Dreaming of the Wolf (Heart of the Wolf #8)(50)

Silence. Jake knew Darien didn’t approve.

Darien finally said quietly, “She’s unmated?”

“She’s not mated.” He sure as hell hoped not anyway.

Tom looked up at the rearview mirror. At least Jake didn’t think she could be, considering the way she’d made love to him in the dreams.

“Not pregnant either?” Darien asked.

Jake glanced at Alicia. “No, she’s not pregnant.” At least he guessed she wasn’t.

“Bring her to the house,” Darien said finally.

Not once had Jake ever gone against Darien’s rulings. He might disagree and tell his brother what he felt in private or just with his immediate family present, but not once had Jake openly gone against Darien’s decisions. This time he had to clamp down on his words before he spoke them.

Darien waited for Jake to acknowledge his order, knowing that with every second of delay Jake was showing how displeased he was.

“We’re dream mated,” Jake finally said, reminding his brother that Alicia and he were meant to be together and nothing would stop that from happening.

Tom’s gaze shot over the back of the front seat from Alicia to Jake, then to the road again.

Darien laughed over the phone. Alicia’s ears perked up.

Hell, Jake didn’t need this. He would have hung up on his older brother if Darien hadn’t finally said, “Bring her home, Jake. We need to learn what’s going on with her.”

That’s when Jake came to his senses, somewhat. Thugs had tried to kill her. If they attempted to follow her here, the pack would need to know about it so they could deal with the threat effectively.

“We’ll welcome her to the pack right,” Darien added.

The pack. She wouldn’t just be Jake’s mate but an important member of the pack. And Darien sounded serious. As if he believed Jake had found his mate. But why laugh about it initially? Because Jake had been so obstinate about not believing in such a thing.

He settled back against the seat. “All right. We’ll come home.”

But he was not resigned to making this a family affair.

***

Feeling a ton of emotions—frazzled, relieved that she was safe for the moment, unsure of herself—Alicia lay down on the seat, having heard Jake’s brother tell him to bring her to his home. And Jake was fighting the order. But she could tell by the way Jake’s body had lost some of its tension that he was giving in. Reluctantly, but nonetheless, he had capitulated. In a way, she wished she and Jake could have been alone. She’d have a better chance at stealing away from them then.

She hadn’t a clue about what would happen when she met the others in the pack, having never been around other werewolves. And she’d never even considered that werewolves lived in packs. Loners, yes. Like Ferdinand and whoever bit him first. Or just some abnormal aberration—a rabid wolf that had bitten a human and infected him, and no others existed.

But her thoughts kept straying to what Jake had looked like after he’d shifted—in the flesh, totally naked. No longer a dream, but the very hard, virile muscled man she’d felt and stroked and loved when they’d first been together. And then she reminded herself how he’d known she was a werewolf—Ferdinand had to have told him.

Then she wondered why Jake’s brother asked if she was pregnant. Mary. At the gallery. Oh, God, poor Jake. Mary must have called him and told him Alicia had fainted at the gallery. And he thought…

She glanced back at him. He was watching her. Then he took a deep breath and ran his hand over her back in a loving caress. It felt good. He felt good. She wanted so badly to share their nighttime fantasies for real again. Damn her soul for falling for him.

She laid her head down on the seat and closed her eyes as he continued to stroke her back. The wickedly sexual part of her wanted to go with him to his grandfather’s house and make wild passionate love to him.

But she considered what Jake and his brother had discussed. The mate issue didn’t make any sense. Must be a werewolf term for sex with another of their kind. So why did he assume she hadn’t been with anyone else? That she hadn’t mated? If Ferdinand had lived long enough, she was certain he would have had sex with her—against her will. But thankfully, he hadn’t.

Then she saw a sign announcing they’d arrived in Silver Town, and she felt self-conscious. Up until now, she’d been living on her own, putting up with this werewolf stuff the best she could in secret, until she’d bitten one thug’s arm and momentarily scared the other witless. But now to be around a whole pack of werewolves when she was so clueless made her feel vulnerable and anxious.

When Tom parked, she quickly sat up and stared at the store’s large glass windows. A gold-and-pink-lettered sign perched on top proclaimed the store to be Silk and Lace Delights.

Her eyes widened. She’d envisioned a plain, old shop full of the usual—flannel nightgowns for winter, long satin nightgowns for summer, shorter versions, and pajamas. Instead, fiery red corsets, fringed hot-pink bras and thongs, fishnet camisoles and G-string panties, and an iridescent sequin-draped camisole were displayed on headless mannequins in the big windows.

Jake couldn’t be serious. Not that she planned to wear other women’s undergarments or that she wished to go without—even though sometimes it seemed she might have to when she was in one of her panic-stricken states and needed to strip before she shifted—but what was he thinking?