The Wolf's Mate Book 5: Bo & Reika (2 page)

Alpha Grim and King Maurice talked with her father for a long time.  The three boys never stopped leering at her, leaving her feeling nauseous and dirty.  The summer before, she and her family had gone to a wildlife park and a giraffe had stuck its head in the window of the jeep they were in and licked the side of her face with its enormous, blue tongue.  She thought that was the worst thing ever.  But this — the way the young lynxes looked at her — was like getting licked by a hundred giraffes.

King Maurice wanted to take her when she turned sixteen, after she was able to shift for the first time, but her father and Alpha Grim angrily opposed that.  Her father argued to let her have time to live her life and go to college, and finally, the lynx king agreed that she would be allowed to remain with her family until she turned twenty-three.

“Then it’s decided,” Maurice said finally.  “The she-wolf healer will remain with her family and home pack until the sun sets on her twenty-third birthday.  She will join our clan, willingly, and mate my grandsons and produce heirs.”

When Maurice released Ben, he ran right to Reika, and she hugged him tightly.  As the lynx clan turned and sauntered away, the oldest, Eli, looked at Reika and said with a cold voice, “We’ll be seeing you … wife.”

Even now, sixteen years later, she got chills when she remembered the looks in their eyes — as if she was property, something to be used and passed around, and not a person.  She was an
apex
, a she-wolf healer.  She had come into her healing abilities at the age of sixteen when she shifted into her blue-black wolf form.  All the women in her family were healers.  In their wolf forms, their mouths secreted venom that could heal even the most severe injuries.  They were prized as mates.  The male who took an apex as a mate was lucky indeed.

But not the lynxes.  They wouldn’t think they were lucky; they thought they were entitled to her.  To use her body, breed her, force her.  She had no illusions about her future with them.  Her life with the lynx clan would be violent and bloody, like a waking nightmare she would have no hope of escaping.

Her cell beeped, signaling a text message.  She opened it, delighted to finally have a solution to her problem.

From WAA:  Saturday at 5 a.m., two guards will meet you at LSV AA Terminal; bring one bag only.  They will wait no more than thirty minutes before they will leave without you.  Tell no one.

Her heart pounded in her ears, and she closed her eyes as relief rushed over her.  The Were-Animal Alliance, a secret underground group that helped wolves like herself out of impossible situations, would give her a new identity and relocate her to a safe pack far away from her troubles.  She had never heard of them until she was in a camping store with her father last month.  She’d left him to look over tents and had wandered over to a community bulletin board.  Some of the notices were very old, pinned beneath other, newer papers.  She rifled through the pages and cards, seeing notices for spring festivals, pets lost or found, community-wide garage sales from the previous summer, and then, buried under several advertisements for a local bar, one page caught her eye.  Simple black text emblazoned the white page: 
Need Help?  Text the Were-Animal Alliance.

Her heart stopped for a moment as she read the two sentences a dozen times.  Help?  What kind of help?  Could they help her?  Her father called her name.  She jerked the page from the bulletin board and stuffed it into her front pocket, joining her father at the register.  Hope bloomed inside her like a hidden ember in a long dead fire.  There was a group out there that
migh
t be able to help her.  She hadn’t felt hope in this way since her father had promised her all those years ago that he would figure out how to get her free of the promise to join with the lynxes.  The page felt heavy in her pocket, as fear began to seep into her, twining with the hope and choking it like weeds on a flower.  What if the WAA couldn’t, or wouldn’t, help her?  Her heart raced as hope and fear battled together inside her, but hope won out.  If the WAA was unable to help her, then she would run on her own.

Reika sent them a message immediately, terrified that her time was running short, and she would be forced to go with the lynxes.  The WAA had contacted her through text messages after agreeing to take on her case.  They promised to help her escape the situation and hide her.  She had been waiting for final instructions and had worried, with her birthday so close, that she was not going to be able to escape.

Her parents had been desperate to find a way to break the promise to the lynx king, but she was bound to them in a blood-debt.  The king had taken a drop of her blood and mixed it with drops from his grandsons, sealing the debt like a sacred vow.  She could sometimes still feel the puncture of his claw in her fingertip.  According to the lynx laws, the only way she could break the promise to the lynx males was if she found her truemate.  By their laws, her truemate would have the right to fight for her, and only when he was victorious could he declare that she was his alone.

But she knew all about the lynxes.  They were cunning fighters, ruthless when it came to possessing what they felt was owed to them.  While her truemate was only one person, all three of the lynx males would fight him at the same time.  A wolf could beat one lynx, possibly two.  But not all three.

Even if she had found her truemate by now, she wouldn’t have put him through that.  She wasn’t so selfish that she would find the one male meant to be hers just to send him to his death.  She hadn’t ever actively looked for her truemate for that very reason.  Unlike other she-wolves her age, she hadn’t gone to pack gatherings, bars where unmated males were known to hang out, or tried any of the shifter dating sites, hoping to find the one wolf who was perfect for her.  And now...she was going to run.  The WAA promised her a new identity, safety, and anonymity within a new pack.

The people who ran the WAA worked in anonymity, so she had no idea who they were or where they lived.  The last few weeks had been stressful as she explicitly followed their instructions, which explained how she would escape without being found.

* * * * *

That night, as her family was finishing dinner, there was a knock at the door.  No one moved for several moments, until a second and then a third knock kicked her dad into motion.

“No, Dad, I should answer.  It’s my responsibility,”  Reika said, pushing her chair away from the table and standing.  She took a moment to tug on the cuffs of her sweater to give her suddenly trembling hands a moment to settle, but they only trembled more.  As she walked to the door, she wondered if the lynxes were going to post guards around the home to make sure she didn’t leave, and the unexpected thought made her blood run cold.  She felt her freedom slipping away.

Her dad followed her to the door, and she opened it, her heart pounding in her chest.  A young woman stood on the porch, a white rose in her fingers.  She wore the traditional clothing of the lynx females, a white peasant blouse and a full skirt.

“King Maurice wishes you a happy twenty-third birthday tomorrow, Reika Snow.  You have twenty-four hours to say goodbye to your family.  At sunset tomorrow, your husbands will be waiting for you.  You may bring two bags.”

Reika took the rose, bile rising in her throat, and watched the woman turn and walk down the steps of the porch, down the sidewalk to the street, where a truck waited for her.

“Twenty-four hours,” her mother said sadly.  “I had so hoped you might find your truemate, sweetheart.”

“I know, Mom.”

They spent the rest of the evening together, with a pall cast over what would have been a normally cheerful, casual evening.  Ben had tossed the rose into the outside trashcan immediately, but its presence still lingered in the house like a ghost.

Reika had packed the night before, one duffel bag containing two changes of clothes, toiletries, and her dog-eared copy of her favorite book,
The Princess Bride.

She prepared two letters.  One to her parents to tell them she was leaving but would be safe from the lynxes, and that in the future, when it was safe for her, she would contact them.  The other letter was for Ben, so he understood she didn’t hold him responsible for what had happened and that she loved him.

When the hour grew late, she kissed her family goodnight as she always did, taking a mental picture of her parents cuddled together on the couch in front of the fire and her brother as he made cinnamon rolls in the kitchen for tomorrow’s breakfast — his Friday night ritual.  She struggled not to cry, not to say goodbye and tell them her plans.  But it was far safer for them to remain ignorant of what she was doing.

She didn’t dare sleep.  She had to leave at 12:30 a.m. in order to walk to the rental car she stashed behind a gas station, two miles from her home.  It would take her approximately four hours to drive to the Louisville Airport.

Her parents went to bed at eleven, and her brother followed shortly.  She heard them all moving around in their rooms as she sat on the edge of her bed and watched the clock.  Finally, the house was silent.  She dressed warmly, sprayed heavy perfume all over herself to mask her scent in case anyone tried to follow her through the woods at any time, left the two letters on her bed, and opened the window of her second-story bedroom.  She dropped gracefully and silently, rolling in the snow and popping up onto her feet.

The two miles through the wooded area between the neighboring streets concealed her as she ran in near darkness, spilling out onto the main street and darting across an empty intersection where her rental car waited.  The WAA had reserved it for her.  She had picked the car up on Tuesday and parked it behind a deserted gas station.

She kept a sharp eye on her mirrors and drove as fast as she dared.  She was positive that no one had followed her.  Her frayed nerves and the thought of what would happen if the lynxes caught her fleeing kept her alert in spite of how little sleep she’d gotten during the week.

Almost free
, she thought, as she pulled into the parking lot of the airport and walked to the American Airlines terminal.  She looked around, scanning the nearly empty airport for anyone who looked familiar, and saw no one she recognized.  Two men, wearing military-style pants and black jackets, stepped into view and motioned for her.

“R. S.?”  the taller of the two said.

“Yes.”

“Do you have your cell, computer, or any form of ID?”  the other asked.

“No.”  She’d taken a chance on driving without her license and left it at home, knowing that she would have had to toss it out once she arrived at the airport.

“Good.  Here is your new identification.  Your name is now Brittany Caulfield.  Our flight is preparing to board.  Let’s go.”  The taller one held out a driver’s license to her, and as she reached for it, a piercing roar ripped through the silence around them.

She darted her eyes around the terminal as the two wolves put their hands on her arms, urging her to follow them to the gate.  The wolves were knocked away from her by three hulking figures who snarled warnings in deep, guttural words.  She hadn’t seen Eli, Josef, and Adam for sixteen years, but she recognized them immediately.  They threw the wolves around as though they were stuffed toys.  The taller wolf went through a glass wall and hit the outside sidewalk hard.  Josef hauled the other wolf over his head and threw him into the courtesy desk with a sickening crack.

Regaining her senses, she raced out an exit just as the airport security came running to the scene.  She waved frantically at a taxi that was about to pull away.  When it stopped, she jerked open the back door, threw herself inside, and slammed the door.

“Where to, honey?”  a woman driver said.

“Anywhere!  Just get me out of here!”  Reika panted.

The car pulled away quickly, and Reika watched out the back window as Eli, Josef, and Adam ran out of the building and looked around.  Their eyes locked on hers, and she knew they had seen her in the taxi.  She was glad for the momentary reprieve when police cars with flashing lights pulled up in front of the terminal and she saw the lynxes scatter.

As the scene faded into the distance, she knew that they would only be temporarily detained from finding her.  They would maim and kill anyone who came between her and them; she could see that clearly now.  She had no idea how they followed her, except that they must have been watching her home.

Saying a silent prayer for the two wolves who fell trying to help her, she took in a deep breath and focused on her situation.  She faced the front of the taxi and looked at the middle-aged woman.

“Can you take me an hour south and drop me off somewhere public and well-lit?  And push the speed limit, please.”

“You in trouble, honey?”  The woman met Reika’s eyes in the rear-view mirror as she pressed her foot on the gas.