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  That was met with silence.

  Frank said, “You might as well tell him. He won’t hate you for it.” Still, he was staring out the window, and he’d rolled his shoulder up.

  “Tell me what?”

  Amber hissed, “Hood bit me.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  Chapter Nine

  I glanced toward the pilot. He was my man, but how would he take news like that? He had his headphones on. Who could tell if he was listening, though?

  “He’s not.” Hood said, “Giselle slipped him a Mickey.”

  Spying around the man, I looked to see if he had any morph issues going on. None.

  Amber complained, “Frank never should’ve pissed you off. That’s what caused it. It’s only a problem when the drug is first introduced into your system. It’ll mutate and--given a few more doses--work in synergy with your synapses.”

  Mutate? No thanks. No more doses for me, then. My gaze darted to Hood.

  He shrugged. “You’re not the first.”

  He didn’t care if I’d morphed like a freak?

  To that, he said, “It was drug-induced, we’ll forgive you this time.”

  So...Hood knew about the medication. That didn’t jibe with the comments about getting killed if people knew...hm. We wanted to keep the info from someone else? Someone...more scarier than Hood, with more power? Someone Hood didn’t trust?

  Would you shut the fuck up? Frank shifted in his seat. You can think later.

  I changed the subject, because obviously I was going to have to do some brain-guard exercises. “Now that I think about things, if I go to Missouri to investigate--there will be no leap whatsoever for people to connect Bark’s disappearance with the M.W.D. scare.”

  “Of course.” Hood had already thought of that. “We have a plan.”

  The pilot announced, “Vegas in sight, sir.”

  “Vegas?” Confused, I glanced forward. Sure enough, the panorama of the Las Vegas valley spread out before us.

  Hood answered, “Take her down.”

  Creeps. The hair all over my body stood up. My trusted pilot deferred to Hood, and obviously completed his orders? I had never mentioned Vegas. Hell, that was as far away from Missouri as it could be, just about. And when had Hood gotten to him?

  Spies everywhere. Trust no one. Watch your back. Bark had said that to me more times than I could count. And I’d laughed at his paranoia. Sent him to a shrink.

  To Frank.

  Complete mental silence. Dead, pin dropping, nothing.

  It stretched. My blood pressure went up.

  Finally, Frank turned around in his seat and looked me in the eye. There was no wavering, no cowering, no affected beta behavior. Alpha attitude, no other term for his confidence, and the cutting edge in his gaze.

  Clearly concise, no stuttering, he said, “You are the weak link here, Mark. Remember that and get your brain the fuck under control before you step out onto that tarmac, or I’ll take you out personally.”

  That took some assimilation. He was serious. Dead serious.

  I blanked my mind then. Because I knew I would instantly go to thinking about crinosing on his ass the minute he turned his back. Not that I’d jump him from behind. Fuck no. I’d apeshit his punky little white ass...

  That’s what I thought--the minute I got a second alone, out of range from the lot of them. I didn’t dare let myself think of ripping anyone a new asshole while I sat there, absorbing the fact that they all seemed to agree that I was the weak link in the troop.

  That was a whole new concept to me. Me, weak?

  I swear to Gaia--the minute I met Amber, I was being taught a new meaning of life. Yeah, I’d been a beta for all of my existence, and happy to be there. But I was no damn weak link. And I didn’t like anyone thinking I was. Especially Amber. I couldn’t stand to see even a peripheral view of, her expression at that moment. But Frank’s gaze went from mine to hers. I think they were mind talking out of my range of perception. A higher brain wave or something, and that definitely didn’t help my confidence level.

  Giselle crossed her legs, great legs from all accounts, and smiled at me when I glanced over at her. “I’m going to distract you soon as we get on the ground. I promised. Remember?”

  Hood’s fingers dug into her shoulder.

  Amber seethed.

  I said, “No. I’m okay. I’ll get it together. Don’t worry.” I mean, I’d never been a fuck up before. Or a Gaia-damned weak link. I’d come through. I just needed to figure out what the hell was going on.

  Amber licked her lips and cut past me with, “The wedding party idea won’t work if you’re paying more attention to him, Giselle, than Hood.”

  Giselle wrinkled her nose, and I’m sure others would think it was cute. I remember Bark mentioning that about her, how she turned her nose up when she found something distasteful. But...I got the distinct impression that it wasn’t me that caused her reaction. Or actually, Amber’s tone.

  She confirmed it a second later by saying, “We all know our priorities, and my forte is in one area alone. I’ll do my job. Besides,” she flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Hood isn’t marrying me for love. It’s a front for this excursion.”

  He lifted his hand off her altogether, agreeing a little too quickly with, “Right. No one would believe that my marrying her means either of us expect fidelity.”

  Narrowing my lids, I asked, “So, you’re saying that Giselle is going to do her job...with me? Help me to--”

  Amber cut me off, real bitchy like, “You want it spelled out, you piece of--”

  Hood growled, “Amber.”

  Her lips slapped shut. She leaned back, staring straight ahead. But she didn’t stay quiet. She muttered a second later, “He’s a friggin’ throwback to the ice age if you gotta spell out who is gonna fuck his brains out next.” She turned to Hood, then, and, very succinctly, asked, “And you’re telling me that this is the natural breeding that’s supposed to take over the planet? Sorry. I don’t see it.”

  Okay. Now, I have to clarify something. Earlier I mentioned that I know for a fact that Amber is a true-blood garou. And now I’ve explained that Hood bit her. And she’s a scenter, at that. And on top of all that, she’s cast aspersions on my breeding. It doesn’t quite work, does it?

  It does, though. In my twilight zone, that is. I found out later that Amber is not just a true-blood carrier of the garou genetic makeup, she also is a carrier of the bastet genes, too. There’s your explanation of the cat scent that bugged me. Tamped down with pharmaceutically engineered synthetic hormone therapy. And the whole friggin’ scenter deal? It was a myth because people don’t breed cat to dog. Right? Rarely did it ever happen, and even more rarely did the offspring reach notable age. No one really talked about what caused the anomaly because before the biogenetic leaps at Lobos, no one knew.

  Somewhere in those last few minutes before we landed in Vegas, conversations I’d had with Bark clicked in. And so did the whole mind-block wall. I managed to erect one and think behind it.

  You could say that Amber’s personal feminine odor played with my psyche. Had me thinking cat, and Bark. Maybe that helped me connect the dots?

  My brother had a total obsession with the bastets, now that I look back. I just didn’t realize how deep it went. Or that his comments were merely acclimatizations for me, to lead me down his garden path, to get me used to the possibilities that were going to face me. Some say that Bark was always a futuristic thinker. I thought he was obsessed with the bastet political agenda and it spilled over into other areas. I convinced myself for years that his trips to garouville were simply to get info out of whores and lowlifes. And maybe that’s how it started for him.

  Now, why in hell would Hood bite Amber? What genetic make-up transferred there, in his saliva? I glanced over at Giselle again.

  She reached up and rubbed a spot on the back of her neck/shoulder area. I’d seen her do it several times. When Hood noticed, he reached over, put a hand
on hers, and drew her toward him, where he whispered, lips close to her ear. We all heard what he said, “You’re making me hungry. Stop.”

  I had to think about that.

  Maybe I wasn’t blocking my thoughts as well as I believed. I mean, I was thinking about Amber being bitten by Hood. Then Giselle rubbed her bite mark. And Hood said that.

  My belly curdled. But I didn’t know about the bite mark until we got on the ground. Thirty minutes later, we were checked into Caesar’s Palace. Hood took care of that. A penthouse apartment with multiple bedrooms. Spacious, elegant.

  Frank wasted no time in hitting the bar, and serving up drinks. Giselle splayed herself on him practically, catering to his ego. And he took it in stride, as if he was used to that. Frank, a stud?

  Amber, too, hovered near him, chatting and laughing with the two of them. I went to the window and watched it in the reflection. Frank made them giggle like schoolgirls with his inane chat. I had never been a chatter. Or a smooth talker of any kind.

  I must have ozoned, the images blurring into the skylights of Vegas.

  Giselle shocked the hell out of me when she draped herself around me, curling up to my chest, offering a scotch straight up. “Here. You need this, I think.”

  She batted her lashes, smiled, licked her lips purposefully and added, “I won’t take no for an answer.”

  “What is this?” Call me paranoid. I swirled the amber fluid, looking for signs of dissolution. It looked clear, straight.

  Giselle threw her head back and laughed.

  I wasn’t interested in her, or the promise she’d made. Consider me neutered on the sight of Amber. Except as I lifted the drink to my lips, and glanced into the reflection again, I saw Frank and Amber. He grabbed her by the jaw, pulled her close, and kissed her hard.

  That whiskey went down hard, and I took Giselle’s hand, dragged her to the nearest bedroom and slammed the door behind us. I tossed the glass on a chair, resisting the urge to crash it into the marble fireplace. I yanked Giselle into my arms, by virtue of the hand I held. I tugged it to my chest and she just sort’ve rolled into me, her hands trapped between us.

  My big, bulky arms around her, I looked her features over. And she looked up at me, expectantly. I started to say something, but she put her fingers over my lips. Too many good ears in the place. No conversation. I got it.

  But I didn’t want to kiss her. I didn’t want to have sex with her. And I thought that was a big problem. Maybe a side effect of Amber’s little white pill.

  Giselle’s expression...demurred. Her gaze dropped to my adam’s apple, and she buried her head against my chest. What else could I do? Put a hand to the back of her head and hold on.

  She sobbed silently in my arms. And I had the time to think...she was good. The longer she let me hold her, the warmer my body got. If making love to her would stop her from crying, take her mind off of...other things...than I was her man.

  I didn’t find the idea distasteful. I just...had a greater desire to be with Amber. To pry her out of Frank’s circle of reach. I gritted my teeth.

  Giselle must’ve heard it. She lifted her face. She looked so sad. So contrary to the girl who had climbed on my chopper. I thumbed a tear away from the corner of her eye, and kissed her, then smiled at her.

  By all accounts, Giselle is beautiful. Just not my preferred taste. Too skinny, too little, even though she’s got some boobs and hips on her. It wasn’t like making love to her would be a hardship, per se.

  And my cock had been pretty much erect since I met Amber, i.e. since I’d been in Giselle’s company, too. It hadn’t laid low in the time the woman was up against me. But, for the first time in my life, I really wasn’t up for the free pussy.

  Giselle’s fingers slid up and around my neck and drew my head down for another kiss. The girl’s got some serious lip action. But she pulled her mouth from mine very quickly, trailed up to my ear, and whispered, “You have to fuck me...hard and loud.”

  My cock throbbed at the sexy talk, and the tremor her words, and the air from them, sent into my audio canal. I slid a leg between hers, and whispered back, “Why is that?”

  I was amused. Thought it was funny. Don’t know why. We were whispering, but if anyone was listening at all, they’d hear our conversation.

  She giggled, flicking a tongue in my ear. “Because...I kiss and tell.”

  I pulled back and looked at her. “Is that right?” It was a little funny.

  Of course, I’d put Hood out of mind for a moment. The girl can distract ya, I’ll give her that.

  Giselle nodded, seriously fighting a twisting smirk of her lips. “And I compare...shamelessly.” She slid a finger between her teeth and sucked on it, waiting for me to make a move. When that didn’t get it, she leaned to my ear again, tapping that same finger on my lower lip, and said, “And I tell Amber everything. Now, impress me, big boy, or I’ll tell her that you can only make women taking orgasm pills come.”

  That stunned me a little and pissed me off more. Orgasm pills?

  And what was worse was the fact that I knew I hadn’t done much to please Amber, either of the times we’d...copulated.

  Giselle’s finger slid down my chin, straight to my zipper. She didn’t undo it. She slid her fingernail over it, though, causing my cock to tingle. Then, she squeezed my organ through the material in a full grip, and went about massaging me through my pants while I stood there in a stupor of sorts.

  It took me a few minutes to get a hold of her by that wrist. To stop that. Lifting her hand in the air, I said gruffly, “Why are you doing this?” She started to say something but I felt it would be a lie, maybe it was the way she shrugged before she opened her lips. I’m a master of reading body language, if nothing else. I jerked her wrist a little and added, “And don’t tell me it’s for my benefit, or Amber’s, or anyone else’s. What’s in it for you?”

  Giselle, amused, said, “Maybe I miss the Wolf physique.” She meant my brother Bark’s massive cock. She didn’t have to spell that out for me. And she’d already checked my piece. We were blessed in that department. Trunk-like legs, like I told you.

  “You’re telling me that Hood doesn’t do it for you?” It came out, guttural-like, and very low.

  And maybe, at that moment, I had a sudden urge to be better than him. I willed her to say it. We stared into each other’s eyes for several seconds, maybe a minute. Until she tipped her head and grinned, “I’m always looking for satisfaction, and I promise you, you’ll give me some.”

  Hood had gone into the next room. Presumably to make some calls. I had a sudden sure belief that he was listening to everything we said. I wondered, if he cared about her at all...

  They were going to get married.

  And I was...what? The appetizer? The fluffer? The warm up boy?

  Was Hood in the next room getting his kicks? Knowing that I was between the rock and a hard spot? Political and personal suicide could follow screwing his woman.

  Through the door, I heard Amber’s laughter. And Frank’s.

  That pissed me off. I was nobody’s warm up boy. Or flunkie. I was the Gaia-damned CEO of Wolf Enterprises.

  On that thought, I scooped Giselle up and covered the ground between there and the door. In no time flat, I had her naked beneath me. She’s a screamer. The minute I went to slide the head of my dick into her, she groaned, arched, and said, “Oh, Gaia!”

  It was a real tight fit. I hesitated. I am very big in circumference. She’s not large to begin with. Honestly, I was afraid I’d split her open.

  With her breasts bulging, squeezed between us, and her nipples rubbing against my chest hair, we hung onto each other, waiting for it to ease and stretch down there. She closed her eyes, whispering, “I didn’t think you could possibly be bigger than Bark.”

  That brought a hoarse laugh from me. Which, of course, made me slide in a little bit more to the sound of her chuckling and ouching. And stopping me with, “Oooh. Wait.” She pushed at my chest. Her frail little dai
nty hands...so tiny. Laughing more, she begged, “Pull it out, Mark. Quick.”

  I didn’t want to, now that I was half way in. Her tightness felt really good at the moment, squeezing my cock tight, like a virgin. Actually, I marveled at her. And looked her over beneath me before moving. She was just about perfect in form. Barbie in brunette. Maybe a little more hip to the balance.

  “Mark,” she said, not keeping her voice low any more. “I need you to go down on me.”

  “Wha--? Oh.” I pulled out of her instantly.

  She groaned even louder. And I don’t care who you are. That is a turn-on. Especially at the quick hand she pressed down and around my manhood. So I wouldn’t feel the loss of her cunt? I dunno. It made me feel...close, wanted.

  Giselle tipped her head back and said, “What you have here...is a gift from Gaia, Mark.” She stretched to kiss me, still holding on.

  I gave her the tongue. And we went at that for several minutes. Plunging tongues mimicking what I’d wanted to do with my cock. What I was gonna do with my tongue when I could draw away from her mouth. Giselle really is professional at that. She sucks tongue, gets a man thinking about what else she’ll suck. Makes you feel like showing her everything you’ve got.

  Moving down her body, I kissed and laved and sucked. I buried my nose between her breasts and held the round orbs to my cheeks. I thought about titty fucking her.

  Her fingers held the back of my head to her, kind’ve cradled me there. I liked being there, at that moment, held in her arms, knowing she really wanted me to do it all to her. Go down on her, slide my dick in her cunt again, and.... She lifted my head and said, “You go down on me, come inside me, and I promise you, I’ll give you head.”

  Then she kissed me. Gave me tongue, sucked mine again, and pushed me to a spot between her legs. Closing her eyes, she said, “Show me what a lumber wolf tongue can do. I don’t get that...ah...any more.”

  Giselle’s sweet down there. I’ll say that. I lapped up her juices and reached in as far as I could, rubbing her pubis and clit against my teeth. I wanted to get her g-spot and stimulate her from outside at the same time. It didn’t take long before she had both hands gripping the bedding, tilted her hips up, and screamed, “Deeper, dammit!” and followed that with another, “Oh. My. Gaiaaaa!”