Caged Wolf (Wolves of Willow Bend Book 2) (9 page)

Linc slapped the back of Tyler’s head before A.J. could. “Lady present, dumbass.”

Tyler winced and shot Vivian a chagrined smile. “Sorry. Ma’am.”

“What’s wrong with her work?” Because Vivian could say whatever the hell she wanted to whomever the hell she wanted.

“Nothing.”

Not interested in being left out since he had no idea what the game was, he looked to her. “What’s Savage Predators?”

“It’s one of those action thriller games,” Linc offered, but A.J. waved him off. Focusing on Vivian, he wanted her to tell him.

“It’s a role playing shoot ‘em up game. You have to hunt down monsters and find clues, solve puzzles and more…”

Sounded fine.

Vivian moistened her lips, and blew out a breath. “The most recent update included werewolves.”

Huh
. Explained his brothers’ reactions. “Are they the bad guys?”

“Some of them are,” she admitted with a wince. “Some are willing to help others. I designed the piece where the humans become the wolfmen.”

“It’s pretty sweet,” Linc added. “They have this wicked sprout of fur and they look more like Anubis dogs than wolves, but if your character gets transformed…”

“If you knew, why did you ask?” He glared at his brothers.

“Because you didn’t.” Tyler shrugged, seemingly unrepentant. Linc opened his mouth to say something, but A.J. silenced him with a look.

“So you make magic with computer code.” A.J. studied Vivian. Was she embarrassed because she worked as a programmer or because she’d made werewolves? “And I have a lot of faith in how the transformation plays out.” She had personal experience after all.

Upset rimmed her scent once more. “I would never—”

“Shh.” He touched her lips. A mistake, because it made him want to kiss her again, a desire he had to keep in check with his brothers present. “I know you didn’t. I know you wouldn’t. Tell me one thing, though. Do you have to be in Arizona to do your work?” Because he couldn’t take that away from her.

“Well, no, not really. I work from home. I kind of need my laptop and my desktop machines, but…” The rest rolled off of him. She didn’t
have
to be elsewhere, so she would stay, decision made.

Waving his brothers on, they followed at a slower pace. “I’ll get Linc to go and get them for you. Do you have the game on your computers?”

“I can get you a copy,” Tyler offered. “Linc has one too. We played it all the way to the end. Twice.”

Vivian blushed, and covered her mouth. “Oh.”

Risking his life, Tyler gave her a purely flirtatious grin. “We did keep track of you and, when I saw your name on the list of developers, we had to get it.”

Her blush deepened and A.J. growled. Tyler gave a whoop and jerked his gaze front. They’d finally broken out of the woods. Apparently their little cabin really had been planted in the middle of the back forty on the outskirts of Willow Bend. Ahead, Tyler’s green truck sat waiting for them along with Owen, leaning against the side of the vehicle.

A.J. gave Vivian’s hand a squeeze. “You stay behind all of us.” It wasn’t open for debate. He pushed in front of his brothers and they locked step with him to face off against the Hunter.

“Going somewhere boys?” Owen’s dry tone betrayed not a hint of friendship or emotion.

“Vivian needs to see Emma.” A.J. kept his tone even. At one point, he and Owen had been evenly matched in dominance. They’d never had a reason to test the fine, balanced line they stood on. But if Owen pushed him, they would find out.

“We can place a call. Mason’s orders were explicit. She stays here.”

“Actually,” A.J. said with a smile. “His orders were she stays with me. As you can see, she is with me.” Mason’s intent may have included staying out of sight at the cabin, but Vivian’s health came first.

Owen’s brow wrinkled. “Gillian already saw to her injuries.”

The unexpected confirmation of Vivian’s earlier injuries did not improve A.J.’s mood. “She’s also a journeyman and this is a separate issue.” The narrowing of Owen’s pupil and the faint flare in his eyes proved a tell-tale warning. So the other wolf had a thing for the journeyman healer. A.J. wasn’t opposed to using the information to his advantage. “Feel free to go with us and make sure we don’t escape to the diner to eat or visit with old friends. Then Gillian and Emma can both look at her.”

“Nice try, but you’ll wait for permission.” Despite his words, he pulled his cell phone out and dialed.  His attention didn’t waver from A.J., not once, not to his brothers and not to Vivian. The focus soothed him in a way he couldn’t quite define, and gave him the patience to wait out the call.  

“I finally have some quality time with my mate, so this better be good.” Mason’s voice underscored by distinctly feminine laughter carried easily. The only one not privy to the Alpha’s side of the call would be Vivian. Alexis, Mason’s mate, sounded happy and the faint sound of a slap echoed over the cellular line. When A.J. had known her, Alexis hated for others to know what she was feeling or thinking based on scent. Perhaps that hadn’t changed with her first shift.

“A.J. wants to take the woman to see Emma.”

The woman?
He arched a brow at Owen. Really? He wanted to play that way? It didn’t matter if A.J. started it, he didn’t back down from the challenge. “I want an experienced healer to examine her.”

Owen scowled and A.J. smiled.

“What’s wrong with her?” Interest sharpened Mason’s tone. “Gillian took care of the bruises and mild concussion.” More details for A.J. to catalog. The next time he saw Margo, he planned to exact some retribution for those injuries.

The Hunter didn’t answer immediately, though his gaze left A.J. for a fraction to look beyond him toward Vivian. A.J. stepped into his line of sight and blocked his view. Adopting a lower tone, one that wouldn’t carry to the woman behind him he said, “She has blackouts or fugues. I don’t know what those are.” Admitting his inexperience carried no shame. “I want Emma to examine and speak to her.”

A fresh surprise eased Owen’s scowl.

“Do it,” Mason said, taking almost no time to think on the matter. “Her health comes first.”

If Mason’s welcome hadn’t already earned him a measure of A.J.’s loyalty, his response to Vivian’s need sealed it. He owed a debt to his new Alpha. “As you wish.” The call disconnected and Owen jerked his head toward the truck. “I’ll meet you at Emma’s. Don’t take the long way and don’t get lost.”

A.J. barely held back a snarl at the admonishment. Still, he had won this particular face off, and Vivian would see Emma. Turning, he beckoned her forward and then opened the door to the truck. “In the back,” he told his brothers.

“It’s my truck,” Linc protested, but tossed the keys to A.J. before climbing into the bed with Tyler. The two sat, with their backs to the cab window. Nothing would come at A.J. from that direction with his brothers on lookout. More importantly, nothing would come at Vivian.

“Is everything all right?” she asked after he slid behind the driver’s seat. A.J. reached past her to grab the seatbelt and buckled her in, then took advantage of the nearness to kiss her. Only once, and too light to sate his hunger, but it would have to do for now.

“Yes. We’re going to see Emma and she will fix whatever is wrong with you.” Confidence built in him, a certainty he hadn’t experienced in years. “Then we’ll go back to the cabin.”

She swallowed, and her throat convulsed. Her arousal perfumed the cabin’s confines and played merry havoc with his control. “Are your brothers going to be at the cabin, too?”

Hell no
. But he only shook his head. “Just you and me.” Did that scare her? Her arousal called to him, but he’d learned over the years that merely because a person felt that way didn’t mean they wanted to act on their attraction or emotion. So it killed him to ask, “Do you want me to have them stay?”

“No,” she said, her eyes going wide. “I—don’t like them that way.”

So there was a way. A tension he hadn’t even realized he experienced eased and the knots in his shoulders relaxed. He could afford to tease her, gently. “Good, because I refuse to share you.”

The spike in her heart rate and the rich, deep tang of her musk hardened his cock like a stone. He’d only had his hand for relief, and even that felt too intimate, too personal in the harsh confines of the cell. Vivian was quickly becoming an obsession.
Who are you kidding? She’s always been an obsession.
The voice of his conscience pricked him, but he couldn’t deny the inherent truth.  

He wanted her. More than that, he wanted to claim her. But could he?

Chapter Six

Willow Bend turned out to be nothing like she imagined. Most of the houses seemed laid out like a suburban development—a high-end suburban development, but so completely unremarkable and normal.  If pressured to explain what she had expected, she wasn’t sure she could repeat her wild speculation aloud. A.J. and his brothers weren’t human. More than that, they became wolves. Burying the knowledge deep, she’d tried to forget what she’d seen the night of the attack for fear of ever betraying their secret.

Here, however, with A.J. at her side and his brothers in the back of the truck, she could admit it to herself. They were wolves. She suspected every single person she’d met since she arrived was also a wolf. Wolves ran in packs and Willow Bend was their version of a den.

A middle-American nirvana, to be sure, but also their den and she hadn’t missed the showdown between A.J. and Owen. Their body language spoke volumes. The man who’d greeted her when she woke, Mason, he had to be in charge. So that meant he led the pack.

The woman, Gillian, she was a healer. Maybe that meant pack doctor? Hopefully they didn’t use needles. She really hated them and, after being secured in a strait jacket and having her blood drawn a few dozen times, she preferred never to see another needle again.

Her discomfort must have shown. A.J. took her hand and set it on his thigh. The muscle beneath the denim was rock hard. Maybe it was being around his brothers, but he looked healthier than he had in the courtroom or at the cabin. The transformation seemed swifter than normal.

What is normal? He’s a wolf.
A sobering thought if there was one. Still, she kept her hand on his leg. The contact grounded her, chased away the unease and ignited a whole new set of emotions. The earlier kiss had been a wakeup call to her hormones.

Never in her life had she been as attracted to a person as she was to A.J.. Nathanial had tried to talk her into dating at one point, an experiment to encourage her to get out of her shell. She lived in solitude, worked in solitude, and avoided the outside world as much as possible.

She’d managed two dates in all the months of her treatment. Both failed miserably, and she’d fled back to the safety of her apartment and the solace of her work. With A.J., though, she didn’t feel any of the misery or sickness the other men induced in her.

No, she liked the fluttering feeling in her stomach, the wildness in her blood, the anxiety of not knowing exactly what would happen sleeved in the certainty that she wanted to find out. He drove carefully, bypassing their main street—though she did get a moment to glance down at the shops including a coffee house, restaurants, and furniture stores. Hell they even had a PVS, a national drugstore, parked right down on the corner.

“So weird,” she whispered.

“What is?” Of course he heard her.

Nibbling her lower lip, she considered her answer.  What sounded the least insulting?
You come from small town America. I didn’t expect that at all. In fact, I feel like I’m in some episode of the Surreal Life.
 She’d been classified as crazy, so the out of place sensation wasn’t all that alien.

“Vivian?” He stroked the back of her hand, the petting gesture both soothing and erotic.

It’s the back of my hand, how can that be turning me on?
Course, the last time she’d had sex was in another life, so what did she know? “I’m sorry. I don’t want to say anything rude.”

He made a series of turns and followed some seriously winding streets before pulling up in front of a two story brick and stone house with the most gorgeous garden she’d ever seen. “Don’t worry about polite, just say what you need to.”

“Promise to not be offended?”

A pause while he put the truck in park, then turned off the vehicle. Behind her, the truck bounced as his brothers leapt out. “Promise.” The easy agreement warmed her.

She didn’t miss the other truck parking across the street or Owen emerging from the driver’s side. “I’m really starting to not like him.”

Following her gaze, he twisted to look toward the other vehicle and the man heading toward them. “Owen’s not so bad.”

“He was one of the people who kidnapped me.”

“I’ll make him apologize,” A.J. promised without missing a beat. “What was weird?”

Odd, she didn’t like Owen hovering, but she didn’t really need an apology. “You don’t have to do that. I actually don’t mind being here.” She just wished someone had asked her.

The flash of teeth as A.J. smiled lit her up. His pleasure was a visceral thing. It took over his whole expression and destroyed the shadows haunting his eyes. “I’m glad you’re here, too.”

Her heart squeezed at his declaration.

“But what was weird?”

“You’re like a dog with a bone.”

“A wolf,” he corrected her and patted her hand. “And we’re not getting out of the truck until you tell me.” Outside, his brothers and Owen were joined by two women and another man. One of the women was Gillian, the healer Vivian met earlier. The woman was staring at Owen, but the blond wolf didn’t look in her direction, his attention remained on the truck.

On me. He’s watching me because he doesn’t trust me.
Realizing A.J. was serious, she wrinkled her nose and said, “I didn’t expect it to be so—normal here.”

“Normal?” Ripe with curiosity, his voice deepened.

“Well. You’re wolves. I thought you’d, I don’t know, live in a cave or something. Howl at the moon.” The more she said, the worse she felt. Eyes half-squeezed shut, she peeked at him. “So…weird.”