Heart Of The Wolf (17 page)

No! No, no,
no!

Her confession
winded him; drained the last bit of strength left in him.

“I don't hate
you, Lawrence.” And now her composure wavered, the next sentence
breaking in the middle. “But I don't forgive you. Not yet. That's
going to take some time. But I'm here. I'm here for you. Although,
I'm kinda sick of barging into a closed door. It hurts.”

She strode
past him, towards the entrance to his bedroom, where she stopped.
“I'll see you at the meeting.”

She turned the
handle of the door, swung it towards her, and then paused once
more. “I'm going to leave this open – wide.”

It took him a
moment to understand that the faint, keening noises he heard were
coming from him; from his throat trying to hold back twenty years
all culminated in this one second.

“And there's
one more thing, and it goes for all three of you…”

He waited for
her words, knowing nothing she said could make anything better or
worse. Turned out, he knew nothing.

“I love
you.”

She left.

The keening
turned into a wail, and the dam broke.

Chapter Ten

Holly's 'whoop'
hurtled down the stairs two seconds before she did. “Bingo! We've
got a location!”

No way…
“Are you kidding me? It's only been three hours.”

Holly sprang
into the kitchen, beaming proudly.

Sarah dropped
her ham and mango chutney sandwich, her mouth full of her late
lunch and looked at Beth.

“Spill, then,”
said Beth.

“Pewley
Down.”

“Near
Guildford?”

“Yep.”

Sarah
swallowed sharply. “How the hell did you get that info?”

“After I
emailed Michael earlier, he phoned me to make sure I was really
okay since I was asking for his help – he has
so
still got a
thing for me – then I told him in more detail about Taylor and my
last conversation with him, and he was asking about why I'd spoken
with him, and I was like, yeah, we used to be friends, it's not
like we don't know each other, although he was acting all weird and
we hadn't spoken in forever, and—”

“Holly!”
snapped Sarah. “Get on with it!”

“Right – yeah
– he contacted the mobile phone company that Taylor's number
belongs to. That's how we got a result. The number
has
been
disconnected, but the contract was for a Taylor Harper and it used
to be assigned to this address.

Sarah paled.
Oh, fucking hell!
“This one? This address?
My
address?”

Holly shrugged
her panic aside. “I told you this was his home too. Anyway, just
under a year ago, the address changed to The Manor, Pewley Down,
Surrey. And I have a postcode.”

“The Manor? Is
there a road name?”

“Nope. That's
it. Oh, and he told me the last phone call to his mobile was from
your number, Sarah?”

“Er … I called
him from the theatre – that was the hot date night.”

“Right, well,
I typed the postcode into my Sat Nav. Look.”

They all
leaned over Holly's iPhone. A red marker hovered over a map in …
the middle of nowhere.

“There's
nothing there,” stated Sarah.

“Wait, wait,
wait…” Holly clicked on 'aerial view' and the scenery changed to
three-dimensional shades of green. “There's a house here.”

Sarah
squinted. “There is?”

“Yes, I'm
sure. It's hidden under all these trees. See?” She pointed with her
finger to nothing Sarah could make out. “I can't zoom in any
further on this phone, but this right here is a different colour –
more like brown, not green – and it looks like a bit of roof, not a
tree. It's a house.”

This was
insane.

“Even if it is
a house, and even
if
this is real information we've been
given, it's clearly on private property. I can't even see roads
around this place.”

Holly frowned,
annoyed. “So we go in by foot, and of course it's real information.
I told you, Michael's still—”

“Into you. I
got it.”

“So, let's
go,” said Beth, quietly.

Both women
stared at her, shocked.

“What? Why are
you looking at me like that?”

Holly raised
her eyebrows. “A: you've said nothing for two whole minutes and B:
you're agreeing with me?”

“I want this
over with. And what can go wrong? Worst case scenario, we turn up,
there's nothing there and we go home feeling stupid. We make sure
our phones are fully charged in case of an emergency, we phone a
couple of people to let them know where we're going, and we take
the photo album with us in case this Taylor guy is real and living
there after all, so he can't talk his way out of whatever's going
on. I'm game. Let's do it.”

Sarah could
think of much worse scenarios – things to do with broken down cars
and dogs – but the memory of his voice on the phone, saying her
name, and those green eyes in the album … and the way they'd been
looking
at each other, so full of … love…

It would also
get her mind off Amil.

“Okay.” she
conceded. “Let's do it.”

~*~

Well, wasn't
life interesting.

Gabriel sat in
his car some distance away and observed the three ladies pile into
the Citroen. The thinner brunette was driving – the one with the
American lilt to her English accent.

The curvier
brunette was more than alluring, and she was the one he was focused
on because she had Amil's scent all over her, and it was really
strong. Surprisingly strong, actually, since he could tell they
hadn't mated. He had no idea why that would be, but what he
did
know was that if there was one reason the deserter might
rear his cowardly head again, it was her. And he wanted to see Amil
again. Wanted to see him so he could rip his eyeballs out and feed
them to him.

He'd spent the
morning trying to track the traitor himself after cursing the
uselessness of Chris or Carlos. He'd picked up where Carl had left
off at the Holiday Inn, and it hadn't been fucking hard, because
Amil's scent – faint but clear – had led a trail back to here and
he hadn't been alone: this curvy woman's spice had been mingled
with his.

There had also
been the fading stench of Operiphur to battle. It might have been
four days old, but that stuff burned your nasal passages like acid
so you couldn't smell anything else. Foul stuff. It signalled that
Amil had been running from something, and Gabriel had since heard
about the very public kerfuffle at the theatre with the werewolf –
had he ever. He'd gotten a huge bollocking for that from Head
Office.

With all the
evidence at the Holiday Inn, it hadn't taken a genius to put two
and two together, but Tridents were thick as shit.

Except
him.

And Amil.

His eyes fell
on the third woman. Now
she
was a pleasure to look at.
Square-shouldered and strong without being manly, her mid-brown
hair was clipped back simply and her outfit, practical. She had a
firm jaw that matched her firm cheekbones – everything about her
was firm and to-the-point. Beneath those clothes, he could tell
that her muscles were defined, if not athletic. Her stance said she
took no crap.

He'd like to
stick his cock in her. Making someone like her submit would be a
blissful kind of struggle, he was sure.

So, it was a
good job he'd been eavesdropping.

It was a good
job and a remarkable coincidence that they happened to be heading
exactly where he was heading, although he'd get there a little bit
later … with back-up and a leash for a storm-wielder. Maybe there'd
be time to play, too.

He rubbed his
stiff erection through his black slacks, aching to jack off, but
knowing that saving all that precious energy for tonight would be a
better reward.

Full
moons.

You had to
love them.

Chapter Eleven

Taylor closed
the front door behind him, feeling both productive and uneasy. It
had been a good day working out on the land – they'd gotten a lot
done – but the uneasiness had been with him all day, and he put it
down to the full moon, and the fact that they had a very difficult
meeting ahead of them. It didn't help that Ryan wasn't here.

Also, he
hadn't caught sight of Lydia around. The wolf in him hated not
knowing where she was.

He stopped at
the bottom of the stairs, on high alert, wondering what had caught
him off-guard. It took him a good minute to figure it out:
Lawrence's door was open. He could only just make it out from this
angle on the ground floor, but it was clearly not shut, and it was
always
shut.

With skin
prickled and making his hairs rise, he ascended the stairs
silently, ready to strike in any direction if necessary.

Nothing
smelled
untoward.

So why did he
feel so anxious?

At the top of
the third flight, and a few yards from Lawrence's bedroom door, he
spied the man, shoulders slumped and sitting on the edge of his
bed. He looked like the world had just ended.

“Okay to come
in?” he called out.

His head moved
slightly towards him, then turned back to position.

Okay then…

Taylor made
his way in, slowly and cautiously, sensing grief all around him,
and pain. Both of which he was familiar with.
What the fuck
happened?

By the
wardrobe on the floor, a prosthetic leg lay fallen, and a photo
frame lay smashed. He wasn't close enough to see what the photo was
of, but Lydia's aroma filled the room to the brim and that spoke
volumes because no one ever entered Lawrence's room except
Lawrence.

He paused to
the right of the older wolf. “Do I need to get the sledgehammer? Or
marshmallows?”

Lawrence's
eyebrows flattened straight into his 'slightly peeved off' look.
That was good. Any reaction was better than no reaction at all.

Taylor cleared
his throat. “The meeting's in an hour – are you going to be
oka—”

“I fucked
up.”

“Yes, I'm
getting that sense.”

“I fucked up
big time.”

He sighed, and
rubbed his head. Ryan was soooo much better in these kinds of
situation, which was kinda surprising given his brutish nature, but
he'd learnt over the nine months he'd spent here that there were a
lot of hidden facets to the big guy. “Er … do I want to know what
you did?”

His voice
dropped to a whisper. “I took something away from someone;
something I can't give back.”

And he'd bet
that someone was Lydia.

Taylor all at
once decided he didn't want to know the details. He needed to
remain impartial. The human in him could be, the mate in him
couldn't. The mounting urge to beat the living daylights out of
Lawrence until he confessed every single thing he'd done to Lydia
was borderline psychotic. And maybe it was a good thing Ryan wasn't
here after all.

But there was
one thing he had to know, and his words were strained because all
his muscles were contracted in a bid to not lunge at Lawrence. “Was
she all right when she left you?”

Lawrence
looked at him.

Shit. He
looked totally fucked. “I don't know. I think so – or, maybe not.
She didn't express anger.”

Which means he
thought she should have. He'd have to hear this from Lydia, not
Lawrence, if he wanted to leave the man in one piece. He balled his
fists and collected himself, took a deep breath, then moved to the
front of him and knelt down. “As you can probably gather, a fairly
large part of me wants to punch you in the face right now. I'm not
going to do that, and I'm guessing it's for the same reason Lydia
didn't show her anger. I've had the pleasure of being on the
receiving end of her right hook, by the way – she's perfectly
capable of delivering.”

No
response.

“You want to
be beaten, pummelled and driven away, so you have a reason to shut
everyone out, and say 'I told you so' when it all goes to shit. The
thing is, we all fuck up. All of us. Regularly. And living is
painful
because
of it.
Because
we all fuck up. What
makes us stronger is getting back on our feet – irony intended –
and doing it all over again until we get it right. And Lydia's
going to make you strong, Lawrence. She's going to make you a
fucking superhero.

“So, get on
your feet, go find her and keep doing whatever it is you need to
do, until you get it right. Welcome to living, my friend.”

The blond male
didn't move; was barely breathing.

Fine. As far
as words of wisdom went, that was all he had anyway. There were
other things he needed to get on with, and Ryan could deal with the
rest of this baggage when he got back.

“I'll be
around if you need me.” Taylor rose from his crouched position and
made for the door, grabbing the edge of it to pull it shut behind
him.

“But I can't
give it back.”

He froze
mid-swing, turning to face the beggared wolf on the bed. Hmm… What
a strange adjective for someone with shit-loads of money. It was
everything else he had to earn.

“Then give her
something better, so she doesn't need it back.”

Lawrence met
his eyes, and to his relief, a tiny flash of what he hoped was
clarity breathed life into that pale blue stare.

He turned to
leave.

“Wait.”

“Yes?”

“The door.
Leave it open.”

~*~

Lydia had
walked out as far as she could go – as far as timing would allow
her. The meeting was at seven o'clock. One hour to go, and she'd
been walking for one. She would need to stop soon, turn around and
go back.

This was a
part of the woods she'd not been to before, and she had purposely
ventured this way to avoid seeing anyone. Alone time was next to
impossible mated to three males, and really, that was all she
wanted at this second.