Hot Springs Werewolf Complete Series (BBW Werewolf Erotic Romance) (30 page)

"It was nothing. Really. Please."

I kissed him and pulled myself closer to him, feeling my body faintly protest that it was still sore.

"I hurt you," Red repeated.

I didn't answer but kissed him again. One soft kiss led to another. I could taste the salt of tears, still smell the faint scent of iron. Kisses carried unspoken sentences.

I'm sorry.

I need you.

I want you.

I was aching, inside and out but when we pulled ourselves closer together the pain retreated. We were in a bubble, a tiny world of just us and everything outside this room couldn't come in.

"You came back," Red whispered.

"I was scared. The house ... on fire." I trailed off, not knowing how to explain it. I was scared of the Toulouses and rightly so. They tried to burn down Red's house with us inside it but I was also scared of me and Red together and what that would mean. In Big Blue's diaries he'd talked about the Alpha's mate. She was equal to him, powerful and wild, and responsible for the pack as much as the Alpha. If I was to be Red's mate, I had to fulfill that role.

But there was more.

What it would mean to be loved. What it would mean to connect so deeply with Red, to be so vulnerable to him.

I let the bubble of us take those fears and push them out. Diaries and papers and the Call and going Wild... they did not matter when there were kisses.

I stroked my hand down Red's muscular back, feeling each healed cut, each scratch. He was smooth and strong - and scarred.

I was covered in healing cuts too but maybe I was scarred as well. And scared, to cut a letter out.

He wriggled closer to me and I breathed him in. I wanted a future with him - a future where one day I was sitting on a sofa with a glass of wine, a future where we were running through the forest - but I didn't want a future of fighting, struggling and always being on edge.

That was why I left.

Because, sometimes, love isn't enough.

Red moved closer and I to him and soon our kisses were hungry and I felt his teeth touch my skin. My eyelids became heavy and I felt myself getting wet.

I wanted him but my body wanted him more.

Red's eyes glittered with specks of gold and I knew mine were the same. The wildness inside me had been set free and could come out at any time.

I turned on to my back and pulled Red along with me. There was no awkwardness of elbows and knees and bodies getting into position. We were together, like dancers in perfect timing and we moved as one. His lips met mine as I brought them up. My hand stroked his back as he moved forward. My legs wrapped around his waist as he slipped into me.

Rhythm, motion, pressure.

"You saved me." Red, whispering.

I went to speak but gasped instead.

There is some point on the way back from deep tiredness where you truly relax and let go. There isn't enough energy to worry about the future and so you live in the moment. As Red moved, this moment became the only moment. No future, no past. Just now.

"Some wolves don't come back," Red whispered.

I nuzzled my face against his and felt his hand slip down, his palm against my lower back. I had no words to answer and had to rely on my body to do the talking.

"But I came back for you," Red finished and brushed his nose against mine. He moved his other hand down, both of them holding my hips in place now and moved against me. I felt my body move to his touch alone. If he held me still, I didn't move. If he moved me, I moved.

Red increased his pace, pulling now with his hands and my every breath was a gasp. He felt impossibly deep inside me, his arms thick and strong and the warm relaxation that had been sloshing through me started to heat. As usual, I felt my senses expand. New wood. Tiles in the bathroom. The faint scent of blood and dirt. The grass outside. Birds with their flittering heartbeats.

I tried to keep my eyes open, to focus on Red but the pleasure was too much. Tired muscles clenched and gave up their energy. Heat burst through me and left me trembling. I let out a moan as I came, a moment that stretched out as Red breathed out and jolted inside me.

Each peak to another peak.

And then collapse.

Both of us must have vanished into sleep immediately. I awoke, or returned from some daze and once more, Red was facing me, eyes half-lidded, looking at me.

"Let's get some food before we do that again," he said and blinked slowly.

I nodded, too tired for even words. My stomach rumbled and I knew, even without a clock to check, that it was early afternoon. We'd slept all night and then slept again. I still felt like I was about a hundred hours down.

Red slipped out of bed, standing unsteadily on shaking legs and then turned to me, reaching out his hand to help me up.

I pushed myself up on one elbow, reached out and then there was the smash of shattering glass and Red spun and hit the ground, blood droplets flying out from his hand.

"Stay down!" he yelled from the floor.

Without thinking I rolled off the bed and landed on the ground next to him. He was clenching his wrist, stopping the blood supply. Through the center of his hand was a hole, no bigger than a marble.

"They have a gun," Red gasped.

I reached up to the bed and pulled the sheet down and then tore it into strips before tying it around Red's hand. The sheet was already a deep red and it soaked to near black with blood.

"The Toulouses?"

"No doubt."

I saw Red close his eyes and start breathing in and out in measured steps. Then he started singing the Alphabet song. As I watched I saw his canines begin to lengthen and his body start to shift.

"Red, you have to stay."

He opened his eyes and they were blazing gold.

"It's ...hard. Harper."

Red's voice was deeper and he was having trouble speaking.

"Stay for me Red. Stay so we can have dinner and dance the night away. Stay so we can replant your garden. That mint stuff survived."

"Pennyroyal. Mentha pulegium."

"How do you know that?"

I saw Red blink a few times and as he did, his feature shifted to more human, less wolf.

"My grandmother loved to garden. Her name was Tilda."

Tilda. The woman Big Blue had mated with after Millie had left him. I suddenly felt sorry for her, and Red's father too, for having a parent who was ultimately in love with someone else. Had his childhood been happy? Had he passed that sadness down to Red?

I heard the sound of slamming car doors in the distance and then Fen, yelling out for Red.

Red yelled back where he was but there was someone with a gun and then we waited, laying on the floor, watching each other in silence.

After about ten minutes, Fen approached the cabin and called out again that it was safe. We pulled ourselves up off the floor and then I wrapped myself in the one remaining clean towel.

Red used his good hand to open the door, stepping outside to meet Fen.

I adjusted my towel and walked out to find Fen, giant mountain of a man Fen, hugging Red.

And crying.

*

T
hings were a blur from that point on. More werewolves arrived and soon I was wearing a black tracksuit, just like last time. The shooter was a suspected Toulouse who'd fired a single shot from the roof of the mansion and then vanished. We were given food (sandwiches) and we hastily gulped them down. Red was being given information and giving instructions, all the while holding his bandaged hand.

Fen told me that I had indeed shifted and then jumped through the side window. They'd followed me but I'd escaped them.

Soon Red and I were in the back of a car being driven by a werewolf who'd been introduced as Tom.

"I need to tell you some things," I whispered to Red.

We had a car ahead of us, another behind and I felt like we were in the presidential parade.

Red raised his eyebrows at me and waved him arm in a so-why-not-tell-me-here move.

I sighed and leaned back in my seat. I couldn't risk having Tom overhear what I had to say about the papers and the diary. Red knew some of it already but his grandfather's diaries were even more proof. Fen and Jake had told me what happened to packs who violated the Call. If it came out that the Toulouses had killed the Finches during a Call then they'd be wiped out. I couldn't risk having that happen just because a driver overheard me. I looked towards him and raised my eyebrows. Red seemed to get my meaning because he nodded back.

"Can you take us to the hospital Tom?"

"Done."

Red turned to me and clasped my hand with his uninjured one.

"Donald Crisp is awake."

*

I
never really liked hospitals but now with my supersensitive nose, it was torture.

The smell of astringent disinfectant, of cold floors, of death and blood and sadness. So much fear.

Red was waiting in the car outside, telling me that Donald needed to speak with me privately.

I was almost breathing into my shirt by the time I reached the third floor. I left the elevator and walked down to Donald's room. Standing outside it were two werewolves from Red's pack. They looked me over and then stepped aside.

I walked in to find Eadie Crisp sitting in a chair by the bed. Donald was connected to a drip and was wrapped in bandages. He looked like he'd shrunk, his babyfat face much slimmer.

"Harper. Harper Finch."

His voice was croaky, like he hadn't spoken in a year.

Eadie stood up and left the room, pausing only to gently squeeze my arm as she passed by.

"She's a little annoyed with me. Said I should have given you all the papers immediately."

I didn't know how to respond. Can you say "duh" to an old man? I sat down in the chair and smiled at him instead.

Donald looked back at me and for a moment we sat like this, not talking. Then he gave a rueful shake of his head.

"She was right. I should have given them all to you. Did you read your Aunt's letter?"

"You had Millie's letter to me?"

"It was in the papers. Eadie tells me that they were stolen but you retrieved them."

I told him how Edward Toulouse had broken in my cabin and had been burning the papers.

"There was no letter. They must have destroyed it."

I was nearly on the verge of tears, which didn't make it any better when Donald laughed at me.

"Don't worry - I have a copy! I scanned everything, uploaded into the cloud, encrypted it and put it into an anonymous torrent. It can never be destroyed!"

It was strange hearing all these computer terms coming out of his mouth. A second after I thought that, I realized I was being ageist.

"Can you send the letter to me? Did you read it?"

"I didn't read it. I need a computer though. They're discharging me tomorrow so I can send it then. They're a bit fussy about 'electronic devices' up here. " He made air quotes with his fingers as he said this.

I sat back in the chair, feeling my heart thudding. Millie's letter. Maybe she explained why she sent me here, knowing that there were werewolves.

"Did you look through the papers, Harper?"

I nodded.

"Then you know they're proof of the Toulouse pack committing crimes. I also suspect they killed your family at a Call. If that's true then-"

"-they'll all be killed, down to the last child."

Donald nodded and moved himself in the bed, clasping his hands over his chest before closing his eyes.

"The question is: do you want to wipe them out or is there another way? I will follow whatever decision you choose to make."

"I don't know." My voice was barely above a whisper.

"There is someone to see you in the next room," he replied and then appeared to lapse into sleep.

I stood up and left the room, nodding to the werewolves guarding his door on the way out. He was in the corner room so there was only one room adjoining his. Feeling the eyes of the guards on me, I opened the door and stepped inside.

This room was larger than Donald's and had six beds in it. One had an old Chinese man asleep in it, another had a teenage girl, her chest bandaged over. The window was open, the curtain flapping in the cool breeze. As I stood there, unsure of what to do, I heard the squeak of the tap in the bathroom and then an old lady emerged.

She was thin and frail, the way Millie had been and was wearing a floral nightgown. She was also a werewolf. I could smell it. She smiled at me and waved me over to some chairs in the corner of the room.

"Sit down, Harper Finch."

I obeyed, feeling that odd sort of compulsion to do what old people say.

She sat down opposite me.

"I'm Ruby Toulouse. I was Millie's friend."

Some of Millie's diary entries came flashing back to me. It was a little jarring. The Ruby of Millie's diary had been a young sex-crazy girl who had very much enjoyed some hot and heavy times against the outside wall of the police station. This Ruby was on the old side of old.

"Nice to meet you."

Well done Harper. At least it was a sentence.

"I'm sorry I haven't been able to see you until now. They watch me."

"Who does?"

"Freyr and his lackeys. I think they suspect me."

Before I could ask what she meant, she continued.

"Freyr's grandfather started it, Freyr's father continued it and now Freyr intends to bring it to an end. The poison has been concentrating down the generations. You've felt the rage? The anger?"

I nodded. Since I'd changed it had been there in the background like a pot of water on the stovetop forever threatening to boil over.

"That's your burden, the trait you'll have to control. But others don't try to control it. They revel in it. Freyr believes the land is his because he wants it to be. He doesn't care what happened decades ago. He is poison in the heart of our pack and where he goes, others follow. But hopefully for not much longer. He mates but he cannot sire any cubs. And so his position grows more precarious by the day. He must act to hold on to it and you arriving in town gave him good reason to."

"He's infertile?"

Ruby shook her head. "There is a drink that provides very effective birth control. The recipe is known to some of the elders."