Untamed Wolf (15 page)

His response was immediate.
Pretty girl, be honest. How much trouble are you in?

Not as much as we thought. I have to shower. I have to go to a meeting. Hope you’re warm.

Go shower. Eat. Call me later?

Her heart did a little fist bump with her ribs.

I’d love to—how late is too late?

While she waited for his answer, she got the shower turned on and stripped out of her filthy clothes. Her gold charm bracelet sat on the counter. The one gift from Dallas she’d never left behind. Each charm marked a year in her life. All fifteen of them…if one came for her sixteenth birthday, she’d never received it. It meant everything and yet, she’d forgotten it. Thought it lost forever after the falls and Dylan returned it to her.

Hanging behind her door was Dylan’s shirt. Pausing, she rubbed her nose to the fabric. Hints of him remained. Making a face at the sight of herself in the mirror, she raised the phone and took a selfie, paint streaks, disheveled hair, and all. Then sent it to Dylan.

Go take a shower. Are you eating?

Grinning, she could almost imagine his growl.
Yes, I am
.

No immediate response, then…
Good. Call me whatever time. No time is too late for you.

He sent a picture with it—mostly his nose, one eye and his mouth. She burst out laughing at the odd photo.
Not sure how to do this. I’ll figure it out.
He wrote.
Go shower.

Bossy. Commanding. Sweet.

Are you eating?

Steam curled out of the shower invitingly, but she waited for the answer.
Yes, I’m cooking some stew right now
.

Biting her lip and laughing, she typed.
Good boy. Pretty boys need food, too.

His response was immediate.
Thought I was godlike…

Giggling, she typed.
Showering now.

T
he snow returned with a vengeance
. Despite her promise to call, she hadn’t reached out since the night she’d sent him her paint-streaked face. It took him some time to master taking a photo of himself with the phone, but when he tried to send it to her, it failed. The weather near Three Rivers turned vicious before it did for him. Mama appeared on his front step two days later. He’d let her and the pup inside and she made herself at home, reclaiming the spot he’d built a bed for them in the first time. It took only a short while to get her blankets out. He refused to share Chrystal’s with her, not when Chrystal’s scent faded a little each day.

Keeping the track between the cabin and the road clear proved no easy task, but he didn’t want to be snowed in…not if something came up. Communication with Willow Bend proper grew spotty when the weather rolled in, so he made judgment calls. If he had a place closer to the border, he’d head there. As it was, he had no option other than keeping his phone charged, the generator fueled and waiting.

Dylan fucking hated waiting.

W
orking on a rope tie
, which would allow her to open and close her apartment door, then another to open and close the main door, she tried not to dwell on the pack meeting. How could she not? Tension in Three Rivers seemed to escalate day by day…or maybe it had always existed and she didn’t notice it as much before?

“It’s time we as a pack, decide who we are going to be.” Luciana had paced before them. Her hands were behind her back and her skirt flowed around her legs. She always looked so lovely and summer fresh, even in the brutal winter. The meeting had been mandatory and all two hundred plus of their pack crowded into the auditorium of the old school—the only building large enough to hold them. “Many of you,” Luciana continued. “Haven’t been in a pack in a long time. Some of you are strangers to each other. More of you aren’t certain what place you have. But what we all wanted was a place to call our own.”

More fights broke out. Dominance issues coming to a head between tough wolves. Three ended so badly, she’d yet to see the wolves who’d lost leave the small clinic they maintained. If she lived to be a hundred, she’d never get over the sight of one man’s face sliced with deep claw marks or how another woman’s arm had hung as though connected only by a string. Suppressing a shudder, she tested the rope.

Around the edges of the room, the foreign wolves had taken positions. She’d seen them around from the beginning, assigned by the other Alphas to monitor the situation. No one liked having them there. Too many had a history with one wolf or another, or with the packs they represented. Chrystal didn’t know any of them, but she did know which one was from Willow Bend and she tried to take a seat near him. Maybe she could ask him about Dylan.

“When I invited you to join us,” Luciana said, drawing Chrystal’s attention away from the Willow Bend Hunter. “I did so with the promise that I would take care of you. A promise, which is hard to keep if you will not obey or honor the pack we are building.” Why did it sound as though she spoke directly to Chrystal? “If you want to leave, now is the time to do so. I will not be so forgiving of mistakes made in the future, no matter how earnest or unprepared you are to be in a pack. If you are here, be here. If not…then get out.”

The words haunted her next several days. She’d wanted to be in a pack to be able to be more herself—so why did it feel like she hid even more than she had when she lived alone and isolated from all wolves? After the meeting, three wolves had left and two more of Willow Bend’s humans. She’d seen them go to the Hunter. A part of her wanted to follow, but awareness of Luciana’s scrutiny followed her.

So far, she’d avoided any confrontations with the fighting wolves. But there seemed to be no telling what would set off a challenge. Short supplies at the grocer. A broken coffee mug. A football game. When the fights broke out, Chrystal vacated the area. Once, she’d been trapped in the back of a grocery store…the Willow Bend Hunter had been inside.

Her fear must have been visible because he crooked a finger to her and she’d carried her basket over to him. With a nod, he had her hide behind one of the counters, then he leaned against it. Not once for the duration of the battle did he move. It was the worst one to date, and it only ended when Rayne and his brother entered into the fray. She’d never seen the two wolves who fought in the grocery store again either.

When the Hunter offered her a hand up, she’d accepted it. “Thank you,” she’d told him.

“You’re welcome.” No judgment lived in his gaze, and his smile remained kind. “Would you like me to walk you home?”

Despite the coppery scent of blood on the air, the horrible sounds had ended. “I think I’m okay…and if I see another fight, I’ll just go the long way around.”

The wolf chuckled. “Collin Freeman.”

“Chrystal.” He shook her hand at the introduction.

“Nice to meet you, Chrystal. Just ignore me while I trail after you to the street. You’re staying in the old Victorian, right?”

“I am.” She’d gripped the basket in both hands, uncertain of whether his following her to the street was a good or a bad thing. Since he’d offered her protection during the fight, she leaned toward good. “Thank you again.” Did she dare ask him about Dylan?

After she paid for her groceries, she’d carried them home and sent a text to Dylan. When she mentioned Collin, he said nothing for a long time. Then wrote:
If you need help from him, tell him I sent you. Promise?

Since he’d already helped without knowing about Dylan, she promised. The text messages helped, but the shirt didn’t smell like him anymore and she missed him. Her wolf rubbed against the inside of her skin. Sympathy and sadness twined together; they both missed him.

If she snuck across the border, maybe she could see him. He’d always found her before… But if she went and was caught, they’d throw her out of Three Rivers. The numbers for the other pack Alphas along with Julian were safely stowed away in her phone. She hadn’t called any of them.

Could she really walk away from Luciana and Rayne? They’d been so kind to her.
And they need us…
The thought didn’t belong to her, but she agreed with the sentiment. What did her wolf know that she didn’t? More determined than ever, she needed to get a handle on her wolf. No more running away from her or Three Rivers ‘til she did.

Finished with the last rope, she tested it. It had taken her a while to get the knots right, and it wasn’t as elegant as the one at the cabin. But she’d be able to let herself in and out in wolf form.

Step one, done. Next step, master her shifting. Dylan told her it should come naturally to her; she just had to stop running away.

B
rick tracked her again
. How did he always seem to know when she tested her shifts and headed out? Every day she wasn’t busy on a rebuild, refurbish or repaint, she’d taken the time to work on her shifting. Her wolf seemed to be as eager as her. The first couple of times hurt like hell, but by the third time she attempted the shift in her apartment, she changed so swiftly, she barely had time to experience the pain. Of course, she could barely get her legs under her and it had been a bit like being drunk.

She ate two thousand calorie meals four times a day, and shifted in the morning and at night. Every time she went for a run or a walk, Brick appeared. Sometimes he ran beside her, other times he dropped back and simply followed. If not Brick, then another wolf. Even her human neighbor had gotten into the act. Melanie opened the door for her twice, and she always had a cell phone in hand when Chrystal went out.

No, they made sure she went nowhere near the border. It was annoying. The town’s power station had issues thanks to the most recent storm and her phone had been dead for four days.

She’d done every task, however, without complaint and she made plans. The fresh layer of snow beckoned her and she wanted to practice her tracking. Brick was nearly twice her size in his wolf form, and a sweet guy—or at least she’d thought so before he followed her everywhere. Easily as big as Dylan, he made no pretense of becoming her shadow.

The snow would make his job easy, but she wasn’t worried about getting away from him. Not at the moment. No, she wanted to bore him.

If he thought she wasn’t trying to run away, he’d stop following her, right?

D
ylan’s temper
lived on a permanent short fuse. Twenty-four days since he’d had to say goodbye to her and only a handful of text messages since then, stretching further and further in between. Despite a couple of call attempts—ether the cell signal had been crap or she hadn’t answered—he tried to settle for the messages only.

When Mason invited him home for a meeting, he’d declined twice. The third time it wasn’t an invitation, which was why he’d taken a flight from the regional airport at the crack of dawn, then driven to Mason’s place. He’d declined a relief Hunter. He didn’t plan to stay in Willow Bend longer than the meeting. The pilots were grabbing breakfast on his dime and would hang out till he was ready to fly back.

Checking the weather for the fourteenth time since he’d boarded the plane, he kept an eye on the next storm front. He did not want to be trapped in Willow Bend if a blizzard slammed into the state. Chrystal had enough issues; she needed him to be where he could reach her…

The thought gave him pause. Her messages had been pretty cheerful edged in tired. Her Alpha kept her busy. So busy, half the time their conversations ended in the middle of a sentence. One he was pretty sure she’d gone to sleep while writing. None of her missives sounded as though she needed his help.

Except…
I miss you.
The most frequent message and one he echoed totally. If not for Mason’s orders keeping the border inviolate, Dylan would have driven to Three Rivers and picked her up.
Or maybe I can talk him into letting me replace Collin.
The idea had definite appeal. He could totally bribe Collin, too.

The Hunter owed him favors from years back. Favors Dylan had never called in before. Excited by the prospect, he hurried up the steps.

Mason’s mate, Alexis, let him in with a smile and waved him toward the living room. “Pizza is on its way and we have snacks.”

“Thanks,” he told her, before hanging his jacket on the coatrack.

“Thanks?” She frowned. “No kiss? No flirt? No smart ass remark?”

Pausing, he studied her troubled expression. “No, you’re mated—and I like my head where it is, so no kiss and I’m not feeling flirtatious at the moment. But if you need me to hit on you on my way out, make sure I have a head start before Mason hears.”

A faint smile replaced her worried look, then she threaded her arm through his and tugged him into the living room. They were hardly alone. The mate in question sat on the sofa and most of his advisors were present—Emma, the healer, A.J. his second, Ryan Huston, Alexis’ father and the pack’s attorney, Felicia, Toman’s widow and a senior counselor just to name a few.

Collin and Julian were both present as well.
What. The. Fuck.
Ignoring the Chief Enforcer for the moment, he zeroed in on the other Hunter. “Why the hell aren’t you in Three Rivers?”

“Howdy to you, too, Dylan. Always good to see you.”

He wanted to knock the smirk right off his face, but Mason rapped his knuckles on the coffee table. “He’s here for the same reason you are. Orders. Sit down, Dylan.”

Barely restraining a growl, he leaned against a wall rather than take a seat. Only one chair was empty anyway, and it should be left for Alexis. Folding his arms, he studied Julian who stood on the far side of the room, sipping coffee and not seeming to pay attention to any of them.

The weight of Mason’s stare demanded Dylan focus, so he met his Alpha’s gaze briefly, then nodded. Trying to pretend the Enforcer wasn’t there didn’t help, but he did his best.