Werewolves in Love 2: Yours, Mine and Howls (24 page)

“Not a fucking word.”

“Who, me?”

He threw his arm around Michael’s wide shoulders and they started the journey back to the bed.

Ally knocked on the door. He knew it was her before she called out, “Cade? May I come in? Oh my God, what happened?”

She rushed to his side, but stopped when she realized she couldn’t grab his left arm. She stood there bouncing on her heels, fluttering her hands, obviously dying to interfere as Michael unhurriedly walked him to the bed.

“Sweetheart,” he huffed, hoping she couldn’t see the effort it cost him to talk, “you’re supposed to wait ’til someone says
come in
. That’s the whole point of
may
I come in?”

“Asshole,” she muttered, and Michael sniggered.

He sat down on the bed and gave Michael a
back off—no weakness in front of the mate
look which his second immediately recognized.

Ally frowned down at him. He noted the way her eyes avoided his face. Michael threw a friendly arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

“He’s had a bath and shaved his fur.” He gave her a little shove. “Go on. Climb in, I don’t mind.”

“Michael!” she squealed, blushing.

“You’re making m— Her uncomfortable,” Cade growled. She looked damned tasty when she blushed, though. She wore soft blue flannel pants and a thin, sky blue T-shirt—too thin, actually, for him to be comfortable with other wolves seeing her.

Michael lowered his eyes, grinning insolently. “Like I said, it’s still a couple of days before you can rip me up. I’ll get my jollies while I can.”

“It’s okay,” Ally murmured. “I’ll get used to it. I think.”

She walked around the bed and got in on the other side. He was still growling at Michael, who was still grinning at him, when she snuggled up against his back. She ran a hand up into his hair. He shuddered and sank back between her legs, resting his arms on her bent knees, acutely conscious of her pelvis cradling him.

Michael tried to smirk, but it turned into a genuine smile. “I guess I can leave him now. Be gentle with my wolf.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill you,” Cade said conversationally.

“Gotta catch me first. Later.” He turned to go.

“Wait a sec. I need to know something.” She kissed the back of his neck softly and then lifted her head to Michael. “How long have y’all been together?”

Michael burst out laughing. Even though it hurt like hell, Cade joined him.

“What’s it been—” Cade started to say.

“’Bout twenty years,” Michael said simultaneously.

“No, twenty-five,” they both finished.

She laughed with them. “How’d you meet?”

He let Michael answer. “Army—we were Rangers.”

“Whoa,” she interrupted. “I’m impressed.”

Michael shrugged with false modesty. Cade put his head back against Ally’s shoulder, the better to feel her hair against his cheek.

“It’s easy for wolves. Anyway, we met at sniper training. I was his spotter.”

“He had me at ‘take the fucking shot, dumbass’,” Michael said dreamily.

Ally dissolved into giggles, her face against his neck. Desire shot through him, hard and fierce. His eyes met Michael’s—
get out of here, now.

She stopped laughing and looked up. “Did he leave?”

“Yep.” He breathed deep, inhaling her freshly showered, lavender-and-Ally scent. Her nipples rubbed his bare back through the thin T-shirt. He could sit there all night while she messed with his hair.

“Okay,” she said in a small voice after a long moment, “what now?”

He smiled, eyes still closed. “It’ll be another day or so before I’m strong enough to do what I want to do to you. You keep breathing in my ear like that, I might hurt myself.”

She rested her chin on his shoulder. “You feel yourself healing that fast?”

“Hmm. Tomorrow makes three days, and Sindri’s poured a lot of comfrey in me.”

“Dec did a good job cleaning the wounds out too.”

He let that pass, pressing her hand to his mouth and running his tongue across her palm. She rewarded him with a shiver. “We could talk about how you killed the wolf.”

“We could talk about your nightmare.”

“Yeah. No. Explain the strength. And the speed and the hearing and—”

“Rock paper scissors?”

It really fucking hurt to laugh. “God, you’re cute. Okay. One, two, three—”

He threw scissors, she threw paper.

One look at her face wiped the smile off his.

“What are you so scared of, baby?”

She started scooting to the other side of the bed in a backwards spider crawl and gasped when he grabbed her foot to drag her back, scissoring her legs to either side of him. He pulled one leg across his lap, clamping his hand to her thigh to hold her still.

He grinned through the pain. “Are you going to make me fight you to keep you here on the bed? Because I will, even if it rips me open.”

Leaning back on her arms, she looked him right in the eye and held it, her expression both fearful and defiant.

“Who told you you were my mate, Allison?” he asked quietly.

“I figured it out myself.”

“No you didn’t.”

She tugged her leg. He wouldn’t let go.

“Fine,” she said tightly. “Dec told me.” Not giving him a chance to erupt, she continued, “But I could already look you in the eye. I didn’t do it because it would freak you out.”

“I’d imagine it would, since I hadn’t claimed you yet, and the only alpha you could look in the eye would be the one mated to you.”

“I can look any alpha in the eye.”

“I see. So you can do eye contact like you do speed, and strength—”

“And hearing and scent. Yes. I have all the characteristics of an alpha. I just don’t change, and I’m not as dominant.” She paused. “And silver doesn’t hurt me.”

“If all that were true, it would make you pretty fucking unique.”

“It is. I am.”

She never broke eye contact. Her voice, devoid of emotion, and her matter-of-fact demeanor disturbed him. Still, he could see her trembling. She smelled scared to death.

Suddenly, sickeningly, he wondered—what if his beautiful, brave, shy, defiant, funny mate was delusional?

“I’m not crazy, Cade.” Her tone was softer now, a little sad. “Seth will confirm everything I say. I think Dylan can back it up too. I’m just not sure how much he remembers.”

“How much he remembers about what?”

“About the night I died.”

“The night you—shit.” His throat went dry. He had to swallow before he could speak again. “You’re not making this up, are you?” he whispered. “You really think you died.”

She sighed and looked away. Then she blew out a breath and fell back on the bed. When she spoke again, she addressed the ceiling in a tired voice.

“I don’t think it, Cade. I know it. I remember it, Seth remembers it, and I think Dylan remembers it. Guy Fontenot killed me. Not when he clawed me, but when he knocked me across the living room and I slammed my head on the window ledge. My heart stopped beating. I died.”

“For how long?” He’d read of humans revived after several minutes without a heartbeat.

“Five hours.”

“Five hours,” he repeated.

“Five hours.”

“Five hours.”

“Yes, Cade. I said five hours.”

“You were dead for five hours.”

“No breathing, no heartbeat. I got stiff and cold and everything.”

“Jesus,” he breathed.

“No, Eir.”

His own heart stopped then. A dull roaring sound filled his ears.

She propped herself back up on her arms. “You okay?”

He stared at her, not really seeing her. “I don’t like Eir.”

“Why not? Didn’t your mother—?”

“Yes. And Eir didn’t stop her from killing herself. Or bring her back.”

“Oh.” She sat all the way up to reach out a hand to him. Something made her stop.

He stared past her, remembering. “I grew up hearing about Eir,” he said half to himself. “I knew she was supposed to be able to raise the dead. At least, the Vikings thought so. Sindri said she didn’t save my mother because Mama made a choice.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

His eyes returned to her. “Old Ones aren’t around anymore, though. Not in our world, our plane of existence, whatever. They haven’t messed around with people in a thousand years.”

“I didn’t think they could, either.”

“So why’d she save you?” he asked, more harshly than he intended. But as soon as he thought about it, he knew the reason. “Dylan.”

“Yeah.” She looked down for a minute, her fingers idly plucking at the bedspread. “She said I died in battle, and the Valkyrie gathered fallen warriors, so… Anyway, she said I had a choice. I could be with God and my parents, or I could come back to raise Dylan and protect him. She said she’d give me what I needed to do that. She said she didn’t want to see another of his line die, that his line was precious to her.”

Since he’d claimed her she couldn’t lie to him, but if she were delusional he wouldn’t be able to tell. He didn’t think she was, though. He believed that what she told him had really happened, because it was the only thing to explain her inexplicable abilities. It contradicted everything he knew about the way Old Ones operated, however.

“She didn’t save Mama, or Carson, so she saved you?”

Ally nodded, her eyes welling up with tears. Her chin trembled again. “Cade, could you come over here? Please?”

“I don’t need to be held, Ally,” he snapped.

“I do,” she whispered.

Something in him broke. The icy anger washing through him was for Eir, maybe even for Mama, but not for Ally.

The lies, evasions and panicked retreats made sense now. It didn’t mean she wasn’t moody, or that he knew her any better than he had five minutes ago. But if he could wrap his head around what she’d experienced—what she
was
—he might be able to woo her, induce her to stay put.

Maybe it was like breaking horses.

“Why are you smiling at me?” she sniffled.

Skittish—that was it, what he hadn’t put his finger on before. She was skittish like a fine, spirited animal that wanted to stand still but didn’t know how.

He shook his head. You couldn’t tell a woman she reminded you of a horse. She wouldn’t understand.

“You’re kind of amazing.” He shifted to the end of the bed and put his good arm around her.

“I’m not.” She sniffled again. “I’m a freak of nature.”

“Yeah, and you’re amazing,” he said into her hair. “Weird and beautiful.”

He lay back and pulled her down with him

She hiccupped and shuddered, then laid her cheek against his heart and tucked a leg between his knees. He stroked her hair and back. When her breathing had slowed and she’d relaxed a bit, he said in his most soothing manner, “Tell me the rest.”

He tried to ignore his blood singing in his veins as she pressed against him, her thigh resting against his hard cock, or how the lavender scent made him want to bury his head in her neck and go to sleep. He focused on her softly shaking voice instead.

She’d found herself in her childhood bedroom, in the home she’d shared with her parents before they died. That was her “happy place”, the place she associated with safety and comfort. A woman was there. Ally couldn’t describe her, couldn’t name the color of her hair or eyes or the expression she wore. There was only an impression, a memory of a feeling, that the woman was beautiful, kind but distant, good but not friendly.

“It wasn’t a warm, snuggly, I’m-with-Jesus feeling. It was more a
this very powerful being has taken an interest in me and that might be good or it might be bad
feeling. I asked her if she was an angel, and she seemed to find that funny, but I don’t think she laughed or anything. She said no, and I asked her if she knew God, and she said yes, but no better than I did.

“And we talked about my parents, about Seth, and Dylan, and my death, and what I’d done, and why. The choice, to stay dead or go back. I asked if I went back, would I still go to Heaven when I eventually died again and she said yes, she couldn’t do anything God didn’t allow her to do, and my soul was my own.

“None of this is really a memory, you know.” She tilted her head to look up at him. “It’s not even like a dream. It’s like someone stuck someone else’s memories in my mind. I can see it all, and I know it happened to me, but I don’t feel a personal connection to it. Does that make sense?”

“A little,” he mused. “Sometimes that’s how I feel when I remember things that happened to me four-footed. It’s kind of fuzzy, removed.”

“Yeah. Removed is a good word for it.” She lowered her head and snuggled back into him. “I don’t think she even told me her name. I just knew it when I came back, like it was part of a program she’d downloaded in my head. I knew her name but I had to look her up to find out who she was. Once we were in Texas, I met an old lady who was one of her acolytes. I have to think Eir arranged that.”

“What happened to Seth while you were busy being dead with Eir?”

She stretched and wiggled a little in his arm, flexing against him. If he hadn’t been listening to his mate describe her own death, this would’ve been one of the most enjoyable experiences of his life. Ally drawing circles on his chest beat any three-way or model, or three-way with models, he’d ever had.

“Seth freaked out. I was dead. He’d killed a Lake Charles wolf, and that pack is full of nasty trash. He couldn’t call the cops, and he didn’t want to call anyone in his family, because then the pack would find out.”

“Where was Dylan?”

“In my room, screaming for me. Seth told him everything was okay and to just wait there for him. Dylan wanted to know where I was, and Seth yelled at him, and after that Dylan wouldn’t say anything. Then Seth wrapped my body in a comforter and put it in the back of the Cherokee.”

“What the—?”

“He didn’t want someone else taking my body. He’s not sure what he thought he’d do with it. He had some idea about taking me back to my father’s family in Texas.”

“Okay. And then?”

“He went to Guy and Gracie’s place and took all the cash he could find, and he went to his house and got all the money he’d saved.”

“I’m impressed he held it together like that. That kind of trauma would make most betas change.”