In the Shadow of the Wolf Read online

  He left the cabin and met up with Ulrich and Torolf outside.

  "So, are you going to tell us what it was you were doing in there?" Torolf asked.

  Faolan ran a hand through his thick hair, frustration evident in his entire being. He needed to share what he had learned earlier that morning, if only to alleviate his own stress. But was it right to say anything when he didn't know anymore than he did? On the other hand, was it right to keep it from them. He knew they would want to know just as much as he did, which meant they would all be trying to sneak into her cabin to find out if she'd used the tests or not. He finally decided he should tell them.

  Faolan's brow was furrowed, and he began pacing in the snow.

  "When we finished breakfast this morning, I went to the store to get a cup of coffee. Just as I was leaving, I ran into Sayuri. She had something in her hands," he said, pausing, stopping briefly to look at Ulrich and Torolf before pacing again. The distressed looks on their faces did nothing to ease his mind about what he was going to tell them. "She had pregnancy tests."

  "Really?" Torolf said eagerly.

  "Are you serious?" Ulrich asked.

  Faolan looked at his pack mates. He couldn't believe how excited they were. "Don't get your hopes up. She hasn't taken them yet. That's what I was doing here. I went to see the results. I wasn't going to tell you before I knew the answer for myself. But, I guess it's better that you know."

  "Why hasn't she taken them yet. I want to know what the answer is right now," Torolf said, crossing his arms in front of him, his face sullen with disappointment.

  "She probably hasn't taken them yet because she's not ready to take them yet," Ulrich said. "I've overheard from human women before that they take them only after they had missed their period, which means we're probably going to have to wait a few weeks to find out."

  "Damn," Faolan growled. "The waiting is going to get the best of me."

  "What are we going to do if she is pregnant?" Torolf asked.

  "What we need to do if focus on right now," Faolan said. "We need to convince her to stay here with us."

  "Well, how do we do that?" Torolf asked.

  "Simple," Ulrich replied, "we make her an offer she can't refuse. We'll show her that we can take care of her and the pups. We should invite her to dinner at the house, cook her a meal, and then fuck her silly and never let her leave."

  "Sounds like a plan," Faolan said. "Ulrich, you find her and invite her to dinner, sometime around seven o'clock, and give her directions to our cabin. Torolf and I will get back to work so that nobody notices that we were gone. After work, we'll all meet up at the cabin and prepare for her arrival."

  * * * *

  Sayuri was on cloud nine. They didn't just want sex! Inviting her to dinner at their place meant so much more. She could hardly contain her excitement as she followed Ulrich's hand written directions to the cabin in the woods. She had left early because she was worried that she would get lost trying to find her way to the cabin, and she didn't want to be late to their dinner date. Finally, she saw the cabin in the distance, smoke coming from the chimney. It was a large cabin, much larger than the one she had been staying in since her arrival. And it was much more beautiful. She couldn't believe they lived in such a wonderful home, surrounded on all sides by trees, overlooking a valley of snow covered forest. It was so picturesque, so breathtaking.

  It looked so warm! And she was freezing! With any luck she might just thaw out before dinner!

  She heard some movement as she approached the cabin from the backside. She figured it was one of the guys, but she stopped in her tracks when she saw what had made the noise. There were three wolves just outside the front of the cabin. Fortunately for her, they hadn't heard her approach. She started taking small steps backwards, but stopped again. Right in front of her eyes, the wolves morphed, shifted, becoming large, becoming human. There was no mistaking the three men that now stood where the wolves had once been. It was Faolan, Ulrich, and Torolf. She stood in shocked silence for a second, but then her adrenaline and protective instincts took over and she turned and ran back the way she had come.

  "Shit!" she mumbled under her breath when she lost a snow boot. But she wasn't going to stop and go back for it. They could be on her heels at this very moment. "Fuck!" she hissed vehemently when she lost grip of the map. But she didn't stop for that either. She wasn't going to stop for anything, not after what she'd just seen.

  While she was running, she mentally inventoried everything she had brought with her on the trip, everything that was sitting in her cabin, and decided she could live without it. So, instead of heading back to her cabin and grabbing her suitcase, she ran straight to the parking lot and her car. Fortunately she had her keys on her, that was one habit she wasn't sorry she'd not forgotten. In seconds she was in her car and speeding down the road.

  * * * *

  Faolan sensed that something was wrong even before they reached the cabin. Halting in his tracks, he glanced around, searching, testing the faint scent on the air. Sayuri! But the scent was wrong. He realized then what it was-fear!

  "She's come and gone," Ulrich said blankly.

  "She saw us," Torolf said tightly.

  Faolan and Ulrich both glanced at him sharply.

  "We would've caught her scent."

  Torolf shook his head. "She was downwind of us-or the smoke prevented us from catching her scent. It doesn't matter how it happened. It happened."

  "He's right," Faolan growled, dropping the load of wood he was carrying and striding quickly around the house until he spotted her tracks. They halted several yards from the house and changed directions. The footprints leading away from the cabin were running steps. She'd run so fast she'd lost a boot.

  "Shit!"

  The three of them set off at a run in the hope of catching her before she got back to her cabin but the snow slowed them down and none of them wanted to take the chance of frightening her even more by shifting. They were so intent upon her cabin that they'd almost reached it before the realized there were no fresh tracks leading to it, only away from it.

  "She didn't go to her cabin!" Faolan said, halting abruptly. "We lost her tracks."

  Ulrich and Torolf changed directions abruptly and raced toward the lodge. The desk clerk stared at them as if they were crazy when they burst into the lodge and looked around.

  "Sayuri!" Faolan said to the clerk. "Have you seen her?"

  He shook his head. "No. Is she lost?"

  "What kind of car is she driving?" Ulrich demanded urgently.

  The clerk stared them blankly. "I don't know."

  His lips tightening with anger, Faolan pushed his way around the desk and pulled out the log. "Got it!"

  "Wait!" the clerk called out. "What's going on?"

  Torolf halted as the other two headed out the door. "Tell the boss we have personal business to take care of. We'll be back soon."

  "The car's gone," Faolan said grimly when Torolf had joined them.

  "What now?"

  "She's headed back to the city," Faolan said tightly. "It's a good thing I got her home address while I was at it."

  * * * *

  It was positively the happiest day of her life! Sayuri had no idea why she'd spent most of it squalling like a baby.

  Actually, she realized, she'd been miserable ever since she'd left the lodge-Well, after she'd gotten over being scared half to death!

  She'd spent half the trip home trying to convince herself she hadn't seen what she thought she had and the other half alternately worrying that they would find her and weeping over the fact that she was probably never going to see them again. It had taken her three whole days to go from questioning her sanity and fearing that they'd manage, somehow, to track her down to pure misery because she knew they wouldn't.

  They probably wouldn't even try!

  Happily, she managed to turn her mind to her reason for going to the lodge to start with after a few days. The pregnancy test was positive!
/>   She'd had almost as hard a time accepting that as real as she'd had accepting what she'd seen-the men she loved to distraction shifting from wolves to human in the blink of an eye!

  She was pregnant, though. She'd not only checked the test several times to make sure the stripes didn't disappear, she'd used two more tests and all of them were positive.

  She was going to have a baby! Yeah!

  She'd wept for hours, exhausted herself and took a nap, and then moved around her apartment in a daze, trying to come to grips with her situation. She was pregnant, but the guys were wolves! Or werewolves!

  She didn't even believe in werewolves! How could she be pregnant by werewolves? Or 'a' werewolf, she supposed.

  Did it matter?

  She knew it should have, but all she kept thinking each time she considered it was that she loved them. She wasn't sorry. Whatever happened, however things turned out, she didn't regret a moment of the time she'd invested in the baby and she didn't regret the men she'd chosen.

  She was at her kitchen table, swirling a spoon around and around a bowl of ice cream that was turning to milk when she heard a knock on her door. The sound jolted her so badly that she dropped the spoon. It hit the table and then the floor with a clatter, but she was already out of her seat and heading for the door.

  She hesitated for a moment when she reached it, realizing why she'd raced to the door-hopefulness that it was them. Chiding herself for being silly, she unlocked the door and pulled it open.

  Before Sayuri could even react, Faolan stepped forward and pulled her tightly to his chest, nearly crushing her. He had plastered her arms between them, and she tried to push at the wall of his chest in an attempt to put space between them.

  He instinctively tightened his hold on her and buried his face in her hair. "Sayuri, surely you know what we feel for you," he said, his voice husky with emotion, vulnerable.

  Sayuri felt deep pain in her heart at his words.

  "We didn't want you to go. Please have the courage come back with us. I know you think that we are beasts, but we need you. I need you."

  She heard the pain in his voice, felt an answering one in her body. They were wild, and they had swept her away in a maelstrom of passion. Since she'd returned home, all she could think about was the fact that she wanted to see them again, craved their touch, craved their attention. But she had been so scared by what she'd seen. She had thought they were dangerous, really, really dangerous. She knew better than that now. They had done nothing if not prove that they were more human than human. They saved people's lives for a living for God's sake. How could she have thought that they would ever hurt her? She knew they were different, that something existed in them, something part animal, part man. But it didn't matter to her anymore. She loved them, wanted to be with them.

  "Faolan," she said, trying to push against the concrete wall of his chest again, trying to look him in the face. Aside from that, she was having a hard time breathing, having trouble thinking because of the feel of the heat of his skin and the urgent demands of her body.

  "Don't do this, Sayuri!" Faolan pleaded. "Don't turn us away."

  She finally broke loose from the bonds of his arms. "But my home is so far away from yours," she said sullenly.

  "The people here can't love you like we do."

  Ulrich and Torolf nodded in agreement.

  "Don't fear us, Sayuri. I would give my life for you. We would give our lives for you. We are already bound to one another. Can't you feel it?"

  His words warmed her blood, fed the ache deep inside that she'd felt ever since she'd left them.

  Faolan took her chin in the palm of his hand, tipped her head back so that she couldn't escape his dark, hungry gaze.

  Suddenly, it occurred to her what he meant by being bound to him. She remembered the dark evidence of his brand, touched it with her fingertips and realized that Ulrich and Torolf had left their brand as well. They had taken her body as if it belonged to them, ferociously, with an animalistic intensity, and yet something inside of her had responded to the feral hunger and need in them.

  He wrapped her hair around a hand, brought a fistful of it up to bury his face in it, breathing in deeply of her scent. His scent still lingered on her and it would remain in her. He felt satisfaction at that realization.

  "You bit me," she said, staring at the three of them in disbelief. She touched first her neck, then her breast, and her thigh. A fiery hot ache consumed her at the memory of their untamed passion, of Faolan holding her in his arms, his body wild with need, his mouth working over her body eagerly, hungrily.

  Was it wrong that she wanted more, that she wanted a life with them?

  Faolan cupped her face in his hands and leaned forward to brush his lips against hers, feather light, enticing. "Come back home with us," he whispered.

  "Faolan," she said a little breathlessly, desperate need filling her at his touch. "I want you, I can't even bear the thought of being without you. I've been in misery since I left you.

  "I was afraid at first, I admit it. But when I got home and was alone, I realized that I didn't care about what I'd seen. I realized that didn't change who you are, and I love you all for who you are. But, there's also something that I should tell you, something I was keeping secret," she said, pausing. "I came to that resort to get pregnant. I'm sorry, I should have told you."

  Faolan, Ulrich, and Torolf looked at each other in surprise.

  "It was wrong of me not to tell you."

  "Well," Faolan said.

  "Well, what?" Sayuri asked.

  "Are you?" Ulrich and Torolf chimed in, their faces full of anticipation.

  Sayuri's smile was brilliant as she looked at them. She couldn't believe it. They were as eager for a baby as she was. "Yes, I am," she admitted.

  Faolan's heart soared at her words. It was more than he could have ever hoped for. He grabbed her by the wrist, pulling on it, unbalancing her so that her body fell flush against his. Ulrich and Torolf embraced her as well.

  "We love you, and we need you with us. Come home."

  Epilogue

  Over One Year Later

  Faolan encircled Sayuri's slender figure in his arms, pulling her hard against his solid frame. His body slipped protectively about hers.

  She was deep asleep, giving him ample time to examine her at his leisure. His brow furrowed as he noted that there were dark shadows beneath her eyes. She hadn't been getting a lot of sleep since the pups were born, which was exactly why he'd instructed Ulrich and Torolf to give her the day off. He smiled as he thought about all the trouble they'd had handling his young. They'd had even more difficulty in keeping Sayuri in the dark, letting her believe that taking care of the pups was not hard at all.

  He propped himself up on one elbow, studying her, her thick black lashes, her delicate skin, the oval of her face. It wasn't just her physical beauty that had claimed his heart, he knew that all too well, it was who she was inside, that part of her that accepted the part of him that was a wild, untamed beast.

  A gradual smile softened the hard line of his mouth. He recalled when his people had discovered them together, when they had discovered that Sayuri was human, they had told him that she didn't belong in their world. But he knew better. His world didn't exist without her. And she had given them a piece of her mind. They hadn't bothered them after that.

  Her hair spilled across her pillow like a blanket of silk. She had moved the comforter in her sleep, and her thick hair was the only thing concealing her breasts. The sight of her was erotic. Even in her sleep it seemed as if she waited for him, needing him.

  Her soft skin, a pale shade of peaches and cream, shown brilliantly in the moonlight coming in through the cabin window.

  Faolan slipped one hand over the contour of her leg. Just the feel of her set him on fire inside. He caressed her hips, traced the contour of her waist.

  Sayuri stirred, shifted.

  He needed her any way he could get her.

  She slo
wly emerged from sleep.

  He could tell by her breathing the moment she was fully awake.

  Her body was still sore from caring for her new babies, hurting in places she hadn't even been aware she had. But now that she wasn't pregnant anymore, now that she'd had several months of recovery, she'd noticed that she'd been feeling different, more sensitive, more sexual. Faolan's body against hers was like hot steel, immovable. He was aggressive and unbearably sexy, no wonder he was the pack alpha.

  She could hear the creaks and rustles of the snow covered trees outside the cabin acutely, the scrape of branches on the window in the living room.

  He moved the hair at the nape of her neck away and brushed a feather light kiss on the exposed skin.

  With his thumb he stroked the side of her breast, heating her from the inside out, sending a shiver of excitement coursing through her body. She wanted him wild and untamed, wanted him to need her. In his day to day life he was so in control of himself, of his emotions. The realization that she could make him lose all of that control was a powerful feeling.

  Faolan lowered his head to a taut nipple calling his name. His tongue stroked it gently. Kissing the rosy peak, he drew it into the moist, hot cavern of his mouth.

  Sayuri sighed softly, closing her eyes, reveling in the pleasure his touch elicited. He brought her body to life, made every nerve ending scream for his touch. She felt moldable, pliant under his ministrations.

  He lifted his head and moved so that the weight of his body trapped her beneath him. His dark gaze roamed over her possessively. He cupped her chin, rubbing his thumb back and forth across the delicate contour of her lips.

  His other hand stroked her belly. He missed the roundness of her stomach when she'd been at the height of her pregnancy. He'd grown fond of caressing it. Seeing her like this now made him eager to make her round with his seed again, but he knew that he'd already made an agreement with Ulrich and Torolf that since his were the first pups born, he wouldn't try to get her pregnant again, at least not right now.