Comes Now the Wicked Woodsman (13 page)

"Shit," she jumped back then reached for the table lamp and touched the base once.

Seeing it was me waiting in the dark for her to come home and not my little sister, she scowled.

"You scared me. What the hell are you doing in here with the lights out?"

"Thinking."

To say that I was obsessing would have been the better answer, but I couldn't get the truth past my lips. Clover had done a hell of a hatchet job on me, dressing Paisley in that tight knit skirt and sweater then going on and on after Paisley left about what a great catch Rooster would be, how his eyes were dreamy and his mouth wickedly sexy.

Then she dropped her last little bombshell before slinking back to her room with a sly smile on her face.

Rooster, she informed me, had rented one of the Crockers' cabins for their "date."

Not jumping on my bike and ripping the little punk's head off took every last ounce of willpower I had. Planting my ass on the couch, I had been immobilized, couldn't so much as reach the few inches it would take to turn the nearest light on.

"Thinking?" she repeated, her tone rough.

From the second she stepped in the door, I'd been waiting for some whiff of emotion from her, now I was getting it.

Anger.

Given that the alternative was her coming in all mesmerized and covered with Rooster's scent, I'd settle for anger.

"Yeah," I answered.

"Good luck with that," she snarked then turned in the direction of the hall.

Before she could step away, I closed my fingers around her wrist, my grip tighter than I wanted but outside my control.

She stared at me, gray eyes questioning.

"Rooster's a good kid," I fumbled. "You ever realize the crush he's had on you all these years?"

Her hand twisted within my grip as her cheeks brightened. I was still sensing anger, not embarrassment or anything else that would hint that he'd finally shown her just how deep a crush he'd been nursing.

"No," she bit out. "I lived in a town where almost everyone my age ostracized me and I didn't know why until someone put a bullet in my best friend a few days ago."

"There are more lined up," I said, still screwing up every damn word that left my mouth. "Suitors, I mean."

"That must make you very happy." She jerked her hand free from my grasp. "Means you won't have to worry about falling on your sword and
doing
me again because no one else wants to."

Paisley moved to walk past me. I caught her by one hip and pulled her onto my lap. Pushing my face into her pale brown hair, I inhaled, my wolf searching for another man's scent.

"Did he kiss you?" I asked, my beard brushing softly against her neck.

Stiffening in my arms, she crooked her neck and tried to pull away.

"No, I kissed him."

Her answer issued unreadable, delivered in such a deadened tone a computer might as well have spit it out.

"I see," I said, even though I didn't. "I guess that means the two of you will be going on another date."

I relaxed my grip, nothing keeping her on my lap except her will to stay.

"I'm not supposed to be here," she whispered, her scent changing unexpectedly to one of anguish. "My professors are going to drop me from my classes. I'll have to start the semester over..."

Pulling Paisley tight against my chest, I stroked at her hair. "Baby girl, it will be a long time before you get to go back to school."

Maybe never.

A sob spilled out of her. Fisting my shirt, she pressed her face against my shoulder. It felt like old times, like when she had sprained an ankle out at the creek that ran through her grandmother's land and I'd carried her up to the cabin.

She had been sixteen and I was already falling in love.

Relaxing slightly in my arms, she sniffed. "Rooster said Taron's only doing this to give everyone a cool down period, show them that I can be trusted. Could he be right?"

I stroked a finger along her neck, wished I could direct my alpha energy into her for a little extra comfort.

"I think Taron is playing more than one game," I finally answered, guilt coloring my tone. "He needs the pack to calm down and focus on the real threat. But he's also working on a personal agenda."

I didn't tell her I was his personal agenda. He thought I was irrevocably in love with the human in my arms, and he was probably right. And almost every obstacle that had existed just a week ago to my admitting my feelings was gone.

She knew the pack's secret and wouldn't be returning to school or taking some job halfway across the country when she graduated. I wouldn't have to pull Clover away from Night Falls or expose her, and Paisley, to the dangers of living in another pack's territory.

The only remaining obstacle was me. I had been doing my best for more than four years to politely drive her out of mine and Clover's life. Even if she could forgive me for that, I had completely screwed up in the barn.

"Personal agenda?" she snorted. "When did I piss in his Cheerios?"

"You didn't," I laughed, a little of the tension leaving my body.

Maybe I was about to make another mistake, but I had an idea, one that might make Paisley come to terms with staying in Night Falls. I doubted I could unbuild the bridge I had erected between us, but I could do something that would make her a little happier, bring her and Clover all the way back together in their friendship and let her find a mate among the pack without feeling like she was exchanging one jailor for another.

"Get up, baby girl," I said with a light pat on her plump ass. "There's something you need to see."

********************

Paisley

Magic.

Braeden Hughes showed me magic.

But first he made me change into pants and a different set of boots, then he rode me on the back of his bike to Mojo's place. After some tense whispering between the two, the real adventure began as Mojo took us into his basement, where a trapdoor led to what I thought was a sub-basement but was a tunnel.

For almost my entire life, I had lived in Night Falls and there was an entire underground world I had no idea existed.

Of course, there was also an entirely different species of mankind I had just uncovered -- which was way more important. I hadn't yet settled on whether their taxonomy should be
homo proteus
or homo
tranformus
. With the dog-eared Harry Potter books on my shelf at gran's, I was leaning toward
transformus
, with further breakdowns, such as
homo
transformus canidae
for shifters like Braeden and Clover and
felidae
for those like Joshua.

And now Braeden was showing me an entire underground cavern to explore that went on for miles, so many miles he couldn't tell me how many.

"Are there mapped areas, at least?" I naively asked.

"Nope," he answered, laughing as he stepped from the narrow tunnel we had been walking in since descending from Mojo's basement ten or so minutes before into a larger, taller tunnel that would allow us to walk side-by-side instead of single file. "We just use our memory and our noses."

Yeah, that was going to be a bit of a problem for me. I was more big concept, forget the details, and I did not have super-human smelling or night vision.

"But if we were to get separated--"

"We won't," he growled lightly.

I didn't know if it was a warning against any lingering thoughts I might possess about bolting for the nearest exist and fleeing Night Falls or if the possibility distressed him for other reasons. He had been oddly sweet in fitting me on the back of his bike, apologizing that we weren't taking something with four wheels instead, and making sure I was safely in place even though I had taken rides on the back of his bike before -- back when I still considered us friends.

Braeden stopped a few long steps past where my feet had become rooted to the ground. He turned, his movements hesitant as he approached.

"You don't need to worry, baby girl, I'm not going to lose you."

I stifled a harsh laugh, his words uncannily dovetailing with the thoughts running through my head even though he didn't mean them that way. I wanted to ask him why we had stopped being friends, but I instead chewed at the inside of my bottom lip for a few minutes as we continued walking.

When he stopped in front of another narrow tunnel, the evening's more practical considerations resurfaced.

"But what if you got hurt -- I could get lost trying to get help."

The big flashlights we were both carrying gave off more than enough light for me to see the wry smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"I'd have to be dead, in which case you should wait and ration the water because Mojo knows we are in the tunnels. Even if he couldn't get the entire pack in here searching the tunnels for us by noon tomorrow, he would find you if only to get his flashlights back."

His answer didn't satisfy me, especially when he looked so cocky delivering it, like he really was the big bad wolf and nothing could hurt him unless it had enough force to kill him immediately.

"You could be incapacitated, just like Clo..."

I trailed off as he shook his head.

"I'm not Clover," he answered. "Did she tell you about the alpha strain?"

"Just something about how it's responsible for you being a bossy asshole," I answered honestly. I also suspected it was part of what made him so damn sexy, but I would have to devote more time to the study of
homo transformus canidae
before reaching any conclusions.

"Well, I heal faster than she does because I have the strain and she doesn't -- most shifters don't," he explained. "And it means I can heal other shifters."

"But not humans," I interjected, remembering his first warning to me not to run away because he couldn't heal me if I was injured.

"Right. I can also sort of...
push
, I guess...at the minds of other shifters."

I stopped walking in the narrow tunnel we had entered and dropped my flashlight.

"You can push your thoughts, is that what you mean?" A familiar, panicky dread filled my chest. If he could send, then maybe he really could receive, despite Clover's assertion they weren't mind readers.

Maybe the power was something alphas kept secret from non-alphas.

"No." The tunnel was just wide enough for him to turn with the saddle bag and the water skin he had brought with him. Reaching one long arm down, he scooped the flash light up and handed it to me. "It's more like I can push pleasure or pain at another shifter."

"Pleasure?" My cheeks colored as soon as the word left me, my tone evidencing too much personal interest in the matter.

Shrugging, he turned in the direction we had been heading. "Maybe calming would be the better word for it. You'd have to ask Clover. I had to do it a lot when we were on the run after our parents...died."

I could hear his mind retreating as he mentioned the murder of his parents.

More than his mind retreated. His enthusiasm to show me this other world that we were walking through was fading fast under my constant questions.

"I'm sorry," I said, tugging at his jacket as I slowed then stopped. "I didn't mean to make you think of that. And I understand what you're doing, so the tour isn't really necessary."

"What am I doing?" he asked, back still turned to me even though he had stopped walking.

"Well, no matter which national or state park I would have gotten a ranger posting at, I would have been going over old ground--"

Braeden chuckled, his free hand reaching out to touch the tunnel's rock wall. "Old ground?"

I laughed back. "You know what I meant."

"Yes," he answered. "But you can't map it and you can't catalog...us."

"I realize that," I answered softly, deciding it wasn't the best time to ask him if he preferred
homo transformus
over
homo proteus
. "But I learn stuff for the sake of learning, not to show someone how much I know."

"Fair enough. But the tour isn't over, so get your sweet little ass moving."

Shocked into silence, I followed after him.

My brain was far from quiet. Why had he said that? Was he still trying to seduce me? If so, was it because Braeden didn't think I would agree to any of the other males in the pack given the feelings I had long had for him?

Pretty egotistical, but he was right. The date with Rooster showed me I couldn't just pick one of the males who didn't make my stomach turn or frighten the hell out of me. I had to feel more than that for the shifter I would marry.

The shifter had to feel more, too.

So Braeden was obviously out of the running.