Dark Wolf (Shadow Pack Book 1) (5 page)

Katie Duncan was in trouble. The danger she was in radiated in the air around her, a blood-red aura. And the hunters outside of her home were a dead giveaway. David needed trouble like he needed a sharp stick in his eye. He did, however, want the woman like nothing and no one he had ever desired before. His body ached at the thought of touching her. Her verbal jabs danced in his head. Why couldn’t she have been insipid and boring when he finally talked to her instead of bright and witty? Insipid and boring could possibly be shrugged off and forgotten. The intelligence in those golden eyes haunted him. He eyed the Duke baseball cap lying on top of the neatly folded pink blanket. He had turned the heat off in his rooms a full thirty minutes ago, but there he sat, sweating, his body still aflame from touching her.

Since when had he been sensible, anyhow? He rose and snatched up the blanket and cap. After a short stop to choose some items from a locked steel cabinet in his den, David grabbed his heavy parka and headed for the garage. There was only one place locals went for breakfast in Blowing Rock.

The glory of the morning was a breathtaking sight after the night’s snow. Blowing Rock had been transformed into a fantasy world of crystals and snow frosting, a welcome gift from the winter gods to the citizens of the town.

Katie, however, was oblivious to the sights and sounds of the morning as she carefully worked her way down the freshly plowed road into town to one of the little side streets lined with quaint boutiques, cozy bookstores, and merry bars. She watched all the while for her stalkers, who she knew were there somewhere. She was nervous, and sexually frustrated to boot, so she had to fight to keep her eyes on the road.
Maybe I should break down and buy a vibrator if my reaction to Naked-in-a-Snow bank-Sex-God is any indication of what years of on the run celibacy can do to a girl,
she thought wryly.

Locals guarded the secret that the Laughing Bear Café was open for breakfast on weekends like a hoarded jug of moonshine during Prohibition. The last thing any citizen of Blowing Rock wanted was to have to wait for two hours for a table in the only restaurant east of the Mississippi that could make a decent plate of huevos rancheros and a Cast Iron Bloody Mary. This Saturday morning, the place was full, but not packed to the rafters.

A fire blazed in the fireplace, and even though it wasn’t yet ten thirty, there were already regulars crowded around the bar for brunch. Katie made her way toward one of the weathered wooden booths situated along the back wall of the restaurant. A bearded bear of a man with a shaggy mane of silver-tipped brown hair had managed to wedge himself into the red faux leather seat of a booth and was feasting from four different plates as he perused a huge book laid open on the other side of his repast.

He roared at the sight of Katie’s approach and tried in vain to work his bulk out of his seat to greet her. “Katie, my princess! Come! Break your fast with a tired old man and allow him to rest his eyes upon your loveliness!”

Katie winced as his penetrating voice cut through the ears of everyone in the restaurant, as well as the ears of passersby on the street. For a moment she wondered what had possessed her to leave Spain and seek refuge with her real father’s childhood friend, who was also her godfather. On the heels of the thought, she remembered why: Ambrose knew nothing about Frank, and she admitted, she desperately craved some semblance of family in her life.

Frank Bearson was a mountain of a man who took no crap from anyone. He had welcomed her with open arms the morning she showed up on his doorstep. After listening to her tale with growing fury, he gave her a job at his restaurant, paid her in cash, and helped her to rent the secluded cabin without disclosing very much personal information. It enabled her for the first time in two years to be brave enough to use her own name. He wanted to take her into his home and let her rest and heal, but Katie was determined to live alone and far from her “uncle” in order to keep him safe, as well as satisfy her own deep-seated need for solitude.

The minute Katie had told Frank her story, it had taken all of her persuasive powers to keep him from going immediately to hunt down and throttle her stepfather. She’d had to do a complicated song and dance to explain why she had not contacted him for help during the years she and her mother were trapped under Ambrose’s power. Frank meant well, but Katie knew he wouldn’t get within three feet of Ambrose and remain alive to tell the tale, in spite of her godfather’s own unique strengths.

She slid into the opposite side of the booth and looked directly into Frank’s brown eyes. There was no need to mince words. “They found me.”

Frank paused for a moment and actually put his fork and knife down—a sure sign of his distress or the seventh sign of the approaching apocalypse, Katie wasn’t sure which. He remained silent as Katie took off her coat and gave the waitress her order. Alone again, he addressed her in his gravelly baritone.

“Where and when?” There was no doubt in his voice. Instead there was a sense of relief. They had both been waiting for this day, and now it was here. From the tone of his voice, Uncle Frank had no intention of allowing her to face it alone.

“Last night, near the cabin. I found my landlord, David Finn, facedown in a snow bank, naked as a jaybird. After I revived him, he mentioned that someone had tripped his alarms, attacked him, and left him for dead.”

Frank looked thoughtful. “Naked? Why would they strip him when he would have frozen to death just as fast with his clothes on? And if it was Hugh Ambrose, why didn’t they come get you?” He sat back in the booth as far as his bulk would allow and curled one arm up to rest his chin on a fist the size of a normal person’s head. “There is usually only one kind of person who shows up naked in a forest. You know that, my Katie.”

She sniffed. “That is definitely a possibility, Uncle. And there were some intense feelings I’m not sure what to do with when he made a pass at me. But whoever or whatever he is…I do not need to be dragging him into this mess. And he might have just been stripped and left for dead. Besides, you told me yourself that our people are becoming more and more scarce. I saw none in Spain when I was in Europe. He could be no more one of the ‘People’ than the rest of Blowing Rock.”

“Spain has no Were population. The Inquisition killed them off centuries ago. Wait. He made a pass at you, did he?” Frank’s eyes narrowed, his expression suspicious. “How did this ‘pass’ come about, young lady?”

Reluctantly, Katie outlined a sketchy version of the events of the morning, leaving out the more salacious details, editing more for her own sake than for the sake of her earthy uncle.

“Couldn’t control yourself and felt like you had a fever to rival your worst case of the flu? Hmmm. I think I should meet Mr. Finn. I kept meaning to seek him out and welcome him since he moved up on the mountain, but now…” Frank broke off as he picked up his fork and resumed working on his breakfast. “I don’t think a wealthy new resident from Scotland would have anything to do with that animal your mother felt forced to replace your father with. There have always been rumors about the Finns of Shadow Mountain. They’ve been back and forth between here and the old land for hundreds of years. The legend of the Devil-wolf started with them, and it is usually sighted when they’re in residence. They’re a very wealthy family, but I sometimes forget that in every rumor and legend there is a small kernel of truth. It must be a sign of age.” He shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth and sat chewing, his eyes clouded in deepest thought.

“Remind me to watch my fingers and toes when I eat with you, Uncle,” Katie teased, her eyebrows arched in amusement. Frank always managed to cheer her.

“Those little pink digits? They wouldn’t make a decent appetizer, princess.”

Katie despaired of getting much more conversation out of him until he finished. Fortunately, her breakfast had arrived. She warily pulled her huevos rancheros closer to her side of the table, softly touched her fingertips to her slightly kiss-swollen lips, and then dove in with an appetite she should not have had with the wolves at the door.

What the hell!
She took a welcome sip of her Cast Iron Bloody Mary. The potent mix of vodka, tomato juice, lemon juice, hot sauce, and spices would put hair on her chest and maybe tamp down the thoughts and emotions that were coming close to bursting her skull.

David parked his black H2 Hummer and surveyed the restaurant. The green SUV was parked a few spaces down from the front door. She was in there.

After rousting his agent out of bed, David discovered that his tenant worked at the Laughing Bear. He also discovered that Katie had not given the agent any kind of information about herself, only a year’s rent in advance and the good word of her employer, Frank Bearson. It was odd he hadn’t yet met Frank because, since the first day he’d moved to Blowing Rock, he had made it his business to know everyone there. But he
had
been out of town on various jobs for weeks and months at a time, until he had spotted Katie in the woods. David did not frequent restaurants and bars very often. He preferred solitude because it was one of his only defenses against the human race. But the Laughing Bear’s owner had a reputation as a local oddity. At the same time, Frank Bearson probably blended in well with the rest of the colorful population of these mountains.

As he exited his Hummer, he noticed two large men standing near Katie’s vehicle, heads together in low conversation. David was not nosy by nature, but his family curse did have some perks. He paused and attuned his supernaturally acute hearing to their discussion.

“What do you mean there was a man in the house last night? She hasn’t given any man a second look in years, not since we ended that sailor boy she dated a few years ago. She knows anyone who touches her is as good as dead. Ambrose ordered us to go ahead and take her. I guess we’ll have to kill whoever was in the Jeep with her this morning. And that fat ‘uncle’ of hers too, damn it.” The large blond man spoke with precision, enunciating every syllable without any sign of emotion. Except for a nervous twitch when he said the word “kill.”

Interesting. A killer who finds the word “kill” uncomfortable enough for it to make him twitchy,
David thought as he watched the blond man’s subordinate sink a switchblade into two of the Jeep’s tires. Then they walked across the street and climbed into a late-model black Suburban. David cursed out loud when he realized the parking lots on the back street held more than just the locals’ winter-beaten cars. A total of five spit-shined black SUVs were parked purposefully here and there, all filled with the dark shapes of men, waiting. His tenant had an army lying in wait for her.

They’re going to wait for Katie to leave and take her right here in the middle of town.
Because the breakfast fest going on inside the Laughing Bear was probably full up, the side street was fairly deserted this morning. Taking the woman would be relatively easy for professionals, which these men clearly were.

David got back into the Hummer and slipped out of the parking lot, praying they hadn’t noticed him. Fortunately for David, Hummers were a dime a dozen in this resort town, and he hoped the would-be kidnappers’ arrogance would make them oblivious to the black vehicle that cruised down the street and doubled back up the next road to go down the alley behind the Laughing Bear.

David barely had room to open the door of his Humvee in the close quarters of the alley. He climbed out and made his way into the kitchen entrance of the run-down, multicolored brick building that housed the Laughing Bear.

A wall of smells and sounds assaulted his wolf senses when he entered. Although he was prepared, the one scent that would have made his hackles rise if he had been in wolf form was a delicate hint of fragrance that wound around him like a thread of steel. Katie. His blood immediately began to boil all the way through his body. Ignoring the startled exclamations of the cooks and waitresses, David barreled his way through the swinging doors of the kitchen to survey the dining room beyond. He couldn’t have stopped himself if he wanted to.

∙•∙

Katie felt him before she saw him. The sense of his presence caused the hair on the back of her neck to rise over the same goose bumps he’d raised on her flesh earlier that morning. She paused in mid-sip to stand and stare at the kitchen where he appeared seconds later, a lean, dark hunter on the trail—her trail. She unconsciously set her glass down on the table. If she had been able to laugh, she would have snickered at the sight of her pink blanket and baseball cap folded together under one of David’s arms. To her surprise, Frank stopped eating again and stood as well, his massive girth dwarfing that of his godchild, the tension on his face appearing out of nowhere. Did he sense something odd about the man also?

Frank spoke to her softly, his voice a quiet rumble among the chatter of the bar. “Is this the David from this morning, Katie?”

A mute nod was all she could manage. Her mouth was suddenly dry, and she licked her parched lips. David Finn looked as delicious clothed as he did unclothed. His blue jeans and Fair Isle sweater clung to his muscled frame with a familiarity that Katie envied with all of her heart. For the first time in her life, she wanted desperately to be a sweater. His rugged features were angry looking again. The thoughts of David that she frantically tried to suppress blasted through her barriers. The feeling that she could devour David Finn was even stronger now.

A bass chuckle broke the invisible line connecting the pair. Katie and David broke off their heated stares and shifted their attention to Frank, whose laughter was in danger of becoming loud roars at any moment.

Katie watched David approach, and trying not to notice the extremely large bulge that had appeared in the front of his jeans, addressed her godfather without turning her face away from David’s. “What’s so funny?” she demanded, as tears of hilarity rolled down Frank’s face.

With no little effort, Frank got control of himself. Katie stood face to face with David, staring into his eyes as he stared back.