This Weakness For You (Entangled Select Otherworld) (Taming the Pack) (17 page)

Her horror had him responding even before he’d thought of what he’d say. “No, I just haven’t had as much reason to stay. Now I do.”

“Oh.”

“If you want, I can sell the house and get someplace smaller.” He’d rather not, but he’d also do anything to keep Christa happy.

“Really?”

“Of course.”

She sighed. “No, it’s a beautiful house. I just need you back in it.”

“I need to be back in it, too.” He paused a moment. “What are you wearing?”

“Nothing. I always strip down just before eating ice cream. It adds a layer to the experience…or, rather, it takes off a few layers.”

“I’m going to hold you to that, Christa.”

He heard the rustle of clothing. It sounded like she was actually taking off clothing. “What are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” He heard more rustling and snaps and zips. And then she went back to eating ice cream. “Wow…cold.”

“Christa!” His voice was guttural with desire, and the pound of his pulse in his ears was a deep bass drumbeat. Travis was probably laughing his ass off at the scent of arousal pouring off him. She was killing him.

“Mmm. There’s a whole other carton of ice cream, Jordan. Better come home before I eat it all.”

His mouth was dry as a desert. “So, I’ll call you after I shower and eat?”

“Mmm. I’ll head straight to bed and wait for you.”

He closed his eyes. If only…

After they hung up, it took twenty or thirty deep breaths before he felt comfortable going into Travis’s house.

Travis was dropping pasta into boiling water, but he looked up to say, “So, knocking boots with Dane’s sister, huh? Hard-core. Way to have the final word in that contest.”

…

Lack of sleep caught up with her, and she crashed waiting for Jordan to call. When the phone started ringing, she bolted upright, screaming, “Holy crap!” Her surprise offended Lucifer, and he jumped off the bed, hissing at her.

Taking a deep breath, she answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Are you okay? It sounds like you had to run for the phone.”

She dropped back onto the pillows. “I fell asleep with the phone right next to me, and it woke me up. I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“You’re tired?”

“Yeah, a little…but I think that jump-started my adrenaline.” She could go lift a car if she wanted to. The thing with the window hadn’t freaked her out as much as the phone ringing.

“I should let you get back to sleep.”

“Don’t you dare! I will never forgive you if you don’t tell me a filthy bedtime story.”

He laughed. “I’m having trouble finding somewhere private.”

She could hear him opening and closing doors.

“I’m thinking Alphas should have soundproof rooms in their house.”

“Say hi to the wife from me!” she heard in the background.

Jordan’s reply was an obscenity. “That was Travis. He finds my inability to resist you amusing.”

“It’s weird that he called me your wife…isn’t it? It’s crazy that because I stayed I’m therefore married. I expected there to be more demarcation in my life between single couch-surfer to wife of a sugar daddy werewolf king. Dane said most of you still get married, and he married Vanessa.”

“Most do. In fact, I’m a registered clergy so I can perform those ceremonies. Though I’m hoping not to be on that end of things at your marriage.”

“So we could get legally, officially married tomorrow?” What a strange thought.

“No.”

She frowned.

“I mean, we could, but it wouldn’t be legally recognized because there’s a three-day waiting period in Washington State, and we’d both want to go in to get our marriage license.”

Oh. The mechanics of getting legally married sounded a lot less romantic than the married-at-first-scent method of the Lycans. Although it might make this a lot less surreal if there were an actual moment she was married—and not a series of moments including one where she threw shoes at him. It was like a shotgun wedding in that way.

“Did you want to get married?”

Her heart stopped in her chest. “Is that a proposal?” she asked slowly. She’d expected it to sound more…something. It’d sounded almost offhand.

“No. No, I hope I could do a better job than that and not over the phone. I was asking if you wanted to have it legally recognized. I should have asked if you wanted a marriage ceremony. I know some women have these big weddings planned in their minds.”

“No. It sounds stressful and like a lot of standing and walking and…exhausting.” That was one thing her mom would understand—they all tried to minimize her stress so that her MS didn’t flare up more often.

“Something small then?”

“Yes. Maybe.” Though honestly, when Dane had eloped she’d sort of thought he had the right idea. It was over and done, and their names were on the papers. A ceremony marking when they were officially together would be good. That might reinforce the idea that Jordan really wanted this—and that she wasn’t forcing him to be with her—but nothing big, nothing that took planning. Just her and Jordan pledging to be together. That was it. And then maybe this would all feel real.

“Actually, if we did it legally, it’d look less criminal if I ended up chasing you down to Mexico. It’ll give me a ‘sentimental’ defense when I have to explain stalking you to the judge.”

Christa grinned. “Isn’t it in your nature to stalk what you want?”

“Yeah, but generally judges don’t take the ‘I’m a wolf’ defense very seriously…or they toss it under an insanity defense.” She heard a car door slam.

“Did you find someplace private?”

“Hang on. Let me see. Travis, what’s two hundred and ninety-nine squared?” he said in a normal voice. Then he sighed. “I have no idea if he’s right or not, but he did answer.”

“Did he say ‘eighty-nine thousand four hundred and one’? I bet he didn’t because only an idiot would answer a question in this situation.”

“Hmm. He says to stop being so judgmental. Also, yes, he did answer that.” He covered the receiver. “And I’m not going to ask her that.”

“Even I heard that,” she said. “What did he ask?”

“You know, I really saw tonight going a different way. I should have driven out into the middle of nowhere before calling you.”

“Apparently. Now tell me what he asked,” she said. Whoever this Travis guy was, he was tangling with the wrong alpha female.

Jordan laughed. “He says you
are
an Alpha. He’s enjoying hearing me ordered around. And I’m not going to play a game of Jeopardy between you. He finds it hilarious that I’m with Dane’s little sister, and ran me through twenty questions earlier. Mostly I told him none of his damn business, but I did tell him you were a college graduate. I think he assumed you’d majored in astrology or something.”

She scowled into the phone and considered hanging up. Yeah, she’d seen tonight going a different way, too. He’d refused to answer Travis’s questions other than ones regarding her intelligence…and then it sounded like he’d been defensive. He was
real
proud of the new wife.

“Christa?”

She kept scowling. And then he’d really dug a pit with that last comment.

“Christa, you didn’t major in astrology, did you?” he asked quietly.

“No, of course I didn’t. It’s hard enough to find basic classes in that—and really, what would they teach me that I didn’t already know? But no one offers majors in that. I majored in psychology, moron.” Then, she did hang up.

Seriously? Sure, astrology was a pseudoscience, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t help you figure out what you really wanted from life. It was why she read her clients their horoscopes. Half the time their interpretation of their horoscope was more telling than dozens of questions.

The phone rang a minute later. She debated not answering, but her curiosity over what type of recovery he’d attempt made her pick up.

“Hey, Christa…Travis said he’d go take a long shower because he didn’t want to hear me grovel.”

She waited.

“Hell, I
will
be groveling. I’d hoped he was kidding.” He sighed. “I swear I just heard you roll your eyes.”

“Wow, your hearing
is
good.”

“I’ve never actually groveled before. I’m not even sure I’d apologized in a decade before I met you. I once tried to get your brother killed by the pack, and I never even apologized for
that
. Of course, it helped that I was in wolf form, so the fact that I left without biting him counted as an apology.”

“Jordan?”

“No, I will. Give me a moment to work up to it.”

“Actually, I’d rather you just talk dirty to me if he’s giving us privacy.”

He exhaled heavily. “Oh. Good. I have no idea how to grovel.”

“For the record, you leaving without biting me would count against you as far as apologies go.” In fact, depending on where he went from there, she might even count a bite as an apology.

He laughed. “Well, good, because once upon a time there was a sweet female who smelled like brown sugar and vanilla, and she wore a red hooded cloak and she made the mistake of walking in the woods belonging to the Big Bad Wolf…”

With a sigh, she pulled the covers up around her. “Wait…wait…wait. First, what did Travis ask?”

“Would you like me to go and get him out of the shower?”

She got from his overly polite tone he was implying she was being ridiculous, but she still said, “Okay, after you tell me this story.”

Her hearing wasn’t quite as good as his, but it sounded a bit like he said “damn stubborn Hansens,” but then he restarted his story, so she let it go.

Chapter Ten

They made it back to the patch of blood just as a mist of light rain started falling.

“How did you catch that trail?” Travis asked as they caught their breath beside the bloody earth. “I mean, I’d have picked it up about a mile ago, but not as soon as you did.”

Having to move in human form had cost them time, but they’d wanted to collect samples along the way and to take a GPS. When the clouds slunk across the sky, they’d run in sprints, stopping periodically to check for scents other than Colby’s.

“I’ve got skills you’ll never even dream of,” Jordan said, crouching beside the blood.

“I don’t know why Troy kept challenging you. I think he actually improved your skills.”

Jordan grinned. “He did. I should thank him for that. I think he’d appreciate it.”

“Yeah, thanks, I’d rather deal with this one homicide.”

“Oh, you think he can take me?”

“No, I’d never bet against you in a fight. I’m betting Troy would get himself killed long before he gave up.”

Jordan pulled on gloves this time. “Well, once he was dead, I’d call it done and not wait for him to call uncle. I’m not a sadist.”

Jordan watched Travis survey the scene and waited for him to come to the same conclusion he had about Colby’s murderer.

Travis inhaled deeply. “Maybe you’re not… I can’t say the same for whoever we’re tracking. It’s like—whoever did this soaked themselves in Colby’s blood and then ran around. I can almost smell another scent, but they’ve done an exceptional job at masking it.”

“No way a human could manage to cover their scent like this. Something about it smells familiar—like I smelled it earlier today, but not in those bags of clothes we went through before coming out here.”

“And no way a Lycan could stop through here and not recognize the scent of blood. Vanessa in the middle of an allergy attack would smell this much blood.” Travis dropped his pack. “Well, I can see your prints here, but this other print…” He pulled out a tape measure. “This is too big for a wolf—or most of our females.”

“Most of them?”

“Alanna wasn’t wearing heels. She really is six feet tall. Her prints are the same size as some males’. Lara and Kelly are almost as tall.”

“So, we have three females and…how many males?”

“Seventeen…if you include me.”

Jordan raised his eyebrows. “I’m willing to rule you out.”

“If you feel good about that…” He pulled out a camera and gave Jordan a flashlight to aim at the prints. A few pictures later, he said, “Nineteen of my pack and the possibility we have an outside Lycan.”

“Neither of which explains this.” Jordan gestured at the blood. “I feel like they’re trying to distract us.”

“If they are, something should have happened already…and you saw all my pack—besides Ross—who checked in.”

“Maybe they’re hoping to scare your group into…”

“What?” Travis asked when Jordan didn’t finish.

“I have no idea. And your pack wasn’t exactly terrified.” When they’d been in the lodge, the group had been almost festive at getting together. There’d been some tension and concern when Travis had been in front of them discussing the murder, but they’d shaken it off almost immediately.

“Colby was new and pissed off a lot of them—and every last one of my pack has this ‘I’m invincible’ thing going on.”

Jordan groaned and stood up. “This is
aggravating
.” Even though it had seemed unlikely, he’d hoped familiarizing themselves with the pack’s scents would lead them to their murderer. He’d had this fantasy of going home to Christa tonight—far more vivid and inventive after that bedtime story. But it
had
been a fantasy, apparently.

“Okay, let’s analyze this logically,” Travis said. “Let’s assume Colby was the only intended victim. Maybe it was related to that off-wolf forum, and maybe it wasn’t. Either way, why would a Lycan in my pack attempt to convince us there was a poacher but lay this trail that could only have been a Lycan?”

“Who hated Colby?”

“This week?” Travis asked wryly. “It’s been like wrangling preteen girls. And it’s not even just the females. I actually heard Kyle tell Merilee that Troy wasn’t his friend anymore. I had no idea what I was signing up for when I volunteered to start a Rainier pack. There are times when I want to start off our meetings by shouting, ‘Girls, we don’t pull hair.’”

Jordan flattened his lips to avoid smiling.

“Colby had this innate ability to find a pressure point and poke at it. I’ve heard rumors he got tossed out of the Black Tusk pack.”

“So it could’ve been any of the nineteen, is what you’re saying.”

“Nah, there are a few who aren’t hotheads. Alanna is volatile, but rational. She might use his death for some other benefit, but that wouldn’t have been her end goal.”

“And this of the female you want for your Alpha?”

Travis gave him a long look. “Cheri.”

Jordan grimaced. He’d never live down that his previous alpha female had started that killing spree two years ago. “Okay, that’s fair—there is something intriguing about the psycho ones.”

“Hopefully, you’re not referring to the current Mrs. Hill.”

“The current Mrs. Hill isn’t sure she wants to be Mrs. Hill, so I think that speaks to her sanity more than anything I could say. It’s also why I’m leaving here tomorrow to convince her to give
us
a chance.”

He felt Travis’s gaze on him. “How long had you been together before I called?”

Jordan clenched his teeth before relaxing. “You want it in hours?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have…”

“So, Alanna is too focused on an end goal to kill rashly,” he said, interrupting. He’d come for his pack’s sake, too. And he’d finished the call with Christa fairly confident they could work things out. “Any of the others?”

“Lara and Merilee wouldn’t have the balls for this…even if they weren’t female.” Travis gestured at the ground. “They won’t go on patrol if it’s too muddy.”

Jordan grinned.

Travis narrowed his eyes and pointed at him. “Shut up! Just shut up! Or I will send the whole lot of them back with you.”

“Even Alanna?”

“No, I’ll keep her. She was settled in this area before we even got here.” He frowned at the ground. “I don’t think Eli, Kurt, or Tom would have done this either.”

“I’d agree.” They were previous members of his pack. “Eli has always been a bit of a peacemaker. I’d pick you as a suspect over him.”

“Yeah, I would too…and I’m me, so there you go.”

Jordan shook his head. “Are you sure your IQ is thirty points higher than mine? Did you hear what you just said?”

Travis shrugged. “I need sleep. I’ve been at this a few days longer than you.”

“Let’s head back. This place is about to get a good, solid soaking. We’ll check to make sure all your kids are tucked into bed with their tracking devices, and we’ll catch a few hours, too.”

Standing up, Travis looked down at his pack with a wince. “Wish we could shift.”

“Leave me your pack and do it. I can just walk back.”

“You’re sure?”

“It’ll give me some time to think about all this.” After his ultimatum about leaving tomorrow, he was anxious to go, but it’d feel wrong to leave this unsolved. There was something teasing the edge of his consciousness, taunting him.

Travis didn’t give him a chance to change his mind before sprinting off on four legs. Jordan gathered up the other Alpha’s clothes, tossed them into his pack, and shouldered it. Keeping his thoughts on the murder and the suspects proved to be more difficult than he was anticipating. He kept thinking back to Christa. He couldn’t keep his head in the game. If it weren’t after midnight, he’d call her again now that he wasn’t busy.

He’d almost reached patrolled land when the humid air carried another scent. He jerked the revolver from Travis’s pack and scanned the area. That had been another reason they’d traveled on two feet. Jordan had wondered if it was a trap that he’d sprung earlier than expected, and they’d wanted to be armed.

The flash of eyes alerted him to her location. “Merilee, shift and step out where I can see you.”

Her throaty laugh made him drop his revolver to his side. The scent of arousal mixed with the scent he’d recognized from her bagged clothing. “Well, if that’s all you wanted, you didn’t even have to ask nicely.”

He reached back and grabbed Travis’s shirt from his pack and tossed it to her. “Put that on and explain yourself.”

She took her time covering up her naked form, and he spent the time staring slightly above her head. This was going to be the rest of his life, and he’d mocked Vanessa for avoiding looking at naked pack males since she’d scent-matched. He felt like he owed her an apology…not that Alphas apologized, but he did owe her one.

Finally, she tugged the hem down with a sigh. “You weren’t lying.”

“About shooting you?”

“About being matched,” she said on a low growl.

He snorted. Not even close. He was as matched as they came. “No, I have a mate in Glacier pack. I’m not interested. Now, why are you here?”

“I was heading home and caught your scent and thought I’d wait around to see if you were as good and as matched as you claim.” She kept her head down, but her tone implied anything but deference. Normally, females in heat were given more latitude for behavior, but he didn’t have the tolerance for this tonight.

“Where were you coming from?”

“Troy’s.” He caught that scent on the air as she said it—sex and Troy. A late-night hookup.

He shook his head. “Do you have a death wish? I’m here looking for a murderer and you’re wandering around bed-hopping?”

Even though her head was bowed, he caught the roll of her eyes. He got more respect from Christa’s cat. “That was Colby. I’m surprised it took this long for someone to shut him up. None of the rest of us are in danger.”

“You don’t think it was poachers.”

“Alanna as good as said it wasn’t…and she said you agreed.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose as he packed away the gun. He should have issued a gag order on that.

“The fact that one of you killed Colby doesn’t bother you?”

Merilee shrugged. “These things happen.” Then she inhaled deeply and lifted up the collar of Travis’s shirt to her nose. “Mmm. Is Travis home?”

The new scent of her and Travis blended hit him. Unbelievable.

“Head home, Merilee, and don’t go anywhere else. If I’m away from my mate, trying to save your damn ass, you should at least be attempting not to get killed.”

Rather than the effect he’d expected, she crossed her arms and met his eyes. “Make me.”

He’d had enough of this. He shifted in a moment, and the snarl from his jaws brooked no argument. Her eyes widened, and then she shifted and bolted home. He waited a moment to see if he’d need to chase her, but she was gone.

Shifting back, he dressed and went to collect Travis’s shirt.

Travis met him at his back door a few minutes later. He looked blearily concerned. “I was about to come after you. What was with that snarl?”

Jordan yanked Travis’s shirt from the pack and handed it to him. “I don’t know. What do you think?” And he was here instead of home with Christa. Unbelievable.

Travis pulled his nose away from the scent. “Why did you rub my shirt on Merilee?” and then he grimaced. “And Troy?”

“She met up with me—intending to find out how mated I really was—and I made her put your shirt on so we could have a conversation about why I’m here instead of with my pack. Apparently, she thinks Colby got what he deserved, and they all think it’s nothing to worry about as your girlfriend told them it definitely wasn’t poachers. Merilee was on her way home from hooking up with Troy.”

Travis tossed his shirt into his house. “I ought to burn that. It won’t smell like just me for too many washings.”

“Yeah, I…” He stopped and stared at Travis. Of course…he was an idiot. “That’s what the smell was.”

“What?”

“All of them…or a lot of them. It smelled like when they were all gathered in the lodge.”

Travis nodded slowly. “I can see that. It smelled like five or six of them.” He glanced behind him. “Shall we sniff the bags again and figure out which ones?”

Jordan’s shoulders dropped. He’d rather slam his head in the door than go back through all the bags again, but they’d been careful not to let the scents mix last time. Now they’d be doing the opposite—finding the subtle notes of different Lycans in an orchestration of musk. “Sounds like a fun night.”

“I’ll pop the popcorn,” Travis said, standing back to let Jordan pass.

“Hell.”

“Yup, we’re in it.”

…

Three hours later, they tossed the last bag into the center of the room. They could identify seven Lycans in all: Alanna, Merilee, Lara, Brant, Kelly, Martin, and Troy. Other than Troy, they were all new to the Rainier pack.

They’d had to sort through chemical scents like detergents and antibacterial soap, and other products like iodine and ethanol—possibly from Alanna’s veterinary practice. There’d been decay and mud to factor in. Finally there was a musky scent he couldn’t quite pick out, but it was mingled with Colby’s blood enough that it was possibly related to him. Colby had gone from work straight to the meeting he’d died after, so the other scent might be one of the barflies they’d met. It smelled familiar, but wasn’t in one of the labeled bags.

Jordan sat on the carpet beside the bags and looked from name to name. Seven Lycans.

Travis sat on the other side of the pile and kept inhaling the communal scent of all the opened bags and shaking his head. “How is this possible? Outside of Troy, I’d have guessed the rest of them wouldn’t kill another Lycan.”