Wolf and Soul (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 3) (14 page)

She was also very clean.

She sat up in the bed and moved the heavy quilt aside to look down at her body, which smelled of no-brand soap and lotion everywhere. Someone had not only scrubbed her down from top to bottom but had also moisturized her afterwards. Her wolf whimpered inside her, missing the marking scent that had sent her into a body-emulsifying climax the night before, even as her human startled at the thoughtful gesture.

However, she didn’t miss Grady’s marking scent for long. It hit her as soon as she stepped into the hallway, curling out from under Luke’s door, despite what smelled like a ton of cleaners that Grady must have used to scrub down the room. Also despite the fact that the door was closed now, with a shiny new padlock hanging off a freshly installed hasp. Tu knew without even having to touch it that both the padlock and the hasp beneath it would be made out of silver.

There was also a brand new set of wolf shackles attached to the house wall where the hallway dead-ended, the plaster dust underneath the mount giving testament to how recently the set had been installed.

Yet she went to him anyway.

After she got dressed in the jeans and coral waffle-knit thermal Grady had encouraged her to buy the day before when they went dress shopping, she went looking for him. And she found him at the back of the house, right where the hallway dead-ended, with what looked like an industrial-sized tape measure in his hand.

He must have smelled her coming because he was standing there, perfectly still, like he’d been waiting for her. He was dressed in the same thing she was, a long-sleeved thermal and jeans. But his thermal was white and clung to his body like it could barely contain the muscles underneath. He also wore a sheepskin bomber jacket over his ensemble.

It was another cold morning. Not as cold as back at the Colorado cabin, but cold enough. The air hung over them, frigid and unforgiving, and if either of them had spoken, you would have likely seen their breath in the air.

But neither of them said a word. Tu wasn’t even breathing.

“Are you okay?” she pushed into his head, not sure who she was currently dealing with, Grady or his beast.

It was Grady. His face crumpled into something that perfectly illustrated the term “everlasting sorrow” and he slammed his fist into his chest, rubbing it around in hard circles.

“It’s okay,” she said.

But he just shook his head and kept rubbing his fist over his chest, like he was having a nervous breakdown via ASL for “sorry.”

She grabbed his fist in both of his hands.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. But are you okay? Why aren’t you talking to me?”

“Because I don’t deserve to have your voice in my head,” he answered, his normally deep voice haggard and broken. “I don’t deserve to talk to you. Not after what I did last night. I…”

Grady broke off with a shake of his head and a sneer of self-disgust spread across his face.
“You went on wolf pilot,” she finished for him. “It happens. I mean I’ve heard it can happen. I’ve never seen it happen myself, but I know for sure it definitely happens. But does it… ah, happen a lot to you?”

He nodded, his eyes on the ground.

“Grady, I know you’re trying to pay penance by not talking or whatever, but it would be easier if you talked to me.”

“Yes, it has happened before,” he said inside her head, though his eyes stayed on the ground. “But usually it doesn’t come on that fast. Usually I can get to a pair of wolf shackles in time. And usually I shift all the way into a wolf.”

Tu went quiet with surprise. “You’re not fully wolf-trained?” she asked.

He shook his head and she understood why he refused to look at her. Most wolves were wolf trained by the age of three, which meant they were fully in control of their shifts on non full moon nights. Grady admitting this to her was the equivalent of a grown human male admitting he wet the bed. It was considered that shameful in the wolf community.

“It doesn’t happen often,” he told her quietly. “I control it. I do a lot to control it. Make sure I get enough sleep, sometimes even take a sedative if I think there’s a possibility of me losing control. It usually takes a lot more to make me shift. Usually…”

“But not last night.”

“No, not last night.”

“Grady, look at me.”

Grady didn’t seem physically able to look at her. He raised his head but looked everywhere but at her.

“Grady, it’s okay. All of it. It’s okay.”

“It’s not.” His voice was ugly with anger and recrimination. But she knew he wasn’t angry with her. He was angry with himself. And she knew how he felt. Understood what it was like to want to tear your wolf out of your body.

“I’m telling you it is okay.”

“No, Tu, it’s not. I could have hurt you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“But I could have.”

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small tranq gun. “Here,” he said, pushing it toward her. “I’ll see about getting you some kind of holster for it after I finish these measurements, but I want you to wear this on you at all times, from now on, even when you’re sleeping.”

Tu shook her head. “Grady, I don’t need that.”

“Yes, you do.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” she assured him. “It’s fine.”

Grady looked at her like she was crazy. “I could have hurt you. I could have hurt the baby.”

“I don’t think so. Your wolf didn’t do me any bodily harm.” She thought of the way Grady had looked, his head dipped between her legs. “In fact, he did the opposite of hurt me,” she told him with a wry smile.

“This isn’t funny, Tu.”

For the first time in what might have been years, Tu found herself fighting off laughter.

“It kind of was. I mean, you bringing me into your creepy kingdom house and then you’re all like ‘Run, Tu, run!’ before going straight up wolf pilot. You can’t tell me it’s not a little bit funny…”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” he said, staring down at her like she’d gone insane. “There are shackles everywhere for a reason. My beast is dangerous. If he gets out—”

“He may lay it on me real good? Like crazy, intense good?” Tu asked him. She then projected his own voice back with an extra dose of Dudley Do-Right. “Tu, the next time I go on wolf pilot, make sure you tranq me. Otherwise, I might eat you out and make you come several times, and we both know you don’t want that.” She lost her battle with laughter and waved him off. “Wolf, relax. I’m cool—as long as you don’t ever get your jizz in my hair—I am still a black woman.”

“Seriously, Tu…” Grady began. But then he dissolved into laughter, too. Big, silent guffaws that made his shoulders shake, even as he said. “This is your problem. You never could take anything seriously.”

And her laughter suddenly disappeared.

“No, that
used
to be my problem. It’s not a problem anymore. Hasn’t been for a while.”

The laughter died in Grady’s eyes then, too. And now it was Tu who felt embarrassed.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” he asked inside her head.

“Like I’m a broken toy,” she answered. “All the adults in my life have been looking at me like that for years and I hate it. You have no idea how much I hate it.”

“I think I do. You should see some of the pitying looks fuckers throw at me when they find out I’m deaf.” He lifted her chin, so she could look up at him. “And this look in my eyes? It’s not pity. It’s me being sad because you’re sad. You want me to say it again?” he asked. But then he didn’t give her a chance to answer before telling her, “You’re not broken. You’re not ruined. I know that, even if you and your family don’t.”

Tu shook her head, the old sadness nearly overwhelming her. She wished she could believe him. But she couldn’t. When she thought about what she’d done… it just hurt so bad, like her heart was being squeezed like a rotten tomato.

Grady pulled her into his arms, shielding her from the cold in his warm embrace. “It’s okay,” he said, his lips pressed against the top of her head. “You don’t have to believe me. I’ll believe in you enough for the both of us until you can do it yourself, okay?”

She nodded against his chest.

And he took her face in his hands, his eyes as somber as a grave when he asked inside her head, “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“Yes,” she told him.

“I didn’t hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

He looked at her for a very long time, as if checking what she was saying against his own gut-based lie detector. Then he said, “Good,” and kissed her on the forehead, before tucking her under his huge arm and turning them both to look at the house. “I’m thinking we should use the money I saved up to add another section on to the house. We’re going to need a nursery—”

A nursery… before another wave of sadness could pass over her, she asked, “How much money do you have saved up?”

He told her. And she had to work hard not to snort. The amount was less than the Alaska budget for the annual Christmas party, just enough to add a solitary room onto the house. Maybe.

“And how much do you have in your kingdom house budget?”

A confused look came over his face.

“My kingdom house budget? What’s that?”

“A pot of money set aside for the upkeep of your kingdom house,” Tu answered carefully.

But that only made him look more confused, like she was talking about something only aliens did on a planet he’d never heard of before. And that was when Tu realized the Oklahoma crown didn’t have a kingdom house budget. Exactly how poor was the state pack? Her mother hailed from a mange state, but that didn’t mean they were poor, per se—it was just that their wealth came from mostly illegal sources. The King of Detroit still had a kingdom house budget along with enough money for flashy cars and other luxuries, which her mother had grown up accustomed to.

“I guess I should be asking how much you have in your kingdom budget, period,” she said to Grady now.

The look on his face was not good. Not good at all. And Tu said, “Um, maybe you should let me see your books.”

G
RADY HAD THOUGHT the worst thing in store for him that day would be facing Tu after going into beast mode on her the night before, but he had been wrong. Watching her sitting on his bed, her legs crisscrossed beneath the laptop he’d given her, going through the accounts he’d opened up on it, was way worse. Her face was grim as she scrolled up, then down, then back up again with a frown, and another wave of mortification passed over Grady. At least his wolf was physically powerful. But this… this was the very definition of powerless.

Surprise, honey, you just married a king without much of a kingdom.

Tu snapped the laptop closed and informed him, “Okay, well, you’re totally poor.”

“Yeah, Rafe told me a version of the same thing when I saw him in Colorado.”

She shook her head. “Most she-wolves can handle quaint,” she said indicating the farm house. “This is quaint. That’s cool. But poor… like Mag’s always saying, it’s not a good look.”

Grady went still. “Tu, I may be poor. But I’ll do what I have to do to take care of my family. You don’t—you don’t have to worry about that. You don’t have to divorce me because I’m poor.”

Tu looked at him like he was crazy. “Who said anything about divorcing you? I’m telling you your kingdom is broke, Wolf. And a king’s only as good as his kingdom. So we’ve got to fix this. As soon as possible.”

Now Grady was just confused. “How do you fix being broke? ASAP?”

Tu held out her hand. “Could you lend me your phone?” she asked.

He pulled his phone out and handed it to her and she stared down at it like she was running a calculation in her head.

“Okay, what’s the most racist pack town in Oklahoma? I’m talking virulently racist, like no black folks living there. No Native Americans or Hispanics—like they still have sunset laws racist. I mean just ridiculous. Do you have any towns like that?”

“That would be Wolf Hole,” he answered immediately. “That’s where I found the bodies of the three wolves who kidnapped you. Their last pack leader, Bobby Joe Adolphus, used to be in the human chapter of the KKK before the Lupine Council made him quit. And the current one, Bobby Joe Jr., isn’t much better. Plus, he’s a drug dealer—a bad one, I’m thinking, since he’s also a meth head.”

“Is his pack as poor as Wolf Haven?” she asked.

“Way poorer,” he answered, trying not to feel offended by her assessment of Wolf Haven’s finances. When did he start identifying with his kingdom town? Most of Wolf Haven didn’t even like him, and though he’d dutifully attended every council meeting, he’d sensed his presence was just barely tolerated. But he did feel a little better when he compared the kingdom town to Wolf Hole. Broke or not, they were a long ways from being Wolf Hole.

“Bobby Joe Jr. owns a gas station right outside the town, I think, to launder the money he makes off his drug business. And a bunch of his pack members work over at the human-owned rebar factory in River Wolf. But other than that, Wolf Hole doesn’t have much money flowing through it.”

“Perfect,” Tu said like he’d told her nothing but good things about the place, her thumbs flew over his phone. “Bobby Joe Jr… I’m texting him now…”

Grady frowned. “If you’re thinking about charging them more to rent on our land, it’s not going to work. Half of them live in the trailer shanty town right outside of Wolf Hole. And the ones who do live in houses on kingdom-owned land can barely afford to pay us the rent we’re charging them.”

“No, I don’t want to raise their rents,” she said, still texting. “I’m telling Bobby Joe you just got married, and you and your new bride want to pay the town a visit and talk to all of them tomorrow.”

Grady’s brain hiccupped. “You told him
what
?”

“That we want to pay Wolf Hole a visit.” She held the phone up to show him the sent text. “I told him we’ll be coming through around seven p.m. tomorrow and to make sure the whole town was there.”