“No!” he said, stopping, tugging her into his arms again and touching his nose to hers. Letting her feel the full weight of an enforcer’s stare. “It’s not for you to worry about. The Wolf baited me. Nothing more. He’d no more allow you to go to the encampment than I would. You’re too valuable to risk, and the humans there aren’t to be trusted. Only caution on the part of the alphas has prevented us from attacking and driving them from our lands already.”
“They’re salvaging?”
“It appears so. We’re playing a waiting game, hoping they’ll leave when they’ve found what they came for or found nothing of value.”
He tilted his head, giving in to the temptation to kiss her once, twice, a third time to reduce the sting of the words that had to follow. “This is Were business, Rebekka. Don’t interfere in it.”
She stiffened and pulled out of his arms, though she didn’t try to take her hand from his. Jaguar and man both churned in discomfort, hating even the tiniest of her emotional retreats. In an effort to recapture the closeness, Aryck said, “Tell me about your life in Oakland.”
Rebekka shot him a look, part disbelieving and part hopeful. But her voice contained pure challenge. “I live among Were outcasts.”
The tightness in his chest was immediate. The subject of outcasts was not one a Were took lightly. He managed to keep any hint of it from his voice. “Tell me,” he coaxed, squeezing her hand.
She did. Describing the various brothels and talking about the vice lord, Allende, who offered protection, but at a price. Speaking of the things that were an everyday part of her life, the injuries she healed. The red zone, the maze that no longer stood. Oakland itself.
Aryck found himself growing more worried. Not just at the horrors she saw daily and the danger inherent in her life among humans, but at how much she might believe she was needed by those the ancestors had judged. How difficult it might be for Rebekka to leave her world for his.
It was almost a relief when they neared camp and one of the more private bathing spots. He wanted a few minutes of additional pleasure with her before pack business claimed his attention, a few minutes to convince her body, if not her mind, of how much better a life spent with him would be over the one spent healing outcasts.
He stopped at where the trail split away, carried Rebekka’s hand to his chest, and rubbed it against his nipple. “This path leads to a stream with a pool. We can bathe together before I leave you at your cabin.”
She was instantly nervous, shy again despite the intimacy they’d already shared. “I don’t have a towel. Unlike you, I can’t change form to shake myself dry or walk around naked until the air does it for me.”
Aryck laughed, taking her hand to his mouth and nibbling on it. “No one would object if you wore only skin. In fact, the males would enjoy it.”
He would enjoy it. And while the Jaguar wouldn’t tolerate another touching her, having others admire her lush form only added to the satisfaction that would come with claiming her fully. “If you insist on a towel, we can come back.”
Her eyelashes lowered to hide her expression, but she didn’t say no. They continued on, the trail ending at the clearing behind the alpha’s cabin.
Guilt intruded at once again putting desire before duty, his subconscious choosing this route so he wouldn’t fail his pack. If he slipped into the water naked with her, he wouldn’t be able to leave until she was fully his.
He realized it would be better for her to bathe without him, for him to wash the most telling scents from his skin elsewhere, then find his father. Aryck stopped, reluctantly releasing her hand. At her questioning look, he said, “You tempt me to forget my responsibilities. I’ll join you when I can.”
He pointed to an opening several yards to the left. “Take that path, then the first right, followed by the third, and you’ll end up just beyond the cooking pit of your cabin.”
“If I return to the pool, will there be others bathing there at this time of day?”
“You’ll know before you reach the deep portion of the stream. It’s a place lovers go and, as you have reason to know, Jaguars aren’t quiet in their passion.”
She took a step away from him and he found he couldn’t let her leave without one last kiss. He snagged her wrist, halting and turning her in a smooth movement, placing his mouth on hers just as the cabin door opened.
His father’s dismay slammed into him through their mental link. Melina’s low, savage growl reached his ears.
The Jaguar’s hackles rose in reaction to the threat it contained. Aryck ended the kiss and released Rebekka, noting the discomfort in her eyes when they flicked to his father and Melina before she made her escape.
He hadn’t wanted to so flagrantly defy his father’s wishes when it came to Rebekka, but there was nothing to do about it now. The scent of sex clung to his skin. The scratches marking his back screamed she’d been lying beneath him.
“Leave us,” Koren told Melina.
She glowered at Aryck, eyes burning with seething emotion, making him fear for Rebekka’s safety. “Harm Rebekka and you’ll meet me in the challenge circle.”
“The healer’s safety has been guaranteed while she’s on Jaguar lands,” Koren said, adding weight to Aryck’s warning, though he tempered it by adding, “She’ll be gone in a day or two, as soon as Phaedra gains the knowledge contained in the journal.”
Melina gave a slight nod, acknowledging Koren’s concession to her pride, and what Aryck thought was his father’s continued support of her as the female who would bear his grandchildren.
Never. Aryck found it difficult to believe he’d once wanted Melina even as an outlet for physical release.
She stalked away, gone from his thoughts even before she disappeared from sight.
“You coupled with the healer,” Koren said, dark anger seeping into his voice.
As enforcer, Aryck couldn’t claim it was none of his father’s business. And because Rebekka was human, it mattered all the more.
“Not yet.”
“Not ever then. I didn’t lose my mate to have you throw away your own life by ending up an outcast.”
It was a low, ruthless blow. Guilt and fury rushed into Aryck with the reminder his mother had died giving birth to him. His fingers flexed, the Jaguar sheathing and unsheathing phantom claws at the savageness of the verbal attack. “It won’t come to that.”
“So you’re a shaman now?” Koren asked, his expression unchanging, his body posture all but inviting Aryck to challenge him physically so he could demonstrate why he was alpha and his will was pack law.
“I believe the ancestors want her to remain here, as my mate.”
Koren laughed. “You’re thinking with your cock.”
Aryck snarled, kicking off his shoes in unconscious preparation for a fight. “Without the ancestors’ intervention we wouldn’t have known of her existence. There were others who could have been sent to retrieve her, but it was me who had to go.”
“You’re rationalizing so you can fuck a female you know is wrong for you. In this you’re my son.”
“My choice is not the same as yours. Look at the value Rebekka has already brought to the pack. The cubs are healed. The Wolves acknowledge a debt to her. There is more.”
“Things as enforcer you should have shared hours ago?” Koren said, his voice silky menace. “But instead you failed in your duties, became sidetracked by lush curves and soft skin, by a slick channel and an alluring scent.”
Aryck bridled at the charge but couldn’t deny it, not when moments ago he’d felt the sting of guilt in the wake of nearly giving in to the temptation to delay further. Only his pride had kept him from seducing Rebekka earlier, taking her with his cock instead of his fingers after she made him lose control and come with only her hand. Had she been willing initially, he would have coupled with her repeatedly, not returning to camp until they were both sated.
“I told you how it was with your mother. In the end my lack of control cost me. I’ll protect you from yourself to the extent I can. From this moment on, I assume the mantle of responsibility for the healer and forbid you from going near her while she is on our lands.”