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‘Now do it, turn yourself into a wolf.’
Leyth silently hid a grin. Tam was making him shift into wolf right in front of her, in a completely open space so there was no way he could hide any ‘tricks’.
She was smart. She was making sure it was a true change, not a trick of the brain.
‘OK, I’m going to shift now,’ Leyth said calmly, bending down onto his knees and calling the wolf at his core, who came happily bounding to the surface. Leyth tried his best to shift slowly, to make the change happen in a way that she could watch and attempt to understand.
His bones began to crack and writhe within his skin. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe as the change took him. It was as intense as an orgasm; the feeling overwhelmed you, forced you to be still, to do nothing but ride out the waves of pain and ecstasy. It was all he could feel, all he could think of. Slowly his bones began to split, to bow and break, reforming into that of the wolf; his legs shortened, his ribcage collapsed, his shoulders dislocated and shifted downwards to their new position. His spine began to lengthen, forming a skinny tail as his face began to collapse and rebuild itself, forming a muzzle. His ears stretched and shifted, rising to the top of his head before, finally, the itching began. His skin distorted and writhed, giving way to black and grey fur that broke out of his pores in waves, covering him from nose to tail.
When it was finally over, he sat back on his haunches and looked up at Tamriel, who had turned even paler. If that was physically possible.
‘H-h-oly shit,’ she stammered, her eyes wide and wild.
‘Come here,’ she commanded. ‘Slowly.’ Though it came out gently, almost a whisper, as she tried to digest the situation. Leyth did as she asked and came to stand next to her. She was sat on the sofa, wrapped in a myriad of blankets. She carefully ran a hand across his fur, wincing as she moved.
‘Right. Now change back into a man,’ she croaked.
Leyth did as he was asked, reversing the process, allowing his body to break and reshape. He could feel Tamriel watching him intently, her keen eyes searching for any hidden trick, any explanation for what was happening. After all, magic rarely had a logical explanation.
‘Oh hell,’ she stammered when he was finally finished, eyeing him as he studiously dragged the little towel around his waist to cover himself. ‘You really are a werewolf.’
‘Yeah.’ His voice was hoarse, shifting twice in quick succession would do that to you. ‘So are you.’
‘I can…’ She absently rubbed her eyes. ‘I can do that?’
‘Well, we’ll see.’
She cleared her throat. ‘That doesn’t explain why I’m not practically dying. If this wound was as bad as you’ve made it out to be, how am I still breathing?’
‘Wolves have exceptional healing capabilities. You’ve slept through the worst of it. We can heal a broken bone in a matter of hours. What would kill a human only wounds us.’
‘Right.’ She snorted, though even as she tried to laugh it off, he could see her mind working at a hundred miles an hour behind those green eyes. ‘I’ve always been a fast healer, cuts go in hours not days, bruises are gone in minutes.’
‘And now you’ve been through your fever, you will heal even faster. You have to as a wolf. Your body needs to be able to break down and rebuild itself quickly when you change and, as a result, can heal much faster than that of a human.’
Leyth watched Tamriel as she tried to digest everything that had happened to her over the last few hours.
‘My fever?’
‘You went through the fever over the last few days. Doc and I looked after you.’
‘I was in a medical clinic, wasn’t I?’ She winced.
‘Yes.’ Leyth confirmed. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yeah, my head just hurts,’ Tamriel replied. Crap, he realised he hadn’t even offered her a drink. He was such an arse. Shooting to his feet, he stalked into the kitchen, filled a glass with water and rooted through her drawer for some asprin.
‘Here.’ He handed her the water and, as she took it, her fingers brushed his, sending ripples of heat shooting up his arm. For a heartbeat he stood, staring at his hand. What the hell was that?
‘You should—’ He cleared his throat. ‘You should let me check that.’ He waved a hand towards her stomach.
‘OK,’ she said, sipping the water. She looked a little dazed still and, to be honest, he was surprised she was going to let him. Hell, this female had so much fight in her; she was so irritatingly stubborn, he had honestly expected her to fight him, to suffer through the pain and try to do everything herself.
‘OK then.’
Yet as he looked at her, he could see through that strength, and he caught a brief glimpse of the vulnerable, scared female hiding underneath. The female who was in a great deal of pain, who had literally just witnessed her world come crashing down before her.
‘I’m going to move you, if that’s OK,’ he grunted, watching her carefully.
‘Do it,’ she replied, locking eyes with him. He watched that vulnerability disappear and the annoyingly cold determination fill her gaze. Carefully he moved forward, sliding his arms around her. As her skin touched his, those bizarre ripples of heat flowed through him once again.
What on earth was happening to him? He hadn’t been with a female for Maker only knew how long. His traitorous manhood leapt to attention, making his heart thud even harder. He needed to get laid. His body was betraying him at the sight of any female, obviously. And this was one female he did not want to get involved with. Hell, he didn’t want to get involved with any female.
Shoving those ridiculous thoughts aside, he focused on wrapping his arms around her and then lifted her fragile body up off the sofa as carefully as he could, not wanting to hurt her. Slowly, he spun her around so she was lying on her back on the sofa, and gingerly fingered the sheet covering her.
‘Just do it.’
Damn, she was infuriatingly stubborn. Here he was, trying to be nice and gentle and she was barking orders at him anyway. Bunching up one of the discarded blankets, he draped it over her chest so she could cover herself while he checked her stomach. She held the blanket tightly around her breasts as he carefully slid the sheet covering her downwards, exposing her stomach.
Leyth caught himself almost sighing as her pale skin slowly came into sight. What the hell had come over him? Telling himself to get a grip, he unwrapped the bandage on her abdomen. It was a little awkward, but this strange moment was the closest he’d been to a female in years. His heart was hammering his ribcage so damn hard he wasn’t entirely sure the thing wasn’t going to punch straight through his skin and out the other side. Goddamn he needed to get laid.
Finally the bandage gave way to her milky skin, and as he lifted the soft gauze, the horrific wound came into sight. Lord almighty, it was bad. Though it was healing well, the wound was still huge, a circular hole as big as his own fist marred her skin just to the left of her belly button. The bleeding had stopped, but the skin was puckered and looked incredibly sore.
‘Holy hell,’ she exclaimed, looking down at herself.
‘Told you it was bad,’ he muttered, setting the bandage aside and reaching for the medical bag Doc had left behind. He pulled out some disinfectant and antibiotic cream and began to clean the wound. Tamriel hissed as the liquid hit her, making him curse internally as his eyes caught hers. She had closed her lids over those emerald eyes, clearly not wanting to look weak in front of him, yet he could see the tears threatening to spill.
‘It’s OK,’ he said soothingly. Damn, he was no good at this nice guy crap. Yet all he wanted to do was look after her, stop the pain and the hurt, and ease the confusion riding her mind. Where the hell were these thoughts coming from? ‘I’ll be done in a minute, hang tight,’ he added gruffly.
When the disinfectant had been applied, he smeared cream across the wound, making her delicate features twist into controlled agony. Anger flared, roaring to the surface. It was anger at himself for scaring her to the point that she felt she had to run away from him. It was his damn fault she was in this much pain and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
‘I’m going to put a fresh bandage on, cool?’ he said as calmly as he could, though his mind was anything but calm.
‘Yup,’ she whispered.
When he was finished, she sat up and put weight on her feet, wincing. He could literally feel the waves of fear and pain washing off her, see the tears wanting to spill and watched as her face contorted with unspoken agony, yet even as he could see, hear and sense the pain she was in, he could see her desperately trying not to show him that fear; she wanted him to believe her to be strong, to show no weakness. And it was more than a little infuriating.
‘Ready?’ he grunted, sliding a hand awkwardly underneath her back and lifting her midriff off the sofa, a combination of his efforts and hers had her arching her back in one hell of a curve so he could quickly wrap the bandage around her, keeping the gauze in place.
But as she arched, he couldn’t move. His breath hitched in his throat as his gaze took her in. Unwanted images flickered through his mind, images of her arching her back like that for him in a very different way. Desire punched him, hard, hitting below the belt.
‘Do it,’ she grunted.
Crap. He really needed to get away from this female before he did something he would regret. He could not be getting involved with any female, let alone one as vulnerable as Tamriel.
Leyth made quick work of wrapping the bandage around her stomach, then hastily covered her in blankets, keeping his eyes anywhere but on her. His traitorous crotch refused to cooperate, fighting against his jeans.
‘You OK?’ he growled.
‘Yup,’ she said through gritted teeth.
He could see the exhaustion sweeping through her. ‘Do you mind if I grab a shower?’ He motioned to the dried blood still covering his arms and chest.
‘Sure. Go ahead,’ she mumbled, waving towards the bathroom.
‘Good. Try to sleep.’
He was almost certain she would be out like a light before he’d even left the room, and maybe that was for the best.
Chapter Five
Tamriel was absolutely exhausted but, hell, she wasn’t going to let a silly thing like sleep stop her. Leyth excused himself and went to shower, which was possibly the best thing that could have happened. It gave her a few minutes of vital alone time that she really needed. Time to collect herself and process all that had just happened.
As he left the room, she didn’t waste any time. Trying her hardest to sit up, she struggled against the sofa. Even that had tears streaming from her eyes and her body screaming in agony. Her mind was buzzing with unanswered questions; she was so confused and frustrated, it was a wonder she didn’t literally burst.
Cursing under her breath, Tam reached an arm underneath her sofa and pulled out her computer. She hit the power button. She didn’t have long before her captor returned from the shower and she needed answers quickly. She Googled ‘Werewolves, Folkestone.’
The page filled up with various websites claiming to be an ‘online hangout for genuine werewolves’. All fake gothic crap. Nothing of any interest.
Tapping her fingers against the arm of the sofa, Tam blew out a frustrated breath before typing in ‘wolves’.
This didn’t return very much of interest, only pictures of various wolves around the world, a Wikipedia description of the types of wolves around today, and your more generic wolf sites.
She changed the search term to ‘Wolves in Kent.’
The first thing that came up was the website for the Wildlife Park called ‘White Wolves Inc.’. It looked pretty normal, a description of the park itself and a bit about the wolves and other wildlife that was kept there.
It struck her as odd, however, that the park was not open to the public. It was only available for private hire, and even that had to be applied for, scheduled and approved.
There were no articles about the wildlife park, no reviews or advertisements. Only the low-key website. Tam clicked back through to the full list of searches.
Port Lympne, the zoo, popped up in Google’s search results, but Tam didn’t bother looking at that. She knew all about the zoo and the Aspinall Foundation, following a story she did on them last year.
Scrolling through the many results, Tam finally came across an article that hooked her interest. It was entitled ‘Real Werewolves in Kent’.
Reading through the article, she found it was a detailed description of one researcher’s experience with ‘werewolves’. It didn’t say where in Kent he’d found them, but he did describe a huge man with an attractive accent. The article went on to describe how the researcher had cameras hidden in various areas of woodland around the Kent countryside, and one of these had picked up footage of a huge man walking out into the woodland stark naked. He had apparently then proceeded to drop onto all fours and literally turned into an enormous wolf. The article was incredibly descriptive about how the change happened, and the author, still obviously in shock from what he’d witnessed, then reeled off several of his many theories surrounding the experience.
Tamriel then did a search on the researcher. His name was Tobias Daniels, and he’d written various books and articles on ‘supernatural happenings’ in the Kent area. Strangely, following that particular article, he’d promptly written a disclaimer telling the world that it was a prank played by some of the local college kids and that he had no reason to believe that werewolves actually exist. Interesting.
Tam dug a little further. Tobias Daniels had apparently come into a lot of money recently, only weeks after that particular article in fact, and now ran a private research facility in Canterbury, although he refused to publish any of his findings.
Tam chewed on this information for a little while, skimming through various articles that mentioned the researcher, and published works by the man himself. After a while, she absently typed ‘real werewolf’ into Google, which brought up all manner of websites, some a little ridiculous, others a little more serious.
Tam snorted at the thought. Was she actually trying to believe this? But, following what she’d witnessed, how could she not?
Tam rubbed her eyes. She herself was definitely not normal, was it really a stretch to believe she genuinely was supernatural? Probably not.
Through the thin walls of her flat, she could hear the water running still. She had some time. God that man scared her yet, behind that hard exterior, she’d managed to see glimpses of compassion. She clicked on her email icon and pulled up a new message. Who the hell was she going to email? ‘Help, I’m trapped in my own house, held captive by a werewolf.’ Who on earth wasn’t going to think that was a prank?
Tam finally decided that dropping her colleague at work an email was the best plan, keeping it short and simple, ‘At home, please send help.’
As she hit send, she felt a pang of guilt; what if someone came over and Leyth killed or hurt them? The logical side of her pointed out that they were in a building full of people, in the middle of a town, so it would be difficult for her captor to do anything violent and it go unnoticed. Besides, he hadn’t done anything even remotely malicious yet. In fact, he’d only tried to help her; he’d carried her home after she’d injured herself and nursed her back to health. She would probably have died if it weren’t for him and, what’s more, he had brought her home. Plus he hadn’t once said she couldn’t leave; she was just too sore to move.
As she was mulling on this, a message popped up in her inbox. Service delivery notification failure. The message she’d sent hadn’t been delivered. Frowning, and keeping her ear tuned in to the shower, she quickly typed the message out again, double-checked the address, and hit ‘send’ again. A few seconds later, the message notifying her that it hadn’t sent popped up again. Crap. She sent another message to a different colleague, and had the same response. Finally she blew out a frustrated breath and sent a message to her mother. The last thing she wanted to do was to get her mother involved in all this madness, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The message failed to send once more. What the hell?
Clicking onto the web browser, she typed in ‘Facebook’ and hit enter. She could message someone on there, not that she had many friends to speak of. She sucked in a disbelieving breath as a message popped up on her browser: ‘access denied’.
What the—?
Her confusion was cut short as she heard the water in the shower come to a stop and the glass door open. Crap. She slammed her laptop shut and shoved it underneath the sofa, not wanting her ‘captor’ to know she had some, albeit limited, access to the Internet and, hopefully, if she could just work out how, a means of connecting to the outside world. Though even as she thought it, her heart sank. They’d obviously found a way of restricting her Internet so she couldn’t call for help, and she would put money on the fact that her captor had found a way of restricting her phone line as well.
She was well and truly trapped, held hostage in her own home with no way of escape. Panic flooded her veins, yet even as it began to overwhelm her, it was rapidly chased away as Leyth, the apparent kidnapper holding her against her will, stepped into her living room. A fresh towel had been wrapped around his hips and his skin was gleaming with water from the shower. His shaggy hair was damp and hanging in ringlets around his harsh, chiselled face. He smelt clean, like soap and shampoo though, as she inhaled, she noted something else teasing her senses, something incredibly manly, something that made her jaw drop open and her heart race. He smelt of lust and sex.
What the hell had he been doing in her shower?
As those incredibly erotic scents hit her, she found herself aching in places she’d long forgotten about. His powerful body flexed in all the right places as he crossed the room towards the kitchen. ‘Coffee?’ he barked over his shoulder.
‘Sure.’ She bit the words out, though her voice was husky, harsh. She hated the way her voice sounded right now and, more than that, detested the way her body was reacting to that man. That smell. Every part of her was tingling with need, with unwanted lust. Her body was betraying her against all logic.
She violently shoved those ridiculous thoughts aside, telling herself to get a damn grip. She’d heard of what they called ‘Stockholm syndrome’; when someone had been kidnapped and kept in close quarters with their captor for extended periods of time, they sometimes fell for them. It was an apparently natural reaction to being around someone; to being in such close proximity for an extended period of time, but hell. She hadn’t been kept here with him for long enough for that to happen. Had she?
Leyth picked up the cup of coffee and walked it over to Tamriel, who was sat on the sofa, wide eyes tracking his every move. Putting the warm mug in her still shaking hand, he sat on the floor in front of her, shuffling the towel round to cover himself as he went; he didn’t want to flash her. Hell, she’d seen enough today.
Briefly wishing he could go and grab his clothes, which were no doubt still outside from his shift yesterday, he muttered another apology.
‘How are you feeling now?’ he asked.
‘OK, I think,’ she croaked. ‘Right,’ Tam visibly pulled herself together, taking a deep breath and eyeing Leyth, ‘tell me what’s going on.’
She was so strong, so determined. He couldn’t help but respect her. Any other female, wolf or otherwise, would have fallen apart at the seams by now. Being pulled out of her life, going through the fever, being confronted by a wolf when you’re down and injured, being told you’re a werewolf… You just had to respect her; she was in a room with a male who dominated her in size and strength, and she was still on the ball.
He ran a hand through his hair. Where to begin?
How did he explain to this fragile-but-deadly female what was possibly going to happen to her? How much did he explain about the Council? How much could she handle?
‘Well. Do you remember the last five days?’
‘No.’
‘OK, that’s not surprising. You went through the “fever”, which is essentially a wolf’s version of puberty.’ She snorted at that, but waved her hand, urging him to go on. ‘You’re supposed to meet your wolf, accept her and then go through the change when the fever takes you.’
‘I’m guessing by your tone of voice that I didn’t go “through the change”?’
‘You didn’t complete your transition.’
‘Shit,’ she cursed, scrubbing a hand across her face in disbelief.
‘I’m sorry, Tamriel,’ he muttered. And he genuinely was; she deserved so much better than any of them had to offer. Tam looked at him, straight in the eye for the longest of moments, before laughing. Laughing long and hard.
