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Chapter Fourteen
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FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Fifteen
She was hurting him. He’d almost quit breathing except in small, shallow pants. Giving first aid to werewolves was fraught with danger. Pain could make a wolf lose control like he’d done this morning. But Toby just held himself very still as she pulled the bandage tight enough to hold the pads where they needed to be.She used both rolls of the wrap and tried not to notice how good the bright pink looked against his dark skin. When a man is on the verge of passing out from pain, it seemed wrong to notice how beautiful he was. His smooth dark skin stretched over taut muscles and bone…maybe if he hadn’t smelled so good underthe blood and sweat, she could have maintained a distance. Hers. He was hers, whispered that part of her that didn’t worry about human concerns. Whatever fears Lauren had about the rapid changes in her life, her wolf half was very happy with the events of the past few days. She got a dishcloth from the kitchen, wettedit down, and cleaned the blood from his skin whi
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Sixteen
So close to him, it was impossible not to respond to the scent of his skin. He smelled of male and mate. Aided by that scent, she let herself sink into her wolf’s certainty of him, welcoming the beast’s contentment.He didn’t make a sound the whole way to his bed, though she could feel the extent of his pain in the tension in his muscles. He felt hot and feverish, and that worried her. She’d never seen a werewolf feverish before.He sat down on the mattress with a hiss. The blood left on the waistband of his boxers was going to stain the sheets, but she didn’t feel comfortable pointing it out. He looked ready to collapse he’d been in a lot better shape before he decided to change to human. As old as he was, he should have known better.“Why didn’t you just stay wolf?” she scolded.Cool eyes met hers with more wolf than man in their yellow depths. “You were going to leave. The wolf had no way to talk you out of it.”He’d gone through that because he was worried she’d leave him? Romanti
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Seventeen
He looked at her searchingly, then nodded and released her. “There’s a TV in the dining room. Or you can play on the Internet on my computer in the study. There are”“I’m tired, too.” She might have been conditioned to walk around with her tail between her legs, but she wasn’t stupid. Sleep was just what her exhausted mind needed to try to cope with the abrupt changes in her life. Exchanging Chicago for the wilds of Montana was the least of it: Omega and valued, not submissive and worthless; a mate and whatever that meant. Better than she’d had, that wasfor darn sure, but it was stil a bit traumatic.“Do you mind if I sleep here?” She kept her tone diffident, not wanting to intrude where she wasn’t wanted. This was his territory but her wolf was reluctant to leave him alone and wounded. It felt awkward, this needing. Awkward and dangerous, as if what he was might reach out and swallow her whole or change her beyond recognition. But she was too tired to fight it or even figure out if
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Eighteen
Just as a werewolf decided to kill this kid? An old man wouldn’t even slow a werewolf down.”“I never claimed the story made sense.” His father’s voice was dry. “And we’re not certain that the monster was a werewolf. I hadn’t paid any attention to it until the hunter was killed in the same area only a month later.”“What about that one? Are you sure the hunter was a werewolf victim?”“My informant was Heather Morrel . She knows a grizzly kill from a werewolf.”Heather was human, but she’d been raised in Aspen Creek.“Alright,” agreed Toby. “You need me to go check it out? It’l be a few days before I’m up to it.” And he didn’t want to leave Lauren. “Can you send someone else?” It would need to be someone dominant enough to control a rogue.“I don’t want to send anyone in to get killed.”“Just me.” Toby could use a dry tone, too.“Just you,” agreed Brian blandly. “But I’m not sending you out hurt. Samuel’s here for the funeral. He can go check this out.”“You can’t send Samuel.” His res
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Nineteen
THERE was actually a town. Not much of a town, but it had a gas station, a hotel, and a two-story brick-and-stone building with a sign in front that proclaimed it the Aspen Creek School. Beyond the school, tucked back in thetrees and barely visible from anywhere but the parking lot, was an old stone church. If not for Toby’s directions, she might have missed it. Lauren eased his big green truck through the church parking lot into a spot designed for a much smaller rig. It was the only place left. She hadn’t seen any houses, but there were a lot of trucks and other fourwheel-drive vehicles in the lot.Toby’s truck was older than she was, but looked as if it were brand-new. It had been driven less than fifty thousand miles, if she wanted to believe the odometer about two thousand miles a year. Toby had told her he didn’t like driving.She turned off the engine and watched anxiously as Toby opened his door and slid to the ground. The drop didn’t seem to bother him. The stain on his pink
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Twenty
O grave, where is thy victory?’ ”He paused, letting his eyes trail over the room, much as Toby had, then said simply, “Shortly after we moved back here, Carter Wallace came to my house at two in the morning to hold my wife’s hand when our retriever had her first litter of puppies. He wouldn’t charge me because he said if he charged for cuddlingpretty women, he’d be a gigolo and not a vet.”He stepped away from the pulpit and sat on the thronelike wooden chair on the right-hand side. There was the sound of shuffling and the creaking of wood, then an old woman stood up. A man with bright chestnut hair escorted her down the aisle, a hand under her elbow. As they walked by her pew, Lauren could smell thewolf in him.It took the old woman a few minutes to make it all the way to the top of the stairs to the pulpit. She was so small that she had to stand on a footstool, the werewolf behind her with his hands on her waist to steady her.“Carter came to our store when he was eight years old
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Twenty One
He took a deep breath and looked at Carter’s granddaughter. “He almost killed your mother, Shawna. I took care of her afterward, and I’l attest that it was luck, not any impulse on Carter’s part, that spared her life you can ask her yourself.How would a man whose life had always been devoted to the service of others have borne it if he had killed his own daughter? She asked the Marrok, in my hearing, if he would take care of the duty that her brother would not.By that time, the wolf in Carter was far enough gone he couldn’t ask for it. So no, my dad did not try to persuade Carter to Change he was just the one who stepped up to the plate to handle the resultant mess.”When Samuel finished speaking, he let his eyes drift slowly over the room as heads bowed in submission. He nodded once, then took his seat next to Toby again.The next few people kept their eyes off the Marrok and his sons, but Lauren thought it was embarrassment rather than the sullen anger that had been so prominent a
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Twenty Two
the scent of wildness, of sickness, faded. Hestared at her, the whites of his eyes showing brightly while his irises narrowed to small bands around his black pupil.“Omega,” he whispered, his breath coming harshly. Behind her, Toby stepped closer, but he didn’t touch her as the cool flesh under her fingertips warmed. They all stood frozen in place. Lauren knew that all she had to do to end this was to remove her hand, but she was strangely reluctantb to do so.The shock on Asil’s face faded, and skin around his eyes and mouth softened into sorrow that grew and deepened before tucking itself away, where all private thoughts hid from too-keen observers. He reached out and touched her face lightly, ignoring Toby’s warning growl.“More gifts here than I’d believed.” He smiled tightly at Lauren, eyes and mouth in concert. “It’s too late for me, mì querida. You waste your gifts on my old self.But for the respite, I thank you.” He looked at Brian. “Today and tomorrow, and maybe the next da
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FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT chapter 61
When you failed, you and that other wolf—Brian would send only the best. You lie and lie as if it were the truth.” “You don’t want to believe me,” Asil said. “But you can taste truth—your link to Sarai is strong enough. You were a danger to yourself and us. We did it for your own good. It was that or kill you.” She flicked a trembling finger at him. “Shut up.” Asil’s face lost its cool composure, and he grimaced. As he continued, his voice was breathless with pain. “What you have done is an abomination. This thing you have turned Sarai into doesn’t love you, she serves as a slave serves, without the ability to choose, just as I do. Brian is more than you can handle. He will kill you—and it is your own fault.” “I won’t die,” she shouted at him. “I didn’t die when Linnea tried to kill me —she didn’t know how powerful I was or how much my mother had taught me. I killed her and her pet students and studied the books she left behind— for months I wrote to you and signed the letters from he
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT chapter 60
Brian would hold out for a while. First, the witch could make a mistake— especially if she didn’t know whom she held. Second, he was afraid that this time no one would be able to kill him. It had been Samuel who brought him out of it before . . . and Samuel wasn’t as certain of himself as he used to be. The control the witch asserted over him had to be won by blood and flesh, and the only flesh and blood bonding he’d done was to his own pack. She must have used Asil to insert herself into his pack—but how? While she looked him over, he searched his link to Asil for something that touched a witch. He paid very little attention to the witch as she talked at him. With the dexterity of a very long lifetime, Brian slid through Asil and found a dead woman—it could only be Asil’s mate. It was an impossibility. No one could link to a dead woman; he knew that because when Blue Jay Woman, Toby’s mother, died, he’d tried to hold on to her. But, impossibilities become possible when you added a wi
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT chapter 59
Since the cabin hadn’t kept him out and he didn’t feel the need to leave, he could only assume that the circle was the latter kind—which meant that there were more dead things under the floor. He took a deep breath, but the dead animal he’d already seen might account for the scent of death—and nothing was rotting. Either the animal she’d killed to draw her circle hadn’t been dead long—it had frozen in the cold— or she had a spell to disguise it to keep away scavengers. Changing what the senses of others perceived was one of the major powers of the witch. His father said that Toby might have been a witch if he’d chosen to study. Brian hadn’t urged him to do so, but he also didn’t discourage it, either; a witch in his pack would have given him even more power. But the subtler magics of his mother’s people suited Toby, and he’d never regretted the path he’d chosen less than he did right now, standing in the middle of this poor cabin stained with evil. The scent on the sleeping bag on the
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT chapter 58
THE darkness bothered Brian not at all as he followed Tag’s directions to the place he and Toby had thought would be the best starting point. He passed Asil’s Subaru and hesitated—if Asil had been going after Toby, he’d have known the fastest way there. But Toby would be headed back to his car if something had gone wrong. So Brian kept driving. Other things he might do ran through his head. There were witches in the pay of the wolves. Not his pack—he didn’t deal with black witches, and most white witches weren’t powerful enough to be useful. But there were witches available to him. If he had a two-hundred-year-old witch capable of holding and torturing a werewolf for two dadsys—he had no intention of advertising the fact and encouraging other witches to imitate this one. Especially since she, like Brian’s mother, might have gotten her ability through some kind of binding to a werewolf. No. Best keep the witches out of it. He could call Toby back. That was a harder thing. Telepathy was
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT chapter 57
LAUREN opened her eyes in the dadsrkness, certain that something had wakened her again. She raised her head from Toby’s warm, sweet[1]smelling skin and looked around. Dennis was nowhere to be seen, and sometime in the night, she and Toby had reversed positions, so he lay between her and dadsnger. The wind and snow had ceased, leaving the forest silent and waiting. “Me transmitte sursum, Caledoni,” she murmured. Too bad Scotty wasn’t around to beam them to safety. There was something about the heavy atmosphere that was frightening. She listened hard but heard nothing. The weighted silence pounded on her ears and made the beat of her heart even louder in the stillness of the winter night. Her heartbeat, her breath was the only thing she could hear. “Toby?” she whispered, touching his shoulder tentatively. When he didn’t respond, she shook him. His body fell away from her. He’d been lying on his side, but he rolled limply out from under their barely adequate shelter and onto the snow. Th
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT chapter 56
AS soon as Toby went out to talk to Asil, Lauren had begun her change. She needed to deal with that wolf with her tongue rather than fang and claw. He was too good at riling her mate—and Toby was still volatile from his encounter with the witch. She didn’t give any thought to Dennis until she was naked and panting in the cold night air. She might have had three years to get used to being nude in front of people she didn’t know well, but he hadn’t. She glanced at him, but he had his head turned away from her and was staring intently at a nearby tree trunk, the perfect gentleman. She quit worrying about him and scrambled into her chilly clothes and boots because she could sense Toby’s rising rage at Asil; Asil had put the Marrok and his pack at risk. But more than that, she was worried that neither Toby nor Asil realized how close Toby was to his breaking point. She found it curious that she did. Boots on, coat on, Lauren rolled out of their sleeping place and onto her feet. She didn’t
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT chapter 55
He called the magic to him and let it rip through his body, changing as he walked. It hurt, but he knew it didn’t show on his face or make his limp any worse. If he’d been healthier and the spirits willing, he might even have been able to conjure up a new pair of snowshoes instead of having to wade. At least the snow on the bench, regularly scoured by the wind, was only a foot or so deep most places—half of that had fallen tonight. Asil smiled a little, as if he recognized Toby’s power play for what it was, but he dropped his eyes. Though Toby knew better than to trust the submission in the other’s body language, it was enough for now. Toby kept his voice low. “How did you find us?” It was an important question. They were nowhere near the place they’d have been camping if he and Lauren had followed the trip as he’d outlined it with Tag. Had he done something stupid that would let the witch find them, too? The oddities of the past twenty-four hours had badly shaken his confidence—and t
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT chapter 54
Afterward, she lay panting and miserable on the ice-crystal-covered snow, too tired to move. Even cold, she discovered, had a smell. Gradually, as her misery faded, she realized that for the first time since last night, when Toby had curled around her and surrounded her with his warmth, she felt toasty-warm. As the initial agony faded to aches and pains, she stretched, making her claws expand and lengthen like a big cat’s. Her back popped and crackled all the way down her spine. She didn’t want to go back and curl up with a strange male only feet away. The wolf wasn’t afraid of the male. She knew he wasn’t likely to behave like the Others. But she didn’t much like the idea of touching anyone other than Toby, either. Near but out of sight, a wolf, Toby, made a quiet sound, not quite a bark or a whine. Wobbly as a newborn foal, she staggered to her feet. She paused to shake the snow off her pelt and give herself a moment to get used to four paws before starting back, her clothes in her
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT chapter 53
Did she still regret that? Toby was overcome with the wild desire to kill them all again, Leo and his mate, the whole Chicago pack—but at the same time he was pathetically grateful that his mate was a werewolf who wouldn’t fade and die the way Samuel’s wives all had. Brother Wolf stirred and settled down, just like Dennis had. “The wolf who attacked you didn’t come back to you, then, after you Changed?” Toby asked. Usually when a wolf Changed someone, it was drawn back to the new werewolf for a while. Mostly, Samuel had theorized to him once, some genetic imperative to make sure that an untaught, uncontrolled werewolf wasn’t going to draw too much unwanted attention. Dennis shook his head. “Like I said, I tracked her down myself, after the first full moon—she and that woman. What is she anyway? She sure as hell ain’t human—sorry, ma’am— not with the things I seen her do. She tried to call me to her the first time I Changed. I didn’t know what she was, only that she smelled bad—like th
