Chapter 2

Taylorsville was as far as Tera got before she had to be clean. Sleeping in the woods off the side of the highway for five days had her itching for a hot shower and some descent food. The motel room she finally found was dingy, its once white walls yellowed and stained. Everything in the motel looked used up or foul, including the manager. The creep had even made suggestions on how she could have a room for free. He had been nauseating.

Pines was only seventy-five miles from here, she needed to be further away. She had no choice but to stay, money is what she needed. A few days that is all she could give this place before heading out. Tera wasn't so sure she could stay that long. Surely that mechanic had alerted his pack to a lone wolf. That wouldn't normally be bad, unless he knew who she was. Most packs would leave her alone. If she would not have hit him it would have been fine. It did not matter if it was self-defense, she had hurt one of theirs and pack loyalty wouldn't be in her favor if they caught up to her.

Tera got out of the shower looked at the towel hanging there and refused to use it, the thing was disgusting. She went dripping into the only other room and began rummaging through her bag. She found her comb and started on the tangles in her hair. She stood in front of the mirror and looked at herself through the grime. She studied her features, not bad, she thought. Her blue-gray eyes narrowed as she fought a particularly nasty snarl in her honey colored hair. It hung waves down her back; it was her one vanity, the only essence of her femininity she felt she had left. Her eyes moved to her breasts, they were full and round, riding high on her chest. There was a recent cut that ran across the left one right above her areola. It was healing well. Then she looked down at her stomach. The scars weren't bad there anymore, not really, especially with her tan. The ones on her stomach were the worst running crosswise from the top of her ribs to her belly button, four of them about an inch apart, were now just jagged white lines on her golden skin. The bastard had tried to snap her in two with his jaws when she had refused him, if it hadn't been for her father and brothers he would have.

Twenty years old, that was the magic age when her world had been shattered. There had been Alpha pairs with the females of her family for as long as there was recorded history. The women of the Gealach, and especially her family, had healing energies and abilities that included dreaming future paths, when the fates allowed. These abilities were considered a valuable asset to any Alpha. The ruling Gealach family had been a family of means. They were important. They were all dead except her.

When her father, the Alpha of the Gealach, had told her that she was to be mated to RJ, she exploded. What right had he to marry her off to someone that she barely knew, and what she knew of him she hated? She wasn't going to be stuck with a mongrel the rest of her life. RJ was the Alpha of the Rèalta, and he meant to take her as his mate, to unite their packs. To combine them would mean being the alpha of the largest pack of lycans on the east coast, maybe even the States, and he had wanted that power badly.

Sonja, Teras' mother had said that he wasn't the 'one' for her. She was on her side for once. Sonja had finally talked her father around, saying that if he made Tera do this that the fate of the pack was sealed. They would all die not only their family, but every wolf in the pack. Her mother had known the sacrifice she was making, but Tera had not. She would have rather died with her littermates. The three of them had been inseparable.

Tera had been trained as a warrior all her life, it was the way of her pack, the men as well as the women were trained as warriors. In most packs it was deemed as unnecessary and old fashioned, but her father had held to tradition. Her training hadn't prepared her for the brutality of the attack. She had been standing on the front porch with her family when RJ came to the den, when her father had told him that the mating was refused he had simply nodded and asked to speak to her alone. She had reluctantly gone with him, but as they came to the wide circular drive something in RJ had snapped, the next thing she knew she was gushing blood.

Tera had fought back. She soon learned however, that training with her fathers' men and fighting an enraged lycan were two different things. RJ finally managed to slam her onto the ground. She tried to get up when he started ripping her apart with piercing teeth and claws. She heard her father roaring with fury as he and her brothers had attacked. RJ had stood on top of her while he killed her father. The last thing that she remembered was her brothers attacking RJ again. Hours later she had woken in the first of many dingy motel rooms. Sonja had told her that with the help of some of the pack she had managed to get them to safety.

Sonja to her credit had stood behind the decision to sacrifice their family until the day she died. She had told Tera that she had saved the lives of the entire pack by refusing RJs proposal. Tera sometimes had serious doubts about her mothers' sanity. Sonja had been killed five years ago. Tera thought that maybe this is where her emotional turmoil had come from, she was so tired of running. But she had no place to go. There was no home for her, only loneliness now that she was the only one left.

Being a lycan without pack meant that she had no protection, but she had learned over the years to stand, to fight, and to defend. She bore those scars also, but unlike RJ's scars, she bore these with pride. There weren't many, with the lycan ability to heal faster than humans. Hers healing even faster because of her energy, the only thing that could really scar were wounds made by another lycan. There had been several that had tried her abilities over the years. All were either dead or wished they had died.

Tera went back to her bag to retrieve a large shirt and slipped it on. The shirt was her fathers and it comforted her. Buttoning up the front and coming down almost mid thigh the white cotton was almost transparent with age. She took out her sleeping bag opened it up and laid it on the bed. She would not touch the sheets; they were almost as bad as the towels. She sat on the bed and grabbed up the paper she had bought on her way through town, and began searching for a job.

Gabriel had found Jake Cane sitting in a wheel chair on the porch of the address on the registration from the truck. The woman had almost killed him. Jake had said he didn't have a clue why the woman would have attacked him and stolen his truck. He said that he had talked to her at a bar a couple of times and that was all. Gabriel hadn't believed him. He had asked the name of the bar. With a couple of pokes of the man's abused body Gabriel had gotten his answer.

"Do you want the bad news or the worse news?" Gabriel said as he sauntered into Quinlans' office a few days later.

"Just give me what you got, and quit the theatrics, Gabriel, I don't have time for this." Quinlan was frustrated. The council was on his back about the Talamh. That was the pack that had absorbed most of RJs' men, seems they were stirring up trouble again. The council seemed to think that this was his problem, not the Talamh Alphas. To add to all the problems, he hadn't been sleeping well. The witch with her swirling eyes appeared every time he closed his eyes, making sleep almost impossible. When he did sleep he woke just as tired as when he went to bed. Combine all this together and you had one irritated wolf, who wasn't above taking his irritation out on every person that crossed his path.

"According to this Jake guy the womans name is Tina. That's the bad news, because the only the personal info I got on this pup is her name, seems that none of the local packs knew that a loner was even in the area. The people at the bar she worked at said she had only been in town for a couple of months, didn't know where she had come from or where she went only that one day she didn't show up for work, according to them her name was Tera. I figure that the people at the bar would know better than that jack-off. Anyway the worse news is that the truck is stolen and she is wanted for battery. You ought to have seen the guy, Quin. Both of legs and an arm were broken, not to mention the internal injuries." Gabriel slid a copy of the medical report to him. "Hell, his own mother wouldn't have known him. The guy was still black and blue when I talked to him, not that I blame her mind you." Gabriel sat in the chair and propped his feet on the desk.

"What happened?" Quinlan just leaned back in his chair and waited for the worst.

"I got to asking around that hell hole she worked at, and seems there was one girl, Angie, who saw what went down. She said that Tera had been fighting off this guys advances every since she got the job. The first time he cornered her she held him down on the bar and cut his wind for a while, which kept everybody else off of her because this guy was pretty big. The second time he attacked her and this Angie girl on their way home. Angie was knocked out and said that when she came to, Jake was beside her, she doesn't remember anything, but hearing one hell of a fight. The cops came and got them both to the hospital. She didn't see Tera around anymore afterwards. The story about the choking checks out with other people at the bar, the other didn't have any witnesses." Gabriel ended with a weary sigh.

"So we are back to the beginning, except for the name. Have you checked with the other packs to see if they have anyone wanted or missing?" Quinlan was still leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed.

"Yeah, I faxed her name and picture to every pack on the east coast. No takers."

"Picture?" Quinlan opened his eyes, as he sat back up.

"Angie had taken it, one night while they were working. I persuaded her to give it to me." Gabriel was smiling now thinking of his persuasion techniques. She had been one hot little barmaid. Reaching inside his jacket he threw the picture on the desk.

Quinlan just looked at the picture; it was not a good one. It had been taken from across the bar, while she was turning from a table. The bar had been crowded so there were people in front of her; you could only see her from the shoulders up and in profile. She was smiling. Quinlan could feel his arousal as he looked at her. Who was she?

Tera finally got a job in a dive aptly named The Cage tending bar. She had always had to take jobs like this it's the only places that would pay under the table. The Cage was a nasty bar a few blocks from the motel where she was staying. The bar did look like you were in a cage, there were bars everywhere and when the entertainment came they played behind a floor to ceiling chain link fence.

After her shift she went to the bathroom and washed up. She then went back to the bar and ordered a drink, they were free; just one of the perks of her glorious life. Two fingers of her favorite man, Jack, and she would be sufficiently relaxed enough maybe to get some sleep. Tera hadn't slept well since the mess in Pines. She kept dreaming of grass green eyes and a touch that made her body burn. She just couldn't get that guy out of her head or her dreams. She was sitting at the very end of the bar when a man came in. She scented pack as soon as he came through the door. The guy walked up to Sam, her replacement, and showed him a picture. Sam smiled and pointed to her end of the bar.

When Gabriel looked where the bartender pointed there had been no one there, he took off out the back, there was always a back door. When he got to the alley he came up empty there too. He took out his cell and made a call.

When the night air hit her, she took a deep breath. Time to go, the pack was on her. How they had gotten a picture she would never know. She headed for the sleazy motel wondering if she had time to get her stuff. With her senses on overdrive she walked up the sidewalk at a quick pace shoving her heavy braid up into her hat and pulling her duster around herself. She didn't even have money to pay her motel bill. She was broke. Damn, why did they have to be so fast?