“By the time they find us, we’ll have come and gone.”
“Rourke,” I called to his quickly retreating back. “You know I’m not staying with you for more than a day, right? Once I get confirmation from my Pack, I’m heading back the way I came. I’m not jumping from hidey-hole to hidey-hole with you.”
He grunted a response.
After long miles with not a lot of rest, we came to a natural pool framed by a number of large boulders, a strong eddy swirling at its center. It was fed by a steady trickle of extremely stinky water erupting out of a crack in a giant rock. The smell of rotten eggs permeated the air. I took another whiff. “Wow, that’s awful,” I said. “Does it smell this bad to humans?”
Rourke climbed onto one of the rocks bordering the pool. A lock of his sand-colored hair fell over his forehead as the sun reflected on his still bare chest, illuminating the tiny droplets of water stuck to him from walking in the stream.
That man should be arrested, I grumbled at my wolf. It was a grumble kind of day.
My wolf let off a low growl, her eyes tracking Rourke’s every move, but they were sounding less like growls and more like purrs. The hair on my arms began to stand on end without my permission. I hugged my jacket-wrapped weapons tighter to my chest. I hoped like hell he didn’t notice the effect he was having on me. It was embarrassing.
When he didn’t answer my question about the sulfur, I asked, “What?” a little defensively. “It’s a legitimate question. It’s getting harder for me to remember how I smelled things before as a human. Things are muddled.”
His eyes danced for a moment and I caught a quick flash of green, like a lighter sparking right before it jumps to full flame. “It smells more mild to humans, not like it does to us. Sulfur is a powerful natural element. It does a good job of masking our scent naturally. When the wolves arrive here, they’ll have a hard time picking up our trail with a nose full of sulfur.” He grinned mischievously. “Now I’m going to need you to submerse yourself in the pool.” He gestured out to the middle. “Completely.”
“Is that really necessary?” I eyed the pool. “Can’t we just splash ourselves with that?” I pointed to the stream trickling out of the rocks. “It smells much worse.”
“We will need to do both.” He set his jacket and boots down on an exposed rock. “The water in the pool will strip us of our sweat, the sulfur stream will mask us on the way out.”
He didn’t wait for a reply, instead he dove straight into the deepest part of the pool, surfacing a good distance away. It appeared to be quite deep. The sunlight glinted off his wet hair, making him look like some kind of water deity when he surfaced.
It so figured.
“I thought cats hated to get wet.”
He gave me a cagey grin. “There’s nothing I like better than being wet.” He dove under, his broad, powerful back skimming just under the surface.
“Fine,” I muttered, resigning myself to my fate. “Whatever you say.” I set down my jacket wrapped with goodies and picked my way to the edge of the pool.
My white camisole had stayed dry for the most part, but my black pants were completely soaked from splashing my way through the river. I bit my lip. On second thought, I went back and plucked up my jacket, untangling it from the pile, leaving my weapons and shoes sitting exposed on the rock.
I picked my way over to another area, the one closest to the sulfur stream, and hung it carefully on a dead tree branch jutting over the pool so I could grab it when I emerged soaking wet.
I turned back to the pool. Rourke was grinning at me again. “No need to be smug about it, cat,” I growled. “I’m getting in the damn water.”
Rourke’s laughter bounced off the boulders and echoed back into my ears. “Nothing smug about me, sweetheart.” He turned onto his back to float. “Just taking some time out of my busy day to enjoy the beauty around me.”
“You’re lucky I grew up around a bunch of wolves. I learned early on to check my modesty at the door.” Well, mostly anyway. I glanced at my dangling jacket.
It was nice to have a backup plan.
I turned back to the pool, contemplated my fate for a second, and dove off the rocks.
Right into a pool with a predator who looked like he wanted to eat me for breakfast.
19
“Rourke?” I asked as we swam. “With what you know about the supernatural world, do you think my Pack is winning this battle? I absolutely hate that I’m not there. I know very little about the Southern wolves, but from what I do know, it seems surprising that they’re this efficiently organized. Redman Martin is an arrogant asshole from the stories I’ve heard over the years, so it’s understandable, but it seems strange that he would wage a war so soon, after what happened with the division of Pack lines all those years ago.” Red Martin was the Alpha of the U.S. Southern Territories and he and my father were enemies. It was because of Redman that there were two U.S. Packs instead of one.
“I have a hard time believing any other wolves can best your father and his Pack,” he answered. “He’s a powerful leader and his wolves are fierce fighters. I don’t think you have anything to worry about. I’ve only ever had a few run-ins with Red, but as much as he is arrogant, he’s equal parts lazy. He likely wants to ransom you to the highest bidder or has some other slimy, easy-to-profit-from plan in place. It may even be as simple as he wants to pay back your father for any perceived wrongdoings. My guess is the fighting won’t last long once they find out you’re gone. You’re their prize. No prize, no fight. He knows he won’t win a combat battle, which is why no wolves were fighting on the streets. They were looking for you. You did your Pack a favor by leaving.”
I hoped what he said was true. We didn’t swim for very long, time being of the essence. Rourke emerged first, and I watched him from my spot on the other side of the pool. He picked his way over the rocks with ease, his jeans conveniently sticking to all the important parts. Water sluiced off his shoulders, running down his back in cascading rivers. His hair looked much darker wet than it had dry.
He tilted his head at me, like he was enjoying the weight of my stare. Cocky bastard. At that precise moment, the sun glinted perfectly on his irises and they flashed the palest green, almost white.
“Rourke, your eyes are completely insane.” I swam over to the edge closest to where he was standing and stared, shielding my eyes to the sun as I glanced up. “Humans must comment on them all the time. How do you explain them away?”
He shrugged like having diamonds for eyes was a normal everyday occurrence. “If I think they deserve an answer, I usually tell them I have my mother’s eyes,” he said. “And if I don’t, I tell them it’s none of their goddamn business.”
“And they actually believe you?”
“Humans already know they’re going to have to accept whatever excuse I give them, before they even ask. Thinking I’m ‘Other’ is not an option. So they ask with the idea that they’ll get a logical explanation, and once I give them one, they usually take it without question.” He gave me a lopsided grin, which made him seem more human. “But sometimes it takes a little more finesse on my part to win them over.”
“Are they really your mother’s eyes?” I asked, choosing pointedly to ignore my wolf, who bristled at the “finesse” part. He’s not ours, I scolded. He can finesse anyone he wants. She bit the air.
“I guess you could say that,” he said. “My shifter genes came from my father, like everyone’s do, but my mother had very unusual eyes to begin with, or so I’d been told. I don’t remember her much. It was a very long time ago.” He grabbed his clothes and started around the pool toward the sulfur trickle coming out of the large boulder.