I tried to push him away and he gripped tighter. “No you aren’t!”
“I think it’s time we find out how sly this Fox is. You can argue or listen. Let me know when you’ve made your decision.”
I poked him hard in the side and he sucked in a quick breath. “You are a callous wolf.”
“And you are a cantankerous wolf,” he said with a gentle squeeze of his arm.
Our silhouettes flickered on the dark windowpane from the firelight behind us. “You could ruin my standing with my father. Austin should be the one—”
“Cole is busy protecting his pack from rogues. He can’t afford to lose one man.”
“So you’re going to leave me alone?”
He turned me around and I winced each time I moved my left leg. “A Packmaster doesn’t respect a man who prefers to do business over the phone. A face-to-face is out of respect. My car is fast, and I’ll leave before your shiny friend up there has gone to bed,” he said, pointing back at the moon.
We reached the bed and Lorenzo helped me in, draping a dark blanket over my legs. “You’ll shift tonight twice more, and tomorrow you’ll do nothing but rest. Food will be brought up—the kind that will keep and not require anyone to bring you more. No one is allowed up here, so under no circumstances will you open that door.”
“Yes, Thunder.”
Lorenzo peeled off his shirt and knelt on the bearskin rug.
“You still haven’t told anyone I’m up here, have you? What if there’s an attack? If you sent your second-in-command to stay with Austin, who is in charge?”
“Maybe I should put you in charge.”
“Not a bad idea,” I murmured. I watched Lorenzo lower his head as if in prayer.
After a short rest, he prepared a drink mixed with medicine. Lorenzo coaxed my wolf out and I shifted twice more. When I awoke late in the evening, I found myself alone.
To the left of the bed was a food cart filled with all kinds of things to eat. But what caught my attention was a small tub of cream cheese sitting on the nightstand and a dreamcatcher hanging in front of the window.
***
Lorenzo lifted his mirrored sunglasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He’d been driving for hours, heading toward Oklahoma to speak with Ivy’s father, Ivan Kizer. Lorenzo had instructed the high-ranking wolves to keep the pack on full alert in his absence. He wanted to get home before dark, so he didn’t stop for food. The human state troopers loved pulling over expensive cars, so he had taken his oversized black truck to blend in with the locals—the one with the skull and crossbones on the back window.
Why am I going through all this trouble for a woman who’s not even in my pack? The obtrusive thoughts drifted away when he recalled how elegant Ivy looked with her loose hair brushing against her body like a soft whisper. Maybe it was her regal posture or how she’d lift her chin with pride, but he began to suspect that his instincts were right about Ivy. She was an alpha female. He’d met quite a few in his time, but most were outgoing and loud. Ivy had a quiet intelligence about her, although in his presence, she was hardly quiet. She accepted her lowly rank in the pack, yet he couldn’t help but think about her behavior at the restaurant when she’d supported her Packmaster. Even Alexia, Austin’s mate, hadn’t made such a move. But then again, Alexia was ignorant of their ways and didn’t understand the nuances that went on within a pack.
Ivy did, and it impressed him immensely.
He’d never met such a pure spirit—an unpicked flower whose petals were wild but whose roots were strong. If her father had recently handed her over, then she’d just gone through the change. Lorenzo wondered if she’d experienced her first heat cycle. He shifted in his seat as the thought of her flooded his veins with desire. It felt as if his pants were constricting him. Hell.
Why of all packs did she have to end up with the Cole brothers? Just the thought that one of those mongrels might be the one to mark her purity made his insides twist into knots. It was not as if Shifter women went to their mating ceremonies as virgins, but they often abstained until they went through their first change. The age of maturity to a Shifter was based on when their animal’s spirit linked with their own. That often occurred in their late teens or early twenties, varying by individual. It was only a matter of time before a man would try to bed her.
Lorenzo spotted the turnoff to Ivan’s house and headed up a long driveway. He noticed a couple of sports cars in the crowd of vehicles, as well as a giant garage farther ahead. He zipped up his leather jacket to the collar and stepped out, the blustering wind biting at his face like icy fangs. Wind chimes released a melodic cry from the porch, swinging chaotically as if giving a warning.
He stepped up to the door and knocked several times.