Quest (Shifter Island Book 4) Read online

  She had picked up the bottle of juice and was turning it around and around in her hands.

  “Is that wrong?” he asked.

  “No,” she murmured. “It’s not wrong.”

  “Are you upset that I would like to spend a little time alone? I won’t leave. I will be there when you come back. Although… it would be good if we could find another place to sleep. One that doesn’t smell bad.”

  She made a small squeaking sound. It wasn’t exactly a laugh.

  “That’s fine,” she said. “Really. It’s fine. I have a lot to think about, too. I think you’re right. I should keep my promise to Julie. She’s counting on me to do what I promised.”

  There was a picture on the label of the bottle of juice. It caught his eye as she kept turning the bottle: snow-capped mountains, much taller than anything he had ever seen.

  It reminded him of something she’d said a while ago, that her new home was in the mountains.

  That she could look out her window and see the mountains.

  Could she have…

  No, that couldn’t be true.

  But what if it was?

  “Where do you live?” he whispered, almost certain that he didn’t want to hear the answer. “This place you moved to, to take that good job—where is it?”

  “Outside of Denver,” she said.

  “And where is that?”

  He truly didn’t want to hear the answer, but he knew what it would be.

  Somehow, he knew she would tell him that she had chosen to live in the worst of all possible places, the place he wanted never, ever to set eyes on.

  The place no wolf ever wanted to set eyes on.

  “It’s in Colorado,” she told him.

  Colorado.

  The place where wolves were sent to die.

  Thirteen

  Because there were so many families in town dropping off sons and daughters for college, the only room Allison could find was at a small motel at the very edge of town. It had vacancies, she said, because it wasn’t part of a chain, and apparently wasn’t listed on any of the room-booking websites.

  It was a little shabby, Luca saw when they pulled into the parking lot. The paint was faded and chipped in several places, and a couple of the window screens had small tears in them.

  Screens meant they’d be able to open the window.

  He smelled only natural things when they went into the room. Dust. A little mildew.

  “Is this all right?” Allison asked him.

  She looked tired and frayed. She put her computer down on the bed, then stood looking at it for a long while before she sat down and began to look around the room. This place was nothing she would have picked if she’d had other options, Luca supposed, and he did feel bad about asking his mate to stay in a place where a mouse might come running out from underneath the dresser. Where there might be spiders in the bathroom.

  Frowning, he grabbed a handful of the bedspread and pulled it away from the pillows. To his relief, the bedding underneath looked clean, if a little frayed at the edges. It smelled clean, too.

  “This isn’t what I planned,” he said. “I thought—”

  He’d left their bags near the door: his well-used duffel and her bright-colored suitcase and tote bag. Those things seemed to illustrate very well the differences between him and Allison—where they’d come from, what they were used to. He thought it might be a safe guess that she had never stayed in a room like this before, that she was accustomed to those chain hotels whose rooms all looked the same and smelled badly of chemicals.

  He’d wanted better for her, but he was no longer sure what “better” might be, in her mind.

  “It’s all right, Luca,” she sighed.

  “I don’t think it is.”

  She was so different from his brother’s mate. Abby had come from this same city, but she seemed delighted to live with Aaron in the little cabin the pack had always used for the time of Separation—the month during which young wolves were supposed to reflect on their futures and what contributions they would make to the pack as time went on. That small house had no running water, no electricity, no bathtub, and certainly no television set or computer, but Abby seemed to overflow with joy every time she went inside.

  Allison would never set eyes on that cabin, because she refused to even visit the island.

  And she lived in…

  No. He couldn’t even think about that awful place. Not now.

  He was so distracted that he barely noticed her getting up from the bed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her moving to the window to close the curtains, but he didn’t turn in her direction.

  Was it coming to that? he wondered. To his not wanting to look at her at all?

  She went on moving around for a couple of minutes. She went in and used the bathroom, ran the water a little, put their bags on top of the low dresser opposite the bed.

  Finally, she came and stood in front of him.

  “I think it’s possible that I was wrong,” he told her quietly. “I was certain that the gods meant for us to be together. That our bond was true, and eternal. But if that was so, I don’t think I would feel like I do now.”

  For a moment, she didn’t do anything.

  Then she leaned forward, took his head in her hands, and kissed him tenderly.

  He thought it might just be a gesture of affection, that she might break away almost immediately, but she didn’t. She pressed her body close to his, gripped the back of his neck in her hand, and deepened the kiss.

  The wolf responded quickly, urging him to forget his concerns and claim their mate in this quiet, dusty place—a place that was far more like home than that other hotel, the one with the noisy televisions. He wanted to argue, to remind the wolf of the mountains where Allison now lived, but the wolf would have none of that.

  This was no time to worry about the future, it told him. Their mate was here, eager and ready to be claimed.

  Allison stepped back long enough for him to remove his shirt. Then she pressed his hands out of the way and opened the front of his jeans. As the heavy denim slid down his legs toward the floor, she knelt in front of him and took him into her mouth.

  The sudden, unexpected warmth made him shudder; then instinct took over and he sat down on the edge of the bed with his legs spread wide. Inside him, the wolf pranced with pleasure as Allison’s lips and tongue moved over his cock, stroking, caressing, applying careful pressure just where it felt best. She made him fully hard within maybe half a minute, and withdrew with a broad smile on her face.

  His Allison. Oh, how he’d loved this years ago, when they’d rolled around on her bed in that old house near the campus.

  A house that, come to think of it, had smelled somewhat like this room. A little musty, a little damp.

  Still smiling, she pushed him back onto the bed. That was an uncomfortable position, with his legs dangling off the side, so he shimmied farther onto the mattress and beckoned for her to join him.

  First, she pulled loose the elastic that had held her hair in a thick ponytail and shook her hair free over her shoulders. Then, with a teasing look in her eyes, she unfastened the buttons of her shirt and slipped it off. She had a very delicate-looking bra on underneath, just a scrap of lace and satin that he thought he might be able to tug free with his teeth—but she didn’t give him the chance. She pulled it off and dropped it on top of her shirt, and finally pushed her jeans down over her hips.

  She meant to remove her panties herself as well—another scrap of satin and lace—but he sat up and pulled her up onto the bed with him, laid her down and nipped at the lace with a low growl.

  It made her laugh. “I wanted to—” she started.

  “Sshh. I’ll let you. This first, though.”

  He nipped and tugged at the thin fabric, pulling it away from her skin, then letting it fall back into place. With another growl he tongued her furiously through the satin, making her squeal and moan as she bucked underneath him. She pr
etended to try to get away, so he shoved his hands underneath her and captured her behind in his palms.

  The panties didn’t last long. They were in shreds when he tossed them to the floor.

  He licked her slowly, plunging his tongue in deep a time or two and teasing her clit with his nose. It helped make her tantalizingly wet, and allowed him to draw the sweet scent of her deep into his lungs.

  “Hey,” she said, and squeaked again as his tongue slid over her sex. “We were gonna—”

  In seconds he was flat on his back, and she had straddled him again, this time taking him deep inside that most delicious part of her.

  This time, his growl was almost a purr.

  He bared his throat to her as she rode him, delighted when she leaned down to kiss and lick at it. When she straightened up, he cupped a breast in each hand and tickled her nipples with his thumbs.

  It all felt so good. So right.

  A minute after she’d reached her climax, he spilled his seed inside her with a few powerful thrusts.

  She was looking at him with a pensive smile on her face, flushed and glistening a little with sweat. He liked that scent too, very much: the musk that rose after she’d worked to pleasure both him and herself. It marked her as a worthy mate, one who would contribute a great deal to their family—not a lazy one, who’d lie around all day expecting to be pampered. There were a couple of those in the pack, females who were endlessly indulged by their males. Neither his father nor his mother thought much of them.

  They would like Allison. He was sure of that.

  But they would never get to meet her, unless she completely changed her mind about their future.

  If they even had a future.

  When she drew away from him and lay down on the bed, he slipped away from her and went into the bathroom. Because of the way the room was configured, she couldn’t see him from the bed, which gave him a moment of privacy.

  He reached out to her through the bond, not at all sure he’d get a response. But he could feel her there, calm and content. If she lay there long enough, she might drift off to sleep. It was still somewhat early, but the day already seemed to have been unreasonably long. They could both use some rest. Then, in the morning, Allison could keep her promise to meet with Julie, and Luca could…

  You could go home. Back to the island. To your family. It might be best.

  It was that, or Colorado.

  Even thinking that name made his throat tighten up.

  All his life, he’d been told that being sent to Colorado was the worst of all possible punishments. It was where wolves were sent when the pack had rejected them—when they had committed a crime so terrible that they could no longer be allowed to remain on the island. It was so far away that no one who was sent there could ever return, assuming they survived long enough to be able to try.

  There be demons there, one of the oldest wolves had warned the children one day when Luca was small.

  What do you want of me? he thought, wondering if the gods could actually hear him. Why would you compel me to come back here to find her, knowing that she would try to lead me to that place?

  Have I committed some crime?

  “Who did I harm?” he whispered aloud.

  Katrin? He’d rejected her completely, after she’d given him her love and support nearly all her life.

  His brother?

  Someone else?

  Weary beyond the telling of it, he stepped back into the bedroom and found that Allison had indeed fallen asleep, curled on her side with her beautiful red hair spilling over the white pillow like a sheet of flame. He thought about lying down beside her and surrendering himself to sleep, but the wolf was restless inside him.

  This place wasn’t isolated, like the old barn; most of the other rooms were occupied, and it was still early enough that people might be coming and going. But it was fully dark out now, and a few hundred yards behind the building, there was a thick stand of trees running downhill.

  Still naked, he climbed out the bathroom window, crouched in the shadows behind the building long enough to transform, then ran swiftly toward the woods.

  Fourteen

  “Oh, there’s no problem,” Julie said. “Why would there be a problem? You’re my maid of honor, but you keep disappearing on me, or not showing up at all. I have no idea where you’re going to be from one minute to the next. And then there’s Luca. He said he was coming to Matt’s bachelor party, but Matt said there’s no sign of him either.”

  Her voice didn’t convey any hurt, or anger, or disappointment; her tone was very matter-of-fact.

  Her eyes said something completely different.

  “I was right,” she went on, still outwardly unbothered. “You two are perfect for each other. You’re both completely self-involved. You have no interest at all in other people’s feelings. You’re a perfect match. You should set up a blog so you can teach people how to do that. It’s awesome.”

  The words cut like a laser beam—mostly because Julie was absolutely right.

  “I’m sorry,” Allison said softly, as sincerely as she could manage.

  She’d been a complete jerk ever since she’d run into Luca in the old neighborhood. Ever since then, Julie’s needs had run a very distant second, and even now, it was tough for Allison to focus on her friend rather than on Luca.

  Given that this was supposed to be the most memorable week of Julie’s life, that was a pretty huge transgression. The trouble was, it was also turning into the most memorable week of Allison’s life, one that had left her exhausted and bewildered a dozen times already.

  “Are you going to not show up for the wedding?” Julie demanded. “If you aren’t, tell me now.”

  “Of course not. I mean, of course I’ll be there.”

  “Are you?”

  “Julie, I…”

  A few yards away, Gina was talking to one of the guys manning the door at Stitch, a club that hadn’t been here during their college days. It was the hot new thing in town, and one of Julie’s favorite bands was playing tonight. Gina had found out their schedule ahead of time and had insisted on holding Julie’s bachelorette party at the club.

  In theory, all the arrangements for the party were Allison’s responsibility, but since she lived so far away and Gina was local, Gina had grabbed hold of the reins a couple of months ago—and Allison had let her.

  What, exactly, Gina was talking to that guy about, Allison had no idea. They were both grinning a lot.

  Julie wasn’t paying any attention. She was watching someone in a blue convertible trying to maneuver into a parking space that might have been big enough for a Mini. Her bland expression had turned into a deep, fiery scowl, and for a moment Allison thought she intended to stomp over there and insist on taking over the wheel.

  Then, abruptly, she turned back to Allison.

  “If you bail on me for my wedding, Allison Hayes, I will never speak to you again. Do you understand that? Luca or no Luca. Or any other excuse you plan to come up with. This is not a joke to me, Allison. It’s my wedding.”

  “I know it’s not a joke.”

  But that seemed to be all that Julie was willing to say.

  Really, it was all she needed to say.

  “Okay, ladies!” Gina called out brightly. “Let’s go have some fun!”

  She had apparently finished her conversation with the guy at the door and had gathered the other bridesmaids together. With a sly look that seemed to hint that she had something very naughty in mind, she grabbed Julie and Allison each by a sleeve and tugged them toward the entrance.

  The club was already pretty packed. As they moved through the crowd—with Gina herding them like a border collie—Allison couldn’t see any available seating, and she hoped Gina didn’t intend for them to stand up all evening. Then they moved off to the left, where a low, arc-shaped couch was peppered with glow-in-the-dark Reserved signs.

  It was pretty close to the stage, Allison saw. With a little luck, they’d have a gre
at view of the band.

  Gina had apparently taken note of Julie’s serious distress with Allison—or maybe Julie had given her an earful sometime earlier in the day. Either way, she deposited Allison at one end of the couch and Julie at the other. There was a self-satisfied look in her eyes as she sat down next to Julie, then began chattering into Julie’s ear.

  Fair enough, Allison thought. Gina had very plainly wanted to be maid of honor in the first place. Now, for all intents and purposes, she was.

  She was glad that the waiter brought their first round of drinks almost right away. It gave her something to hold on to, something to toy with, and while it didn’t exactly ease her thirst, it tasted good. Nothing else had, all day. Everything she’d tried to eat had tasted like sand.

  She hadn’t seen Luca since the night before, when he’d gone into the bathroom. When she woke up a few hours later, he was gone. There’d been no sign of him all day today, and by the time she left the motel to come over here to the club, he still hadn’t come back. He hadn’t called, hadn’t given her any indication of where he was or whether he was planning to return. She’d tried not to worry about it; after all, he had said he just needed some time alone. And heaven knew, so did she.

  He was right about all this having moved very fast. A few days ago, he’d been just someone from her past. A very nice part of her past, of course, but someone she rarely thought about any more. She’d been focused only on getting back to work, on what she’d need to do during the next few weeks to make up for the time she’d been away. She hadn’t thought seriously about being with a man at all, let alone planning long-term, rekindling something that might last forever.

  Was that even possible? With someone who confused her so much?

  The deejay started up a new song, and Gina tugged Julie out onto the dance floor, where they immediately disappeared into the crowd. Isabel and Pats got up too, although they clearly didn’t intend to dance with each other. They zeroed in on a couple of hot-looking guys, and a minute later the four of them were all bumping body parts, changing partners easily, sizing each other up.