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Chapter Twenty Eight
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2022-06-27 17:53:57Related chapters
FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Twenty Nine
Lauren methodically rummaged through the cupboards; Toby was going to wake up hungry. Happily, the man had his house stocked for a siege. She thought about Italian she had gotten rather good at cooking Italian foodbut she didn’t know if Toby liked it. Stew seemed a safer choice. The chest freezer in the basement was fullof meat wrapped in white freezer paper, neatly labeled. Shebbrought up a package proclaiming itself to be elk stew meat to begin thawing on the counter. She’d never eaten elk before but assumed that stew meat was stewmeat. In the fridge she found carrots, onions, and celery. Now all she needed were potatoes. They weren’t in the fridge or on the counters; they weren’t on top of the fridge or under the sink. Anyone as well stocked as Toby was bound to have potatoes somewhere unless he hated potatoes. She was bent over with her head in a lower cupboard singing softly, “Where oh where have my little potatoes gone,” when the sound of a cell phone made her jerk her head up
Last Updated : 2022-06-27FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Thirty
Brian leaned back in his chair and sighed. “If a forest ranger comes out and claims he was attacked by a werewolf an experienced, respected man like Heather’s Jack people are going to listen. And, before she clammed up,Heather told me that he’s a forthright man. If he thinks that there’s a danger to others, he’s going to trumpet the news as loudly as he can no matter how crazy that truth sounds.”Toby met his father’s eyes. Another time, they might just have been able to let it go. If they killed the problem wolf and there were no more deaths, any fire that the ranger built would go out for lack of fuel. But his father believed that they were going to have to reveal themselves to the public soon within months.They couldn’t afford bad publicity. To give himself time to see if there was a good way out of the dilemma, Toby asked, “How did she manage to get him out?” He knew the Cabinets. This time of year a lot of the mountain range was snowshoe or four-footed travel only. Heather wasn
Last Updated : 2022-06-27FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Thirty One
There was no give in his father once he’d decided on the proper course, and everyone who tried to stand in his way would be knocked aside as easily as bowling pins. Toby disliked being a bowling pin. Mutely, he stared at his father. The old bard smiled a little. “Fine,” said Toby in English. “Fine.”She raised her chin. “I’l try not to slow you down.” And he felt as if she’d hit him in the stomach; he’d managed to make her feelunwanted, which hadn’t been his intent at all. He had no gift for words, but he tried to mend things anyway.“I am not worried that you’ll slow me down,” he told her. “Dad’s right. With this leg, I’m not going to be breaking any speed records. This isn’t going to be fun, not in those mountains in winter.”He didn’t want her to see him kill again. Sometimes it was alright, and they fought him, like Leo had fought. But sometimes they cried and begged. And he still had to kill them.“Alright,” Lauren said. The tightness in her voice told him that he hadn’t undone
Last Updated : 2022-06-27FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Thirty Two
On one of the doors, the bar was in use. Whoever was in it had been making noise until they stepped out into the hall. Then he dropped into utter silence, and she could feel him listening to them as they walked by.She might have asked Toby about it, but his face didn’t invite questions. She couldn’t tell if he was mad at her or just thinking. Either way, she didn’t want to bother him. She had already annoyed him enough. She should have told him that she would stay behind. But that would have meant he would go alone, wounded, to face some unknown rogue. His father seemed to think he could take care of himself, but he hadn’t been there yesterday when Toby had been too hurt to move without help.If Toby decided he didn’t want her, what would she do?There was a friendlier door at the end of the hall no locks or bars. But as they approached it she heard the sound of an explosion.“Hoo yah,” someone said with fierce appreciation. Toby opened the door without knocking. Lauren had a quick i
Last Updated : 2022-06-27FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT Chapter Thirty Three
“Is there some problem with them?”“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to them since shortly after I Changed.”“You haven’t talked to your family for three years?” He frowned at her. Then a look of comprehension came to his face. “He didn’t let you.”She looked at him a moment. “Leo said that any human even suspected of knowing about us would be killed. And any prolonged contact with my family would be adequate cause to eliminate them. At his suggestion, I took offense at something my sister-in-law said, and haven’t spoken to them since.”“Idiot,” snapped Toby, then shook his head at her. “Not you. Leo. Why should…I suppose he thought your family would object to the treatment you were receiving and cause a fuss and I hope he was right. If you’d like to callthem right now, go ahead. Or when we get back from this, we can fly to your family for a visit. Some things are best explained in person.”Her throat closed up, and she tried to blink back sudden, stupid tears. “I’m sorry,” she managed
Last Updated : 2022-06-27FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT chapter 34
"HE likes you,” Toby said, folding up the map. “How do you know that?” she asked. “People he doesn’t like, he doesn’t talk to.” He started to say something else but lifted his head and stared at the door with a frown instead. “I wonder what he wants”Once he drew her attention to it, she heard the car drive up, too. “Who?” she asked, but he didn’t answer, just stalked out to the living room, leaving her to follow hesitantly.Toby jerked open the door, revealing the wolf from the funeral. Asil. He had one hand raised to knock on the door. In the other he had a bouquet of flowers, mostly yellow roses, but there were a few purple Dadisy-looking things, too. Asil adjusted to the reordering of his entrance smoothly, gifting Lauren with a smile while avoiding Toby’s gaze. It might have been the proper and right response to an obviously irritated wolf who was more dominant— except that his eyes were boldly locked on Lauren’s. “I brought an apology,” he said. “For the lady.” He was, Lauren not
Last Updated : 2022-06-28FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT chapter 35
“This is new to me as well.” He grinned at her, a flash and gone. The oddly boyish expression managed to make him look sheepish despite a certain sharp edge. “I’m not used to being jealous, or having so little control. It’s not just the bullet wounds, though they don’t help.” They stood there for a while more, his hand under her chin. Lauren was afraid to move for fear she would provoke the rage that kept his eyes wolf yellow or do something that might hurt him the way she’d hurt him with her flinch. She didn’t know what Toby was waiting for. He spoke first. “My father told me that there was something bothering you when you lethe church this morning. Was it Asil? Or was it something else?” She took a step sideways. He let her go, but his hand slid from her face to her shoulder, and she couldn’t make herself take another step and lose that touch. He was going to think she was a neurotic idiot if she didn’t get a better grip on herself. “Nothing was bothering me. I’m fine.” He sighed.
Last Updated : 2022-06-28FEMALE APHA'S STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT chapter 36
Toby was a monster. His father’s assassin. She wouldn’t allow herself to believe a lie again. If Brian had told him to, he would have killed Jack. Killed him knowing that the human was only a victim, that he was probably a good man. But it wouldn’t have been casual. She’d seen the relief that had flowed over him when Brian had found an alternative to killing the human. Her mate was a killer, but he didn’t enjoy it. Looking at it clearly, she was a little awed at how he’d managed to be so civilized and still meet the demands of who and what he was required to be. The water was cooling off. She shampooed her hair, enjoying the way the soap rinsed away so easily; Chicago water was much softer. She conditioned her hair with something that smelled of herbs and mint, recognizing the scent from Toby’s hair. By that time, the water was starting to become uncomfortably cold. She took a long time combing out the tangles without looking at the mirror and concentrated on feeling nothing. She was
Last Updated : 2022-06-28
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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
