Hot Springs Werewolf Complete Series (BBW Werewolf Erotic Romance) (31 page)

She must have seen the expression on my face.

"Why not let him have a child or two? Because the poison will continue to concentrate and eventually our pack will be lost for good."

More of Millie's diary came back to me. Her note about the Alpha having to sire children or they would have their position put at risk. Honestly, I'd skimmed over most of that stuff and really needed to go back to read it. So Ruby and possibly others were stopping Freyr from siring children and because of that his position was at risk. All this led to him going on the warpath and me being back in town was the perfect trigger. And so Donald Crisp had been kidnapped, my cabin had been ransacked, my laptop smashed, Red's house burned down...

The rage came sweeping back, threatened to overwhelm my body and mind. Ruby must have seen my eyes turn gold because she stood up and grabbed me by the arms.

"Be calm new Finch. Be calm."

I stood up and nearly threw her off me and then she surprised me completely by stepping forward and hugging me. I felt her thin arms wrap around me, smelt her scent, so much like Millie. Soap and cookies and warm.

"Millie loved you and she asked me to look after you as much as I could. I'm sorry I haven't been able to do more."

I relaxed into the hug and my anger evaporated like a drop of water on a hot skillet.

She stepped back and smiled at me.

"It's only going to work for so long. He has taken Talia for his mate and we cannot hope to give her the drink."

Talia and Freyr. There was a combination of two bad things that would produce even worse offspring.

I was about to ask her about the Call tonight and my suspicions of it being a set-up to kill the Guile pack entirely when there was a noise outside the door. Ruby looked around and then vanished, moving so quickly that she was little more than a blur. I rushed over to the window and looked down to see a flicker of floral nightgown across the road.

She'd jumped out of a three-storey window and survived. Did werewolves just get stronger and faster as they aged? Eadie Crisp was so fast I couldn't see her when she decided to move quickly.

I turned around and saw an orderly enter the room. He was bald, fat and forty and his nose glowed red in that way that said drinking problem. Even over the smell of disinfectant I could tell that he'd been around werewolves recently. Toulouses. Maybe this was one of their paid human lackeys.

"What are you doing here?"

I ignored him and walked towards the door. He stepped in my path but then jumped out of the way when I growled at him.

When I reached the elevators I looked back down the corridor to see the orderly watching me. The two guards outside Donald's room were giving him death-stares.

The doors opened, I hit the button for the ground floor and left that little scene behind me.

*

W
hen I returned to the car, Tom was gone and Red was sitting in the passenger seat. I slipped into the driver's seat, smelling the leather of the chairs mingled with the fresh blood from Red's hand.

He'd been shot and I'd... taken it in my stride.

"Are you okay?" Red, smiling at me.

I frowned, trying the sentence out in my mind before I said it.

"We were shot at and I was scared. I'm not scared now."

"Is that a good thing?"

I nodded, although I was unsure if it was. Perhaps I was in shock. Or maybe so much had happened that I had simply run out of emotions. Even the anger I'd felt upstairs in the hospital had appeared and vanished in an instant. Donald Crisp was alive and had Millie's letter. I'd just spoken with Ruby Toulouse and she'd told me they were keeping Freyr from having children and that certainly helped cause many of the problems that had hit us.

All these thoughts flowed through my mind but there were no emotions attached to them. They were facts, like the Earth revolving around the Sun. I couldn't feel anything.

"Red, why didn't you tell me about your Grandfather's diaries? The ones in your other cabin?"

The question popped out of nowhere. One in a long line of them.

"Did you read them?"

"I'm sorry but I did. They're the other half of Millie's diary. He talks a lot about-"

Red put up his hand, stopping me.

"It's okay, you don't have to tell me. My father asked me not to read them and so I haven't."

"It's as simple as that? I tell you that Millie writes about her family being murdered and you don't think to tell me about Big Blue's diaries?"

Red looked down, frowning, and adjusted the bandage on his hand.

"Werewolf promises aren't like human promises. They're true. Real. Meaningful. You grew up human and only now are becoming your true self. I grew up werewolf. It's different."

I sat in the seat looking at the steering wheel. Did Red have anything else to tell me that was currently locked up behind a werewolf promise?

"If the Toulouse pack did murder my family then they'll be killed, won't they."

"Down to the last child," murmured Red, echoing what Fen had said.

"And you know what those papers mean. And Millie's diary. And Big Blue's diary."

Red nodded.

"Does that mean it's over for them? Packs are descending from all over the country right now to exterminate them?"

"No. No one else knows, apart from Donald Crisp, you, and I. And I won't tell them, unless you want me to. Nor will he."

I turned towards him and saw him looking back at me. He was still tired, his hand wounded and dressed in clothes that didn't really suit him. He smelt of blood and dirt and under that was his scent of spice and warm. I'd cried over his unconscious body, telling him I loved him.

"It's up to me?"

"It's your pack."

I realized with a shock that he was right. I was now the Finch pack - the only one. My sister and her children were the only other blood relatives left. At the thought of my sister I shook my head. I could imagine how
that
conversation would go with Jem. My very spiky sister Jem.

"You know tonight is a set-up to kill the Guile pack, don't you."

"I know. That's why I'm going to challenge Freyr."

"But you're injured."

Red lifted his bandaged hand and gently flexed it, grimacing.

"It's a good thing too. Now Freyr has to fight me. To turn down a challenge from an injured werewolf would be the end of him."

I considered briefly telling him about Ruby Toulouse and the temporary infertility they'd inflicted on Freyr but dismissed it just as quickly. It was one of the reasons Freyr had for what he did but what did that matter? The big reason was still there: we existed, and that was enough.

"What will happen tonight?"

"Either I'll defeat Freyr and put a stop to this endless war or he'll kill me and his pack will probably kill the rest of us."

Although I was mostly devoid of emotion at the moment, something must have slipped through.

"It will be okay Harper. I'll protect you. I promise."

A werewolf's promise. So much more than a human's. I wanted to say the same thing back to him. No, I'll protect you. But no matter how truthfully I meant it, I might not be able to. I started the car and Red pointed the way to Fen's.

*

F
en's house was white picket fence adorable. Not what I imagined for a giant mountain of a man. It had a beautiful garden of succulents and even a few garden gnomes scattered around the place.

He welcomed us in and offered us food and drink, which we accepted gratefully. The three of us sat around the kitchen table eating and not talking and as soon as I finished I excused myself. I got the feeling Fen and Red needed to talk and wouldn't if I was there. It was okay - I was a werewolf from a different pack and I wasn't Red's mate.

I found a spare bedroom at the other end of the house. It was opposite the master bedroom. When I reached it, I breathed in and smiled. Katy. Honey. She'd been here with Fen.

Feeling sleepiness creeping up on me, I entered the spare bedroom and laid on the bed, closing the door behind me. I glanced at the time on my phone. Nearly three.

Time was dragging on, pulling us towards the night. It seemed to be set in stone and there were no other alternatives. Red and the Guile pack would go to the Call and then the Toulouse pack would kill them all. Red being shot through the hand was clearly part of their plan. If Freyr had to fight him, he wanted him weakened.

I chased these thoughts over and around but no new options presented themselves. What would it matter anyway? I wasn't Red's mate. I hadn't said yes. What right did I have to speak?

Eventually the churn of it all blurred and I slept.

*

I
awoke in darkness, the end of a dream gleaming in my mind. It was my first night in Hot Springs and I was running down the hill from Red's house. There was Talia, slinking towards me. Talia, looking me up and down and calling me new Finch. Talia in Greasy Manna with Freyr.

Talia, Freyr's new mate.

His mate. She was the alpha's mate...

There was an idea there but it vanished the moment Red opened the door. He was dressed in standard issue cowboy once more, looking almost the same as when I first met him. He had a red dress in his hands and a pair of flat black shoes with white socks stuffed inside.

"This is the best we could rustle up at short notice."

He laid the clothes on the bed and went to leave but I reached up and stopped him.

"Stay. Please."

I slipped out of bed and took off the black tracksuit the werewolves had given me. As I did, Red watched me. At first I'd simply been tired and, I guess, comfortable. As I saw him glance down, I realized I'd stripped off completely naked without a second thought. As my last piece of clothing hit the floor, he stepped closer to me.

He'd showered in the time I'd been asleep. His hand was still bleeding under its bandage and I could smell the iron in his blood but there was also the scent of him. Spice. Warmth. Masculine.

"Woman, you are..."

Red let the sentence trail away and stroked his fingers down my arm. A rush of goosebumps followed his touch.

I moved closer to him, pressing my body up against his. I felt the fabric of his shirt touch my nipples, felt the heat of his body close to mine. I felt the sudden desire to drop to my knees.

"Afterwards, can we...?"

I brushed my hand against the bulge in Red's jeans.

Instead of answering, Red leaned forward and kissed me, his hand slipping down my waist to gently cup between my legs.

Incredibly, despite imminent death and all that had happened, I was wet. I wanted Red. Perhaps I wanted him because I feared we wouldn't be coming back.

Red kissed me once more and then flickered his finger, pulling a moan out of me. Then he stepped back, his face flushed.

"We have important things to do. We'll have to wait."

He gave my body one more look and then forced himself to leave the room.

Once he did, I let out a frustrated sigh. My god that man was hot.

I turned around and dressed, slipping the red dress over my head and then putting on the socks and shoes. There was no underwear for me to put on so I went without, feeling the slightly cool touch of the air.

We talked as though there was a later. A tonight where all this nonsense was over and we were in another room. But where would that be? Amidst the charcoal that used to be Red's house?

To think that it was gone was almost physically painful. I could see it in my mind the first night I went up there, windows glowing in the darkness. The first night I'd left there, running down the hill, Red behind me and Talia slinking around.

Talia.

There was something there but what was it?

*

W
e went to the Mayor's mansion in silence, Tom driving and Red and I sitting in the back seat, our fingers entwined. We were in a long line of cars filled with other werewolves. I looked out the window and saw shapes moving through the darkness. Others were coming to the Call in wolf form.

We stopped just inside the entranceway to the Mayor's property and walked the rest of the way, our feet crunching on the drive.

As I walked I felt like I was a puppet mindlessly going forward, fulfilling my predetermined movements.

Red would challenge Freyr. Perhaps they'd fight and one of them would win.

Or this was all a farce, an excuse to get the Guile pack here so they could be killed.

As we approached the mansion, I saw Fen and Jake, both naked as the day they were born amongst a group of werewolves without a stitch of clothing between them. Some were in human form and others wolf. There seemed to be a buzz in the air, a hum below hearing that tingled up my spine and sent my cells jittering. I also saw there were children and babies. This was the entire Guile pack.

My mind filled in
down to the last child
and I shivered. If things went badly tonight then every single one of them ... and me ... would die.

I saw Eadie Crisp, naked and wrinkled and also Marcus, his arm now free of its cast. He must have healed by now.

We stopped and without warning, Red undressed. Feeling strangely awkward but also daring, I followed, pulling my dress of and slipping out of my borrowed socks and shoes.

For a girl who used to change with a towel wrapped around her at the swimming pool, it was an odd moment of freedom.

I thought Red might give a speech but once we were naked he just nodded in the direction of travel.

"Let's get this over with."

*

A
round the back of the mansion was a field of grass like a small oval. I nearly gasped when it came into view. There were minimal lights around it illuminating the milling crowd of werewolves. Far more than the Guile pack. Naked men and women and children. I saw a toddler running across the grass and then transform into a cub to chase another small wolf around.

Down to the last child.

As we approached the group, the children were collected and taken to the back of the packs. I saw Freyr and Talia, surrounded by the bodybuilder types who we'd thrown out of the Finch Mansion. One of them was glaring at me and I realized he must have been the one I fought. It was still a blur and honestly, all those meat-head types looked the same to me.