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Gavin’s teeth slammed shut when she whispered in his ear.
“Now,” she said. “You and me, here, now.”
To get a grip on a restraint that was rapidly slipping away, Gavin shut his eyes.
If I do as you ask, I’ll never be able to see you again. I’ll never look into your eyes again or feel the softness of your skin. You’d know me for what I am, what I’ve become. My secret would be out.
Those were words he could never say out loud. But the truth was that she didn’t want him to stop this. She was trembling and ready to take him on. The look in her eyes explained it all.
She reached for his shoulders, dug her fingernails into his shirt as if to tear away barriers and accept everything he had to give.
Forgive me...
He could try to be a man, and only a man, one more time.
For you.
Pulling her from the pillows, Gavin released the clasp keeping her lacy bra between them. As she fell back, he covered one of her breasts with his hot, breathless mouth.
The wolf swam in his bloodstream, causing his heart to thunder as Gavin drew her in, circling the pink raised tip with his tongue. A lick and a draw and then he bit down lightly, teasingly, sweating with the effort of holding passion back. None of this was enough by far, yet it was clear that he wouldn’t get much further if he hoped to maintain some control.
More thunder hammered his skull and beat at him from behind his ribs. Beneath his belt, his body was demanding this union, though shadows lengthened in the room, darkening the floor. Night was near, and inside of that darkness roamed a monster this woman needed protection from.
Two monsters, actually.
When he looked down, it was to find his shirt hanging open from mid-chest down, with a few buttons missing. The woman beside him was running her hands over his stomach with a touch like hot coals—over his abdomen and halfway around to his lower back. He arched with each incendiary caress, maintaining eye contact, holding his breath.
Her nails grated against his ribs to leave long red grooves. She let out a sultry, sexy-as-hell sigh that shook Gavin to his core. This was her own growl of need and longing, an expectation of the otherworldly boundaries she planned on obliterating with him, and a promise to see this through, whatever he had in mind.
“Who the hell are you?” he whispered as his chest met hers.
Her lips separated, luring him into a kiss, daring him to devour her. And what the hell, he would have done it anyway, damn the beast, damn the curse that mocked his life.
Or so his thoughts went until he heard a distant sound that froze him inches from her, and kept him from taking that beautiful mouth for all it was worth.
The roar echoed in the clearing around the cabin and instantly chilled Gavin to the bone. He hesitated for several agonizing seconds, horrified. “No. Not now. Not yet,” he whispered.
The woman in the bed also heard the noise. White-faced and wide-eyed, she sat forward, her heart beating as furiously as his.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Nothing you’d want to meet.” Even that much of an explanation seemed to expose too much, Gavin thought.
Damn the timing. He should have known better than to put his mind and energy elsewhere when he was sure the monster had returned.
On his feet in a flash, Gavin reached for the radio still tucked into his belt before deciding against using it. Who would believe him or want to face whatever made that awful roar?
With a graceful swing of one arm, he retrieved the gun from the floor and set it on the bed.
“I’m sorry.” After taking one last look at the woman who’d distracted him into nearly forgetting a vow, and with his heart filled with regret for having to pass up what she offered here tonight, he added, “Really sorry.”
Then he turned for the door.
She scrambled after him. He heard the sounds of her bare feet on the old wooden boards. “What was that?” she repeated. “Tell me.”
“Wolf,” he said. “Big one. Badass. Doesn’t belong here.”
“You have to go after it?”
Her voice kept him hard and hating the separation.
“I have to find that beast before it finds other things to harm,” he explained.
“Aren’t wolves usual out here?”
Gavin stopped at the front door thinking that people were so damn naive. But though this woman looked bewildered, she didn’t appear to be the slightest bit hurt by his hasty withdrawal, and only truly curious about the sound they’d heard. She didn’t ask him to explain his abrupt behavior. She was looking at him with hunger dilating her beautiful green eyes.
Grabbing her by the shoulders, Gavin tilted her head back with a small shake. She didn’t object, just bit her lower lip hard enough to bring up a droplet of blood with her tiny white teeth.
“Christ!” He wanted her so blessed badly, and to prove it, he kissed her mouth so savagely, she uttered a cry of surprise.
He kept on kissing her, deepening the union of their mouths, devouring all he found, breathing her in, tasting her sweetness. And she met him with the fervor of a storm.
God, yes, she was a storm encased in fragile human skin. But it was okay. He could get away now that he had an excuse. She wouldn’t have to see what might happen to him if he stayed.
Unsure of how long the kiss lasted, Gavin finally drew back. He’d done it, kissed her, and felt a kind of weary triumph about that. But he had to go, leave her, take care of this. Although he wanted nothing more than to stay, the monster out there in the dark had torn him apart, injected a beast into his bloodstream and then left him to die. That beast was outside right now, close enough to reach out and touch.
He had no choice here.
“Close the windows and lock the door,” he said with his lips inches from hers. “I shouldn’t have come here like this. I should have known better than to let it get so close.”
He turned to go, torn and hurting.
“What do you mean? What’s getting close?” she called after him as Gavin, broken and unfulfilled, strode across the yard, vaulted the fence and headed for the hillside, leaving perhaps the sweetest night of his life behind.
Chapter 5 (#ulink_b3f30482-675b-59c9-a73e-4c8636a1cef3)
Skylar didn’t call for the ranger to stop as she stood in the doorway staring at the darkness settling over the mountains. The noise they’d heard hadn’t just interrupted her first unplanned one-night stand, it had jangled her nerves.
Harris’s haste in getting away from her would have seemed like a slap in the face if it had been for any other reason than going after whatever had made that terrible sound. His disappearance gave her breathing room to contemplate what she’d been about to do—to him, with him.
This whole night had proved a fairly spectacular hiccup in her present situation, and she wasn’t all that clear about what she wanted right then—a man or a creature that was more than a man. She wasn’t certain that a mere man could have done it for her.
Freud would have had a field day with that information.
So would her big sister.
Trish, as the most stable of the four Donovan sisters, wouldn’t appreciate that her sibling was in heat and lusting for a tryst with anyone who came along, let alone lusting for a werewolf. After a conversation like that with Trish, there’d be a reservation in a white padded cell and some little blue pills—a scene that hit too close to home.
Skylar stared outside.
Harris had warned her to lock the door. Yet as far as she knew, wolves, no matter what size, couldn’t handle a doorknob. So what good would a lock have done to protect her from the animal Harris said he needed to chase?
Reason told her that Ranger Harris had lied, that he might be hiding something.
Part of her wanted to listen to his advice anyway. The other newly rebellious part that would have taken a stranger to bed urged her to follow him and see for herself what was urgent enough to end their lovemaking session before the real fun began.
The guy had been seriously distressed over the sound they’d heard. There was no way she’d imagined that. And though her body, too, was trying to warn her about this sound, and shudder after shudder rocked her stance in the doorway, Skylar couldn’t let lies and secrets become an integral part of her new reality.
She was different here. She was letting go of her own secrets, one by one, and open to taking new risks.
Should she go after the ranger? In the dark?
What if her father had fallen to his death while chasing figures from his dreams?
She wasn’t familiar enough with the trails to find footing or have directional cues without proper sightlines. Her cell phone wasn’t good for much because the GPS was almost nonexistent.
As for wanting to jump into the sack with this guy, maybe she just needed a night with an honorable man for a change. Harris, at least, ran out on her before placing a ring on her finger.
Backing up, Skylar listened hard to Harris’s fading footsteps. With him went the rest of the evening’s light.
Her heart refused to slow as she backed from the doorway. Confusion reigned. The room dimmed around her, but Skylar didn’t reach for a lamp. Seconds flew by, then minutes.
Finally, she shut the door and leaned against it with her eyes closed, picturing Harris’s tight, tanned flesh pressed to her bare skin. Feeling, even now, his breath on her face.
* * *
Gavin picked up the trail of the monster much more easily than he could have hoped, almost as if the bloodthirsty beast wanted him to.
He didn’t know what to make of that, but it was too late to consider anything other than finding his prey. His blood was up. His muscles were seizing. The beast inside him recognized this other beast in an unseemly way.
I’m not like you, Gavin wanted to shout. I’m no killer.
But shouting would amount to a calling card and telegraph his presence...if the thing didn’t know already.
As he jogged up the steep path, the old thoughts returned, though answers to his questions had never been within reach. If he wasn’t like that monster, he had to suppose that the blood passed from beast to beast somehow got diluted in the transfer.
His wounds made him suffer a change, but until he knew more about what had happened to him, he had to think of his cursed condition as a disease.
Hell, the differences between him and his maker had to be studied. He couldn’t exact a physical change without a full moon, yet he’d been attacked without one. Feelings inside of him shifted, internal stirrings came and went, but no full transformation happened for him without that commanding silver light. When he did morph, he became a strange mixture of both man and wolf, and not more of one thing than the other.
This damn beast was wolfish, with a lot of something extra added that had no relation to Homo sapiens. There was no full moon tonight, nor had there been the night before, which solidified the supposition that this monster either remained permanently furry, or could fur-up at will, with or without the moon’s kiss.
So different. Yet I sense you, beast, as though what I’ve become isn’t too far removed from what you are.
Part of that beast truly had become part of him.
Gavin’s thoughts kept churning as he climbed the hillside trying to sift through facts, in search of answers.
He’d tried locking himself away to avoid the moon’s treacherous call, which only made things worse. Unable to change its form, his body had betrayed him anyway. He’d nearly gone mad with the shakes, unconscious spells, roiling stomach upheavals and bouts of fever. His mind had eventually succumbed to the madness. He’d lost control of his temper, lost his mind to the pain of withholding the transformation and ended up in some godforsaken place on the mountain with no recollection of how he got there or what he might have done while his mind was in a fog.
Lesson learned. It was a freaking sharp-witted curse that developed immunity to thoughtful manipulation.
He had to give in to the physical changes in order to remain in charge mentally. Succumbing to the moon’s lure was necessary. As long as he changed shape, he was okay. Keeping as far away from other people as was possible near the full moon had allowed him to weather this out.
He got that now, and guessed that without the wolfish form there’d be no survival of this monster’s horrific species, hence the absolute need to shift. That furry demon’s teeth and claws had created another similar freak, and so that had to be the way the moon’s cult passed on. If he stayed in these mountains whenever there was a full moon, he’d be safe enough, he hoped. Others would be safe.
Gavin stopped suddenly, skin chilling, senses wide open.
The atmosphere around him had changed, creating new pressure that was like a punch to his chest. He heard rustling sounds and thought them ludicrous for a monster excelling in stealth, as though the beast were leaving him a trail of breadcrumbs.
There was no mistaking the smell. He knew this monster’s scent, having been up close and personal with it. Why was it here? Did it want to finish what it had started two years ago? Finish him off?
Is that why you stuck around?
Gavin’s heart rate accelerated. He’d left his weapon in the car before visiting the woman in the cabin. Damn it, he should have borrowed her gun.
The wolf inside him clawed at his insides with nails like talons, sensing trouble. An icy shiver of anticipation ran up his spine.
“Come out.”
He spoke at a normal decibel, feeling the presence of Otherness as if it were a bad rash.
“You can’t possibly imagine I don’t know you’re there, or what you are.”
More rustling noises came from his right. Gavin slowly turned toward the sound, saw something. Felt something.
The creature he’d sought for so long was here, all right, and standing its ground.
Against the outline of the trees, nearly hidden in the shadow, a huge form took shape. Bigger than anything he could have imagined, the giant specter loomed over the surrounding brush like the main character in a horror movie.
On that fateful night, the thing had moved so fast, Gavin hadn’t seen what was coming. But he saw something of its outline now and his inner alarms went off like a string of firecrackers.
This was no mere man-wolf combination. Nor, as he’d guessed, was it anything remotely like him, at all.
Its massive shape left little for Gavin to appeal to, speak to, reason with. Thoughts of getting close to it with any kind of hand-held weapon were absurd. Killing it with a spray of bullets seemed equally as unlikely. He hadn’t really expected this abomination to allow him another close-up this soon—he had meant to chase it away from the cabin. Hell, seeing it now, he wanted to run the other way.
No doubt this monster would be faster.
“So here we are,” he made himself say to ease a small portion of the fear knotting up his insides. “Should I call you family?”
There couldn’t be more than one of these beasts, he hoped, because where’d be the justice in that?
“It had to be you who did this to me. Can you recognize another freak?”
His nemesis didn’t move, making this potentially deadly scenario all the spookier.
“What are we to do now, since I can’t let you go around killing and maiming people?” he asked, having to talk though this creature could strike at any moment. Talking seemed necessary. He felt like shouting. One more night, and he would have been stronger, at least. He would have had claws and speed and double the muscle. Though his humanness danced on a thin thread of control tonight, there was no full moon to help him.
