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42
I thought about it for a moment. “Do I know any mates?”
He smiled. “Most of the people who have been with you since you left Hooters have been werewolves, love. Stan and Larissa are Alphas, they lead the St. Croix Pack you have been staying with. Peter and Abigail are their Betas, second in command. They helped you because of me, because of what you are to me.”
I felt butterflies in my stomach. “What exactly am I to you, John? An obsession? A distraction while you wait for your perfect werewolf? A notch on your bedpost?”
He didn’t say anything, driving my emotions up. “Pull over, Jessie.” I found a spot and stopped by the side of the road. “Jessie, do you think I’d go to jail, enter the country illegally, and put on that stupid collar just because I was trying to get in your bed?” He took my chin in his fingers, lifting my eyes to his. “Jessie, I did all those things because YOU are my mate. You are my love. You are my FUTURE. You are the most important thing in my life, and there is no one else for me. I am yours, and you can be mine if you just accept us.”
Holy shit. “I’m not a werewolf, John. I can’t be your mate.”
His hand moved to cup my cheek. “You are a werewolf, Jessie. She’s buried somewhere deep inside you, probably held by a spell that Father Kempechny cast to keep you safe and hidden. Your father, Yevgheny, he was more than a Russian Mob chief. He was Alpha of the Moscow Pack, a werewolf, and you are heir to his Pack.”
My eyes rolled back and I collapsed in the seat.
John’s POV
I mentally kicked myself, I had revealed too much too fast and she hadn’t taken it well. I got out, reaching under back seat and used the blankets from there to make a place for her to rest. She was shivering, probably a result of shock and the adrenaline crash from everything that had happened. I laid her down on the back seat and tucked her in, then got in and turned around to go back to the main highway.
I wanted to get off the main road as quickly as I could, so at Little Marais I headed west on Highway 1 through the Finland State Forest. The road curved through the pine and birch forests, and traffic was light. I could tell she was awake, but she pretended to sleep a bit longer. She opened her eyes an hour after sundown, yawning and stretching. “Where are we,” she said.
“About an hour west of Little Marais,” I said. “We’ve got another few hours to get to any town of size, but…”
“What are you thinking?”
“We could stay in a hotel, but none of the chain ones- they require identification and a credit card. If they are looking for us, they will have alerts set. Who knows, we might even have the cops after us if the rest of the Coven blames us. Their High Priestess is missing, after all.”
She crawled into the front seat, sitting and buckling herself in. “We need to get far away.”
“We keep driving, keeping to small roads and towns through the night. I’d like to get a few hundred miles away before we stop.” I looked over at her, she was looking out the window and I could sense her emotions. “We’re going to be all right, Jessie. What happened wasn’t your fault. You can’t feel guilty about surviving.”
“That’s not what is bothering me,” she said.
“Is it the werewolf thing? I’m sorry. I needed to tell you about our kind, about your heritage, but I really messed that up.”
She laughed a little. “Trust me, finding out I’m a werewolf wasn’t as big a shock as finding out I was adopted, or the heir to a fortune of more money than I can imagine. I should have known there was a catch.” She looked over at me. “My dreams have been trying to tell me for a while now, I just didn’t know what they meant.”
“What dreams?”
She looked down at her hands. “I’d be running through a forest, or over hills. I’d look down and see paws instead of legs. Sometimes I was being chased, I would look back and there was this huge silver-grey wolf chasing me. He catches me, grabs my neck and forces me to the ground, but he doesn’t kill me.” Her arousal starts to spike again. “He… mounts me. And I liked it. I don’t know what was freaking me out more, being a wolf or enjoying being taken as one.”
“Like I said, your wolf is inside you, buried deep somewhere. She is trying to get out, even if it’s only through your dreams.” I rolled the window down, needing to clear the smell, and she blushed even more as she figured out why.
“How do I get my wolf out?”
I ran my hand over my face. “I don’t know. Werewolves can shift about the time a baby starts to crawl. I’ve never heard of a wolf that didn’t emerge. A child who can’t shift is called a null.”
“Some don’t shift?”
“Two werewolves always have werewolf children. When a human and werewolf have a child, it may or may not inherit the werewolf gene. If it doesn’t, the child is 100% human. We call that a null.” I didn’t want to tell him this part. “Nulls are looked down upon, they have no wolf, can gain no rank, they can never really join the Pack. Weaker, unable to link or fight, they are considered a burden. Many are given up for adoption, even killed in the more remote Packs.”
Tears started to form in her eyes. “I’m a null?”
“No. A null has no wolf. You do; it just hasn’t emerged.” I took her hand. “Close your eyes. Do you feel her? A voice in your head?”
She closed her eyes, then opened them. “Nothing.”
I kissed her hand. “It’s all right. We’ll figure it out.” We had driven back out of the forest and there were a few towns coming up. “So, what was really bothering you if finding out a werewolf wasn’t it?”
She got a scared look on her face. “Don’t hate me for this,” she said.
“I could never hate you, love.”
“Back in the clearing, when that man was about to kill you, you saw what I did.” I nodded, remembering how she had hit him with fireballs then levitated him away before the fire turned him to ash. “I killed a man. I didn’t hesitate.” She did now. “And I felt good about it.”
I picked up her hand and held it. “The man needed killing, and you saved my life. He was coming over to put a bullet in my head, just like he did with Miriam.”
“I know that, but I killed him. I looked into his eyes as he suffered and died, and I felt GOOD about it.” She looked down at out hands. “Am I a monster?”
I squeezed her hand. “Humans react differently to having to kill; it is part of their instinct that killing another human is wrong, and if you enjoy it, there is something wrong with you. Our wolf part is more primal than that; it sees a mate or Pack member in danger, and it acts to kill the threat. No right or wrong, no morality plays, no second guessing. The wolf just acts and moves on. There is no right or wrong, only alive or dead.” I rubbed my thumb along her hand. “Remember when that asshole touched you at the bar?”
“Yes…”
“I didn’t beat him half to death because he pinched your ass. Oh, I was furious, he touched what was MINE and caused you pain, I would have hit him for that, but I wouldn’t have unleashed my wolf nature. No, I saw what was in his eyes after you poured the beer on him. He was furious, he was losing control, and he was going to HURT you for embarrassing him in front of his friends. My wolf nature took over. He acted not because of what he did, but what he was GOING to do to a woman he already considered his. I spent over two months in jail, and I never once regretted beating him up because my wolf and I agreed he deserved it. What I DID regret was hurting you; the fear in your eyes after I pulled you aside tore me apart.” I pulled her hand up to my lips. “You saved my life, Jessie. When I was in danger, you used your powers to eliminate the threat and then you healed me. You kept your wits about you as we cleaned up the evidence and left. You are so strong, Jessie, I’m so proud of you I could burst.”
“You saved my life too,” she said with tears in her eyes. “He was aiming for me until you jumped at him. You took the bullets meant for me.”
“I didn’t get him, though. You were shot, and I almost lost you. I can’t lose you, Jessie. I couldn’t handle losing you now.”
“I’m right here,” she said as she leaned into my shoulder. She let the tears out as I held her close with my right arm, driving with my left. Ten minutes later she sat up. “I need to go to the bathroom, and I’m hungry,” she said.
“We’re coming up on a town,” I said. A few minutes later, we were on the edge of the small resort town of Babbit, population 1483. There was a bar and grill attached to a hotel, the Junction Inn. “Stay put, I’m going to see if I can get us a room.”
I got out of the car, the wads of cash in my pocket. I entered the lobby, it was empty, as it was too early in the season for hunting and too late for fishing. I walked over to the reception desk, an older lady smiled at me. “Welcome to the Junction Inn and Conference Center, may I help you?”
“I’d like a room for the night, please. Double queen if you have it.” I didn’t want to pressure Jessie into sleeping in bed with me.
“That will be $92 a night, wifi is free, and there is a Continental breakfast here in the lobby from six to eight in the morning. I’ll need identification and a major credit card.”
I smiled at her, turning on the charm. “That’s my problem… it was my girlfriend’s first time on a canoe, and she leaned over too far and rolled us. My identification was in my pack, and that didn’t come back up. Is there any way I can just pay cash? I’m so glad I kept some in the truck for emergencies.”Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g
“Oh, my, that’s terrible.” She looked around. “Is she all right?”
“She was wet and cold and since our tent went down too, she insisted I take her to a hotel instead. Please, she’s tired and I’ll never hear the end of it for not tying stuff to the canoe if I don’t get her a shower and a bed.” I pulled out pair of hundred-dollar bills. “I’ll leave the extra as a deposit.”