“Go on.” She had to stop for a breath before finishing what she wanted to say. “Tell me more. Tell me everything.”
Her father waited an unconscionably long time before obliging. Rosalind forcibly withheld her claws from springing. Already there were gouges on the walls of her room from the misplaced anger of her youth. Had this been part of the anomaly her father had seen in her early on?
“Your mother told me stories about an ancestor who possessed abilities like yours. She told these stories to me so that I would watch for signs. Watch you for them, just as her mother had watched her,” her father said. “I conferred with the elders at Landau’s compound, fearing what your future might hold. They had to know about you, and why I hadn’t presented you to one of their sons.”
“So, what am I?” she demanded, dreading the answer to the question, and knowing she had to have it.
“Werewolf,” he said. “But with something else at your core. Not just a she-wulf, Rosalind. Nor just showing vampire traits. I believe you are part something else, as well.”
His expression had grown dull with sadness and regret. He spoke again before she could protest or argue.
“You have in you the traits of another supernatural creature, one that is noted for announcing oncoming death. Legends abound of this creature in other countries, but not so much here.”
“What are you saying? What creature?”
“I fear that you are, deep inside, a hybrid. As far as I know, there has only been one such mixture, and that was your great-great-grandmother. The tale says she was a Lycan who was saved by the very Death-caller slated to announce her death. She lived, and went on to mate with another full-blooded Were. But there was a consequence for cheating Death. In being saved by a creature that was destined to cry of death, some of that spirit’s traits passed into your relative. The offspring of her and her Lycan mate was unique. Special, with special skills like yours. She was called Night Wulf.”
Rosalind scooted backward on the bed until she felt the hard support of the wall against her back. It seemed that her father would allow her no room for avoiding the secrets she had been asking for, but each one seemed like a blow.
“I guess,” he said, “that those stories were true.”
Rosalind wanted to shout for him to stop, and tell him she’d had enough. But she was riveted. She was starved for explanations for the turmoil that had always roiled inside her.
“Go on,” she said.
Her father nodded. “From this incident, we must assume that your form can vary according to the species you focus on. You fought vampires, and so you became somewhat like them. You got their fangs.”
He took a breath. “We must see if you’ll change back to Lycan after leaving the bloodsuckers. I have no idea what to do if you don’t. I doubt if anyone would know. The elders of the Landau pack saw you. They saw the fangs. I’ve promised to keep you away from the world until we do know what’s to happen, for your protection and theirs.”
Rosalind felt a howl rising that was frighteningly similar to the one she had issued in the park. She didn’t dare allow it to escape. Her father’s explanations had alleged that the other call had risen from unknown depths because she possessed depths she wasn’t aware of. What was a Death-caller? What did that even mean?
He was also telling her that she had become stuck physically between Were and the vampires she been attempting to kill while aiding her big brown werewolf. And that her body also hid something else that labeled her a Night Wulf.
The title itself was ominous, and produced a shiver.
If that wasn’t bad enough, her father truly believed that she had become infused with the particles of a fanged, blood-drinking species that was her enemy. And it was true. Her Lycan teeth had molded to resemble those of another species.
“What’s wrong with my pelt?” she managed to ask. “You say black as if that has meaning.”
Her father got to his feet. He looked down at her with the same expression of frustration that he’d worn whenever she had ignored his counsel in the past. “There are no black-pelted werewolves, Rosalind. It was the first sign of something being amiss. An early warning.”
Too stunned to speak, Rosalind watched her father head for the door. She felt sick. Her father hadn’t wanted her to know any of this, but how could he have kept something so important from her? What had he been thinking?
She supposed he hadn’t wanted her to feel different. Then again, maybe, just maybe, he’d had the protection of others foremost in his mind as he had harbored and basically held her captive all her life.
Black pelt, black heart?
Freak.
“I’ve protected you. I warned you about that excess energy,” he said as the door began to close behind him. Before the metallic click of the lock, his voice took on a hint of her own level of despair. “God knows I tried.”
Rosalind stared after him, hearing his words repeat over and over in her head. Inside her, alongside her wulf, lived some kind of Otherworldly chameleon that had to be chained now that it had shown up.
Could she be, in part, a creature that was a harbinger of doom, whose purpose was to announce the death of others, without knowing about it all this time? A creature able to absorb the traits of Others, and make them her own?
God...
Was that what a Death-caller was? Another word for Banshee?
Hadn’t she heard in that disturbing howl in the park the unspoken message “Death comes”?
“Heaven help me.”
All those secrets she had so desperately wanted to know about, all those whispers about being special, had turned out to be really bad news.
Chapter 14
Colton sat with his head in his hands on a cot in a room no bigger than eight square feet. The quarters were too small for pacing and too big for hiding from the current level of his pain, half of which he attributed to the surprise of so many recent discoveries.
Jared Kirk had told him that his pain might return, and the elder had no idea what that diagnosis meant. If the pain got any worse, he might lose his mind.
Nevertheless, he’d had to take the time to settle down and focus on the fact that rationalizations were the bane of his new existence.
He was becoming an entity that had no name other than ghost, and it was possible that term was indicative of the hazy area between being Lycan and some other nameless surprise.
There was also a fair chance that being a ghost meant inhabiting the colorless, amorphous space between life and death in such a way that he might never get over it, or back to normal.
He had looked Death in the eye, he’d been told, but he didn’t remember Death looking back. All that he knew for certain was that he had dreamed of a female’s soft lips on his, of a hissed breath into his lungs, of consciousness slipping away...and that when he had awakened from the void, following his fight in the park, he had sealed himself to a female also in transition. His lover, in truth, had taken on aspects of the same monsters that had murdered his family.
“Vampire,” he said with distaste.
In strange surroundings the word sounded even worse than usual.
If Rosalind evolved into being more like a vampire than she already was, what came next for her? A desire for blood?
Would their bond be broken by the same unseen force that had put them together, if that were the case? What if it wasn’t? Would he eventually want to harm her for those new fangs or, God forbid, would she want to hurt him?
“Fine mess.”
He wondered if vows had a pecking order that required the first one to take precedence. His allegiance to his family came first. It’s what he had meant to take care of in that park.
Now, he had promised to watch over a female he was supposed to stay away from; one her father had insinuated might ve
ry well turn out to be a danger to others. This all seemed too much of a fantasy to be real...until he looked at his hands, which were ribbed with the evidence of wounds that a Lycan would be able to heal, if a Lycan were pure Lycan.
“Has all this come out of my wish for vengeance? In following my anger, have I somehow accidentally unleashed dark forces that are beyond my comprehension?”
His question fell flat in the wood-paneled room. Colton glanced to the window, high above the cot, for enlightenment, needing to feel the sun on his face, wanting a reminder of the touch of Rosalind’s healing heat. Wanting her lips, her eyes and her luscious body.
Was Rosalind’s current transition his fault, since she had been helping him when it occurred?
Each pulse that thrummed against his neck brought with it a ribbon of pain, and at the same time, an unquenchable carnal craving for Rosalind. The image of the savagery of his parents’ deaths had dimmed for the moment, overtaken by a new threshold of lust for Rosalind, whatever the hell she was to become.
And whatever the hell was to become of him.
What if he proved to be the last of his clan, and this imprinting had gone astray?
Conversely, even if he had let his parents down by not being able to protect them from all existing evils, couldn’t he make amends by saving Rosalind from a similar fate?
Jared Kirk had said that vampires might come after her here. Not only vampires, but other things, as well. Colton had no idea what that meant. Police training was so far from the parameters of this world, it did him no good at all. Otherwise, he might question why the Landaus, who had brought him back from the brink of death, couldn’t have helped Rosalind in some way.
“Well,” he whispered, watching dust motes dance as his palm hit the surface of the cot, “I suppose we didn’t give them the chance.”
It was a moot point now. They were tucked away in the Everglades. He truly was out of his element in this balmy jungle. What help he could offer here might turn out to be minuscule at best.
Another ribbon of pain struck somewhere behind his rib cage. He wondered if it might just be his heart, aching.
“Rosalind,” he whispered, needing to say her name. Needing to see his body’s reaction to the thought of her, and if that reaction had dimmed with the meager attempt at reasoning.
Nope. He wanted to see her right now. He was tired of waiting this out.
“Rosalind,” he repeated, louder.
The effect she had on him hadn’t been lessened by the shed’s thick wooden walls. If he turned his head, he knew he would see her. If he stopped the tumultuous thoughts from whirling, he’d hear her calls.
Thinking that, Colton’s heart gave one hardy kick, as if starting back up after a stall. That kick was for Rosalind, the woman he wanted so completely. Her heat beat at him in waves, and as though she was there, by his side. Her voice was in his ears, her own need reflected in the eyes he couldn’t actually see.
“Sweet wulf.”
My lover. For better or worse, my mate.
Frustration ripped through him as Colton got to his feet.
“Who else will come for you?” he remarked as the idea of Others arriving weighed heavily in his mind. Jared Kirk obviously feared who and what those Others might be. The elder Were did have his daughter’s safety at heart, and that was why he seemed like her jailer.
“A freak to protect a freak,” Colton whispered.
Kirk knew how hard his request would be, to protect Rosalind without touching her. Colton wasn’t sure he could honor that request, despite its significance. Rosalind was like catnip to his wulf, and she called out to him now, in his mind, in a voice like fire.
Or was that fire merely another stab of pain related to his injuries?
No matter which thing it turned out to be, and hoping to keep his sanity intact for a while longer, Colton covered his ears.
* * *
Evening arrived. Before checking the clock on the table, Rosalind knew when she woke up that the sun sat lower in the sky. She’d grown colder and more restless. She hadn’t meant to sleep, dreading the coming of night, but had been so tired.
The ache of the chain around her ankle had doubled. As if the links had been dipped in flames, they now robbed her of breath each time she moved. But her jaws were taut in a way that wasn’t normal, and had to be indicative of the awful changes in her mouth that her father had been waiting for.
Hell, she really was a mixture of Lycan and monster. More than just a freak, she was an abomination. And yet it was curious how much she felt like herself, in spite of all that.
Tugging again at the chain, Rosalind glanced to the locked door, then to the window. She had always been strong, and felt a surge of strength now. She had never craved freedom more than she did at that moment. Freedom, and a big brown werewolf’s overheated loins.
Bracing herself on the edge of the mattress with both hands on the chain, she yanked as hard as she could. The chain stretched by inches. The wall behind the bed groaned. Crawling on hands and knees, Rosalind found an iron ring embedded into the wall’s support beam. That beam had cracked slightly.
Riding out a wave of dizziness, she stared at the heavy metal piece that had to have always been there, hidden, for such a time as this. For a time when her father’s long-anticipated fears might come true, and an abomination would need restraint.
Her father had planned for this. He had been prepared.
“Damn him. Damn everything.”
Her body tightened by anger, Rosalind tugged again at the chain, utilizing the power of her bunched muscles. She heard a crack, and fell back as the ring came free.
Quickly, she got to her feet.
Dragging the short length of metal links, Rosalind crossed the room. The chain clanked on the floorboards as she opened the window, and again when she climbed onto the sill and was met by a dark, damp, slightly sinister Everglades breeze.
* * *
“Haven’t you heard of doors?” someone asked as her two bare feet hit the ground outside.
Rosalind stayed in a crouched position, ready to spring away.
“It’s not safe for you to be out here,” Colton Killion said. “Not tonight, or any night in the near future, I imagine.”
Rosalind straightened slowly and narrowed her gaze on the space beneath the grove of trees bordering the driveway. A lightness shone there that wasn’t affiliated with the moon. It was her ghost wulf’s paleness.
Her heart dialed into the rapid rhythm of his, finding it familiar, liking the sensation of two hearts beating as one. She easily scented the passion he withheld, and headed toward him, drawn by the pheromones in the air.
“Wait,” he cautioned in a tone tinged with uncertainty. “Don’t come closer. You can’t get closer.”
She paused to absorb what he had said. The warning hurt more than the fangs stretching her mouth out of shape.
“So,” she said, searching for control that was already slipping. “You believe my father.”
“Don’t you?”
“I have fangs, so what’s not to believe?”
“Do you have them now?” he asked tentatively.
“Yes.”
To his credit, Colton didn’t wince or drop his gaze to her mouth.
“Your father says that touching you will make things worse,” he said.
“I wonder if anything could be worse.”
“It’s torture,” he confessed in a voice hushed by strain. “You warned that it would hurt if we were separated. Being here and unable to touch you trumps that.”
Rosalind was afraid to shut her eyes or ignore his warning. What if the things they had been told were true, and instead of him changing her, she’d hurt him instead? His musky, masculine presence hadn’t been dulled by his circumstances. He seemed to fill
her vision, larger than life, every bit as sexy as he had been. Her longing for him threatened to outweigh any scrap of common sense she tried to drum up, when she had never been particularly good at common sense in the first place.
“My father didn’t tell me enough. I don’t think he knows what to do,” she said, lowering her gaze.
“Neither do I,” he confessed.
“Did he tell you what to expect? Why I’m chained?”
“Chained?” her ghostly lover repeated, as though his throat had gone dry.
She moved her foot. The chain made a dull thudding sound in the dirt.
“Hell. I had no idea,” he said.
“Now that you do?”
“I’m staying. I’ll try my best to keep them from you if your father is telling the truth. But who, I wonder, will be able to keep me from you?”
Rosalind hated common sense almost more than anything, but couldn’t give in this time. Not yet. The male across from her had been hurt enough already, some of it at her expense.
“Who does he believe will be coming?” she asked. “He failed to mention that to me.”
“He’s guessing that vampires may have your scent, and now that you’re more like them it will be easier for the vipers to find you.”
“Why would they want to find me?”
Hearing his short bark of frustrated laughter, Rosalind looked up.
“I suppose,” he suggested, “that they might want what I want, if they had any normal body parts left.”
The laughter hadn’t reached his eyes.
“But the thought of anyone else getting near you for any reason whatsoever is not only unacceptable, it’s outright disgusting.”
He paused to draw in a breath. Rosalind did the same, as if their lungs were united in the search for air.
“If they arrive, I’ll fight them. This I swear,” her ghostly protector said.
“And if they don’t come? If no one arrives and this is nothing more than supposition and my father’s personal fear?”
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