“Tarzan huh? I think I can do better than that.”
“Demon.” She shrieked between laughs. “Put me down.” Instead, his hand found the curve of her delicious ass and squeezed making her body jackknife up with a gasp. She was bouncing on the bed before the door even closed.
“Do you suppose he would want us to remind him about the flight?” Ben asked from the hall where they had been watching the drama.
“Would you?” Mac asked dryly.
“I’ll call and let the others know we’re running late.”
Chapter 8
“Deliverance country. Lovely.” Ben looked around the graveyard deep in the Ozarks and felt the cat in him reacting to the unmistakable smell of hillbilly dog. “Why do I get the feeling we should have brought more guns.”
“Because we are currently surrounded by a good fifty shape shifting wolves who would like to eat us?”
“That might be it.”
Mac looked at Demon. “I can see why you don’t visit.”
Demon grunted, he had spoken little on the trip over. There were many things he would rather be doing, namely Clytie. Instead, he was here in his own personal hell. He didn’t want Clytie anywhere near his old pack, but he didn’t like her in another state. She needed to be where he could protect her.
“Relax.” Mac kept his eyes on the wolf shifters trying to stare them down from across the mound of fresh dirt. Only the Taboo of fighting at a graveside kept them on their side of the grave. “Eli and Logan are watching your little bird. No one can get to her. You’d be better off concentrating on your hick relatives. They don’t appear happy to see you.”
“On the other hand,” Ben said, smiling at the angry crowd salivating for blood across from them. “They look real happy to see us.” At his smirk, several wolves growled and showed an impressive lack of dental work and sharp teeth.
“Ben.” Mac warned in a bored voice aware the wolves across from them heard every word. “Don’t tease the animals.”
Before Ben could respond with something even more inflammatory the crowd of wolf shifters parted and Demon caught his first sight of the Alpha after fifteen years. Gregory Bidel, Alpha of the Bone Crusher Clan. He felt his hackles rise and his wolf instinct to fight nearly overwhelmed his control.
“You have no business here outcast. You or your pack of degenerates.”
“Even Outcasts are welcome at family funerals. It’s shifter law.”
The man who he’d once called father took a threatening step forward. “You have no family here.”
A little grayer, the Alpha hadn’t changes in 20 years, except to get harder and meaner in appearance. Demon realized he looked down on him now, by about a foot. For some reason he had pictured the Alpha a bigger man. Now Demon was both taller and broader across the shoulders, though the Alpha was thicker everywhere else. Looking from the rage filled grey eyes of the Alpha to the rest of the pack, about fifty in all with the females hidden towards the back with the few cubs, he was ambivalent. Ben was right; they looked like a pack of illiterate hillbillies. For years, he had wondered what it would be like to be this mans natural son, a welcome member of the pack. Now he could only be grateful to have escaped such a life.
“Where’s Clancy?” He should have been at his father’s side, but the Alpha stood alone, his pack keeping a respectful distance.
“That’s our business and none of yours.” One of the men closest to the Alpha spoke up, smirking a challenge across the sacred ground until the Alpha glared at him for speaking out of turn. He dropped his head immediately and bared his neck.
Glancing around Demon felt his wolfs unease, quite a few faces seemed to be missing, Clancy not least of all. He should have been here. Even if she was not his biological mother, he was a Beta and an enforcer. When the Alphas mate dies, everyone goes to the funeral. Demon opened that door inside himself and stretched out with his wolf senses. No one here was powerful enough to be any of the upper echelon. Besides the Alpha, every powerful wolf of the Bone crusher clan was missing from the funeral.
He met the old Alphas eyes and every hair on his body stood up in warning. Both Ben and Mac on either side of him went to battle ready mode without moving an inch and his own eyes shifted to wolf gold.
Mac moved up a step, grabbing every ones attention. “Shifter law guarantees safe passage at funerals even for outcasts. You break that law and you sign your own death warrant.”
The Alpha sniffed as if catching something bad on the wind, his eyes insulting and dismissive. “Who the hell would care if I took out the trash? I can’t even tell what the hell you are.”
“Wolverine.” Macs voice held soft menace making many of the wolves shift about. Even Alpha wolves knew better than to mess with a wolverine shifter and none but one here was an Alpha. The minister who had been standing oh so quiet at the head of the grave appeared properly horrified.
With his face twisted in distaste, Gregory spit on the fresh grave. His eyes on Demon, he ignored the choking sound coming from the appalled minister. “Consorting with a wolverine and an outlaw cat. I heard about your fucked up clan of deviants and perverts but I didn’t really believe it. Even a bastard like you should have more pride. Not even a clan-less female will have you now.” He laughed a hard edge to it. “When I think of how often I had to hear about your fucking pedigree and here you are mixing with cats and whatever the hell else. Your grandfathers must be rolling in his grave.”
“Looking at what you’ve done to his pack I doubt he’s sparing much thought to who my friends are.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Please gentleman!” The little man finally spoke up. “This is a funeral and if no one else is coming I would like to get on with the service.”
The old Alpha snapped his teeth with a growl but stepped back. Church officials were another thing protected by shifter law. The service commenced. Demon locked his jaw and kept his wolf senses open. While he listened to the sermon on everlasting life and the will of God, his eyes wandered over the assembled wolves. None of them would meet his eyes until he hit the golden eyes of an old Witch. Essie had been old when he was a child, now she seemed withered and dry except for the spark of fire peaking out of her wolf eyes. She studied him for a long minute, then bowed her head enough to show respect. He couldn’t hide his surprise. She had acknowledged him an Alpha. No one seemed to be paying attention but such a thing would get her beat or worse if Gregory heard of it.
He noticed a small hand clutched in her gnarled clasp. A small head peaked out from behind her. No older than 12 at most and obviously a girl. She had not yet grown into her features and her blue eyes were huge in her heart shaped face. She reminded him of a baby angel with all that gold skin and hair. She turned her head to glance back and he saw the raised scar across her neck that disappeared into her ratty t-shirt. She had been burned at some point in her young life and he had to wonder how far the scars went. She stood out from the other mourners in both color and circumstance. While every one else had come slicked back and in their Sunday best, she wore oversized cast offs. Then the service ended and he had other things to think about.
The Alpha threw them one last warning to get out of town before sunset and stomped off, followed by his cowed pack. The old witch gave him a nod before turning and following the others.