Blackwing Wolf (Kane's Mountains Book 2) (2 page)

Emma stopped sketching the dark, sleek lines of a panther in her journal and narrowed her eyes at the window. A set of headlights had just drifted over, briefly casting a line of bright light through the small opening between the thick black-out curtains.

She slipped off the bed, padded over to the window, and lightly brushed the curtain aside in case it was Beast returning late. He was terrifying at nights, as if his animal was ready to hunt. Nocturnal carnivores even set off her dull human senses.

Dustin parked in front of his room a couple doors to the right. His black sports car skidded to a halt while the rumbling engine cut off in the same second. Idiot probably spent more on that car than she made in three years. It was hot as fuck, though.

When Dustin stumbled out, holding his neck, Emma gasped. In the illumination of the neon motel sign, dark crimson was streaming through his fingers.

“Oh, my gosh,” she murmured, but couldn’t hear herself, so she bolted for the charger where her hearing aids were nestled inside. With trembling fingers, she placed them in her ears and then grabbed her phone. She dialed Winter on reflex, but on second thought, she hesitated connecting the call. Winter and Logan were Blackwings now while Emma, Dustin, and Beast were still rogue. It shouldn’t have mattered, it really shouldn’t, but to Emma, it did.

She shoved the cell deep in her back pocket, snatched her key card off the table, and then bolted for Dustin’s room. Beast was still gone, shifted into his animal deep in the woods somewhere, so he wouldn’t be any help. Besides, that shifter couldn’t control himself around other males with injuries. One whiff of the blood streaming out of Dustin’s neck, and he would attack. He wouldn’t be able to help himself. His animal was broken just like the rest of them.

Emma slammed her fist against the door, but it gave under her force. Frowning, Emma pushed it open to find a bloody shirt had propped the door open. She kicked it out of the way, then clicked the door closed behind her.

Dustin stood across the room at the sink, snarling. “Get out, Emma.” His eyes glowed eerily, one ocean blue and one seafoam green. His shoulder-length hair was matted with blood, and there were open gashes all over his bare torso. He had a roll of toilet paper against his neck that wasn’t going to do anything but keep Dustin’s blood from staining the white porcelain sink.

“I’m going to get some first aid,” she said in a much steadier voice than she felt.

“No, don’t come back in here. Emma!” he yelled as she bolted for the motel office.

John was working tonight, and he would have something for her. He was a helpful soul, and they talked whenever she needed anything. He’d told her he’d bought a bigger first-aid kit for the motel after Winter had come in injured. Logan had clawed her arm all to hell, and John had been nice about it. He hadn’t even kicked the shifters out of his motel, just prepped for more bloodshed. Smart man.

“Hey Emma,” John said from behind the computer desk where he was flipping the pages of a sexy bodice-ripper romance. John was straight as a nail, but he liked reading the dirty scenes. Sometimes she raided his sexy book stash when she was bored.

“Hey John, you know that shifter first-aid kit you ordered?”

His dark, bushy eyebrows arched up high. “You need it?”

“I need it fast,” she punched out, doing her best to enunciate her words. The hearing loss made it hard to talk clearly sometimes.

Saying something she couldn’t understand, John bolted for the back room. He repeated when he came out again. “Do I need to call an ambulance?”

“No! No, it’ll be fine.” No more police, or Dark Kane definitely wouldn’t let the rest of the D-Team into his crew. She took the large plastic box by the handle and forced a smile. “Thanks, John, I’ll bring this back.”

“Good luck,” he said, worry wrinkling his forehead.

Emma sprinted back across the parking lot. For as much as Dustin had yelled at her not to come back, he was waiting at the door for her. “I can’t get it to stop bleeding,” he said low enough she barely caught it.

“Talk louder,” she demanded, shoving him back into the room. She bullied him into the bathroom, and for as strong and powerful as the werewolf was, he allowed it. Usually Dustin fought everything, so he must’ve been bad off.

“Let me see,” she said, shoving the soaked red roll of toilet paper away from his neck.

Something had damn-near ripped his throat out, and now Dustin was pale as a ghost and averting his gaze away from her, a weak human, as though he was ashamed.

“Who did this to you?” she demanded. “Who?” She shoved him hard on the shoulder. “Did some of the A-Team escape? Did they do this?”

No answer.

Emma yanked a towel off the rack by the shower so hard the fabric snapped at the end. She pushed it against his neck, dug through the first aid kit, and pulled out the packs of sterilized, curved stitching needles and sutures. “Thread this, I’m calling Kane.”

“No! You can’t call him. Please. Don’t call anyone. This is…this is my own thing.” Dustin hadn’t ever gone this long without joking, and now he was begging her to keep his secrets. Something big was happening. Something bigger than both of them. But he looked so desperate, so serious, and she’d never seen him like this.

Emma blew out a steadying breath. “Dustin, you still have to thread the needle. My hands are shaking too bad.”

Dustin frowned and dipped his gaze to where she clenched her trembling fists at her sides. His fingers were streaked with dried blood, but she didn’t flinch away when he squeezed her hand. “Okay, I will. Hold the towel.”

Emma held it to his neck as he moved them slowly to the counter. He turned, giving her his back—brave for a wolf to do that when he was injured—but Emma was no threat to a man like him. He could snap her neck before she even had the thought to hurt him.

Something rattled just on the edge of her hearing, and she could feel it in the air, some vibration she didn’t understand. Carefully, she rested her free hand on the muscular planes of Dustin’s back. He was growling, softly. So softly her hearing aids hadn’t helped her pick it up.

Dustin ghosted her a glance in the mirror, then turned and presented her with the threaded needle. “Hurry.” His hands were shaking now too.

In a rush, Emma went to work on his neck. She hated the blood, but this part she was good at.

“You’ve done this before,” Dustin said, loud enough this time. He was probably trying to keep himself distracted from the sting of the needle.

“This ain’t my first rodeo, cowboy.”

He flinched under her hand, so she moved closer and tried to be gentler when she pulled the torn skin together.

She talked to distract him. “I used to work nights at a hospital. I was thinking about being a nurse, or maybe a doctor, but changed my mind after a year working the front desk in the ER. I learned a lot though. There was a nice doctor that took me under her wing and showed me the ropes. She was like a mentor, and taught me a lot.” Emma shot Dustin a quick look and said carefully, “No claw marks.”

“What?”

She blew out a sigh and pressed another stich into his skin. “You don’t have any claw marks, so that rules out bears and big cats.”

“Stop it. Stop with the guessing. I’m not talking about it.”

“Fine, but I want to know what werewolves are doing in the area and why they nearly ripped your throat out, Dustin. This could’ve killed you.”

“Nothing can kill me. I’m invincible,” he said through a smirk.

“That’s not true. You know it and I know it. The A-Team was annihilated by Logan and Winter. People die, and tonight it could’ve been you.”

“You would’ve missed me, huh?”

She wanted to claw that grin off his face. It was a fake one. A forced one. It wasn’t real, and they’d been through enough during the Blackwing interview process that he didn’t have to hide real feelings with pretend bravado. When Emma jammed the needle into his neck, he snarled loud enough for her to hear this time. Fast as she could to distract his wolf from his aggression, Emma pulled the back of Dustin’s hair and leveled him with a look. “What’s going on, Dustin.”

He stood there frozen, glaring down at her with narrowed eyes. “Careful, Human. Some shit is too far over your head, and you shouldn’t get involved in things that don’t concern you.”

“You concern me.”

A look of shock drifted over his face, just for an instant, and then his smirk was back. “You wanna fuck now?”

She made a pissed-off
tick
sound behind her teeth and started sewing again. She would have to cut these stitches out tomorrow when his skin was cinched, but he needed these for tonight to stop the damn bleeding.

Suddenly Dustin went down hard. His legs just went out from under him, and he went to the floor. Emma tried to soften his fall, but she was scrawny, and Dustin was densely muscled.

Shit!” she yelled as she went down with him. He was white as a sheet, and his breathing came in shallow pants. A thin sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead, and his pupils were blown.

“Dustin?” she said, slapping his cheek gently.

“Don’t leave,” he slurred.

“I won’t. I won’t. I’m here. It’s okay. I’ll take care of you. Go to sleep, and I’ll take care of you.”

“My brother.” He said it so softly she had to read his lips, but his words made no sense.

“What?”

Dustin swallowed hard and raised his voice just enough. “My brother did this.” He locked his bleary gaze with hers for just a few moments before his eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp on the tile floor.

Emma rushed to finish stitching him, but it was hard to see through her blurred vision. His brother tried to kill him? Emma couldn’t imagine Enrique or Lauren ever trying to hurt her, much less rip her apart like this. She’d been lucky with her adoptive family, but clearly, Dustin wasn’t as fortunate.

Emma cut off the extra suture, checked his pulse, which was slow but steady, then grabbed a clean washrag from the towel rack. She warmed the tap water, drenched the rag, and hesitated over his limp body. She’d never seen Dustin without a shirt on. He had angel wings tattooed on his chest. They were done well, too, perfectly symmetrical, and showed good skill from the tattoo artist. His sandy-blond hair was flipped to the side, and even in his sleep, his torso was so muscular his abs flexed with every breath. His jeans were spattered in dark spots, but they rode low on his hips, and a strip of red elastic sat right above the waist of his jeans. He had good taste in underwear, so there was that. She’d always been attracted to dark-headed men with dark eyes, but there was something masculine yet beautiful about Dustin. When he was passed out and near death, that was, because he had a mouth on him she wanted to claw off pretty damn often. And she was eighty-four percent sure he was a pervert.

She knelt beside him and cleaned his skin slowly, gently, so she wouldn’t re-open any of the newly healing bite marks on his ribs and chest. Dustin was so confident, so quick-witted, she’d assumed him invincible. Plus, she’d seen him fight in his human form before, the first day of interviews when the mob of shifters had surged toward Dark Kane. He’d gone into that fight beside Logan and Beast and hadn’t backed down an inch. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him. She blamed those pretty bi-colored eyes of his. Or maybe the sexy, long hair or his sense of humor.

When his skin was clean of blood and she’d bandaged his neck, Emma dragged him by the feet to the bed. She huffed and puffed, trying to get him up onto the mattress, but it wasn’t happening. She worked out to keep up with her people, but Dustin was much bigger than her, and she didn’t want to hurt him even more. So instead she yanked the unmade blankets off his bed and created a pallet on the floor for him. A couple of log rolls later, and Dustin looked comfortable enough.

Emma checked his breathing. It was so shallow she couldn’t force herself to leave him here alone.

Plus, he’d asked her not to leave.

It was late, and she was exhausted after the adrenaline crash, but she was terrified he would stop breathing in the night. So she stayed awake, watching his chest rise and fall, straining her ears for the sound of breathing. And when her eyes got too heavy to hold open another minute, she draped her legs across his chest so she could feel his breath and slumped her head back against the side of the bed.

In the final moments before she fell asleep, she thought of Dustin’s brother. Dustin drove her nuts most of the time, and if she didn’t want to slap him ten times in a twenty-four-hour period, it was a slow day, but he was D-Team. And though she would never admit it, Dustin felt like a friend. The most annoying friend she had, but a friend nonetheless.

Something dark and ugly inside of her
hated
his brother, whoever he was.

Emma cracked her eye open. The ache in her neck was ridiculous, and as she took stock of where she was, it made sense. She was lying on Dustin’s pallet and someone had stuffed two pillows under her head. Her neck was basically at a ninety-degree angle, and when she moved, her ear hurt. Her hearing aids were small and sleek, but part of them rested behind her ears and she’d slept on one. She groaned as she sat up, but could barely hear her voice. Crap.

She fiddled with the aids, but both were out of batteries thanks to her not charging them long enough last night and leaving them on.

It was early October now in the Smoky Mountains, and cold, but she felt fine thanks to Dustin who had tucked her in like a child. He’d even shoved the edges of the blanket under her like she was a burrito. On a paper towel next to her on the floor, her toothbrush sat beside her half empty tube of toothpaste and a white paper bag that smelled like it harbored a fruit-filled donut. Maybe she was dreaming. Emma rubbed her eyes and blinked hard, but nope, not dreaming. Everything was still there.

When she sat up, the blanket slipped down past her bare boobs. Emma squawked and yanked the covers back up. Dustin was brushing his teeth at the sink and smiled cheerily at her through the mirror.

“Why am I naked?” she asked, but could barely hear herself and grew self-conscious she was speaking too loud and not enunciating enough. She hated when she didn’t have her hearing aids.

Dustin frowned and turned. “You don’t remember?” he asked, and clear enough she could read his lips.

Clutching the blanket, she shook her head.

“We fooled around. Twice. I was a stud and you were okay, but we’ll improve with time. Your hair looks like a bird’s nest.”

Emma’s mouth plopped open in horror. No. No, no, no, she wouldn’t have slept with Dustin. Not him.

Dustin did look quite recovered now with color in his cheeks. And apparently he’d taken his first aid into his own hands because he’d cut his own damn stitches out. “You said my dick was huge, and I said thank you, and you said I was the best you’d ever had, and I said thank you, and then you asked me to eat you out, and I said, ‘it’s not my favorite, but you saved my life, so okay—’”

“Dustin! Tell me you are joking!”

Dustin belted out a laugh loud enough for her to hear. “You should see your face right now. You look so dumb. Nice tits by the way.” He held his hands up as if he was squeezing them in the air. “Perfectly symmetrical. Do you know how rare that is? You’re like a unicorn, Em.”

“Again, why am I naked?”

Dustin reared back and looked scandalized. “Because you can’t sleep with your clothes on. Who does that? I’ll tell you who. No one. You’re welcome.”

Emma shook her head to rattle out the imaginings of Perv-Wolf undressing her in her sleep. She didn’t point out he’d actually slept in his bloody jeans because, at this point, she just wanted to escape. She snatched her neatly folded pile of clothes—undies on top—and dressed as best she could under the covers. “How did you get my stuff out of my room?”

Dustin hunched like the volume of her voice hurt his dog ears. “I told John we were fucking when I returned the first-aid kit, and he gave me the key to your room. What’s wrong with your voice?”

Heat blasted into her cheeks, and she ripped her eyes away from his lips because she didn’t want to read them anymore. She had never been so embarrassed in her entire life. Dustin had seen her naked!

She stood and bolted for the door, but Dustin was there in a blur, looking confused, hand splayed on the door to keep it closed. “What did I do wrong?” He looked back at the room. “I got your morning shit and food to feed you. I researched what humans eat. Who knew it’s the same shit I eat, just less meat, and furthermore, your shirt is on backward.” He reached for her. “I can fix it.”

Emma slapped his hand so hard it stung her fingertips. And then she signed a long string of curses at him because she sure as hell wasn’t going to talk again after he’d made fun of her voice.

His eyes got round as full moons. “What did you just do? Did you hex me? Is that voodoo shit? Take it back! I don’t need bad mojo, Emma!” He grabbed her wrists and flopped her hands around, but he was pissing her off, so she yanked out of his grasp, clenched her fist, and blasted it at his jaw like Dad had taught her. Only Dustin ducked neatly, and she hit the door with her knuckles.

“Oooow!” she howled. He hunched again, covered his ears, then hurried and covered his balls like a genius because she really was considering kneeing him in the groin. Again.

I hate you!
she signed. And then she pulled open the door, gave him one last fiery glare, and stomped outside. But she really did need her toothbrush so she turned around angrily. He was there with her toothbrush, toothpaste, key card, and the little baggie of breakfast like a dad sending his kid off to school.

Beast was sitting a few rooms down, leaning against his door and staring at them with so much judgement in his eyes Emma yelled out, “We didn’t screw!” And then she snatched the stuff out of Dustin’s hand, shoved him as hard as she could, considered snapping her teeth at him, decided against it, and stomped back to her room. Only it wasn’t her room because her key card didn’t work, and when she looked back at the boys, they were pointing to the room next door. Assholes.

She opened the correct door easily enough and tried to slam it behind her, but it was one of those easy-closing doors that slowed down and clicked gently into place, and everything was stupid.

In a cloud of fury, Emma shoved her hearing aids in their charger and readied for the day. She wanted to maul Dustin. No. She wanted something more severe. She wanted to leave here and never come back and never see him again so she could swallow her embarrassment eventually and move on with her life. It wasn’t like Kane was going to let any of them into the crew. Not after he’d only given Winter and Logan invites.

What was she even doing here?

You know what.
Stupid subconscious thought it new everything, the smarmy heifer. Truth was, Emma was here to enjoy the sunlight and enjoy the competition of trying to get into the crew. And she didn’t hate the D-Team. Well, other than Dustin. Winter was nice, and Logan wasn’t bad. Beast was terrifying but probably wouldn’t kill her for fun, and she looked up to Kane and Rowan. She had a good feeling about their crew and felt a strange sense of loyalty to the people she was getting to know here. She could be happy in the territory of the dark dragon until she joined her people again.

She sighed and glared at herself in the mirror, then pulled her honey-colored waves into a high pony tail. Today, she was going to play the stay-far-away-from-Dustin game. She would go into town, fill out job applications, and do her best not to think about the infuriating, sexy, pervy werewolf living a few doors down.

Feeling much better with a plan of action in place, she put in her partially charged hearing aids, clamped her teeth onto the donut, threw open the door, and stepped into the sunlight. At the looming figure near her door, Emma startled so hard, the donut fell out of her mouth and plummeted to the dirty sidewalk.

Dustin caught it before it hit the ground and shoved it back in her wide open mouth. “I don’t understand what I did wrong. I got your stuff, bought you breakfast, complimented your tits like the Internet said girls like, and then I went one better and complimented your hair like a gentleman.”

“You called it a bird’s nest.”

“I like birds!”

Beast snorted from where he was still sitting outside his room.

“You can’t just undress girls, Dustin. It’s illegal.”

“Why? Everyone has tits.” Dustin dipped his gaze to her cleavage. “I mean, granted, I haven’t seen a rack like yours in…well…ever. More compliments!” He lifted his hand like he wanted a high five, but Emma rolled her eyes and walked away.

Dustin followed. “I wanted to ask a question, and I swear it isn’t about STDs or what size bra you are. But like, a C-cup at least right? A C? They felt like a C.”

Emma took a giant bite of donut and desperately wanted a nap.

“Anyway,” Dustin continued, grabbing her hand and pulling her toward his car. “I have an errand to run and I’ll let you come with me.”

“Why would I want to go anywhere with you?” she snapped, yanking her hand out of his.

“Because it involves a puppy, and the Internet said bitches love puppies.”

“Uhh,
women
not
bitches
, and not every human woman loves puppies.”

“But do
you
love puppies?” Beast called. He wasn’t helping.

Dustin arched his blond brows and waited.

Emma glared across the parking lot at the vending machines and sighed. She wished she could lie to him, but both Dustin and Beast had those pesky heightened senses and would be able to tell. “Yes, I like puppies.”

“Great, our first date.”

“It’s not a fucking date,” she gritted out as Dustin opened the passenger’s side of his car like a valet.

“I’ve seen your tits, Em. It’s a date.” And before she could yell at him, Dustin shut the door and jogged to the driver’s side.

She scarfed down the last bit of her cherry-filled donut as he turned on the engine and rolled down the window. The stereo was blasting AC/DC, but she could still hear Dustin as he pulled away and called to Beast, “Don’t eat anyone we like while we’re gone.”

Beast narrowed his eyes, which were now gold and terrifying, and flipped them off as Dustin peeled out of the parking lot.

“Why do you think people call him Beast?” Emma asked.

“Darlin’, he earned that name.”

“What do you mean?”

“First, can you not feel him? God, being a human must suck. How do you know who is a danger to you when you meet them? Beast is as unstable as Logan. Both of their animals are thoroughly and irreparably broken.”

“And yours isn’t?”

“Yeah, but it’s different for werewolves. That’s all genetics, Sugar Puff.” Dustin grimaced. “Ew, I tried Emma, I did. I tried on that pet name but didn’t like the taste of it. Babe? Does that work better for you?”

“No pet names, Dustin. And how is it different for werewolves?”

“You tell me, Princess Human, claiming to live in a crew. If you really did live in a crew, you would know werewolves are just naturally badass predators—”

“—murderers—”

“—with superior hunting skills and minds geared for battle. We’re born bad. It’s accepted. Predator animals like Logan and Beast, though? Nah. When they break, they
break
. Any moment they can go psycho on you and never level out again. What crew, Perky Nips?”

“Even if I okayed a pet name, Perky Nips would never make the cut. And I’m not from a crew.” She stared at his profile to watch his reaction. “I’m from a coven.”

Dustin downshifted and slammed on the brakes. They skidded until they came to a stop sideways right in the middle of the road. “A coven? Your people are vampires?” He was yelling.

Emma giggled and relaxed the seat back a few clicks, then put her feet on the dashboard.

“No,” he said, shoving her ankles until her tennis shoes hit the floorboard.

“I feel like we’re at a place where I can be comfortable in your car,
Babe
.” Emma grinned and put her feet back up there.

Dustin narrowed his eyes to dangerous little slits. “Just so you know, I researched that little gesture you did earlier, and you said you hated me. I’m really hurt.”

“Dustin, don’t pretend anything I do hurts you.”

“I am.” He eased his foot onto the gas and straightened them out again. “I’ve done everything in my power to—”

“Annoy the shit out of me and everyone else around you?”

“Well, yeah, but I also shared my Chinese food with you once.”

“And I saved your life, so I’m pretty sure we’re even. Four Devils Coven, born and raised.”

“But you’re human.”

“And so are my adopted brother and sister. My parents had trouble having babies. My biological parents didn’t want me. It was meant to be.”

“Why didn’t they want you?”

“I was born in Russia. My parents were poor, and they really wanted a healthy child, but I was born with messed up inner ears.”

“You were deaf from birth?”

This was getting too personal so she brought it back around. “Beast.”

“Oh, yeah, he killed his entire pride.”

“What?” she yelped.

“Yeah, he was the king of the lions. A legend. Nobody fucked with him, and he kept a pride for the longest any male in the history of lions was able to. Usually prides switch out alphas every few years just because the males fight all the fucking time, but Beast held a big pride for ten years. Took control of it when he turned eighteen and kept it until a couple years ago.”

“Eighteen?” Emma’s mind was now completely blown. “Why did he kill his people?”

“Nobody knows. There’s a billion rumors, but none of them make any sense to me. Not with what I’ve seen of him.”

“What do you mean?”