by Larissa Ione
She’d let him. Everything that made him the male animal he was demanded he take what she was offering, flip her onto her back and give her his blood and his seed. But even as he shifted to make it happen, he snarled in frustration.
He couldn’t do it. She was clearly suffering from feeding deprivation, leaving her vulnerable and too easily swayed. So he gnashed his molars together and kept his hands in neutral territory as she moved against him, feeding with increasing fervor. The scent of her arousal surrounded him, chipping away at his willpower—and the enamel on his teeth.
Heat consumed him as she rode his erection, making little sounds of ecstasy with every back-and-forth sweep across his lap. He could feel her pleasure mounting, could practically taste it as an electric bite in the air.
His heart pounded in anticipation. “Come on,” he rasped. “Take what you want.”
She rocked faster, the friction and damp heat between them shocking him with its intensity. He could come like this. An orgasm edged closer, boiling in his balls and swelling in his shaft. Nails scored his back, digging deep, and a heartbeat later, she stiffened and clamped down on his throat hard with a husky shout. Her climax shuddered through her, vibrating his body and putting him so close to the tipping point that he felt the cool wetness of precum spread across the tip of his cock.
Then she went limp, the sexual storm fading as she disengaged her fangs. His body still coiled tight with need, he grimaced as he eased them both onto their sides, and for the first time since she’d burst into his cabin, he got a good look at her face. High cheekbones, flushed with color, sloped gracefully to her hairline, and remarkably long lashes framed drowsy, sated yellow eyes that drilled into him not with their intensity, but with their familiarity. He knew those eyes . . . but from more than just the visions. Why?
“I guess maybe I should get your name now,” he said, his voice rough with unspent lust.
For some reason, she looked hurt. “I—” She broke off and tried again, but what came out of her mouth sounded more like a whimper than a word. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply. “I . . . haven’t spoken . . . words . . .” She opened her eyes. “. . . in a long . . . time.”
He actually understood that. He’d lived alone for so long that if not for his wolf pals, his voice would be wrapped in dust and cobwebs. But he was impatient for answers, sexually frustrated, and a pint low on blood.
“What the hell is going on?”
She shook her head. “This must . . . be so strange to you.”
“What, opening the door to find a naked, starving female who, before now, I’ve only seen in my head? Nah. Happens all the time.”
Wry amusement tipped up the corner of her mouth. “I know it doesn’t, because I’m here almost every day.”
He propped himself up on one elbow and searched her face. For what, he wasn’t sure, but he did know he wanted the truth, and he didn’t want to play games to get it. “You can see through Tehya’s eyes, can’t you? She’s your totem animal.” He paused, not wanting to ask the question that needed to be asked. Finally, his breath burning in his throat, he spit it out. “Does your being here mean she’s dead?”
Instead of answering, she shivered and gestured at his dresser. “Do you mind? You have a flannel shirt that’ll fit me. The green and black one you haven’t worn for a long time.”
“Sure,” he said numbly, his mind racing. How much had she seen through Tehya? His cheeks flamed hot as he thought about all the humiliating possibilities. “What else do you know about me?”
She climbed off the bed, giving him a mouthwatering view of her tight, round ass, full hips, and long, graceful thighs. She was perfectly fit, built like a runner with not an ounce of fat on her body. As she pulled the flannel shirt out of one of the drawers, she shot him a sly grin.
“I know everything.” The grin faded as she donned the shirt and worked the buttons. “You know everything about me too.”
“Look,” he said, reaching the limits of his patience, “this isn’t a joke. I know nothing about you. At all.”
She pointed to Tehya’s dishes in the corner. “You know I won’t eat anything out of my bowl unless it’s clean. You know I like it when you put ice cubes in my water in the summer.” She gestured to the fireplace. “You know I like it when you drag my bed in front of the fire in the winter. You know I love to run with you through the river basin because I’m more agile on rocks than you are when you’re in wolf form.” She met his gaze, and his mouth fell open. Her eyes, holy shit, her eyes. They were familiar . . . because they were wolf eyes. “And you know I like to sneak onto your bed and curl up next to you in the middle of the night.”
His breath cut out as he sat up straight and stared at her. “Tehya?” At her barely discernible nod, he exhaled on a long, slow curse. “I can’t . . . I can’t believe it.” He shook his head, unable to process this. “I have so many questions, and I don’t even know where to start.”
For years he’d dreamed of this woman, and all the while she’d been real and right here under his feet. Literally. He’d tripped over her or stepped on her tail dozens of times.
“Start at the beginning, maybe?” she offered.
The beginning. What a novel idea. Maybe that was where she should start. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth years ago instead of letting me believe you were a wolf?” And how had she maintained her wolf form for so long? As far as he knew, no one had ever held on to a morph for more than two days, and even then, according to the stories, the skinwalker who had made it the full two days had died a week later.
“I couldn’t tell you.” She lifted her silky mane of hair up out of the shirt and let it cascade over her shoulders. His fingers practically itched to touch it. “I was—” She broke off with a growl so wolflike that if he’d doubted her story before, he believed her now. Her head whipped toward the door. “There are people coming.”
That’s when he heard it: the alarm yip of a coyote. It was distant but clear, and it came from the south. MoonBound lay to the south.
Hunter was coming.
Damn it! He’d been so wrapped up in everything going on with Tehya that he’d forgotten how much danger he was in. He’d been willing to face the danger, but now that Tehya was safe, he wasn’t about to sit around and wait for Hunter’s judgment. They needed to get as far away from MoonBound as possible. And, hell, he’d always wanted to see Alaska.
“We gotta go,” he said as he leaped off the bed and snagged his loaded weapons belt off the wall.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
Oh, not much. He’d only broken into a secure compound, impersonated the clan chief, and kissed his mate. “I violated a few vampire laws when I took Tehya—er, you to MoonBound.” Still thinking it was crazy that he was having an actual conversation with Tehya, he buckled the belt around his hips and took his favorite hatchet from its hook near the door. “If we aren’t out of here in the next five minutes, I’m dead.”
And Tehya might be as well.
6
Tehya had never known fear like this. Not even the day she was attacked by a vampire could compare with the sheer terror of knowing that a clan of vampires hell-bent on revenge was only moments away from breaking down the door and possibly slaughtering them.
Lobo shoved his hatchet into a loop on his belt, and the hackles on the back of her neck rose. He never left the cabin without being armed with a few blades, but he didn’t take his favorite hatchet unless he was going to practice with it . . . or kill with it. The muscles in his arms and back rippled as he tore weapons from the walls and from the wooden chest near the fireplace. Every movement was brisk and economical, and within moments she swore every inch of his incredible body was armed.
She watched him, fascinated despite the danger they were facing. As a wolf, she’d loved him, but she’d never felt any kind of sexual feelings toward him. Which was a good thing, she supposed. But now . . . now she was a woman again, a female vampire with his blood coursing through her vei
ns and a body that was still liquid from the climax she’d had with him.
She should probably be embarrassed by that, but she’d never been very self-conscious—and he’d seen her using the forest like a big litter box, so she was pretty much over being sensitive about bodily functions.
He swung around to her, his luxurious midnight hair fanning across broad shoulders that blocked the single stream of light coming through a crack in the drawn curtains. His dark gaze raked her from head to toe, and she sucked in an appreciative breath. She’d seen him in warrior mode before, but this was hard-core. He was cool. Detached. And why wouldn’t he be? She was a stranger to him.
“You need pants,” Lobo said gruffly, turning away to peek through the window.
She looked down at herself. The flannel shirt hung to mid-thigh, but her lower legs, already cut up from the run through the forest earlier, had no protection. Unfortunately, they’d have to stay that way.
“You don’t have anything that’ll fit me.”
“I have a pair of sweatpants—”
“With a broken string.” She knew that because she herself had chewed on the cord when she’d been bored one day. “I can’t cinch them around my waist.” She brushed past him on her way to the door. “Besides, I’ve spent the last, what—twelve years?—without pants or shoes. I’ll be fine.”
“You also spent the last twelve years without speaking,” he muttered, and she bit back a smile as they slipped outside, moving silently north, in the opposite direction from MoonBound.
Lobo set the pace at a slow run, finding a happy medium that allowed them to move swiftly while creating the least amount of noise. She followed, resisting the urge to overtake him. For years she’d ranged ahead or loped at his side, her wolf senses keeping track of him while remaining alert for signs of danger.
Now she was essentially a month-old vampire with no experience or understanding of her own strengths and weaknesses, and the only person she knew didn’t know her. He knew Tehya the wolf. He didn’t know Kristen Parker, the once-human dental assistant, or Kristen Parker, the screwup newbie vampire who had somehow turned into a wolf and couldn’t turn back.
For twelve years.
A dull crack echoed through the forest, and Lobo stopped so suddenly that she nearly bumped into him. “They’re at my cabin,” he growled. “We need to run.” He shoved her in front of him. “Go! Head toward the river.”
She took off, running as fast as she could on bare feet, but damn, the sticks and rocks were sharp. Her wolf paws had been so much tougher. Still, as painful as the bruises and punctures were, this would have been much worse if she’d still been human.
They ran for miles, slowing only occasionally to judge the distance between them and their pursuers. It seemed to her as if the MoonBound people were getting closer, but every time she asked Lobo to confirm her suspicions, he only told her to run faster. And once, when a rabbit dashed across their path, she’d automatically darted after it.
“Damn it, Tehya, get back here!” he yelled. “Come here! Heel!”
“Hilarious,” she muttered, swinging back to run with him. When he smirked, she wanted to both kiss him and bite him.
The rush of the river grew louder ahead, the most welcome sound she’d ever heard.
“Bear left,” Lobo called out as they raced along the edge of a meadow populated by wild turkeys that kept wary eyes on them as they passed. “Take the path down the canyon that lands us on the south side of the rapids.”
Smart. They could use the water to eliminate tracks, and the noise of the rapids would cover the sounds of their escape.
They leaped the remains of an old split-rail fence and charged up an embankment that ended abruptly on a rocky ledge. Far below, a wide, deep section of the river created a relatively calm spot where animals on the other side came to drink. Even from this distance, she could see deer and elk tracks interspersed with a few canine and big-cat paw prints.
“This way.” He started down the narrow, winding trail along the edge of the river ravine. “We’ll swim downstream to—” He broke off with a grunt. Stumbling, he wheeled around, and Tehya watched in horror as blood bloomed on his chest around the head of an arrow that had punched through his back.
“Lobo?”
His eyes glazed over as his knees buckled. Tehya caught him around the waist before he hit the ground, but his weight knocked her off balance. Her foot caught a root, and he pitched to the side, his momentum tearing him from her grip.
No—oh, God, no!
Her heart stopped, the blood congealing in her veins, as Lobo disappeared over the side of the cliff. A scream lodged in her throat as she scrambled to the edge in time to see his body splash into the river below and disappear beneath the surface.
“Who shot that fucking arrow!” The deep, masculine voice echoed off the surrounding mountains, seeming to come from everywhere at once, making it all the more terrifying. “I wanted him alive!”
They were coming closer, their feet booming like thunder on the forest floor.
Please, please, Lobo. Be alive. Tehya watched the river in desperation, her fingers digging into moss and damp earth as she clung to the edge of the cliff. Surface, damn you!
“You!” a male voice, different from the first, called out to her. “To your feet. Turn around slowly.”
Fury like she’d never felt before welled up, and she disobeyed both orders, spinning around on all fours with a snarl. She was going to rip out their throats for this. She’d almost certainly die, but not before taking out at least one of the bastards.
A blond male and a dark-skinned female emerged from the forest, both armed with bows, the arrows pointed at her head. Another male, sporting a crossbow, came at her from the side, while yet another male, this one empty-handed, strode toward her with the arrogant confidence of an alpha leader.
Although she didn’t know their names, she’d seen all of them from a distance, had once even spent a full day tracking the blond one out of boredom and curiosity. But the guy coming at her didn’t need an introduction. He must be MoonBound’s chief, Hunter. And she had no doubt that despite his lack of a weapon, he was just as deadly as the others.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
As if she was going to reply to people who had just shot Lobo. Hell, she was shaking so hard she doubted she could speak even if she’d wanted to.
Still growling, she inched backward, until her knees hit the edge of the cliff and her feet dangled over. Dislodged pebbles and crumbling earth bounced off the cliff face, the sound abnormally loud in the hushed, tense silence.
“Get away from the ledge,” the guy said, his voice dripping with warning.
Twisting, she peered into the pool below, and her heart stopped when she saw the body floating in the bubbling waters.
She didn’t waste another second. Figuring she had nothing left to lose, she shot her pursuers the finger and jumped.
7
The sound of a female voice humming a classic Johnny Cash song was something Lobo had never awakened to. What he had awakened to, several times, was intense, throbbing pain. Not often, but enough to know it always meant that something had gone terribly wrong during a fight.
What had he done to deserve it this time?
He peeled open his eyes as his brain tried to crank out an explanation as to why he was wet, in agony, and lying on his back in some sort of . . . room? Shack? What the hell?
“Lobo!” Tehya filled his field of vision as she stood up from a booth covered in cracked, ugly-ass avocado vinyl. “You’re awake.”
“What . . .” He cleared his raw throat and tried again. “What . . . happened?”
Tucking her damp hair behind her ears, she sank down next to him on what appeared to be an elevated mattress. Mildewed, frayed gingham curtains hung near his head and at his feet, and it took him a few precious seconds to realize they were inside an old camper.
“You were struck by an arrow. I thought you were dead.” Very gent
ly, she peeled back a bloody, folded towel from the wound just beneath his left collarbone. “Do you remember being chased?”
Now that she reminded him, he did. They’d reached a cliff on the edge of the river, but he didn’t know what had happened after that.
“Yeah,” he croaked. “Sort of. But how did we get here?” Wherever “here” was.
“You fell into the water.” Her voice faltered with emotion, and he knew exactly how she’d felt. It had torn him apart when he’d seen Tehya suffering from the poacher’s gunshot wound. “I went after you. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead, but I held your head out of the water and floated us downriver until I was sure those people weren’t following.”
So she was beautiful and smart. The river split into several streams, creating multiple escape routes for their pursuers to have to check out. “Where are we?”
He sucked air as she replaced the dressing on the wound. “Sorry,” she murmured, before folding her hands in her lap. “Remember that rusted-out camper we found a couple of years ago?”
It took a second for his brain to kick in, but he finally remembered. They’d been tracking an injured deer that had likely been hit by a car, and they’d found the abandoned camper deep inside state forest lands. If this was that same camper, they were a good ten miles downriver from where he’d gone into the water.
So, yep, he remembered, and he grinned. “I seem to recall that you peed on it.”
Her cheeks flamed red, the bright color spreading all the way to her ears. “I had to mark my territory,” she said, adding a haughty sniff for emphasis. “Be glad I didn’t pee on you.” The crimson in her face deepened. “I mean . . . you know, I was a wolf. . . .”
He chuckled, but a stab of pain ripped through his chest, turning his laugh into a moan.