Terry Spear’s Wolf Bundle (4 page)

She took a steadying breath. She couldn’t deny he still held her heart captive.

Like before, a strap tied his shoulder-length dark brown hair back. A black leather jacket fitted over his broad shoulders, and denims stretched comfortably down his long, muscular legs to his well-worn western boots. He was every bit as handsome as she remembered him, only much taller and more imposing and real than the photos Argos had sent her.

She focused on Devlyn’s mouth. How many women had he kissed since he’d kissed her? Her veins turned to ice as an uncontrollable jealousy washed over her.

Was he already mated? Her gut tightened with the idea. She shifted her gaze back to his eyes. His dark brown eyes turned into black quartz, angry with a hint of concern.

Did he recognize her? Sure he did. If she caught him in his wolf suit, she’d know him any day. But how had he found her?

Unless…unless…somehow the fact that a red wolf was living in the Cascades, when none should, got big-time media.
Great.
That’s how he’d found her. He must realize the predicament she faced and the danger to all of them. That’s why he’d tried to move her from the zoo. If she turned into a human by the new moon, she could be used to prove legendary werewolves truly exist.

Did he have a plan? He moved his hands over the black wrought iron posts, up and down. His actions hypnotized her. What was his plan?

“What’s he doing?” Thompson asked.

“I don’t know, but he sure has her attention. You think maybe she belonged to him once?”

“Hmm, now that sounds like a distinct possibility. And he wants her back so he can release her to the wild again. I want him checked out and watched. He’s probably one of those crazy animal rights activists. Doesn’t he realize she’s safer here, with a good diet, and no one to hunt her down? Besides, where can she find a male red to mate? She’d be stuck with scrawny coyotes.”

Joe laughed. “Guess it wouldn’t matter to her, as long as the deed is done.”

She emitted a low growl.

“Don’t think she likes your suggestion,” Thompson joked.

She turned her attention back to Devlyn. He looked kissable. He’d filled out into a man-sized hunk, but his eyes remained dark and foreboding—even more so now.

Devlyn tilted his chin up as if taunting her to tell him what she thought of him, but he continued to stroke the bars. She realized then he smelled she was in heat. The urge to mate with her would be as natural to him as breathing the air or blinking an eye.

Her gaze met his, the depths of his eyes smoldering with lust. Then he scowled and turned away. He strode off, his long gait taking him away from her within seconds. She wanted to scream at him to set her free. But in the worst way she wanted him to mate with her, to fulfill the unquenchable craving that the sight of him sparked, to take her for his own, his mate forever.

“She knows him, all right, don’t you think, Joe?”

“Yeah, like a dog knows his owner.”

She whipped her head around too fast in anger, a growl rumbling in her throat.

Both Thompson’s and Joe’s mouths dropped open.

Thompson said, “My God, I swear she thought you’d insulted her.”

She loped back to her den, a cement home, hidden from everyone’s view. Insult was right.
A dog.
And Devlyn her master? She growled again.

Then she thought what if she changed and, damn…as a woman, albeit naked, she could open the door to the wolf’s den. Unless they locked it. Why would they lock it? The wolves couldn’t just leave.

Big Red crept closer to the entrance of the den. She growled so ferociously, he immediately backed off.

The two men laughed. Thompson studied the den. “You can see who wears the pants in the family.”

Settled down on the floor, she rested her head on her paws. But wouldn’t they lock the doors to keep others out? Sure. To protect idiot visitors who wanted to pet the nice wolves.

Bella lifted her snout and howled. She howled for the loss of freedom, for the loss of her red wolf family, for missing the affection of the grays who had taken her in, and for the love she felt for Devlyn—a hopeless, pitiful fondness for a
lupus garou
she could never have as a mate.

“She’s howling for him, don’t you think?” Joe asked.

“If I didn’t know better, yeah, I’d think so.” Thompson folded his arms, his blue eyes studying her with sympathy.

“Hey, Thompson,” a new male voice said, “there’s some guy named Volan Smith on the phone who says he’s got transfer papers to take our new little lady out of here.”

Bella’s ears perked up. Her heartbeat increased so rapidly she feared she was having an early heart attack.
Volan
had arranged for Devlyn to come for her. Damn the both of them. She growled low with hatred.

Thompson shook his head. “Rosa’s not leaving here without some verification that this man has legitimate papers to move her. I’ve heard nothing about this.”

To Bella’s profound relief, the men left the pen, and she closed her eyes. When the zoo shut for the night and all of the personnel had gone home, she’d change into her human form and escape across the moat, hopefully, before anyone could turn her over to Volan.

She couldn’t believe after all these years that she’d been safe from him, one mistake in the woods could cost her much more than her freedom. Life as Volan’s mate would be a living hell.

She suspected Devlyn would return to her under the cover of night. She had to flee before then.

For some time, she slept quietly, allowing the darkness to come. But in that darkness, nightmares that had plagued her forever returned—the searing heat, the white-hot flames, the choking smoke, the fire that killed her entire red
lupus garou
family. Then Devlyn, a lanky immature youngster of a gray werewolf pack, nearly twice her size, arrived at the stony river’s edge. Without hesitation, he grabbed her by the scuff of the neck and swam across the river to save her.

For a moment, she felt a sense of peace.

Then, instinctively, something awakened her in the wolves’ pen. A low, menacing growl? A padded footstep creeping toward her?

She opened her eyes as Big Red took a step toward her. She’d been so keyed up, so tired, and now still so groggy, she hadn’t realized what had happened right away. She stared at her changed form. No longer did she have the warm pelt of a red wolf, nor four legs, or an elongated snout. Now lying on the icy cement floor, she was a woman, cold, naked, and facing a snarling Big Red.

Hell, she hadn’t correctly calculated the days of the waning crescent of the moon. The new moon had arrived and, except for a sprinkling of stars across the black satin night, no sphere lighted the way.

This time Big Red growled at her, exposing his canines and a few front teeth. His tail stood erect, and so did the hair on the nape of his neck and back. She rose slowly from her prone position, but could only crouch because of the low ceiling in the den.

She needed to stand, to spread her arms, to make him think she was bigger and more powerful. But it was too cramped. She stared him down, intimidating him like he attempted to do to her now.

In her present form, she hated to advance on him. She had to move slowly so as not to frighten him more. He couldn’t kill her, but what a mess.

How could she explain how a woman entered the wolves’ den and survived a vicious attack if he decided to bite? How could she explain why she was naked? And how could she explain how Rosa had vanished into thin air? Further, how quickly could she heal if he injured her?

Would the legendary werewolf come to mind?

D
EVLYN STARED AT THE INKY SKY FROM THE BALCONY
of his hotel room, his heart pounding furiously as he considered how Bella had been locked up in the zoo. He never thought he’d see her again, but she was even more beautiful than before, if that was possible. He recognized the longing in her whisky-colored eyes.
Save me,
they pleaded. And the smell of her—wild and ripe for the picking.

God, how he wanted to claim her heart and body for his own.

He gritted his teeth and fisted his hands. How many times did he have to rescue the woman before she recognized how….

He shook his head. It didn’t matter how he felt. She could never be his. Even if Volan didn’t lead the pack, it wouldn’t matter—Bella was so hell-bent on having a human for a mate. His neck muscles grew taut.

The door adjoining his room squeaked open. He turned.

Gray-haired, wiry Argos nodded. Once the leader of the pack, he had stepped down when he’d grown too old. “Are you sure she’ll come to me?”

“She trusts you.”

Argos winced. The old leader didn’t like the idea of returning her to Volan any more than Devlyn did, but she wouldn’t be safe on her own. Worse, she threatened the
secrecy of their kind with her rash decisions. She belonged to their pack for safe keeping, period.

“You were like a father to her. She was happy with us until Volan took over,” Devlyn continued. “She’ll come to you.”

“I know what you want, but you can’t have her.”

“Nobody can have her. Not while she’s got this insane notion of finding a human to love. Why does Volan want her so badly? She’ll make a lousy alpha female mate when she despises him so. He can’t lock her up or force her to mate with him.”

Argos raised his brows, but remained silent.

Devlyn rubbed his temple, trying to massage away the tension that collected there. “He wouldn’t, would he?”

“He’s the pack leader. Once he gets hold of her, she’ll obey him or pay the consequences. He’s driven to have her as much as she’s driven to avoid him and find the perfect human mate. So what drives you, Devlyn?”

Hatred of male humans. Procreation of his kind, if he could ever find a suitable mate. But none of the other females in their pack were an acceptable age that he wanted. Only Bella. And searching for another of his kind—well, of the red wolf variety, as that’s what he had his heart set on—proved unachievable.

It was like looking for red wolves in the wild in the States. Nearly impossible to find. And no other kind of wolf would do. The red wolf in her had to be what drew him to her.

“I’ve heard rumors he killed his own brother,” Devlyn said, avoiding Argos’s question.

“Which one?”

In disbelief, Devlyn stared at him. “There was more than one?”

“Two, both died before you joined the pack. But no, they were accidents. A mountain lion killed his youngest triplet when he was a juvenile. He’d roamed away from the pack on a hunt and the others couldn’t reach him in time. His eldest brother died in a raging flood. Tree was uprooted, smashed into his skull. The healers said he was dead before the river pulled him under. But Volan learned his bullying from that brother, the meanest, most crotchety wolf known to
lupus garou.
Just surviving his brow-beating made Volan as strong as he is today.”

Devlyn made a disgruntled throaty sound. He’d always wondered why Volan was so aggressive and controlling, but as far as he was concerned, it didn’t excuse his behavior. “Are the others ready?”

“Yes.”

“Volan’s not coming for her later, is he?” Devlyn jerked his leather jacket on.

“No. He’s the leader, not stupid.”

“Some of us would argue that point.”

Volan sent Devlyn to retrieve Bella because he wanted to emphasize the point that Devlyn would reclaim her, but she belonged to Volan. The thought curdled Devlyn’s supper, a couple of hastily eaten half-raw burgers, resting like a greasy lump in the pit of his stomach.

Once they’d seen the newsflash concerning her, they had to be sure it was her, though. Finding a red wolf in
the Cascades was unheard of, and to top that off, she was larger than normal. The pack knew the red wolf could only be a
lupus garou,
and Argos knew it had to be Bella or she would have been with a pack.

But Devlyn had to make sure. She could have been any one of a number of lone red
lupus garou
females all across the States. Or not. Because such a shortage existed, he sure as hell hoped Argos was right—that she was their stubborn Bella.

When Devlyn saw her in the pen at the zoo, he knew. He couldn’t be angry with her for having run away—but for her to risk proving to the world that
lupus garous
existed? That was irresponsible and unforgivable. At least that’s what he told himself, though his heart ached to hold her close again, only this time to claim her for his own.

Devlyn stalked toward the door of his hotel suite. “All right. Let’s break our little red wolf out of jail.” The notion that she was theirs, though, struck a chord. She wasn’t theirs. She belonged to Volan. Fire burned in Devlyn’s veins with the thought. Ever since Devlyn had rescued her near the river, the wildfire in hot pursuit of her, Volan had wanted her, too.

For years Devlyn had pinned her to the ground in their wolf states, avoiding her retaliatory bites, playing with her as young wolves frolicked. He still wanted to tackle her to the ground, to force her reaction, to have her pay attention to him. But the burning desire to have her for his mate drove away any notion of having another female.

He hurried his four younger male cousins out to the SUV with Argos at his side in the freezing drizzle. The
black-haired, amber-eyed quadruplets, twenty-two years of age, all itched for a fight as they clenched their fists and steeled their square jaws.

Devlyn slammed his door. “If we wait much longer, she’ll have changed and be half frozen in this weather.” He’d rescue her again. He had to. Not for Volan, but for his own greedy desires. But what to do with her afterwards? He knew what he wanted to do with her. Make her his…forever…his mate for life.

But with Volan still living, how could Devlyn hope to take her for his own? That question had plagued him every minute of the day since he’d learned she still lived.

Backed into the confines of the wolf den, Bella spread her arms out, slowly, in her crouched position, to make herself appear larger. “Back off, Big Red.”

He continued to snarl. She took a step forward, and shivered, but it wasn’t the chill in the air that made her tremble. The notion that the zoo staff would catch her in the wolves’ den in human form forced concern to worm its way into every pore.

Big Red held his ground.

She took another step in his direction. Her eyes remained locked onto his. He didn’t back down.

Wrinkling her nose, she bared her not-very-scary human teeth. Anything to show him she wasn’t intimidated by his posturing.

After what seemed like an eternity of an old western gunfight showdown, he turned, and trotted out of the
den. She took a deep breath, then quickly followed him out. The icy drizzle coated her skin. Hoping to make her escape easily, she crossed the pen to the keeper’s door.

Locked.

Her stomach muscles tightened with irritation. Heading for the water trough, she thought to use it as a step in the moat. But it was filled to the brim with water, and she couldn’t budge it. Her frustration level mounted, but her body temperature dropped rapidly with the chilly wet breeze swirling about her.

What she wouldn’t have given for her wolf’s thick undercoat—the dense second coat of fur virtually waterproof, a thermal insulator so effective even snow falling on her back wouldn’t melt.

She hurried to the edge of the moat and considered the height of the wall across from the pen. Big Red watched her from a corner of the pen, but never made a menacing move toward her. She’d probably confused the hell out of him. She smelled like a wolf in heat, the same one he wanted to mate, but she didn’t look like one in the least bit now.
Poor fellow.

She sat on the edge of the concrete, the substance icy and rough on her bare bottom. After twisting around, she clung to the edge with frigid fingers, then dropped into the moat. It was about a six-and-a-half-foot drop and, with her five-four height, easy to make. But when she turned to consider the other side her heart filled with alarm.

Whether the wall rose eight feet or ten…didn’t matter. She didn’t see any way to climb the rough
concrete without foot or hand holds. She turned back to the other side. Her heart fell. She wouldn’t be able to climb out that way, either.

The cold had already affected her mind, slowing her ability to think. The shock at turning into her human form earlier than she’d planned had compelled her to panic.

Great. Just great.
The next morning, the zookeepers would find a half-frozen, naked woman in the moat. She jumped at the shorter side, but couldn’t reach the top edge.

After several tries, she did what went against every instinct for survival—she gave up and yelled for help.

For an hour she screamed and hollered.
Some night watchman.
She imagined her lips were blue from the cold. Her fingers and toes grew numb. And her voice was reduced to a croak.

Attempting to conserve her body heat, she crouched against the wall, her arms around her knees, her long hair dripping, with icicles dangling about her.

Boots running on pavement in her direction barely registered in her mind.

“The woman’s screams came from this direction, Randolph,” a deep male voice shouted, nearly out of breath.

She shivered so hard her knees knocked together and her teeth chattered. “Here,” she attempted to shout, but her word barely reached her own ears.

“Miss, where are you?” another male voice shouted, older and rustier. Their footsteps stopped at the pen next door. “She sounded desperate, Mack.”

The only thought she could focus on was that the news media would have a field day when they learned a crazy, naked woman slipped into the wolves’ pen.

She attempted to stand, but the bitter cold froze her joints, locking them in place.

“I know we weren’t hearing things. She had to be close to here,” Randolph said.

“Maybe she’s injured or unconscious.”

“Here,” she said, the word merely an angry whisper. Furious with herself for being so needy, furious that her voice gave out on her when she needed it most, she had lived for many years as a lone
lupus garou.
Self-sufficient. She didn’t need anyone. Only the image of Devlyn kissing her overran that thought. Damn him for making it impossible to find someone else for her to love.

“One of the predators in these pens could have torn her up,” Randolph said.

They flashed their lights into the pen beside hers where two lions prowled.

“Call in some more of the staff.”

The flashlight’s beam poked into the darkness of her pen, angled toward Big Red. “What are you doing out here, big fellow? Little lady won’t let you snuggle yet?”

“Hey, Randolph, what’s that?”

The iron fence rattled as they leaned over it and poured their beams of light into the moat.

Bella closed her eyes as the light touched her face. Her long red hair covered her naked body like Lady Godiva on her famous ride. She stopped breathing while her heart nearly leapt out of her chest to know they’d found her, and would take her someplace warm.

“There!” the older man said.

“What the hell?”

“Are you sure she’ll go with me?” Argos asked Devlyn again, worry evident in his voice as they climbed into the SUV.

“She only saw
me
at the zoo. She doesn’t know Volan still rules the pack and wants her.”

Argos shook his head. “I can’t believe she got herself locked up in a zoo.”

Devlyn gave an evil smile, the notion he’d have to rescue her from a
real
wolf’s attentions amusing him. “The big red wolf they tried to mate her with sure looked disappointed, hungry, and dissatisfied.”

Devlyn’s cousins and Argos chuckled.

“I can just imagine how mad she is over that.” Argos stared out the window. “I’ve always wondered if we shouldn’t have tried to find a red wolf pack for her to mix with. Maybe she would have found a mate with one of her own kind.”