Haunted Wolves: Green Pines, Book 2 Page 4

  “I’m not heartless, Colin. Just determined to protect this sanctuary.” Jay looked around. “You talk to her. I’ll get Shane and a couple of the others to start a search. See if they pick up any scents that weren’t masked.”

  “Wait, you want me to ask her?” Colin caught Jay’s arm. “Man, I barely got her past being pissed at me, and I don’t know if she’ll tell me the truth about whether she can handle this.”

  Judging from Jay’s expression, he already considered it a distinct possibility. “Did I say determined? Try desperate.” He turned toward the house and started walking away. “Ask her, and we’ll see.”

  Ask her. Colin had been raging at the existence of Lorelei’s imaginary dragons, and Jay wanted him to lead her back to the monster’s damn lair. Not that he doubted his ability to protect her—fuck, he’d raze half the wolves in Memphis if he had to—but the fighting wouldn’t make her feel safer.

  Probably. Hell, maybe it would. Maybe Jay knew what he was doing and Colin’s instincts were shot to hell. Wasn’t that why he’d agreed to follow Jay to begin with?

  Unsettled, Colin waited until Fletcher arrived to oversee Phillip’s body before leaving in search of Lorelei. He found her just inside the main farmhouse, seated at the base of the staircase.

  Crouching down, he met her gaze. “You okay?”

  She didn’t answer. “Are they here like Tammy said?”

  “No,” he said firmly. He touched her cheek and waited until her eyes focused on him. “Whatever happened, we’ll find out and we’ll handle it. It could have just been bad fucking luck.”

  She turned and tilted her head, moving away from his hand as she glanced down at it. “I’m not going to dissolve into helpless tears.”

  He could handle tears better than this tired, helpless fear. His tongue tangled like it always did. Words came so easily with Kaley and Eden, but with Lorelei, he could barely manage awkward reassurances. “I know. I know you’re not.”

  She rose, clenching her hand around the railing. “Picking you is the smart thing, but you’ll need someone who knows who to talk to. He is sending you to Memphis, right?”

  Colin glanced up at her but didn’t stand. For this discussion, she should have the high ground. “Yes. And yes, he thinks I should have someone who knows the wolves in Memphis.”

  “When do we leave?”

  That easy. That brave. “You don’t have to. You know that, right?”

  The corner of her mouth ticked up. “And you know that’s bullshit.”

  “It’s not.” Colin rose to bring his eyes level with hers. “If we have to, you can tell me who to talk to. I can make it work. I’ve done it before.”

  “If it were that simple, it’d be Plan A.” She took a step back, higher on the staircase. “I’ll pack some things.”

  “All right.” He let her get halfway up the stairs before calling after her. “I won’t let anything happen to you in Memphis. I promise.”

  “Memphis doesn’t scare me anymore.” Wry laughter trailed down after she’d turned the corner at the top of the first flight. “Not much does.”

  Then she was lucky. The thought of spending too much time alone with Lorelei when he wasn’t supposed to put his hands on her scared the shit out of him. If it didn’t scare her, too, they were both in trouble.

  Chapter Four

  Waiting in the car felt too much like hiding, so Lorelei climbed out of the passenger seat and leaned against the front fender. The town was still waking up, the fog not yet burned off the chilly autumn morning…

  And she was on her way to Memphis.

  She swallowed hard and considered heading into the diner to find Colin, where they could eat in warmth and peace instead of taking their bagged breakfasts on the road. It didn’t matter if Zack knew about their trip, anyway—he couldn’t stop her. He wasn’t her alpha, not anymore.

  A bell above the front door jingled cheerfully as Colin stepped into the parking lot, taking away her choice. He had a brown paper sack clutched in one hand and a cardboard tray with two travel cups balanced on the other, and the wind carried the smell of coffee, cinnamon and bacon to her.

  Smiling, Colin lifted the bag. “Egg and cheese biscuits, muffins and fruit. Eden’s father isn’t planning to let us go hungry.”

  No, Austin wouldn’t do that. Lorelei peered up at the lightening sky. “Think we’ll miss the traffic?”

  “I’m more worried about getting pulled over.” Colin stopped a foot away, leaned against the car and offered her a coffee. “This car makes me want to drive fast.”

  She accepted the cup with a faint smile. “At least we don’t have to double up on your bike.”

  His eyes unfocused, just for a moment, and she knew he was picturing it. His wolf stirred, whispering power across her skin, but he jerked it back and handed her the bag. “Let’s get on the road.”

  “So you do like to live dangerously,” she murmured as she hauled open the car door.

  He laughed as he circled to the driver’s side. “I am what I am, sweetheart.”

  Dangerous, indeed. Lorelei settled into the seat, shut the door and reached for her seat belt only to freeze as movement on the second-floor fire escape above the diner caught her eye. Kaley, her brown hair swinging loose as she climbed out of Zack’s window.

  Colin noticed her too. He pulled his door shut with a soft click and watched Kaley traverse the narrow stairs. “Did you know about that?”

  Lorelei’s chest ached. “Who doesn’t?”

  He blew out a breath. “I didn’t know it had progressed to her sneaking off the farm.”

  Perhaps it hadn’t, until a Memphis refugee had died in the backyard. “It isn’t like that. She probably just needed him last night, that’s all.”

  “I suppose,” he replied, his hand hovering over the key in the ignition. “Do you want to talk to her?”

  “No.” Lorelei turned away from the window. “It’s none of my business.”

  “She’s pack.”

  No, he didn’t know either of them, couldn’t possibly understand the truth. “Kaley is pack,” she echoed. “But, above all else, she’s Zack’s. He pulled her away from us when he left, because part of her had to go with him.”

  He steered the car toward the exit on the opposite side of the parking lot. “I thought they were never an actual thing.”

  She glanced at his profile. “What qualifies as an actual thing?”

  “I don’t know.” His pose was relaxed, with one hand resting lightly atop the steering wheel, but his voice held tension. “I’d say consummation counts.”

  Lorelei had been in Zack’s bed once or twice over the years, but she’d never once considered it a thing, and neither had he. “I don’t think they ever were, then. By your definition.”

  “It’s not a perfect one.” He ran his free hand through his hair and sighed. “There’s wanting and needing and taking…and that’s just the human half of it. The complicated half, maybe, but the less dangerous half.”

  “Is it?”

  “Always seemed like it to me. Not a lot of room for civilized discussion once the wolf is riled.”

  “No.” She sipped her coffee to occupy herself, but soon the silence in the car grew to deafening levels. “Do you want your breakfast now or later?”

  He stole a look at her, a sympathetic one that made her think an apology hovered on the tip of his tongue, but after a moment he returned his attention to the road. “The muffins smell good.”

  She dug one out of the bag and passed it to him, along with a napkin. “I know the right people to talk to in Memphis, ones who’ll definitely know what’s going on, but it might take us a few days to track them down.”

  “Track them down, huh?” He glanced at her again. “Can you tell me anything about them?”

  If he was half the information guy Shane and Jay made him out to be, he already knew the answers. “They don’t exactly have addresses.”

  “Not where they are. Who they are.”

>   “Wolves who stay off the radar.” She hesitated. “They know what happens when you run afoul of someone like Christian Peters.”

  He nodded. “And staying off the radar means knowing what’s going on around you. My best contacts are like that.”

  “We should be able to find out quickly who’s taken Christian’s place and what they might want from Jay.”

  “It’s a place to start.” He demolished the muffin in three hungry bites and gestured to the bag. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  The thought of trying to force food into her roiling stomach had Lorelei shaking her head. “I’m fine, thanks.”

  Colin reached for her hand, brushing his fingers over the back of it. This time his power was a softer caress, just a hint of the wolf. “I know you didn’t eat before we left.”

  He saw too much. She wanted to pull away from the comforting touch, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do so. “I’ll be all right.”

  “Yeah, you will.” His hand dropped over hers. He didn’t curl his fingers or grip her, just let the weight of his palm press down and bring reassuring magic with it. “Nothing in Memphis will get past me.”

  He’d never believe that there was nothing left in Memphis that scared her, nothing that would hurt. “You do this a lot, don’t you? Put out fires.”

  “It’s pretty much all I do. All I did, anyway, until last month.”

  Until coming to Green Pines. Did he really feel like he belonged there, like he’d said, or was he covering for the fact that he felt like a glorified bodyguard? “And now you’re an enforcer.”

  “I’ve been an enforcer all along. Fletcher and Shane, too.” He shrugged one shoulder. “For all the good it’s done. It’s like sticking your finger in the dike when the next good storm’s going to—” His teeth clacked together audibly. “It doesn’t matter. Being a pack enforcer is better.”

  “You’re outnumbered,” she said without thinking. “We all are.”

  “By bad guys?” Colin sighed. “No, there are more of us than there are of them, I think.”

  Most people weren’t evil. There were other emotions that kept them from fighting back—fear, exhaustion, sickness, even ennui. There was no way in hell Jay could triumph over all that, not unless he planned to drag every wounded wolf in the Southeast to the farm.

  Lorelei leaned her head against the seat and closed her eyes. “Giving up isn’t an option.” She’d tried it before.

  But Colin must have heard something else in her words, something that dulled his tone. “No, you’re right.”

  The hint of resignation, of shame, scraped at her. “I was talking about myself, Colin.”

  “You? Hell, sweetheart. You’re about as far from giving up as I’ve ever seen.” He squeezed her hand before pulling away. “I could take lessons from you.”

  He thought so because he didn’t know anything about her. “If you knew all the ways I’d failed, or how many times I just wanted to stop fighting, you might not think so.”

  “You think not?” He gestured toward the road ahead of them. “Where are you now? Wanting to give up isn’t the part that makes us weak. Giving in to it is.”

  “I can’t let everyone down.”

  He went silent for a moment before inclining his head. “I see the distinction. You don’t feel like you’re far from giving up.”

  “I know I’m not.” A brutal truth, but one he deserved to hear before they waltzed into God only knew what in Memphis. “Don’t worry. I’ll get this done.”

  Colin nodded. “You don’t need to hide it from me, you know. If you’re scared, if you’re hurt… Hell, I know I’m no good at this shit, but I want to try.”

  She just wanted to get it done, to get there and find out what they needed to know. “Have you ever been to Memphis before?”

  His jaw tightened, but he accepted the change of topic. “Once or twice, just passing through. Is that where you’re from?”

  Lorelei shook her head. “Little Rock, Arkansas. You?”

  “Corpus Christi. Texas.”

  “Is that how you wound up in… Where was the pack where you met the others? Houston?”

  “Yep.” He reached for his coffee. “I joined up when I was a teenager, and I was in my early twenties when Fletcher rolled in. I’ve known him the longest. Shane drifted in a few years later, and Jay was the last. He’d barely been around a year when we left.”

  Interesting. “So…why? Why did you leave?”

  Colin considered the question as he slowed to take a lazy left turn onto the highway. They joined the few cars cutting through the early-morning gloom, their headlights reflecting off the lingering fog. Fletcher’s restored Corvette hummed as Colin accelerated. “It’s a rite of passage, I guess,” he said finally. “When you’re young, you follow a strong alpha out of respect. And when you’re older, or tired, out of loyalty. But when you’re strong and coming into your power, you have to fight.”

  As natural as breathing—for alphas. She’d seen Kaley do the same thing, could see it in the distance between the girl and their new alphas, Jay and Eden. An instinctive distance, and necessary, because maybe the wolf inside Kaley never knew when she would have no choice but to fight them.

  When Lorelei didn’t reply, Colin shrugged again. “Some people get over it. Pretty sure I did. Fletcher… He has a lot more resentment to get past. I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to follow.”

  Fletcher acted like a man who’d found his place and lost it, not like a man still searching. “What’s his story?”

  “I’ll tell you if you hand me one of those biscuits.”

  He was teasing her. Lorelei ignored the gentle wash of power that rolled over her and lifted an eyebrow as she searched through the bag again. “I didn’t know you charged for conversation. This changes things.”

  His lips curved upward. “I only charge for the really epic stories.”

  She handed him the paper-wrapped biscuit. “Fletcher’s must be legendary, then.”

  “Legend being the key word.” Colin folded back the wrapping without taking his gaze off the road. The scent of egg, cheese and bacon filled the car, and his stomach rumbled. “Fletcher’s from this fishing village in New England, up near the Canadian border. Very old school, very off the radar—but not the usual sort of sanctuary, either. Witches and wolves control the town together, and intermarry like European royalty trying to keep the peace.”

  “They do not.”

  “Oh, yes they do. Take themselves as seriously as European royalty, too.”

  She waited for him to say more but he didn’t, so she nudged his arm. “Get to the good part.”

  “Ah, but the good part’s pretty awful. His father was the alpha, and when Fletch was nineteen, the pack’s beta challenged his father…and won. The new alpha drove Fletcher out of the pack.”

  And out of his home. Lorelei bit her lip. “That is awful.”

  “Worse when you know he left his childhood sweetheart behind, and the only reason he wasn’t killed on the spot is that his mother agreed to marry the new alpha in exchange for sparing her son’s life. Legitimize the rebellion, or some kind of crazy dynastic bullshit. I’m telling you, the place he’s from is medieval.”

  A whole different world from what she’d known, and it didn’t sound much better. “Now I feel guilty for teasing.”

  “Don’t.” Colin polished off the biscuit and reached for her hand. “It’s one more story, right? We all have ’em. Don’t know many wolves who don’t.”

  “No, not many.”

  “Maybe someday you’ll tell me yours.”

  Lorelei tensed. “It isn’t very entertaining.”

  He squeezed her hand and then released it, leaving her with the warmth of his presence without the pressure of his touch. “So hand me another biscuit, and I’ll tell you another story.”

  She recognized the careful, encouraging timbre of his voice. She’d used it herself, a gentle nudge toward trust. And she knew he couldn’t help it,
that instinct demanded he push, no matter what.

  It wouldn’t work. But he had no way of knowing that, and even if she told him, he wouldn’t believe. He’d just keep trying, and she’d have to keep shoving him away.

  There was no straight shot from Clover to Memphis. It was another one of those things he kept forgetting about small-town life—sometimes, in order to get anywhere, you had to drive fifty miles out of your way on tiny country highways with few convenient rest stops and fewer topics of conversation.

  The drive hadn’t seemed so long when he’d last come to Memphis. But Fletcher had been driving then, and Colin had been in the passenger seat, texting his contacts and cursing every time his phone lost signal.

  Not now. Nothing to do but stare at the road and chew his lips raw to stop himself from trampling over the silence Lorelei clearly preferred. He’d always been partial to quiet himself—it was one of the many reasons he preferred Shane’s company to Fletcher’s—but this wasn’t the comfortable silence of friends who didn’t need to fill the quiet with useless words. This was awkward, tense silence, heavy and claustrophobic. Two near-strangers used to the buffer of pack, her vibrating with unease and him with frustration because there was nothing about her distress he could fix.

  When signs for Millington began to pop up along the highway, relief warred with renewed irritation. He had to break the silence now, if only to discuss where to go first, but every mile tightened that knot of tension. If his wolf had his say, Colin would be burning the tires off Fletcher’s cherished Corvette just to get Lorelei as far from Memphis as possible.

  Soon, he promised silently as he tightened his grip on the wheel and cleared his throat. “Where to first?”

  Her hair hid her face as she stared out the window. “I don’t know yet. We could go to Christian’s place, but it might not hurt to lay low for a day or so. I don’t know who’s in charge now—or how they operate.”

  Nobody seemed to. At least, nobody Colin knew—or who was willing to speak to him. The best he’d been able to get was an assurance that one of the enforcer safe houses in Memphis was secure. “I have a place we can go. Keep us safe, at least, until you can reach out to the people you know.”