His shoulders came up slowly, and if she had been standing behind him, she knew that there would have been thickly toned back muscles moving with that simple gesture.
“Everyone looks like someone. You don’t look like anyone I know from Connecticut.” Jamal explained receiving his drink and bringing the glass to his lips for a sampling of the caramel colored whiskey.
“I can see that.” Elle nodded gently her hand extending towards him.
“My name is Elle and yeah. You’re right. I’m originally from Arkansas.”
Taking her hand but he didn’t shake as she had assumed that he would, but rather his fingers eclipsed her own and brought her knuckles up to his lips, kissing over the first and third knuckle before he released her hand once more.
“I’m Jamal, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Elle.” Perfectly straight white teeth greeted her with a smile that bordered on promises unspoken. “What made you come up North?” He asked continuing their idle conversation once more.
“I was born here in Connecticut, but I was raised down south, and I decided that it was time for some change in my life, new experiences and I thought, well why not.” Her shoulders scrunched up with a playful laugh. “Explore my Northern roots.” Elle giggled playing up the dumb blonde stereotype as she finished her drink with a small slurp from her straw.
Jamal once more motioned towards the bar tender pointing at Elle’s empty glass, his eyes were wild, like nothing that she could remember ever seeing. He wasn’t at all like the boys she grew up with. No matter how many years passed it didn’t matter, Elle never found them attractive in the least. They would always be the same boys she’d run around with, rode bicycles, gotten skinned knees and learned to drive on dirt roads with. There was a tender charm to those sweet southern gentlemen, but there wasn’t any excitement in their eyes.
“To exploring Northern roots,” Jamal said bringing his glass to hers as soon as she was supplied a fresh drink.
~
“How do you know Marik?” Jamal asked moving to take a seat beside her a comfortable distance away though close enough that he could see the small flecks of gold in her eyes that matched her hair.
“It’s sort of complicated, to say the least, but he is helping me out of a jam I found myself in.” Elle laughed. She didn’t like lying, but this technically wasn’t a lie. Marik was, right now at least, helping her out. He was giving her a place to stay after her home had been destroyed.
“That is definitely the Marik that I know.” Jamal smiled again inhaling deeply causing his nostrils to flare somewhat.
“Gallen said he considers you as a third son. How long have you and Marik known one another?” Elle smiled, curious.
“Oh, Marik and I go way back all the way to high school. He was my only friend when my mother and I moved here from New York. Only kid in school who would talk to me. We’ve been friends ever since.”
~
The air was knocked out of her lungs as her back met the wall, the only thing keeping her from going through the dry wall was Jamal’s hand cradling the small of her back as his lips left hers in pursuit of other even more intoxicating venues. Elle’s skin was heating to volcanic temperatures as his lips traveled from the shell of her ear down her neck to her shoulders as his hand roamed up her back, taking the hem of her top along with it as he eased up long enough to pull the flimsy pink tank top from her body and expose her heaving breasts within the cups of her bra.
The clasp of her bra was released without any prompting and Elle squirmed out of it as quickly as it was possible for her to do so with her head swimming from four margaritas though Jamal wasn’t taking advantage of her by any means. Elle wanted this.
Her back fell against the cold wall once more while her fingers pulled at the fabric of his long-sleeved Henley shirt, annoyed that the material was in her way. Jamal freed himself from his shirt for her, a smile appearing on his lips briefly before his lips claimed her own once more, teasing her lips for entrance to her mouth. Moaning slowly as she tasted him, her arms locked around his shoulders, feeling his fingers leaving bruises in her hips as he held her tight against his body, confined between the solid muscle and the wall itself.
“I’m going to devour you.” Jamal’s lips broke from hers leaving her following for more only to be awakened to an entirely different yet very familiar desire as her eye lids heavily, looked up at him as he squeezed her hips in his hands. Jamal kissed her throat, licking over her pulse, traveling the valley between her breasts as his body lowered. One nipple caught between his teeth as his tongue lashed over the tender peak making her spine tingle as she felt his hands working at her belt, unfastening it before he unzipped her denim skirt and jerked it down her hips leaving her panties on.
“Oh, my God.” Elle breathed out huskily as his lips left her nipple and moved to the next repeating the action and adding a slight tug between his lips before releasing, watching her breasts bounce somewhat as his hands slid up and down her thighs, almost as if he were leaving a road map of every inch of her body that he touched. “Just do it.” At that moment, she hated how desperate her voice sounded when she said that, it wasn’t telling him, she was begging him.
A low rumbling like a chuckle vibrated in his chest as he looked up at her, pressing three fingers between her legs, rubbing them against the center of her panties.
“How much do you want it?”
Squirming under his touch her legs shivered, knees threatening to buckle as she held his shoulders.
“I need to feel you.” Elle groaned.
The next sound she recognized was the familiar sound of tearing fabric, and for an instant, she didn’t even realize that it was her panties. Suddenly her thighs were pulled over his shoulders as he back slid up the wall, a shrill yell erupting from her lips as she grabbed the back of Jamal’s head. His tongue swept over her, tasting her center before traveling to that sensitive, swollen bundle of nerves and moving over it in rapid succession making her spine straighten and shiver as she held him.
Whether it was the alcohol working or he really was moving that fast her brain couldn’t decide as he dove inside her, writhing as she rolled her hips forward from the wall, moving with him. In a flash of rapid movement Elle was on the couch, and her head was spinning as he never let up, sucking her slightly making her back arch until she thought her spine was going to snap in half he left her empty and waiting for more as he came up, catching her lips and she could taste herself on his tongue.
For a solid five seconds, she wasn’t sure she could breath as she felt his weight move over her, her hands struggling between them as she found the button and zipper of his jeans and released them, finding the pulsing girth of his member ready from within his pants as she coiled her hand around him and brought him to her. Biting into his bottom lip hungrily as he thrust inside of her forcing a sharp gasp from her lips as she was so suddenly filled.
~
While his mind wandered, he pulled up in front of his own home; Mark had no intentions of leaving Elle’s side for any extended period even if she was staying at his father's. For the time being, he considered himself her second guardian because until all this was over, he wasn’t leaving her side. Stepping out of the Range Rover he picked his way through the icy shrubbery towards the back door of his house, the gate that would barely budge open yesterday was now iced into place, luckily he was able to squeeze his body through it, reminding himself to take the front door when he left. He was going to need enough clothes for a week, but he hoped that they had things figured out by then.
Unlocking the back door he stepped in through the utility room, stomping the snow off of his boots as he set his keys down on top of the front loading washer and unzipped his jacket tossing it over the dryer. Heaving a slow sigh from his lips, it felt good to walk into his own home after the last twelve hours he’d just been through.
Walking through the kitchen his ears perked up hearing the television on in the living room, his instincts instantly going o
n the alert as he looked inside. There was no one there except for an empty plate on the coffee table and an ass indent in the couch. Sniffing the air within the room, a low grumble rolled from his throat.
“Goddamn it.” An expression that was almost a favorite pass time these days as he looked up at the ceiling before hauling himself up the stairs and reached the second floor landing, the smell even stronger up here which meant he’d spent more time upstairs than anywhere else in the house.
“Dad told you not to come back,” Marik said walking into the second bedroom which served as his home office and bore the full weight of his glare on his brothers back.
“He told me not to come back to the house, not specific enough a command, the old man’s slipping,” Gaerik told him, throwing a hand up over his shoulder not as a greeting but one that said I am busy with something right now that is much more important than the trivial lecture I know is sure to come pouring out of your pie hole.
Coming up behind Gaerik he could see he was going through a photo gallery on his desk top, his index finger madly clicking away at the mouse making each image flash by in a blur before he grabbed Gaerik’s shoulder squeezing hard enough to illicit pain from the wolf.
“Stop,” Marik ordered bending over his shoulder as he looked more closely at the image.
Gaerik had been going through photos since he’d reached his brothers home computer. They weren’t all in sequence, so he kept getting small bits of information from each one that gleaned the knowledge that his brother knew about Elle, though he didn’t surmise that he knew why he was watching her. His index finger hovered over the mouse as they both looked at the broad, familiar shoulders of a suede jacket disappearing inside Elle Marshal’s house. “Son of a bitch.” Marik cursed going for his phone only to remember that at that moment that his cell was sitting in the pocket of his jacket on the dryer downstairs.
“It’s him.” Gaerik seethed, spit practically flying from his fangs as his face contorted.
It was a rare gift for a werewolf to be able to walk in both forms at once, something Gaerik had been able to do since his first turning at twelve and only shortly followed by his baby brother. Dark fur sprouted over his jaw as the fine individual hairs along his ears began to stand on end as those rounded shells began to point and elongate. A thick, menacing growl developing in his heavily muscled chest.
Most believed that only a vampire possessed immortal speed, natural movements which occurred so fast that the naked eye is not developed enough to catch. However, that was merely a superstitious rumor which often kept their kind in the shadows which were exactly where they liked it. Marik’s own claws lengthened as he ripped his cell phone from the pocket of his jacket his calloused fingertips moving with lightning speed. If a tornado were possible in this climate, he could have said that was exactly what was happening inside his spare bedroom, but he knew better as the sound of glass shattering tingled within the tiny hairs of his ear drums. Gaerik was already on his way.
~
“That is a very beautiful accent you have, where is it from?” Jamal asked pleasantly, his eyes moving from Elle to the pictures on the coffee table.
In the time they had spent together Elle and Gallen were coming along well in their project of putting all of the pieces back together. Three of the pictures were already almost half finished. Each time they found a new piece that didn’t fit, it became part of another.
“I was raised in Arkansas.” Elle smiled, he did not remember her. Thank God. All she needed right now was to explain how she already knew Jamal; however, the relief was short lived. If he was here, and Gallen considered him a third son. Did that also mean what she thought it meant, was Jamal a werewolf too? And she’d slept with him not even knowing it. She really liked Gallen, in fact, she liked all of them despite the situation that they were all in, but they were people she wanted to keep in her life rather than like Jamal where he was just a ship that she passed in the night - and spread her legs for. If she could have opened up a hole in the earth right now and just jump into it so no one would ever see her again, she just might have done it.
Elle never knew more than his name, and she never saw him again after that one night stand they shared when she had first moved to Connecticut over a year ago. She’d been bored and gone out to a bar and had a one night stand, people did that all the time and the very last place that she thought she might see him again was standing in the home of a werewolf with her entire life falling down around her ears.
“Ah, yes. Arkansas, that’s right.” He nodded once.
The phone began to ring in the kitchen and Elle would have sworn that she saw his ears shift slightly from the sound. Jamal’s next movements preventing her from any further thought as his arms reached out quickly grabbing the back of her head and slamming it down into the solid surface of the coffee table. The pain and dizziness buzzed through her like an electrical current, feeling her spine vibrating from the impact before another blow came taking her into a darkness that was filled with fear.
“It’s Jamal dad! He’s the killer!” Marik yelled running out of the house, regardless of who might have seen him do it, he leapt over the back fence wall in a single bound as his feet hit the ground running to his vehicle the phone in one hand the keys in the other.
Gallen hardly uttered a word before a hard thud came from the living room, and the scent of blood filled his nostrils. Dropping the phone, he ran towards the living room, his heart pounding as he raced feeling as if his legs were moving underwater.
The living room was empty, only the French double doors were left open, sheer white curtains blowing in the wind as he ran out of them. Chasing after Jamal and Elle into the night but the boy was long gone and had taken Elle with him like a thief in the night. Gallen was reminded of the fox in the hen house as he stood searching the yard for a sign that might lead him in the right direction. Following the scent of blood into the tree line the wind picking up and confusing his sense of direction as it seemed like he could smell Elle in every direction.
He’d lost her within the blink of an eye. She was gone, and the man who took her was one he had known since the male was a teenager. How had it escaped them all that Jamal was more than capable of this? He was the epitome of the all American boy. He was perfect, too perfect.
Gallen wasn’t doing anyone any good turning around and around in circles in the frozen wilderness. Headed in the direction of the house a sound caught his attention far off to the tree line some ten feet from the house. Whimpering. Rushing to the sound, he only hoped perhaps Jamal dropped the girl and opted for the smarter decision, saving his own skin but what he found him only hurt him more. Gregory lay bleeding in the snow. From the scarred bark laying around the guardian, Gallen could only imagine that the animal had been thrown through the air and hit the tree. What words could he utter at that moment as his heart felt as if it were filled with led as he lifted the guardian into his arms, gently lifting him so that he didn’t do further damage to his injuries. Gallen couldn’t have said for sure, but he thought that perhaps that the beasts back was broken.
Carrying him into the house with the intent of taking him straight into the kitchen where he could examine him under the overhead lights when the front door slammed open. The beast that stormed through the doors was almost unrecognizable for a moment, but it was the eyes that revealed his true identity.
“Where is he?” Gaerik growled, his voice several octaves lower than Gallen had ever heard it before, and it startled the man as he held the whimpering beast in his arms, warm blood pooling against his sweater.
“He’s gone. And he took Elle with him.”
A savage roar made the whole house shiver as Marik’s foot stepped over the threshold. His chest heaved with each loaded breath he took, predator eyes scanning the foyer. His brother, his father and the guardian but he already knew that Elle was not there.
“What happened?” He demanded the porous black hairs that tufted around his jaws began to slow
ly dissipate. From his shoulder the guardian whined, a shiver running through his body, he was losing so much blood Gallen wasn’t sure if there was anything he would be able to do to save him. Swallowing as he looked to his sons as he shook his head.
“Jamal came, I suspected nothing. When your call came through I left him alone with Elle and before I could get back to her, he had already taken her.”
“He will kill her,” Marik said his voice holding a hollow tone to his words as he took Gregory from his father and went to the kitchen, clearing the island in one swipe of his arms as he laid the beast down and looked into his eyes. “You will live. I demand it. I won’t get her back only to have her heart broken because you died to try to protect her. Do you understand?” He held the animal's muzzle as he spoke, the conviction of his words making the air around them sizzle with electricity.
Gregory’s black eyes shined brightly, from the pupil a frosty blue like the unique individual shards of ice began to take them over as his mid-section expanded, his fur grew coarse and thicker. Bones warping and cracking as they snapped from their natural alignment.
“What’s happening to him?” Gaerik had moved behind his brother looking at the creature’s form shift and change, the air electrical as it shimmered in a protective cocoon around the guardian.
“He is ascending.” Gallen intoned from behind the twins as he stepped between them. “The spirit of the wolf inside him is taking over. I have heard legends of this before, but I have never seen it happen.”
From the corners of his lips a crooked smile was working as he clapped his hands down on the shoulders of his sons moving them far out of the way as one paw flattened against the island, then another until the raw power radiating from the beast stood on all fours. A massive black wolf staring forward, his head lowered, ears flat against his head as his muzzle parted revealing rows of deadly white fangs.
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