Part 20 (1/2)

She knew better. Perfect meant making sure the wolf kind got a fair break. Although the way Leidolf was touching her made her desire something more.

His fingers continued their leisurely caress against her skin, heating her blood. She didn't want to feel anything for him, but already he was hot-wiring her pheromones, triggering her need to have him, to stay with him, to fulfill her s.e.xual fantasies. But more than that. She still envisioned seeing the pups with Felicity, and that triggered Ca.s.sie's own mothering needs. She stifled a sigh. Everything and everyone were ganging up on her, trying to coerce her to take another path.

”How is your shoulder?” Leidolf asked, breaking into the dreamlike state she was still enjoying.

”It's really bad.” She lied, knowing just where this dialogue was going.

His fingers stilled at her waist. Then he began the slow, methodical stroking again. ”So being on top like you are now is less comfortable?”

”For what?” She knew what he was getting at. The alpha leader had a job to do. Take a mate. Create his offspring. Secure the future of his lupus garou pack. Similar to the wolf packs' existence, only the human element did come into play. He seemed to be leaving that part out.

He sighed heavily and then moved his hands up her waist, his thumbs touching the curve of the undersides of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. ”You know what we both need. What we both want. We're right for each other. You'd make a capable pack-leader's mate.”

At first, she didn't say anything in response, her ire instantly stoked. h.e.l.l, of course she would make a capable pack-leader's mate. What happened to: I want you... I need you... I can't live without you? The human element, buster?

Then again, alpha males didn't wear their feelings on their sleeves, and if she had to guess what this was all about, she'd say he couldn't reveal his feelings until she said I do in a werewolf way. Or maybe it was all about s.e.x with him. That and the possessiveness. Conquering a mate who seemed unconquerable. Laying claim to a female when there were fewer of them to be had. Maybe he would never be able to say he truly loved her.

Still, she felt as if she was sliding down a slippery mountain of negative responses, and when she reached the bottom, she'd ultimately end up saying yes.

Despite her mind saying he was wrong, that she didn't need to have a mate, her body kept telling her that, in one aspect, he was so right and she had to reconsider. She'd been a loner for too long. And she had a job to do. It's what made her whole. Not the idea of running some pack with an alpha male. Even if he was as delicious as Leidolf.

Leidolf moved his hands to either side of her head and turned it so she was resting her chin on his chest, his green eyes challenging her to be honest with him. ”Tell me the truth, Ca.s.sie. You don't belong to a pack.”

She turned her head away and laid it back down on his chest again. ”So what gave me away?”

He chuckled lightly. ”Every inch of your skin blushed when I looked at you--from your cheeks to your toes. You were embarra.s.sed. Which told me you weren't with a pack and haven't been for a very long time. How long ago did you lose your family, Ca.s.sie?” His voice was soothing, like she envisioned a psychiatrist's voice would be as he made her lie down on a couch and reveal the guilt she felt that she alone had survived the humans' brutality to her family.

She swallowed hard and blinked away tears. She could live another two hundred years, but the images--the smoke, the blazing heat, the fires reaching for the sun as if to join it in one unholy blaze--would never fade completely from her mind.

”Ca.s.sie, how long ago?”

”Since I was a teen. Thirteen. I lost them when I was thirteen.”

”Mother, father?”

”My parents, sister, three uncles, two aunts, and a cousin. It was a pretty summer day, and I'd been searching for a lupus pack in a forest near a river where I'd discovered them the previous spring. My father kept warning me to stay away from them, counseling me that we weren't like them. That without our human disposition, they could be dangerous. But I didn't believe it.

”They played like we play, hunted, and protected each other, just like we did. They even let me get close to the alpha female's pups and play with them. When I smelled the pack's scent in the area again, I was curious how different they would be from our own kind and if they'd accept me like a pack member, even if they hadn't seen me for over a year. Just for fun.” She let out her breath in a sigh of frustration.

Leidolf stroked her hair, his fingers gently caressing the strands, making her feel wanted again, which terrified her. What if she got too close to him and he was killed also?

”Ca.s.sie?”

She ground her teeth, wis.h.i.+ng she had done something more, wis.h.i.+ng she'd taken revenge. ”We were hunters, traders, sold skins. Not farmers, sheepherders, or ranchers like our neighbors. We never had anything to do with any of them. They didn't care for us, and we didn't want them to learn what we truly were. So we stayed clear of them and all was fine. But that day, I smelled fires burning from the direction where our homes were, the three cabins not far from each other in the woods. I worried the forest was on fire. I raced home in my wolf suit to reach our homes more quickly. That's when I saw the men, a ranch family, the father, two of his brothers, and a couple of his nephews watching the houses burning.”

She took another deep breath and could smell the acrid smoke, the heated air burning her lungs as if it were happening now, saw the flames stretching upward as she watched the fire in the fireplace.

Leidolf kissed the top of her head.

”I thought they'd come to rescue my family. I thought they'd arrived too late, the fire crackling, the heat from the flame like Hades as the houses crumbled and fell. I'd hoped my family had made it out in time. Then one of the men said something to the effect of, 'Their deaths won't bring my sons or nephew back, but at least I won't have to know they're living while my own kinfolk are dead.'”

Leidolf rubbed Ca.s.sie's arm. ”Sounds like a revenge killing.”

”But for what, Leidolf? My dad never liked Wheeler or his family. None of my family did. The boys were always stealing from the mercantile or other farms around. Half the time, the old man was at the local saloon gambling and drinking. Whoring, too, when he had the money. More than likely, his sons got into trouble over something and somebody killed them. But not my family. They wouldn't have had anything to do with murder.”

Leidolf remained silent, but she didn't care if he didn't believe her. She knew the truth.

”I hated the Wheelers, stalked them for months, one by one. I wanted to kill every last one of them like they had killed my family.”

”But you didn't, did you, Ca.s.sie?”

She swallowed hard. ”I was too much of a coward.”

He let out his breath. ”You couldn't have killed them in cold blood.”

She gave a haughty laugh. ”After losing my whole family, you bet I could have.”

Again, he didn't respond.

”I could have,” she reiterated, wis.h.i.+ng she hadn't let them live. Then she sighed deeply again. ”I couldn't live on my own. Not that young. Not as a girl. My choices were limited. Either I had to move to the nearest California town and live as a human, attempting to hide the wolf side of me, and hope that someone I didn't know would take me in as a maid or something. I could have ended up with some really bad sorts. I just couldn't imagine life like that. Or I could live with...” Her eyes grew misty. ”... the wolves. They didn't mind that I was half human. They accepted me as one of the pack.”

”A wolf pack. That's why you study them? h.e.l.l, it's a good thing the alpha leader didn't try to take you as his mate.”

Ca.s.sie cast him a tearful smile. ”He had a mate. I just had to make sure I wasn't treated as the omega, lowest wolf on the totem pole.”

”You'll be the highest one on the totem pole in my pack.”

She stroked his muscular arm. ”Hmm, well, I'm not joining a lupus garou pack. Not anytime soon. I have a job to do. And as soon as I take care of it, I'll have another, and another. The wolves need me as their advocate.”

”I need you. Our kind needs you.” He renewed his sensual strokes, every action designed to get her to capitulate.

And if she wasn't so dead set on not joining a pack, she might have given in. His declaration that he needed her might have done it, but that was followed too closely by ”our kind needs you,” and that's what brought her back to her senses. For the good of their kind. But what of the good of the lupus kind? They weren't as important in the scheme of things, as far as lupus garous were concerned. But they were to Ca.s.sie.

She sighed and closed her eyes, loving the way he touched her, wanting what he was offering, but not about to go there. From the way he spoke, he would have no interest in the regular lupus and her pups. Only in the one lupus garou he wanted to make his mate.

”The truth is that my shoulder's feeling much better.” She looked up at him. ”And I need to get back to work.”

He wrapped his arms around her and frowned. ”You can't go anywhere right now. Not dressed as you are. And not until nightfall in your wolf coat.”

”You have to let me go,” Ca.s.sie said, her voice verging on a growl. She would risk anything to locate the mother and her pups and ensure they were fed and protected.

”Why? What's so important about your research that you had gambled running as a wolf and getting shot over it?”

She could hear his attempt at keeping his voice even, but the testiness gave him away.

She had no choice but to tell him. h.e.l.l, he might even be reasonable about it. She doubted it. ”What's important is the survival of a she-wolf and her pups. They have no one to protect them. No alpha male. No pack.”

He didn't say anything for quite a while. Anything would be better than the silence. Then as though he knew she was still lying to him, he quietly said, ”The wolf is a lupus garou.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. ”I heard the pups. She's strictly a lupus, not a lupus garou. A lupus garou wouldn't have pups in the wild.”