Ghost Wolf
Ghost Wolf
Michele Hauf
THE LONE WOLF'S SALVATIONAngling for a story, journalist Daisy-Blu Saint-Pierre investigates the mysterious ghost wolf that’s been menacing hunters. Instead, she encounters a juicier sort of discovery in sexy, rugged wolf Beckett Severo – who she can’t not picture curled up next to her at night…Ever since a hunter’s bullet took his father’s life, Beck has carried a hunger for revenge. Now faery magick has turned him from a werewolf into something more powerful that comes at a price. The time spent with Daisy in between the sheets almost makes Beck forget the danger they’re in. Almost.
Beck moaned into her mouth and lifted her by the hips.
Daisy wrapped her legs about his waist without breaking the kiss. He dipped his head to deepen their connection, dashing his tongue along hers. The taste of him ignited her desires.
“You do that very well,” she said against his mouth. “You said something about our kiss never ending?”
“I could keep this up for years.” He tilted his forehead against hers. “You do things to me, Daisy-Blu.”
“Good things?”
“Good. Bewitching. You make the wolf inside me want to howl.”
Daisy slid out of Beck’s grasp. “I almost had an interview with a hunter last night.”
“Last night? You were out looking for interviews? How quickly does word get around when something like a white wolf stalking hunters happens?”
“Even faster when it’s witnessed firsthand. I was in the forest. I got a few shots of the hunters running in fear from the ghost wolf, and I actually photographed the ghost wolf.”
Beck’s mouth hung open. Finally he blurted, “What the hell were you doing in the woods again? Alone? I thought I told you that was dangerous?”
MICHELE HAUF has been writing romance, action-adventure and fantasy stories for more than twenty years. Her first published novel was Dark Rapture. France, musketeers, vampires and faeries populate her stories. And if she followed the adage “write what you know,” all her stories would have snow in them. Fortunately, she steps beyond her comfort zone and writes about countries she has never visited and of creatures she has never seen.
Michele can be found on Facebook and Twitter and at www.michelehauf.com (http://www.michelehauf.com). You can also write to Michele at PO Box 23, Anoka, MN 55303, USA.
Ghost Wolf
Michele Hauf
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Cover (#uc1283b22-9639-5c86-8071-2cf86ac10812)
Excerpt (#u8e146781-9d2c-5085-b99e-7689abf8ab0d)
About the Author (#u6599afb9-1f6d-56c1-a5c1-d45aaa83becb)
Title Page (#u2e6cc250-2464-5bd8-98c0-066595dc5a61)
Prologue (#ulink_f2ca2365-d4ea-5782-840b-23b66024a8e6)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_9b7ee969-9d42-5c38-9bbc-e585d8283e1c)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_7dbc4c25-24e7-5040-bd17-d3c349c071d2)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_0af064d4-167d-554f-b500-620aadc942d2)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_7b1415d6-ead2-5e55-9bfb-ae3373a95e93)
Chapter 5 (#ulink_fb2abde3-50e4-5d5d-82e4-41cdcd218061)
Chapter 6 (#ulink_0429e966-dcf6-5cf9-b2a3-d288cebbb29d)
Chapter 7 (#ulink_0fd899fd-8480-54b9-b4a3-d319a08ec99a)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ulink_7283b8ad-1b77-51fd-8634-90e416365fa6)
Two gray wolves loped across the fresh-fallen snow within a forest that edged acres of private Minnesota land. The wolves had a standing arrangement to run off their energy in the forest every weekend, a father and son get-together. A half-moon scythed the oddly clear black sky. Not a star dotted the atmosphere. Yet areas where snow had begun to tamp down the still-springy blades of grass twinkled from the cool luminescence.
The younger of the wolves always tromped ahead, challenging the elder to keep up. He was well aware he could never outrace his father, but he liked to goad him. Besides, he’d spotted a red fox and wanted to chase it until its heart gave out.
When an echoing retort shattered the calm night, the younger wolf stopped, ears shifting outward. It was a sound he had learned to fear since he could remember having fear. The sound of death. Whining, he flicked his gaze about, seeking his father. No sign of the old wolf.
Another gunshot sounded.
The wolf dashed into a race toward where he’d heard the sound. At the forest’s edge the animal recognized artificial light from a mortal’s vehicle. He quickened his tracks, his paws barely landing in the slushy snow until he reached the clearing where a man with a rifle approached a fallen wolf.
Snarling, the wolf leaped for the hunter, landing its front paws against his shoulders and toppling him to the wet ground. The rifle landed in slushy snow. The innate compulsion to sink his fangs into flesh and tear out anything he could manage was strong. He could break a human’s bones with but a bite from his powerful jaws. Yet the wolf merely snarled and snapped at the hunter.
The hunter struggled with the wolf, slapping at its maw and crying for mercy. Fear and human urine scented the air. The wolf heard the fallen wolf’s heart-wrenching whines. In pain. Dying?
In that moment of the wolf’s disregard, the hunter managed to scramble out from under his aggressor.
“Damned wolves! Where’s my gun?” Scrambling about in the snow, he gave up looking for the weapon when the wolf’s snarls grew insistent. The hunter ran toward the lighted vehicle. “Wasn’t what I needed. It didn’t shift. God’s blood, this trial will kill me!”
The vehicle’s lights flashed across the tree trunks. Tires peeled through wet snow and soil, skidding until the rubber found traction. The car rumbled off, leaving the clearing tainted with the smell of gasoline and the echoes of the human’s angry voice.
The younger wolf began to shift, its body elongating and forelegs growing into human-shaped arms. Fingers flexed out at the end of hands. Knees, bent upon the ground, sunk into the snow. Within seconds, he’d transformed from his wolf shape back to his human were form.
Beckett Severo scrambled over to the wolf lying in the slushy grass. Crimson stained the snow near the wolf’s back.
“No. No, you can’t die.”
He found the entry wound over the wolf’s heart. He felt the tiny beads of buckshot from the hunter’s shell. One burned his fingertip. He hissed, pulling away. Liquid silver trickled within the bloody wound as if mercury.
The older wolf turned its head toward Beck and looked into his eyes.
“No, Dad, you can’t...”
Beck laid his head upon his father’s body and pushed his fingers through the thick winter fur. He cried out to the night until his lungs ached and the old wolf’s heartbeat struggled to pulse.
* * *
The knock at the front door startled Bella Severo from her slumber in the big cozy armchair before a fading hearth fire. She’d dozed off while waiting for her husband to return home.
Heartbeat racing, she pulled the white chenille shawl around her shoulders and rushed to the door. It was well after midnight. She couldn’t imagine who could be knocking now. Certainly her husband would walk right in. Her vampiric senses didn’t pick up a scent, though she blamed it on the fact that she was still groggy from sleep.
Her husband, Stephan Severo, had left earlier with Beck, her son. The two always went out on weekends together. Severo generally returned early in the morning, while Beck drove to his home at the edge of town, where the woods at the back of his property framed the moon glimmering on a frozen pond. On occasion her son would stay here at the house. She loved being stirred awake in the morning to the smells of pancakes and bacon, made with love by her two favorite guys.
Tonight she’d stayed up because she had a surprise for Severo. He would be thrilled with her news.
As her hand wrapped about the front doorknob, a weird feeling tracked up Bella’s spine. The blood ran from her face and her fingers shook about the glass knob. Heartbeat suddenly stalling, she gasped, clutching her chest with a hand. With the other hand, she flung open the door.
Her son stood there in but blue jeans and winter pack boots. His wide shoulders and tall stance filled the open doorway. The whites surrounding his irises were red. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he shook his head miserably. Agony clawed his fingers against his bare chest.
And Bella instinctually knew she would never be able to give her husband the news that would have filled him with pride.
Bella’s knees wobbled, her head falling forward. Beck lunged and wrapped her against his shivering chest. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
She didn’t hear what he said after that. Her keening wails echoed through the foyer until dawn traced through the windows and forced Bella, a vampiress, into her dark bedroom, where she stayed for the next three weeks.
Chapter 1 (#ulink_2a6cdc1e-7600-5175-9773-209b057c7a44)
Two months later...
Beck stumbled to the edge of the forest, tugging up his jeans as he did so. His breaths fogged before him. The mercury had topped out at ten degrees at noon; it had only fallen since then. He’d come out of the shift and retrieved his clothes from the hollowed-out oak stump where he always kept them. Wouldn’t do for a werewolf to shift to human shape without clothing to cover his shivering mortal flesh. He didn’t relish the idea of walking home naked, or trying to hitch a ride.
Though, to imagine hitching naked perked up his smile. If a carload of pretty women drove by? They’d pick him up for sure.
Nah. He’d keep his clothes on. The bitter January chill did not bother him while in wolf form, but his human skin wasn’t so durable against the temperature changes. Good thing he had brought along his winter coat.
He zipped and buttoned his jeans. Shoving his feet into his pack boots, he wobbled. A swirl of dizziness spilled across his vision, and he had to put out his arms to stabilize his stance. Tree stalks blurred, and for a moment the sky switched places with the snowy ground.
“Weird,” he muttered, and gave his head a good shake.
Shifting took a lot out of him. More so lately. But this was the first time he’d felt so odd. Like he wasn’t right with the world. Must be because he’d eaten a light lunch. Earlier in the day, his date had suggested he try a salad instead of a steak. Why he’d succumbed was beyond him.
Ah hell, he knew why. He’d wanted to impress her. Guys did stuff like that. Stupid stuff like eating leaves instead of a juicy slab of steak. Never paid off. Later, the woman had giggled while standing before her door and told him she’d see him again sometime soon.
Sometime soon? Vague, much? For not having dated in months, the step back into the pool had resulted in a cold splash to his ego. He’d added her to his mental “don’t bother again” list. A guy could only listen to a woman rave about the latest fashions or which movie stars were doing each other for so long.
Turning over the thick knit sweater and sticking his arms into it to find the sleeve holes, Beck raised his arms over his head to shuffle it down over his face when something rammed into his side, knocking him off balance.
Quick footwork prevented him from taking a fall. Beck whipped around to snarl at—a pretty woman. Out here in the middle of no-place-she-should-be.
Beck’s odd meter zinged far to the right.
She was petite, the crown of her head leveled at Beck’s shoulder. From under a black knit cap that sported cat ears, pink hair spilled over her shoulders and onto a bulky gray sweater, beneath which perky nipples poked against the fabric, luring his interest. She clutched a pair of knee-high riding boots—she was barefoot—and blew out an annoyed huff.
As if upset because he had been the one to bump into her. Really?
Beck instinctively knew what breed she was. It wasn’t a sensation he got from touching his own breed—such as vampires were capable of—he just knew when he was around another of his kind.
“Out for a run in the woods? Did you forget your glasses at home?” He rubbed his elbow, drawing attention to where she had run right into him.
“Aren’t you the funny one?” She bent to tug on a boot, followed by the other. Slender-fitted jeans wrapped her legs, and the oversize sweater fell past her hips. She looked cozy and sexy and so out of place. “I wasn’t aware a big ole lug would be blocking my path.”
“Trust me, the lug did not intend to get in your way. You just shift?” he asked.
“I, uh...”
Apparently she hadn’t guessed the same thing about him, but quickly realization crossed her gaze as if sun flashing on metal. Pretty eyes that looked half gold and half violet and were framed by thick lashes. Her hair matched her plump lips, sort of a bleached raspberry shade. He liked it. Looked like some kind of dessert.
“Yes,” she finally said. “I’m headed home. I’ve got a friend waiting in the car.”
Beck glanced over a shoulder. He didn’t recall seeing a car parked along the country road that was closest to where they stood. No vehicles out here for miles. Then he guessed she was leery, didn’t want him to think she was out here alone. Yet he scented not so much caution as challenge from her. Interesting.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he felt compelled to say.
“Says the pervert before he kidnaps the girl and shoves her in his trunk.” She pushed past him and walked quickly out of the forest and into the wheat field that boasted ankle-high dried stalks jutting up from the foot-deep snowpack. “Don’t follow me!”
Beck couldn’t not follow her. The road edging the field led to town. And it had started to snow in tiny skin-pinging pellets. He wasn’t going to wait for her to disappear from sight before he could take off.
He paralleled her rapid footsteps.
“Seriously, dude, would you stay away from me?”
“You think I’m going to shove you in my trunk? I think you’d scratch and give a good fight if I even looked at you the wrong way.”
He noticed the curling corner of her smirk, though she maintained her speedy gait. She liked him; he knew it. But it didn’t matter much. It was a rare pack female who would give a lone wolf like him the time of day.
“Do I know you?” he asked. “I’m not trying to be a creep. I promise. I just— I’m familiar with most of the wolves in the area packs. I think I’d remember a pink-haired wolf. Unless this is a new color for you? I like it, by the way. The cat ears, too.”
She huffed and picked up into a jog. He was tired out from his run, but Beck could keep up with her if he had to. And he wanted to. But—hell, he was winded. What was up with that? Normally shifting invigorated him.
“Who are you?” she blurted angrily.
“I’m Beckett Severo.”
The pretty pink wolf stopped abruptly, dropping her hands to her sides. Flipping back her hair with a jerk of her head, she eyed him up and down more carefully than he’d taken when looking her over. “Oh.”
“Oh?” Beck slapped a palm to his chest, feeling as though she’d just seen parts of him he’d never reveal upon initially meeting someone. “That oh sounded like you must have heard of me?”
“Uh, yeah. Something about your father?”
“Right.” Beck looked away. Shoved his hands in his back pockets. He didn’t need this conversation. It was still too raw in his heart. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about it yet. Not even his mother.
Didn’t matter who this pretty wolf was. If she knew about his father, he didn’t want to listen to the pity.
The walk into the closest town was fifteen minutes. His town was ten miles north by car. And the small bits of sleet were starting to stick to the back of his head and shoulders.
“You shouldn’t run around in the forest by yourself,” he said, changing the subject and keeping his back toward the brunt of the sleet. “The local hunters have developed a bloodlust for wolf pelts.”
She shrugged and turned to walk, but slower now, unmindful of the icy pellets. Tugging a pair of black mittens out from a jeans pocket, she pulled them on. “I trust this neck of the woods.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said with more authority than he wanted on the subject.
Beck was a werewolf. Like it or not, he made it a point to know what the hunters were up to. Because even though they didn’t believe in his kind, and they hunted the mortal realm breed of canis lupis—the gray wolf—when in wolf form, his breed could easily be mistaken for the gray wolf. And thanks to the DNR delisting the wolf from the endangered species list, the hunt had become a free-for-all.
A fact he knew too painfully well.
“Didn’t you hear the gunshots earlier?”
She shook her head.
“There are hunters in the vicinity.”
“Maybe the ghost wolf warned them away from me?”
Beck chuckled. The ghost wolf was what the media had taken to calling the recent sightings of a tall, wolflike creature that seemed to glow white. Scared the shit out of hunters.
“You shouldn’t put your faith in a story,” he said to her. “You’re not safe in the woods, plain and simple.”
“Well, you were out alone.”
“Yes, but I’m a guy.”
“Do not play the guy card with me. You think I can’t handle myself?”
“No, I just said you could probably scratch—”
The petite wolf turned and, without warning, punched him in the gut. It was a good, solid hit that forced out Beck’s breath and jarred his lower ribs. Picking up her dropped mitten, she turned and walked off while he clutched at his stomach, fighting his rising bile.
“Thanks for the chat!” she called. With that, she picked up into a run.
Beck was perfectly fine with letting her run off and leave him behind. He swallowed and winced as he fell to his knees amidst the wheat and snow.
“The guy card?” Swearing, he leaned back, stretching at his aching abdomen. “She’s got a great right hook, I’ll say that much.”
And he was getting weaker with every shift he made to werewolf. That was not good.
* * *
Daisy Blu Saint-Pierre landed at the edge of town just as the headlights of a city snowplow barreled past her on the salt-whitened tarmac. She’d left her winter coat at home, not expecting it to snow tonight. She never took along more clothing than necessary when going out for a run. Chilled, but still riding the high from the shift that kept her muscles warm and flexible, she picked up into a run.
Her teeth were chattering by the time she reached her loft in the Tangle Lake city center. There were three other occupants in this remodeled warehouse that featured lofts on the second and third floors. She wandered up the inner iron staircase, cursing her need to not drive unless absolutely necessary. Blame it on her parents, who were uber-environmental-save-the-planet types. Her dad drove an old pickup that must have been manufactured in the Reagan era. She suspected it would be more environmentally friendly to put that rust heap out of its misery and off the road, but her father, an imposing werewolf who could silence any man with but a growl, wouldn’t have it.
Once inside the loft, she stripped away her clothes, which were coated on the back with melting sleet. Leaving them in a trail of puddles behind her, she beelined toward the shower and turned it on as hot as she could stand.
The last thing she had expected while out on a run was to literally collide into another werewolf. Though, why not? should be the obvious question. The wolves in the Northern and Saint-Pierre packs used that forest all the time. Yet lately, with the hunters spreading out and some accidentally trespassing onto private land, even that forest had grown less safe.
She never ventured too near the forest’s borders, and always kept an ear and nose out for mortal scent and tracks. The gunshot had been distant. She’d not smelled the hunter, and usually, when out in nature, she could sniff out a mortal scent two or three miles away.
Beckett Severo, eh? She’d heard about his father’s tragic death not long ago. Killed by a hunter who must have assumed he was just another gray wolf. Must be awful for Beckett. She had also heard he had been there with his father when he’d been shot.
Daisy felt awful for punching him, but it had been impulsive. She didn’t know the man, and couldn’t trust him, and he’d been all in her face and trying to chum up to her. She preferred to meet her men in public places, and preferably with an advance review from a friend so she knew what she was getting into.
So maybe she wasn’t an expert on meeting people. Her defenses tended to go up for no reason other than that she was uncomfortable making small talk.
Because really? That man had been one fine hunk of wolf. He’d towered over her, and looked down on her with ice-blue eyes. She’d never seen such clear, bright irises. His sun-bleached hair had been tousled this way and that. A scruff of beard had shadowed his chiseled jaw. He’d reeked of strength and—she could admit it—sensuality.
What a man. What a wolf. It was rare Daisy met a male werewolf who appealed to her on more than a simple friendship basis. It was much easier to be a guy’s buddy than to flirt with him.
He hadn’t known her? Probably because he wasn’t in a pack. Yet she knew about his family. Severo, his father, had been a grizzled old wolf. Unaligned with any pack, but respected by many pack wolves for common sense and wisdom that had come from centuries of life. Surely Daisy’s father had mentioned Severo reverently a time or two.
Maybe. Didn’t matter. She didn’t intend to bump into Beckett again soon, so she’d have to satisfy herself with a few fantasies about the sexy wolf.
With the way her shifting abilities had been testing her lately, she was more self-involved than she cared to be. Much as she preferred shifting to wolf, the faery half of her always vied for superiority. She wasn’t sure what the deal was with that, but it was annoying. And embarrassing. She couldn’t remember when she’d last shifted around a family member. So she spent much time in her human shape, which was all right by her, save for her lacking social skills.
She was trying to break free of her introvert’s chains by competing for a freelance internship for the local newspaper. Every January the Tangle Lake Tattler offered an internship to a journalist who offered the winning story. Story competition was never fierce. She had two opponents. But that didn’t mean Daisy wasn’t giving it her all.
Researching the story got her out into the community and forced her to talk to others. She enjoyed it, and she was growing more at ease with introducing herself to strangers. Albeit, with a handshake. Not by charging into them while running out of the forest.
The story she knew would be the winner was the ghost wolf. Which is why she’d been out in the woods tonight. The great white wolf had been sighted twice in the last month. Daisy suspected the creature was werewolf due to the description the local hunters circulated on the rumor mill. Save for one odd detail. Hunters had noted the wolf glowed, as if a white specter. Thus, a ghost wolf.
If it was a werewolf, she wasn’t sure how to handle the story. Her breed valued their secrecy.
She’d deal with that if and when she needed to. Should have asked Beck if he knew anything about the ghost wolf. Hmm...
Good reason to see him again.
Chapter 2 (#ulink_2c5b2c9d-9b56-507a-8cd6-dadb1ba98dd7)
Tangle Lake’s annual Winter Ice Festival parade was followed with a massive community picnic in the park. Since it was the second week in January, everyone bundled up in winter wear, pack boots, mittens, caps, scarves and face masks. It was hard to be cold with the festivities to lighten the mood. Hockey was played on the nearby football field (iced over for winter), ice sculptures were judged in the town square (which was more of an oval, really), and ice bowling, s’mores over bonfires and even a quilt-off were held throughout the day.
Daisy decided next year she’d try her hand at the ice sculpting. She had no skills, but she wouldn’t let that stop her from learning how to use the chain saw. She loved a good competition.
Daisy’s pack always attended the festival. In town they were not known as werewolves. The humans were oblivious. And the pack principal—who was also her father—was all about community and making nice with the humans. All packs existed amongst the mortals. Garnering friendships and fitting in was key to survival.
She recognized wolves from the Northern pack pushing a sled piled with ice blocks toward the sculpting platforms. Supposedly the Northern pack had been a pretty nasty bunch of wolves in the decades before Daisy had been born. Her grandmother, Blu, had been a member then, and Blu’s father, Amandus Masterson, had been the principal. He’d died—but not before first torturing Blu’s vampire husband, Creed. Since the Northern pack scion, Ridge Addison, had taken over the reins as principal, everything had changed, and the pack was now peaceable toward other packs, as well as vampires.
Daisy’s father, Malakai Saint-Pierre, was somewhere in the crowd, probably testing the various hot dishes offered at the bake stands and flirting with the women. Her mother, Rissa, took it in stride because Kai was fiercely faithful to her. But with a former reputation about town as a Casanova, he had no problem soaking up the female attention.
Her mother had stayed at home today in favor of an afternoon to herself. She was uncomfortable in large crowds. It wasn’t because she was one-hundred-percent faery; Rissa was just quiet and didn’t much understand socializing.
Daisy could relate. Her mother had bequeathed her the scarlet letter of introversion. Her four brothers had inherited their father’s extroversion. They could all be somewhere in the area, though she suspected Blade had stayed away. He wasn’t much for crowds simply because he was secretive.
A familiar face smiled through a bustle of winter caps. Stryke was the second-youngest of Daisy’s four brothers, and was full werewolf. Trouble was also full werewolf. Kelyn was faery. And Blade was a mix of vampire and faery (the vamp was thanks to their grandfather Creed’s DNA).
“Hey, sis!”
Stryke pulled her into a generous hug. The guy was a master hugger. When he hugged, he gave his all. The wise, more cerebral one of the bunch, he was the one his siblings went to when they had a problem and needed to talk.
“Why the long face?” he asked, turning to lean against the concrete bike rack where she had paused. “Not into the festivities?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Just kinda melancholy, I guess.”
“Yeah, this town isn’t the most exciting. Hot dishes and lutefisk?” He shuddered comically.
“Tangle Lake.” Daisy recited the town’s name. “And not a tangle to it. This town is straighter than straight. The highway dashes a straight line beside it. All the streets are parallel and straight. Even the lake is square! I need a tangle, Stryke.” She sighed, twisting the ends of her pink hair. “I’d even settle for a little twist.”
“I hear you.” Stryke’s gaze traversed a nearby ice bowling match, where the participants bowled ice balls toward frozen autumn squash. “I can’t wait for Aunt Kambriel’s wedding this summer.”
Kambriel, their aunt, who was their father’s twin sister (and a vampire), had fallen in love with the vampire Johnny Santiago and planned to wed in Paris, where she currently lived.
“You might find yourself a European werewolf,” Daisy said, knowing her brother’s strong desire to find a woman and settle down. Yet for some reason Stryke was never compelled to put down roots with any of the women in the area. Not interesting enough, he’d often lament.
“That’s the plan,” he agreed. “A tangle, eh? I’m not sure you’ll find the excitement you’re looking for in Tangle Lake, Daisy. Most exciting thing lately— Well, hell, what about that ghost wolf? You think it’s a werewolf?”
“Yes,” she answered quickly. And then, “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m doing a story on it for the local paper. Or I’m trying to.”
“Whatever it is, be careful.”
“I will. Do you think it’s a werewolf?”
“Yes,” Stryke said. And then, “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I’d have to see the thing up close. And I’m not sure I want to. Though I can promise Trouble would like to have a go at it.”
The eldest brother of the siblings, Trouble (whose real name was Jack) had a thing for picking fights and pushing people to their breaking point. But he did it in a playful way. Unfortunately, most people did not get his confrontational humor.
“I have to go,” Stryke said. He nodded toward a crowd of young women bundled up in bright ski pants and boots. Pom-poms bobbed on their heads and mittens, plus a few at their boot ties. A cavalcade of sex kittens. “Got a date.”
“A tangle?”
“If I’m lucky.” He winked. “You going to the fireworks?”
“Kelyn and I usually head out together. I’ll see you later, Stryke.”
He kissed her cheek, a cold smack that made her giggle, and strode off toward the pom-pom kittens.
Sighing, Daisy tugged out the paperback she always took along to public events and found the bookmarked page. She wore gloves with rubber tips on the fingers, designed for operating touch devices. Books were the ultimate touch device. Immersing herself in the fiction, she strolled slowly along the packed snow embankment that edged the hockey rink where makeshift teams had gathered to play. Should have brought her skates. What she wouldn’t give to slap sticks for a while...
All of a sudden, someone charged into her. Daisy dropped her book and made to shove away the annoying guy, but she paused when she saw who it was. The sexy wolf she’d run into the other night at the edge of the forest.
“What is it with you and the need to ram into me every chance you get?” she asked.
“Uh, sorry. I had my eye on the puck.” He tossed the hockey puck he picked up from the snow toward the guys outfitted in knee pads and skates waiting on the ice. “Besides, this is the first time I’ve rammed into you. If you’ll remember correctly—”
“Yes, yes, I recall. So you’re playing with the mortals?”
“Exclusivity to one’s breed is not wise in this small town.” He swept a hand toward the players who had continued the game without him. “They’re a great bunch of guys. I love hockey. There you go.”
“I like hockey, too, but I don’t think the boys would like a woman joining them.”
“Probably not. All the girls are over at the food booths making cocoa and serving us men.”
Daisy’s jaw tightened. “I don’t serve any man.”
Beck swerved his gaze toward her. “Huh? Oh. Right. Sorry, that was—”
“An asshole thing to say.”
“Whoa. This is fast going down an icy slope I don’t want to slip on. Let’s start over.” Tugging off a leather glove, he then bent to pick up her book and handed it to her. “Sorry. The pages got snow on them. Don’t you have one of those fancy e-readers like I see everyone carrying nowadays?”
“I have a few of them,” Daisy said proudly. “Sometimes I prefer the touch, feel and smell of a real book.”
She pressed the closed book to her nose and inhaled. Snow had dampened a few of the pages, but she couldn’t be upset because she also owned the digital copy of this book.
“It’s so personal to hold a book in my hand. I can open it to any place I like with a few flutters of the page. I can trace my fingers down the words, rereading phrases that speak to me. The stories make my heart race and my skin flush. My toes curl when I’ve read a well-crafted sentence. Mmm...”
“Uh...”
She glanced at Beck, whose mouth hung open. Oh, those eyes could attract wise men on a clear winter night beneath a velvet star-filled sky.
He scratched his head. “You just made reading sound sexual.”
So she had. “Books turn me on.” Daisy resumed her stroll along the snowbank shoveled up around the rink.
The wolf in hockey skates followed, blades sinking into the packed snow. “Really? They turn you on?”
She nodded. She wasn’t sure she’d ever find a man equal to the heroes she read about in her stories, but she held out hope. Of course, the stories were fiction. She knew that. But it was okay to dream. And besides, when she finally did find a hero of her own, she felt sure she’d recognize him immediately for his gleaming honor and smoldering sensuality.
“So it’s one of those sex books?” he asked.
Daisy stopped and toed her boot into a chunk of snow. Oh, she pitied the poorly read. “Just what implies a sex book in your mind?” She waved her book between the two of them. “Anything with a pink cover?”
“Anything with sex in it, I guess.”
He was out of his league, and he knew it. Daisy smiled triumphantly. Points to the women’s team.
“Says the wolf who’s probably never read more than fast-food menus and car manuals.”
“Don’t forget The Iliad. I may have been home-schooled, but I don’t think there’s a way for any breathing teenager to avoid that snorefest.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. She wasn’t much for mythology, but wouldn’t admit to him that she agreed with his assessment of the classic tome. That would be too much like flirting. Of which she did not partake.
“I have read a lot of car manuals,” he added. “I own a shop at the edge of Burnham.”
“Hockey, cars and tromping through the forest without a shirt on. Such a guy you are.”
He stabbed the hockey stick into the snow and propped both wrists on the end of it. “I can’t tell if you’re admonishing me or trying to flirt awkwardly.”
“I—” Stymied, Daisy turned her gaze away. She did not flirt. Because if she did, it would be exactly as he’d implied—awkward.
One of the men guiding the puck across the ice with the mortal crowd called to Beck to return. He waved and said he’d be right there.
Shoving up the sleeve of his jersey to reveal the long thermal sleeve beneath, he winked at her. “If you’re in the mood to test your flirtation skills later, come find me.”
“I, er—”
Without waiting for what would surely be the awkward reply of the century, Beck tromped off, blades cutting hashed tracks toward the ice.
Daisy couldn’t help but notice the flex of his quadriceps with each stride. Clad in jeans and a fitted long shirt, over which he wore a big loose hockey jersey, the attire highlighted his awesome physique.
“Nothing new,” she said to herself. All the wolves in the local packs were ripped. It was the very nature of a werewolf to be so muscular.
Unless of course he was Kelyn, her youngest brother. Who wasn’t actually a werewolf at all, but rather, had inherited their mother’s faery DNA. He was lean and lithe, yet her father deemed him the most deadly of all his boys. Faeries were swift and malicious, Malakai would often say.
Daisy hated to think of Kelyn as malicious. And he was not. She hoped he wouldn’t develop a complex because of her father’s words.
No longer interested in the book, she stuffed it in her coat pocket and wandered under a massive willow tree where a half dozen tween girls were sipping hot chocolate and cider from thermoses and texting on their cell phones, fingertips bared by half gloves.
“Why is your hair pink?” one of them asked as Daisy walked by.
“Because my mom dropped a can of paint on it when I was born,” she offered, smirking. “Why is yours red?”
The befreckled girl shrugged. “Yours is pretty. I wish mine wasn’t so ugly.”
“Yours is gorgeous,” Daisy offered. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently. It’s good to be unique, not like everyone else.”
The girl sat up a little straighter. The friend beside her, sporting a hot-chocolate mustache, nodded in agreement.
“What’s the best food to get today?” Daisy asked the group. “I’m in the mood for something sweet.”
“Try my grandma’s chocolate peanut butter brownies. Over there.” One of them pointed toward a table draped in red, around which dozens loomed. “She’s selling them cheap.”
“Thanks.” Daisy waved them off and wandered toward the food tables, her boots crunching across the snowpack.
Unique, eh? She smirked at her encouraging words. But not so unique that a woman’s body couldn’t make up its mind whether or not to be werewolf or faery. That wasn’t unique; that was just pitiful. She had to get it figured out. But she had no clue how to do so.
When she reached the table, she had to wait in line, and when only halfway to the front, a tall, blond man approached her and offered her a treat. “These are awesome. I figured you’d like to try one.”
“Are you following me?” she asked as she accepted a brownie as heavy as a small kitten. She got out of line. “You were just on the ice.”
“And then I was not. I always answer the call of my stomach. Even if it sets me back a cool ten bucks for two brownies.”
“What? These cost five dollars apiece?” The girl had said they were cheap. Shady sales tactics at that.
Daisy bit into the thick, moist chunk of chocolate and peanut butter and sighed one of those after-orgasm kind of sighs.
“Right?” Beck agreed. “Well worth the expense. I may never eat my mother’s brownies again. Ah, that’s not true. I’ll chow a brownie any day. Even the five-dollar kind. Now I need something hot to wash this down with.”
“Over there.” She pointed to a refreshment stand. He grabbed her by the free hand and led her toward where she had pointed. “Did I say I wanted something to drink? Dude, we are not on a date.”
“I know, but I figured the brownie should earn me some chat time with you. I’ll get us some cider, and there’s a tree over there that’s calling our names.”
“Do you even know my name?”
He paused from digging out his wallet from a back pocket. “Uh...I guess not.”
“Bring cider,” Daisy said.
With a wink that surprised her probably more than it did him, she wandered over to the tree.
* * *
With the brownie gently clutched between his jaws, Beck headed toward the tree where the gorgeous pink-haired wolf sat. Reading while others partook of the festivities? She was a curiosity to him, and he liked that he couldn’t figure her out.
He bit off a bite as he sat, catching the brownie in his palm. She snagged the foam cup of cider before he’d even settled against the trunk.
“I should have gotten two,” he said.
“That’s okay, I only want a sip.” She handed him the cup.
Beck peered into the cup. It was half-empty. “A sip?”
She shrugged and finished off her brownie. He wanted to tweak those cat ears on top of her hat, but instead he wolfed another bite.
“So who do I have the pleasure of sitting with under the maple tree this chilled and frosty January afternoon?”
“Daisy Blu,” she said, and offered a hand to shake.
Beck gripped the cup lip with his teeth, and with brownie in one hand, shook with his free hand.
“Saint-Pierre,” she then said.
He dropped the cup and it almost spilled in his lap, but he made a fast-reflex save. “Uh, Malakai Saint-Pierre’s daughter? The pack principal who makes swords for a living?”
She nodded, licking her fingers clean of chocolate crumbs.
“I thought he only had the boys.”
Beck scanned the picnic area, filled with mortals and paranormal breeds of all sorts and sizes. Living in the next town ten miles north, he didn’t know a lot of people in Tangle Lake. He kept to himself far too much. But everyone knew about Malakai Saint-Pierre.
“Four boys,” Daisy said. “But I was here first. Who you looking for? Don’t worry, my dad’s not around. At least, I don’t think he is.”
Beck stood and nodded that she follow him around the trunk. “Let’s sit on the other side of the tree, okay?”
She settled next to him with a laugh. “Are you afraid of my father?”
“I wouldn’t say afraid, more like leery with an edge of self-preservation. Dude’s not the sweetest wolf in the pack.”
“Yeah, he’s not too keen on unaligned wolves. Which is what you are, am I right? You being Severo’s son?”
“Not for lack of your father trying to get me to join your pack.”
“Really? My dad has invited you to join us? Why haven’t you done so?”
“I have nothing against the Saint-Pierres. Or any of the local packs, for that matter. Joining a pack doesn’t feel right to me. My father was always adamant that a man didn’t need a pack to stand up for what was right within the werewolf community.”
“I’ve heard about your father. Severo was a good man. But I have to point out the serious flaw in your sneaky attempt to hide out.”
“What’s that?”
“Now we won’t be able to see my father coming.”
“Shit. Maybe we should—”
Daisy placed a hand on his knee just as Beck attempted to stand. The woman’s hand was warm, even in this weather, and her heat crept quickly through the jeans and to his skin. Nice. He settled against the snow-encrusted tree trunk.
“I’d scent him before he got too close,” she said. “I’ll give you advance warning if you need to run.” Then she smiled and tucked a swath of hair over her ear. “I shouldn’t be talking to you, either. But I like a little risk in my life now and then.”
“Don’t get enough from your books?”
“Not exactly.”
“Is that why you think it’s a good idea to run in the forest all alone? You really should take someone with you.”
“I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine. You going to eat that last piece of brownie?”
Beck held up the piece, and Daisy made a remarkable snatch with her teeth. She giggled, pressed her fingers over her mouth, then snagged the cup of cider from him, as well.
Licking his fingers clean, he could but shake his head. This one, as much as he should stay the hell away from her, he wanted to learn more about. Because getting close to Malakai Saint-Pierre’s daughter could prove a lesson in Stupid Things Guys Do. But at the same time: kitty ears, pink hair and an irrepressible giggle. How to resist that?
She looked at him now with such curiosity that he matched her gaze with an intense stare. “What?” he implored.
“I was just thinking there are probably icebergs in the Arctic the same color as your eyes.”
“Wow. Look who just got their flirt on.”
“I wasn’t—uh...”
He waited for her to realize that she had indeed been flirting. Didn’t take her long. She busied herself with the ends of her hair. Ha! She liked him.
“So what do you do, Daisy Blu with the kitty ears who wanders about with her nose in a book?”
“You mean like work? I am a budding journalist.”
“Is that so?”
“I’m competing for a freelance position with the Tangle Lake Tattler. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I’m not so good at making up stories. I like digging for facts, learning the truth.”
“A noble pursuit. So what truths have you dug up lately?”
“Well, Mrs. Olafson, who lives at the corner across from the courthouse? She’s growing marijuana in her backyard shed.”
Beck faked a shocked openmouthed gape. Could he touch that pink hair? Just a careful slide of his fingers over it without her noticing? Because if she wanted to flirt...
“Thing is, she has no clue what it is. I couldn’t bring myself to actually write about it. Besides, I’ve got a bigger, better story I’m working on that I know will win me the job.”
“Much luck to you. Isn’t often you hear of pack princesses working.”
“No one calls me princess unless they want a black eye.”
“Duly noted. So you’re the modern working-class prin—er, wolf chick, eh?”
“I’m half faery.”
“Is that why your hair is pink?”
“No one will ever pull one over your eyes.”
“A faery wolf. I like it.”
“So what do you do? You said you’re not from Tangle Lake?”
“No, I’m up in Burnham. I have a garage just off the highway. It’s not open to the public yet. I’m working on some friends’ cars right now. Want everything to be perfect and have a career plan in place before I put up signs. I get a lot of business just by word of mouth anyway.”
“If I drove more than once every few weeks, I’d bring my car to you just because you were so nice to share your last sip of cider.” She handed him the cup, empty, and served him a wide grin that teased him for a kiss.
But that would be too risky. Her father was a pack leader. And princess or not, Beck knew she wore a flashing no touch sign as a tiara.
“I should have bought two cups.” He snickered and leaned his head back against the trunk. “So journalism is a full-time job?”
“Hardly. Only a few hours here and there. When I’m not pursuing a career, I’m also a sculptor.”
“That’s cool. You enter the ice sculpture contest?”
“Next year. That’ll give me the winter to learn how to use a chain saw.”
It wasn’t difficult to imagine her wielding a chain saw. Not after that powerful right hook she’d served him in the field. She was petite but packed a punch. “What do you sculpt?”
“Anything with recycled metal. My dad’s a blacksmith. I used to watch him forge swords when I was a little girl. Always wanted to be able to manipulate metal the way he did. One day when he was welding on his old truck, I asked to help, and I’ve been welding my designs ever since.”
“Welding? That sounds macho.”
“Yeah?” Daisy bent up her arm, making a fist. An impressive bicep bulged beneath the sleek white winter coat. “I grew up with four brothers. I don’t think I could do feminine if I tried.”
“You’re doing it right now.” Beck traced a strand of her hair back over her ear. Score! It felt as soft as it looked. She flinched and gave him the curious eye. “Sorry, just wanted to touch it.”
“It’s hair, dude.”
“And you’re kind of defensive, you know that? Is it because of the ‘you shouldn’t talk to an unaligned wolf’ thing? Or is it that I just don’t appeal to you?”
“You appeal to me,” she said quickly. She sat up, tilting her head down and closing her eyes. Shaking her head, she said, “I didn’t mean to say that. It just came out.”
“You like me,” Beck teased. He dipped his head to catch her straying gaze. “It’s because I seduced you with brownies, right?”
She punched him playfully on the biceps. Beck winced. It hadn’t been quite as gentle as she may have intended it to be. So he fell over to his side and moaned.
“Yeah, and don’t you forget it,” Daisy said.
The sass that ran through her veins just needed a little prodding to rise above what he suspected was a bit of a shy streak. He hadn’t seen her talking to anyone here at the festival. And if she had a boyfriend, she wouldn’t be talking to him right now.
“So what do you sculpt?” he asked, moving closer so their shoulders touched.
“Anything that I’m feeling at the moment. I’m working on a project for the wolf sanctuary up north. I use lots of abandoned scrap metal. Right now I’m into recycling bicycle chains.”
“Really? I have a whole box of bicycle chains at the shop. They’re yours if you can use them.”
“Of course I can.”
“Stop by anytime and pick them up. I’m at the shop most of the day, and if not, I’ll let Sunday know they’re yours.”
“Sunday? You mean Dean Maverick’s wife?”
“Yep. Sunday used to have a shop when she lived in North Dakota. She’s a gearhead like me. My shop is the only place she’s got to get her grease on.”
“And her husband doesn’t mind?”
“Dean’s a cool guy. We chat when he stops by to pick up Sunday. Not all in the packs are against the lone wolves like me, you know.”
“I’m not against you. I just don’t understand why you don’t feel the need for family that a pack offers.”
“I have family with my mom and my—” He hung his head. Now was no time to step into that bleak memory. “You want another brownie?”
“No, thank you. I should get going. I promised my mom I’d stop by with some treats from the picnic.”
“You going to the fireworks later?” he asked.
“Possibly. Will you be at your shop this afternoon? Maybe I could stop by for the bike chains?”
“I’ll be there in a few hours. But this is the deal—I’ll give you the chains if you’ll watch the fireworks with me tonight.”
She crossed her arms and made a show of considering it. Her lips were the same shade as her hair. Beck bet if they kissed, she’d taste cool like ice but would warm him up faster than s’mores melting over a bonfire. Would she really turn down his offer? She seemed independent, yet certainly she was shy.
“I might have a brother along with me. Kelyn and I always watch the fireworks together. We usually find a quiet spot at the top of a hill.”
“Oh. Well, I wouldn’t want to intrude.” Nor did he want to bring the wrath of the Saint-Pierre family upon him for talking to their precious daughter.
“We’ll play it by ear. I’ll stop by your shop later, and then we can decide, yes?”
“Sure. I’m north on 35.”
“I’ve seen the shop. I know where it is.”
She took off, tugging the book out of her back pocket as she skipped across the snowy field that hugged the rink where the men slapped the hockey puck back and forth.
Beck stood and brushed the snow from his jeans. “First date with one of the brothers as chaperone? I don’t know about that.”
Chapter 3 (#ulink_65cef9ec-a21d-584f-910f-3fb4956093a9)
Beck’s shop was about ten miles out of city limits. The next town, Burnham, was four miles beyond his shop. Daisy knew the Darkwood was in the vicinity. Her brother Blade lived at the edge of the haunted forest that locals told tales about. Even the paranormal breeds avoided it for its fearsome reputation.
Though the road was hugged by tall birch trees interspersed with thick pines, Daisy found Beck’s shop easily and pulled in her Smart car before the shop’s opened garage doors. While most fix-it garages in the area featured random junkers parked here and there, tires stacked against walls and general disorder, this area was well-tended. The snow had been plowed and banked, and there was an orderly parking area with cars tagged on the license plates, likely for pickup.
Stepping out into the brisk air, Daisy’s breath fogged before her. She’d bundled up in cap, mittens and winter coat. Striding toward the opened doors, she scanned for signs of life inside and called out Beck’s name. Instead of a handsome werewolf popping his head up from behind the raised hood of a truck, the blond dreads of a very familiar familiar swung around the front quarter panel of a red F-150.
Sunday winked at Daisy. “Hey there, sweetie!”
“Sunday! Beck told me you worked here, but I didn’t expect to run into you.” Daisy looked about the neat shop that featured four car bays. Tools hung neatly along the walls, and tires were stacked in a corner. There were even red-and-white-checked curtains on the door window that must lead to the office. “Does Dean mind that you work here?”
The self-confessed grease monkey laid a wrench on the engine and wandered around the side of the vehicle. Grease smeared Sunday’s pale check. Daisy had known her since she’d been born because of the cat-shifting familiar’s friendship with her grandmother. She considered her an aunt, even. Of all the women in the family, she got along with Sunday best. Probably because they were a couple of tomboys.
“Why should Dean mind?” Sunday asked. “I don’t let my man tell me what to do. Unless it’s in bed.” She winked.
Daisy fought against rolling her eyes.
“So why are you here?” Sunday asked. “Shouldn’t you be more respectful of your father and his very obvious dislike for an unaligned wolf?”
“My dad doesn’t know I’m here. And you won’t say anything to him.”
Sunday quirked a brow, but her easy smile held the kind of knowing that all women shared when a man was the topic. “There’s nothing to tell. Beck’s a good guy. Just because he doesn’t feel comfortable joining a whole group of wolves after living in a small family his entire life shouldn’t make him a pariah.”
“Exactly,” Daisy said, relieved that Sunday had put into words what she should have said.
Behind the car bays, a big-screen TV flashed a news report that featured area gray wolves scampering across the screen.
Sunday noticed Daisy’s interest and turned up the volume with a remote she tugged out of her pocket. The report was on the local wolf hunt. It had only been a few years since the DNR had passed legislation to allow hunters free rein on the gray wolves that had been removed from the endangered species list.
Thing was, the mortals didn’t care what happened to the environment when they reduced the wolf population. Not to mention the devastation to the wolf packs. They were killing wolves that belonged to families. Fathers, mothers and pups. And the loss to the pack was no less heartfelt than a loss to a mortal family. Of course, the hunters never looked at it that way.
It made Daisy think of Beck’s loss again. Poor guy.
“So, having car trouble?” Sunday prompted. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those clown cars. I can’t imagine it has traction on an icy road.”
“I try not to drive too much in the winter. But no trouble, as far as I know. I wish I was mechanically inclined like you. None of my brothers are, either.”
“Not like they need it,” Sunday said. “Those Saint-Pierre boys are too fine to get all greasy fixing engines.”
“Whatever. I’m just here to pick something up,” Daisy said, trying to ignore the news. Though she shouldn’t. This was her story. But she was distracted by the obvious. “I’m not here for, you know, a date or anything.”
“What’s that about this not being a date?” Beck rounded a yellow sports car (sans windshield) at the end of the shop. A large cardboard box was hoisted on top of his shoulder. “I thought we were going to the iceworks tonight?”
Sunday tilted another eyebrow quirk at Daisy, and it was accompanied by a knowing smile. So much said. Daisy’s neck flushed warmly.
“We hadn’t confirmed that. Are those the bicycle chains?” she asked, to change the subject.
Beck set the box on the floor before the pickup, and both Daisy and Sunday bent to inspect the contents. Dozens of chains slicked with grease snaked within the box.
“This is awesome,” Daisy said. “I can use these.”
“Best way to get the grease off is with Simple Green,” Sunday said.
“I know. I’ve done it before.”
“How’s your art stuff coming anyway?” the familiar asked.
“My work in progress is turning out a lot cooler than I’d hoped. I plan to donate the finished piece to the wolf sanctuary up in Ely.”
“Cool.”
“And now with these, I’ll be able to finish it sooner than expected. Thanks, Beck.”
Daisy swung around toward Beck, arms out as if to hug him—her family hugged a lot—then she paused, and dropped her arms. Right. Not ready for that kind of contact. At least, not in front of the familiar.
“Uh, how much do you want for them?”
“I’ve already stated my price.” Beck crossed his arms and peered down at her with his arctic-ice eyes.
He meant accompanying him to the fireworks tonight.
Daisy blew out a breath that fogged before her, even standing within the garage. Attending the midnight iceworks near the ice castle on the lake was a family tradition. And the only way to really enjoy it was to bundle up, snuggle next to another warm body and sip hot chocolate from a thermos. She could completely imagine doing that with Beck.
She glanced to Sunday, who put up her palms and strode around the front of the hood, disappearing from view. “Not listening,” the familiar called out. “But check out the news.”
Both swung their heads toward the TV, where the female newscaster was talking about the ghost wolf that had been scaring hunters witless. A pair of hunters had sworn off hunting for wolves and anything else, including deer.
“The thing was big and nasty,” one of the hunters said to the camera. He gestured widely with his red flannel-coated arms. “And white and filmy like a freakin’ ghost.”
Beck chuckled. “Ghost wolf. That’s a good one.”
Daisy wished she could have been the one to interview the hunters.
“But it was solid!” the other hunter chimed in on a shaky voice. “It slapped the shotgun right out of my hand. I ain’t never hunting again.”
Beck’s smile captured Daisy’s attention. He was proud of what the ghost wolf was doing. Either that or he was amused by the redneck hunters getting their justice and repenting. Both were good reasons to smile, in Daisy’s opinion.
“Whoever or whatever the ghost wolf is,” she said, “it’s doing all the wolves in the area a big favor by chasing away the hunters. I hope he keeps it up.”
“He?” Beck asked as he picked up the box and started toward her car. “You called it an it first. How do you know it’s a he?”
Daisy ran up to unlock the trunk. Surprisingly, the tiny car held a lot in the back end. “I don’t know if it’s a he, or an it, or a ghost. But this whole story has superhero undertones, don’t you think?”
“Superhero?” Beck winced. “I don’t know about that.”
“The underdogs, which are the wolves and us in this case,” Daisy explained, “need a defender to protect them. And suddenly from out of nowhere comes a hero on a quest to set things right. I love it!”
“Yeah, but I’m guessing the ghost wolf doesn’t have a cape.”
“You don’t need a cape to be a superhero. Just a focus and a desire to do good. That is my new angle.”
“Your angle?”
“I did tell you I’m trying to win an internship for the local paper.”
“You’re doing a story on the ghost wolf?” His expression changed so suddenly Daisy wondered what she’d said to offend him. “I renew my warning for you to be careful and stay out of the woods unless you bring someone along with you.”
“And I renew my assertion to being able to take care of myself. You are such a guy.”
Beck sighed and shook his head. He did appear genuinely concerned, but Daisy was trying to prove herself here, so she disregarded his anguish. She could do anything the boys could do. Oftentimes better.
“So can I pick you up later?” he asked.
“Um, I guess I could call my brother and cancel with him.”
“Really? So it’s a choice between your brother, whom you’ve gone to this event with before, or the lone wolf?” Beck winced. “You should probably go with the safer bet.”
“Yeah, but that’ll never get me the tangle I want.”
“The tangle?”
Oops. Where had that confession come from? Deep inside, where the yearning part of her ignored her armor of introversion and just wanted to get tangled, that was where. If she didn’t stop blurting her secrets out to Beck, she’d tell him about her shifting troubles, too. No way. That was mortifying.
Daisy nodded toward the trunk, indicating he set the box inside. “I gotta go. I have some research to do online before tonight.”
He settled the box into the trunk and stood back to look over the box. “I cannot believe that fit.”
“Thanks, Beck. I appreciate it.”
“Where do you live? I’ll pick you up around ten.”
The man would not take maybe as an answer. So she’d let it happen. Beck would make a much better date than Kelyn. She gave him her address, which he entered into his phone.
Walking around to the door, Daisy paused and turned to find Beck standing right before her. His breath fogged out. Ice eyes took her in. The moment felt as if he should kiss her. And then it did not. It wasn’t right. Sunday wasn’t far away, and even if she said she couldn’t hear anything, Daisy knew that cats had as excellent hearing as wolves did.
She held out her hand, and Beck stared at it awhile before conceding and shaking. “Later. Uh, will there be brothers at this event tonight?”
“Probably. You scared?”
“Should I be? What’s the one’s name? Trouble? I should probably keep a good distance from anyone with a name like that.”
“Trouble is all bark and no bite. Blade is the one you won’t see coming until it’s too late.”
Daisy slid inside the car and turned the key to fire up the engine. As she backed out, she smiled and waved. Sometimes brothers came in handy. Couldn’t let him think it was going to be easy courting her, could she?
But really? The guy was courting her. How cool was that?
* * *
Beck went over the brothers’ names in his head as he pulled up before Daisy’s building. Kelyn. Had she mentioned he was faery? Faeries were no problem. And Trouble was not the one he was supposed to worry about? But Blade was? There was another brother, as well. He didn’t know his name.
But he did know the father’s name. Malakai Saint-Pierre. The man’s name was as much a mouthful as he was a menace. The wolf was big, and he made swords for a living. Freakin’ swords. He’d asked Beck on two occasions to join the pack, once a few years ago, and then only a month ago when he’d seen him in town at the local hardware store. Both times Beck had felt disdain in the man’s growl.
He couldn’t do it. Severo had lived free and alone, but he had been the best wolf Beck had ever known. His father hadn’t needed the approval of a pack. He’d lived life on his own terms and had thrived, earned respect from his fellow breed and married the woman he loved and had a son—
With another child on the way.
Beck squeezed his fingers about the steering wheel. His father should have been here for the birth of his second child. The hunter needed to pay.
The stir of his werewolf twisted inside. It straightened his spine, prodding his skin to form goose bumps. Beck growled. Now was no time to shift, so he redirected his thoughts.
He shut off the engine and stretched out his legs. Focusing on the pull at his hamstrings diverted the werewolf’s urge to run free. He normally experienced a twinge of the werewolf when upset or angry. But lately? It was growing stronger. More insistent.
Concentrate on Daisy. Glancing over the brick building’s facade and arrowing his gaze up toward the third floor, Beck muttered, “What am I getting myself into?”
Did he need to mess around with Malakai Saint-Pierre’s daughter? He’d never let a pretty face distract him so easily. And then again, he’d always let a pretty face distract him. Anytime he went out into the world, whether walking through the grocery store or standing in line (even with a date) at the movie theater, he appreciated a pretty woman. If a guy didn’t notice the beauty walking around him, then there was something wrong with him.
But he hadn’t dated seriously in months. Not since his father’s death. The salad chick last week had been a fruitless attempt at jumping back into the social game.
He’d gone through the grief process rather quickly. Or so he felt. Lately, he was more concerned about his mother. Didn’t have time to worry about himself. He was fine. He missed Dad dearly. But he had to move on. For his mother’s sake.
So getting back into the groove with this date tonight felt right. Like he was moving forward.
As long as Daisy didn’t learn about the other thing he’d been involved with lately, then everything would be golden. Hell, he’d have a tough enough time acting accordingly if any of the brothers were wandering around the fireworks, so he didn’t have to worry about the other thing coming up.
Jumping out of the truck, he landed on the compacted snow. He wore his Arctic Cat overalls and a warm matching coat, plus gloves, pack boots and a knit ski cap. It was already bitter cold tonight. And he intended to test the whole touch not the princess theory. He looked forward to holding Daisy close to keep her warm.
Grabbing the flowers he’d worried over for a full five minutes at the grocery store, he headed inside and up the stairs to the top floor, just as she’d directed him to do. It was an old warehouse that was slowly being retrofitted for apartments, and so far Daisy and a few other residents were the only ones in the building.
“Nice,” he muttered as he topped the stairs and took in the open framework that exposed the original ironwork and ducts. Not what he’d expect a woman to choose.
Daisy was the opposite of the usual sexy, soft, slinky woman he preferred. She punched, too. Entirely unexpected, but she had warned him he’d get a black eye for calling her princess. And the pink hair? He liked it. It looked like cotton candy.
Unzipping his jacket because it was hot up here, Beck knocked on the door, then whipped the flowers around behind his back. He waited a few seconds, listening. All wolves could hear well, and if she had been in the shower, he’d hear the running water and start to imagine that water slicking over her skin—
“Those for me?”
He spun around to find a pink-haired pixy wolf standing behind him, a smudge of black across her cheek. She wiped her hands down an old gray T-shirt, imbuing it with more grease.
“Uh, yes?”
He held out the fluorescent blue daisies. The color was god-awful, but they had made him think of her. “For Daisy Blu, blue daisies.”
“That’s so...” She wrinkled her lips into a moue as she accepted the horrible bouquet. Sporting wilted leaves, with one of the flower heads chopped off, it had been the best of the bunch. A guy couldn’t find any better in the middle of January in a Midwestern Minnesota town.
“Thank you,” she breathed, in a more impressed tone than he had expected or deserved. “It’s sweet that you got them because of my name.”
“You don’t have to act all happy about it. They’re an ugly bunch, but—”
“No, I love them. Come inside.” She opened her door and he followed her in, but stayed on the rubber mat inside the doorway. “I’ll put them in water, then get ready,” she called as she disappeared around a corner.
The vast loft ceiling was two, maybe even three, stories high. He loved the wide-open space. Immediately before him lay the living area with couch, TV and armchairs. To his right must be the kitchen that he couldn’t see from his position. Off to the left and behind the living area, he saw something big covered with a sheet. Tools and a workbench stood nearby.
“I’m sorry.” Daisy appeared before him, twisting her hair about a finger. “I completely lost track of time. I was over at my neighbor’s. Her old stove is trying to kick the bucket, and she won’t invest in a new one. I had to pull out the heating coil and give it a good talking-to.”
“That works with appliances? A good talking-to?”
She shrugged. Such a pretty pink little pixy wolf. He could kiss her right now. Run his fingers through her hair, pull her close and taste her mouth until he forgot his name. But she probably read about that kind of stuff in her books all the time.
How to win over this particular woman, who was like no woman he had ever dated before? The flowers had been stupid. Should have gone for one of those paperback romances he’d noticed in the checkout line.
“Give me ten minutes,” she said. “I’ll go wash my face and change quick. You can sit on the couch.”
He lifted a foot. “Uh, I should stay here. My boots are wet.”
“Suit yourself. In that case, I’ll make it five.”
She scampered off to the back of the loft. A king-size bed sat against the wall, and near that an iron bar suspended from the high ceiling served as a clothes rack. She pulled a few items from it then disappeared into the bathroom, which appeared to be the only room that was actually walled and private.
Beck squatted down and took in the place. The window at the end of the bedroom was curved to a peak at the top, sort of cathedral-like. Cool. And probably romantic as hell to lay snuggled in bed together watching the moonlight.
He smiled and rubbed a hand over his grin, but realized he didn’t need to hide his reaction to the sexy thought.
Beyond the window, the rest of the place was clean and industrial. It was the ultimate bachelor’s pad. Big, spacious, minimal decoration. Nothing froufrou. And there was a welder’s torch on the bench over by what he assumed was the covered artwork.
He’d like to see how she was using the bicycle chains. Hell, he’d like to see anything she wanted to show him, so long as that meant they got to spend some time together.
“What about the brother?” he called when she stepped out of the bathroom five minutes later, pulling her hair back and twisting it into a ponytail.
“Brother? Oh, right. Kelyn is going to look for me there. He’s got a date tonight, too. So we’re on our own.” She scampered up before him, dressed in snug gray jeans and an oversize black sweater that looked softer than a kitten. “You okay with that?”
“With having you all to myself? I think I can deal.”
“Great.” She pulled on some snow pants, a coat and a black knit hat with the cat ears on the top and long strings that hung down over her coat and ended in big black pom-poms. “What’s wrong? You’re staring.”
“You’re just so cute,” Beck said.
Daisy punched him in the arm. Apparently this woman’s way of dealing with compliments was with violence.
Good, he thought. She’d keep him on his toes. If not leave a permanent bruise on his biceps.
Grabbing a tote bag from the kitchen chair, Daisy led him through the doorway. Toggling a cat ear on her hat, he closed the door. “This way, kitten.”
“Oh, do not kitten me,” she said as she locked the door behind them.
“You prefer pixy wolf?”
“Pixy wolf?”
“Yeah, you look like a pixy.”
“Apparently you have never seen an actual pixy. They’re no bigger than six or seven inches and have pointy ears and a nasty manner.”
“Then nix the pixy reference. How about faery wolf?”
“Why don’t you try Daisy?” she suggested, and shuffled down the stairs.
Beck nodded. Hell, he was nervous. He felt like he’d never been on a date and he was doing everything wrong.
Chill, man. Relax and get to know the girl.
What was it Beck had heard about faeries and their wings? Something about touching them being a sexual turn-on.
“Nice,” he muttered.
Chapter 4 (#ulink_90b418bb-90de-5b35-a76c-ac7426768a5d)
They’d found the perfect perch on a hilltop and up against a rock, just behind the masses of people who had gathered at the park. The ice castle sat before the lake, its neon lights reflecting on the shoveled lake surface. The fireworks would begin when they turned off the multicolored spotlights on the castle, usually around eleven.
Daisy poured Beck a cup of hot chocolate that she had made before going to help her neighbor with her stove. The brew smelled so good, she took a sip before handing Beck his cup.
“Had to check,” she said. “Make sure it’s not too hot for you.”
“Thank you, mother.”
“Hey, I’m a chocolate freak, so you know. And I don’t share my chocolate with just anyone.”
“Then I’m honored. To sharing.” He tilted his cup against hers, and they drank the toast.
“What?” Beck stared at the cup, mouth open in awe. “This is...” He took another sip, eyes closed and a satisfied murmur rising. “This is the most amazing stuff I’ve ever tasted.”
Daisy bristled with pride. “Why thank you. It’s a recipe from my aunt Kambriel.”
“Did she steal it from the gods?”
Daisy chuckled. “Actually, one of her friends works at Angelina in Paris. It’s a ritzy place known for its decadent hot chocolate. The recipe is a lot of work, but in the winter I make it at least once a month and freeze it for emergencies. It’s necessary to me, like breathing.”
“I love it. I love you. I love your aunt. Do you think she’d marry me?”
“She’s getting married to a handsome vampire this summer.”
“That’s too bad for me. What about you?”
“A marriage proposal on our first date?”
Beck sipped again, his eyes closing in bliss. “Yes, please?”
“You stick with love for the hot chocolate for now. I’ll reconsider your offer at a later date. Besides, love is so easy.”
“You think so? I suppose I did confess love kind of quickly. But seriously, are there witches in your family? I think you’ve put some magic in this hot chocolate.”
“No witchcraft. No even a smidge of faery magic. Just tender loving care. Love it all you like. You can even love me if you want to. Because the real challenge is in liking a person.”
“How so?”
Daisy pulled up her knees to her chest and held the hot cup beneath her face. The scent was heady. “When you like someone,” she explained, “you enjoy spending time with them. You can hold conversations and never get bored of what the other is saying. Or you can just be next to one another in silence and not feel the need to talk. You tolerate their bad habits, and admire their good. Trust me, like is hard work.”
“I agree. To like!” Beck tilted his cup against Daisy’s. “So your aunt is marrying a vampire in Paris, eh? Fancy. And a werewolf pairing up with a vamp? Cool.”
“Kam’s a vampire. My grandpa Creed is vampire, so, well, you can figure things out.”
“I can. My mom is a vampire. Though she was mortal until a nasty bitch of a vampire transformed her after she met my father.”
“She’s Belladonna, right? How is your mother doing?”
Beck took another sip, pausing for a while. She studied him from the side. The barely there stubble on his chin wanted a shave because his good clean looks demanded it. But she guessed he kept the stubble for that hint of danger, and it was probably warmer in the winter. He had the all-American tousled blond-and-brown hair, and that killer smile. And if she looked into his blue eyes long enough, she’d surely fall in like faster than a falling star.
She’d forgotten what she’d asked him, so when he finally answered she had to think back.
“Fine,” he said.
“Fine?” His mother. “Oh, right. That’s good. And you?”
“Me? Don’t I look fine?”
“You look more than fine.” The words came out in a dreamier tone than she’d intended.
“Is that so?” Beck wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. “You look a little cold. Drink up.”
She did, and the hot chocolate filled her gut with a warm explosion that loosened her nerves and coaxed her to settle against him a little snugger. They both wore cold-protective snow wear, so she’d never feel his body heat. But she could smell him now. A little bit of chocolate and a lot of sensual wildness. His aftershave wasn’t too strong. She liked it. Woodsy and warm. Like an old leather book found in the hollowed-out trunk of a tree on a hot summer evening.
Mmm, she’d like to crack open his cover and delve deep into his pages. She bet his story was filled with adventure, action and some steamy sex scenes. She could hope.
“So where’s this brother I need to worry about?” he asked.
With any luck, Kelyn would not find them tonight. Not that Daisy expected her brother to actually look for her if he was on a date. If they happened to see one another, then he’d probably wave across the crowd.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s got an eye on us even as we speak,” she said, then regretted that tease. “Kelyn’s cool. If he sees us, just wave.”
“Right. Why do I feel as if I have a target on my head, and there are four—five, including your dad—wolves who want to shoot holes through it?”
“I have no idea. You’re the one getting all worked up over nothing. Haven’t you dated a wolf from a pack before?”
“Nope. You did get the whole lone wolf part about me, right?”
“If you think it’s such a bad decision, why are we here right now?”
“Because always making the right decision is boring. Sometimes the wrong one is a hell of a lot more fun. And not getting to learn more about you would be worse than losing my head to one of the Saint-Pierre boys,” he said. “Besides, you’ve already forgotten. I love you.”
“Right. A victim of my witch’s brew. I can dig it. Love me all you want. Just don’t expect me to fall head over heels in like with you too quickly. We don’t even know one another.”
“That is going to change. Let’s talk.”
“So what do you want to know about me?”
He toggled the kitty ears on her cap, then tugged the string hanging over her jacket. “What’s a cute wolf like you doing without a boyfriend? I can’t believe I didn’t have to fight off a ton of wolves at the picnic to get near you.”
Daisy shrugged. “I’m...” She sighed. The truth was she probably pushed men away simply by being who she was. And yet there were more days than most that she had no idea who she was. Wolf or faery? “I’m not so much shy as kind of content with my aloneness. If that makes any sense.”
“Not really.”
“I’m not like most women.”
“You mean most women don’t get excited over greasy bike parts and know how to fix the heating element in an old stove? Who would have guessed?”
“You tease, but next time your stove goes on the fritz...”
“I’ll know who to call. So you like doing things with your hands. Nothing wrong with that.”
It pleased her that he hadn’t said boy things. She’d grown up with the tomboy label. Competing against her brothers for her father’s attention had been as natural as breathing. And that had required a hard skin and masculine interests. The tomboy persona hadn’t bothered her until her twenties when she’d noticed the women in their pretty dresses walking with their handsome lovers. Femininity was so easy for them. Walking in high heels? Daisy would rather jump in mud. (Which was always a blast.)
And really, dealing with the werewolf in her was always an issue when dating mortal men. But she loved being a wolf, so she wasn’t about to complain. Though, her wolf was “one of the boys.”
“My father taught me a lot about blacksmithing and working with metals,” Daisy felt the need to explain. “And if you grow up with brothers, well then.”
Beck leaned into her a little more, just enough so she could relax against him without worrying about toppling over. “I think it would be awesome to have so many siblings.”
“I can’t imagine what it would be like to be an only child. I suppose your parents spoiled you?”
“I’m not sure doing chores every day, chopping wood and helping my dad tend our land could actually be labeled spoiled. Though I confess I am a momma’s boy. She taught me how to cook. I can make a mean wild rice Tater Tot hot dish.”
“Ohmygoddess, seriously?” Daisy twisted to fall against Beck’s arm and curled her mitten-clad hand about his forearm. “I love hot dishes.”
“Like I love your hot chocolate?”
She nodded. “I could marry it. So long as it doesn’t have cream of mushroom soup in it.”
“I’m not much for mushrooms.”
“I knew there was a reason you appealed to me.”
“I promise to protect you from any and all mushrooms we should ever encounter. And so you know? I would do anything for this hot chocolate.” He held up the empty cup. “Tell me what you want and it’s yours, oh pink-haired faery wolf.”
Oh, she could think of a few things she’d like him to do for her—all of them involving privacy and snuggling before a warm fireplace. Daisy couldn’t resist the lone wolf’s allure any longer. “How about a kiss?”
Beck opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment the crowd erupted in an excited whoop. The lights on the ice castle blinked out. Immediately following, a multicolored firework dazzled in the sky, twinkling, lingering and spilling over the iced lake. More sparklers followed at a rapid pace, accompanied by the crowd’s oohs and aahs.
Daisy snuggled against Beck’s chest to watch. “I’ve come here every winter with my parents, and then with friends.” She pointed to a particular small firework that spun like a Chinese whirligig. “But this time it feels more...magical.”
“I like the sound of that.” He slid down parallel to her so their faces were inches apart. “Now about that kiss.”
Daisy tilted up her chin. Their breaths fogged in a mingled cloud. She closed her eyes, anticipation scurrying heat through her system. Beck’s mouth touched hers. The cold night made the first touch icy but fun. She giggled, but didn’t stop the kiss. He slid his hand behind her head as he deepened their connection. Warmth radiated through her system, and she forgot that it was colder than a deep freeze.
His stubble brushed her chin. When she breathed through her nose, the woodsy aura that surrounded him filled her senses and transferred her to that hot summer night she’d been thinking about.
Nothing had ever felt as good as Beck’s mouth against hers. Not even winning a race against Kelyn, who was amazingly swift. This kiss was all hers. She hadn’t needed to compete for it. It was a prize she’d not known she needed until now.
Above them the fireworks glittered up the sky. Beneath them the compacted snow crunched as their pack boots slid over the surface. Beside them, the thermos of hot chocolate rolled across the snowy ground and hit the booted toe of a man who had just arrived hilltop.
“Daisy Blu?”
She broke away from the delicious heat of Beck’s mouth, wishing she hadn’t heard her name and that she could kiss him again and again, but the voice was too familiar. And it wasn’t a brother.
“Ah, shit,” Beck said under his breath.
Daisy twisted to sit and looked up at the dark-haired man towering over them. “Hey, Dad.”
Chapter 5 (#ulink_903ffe5a-269c-5a00-86af-604a8b580c41)
Daisy got a hand up from Beck. She noticed Beck did not stand tall before her father, but instead bowed his head, showing submission, as was expected when a lesser wolf stood before a pack alpha.
Most men might stand up to Malakai, to grandstand in an attempt to show him he couldn’t be pushed around. Those men generally walked away limping or bleeding.
Much as her anger for her father tightened her muscles, Daisy appreciated that Beck showed her father respect.
“Hello, Mister Saint-Pierre,” Beck said.
“What the hell are you doing here with my daughter?” Kai asked.
“Daddy, please.”
“Quiet, Daisy. I’m talking to Beckett.” The taller wolf was dressed in a leather jacket, his long curly dark hair pulled back behind his head to reveal his square jaw held in a tense frown. “Are you two on a date?”
“Uh...” Beck looked to her.
“Of course we are,” she broke in. “And will you stop treating me like I’m a teenager? I’m a grown woman. I can see whomever—”
Kai’s hand landed on Daisy’s shoulder, a staying move that he’d employed as she’d grown up. A means to show her he was not to be trifled with, and must always be respected. It was his gentle way of showing authority.
And she quieted.
“You won’t be seeing this lone wolf,” Kai said, his gaze fixed to Beck’s, who had trouble holding the alpha’s stare. “Isn’t that right, Beckett?”
“Uh, sir.” Beck’s shoulders rolled back. He tucked his thumbs in his pants pockets and looked Kai straight in the eye. “I don’t want to cause any problems, but I think Daisy can choose whomever she wishes to date.”
Daisy smiled inwardly. Go, Beck!
“Are you trying to tell me how to run my family, boy? My pack? Because it sure sounds like it.”
“No, sir. I— It’s our first time out together.”
“And you thought it was okay to kiss my daughter?”
“Daddy,” Daisy said under her breath. “Do not do this.”
The fireworks had ceased. The night sky grew dark with few stars. The waxing moon hid beyond the tree line. While the humans tromped back to their cars, the trio of werewolves held position at the top of the hill. Daisy scented her father’s anger, and yet, there was a tangible softness to it. Similar to how he reacted when she’d made a mistake when she was little. Like maybe he was puffing up to show aggression in display but didn’t mean it as much as he showed it.
But she hadn’t made a mistake this time. At least, she didn’t want it to be a mistake. She could understand that her father wouldn’t want her hanging around an unaligned wolf, but to approach her when they’d been kissing had been too much. She wanted to tuck tail and crawl off into the woods.
“I’ll take Daisy home,” Beck said.
“No, you won’t. I’ll drive her home,” Kai asserted.
“I brought her here. I won’t abandon her,” Beck said, his shoulders tilting back a little farther.
“I said I’d take her home, boy.”
“I want Beck to drive me, Daddy.”
Malakai Saint-Pierre twisted his neck to look down at Daisy. The menace in his gaze could never be softened, and it did not fail to strike at her heart. She swallowed back her bravery and bowed her head. When would she be able to break free of her father’s influence? Was it even possible?
“Get in the car, Daisy,” her father said.
Beck bent to pick up the thermos and handed it to her. “I’m sorry about this.”
“No, I am,” she offered. “This isn’t how things should have gone tonight.” Inhaling a deep breath, she swept her gaze over her father’s stare then wandered down the hill.
She hated leaving Beck at the hands of her father. And what had he done? He’d only wanted to get to know her better. Rare was it a guy actually asked her on a date to do something, as opposed to wanting to go straight to her house to make out on the couch. She craved the wooing process. And that kiss. It could have been amazing had her father not shown up.
Glancing up the hill, Daisy saw that her father was already on his way down. Whew. He hadn’t given Beck a chewing-out. Her father was not a cruel man, but he was feared for the very reason that his physicality was remarkable. It was the rare wolf in this area who could stand against him, alpha or otherwise.
Daisy got into the old pickup truck and pulled the door shut with the duct-taped handle. As her father got in, she tucked her legs up to her chest and twisted to face the window. The engine rattled, and the truck took off.
“He’s arrogant,” Kai said after they’d driven a few miles.
“He’s kind.”
“I’ve invited him to join our pack too many times.”
Daisy swung her head around and met her father’s brief glance. “How many is too many? Two? And the one time he was grieving his lost father.”
“Two too many. He’s refused both times. Says he doesn’t need a pack. That’s arrogance, if you ask me. Stay the hell away from him, Daisy Blu.”
Beck had every right to refuse her father. Daisy could imagine that if he had grown up with a father who had been a lone wolf, then the idea of a pack must be odd to him. Overwhelming. Perhaps even threatening.
“You’re not going to stay away from him, are you?” Kai asked softly.
Daisy bit her lower lip to fight the tears that threatened to spill down her cheek. She wanted to do the right thing in her father’s eyes. But her right and his right weren’t in alignment now. And she was a grown woman. Too old to still have her father tailing after her, approving or denying her choice in men.
“Daisy?”
“I don’t know,” she finally said.
Kai’s sigh rippled through her skin and twanged at her heart.
* * *
The afternoon had been designated for research. Scanning the internet, Daisy tried various search words, starting with “ghost wolf,” which brought up nothing. The data on werewolves provided for interesting reading, some laughs and a lot of head shaking. Eventually she typed in Fenrir, the name of a Norse god who was the son of Loki.
“The ghost wolf obviously isn’t Fenrir,” she said as she scanned the information. But there were some similarities. A monstrous wolf often depicted in paintings as white or ghostlike, he could not be restrained, save by a delicate ribbon named Gleipnir.
Though it was fascinating, it wasn’t getting Daisy any closer to results. The article needed facts, or in this case, some kind of legend to compare to the ghost wolf, at the very least. The creature was larger than life. She needed to communicate that on the page.
“I need a picture,” she said. “That would be the ultimate scoop.”
When her breed shifted to their werewolf shape, they could not be photographed. Well, they could be, but none had been that she knew of. They were fiercely protective of their secret. And should a hunter manage to snap a photograph? A quick slap of claws destroyed the camera.
What would ultimately show up on film, she wasn’t sure. Nothing, much like a vampire? Or a ghost image of the werewolf? If the ghost wolf was already transparent or some kind of filmy state, the results on film were unimaginable.
She eyed her winter clothes hanging by the door. “I’ll go out early in the evening.”
The majority of hunters would be packing up and returning home for supper at that time, yet the ghost wolf sightings had been just after dusk.
Wishing she could give Beck a call and invite him along, Daisy waffled on the idea. Her father had been adamant about her staying away from him. Yet she’d been impressed by Beck standing up to her father. He’d cowered initially, to show respect, but hadn’t been about to yield to Kai’s demands without stating his own position.
“I could like him,” she said to herself, remembering their conversation about love and like last night. Like was the goal. Love would simply be a happy bonus.
* * *
Beck had felt humiliated standing before Daisy’s father last night. He should have stood up to the elder wolf, but it had been the right choice to show respect for the man, despite his intrusion on their date. He’d learned from his father that a man must never jump to hasty violence or make judgments of a man he did not know. If Saint-Pierre didn’t want him to date his daughter...
“Hell.” Beck wandered the edge of the forest a mile from where he’d parked. “He’ll kill me if I see her again.” Or at the very least, tear him a new one with a slash of claw.
But he kind of thought Daisy liked him. Make that love. Like was something even better than love, according to her. He agreed with her definition of it, too.
Man, did he like her hot chocolate.
Did she want to see him again? She hadn’t called. But then, she didn’t have his number, nor did he have hers. He’d thought about stopping by her place today, but didn’t want to push it. Certainly, Malakai would scent him if he showed up anywhere near his daughter’s home.
Was he going to let some big boisterous wolf scare him away from the girl? Was she worth the risk?
Beck nodded. The kiss hadn’t left him. He could still feel her at his mouth, sighing into him. Clinging to his clothing and leaning in closer. Sweetly hungry. And her kisses had tasted like chocolate.
“I’m going for it,” he muttered. Because he knew a good thing when it kissed him.
Now, with the sun tracing a vibrant orange line on the horizon, he shed his winter coat and boots and pulled off his sweater. Steam lifted off his hot skin as the cold assaulted his torso and arms. He stored a waterproof backpack in a hollowed-out oak trunk. The worst thing after shifting back from werewolf form was to find his clothes sitting in a puddle of snow that had melted from the lingering body heat.
Shoving down his jeans, he shuffled barefoot in the cold snow, and when he was naked he stretched back his arms and head, breathing in the crisp night air. The world was gorgeous, and he loved breathing it in. But the very reason he stood here was enough to make him want to punch something.
And then he knew he didn’t have to. His shifted form would take care of matters nicely.
A gunshot in the distance alerted him. He judged it a few miles off. This time of day, most hunters were packing it in and heading home.
No time to waste.
Bending forward and narrowing his focus inward, Beck began to shift. His human skin stretched and prickled as fur grew in the pores and his bones lengthened. Claws grew out from his paws, and his hind legs formed into the powerful werewolf’s legs. His maw grew long, and ears twisted into long, furred beacons that picked up every movement and sound from mouse to fox, to...hunter.
Beck’s werewolf rose to an imposing height, sniffed the air and homed onto the scent of human.
* * *
Daisy kept the hunters in view, while hoping to stay out of their line of sight. She wore a vivid orange hunter’s vest over her winter coat. She’d no plans to shift tonight—not with armed hunters in the forest. But she certainly didn’t want to be so incognito that she invited a bullet.
Her camera wasn’t the best at taking night shots. And now as she leaned against the base of an oak tree, fumbling with the settings, she wished she did have something more high-powered. She’d never win the internship by handing in grainy night shots.
Thinking it would have been awesome to have someone along to keep her company on this cold dark evening, her mind drifted to Beck’s sweet smile and those entrancing blue eyes.
So maybe she was getting her flirt on with him. Felt kind of awesome.
He hadn’t called her today. She didn’t know what his number was. She thought he might have stopped by. Her father must have put fear in the handsome wolf.
Daisy decided if Beck never showed again, then that meant he wasn’t deserving of her interest. Only a wolf who dared defy her father would be worthy of her time. At least, that was the romantic version she played in her head. In reality, she knew Beck was better off staying away from her and avoiding Kai’s wrath.
Too bad. Beck’s hasty confession to loving her because she had a talent with hot chocolate had won her over. The way to a man’s heart was through food. And she wasn’t beyond utilizing such tactics. But as well, his kiss was not to be overlooked. If she never felt his kiss again, the world might never again be as bright. Heck, she’d seen fireworks during that kiss. It didn’t get any better than that.
She knew where his shop was. Nothing was stopping her from driving over to see him. “No,” she muttered. “He needs to come to me.”
A gunshot alerted her, and she whipped her head around, along with the camera. Set at its highest zoom, she peered through the lens and spotted movement. She’d turned the flash off.
There were two of them. Hunters. She saw the shotguns they held. Not aimed at anything because the wooden stocks were slung against their shoulders. And they were running for their lives.
Tilting the camera to the right, she caught a blur of white tracking through the birch trunks in the hunters’ wake.
“The ghost wolf.” Daisy tracked the blur, snapping shots repeatedly.
The frightened mortals ran within a hundred feet of her. She recognized the hunter in the lead. He had bright red hair and was known in town simply as Red, a Scottish farmer transplanted from his country to Minnesota through love and marriage. She didn’t recognize the man behind him, but he yelled for Red to hurry and get to the truck.
Then she scented the wolf. It was angry and feral, and so close she could hear its breathing. Steady, not taxed, and punctuated with vicious growls. Shaped like a werewolf, she estimated it grew two feet taller than even her father when he was shifted. It was indeed white, but a sort of filmy white, perhaps even transparent.
Remembering her mission, Daisy clicked a rapid succession of shots. When the hunters exited the forest and slammed the truck doors, the wolf paused at the tree line. It smashed out its fists to the sides, cracking the tall birch trunks, and howled. It was like no wolf howl Daisy had ever heard. The haunting noise climbed up her spine and prickled under her skin. She shivered, and sank down against the tree trunk in fear.
Her camera hand dropping to the snowy forest floor, she cast her gaze upward as the white werewolf stalked toward her.
The truck peeled away on the icy country road, its back end fishtailing until the chainless tires achieved traction.
And Daisy wished she had hitched a ride with the idiot hunters as she looked up into the ghost wolf’s red eyes.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_013ae869-584b-5746-9c57-e0395a57a1e9)
Werewolf eyes always glowed golden when shifted. Daisy had never seen the likes of these before. This wolf’s eyes were redder than a vampire’s feast.
She swore under her breath. The camera slipped out of her hand and slid across the slippery snowpack. The werewolf must recognize her scent as wolf—she hoped. But was it even the same breed as she? It was like her, and yet not. Bigger and bulkier, its shoulders and biceps curved forward in impossible musculature and ended with talons coiled into fists.
And its coloring was surreal, not of this realm. Glowy and pale, but not see-through, as she had guessed. Iridescent. From Faery? Only Faery things glowed as this wolf did. Or maybe a god such as Fenrir? Couldn’t be. According to the legend she had researched, that god had been chained until the end of time.
Its white leathery nostrils flaring, the wolf scented her, then whipped its head back and reared from her. Growling low in warning, the wolf stepped back and stretched out its arms. Emitting a long and rangy howl, it sent shivers throughout Daisy’s body. She clutched her arms across her chest and tucked her head.
With a stomp of its massive foot, the ghost wolf took off into the forest, leaving its tracks imprinted deep in the snow near her feet.
Daisy breathed out. “Holy shit, that was close.”
Holding a shaking hand before her, she assessed her heartbeat. Ready to bust out from her ribs. She shook her head. She’d take her father’s wrath over another meeting with the ghost wolf any day.
And then she checked her fear. The wolf hadn’t hurt her, hadn’t even moved to touch her. For all she knew, it could be of her breed.
“I can’t be afraid,” she said. “Only girls cry.”
* * *
By the time she arrived back in town, Daisy’s heartbeat had settled. The fear had segued to an adventurous exhilaration during her walk. She’d stood face-to-face with the ghost wolf! Her brothers would be stunned.
With adrenaline tracing her veins, she wasn’t content to go home and crawl into bed. Instead, she headed toward the west end of town where she knew Red lived. She marched up to the front door, passing the truck that hissed out steam from beneath the hood. Seeing a light on inside, she knocked.
Red answered immediately, frowned, then looked over her shoulder. As if she should have brought along an entourage?
“You it?” he asked.
“Uh, I’m Daisy Saint-Pierre, Mister Red. I heard about you seeing the ghost wolf,” she tried.
“You bet I did.”
“Would you mind answering a few questions for the Tangle Lake Tattler?” She whipped out her notepad to make it look official.
“Hell no. I ain’t talking to no one but Kare11 News. I called ’em. I thought you were it, but apparently not.” He pushed the door closed, but Daisy wedged a shoulder against it and shoved inward. “Nobody but the big news,” he reiterated, and this time managed to shut the door completely.
Daisy stepped back and stared at the door. Kare11 was the most-watched news channel in Minneapolis.
“Shoot. I should have gotten here sooner. He must have called the station as they were driving back. Couldn’t have been that scared if he was thinking about his fifteen minutes of fame.”
Daisy wandered down the path back to her car just as the Kare11 News van pulled up. She recognized the blonde reporter who got out and directed her cameraman toward the house.
The woman rushed over to Daisy and shoved a microphone in her face. “Are you related to Red MacPherson?”
Daisy shook her head. “I’m with the Tangle Lake Tattler.”
The reporter lowered the microphone. “Red didn’t give you the scoop, did he? I told him this was my story.”
“He didn’t. But I had to try.”
The woman sucked in a perfectly highlighted and blushed cheek and sneered. “Tough luck.” She spun about and marched across the shoveled sidewalk in her high heels.
Who wore high heels and a business skirt at eleven o’clock at night in the middle of January? Daisy sighed. A reporter who was always prepared to get her story, she decided. There was a lot she had to learn about the business of journalism.
But she did have one thing that might scoop them all.
Rushing back to her car, Daisy pulled away with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching her camera.
* * *
The following afternoon, Daisy opened her front door to find Beckett Severo standing there, smiling sheepishly. The frustration that had been building all day as she’d tried to understand the Photoshop program to enhance her photos slipped away. A more intriguing distraction had arrived.
And a sexy distraction, as well.
“Beck.” She shoved a hand over her hair. Hadn’t looked at it since stepping out of the shower this morning. Yeesh. “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again after, well, you know.”
“Do you want to see me?” He remained behind the threshold, hands shoved in his front pockets. “I mean, should I be here?”
“Yes.” She took his hand and tugged him inside. “I didn’t want to influence you one way or the other so I didn’t make the first move. Also, I don’t have your phone number.”
He tugged out his cell phone and pressed a few buttons, then handed it to her. “Let’s remedy that right now. Type in your number. If you give me yours, I’ll do the same.”
She grabbed her phone from the counter and handed it to him. Typing in her digits, she entered simply Daisy Blu, and not her last name. She didn’t want anything in there to remind him of her father.
“I don’t want to disrespect your father,” he said, handing her back her phone and reclaiming his. “But I couldn’t stay away.”
“Why is that?”
“That I don’t mean any disrespect to a pack principal?”
“No, I understand that completely. And I have to say I’m glad that humiliating episode did not keep you away. It must have been my hot chocolate that lured you back, right?”
“While I admit that wicked brew could certainly provide a strong lure toward you, that’s not the reason. How can a guy walk away from pink hair and fluttery lashes like yours? And you’re not like most women. You’re smart, and you have interests in things beyond shoes and celebrities.”
“I don’t know what torture king expects us to walk in those wobbly high-heeled shoes.”
“I like you in pack boots and your kitty hat. Can I, uh...” His eyes danced over her face nervously. Then he splayed out his hands. “We never got to finish that kiss before your father showed up.”
Indeed not. The man had an excellent memory, and thank the goddess for that.
Daisy stepped up to him and tilted back her head because he was tall, and she wanted to stare into his eyes all day. Until such a view didn’t matter, and she closed her eyes and tipped forward onto her tiptoes.
He met her mouth with his. A warm, sure kiss that belonged nowhere but now. She gripped the front of his sweater, beneath the open coat, and when he spread a hand up her back she leaned into him. He was so warm, and strong. The muscles beneath her hands were hard as rock, and she curled her fingers against the curve of his pecs. Yet at her mouth, everything was not hard but eager and searching. Inviting and exploratory.
He smelled like caramel and coffee. Whatever he’d had to drink before coming here, it was delicious. Beck moaned into her mouth and lifted her by the hips. Daisy wrapped her legs about his waist without breaking the kiss. He dipped his head to deepen their connection, dashing his tongue along hers. The taste of him ignited her desires. Her skin prickled, and her nipples tightened. She almost grinded her mons against his stomach but stopped herself. This was only their second kiss. And actually, it was just finishing the first kiss.
“You do that very well,” she said against his mouth. “You said something about our kiss never ending?”
“I could keep this up for years.” He kissed her eyelid, then tilted his forehead against hers. “You do things to me, Daisy Blu.”
“Good things?”
“Good. Bewitching. You make the wolf inside me want to howl.”
At that moment a wolf howled on the television turned to low volume before the couch.
Daisy laughed. “Appropriate timing.”
“You watching a nature show?”
“No, I’ve had the news on while I’ve been trying to figure out how to make a computer program pair up with my camera.”
Behind them the news anchor reported on last night’s encounter between two hunters and the ghost wolf.
“Kare11 can suck it,” Daisy said. She slid out of Beck’s grasp and picked up the TV remote and clicked it off. “I almost had an interview with one of those hunters last night. I should have told him I was with Kare11. He’d only speak to them. How’s that for sucky?”
“Last night? You were out looking for interviews? How quickly does word get around when something like a white wolf stalking hunters happens?”
“Pretty fast. But even faster when it’s witnessed firsthand. I was there.” She spun, and her enthusiasm over what she’d witnessed last night made her bounce on her toes. “In the forest. I got a few shots of the hunters running in fear from the ghost wolf, and—you’ll never believe this—I actually photographed the ghost wolf. They’re too blurry, though. Nothing I can use unless I figure out the computer program. I’m so not tech savvy.”
Beck’s mouth hung open for so long, Daisy wondered if he’d slipped into a sort of catatonic state. When finally he swept a hand before him and clenched it into a fist, he blurted, “What the hell were you doing in the woods again? Alone? I thought I told you that was dangerous?”
“I’m fine. See?” She spun before him, not about to let the big tough male treat her like a helpless female. Been there, done that. Learned to punch the lug in the gut. “And you know what? The ghost wolf walked right up to me. Sniffed me, even.”
“Daisy! It could have killed you.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’m ninety-five-percent sure it’s a werewolf. Except bigger. And stronger. Its muscles were just so much...” she caressed the air in the shape of the wolf “...more. And you know, it really does kind of glow. It’s white and transparent. Maybe iridescent—”
“I can’t listen to this. Daisy, what would your father say? Does he know you go wandering in the woods alone at night where hunters are waiting to shoot their prey? You being just such prey.”
“I’m no man’s prey. I wore an orange vest. It’s not the hunters I worry about. Besides, I went in human form because I needed to get the shots. Why are you getting so bent out of shape about this? I’m a reporter. Or I hope to be. I’m doing what is necessary to win the internship.”
“Daisy, reporters don’t risk their lives by standing before a wild animal.”
“I think they do. At least, this reporter does. But I didn’t fear the ghost wolf. Not for long, anyway. In fact, I know it wouldn’t have harmed me. I felt that from it.”
“Must have recognized your scent.”
“What? How could it? Recognize it from when?”
Beck shook his head and wandered over to the long table before the windows. Her notes, books and various sketches were scattered beside the laptop and a digital camera.
He gripped his hair and paced. “I don’t think it’s wise. We don’t know anything about this ghost wolf. And even if you think it’s werewolf, it’s not like us, Daisy.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to figure that out. Let me show you.”
She slipped around behind the table where half a dozen books on myth and even some volumes written by paranormal breeds listed a variety of the known and fantastical creatures that existed within this mortal realm.
“I haven’t found anything exactly like what I saw. At first I thought it could be an incarnation of Fenrir, but I doubt that. This one comes close.” She tapped a page in an open book that featured Chibiabos. “It’s a Native American legend, and this area of the state is steeped in Indian traditions. There’s a reservation not far from here. Or this one.”
She pulled another book before her and Beck leaned over, though it didn’t seem as if he were interested, but rather distracted. And not in a good way. She could sense his tension and smell not so much anger as concern.
“Here.” She picked up the picture she’d printed out earlier. “This is the best shot I could get of it.”
He took the photo and looked it over. It was a blurred image of something white. Could be the abominable snowman for the clarity. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she’d never be able to look at the picture and say, Yes, that’s a werewolf.
“What do you intend to prove by getting a picture?” he asked. “I know you want the internship, and that requires a winning article, but why this story?”
“It’s what I know.”
Beck frowned.
“Okay, I know I’m treading dangerous territory with our breed. We’re all about secrecy.”
“And for good reason.”
“Right, and I get that. But the ghost wolf is already out there. The humans are making it out to be some evil creature. But I think of the ghost wolf as more of a superhero.”
“Right, your hero in a cape theory. It’s nonsense, Daisy.”
“I didn’t say he wore a cape.” But that he’d dismissed it as nonsense hurt. Daisy lifted her chin. “And I want to make sure it’s not hunted as a monster, but rather honored as something that made the hunters take a pause to rethink their motives toward mindless killing. The ghost wolf is helping the wolves.”
“A noble goal, but...” Beck sighed and turned to sit against the table, facing her. He clutched the table edge and leaned forward, entreating, “What if one of these nights a hunter’s bullet goes astray and you get hit? Daisy, this story is not worth the risk.”
“So long as it’s not a silver bullet, I’m good.”
“Silver—Daisy. Wait.” Beck stood, his hands pressed together, going to his face. “Silver.”
“Right. That’s the only thing that can kill us.”
“Yes, but...fuck.”
“Beck? What’s wrong?”
She could sense his increased heartbeats. As well, her heartbeat sped up. What had she said? His mood had shifted from concern to something like angst. He must be thinking about his father. She had heard he had been with him when he’d been murdered.
“I don’t know why I haven’t been pursuing this all along.”
“Pursuing what?” she asked.
“The shotgun shell that killed my father had silver in it.”
“That’s odd. Aren’t most shells filled with lead shot?”
“Exactly. So the hunter had to have made it special. And to use silver...he had to have known what he was hunting. Who would do something like that?”
“You think it wasn’t a human?” Daisy asked. “Vampire?”
“Huh?” He found her gaze, as if coming up from the depths, his eyes focusing on hers. “No, it wasn’t a vampire. I jumped on him that night, held him down. He was human, and though I was in wolf shape at the time, I felt his fright.”
“That’s to be expected if a wolf attacks you.”
“I didn’t attack him. I just...kept him away from my father’s body.”
Daisy sucked in her lip. They were moving into intimate territory, and she felt the need for caution. It hurt Beck to retell this information, but that he trusted her to reveal a few details was immense.
“I have to go check on something,” he said. “This is big.” He started toward the door. “I’m sorry. I had come here to spend some time with you. But this is important.”
“I understand. I have your digits now.” She rushed to beat him to the door and pressed her shoulders to it as he arrived before the threshold. “I want to help you, Beck.”
“I don’t need any help. And I don’t want you getting shot in your quest for a picture of a creature that could very likely kill you. Will you promise me to stay out of the forests? Please, Daisy?”
That wasn’t something she could promise. And she was smart; she knew when she was in danger, and she hadn’t felt it yet. Not even when the ghost wolf had walked right up to her.
She touched Beck’s cheek and traced his stubble-darkened jaw. His thoughts were miles away, back at his father’s side as he’d died in the forest. She didn’t know how to deal with grief. It hadn’t touched her life. And it had only been a few months since he’d lost his father. He seemed normal and stoic on the outside, but could he be a bundle of agony on the inside?
“Have you spoken to anyone about this? Losing your father?”
“Why? I’m not a weepy girl, Daisy. Something bad happened. I’m dealing. If anyone needs help, it’s my mother. She’s— Hell. I’ve got to go. I’m sorry about this.”
“Don’t apologize. I just... Can we make another date? Tomorrow night? I’ll cook if you come over.”
“I’d like that. You like wine?”
“Sounds good. Bring red. I’ll make meat and potatoes.”
He bracketed her head with his palms and bent his forehead to hers again. “You could win my heart, you know that, Daisy Blu?”
“I’ll give it a try.”
“You don’t need to try, just...be you.”
He kissed her again, this time holding still at her mouth. She thought she felt his heartbeat in that touch. And in the seconds that her heart stood still, Daisy knew she would try for that win, whether or not he wanted her to.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_f04daf90-e37e-5f6d-818d-52354681d17e)
Beck found his mother in the kitchen cleaning the copper-tiled backsplash behind the stove. Why she cooked was beyond him, but he was glad to see her not sulking in the big easy chair where she and Dad had always snuggled. She looked good, actually had color in her cheeks, and greeted him with a genuine hug and a kiss.
“How you feeling?” he asked.
“I’m well.” She patted her growing belly. “I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow.”
“Do you want me to come along with you?”
“No, you don’t have to. But you’re a sweetie to offer. Did you go to the iceworks the other night?”
“I did.”
“By yourself?” she asked in a tone that implied she had already deduced the answer.
“Why do you ask?”
“I haven’t been a complete hermit since your father’s death. I talk to Blu on the phone once in a while. She said her son Malakai was all in a huff because he saw his daughter with my son. I only have one son—at the moment—so...”
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Michele Hauf
THE LONE WOLF'S SALVATIONAngling for a story, journalist Daisy-Blu Saint-Pierre investigates the mysterious ghost wolf that’s been menacing hunters. Instead, she encounters a juicier sort of discovery in sexy, rugged wolf Beckett Severo – who she can’t not picture curled up next to her at night…Ever since a hunter’s bullet took his father’s life, Beck has carried a hunger for revenge. Now faery magick has turned him from a werewolf into something more powerful that comes at a price. The time spent with Daisy in between the sheets almost makes Beck forget the danger they’re in. Almost.
Beck moaned into her mouth and lifted her by the hips.
Daisy wrapped her legs about his waist without breaking the kiss. He dipped his head to deepen their connection, dashing his tongue along hers. The taste of him ignited her desires.
“You do that very well,” she said against his mouth. “You said something about our kiss never ending?”
“I could keep this up for years.” He tilted his forehead against hers. “You do things to me, Daisy-Blu.”
“Good things?”
“Good. Bewitching. You make the wolf inside me want to howl.”
Daisy slid out of Beck’s grasp. “I almost had an interview with a hunter last night.”
“Last night? You were out looking for interviews? How quickly does word get around when something like a white wolf stalking hunters happens?”
“Even faster when it’s witnessed firsthand. I was in the forest. I got a few shots of the hunters running in fear from the ghost wolf, and I actually photographed the ghost wolf.”
Beck’s mouth hung open. Finally he blurted, “What the hell were you doing in the woods again? Alone? I thought I told you that was dangerous?”
MICHELE HAUF has been writing romance, action-adventure and fantasy stories for more than twenty years. Her first published novel was Dark Rapture. France, musketeers, vampires and faeries populate her stories. And if she followed the adage “write what you know,” all her stories would have snow in them. Fortunately, she steps beyond her comfort zone and writes about countries she has never visited and of creatures she has never seen.
Michele can be found on Facebook and Twitter and at www.michelehauf.com (http://www.michelehauf.com). You can also write to Michele at PO Box 23, Anoka, MN 55303, USA.
Ghost Wolf
Michele Hauf
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Cover (#uc1283b22-9639-5c86-8071-2cf86ac10812)
Excerpt (#u8e146781-9d2c-5085-b99e-7689abf8ab0d)
About the Author (#u6599afb9-1f6d-56c1-a5c1-d45aaa83becb)
Title Page (#u2e6cc250-2464-5bd8-98c0-066595dc5a61)
Prologue (#ulink_f2ca2365-d4ea-5782-840b-23b66024a8e6)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_9b7ee969-9d42-5c38-9bbc-e585d8283e1c)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_7dbc4c25-24e7-5040-bd17-d3c349c071d2)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_0af064d4-167d-554f-b500-620aadc942d2)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_7b1415d6-ead2-5e55-9bfb-ae3373a95e93)
Chapter 5 (#ulink_fb2abde3-50e4-5d5d-82e4-41cdcd218061)
Chapter 6 (#ulink_0429e966-dcf6-5cf9-b2a3-d288cebbb29d)
Chapter 7 (#ulink_0fd899fd-8480-54b9-b4a3-d319a08ec99a)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ulink_7283b8ad-1b77-51fd-8634-90e416365fa6)
Two gray wolves loped across the fresh-fallen snow within a forest that edged acres of private Minnesota land. The wolves had a standing arrangement to run off their energy in the forest every weekend, a father and son get-together. A half-moon scythed the oddly clear black sky. Not a star dotted the atmosphere. Yet areas where snow had begun to tamp down the still-springy blades of grass twinkled from the cool luminescence.
The younger of the wolves always tromped ahead, challenging the elder to keep up. He was well aware he could never outrace his father, but he liked to goad him. Besides, he’d spotted a red fox and wanted to chase it until its heart gave out.
When an echoing retort shattered the calm night, the younger wolf stopped, ears shifting outward. It was a sound he had learned to fear since he could remember having fear. The sound of death. Whining, he flicked his gaze about, seeking his father. No sign of the old wolf.
Another gunshot sounded.
The wolf dashed into a race toward where he’d heard the sound. At the forest’s edge the animal recognized artificial light from a mortal’s vehicle. He quickened his tracks, his paws barely landing in the slushy snow until he reached the clearing where a man with a rifle approached a fallen wolf.
Snarling, the wolf leaped for the hunter, landing its front paws against his shoulders and toppling him to the wet ground. The rifle landed in slushy snow. The innate compulsion to sink his fangs into flesh and tear out anything he could manage was strong. He could break a human’s bones with but a bite from his powerful jaws. Yet the wolf merely snarled and snapped at the hunter.
The hunter struggled with the wolf, slapping at its maw and crying for mercy. Fear and human urine scented the air. The wolf heard the fallen wolf’s heart-wrenching whines. In pain. Dying?
In that moment of the wolf’s disregard, the hunter managed to scramble out from under his aggressor.
“Damned wolves! Where’s my gun?” Scrambling about in the snow, he gave up looking for the weapon when the wolf’s snarls grew insistent. The hunter ran toward the lighted vehicle. “Wasn’t what I needed. It didn’t shift. God’s blood, this trial will kill me!”
The vehicle’s lights flashed across the tree trunks. Tires peeled through wet snow and soil, skidding until the rubber found traction. The car rumbled off, leaving the clearing tainted with the smell of gasoline and the echoes of the human’s angry voice.
The younger wolf began to shift, its body elongating and forelegs growing into human-shaped arms. Fingers flexed out at the end of hands. Knees, bent upon the ground, sunk into the snow. Within seconds, he’d transformed from his wolf shape back to his human were form.
Beckett Severo scrambled over to the wolf lying in the slushy grass. Crimson stained the snow near the wolf’s back.
“No. No, you can’t die.”
He found the entry wound over the wolf’s heart. He felt the tiny beads of buckshot from the hunter’s shell. One burned his fingertip. He hissed, pulling away. Liquid silver trickled within the bloody wound as if mercury.
The older wolf turned its head toward Beck and looked into his eyes.
“No, Dad, you can’t...”
Beck laid his head upon his father’s body and pushed his fingers through the thick winter fur. He cried out to the night until his lungs ached and the old wolf’s heartbeat struggled to pulse.
* * *
The knock at the front door startled Bella Severo from her slumber in the big cozy armchair before a fading hearth fire. She’d dozed off while waiting for her husband to return home.
Heartbeat racing, she pulled the white chenille shawl around her shoulders and rushed to the door. It was well after midnight. She couldn’t imagine who could be knocking now. Certainly her husband would walk right in. Her vampiric senses didn’t pick up a scent, though she blamed it on the fact that she was still groggy from sleep.
Her husband, Stephan Severo, had left earlier with Beck, her son. The two always went out on weekends together. Severo generally returned early in the morning, while Beck drove to his home at the edge of town, where the woods at the back of his property framed the moon glimmering on a frozen pond. On occasion her son would stay here at the house. She loved being stirred awake in the morning to the smells of pancakes and bacon, made with love by her two favorite guys.
Tonight she’d stayed up because she had a surprise for Severo. He would be thrilled with her news.
As her hand wrapped about the front doorknob, a weird feeling tracked up Bella’s spine. The blood ran from her face and her fingers shook about the glass knob. Heartbeat suddenly stalling, she gasped, clutching her chest with a hand. With the other hand, she flung open the door.
Her son stood there in but blue jeans and winter pack boots. His wide shoulders and tall stance filled the open doorway. The whites surrounding his irises were red. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he shook his head miserably. Agony clawed his fingers against his bare chest.
And Bella instinctually knew she would never be able to give her husband the news that would have filled him with pride.
Bella’s knees wobbled, her head falling forward. Beck lunged and wrapped her against his shivering chest. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
She didn’t hear what he said after that. Her keening wails echoed through the foyer until dawn traced through the windows and forced Bella, a vampiress, into her dark bedroom, where she stayed for the next three weeks.
Chapter 1 (#ulink_2a6cdc1e-7600-5175-9773-209b057c7a44)
Two months later...
Beck stumbled to the edge of the forest, tugging up his jeans as he did so. His breaths fogged before him. The mercury had topped out at ten degrees at noon; it had only fallen since then. He’d come out of the shift and retrieved his clothes from the hollowed-out oak stump where he always kept them. Wouldn’t do for a werewolf to shift to human shape without clothing to cover his shivering mortal flesh. He didn’t relish the idea of walking home naked, or trying to hitch a ride.
Though, to imagine hitching naked perked up his smile. If a carload of pretty women drove by? They’d pick him up for sure.
Nah. He’d keep his clothes on. The bitter January chill did not bother him while in wolf form, but his human skin wasn’t so durable against the temperature changes. Good thing he had brought along his winter coat.
He zipped and buttoned his jeans. Shoving his feet into his pack boots, he wobbled. A swirl of dizziness spilled across his vision, and he had to put out his arms to stabilize his stance. Tree stalks blurred, and for a moment the sky switched places with the snowy ground.
“Weird,” he muttered, and gave his head a good shake.
Shifting took a lot out of him. More so lately. But this was the first time he’d felt so odd. Like he wasn’t right with the world. Must be because he’d eaten a light lunch. Earlier in the day, his date had suggested he try a salad instead of a steak. Why he’d succumbed was beyond him.
Ah hell, he knew why. He’d wanted to impress her. Guys did stuff like that. Stupid stuff like eating leaves instead of a juicy slab of steak. Never paid off. Later, the woman had giggled while standing before her door and told him she’d see him again sometime soon.
Sometime soon? Vague, much? For not having dated in months, the step back into the pool had resulted in a cold splash to his ego. He’d added her to his mental “don’t bother again” list. A guy could only listen to a woman rave about the latest fashions or which movie stars were doing each other for so long.
Turning over the thick knit sweater and sticking his arms into it to find the sleeve holes, Beck raised his arms over his head to shuffle it down over his face when something rammed into his side, knocking him off balance.
Quick footwork prevented him from taking a fall. Beck whipped around to snarl at—a pretty woman. Out here in the middle of no-place-she-should-be.
Beck’s odd meter zinged far to the right.
She was petite, the crown of her head leveled at Beck’s shoulder. From under a black knit cap that sported cat ears, pink hair spilled over her shoulders and onto a bulky gray sweater, beneath which perky nipples poked against the fabric, luring his interest. She clutched a pair of knee-high riding boots—she was barefoot—and blew out an annoyed huff.
As if upset because he had been the one to bump into her. Really?
Beck instinctively knew what breed she was. It wasn’t a sensation he got from touching his own breed—such as vampires were capable of—he just knew when he was around another of his kind.
“Out for a run in the woods? Did you forget your glasses at home?” He rubbed his elbow, drawing attention to where she had run right into him.
“Aren’t you the funny one?” She bent to tug on a boot, followed by the other. Slender-fitted jeans wrapped her legs, and the oversize sweater fell past her hips. She looked cozy and sexy and so out of place. “I wasn’t aware a big ole lug would be blocking my path.”
“Trust me, the lug did not intend to get in your way. You just shift?” he asked.
“I, uh...”
Apparently she hadn’t guessed the same thing about him, but quickly realization crossed her gaze as if sun flashing on metal. Pretty eyes that looked half gold and half violet and were framed by thick lashes. Her hair matched her plump lips, sort of a bleached raspberry shade. He liked it. Looked like some kind of dessert.
“Yes,” she finally said. “I’m headed home. I’ve got a friend waiting in the car.”
Beck glanced over a shoulder. He didn’t recall seeing a car parked along the country road that was closest to where they stood. No vehicles out here for miles. Then he guessed she was leery, didn’t want him to think she was out here alone. Yet he scented not so much caution as challenge from her. Interesting.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he felt compelled to say.
“Says the pervert before he kidnaps the girl and shoves her in his trunk.” She pushed past him and walked quickly out of the forest and into the wheat field that boasted ankle-high dried stalks jutting up from the foot-deep snowpack. “Don’t follow me!”
Beck couldn’t not follow her. The road edging the field led to town. And it had started to snow in tiny skin-pinging pellets. He wasn’t going to wait for her to disappear from sight before he could take off.
He paralleled her rapid footsteps.
“Seriously, dude, would you stay away from me?”
“You think I’m going to shove you in my trunk? I think you’d scratch and give a good fight if I even looked at you the wrong way.”
He noticed the curling corner of her smirk, though she maintained her speedy gait. She liked him; he knew it. But it didn’t matter much. It was a rare pack female who would give a lone wolf like him the time of day.
“Do I know you?” he asked. “I’m not trying to be a creep. I promise. I just— I’m familiar with most of the wolves in the area packs. I think I’d remember a pink-haired wolf. Unless this is a new color for you? I like it, by the way. The cat ears, too.”
She huffed and picked up into a jog. He was tired out from his run, but Beck could keep up with her if he had to. And he wanted to. But—hell, he was winded. What was up with that? Normally shifting invigorated him.
“Who are you?” she blurted angrily.
“I’m Beckett Severo.”
The pretty pink wolf stopped abruptly, dropping her hands to her sides. Flipping back her hair with a jerk of her head, she eyed him up and down more carefully than he’d taken when looking her over. “Oh.”
“Oh?” Beck slapped a palm to his chest, feeling as though she’d just seen parts of him he’d never reveal upon initially meeting someone. “That oh sounded like you must have heard of me?”
“Uh, yeah. Something about your father?”
“Right.” Beck looked away. Shoved his hands in his back pockets. He didn’t need this conversation. It was still too raw in his heart. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about it yet. Not even his mother.
Didn’t matter who this pretty wolf was. If she knew about his father, he didn’t want to listen to the pity.
The walk into the closest town was fifteen minutes. His town was ten miles north by car. And the small bits of sleet were starting to stick to the back of his head and shoulders.
“You shouldn’t run around in the forest by yourself,” he said, changing the subject and keeping his back toward the brunt of the sleet. “The local hunters have developed a bloodlust for wolf pelts.”
She shrugged and turned to walk, but slower now, unmindful of the icy pellets. Tugging a pair of black mittens out from a jeans pocket, she pulled them on. “I trust this neck of the woods.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said with more authority than he wanted on the subject.
Beck was a werewolf. Like it or not, he made it a point to know what the hunters were up to. Because even though they didn’t believe in his kind, and they hunted the mortal realm breed of canis lupis—the gray wolf—when in wolf form, his breed could easily be mistaken for the gray wolf. And thanks to the DNR delisting the wolf from the endangered species list, the hunt had become a free-for-all.
A fact he knew too painfully well.
“Didn’t you hear the gunshots earlier?”
She shook her head.
“There are hunters in the vicinity.”
“Maybe the ghost wolf warned them away from me?”
Beck chuckled. The ghost wolf was what the media had taken to calling the recent sightings of a tall, wolflike creature that seemed to glow white. Scared the shit out of hunters.
“You shouldn’t put your faith in a story,” he said to her. “You’re not safe in the woods, plain and simple.”
“Well, you were out alone.”
“Yes, but I’m a guy.”
“Do not play the guy card with me. You think I can’t handle myself?”
“No, I just said you could probably scratch—”
The petite wolf turned and, without warning, punched him in the gut. It was a good, solid hit that forced out Beck’s breath and jarred his lower ribs. Picking up her dropped mitten, she turned and walked off while he clutched at his stomach, fighting his rising bile.
“Thanks for the chat!” she called. With that, she picked up into a run.
Beck was perfectly fine with letting her run off and leave him behind. He swallowed and winced as he fell to his knees amidst the wheat and snow.
“The guy card?” Swearing, he leaned back, stretching at his aching abdomen. “She’s got a great right hook, I’ll say that much.”
And he was getting weaker with every shift he made to werewolf. That was not good.
* * *
Daisy Blu Saint-Pierre landed at the edge of town just as the headlights of a city snowplow barreled past her on the salt-whitened tarmac. She’d left her winter coat at home, not expecting it to snow tonight. She never took along more clothing than necessary when going out for a run. Chilled, but still riding the high from the shift that kept her muscles warm and flexible, she picked up into a run.
Her teeth were chattering by the time she reached her loft in the Tangle Lake city center. There were three other occupants in this remodeled warehouse that featured lofts on the second and third floors. She wandered up the inner iron staircase, cursing her need to not drive unless absolutely necessary. Blame it on her parents, who were uber-environmental-save-the-planet types. Her dad drove an old pickup that must have been manufactured in the Reagan era. She suspected it would be more environmentally friendly to put that rust heap out of its misery and off the road, but her father, an imposing werewolf who could silence any man with but a growl, wouldn’t have it.
Once inside the loft, she stripped away her clothes, which were coated on the back with melting sleet. Leaving them in a trail of puddles behind her, she beelined toward the shower and turned it on as hot as she could stand.
The last thing she had expected while out on a run was to literally collide into another werewolf. Though, why not? should be the obvious question. The wolves in the Northern and Saint-Pierre packs used that forest all the time. Yet lately, with the hunters spreading out and some accidentally trespassing onto private land, even that forest had grown less safe.
She never ventured too near the forest’s borders, and always kept an ear and nose out for mortal scent and tracks. The gunshot had been distant. She’d not smelled the hunter, and usually, when out in nature, she could sniff out a mortal scent two or three miles away.
Beckett Severo, eh? She’d heard about his father’s tragic death not long ago. Killed by a hunter who must have assumed he was just another gray wolf. Must be awful for Beckett. She had also heard he had been there with his father when he’d been shot.
Daisy felt awful for punching him, but it had been impulsive. She didn’t know the man, and couldn’t trust him, and he’d been all in her face and trying to chum up to her. She preferred to meet her men in public places, and preferably with an advance review from a friend so she knew what she was getting into.
So maybe she wasn’t an expert on meeting people. Her defenses tended to go up for no reason other than that she was uncomfortable making small talk.
Because really? That man had been one fine hunk of wolf. He’d towered over her, and looked down on her with ice-blue eyes. She’d never seen such clear, bright irises. His sun-bleached hair had been tousled this way and that. A scruff of beard had shadowed his chiseled jaw. He’d reeked of strength and—she could admit it—sensuality.
What a man. What a wolf. It was rare Daisy met a male werewolf who appealed to her on more than a simple friendship basis. It was much easier to be a guy’s buddy than to flirt with him.
He hadn’t known her? Probably because he wasn’t in a pack. Yet she knew about his family. Severo, his father, had been a grizzled old wolf. Unaligned with any pack, but respected by many pack wolves for common sense and wisdom that had come from centuries of life. Surely Daisy’s father had mentioned Severo reverently a time or two.
Maybe. Didn’t matter. She didn’t intend to bump into Beckett again soon, so she’d have to satisfy herself with a few fantasies about the sexy wolf.
With the way her shifting abilities had been testing her lately, she was more self-involved than she cared to be. Much as she preferred shifting to wolf, the faery half of her always vied for superiority. She wasn’t sure what the deal was with that, but it was annoying. And embarrassing. She couldn’t remember when she’d last shifted around a family member. So she spent much time in her human shape, which was all right by her, save for her lacking social skills.
She was trying to break free of her introvert’s chains by competing for a freelance internship for the local newspaper. Every January the Tangle Lake Tattler offered an internship to a journalist who offered the winning story. Story competition was never fierce. She had two opponents. But that didn’t mean Daisy wasn’t giving it her all.
Researching the story got her out into the community and forced her to talk to others. She enjoyed it, and she was growing more at ease with introducing herself to strangers. Albeit, with a handshake. Not by charging into them while running out of the forest.
The story she knew would be the winner was the ghost wolf. Which is why she’d been out in the woods tonight. The great white wolf had been sighted twice in the last month. Daisy suspected the creature was werewolf due to the description the local hunters circulated on the rumor mill. Save for one odd detail. Hunters had noted the wolf glowed, as if a white specter. Thus, a ghost wolf.
If it was a werewolf, she wasn’t sure how to handle the story. Her breed valued their secrecy.
She’d deal with that if and when she needed to. Should have asked Beck if he knew anything about the ghost wolf. Hmm...
Good reason to see him again.
Chapter 2 (#ulink_2c5b2c9d-9b56-507a-8cd6-dadb1ba98dd7)
Tangle Lake’s annual Winter Ice Festival parade was followed with a massive community picnic in the park. Since it was the second week in January, everyone bundled up in winter wear, pack boots, mittens, caps, scarves and face masks. It was hard to be cold with the festivities to lighten the mood. Hockey was played on the nearby football field (iced over for winter), ice sculptures were judged in the town square (which was more of an oval, really), and ice bowling, s’mores over bonfires and even a quilt-off were held throughout the day.
Daisy decided next year she’d try her hand at the ice sculpting. She had no skills, but she wouldn’t let that stop her from learning how to use the chain saw. She loved a good competition.
Daisy’s pack always attended the festival. In town they were not known as werewolves. The humans were oblivious. And the pack principal—who was also her father—was all about community and making nice with the humans. All packs existed amongst the mortals. Garnering friendships and fitting in was key to survival.
She recognized wolves from the Northern pack pushing a sled piled with ice blocks toward the sculpting platforms. Supposedly the Northern pack had been a pretty nasty bunch of wolves in the decades before Daisy had been born. Her grandmother, Blu, had been a member then, and Blu’s father, Amandus Masterson, had been the principal. He’d died—but not before first torturing Blu’s vampire husband, Creed. Since the Northern pack scion, Ridge Addison, had taken over the reins as principal, everything had changed, and the pack was now peaceable toward other packs, as well as vampires.
Daisy’s father, Malakai Saint-Pierre, was somewhere in the crowd, probably testing the various hot dishes offered at the bake stands and flirting with the women. Her mother, Rissa, took it in stride because Kai was fiercely faithful to her. But with a former reputation about town as a Casanova, he had no problem soaking up the female attention.
Her mother had stayed at home today in favor of an afternoon to herself. She was uncomfortable in large crowds. It wasn’t because she was one-hundred-percent faery; Rissa was just quiet and didn’t much understand socializing.
Daisy could relate. Her mother had bequeathed her the scarlet letter of introversion. Her four brothers had inherited their father’s extroversion. They could all be somewhere in the area, though she suspected Blade had stayed away. He wasn’t much for crowds simply because he was secretive.
A familiar face smiled through a bustle of winter caps. Stryke was the second-youngest of Daisy’s four brothers, and was full werewolf. Trouble was also full werewolf. Kelyn was faery. And Blade was a mix of vampire and faery (the vamp was thanks to their grandfather Creed’s DNA).
“Hey, sis!”
Stryke pulled her into a generous hug. The guy was a master hugger. When he hugged, he gave his all. The wise, more cerebral one of the bunch, he was the one his siblings went to when they had a problem and needed to talk.
“Why the long face?” he asked, turning to lean against the concrete bike rack where she had paused. “Not into the festivities?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Just kinda melancholy, I guess.”
“Yeah, this town isn’t the most exciting. Hot dishes and lutefisk?” He shuddered comically.
“Tangle Lake.” Daisy recited the town’s name. “And not a tangle to it. This town is straighter than straight. The highway dashes a straight line beside it. All the streets are parallel and straight. Even the lake is square! I need a tangle, Stryke.” She sighed, twisting the ends of her pink hair. “I’d even settle for a little twist.”
“I hear you.” Stryke’s gaze traversed a nearby ice bowling match, where the participants bowled ice balls toward frozen autumn squash. “I can’t wait for Aunt Kambriel’s wedding this summer.”
Kambriel, their aunt, who was their father’s twin sister (and a vampire), had fallen in love with the vampire Johnny Santiago and planned to wed in Paris, where she currently lived.
“You might find yourself a European werewolf,” Daisy said, knowing her brother’s strong desire to find a woman and settle down. Yet for some reason Stryke was never compelled to put down roots with any of the women in the area. Not interesting enough, he’d often lament.
“That’s the plan,” he agreed. “A tangle, eh? I’m not sure you’ll find the excitement you’re looking for in Tangle Lake, Daisy. Most exciting thing lately— Well, hell, what about that ghost wolf? You think it’s a werewolf?”
“Yes,” she answered quickly. And then, “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m doing a story on it for the local paper. Or I’m trying to.”
“Whatever it is, be careful.”
“I will. Do you think it’s a werewolf?”
“Yes,” Stryke said. And then, “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I’d have to see the thing up close. And I’m not sure I want to. Though I can promise Trouble would like to have a go at it.”
The eldest brother of the siblings, Trouble (whose real name was Jack) had a thing for picking fights and pushing people to their breaking point. But he did it in a playful way. Unfortunately, most people did not get his confrontational humor.
“I have to go,” Stryke said. He nodded toward a crowd of young women bundled up in bright ski pants and boots. Pom-poms bobbed on their heads and mittens, plus a few at their boot ties. A cavalcade of sex kittens. “Got a date.”
“A tangle?”
“If I’m lucky.” He winked. “You going to the fireworks?”
“Kelyn and I usually head out together. I’ll see you later, Stryke.”
He kissed her cheek, a cold smack that made her giggle, and strode off toward the pom-pom kittens.
Sighing, Daisy tugged out the paperback she always took along to public events and found the bookmarked page. She wore gloves with rubber tips on the fingers, designed for operating touch devices. Books were the ultimate touch device. Immersing herself in the fiction, she strolled slowly along the packed snow embankment that edged the hockey rink where makeshift teams had gathered to play. Should have brought her skates. What she wouldn’t give to slap sticks for a while...
All of a sudden, someone charged into her. Daisy dropped her book and made to shove away the annoying guy, but she paused when she saw who it was. The sexy wolf she’d run into the other night at the edge of the forest.
“What is it with you and the need to ram into me every chance you get?” she asked.
“Uh, sorry. I had my eye on the puck.” He tossed the hockey puck he picked up from the snow toward the guys outfitted in knee pads and skates waiting on the ice. “Besides, this is the first time I’ve rammed into you. If you’ll remember correctly—”
“Yes, yes, I recall. So you’re playing with the mortals?”
“Exclusivity to one’s breed is not wise in this small town.” He swept a hand toward the players who had continued the game without him. “They’re a great bunch of guys. I love hockey. There you go.”
“I like hockey, too, but I don’t think the boys would like a woman joining them.”
“Probably not. All the girls are over at the food booths making cocoa and serving us men.”
Daisy’s jaw tightened. “I don’t serve any man.”
Beck swerved his gaze toward her. “Huh? Oh. Right. Sorry, that was—”
“An asshole thing to say.”
“Whoa. This is fast going down an icy slope I don’t want to slip on. Let’s start over.” Tugging off a leather glove, he then bent to pick up her book and handed it to her. “Sorry. The pages got snow on them. Don’t you have one of those fancy e-readers like I see everyone carrying nowadays?”
“I have a few of them,” Daisy said proudly. “Sometimes I prefer the touch, feel and smell of a real book.”
She pressed the closed book to her nose and inhaled. Snow had dampened a few of the pages, but she couldn’t be upset because she also owned the digital copy of this book.
“It’s so personal to hold a book in my hand. I can open it to any place I like with a few flutters of the page. I can trace my fingers down the words, rereading phrases that speak to me. The stories make my heart race and my skin flush. My toes curl when I’ve read a well-crafted sentence. Mmm...”
“Uh...”
She glanced at Beck, whose mouth hung open. Oh, those eyes could attract wise men on a clear winter night beneath a velvet star-filled sky.
He scratched his head. “You just made reading sound sexual.”
So she had. “Books turn me on.” Daisy resumed her stroll along the snowbank shoveled up around the rink.
The wolf in hockey skates followed, blades sinking into the packed snow. “Really? They turn you on?”
She nodded. She wasn’t sure she’d ever find a man equal to the heroes she read about in her stories, but she held out hope. Of course, the stories were fiction. She knew that. But it was okay to dream. And besides, when she finally did find a hero of her own, she felt sure she’d recognize him immediately for his gleaming honor and smoldering sensuality.
“So it’s one of those sex books?” he asked.
Daisy stopped and toed her boot into a chunk of snow. Oh, she pitied the poorly read. “Just what implies a sex book in your mind?” She waved her book between the two of them. “Anything with a pink cover?”
“Anything with sex in it, I guess.”
He was out of his league, and he knew it. Daisy smiled triumphantly. Points to the women’s team.
“Says the wolf who’s probably never read more than fast-food menus and car manuals.”
“Don’t forget The Iliad. I may have been home-schooled, but I don’t think there’s a way for any breathing teenager to avoid that snorefest.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. She wasn’t much for mythology, but wouldn’t admit to him that she agreed with his assessment of the classic tome. That would be too much like flirting. Of which she did not partake.
“I have read a lot of car manuals,” he added. “I own a shop at the edge of Burnham.”
“Hockey, cars and tromping through the forest without a shirt on. Such a guy you are.”
He stabbed the hockey stick into the snow and propped both wrists on the end of it. “I can’t tell if you’re admonishing me or trying to flirt awkwardly.”
“I—” Stymied, Daisy turned her gaze away. She did not flirt. Because if she did, it would be exactly as he’d implied—awkward.
One of the men guiding the puck across the ice with the mortal crowd called to Beck to return. He waved and said he’d be right there.
Shoving up the sleeve of his jersey to reveal the long thermal sleeve beneath, he winked at her. “If you’re in the mood to test your flirtation skills later, come find me.”
“I, er—”
Without waiting for what would surely be the awkward reply of the century, Beck tromped off, blades cutting hashed tracks toward the ice.
Daisy couldn’t help but notice the flex of his quadriceps with each stride. Clad in jeans and a fitted long shirt, over which he wore a big loose hockey jersey, the attire highlighted his awesome physique.
“Nothing new,” she said to herself. All the wolves in the local packs were ripped. It was the very nature of a werewolf to be so muscular.
Unless of course he was Kelyn, her youngest brother. Who wasn’t actually a werewolf at all, but rather, had inherited their mother’s faery DNA. He was lean and lithe, yet her father deemed him the most deadly of all his boys. Faeries were swift and malicious, Malakai would often say.
Daisy hated to think of Kelyn as malicious. And he was not. She hoped he wouldn’t develop a complex because of her father’s words.
No longer interested in the book, she stuffed it in her coat pocket and wandered under a massive willow tree where a half dozen tween girls were sipping hot chocolate and cider from thermoses and texting on their cell phones, fingertips bared by half gloves.
“Why is your hair pink?” one of them asked as Daisy walked by.
“Because my mom dropped a can of paint on it when I was born,” she offered, smirking. “Why is yours red?”
The befreckled girl shrugged. “Yours is pretty. I wish mine wasn’t so ugly.”
“Yours is gorgeous,” Daisy offered. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently. It’s good to be unique, not like everyone else.”
The girl sat up a little straighter. The friend beside her, sporting a hot-chocolate mustache, nodded in agreement.
“What’s the best food to get today?” Daisy asked the group. “I’m in the mood for something sweet.”
“Try my grandma’s chocolate peanut butter brownies. Over there.” One of them pointed toward a table draped in red, around which dozens loomed. “She’s selling them cheap.”
“Thanks.” Daisy waved them off and wandered toward the food tables, her boots crunching across the snowpack.
Unique, eh? She smirked at her encouraging words. But not so unique that a woman’s body couldn’t make up its mind whether or not to be werewolf or faery. That wasn’t unique; that was just pitiful. She had to get it figured out. But she had no clue how to do so.
When she reached the table, she had to wait in line, and when only halfway to the front, a tall, blond man approached her and offered her a treat. “These are awesome. I figured you’d like to try one.”
“Are you following me?” she asked as she accepted a brownie as heavy as a small kitten. She got out of line. “You were just on the ice.”
“And then I was not. I always answer the call of my stomach. Even if it sets me back a cool ten bucks for two brownies.”
“What? These cost five dollars apiece?” The girl had said they were cheap. Shady sales tactics at that.
Daisy bit into the thick, moist chunk of chocolate and peanut butter and sighed one of those after-orgasm kind of sighs.
“Right?” Beck agreed. “Well worth the expense. I may never eat my mother’s brownies again. Ah, that’s not true. I’ll chow a brownie any day. Even the five-dollar kind. Now I need something hot to wash this down with.”
“Over there.” She pointed to a refreshment stand. He grabbed her by the free hand and led her toward where she had pointed. “Did I say I wanted something to drink? Dude, we are not on a date.”
“I know, but I figured the brownie should earn me some chat time with you. I’ll get us some cider, and there’s a tree over there that’s calling our names.”
“Do you even know my name?”
He paused from digging out his wallet from a back pocket. “Uh...I guess not.”
“Bring cider,” Daisy said.
With a wink that surprised her probably more than it did him, she wandered over to the tree.
* * *
With the brownie gently clutched between his jaws, Beck headed toward the tree where the gorgeous pink-haired wolf sat. Reading while others partook of the festivities? She was a curiosity to him, and he liked that he couldn’t figure her out.
He bit off a bite as he sat, catching the brownie in his palm. She snagged the foam cup of cider before he’d even settled against the trunk.
“I should have gotten two,” he said.
“That’s okay, I only want a sip.” She handed him the cup.
Beck peered into the cup. It was half-empty. “A sip?”
She shrugged and finished off her brownie. He wanted to tweak those cat ears on top of her hat, but instead he wolfed another bite.
“So who do I have the pleasure of sitting with under the maple tree this chilled and frosty January afternoon?”
“Daisy Blu,” she said, and offered a hand to shake.
Beck gripped the cup lip with his teeth, and with brownie in one hand, shook with his free hand.
“Saint-Pierre,” she then said.
He dropped the cup and it almost spilled in his lap, but he made a fast-reflex save. “Uh, Malakai Saint-Pierre’s daughter? The pack principal who makes swords for a living?”
She nodded, licking her fingers clean of chocolate crumbs.
“I thought he only had the boys.”
Beck scanned the picnic area, filled with mortals and paranormal breeds of all sorts and sizes. Living in the next town ten miles north, he didn’t know a lot of people in Tangle Lake. He kept to himself far too much. But everyone knew about Malakai Saint-Pierre.
“Four boys,” Daisy said. “But I was here first. Who you looking for? Don’t worry, my dad’s not around. At least, I don’t think he is.”
Beck stood and nodded that she follow him around the trunk. “Let’s sit on the other side of the tree, okay?”
She settled next to him with a laugh. “Are you afraid of my father?”
“I wouldn’t say afraid, more like leery with an edge of self-preservation. Dude’s not the sweetest wolf in the pack.”
“Yeah, he’s not too keen on unaligned wolves. Which is what you are, am I right? You being Severo’s son?”
“Not for lack of your father trying to get me to join your pack.”
“Really? My dad has invited you to join us? Why haven’t you done so?”
“I have nothing against the Saint-Pierres. Or any of the local packs, for that matter. Joining a pack doesn’t feel right to me. My father was always adamant that a man didn’t need a pack to stand up for what was right within the werewolf community.”
“I’ve heard about your father. Severo was a good man. But I have to point out the serious flaw in your sneaky attempt to hide out.”
“What’s that?”
“Now we won’t be able to see my father coming.”
“Shit. Maybe we should—”
Daisy placed a hand on his knee just as Beck attempted to stand. The woman’s hand was warm, even in this weather, and her heat crept quickly through the jeans and to his skin. Nice. He settled against the snow-encrusted tree trunk.
“I’d scent him before he got too close,” she said. “I’ll give you advance warning if you need to run.” Then she smiled and tucked a swath of hair over her ear. “I shouldn’t be talking to you, either. But I like a little risk in my life now and then.”
“Don’t get enough from your books?”
“Not exactly.”
“Is that why you think it’s a good idea to run in the forest all alone? You really should take someone with you.”
“I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine. You going to eat that last piece of brownie?”
Beck held up the piece, and Daisy made a remarkable snatch with her teeth. She giggled, pressed her fingers over her mouth, then snagged the cup of cider from him, as well.
Licking his fingers clean, he could but shake his head. This one, as much as he should stay the hell away from her, he wanted to learn more about. Because getting close to Malakai Saint-Pierre’s daughter could prove a lesson in Stupid Things Guys Do. But at the same time: kitty ears, pink hair and an irrepressible giggle. How to resist that?
She looked at him now with such curiosity that he matched her gaze with an intense stare. “What?” he implored.
“I was just thinking there are probably icebergs in the Arctic the same color as your eyes.”
“Wow. Look who just got their flirt on.”
“I wasn’t—uh...”
He waited for her to realize that she had indeed been flirting. Didn’t take her long. She busied herself with the ends of her hair. Ha! She liked him.
“So what do you do, Daisy Blu with the kitty ears who wanders about with her nose in a book?”
“You mean like work? I am a budding journalist.”
“Is that so?”
“I’m competing for a freelance position with the Tangle Lake Tattler. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I’m not so good at making up stories. I like digging for facts, learning the truth.”
“A noble pursuit. So what truths have you dug up lately?”
“Well, Mrs. Olafson, who lives at the corner across from the courthouse? She’s growing marijuana in her backyard shed.”
Beck faked a shocked openmouthed gape. Could he touch that pink hair? Just a careful slide of his fingers over it without her noticing? Because if she wanted to flirt...
“Thing is, she has no clue what it is. I couldn’t bring myself to actually write about it. Besides, I’ve got a bigger, better story I’m working on that I know will win me the job.”
“Much luck to you. Isn’t often you hear of pack princesses working.”
“No one calls me princess unless they want a black eye.”
“Duly noted. So you’re the modern working-class prin—er, wolf chick, eh?”
“I’m half faery.”
“Is that why your hair is pink?”
“No one will ever pull one over your eyes.”
“A faery wolf. I like it.”
“So what do you do? You said you’re not from Tangle Lake?”
“No, I’m up in Burnham. I have a garage just off the highway. It’s not open to the public yet. I’m working on some friends’ cars right now. Want everything to be perfect and have a career plan in place before I put up signs. I get a lot of business just by word of mouth anyway.”
“If I drove more than once every few weeks, I’d bring my car to you just because you were so nice to share your last sip of cider.” She handed him the cup, empty, and served him a wide grin that teased him for a kiss.
But that would be too risky. Her father was a pack leader. And princess or not, Beck knew she wore a flashing no touch sign as a tiara.
“I should have bought two cups.” He snickered and leaned his head back against the trunk. “So journalism is a full-time job?”
“Hardly. Only a few hours here and there. When I’m not pursuing a career, I’m also a sculptor.”
“That’s cool. You enter the ice sculpture contest?”
“Next year. That’ll give me the winter to learn how to use a chain saw.”
It wasn’t difficult to imagine her wielding a chain saw. Not after that powerful right hook she’d served him in the field. She was petite but packed a punch. “What do you sculpt?”
“Anything with recycled metal. My dad’s a blacksmith. I used to watch him forge swords when I was a little girl. Always wanted to be able to manipulate metal the way he did. One day when he was welding on his old truck, I asked to help, and I’ve been welding my designs ever since.”
“Welding? That sounds macho.”
“Yeah?” Daisy bent up her arm, making a fist. An impressive bicep bulged beneath the sleek white winter coat. “I grew up with four brothers. I don’t think I could do feminine if I tried.”
“You’re doing it right now.” Beck traced a strand of her hair back over her ear. Score! It felt as soft as it looked. She flinched and gave him the curious eye. “Sorry, just wanted to touch it.”
“It’s hair, dude.”
“And you’re kind of defensive, you know that? Is it because of the ‘you shouldn’t talk to an unaligned wolf’ thing? Or is it that I just don’t appeal to you?”
“You appeal to me,” she said quickly. She sat up, tilting her head down and closing her eyes. Shaking her head, she said, “I didn’t mean to say that. It just came out.”
“You like me,” Beck teased. He dipped his head to catch her straying gaze. “It’s because I seduced you with brownies, right?”
She punched him playfully on the biceps. Beck winced. It hadn’t been quite as gentle as she may have intended it to be. So he fell over to his side and moaned.
“Yeah, and don’t you forget it,” Daisy said.
The sass that ran through her veins just needed a little prodding to rise above what he suspected was a bit of a shy streak. He hadn’t seen her talking to anyone here at the festival. And if she had a boyfriend, she wouldn’t be talking to him right now.
“So what do you sculpt?” he asked, moving closer so their shoulders touched.
“Anything that I’m feeling at the moment. I’m working on a project for the wolf sanctuary up north. I use lots of abandoned scrap metal. Right now I’m into recycling bicycle chains.”
“Really? I have a whole box of bicycle chains at the shop. They’re yours if you can use them.”
“Of course I can.”
“Stop by anytime and pick them up. I’m at the shop most of the day, and if not, I’ll let Sunday know they’re yours.”
“Sunday? You mean Dean Maverick’s wife?”
“Yep. Sunday used to have a shop when she lived in North Dakota. She’s a gearhead like me. My shop is the only place she’s got to get her grease on.”
“And her husband doesn’t mind?”
“Dean’s a cool guy. We chat when he stops by to pick up Sunday. Not all in the packs are against the lone wolves like me, you know.”
“I’m not against you. I just don’t understand why you don’t feel the need for family that a pack offers.”
“I have family with my mom and my—” He hung his head. Now was no time to step into that bleak memory. “You want another brownie?”
“No, thank you. I should get going. I promised my mom I’d stop by with some treats from the picnic.”
“You going to the fireworks later?” he asked.
“Possibly. Will you be at your shop this afternoon? Maybe I could stop by for the bike chains?”
“I’ll be there in a few hours. But this is the deal—I’ll give you the chains if you’ll watch the fireworks with me tonight.”
She crossed her arms and made a show of considering it. Her lips were the same shade as her hair. Beck bet if they kissed, she’d taste cool like ice but would warm him up faster than s’mores melting over a bonfire. Would she really turn down his offer? She seemed independent, yet certainly she was shy.
“I might have a brother along with me. Kelyn and I always watch the fireworks together. We usually find a quiet spot at the top of a hill.”
“Oh. Well, I wouldn’t want to intrude.” Nor did he want to bring the wrath of the Saint-Pierre family upon him for talking to their precious daughter.
“We’ll play it by ear. I’ll stop by your shop later, and then we can decide, yes?”
“Sure. I’m north on 35.”
“I’ve seen the shop. I know where it is.”
She took off, tugging the book out of her back pocket as she skipped across the snowy field that hugged the rink where the men slapped the hockey puck back and forth.
Beck stood and brushed the snow from his jeans. “First date with one of the brothers as chaperone? I don’t know about that.”
Chapter 3 (#ulink_65cef9ec-a21d-584f-910f-3fb4956093a9)
Beck’s shop was about ten miles out of city limits. The next town, Burnham, was four miles beyond his shop. Daisy knew the Darkwood was in the vicinity. Her brother Blade lived at the edge of the haunted forest that locals told tales about. Even the paranormal breeds avoided it for its fearsome reputation.
Though the road was hugged by tall birch trees interspersed with thick pines, Daisy found Beck’s shop easily and pulled in her Smart car before the shop’s opened garage doors. While most fix-it garages in the area featured random junkers parked here and there, tires stacked against walls and general disorder, this area was well-tended. The snow had been plowed and banked, and there was an orderly parking area with cars tagged on the license plates, likely for pickup.
Stepping out into the brisk air, Daisy’s breath fogged before her. She’d bundled up in cap, mittens and winter coat. Striding toward the opened doors, she scanned for signs of life inside and called out Beck’s name. Instead of a handsome werewolf popping his head up from behind the raised hood of a truck, the blond dreads of a very familiar familiar swung around the front quarter panel of a red F-150.
Sunday winked at Daisy. “Hey there, sweetie!”
“Sunday! Beck told me you worked here, but I didn’t expect to run into you.” Daisy looked about the neat shop that featured four car bays. Tools hung neatly along the walls, and tires were stacked in a corner. There were even red-and-white-checked curtains on the door window that must lead to the office. “Does Dean mind that you work here?”
The self-confessed grease monkey laid a wrench on the engine and wandered around the side of the vehicle. Grease smeared Sunday’s pale check. Daisy had known her since she’d been born because of the cat-shifting familiar’s friendship with her grandmother. She considered her an aunt, even. Of all the women in the family, she got along with Sunday best. Probably because they were a couple of tomboys.
“Why should Dean mind?” Sunday asked. “I don’t let my man tell me what to do. Unless it’s in bed.” She winked.
Daisy fought against rolling her eyes.
“So why are you here?” Sunday asked. “Shouldn’t you be more respectful of your father and his very obvious dislike for an unaligned wolf?”
“My dad doesn’t know I’m here. And you won’t say anything to him.”
Sunday quirked a brow, but her easy smile held the kind of knowing that all women shared when a man was the topic. “There’s nothing to tell. Beck’s a good guy. Just because he doesn’t feel comfortable joining a whole group of wolves after living in a small family his entire life shouldn’t make him a pariah.”
“Exactly,” Daisy said, relieved that Sunday had put into words what she should have said.
Behind the car bays, a big-screen TV flashed a news report that featured area gray wolves scampering across the screen.
Sunday noticed Daisy’s interest and turned up the volume with a remote she tugged out of her pocket. The report was on the local wolf hunt. It had only been a few years since the DNR had passed legislation to allow hunters free rein on the gray wolves that had been removed from the endangered species list.
Thing was, the mortals didn’t care what happened to the environment when they reduced the wolf population. Not to mention the devastation to the wolf packs. They were killing wolves that belonged to families. Fathers, mothers and pups. And the loss to the pack was no less heartfelt than a loss to a mortal family. Of course, the hunters never looked at it that way.
It made Daisy think of Beck’s loss again. Poor guy.
“So, having car trouble?” Sunday prompted. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those clown cars. I can’t imagine it has traction on an icy road.”
“I try not to drive too much in the winter. But no trouble, as far as I know. I wish I was mechanically inclined like you. None of my brothers are, either.”
“Not like they need it,” Sunday said. “Those Saint-Pierre boys are too fine to get all greasy fixing engines.”
“Whatever. I’m just here to pick something up,” Daisy said, trying to ignore the news. Though she shouldn’t. This was her story. But she was distracted by the obvious. “I’m not here for, you know, a date or anything.”
“What’s that about this not being a date?” Beck rounded a yellow sports car (sans windshield) at the end of the shop. A large cardboard box was hoisted on top of his shoulder. “I thought we were going to the iceworks tonight?”
Sunday tilted another eyebrow quirk at Daisy, and it was accompanied by a knowing smile. So much said. Daisy’s neck flushed warmly.
“We hadn’t confirmed that. Are those the bicycle chains?” she asked, to change the subject.
Beck set the box on the floor before the pickup, and both Daisy and Sunday bent to inspect the contents. Dozens of chains slicked with grease snaked within the box.
“This is awesome,” Daisy said. “I can use these.”
“Best way to get the grease off is with Simple Green,” Sunday said.
“I know. I’ve done it before.”
“How’s your art stuff coming anyway?” the familiar asked.
“My work in progress is turning out a lot cooler than I’d hoped. I plan to donate the finished piece to the wolf sanctuary up in Ely.”
“Cool.”
“And now with these, I’ll be able to finish it sooner than expected. Thanks, Beck.”
Daisy swung around toward Beck, arms out as if to hug him—her family hugged a lot—then she paused, and dropped her arms. Right. Not ready for that kind of contact. At least, not in front of the familiar.
“Uh, how much do you want for them?”
“I’ve already stated my price.” Beck crossed his arms and peered down at her with his arctic-ice eyes.
He meant accompanying him to the fireworks tonight.
Daisy blew out a breath that fogged before her, even standing within the garage. Attending the midnight iceworks near the ice castle on the lake was a family tradition. And the only way to really enjoy it was to bundle up, snuggle next to another warm body and sip hot chocolate from a thermos. She could completely imagine doing that with Beck.
She glanced to Sunday, who put up her palms and strode around the front of the hood, disappearing from view. “Not listening,” the familiar called out. “But check out the news.”
Both swung their heads toward the TV, where the female newscaster was talking about the ghost wolf that had been scaring hunters witless. A pair of hunters had sworn off hunting for wolves and anything else, including deer.
“The thing was big and nasty,” one of the hunters said to the camera. He gestured widely with his red flannel-coated arms. “And white and filmy like a freakin’ ghost.”
Beck chuckled. “Ghost wolf. That’s a good one.”
Daisy wished she could have been the one to interview the hunters.
“But it was solid!” the other hunter chimed in on a shaky voice. “It slapped the shotgun right out of my hand. I ain’t never hunting again.”
Beck’s smile captured Daisy’s attention. He was proud of what the ghost wolf was doing. Either that or he was amused by the redneck hunters getting their justice and repenting. Both were good reasons to smile, in Daisy’s opinion.
“Whoever or whatever the ghost wolf is,” she said, “it’s doing all the wolves in the area a big favor by chasing away the hunters. I hope he keeps it up.”
“He?” Beck asked as he picked up the box and started toward her car. “You called it an it first. How do you know it’s a he?”
Daisy ran up to unlock the trunk. Surprisingly, the tiny car held a lot in the back end. “I don’t know if it’s a he, or an it, or a ghost. But this whole story has superhero undertones, don’t you think?”
“Superhero?” Beck winced. “I don’t know about that.”
“The underdogs, which are the wolves and us in this case,” Daisy explained, “need a defender to protect them. And suddenly from out of nowhere comes a hero on a quest to set things right. I love it!”
“Yeah, but I’m guessing the ghost wolf doesn’t have a cape.”
“You don’t need a cape to be a superhero. Just a focus and a desire to do good. That is my new angle.”
“Your angle?”
“I did tell you I’m trying to win an internship for the local paper.”
“You’re doing a story on the ghost wolf?” His expression changed so suddenly Daisy wondered what she’d said to offend him. “I renew my warning for you to be careful and stay out of the woods unless you bring someone along with you.”
“And I renew my assertion to being able to take care of myself. You are such a guy.”
Beck sighed and shook his head. He did appear genuinely concerned, but Daisy was trying to prove herself here, so she disregarded his anguish. She could do anything the boys could do. Oftentimes better.
“So can I pick you up later?” he asked.
“Um, I guess I could call my brother and cancel with him.”
“Really? So it’s a choice between your brother, whom you’ve gone to this event with before, or the lone wolf?” Beck winced. “You should probably go with the safer bet.”
“Yeah, but that’ll never get me the tangle I want.”
“The tangle?”
Oops. Where had that confession come from? Deep inside, where the yearning part of her ignored her armor of introversion and just wanted to get tangled, that was where. If she didn’t stop blurting her secrets out to Beck, she’d tell him about her shifting troubles, too. No way. That was mortifying.
Daisy nodded toward the trunk, indicating he set the box inside. “I gotta go. I have some research to do online before tonight.”
He settled the box into the trunk and stood back to look over the box. “I cannot believe that fit.”
“Thanks, Beck. I appreciate it.”
“Where do you live? I’ll pick you up around ten.”
The man would not take maybe as an answer. So she’d let it happen. Beck would make a much better date than Kelyn. She gave him her address, which he entered into his phone.
Walking around to the door, Daisy paused and turned to find Beck standing right before her. His breath fogged out. Ice eyes took her in. The moment felt as if he should kiss her. And then it did not. It wasn’t right. Sunday wasn’t far away, and even if she said she couldn’t hear anything, Daisy knew that cats had as excellent hearing as wolves did.
She held out her hand, and Beck stared at it awhile before conceding and shaking. “Later. Uh, will there be brothers at this event tonight?”
“Probably. You scared?”
“Should I be? What’s the one’s name? Trouble? I should probably keep a good distance from anyone with a name like that.”
“Trouble is all bark and no bite. Blade is the one you won’t see coming until it’s too late.”
Daisy slid inside the car and turned the key to fire up the engine. As she backed out, she smiled and waved. Sometimes brothers came in handy. Couldn’t let him think it was going to be easy courting her, could she?
But really? The guy was courting her. How cool was that?
* * *
Beck went over the brothers’ names in his head as he pulled up before Daisy’s building. Kelyn. Had she mentioned he was faery? Faeries were no problem. And Trouble was not the one he was supposed to worry about? But Blade was? There was another brother, as well. He didn’t know his name.
But he did know the father’s name. Malakai Saint-Pierre. The man’s name was as much a mouthful as he was a menace. The wolf was big, and he made swords for a living. Freakin’ swords. He’d asked Beck on two occasions to join the pack, once a few years ago, and then only a month ago when he’d seen him in town at the local hardware store. Both times Beck had felt disdain in the man’s growl.
He couldn’t do it. Severo had lived free and alone, but he had been the best wolf Beck had ever known. His father hadn’t needed the approval of a pack. He’d lived life on his own terms and had thrived, earned respect from his fellow breed and married the woman he loved and had a son—
With another child on the way.
Beck squeezed his fingers about the steering wheel. His father should have been here for the birth of his second child. The hunter needed to pay.
The stir of his werewolf twisted inside. It straightened his spine, prodding his skin to form goose bumps. Beck growled. Now was no time to shift, so he redirected his thoughts.
He shut off the engine and stretched out his legs. Focusing on the pull at his hamstrings diverted the werewolf’s urge to run free. He normally experienced a twinge of the werewolf when upset or angry. But lately? It was growing stronger. More insistent.
Concentrate on Daisy. Glancing over the brick building’s facade and arrowing his gaze up toward the third floor, Beck muttered, “What am I getting myself into?”
Did he need to mess around with Malakai Saint-Pierre’s daughter? He’d never let a pretty face distract him so easily. And then again, he’d always let a pretty face distract him. Anytime he went out into the world, whether walking through the grocery store or standing in line (even with a date) at the movie theater, he appreciated a pretty woman. If a guy didn’t notice the beauty walking around him, then there was something wrong with him.
But he hadn’t dated seriously in months. Not since his father’s death. The salad chick last week had been a fruitless attempt at jumping back into the social game.
He’d gone through the grief process rather quickly. Or so he felt. Lately, he was more concerned about his mother. Didn’t have time to worry about himself. He was fine. He missed Dad dearly. But he had to move on. For his mother’s sake.
So getting back into the groove with this date tonight felt right. Like he was moving forward.
As long as Daisy didn’t learn about the other thing he’d been involved with lately, then everything would be golden. Hell, he’d have a tough enough time acting accordingly if any of the brothers were wandering around the fireworks, so he didn’t have to worry about the other thing coming up.
Jumping out of the truck, he landed on the compacted snow. He wore his Arctic Cat overalls and a warm matching coat, plus gloves, pack boots and a knit ski cap. It was already bitter cold tonight. And he intended to test the whole touch not the princess theory. He looked forward to holding Daisy close to keep her warm.
Grabbing the flowers he’d worried over for a full five minutes at the grocery store, he headed inside and up the stairs to the top floor, just as she’d directed him to do. It was an old warehouse that was slowly being retrofitted for apartments, and so far Daisy and a few other residents were the only ones in the building.
“Nice,” he muttered as he topped the stairs and took in the open framework that exposed the original ironwork and ducts. Not what he’d expect a woman to choose.
Daisy was the opposite of the usual sexy, soft, slinky woman he preferred. She punched, too. Entirely unexpected, but she had warned him he’d get a black eye for calling her princess. And the pink hair? He liked it. It looked like cotton candy.
Unzipping his jacket because it was hot up here, Beck knocked on the door, then whipped the flowers around behind his back. He waited a few seconds, listening. All wolves could hear well, and if she had been in the shower, he’d hear the running water and start to imagine that water slicking over her skin—
“Those for me?”
He spun around to find a pink-haired pixy wolf standing behind him, a smudge of black across her cheek. She wiped her hands down an old gray T-shirt, imbuing it with more grease.
“Uh, yes?”
He held out the fluorescent blue daisies. The color was god-awful, but they had made him think of her. “For Daisy Blu, blue daisies.”
“That’s so...” She wrinkled her lips into a moue as she accepted the horrible bouquet. Sporting wilted leaves, with one of the flower heads chopped off, it had been the best of the bunch. A guy couldn’t find any better in the middle of January in a Midwestern Minnesota town.
“Thank you,” she breathed, in a more impressed tone than he had expected or deserved. “It’s sweet that you got them because of my name.”
“You don’t have to act all happy about it. They’re an ugly bunch, but—”
“No, I love them. Come inside.” She opened her door and he followed her in, but stayed on the rubber mat inside the doorway. “I’ll put them in water, then get ready,” she called as she disappeared around a corner.
The vast loft ceiling was two, maybe even three, stories high. He loved the wide-open space. Immediately before him lay the living area with couch, TV and armchairs. To his right must be the kitchen that he couldn’t see from his position. Off to the left and behind the living area, he saw something big covered with a sheet. Tools and a workbench stood nearby.
“I’m sorry.” Daisy appeared before him, twisting her hair about a finger. “I completely lost track of time. I was over at my neighbor’s. Her old stove is trying to kick the bucket, and she won’t invest in a new one. I had to pull out the heating coil and give it a good talking-to.”
“That works with appliances? A good talking-to?”
She shrugged. Such a pretty pink little pixy wolf. He could kiss her right now. Run his fingers through her hair, pull her close and taste her mouth until he forgot his name. But she probably read about that kind of stuff in her books all the time.
How to win over this particular woman, who was like no woman he had ever dated before? The flowers had been stupid. Should have gone for one of those paperback romances he’d noticed in the checkout line.
“Give me ten minutes,” she said. “I’ll go wash my face and change quick. You can sit on the couch.”
He lifted a foot. “Uh, I should stay here. My boots are wet.”
“Suit yourself. In that case, I’ll make it five.”
She scampered off to the back of the loft. A king-size bed sat against the wall, and near that an iron bar suspended from the high ceiling served as a clothes rack. She pulled a few items from it then disappeared into the bathroom, which appeared to be the only room that was actually walled and private.
Beck squatted down and took in the place. The window at the end of the bedroom was curved to a peak at the top, sort of cathedral-like. Cool. And probably romantic as hell to lay snuggled in bed together watching the moonlight.
He smiled and rubbed a hand over his grin, but realized he didn’t need to hide his reaction to the sexy thought.
Beyond the window, the rest of the place was clean and industrial. It was the ultimate bachelor’s pad. Big, spacious, minimal decoration. Nothing froufrou. And there was a welder’s torch on the bench over by what he assumed was the covered artwork.
He’d like to see how she was using the bicycle chains. Hell, he’d like to see anything she wanted to show him, so long as that meant they got to spend some time together.
“What about the brother?” he called when she stepped out of the bathroom five minutes later, pulling her hair back and twisting it into a ponytail.
“Brother? Oh, right. Kelyn is going to look for me there. He’s got a date tonight, too. So we’re on our own.” She scampered up before him, dressed in snug gray jeans and an oversize black sweater that looked softer than a kitten. “You okay with that?”
“With having you all to myself? I think I can deal.”
“Great.” She pulled on some snow pants, a coat and a black knit hat with the cat ears on the top and long strings that hung down over her coat and ended in big black pom-poms. “What’s wrong? You’re staring.”
“You’re just so cute,” Beck said.
Daisy punched him in the arm. Apparently this woman’s way of dealing with compliments was with violence.
Good, he thought. She’d keep him on his toes. If not leave a permanent bruise on his biceps.
Grabbing a tote bag from the kitchen chair, Daisy led him through the doorway. Toggling a cat ear on her hat, he closed the door. “This way, kitten.”
“Oh, do not kitten me,” she said as she locked the door behind them.
“You prefer pixy wolf?”
“Pixy wolf?”
“Yeah, you look like a pixy.”
“Apparently you have never seen an actual pixy. They’re no bigger than six or seven inches and have pointy ears and a nasty manner.”
“Then nix the pixy reference. How about faery wolf?”
“Why don’t you try Daisy?” she suggested, and shuffled down the stairs.
Beck nodded. Hell, he was nervous. He felt like he’d never been on a date and he was doing everything wrong.
Chill, man. Relax and get to know the girl.
What was it Beck had heard about faeries and their wings? Something about touching them being a sexual turn-on.
“Nice,” he muttered.
Chapter 4 (#ulink_90b418bb-90de-5b35-a76c-ac7426768a5d)
They’d found the perfect perch on a hilltop and up against a rock, just behind the masses of people who had gathered at the park. The ice castle sat before the lake, its neon lights reflecting on the shoveled lake surface. The fireworks would begin when they turned off the multicolored spotlights on the castle, usually around eleven.
Daisy poured Beck a cup of hot chocolate that she had made before going to help her neighbor with her stove. The brew smelled so good, she took a sip before handing Beck his cup.
“Had to check,” she said. “Make sure it’s not too hot for you.”
“Thank you, mother.”
“Hey, I’m a chocolate freak, so you know. And I don’t share my chocolate with just anyone.”
“Then I’m honored. To sharing.” He tilted his cup against hers, and they drank the toast.
“What?” Beck stared at the cup, mouth open in awe. “This is...” He took another sip, eyes closed and a satisfied murmur rising. “This is the most amazing stuff I’ve ever tasted.”
Daisy bristled with pride. “Why thank you. It’s a recipe from my aunt Kambriel.”
“Did she steal it from the gods?”
Daisy chuckled. “Actually, one of her friends works at Angelina in Paris. It’s a ritzy place known for its decadent hot chocolate. The recipe is a lot of work, but in the winter I make it at least once a month and freeze it for emergencies. It’s necessary to me, like breathing.”
“I love it. I love you. I love your aunt. Do you think she’d marry me?”
“She’s getting married to a handsome vampire this summer.”
“That’s too bad for me. What about you?”
“A marriage proposal on our first date?”
Beck sipped again, his eyes closing in bliss. “Yes, please?”
“You stick with love for the hot chocolate for now. I’ll reconsider your offer at a later date. Besides, love is so easy.”
“You think so? I suppose I did confess love kind of quickly. But seriously, are there witches in your family? I think you’ve put some magic in this hot chocolate.”
“No witchcraft. No even a smidge of faery magic. Just tender loving care. Love it all you like. You can even love me if you want to. Because the real challenge is in liking a person.”
“How so?”
Daisy pulled up her knees to her chest and held the hot cup beneath her face. The scent was heady. “When you like someone,” she explained, “you enjoy spending time with them. You can hold conversations and never get bored of what the other is saying. Or you can just be next to one another in silence and not feel the need to talk. You tolerate their bad habits, and admire their good. Trust me, like is hard work.”
“I agree. To like!” Beck tilted his cup against Daisy’s. “So your aunt is marrying a vampire in Paris, eh? Fancy. And a werewolf pairing up with a vamp? Cool.”
“Kam’s a vampire. My grandpa Creed is vampire, so, well, you can figure things out.”
“I can. My mom is a vampire. Though she was mortal until a nasty bitch of a vampire transformed her after she met my father.”
“She’s Belladonna, right? How is your mother doing?”
Beck took another sip, pausing for a while. She studied him from the side. The barely there stubble on his chin wanted a shave because his good clean looks demanded it. But she guessed he kept the stubble for that hint of danger, and it was probably warmer in the winter. He had the all-American tousled blond-and-brown hair, and that killer smile. And if she looked into his blue eyes long enough, she’d surely fall in like faster than a falling star.
She’d forgotten what she’d asked him, so when he finally answered she had to think back.
“Fine,” he said.
“Fine?” His mother. “Oh, right. That’s good. And you?”
“Me? Don’t I look fine?”
“You look more than fine.” The words came out in a dreamier tone than she’d intended.
“Is that so?” Beck wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. “You look a little cold. Drink up.”
She did, and the hot chocolate filled her gut with a warm explosion that loosened her nerves and coaxed her to settle against him a little snugger. They both wore cold-protective snow wear, so she’d never feel his body heat. But she could smell him now. A little bit of chocolate and a lot of sensual wildness. His aftershave wasn’t too strong. She liked it. Woodsy and warm. Like an old leather book found in the hollowed-out trunk of a tree on a hot summer evening.
Mmm, she’d like to crack open his cover and delve deep into his pages. She bet his story was filled with adventure, action and some steamy sex scenes. She could hope.
“So where’s this brother I need to worry about?” he asked.
With any luck, Kelyn would not find them tonight. Not that Daisy expected her brother to actually look for her if he was on a date. If they happened to see one another, then he’d probably wave across the crowd.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s got an eye on us even as we speak,” she said, then regretted that tease. “Kelyn’s cool. If he sees us, just wave.”
“Right. Why do I feel as if I have a target on my head, and there are four—five, including your dad—wolves who want to shoot holes through it?”
“I have no idea. You’re the one getting all worked up over nothing. Haven’t you dated a wolf from a pack before?”
“Nope. You did get the whole lone wolf part about me, right?”
“If you think it’s such a bad decision, why are we here right now?”
“Because always making the right decision is boring. Sometimes the wrong one is a hell of a lot more fun. And not getting to learn more about you would be worse than losing my head to one of the Saint-Pierre boys,” he said. “Besides, you’ve already forgotten. I love you.”
“Right. A victim of my witch’s brew. I can dig it. Love me all you want. Just don’t expect me to fall head over heels in like with you too quickly. We don’t even know one another.”
“That is going to change. Let’s talk.”
“So what do you want to know about me?”
He toggled the kitty ears on her cap, then tugged the string hanging over her jacket. “What’s a cute wolf like you doing without a boyfriend? I can’t believe I didn’t have to fight off a ton of wolves at the picnic to get near you.”
Daisy shrugged. “I’m...” She sighed. The truth was she probably pushed men away simply by being who she was. And yet there were more days than most that she had no idea who she was. Wolf or faery? “I’m not so much shy as kind of content with my aloneness. If that makes any sense.”
“Not really.”
“I’m not like most women.”
“You mean most women don’t get excited over greasy bike parts and know how to fix the heating element in an old stove? Who would have guessed?”
“You tease, but next time your stove goes on the fritz...”
“I’ll know who to call. So you like doing things with your hands. Nothing wrong with that.”
It pleased her that he hadn’t said boy things. She’d grown up with the tomboy label. Competing against her brothers for her father’s attention had been as natural as breathing. And that had required a hard skin and masculine interests. The tomboy persona hadn’t bothered her until her twenties when she’d noticed the women in their pretty dresses walking with their handsome lovers. Femininity was so easy for them. Walking in high heels? Daisy would rather jump in mud. (Which was always a blast.)
And really, dealing with the werewolf in her was always an issue when dating mortal men. But she loved being a wolf, so she wasn’t about to complain. Though, her wolf was “one of the boys.”
“My father taught me a lot about blacksmithing and working with metals,” Daisy felt the need to explain. “And if you grow up with brothers, well then.”
Beck leaned into her a little more, just enough so she could relax against him without worrying about toppling over. “I think it would be awesome to have so many siblings.”
“I can’t imagine what it would be like to be an only child. I suppose your parents spoiled you?”
“I’m not sure doing chores every day, chopping wood and helping my dad tend our land could actually be labeled spoiled. Though I confess I am a momma’s boy. She taught me how to cook. I can make a mean wild rice Tater Tot hot dish.”
“Ohmygoddess, seriously?” Daisy twisted to fall against Beck’s arm and curled her mitten-clad hand about his forearm. “I love hot dishes.”
“Like I love your hot chocolate?”
She nodded. “I could marry it. So long as it doesn’t have cream of mushroom soup in it.”
“I’m not much for mushrooms.”
“I knew there was a reason you appealed to me.”
“I promise to protect you from any and all mushrooms we should ever encounter. And so you know? I would do anything for this hot chocolate.” He held up the empty cup. “Tell me what you want and it’s yours, oh pink-haired faery wolf.”
Oh, she could think of a few things she’d like him to do for her—all of them involving privacy and snuggling before a warm fireplace. Daisy couldn’t resist the lone wolf’s allure any longer. “How about a kiss?”
Beck opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment the crowd erupted in an excited whoop. The lights on the ice castle blinked out. Immediately following, a multicolored firework dazzled in the sky, twinkling, lingering and spilling over the iced lake. More sparklers followed at a rapid pace, accompanied by the crowd’s oohs and aahs.
Daisy snuggled against Beck’s chest to watch. “I’ve come here every winter with my parents, and then with friends.” She pointed to a particular small firework that spun like a Chinese whirligig. “But this time it feels more...magical.”
“I like the sound of that.” He slid down parallel to her so their faces were inches apart. “Now about that kiss.”
Daisy tilted up her chin. Their breaths fogged in a mingled cloud. She closed her eyes, anticipation scurrying heat through her system. Beck’s mouth touched hers. The cold night made the first touch icy but fun. She giggled, but didn’t stop the kiss. He slid his hand behind her head as he deepened their connection. Warmth radiated through her system, and she forgot that it was colder than a deep freeze.
His stubble brushed her chin. When she breathed through her nose, the woodsy aura that surrounded him filled her senses and transferred her to that hot summer night she’d been thinking about.
Nothing had ever felt as good as Beck’s mouth against hers. Not even winning a race against Kelyn, who was amazingly swift. This kiss was all hers. She hadn’t needed to compete for it. It was a prize she’d not known she needed until now.
Above them the fireworks glittered up the sky. Beneath them the compacted snow crunched as their pack boots slid over the surface. Beside them, the thermos of hot chocolate rolled across the snowy ground and hit the booted toe of a man who had just arrived hilltop.
“Daisy Blu?”
She broke away from the delicious heat of Beck’s mouth, wishing she hadn’t heard her name and that she could kiss him again and again, but the voice was too familiar. And it wasn’t a brother.
“Ah, shit,” Beck said under his breath.
Daisy twisted to sit and looked up at the dark-haired man towering over them. “Hey, Dad.”
Chapter 5 (#ulink_903ffe5a-269c-5a00-86af-604a8b580c41)
Daisy got a hand up from Beck. She noticed Beck did not stand tall before her father, but instead bowed his head, showing submission, as was expected when a lesser wolf stood before a pack alpha.
Most men might stand up to Malakai, to grandstand in an attempt to show him he couldn’t be pushed around. Those men generally walked away limping or bleeding.
Much as her anger for her father tightened her muscles, Daisy appreciated that Beck showed her father respect.
“Hello, Mister Saint-Pierre,” Beck said.
“What the hell are you doing here with my daughter?” Kai asked.
“Daddy, please.”
“Quiet, Daisy. I’m talking to Beckett.” The taller wolf was dressed in a leather jacket, his long curly dark hair pulled back behind his head to reveal his square jaw held in a tense frown. “Are you two on a date?”
“Uh...” Beck looked to her.
“Of course we are,” she broke in. “And will you stop treating me like I’m a teenager? I’m a grown woman. I can see whomever—”
Kai’s hand landed on Daisy’s shoulder, a staying move that he’d employed as she’d grown up. A means to show her he was not to be trifled with, and must always be respected. It was his gentle way of showing authority.
And she quieted.
“You won’t be seeing this lone wolf,” Kai said, his gaze fixed to Beck’s, who had trouble holding the alpha’s stare. “Isn’t that right, Beckett?”
“Uh, sir.” Beck’s shoulders rolled back. He tucked his thumbs in his pants pockets and looked Kai straight in the eye. “I don’t want to cause any problems, but I think Daisy can choose whomever she wishes to date.”
Daisy smiled inwardly. Go, Beck!
“Are you trying to tell me how to run my family, boy? My pack? Because it sure sounds like it.”
“No, sir. I— It’s our first time out together.”
“And you thought it was okay to kiss my daughter?”
“Daddy,” Daisy said under her breath. “Do not do this.”
The fireworks had ceased. The night sky grew dark with few stars. The waxing moon hid beyond the tree line. While the humans tromped back to their cars, the trio of werewolves held position at the top of the hill. Daisy scented her father’s anger, and yet, there was a tangible softness to it. Similar to how he reacted when she’d made a mistake when she was little. Like maybe he was puffing up to show aggression in display but didn’t mean it as much as he showed it.
But she hadn’t made a mistake this time. At least, she didn’t want it to be a mistake. She could understand that her father wouldn’t want her hanging around an unaligned wolf, but to approach her when they’d been kissing had been too much. She wanted to tuck tail and crawl off into the woods.
“I’ll take Daisy home,” Beck said.
“No, you won’t. I’ll drive her home,” Kai asserted.
“I brought her here. I won’t abandon her,” Beck said, his shoulders tilting back a little farther.
“I said I’d take her home, boy.”
“I want Beck to drive me, Daddy.”
Malakai Saint-Pierre twisted his neck to look down at Daisy. The menace in his gaze could never be softened, and it did not fail to strike at her heart. She swallowed back her bravery and bowed her head. When would she be able to break free of her father’s influence? Was it even possible?
“Get in the car, Daisy,” her father said.
Beck bent to pick up the thermos and handed it to her. “I’m sorry about this.”
“No, I am,” she offered. “This isn’t how things should have gone tonight.” Inhaling a deep breath, she swept her gaze over her father’s stare then wandered down the hill.
She hated leaving Beck at the hands of her father. And what had he done? He’d only wanted to get to know her better. Rare was it a guy actually asked her on a date to do something, as opposed to wanting to go straight to her house to make out on the couch. She craved the wooing process. And that kiss. It could have been amazing had her father not shown up.
Glancing up the hill, Daisy saw that her father was already on his way down. Whew. He hadn’t given Beck a chewing-out. Her father was not a cruel man, but he was feared for the very reason that his physicality was remarkable. It was the rare wolf in this area who could stand against him, alpha or otherwise.
Daisy got into the old pickup truck and pulled the door shut with the duct-taped handle. As her father got in, she tucked her legs up to her chest and twisted to face the window. The engine rattled, and the truck took off.
“He’s arrogant,” Kai said after they’d driven a few miles.
“He’s kind.”
“I’ve invited him to join our pack too many times.”
Daisy swung her head around and met her father’s brief glance. “How many is too many? Two? And the one time he was grieving his lost father.”
“Two too many. He’s refused both times. Says he doesn’t need a pack. That’s arrogance, if you ask me. Stay the hell away from him, Daisy Blu.”
Beck had every right to refuse her father. Daisy could imagine that if he had grown up with a father who had been a lone wolf, then the idea of a pack must be odd to him. Overwhelming. Perhaps even threatening.
“You’re not going to stay away from him, are you?” Kai asked softly.
Daisy bit her lower lip to fight the tears that threatened to spill down her cheek. She wanted to do the right thing in her father’s eyes. But her right and his right weren’t in alignment now. And she was a grown woman. Too old to still have her father tailing after her, approving or denying her choice in men.
“Daisy?”
“I don’t know,” she finally said.
Kai’s sigh rippled through her skin and twanged at her heart.
* * *
The afternoon had been designated for research. Scanning the internet, Daisy tried various search words, starting with “ghost wolf,” which brought up nothing. The data on werewolves provided for interesting reading, some laughs and a lot of head shaking. Eventually she typed in Fenrir, the name of a Norse god who was the son of Loki.
“The ghost wolf obviously isn’t Fenrir,” she said as she scanned the information. But there were some similarities. A monstrous wolf often depicted in paintings as white or ghostlike, he could not be restrained, save by a delicate ribbon named Gleipnir.
Though it was fascinating, it wasn’t getting Daisy any closer to results. The article needed facts, or in this case, some kind of legend to compare to the ghost wolf, at the very least. The creature was larger than life. She needed to communicate that on the page.
“I need a picture,” she said. “That would be the ultimate scoop.”
When her breed shifted to their werewolf shape, they could not be photographed. Well, they could be, but none had been that she knew of. They were fiercely protective of their secret. And should a hunter manage to snap a photograph? A quick slap of claws destroyed the camera.
What would ultimately show up on film, she wasn’t sure. Nothing, much like a vampire? Or a ghost image of the werewolf? If the ghost wolf was already transparent or some kind of filmy state, the results on film were unimaginable.
She eyed her winter clothes hanging by the door. “I’ll go out early in the evening.”
The majority of hunters would be packing up and returning home for supper at that time, yet the ghost wolf sightings had been just after dusk.
Wishing she could give Beck a call and invite him along, Daisy waffled on the idea. Her father had been adamant about her staying away from him. Yet she’d been impressed by Beck standing up to her father. He’d cowered initially, to show respect, but hadn’t been about to yield to Kai’s demands without stating his own position.
“I could like him,” she said to herself, remembering their conversation about love and like last night. Like was the goal. Love would simply be a happy bonus.
* * *
Beck had felt humiliated standing before Daisy’s father last night. He should have stood up to the elder wolf, but it had been the right choice to show respect for the man, despite his intrusion on their date. He’d learned from his father that a man must never jump to hasty violence or make judgments of a man he did not know. If Saint-Pierre didn’t want him to date his daughter...
“Hell.” Beck wandered the edge of the forest a mile from where he’d parked. “He’ll kill me if I see her again.” Or at the very least, tear him a new one with a slash of claw.
But he kind of thought Daisy liked him. Make that love. Like was something even better than love, according to her. He agreed with her definition of it, too.
Man, did he like her hot chocolate.
Did she want to see him again? She hadn’t called. But then, she didn’t have his number, nor did he have hers. He’d thought about stopping by her place today, but didn’t want to push it. Certainly, Malakai would scent him if he showed up anywhere near his daughter’s home.
Was he going to let some big boisterous wolf scare him away from the girl? Was she worth the risk?
Beck nodded. The kiss hadn’t left him. He could still feel her at his mouth, sighing into him. Clinging to his clothing and leaning in closer. Sweetly hungry. And her kisses had tasted like chocolate.
“I’m going for it,” he muttered. Because he knew a good thing when it kissed him.
Now, with the sun tracing a vibrant orange line on the horizon, he shed his winter coat and boots and pulled off his sweater. Steam lifted off his hot skin as the cold assaulted his torso and arms. He stored a waterproof backpack in a hollowed-out oak trunk. The worst thing after shifting back from werewolf form was to find his clothes sitting in a puddle of snow that had melted from the lingering body heat.
Shoving down his jeans, he shuffled barefoot in the cold snow, and when he was naked he stretched back his arms and head, breathing in the crisp night air. The world was gorgeous, and he loved breathing it in. But the very reason he stood here was enough to make him want to punch something.
And then he knew he didn’t have to. His shifted form would take care of matters nicely.
A gunshot in the distance alerted him. He judged it a few miles off. This time of day, most hunters were packing it in and heading home.
No time to waste.
Bending forward and narrowing his focus inward, Beck began to shift. His human skin stretched and prickled as fur grew in the pores and his bones lengthened. Claws grew out from his paws, and his hind legs formed into the powerful werewolf’s legs. His maw grew long, and ears twisted into long, furred beacons that picked up every movement and sound from mouse to fox, to...hunter.
Beck’s werewolf rose to an imposing height, sniffed the air and homed onto the scent of human.
* * *
Daisy kept the hunters in view, while hoping to stay out of their line of sight. She wore a vivid orange hunter’s vest over her winter coat. She’d no plans to shift tonight—not with armed hunters in the forest. But she certainly didn’t want to be so incognito that she invited a bullet.
Her camera wasn’t the best at taking night shots. And now as she leaned against the base of an oak tree, fumbling with the settings, she wished she did have something more high-powered. She’d never win the internship by handing in grainy night shots.
Thinking it would have been awesome to have someone along to keep her company on this cold dark evening, her mind drifted to Beck’s sweet smile and those entrancing blue eyes.
So maybe she was getting her flirt on with him. Felt kind of awesome.
He hadn’t called her today. She didn’t know what his number was. She thought he might have stopped by. Her father must have put fear in the handsome wolf.
Daisy decided if Beck never showed again, then that meant he wasn’t deserving of her interest. Only a wolf who dared defy her father would be worthy of her time. At least, that was the romantic version she played in her head. In reality, she knew Beck was better off staying away from her and avoiding Kai’s wrath.
Too bad. Beck’s hasty confession to loving her because she had a talent with hot chocolate had won her over. The way to a man’s heart was through food. And she wasn’t beyond utilizing such tactics. But as well, his kiss was not to be overlooked. If she never felt his kiss again, the world might never again be as bright. Heck, she’d seen fireworks during that kiss. It didn’t get any better than that.
She knew where his shop was. Nothing was stopping her from driving over to see him. “No,” she muttered. “He needs to come to me.”
A gunshot alerted her, and she whipped her head around, along with the camera. Set at its highest zoom, she peered through the lens and spotted movement. She’d turned the flash off.
There were two of them. Hunters. She saw the shotguns they held. Not aimed at anything because the wooden stocks were slung against their shoulders. And they were running for their lives.
Tilting the camera to the right, she caught a blur of white tracking through the birch trunks in the hunters’ wake.
“The ghost wolf.” Daisy tracked the blur, snapping shots repeatedly.
The frightened mortals ran within a hundred feet of her. She recognized the hunter in the lead. He had bright red hair and was known in town simply as Red, a Scottish farmer transplanted from his country to Minnesota through love and marriage. She didn’t recognize the man behind him, but he yelled for Red to hurry and get to the truck.
Then she scented the wolf. It was angry and feral, and so close she could hear its breathing. Steady, not taxed, and punctuated with vicious growls. Shaped like a werewolf, she estimated it grew two feet taller than even her father when he was shifted. It was indeed white, but a sort of filmy white, perhaps even transparent.
Remembering her mission, Daisy clicked a rapid succession of shots. When the hunters exited the forest and slammed the truck doors, the wolf paused at the tree line. It smashed out its fists to the sides, cracking the tall birch trunks, and howled. It was like no wolf howl Daisy had ever heard. The haunting noise climbed up her spine and prickled under her skin. She shivered, and sank down against the tree trunk in fear.
Her camera hand dropping to the snowy forest floor, she cast her gaze upward as the white werewolf stalked toward her.
The truck peeled away on the icy country road, its back end fishtailing until the chainless tires achieved traction.
And Daisy wished she had hitched a ride with the idiot hunters as she looked up into the ghost wolf’s red eyes.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_013ae869-584b-5746-9c57-e0395a57a1e9)
Werewolf eyes always glowed golden when shifted. Daisy had never seen the likes of these before. This wolf’s eyes were redder than a vampire’s feast.
She swore under her breath. The camera slipped out of her hand and slid across the slippery snowpack. The werewolf must recognize her scent as wolf—she hoped. But was it even the same breed as she? It was like her, and yet not. Bigger and bulkier, its shoulders and biceps curved forward in impossible musculature and ended with talons coiled into fists.
And its coloring was surreal, not of this realm. Glowy and pale, but not see-through, as she had guessed. Iridescent. From Faery? Only Faery things glowed as this wolf did. Or maybe a god such as Fenrir? Couldn’t be. According to the legend she had researched, that god had been chained until the end of time.
Its white leathery nostrils flaring, the wolf scented her, then whipped its head back and reared from her. Growling low in warning, the wolf stepped back and stretched out its arms. Emitting a long and rangy howl, it sent shivers throughout Daisy’s body. She clutched her arms across her chest and tucked her head.
With a stomp of its massive foot, the ghost wolf took off into the forest, leaving its tracks imprinted deep in the snow near her feet.
Daisy breathed out. “Holy shit, that was close.”
Holding a shaking hand before her, she assessed her heartbeat. Ready to bust out from her ribs. She shook her head. She’d take her father’s wrath over another meeting with the ghost wolf any day.
And then she checked her fear. The wolf hadn’t hurt her, hadn’t even moved to touch her. For all she knew, it could be of her breed.
“I can’t be afraid,” she said. “Only girls cry.”
* * *
By the time she arrived back in town, Daisy’s heartbeat had settled. The fear had segued to an adventurous exhilaration during her walk. She’d stood face-to-face with the ghost wolf! Her brothers would be stunned.
With adrenaline tracing her veins, she wasn’t content to go home and crawl into bed. Instead, she headed toward the west end of town where she knew Red lived. She marched up to the front door, passing the truck that hissed out steam from beneath the hood. Seeing a light on inside, she knocked.
Red answered immediately, frowned, then looked over her shoulder. As if she should have brought along an entourage?
“You it?” he asked.
“Uh, I’m Daisy Saint-Pierre, Mister Red. I heard about you seeing the ghost wolf,” she tried.
“You bet I did.”
“Would you mind answering a few questions for the Tangle Lake Tattler?” She whipped out her notepad to make it look official.
“Hell no. I ain’t talking to no one but Kare11 News. I called ’em. I thought you were it, but apparently not.” He pushed the door closed, but Daisy wedged a shoulder against it and shoved inward. “Nobody but the big news,” he reiterated, and this time managed to shut the door completely.
Daisy stepped back and stared at the door. Kare11 was the most-watched news channel in Minneapolis.
“Shoot. I should have gotten here sooner. He must have called the station as they were driving back. Couldn’t have been that scared if he was thinking about his fifteen minutes of fame.”
Daisy wandered down the path back to her car just as the Kare11 News van pulled up. She recognized the blonde reporter who got out and directed her cameraman toward the house.
The woman rushed over to Daisy and shoved a microphone in her face. “Are you related to Red MacPherson?”
Daisy shook her head. “I’m with the Tangle Lake Tattler.”
The reporter lowered the microphone. “Red didn’t give you the scoop, did he? I told him this was my story.”
“He didn’t. But I had to try.”
The woman sucked in a perfectly highlighted and blushed cheek and sneered. “Tough luck.” She spun about and marched across the shoveled sidewalk in her high heels.
Who wore high heels and a business skirt at eleven o’clock at night in the middle of January? Daisy sighed. A reporter who was always prepared to get her story, she decided. There was a lot she had to learn about the business of journalism.
But she did have one thing that might scoop them all.
Rushing back to her car, Daisy pulled away with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching her camera.
* * *
The following afternoon, Daisy opened her front door to find Beckett Severo standing there, smiling sheepishly. The frustration that had been building all day as she’d tried to understand the Photoshop program to enhance her photos slipped away. A more intriguing distraction had arrived.
And a sexy distraction, as well.
“Beck.” She shoved a hand over her hair. Hadn’t looked at it since stepping out of the shower this morning. Yeesh. “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again after, well, you know.”
“Do you want to see me?” He remained behind the threshold, hands shoved in his front pockets. “I mean, should I be here?”
“Yes.” She took his hand and tugged him inside. “I didn’t want to influence you one way or the other so I didn’t make the first move. Also, I don’t have your phone number.”
He tugged out his cell phone and pressed a few buttons, then handed it to her. “Let’s remedy that right now. Type in your number. If you give me yours, I’ll do the same.”
She grabbed her phone from the counter and handed it to him. Typing in her digits, she entered simply Daisy Blu, and not her last name. She didn’t want anything in there to remind him of her father.
“I don’t want to disrespect your father,” he said, handing her back her phone and reclaiming his. “But I couldn’t stay away.”
“Why is that?”
“That I don’t mean any disrespect to a pack principal?”
“No, I understand that completely. And I have to say I’m glad that humiliating episode did not keep you away. It must have been my hot chocolate that lured you back, right?”
“While I admit that wicked brew could certainly provide a strong lure toward you, that’s not the reason. How can a guy walk away from pink hair and fluttery lashes like yours? And you’re not like most women. You’re smart, and you have interests in things beyond shoes and celebrities.”
“I don’t know what torture king expects us to walk in those wobbly high-heeled shoes.”
“I like you in pack boots and your kitty hat. Can I, uh...” His eyes danced over her face nervously. Then he splayed out his hands. “We never got to finish that kiss before your father showed up.”
Indeed not. The man had an excellent memory, and thank the goddess for that.
Daisy stepped up to him and tilted back her head because he was tall, and she wanted to stare into his eyes all day. Until such a view didn’t matter, and she closed her eyes and tipped forward onto her tiptoes.
He met her mouth with his. A warm, sure kiss that belonged nowhere but now. She gripped the front of his sweater, beneath the open coat, and when he spread a hand up her back she leaned into him. He was so warm, and strong. The muscles beneath her hands were hard as rock, and she curled her fingers against the curve of his pecs. Yet at her mouth, everything was not hard but eager and searching. Inviting and exploratory.
He smelled like caramel and coffee. Whatever he’d had to drink before coming here, it was delicious. Beck moaned into her mouth and lifted her by the hips. Daisy wrapped her legs about his waist without breaking the kiss. He dipped his head to deepen their connection, dashing his tongue along hers. The taste of him ignited her desires. Her skin prickled, and her nipples tightened. She almost grinded her mons against his stomach but stopped herself. This was only their second kiss. And actually, it was just finishing the first kiss.
“You do that very well,” she said against his mouth. “You said something about our kiss never ending?”
“I could keep this up for years.” He kissed her eyelid, then tilted his forehead against hers. “You do things to me, Daisy Blu.”
“Good things?”
“Good. Bewitching. You make the wolf inside me want to howl.”
At that moment a wolf howled on the television turned to low volume before the couch.
Daisy laughed. “Appropriate timing.”
“You watching a nature show?”
“No, I’ve had the news on while I’ve been trying to figure out how to make a computer program pair up with my camera.”
Behind them the news anchor reported on last night’s encounter between two hunters and the ghost wolf.
“Kare11 can suck it,” Daisy said. She slid out of Beck’s grasp and picked up the TV remote and clicked it off. “I almost had an interview with one of those hunters last night. I should have told him I was with Kare11. He’d only speak to them. How’s that for sucky?”
“Last night? You were out looking for interviews? How quickly does word get around when something like a white wolf stalking hunters happens?”
“Pretty fast. But even faster when it’s witnessed firsthand. I was there.” She spun, and her enthusiasm over what she’d witnessed last night made her bounce on her toes. “In the forest. I got a few shots of the hunters running in fear from the ghost wolf, and—you’ll never believe this—I actually photographed the ghost wolf. They’re too blurry, though. Nothing I can use unless I figure out the computer program. I’m so not tech savvy.”
Beck’s mouth hung open for so long, Daisy wondered if he’d slipped into a sort of catatonic state. When finally he swept a hand before him and clenched it into a fist, he blurted, “What the hell were you doing in the woods again? Alone? I thought I told you that was dangerous?”
“I’m fine. See?” She spun before him, not about to let the big tough male treat her like a helpless female. Been there, done that. Learned to punch the lug in the gut. “And you know what? The ghost wolf walked right up to me. Sniffed me, even.”
“Daisy! It could have killed you.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’m ninety-five-percent sure it’s a werewolf. Except bigger. And stronger. Its muscles were just so much...” she caressed the air in the shape of the wolf “...more. And you know, it really does kind of glow. It’s white and transparent. Maybe iridescent—”
“I can’t listen to this. Daisy, what would your father say? Does he know you go wandering in the woods alone at night where hunters are waiting to shoot their prey? You being just such prey.”
“I’m no man’s prey. I wore an orange vest. It’s not the hunters I worry about. Besides, I went in human form because I needed to get the shots. Why are you getting so bent out of shape about this? I’m a reporter. Or I hope to be. I’m doing what is necessary to win the internship.”
“Daisy, reporters don’t risk their lives by standing before a wild animal.”
“I think they do. At least, this reporter does. But I didn’t fear the ghost wolf. Not for long, anyway. In fact, I know it wouldn’t have harmed me. I felt that from it.”
“Must have recognized your scent.”
“What? How could it? Recognize it from when?”
Beck shook his head and wandered over to the long table before the windows. Her notes, books and various sketches were scattered beside the laptop and a digital camera.
He gripped his hair and paced. “I don’t think it’s wise. We don’t know anything about this ghost wolf. And even if you think it’s werewolf, it’s not like us, Daisy.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to figure that out. Let me show you.”
She slipped around behind the table where half a dozen books on myth and even some volumes written by paranormal breeds listed a variety of the known and fantastical creatures that existed within this mortal realm.
“I haven’t found anything exactly like what I saw. At first I thought it could be an incarnation of Fenrir, but I doubt that. This one comes close.” She tapped a page in an open book that featured Chibiabos. “It’s a Native American legend, and this area of the state is steeped in Indian traditions. There’s a reservation not far from here. Or this one.”
She pulled another book before her and Beck leaned over, though it didn’t seem as if he were interested, but rather distracted. And not in a good way. She could sense his tension and smell not so much anger as concern.
“Here.” She picked up the picture she’d printed out earlier. “This is the best shot I could get of it.”
He took the photo and looked it over. It was a blurred image of something white. Could be the abominable snowman for the clarity. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she’d never be able to look at the picture and say, Yes, that’s a werewolf.
“What do you intend to prove by getting a picture?” he asked. “I know you want the internship, and that requires a winning article, but why this story?”
“It’s what I know.”
Beck frowned.
“Okay, I know I’m treading dangerous territory with our breed. We’re all about secrecy.”
“And for good reason.”
“Right, and I get that. But the ghost wolf is already out there. The humans are making it out to be some evil creature. But I think of the ghost wolf as more of a superhero.”
“Right, your hero in a cape theory. It’s nonsense, Daisy.”
“I didn’t say he wore a cape.” But that he’d dismissed it as nonsense hurt. Daisy lifted her chin. “And I want to make sure it’s not hunted as a monster, but rather honored as something that made the hunters take a pause to rethink their motives toward mindless killing. The ghost wolf is helping the wolves.”
“A noble goal, but...” Beck sighed and turned to sit against the table, facing her. He clutched the table edge and leaned forward, entreating, “What if one of these nights a hunter’s bullet goes astray and you get hit? Daisy, this story is not worth the risk.”
“So long as it’s not a silver bullet, I’m good.”
“Silver—Daisy. Wait.” Beck stood, his hands pressed together, going to his face. “Silver.”
“Right. That’s the only thing that can kill us.”
“Yes, but...fuck.”
“Beck? What’s wrong?”
She could sense his increased heartbeats. As well, her heartbeat sped up. What had she said? His mood had shifted from concern to something like angst. He must be thinking about his father. She had heard he had been with him when he’d been murdered.
“I don’t know why I haven’t been pursuing this all along.”
“Pursuing what?” she asked.
“The shotgun shell that killed my father had silver in it.”
“That’s odd. Aren’t most shells filled with lead shot?”
“Exactly. So the hunter had to have made it special. And to use silver...he had to have known what he was hunting. Who would do something like that?”
“You think it wasn’t a human?” Daisy asked. “Vampire?”
“Huh?” He found her gaze, as if coming up from the depths, his eyes focusing on hers. “No, it wasn’t a vampire. I jumped on him that night, held him down. He was human, and though I was in wolf shape at the time, I felt his fright.”
“That’s to be expected if a wolf attacks you.”
“I didn’t attack him. I just...kept him away from my father’s body.”
Daisy sucked in her lip. They were moving into intimate territory, and she felt the need for caution. It hurt Beck to retell this information, but that he trusted her to reveal a few details was immense.
“I have to go check on something,” he said. “This is big.” He started toward the door. “I’m sorry. I had come here to spend some time with you. But this is important.”
“I understand. I have your digits now.” She rushed to beat him to the door and pressed her shoulders to it as he arrived before the threshold. “I want to help you, Beck.”
“I don’t need any help. And I don’t want you getting shot in your quest for a picture of a creature that could very likely kill you. Will you promise me to stay out of the forests? Please, Daisy?”
That wasn’t something she could promise. And she was smart; she knew when she was in danger, and she hadn’t felt it yet. Not even when the ghost wolf had walked right up to her.
She touched Beck’s cheek and traced his stubble-darkened jaw. His thoughts were miles away, back at his father’s side as he’d died in the forest. She didn’t know how to deal with grief. It hadn’t touched her life. And it had only been a few months since he’d lost his father. He seemed normal and stoic on the outside, but could he be a bundle of agony on the inside?
“Have you spoken to anyone about this? Losing your father?”
“Why? I’m not a weepy girl, Daisy. Something bad happened. I’m dealing. If anyone needs help, it’s my mother. She’s— Hell. I’ve got to go. I’m sorry about this.”
“Don’t apologize. I just... Can we make another date? Tomorrow night? I’ll cook if you come over.”
“I’d like that. You like wine?”
“Sounds good. Bring red. I’ll make meat and potatoes.”
He bracketed her head with his palms and bent his forehead to hers again. “You could win my heart, you know that, Daisy Blu?”
“I’ll give it a try.”
“You don’t need to try, just...be you.”
He kissed her again, this time holding still at her mouth. She thought she felt his heartbeat in that touch. And in the seconds that her heart stood still, Daisy knew she would try for that win, whether or not he wanted her to.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_f04daf90-e37e-5f6d-818d-52354681d17e)
Beck found his mother in the kitchen cleaning the copper-tiled backsplash behind the stove. Why she cooked was beyond him, but he was glad to see her not sulking in the big easy chair where she and Dad had always snuggled. She looked good, actually had color in her cheeks, and greeted him with a genuine hug and a kiss.
“How you feeling?” he asked.
“I’m well.” She patted her growing belly. “I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow.”
“Do you want me to come along with you?”
“No, you don’t have to. But you’re a sweetie to offer. Did you go to the iceworks the other night?”
“I did.”
“By yourself?” she asked in a tone that implied she had already deduced the answer.
“Why do you ask?”
“I haven’t been a complete hermit since your father’s death. I talk to Blu on the phone once in a while. She said her son Malakai was all in a huff because he saw his daughter with my son. I only have one son—at the moment—so...”
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Michele Hauf
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: THE LONE WOLF′S SALVATIONAngling for a story, journalist Daisy-Blu Saint-Pierre investigates the mysterious ghost wolf that’s been menacing hunters. Instead, she encounters a juicier sort of discovery in sexy, rugged wolf Beckett Severo – who she can’t not picture curled up next to her at night…Ever since a hunter’s bullet took his father’s life, Beck has carried a hunger for revenge. Now faery magick has turned him from a werewolf into something more powerful that comes at a price. The time spent with Daisy in between the sheets almost makes Beck forget the danger they’re in. Almost.