Legend of the White Wolf

Chapter 18

AS SOON AS OWEN AND DAVID HEARD SNOWMOBILES, THEY darted deeper into the woods with Elizabeth, knowing Kintail's people wouldn't give up on trying to return them to Kintail's lodge. They'd dodged them several times already, and Owen was slightly worried the men were trying to corral them. But he was pretty sure he, David, and Elizabeth were getting closer to Charles's resort also.

That's when he thought something was different about the men in pursuit of them. The snowmobiles were plain noisy, no masking the sound. But they had never heard a peep out of the men stalking them in silence, just like wolves on the hunt. And Owen felt a kinship to them, understood their ways.

Now he heard shouts of glee, "Woohoo!" "There they are!" like kids at a circus. And that's when he felt in his bones, the predators had changed. They might sound like silly ass kids, but his gut instinct told him they were a hell of a lot more dangerous than Kintail's people.

David tensed, his hackles raised, his ears twitching back and forth. He recognized the change in their circum stances, too. And Elizabeth appeared almost frantic, running between David and Owen, panicked. He didn't believe she'd feel that way about her own people.

They had to reach the cabins. There, they could join forces with Cameron and Gavin, if he'd already arrived. There, they stood a chance.

"Trevor can't be here to speak to us about Bigfoot," Faith said, getting dressed while Cameron watched her in Leidolf's bedroom. Cameron looked like he could devour her in one wolfish bite. She raised a brow at him as she pulled on her pants.

He smiled back, the look just as devious.

"Pay attention, Cameron. We can't allow Gavin to be in the same room with us when we talk to Trevor."

Cameron ran his hands down Faith's sweater-covered arms, then held her hands tightly. "I don't want to lose you ever, Faith."

She gave him a coy smile back. "I have news for you. You're not getting rid of me that easily."

He pulled her into his embrace and squeezed the breath out of her, his hands sweeping down her back, his body pressed against her, already hard and wanting. If they hadn't had important matters to take care of, she would have been willing to relieve both his needs and her own right this very minute.

"I thought I might have lost you. I even clobbered poor Gavin when he mentioned you running off with Leidolf and having wolf pups."

Faith's lips parted slightly. "Wolf pups? What next?" She didn't even want to think about that scenario. Although if Leidolf's assumption was right, the mistake she and Cameron had made with not using a condom the last time wouldn't have mattered, not if a werewolf couldn't get a human pregnant.

Cameron held onto her tight as if he was afraid he truly had lost her, and she loved the way he was—protective, desiring her and only her, and a little bit jealous that anyone else might want her.

But with Gavin in the next room, and unable to focus on much more than getting this business with Kintail over with, she pulled free from Cameron's embrace. "Let's see what Trevor has to say."

Cameron slipped his hand over hers and held it tight, his gaze saying other issues were at stake and just as important to him. But for her, business always came before pleasure, although she snuggled up against him to reassure him she was just as willing. That seemed to relieve some of his tension, and he hugged her close as he opened the bedroom door.

As soon as they left Leidolf's bedroom, the appraising look Gavin gave her and the small smile that sparkled in his eyes told her he approved. She noted the bruise on the side of his jaw, though, and hoped he and Cameron weren't too mad at each other. He probably couldn't figure out what had set Cameron off like that. If only he had known.

She squeezed Cameron's hand and the three headed out of doors.

"So," Gavin said as he mounted his snowmobile, and Faith climbed onto Cameron's with him, "I understand Cameron named a female wolf after you."

Faith smiled, closing her arms around Cameron's waist, hugging him tight. "Yes, sweet of him, wasn't it?"

Gavin looked to see Cameron's reaction, but he seemed deep in thought because he never said anything in response, but she wondered if he'd made the slip inadvertently or deep down, he wanted his friend to know she and the wolf were the same.

When they arrived at the cabin, Leidolf and Trevor were standing on the deck, watching their approach. At least that's who she assumed the gray-haired man was. His gray eyes seemed wary when he observed Gavin, but he seemed pleased to see Faith, although his eyes widened a bit and then he seemed surprised as she, Cameron, and Gavin joined him on the deck.

"I wish a word with only the young lady, if you don't mind," Trevor said, speaking to Cameron.

Cameron put his arm around her shoulder. "We stay together."

Trevor flicked a glance Gavin's way, then said to Cameron, "It's private."

"I'll talk to him." Faith wanted to hear the news Trevor had from Kintail, but if the hunter insisted, she'd speak with him alone. They couldn't include Gavin; that much was clear.

"Leidolf and Gavin can wait out here for us, but I stay with the lady," Cameron said, his voice a barely controlled growl.

She was beginning to think his losing her for a while when she turned into the wolf had really affected him worse than she'd first thought. "The two of us, then."

Trevor bowed his head slightly, although he looked displeased.

Cameron opened the door for them, and after closing it behind them, they took seats at the dining room table.

"Who bit you?" Trevor asked first.

Cameron tensed at once. She folded her arms. "You were supposed to tell me about my father's trip out here."

Trevor took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. "All right. I suppose it really doesn't matter who bit you, but Kintail will be displeased." His eyes remained focused on Faith's as he continued. "I really liked your father. He had a great sense of humor, spoke privately to me about his real purpose here, to observe the Bigfoot hunters while he did a research paper. On the hunt, we spotted nothing but a bird occasionally and a rabbit. Until the guys on the expedition found wolf tracks and thought they might have been a small Bigfoot, although from what I've ever heard, the footprint is supposed to be more like a human's print, not a wolf's. But since we weren't finding anything else, and the prints were old, I allowed the men to follow them. At the same time, your father took copious notes on the group's behavior, casting me small smiles unobserved by the others on the team. Although they were grown men, they behaved like excited teens playing a video game."

"But my father saw something he shouldn't have."

"I was supposed to perpetuate the Bigfoot myth with you, but Kintail doesn't know you're one of us now. So yes, your father and I became separated from the team. They'd run off wildly into the woods after the old wolf trail. Your father got a stitch in his side and I waited with him, figuring I could catch up to the team members if they got lost, when I spied Lila in the forest. She was stripping out of her clothes, then shifted into the wolf. I don't know what she was up to, didn't want to tell Kintail in case it was something he didn't want to hear, and I didn't speak of it to your father. I hoped he had been too busy writing notes to have noticed. Well, he was busy writing, but I hoped it was about the team and their behavior rather than anything he had seen with respect to Lila."

"You didn't ask him?"

"I'm not dumb. Self-preservation for our kind is tantamount. I did like your father, but exposing our kind to the world is not something any of us want. So when everyone was asleep in the tents that night, I read through your father's notes. He said nothing about what he'd seen. But he was strangely quiet the rest of the time. As if he had seen Lila shift. As if he had seen me observe her. But most telling, I said nothing. Which for him—for a sociologist—was just as telling. I couldn't know that for sure, though. Just speculation on my part."

"But if you didn't tell anyone, how did Hilson learn of it?"

Trevor snorted. "Here I was afraid to get Lila in trouble, and she managed to turn the trick. Probably figuring she better do so before I did. Anyway, she wasn't supposed to change in the open like that, and certainly not with so many humans close by. But I denied that your father saw anything. Hilson took it upon himself to watch your father, following him all the way back to Portland."

"And when he couldn't get enough information from him from a distance?"

"I imagine he approached you."

"So now what do we do? My father is at risk, isn't he?"

Trevor didn't say anything.

Faith took in a deep breath. "I don't want him killed."

"It's not up to you."

But it was, damn it. Fine, no way did she want to bite her father and turn him into what she was, but she didn't want him dead either. "What about Cameron's friends?"

Trevor had been sitting so regally, so confident, until she mentioned that part of the equation. Then he fidgeted a bit, his hands on the table, then back off the table, on his lap, hidden. He glanced Cameron's way and looked back at Faith. "Both of you are in danger if you remain here. Kintail…"

"Where are they?" a man roared to Leidolf and Gavin, stalking across the deck outside.

Immediately Trevor rose from the table and said under his breath, "Kintail."

The door flew open and a giant of a man barged in, as tall as Hilson, but instead of being an overstuffed teddy bear, this guy looked like an enraged polar bear standing in the entryway, filling the entryway, blocking out the sun. Blond hair nearly white, square jaw clenched, his narrowed pale yellow eyes shifted from Trevor to Cameron… to Faith. Clenched fists swung at the polar bear's side as he strode into the cabin where Cameron had already pulled Faith to his side, close, protecting her. The hulking man got in their space. Maybe it was fine for a wolf's space, or the way an alpha showed dominance, but it was much too close for Faith's liking and as tense as Cameron was, he didn't like it either.

Faith felt the heat of Kintail's body, the smell of the fresh wind on him, saw specks of black in his eyes that seemed to expand and consume the pale yellow color as he turned his angry gaze from Trevor to Cameron.

Cameron didn't move until the man flicked a look Faith's way, the same kind of threatening expression— yet there was a hint of something else, interest maybe? Intrigue? Garnering her attention again, Cameron tightened his hand on Faith's back, squeezing her closer.

The man growled something under his breath, jerked his lethal eyes back to Cameron, then turned to look at the open doorway. Both Gavin and Leidolf had moved inside, waiting, anticipating trouble, ready to be of service.

"This is private," he snapped at Gavin, ignoring Leidolf.

Faith felt badly for Gavin who wanted to stick by his partner's side, but was being dismissed by everyone he came in contact with, even his own partner.

"Do you want me to talk to Gavin about the situation?" Trevor offered, his voice rather meek, and Faith hated that he seemed cowed before the great Kintail.

"Yes, take him up to the lodge." Kintail glanced at Gavin. "We have a pack of serial killers on the loose. We could use your services since you and Cameron put two of the police officers working the case, who were coming to ask your aid in solving this crime, in the hospital."

Gavin looked a little gray. Cameron motioned for him to leave with Trevor. Kintail glowered at Leidolf. "He can go with you also."

Leidolf gave Kintail a sinister smile, then bowed his head slightly and left with Trevor and Gavin, shutting the door behind them.

"Where the hell are my partners, Kintail?" Cameron asked, his hand rubbing Faith's shoulder, but his whole body vibrated with anger.

"They're gone, slipped away. My people haven't located them yet."

"You want our help finding your killers, then we do this my way," Cameron said.

"Our way," Faith corrected him. If she was going to be an alpha pack leader's mate, it would be an equal partnership. She smiled at Cameron when he frowned down at her.

For the first time, a hint of amusement crossed Kintail's face. But then he was back to being dour again. "You can't have your men—"

"I want them here with me. With the four of…" Cameron paused. "… five of us, well six if Leidolf wants to still help, we'll catch these killers. But we won't bother otherwise. Our sole focus is locating my partners and getting them out of here."

"Are you quite finished?" Kintail asked, folding his arms.

"I don't want my father killed," Faith said, choking a little on the words when she had planned to sound as firm and forthright as Cameron.

"It's not up to me," Kintail said, his words softening.

"What do you mean it's not up to you? You sent Hilson after him, right?"

"No, he went on his own, but Kenneth O'Malley is in Leidolf's territory. He'll have to deal with him now."

Faith just stared at Kintail, the words sifting through her brain but not making any sense. Why didn't Leidolf say anything before this? Because he thought she would be upset if she heard what he intended to do? She was torn between racing to the lodge and forcing Leidolf's response and staying with Cameron to provide a unified front until they got his concession concerning his partners.

"We'll talk to Leidolf, Faith," Cameron said, then kissed her cheek. The threat in his voice indicated they'd get their way on this so not to worry. But she did worry. What if they weren't in time? What if they were already too late?

Cameron focused again on Kintail. "Do we have a deal? My partners released to me in exchange for our help in finding your serial killers?"

"I told you, they escaped. They're on their own now, most likely headed in this direction."

"But you have men trying to recapture them, don't you?" Cameron asked.

Kintail abruptly sat down at the table and drummed his long fingers on the oak top, his gaze fixed on Faith, his unspoken word speaking volumes. He wanted Faith, and he was bound to have her. As for Cameron's partners? He didn't seem willing to give them up easily either. Which meant?

Cameron was a dead man.

She refused to back down from Kintail's impertinent gaze, furrowed her brow and gave him the devil back. His lips lifted slightly.

Very low, very dark, and very meaningfully, Cameron said, "She's mine."

She squeezed his waist, glad he'd stand up to Kintail.

Conceited, all knowing, Kintail's gaze slowly switched to Cameron as if he were an insignificant gnat. "You're a newbie, don't have a clue what you're doing, or the ramifications of what you are now. She needs someone with experience. Someone like me." But he didn't emphasize the someone as much as he did the me.

"We're mated," Faith said.

Kintail raised his brows at her.

"Leidolf said that if wolves are mated, they can't seek anyone else. So Cameron and I are mated. You'll have to stick with Lila or someone else who can put up with you."

This time Kintail's smile was slightly more than a hint, as if she'd really amused him, and as if he wasn't used to showing a lighter side of his personality and didn't know how to do it. But the smile wasn't a good indication because it meant—at least to her way of thinking—he either didn't believe she and Cameron were mated, which according to their werewolf traditions, they weren't, or he didn't care. In which case that reverted back to the case of—Cameron was a dead man.

The snowmobilers were running David and Owen ragged as they tried to protect Elizabeth, but to no avail. If the two men hadn't had such healthy hearts after they'd been turned, Owen figured they'd have been run to death by now. When he smelled wood smoke and the lake, he guessed they were close to Charles's resort. But they couldn't move any closer. Every time they tried to dive through the spruces, another snowmobiler hemmed them in.

Then one of the men pulled in front of Owen and yanked out a gun. If they were the guys who were killing the werewolves, the bullets would be silver and the three of them were good as dead. Kintail's men never resorted to guns, except on a hunt. But never to track Owen down, even the last two times he'd escaped.

He lunged, ready to kill the man when something hit him in the flank with a sharp stab of pain. He yelped. And fell in midair, landing on his belly. What the hell, he thought, his mind drifting like the sparse clouds in the darkening blue sky.

David nudged his face with his nose as if telling him to get up. He could smell David's fear, but then a shot was fired again, and David collapsed against his legs. Elizabeth growled and lunged for one of the shooters and a third shot was fired. She yelped and collapsed. David growled low from his prone position in the snow. Owen wished David had been given the chance to have had a life with Elizabeth. Owen always figured he and a partner might die together on a mission. He only wished they'd accomplished it, ensured Elizabeth's safety, and seen Cameron and Gavin one last time.

Incarcerated at some unknown location, Lila stalked back and forth across the basement that smelled like wet cement, musty and moldy. If she'd had allergies, she figured she'd be sneezing her head off. She glowered at David, Owen, and Elizabeth sleeping still as wolves in the big cage against the wall, angered they wouldn't wake up, as many times as she'd poked at them through the bars with a cane she had found behind a bunch of old crates.

She began pacing again. Fourteen steps led to the door to the basement. Forty steps across the main floor both ways. The windowless room was dark, but she could see just fine. She stopped and listened. Traffic noises. They were in a town or city. Millinocket maybe?

She paced again. Thankfully, they didn't think a female werewolf was as dangerous as a male, and so they'd taken her without drugging her. She hadn't fought them either, because a female in human form was no match for three human males. So they'd treated her like a lady. She knew they had to be the ones who killed Sutter at their office, from the scent the redhead had—deodorant not working, aftershave smelled like pine floor cleaner—but they couldn't get a scent of the killer at the other crime scene. Not with the blizzard wreaking havoc with it.

But once Kintail and his men got through with these killers, she was ready to return to the frigid Canadian Arctic for a vacation. At that instant, she realized Kintail was the one she looked for to rescue her. Not Cameron, the newly turned wolf. But Kintail, centuries-old Kintail, who would locate her and free her, and if she played her cards right, she would show him just how much she appreciated the rescue. Some part of her finally recognized she'd been holding onto the past, unwilling to let go, feeling as though her mate and child's death were her own damn fault. Yet deep down, she knew it wasn't. Knew her mate wanted the role of alpha pack leader, knew he couldn't win it. She'd only wanted him, but he hadn't been happy as the second in command. And he'd died for it.

She paced across the floor some more. So why did she feel at fault? She was an alpha female, and he felt inferior not being the alpha leader. But she knew he'd never make it against the leader. And little Tristen just got in the way when the two men fought. No one could protect him when her mate and the leader tore into each other.

Lila closed her eyes and rested her hand against the wall for support. It wasn't her fault. She hadn't pushed her mate to fight the leader. She'd been assisting another female in labor, so her mate was supposed to have been watching Tristen. It wasn't her fault.

Wiping away tears, she climbed the creaky stairs again, pressed her ear against the wooden door, and listened.

Kintail still had a thing for that Faith O'Malley. If Lila eliminated her, Kintail would know it. He'd condemn her to death or send her far, far away.

Which made her take stock of what she had… a winter lodge here, a summer lodge up north, a bunch of pack members that treated her like the alpha pack leader's mate, even if she wasn't Kintail's chosen mate, yet. And what of Kintail?

Two years ago, he'd tried to encourage her interest in him when she'd fled the pack, where the politics were brutal, her mate murdered, and her child killed. She hadn't known how to live. Or love again.

Kintail had been so patient with her, waiting, watching, and finally giving up on her when Faith O'Malley suddenly appeared. But she wondered if some of his attraction to Faith had to do with his brother wanting her first. Lila didn't really think Hilson loved her or he would have turned her and mated with her three months ago. Or maybe Kintail's interest in her only had to do with Lila's refusal to show him any real affection.

She growled at her inability to change back to the person she was, the person before her beloved mate and son were murdered.

She reconsidered Faith and what she had to offer Kintail. The woman was a neophyte. It would take eons for her to understand their ways. Kintail couldn't want that. Maybe he was trying to get Lila to give up her loss, her secrets, to move on, forcing her by showing an interest in another woman.

Then she heard movement somewhere in the house, footfalls walking from one room to another. No voices though. She wanted to hear voices, to get details. A house number and street name would be nice. A warning to the others that Kintail was on his way to free her would also be welcome news.

She waited, just as if she was on a hunt, patient, all ears, waiting.

She thought back to how she'd gotten here, tried to recollect anything that might help her pinpoint the location. They'd pulled a black hood over her head, but she'd memorized the amount of time she'd spent on a snowmobile, and then in a vehicle, the roar of the engine sounding like a pickup, and the amount of time on the road. That's why she thought she was in Millinocket. Not too far away, but far enough. The killers' home base.

She knew how many steps it took from the front door of the house, or a back door, into a long hallway, and then to the basement door. Waxed wooden floors that were a little slick, the smell of gingerbread cookies baking in the oven, the sound of New Age music drifting from another room had greeted her when she arrived. The place had been almost uncomfortably warm, but not the basement.

As soon as she was taken to the basement, the temperature had dropped a good thirty degrees. When she had asked if they could give her a coat, the redhead just smiled. "Grow a fur coat," he said, his companions all laughing, then they left her alone in the basement in darkness.

Which suited her just fine.

About two hours after that? They brought in this huge cage bearing the Three Stooges. Sleeping a long winter's nap like a bunch of damned polar bears. David, Owen, and Elizabeth. Kintail's people didn't recapture them… nope, the killers had to.

She let out her breath as she stared down into the basement at the three wolves, glad the killers hadn't eliminated them or her, yet. She wondered why they took them into custody this time. Why didn't they just kill them outright?

Hopefully they didn't plan to dissect them or torture them into telling the truth about their existence. What if that's what this was all about now? The Dark Angels didn't plan to rid the world of the scourge of werewolves now, but wanted to make a real name for themselves. The famous Dark Angels who discovered the real existence of werewolves.

She ground her teeth and listened again at the door, figuring if she could ever wake up the sleeping beauty trio and conjure up a way to get them out of the cage, they'd show the Dark Angels how dangerous it was to deal with darkly angered lupus garous.