it was this responsibility for Dane too now—it was intense.

She’d never had to worry about anyone else before. She’d been a free agent—able to go wherever she wanted to. If she didn’t like a pack or the Alpha leading it, she could leave. She could run if she felt like running. There was power in having no ties, and being able to run away from a situation she didn’t want to deal with. She’d been a lone wolf—and now she was
this
.

“You are lousy at submission,” he said, walking toward her.

She let out a relieved sigh at his amused tone and lifted her head. “I’d apologize, but…”

“It’d come off sounding a bit like your earlier explanation about your allergies?”

“I can give you three reasons why it might.”

He shook his head. “You’re lucky you’re off-limits as a mate now because I think I’d enjoy making you submissive—a little too much.”

Since she’d laid claim so emphatically to Dane, they were both off-limits. In fact, by pack rules, regardless of how he felt about her, he wouldn’t be able to date anyone other than her, human or Lycan. It was forbidden. The scent-match was considered sacred. Luckily, among Lycans, it always seemed to be mutual—a pheromone they both secreted making the other theirs. She had no idea if it worked with Dane. She might have a fight on her hands to keep him as hers and hers alone. And to keep the pack from killing any other human females who might show a reciprocated interest in him. She might want to warn him about that too. Eventually.

Her pride couldn’t take that now. Not after the snoring thing.
Hey, guess what, Dane? I’m yours. I was willing to die for you. What? You think I’m hot but you can’t put up with my snoring? Huh. Oh, by the way, don’t date anyone else or my pack will kill her. You’re stuck with me.