Come Moonrise (12 page)

He made a sound of frustration but it was
drowned out by the eeriest growling she had ever heard.

She sat bolt upright and looked toward the
window again. Another wolf was there. This one even bigger than Ty
and he looked mean. His eyes had that same human quality as her
lover's, but they were filled with a repudiation she had never seen
in Ty's.

He bounded off the bed, putting himself
between her and the window. He growled in unmistakable warning at
the other wolf.

The wolf barked back and then bared his
fangs.

"What's happening, Ty?" she demanded in a
voice she couldn't quite keep steady.

"
My pack leader is not happy with our
mating
."

"You said he'd have to accept it. That there
was no other option."

"
There isn't
." But the words didn't
ring true. They sounded desperate.

King barked viciously and she flinched
beneath the quilt. "Don't lie to me, not even to protect me. I have
a right to know what is happening. He looks like he'd like to rip
my throat out."

King's attention shifted from Ty to her and
his huge wolf's head nodded. He disappeared from the window and she
sat in paralyzed fear, not understanding what that meant. A second
later, the unmistakable sound of the front door opening could be
heard and then King walked into the bedroom.

His naked human body gleamed pale in the
moonlight.

Ty growled again, moving with blurring speed
to position himself between them again, his muscles coiled to
spring.

King ignored his son and his own nakedness,
locking his attention solely on her. "Pack law states that until
you die, my son is mated."

"So you want to kill me?" she asked, her
body trembling with the implication of the big man's words.

"You trapped my son into a mating he did not
want."

Ty barked and it sounded like he was
disagreeing, but she couldn’t know for sure.

"I didn't know," was all she could think to
say.

Suddenly another wolf jumped in through the
window, landing only a couple of feet from Ty and she screamed. She
shoved her fist in her mouth to stop another sound from emerging as
she recognized Duke, but that recognition gave her no comfort. Was
he here to help his father get rid of the unwanted complication in
Ty's life?

"He told you to leave him alone," King
accused.

"He made love to me like he would never get
enough," she responded, knowing only the unvarnished truth had a
hope of saving her now.

Ty couldn't win against both of them.

"If you touch her I will leave this pack and
never come back," a feminine voice sounded from the doorway.

Ty's mother was here...in human form...as
well.

King spun to face her. "What the hell are
you saying?"

"I watched you mete out pack justice on your
best friend, a man you loved like a brother, because he broke pack
law. I hated it...I hated you for a while after you did it, but I
understood the justice. It's been our way of life for millennia.
But what you are proposing isn't justice, it's murder and you will
have to go through both your son and myself to commit it."

"She tricked him into the mating, that has
to be punished."

"He withheld the truth from her even though
she loved him. What did you expect, King? She needs him as much as
I've always needed you. They made love. How that happened isn't as
important as the fact that it did. They're mated and you have no
right to undo that mating just because it angers you."

"She's a human."

"So is part of you as much as you'd like to
forget that."

Suddenly, Frankie realized that by staying
in the bed, cowering, she was feeding the bad opinion King had of
her. So, she stood up, but Ty wouldn't let her go near King.

She looked at him, her own eyes filled with
a love she wasn’t sure he would ever accept she felt as readily as
his mother did. "I'm not afraid of your father."

"
You should be. My mom's not exaggerating. He killed his best
friend for breaking pack law
."

"You saw it?" she asked.

"
Yes
."

"You can hear my son in your head?" Carolyn
asked.

Frankie looked at her. "Yes. He said mates
could do that sometimes."

"Sacred mates, yes." She turned to her
husband. "She could be pregnant with your grandchild right now. You
will not hurt her."

King glared at Frankie. "Carolyn believes
you love Ty."

"I do."

"I won't kill my own son for breaking pack
law if you walk away and he can't stand the loneliness. I'll kill
you first."

The words were meant to frighten, but they
didn't scare her at all. "I'm not the one who's been running from a
relationship between the two of us for the last decade."

King said nothing. He simply turned and
walked away.

Carolyn smiled at Frankie. "Welcome to the
family. Rose and I will so enjoy planning the wedding and don't
worry about King. He'll soften up when the grandbabies come
along."

Frankie didn't know what else to say, so she
said, "Uh...thank you."

Then Carolyn was gone too.

She turned to Duke. "Do you want to kill me
too?"

He shook his wolf's head, said something to
his brother she thought by the way Ty's body clenched and then
disappeared through the window.

She shivered and without
her realizing how he got there, Ty was nudging at her back, pushing
her toward the bed. "
You need to get back
under the covers. You still need to sleep.
"

"I don't think I can after the adrenalin
rush I just got. Your family certainly has an interesting way of
welcoming a person into it."

Ty made that wolf sound
that emulated humor again and climbed up onto the bed with her, so
he could cuddle her like before. "
You're
safe now. You may not have realized it, but my dad actually put his
seal of approval on the mating
."

"Is that what that was?" she asked, tongue
in cheek, her heart rate finally slowing down a bit.

"
Yes. And Duke never intended to hurt you. He was here to
fight by my side if I needed it
."

"He would have fought your father with
you?"

"
Yes
."

"But he doesn't like me anymore than King
does now."

"
He likes you well enough
."

She snorted.

He nuzzled her.
"
No more talking.
Sleep, sweetheart, you're going to need it come
moonset.
"

Remembering what he wanted to do when he
returned to his human form, she thought he might be right and did
her very best.

***

Ty lay beside his sleeping mate, savoring
the feel of her warm body against his fur, her scent and the sound
she made when she breathed. She was fully human and yet she
intrigued his wolf's senses like no femwolf ever had.

She also challenged him in a way few females
of his species had the courage to do. She'd called him both
obstinate and stupid and he had to wonder if she wasn't right. He
had refused to acknowledge his feelings before because of his
determination not to mate with a human, but there didn’t seem to be
much use in hiding from the truth any longer.

He loved Frankie.

He always had and God help him, he always
would. She was more than his sacred mate, though that was
miraculous enough. She was the mate of his heart and he never could
have gone through with mating with Olivia in the fur because of
it.

He could only hope that Frankie’s ability to
stick it out for the long haul was greater with him than it had
been with her ex-fiancé.

He waited until just before the change to
wake her up.

She came alert instantly and sat up to watch
with the attention she’d always given her studies.

He felt the change overtake him and he knew
what she was seeing. Nothing. One minute he would be a wolf and the
next a man. The change could take longer, he could even stop
partway through now that he had control of it, now that he was
mated. But right now was not a time to play with his new control
over his dual nature.

She gasped as he took his human form and
then screeched in shock when he reached and grabbed her to him.

He’d been aching to touch her like this all
night.

"How do you feel?" he asked, barely in
control of his primal urges.

She smiled, her eyes filled with a warmth
that melted the icy places inside him. "Like I want you."

He was careful to arouse her before taking
her. So careful that she was begging for his possession by the time
he gave it too her. They came together again, the miracle of their
shared pleasure rolling through him with a powerful force he had no
longer had any desire to deny.

This time, she let him bathe with her and
they were both very clean and very sated when they got out of the
claw footed tub.

She was frying corned beef hash while he
opened a can of peaches for breakfast when she asked, "So, what did
Marigold do that made Leah leave town and Duke hate her like
poison?"

He didn't like having to tell her about her
cousin’s behavior, but he’d promised. "You know a werewolf only
mates once, right?"

"That’s what you said yesterday, but your
dad implied that if a mate dies, the survivor could mate
again."

"That's true, but once mated, it's for
life."

"I got that part."

"Well, the closer to the change we are, the
more in control our wolves become."

"That makes sense I guess."

"A wolf’s first instinct is to mate and
procreate."

"Well, you all certainly don’t give into it
if you’re anything to go by."

"No, we don’t. We know that the decision is
irrevocable, so we’re careful to make the right one."

"I see."

"But we have a time limit. At least our
breed does."

Breed? Oh, wow...there was so much she was
going to have to get used to with all this. "What do you mean?"

"If a male of my breed doesn’t mate by the
age of thirty, he’ll never control his change."

"What about the females?"

"Things are a little different for them.
Mating any time gives femwolves control of the change after the age
of twenty."

"There are no limits on time for them?"

"No."

"That’s seems really strange."

He shrugged. "It’s just the way God made our
breed."

"Okay...get back to Duke."

"Marigold knows all of this and she also
knows that the scent of an ovulating female will put a werewolf in
a lustful frenzy. His need to mate will become all but
uncontrollable."

Frankie spun to face him, her expression
horrified. "What do you mean?"

"It’s pretty simple. A male werewolf stuck
in close confines with an unmated ovulating female will try to
mate. His only hope is for her to say no, but even then...it’s
iffy. We’re careful to stay out of that kind of situation when we
can."

"You mean an ovulating femwolf, right?"

"Or human."

She paled. "And Marigold..."

"Got Duke in a room alone close to his
change and at the right time of month for her. To add incentive,
she was stark naked."

"He mated her?"

"No, but it was damn close and his hand was
between her legs when Leah walked in on them."

"Oh, my gosh. No wonder she left!"

"She didn’t understand."

"Does she know about him being a
werewolf?"

"Yes, but I don’t think she knows about the
other."

"The whole overpowering urge to screw a
single female who is ovulating thing?"

"Right."

"Poor Leah."

"Poor Duke. He managed to turn Marigold
away, but it was too late to fix things with Leah. And he’ll be
thirty in a few months."

"If Leah doesn’t come back...he’ll be
unmated then?"

"Yes."

"Because he’d rather have her than control
of the change?"

"Yes."

"He must really love her."

"I think he does, though the way he talks
now, he can’t stand her."

Frankie turned back to the stove, the set of
her shoulders tense. Marigold’s antics must really have upset her.
A betraying sniff told him she was crying and he was across the
room in a heartbeat.

He turned off the stove and pulled her
around to face him. "What’s the matter? Is it what Marigold
did?"

Frankie shook her head, her face was a mask
of tragedy. "It’s what I did," she said in a pain-filled voice.

"What you did?"

"I raped you...or as good as."

"What?"

"I was ovulating...in heat. I’m a vet. I
know what kind of effect a female in heat has on the male of her
species. You were close to your change...your wolf instincts were
in control. You told me to go, but I wouldn’t listen. I thought it
meant you wanted me despite what you’d said, but now I know the
truth. I might as well have held a gun to your head and forced you
to have sex with me." She tore herself from his arms and ran to the
bathroom, where she slammed and locked the door.

He raced after her, unable to fathom the
workings of the female mind. He pounded on the door. "Open up,
Frankie."

She didn’t answer, but he could hear her
hiccupping sobs from behind the door.

"We’ve got to talk, little bit. You took me
wrong."

His words were met with nothing but the
sound of her grief.

Shit. He had screwed up so bad, he should be
a professional at it. He had to get to his mate. He couldn’t stand
the sound of her tears.