And then he seemed to pause and his growling eased a little as if he recognised the scent on the jacket. Hopefully he recognised it as the scent of his mate and not another threat.
“Hey Cujo,” she called in a soothing voice. His head whipped around to face her and he snarled while at the same time standing over the carcass and flattening his ears outwardly, warning her away from his prize. There was no logic or rationality in those eyes. “Now that’s not very nice,” she said in the same gentling tone. She knew he wouldn’t understand her, that the words would be indistinguishable, but her hope was that he might recognise her voice and find it calming.
His head extended toward her and his nostrils flared, scenting the air. He let loose a low whine, and she had the feeling that he acknowledged who she was but wasn’t sure how to calm himself.
Feeling reassured by him recognising her, she moved another step toward him but then halted; she wanted him to come to her so that he was away
from the dead wolf. Easier said than done, of course. “Come on, big guy, you don’t want to play with that nasty carcass. If you can hear what’s going on, Trey, then let me just tell you that you’ll be buying me a new jacket. This one’s now covered in foam, fur and blood.”
Tao took a step toward her. “Taryn -”
“Don’t,” she ordered, but the grey wolf had already seen the male approaching his mate and he wasn’t too pleased about it. With her jacket still in his mouth, he began to advance on Tao who very smartly froze. “Cujo,” she sang. “Hey, remember me.”
The wolf’s gaze darted from her to the carcass to Tao repeatedly. Clearly he was torn on whether he wanted to continue playing with his new toy, go see his mate, or attack the male who dared talk to her.
Knowing she was about to make herself vulnerable to attack but not sure what else to do, Taryn squatted and tapped the ground with her fingers. “Come here, come on.” He took one tentative step toward her, but then glanced back at his carcass. “Seriously you don’t want to keep that. Come on.” Again she tapped the ground, knowing he could feel the vibrations through it.
Flicking a disgruntled look at Tao, the wolf slowly took a few steps toward her before halting to whine at the carcass.
“No, we’ll get you another toy. Get your furry ass over here.” Still at a sluggish pace, he covered those last remaining steps between them and dropped the jacket at her feet. “Hey there.” The wolf rubbed his cheek along hers and buried his nose behind her ear to inhale her scent. Then he took to happily licking along her jaw. “Ew.”
She now considered it a good thing that the foam and blood from his mouth had transferred to her jacket. Rather the jacket than her face. She winced when she saw that he was injured in several places. It was nothing fatal or even anything that would cause him much pain, but the healer in her wanted it fixed.
Allowing the wolf to continue rubbing himself against her, she turned her head toward the mass of wolves that Roscoe had brought along, all of whom were still waiting. Not even one of them appeared to have moved a muscle. Keeping her tone light so as not to startle the animal, she asked, “So which one of you considers yourself Alpha now, because I’m pretty sure you all had this sorted before you got here?”
They gave her ‘I’m not sure what you mean’ looks.
“Come on, don’t play dumb. Not one of you looks even the slightest bit bothered that your Alpha is dead. I really don’t care one way or another how you feel about it. I just want to know who I should be talking to when I ask if we should be expecting retaliation over this.” The challenge was fought fairly, but it wouldn’t be the first time that someone who was sour about the loss decided to take revenge.
The three males at the front of the mass glanced at each other and then the one in the center stepped forward, identifying himself as the Alpha. “There’ll be no retaliation. We didn’t agree with him coming here to try to separate mates, but he was set on having you.”
“And you were following orders. Nothing wrong with that, just like there’s nothing wrong with you not being prepared to die for an ill cause.” The wolf, apparently not liking that he didn’t have her full attention, nipped her chin. She rubbed her cheek against his reassuringly and then turned back to the new Alpha. “Now that Roscoe’s gone and there’s no animosity between the packs, I don’t see a reason why there can’t be an alliance.”
The new Alpha’s expression was a mixture of shock and eagerness. “An alliance would be acceptable,” he said coolly, seemingly trying to hide his excitement and look the composed Alpha.
“We can’t exactly discuss it properly now for obvious reasons,” she said, flicking a look at the Alpha male of her pack who was still very much in wolf form. “We’ll call it a temporary verbal contract, one that will expire in thirty days if you don’t contact us to lay out the details with Trey.”
Looking apprehensively at the grey wolf, the Alpha said, “You’ll be there too, right?”
She smiled. “Don’t worry, I won’t let him eat you. Once we’re inside, you can take Roscoe’s body.” At the Alpha’s surprised look, she said, “We’re not trophy killers here.” His nod communicated respect.
With that, she slowly stood and began to walk toward the caves, signalling for the rest of the pack to keep a fair distance away so that Cujo didn’t feel threatened and turn feral again. She didn’t have to encourage him to follow her. He remained at her side, half-companion half-guard the entire time.
Once they had passed through the main entrance of Bedrock, she went to the living area and sat down on the large rug. The wolf sat between her legs, closing his eyes as she ran her fingers through his fur.
“Trey, I need you to come back now or I can’t heal you. I don’t want to hear any macho shit about Alphas not needing healing. If you expect to have sex ever again, you won’t fight me on this.”
It was something like twenty seconds later when the change began and suddenly Trey was back in his human form. Instantly he flopped to his back, breathing hard.
“Someone get him a bottle of water,” she called out as the living area filled with people.
“I’m okay,” he wheezed.
“Sure you are, Flinstone.” His wounds actually weren’t that bad, but they were ugly and would most likely scar if she didn’t heal them.
Greta appeared, growling. “Now if you’d have just handed her over, Trey, you’d be fine.”
“Not now, Wicked Witch of the East,” groused Taryn.
“Here.” Grace placed a bottle of water beside Taryn.
She offered Trey the bottle but he shook his head. “Hey, you still have some blood on your mouth and I’m not going near said mouth to heal you until you’ve washed your face at the very least.”
“Why would you need to go near his mouth to heal him?” asked Rhett in that curious tone of his.
Turning to see that Trick was the one standing closest to the window, she asked, “Trick, would you open that for me?”
“Why?”
“So I can gaze lovingly at the sun.
Will you just open it?”
Grunting, he did as she asked while Trey finally drank down some water and wiped his face.
“Now be still.” She was pretty sure he only did it out of curiosity. Taryn placed her hand on his forehead and watched as several patches of his skin suddenly illuminated where there were scratches and bites. She heard a few gasps, a ‘Whoa’ and a ‘Holy shit’ coming from behind her, but ignored them.
Leaning down, she placed her mouth at Trey’s and inhaled deeply, taking the foulness from him and then blowing it out of her mouth through the window. She repeated the move over and over until, finally, the last luminous patch faded. “I’d say you’re done.” With that, she allowed herself to flop backwards onto her back much as Trey had five minutes ago. She almost laughed as she opened her eyes to see several faces all peering down at her. Then suddenly she was snatched from the rug and was being cradled against Trey’s chest.
“You shouldn’t have done that, you look worse than I did.”
“I’ll be fine, you ungrateful asshole. I just need some water and maybe some sort of sugary food.”
“You got it,” said Grace as she dashed out of the room.
“You do know that was awesome, right?” Dante’s grin was almost as wide as Marcus’ clown grin.
“More like unnatural,” muttered Greta.
“Did you just use the word awesome?” Dominic asked Dante, chuckling.
“Come on, she totally calmed a feral wolf and at the same time negotiated an alliance before then doing some weird healing stuff. That’s some seriously cool shit.”
Trey strangely felt a twinge of pride for her, though he still wanted to spank her ass for going near his wolf while he was feral. “My wolf could have hurt you.”
“Yeah, I know. Blame Dante, he told me I should go for it.”
Dante spluttered. “That’s not – I didn’t – She -”
“You should see your face.” Her chuckle was interrupted by a cough. Her throat always felt a little hoarse after she used her healing gift. At that moment Grace handed her a bottle of water and an energy bar. “Thanks.”
“Never again are you allowed to use that gift,” stated Trey firmly, not liking how pale she was. His wolf wasn’t happy about it either.
“Don’t be a goof. Of course I’m going to use it. I wouldn’t be much of a healer if I didn’t.”
“You look like a corpse.”
“I’ll be fine. Just plonk me on that monstrosity of a sofa and let me have a twenty minute nap and I’ll be just as lively as I was before.” She wouldn’t have even needed the nap if Trey hadn’t had so many bruises and wounds. “Just a little power nap and I’ll be fine.”
Trey couldn’t help smiling at the way she curled up on the bulky sofa in a fetal position five minutes later. She looked even tinier than usual, but still not fragile. There was too much steel in her for that.
“Ryan just called,” Tao informed him. “They’ve gone.”
Trey nodded and then watched in surprise as some of his pack gathered around her. Dante, Grace and Rhett sat on her left while Lydia, Marcus and Cam sat on her right. Trick, Dominic and Tao then all sat on the floor with the back of their heads resting against her legs. It was a gesture of support, comfort and acceptance as well as an indication that they intended to guard her as she slept. She had earned the respect of each of them in the short time that she had been here.