To Catch a Wolf (BBW Werewolf Shifter Romance) Page 4

  Clearly losing the last of his patience, Erik slammed his fist down on the table. “No!” he shouted. “No, absolutely not, we are not going to waste a bunch of time and money on a bullshit zombie—”

  In the midst of all the shouting, the conference room door opened, slowly. Three very frightened looking people stepped in, with Leon was in front, trembling like a leaf. Behind him stood Devin, who still had a purple bruise on his face, and Lucien, whose eyes were darting back and forth.

  All three of them stood there for a second looking like they ran out of plans as soon as they walked in the door.

  “How did you get in here?” was the first thing Erik asked when he broke the tight silence. “No one’s supposed to be able to get in.”

  “We... er, I, uh,” poor Leon was clearly about halfway down the road to drunk-town, but he seemed pretty together, considering. “I’m sorry but I been drinkin’ some.”

  “You don’t say,” Erik said with a sneer.

  “Yeah, I just... I’m sorry Alpha, I don’t know how we got in.”

  Erik’s shoulders slumped. “You just came in. You must know how you got past the guards?”

  “Oh, them,” he said. “I thought it was some kinda weird that they weren’t around.” Leon licked his eye with a flick of his tongue, and shrugged. “Weren’t nobody there, we just came in.”

  “No good sons of...” Erik took a deep breath through his nose. I reached up and grabbed his hand, which he squeezed like a vice around mine until I let out a pained squeak.

  “We just, er, I’m sorry about yesterday,” Devin said with a defeated tone.

  Erik waved away his apology. “What is it? All three of you look terrible.”

  I was a little surprised at the concern in Erik’s voice even though it was tinged with gruff irritation. He was right, though, they all three had seen better days. Leon was pale with bags hanging under his sunken eyes halfway down his slightly-green cheeks. Devin, aside from the bruise, had a bunch of sweat gathered on his upper lip, and Lucien’s hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t even stop them by holding one with the other.

  “I ain’t exactly sure how to say this, Erik... er, Alpha,” Lucien said. “But, uh... we seen something. Seen something that shouldn’t maybe exist.”

  Duggan stood up and leaned toward them, mouth open. “What was it?” he asked. “What did you see? Out with it, boys! This is important!”

  Instead of answering, Lucien extended his arm with his fist closed around something. Erik, Duggan and Jamie all three moved around the meeting table.

  “This sure is dramatic,” Erik said under his breath.

  Jamie shot him a nasty glare.

  The other seven councilmembers all stood up and pushed back their chairs, leaning over the table to see whatever it was Lucien had in his quivering hand.

  “Let us see what you have,” Jamie said in a very calm, soft voice. When she spoke, Lucien looked over at her, and smiled a little.

  “Uh, well, we were all three at the bar, you know—”

  “As respectable people do at ten in the morning,” Erik said with a sneer.

  “Sorry,” Lucien said. “We were too scared to do anything else after what Leon told us about the old alpha coming back and—”

  “For God’s sake!” Erik threw his hands up in the air and paced quickly along the table. “First, we have the king of the drunks talking about some zombie bullshit, and then we get his two knight retainers lit up with him and scared about the same thing? How does anything ever get done here?”

  “Beg your pardon sir,” Lucien said. “But I found his finger.”

  “You... what?”

  I’d never seen Erik shocked before, but when the trembling werewolf opened his hand to reveal a stumpy, green-tinged finger, I thought Erik was going just about fall over.

  “That’s...” Erik managed to say.

  “The ring,” Duggan whispered. “The town crest.”

  “But there it is,” Jamie said. “Which means...”

  Erik’s eyes were wide open as he stared at Lucien’s hand. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Duggan nodded. “It’s rare that I don’t enjoy being right, but... that’s Atlas’s finger. I’d recognize that ring anywhere.”

  “I think that means I owe you an apology, Duggan.”

  Every head in the room turned to Erik. I guess everyone else was just as amazed at what he said as I was. For all Erik’s good qualities, apologizing readily upon making a mistake was not one that he exhibited very often. Or, ever, really.

  “On the bright side,” Duggan said softly, “I suppose you have your alpha’s insignia now, Erik.”

  Erik just blinked.

  Lucien finally stopped quivering for long enough to string together more than five words at a time. “Like I said, Leon was so upset that we told him we’d go look where he said he’d seen Atlas last night. Out front of that little roadhouse on the way out of town, we wandered around a little and we found this.”

  Erik plucked the finger out of Lucien’s palm, removed the ring and slipped it onto his thumb. “Well,” he said. “I guess it’s about time to start planning for zombies, huh?”

  -4-

  “I've never seen you like this, Erik,” I said as I slid my hand up his back and then down to his waist. “Why are you so upset about all this? It seems like this Atlas coming back with a little gang of zombies is... okay, admittedly that’s pretty crazy, but isn’t it kinda just another bump in the road?”

  He laughed, and poured himself another half-glass of whiskey. And by glass I actually mean glass, like twelve ounces.

  “I don’t know what he wants, but whatever it is, he’s going to go away disappointed. Still, I think Duggan’s right that there must be someone behind his sudden reappearance.”

  “Wait,” I said. “You mean the witchdoctor business? Look, I’m basically totally lost with all this. You left me in the dust about halfway through that meeting. I know there’s a former alpha, and I know he’s after your... uh... I don’t know. That’s about all I’ve got.”

  Erik grabbed my shoulder and pulled me close, enveloping my mouth with his and drinking me deep. He pulled a huge breath through his nose, then shuddered as he exhaled. “I can’t do this anymore,” he said.

  With his shoulders slumped forward, Erik cupped my face in his hands and tilted my head upwards.

  “Can’t do what?”

  “Keep you a secret. Well, however much a secret you actually are. I’m so tired of parading around like a mateless alpha. Aside from being hard to hide, it isn’t fair to you.”

  “Okay,” I said, moving a little closer. “I gotta admit that was a surprise. Did not expect you to put it that way. But I also don’t really understand what this has to do with that other alpha coming along.”

  Erik was nodding slowly. “You know how I said there was another alpha who had a human mate?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, what about it?”

  “Atlas was...” he took another deep breath. “He’s the one with the human mate. The story goes that he was—”

  “Hold on,” I said, putting my hands on Erik’s chest. “I thought you said that happened centuries ago. Or was that something else I’m confused about?”

  “Creative license,” he said with one of his disarming, devilish grins. “Atlas was an alpha in the last century, so that counts, right?”

  “The last century wasn’t even twenty years ago.”

  “Still, it was last century.” Erik’s eyes narrowed. “It doesn’t matter. Look, the story about Atlas is a little strange. So it goes that he marked a human, and that made his werebear insanity tendencies worse and worse until finally he blew up and dove headfirst off that construction and into the rebar.”

  “You’re telling me that being with a human makes shifters insane?”

  “No,” he said. “You’re the one who said that. I said there’s a... okay, yeah. That’s basically what people think happened to him, and that’s why humans are a
lmost never brought here. Everyone’s a little afraid that it drives shifters crazy if they’re around normal people too much. Kinda like radiation.”

  At that, I pulled away from him. “You’re saying I’m radioactive? I’m some kind of poison that screws people up?”

  “Not you, specifically. All people. Humans, I mean.”

  “That makes it a whole lot better, Erik, thanks.”

  “Oh, good,” he said.

  “That was sarcasm.”

  He groaned and reached for me again, but I dodged his groping hands. “It’s like an addiction,” he said. “We get a taste and we just kinda... can’t stop. Anyway, the thing that happened with his mate is that she figured out that she was in control, and she kept denying him until he went off the deep end. By the time anyone figured out what was happening, Atlas was a couple weeks dead, and she was gone.”

  “That’s horrible,” I said softly. “So he fell in love with someone, and they ended up using him to steal some money?”

  Erik downed another drink. “Not just some money. It was at least a half-million. Right around the time he died, too. Really awful. Once she figured out how much power she had, that was that.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the much needed, and much smaller, glass. “I’m just... I’m kind of in shock. I mean, you guys – you’re just so strong that it’s hard to believe a normal person like her could have that much influence.”

  “Strength is relative,” Erik said. “I might be able to throw a car if I get pissed off enough, but when you’re dealing with power like that, it’s hard to...”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “How much of you keeping me a secret has to do with this? You can’t possibly be worried that I’m the sort of person to do something like that. Can you? Are you?”

  Instead of immediately responding, which is what I wanted, Erik turned his glass around a few times in his fingers, took another swallow and studied my face. “I don’t think you are,” he said, slowly.

  “You don’t think I am?” The whiskey gave me a little courage I didn’t have otherwise, but it was still an honest feeling. “You don’t think I’m the sort to steal a bunch of money and run? Erik Danniker, do you realize that I had no idea this was even like... a thing? Until like five minutes ago, I’d never heard a single word about this.”

  He nodded, still studying my face. “That’s true. On the other hand...”

  “How can you say that about me? Is it the whiskey? Or do you actually think I’m going to try and scheme you? To play you like that? You’ve known me two years, Erik, when have I ever done something that conniving?”

  Erik put his hands up in the air, obviously flustered. “I... no, that’s not what I meant,” he said. “I was just thinking out loud. I didn’t mean to make you think I suspected you. It’s just that’s what the pack will think. That whole thing is too fresh in a lot of their minds for them to trust you. That makes sense, right? You understand?”

  I looked down at my feet and swallowed the drink. “I guess,” I said half-heartedly. “Then I’ll have to figure out some way to make them trust me.”

  Erik took a big breath and sighed. “I don’t know that it’ll be as easy as that. They’ve got a long history of not trusting normal people. After all, look at the town. There aren’t any. That’d be like, I don’t know, an eighteen year-old moving into a retirement home and getting all the old people to trust them. I just don’t—”

  I snorted ingloriously, and could hardly keep from bellowing I started laughing so hard. Although he was pretty much right.

  “So you’re saying I’m just stuck? I can’t possibly do anything that will make all these people, who by the way, all seem to like me fine, trust me? I’m just supposed to shrug my shoulders and give up? I mean, if they are just not going to trust me at all, ever, then why was I brought here in the first place? Why am I allowed to go to court meetings and hear all the town secrets if I’m just going to steal everything?”

  I was fuming. I wasn’t proud of it, but I also couldn’t stop myself.

  “You know why you were hired. Town initiative, outreach program to open the place up and maybe get some fresh perspective on things. Honestly, it worked better than anyone thought,” he said. “You lasted a whole lot longer than the first guy. He took off the second he saw Leon.”

  “Great,” I said. “So I’m a failed outreach project. I wasted two years of my life, and now because some undead bear shows up, everyone’s decided humans are evil again? Remind me why I’m still here?”

  Erik moved closer and grabbed my shoulders. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. It’s just that—”

  “Yeah,” I cut him off. “No, that’s exactly what you’re saying. Some human stole a bunch of money years and years ago, and so all the people in Jamesburg are now literally incapable of ever trusting another person. Even one they like. I should just up and leave then?”

  “Whoa, whoa, no one said that,” Erik said, holding me still. He leaned in for a kiss but I twisted away at the last second.

  “Not so fast,” I said. “This is one time I’m actually serious about not wanting the distraction from you getting me all hot and excited.”

  That shut him down faster than anything I’d ever seen. Erik just stood there looking dejected for a second. Dejected! I’d never see that before. That was almost as crazy as when he apologized.

  “I just want to be able to have the woman I love around all the time and not have to worry about what a bunch of cranky old foxes and hedgehogs will think about it,” Erik said all in one breath.

  And then he realized what he’d actually said.

  The ‘L’ word. There it was. He’d never once admitted any kind of feelings for me. Actually, he’d never admitted much of anything except that he liked me a lot and that I wasn’t horrible dinner company. He made his emotions clear through actions, he always said.

  “You... what?” I asked.

  He turned bright red.

  The pack alpha turning bright red with embarrassment. Oh my God, I could’ve fallen over dead. Even if the whole pack thought I was a crook by association because of my species, seeing Erik almost curl up into a ball, utterly mortified at having actually expressed a normal emotion was just... priceless.

  “Nothing,” he said. “What I meant was—”

  “Oh no,” I said with a grin. “You don’t get away from it that easily. I heard you, and you know I heard you. Say it again. It makes you as mad as it does me how closed-minded everyone is about this, doesn’t it?”

  He grinded his teeth.

  “Yes,” he said, looking straight at the ground. “I’ve never...”

  “Out with it, you big brute,” I said. Goading him was just too much fun. “Why are you acting so embarrassed? I tell you how much I care about you, and God forbid, even love you, all the time. Why is it so awful for you to admit the same thing?”

  As he stood there, bashfully staring at the toes of his boots, I started remembering back about a year ago when I realized that I was in love with Erik.

  We’d had some trysts, some romantic rendezvous before, but there was this one time that I was, sick with the flu, and he showed up in the middle of the night with a bottle of water and two Thera-Flu packets. I realize that doesn’t sound like much, but for Erik? He even heated up the water when he found out it was supposed to be hot. It was... well, it was surprising to see how protective and nurturing he got when his precious little Izzy felt like shit. I think that was an exact quote.

  When I asked him why he was so nice, he said it was because he couldn’t have his secretary feel like shit, because it made my transcriptions hard to read. That’s... not exactly what he meant, though. The way he hung around for like three days, cancelled all sorts of meetings? Yeah, I got a pretty good idea how much I meant to him right then.

  But still, he never said anything. Never gave me any kind of emotional support or said nice things. That part bothered me, but I’d long since decided that he was just going to
do things on his own accord.

  “Why does it bother you?” I asked, remembering the way he kissed me the first night my fever broke. He looked about like he was going to cry with how sick I was. He never did, of course, but I swear he had mist in his eyes back then. “I mean, what difference does it make? I’m just some girl to you, right? Like, you’ve had other mates before. What’s so special about me? Oh wait, no, now you’re physically addicted to me. Is that all I am, Erik? A fix?”

  It came off as a little more irritated than I meant. Erik never made his various lovers any secret to me, and honestly it never bothered me, but ever since he started in with the promises and the talking about how he wanted me to be his real mate and all that, I started getting a little jealous, and more than a little curious.

  He looked back up at me, staring at my face for a second before he opened his mouth and then closed it again without speaking.

  “What is it, Erik? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. His voice was a lot shakier than I’d ever heard it. He sounded... vulnerable? If I was about to laugh when he made that retirement home joke, hearing the little crackle in his normally smug-as-all-hell voice had exactly the opposite effect. “I just... I don’t know. It sounds stupid, but...”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said, “none of this sounds stupid. You just told me you loved me for Christ’s sake.” I was on the verge of tears from his unexpected revelation, but somehow I managed to hold them off. “How could you think that’s stupid?”

  “Not that,” he grumbled. “The stuff about the pack and the politics and everything else. I shouldn’t care, you know? I should just tell them to take a hike if they don’t like the way I do things. I mean, I’m the alpha, right? And no, it’s not just the addiction. I feel things for you I didn’t even know I could feel.”

  “You are,” I said, “but I know you have other things to think about. You can’t just do whatever you want, or you’d be some kind of a weird, crooked, half-animal king. You were elected, you can’t just—”

  Erik looked me straight in the eye. “Chosen. We live in different worlds, Izzy. Very, very different worlds. We don’t care about democracy or kings or anything else.”