The wolf’s gaze darted from her to the carcass to Tao repeatedly. Clearly he was torn on whether he wanted to continue playing with his new toy, go see his mate, or attack the male who dared talk to her.
Knowing she was about to make herself vulnerable to attack but not sure what else to do, Taryn squatted and tapped the ground with her fingers. “Come here, come on.” He took one tentative step toward her, but then glanced back at his carcass. “Seriously you don’t want to keep that. Come on.” Again she tapped the ground, knowing he could feel the vibrations through it.
Flicking a disgruntled look at Tao, the wolf slowly took a few steps toward her before halting to whine at the carcass.
“No, we’ll get you another toy. Get your furry ass over here.” Still at a sluggish pace, he covered those last remaining steps between them and dropped the jacket at her feet. “Hey there.” The wolf rubbed his cheek along hers and buried his nose behind her ear to inhale her scent. Then he took to happily licking along her jaw. “Ew.”
She now considered it a good thing that the foam and blood from his mouth had transferred to her jacket. Rather the jacket than her face. She winced when she saw that he was injured in several places. It was nothing fatal or even anything that would cause him much pain, but the healer in her wanted it fixed.
Allowing the wolf to continue rubbing himself against her, she turned her head toward the mass of wolves that Roscoe had brought along, all of whom were still waiting. Not even one of them appeared to have moved a muscle. Keeping her tone light so as not to startle the animal, she asked, “So which one of you considers yourself Alpha now, because I’m pretty sure you all had this sorted before you got here?”
They gave her ‘I’m not sure what you mean’ looks.
“Come on, don’t play dumb. Not one of you looks even the slightest bit bothered that your Alpha is dead. I really don’t care one way or another how you feel about it. I just want to know who I should be talking to when I ask if we should be expecting retaliation over this.” The challenge was fought fairly, but it wouldn’t be the first time that someone who was sour about the loss decided to take revenge.
The three males at the front of the mass glanced at each other and then the one in the center stepped forward, identifying himself as the Alpha. “There’ll be no retaliation. We didn’t agree with him coming here to try to separate mates, but he was set on having you.”
“And you were following orders. Nothing wrong with that, just like there’s nothing wrong with you not being prepared to die for an ill cause.” The wolf, apparently not liking that he didn’t have her full attention, nipped her chin. She rubbed her cheek against his reassuringly and then turned back to the new Alpha. “Now that Roscoe’s gone and there’s no animosity between the packs, I don’t see a reason why there can’t be an alliance.”
The new Alpha’s expression was a mixture of shock and eagerness. “An alliance would be acceptable,” he said coolly, seemingly trying to hide his excitement and look the composed Alpha.
“We can’t exactly discuss it properly now for obvious reasons,” she said, flicking a look at the Alpha male of her pack who was still very much in wolf form. “We’ll call it a temporary verbal contract, one that will expire in thirty days if you don’t contact us to lay out the details with Trey.”
Looking apprehensively at the grey wolf, the Alpha said, “You’ll be there too, right?”
She smiled. “Don’t worry, I won’t let him eat you. Once we’re inside, you can take Roscoe’s body.” At the Alpha’s surprised look, she said, “We’re not trophy killers here.” His nod communicated respect.
With that, she slowly stood and began to walk toward the caves, signalling for the rest of the pack to keep a fair distance away so that Cujo didn’t feel threatened and turn feral again. She didn’t have to encourage him to follow her. He remained at her side, half-companion half-guard the entire time.
Once they had passed through the main entrance of Bedrock, she went to the living area and sat down on the large rug. The wolf sat between her legs, closing his eyes as she ran her fingers through his fur.
“Trey, I need you to come back now or I can’t heal you. I don’t want to hear any macho shit about Alphas not needing healing. If you expect to have sex ever again, you won’t fight me on this.”
It was something like twenty seconds later when the change began and suddenly Trey was back in his human form. Instantly he flopped to his back, breathing hard.
“Someone get him a bottle of water,” she called out as the living area filled with people.
“I’m okay,” he wheezed.
“Sure you are, Flinstone.” His wounds actually weren’t that bad, but they were ugly and would most likely scar if she didn’t heal them.
Greta appeared, growling. “Now if you’d have just handed her over, Trey, you’d be fine.”
“Not now, Wicked Witch of the East,” groused Taryn.
“Here.” Grace placed a bottle of water beside Taryn.
She offered Trey the bottle but he shook his head. “Hey, you still have some blood on your mouth and I’m not going near said mouth to heal you until you’ve washed your face at the very least.”
“Why would you need to go near his mouth to heal him?” asked Rhett in that curious tone of his.
Turning to see that Trick was the one standing closest to the window, she asked, “Trick, would you open that for me?”
“Why?”
“So I can gaze lovingly at the sun. Will you just open it?”
Grunting, he did as she asked while Trey finally drank down some water and wiped his face.