Werewolves in Love 2: Yours, Mine and Howls (40 page)
“Fine,” she chirped to his back. “We can talk about you instead. So. You have dreams that portend the future—”
“Portend? Who the fuck says
portend
?”
“—
and
rumors about your dad have been floating around Houston for years. Now, I’m starting to think—”
“Fine!” he shouted. The guys by the cabins stopped what they were doing and stared across the yard at him.
“Fine,” he growled again, more quietly, and then he sighed in resignation. “Mary Ann.”
“
Yes,”
she hissed triumphantly. She crossed her legs Indian style and spun to face him, hugging her arms in anticipation of the whole juicy story.
“So,” he began. “Mary Ann was crazy. The kind of female who’d burn your stuff after a fight and then say it just proved how much she loved you. You know the kind I mean?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Right. I mean, she was hot as hell, but it’s like I told Cade, no amount of hot is worth that much crazy. But he wouldn’t listen. He was into the chaos and I couldn’t talk him out of anything…”
“Goddamn, Dec. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
His uncle finished stowing his gear away and looked up with a grin. “You like my bike?”
“I like your bike. Saddlebags look like they’ll hold suitcases.”
“Well, I’d intended to get a car. Something practical. Then I thought—right. Fuck practical. I haven’t had a bike in sixty years.”
Cade had had a couple of touring cycles, but nothing like Dec's fully tricked out Harley. He walked around the breathtakingly beautiful machine, running a hand over the spacious leather seat and gleaming chrome console. “I need one of these. I really do.”
“They make a sidecar, but I don’t think Ally would want to ride in it. I think your mate would look rather fierce on the back of this thing.”
Cade agreed. He doubted she’d ever had sex on a bike. Something to file away for later…
“So,” he said.
“So,” his uncle agreed.
His pose was identical to Dec’s—rocked back on his heels, arms crossed over his chest, hands tucked under his arms.
Dec noticed at the same time.
Both wolves immediately shifted, shuffling their feet and trying to do something else with their hands. Cade cleared his throat.
“You’ve said goodbye to everyone?”
“I have. Becca gave me a stuffed animal for company. I promised to photograph him everywhere I stop.”
“She’ll love that.”
“I do appreciate your seeing me off.”
“I couldn’t let you leave without saying goodbye.”
“Wee fella make you do it, did he?”
Cade laughed, a little embarrassed. “I would’ve done it anyway. Listen. Is there anything you need before you go?”
“Oh no. No, I’ve got everything.”
“You need money?”
“No. But if you ever do, just let me know.”
Cade blinked, taken aback.
Dec smiled. “Seriously, if you ever need anything at all, everyone here’s got my number.”
The kind-of-Irishwolf fixed him with one of those frank and piercing gazes that made him itch. Cade cleared his throat again.
“Well. If you don’t need anything, then— Oh, wait, one more thing. Ally says you’re expected back here for the holidays.”
“Is that okay with you?” Dec asked with a raised eyebrow. Cade wasn’t going to miss the frequently creepy sensation of looking in a mirror while talking to another person.
“I wouldn’t really have a choice, with Ally and Sindri and Becca, but yes, of course. You’ll always have a place here. We’re your family. And your pack.”
They shook hands. Cade was glad of the bike between them—Dec looked like he might’ve tried to hug him. Instead, he swung a leg over the Harley. He started to put his helmet on, still watching Cade with that disconcerting stare.
Cade grabbed a handlebar. “What? What is it?”
Dec cut the engine and set the helmet on his lap. He stared at the ground for a minute, then back up at Cade.
“There’s a reason she saved her, you know.”
They hadn’t discussed Ally since that day in the woods. Now he wished they had.
“You think so?” He crossed his arms again, kicking at the grass with the toe of his boot. “I’ve tried to talk to Sindri about it, but he won’t discuss it.”
“No, he wouldn’t.”
“I want to know why she saved Ally when she didn’t save Mama or Carson. Do you think—” It sounded too stupid to say out loud, but what the hell. “Do you think she did it because she knew Ally would get Dylan to me? Did she know Ally was my mate?”
“No.” The ferocity of Dec’s tone surprised him. “Fuck no. She’s not God. None of them are. They’re immortal, not omniscient. Eir saved Ally because Ally saved Dylan, and our line is precious to her. That’s it.
“But you know what, pup? That’s not what worries me. I understand why she saved Ally and not Eirny or Carson. What bothers me—what fucking terrifies me—is that Eir could save her at all. It’s the twenty-first century. Old Ones haven’t messed with our world in a thousand years. I thought evolution had taken care of that.”
“I know. That’s what I thought about when Ally first told me what happened to her.”
“Don’t get me wrong—I’m thrilled Ally came back. Thrilled for her sake, and Dylan’s, and yours and Becca’s. But if Eir can reach out and touch someone, that means others can do it as well. Our world doesn’t need that.”
“That’s why you’re leaving now? Is it something to do with Eir?”
Dec nodded.
“What will you do?”
“I’ll talk to folks I’ve not seen in a while. I spent the twentieth century around humans and normal werewolves because I was tired of people as old and tired as me. I need to get back in touch with my folk.”
“Where?”
“New York City, to begin with. I have a cousin there who always has an ear to the ground. If there’ve been any supernatural rumblings, he’ll know about it.” He put his helmet on.
Cade nodded. “That makes sense. Will you keep in touch? Let me know what you find out, what you hear?”
“Absolutely.”
They shook hands again. Dec restarted the engine and roared off down the gravel road.
Cade thought he might actually miss him.
“Seth,” he called a few minutes later.
The beta paused on his way to the gym.
“Hey, Cade.”
“Do you know where Ally is?”
“No, but I got a late start this morning.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He needed to talk to her about what Dec had said.
Despite Sindri’s devotion, Cade never gave the Old Ones much thought—not the Aesir of his mother’s people, not the Tuatha Dé Danann or the Orishas or any others in the pantheon of pre-historic immortals. They’d withdrawn from the world, or been taken out of it. No one knew which or why. Cade had never cared.
Ally, on the other hand, had spent years learning about Eir and other Old Ones, researching credible stories of physical interaction between mortals and the Immortal Entities Formerly Known As Gods With a Little G.
Jesus.
Whom he’d much rather run into, actually.
He checked in the house—no Ally.
They hadn’t discussed the subjects each knew was weighing on the other. Ally’s lifespan. The lifespan of any children they might have. Where they’d go when they got so old people began to talk. If Becca would be doomed to outlive a string of husbands and all her children.
He saw Michael heading for the Rover.
“You seen Ally?”
“Not since breakfast.” Michael buckled up and started the car, clearly not in the mood to chat.
“Where you off to in such a hurry?”
He leered. “Town. Tara.”
Cade had tried to discuss the whole Vargalf thing with Michael a couple times. On both occasions, Michael changed the subject. Michael was going to have to think about it at some point but for now, Cade wouldn’t push him.
If she wasn’t with Becca, and she wasn’t working out, maybe she’d gone for a ride.
As he approached the barns, a groom jogged out to meet him, a big, goofy grin on his face.
“What is it, Felipe?”
“Ally’s looking for you, Boss. She’s in B.”
“Oh, good. Is she saddling up?”
Felipe shrugged. “I dunno. She kicked me out, told me to find you and to tell everyone else to stay away.”
Cade mustered his best Pack Alpha scowl-and-growl. “You’re about to bust a gut there, son. You got a joke you need to tell me?”
Properly abashed, Felipe reddened and dropped his gaze. “No, Alpha. Um, sorry.”
He wouldn’t laugh. “Fine. Go see if Doyle can use you in A-Barn.”
“Yes, sir.”
Cade strolled into B. “Ally?”
She sighed loudly. “Took you long enough.” She didn’t sound annoyed, though—she sounded relaxed. Happy.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“Well, I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Where are you, baby?” But he knew.
Something floated down from above, landing on his shoulder. Lavender-scented fabric.
A bra.
He looked up to see her peeking over the railing of the hayloft.
“You coming up or not?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Springing up the wooden ladder three steps at a time, he hauled himself into the loft to find her lying naked in the hay like a centerfold. He forced himself to undress slowly, so he could just stare at her a few minutes. It excited him all the more because he knew that stripping down in an open barn in the middle of the afternoon wasn’t an easy thing for her.
He wondered how long it would take before the sight of her like this no longer summoned a wave of desire that left his head spinning. How long it would be before he could look at her with something less than amazement, before he could think without wonderment of the way she’d slipped into his life, his child’s life, and made herself necessary without even trying.
No mate bond could account for that on its own.
She looked a little cross as she stretched and wiggled. “Since when does it take you so long to get naked?”
“Sorry. Here. I’m done.”
He covered her body with his, and she wrapped her arms around him.
“We need to discuss some very serious subjects,” he murmured into her ear, loving the way she shivered beneath him.
“Can it wait ’til later?” she whispered.
“Yeah. Yeah, it can wait. We’ve got time.”
About the Author
Kinsey Holley lives in Houston, Texas, where a lot of people know about her Secret Romance Writer Identity. Hopefully those people don’t include her mother or the folks she goes to church with. She’s married to the Hub, mommy to the Diva, and works part time as a law librarian.
She enjoys reading SF, UF, history and romance and is addicted to pop culture and several television series. She dreams of moving to the mountains of Colorado, which she’d never really do because all her friends and family are in Houston and she loves them and besides, she can’t imagine being more than an hour’s drive from a beach. Besides her
Werewolves in Love
series, she’s working on a Regency and a big, glitzy contemporary that she hopes will evoke comparisons to the sexy melodramas of the 80s (Models! Rock stars! Monaco! Alexis Morrell Carrington Colby Dexter Dexter Rowan! No, not her…)
Kinsey takes her mail at
[email protected]
, lives at
www.kinseyholley.com
and
ninenaughtynovelists.blogspot.com
, and hangs out way too much at Twitter (
@kinseyholley
).
Pop round and say hi.
Look for these titles by Kinsey Holley
Now Available:
Kiss and Kin
Coming Soon:
Ready to Run
She follows her dreams into his arms…and danger is not far behind.
Anchor
© 2011 Jorrie Spencer
Mala never outgrew her night terrors. At twenty-eight, her nights are a battleground as she defends helpless wolves from attack by their own kind. The effort costs her—one dream often leads to a week of missed work.
When her defense of a young wolf is rewarded by the mention of a real town, she finally has the chance to learn if her dreams are just as real. She never expected to meet an honest-to-God alpha werewolf, much less develop an instant, embarrassing crush on him.
Angus MacIntyre, de facto alpha of Wolf Town, is determined to see every fugitive wolf employed, educated and well-adjusted to life in the open. The arrival of a young wolf on the run isn’t all that unusual, but the human woman hard on his heels is beyond extraordinary.
The dark-eyed beauty possesses a dream-wraith ability that challenges everything he thinks he knows about his world—and stirs his
mine
instinct in a way he’s never felt before. Yet her gift makes her vulnerable to those who would try to use it to their advantage. But this is his town. His pack. His woman. And Angus will do whatever it takes to protect what’s his.
Warning: Wolf towns, bad guys, dreams and non-alpha alpha wolves, as well as an overabundance of family, and, of course, a healthy dose of romance and sex.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Anchor:
Mala got off the bus, hiked her pack up on her back and walked out of the small station. They had more snow on the ground here than in Toronto, no surprise. She glanced up and down the main road to see it looked like every other small town in northern Ontario she’d just bussed through on the milk run. There were no wolves in sight. She wondered if she gave off an
I’m not a werewolf
vibe that would alienate everyone she talked to. But from what she’d read, the town had plenty of non-wolf inhabitants. Wolf Town attracted wolves
and
those with wolves in the family.
Two blocks down she identified a friendly looking restaurant and walked in. The waitress and all five customers turned to stare at her, and she had the impression one of them sniffed.
Courage
. She pasted on a smile and marched up to the counter to drop her bag at her feet.
“Hi.”
The woman nodded, and Mala had the same feeling she’d had on occasion when she realized she was the only dark-skinned person in a room full of whites and the whites all noticed. That wasn’t the case here, but she felt out of place, an outsider. Well, for goodness’ sake, she was an outsider.
Focus, Mala.