Dire Needs: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan (16 page)

“We can be normal,” he’d insisted. “My job is with the wolves and yours is in the hospital.”

For a while, it had worked. Now he knew better.

He let Vice and Jinx flank and lead him to the edge of the cemetery where he’d hidden the Harley. Watched Jinx walk it into the back of the van and load it up. He got in the middle seat between the large wolves.

“She’s my mate,” he told them finally when they pulled into the Dires’ garage.

“No shit,” Vice said. “Like an idiot couldn’t figure that out.”

Gwen stared into his eyes, waiting for Rifter to try to convince her she was losing it. Again.

But this time, instead of brushing off her questions, he told her, “People did die tonight. Bad ones.”

“I guess I’ll need to believe that.” She paused. “If those men at my house weren’t the police…”

“They weren’t,” he assured her.

“I’m supposed to help people.” She put her fingers to her temples and tried to breathe through the room spinning. God, she should at least have had one drink before that happened.

“Self-defense is still allowed in this country. I’m going to get you a washcloth for your head and run a bath for you to soak in. You have to be sore from what happened—I see the bruises.” He got up and went to the
bathroom. She glanced up and saw his back, and things began to click into place.

The wolf…

Unmistakably a wolf tattoo that took up his entire back… and the eyes… it was as if they watched her. Fierce but beautiful.

It was the wolf she’d seen last night. The one that saved her from the fire.

Had she seen it the other night before her seizure and her subconscious processed it into her dreams? That was the only rational explanation she could come up with.

She wanted a closer look, found herself padding toward him even as he turned to tell her to get back to bed.

“Please, I need to see this.” She pushed a little and he complied after he turned the water on, standing patiently, head up as she traced the wolf with a finger first, like she was afraid it would bite her if she got too close.

When nothing happened but Rifter letting out a stuttered breath, she grew bolder, ran her hands over the tattoo, and he shivered under her touch. The eyes… they were looking at her.

“This explains it,” she murmured.

“What?” He looked over his shoulder.

“I dreamed of this wolf the night I met you… must’ve seen it somehow.” But that wasn’t possible. “He’s beautiful.”

Rifter nodded, like he’d heard that before, and she could’ve sworn the ink moved under her touch, undulated, but it must just have been a trick of the light, the way Rifter’s muscles bunched and shifted as he moved.

“But I keep seeing them,” she continued. “Tonight—Liam… and then on the porch of my house…” She noted that the bullet wound on Rifter’s biceps had inexplicably healed, rubbed a finger over it but didn’t comment.

He turned to her. “You’ve had a rough day.”

“To put it mildly.”

“Come on—bath’s ready.” He picked her up and lowered her into the warm water. The jets bubbled around her sore body like a panacea.

Rifter watched her, and maybe she should have felt shy or scared, but she’d given up on those feelings for now. They were getting her nowhere, and since he already knew basically everything about her past—and present and non-future—she decided that she’d take all of this on like the gift it was.

“Lean back and relax.” His voice didn’t leave any room for argument, and she did as he asked, letting him place the cool compress on her forehead. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling he was hiding something important.

Maybe she didn’t want to know what it was—shouldn’t want to, at the very least, but the logical side of her pushed through to force her to ask the questions she knew she should. “Suppose the police come looking for you because of what happened last night? You must be on their radar.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of the police. No one’s going to hurt you or take you from me.”

“Why are you doing this? You just met me.”

“I don’t know. Sometimes, it just… is.” Rifter paused. “Is there someplace else you’d rather be? A hospital?”

“No—God no. It’s just… I don’t know what it’s going to be like…”

“I’ll take care of you, no matter what. Jinx too. You’ll be comfortable.”

“Not Vice?”

“He’s a good bodyguard—he won’t let anyone get close to you.”

A ready-made family, willing to shield her from the police… although, granted, she was in trouble because
of them in the first place. But still, these men were willing to take care of her during her last days. “This last seizure felt different. Like I was conscious. Only this time, I woke up and I wasn’t alone.”

He stared at her. “You won’t be again.”

This time, she chose to believe him.

O
nce they got home, Vice forced Liam to eat, although that was the last thing the young wolf wanted to do. Jinx called him a mother hen and ducked before Vice could box his ears.

“Don’t you have two teenagers of your own to raise?” he asked.

“They both got laid,” Jinx replied as he shoved half a sandwich in his mouth. “My job here is done for the moment.”

The sun had long since come up—and he and Jinx would need to check out the mausoleum again for supernatural activity. There had been rumors that it was where Seb conducted spells, but when Jinx checked a month earlier, he’d found nothing but a few ghosts who weren’t helpful. If it proved to be only outlaw Weres meeting there, well, they’d take care of that too.

The Dires should’ve been outnumbered, but even with immortality on their side, they kicked ass. The weretrappers couldn’t keep up, which was why different werepacks requested the help and expertise of the Dire brothers.

They were like the mercenaries of the wolf world, as evidenced by Harm taking out twenty weretrappers in
no doubt the space of ten minutes without anyone inside the bar noticing.

These men had been born warriors; shifted or not, they worked in tandem with their wolves. They’d had hundreds of years to perfect themselves, but in truth, Vice had to admit it was mainly instinct.

“Are you telling Rifter I left?” Liam asked.

“Yep. We don’t lie to him unless it benefits me,” Vice said. “He needs to know about your mate.”

Liam’s face hardened. “I get to take care of that, according to tradition.”

That was true, and Vice had no intention of interfering. Although he’d never mate himself, he certainly understood the formalities associated with it. Granted, he didn’t respect any of it all that much, but hell, he didn’t respect too much of anything. “Why didn’t you tell us about her?”

“Her name is Max,” Liam said, and it was obvious he didn’t want to say more about her right now. “She no doubt thought I was dead, killed when my father was. Or at least I thought—maybe Teague and Tals told her I’d escaped.”

“They might still think you’re dead.”

“Part of me wishes I was.” Liam stared at Vice. “Teach me the ways.”

“Yeah, okay, just give me a week, wolf.” Vice snorted. He lit another blue smoke, offered it to Liam, who refused.

Probably the smartest thing that kid did all day. Because even staying alive was pretty fucking stupid. Plenty of people were going to try to kill him daily, for the rest of his life.

Someone would eventually succeed.

From the look on Liam’s face, Vice knew the young wolf would never forget the sight of that slaughter. Vice knew he’d
never been able to shake the sight of the aftermath of the Dire Extinction from his, and that was centuries ago. And still, “You hid.”

“I was there—I saw them skin him alive. They cut his head off—it’s still in their clubhouse. He hasn’t gotten a proper burial and I have to live with that,” Liam said fiercely. “My father made me swear on my mother’s grave that, no matter what happened, I wouldn’t reveal myself. He said I’d be the only hope—that I needed to find you. That the Dires would train me.”

“You’ve never killed before?”

“Not humans.”

“You killed the witch,” Vice pointed out.

“She gave me no choice—I tried to just stop her.”

Vice shook his head disapprovingly. “I’ll have to teach you a hell of a lot more about the world.”

“I’m not sheltered—I know things. I want to take control of my pack.”

“Too young,” Vice said, and Liam shot across the table at him. Found himself under Vice’s boot, but it was a hell of a good try. Took a lot of balls. “Like I said, junior—too young.”

“Then, teach me.”

Vice rolled his eyes but let the young wolf up. “I’m not old enough to be a parent.”

“Thousands of years. Seems like you should be somewhat mature by now,” Jinx said, and Vice bared his teeth at him.

“We need to bomb the mausoleum,” Liam continued, ignoring the sparring between the Dires.

“We’re declaring war, then,” Jinx reminded him quietly. A war in which they might have only partial help from the Weres and could bring the police—and the rest of the human population—onto them. The Weres who
might be talked into helping would be wary of helping the Dires and bringing attention to themselves.

“I can get recruits,” Liam said confidently.

“Young ones like you?”

“Young. Strong. Clean slates,” Liam said, and Jinx shot a look at Cyd and Cain, the two young wolves who were already better fighters than many older Weres, simply because of the constant company they kept.

“It’s our fight, not theirs,” Vice argued.

“Then I’ll make it ours,” Liam said.

“I know where some of them gather weekly,” Cain offered, and all the men turned to stare at him. “What? I’m not allowed to do recon?”

“We made the right decision to walk away last night—if we did anything, they’d know we’re onto them,” Jinx reasoned, and Vice knew he was right. Let those words of wisdom attempt to take hold in his brain, in place of the rapidly building rage.

“We have to get the leaders of the outlaw pack to talk,” Liam said.

“They would take death over dishonor,” Jinx said. “And death is absolutely what we’ll give them.”

“But not until we put the plan in place.”

“What is the plan?” Vice muttered. “So the pack starts selling black market Weres to the trappers. What do they gain? A promise to make their pack powerful? Why would the trappers—who hate wolves more than any other supernatural group—agree to that?”

“They probably didn’t. I have no doubt this is Seb’s doing.” Jinx looked grim, and Liam paced uneasily.

Black arts wasn’t a subject to be taken lightly. Weres and Dires didn’t touch the stuff—they already had enough problems.

Vice was so up for a fight. If wolves were selling out
their own, they were all in more trouble than they thought.

“If we fight, you can’t participate,” he told Liam.

“Fuck you.”

Vice leveled the young wolf with a gaze. “Dude, you’re the Weres’ great fuzzy hope. If we lost you, Rifter would kill us.”

“I’ll call Rifter down here,” Jinx said. “He’ll want to know all of this—the outlaws and Max.”

“Did you ever stop to think she could’ve been a plant all along?” Vice demanded of Liam.

“She’s human—she didn’t know wolves existed until—” Liam stopped suddenly.

“Ah, now the little boy gets it. Weretrappers are human, right? You never considered that?”

“No. Never,” Liam said staunchly, although there was a slight waver in his tone now.

Wolf instincts weren’t often wrong, but in this time of trapper and witch, you couldn’t be too careful. And Vice was never one to mince words.

Liam moved faster than Vice thought, jabbing a quick punch to Vice’s jaw. It glanced off him and it made Vice laugh at the surge.

In seconds, he had Liam pinned. “Stupid move. I know you’ve heard the rumors about my self-control.”

“Don’t you talk about her—she’s mine to deal with.”

“She’s your biggest vulnerability. You want to lead, you need to get rid of that shit.”

“What would you know about a mate?” Liam snapped, and Vice did as well, throwing the young wolf across the room into the plaster wall. Liam yelped in pain and slumped to the floor.

To his credit, he struggled to get to his feet, but Vice didn’t allow it. Slammed him down hard, again and again.

Liam got up each time—shakier and wobblier, with blood coming from his nose. “Is that all you’ve got?”

“You do have a death wish.” Vice clenched his teeth as he tried to stop his switch from flipping completely.

The man had amazing hands. Gwen sat forward in the bath, arms wrapped around her knees as Rifter remained behind her, rubbing her shoulders. He massaged the kinks from her back and her neck, and she fought sleep because she didn’t have enough time left. Sleep was not on her short list of things to do, but spending time with this man was.

“Shit, these bruises are bad,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.

She looked over her shoulder. “Must’ve happened at the house.”

“I knew I was too rough.”

“No, it wasn’t you,” she insisted. “It was a tough night—my house exploded. I’ve been bruised since then.” He’d been rough during sex, yes, but he hadn’t manhandled her to the point of bruising, for sure. But since he didn’t seem reassured, she decided to do so for him.

She stood then, the water rushing off her body. He started, holding the towel but not handing it over. The fire in his eyes was like a lit switch, and she liked it.

He leaned in, brushed most of the dripping water from her body, but he left her damp. And before she could stop him, he lifted her like she weighed nothing at all and placed her bare ass on the top of the tall wooden dresser. She struggled for a second because of the height, always a fear of hers, but when Rifter spread her legs and dipped his mouth to her sex, that fear was forever erased, replaced by something far more pleasurable.

She grasped his shoulders, pushed her ass so it balanced on the edge of the wood. She was helpless, open to his mouth and his tongue as his hands balanced her hips and the sensations shot through her. It was almost too much, a shock to the system, like last night, and she willed herself to stay in the moment, to not let her illness take over.