Saving a Wolf: Moonbound Series, Book Six (5 page)

She grunted like he’d punched her in the stomach. “Your
friends
? No. We killed Adrian Rossi’s employees, who I might add, were trying to kill us.”

Luther narrowed his eyes, finally taking on her pointed gaze. “I am one of Adrian Rossi’s employees.”

Maggie reached for his face and the spark nearly made him jump. “But you’re a good man, I know you are. I knew you would want to help us.”

The clench in his stomach was back at those words.
Good man
. He took in a slow breath, trying not to let his anger show. “I am not a good man.”

“But you are.” Her fingertips moved along his jaw and Luther tried not to indulge the tiny spark of something warm that lit inside with every touch. “I know who you are. You thought you could hide, but I find everything.”

Luther almost choked on his breath. He couldn’t speak. She couldn’t have found him. He’d gone through too much trouble hiding. It was impossible. He tried to shake off her hand, but she gripped him.

“You’re a cop.” Her other hand snaked up and held his face still. Maggie pinned him with a compassionate look that sent knives into his heart. “Your bosses did a pretty good job of faking your death, but I found you. I saw your commendations, your academy record, the newspaper stories. You may have gotten caught up in a cartel, but you were never a villain. Not like Rossi.”

He still couldn’t find his breath and, for the first time in years, emotion burned up the back of his throat, threatening tears.
He couldn’t let this back in.

“Stop,” he choked out. “Just stop.”

“I’m not going to stop.” She stepped toward him, pressing her taut body against his and reminding him of the solace he’d just taken in her.

“You think you know so much.” Luther shook his head. He hooked his hands under her shoulders and walked her backwards until her body slammed against the window that showed into the galley.

Her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open.
Did she think I was going to kiss her? Dammit, I still just want to kiss her
.

Luther steeled himself and lowered his voice to a growl. “You don’t know me, Maggie. And don’t pretend that you do, just because you found some article online. I’m not some saint cop you think has been wronged.”

Fire rose up inside him at the memories from his past. He saw flashes of gunfire and faces from long ago. Angry, he tried to tamp it all back down, but he could feel tears of fury crowding the corners of his eyes.

“I’m a villain. No different from Adrian Rossi. And while I may not approve of what he does, he
is
my boss. I work for him. He protects me. I’m not going to throw all that away because you show me a few things on a computer screen that you might have doctored to high heaven.”

Her face wrinkled in confusion and her fists closed around his shirt. “You don’t mean that.”

“I fucking mean it.”

“You can’t! Ten minutes ago, you were on a rampage to get down here and get on the island and kick some Rossi ass. What the hell happened?”

Luther gritted his teeth and regret pinged in his chest, but he had to make the break and make it clean. “I got what I wanted from you, little wolf. You were good, but not that good. So just take your self-righteous crusade and what’s left of your dignity, and go back to your pack or whatever. Leave me the hell alone.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You can’t mean that. Something happened, and I don’t know what it was, but you can’t possibly want to protect a man like Rossi after you found out what he’s doing.”

He swooped so close to her face, he could smell the sweet salt still on her tongue from the ocean. Luther hissed at her, “I need Rossi.” He backed away, gathering every ounce of strength he still possessed and ignoring every urge to swoop her up and close the chasm he’d opened between them. “And I need you to go.”

Luther reached into the galley and swiped one of his official resort staff shirts. Button-up and blue, and it had the name
Frost
embroidered on the pocket. “Here. Now you won’t have to do your walk of shame in a wet dress. I’m going down to change clothes, and when I get back, I want you to be gone.”

He turned his back on her. “And don’t come back.”

M
aggie stared
at the door Luther disappeared through.
What. The. Fuck.

She slipped into the dry shirt and picked up the soggy dress from the deck floor. Following him into the cabin crossed her mind, but his absolute statements had knocked her out of sorts.

He was her mate. He was a good man.

Possibly an asshole, but deep down he was good.

He had to be.

Shoving her feet into her still-wet shoes, she climbed the stairs to the upper deck and crossed the gangway. The shirt flapped around her knees in the afternoon wind. She should’ve been embarrassed by her walk of shame, but she couldn’t have cared less.

Something was wrong with Luther. There had to be something she’d missed when she did the research into his background. He’d called himself a villain and said he needed Rossi. Nobody
needed
Rossi—that was for damn sure. If Luther thought he did, then he had to be afraid of something else.

Maggie trudged down the dock, her shoes squelching with each step. Her poor heals would look like water balloons by the time she got to the apartment if she tried to make it all the way back like this. She waved down a taxi and climbed into the first one that stopped.

A few minutes later she was back at the apartment. She hollered Alex’s name from the street. He’d be home. He rarely left Julianna’s apartment.

He and Niko emerged from the main building entrance. Both of them gave her a once over. Neither of them said a word.

Bless them.

“I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be down in a few. Is Julianna home yet? I need to talk to her.”

Alex paid the cabby and then shook his head. “Not yet. Should be in about ten minutes.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Niko raised his eyebrows and moved out of her way. “Is he in?”

“He will be,” Maggie answered and left them both in the alley.

W
hen she entered
Alex and Julianna’s apartment a half hour later, she was in a comfortable tank, denim shorts, and flip-flops. No make up and she’d let her hair do whatever the hell it wanted after the shower.

At least the salt water and the scent of Luther was gone for now. Thinking would be easier without the constant reminder of what she’d left on the dock.

“Maggie,” Julianna waved from the kitchen across the room. “Come on over and help me wrap these
flautas
for dinner.”

Niko and Alex were sitting on the couch with Dani, all three in headphones trying to talk over each other on a Skype call with Dani’s father. Updates for the alpha council on their progress—or lack thereof—and Dani getting them another wire transfer to cover living expenses.

“Where are the others?” Maggie crossed the room and stood next to the counter of shredded beef and warm corn tortillas.

“I sent them out for some fruit. All of ours is gone.”

She chuckled. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“It shouldn’t have surprised me. But I wanted some pineapple and none of them hesitated to fulfill that request.”

“Your mate is sitting on the couch.” Maggie thumbed toward Alex.

Julianna’s laugh filled the kitchen. “I don’t even think he heard me ask. He likes to act like he’s in charge on the update calls. Plus, the others popped up from their card game and ran out the door almost immediately. So it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Cravings?” Maggie started rolling beef in a tortilla and jabbed a toothpick through the center before laying it on a plate to be fried.

“Yes. At least pineapple is pretty easy to find and smells nice. Last time I wanted pickled pigs feet. Poor Alex.” Julianna snickered. “I think he was close to puking the whole ride home with that jar.”

“Totally off the topic of your strange pregnancy cravings, is Luther an asshole?”

Maggie recounted the events as they’d occurred.

Julianna sighed and nodded. “We found the same info you did. Undercover cop. Someone faked his death, although it didn’t seem important who did it. Cold. Broody. An asshole to pretty much everyone. My dad gave him a working interview and hired him by the end of the week.” She shrugged. “He’s worked for him for two years, and he’s always been short and gruff whenever we’ve interacted. He lives on that boat. Dad offered to get him a place in town, but he asked for the smallest room on the yacht and that was that.” Julianna leaned against the counter and looked down at her. “Is he really your… mate?” she asked, her voice barely over a whisper. I’m so sorry.”

Maggie gritted her teeth. “I’m not.” She just needed to figure out what it was her mate was
actually
running from. “I’ll do some more digging, then. Something is wrong and I missed it. I hate missing things.”

L
uther squeezed
the tequila bottle and slammed it on the galley counter. He never got into the stash on the boat, even though it was his home. But the flashes of his past…

They wouldn’t stop.

He wiped at his mouth and put the cap back on the bottle. He didn’t need alcohol. And he sure as hell didn’t need to get drunk. That had never worked before.

What he really needed was to run. It was the only thing that really took away the sting of the fact that he couldn’t really run—that he
had
to stay in Choaca.

He stowed the bottle back in the locked liquor cabinet and walked down the hall to his small bedroom. His muscles twitched. He stripped off his clothes and stretched. Everything felt on edge.

Luther slipped on one of the four matching pairs of black sweat-wicking shorts and grabbed his running shoes. The bed creaked under him as he sat down and pulled socks on. A shiver ran up his back and he yanked hard on his laces.

“Going somewhere, sailor?” The voice came from his bedroom door and he didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

“I thought I told you not to come back.” Luther worked his jaw and slid on his other shoe, tying it quickly.

“Yeah, you’ll find I’m not a very good listener.” Her footsteps plunked across the hardwood floor.

His shoulders tensed and he dragged in a breath. “I’ll call the police.”

“No, you won’t.” The bed creaked again when she sat down. “We need to talk.”

“Is this some kind of
wolf
thing?” He pushed himself up and rifled through his drawer to find a shirt. Before he could slip it over his head, her hot fingers were on his shoulder.

“Don’t push me away, Luther.” With a tiny sigh, she added, “I mean… Chris…”

He froze with the shirt in midair. All the oxygen seemed to suck out of the room. His throat closed around his response.

No.
She couldn’t know. It’d been a slip.
Impossible
.

Luther tried to speak, but no words would come. If he acknowledged that name, it was like undoing all of the long years he’d spent erasing it.

Erasing him
.

“It didn’t make any sense to me.” Maggie traced something on his shoulder. He had to flex out of habit at the shadow of what should’ve been there.

It wasn’t there anymore. How could she know it should be there?

“One minute, you’re ready to kill Rossi. The next minute, you’re defending him.” Her fingers continued to move over the scarred skin.

He still couldn’t speak. The spell might break if he responded. He
could not
be Chris Parker anymore. No matter what she knew.

Did she have my fingerprints? Rossi had said he’d erased them. They shouldn’t lead back to Parker. How did she find him
?

“But I did a little digging. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.” One fingertip slid around the edge of the shamrock leaves that no longer graced his skin, like she could see their memory.

“Don’t,” was all he could manage. His heart stuck in his throat.

“The only picture of Luther Frost before 2012 was the police academy headshot. But that was ’99.” Her hand closed over his shoulder, where Parker’s mark would have been. “You look enough like him, I didn’t even look twice.”

Luther shook his head and his body stiffened. “Maggie. Leave it be.”

I am Luther Frost
.

He remembered the unending days in that dark basement in Providence. All he had let himself think, for weeks.
Chris Parker is dead. I am Luther Frost.

There was no time for dark basements. He couldn’t afford to let himself believe that Chris Parker was still alive.

“I’m not going to let you hide behind this…whatever fantasy life you’ve concocted trying to play the criminal. I don’t believe it’s who you really are.”

Luther dropped his shirt and spun around, lifting her off her feet and pinning her to the hard wood of the closet door. “You don’t know me.”

Her eyes widened and glistened with emotion. It tore through his carefully constructed anger. All his muscles relaxed at once and he dropped her to her feet. She landed with a
thud
on the hardwood.

“No, I don’t. But I know Fate. And you are mine, Luther Frost. Or Chris Parker, or whoever you are. I don’t know why. But I know you are mine.” She crossed her arms under her breasts and took a long breath. “And I know Fate wouldn’t give me someone who was, in his heart, a bad man.”

Fear clawed at him, at his resolve.
Fate
. He’d believed in Fate once. Or God. But no more. “I’m not yours. No one gave me to anyone.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong.” Maggie reached across the space between them and her hand made contact with his cheek.

Luther felt the spark of energy blazing down into the center of his being, from every point her skin contacted his. He’d never felt anything like it.

“I know you can feel that.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You’ve seen my wolf. You know magick is real. And Fate is real, too. You can call her God or whatever you want, but she’s real, and she makes the magick between us because it’s the way we know we’re supposed to be together.”

He shook his head. “That’s bullshit.”

“No. It’s magick.” She stroked his skin, down his neck, and rested over his heart. “It’s the reason you had to fuck me this afternoon. It’s the reason you can’t breathe for a second when I touch you. Or when you touch me. It’s the reason you feel like you’re compelled toward me.” Maggie closed her eyes and sucked a breath in, then blew it out slowly. Her hand still on his chest, she leaned toward him and then away as she breathed.

He found himself rocking back and forth with her.

“It’s all instinct,” she said. “It’s how we know we’ve found our mate.”

Mate
. That word should terrify him, as much time as he’d spent running from commitment in his life. But somehow, when Maggie said it like that—low and urgent and reverent…like a prayer—he believed it.

“You’re human, so it will be foreign to you at first. But I promise you, if you follow the magick, you’ll feel it, too.”

“Oh, I feel it.” Luther clapped his jaw shut, as soon as the words came out of him.
Why would I admit that?

“Then why fight it?”

He gritted his teeth against the comfort that settled over him with each breath of Maggie’s, holding her hand on his crazy-beating heart. He couldn’t let her in, not when she knew who he was. And she was American, on top of it.

I can never cross that border again
.

Rossi couldn’t protect him in America.

“Because you
don’t
know me. I don’t care what you believe about Fate or whatever bullshit thing you think brought you here.” He took her by the wrist and took her hand from his body. “You’re part of some seriously weird shit, and I’m not going to get involved in it.”

Maggie pushed at him. “Well, if you think that’s enough to get rid of me, then
you
don’t know
me
.” She stepped into his space, her hot breath on his skin, her gaze fluttering between his eyes. “I wasn’t even supposed to go on this stupid mission. My brother should’ve come. Only they needed a computer whiz. So I had to, and I’ve spent the rest of the trip wondering why I’m here.”

Luther couldn’t move. With her body so close, all he could think was how much he wanted to fuck her again. He was already hard—he couldn’t remember a moment of Maggie’s touch when he wasn’t on the verge of an erection. But that would be the mother of all mistakes. He tried to keep silent.

“I’ve thought I found my mate before, y’know.” She put her hands on her hips and rolled her tongue inside her mouth. “Yeah. Six times, mind you. But they were all just…placeholders. Now that I’ve found the real thing. There is no mistaking the real thing. Fate doesn’t lie.”

His muscles twitched. If she didn’t back off soon, he was going to kiss the hell out of her, just to get some peace in his body and mind again. “You’re just horny,” he hissed out, his breath thin. “So was I. It’s an itch, Mag, that’s all it is.”

“That’s all
this
is?” She snaked her hand into his shorts and grabbed his dick.

Pressure built in his abdomen, like he might come right there on her fingers. He bore down, thinking boner-chilling thoughts. But he could still fucking cut glass. He wanted to be inside her.

“
That
,” he managed, “is my dick.”