Wolf (24 page)

she asked finally.

Mac sighed. “They weren’t too keen on giving us the boat.”

Sylvie shuddered. Fishermen? She dismissed that as soon as it popped into her head. She hadn’t been able to tell much about the boat, but it was too big and too nice to be a fishing boat. “Who were they?”

“Pirates—drug runners—arms dealers. They did a little of everything from what we could see.”

She felt her heart quicken. His comments pushed the blankness from her mind that she hadn’t realized she welcomed until images began to pour in—some real, some wholly unwelcome possible scenarios. “Do you think they’ll come after us?”

“Not them,” he said grimly.

“Others?”

He hesitated. “It’s a big operation. We dumped the drugs they’d hidden on board, though. Hopefully, they’ll be satisfied to get their product back. We aren’t planning on hanging around long enough to find out.”

Which meant they might. She didn’t want to think about it. “Can you stay with me?”

Again he hesitated, but after a moment, he settled them both more comfortably on the bed and curled around her. She focused on emptying her mind as soon as she felt safe and warmth had crept into her to chase the cold away.

Daylight was streaming through the portal when she woke. Reluctance began to tug at Sylvie as soon as she started surfacing toward awareness. She shifted to find a more comfortable position to try to recapture sleep, but the discovery that she had
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company in the bed roused her enough to open her eyes.

Mac, she discovered, was studying her, his eyes heavy as if he’d only just awakened himself. His lips curled after a moment. “Morning.”

She found herself smiling back at him.

He kissed the tip of her nose and sat up. “You hungry? I could eat a grizzly bear.”

She rolled over and stretched when he headed into the bathroom, closing her eyes to drowse a little longer while she waited for her turn. Undoubtedly, she drifted off. She woke abruptly to the feel of cold sprinkles of water on her face and opened her eyes to see Mac standing at the side of the bed, grinning. “Get up and feed me, woman, or I might eat you.”

Irritation flickered through her, but she couldn’t help but chuckle at his he-man routine. She sobered once she was in the bathroom. Surrounded by the unfamiliar, it was impossible not to think about the way the boat had been acquired—the battle on the dock that had scared her witless the night before. Struggling to put it from her mind until she felt better equipped to deal with it, she cleaned up, dressed, and left the bedroom. The main cabin was empty.

Shaking her head, she went to the galley and began examining the cabinets and the small fridge. Surprise flickered through her to discover that it was actually fairly well stocked. Listening idly to the voices of the men up top, she searched for essentials and finally put a pot of coffee on. Despite the fact that the kitchen/galley was well equipped besides being fully stocked, she discovered cooking on a rocking boat required concentration and care. She managed to turn out a pan full of scrambled eggs and a second pan of bacon.

The smell of the coffee and bacon brought all four men down.

She glanced at them as they hovered just beyond the galley hopefully. “Who’s driving the boat?”

Everyone turned to look at Beau. “I set the wheel. It should be alright until I get back up top,” he responded irritably.

It was just as well she was content with the coffee, Sylvie thought wryly. The men inhaled the eggs and bacon and came back for more. Shrugging, she whipped up more eggs and cooked the rest of the bacon. “That’s it,” she informed them when they looked up again.

Shrugging, they carried their plates and utensils to the galley, dumped them in the sink, and disappeared again. Sylvie glared at them as they trooped past her, but they seemed blithely unaware of her displeasure. Dismissing it as too much effort to complain, she finished her coffee, studied the dishes in the sink when she carried her cup into the galley and finally ignored them, heading up on deck.

Beau was at the wheel again. Mac, his face pulled into an expression of intense concentration, was studying maps and charts. Hawk and Cavanaugh had been lounging on the deck but when they saw her, they got up and headed downstairs purposefully.

Sylvie sent them a curious look, but dismissed it.

When she’d strolled the circumference of the boat she’d observed that there wasn’t a sign of land in any direction, although she saw a bank of what looked like clouds far to the west that she thought might be the coast. The boat was a small yacht very similar to the one that had belonged to her stepfather, but she didn’t know if it was
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the same boat or just similar. She supposed her stepfather’s would’ve run out of gas and been drifting if the military hadn’t managed to catch up to it before it did. It
could
be the same boat, but there was no way to be sure since the pirates had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to change it. In any case, beyond the size, amenities, and builder, there wasn’t a lot of difference from one to another.

She hoped it wasn’t his. He might stand a chance of getting it back otherwise.

And, if he had, or did, he would be certain she was dead. She felt bad about that, although she couldn’t imagine he would grieve. She’d been grown when her mother had married him. They’d been friendly enough—he was good to her mother and clearly loved her—but they’d never formed a bond beyond the common ground of her mother and she’d died years ago.

She still felt strangely detached after the battle that had been waged the night before. Next to her terrifying encounter with the soldiers, or guerrillas, when Mac had tried to cut her loose, though, she couldn’t say she felt any more traumatized.

She didn’t think she would ever have any desire to visit South America again.

Hearing noises below and tired of wandering the deck anyway, Sylvie finally headed down into the main cabin to see what Hawk and Cavanaugh were up to. She wasn’t happy when she discovered they were systematically removing pieces of the bulkhead, mostly because she discovered a stack of bundles she knew must be drugs.

“Oh my god!”

Hawk flicked a sharp glance at her. “We got rid of the bulk of it as soon we came on board, but Cavanaugh was watching it. We knew they’d already hidden a good bit.

Don’t worry. There won’t be a trace of it when we hit port.”

Profoundly relieved, Sylvie nodded. Something dark and unnamable that had been hovering at the back of her mind eased as she watched Cavanaugh gather up bundles and carry them up top and then heard the splash as he pitched stuff overboard.

She hadn’t really believed they had any intention of selling the drugs, but it was still a tremendous relief to have confirmation. More than that, it relieved her of the fear she hadn’t wanted to consider—that Mac hadn’t been completely honest with her about the boat.

Not that two wrongs ever made a right, but she was glad to know she hadn’t been wrong about the guys. The men they’d attacked had been predators themselves, and she felt like their survival was a mitigating circumstance. She didn’t believe any of them would’ve done any of the things they had if they hadn’t been deprived of any other choice and forced to fight for survival when they hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

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They were hardly home free. Sylvie was well aware that they were probably in as much danger now as they had been when they’d been fleeing through the jungle, maybe more since they were so exposed. Beyond that, even if they managed to make it to the US coast without being attacked either by pissed off pirates/drug runners or the military that was still pursuing their escaped experiments, they had other problems to face once they got there.

The guys couldn’t simply return to their homes and families. The government would just pick them up and haul them back to Guantanamo and make them disappear and she knew that as well as they did. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that she could be looking at the same, or at least an uncomfortably similar, scenario.

It was time she had answers, though, she decided. She’d been content to hang on for the ride. She hadn’t actually felt comfortable with the idea of questioning what they were doing or why when she knew she’d only been invited to join the party because their consciences wouldn’t allow them to simply dump her to survive or not.

After a while that had ceased to be the reason she’d refrained, however. She still hadn’t wanted to remind them that they hadn’t planned to bring her for fear they would dump her somewhere, but it was only partly because she was afraid and didn’t know how to handle the situation she’d found herself in. She didn’t want them to leave her because she wanted to stay with them, because she’d enjoyed the sexual adventure way too much and moved beyond that. She’d grown far too fond of them. She’d reached a point where she couldn’t imagine a life without them in it and didn’t want to.

She had a problem, though, and it was growing. If she could’ve just convinced herself that she was pregnant, she would probably still have been scared shitless, but that had the possibility of a happy ending. The problem was that she wasn’t convinced and if it was a tumor it was growing dangerously fast and not only did she not want to go that way, but she didn’t want to risk slowing them down and being responsible for their capture and death.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the sort of thing that could be handled simply and easily or even delicately. She needed to know what they planned to do. If they were just going to leave her anyway as soon as they got her back on American soil, she didn’t suppose there was any point in disturbing them with her problem. If that wasn’t the plan, though, she didn’t want to say anything that would make them change their mind. She still needed to know what was going on with her body. She couldn’t just ignore it. She didn’t see how
they
could ignore it.

She discovered when the opportunity dropped in her lap, however, that she was scared to take the plunge.

“So—what’s the plan?” Hawk asked when they’d finished their evening meal and were still seated around the dining booth.

Mac flicked a glance at her and she thought for a moment that he would exclude
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her like he generally did when he had a ‘mission’ to discuss with the men. He surprised her, though.

“Unfortunately, we’re going to have to play some of it by ear—not enough intel.

Beau has connections he assures me we can trust, though.” He motioned to Beau to get the map and spread it on the table when they’d cleared it.

He pointed to a thin, wavy line going up from the gulf and into Louisiana. “We think the boat has a shallow enough draft to get far enough up this tributary to reach his friends. If not, we might have to use the life raft. I don’t especially want to when the bayous are full of gators and snakes and cypress knees, but we’ll do what we have to. He assures me they’ll put us up until we can arrange transportation and new identities.”

He paused and studied Sylvie so long she thought she knew what was coming.

She braced herself, struggling against the sudden urge to cry.

He released a heavy breath. “We’re going to have to get Sylvie to a doctor. If everything checks out and he doesn’t think there’ll be a problem moving her, we’ll find a place for her to stay for a few weeks while we look for a place to make home base. Even if everything’s ok, I don’t think it would be good for her or the babies to keep dragging her all over the place.

“Depending, of course, on how long it takes to find what we want and acquire it, and what the doctor has to say, we can, hopefully, get her settled in with plenty of time before the babies get here.

“If not, we may have to settle down and wait it out and make the final move after the babies get here.”

Too stunned even to assimilate what he’d said at first, Sylvie finally held her hands in a ‘stop right there’ gesture. “Wait, wait, wait! Go back!”

Mac looked at her with a mixture of wariness and grim determination. “It’s a good plan. A workable plan.”

“Go back to the part about the baby.”

The men, suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable and wary, bailed out of the dining booth.

“I’ll just go check the course,” Beau said hurriedly.

“I think I’ll just go with him. I’d like to know more about these friends of his,”

Hawk said.

“Me, too,” Cavanaugh agreed.

Mac glared at them, but he stood his ground. “Actually, I said babies,” he said uncomfortably.

“You
know
I’m pregnant? I mean, you’re sure?”

“Yes,” he said cautiously, obviously uneasy about the possibility that it was a trick question.

Sylvie simply stared at him, trying to digest that. “How long have you known?”

He hesitated. “Since we got you pregnant.”

Sylvie felt her jaw slide to half-mast. “We?” she asked in a strangled voice.

“You think …?”

His lips tightened. “I know.”

“How …? How …? You think you
all
fathered the baby?” she asked blankly.

“I know we
each
fathered a baby—at least, I’m certain of two. I’m reasonably certain Beau and Cavanaugh also fathered one, but I know I did. And I’m almost a
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hundred percent certain about Hawk, too.”

“But …but …but …. That isn’t even possible, is it?”

Mac’s lips tightened. “Not humanly.”

She gaped at him. “Then why do you think …?”

He seemed to wrestle with himself. “We aren’t human, Sylvie,” he said roughly.

Sylvie blinked several times. “Of course you are!”

“At best, we could only claim to be half human! But I’m not even betting on that anymore. We just
look
human to you. I don’t know what we are—
—maybe—but we aren’t human anymore and we haven’t been in a long time. I
know
you’re pregnant because
I’m
not human and I
know
we all bred you because I
made
you come in heat to produce enough eggs for each of us. It was for the good of the pack.”

Sylvie’s mind was still swimming against a tide of disbelief, but that comment produced a spark of anger. “You made … for the good of the pack?” she asked faintly.

He scrubbed his hand over his face. “We
needed
to mate. You wouldn’t understand the drive. It was maddening. We all felt the urge and it couldn’t be ignored.

If I hadn’t done it, we would’ve all been fighting for dominance over the one and we couldn’t afford the distraction—let alone the danger to you. It was dangerous enough as it was.”

Sylvie scooted out of the booth abruptly and made a dash for the bathroom. She made it, but just barely. She’d slammed both doors on the way in but Mac, the ass, followed her. “Out!” she said weakly when she could catch her breath.

He hesitated but finally closed the bathroom door.

She felt like hell when she’d finished emptying her stomach, weak, washed out and completely empty. Shuddering, struggling to keep from gagging again, she finally got up and brushed her teeth and washed her face. She was still weak and shaky when she dragged herself from the bathroom.

Mac, she discovered, was waiting. He scooped her up and carried her to the bed.

She felt too bad to protest, or beat him around the head and shoulders, but she wanted to.

It was a relief to lie down. She curled into a ball and squeezed her eyes shut.

Mac, for once showing no sign of possessing a sense of self-preservation, sat down on the bed and began to stroke her back. “Better?”

“No, I don’t fucking feel better!” she snapped crossly. “I’m pregnant! With four!

My god, Mac! What were you thinking?”

“I’m not sure you’d call it thinking,” he said tightly. “I don’t know how to explain it beyond saying the beasts took over. I wasn’t thinking.
We
weren’t thinking.

We were acting on instincts.”

A handy excuse if she’d ever heard one!

“It just … sort of snowballed out of control before I knew what was happening. I sensed that you were fertile and the others did, as well. I’d established myself as the leader. I knew it was mine by right, but I could feel them edging toward a complete loss of control. And then, somehow, I knew what to do to solve the problem.”

“
Whose
damned problem? Not my problem!” She sniffed, struggling with tears.

“I thought you were all just really horny. It wasn’t bad enough thinking you all just wanted me because I was the only woman around! Now you’re saying it was just instinct because I happened to be fertile at the time!”

“It wasn’t that way, god damn it!” Mac growled. “And it didn’t have a damned
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thing to do with the fact that you were the only woman around! Because you weren’t!

Give me a little fucking credit! I guess I can see where you’d get that idea, all things considered. Regardless of how things played out, though, I didn’t just decide on you because you were most handy or just there. We were within ten miles of a village and there were plenty of women there. If I’d just wanted ‘a’ woman, or we had, we could’ve found one without any damned trouble.”

Sylvie sniffed, willing to be convinced. “Really?”

Mac looked angry. “I thought you were my woman. I thought you cared about me.”

Sylvie gaped at him, deeply disturbed to abruptly find herself on the defensive.

“Oh! That is so not fair!”

“Just not enough to have my baby.”

Sylvie swallowed convulsively. “I love you.”

He looked willing to be mollified. “But you hate me for getting you pregnant.”

Sylvie scooted closer to him and put her arms around him. “That’s not true! I’m

… I’m just scared! I’ve never had a baby! I don’t know what I’m going to do if you’re right and there’s four—or even two.” She wrestled with her pride a moment. “I’m not young anymore, Mac! What if … what if I can’t do this? What if …? Eggs get old and they aren’t really any good anymore and the babies ….”

His arms tightened around her. “They were healthy. I know I would’ve sensed it if they hadn’t been. I don’t know how, but I know none of us would’ve felt the drive if we hadn’t known you were right for us and we could count on getting healthy pups off of you.”

He couldn’t have said anything more comforting. Next to being pregnant at all, the fear that she couldn’t produce a normal, healthy child was the most terrifying thing about the entire situation—that and the fear that she would disappoint Mac.

And the others.

The
sniveling
cowards! They’d sneaked off and left Mac to take the heat! Of course, he was the instigator, but they hadn’t held back that she recalled! In point of fact, if she hadn’t felt so desperate, she thought their enthusiasm might have been more than a little scary.

Dismissing her anger with them for the moment, she finally allowed herself to consider that she was actually going to be a mother when she’d given up all hope of it.

Easing away from Mac, she settled her hand on her abdomen as the certainty sank in to her and the awful feeling that the rounded mound was something bad vanished.

Abruptly she felt a thrill of joy, pleasure at the firm rounded flesh instead of fear and disgust.

“You want me to have your baby,” she said wonderingly. He hadn’t said he loved her, not in so many words, but didn’t that mean he did?

He cupped her face, meeting her gaze. “Does that mean you aren’t pissed off at me anymore?”

Sylvie frowned. The sudden suspicion assailed her that she’d been manipulated very skillfully.

And Mac was damned good at that!

She sighed a little irritably. “I’ll think about it.”

He uttered a huff of breath. “Guess that means you aren’t interested in giving me
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a little?”

She felt like punching him. “You are
such
an asshole! You drop a bomb on me like this and expect me to be in the mood?”

“That’s what I thought,” he muttered. Releasing her, he rolled from the bed.

“And before you decide how damned insensitive I am, you might think about the fact that
I
haven’t had any in a while! I’ve been busting my balls to get us all out of that hell hole with our skin in tact!”