Terry Spear: Heart of the Wolf

In her present form, she hated to advance on him. She had to move slowly so as not to frighten him more. He couldn’t kill her, but what a mess.

How could she explain how a woman entered the wolves’ den and survived a vicious attack if he decided to bite? How could she explain why she was naked? And how could she explain how Rosa had vanished into thin air? Further, how quickly could she heal if he injured her?

Would the legendary werewolf come to mind?

DEVLYN STARED AT THE INKY SKY FROM THE BALCONY of his hotel room, his heart pounding furiously as he considered how Bella had been locked up in the zoo. He never thought he’d see her again, but she was even more beautiful than before, if that was possible. He recognized the longing in her whisky-colored eyes. Save me, they pleaded. And the smell of her—wild and ripe for the picking.

God, how he wanted to claim her heart and body for his own.

He gritted his teeth and fisted his hands. How many times did he have to rescue the woman before she recognized how...

He shook his head. It didn’t matter how he felt. She could never be his. Even if Volan didn’t lead the pack, it wouldn’t matter—Bella was so hell-bent on having a human for a mate. His neck muscles grew taut.

The door adjoining his room squeaked open. He turned. Gray-haired, wiry Argos nodded. Once the leader of the pack, he had stepped down when he’d grown too old. “Are you sure she’ll come to me?”

“She trusts you.”

Argos winced. The old leader didn’t like the idea of returning her to Volan any more than Devlyn did, but she wouldn’t be safe on her own. Worse, she threatened the secrecy of their kind with her rash decisions. She belonged to their pack for safe keeping, period.

“You were like a father to her. She was happy with us until Volan took over,” Devlyn continued. “She’ll come to you.”

“I know what you want, but you can’t have her.”

“Nobody can have her. Not while she’s got this insane notion of finding a human to love. Why does Volan want her so badly? She’ll make a lousy alpha female mate when she despises him so. He can’t lock her up or force her to mate with him.”

Argos raised his brows, but remained silent. Devlyn rubbed his temple, trying to massage away the tension that collected there. “He wouldn’t, would he?”

“He’s the pack leader. Once he gets hold of her, she’ll obey him or pay the consequences. He’s driven to have her as much as she’s driven to avoid him and find the perfect human mate. So what drives you, Devlyn?”

Hatred of male humans. Procreation of his kind, if he could ever find a suitable mate. But none of the other females in their pack were an acceptable age that he wanted. Only Bella. And searching for another of his kind—well, of the red wolf variety, as that’s what he had his heart set on—proved unachievable.

It was like looking for red wolves in the wild in the States. Nearly impossible to find. And no other kind of wolf would do. The red wolf in her had to be what drew him to her.

“I’ve heard rumors he killed his own brother,” Devlyn said, avoiding Argos’s question.

“Which one?”

In disbelief, Devlyn stared at him. “There was more than one?”

“Two, both died before you joined the pack. But no, they were accidents. A mountain lion killed his youngest triplet when he was a juvenile. He’d roamed away from the pack on a hunt and the others couldn’t reach him in time. His eldest brother died in a raging flood. Tree was uprooted, smashed into his skull. The healers said he was dead before the river pulled him under. But Volan learned his bullying from that brother, the meanest, most crotchety wolf known to lupus garou. Just surviving his brow-beating made Volan as strong as he is today.”

Devlyn made a disgruntled throaty sound. He’d always wondered why Volan was so aggressive and controlling, but as far as he was concerned, it didn’t excuse his behavior. “Are the others ready?”

“Yes.”

“Volan’s not coming for her later, is he?” Devlyn jerked his leather jacket on.

“No. He’s the leader, not stupid.”

“Some of us would argue that point.”

Volan sent Devlyn to retrieve Bella because he wanted to emphasize the point that Devlyn would reclaim her, but she belonged to Volan. The thought curdled Devlyn’s supper, a couple of hastily eaten half-raw burgers, resting like a greasy lump in the pit of his stomach.

Once they’d seen the newsflash concerning her, they had to be sure it was her, though. Finding a red wolf in the Cascades was unheard of, and to top that off, she was larger than normal. The pack knew the red wolf could only be a lupus garou, and Argos knew it had to be Bella or she would have been with a pack.

But Devlyn had to make sure. She could have been any one of a number of lone red lupus garou females all across the States. Or not. Because such a shortage existed, he sure as hell hoped Argos was right—that she was their stubborn Bella.

When Devlyn saw her in the pen at the zoo, he knew. He couldn’t be angry with her for having run away—but for her to risk proving to the world that lupus garous existed? That was irresponsible and unforgivable. At least that’s what he told himself, though his heart ached to hold her close again, only this time to claim her for his own.

Devlyn stalked toward the door of his hotel suite. “All right. Let’s break our little red wolf out of jail.” The notion that she was theirs, though, struck a chord. She wasn’t theirs. She belonged to Volan. Fire burned in Devlyn’s veins with the thought. Ever since Devlyn had rescued her near the river, the wildfire in hot pursuit of her, Volan had wanted her, too.

For years Devlyn had pinned her to the ground in their wolf states, avoiding her retaliatory bites, playing with her as young wolves frolicked. He still wanted to tackle her to the ground, to force her reaction, to have her pay attention to him. But the burning desire to have her for his mate drove away any notion of having another female.

He hurried his four younger male cousins out to the SUV with Argos at his side in the freezing drizzle. The black-haired, amber-eyed quadruplets, twenty-two years of age, all itched for a fight as they clenched their fists and steeled their square jaws.

Devlyn slammed his door. “If we wait much longer, she’ll have changed and be half frozen in this weather.” He’d rescue her again. He had to. Not for Volan, but for his own greedy desires. But what to do with her afterwards? He knew what he wanted to do with her. Make her his ... forever ... his mate for life.

But with Volan still living, how could Devlyn hope to take her for his own? That question had plagued him every minute of the day since he’d learned she still lived.

Backed into the confines of the wolf den, Bella spread her arms out, slowly, in her crouched position, to make herself appear larger. “Back off, Big Red.”

He continued to snarl. She took a step forward, and shivered, but it wasn’t the chill in the air that made her tremble. The notion that the zoo staff would catch her in the wolves’ den in human form forced concern to worm its way into every pore.

Big Red held his ground.

She took another step in his direction. Her eyes remained locked onto his. He didn’t back down.

Wrinkling her nose, she bared her not-very-scary human teeth. Anything to show him she wasn’t intimidated by his posturing.

After what seemed like an eternity of an old western gunfight showdown, he turned, and trotted out of the den. She took a deep breath, then quickly followed him out. The icy drizzle coated her skin. Hoping to make her escape easily, she crossed the pen to the keeper’s door.