“I’m…I…” She sighed and glanced away, the thought she hadn’t shared left unspoken. “Do you know how long you’ll be gone? Did Luc tell you anything at all? Did he find out anything?”
Tinker shook his head. “Not much more than we talked about. It’s a wolf sanctuary, privately owned and funded, yet licensed by the federal government. It’s in northern Colorado, up in the Rockies, though I understand the elevation isn’t too high. I’ll be looking for Baylor Quinn’s sister. Her name’s Lisa, unless she’s changed it. We know that Bay’s Chanku. So is his other sister Tala. It’s a given that Lisa is as well. I need to find her, convince her to take the supplement and hope it works. Then we’ll take it from there.”
Tia slanted him a coquettish glance. “Oh, I can guess where you’ll take it. Far, fast, and very, very deep.”
Tinker shrugged his shoulders, but he grinned. “One can only hope. It’s going to be weird, approaching a stranger who is definitely Chanku…and knowing she hasn’t got a clue. I’ll be honest and admit I’m going after her hoping she’ll be the one, that she’ll end up as my mate. Face it, sweetie. There are so few women among us. We have to take our future into our own hands, or someone else might do it for us.”
Tia nodded, her smile fading. “I know. I want you to find someone of your very own. It’s just…” She looked away again. Tinker grabbed her chin with his fingertips, turned her back, and was surprised to see tears on her cheeks. She sighed and covered Tinker’s hand with hers. “Things will never be the same again. I feel it, and I worry about you.”
“Sweetie, don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Everything will be okay, and I’ll be home before you know it. Hopefully with someone else for you to pick on.” He kissed Tia, then stood up. He had to put distance between them before he said or did something stupid. She was Luc’s. Tia would always be Luc’s, no matter how often she shared Tinker’s bed. She loved Tinker. He had no doubt of that, but she had chosen Luc as her mate. Loved Luc on a level far beyond any feelings she held for Tinker. It might have been confusing, had they still been human.
Among the Chanku, it was the way of the pack. Thank goodness Luc knew and was cool with the relationship Tinker had with Tia. Tinker sighed. Of course, maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. Maybe it made things too comfortable, all that much more difficult for Tinker to move on, to find his own mate, his own life.
Tia grabbed his hand and stretched her fingers over his knuckles, as if comparing their color differences. She looked down at their linked hands, not into his eyes as she normally would. “Do you have any idea what you’re going to do when you find her? What you’ll say? It’s not like you can just introduce yourself and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m a shapeshifter and I turn into a wolf.’ She’d think you were nuts. You have to have some kind of plan.”
Tinker laughed. “Actually, I don’t. I’m just going to wing it with this one. I need to see what she’s like, get a feel for how she’ll deal with everything she’s going to find out about herself.”
Tia laughed. “I can’t believe that you, of all people, haven’t got a detailed plan of action. That is so not you!” She squeezed his fingers, then dropped his hand and stepped back. “I’ll miss you, Tinker. A lot. So will Luc.” She pouted, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. She looked like a pissed-off six-year-old.
He grinned. This he could deal with. “Good. You deserve to miss me after the way you manhandled me just now. A man should have some say in the matter of sex. Don’t you think?”
“No way. Not when he steals my batteries. You take my toys, I get to play with yours.” Tia ran her fingers lightly along his cock. Her slightest touch brought it back to life.
“Looks like you don’t need batteries. This sucker’s under his own power.” Laughing harder, Tia jerked her hand back, jumped off the bed, and headed for the bathroom, wriggling her hips with a lot more sway than usual. “Next time, I’m gonna hide my batteries and you’ll just have to deal with the dark.”
Later, Tinker thought of Tia’s quip as his plane crossed over the Sierra Nevadas, headed for Colorado. Deal with the dark. Sometimes he felt as if he spent every waking moment dealing with the dark. His own darkness, both figuratively and literally. He’d never had it easy, a black man with his convoluted background, living in a white world.
Once again he wondered what his life would have been like if his mother hadn’t abandoned him. She would have carried the Chanku genes, whoever she was. Carried them, but never brought that part of herself to life, other than through the birth of her son. For all he knew, she was still alive. Tinker often wondered if he had siblings anywhere, other young Chanku men or women, living lives of quiet, or not so silent, desperation…but that was neither here nor there.
What would have happened if the foster family who raised him had been black instead of white? They’d loved him unconditionally and done their best, but they were a typical suburban, white, middle-class family. When they died in a car accident the year Tinker turned fifteen, he’d been thrust headfirst, unprepared, back into both the foster care system and the local black society, lacking those skills needed by a young African American male.
Add the overactive libido and chaotic thought processes of the typical undiscovered Chanku, and no idea at all how to interact with guys, much less African American girls, and Tinker knew he’d been a mess.
Literally a stranger in all worlds. A man apart and unaccepted in both black and white society, unable to fit in any world. All through the formative years in high school and college, even in the military, Tinker remained apart. The closest thing he had to a family who understood and accepted him was the pack.
Even there he was the odd man out. Luc Stone had Tia. Jake had Shannon. Hell, even AJ and Mik had Tala. There was the new guy, Baylor, but he seemed perfectly happy with Jake and Shannon. For now, anyway.
A flight attendant stopped beside his seat. Tinker glanced up and managed a smile. The woman was beautiful, tall and slim, with her black hair sleeked back into a neat bun at the back of her neck. She looked to be about his age with skin the color of coffee with cream, but he didn’t encourage conversation. That was the problem with first-class seats. Flight attendants were always checking to see if you needed something, though from the flirtatious look on this woman’s face, she might be the needy one.
Tinker shook his head when she asked if he wanted something to drink, and turned once again to stare out the window. He never thought of his looks one way or the other, though women always seemed interested. The attendant moved on to speak with the couple in the seat behind his. Tinker sensed her curiosity, and with his heightened Chanku senses, even scented her arousal, but it did nothing for him.
When he looked at beautiful women, why did he always compare them to Tia? He loved her, but he never thought of her as a mate. No, not in those terms. She was Luc’s. She’d always be Luc’s.
Which left Tinker once more alone in the dark.
Chapter 2
It was obvious the woman didn’t hear him. Either that or she chose to ignore the sound of his car. Tinker had pulled in close behind the battered pickup truck, positioned his rented convertible at the side of the narrow road beneath a huge fir tree, and shut off the engine. The loud whine of a straining winch motor explained why he’d been able to park so close without notice, and he took advantage of his position in the little red car to watch the woman for a few moments.
She was tall, tan and lean, with broad shoulders and ropy muscles in her long arms. She wore hiking boots, faded jeans, and a tight-fitting faded red tank top. Though she was turned partially away from him, he could see that her breasts were high and small, the nipples sharply visible through the thin cotton. Tinker’s gaze lingered there a moment before moving on to study the rest of her. The woman’s dark hair was all tied up in some sort of lopsided knot that hung over her left ear. She appeared to be trying to load a badly mangled dead deer into the back of her truck.
HIGH MOUNTAIN WOLF SANCTUARY