Ride the Wicked Woodsman (A Night Falls Alpha Werebear Shapeshifter Romance) (13 page)

"Yes."

His face was a granite mask. His voice gave nothing away, either. Even his scent was hiding his feelings from me. But then he had never been very open this week.

At the bottom of the landing, I reached for the handle but Clover pulled the door open first and wrapped me in a tight hug. When she let go, she threw eye darts at her brother.

"Someone was being an alphahole and wouldn't let me come upstairs."

"It wasn't pretty," I said, following her into the basement with Taron and her brother close on my heels. "Could you hear anything?"

I doubted she did because she might not have hugged me at all if she had heard the males arguing over the shit storm I had brought with me from Illinois.

Clover shook her head and pointed at the concrete ceiling above her head. "Used to be the city's Masonic temple and they put in a fallout basement during the cold war."

Her bottom lip started sliding side-to-side before she released the question chewing to get out.

"Is it bad? I know there are a bunch of strange shifters in town and they are all male -- which could be a she-wolf's day dream if some of them are hot."

Nope, it was a she-wolf's nightmare -- my nightmare.

"Braeden will fill you in," Taron interrupted. Grabbing me by the elbow, he walked me across to the opposite side of the basement.

The builders had installed this wall in segments, unlike the three other walls. It seemed odd until Taron handed me my bag then braced his palms against one segment, planted one foot on the floor and the other against the bottom of the segment and began to push.

I watched as the massive block of concrete slid inward to reveal a section in the next segment that had been carved out. The four of us slid through, Taron and Braeden almost crawling on their knees and Clover's overstuffed backpack leaving her helplessly wedged for a few seconds.

"Go on ahead," Taron ordered his second as he slid the concrete block into place, plunging us into darkness. "We'll be a few minutes behind."

The space we stood in was as pitch black as I had ever experienced and I had no idea what waited ahead. My only hint that we weren't walled in alive was that I could feel a small flow of fresh air against my skin.

Next to me, something snapped and a small band of green light appeared in Braeden's hand. His foot tapped at a box against the floor where there were more chem lights as he handed one off to his sister.

She snapped hers then gave me one last hug. "Whatever it is, Taron will figure something out or I'll have my big brother beat his ass."

His hand coming down on Clover's head to steer her forward, Braeden looked at his boss over his shoulder. "You know she's kidding, right? I mean you need to figure something out, but that last bit was a joke--"

"Nope, not a joke," she chirped, her voice bouncing off the walls of what I could now tell was a downward sloping cave.

They squabbled like siblings who fiercely loved one another as they disappeared deeper into the subterranean structure and we could no longer hear them.

"Why are we waiting?" I asked, reaching into the box and scooping up two chem lights.

I snapped one to find him rummaging around in his pockets. He came out with two small rectangular bars wrapped in cellophane. He passed one to me and took the light.

"Eat. It's pure protein."

"Yeah, in a second." I shoved the food into my pocket, snapped the remaining chem light then pulled the bar back out before remarking on the obvious. "You didn't answer my question."

Taron settled onto an outcropping of the wall and unwrapped his snack. "They need time to discuss what's going on and decide on their priorities."

For sweet-hearted Clover, I was pretty sure her priority was helping anyone she believed was good and who was in need. Braeden's priority would be protecting his little sister regardless of what his boss or the pack wanted -- or even what she wanted.

I bit off a chunk of the protein bar and chewed, my senses too numb from the day's developments to taste what I was eating. I had hoped that he sent Clover and Braeden on ahead of us so we could talk, but he apparently had nothing to say.

"Here," he said, tossing me something silvery.

I caught it and couldn't hold back a small chuckle. It was a juice pouch, the kind parents pack kids off to school with.

"Why do you have snacks on you? You didn't grab anything from the cabin other than the guns."

"Felt like a walk when I got up," he answered, his voice far away even though I could have leaned over and stretched out my arm to touch him.

He'd planned on escaping me this morning, if only for a few hours, probably to think things through after our argument the night before. The day had brought him yet another reason why he never should have hooked up with me in the first place.

I punched the straw into the juice pack, took a sip and leaned my head back against the concrete block, closing my eyes to keep from crying.

"How do you think this is going to go down?"

"How do you want it to go down?" he asked in reply.

"I don't want anyone getting hurt because they tried to help me."

He snorted at that. "How many shifters in my pack do you think would put themselves in harm's way to protect you? Way they see it, you brought your pack into their valley."

There was no accusation in his voice, just cold hard facts.

"A pack is only as strong as its smaller units," he went on. "The mated pairs, the stronger friendships. Each of those units will think about their own well-being first. Mojo will protect his family, Braeden will protect Clover..."

Taron trailed off, took a long sip on his juice pouch then stood up. "That should be enough time that they'll have their privacy ahead of us."

"Yeah," I croaked, unable to hide the emotions coursing through me. Some stupid part of me had been hoping that he was going to finish with the promise to protect me, not because I wanted my sorry ass to survive this ordeal, but I wanted him to care about me that way -- more deeply than anyone since my gran, who had loved me even after the accident, all the way up until her death.

Somehow I had bought into all the stupid fairytales, all the dumb romances I had read from the human world were love transcended biology. But this was fact, not fiction. Taron had wanted me because I was in estrus, but I hadn't conceived. Now I was some "other bitch" and I had a ton of baggage.

Twenty feet ahead of me already, he stopped and turned. "You're not following..."

"Sorry, boss," I mumbled and pushed off from the wall.

He waited until I was within about five feet of where he stood and then he started up again. He covered the silence by giving me the guided tour, telling me about the limestone cavern we were in, how many miles of underground trails there were and how the pack, over time, had bought up all the land known to have an entrance.

"The caverns have fallen out of memory for the humans in Night Falls," he continued as he drew to a stop ahead of me. "So much so that none of them know how the town got its name."

I was about to ask him the origin of the name when I realized the growing sound I had been hearing while I concentrated on keeping my footing on the uneven, slick ground was fast moving water -- a lot of it.

He moved forward into a large chamber, the volume of the rushing water growing louder. Again, he stopped, this time waiting for me to catch all the way up, his hand holding the chem light above his head to shine more light around.

"Night Falls," I whispered, looking at the underground waterfall. With no opening to the outside to let any light in, all I could see was what our two chem lights illuminated.

"Wait here," he said and moved off to our left.

He stopped, his light showing a heavy metal trunk. He threw the lid back to reveal more chem lights. With a hard chuck, he threw the one he already had toward the falls then snapped half a dozen more, throwing all but the last into a pool of water fed by the falls.

We could have crossed the chamber without stopping, he didn't have to show me its beauty, but he had.

Why?

"We should wait a little longer," he said, taking a seat close to the pool. "Clover's constant talking will have slowed them down."

"Sure," I agreed, my mind busy with analyzing the area he had chosen to sit. A few feet away was a wider swatch, one on which we both could have sat. But he had parked his ass on a spot that would accommodate just one body.

I chose to stay on my feet, moving around the edge of the pool and watching the play of water over the chem lights at the bottom.

"Your father said he wouldn't hurt you," Taron said after a few minutes had passed. "Do you believe him?"

"Yes," I answered. "For now, he's decided I'm his best chance at a proper legacy."

What I left out of my answer was that my father wouldn't necessarily protect me and that my brother's hate would most likely grow now that I was healed. I would survive the ride out of Night Falls, but every day after that would be one big question mark for me on whether it was the day Eric went totally off the deep end and tried to kill me.

I stopped my climbing and stared at Taron, my throat tightening around the words I wanted to release. I wished he had showed me the falls earlier, in those first few days. It would have made for a beautiful memory.

But he hadn't and I could guess why -- this was the sole domain of the Night Falls pack, their safe place in time of danger. And I wasn't one of them.

"They're probably far ahead of us again," I offered, wanting to leave this place of quiet beauty before my heart broke entirely.

Pushing onto his feet, he seemed to take a few seconds to get his bearings and then he headed in the direction of the chamber's south east quadrant. I followed, my footsteps falling slower and slower as the sound of water was replaced with the voices of more than just Braeden and Clover ahead of us.

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

Entering a much larger chamber filled with portable lighting, I saw Braeden and Clover. They had a small cluster of shifters around them, all either female or their offspring. Mojo's wife was there with their little girl, her arms locked tight around a rag doll.

Everyone turned in my direction at once, their gazes bouncing between me and Taron.

Mojo's wife was the first to speak.

"Why are we waiting for after sunset for Church? We need to be discussing this now -- the whole pack."

"It looked like you were discussing it, Lara," Taron answered as he navigated me toward a small alcove. "If we all go down the rabbit hole at the same time, we can't hope to keep this place secret."

"You really think it's still a secret?" Lara asked, her eyes cutting sharply in my direction.

"I didn't know about it before today," I snarled. "You've got more to worry about from those in your pack who'll sell out the location to save their own skins."

"She's right," Clover said, leaving the group of women and coming over to the alcove Taron had corralled me into.

She took a seat next to me on the bench someone had carved out of the wall. I could see the trace of tears on her cheeks and smell their salt. I wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

We were almost the same age, but she was really years younger, having grown up without all the restrictions of a traditional pack and with a strong brother who cared deeply for her. She wasn't jaded and fear hadn't aged her.

Turning my head, I pressed a kiss against her temple. Sniffling, she wiped at her nose then spoke to me in a low whisper. "They aren't thinking straight right now. They're scared shitless."

So was I, but if the illusion that I wasn't helped her, I wouldn't take that away.

"They're right that my father and the other leaders wouldn't be here with their men if they hadn't come looking for me." I squeezed her shoulder and hugged her a little tighter to me.

"It's perfectly understandable that some of them want to...well, throw me to the wolves."

She looked up, her green eyes dark with worry. "What's your plan?"

"To buy you all as much time as possible."

It was a goal, really. I hadn't come up with a plan on how I was going to actually do that. Maybe I could undertake a one-wolf insurgency on the trip back. Would killing my father, or Marcus or Constantine, delay the attack on Night Falls or accelerate it? What if I managed to kill all three of them? Could I make it look like they had taken each other out and start a war between the Champaign factions instead of them descending en masse on the families in Night Falls?

Was it wrong to want to send one set of children to their graves to save another, smaller set?

Air drained slowly from my lungs and past my lips. Clover threw her arms around my waist. After a few seconds, she laughed.

"I should have been less picky," she murmured.

Hearing the humor in her voice, I laughed and asked what she meant.

"I mean," she whispered, "I should have fucked a few more guys. I shouldn't have cared they weren't mate material. If they were hot and willing and not a walking train wreck, I should have jumped their bones."

"Yeah," I laughed back, my gaze searching the chamber for Taron.

He stood at the opposite side deep in conversation with Braeden. Two other shifters were with them, both males that had arrived without my noticing. I scanned the rest of the underground room and saw that Mojo was there and busy comforting his wife.

"They have an opening under their barn and built a tunnel to their house," Clover volunteered then pointed her chin at the two shifters with her brother and Taron. "Same for Rooster and Clark -- well, under where they live. They didn't have to tunnel or anything."

A few seconds passed and then she nudged me with her elbow. I looked at her, expecting her to direct my attention to some new arrival, but she hooked my gaze and held it.

"What can you tell me about these other shifters?"

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

Between my arrival at the underground chamber and sunset, a dozen more shifters drifted in. The rest followed Taron's orders and waited until it was safe to enter the forests and find the entrances that weren't covered by everyday shelters.