The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf

17





The Monkey Man Swingeth





I WALKED INTO NICK’S KITCHEN, exhausted and drained by yet another conversation with Clay about how we could merge the two packs. I closed my eyes and took a moment to appreciate the blessed silence of the house.

It took a while to sort out the whole “sorry my brother killed your dad” mess, but I felt I could trust Clay. He wasn’t a terribly aggressive guy. He didn’t want attention or recognition. He just wanted what was best for everybody in his family, which I considered the mark of a good leader. Being able to respect him made working with him a lot easier.

It might have been more awkward if Cooper was still living in the valley. Cooper and Clay were cutting each other a pretty wide berth. As open-minded as Clay seemed, I doubted that patricide was a basis for the two of them to be BFFs. We were fortunate that so little time had passed. Blood feuds could take generations to take root in a pack. With so few of our kind remaining, we couldn’t afford that sort of pride and vengeance. Clay understood that, where Jonas had not.

As happy as I was that we were working toward tentative peace, I still had a pit of nagging worry that would surface when I least expected it. Something felt unsettled. To help build the trust between us, Clay had accounted for every member of his pack and their whereabouts surrounding the dates when my truck crashed, my office was trashed, Samson was shot, and Billie died. Dr. Moder had ruled the death accidental on Billie’s death certificate, but she couldn’t make a determination one way or the other. It’s not as if we could send the remains to a medical examiner.

The loose threads were still worrying me. I was missing something, and I hated that. But between the chaos of discovering who Clay and Alicia were and trying to keep our two packs from brawling, I was too exhausted to try to figure it out. I needed quiet. And a house that sheltered fewer than a dozen people. Samson had agreed to keep an eye on things for me long enough for a surprise visit to Nick’s place.

Nick was in the final phases of packing up to make room for the next renter. There were boxes strewn all over the living room. The wires for Nick’s DVD player were hanging forlornly from the entertainment center. Several taped cartons near the door were marked “Books that should not be thrown away upon penalty of junk-punching.”

I sincerely hoped Samson was the one who wrote that.

I shut the door, closed my eyes, and reveled in being able to hear myself think.

“Hey!” I called when I was centered, stripping out of my jacket. “You would not believe my day. I was actually glad to get away from the valley for a while.”

I kicked off my boots, which were caked with mud from the recent thaw. “Mo would probably say that’s a sign of personal growth or some shit. But I think it just proves how sexy you are—”

The silence of the house hit me full-force. The rooms were empty. It wasn’t just that Nick wasn’t responding. He wasn’t there. I couldn’t hear him breathing. I smelled blood, just the faintest trace of it. It was Billie all over again.

I looked back at the kitchen door, which had been unlocked. The front door was unlocked, too. There were no signs of a struggle, no forks and knives thrown on the floor, no torn pillows. I stumbled into the living room, the bedroom, terrified of what I might find. “Nick!” I yelled.

I forced myself to still, to focus on deep breaths, to pull the scents around me into my head and process. Some instinct was pulling me outside, toward the mountains behind the house. I ran out, following the faint scent of blood, trying to gauge how fresh it was, how much there was.

When the trail disappeared into the woods, I phased without bothering with my clothes, leaving a cloud of scraps in my wake. He’d been dragged. I could see the gouges his feet had made in the softening dirt. But who was doing the dragging? There was no other scent, just . . . dryer sheets.

For years to come, the smell of April Fresh was going to make me gag.

I followed the trail up the north face of the ridge, toward the outcropping of rocks that overlooked the town. Nick had talked about rappelling there a few times but had never made the trip.

Please, please, please, I begged. I can’t lose him now. Not now. Please.

The scent was getting stronger, the higher I climbed the trail. And the trees were getting thinner, meaning that I was getting closer and closer to the rock face. I could hear Nick’s heartbeat, strong and steady, through the trees.

He wasn’t scared. This was a good thing. Nick was calm. And if he was calm, the situation might not be as bad as I thought.

I burst through the tree line to see Nick lying on the muddy ground. He wasn’t calm; he was unconscious.

“Stop!” I yelled as I phased to my feet. “Lee, what are you doing?”

Lee had dropped Nick’s limp body dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. He had a rappelling harness strapped on Nick’s body. The harness was tethered to a tree a few feet away. Lee was rubbing the belay rope back and forth over a sharp rock, fraying it, so that when he tossed Nick over the side, the stress on the damaged fiber would snap.

“It has to look like a climbing accident,” Lee told me, his tone like that of someone explaining how to tie a fishing lure. “We don’t want anybody connecting his death with you.”

“Lee, just step away from Nick,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. Cautiously, I stepped toward Nick, but Lee’s head snapped up. I froze.

Even in my gut-churning panic over Nick’s proximity to the cliff, I couldn’t process what Lee was doing. Why? He’d always seemed so puffed up and harmless. I hadn’t seen. I didn’t want to see. How could someone betray me like this again? It almost hurt worse than Eli’s betrayal, because it was so random and needless.

Lee looked up at me, confused, and frowned. “This has to stop, Maggie. I’m going to help you tidy this one last mess up, but then I expect you to clean up your act.”

“What are you talking about, Lee?” I tried stepping closer, my palms upraised in a submissive gesture, but he stepped in front of Nick, cutting me off. He was so close to the edge. All it would take was the slightest push or movement, and he’d plummet off the rocks. I whimpered a little, shaking away the image of Nick’s body broken on the ground. I had to focus on Lee, make him move away, use some sign of dominance to remind him who the f*ck he was dealing with.

But at the moment, my hands were shaking so badly I didn’t feel like Maggie F*cking Graham. I felt like throwing up.

“Overall, I think I’ve been pretty understanding about your little quirks,” Lee said, snapping me back to reality. “But really, a human?” His face flushed, darkened; his eyes narrowed. “Did you think I was going to sit by and let you humiliate me like that? Do you know what it was like for me, when members started whispering and snickering about my girl—my future mate—carrying on with a human?”

“Lee—”

“Stop saying my name like that!” Lee hissed. “Like I’m crazy! Like you’re trying to talk me down from a ledge. You don’t even know what I’ve done for you. You never appreciate how hard I’ve tried. You never see me. It’s always about you.”

“Just explain it to me,” I said. “Baby, please, I’m sorry. Just explain what I did, and I’ll apologize.” My voice shook as I called him “baby,” probably because it made me gag. But it seemed to calm him, to make him a preen a little, as if this was how he wanted the conversation to go. “What did I do wrong?”

“You never turned to me,” Lee said, exasperated.

“What do you mean?” I asked, stepping back, leading him away from the cliff.

“I wanted you to turn to me!” Lee yelled, pounding his chest with his fist. “I thought that if you could get off your damn high horse long enough to ask me for help, we might finally connect. But you always ran to Cooper or Samson. You never had time for me. And I thought maybe if Samson wasn’t there, in the way . . .”

“Did you take a shot at Samson?” I asked. He nodded. I groaned. “And the brakes on my truck?”

“I thought if I came along and helped you, it would be a good ice breaker. But the lines failed before I expected them to. I was waiting at the halfway point, waiting for you to pass by so I could follow. But you never showed. I doubled back, and I found your truck. I found you with him—”

He turned on Nick. “What else?” I barked, demanding his attention. His head swung toward me, his eyes sharp and indignant. I softened my voice. “What else don’t I know about? I just—I need to know what I owe you, Lee. Please. I just want to make it up to you. Every single thing you did. I owe you. Did you set fire to my office?”

He sneered, nudging Nick hard with his foot. “Yeah, I thought it would be a good chance for us to spend time together. I called you up, offered my pack as backup for patrols. I wanted to show you how helpful I could be, how considerate. I made sure I was partnered up with you. But no, you took off, the first chance you got. You ran to him! I followed your scent to his house. I saw the two of you on his couch—”

I stepped closer, and Lee tensed. I moved sideways, drawing Lee a step away from Nick. I forced the corners of my mouth up. “What about the cliff ? Please explain to me what you were trying to do.”

“I wanted to show you how much you needed me. I figured I’d scare you, show you how easily you could get hurt. I’d rough you up a little and pretend to chase off the guy who was hurting you. That’s why I put the bag over your head. To keep you from seeing me. And then he came running after you and ruined everything again.”

“You rubbed yourself with dryer sheets to try to cover up your scent, right?” I interjected as he turned his gaze on Nick. “So I wouldn’t recognize it? That was pretty smart. Tell me how you came up with that idea.”

Lee must have picked up on the undercurrent of tension in my voice, because he shook his head and returned his attention to the rope. “No. You’re just trying to find something wrong with me. Like you always do, you’re trying to find some reason not to be with me. You drive me crazy, don’t you see that? If you’d just settled down with me, I wouldn’t have done all these crazy things. I never would hurt Samson or you or Billie—” He bit down on the last word, as if he could keep it from escaping.

My mouth wouldn’t seem to work right. “Billie?” tumbled from my lips in a mangled gasp.

“It was an accident!” Lee cried. “I didn’t mean to hurt her. Uncle Frank told me how you thought so much of Clay, like you were ready to make him your second. I went into the house to try to get some dirt on him, something to get you to stay away from him. Billie came downstairs and freaked out. She said I didn’t belong in her house, and she came after me with a kitchen knife! The crazy old bat almost nicked me. I pushed her back, and she fell and hit her head on the counter. It was an accident.”

“She was a sick old woman.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Lee yelled. He glared at Nick. “None of this would have happened if he’d just stayed away!”

“No!” I cried, putting myself between them. Lee grabbed at my arms, shaking me. “This is my fault, not Nick’s. Don’t punish him for something I did.”

“This is your fault. You messed everything up,” he told me. “You’re my mate, mine! I’m supposed to be the one who helps you lead. I’m supposed to be the one you have babies with. This is all your fault!”

I shoved Lee away, putting some ground between him and Nick. “According to who? When have I ever even implied I feel anything for you?”

The sudden change in attitude seemed to shock him. He sneered. “You think you’re too good for me? You let him touch you. You’d be lucky to have me.”

“I didn’t just let him touch me,” I said, licking my lips. “He had every little piece of me. I chose him. I mated with him. I could be carrying his pup for all you know.”

“No!” he screamed. “You selfish whore!”

He phased on the fly and leaped at me. I jumped, blocking his body from colliding with Nick.

I thought of all the times I let my own fears, my stupid insecurities, my dumb-ass pride push me away from the only person I’d truly loved. And I pushed back. I pushed and I shoved, digging my paws into the dirt, scrambling for purchase.

Lee huffed, battering his head against my flank, trying to throw me off balance. He seemed to give up, turning on his heel and cowering away into the trees. I didn’t drop my guard. I’d seen Lee do this any number of times when he was roughhousing with my brothers. He’d act hurt or submissive and pretend to slink away, only to turn and suckerpunch his opponent. I braced myself for his coming strike.

He didn’t disappoint, turning suddenly and lunging, springing at me full-force. I pushed up, phasing to my feet and shoving my hands against Lee’s belly. I pivoted, throwing his weight over my shoulder. He yelped as his rear paws slid over the edge of the cliff, his front paws scrabbling over the dirt, catching Nick’s legs. He dug, trying to pull himself up, but all he was doing was dragging Nick over with him. I grabbed Nick’s arms, digging my heels into the ground. Between Lee’s weight and Nick’s, I could hardly hold them. Seeing that I held on to Nick, Lee bit down on the leg of Nick’s jeans. His eyes were defiant, daring me to let him die, knowing that it would mean losing Nick, too.

I snarled at him, grunting as I threaded my arms under Nick’s and yanked with all my strength. I’d managed to pull Nick’s knees up onto solid ground when I heard the sound of fabric tearing. Lee’s wolfen eyes widened as the waistband separated from the pockets of Nick’s jeans, and the denim lifeline he was counting on started sliding down Nick’s leg. Lee scratched and scrambled, but he was fighting a losing battle with gravity. His paws were still frantically clawing for a grip as he slipped over the rock face. He howled as his body hurtled toward the ground. I shuddered when the howl abruptly ended.

I gave in to the need to relax my arms for just a second, to ease the screaming muscles. It took that brief instant to realize what a huge mistake it was, as Nick’s weight shifted, and his legs slipped over the edge. “No, no, no!” I grunted, desperately scrabbling my left hand over the dirt to grip the end of the fraying climbing rope. As the dead weight of Nick’s torso pulled him away from me, I wound the rope around his wrist.

The rope slipped through my hand, burning and biting into the flesh of my palms as Nick free-fell. The elastic rope stretched under Nick’s weight as he dropped. The loop closed around Nick’s wrist and held him suspended as he flopped against the rock face. “Ow!” I heard him yelp. “What the hell?”

“Nick!” I yelled, leaning over the edge. The loose knot Lee had tied around the tree slipped open and let Nick drop again. He was now a good fifteen feet below me, hanging over the open maw of the mountain.

“Oh, come on!” I shrieked as the looped cord tightened around my hands again, tearing my skin. The bleeding wounds on my palms made the rope slippery. I couldn’t keep a good grip on Nick’s lifeline.

He squinted up at me, confused, angry . . . well, mostly confused. “Maggie, what the hell is going on?”

“I need you to calm down, OK?” I shouted. “That rope is frayed, and I don’t think I can hold you. I need you to find a good grip and climb up.”

“Using what?” he yelled.

“Your monkey-man skills!” I yelled. “Just shut up and climb, damn it! I’m losing my grip!”

I felt the tension on the rope slack slowly. I peered over the edge to see Nick curling his fingers around a rough knob of rock. He let go of the rope entirely, digging his fingers into a divot. He found a foothold and pulled up. His eyes locked with mine as his hand stretched toward another hold. His grip faltered, and his right hand slipped.

“Don’t look at me! Look at the rocks! If you fall to your death because you were being all moony and sentimental, I’m going to kick your ass!”

“Which will be a bit of a moot point, since I’ll be dead!” he shouted back.

“Don’t say that!”

Ignoring me, he focused on finding the right place, the right hold. Again and again, until he was within an arm’s reach. I tucked my arms under his shoulders, yanking him up as his legs gave one last push.

I buried my face in Nick’s neck as he landed on top of me. He huffed, “How do you find time to yell at me, even when I’m dangling over my certain death?”

I clutched his face in my hands, looking him over for signs of permanent damage. I kissed his cheeks, his nose, his mouth, and clutched him close to the point where he had difficulty breathing.

If I hadn’t just inadvertently killed a distant cousin, I would have found Nick’s nearly bare ass and lost boots sort of funny. He’d been pantsed by a falling werewolf.

OK, that was sort of funny.

I started giggling, recognizing even as the laughter bubbled from my lips that it was a hysterical response. But damn it, I’d nearly lost my fiancé to a secret stalker, whom I’d been too blind to recognize, and the only thing that had saved said fiancé was really old jeans and his ability to channel Spider-Man.

Nick groaned.

“Nick?” I sniffed, pushing his bloodied hair away from the gash in his forehead.

He looked down and saw the frayed belt loops ringing his waist, belt buckle still intact. “I’m not wearing any pants.”

“I know,” I said, laughing as tears streamed down my cheeks, splattering onto his face.

He winced as he tried to sit up. He thought better of it and lay back down. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. So much. I just want to spend the rest of my life with you, loving you and doing stupid, girlie romantic crap until the day I die.”

He grinned, patting my head. “That’s nice of you.”

I laughed, pressing my lips to his forehead.

He closed his eyes and rested his chin on top of my head. “So . . . what happened to my pants?”