Untamed Wolf (7 page)

Dylan grinned slowly. “Well in that case, darlin’, you can tend anything on me you like.”

Oh.
The thrill pumped her pulse even faster, and her breath backed up in her lungs. He didn’t seem to notice as he rose from his crouch, reclaimed the comb and slid behind her. The whole world slowed to the moment as she waited for the blow. The first light stroke of the comb tugging through a snarl punctured the bubble of tension and she closed her eyes.

God help her, he was combing her hair.

And she was hot.

Really. Really. Hot.

C
ombing
her hair soothed Dylan’s wolf far more than he cared to admit. The nervous anxiety vibrating beneath the surface of her skin left both man and beast floundering for a way to fix it. They didn’t know her well enough—or better put, she didn’t know him well enough to trust him. Accepting her reticence didn’t mean letting it go. She wanted him to prove his trustworthiness, a valid challenge and one in which he intended to triumph.

With care, he worked the comb through the snarls, always bracing her hair so he pulled against his grip and not her scalp. When he first touched the comb to her hair, she went utterly still. Worry coated her scent, and her knuckles whitened. Calm was the best way to deal with such upset. His wolf settled on the plan, and they worked with patience. After the first snarl combed free, she plucked another piece of bacon.

“You mentioned rules?” A faint quiver in her voice betrayed her continued unease, but Dylan grinned at the attempt to find more equal footing.

“Absolutely. First rule, I will make sure we have enough food and supplies to ride out the storm, and we can learn how many calories you need to keep your hunger at bay.” Dictating terms were easy.

“That doesn’t really seem fair.” When he finished with the second set of snarls, she leaned forward to claim her fork and dig into the eggs. He didn’t really care how fair it was as long as she kept eating. “I should contribute something.”

“What do you want to contribute?” Or maybe… “Why don’t we list our skills, then we can see who has what talent and where it’s better applied?” They had plenty of stores, but if they were here longer than three days, he’d have to hunt. Mama required a hefty amount of meat and he wasn’t sending her or the pup out until he located a safe place for both. He knew exactly how much he could eat, and how much he thought Chrystal needed. The food he’d brought coupled with the dry goods kept in the cabins would feed them for the time being.

“Ow.” She clapped her hand against her hair, Dylan eased his touch immediately.

“It’s a nasty one, can you hold on a sec?”

“Yes.” The word gritted out between her teeth, denuding it of any of her earlier uncertainty.

“Good girl.” He went for soothing, but shifted his grip so he could comb through the snarl. Poor thing had some serious ones. “One trick my mother taught my sisters if they were going to sleep with wet hair was to braid it.” The fleeting memory cropped out of the past.

“How does a braid stop the hair from matting when you shift?” Pain touched the bottom of the words, but she didn’t fight him or try to pull away. The knot gave and he smoothed the hair gently, while shifting his grip to caress her scalp. Phyllis told him once nothing felt better than a good stroke after her hair was yanked. Of course, she proved her point by fisting his hair and jerking it till he saw stars, but then he chased her silly ass for an hour until he’d gotten even. Good times. What else were little sisters for?

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “Mom told them it worked, and both my sisters swore by it.” Whether older women did or not, how the hell should he know? None of his lovers had the issue, at least not that he knew of. Of course, he enjoyed combing their hair, too. Something about the action always relaxed them.

“Oh.” Her immediate disappointment made him wish he had the answer.

“I’ll find out,” he promised.

“Thank you.” She resumed eating and he worked in silence. Her hair seemed to glow with every pass of the comb taming the unruly autumn mass. She had some curls, lots of waves, and all of it soft as satin. The hair fell easily to her waist, and he wondered how it would look spread across a pillow…
And enough of that, we don’t even know how old she is.
Half the time she struck him as too young, a youth—a beautiful, sexy teen blossoming into womanhood. He didn’t screw kids, and he sure as hell liked his lovers to be on par with him.

Dylan didn’t have a lot to offer beyond pleasure in the moment, but that didn’t make him a lecher. Not to mention, his goal wasn’t seduction but education. Too many facts failed to add into a satisfying answer. “Or you could ask your mom…if she’s in one of the other packs, and you’re not sure how to reach out, I could help.” He didn’t think she’d come from Willow Bend. It shouldn’t matter though. After the summit, the Alphas had arranged for increased communication. He could leverage the open channels to help her, too.

“I don’t really talk to my mother.” She cleaned up the last of the potatoes, then pushed the empty plate away. “Do you mind if I have some of your bacon?”

Zeroing in on the mother comment, he filed the information away. “Not at all,” he said, leaning past her to tug his plate over. “Eat all you want.”

“That sounds so weird.” Despite the protest, she seized another piece of bacon. “I’m not used to anyone telling me to eat all I want.”

“Get used to it.” Someone should have taken better care of her. “We eat high-calorie, protein dense diets because we’re human and animal. Our wolves need a lot of energy, and we need it because we have their senses. When you throw shifting in…let’s put it this way, it’s not uncommon to take down a large stag or a moose when we’re really in the mood.”

“A moose?” She twisted to blink at him. “You’ve hunted a moose?”

“Once.” He grinned. “Zane took me with him on a trip up north. We had to deliver a message to the Alpha of the Yukon Pack. It’s a long trip, and if you don’t mind your manners, he walks away for
days
. I didn’t get to meet him then. I wasn’t a full Hunter, but I did get to go on a moose hunt and one for a bear. Damn good times.”

Curiosity flickered in her brown eyes. “I’ve never done that…is it really pretty that far north?”

So, not from the Yukon pack. Two down, three to go.

“I guess. It’s colder. Some of the greens are really intense.” What would really interest her? He ran his fingers over her scalp then combed through the length of her hair. He seemed to have found all the snarls. “We did camp one night next to this lake. It was pure crystal clear water when you were up close, but on our way out, we had to climb. The higher we went, we could glance back and all we saw was this stunning blue as though someone cupped the sky and held it in the bowl of the valley.”

Her lips parted and her sudden smile caught him off guard. “Did you take a picture?”

Damn, he almost wished he had. “Sorry, darlin’, I didn’t think about it at the time.” If Mason ever sent him to see Diesel, he’d be sure to get one for her.

“It’s okay. It sounds like you’ve gone to all these pretty places.”

“Well, I’m sure you have, too.” He’d finished combing her hair so he made himself move away. When he would have retrieved her empty plate, she touched his wrist with her hand.

“Please, let me.” She turned those liquid eyes on him, holding his gaze for the barest of seconds. “You did the cooking. I don’t mind participating in the cleaning. You know, maybe that could be part of rule number one.”

What rule? Understanding, he released the plate. Dylan caught her hand and gave it a light squeeze. “Done. So,” he said, after releasing her and reclaiming his seat. “What pretty places have you visited?”

Given her earlier protests, he’d expected her to offer to return his plate. A warm sense of satisfaction unfurled within him as she continued to eat. She’d cleared the last of the bacon and turned her attention to the toast and potatoes. “Not really. I grew up in Utah mostly, though I moved around some. I might have been in California when I was really little.”

Utah.
If the southern part, she would have been closest to Sutter Butte. No way would he believe this little one, with her delicate nature, grew up in that brutal pack. His cousin, Claire, told him a number of stories of their ways which belonged firmly in the category of horror tales. Then again…if she’d had a family to look after her, maybe she hadn’t fallen in the same category as Claire. “I’ve heard Sutter Butte’s a lot of desert and can be unpleasant.”

A blank look rippled across her face. “I never went there…is it close to Utah?”

His coffee had chilled while he dealt with her hair, so he grabbed his mug and glanced at hers. “Want more?”

“Yes, please.” She pushed the cup towards him. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, why?” He carried them into the kitchen and rinsed out both before refilling them. Emptying the pot meant starting another. He’d have to check the generator fuel level soon and build the fire higher. They needed to conserve their power.

“You frowned. You get this little crinkle and your jaw has a twitch, like a tremor in a rock during an earthquake.”

Not sure the description was a compliment, he considered his answer. Dodging for the moment, he asked, “Did I put enough sugar in your last cup?” He couldn’t stand the sweet stuff personally, but he wasn’t the only wolf who used the cabin.

“Yes.” She followed him into the kitchen and set the two scraped empty plates into the sink before turning some water on and getting soap. Though she washed them, he could feel her staring at him. “What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing, sweetheart.” He slid her fresh cup toward her, sweetened with a hint of cream. “Just puzzled.”

“By what?”

He finished pouring his own mug before adding the spoon to the sink with her washing. Afterward, he flipped the switch on the coffee maker. “You grew up mostly in Utah, that’s Sutter Butte territory for the most part, but you weren’t part of Sutter Butte?” No lie occluded her earlier sentiment.

“I didn’t grow up in a pack.” She shrugged. “I didn’t know there were packs. Well, okay, that’s not totally true. I knew packs were out there, but I didn’t know where they were specifically.”

How the hell did she not grow up in a pack?

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, because I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but you’ve been really nice. Three Rivers is my first pack…ever.”

Ever.

A cold fist clenched in Dylan’s gut. “You were a Lone Wolf?”

Worry slicked over the warmth in her scent. “Yes, at least until a few months ago when I met Luciana and her mate. They came into the restaurant where I worked. They didn’t come for me, specifically, but they were like me.”

They were wolves. And, no, they weren’t anything like her. Chrystal was too damn trusting. She was right, he was not the person for her confession. Not when he would have to report the information to Mason, which would then reflect on Three Rivers
and
the Enforcers.

She rinsed the last plate, then shut off the water and glanced around. After plucking a towel from next to the stovetop, he handed it to her. “Thank you.” She smiled, then continued. “They sat in my station, and I knew they were like me, but they were very kind. It terrified me that they knew what I was. They waited till I was off work, then offered me a place in Three Rivers.”

Enthusiasm burst through her tone.

“I’d never been in a pack, but I didn’t think I should tell them that and they didn’t ask me any questions about my history. Luciana said they didn’t need to know.”
The fuck they didn’t
. “They promised me a place and said they’d do their best by me. I don’t have a lot of skills. I barely finished high school, but I can paint and I like art. I didn’t have a lot of ties in St. George, so I said yes. Now I’m here.”

“So you are,” he murmured before taking a drink. How the hell did a child end up a Lone Wolf? Where were the Enforcers? He scented zero lies, though he did detect a dodge or two. If she grew up in the human world—alone—what happened to her mother? A human woman would have been turned by the pregnancy, likely died in the attempt. Chrystal’s survival and mention of her mother said she’d at least been a wolf. “Who taught you shifting?”

A whimper from the front room interrupted before she could answer. Her immediate glance to her coffee and whitened knuckles told him a lot though. Shifting was as natural as breathing to wolves, but they still had to learn the rules. Much like a child had to be taught not to touch the hot stove so they didn’t burn themselves learning the hard way, so too did their young have to learn tricks to speed the process and what to avoid to prevent long term injury.

“I think Mama wants out,” Chrystal said, following the sound with Dylan right behind her. Sure enough the wolf was at the door with her pup in her mouth. She’d scruffed the cub and stared at them.

Setting his coffee cup aside, Dylan found his boots, then shoved his feet inside. He pointed Chrystal toward the stack of wood. “Add a couple of logs to the fire. We’ll be back.” At the door, he grabbed a shovel and Mama backed away, watching him warily.

The frigid air helped cool his temper, but the drift of snow had climbed onto the porch. He held the door for Mama to follow him, then closed it to keep the interior warm for Chrystal. Mama ignored his shoveling and hopped to the top of the snow and trotted into the storm. Keeping an eye on the direction she went, he began shoveling a path from the porch to his truck. The physical labor gave him something to do with his frustration.

Chrystal grew up without other wolves? With at least one very neglectful parent. Which made no damn sense. Children were treasured by the packs. Unless…was it possible her mother was a Lone Wolf? Mating and childbirth were forbidden to Lone Wolves. No ties. No connections. No long-term relationships. If a Lone Wolf got pregnant, she should have returned to her pack. They’d have taken the child in even if she’d wanted to resume her Lone Wolf status.

Dammit.
Dylan glared across the snow. He didn’t want to know these facts. Someone somewhere had screwed up badly and violated all kinds of laws. Whether he liked it or not, he had to tell Mason.

If relations between Willow Bend and Three Rivers hadn’t already strained their relations with the Enforcers, the revelation about Chrystal would. Bad enough they allowed a sixth pack to rise, but a child? How the hell had they missed a child?

T
he snow level astounded her
. She’d never imagined so much snow in one place. Well, she’d seen pictures on television and read about it in books. The blast of icy chill when Dylan opened the door left her shivering even after the door closed behind him. Stealing a quick drink of her hot coffee, she tried not to think about his questions or the anger she’d glimpsed in his fierce eyes.