Eddie’s Prize (30 page)

“All the more reason to teach her about the People as soon as possible. Instead, she grew up fearing her sister—”

“With reason!” Eddie cut him off hotly. “Her father had died because of it! His family had been killed because of it.”

“And she taught you to fear me. For eighteen years I have lived in a cage of fear and hate. I’m denied, reviled, and despised, allowed out only when you are too weak to fight your true nature.” The stranger leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other, the relaxed move a taunt. “I would have been satisfied with that existence, since it was all I’d ever known. But then you found and claimed our mate, and I wanted more.” The relaxed pose dropped when the stranger planted both feet on the floor and leaned across the table. “You have driven our mate away, and I’m no longer satisfied to crouch behind the wall you’ve built between us.”

“
Me
?” Eddie slammed a hand on the table. “I wasn’t the one who roared with jealousy every time Lisa smiled at someone! If anyone drove her away, it was you!”

The stranger’s smile was bitter. “If you would have spoken to her of me, explained about your brother in fur, she would have been able to understand and accept.”

“My mother told me to keep it quiet!”

“Showing respect to the matriarch of your pride is important. But you’re not a kit who can’t hunt on his own. You should have decided for yourself. Lisa might not know everything, but she knows there is something you should tell her. She begged you to talk to her. We are supposed to be one being. Fair warning—I’m not going to let you make all the decisions from now on. You are a coward, brother, a frightened baby who hides behind his mommy, and I will not allow that.”

The disdain dripping from that too-prissy voice had Eddie lunging out of his chair, almost wild with rage. His fists passed through the stranger and struck flesh. Eddie blinked open dream-drugged eyes. One of his father’s men was backing away from the bed, one hand held up in surrender while the other massaged his shoulder.

“Hey, take it easy. It’s me, Matt.”

Eddie sat up in bed, hair wet with sweat in spite of the frigid air in the room. “Sorry, Matt. Bad dream.” He scrubbed at his face. “What time is it?”

“Almost noon. The news flyers are ready to go. Ray says you’re to take some and go out to the Wolfe place and then up to Overdahl’s Mill. We got no time to waste, so take a horse.”

“Right.”

Eddie tried to shake the last remnants of the horrible dream away as he dressed. But the dream stayed with him as he saddled a horse. As he rode north, it clung to his mind like sticky cobwebs. The crea … cat lurked inside him. Eddie could almost feel it. He couldn’t tell Lisa about it, though. His mom was right, but how he wanted to hold Lisa and tell her he was sorry.

He had to find Lisa and convince her to come back to him. Unfortunately, with the Woman Killer Plague, she would have to stay where she was until it had run its course. That could be weeks or even months if they didn’t get it under control. Eddie took a glove off to rub his forehead. What a mess.

At the Wolfe place there were several men and wolves in the yard. All of them stopped what they were doing to watch him, and some of them looked angry, while others smirked at him. Not a surprise. The only time he was welcome here was when Lisa was with him.

He dismounted at the gate and took a stack of flyers out of the saddlebag. Jay was at the gate, thick arms crossed over his bare chest. He was wearing jeans, but no shirt or shoes. Even in winter, the wolves would rather go naked than put on clothes.

“What d’you want?” Jay demanded in a particularly unfriendly tone.

“I have news from Kearney.” Eddie rolled up one flyer and poked it through the fence. He put the rest on the ground and found a rock to anchor them. “Doctor Whitten has confirmed that three of the women at the Plane Women’s House have the Woman Killer Plague.”

Jay’s hard face went slack for a fraction of a second. “Who?” he asked hoarsely.

“The names are on the flyer. Hand these out to your neighbors, okay? Be sure to keep your women here, and don’t come to town unless you absolutely have to. Someone will be coming around once a day with the newssheets and to see if you need anything.”

Taye Wolfe came out of the motel and strode toward them, his long legs making even his lazy stride cover the distance quickly. “What are you doing here, Madison?”

Eddie curled a lip. Wolfe’s tone was even more unfriendly than Jay’s had been. What had he done to piss the wolves off now? “Just passing along news.”

“That’s it? That’s the only reason you came out here? Fool. Me and you.” He flicked a disdainful finger between them. “We need to talk.”

“Well, I’d love to shoot the breeze.” Eddie gathered up the reins with sharp jerks. “But I have other stops to make.”

“Chief.” Jay handed the news flyer over to Taye. “It’s bad. Woman Killer Plague.”

Eddie mounted. “Someone will be by again tomorrow.”

Taye unrolled the paper and went unnaturally still while he read. He flung his head back and let out a wolf’s howl that was almost a grieved wail. Others took it up. Eddie nudged his horse into a trot, eager to get away from the over-emotional wolves.

The Overdahl place was made to last. The fence enclosing the mill and house was made of stone and brick. Eddie dismounted at the gate and waited for someone to answer his ring. His heart was pounding a little too fast. Somewhere behind that thick wall was Lisa. He knew the breakout of the Woman Killer Plague meant he couldn’t get too close to her for fear of spreading the disease. But he wanted to see her. Of course, she couldn’t come back right now. That would break the rules of quarantine. Frustration made Eddie want to kick the stone fence in.

Neal Overdahl, Dane’s younger brother, came to the gate. Eddie wondered bitterly if Dane was too cowardly to face the husband of the woman he’d seduced away. He shook that thought off. He was here as the representative of Kearney first and a wronged husband second.

Neal opened the gate with a smile. “Come in, Eddie. Here comes Dane.”

Eddie stayed outside the gate, but he craned his head, looking for Lisa. When Dane came up, Eddie spoke. “I can’t come in. I have bad news. The Woman Killer Plague is back. Three confirmed cases at the Plane Women’s House.”

Shock stamped the faces of both the brothers.

“Oh, no,” breathed Neal. “Ellie!”

Like every man he’d spoken to, Overdahl’s first thought was for the woman he loved. Eddie remembered the kid was engaged to Mr. Gray’s granddaughter. “As far as I know, she’s fine.” Eddie handed over the stack of flyers to Dane. “Here’s the news. Will you see that these get distributed?”

“Of course.” Dane looked tired. “Eddie, I owe you an apology.”

Eddie raised one hand to stop him and couldn’t keep it from closing into a fist. He made it drop to his side. “Just tell me if she’s all right.”

“Who?”

“My wife.” Eddie choked, remembering she had repudiated him. “Lisa.”

Dane’s eyes narrowed. “She’s fine. Eddie, I knew you wouldn’t want me to dance with her. You made it perfectly clear how you felt. I asked her to dance, and I asked her to leave you to marry me.”

The tearing pain and rage surging through Eddie had nowhere to go. He understood now why Taye Wolfe had howled in grief. He clenched his teeth. “Yeah.”

“She refused. She said she loved you.”

Eddie felt his eyes open wide. “She what?”

“She loves you. I apologize for making trouble between you. I was stupid jealous and I’m sorry. If you hadn’t humiliated her in front of the whole town, she would be in your house right now.”

Eddie fought with his cat to keep the roar back. “Can I see her? I know I can’t come in and she can’t come out, but I’d like to at least see her.”

The brothers exchanged a look. “You’d have to go to the den to do that,” Dane said.

Eddie felt a zing go through him, like the electricity Dane sometimes was able to generate with his bicycle. “The Wolfe place?”

“Yeah. We walked with her and two of Des’ men last night on our way home. I told her she might want to wait for morning, but she was afraid you would force her to go back to you if she stayed in Kearney.”

Neal put in, “You have no authority over Taye Wolfe’s Pack. And they’re not happy with you.”

“I know.” Those wolves acted like they despised him. Well, even more than they usually did. Now he knew why. “I was just there.”

Dane looked like he wanted to reach out and squeeze Eddie’s shoulder, but he put his hand down, knowing the restrictions about passing germs under the quarantine rules. “I don’t know if they’ll let you see her. She was crying last night, and that seemed to piss all the wolves off, but especially Taye. You know how they feel about women.”

“Yeah. They have to let me see her. I’ll beg if I have to.” He turned away to mount his horse. “At least she’s safe there.”

Dane prepared to close the gate. “Good luck. I hope you work things out with your wife.”

So did Eddie. He raised a hand and headed back to the den.

“He didn’t want to see me?” Lisa looked up at her best friend’s husband with hurt in her eyes. “He came all this way, but he didn’t ask to see me?”

How could a fierce werewolf bulging with muscles look embarrassed? Just five minutes ago Taye had been barking orders about quarantine and where she, Carla, Rose, Tami, and The Grandmother were allowed to be. Even through the hurt, Lisa felt a reluctant smile tug at her. She almost expected Taye to shuffle his bare feet.

“He has important things on his mind,” Taye said lamely.

The urge to smile died. “More important than his wife?”

Jelly squeezed in next to her on the bench. He petted her shoulder like she was a puppy. “It’s because of the Woman Killer Plague,” he reminded her.

There were several men in the room, and every one of them went grim at the words. Taye’s gaze sought out Carla, sitting in the big chair by the fire. Lisa could see his anxiety in the set of his mouth.

“Right,” she said flatly. But he couldn’t take five seconds to be sure she was okay. Whatever. “It’s probably for the best. I wouldn’t talk to him if he begged me to.”

She got up from the bench by the window to go to the chair by Carla’s side. “I’m ready to learn how to do that cast on and knit thing.”

The sympathy on Carla’s face almost broke the dam that held Lisa’s tears back. “Sure, I’ll be glad to show you.”

Most of the men drifted off to do whatever werewolves did after lunch. Only a couple lingered in the rec room, and Lisa was able to ignore those. The Grandmother was napping, and Rose was with Tami doing something in the kitchen. Tami’s husband, Tall-Blond-and-Scary, was out hunting. He hadn’t heard the news about the plague yet. Lisa wondered if that would get any kind of a reaction from him. Tracker showed very little reaction to anything as far as she could tell.

Lisa stubbornly concentrated on getting the yarn onto the knitting needle correctly. She concentrated so hard that the loops were too tight to slide the other needle into to make a stitch. She ripped the loops off and tried again. And again. Carla made it look so easy.

“How about a break?” Carla suggested after nearly an hour of Lisa struggling to master the knit stitch.

Lisa looked glumly at the uneven strip of knitting she had painfully created. “I need to keep busy. If I don’t, all I think of is Eddie.” It hurt too much too think of her husband. Her ex-husband. “Oh, great,” she mumbled. “Here come the tears again.” She groped for the handkerchief Carla had given her.

“You need a break, Lisa. I bet you didn’t get much sleep last night. Why don’t you go lie down for an hour?”

Lisa reluctantly put the wooden knitting needles and her pathetic attempt at knitting back in the bag. “I guess.”

As she was getting up to go to the room Carla had assigned to her, Taye came in, accompanied by Tracker and another man Lisa hadn’t seen before. He stayed by the door while Taye went to Carla’s chair and dropped a kiss on her hair before looking at Lisa.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

His kind tone made Lisa sniff with new tears. The men at the den were deadly fighters. Only a few weeks before, the den had been attacked by two dozen men who wanted to steal the women, and every single attacker had been killed. Those same killers treated Lisa with gentleness, as if she were made of glass that would shatter if bumped. The sight of feminine tears made them frantic. So she forced her tears back now and put a smile on her face.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

Taye’s dark eyes expressed doubt. “You thinking about Madison?”

Tears threatened to escape. “Yes,” she said quietly. “But I’m trying not to. He hurt me. I hurt him. That’s in the past, and the sooner I forget about him, the better. I have to look to the future.” The future seemed bleak and lonely without Eddie.

“You said you didn’t want to talk to him. That still true?”

“Yes.” Lisa sighed heavily. “A clean break is best.”

Taye nodded seriously. “Whatever you want. You’re Pack now. We’ll take care of you and make sure no one ever hurts you again.”

Pack. She had been adopted by a pack of werewolves. She’d wanted a family hadn’t she? If she couldn’t have the Madisons, she’d have a few dozen werewolves for brothers instead. A giggle that bordered on hysterical choked her.

Carla got up to give her a hug, and that opened the faucet to her tears. Lisa put her forehead on Carla’s shoulder and sobbed. Taye sent Carla a panicked look.

“We’re going to go lie down,” Carla said, waving Taye back.

Lisa forced her tears back. She wiped her eyes and walked with Carla to the door, where Tracker and the stranger still hovered in the doorway. Tracker’s face was its usual stoic mask, but the other wasn’t as stoic. He was a little shorter than Taye, with muscles on top of muscles, and a shaved head, wearing leather pants that made him look like a motorcycle thug.

Tracker spoke in his usual quiet voice. “Lupa. Mrs. Ma—Miss Anton.”

Lisa forced her smile to stay in place. “Hi.”

Taye came and slipped an arm around Carla’s waist. “Sweetheart, let me introduce you to my cousin.” Taye cleared his throat and nodded at the bald man. “This is Laura.”