Zola's Pride (4 page)

Walker tore his mouth from hers and
struggled for control as he panted against her bare shoulder. “We
have to stop this.”

“
Alec will be here soon,”
she said, and it might have sounded more like agreement if her body
wasn’t still hot and pliant under his.

He rocked back to his knees,
scrubbing both hands over his face. “Are you hungry?”

A rough knock sounded from below
before she could answer, and Zola sighed and rolled away. “That
will be him.”

Resenting the other man’s
intrusion was ridiculous, especially since he’d only come to
help. Walker rose, his body still painfully tight. “Later, we
need to talk about this.”

“
We’ll see.” She
came to her feet in one graceful movement, hands already smoothing
her disheveled clothing. Erasing any visible sign that he’d
touched her, though it would take days for his scent to fade from her
skin.

It pleased him more than it should
have.

Another impatient knock rattled the
front door. Walker bounded down the stairs two at a time and dragged
it open to find a tall, imposing wolf with dark hair, dark eyes and a
dark scowl that faltered when he dragged in a deep breath.

Confusion flickered through his
eyes, then he tilted his head, eyeing Walker with obvious appraisal.
“So. I hear you’re John’s half-brother. Didn’t
realize you were so friendly with Zola, too.”

He held out his hand. “We go
way back. I’m Walker Gravois.”

“
Alec Jacobson.” The
wolf had a firm handshake, strong, but not overly aggressive. “Zola
here?”

“
Upstairs. She’ll be
down in a second.”

“
Ah.” A knowing little
smile. “Can I at least come in? You and I can talk.”

“
Yeah, sure.” Walker
locked the door behind him and pulled the shade tighter. “Did
you manage to reach the Southeast council?”

“
Skipped them.” Alec
leaned against the desk. “Got some hush-hush info from the
Conclave instead. Your group—the Scions? They’ve already
petitioned the Conclave for permission to extradite you.”

“
I’m not surprised.”
If he’d gone straight to Conclave sources, he had to be more
connected than Walker had realized. “What about the rest of the
pride?”

“
They seem focused on you, for
now. The Conclave...” Derision filled Alec’s voice.
“Well, off the record? They’re spinning their wheels.
Some of them want to hand you right over, and the rest don’t
want to get involved at all, because it’s not a wolf matter.
Right now, they’re looking for an excuse to say it isn’t
their business.”

He’d already thought of it.
“Like if the pride belonged to someone else. Someone who’d
never crossed the Scions.”

“
Like if the pride belonged to
Zola.” Alec nodded shortly. “Here’s the deal,
Gravois. The Conclave might order that we give you up, but they know
we won’t. Not if Zola doesn’t want us to. New Orleans is
pretty much off the grid right now, and the Conclave isn’t
ready to force a confrontation. But they can’t exactly admit to
your Scions that they’re so powerless that they
can’t
hand you over. So if they’ve got a reason to stay out of
it—like Zola being in charge and you being one of
her
people now...”

“
Then they’ll stay out
of it.” Walker’s gaze drifted to the stairs. “The
Scions will come anyway. For me, at least.”

“
Does she know?”

“
I told her they’re not
going to give up.” Walker squared his shoulders and turned to
face Alec. “I protected Tatienne when they came for her. She
may have been nuts, but she was one of us. I killed a few of them,
and now the Scions have a personal score to settle with me.”

The stairs creaked behind him, and
he marked Zola’s passage easily by the whisper of bare feet on
hardwood. “I am hearing you both quite clearly,” she said
when she reached the ground level.

Alec responded to her irritated tone
with a lazy grin. “Never figured you couldn’t. Just
catching your friend up on the lay of the land, darling.”

He addressed her with irritating
familiarity, but it was the way Zola reacted to the endearment that
made Walker grit his teeth. She stared at Alec, flat and hard.
“Behave.”

The wolf raised both eyebrows in a
clear
What did I do?
expression. Zola snorted
and turned to Walker, speaking in French. “He’s testing
you. He tests everyone. He seems to think it makes him very clever.”
She looked to Alec and switched back to her deeply accented English.
“We do not have time to play your wolf games, Alexander
Jacobson.”

“
You’re the one who’s
always telling me that cats play better than wolves.”

“
Yes, because cats are knowing
when play is appropriate.”

Alec held up both hands. “I
told your man how things stand with the Conclave. If you take over
the pride, the Conclave’ll tell the Scions to fuck off, and
hell, they might even listen. The wolves have managed to keep it
under wraps that they don’t quite have control of their pet
Seer anymore, so most of the supernatural world’s still
trembling in their boots.”

Walker had heard about Michelle
Peyton, just like everyone else. The fact that she was the wolf
alpha’s daughter had kept her alive when other Seers had been
killed. “They’d better hope it stays that way, or she’ll
become a target. The Scions think Seers are an abomination, and
they’ll only stomach their existence as long as they’re
under control.”

Alec pushed off the desk. “There’s
not much else to tell. You two need to talk. If Zola wants to declare
herself the leader, all she needs to do is call me. I’ll pass
it on to the Conclave.”

“
Thank you.” The words
didn’t come easily. Having so little control over his eventual
fate scared the hell out of Walker, and it made him unfairly pissy.
“Thanks, I mean it.”

“
Thank me by not stirring up
too much trouble. We’re between crises.” He prowled
toward the door with an easy arrogance that made Zola’s fingers
tighten on Walker’s arm. “You two have a good afternoon.”

When he was gone, Zola blew out a
breath. “I do not always care for him. He’s useful when
there’s trouble, but the same traits that make him useful make
him aggravating.”

She’d slipped into French
again, and this time Walker followed her. “As long as he gets
things done, right?”

“
Perhaps.” She moved
away from him and locked the door, then closed all the blinds,
blocking out the early afternoon sun. “It is always about power
with the wolves. Accepting their help is acknowledging their
dominance. He knows I will do no such thing. So he plays his games,
and I must play too. Tiring.”

“
Seems like it might not be
the only game he wants you to play.”

Zola’s lips curled into a
tight, amused smile. “Yes, a fact that might be flattering if
Alexander Jacobson were capable of keeping his pants on. I’m
not interested in a man who falls into bed with a different woman
every night.”

Her declaration would have been
reassuring—if he’d been jealous. But Walker wasn’t
stupid, and blind jealousy wasn’t an option when the scent of
her skin lingered on him, and the memory of her body against his
stirred arousal even now. “He’s not a lion. That helps me
not want to punch him in the head.”

She laughed, warm and delighted.
“Believe me. Prolonged exposure will make
anyone
want to hit him. Unless they want to sleep with him.” One dark
eyebrow arched. “Do you?”

He pretended to consider it.
“Tempting, but I’ll pass.”

Amusement glinted in her eyes as she
tilted her head toward the stairs. “I can’t cook as well
as your brother, but I’ll make do. Let’s have lunch...and
talk.”

He folded his hand around hers.
“That sounds good.”

Chapter Three

Lunch turned into a mess. Zola tried
to remain casual while lion and woman fought a fierce battle inside
her. Walker seemed willing to stick to safe topics, telling her about
those who remained in the pride as she crashed about in the kitchen.
She tried to listen, but her gaze caught too often on the strong line
of his shoulders or the firm curve of his full lips. Desire had
settled to a low simmer, one that flared at the most inopportune
moments.

She burned their meal while
imagining his hands on her skin, his mouth on her throat, his hard
body between her legs. Even abandoning the meal and dragging him out
to a local cafe didn’t help. With their future so uncertain,
the lion judged every woman who smiled at him to be a threat, and
Walker’s beautiful eyes and sharp cheekbones attracted a good
deal of feminine appreciation.

Mate.
Such a foolish word, one with which the wolves were endlessly
obsessed. Her mother had not allowed formalized matings amongst the
pride, too concerned that loyalty to a mate would supersede the
loyalty she thought her due.

Mate.
A foolish word, but one that plagued her, tickled her mind and
wiggled under skin until tension had her strung tighter than the
finest bow.

If she didn’t take Walker to
bed soon, it might be the death of her sanity.

Assuming he’d accept such an
invitation. That he wanted her was not in question. She’d felt
proof of that fact hard and hot between her thighs on the practice
room floor, so good she could have rocked up against him and driven
herself to bliss without his assistance. But oh, how good his
assistance would be...

Unfortunately, business could only
wait so long. Zola showered while Walker made calls to wherever he’d
stashed his people, some place in Mexico where a witch enhanced the
spells woven into a charm Zola’s mother had given them. The
last gift of her fractured mind, magic that hid their presence from
the Scions.

Magic that wouldn’t last
forever. Zola braided her hair and gathered her willpower. They’d
spent precious hours circling. Stalking. Neither ready to commit to
the one conversation they needed to have.

It was time to stop playing.

Zola stepped from her bedroom and
found Walker in the living room studying the framed photos on her
walls. “You studied with DeSilva?”

“
Four months.” Her gaze
drifted over the rest of the wall, over a dozen framed photographs of
her with her many teachers, some of her most prized possessions.
She’d honed her craft under the greatest masters who would
teach her, flitting from country to country for six years after her
mother had driven her from her pride.

She stepped forward and lifted her
hand to brush the frame of a photograph of her standing next to a man
who barely came to her shoulder. “I stayed longest in Okinawa.
With Nakamura. He’s a psychic. Precognitive. Just a few
seconds, but that’s all he needs. I’ve seen him take down
shifters twice his size.”

Walker laughed. “You don’t
need bulk when you know what the tank coming at you plans to do.”

Her preternatural speed had been of
no use against Nakamura, who had left her with her fair share of
humility—and a healthy respect for psychics and spell casters.
“I’ve only been in New Orleans for a few years. It didn’t
feel safe to settle in one place at first. I didn’t know if my
mother might change her mind and come after me. Or if her enemies
might.”

He didn’t argue with that.
“Did you enjoy your travels?”

She gave him the truth, because
she’d be demanding plenty of it from him soon enough. “Not
at first. I was young. Scared. But my teachers gave me confidence,
and I grew.”

His voice roughened. “You did
all right.”

“
Yes. I did.”
No
turning back now.
She
pivoted to face him, and worked to keep her voice even. “I will
take your people under my protection. I will reform the pride. But,
in return, you will tell me the truth.”

Walker stepped back, such a small
movement that she wondered if he realized he’d done it. Retreat
had never been in his nature, any more than it was in her own. Nor
was the wariness in his voice. “The truth about what?”