1
“Does no one fix your roads?”
Reed grunted as he glanced at the female beside him. He couldn’t remember the last time a female had captured so much of his attention. Women were nice—at times even necessary—but the burning need for one hadn’t plagued him in a couple of centuries. He was reacting to the diminutive Russian alpha like a young wolf who’d never met an attractive female before.
He cleared his throat and tried to stop thinking of Katarina like that. “Alaska does its best to keep the roads passable, but our winters defy most repairs. When the rain and the mud come during the warmer months, the roads always end up like this.”
Katarina snorted. “Land here is like Russia. I see why Nicolai Vashchenko stopped when he found your pack.”
Reed had no knowledge of Russia other than the stories he remembered Nicolai telling him when he was a small child, which was centuries ago. Having no reply to make, Reed instead shifted his nearly seven-foot form in the driver’s seat and tried to find a more comfortable spot.
Though he’d driven his pack’s community truck many times, and for longer trips than the one between Matt Gray Wolf’s pack and his, he hadn’t had Katarina Volkov’s thigh pressed against his before. Her body heat penetrated the denim he was wearing, and no matter how hard he tried to put some space between them, it kept disappearing.
The trip was turning out to be torture for him. They were fortunately over two hours into the three-hour journey, and Reed couldn’t wait to get out of the confined space. If he’d run the trip in his wolf form, he would have been back to the village already. There even would have been time to get in some hunting along the way. Since he needed to carry his two Russian visitors and their gear back, he’d decided driving would be better.
Frankly, he had given no consideration to what three hours sitting next to the restless Katarina Volkov would be like. He definitely wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Better still, next time he’d send someone else to get them. His crazy interest in a female that annoyed him more than she charmed him was still no reason. Age and the wisdom of a few centuries ought to offer more emotional insulation.
Even the Russian she-wolf’s stoic staring out of the truck window was distracting to him. Her younger sister—a near twin—sat squished against the truck’s passenger door. There was room enough for Yana to scoot closer to Katarina, but the younger she-wolf seemed determined to maintain their physical distance. He actually felt sorry for Yana. A person should never fear physical contact with a close family member.
Reed shook his head at his rambling thoughts and wished he could go back to a time before the sexy Russian alpha had attacked him because she thought he was Travis. It would flatter any male to be mistaken for his son, much less his grandson. But simple flattery couldn’t explain his growing obsession.
And why wasn’t Yana as equally distracting to him? Physically, she and Katarina were practically duplicates. Plus, Yana was the more pleasant female of the two. The answer to his fascination eluded him at the moment, but Reed knew he’d figure it out eventually, especially since the two females were intending to remain with his pack for a while.
Yes, he’d figure it all out, and hopefully before he ended up following up on the primitive urges Katarina kept inspiring in him.
When a wolf had been alive for as long as Reed had been, he learned to be patient with himself and pretty much everyone else he encountered. Very few things were worth the aggravation of caring or the work of analyzing something that might pass in a short while. Chemistry between people did that. It rose like a bonfire only to die down to embers at the first sign of someone’s true personality putting in an appearance.
Winter damaged roads presented multiple problems for what was basically a work truck. Every few minutes one sent it jarring off the side of the road, and Reed’s efforts to keep it on the blacktop sent it bouncing back across the uneven road surface. Normally, Katarina’s discomfort about being jostled would be funny, but today he fought hard not to sigh at the Russian swearing that accompanied each pothole encounter.
He mostly wanted to get home and get this trip over with. He wanted to meditate on what Heidi had told him about her Devil Wolf form. And he had to inform his children—Travis’s parents—that their errant son was at last dead.
Seeing to the comfort of the Russian she-wolf was not high on his list of tasks.
“Keep eyes on road, Temptation,” Katarina ordered, as she pointed out the windshield. “You drive on mud and grass more than pavement.”
“I told you why the roads are such a mess this time of year. Do you want to drive?” Reed demanded, bristling at her criticism.
Katarina shook her head and refused to look up at him. It was one of her many actions that irritated him for no good reason.
“Me drive? Nyet, comrade. I do not have ability, but even non-driving wolf knows to stay on pavement.”
Yana leaned forward and turned to smile at Reed. “How much longer until we get to your village?”
Not wanting to dwell on Katarina’s lack of politeness, Reed turned his attention to the truck’s windshield and shrugged. “We should be there in another thirty or forty minutes if the truck survives. Sorry not to be more precise. I tend to ignore the passage of time.”
Yana smiled and leaned back. “This trip has taught me that Katarina does not travel well. I will keep my fierce alpha sister from attacking as best I can.”
Beside him, Katarina snorted at Yana’s comment, which had Reed looking down at the top of her head. Attacking? Like attacking him? He felt no fierce vibe from her. The petite Russian alpha appeared to be calm. “Is something the matter, Katarina?”
Katarina chuckled at the question. “No, nothing is wrong, Temptation. Yana is full of words that tend to float away when she speaks.”
Reed wanted to laugh at Katarina’s sarcasm, but that would only make things worse. He didn’t know whether Katarina suffered from the same physical awareness he did, so Reed decided talking would pass the time more quickly for the last jaunt of their trip. “My village built a lodge for visiting packs many years ago—back when entire packs migrated out of the more frozen areas every winter for survival reasons. The lodge sleeps over thirty wolves in human form. I admit it’s fairly spartan in terms of amenities, but I thought the two of you could stay there until I can come up with better arrangements.”
Reed jerked the wheel too hard when Katarina put her hand on his knee and squeezed.
“You worry too much, Temptation. Yana and I are grateful to visit Alaskan home of the great Nicolai Vashchenko. We would sleep on ground in our wolf forms to do so.”
“If you want to get there safely, get your hand off my leg,” Reed ordered.
Katarina grinned as she squeezed his knee again. “Am I temptation for the mighty Black Wolf alpha?”
Reed grunted at the question. “Da,” he answered snarkily in Russian.
When a grinning Katarina showed no sign of moving her hand away, Reed used one of his hands to pry her gripping fingers off his knee. He wasn’t sure what to think when she and Yana both laughed at his defensive action. They teased each other non-stop but had mostly left him out of the loop of their joking around—at least, they had until now.