Last Wolf Watching

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Cian choked on another sharp bark of laughter, while Michaela made a soft sound of surprise, thoroughly insulted to think that he’d lumped her into the same class as all the other women who willingly fell into Hennessey’s arms simply because of his looks. “I’m going to assume you’re letting your irritation talk,” she murmured, “and that you didn’t mean that to sound as insulting as it did.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Cian snickered, just before Mason elbowed him in the side on his way to the sink with his plate. The Irishman rubbed at his ribs, but couldn’t stop his soft chuckling, and the frustration in Brody seemed to coil like a viper.

All it took was a woman’s keen intuition to realize that he thought she’d rather have the pretty-faced Irishman watching over her than him. And while it was one thing for other women to prefer his dark-haired partner, something inside of Michaela compelled her to say, “As charming as you are, Hennessey, I’m…that is, I think the current arrangement will work just fine.”

“Wow,” Cian drawled, gifting her with a boyish smile as he rubbed one hand against the sharp angle of his shadowed jaw. “I don’t think I’ve ever been turned down so nicely before.” He looked toward his partner, arching one midnight-black brow. “Seems the lady is happy with you after all, boyo. Congratulations.”

Brody’s scowl deepened and a charged silence settled over the room, the only sound that of the running faucet as Torrance worked her way through the dishes. Too restless to sit still, Michaela shifted to her feet, pushing her chair back in at the table before taking her cup to the sink. “I’ll finish up, Torry. I need something to keep me busy.”

Torrance gave Michaela a quick hug, then slipped into a chair beside her husband. Together, they began talking with Cian about Jeremy and Jillian’s wedding, which would take place later that week in the Alley. Michaela began to lose some of her tension as she listened to their easy, quiet chatter, when she suddenly became aware of Brody standing beside her. His left hip rested against the counter, long arms crossed back over his chest, and she felt that little catch in her breath again. She tried to act natural, but his strangely seductive presence speared through her system like the residual traces of a fine wine, making her senses hum.

From the corner of her vision, she watched his gaze settle on her mouth, before lifting to her eyes. “I know you’re probably afraid of me,” he stated in a quiet rasp.

“Afraid of you?” Michaela shook her head as she looked toward him, wondering where he’d gotten such an idea. “Why would I be afraid of you?”

He arched one auburn brow in an expression that reminded her of his partner, wearing a cynical look of disbelief, as if the answer should be obvious. But the truth was that she didn’t fear him, at least not in a physical sense. No…her caution came from a different source—a basis more intimate than mere intimidation. It came from one that played his scarred, seductive image across the darkness of her mind when she closed her eyes at night; that made her pulse flutter whenever he was near. That reminded her time and again that men weren’t to be trusted.

Not that she was going to explain any of that to him.

“I mean it, Brody,” she told him in a soft voice, the armor around her heart breaking a little at the shadow of vulnerability she could see there in that dark gaze. “I’m not afraid of you.”

For several moments, he looked as if he’d argue, those compelling green eyes narrowed on her profile as she turned her attention back to the dishes. Finally, he sighed and said, “This isn’t going to work the same as it did with Pallaton and Reyes. I’m not going to waste time watching you from the outside looking in.”

A shiver slipped down her spine, but she managed to keep her voice steady. “How do you mean?”

“From what Wyatt told me, they tried to keep a reasonable distance, but I’m going to be on the inside with you at all times. If something happens, I need to be close enough to make a difference. Like it or not, I’m going to be like your shadow.”

She slanted him a sideways look as she asked, “You didn’t agree to watch over me just to keep me from causing trouble for the pack?”

He shook his head, and she watched, mesmerized, as the auburn tips of his thick hair shifted over the soft cotton of his black T-shirt, the material hugging the firm muscles beneath. “There’s more going on here, Doucet, and you know it. I’m doing this for you, not them.”

“My name is Michaela,” she sighed, shifting her gaze back to his, irrationally irritated by the way he continually called her by her last name. It was so impersonal, which was exactly why she figured he did it—and it occurred to her that they were like two opponents circling one another, wary of the other’s motives.

“I know your name,” he muttered, his tone dry.

Michaela lifted one shoulder. “Couldn’t prove it to me, since you never use it,” she countered, noting the strange blend of exasperation and wariness in his sexy, almond-shaped eyes. “So you plan to protect me while keeping me in line, then?”

“I doubt anyone could keep you in line,” he snorted, the corner of his mouth twitching in a reluctant grin. “What I am going to do is keep you safe.”

“That’s not what—”

The green of his eyes flashed with emotion. “Forgot what they said at the clearing, okay? As much as I don’t care for Riggs, he knew that one of the Runners would accept responsibility for you so that we could keep you alive. There isn’t a goddamn chance that Drake plans to let you live,” he rasped, the softness of the words in no way lessening their impact. “Not when he knows he can use you to get to us, just like they did with Max. The only problem is that Max lived. Now I think they’ll come after you even harder, or turn it into a game and play with us.”

“By keeping me scared?”

“Yeah.”

Grabbing at another plate, she ignored the shaking in her hands. “Drake really is the one behind all the trouble, then, isn’t he? The one Anthony Simmons was working for, who’s tempting Lycans to turn rogue, teaching them how to shift during the daytime?”

Michaela knew the past few weeks had been chaotic for the Runners. On top of learning that a traitor was working to expand the number of rogue wolves in the area, they’d discovered that those who had turned had been taught how to dayshift. That was the first clue that had pointed the Runners toward an Elder, once they’d learned that the ability to teach a wolf how to take his shape beneath the sun was a power possessed only by those who served on the League, meant to be used as a defensive weapon during times of war.

After the Runners had realized they were hunting a traitorous Elder, Stefan Drake had become their obvious suspect. Drake and his followers made no secret of their fanatical hatred for humans and Bloodrunners alike, but it wasn’t until Jeremy had accepted his place within the Silvercrest pack and returned to Shadow Peak that they were truly able to investigate Drake.

Thanks to Pippa Stanton, the lone female Elder, Jeremy had learned about Drake’s grudge against the League itself. According to Pippa, Drake had never forgiven his peers for forbidding the assassination of his wife after she left him for a human. They also knew Drake was responsible for the recent attack on Jillian’s life. Using his own daughter as a weapon, Drake, along with the help of an unknown Elder, had performed a task believed impossible by most Lycans, pulling Elise’s wolf from her body against her will. Once the change was complete, Elise’s beast was controlled by Drake, and would have killed Jillian if it weren’t for Jeremy and Mason’s intervention. When Jeremy later confronted the Elder, accusing him of the crime, one of Drake’s followers, a man named Cooper Sheffield, had tried to kill him, dying instead by the Bloodrunner’s hand.

To make matters worse, Drake wasn’t the Runners’ only problem. Over the course of the past month, Michaela knew that Brody and Cian had been investigating a series of gruesome killings. Four human females had been found murdered, three in the mountains and one in the city. At each scene, there had been no trace of Lycan musk—only the acidic scent produced by a Lycan who had dayshifted, which was untraceable. Each of the victims had clearly been a rogue kill, their hearts eaten from their chests in some kind of psychotic, symbolic gesture. Only one of the victims had clearly been the work of Anthony Simmons, the rogue who had targeted Torrance’s life, and who had been killed by Mason in a Challenge Fight shortly afterward. The other three crimes were still unsolved, and the Runners couldn’t be sure that Drake himself was behind them, his accomplice on the League…or one of his twisted followers.

“Drake all but admitted his guilt to Jeremy after the attack on Jillian’s life,” Brody rumbled, his deep voice suddenly pulling her from her troubling thoughts and back to their conversation. “He already hated us before, but now he has a reason to risk taking us out. It’s either get rid of the Runners, or accept that we’re going to destroy him and whatever he has planned.” He shrugged, and Michaela found herself momentarily fascinated by the way the casual gesture traveled across the broad width of his shoulders, his muscles flexing beneath the thin cotton of his shirt.

She tried to keep her focus, but damn, she couldn’t get enough of those shoulders. Hoping she didn’t sound dazed with lust, she managed to say, “So what happens now?”

“Would you like me to take you home tonight? We can stay in Covington for a day or two so that you can get your things together, close up your shop, then head back up.”

“Close up my shop?” Her hands went still beneath the running water as she rinsed the suds away from a mug. She’d already made arrangements with one of her employees to run things at Michaela’s Muse, her paranormal specialty shop, for a few days—but she hadn’t considered that she might be away longer than that.

As if following her train of thought, Brody said, “I want you in the Alley, Doucet. In my cabin.” The dark sound of his voice shivered across her senses, but his expression remained unreadable, as if they were discussing nothing more interesting than the weather. “I don’t trust what’s happening in the pack and we’re too vulnerable in town.”

She wanted to argue. She had a life, a business in the city. And yet, none of that would ever be the same again. Max wouldn’t be coming back home with her. Working with her. Living with her. The pain crushed down on her again, but she battled against the tears. “Let’s go down tonight,” she said shakily, hoping he didn’t hear the tremor in her words. “I can get what I need from home, then go by the shop and close things down. My customers will just…have to understand.”

“You don’t have to close. David would be more than happy to keep it open for you,” Torrance suggested from the table, having obviously been listening in on their conversation. David Sharp was a loyal, longtime employee who had worked at Michaela’s Muse while getting his degree in advertising and had recently returned home to Covington.

“I don’t know,” she murmured, picking up a coffee mug. “He’s a sweetheart, but I couldn’t ask him to—”

“Sure you could,” Torrance said softly. “It shouldn’t take you more than a day to go down and get the accounts all settled. You can even show David how to do the payroll, then leave everything in his hands until it’s safe for you to go back.”

Michaela gave a wary nod, knowing she had little choice if she wanted to remain in business, and turned back toward the sink, moving on to the last dish. “So what time do you want to leave?”

Brody didn’t answer—just stood there watching her with a strange, intense expression hardening the grooves that bracketed his mouth. “What?” she whispered, wondering what was bothering him.

“Nothing,” he muttered. Then he uncrossed his arms and started to shift away from the counter, only to stop. Shoving his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans, he suddenly asked, “Can you use it on me?”

Michaela blinked at him in confusion. “Use it? Use what?”

He jerked his chin at her, his dark eyes narrowed and heavy-lidded. “That witchy thing that you do.”

“Witchy thing?” she repeated, trying to stifle a laugh when she realized he was deadly serious. “I can assure you, Brody, that I’m not a witch.”

“I want to know, Doucet.”

“Know what?” she pressed, finding some perverse pleasure in pushing his buttons. And he was still calling her Doucet, which just made her feel ornery.

He stepped closer, invading her personal space, and the moonlight spilling in through the open kitchen window played across his face, revealing the stark angles and hollows. His nostrils flared, as if he were breathing in her scent, and she realized that from this close, she could see his scars in vivid detail as they cut over his face, slashing from his left eyebrow, across the bridge of his nose, down to his opposite jaw. Her fingers itched to reach out and stroke them, wishing she could wipe away the deep-seated pain that lingered in his eyes. He tried to hide so much behind his angry scowls, but she saw through them. The liquid depths of his bottle-green eyes were like a window into his soul, beautiful…and yet, so filled with hurt, as scarred within as he was without.

“Just ask me, Brody,” she whispered softly, trying to tell him with her gaze that he could trust her. “I promise I’ll be honest with you.”

Something wild and hot and primitive flared in those mysterious green depths, lost as quickly as it appeared beneath the lowering of his lashes—and in a husky, silken slide of words, he said, “I want to know if you can you read me.”

Chapter 4

They made the drive down to the city in relative silence, the radio delivering a quiet string of blues, the sensual tenor of an alto sax keeping rhythm with the steady beat of the tires upon the road. The second Brody had cranked the powerful V-8 engine, a quiet, exhausted lassitude had poured through her like warm, rich honey. Even now, it melted Michaela into the seat of the truck, while Brody’s scent filled her head, surrounding her in the smooth, intimate darkness.

She took a deep breath, and savored it. God, he smelled good. Not pretty or flowery, but like a man. His scent was as crisp and rich as the outdoors, as the forest itself. Woodsy with traces of musk and salt. Completely delicious.

Sitting there beside him in the midnight dark, Michaela was uncomfortably aware that she’d never known a man whom she found more attractive, more compelling. The more time she spent with him, the more she felt inexplicably drawn to the quiet Runner, as if she wanted to wrap her arms around those broad shoulders and simply hold on to him. Comfort him, easing the hard tension she didn’t need mystical powers to feel pouring off him in waves. And take comfort from him in return, drawing on his strength until she didn’t feel so hollow inside, so broken and barren and wrecked. If he’d only show her a little warmth, she knew she’d be in serious danger of letting her emotions get the better of her. But he remained as cold and remote as ever.

And the fact you’re upset about it proves that you’relosing your mind.

She scowled at her know-it-all conscience and turned to stare back out her own window. Beyond the cozy confines of the truck, a light drizzle began to fall, adding to the strange feeling of intimacy. When his deep, whispery baritone intruded into the soft monotony of sound, she jumped, startled.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to spook you,” he murmured, sliding her an uneasy look, as if he expected her to cringe away from him in terror, now that they were alone.

She gave him a small, self-conscious grin and tucked a curl behind her ear. “You didn’t. I guess I’m just jumpy…still on edge after everything that’s happened. I was so lost in my thoughts I didn’t hear what you said.”

He made a subtle gesture with his shoulders that did something wonderfully wicked to those hard muscles beneath the clinging cotton of his shirt. “I just wondered how you got that little gift of yours. The one you said doesn’t work on me.”

Her grin bled into a soft burst of laughter that she tried to hide under her breath, half watching her fingers play in the folds of her skirt while soaking up as much of him as she could from the corner of her eye. Sorting through her explanation in her head, she decided to start at the beginning. “My maternal grandmother, who lived in the bayou, was a gifted seer, and I guess I was lucky enough to have some of her powers make their way to me, though I’m nowhere near as strong as she was. I have a really good sixth sense about things, and sometimes I’m able to read people.”

“Read them how?” he asked, sounding curious.

“I’m not quite sure how to explain.” She shrugged, nervous under the force of his attention, even as he kept his hands and eyes on the road. But he was focused on her, every part of him. She knew it, felt it, and it was a heady, breathtaking sensation that made her want to scoot closer to him. He looked so strong and solid sitting beside her, so invincible and tough. It made her want to just crawl inside of him and pull him around her like a fortress, like the most amazing security blanket she could ever find.

Blinking in surprise, Michaela winced, startled by the discomfiting thought. She wasn’t the kind of woman who went looking for a man to take care of her or to hide behind. She was a woman who prided herself on her independence and sensibility, but then, the last few weeks had been anything but normal.

Maybe you’re due for a little comforting.

Another dangerous thought, that, and she shook it off, pulling her mind back to her explanation. “Sometimes, if a person is experiencing powerful emotions, I can sense them. It’s like being able to see into their heart. I can’t read their minds like my grandmère could, but I can…I can read their will, I guess.”

“But not everyone’s?” he asked, rubbing one hand against the scratchy surface of his jaw.

“No. Only some people. If a person wants to hide their feelings strongly enough, it’s hard for me to pick up anything. And at times, the harder I want to see, the more difficult it is for me. Some are like a wall—others easier. Mason’s feelings for Torrance are so strong, I had no problem picking up on them the first time I met him. But sometimes, the closer I am to a situation, the harder it is to see anything. It’s almost as if my interest crowds the power.”

He slanted her another quick, questioning look, then turned his attention back to the road. “You said you can’t read me at all, but what about Cian?”

She rolled her eyes at his boyishly hopeful tone, snickering softly. “If I could, I wouldn’t tell you. It wouldn’t be fair, because you’d just use whatever I said to torment the poor guy.”

A crooked grin played briefly at his mouth, making him look entirely too sexy. “Picked up on that, did you?”

“It’s uh, kinda hard to miss. You two go at each other like brothers. It’s ruthless.”

“The bastard likes to push my buttons,” he sighed with good-natured humor, the light sound warming her heart. It was surprising to see him like this, the corners of his eyes crinkled with laugh lines and a small smile playing at his beautiful mouth. Michaela didn’t know what had brought it on, but she enjoyed the effect. An easygoing Brody was even more devastating than a brooding one, and she shivered with awareness, crossing her arms over the painful thudding of her heart.

Mistaking her reaction for cold, he reached out with his right hand to adjust the vents, making sure the warm air was blowing in her direction. A strange, electrified silence settled between them, and though she was staring at her lap, Michaela could feel the press of his eyes on her as he cast another look in her direction, this one lingering, briefly, on her profile, her mouth. Her lips tingled, and she rolled them inward as his left hand tightened on the steering wheel. The silence grew, thickening like a roux set over the simmering heat of a pan—and she watched the softened lines of his expression slowly slip away, replaced by his customary brooding darkness.

“So you own and run your own business,” he finally said in a low, gravelly voice.

Whoa. As quickly as that shivering sense of awareness had come, it disappeared, like a rainbow bleeding back into the misty, rain-dappled beauty of the sky. And it wasn’t the words themselves that chilled her. No, Michaela could tell from the sudden change in his tone that there was something behind the innocuous statement, and her stomach clenched with all-too-familiar disappointment. “And?” she murmured, silently berating herself for being such a nitwit, knowing her reaction was foolish. With everything going on in her life, she didn’t have time to be sensitive over the moody Runner’s opinions, but damn if she wasn’t. For some stupid reason, she’d wanted him to be…different. To see her in a way that others didn’t.

He shrugged his shoulders at her sharp tone. “Nothing.”

Oh no. She wasn’t letting him off the hook that easy. “Uh-huh. You brought it up, so you might as well go ahead and spit it out, Brody.”

And she had a good idea of what it would be, aware of how most people pegged her as an eccentric basket case, walking around with her head in the clouds, once they learned that she owned a paranormal specialty shop. But the truth was that she had a good head for business and had simply chosen a market that she found fascinating as well as financially promising. She had her feet planted firmly on the ground, even if her mind was open to the world beyond what most humans considered normal.

“You just don’t look like the business type.” The look he cut her way said so much more than his words, and heat rose in her face that had nothing to do with the hot air gusting toward her. Oh yeah, she didn’t need to read minds to know what “type” he thought she was. Her entire life, her looks had never given her anything but trouble, affecting how people treated her, judged her, thinking she was nothing but a pretty face with fluff for brains. Thinking she was good for some fun, but nothing serious. Her last boyfriend, Ross Holland, had enjoyed her body, but when it came to his blue-blooded public image and budding political aspirations, he hadn’t wanted a woman whose sensuality was so blatant—so “in your face” as he’d put it. In Ross’s eyes, her business had only been another strike against her.

She didn’t want to admit it, but it hurt to realize that Brody apparently looked at her in the same, narrow-minded light. “Believe it or not, I don’t sleep to dream, Brody. You shouldn’t make assumptions about me based on physical appearances or what I do for a living.”

“Sleep to dream?” he repeated, his brow furrowed over the deep green of his eyes. “What does that mean?”

Michaela struggled to keep her voice even. “It means that I don’t have my head stuck in the clouds, worrying about when my next pedicure’s gonna be and who’ll buy me dinner on Friday night. When I sleep, I sleep hard because I work hard. I don’t live in a fantasy world, playing dress up. My business takes up all of my time and I’ve worked my backside off to make it successful.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he grunted in a low rasp, surprising her. “And I imagine I’ll get to see firsthand just how hard you work, since we’ll be spending the next day or so at your shop.”

“I guess you will,” she muttered, looking down to realize her knuckles had gone white, she was fisting her hands together so tightly. She hadn’t realized she was so touchy on the subject, but apparently she was. Or maybe she was just touchy about Brody’s opinion. An unsettling thought, and another one she didn’t want to look at too closely.

Without glancing in her direction, he went on to say, “And seeing as how we’re going to be in the city for the next few days, are there any boyfriends I should know about? I don’t want to have to deal with some jealous bastard who gets his nose bent out of shape because we’re staying together.”

“No,” she sighed, squeezing her eyes shut, wondering how the hell this was going to work. The guy had her twisted up in knots and they’d only been together for a few hours. How was she going to endure days, if not weeks? She was too aware of him, too on edge.

“No what?”

Her mouth thinned and she opened her eyes, staring at the dark stretch of road through the front windshield. “No boyfriends.”

A rude sound vibrated in the back of his throat. “Right.”

Michaela shook her head in baffled amazement. She wasn’t easily flustered, damn it, but something about Brody Carter made her feel stripped down to the raw, vulnerable, as if she were vibrating with energy, tension and anticipation. “I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

He lifted one hand off the wheel, shoving his long, scarred fingers back through the auburn threads of his hair in an utterly male gesture of frustration. “If you want to lie about it, fine, but women like you always have a line of guys waiting in the wings, six or seven deep at least. I’d bet my life savings on the fact that you’re involved with someone, Doucet.”

“Then you’re an idiot,” she snorted, “and if you took that bet, you’d be a broke one at that.”

He grunted in response, and she turned her head to glare back out her window. She kept quiet the remainder of the drive, not even giving him directions, since he already knew where she lived. But when they pulled to a slow stop behind the dark Mercedes parked in front of her house, she couldn’t stop the low groan that fell from her lips, unable to believe her rotten, miserable luck. “Merde,” she cursed. “That’s all this day needs.”

“A friend of yours?” Brody asked with a smirk, eyeing the shadow of the man lurking on her front porch.

Michaela konked her forehead against the cool glass of her window once, then twice, and turned to send him her best glare. “I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a liar. There is no boyfriend.”

He jerked his chin toward the waiting man. “Then who the hell is he?”

“Nobody. He’s a big ol’ nobody,” she muttered, undoing her seat belt.

“I’m still waiting for a straight answer.” His eyes narrowed as his face became etched with some unnamed emotion that was fierce and dark.

“He’s my ex,” she sighed, wondering how she could have ever been so stupid as to believe herself in love with a jerk like Ross Holland.

“Ex-what?” he grunted, his shock evident in his expression. “Husband?”

“Thank God, no,” she supplied with a low, husky laugh. “Ex-boyfriend. But it’s been over for…too long to count.”