Dreaming of the Wolf (Heart of the Wolf #8)(54)

“Alicia?”

Alicia looked up from her hands, not even realizing she’d been wringing them. Tears filled her eyes as she recalled what had happened to her that night. Thinking about Ferdinand stripping her of her clothes. Fearing that he intended to rape her, torture her, and kill her. Recalling the bite on her arm and the men who had come to murder him and who had searched for her while she’d hidden from them in abject terror. How she’d turned into the wolf and felt she’d become some alien being—all alone to face her uncertainties.

Lelandi took her hand and squeezed. “It’s all right. You can talk to me about it later when you feel more like it. I’m sure the men are waiting for us to return to them downstairs. There are tons of things we’ll need to discuss with you so you’ll understand what we’re all about. But I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

Alicia sighed, having to get this off her chest. “Ferdinand declared I would be his, knocked me out, and when I came to, I’d already been bitten. Men were with him in another room. They murdered him, and I must have passed out from the earlier blows to the head. Anyway, when I came to, I found I was a wolf. I couldn’t shape-shift back for some time, but I left his place as soon as I was able.”

“Where were you when they killed him?”

More than idle curiosity was backing Lelandi’s question, Alicia thought. Did she wonder if Alicia had watched the murder take place and then walked out of there on her own? That she was in on this whole mess? One of the bad guys?

“I was half-groggy from being knocked unconscious the two times,” Alicia said quietly. “Somehow, I managed to pull my clothes off the bed and slide underneath it.”

“You were naked?” Lelandi’s brows were arched in surprise.

Alicia swallowed. “Yes. I… I assumed after what had happened, as far as I could piece together, I should say, that Ferdinand meant to bite me and…” She shrugged, figuring Lelandi could fill in the blanks. “I was terrified the men would find me. I still remember the odor of the cologne worn by the man who came to look in the bedroom. His method of searching for anyone in the condo reminded me of one of my…”

Alicia had done it again. She hadn’t meant to mention her ex-husbands. Her face feeling warm, she clenched her fingers together. “My ex-husband would look for something but if it wasn’t lying out in plain sight, he’d ask me to find it. He never thought to look under anything. In this case…” She shuddered. “It was a good thing the murderer didn’t look beneath the bed.”

Lelandi let out a breath as if she’d been holding it in. She’d probably never lived half as dangerously as Alicia, not with a caring pack to watch over her. And the notion anyone would have wanted Lelandi dead would be alien to her.

“This Ferdinand Massaro just grabbed you off the street?” Lelandi asked.

“He was my informant, although I’d never met him before in person. But yes, he grabbed me when I was about to issue the warrant for his brother’s arrest.”

Lelandi’s eyes grew big. “I see.”

“No, I don’t think you do. Ferdinand told me where to find his brother to make the arrest. Turning me was only part of his agenda.”

“So what about the men who came after you at the motel in Crestview?”

“They were part of Mario Constantino’s family. One of them, the only one who got away unscathed, was Danny Massaro. The man who shot and killed my mother. He also was Ferdinand Massaro’s brother.”

Lelandi’s lips parted, then she closed them and didn’t say anything.

Alicia got the distinct impression that Lelandi and her pack wouldn’t like having a troublemaker like Alicia in their midst. “I don’t want to bring any danger to your family,” Alicia reasoned. “Maybe Darien could help me return to my car in Crestview, and I’ll be on my way.”

Lelandi didn’t say anything right away, and Alicia thought she was considering her request favorably. Then she said, “You’ll stay with us, dear Alicia. We won’t let any harm come to you. As I’ve said, because of our uniqueness, we must keep what we are a secret. Newly turned, you can’t possibly get along on your own without a pack to…” Lelandi hesitated. “We’ll guide you. But I don’t mean that in a controlling way. It’s just that living among us, you’ll learn how to cope with your abilities. Besides, Jake said the two of you are dream mated. And if you haven’t figured it out yet, he’s not about to let you get out of his sight again.”

“I don’t understand what dream mating means,” Alicia said, not about to get into a discussion of what Jake wanted or didn’t want.

“It seems to run in the Silver genetics. We were all confused, though. It only happens between werewolves, and Jake swore you were strictly human.”

“Having… dreams of him didn’t happen until after I was turned. And then it was if Jake was coming to comfort me after what had happened to me. As though it didn’t matter about what I’d become. Of course, I kept thinking that being a werewolf was like some kind of weird virus and that it would go away. But when we were together, at least in the dreams, I knew he didn’t care what I was. Which in retrospect was crazy, because how would he have known I was a part-time wolf? In my dreams, though, I felt as though he knew because I did.”