“Well, he was,” Bella insisted.
“Never gave it much thought what kind of wolf the original lupus garou was. I suspect it could’ve been a red.”
“But,” Devlyn interjected with authority, “it was a gray.”
The old man’s eyes caught Devlyn’s gaze, but he wouldn’t respond to the bait. Then he took a deep breath and stared out the windshield, glancing up to look at them through the rearview mirror.
Devlyn nodded for him to continue. He squeezed Bella’s hand when her breathing grew shallow.
The old man sighed. “It’s not right for a lupus garou to do what’s been done.” He shook his head, sorrow filling his voice. “Not right at all. If the woman couldn’t accept him... well, in the old days it was different. She had no choice, and, once she was changed, she acknowledged it, learning to love her new life. Today, it’s not the same. We can’t just kill a human because she won’t accept us.”
Bella said softly, “All of us are at risk with their actions. They’ll expose all lupus garous to manhunts and extermination if they learn the truth about us.”
“That’s what I’ve said all along. They’ll be the death of us.”
“How can we help put a stop to this?”
“By that mate of yours fighting tonight.”
Bella’s eyes widened. “It’s all three of them then — Alfred, Nicol, and Ross — and a fourth?”
The man studied her in the rearview mirror. “You would have made an exceptional alpha female for our pack, but it won’t ever happen. Not the way you’re attached to the gray.” He gazed out the window again. “When it’s all said and done, we’ll be leaderless, but one of the older males can guide the pack in the interim. Maybe we need someone with more sense than strength for a while. Although... “ He shook his head.
“So there’s another who might be fit to take over?” Bella glanced at Devlyn. “Does he drive a Humvee?”
“He’s a loner, for the most part. Been gone for most of the year, some say searching for a mate somewhere else in the States. But he’s not been successful as far as I hear. By the way, he only just learned about you, missy.”
“Would he take over?”
“If your mate gets rid of some of the bad seeds, I suspect he might come down from the mountains.”
“But what about the other murdering red? The one that’s sneakier than the rest?”
The old man remained silent.
Bella tightened her grip on Devlyn’s hand. “They all took part in the killings — one for each girl, four of them.”
This time, the old man glanced up at the mirror, and the look in his eyes revealed the truth. Four younger males had taken part in the killings. All seeking a mate. All failing. They were bound together in the killing spree, and, with so many involved, the rest of the pack feared speaking out against them.
Devlyn knew then it was his destiny to fight them when their own could not. To right a wrong that could hurt all lupus garous in the end.
“Who’s the other red?” Bella asked again.
“Simon.”
“Simon? We haven’t met this Simon.”
“He’s the least aggressive of the pack in their age range. I’m sure he was there when the others went to meet you at the dance club.”
Bella swallowed hard.
Devlyn wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He tried to think of another red he might have missed, who’d watched them, quietly surveying the female he wished to make his own at the dance club. But Devlyn had been so intent on Ross, Nicol, and Alfred that he never thought there’d be anyone else. Kissing her cheek, Devlyn whispered, “I’ll be all right, Bella.”
“There’ll be four of them, Devlyn.”
“They won’t attack all at once, not in front of their pack.”
“If anyone can do it, it’ll be your mate,” the old man said. “In truth — and I’d be burned at the stake for saying so — your gray is the only one who has a chance at saving this red pack from extermination. And it’s rattling Alfred a bit to think the gray devil wolf from his great-grandfather’s day did away with that bad hombre, too.”
“But if you have no others to lead the pack and this other one won’t leave his mountain home... “ Devlyn said, concerned about the pack dying out without younger leadership.
The man’s wizened face lifted, and his eyes turned brighter for an instant. “Leidolf returns to the city on occasion — checking out the pack, we figure. Mainly after he learned your mate was here, too. We believe he plans to take over once the gray culls out some of the bad wood. Leidolf’s name means wolf descendant. Some say his line ties in directly to the original lupus garou, one of the rarest of our kind, with only a human or two thrown into the mix.”
“A red royal,” Bella said under her breath.
Devlyn grunted. A royal, my ass. That kind of lineage didn’t make him a better wolf.
“Yeah, he’d be a royal all right. Give our clan a good name. We could certainly use the likes of him to give new life to the pack. Alfred hates him because he fears the elusive lupus garou. An animal magnetism surrounds him, and whenever he appears, we’re drawn to him. If Alfred and his gang are banished, we hope the rogue will agree to be our leader.”
“But what if he’s not strong enough?” Bella asked.
The man chuckled. “Alfred tried to take him several months ago, but the red took care of him instead — sent Alfred to the healers. Even though Alfred denied that the loner had torn him up good. He insisted he’d tangled with a cougar. But we all know better.”
“So why hasn’t he taken on Alfred and his gang?”
The old man shook his head. “Too many of them, missy. No red could hope to fight four fit males and survive.”
Bella leaned her head against Devlyn’s chest. “We should have gone home to Colorado when you said.”
“No, Bella. You were right all along. We needed to be here, to set things right. Just have faith in me.”
He wished she trusted his abilities more. Already the adrenaline flooded his system, preparing him for battle. Both mentally and physically, he readied himself.
Still, the sound of tires rolling on gravel startled him, and they both turned to look behind them.
“Here they are. Time to give it all you’ve got, young man.”
Devlyn would. He wouldn’t give Bella up to a pack of reds, if he had to fight every last one of them. Proving to any wolf that he’d claimed her, particularly to her own kind, gave him great satisfaction.
Four SUVs barreled up, scattering the gravel on the shoulder. Two parked in front of them, two behind, as if wedging them in, allowing them no chance of escape.
The sun had nearly faded from the sky, and already the reds were ditching their clothes in the vehicles. Bella and Devlyn waited. Despite the old man’s words, the gray was not likely a welcome sight among the reds, and the notion that Devlyn — instead of a red — would kill their leader most likely didn’t bode well with many of them. As the old man said, there were many who probably felt that Bella could solve their problems by mating with one of the reds and thereby end the killings. What was done was done, and it wouldn’t be repeated, but the problem was that, if Alfred won the prize, Ross, Nicol, and Simon would still be without mates. And they would continue their killing spree.
The urge to mate ran in their blood. Desiring a mate who would race in the wild with them proved tantamount. Sexual relations with a woman in human form only wouldn’t be enough to satisfy them.
Bella would have had more of a chance at changing a human male — with their more warlike, hunter atti-tudes — than a male lupus garou would at changing a female human. Devlyn was well pleased when she’d said she’d given up that notion.
When night fell and the sliver of the moon sat suspended against the navy velvet backdrop, Devlyn and Bella exited the vehicle. The reds had already turned into their wolf forms, but Bella seemed reluctant to remove her clothes. Surprised to see her shyness, Devlyn realized she hadn’t been with her own kind for eons, and living with humans had changed her. Then he reconsidered. She didn’t want to become a wolf because it meant that then he would, too, and the battle would begin.
Because he didn’t want the reds to see her nakedness, he stood in front of her, with the SUV at her back, the door wide open to provide her some privacy.
Her eyes filled with tears, striking a chord of sympathy deep inside of him. She had to be strong, his alpha female, forever by his side.
“Be strong for me, Bella honey. I need your strength to win.”
She swallowed hard and nodded.
“I love you.” He kissed her lips; it was the last time he could touch her in their human form until he finished with the reds. He wanted to do so much more, to assure her in some way that he’d come out on top. Until he fought the others and won, he figured that no amount of convincing would work.
They deepened the kiss, and growls erupted behind them.
Bella wrapped her arms around him in a warm embrace, ignoring the reds’ dislike of Devlyn and his mate showing such affection. “I love you, too, you big gray. You’ll win. I know it.”
But she didn’t sound sure.
“You’d give me hell if I didn’t. Are you ready?”
She nodded.
“All right, let’s do it, Bella darling.”
Bella took a deep breath and began to change as Devlyn kept her shielded. Once she had dropped to all four paws, he shape-shifted, glad to be in his wolf form and ready to finish this.
He rubbed her face with his muzzle and then moved away from her. His heart thundered with determination.
Bella watched her big gray with sadness in her heart. She couldn’t help but worry about how he would fare. But worse, she knew she had to leave him once it was over. Had to run so that he wouldn’t fight Volan.
Here, if he began to lose the battle, she’d change into her human form and get the gun. After all, four against one wasn’t fair by either kind’s standards, lupus garous or humans. And regular bullets were better than nothing.