“In fact, I should probably…” I jut my thumb out towards the French doors.
“Sure,” he says and pulls me away from CK quite roughly. “Just be safe, find Lincoln quickly and don’t leave him,” he whispers in my ear as he hugs me tightly. “Then come back here and be with Cole, your husband,” he says pointedly, and I smile up at him, wondering what he is talking about. Cole is my charge, not my husband. CK is my husband, isn’t he? My brain tries to scramble my errant thoughts together, but I just get more confused. No, not my husband, my soon-to-be-husband?
What?
I blink at him as he peers closely at me, his grip getting tighter on my arms. I nod at him “Yes, Cole. I should find Lincoln.” My disjointed words do nothing to reassure him and I pull myself out of his iron grip and turn back to CK, who is looking at me like I just fell from the moon. I grab him by his suit lapels and plant a whopping big kiss on him that he takes gre
at delight in returning, before I scamper off, shedding my bikini before I Shift, mid-run, into my Wolf form.
I find Lincoln quickly, in the same clearing as before. He is facing off with another She-Wolf who is slighter larger than me but the same color and with bright blue eyes. I sense Lincoln’s annoyance rather than anything else, but I growl at her, nonetheless. She tilts her head at me in question and then sniffs the air cautiously. She looks back to Lincoln who bobs his head once. I can only assume that he is confirming me as his Alpha. I still have no clue how they communicate properly. I mean, I have my thoughts and I can sense Lincoln and his feelings but not his thoughts. Am I supposed to, like I do in Dragon form?
“Yes!” he yells in my head suddenly as he turns his head slightly and bares his teeth. “Just like we do in human form. Finally. I was beginning to think I was on my own here.”
“All right!” I snap. “Keep your fur on. Who is this?” I ask, gesturing to her with my head and stepping up closer to him, showing a united front. “She does know this is private property, right?”
“I don’t think she cares about that right now. Her Alpha mate was killed, and she’s come looking for another one,” he sighs dramatically, and I chuckle.
“You? Ah no, my love. You are all mine.”
“Just what a Wolf wants to hear,” he says with a smile in his tone.
“Am I going to have to fight her for you?” I ask, only mildly worried.
“Before you go all feral on me, you may want to hear how her Alpha was killed.”
“How?” I ask, now curious, as he wouldn’t mention it unless it was something that falls into the weird-arse-things-that-just-find-me category.
“Connect with her in your head. You can do it. Might take a bit more effort than with me, but you should be able to reach her.”
I stare at her and concentrate. She just stares back at me impatiently and then I have her. I can hear her grumbling about wasting time.
“First things,” I say to her and she starts as she clearly wasn’t expecting me there so quickly, “stay the fuck away from my Alpha.”
Lincoln chokes back a laugh, but she glares at me. “I can assure you, if I knew he was yours, Your Majesty, I wouldn’t have made an advance on him.”
An advance? What the hell did she do to him? I glare at him and if he could shrug, that’s what he would do back at me.
“Good. Now that is established, do tell what happened to your own.”
Erica (I find out that is her name) hails from Nottingham where she and her mate were attacked last month, by what she describes as the Wolf Demon from Hell. Far as I can gather from her description, it appears to be that of a stereotypical Hollywood Werewolf, which is interesting in that they don’t exist. Or so we all thought. Maybe someone in Tinseltown knows more than we do? Unlikely. It must be some sort of, as she says, Demon-Wolf cross breed.
“I know of two others who have been attacked and killed in Southern England,” Erica finishes up woefully.
“Do you think there is only the one creature?” I ask her. “Or more?”
“No, it’s the same one. The others described it exactly. It has claw mark scars all down its right flank.”
“I see. So, were you here looking for me and just happened upon Lincoln, or were you just out for another Alpha?”
“Both,” she says, ducking her head. “My Pack is weak without an Alpha male. I knew the Queen was in England but didn’t know where. I followed the mystical energy up to this place, but I didn’t know it was yours, hoping to find some answers to your whereabouts.”
“Mystical energy?” I inquire.
“The Demon-made shadow cover,” she clarifies.
“Oh.” I swish my tail awkwardly as the Demon in question who made that was me. Not so sure she would be very receptive to that news under the circumstances. “You can track energy?” I ask her as a diversion.
“Only that which is powerful. You must know a heavy hitter to have created this,” she points her nose to the air and I mentally clear my throat as Lincoln titters at me in my head. Hopefully in a secret compartment in my head that she can’t hear.