Page 10 of What a Wolf Demands

The effing French.

Remy’s voice took on a curious edge. “What makes you think she’s in New Orleans?”

Dom opened his mouth, then shut it. He leaned forward and snagged a cream-colored folder from the dash. Tucking the phone against his shoulder, he opened the folder and thumbed through the information inside.

There wasn’t much. His quarry was a lone female latent, twenty-three years old, from Bon Rêve, Louisiana. The physical description was scant on details. Blond hair. Green eyes. About a hundred ten pounds. He assumed she was tall. Most wolves were, latent or no. Whatever genetic hiccup prevented them from making the Turn didn’t seem to affect their development. On the surface, most latents had the lean build and above average height of any other wolf.

He skimmed the page. Her parents had died of old age five years previously. She had no known living relatives. No reason to be in New Orleans.

So why was he parked in an alley across from Bourbon Street?

He couldn’t really say. Humans might call it a hunch. Among his own kind, some might claim his instincts sprang from his Gift.

But Telepathy had nothing to do with it. Hell, Remy was the strongest Telepath in the country, and he needed GPS to get to the grocery store.

“Still there?”

Dom sighed. “Yeah.” He didn’t know what made him certain Lily Agincourt was in New Orleans. He just knew it. In his gut. Whatever . . . thing helped him track down fugitives, it didn’t come from any ability to speak mind to mind. Like most Telepaths, he’d never found much practical use for his Gift.

He tossed the folder on the passenger seat, then grabbed a pack of Camels from the center console and shook one into his hand. The last one. Damn.

“Are you smoking?” Remy asked.

“No.” Dom crushed the empty container and threw it on the seat, then put the cigarette between his lips and pulled a lighter from his jacket pocket.

A door creaked over the phone line, followed by footsteps and a feminine voice. “Dom is smoking again?”

Pure delight entered Remy’s tone as he said, “Hey, sweetheart. I thought you were shopping with Lizette?” To Dom, he said, “My wife is on a one-woman mission to bankrupt the territory.”

Sophie Arsenault’s laugh was low and husky. Judging from Remy’s quick intake of breath and soft grunt, she followed the laugh with a sharp punch.

“Hey, Dom,” she said, her voice louder now. He pictured her perched on the edge of the Alpha’s desk, her curvy body totally at ease alongside her husband’s oversized one. She and Remy spent most of their time at Remy’s cabin in the woods, but they were staying at the Lodge while the Alpha, Maxime Simard, was away on business. With Dom absent, Remy was the most senior Hunter in the New York Territory. For all his insistence he was more of a lover than a fighter, Remy hadn’t become a Hunter by being meek or gentle. Part private army, part personal guard, Hunters trained from a young age to kill anyone who threatened the Alpha or his mate.

Dom perched the cigarette on his lip. “Hey, Sophie.” Curiosity tugged at him, and he paused before lighting up to ask, “How did Lizette convince Remy to let her leave the Lodge? I thought Max told her to stay put until he returns.”

Sophie laughed.

Remy muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “fuck” under his breath. He cleared his throat. “Casual question, Dom. Have you ever tried to tell Lizette what to do?”

“Plenty of times.” As Beta and second-in-command, he had the authority to do so. In fact, Max often took advantage of the arrangement when he wanted to issue his wife a command but was too chicken shit to do it himself.

“And how did that go for you?” Remy asked.

Dom settled back in his seat. When you can’t answer a question directly, change the subject. “You know very well Max has good reasons for restricting her movements when he’s away. She’s too valuable of an asset to put in peril.”

Now Remy laughed. “I’ll be sure to tell her you called her an asset.”

Dom flicked the lighter and held the flame to the end of the cigarette. As the paper curled and burned, he spoke around the cigarette. “Go ahead. It’s about time she realized how much hell she puts Max through with these little excursions of hers.”

Like every other Alpha in the country, Max had a whole cadre of Hunters. But he only trusted a select few to watch over his wife. “Possessive” wasn’t a strong enough word to describe how he felt about Lizette. In that, he was the same as any mated male.

But Max had other reasons for keeping Lizette under guard. Like all wolves, she’d manifested a Gift shortly after her first Turn. The most common Gifts were things like enhanced speed or superior vision—anything to give a werewolf an edge in battle. Some wolves, like Max, even had a secondary Gift.

Lizette came from a long line of Healers, so no one was surprised when she developed that skill.

No, it was her second Gift that had sent shock waves through every territory in the country.

Lizette Butler Simard wasn’t just a Healer. She was a Bloodsinger—someone with the power to coax forth a latent’s inner wolf, making them a full member of the species. In a race with declining birth rates, the notion of “curing” latency was like a holy grail.

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