The Lycan Hunter (The Gardinian World Series) (7 page)

“Yeah.” His head snapped up and stared at Kyran. “Wait. She
thinks we tagged her? Like a dog?”

“Demanded an ultrasound.”

“Did you do it?”

He glanced at his watch. “I told her to wait an hour. It’ll give me an idea of their healing capabilities.”

They sat in silence watching Ronan
’
s crap movie of the week, one
of the very few indulgences that kept him from killing somebody or getting randomly mated.

Ronan turned off the TV as the credits started and turned to face him. “You should have thought of that.”

“What?” Kyran asked.

“Tagging her. You could have stitched her up and dropped her
off at their not so secret cabin. That way if you ever wanted to find her
, you could.”

“True, but tagging her is counter to my plans to build trust. Besides,
there’s nothing I can do about it now.” Kyran stood and prepared to go. “I do need something from you though.”

“What?”

“I need you to go by the cabin and grab her stuff. Make it look
like she left.”

Ronan nodded and was silent for a few minutes.

“Do you want to know why I was late?”

“Not particularly. You put me in an awkward spot though.”

“I know. I’m sorry, but you do want to know.”

Kyran sighed. “Okay.”

“Mom’s in town.”

He let loose a curse. Their mother wasn’t one for visits without a
cause. With a recent rise of battles in his mother
’
s territory, things had
to be getting bad in her area for her to come to town.

“Figured you’d say that.”

“She doesn’t come by just to say hi to me. She only does that for you, but I think it’s because you look like her.”

Kyran laughed when his brother threw one of his many pillows
at him.

Ronan hated the reminder that outside of the hard muscular ridges
that made him male, his face was very…femininely soft. If pushed too
hard, he tended to make sure his enemies knew how cruel he could be.

Ronan
’
s first exhibition of brutality happened the summer that
he turned forty. Erma never kept the alpha males after they reached
adulthood. Ronan had been the only exception.

He
’
d been helping some of the females with the pups when the
pack
’
s Tepinok approached him. She insinuated that he was a soft male,
judging by his features and his kindness towards the pups, only good
for her mattress.

No alpha from any Lycan species would tolerate a challenge, no
matter how innocuous it seemed. Ronan answered the Tepinok
’
s
challenge the way that all Lycans understood, with teeth and claws.
After he left her second-in-command broken and bloody at the foot
of her throne, Erma sent him to the Rockys in hopes that they would
see fit to train him to be a more disciplined fighter. Afterwards, Ronan
would serve in his father
’
s pack alongside his brother. It had worked
,
and Ronan was generally harder to rile than any male that Kyran knew.

Ronan claimed the incident wasn’t one of his proudest moments,
but only a human would think badly of him. L
ycans
, unlike their animal
cousins, never pick on or eliminate the weak. They protect them. From
the most v
ulnerable
among them they found their strength, their humanity.

Kyran drifted through the cave, heading back to his helpless patient,
his mind lost in memories and the implications of his mother’s visit.

ALEXIS TOOK STOCK
of the room she was in. Sterility clung to the walls of the room, which was why she hated hospitals. They were all
as personal as unmarked graves. With the swivel of her head, she
could see only one exit, which put a cramp in her escape plans. A clock
above the door begged for a bullet with each tick of the second hand.
The heart monitor at her bedside beeped steadily, breaking the monotony
of the clock
’
s ticking with its own plea for a quick death. A few machines
lined a slate grey wall a few feet from a bay of sinks, culminating the decor of the room.

The door swung open but was quickly slammed shut before anyone
entered. She heard the rough tone of the Lycan who had “saved” her
,
but she couldn't determine who had earned the velvet steel of his anger
.
She struggled to angle her head closer to the door so that she could
hear but found that the restraints at her wrists and the wound in her stomach ensured she wouldn't move much.

The wolf who claimed to have operated on her entered, pausing to briefly glance into the hallway.

“You’re late, wolf.”

Kyran snorted as he entered the room and washed his hands. That
strange sense of arrogance and humility that all doctors had, shadowed
him, making him more “human.” He wasn’t. She had to remember that.
Her life wasn’t worth whatever lie he was trying to convince her of.

“I’m never late,” he said as he pulled the ultrasound machine to
her bedside and began readying everything. “Besides, I just kept someone
from eating you.”

“I changed my mind about the sonogram.”

He arched a brow at her. “You believe me?”

“God, no.”

He sighed as if she were being completely unreasonable. “Of course
not. So what do you want as proof?”

“A full body scan.”

“I’ll file that under wishful thinking.”

“And why is that?”

 “Two things. First, this isn’t exactly a fully kitted hospital, Hunter.
I have the necessities. You’re lucky I even have this machine, as I rarely
use it. Second, you are in the infamous
take it or leave it
scenario. Being
that it’s you who’s tied up, I gotta ask: Are you a taker?”

“Fine. Do the ultrasound.”

She jumped when the wolf lifted the gown that he had placed on
her after the surgery and undressed her wound. He put the tube of gel
in the warmer.

“My nose itches.”When he scratched her nose for her, she jerked back, irritated that he hadn’t released her arms.

“Don’t touch me.”

“You are aware that I spent three hours inside of you, right?” He
gave a tight smile at the double entendre. “I
’
m not stupid, Hunter.
Stop treating me like it.”

Alexis sighed and watched the Lycan as he sat down at the machine
and typed in various bits of information.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Why?”

“Would you rather I kept calling you ‘wolf?’”

“It doesn’t really matter.”

“Fine.” She waited while he grabbed the gel and gave it a good
shake, still managing not to look at her. “My name is Alexis.”

In truth, she didn
’
t know why she bothered with names. It wouldn
’
t
matter when she killed him later. And she would kill him. Anything
would be better than returning to the Hunters a failure in deed and
conviction to the Hunter cause. She had little else in the world. This one Lycan wouldn’t be the one to take what she had left from her.

“This should be warm.” He squeezed a glob onto her stomach,
careful to avoid the angry ridge of stitches. He then adjusted the screen
. “Can you see, Hunter?”

All Hunters were trained combat medics, which meant she knew
when something foreign was inside. A cursory glance told her that
wasn’t the case.

“Call me Alexis, and yeah, I can see.”

He moved the wand around, pointing out structures in her abdomen
on the screen. He answered the few questions she had regarding spots
on the screen before turning the machine off.

“Are you satisfied?” he asked.

“For now.” Alexis watched while he put everything away, cleaned
off her stomach, and redressed her wound. It bothered her the way he
was acting. Granted, being stared down by a wolf wasn
’
t exactly enticing
under normal circumstances, but something about his motivation for the change didn’t sit right with her.

“You’re not looking at me.”

He glanced over his shoulder, “What?”

“You don’t look at me like you did earlier.”

Kyran sighed. “I was amused; now I'm not.”

“Tell me what was so amusing about me.” Her tone held a subtle command.

“Do you have manners or did they actually forgo that part of your
training?”

“What?”

“Nevermind. I
’
m going to get your room ready. I
’
ll be back later.”

The wolf left before she could even ask him what he meant by
her
room. She wasn
’
t exactly on vacation, so she could only begin to imagine
what he had in mind as a room. More than likely it was something
dark and smelled faintly of mold.

***

Kyran stood in the suite where the Hunter would be staying, located
in a hall that branched off from the corridor that held both Ronan
’
s and his own suite of rooms. The room
’
s design specialized in
keeping Lycan
prisoners, however rare they were, from roaming unattended through
the compound. He had no doubt that it would hold his patient.

The suite, referred to as the Green Room, had recently been
redecorated from a haunting, stale smelling room to one with earthy
colors that smelled like the forest. Everything was brand new and
freshly washed, with the exception of the small leather duffle that set on top of the heavy, carved dresser.

Kyran knew that putting her into one of the rooms that still had shackles bolted into the wall was the safest idea. However, it would
make her extremely uncomfortable, which was contradictory to the
message of good will that he was trying to send. He managed to quell
the rebel voice in him that yearned for the impossible by using only
logic, not the emotionally insane Tala half of him that yearned for
something that should and could never happen.

Turning his attention back to his task, he checked the bathroom and mini fridge in the bedroom to make sure everything was stocked
with necessities before he left for his own room. He needed some sleep
before the chime sounded for evening prayers and the following pack
meeting. He already knew the meeting would try his patience.

***

Kyran walked down the hall to the center of the compound where
everyone gathered. Trying to sleep had only given him time to get
agitated about the pint-sized Hunter that kept invading his thoughts,
making him restless. Thoughts about the upcoming pack meeting didn’t
help ease his rising irritation. He knew there would be concerns, fear
s,
and outright anger over him bringing a Hunter into their inner sanctum.

He stood on the rough stone floor before the altar in his bare feet,
dressed in only white linen pants. He gazed at the pack and motioned
them to kneel. The soldiers – dressed plainly like him – created a barrier
around the Harem and children. They gave him a hesitant nod of
compliance and folded like the Harem for prayer.

He began the session with a moment of reverence, a silent few
minutes where Lycans focused on finding peace in their being and
communing with Narn, their creator.

“Our Mother, forgive us for we have sinned. Every day we have
fallen short of our purpose and your vision of what we should be.
May we still have your graces and rise in the morrow to try again to
reach our greatness. Forever we praise you, the benevolent Narn.” He closed the prayer to the Goddess of the Wild and followed with a brief
prayer acknowledging the other eighteen gods and their contributions to
their lives.

When he finished, he looked out on the sea of white clad Talas and
gave a tired sigh.

“Alright, let
’
s get this over with. Who wants to speak first?” He let his gaze rake over the males before falling to the females and children,
thus recognizing their rank.

“I think we all just want to know why, Mikko. They kill us with
no regard, so why would you show her any kindness?”

Kyran gave an internal laugh. It had taken a member of the Harem
to ask him. None of the males, with the exception of Ronan, would even
look at him.

Cowards
, he thought.

“I saved her, because we need information. The rogue came close
to our location, and that may be enough for them to know that we live
in the area. I need to know what they know in order to protect you.
Anything else?”

A male, originating from the Oconee pack, stood and leveled a barely
concealed glare at him. “What will you do with her when you get this
information that she isn’t likely to part with easily?”