Dire Desires ewc-3

by Stephanie Tyler

  “You called for the head of the hunters,” she said, and he had, not more than four hours ago through a weremessenger.

  “You’re a Were.”

  She shook her head like he was the stupidest wolf alive. “You’re really the next king?”

  “I am the king,” he told her in a growl that shook the room and she had the good sense to take a step back and bow her head.

  She was a beta—he sensed that now, even though she’d come off as very alpha on first approach.

  “I’m Violet,” she told him, her chin raised in a show of pride or defiance or maybe both. “I want to join your pack.”

  “And leave the hunters?”

  “I’m not their leader.”

  “Then I didn’t invite you here.”

  “I don’t wait for invitations,” she told him. She was slim with cool green eyes that drew him in from this distance. Full Were.

  There were tribal tattoos circling both slim biceps. Other tattoos down her arms, words and symbols in black that Liam should want to take his time reading.

  Instead, he wanted her out. “You can go. I’m not taking visitors.”

  “You need me on your team.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I can fight.”

  “I have plenty of fighters.”

  “Not ones who are as good as I am—no females. I’m your surprise.”

  He snorted. “Take it up with Cyd—he’s my alpha.”

  “I’m taking it up with you. I’ll fight my way in.”

  She turned on her heel to leave. Before she could get far, he grabbed her arm and she was trying her best to look calm—halfway succeeding. He had to give her credit since his reputation for bloodletting was growing to legendary status every hour that passed.

  “Tell your hunter leader that he made a mistake by not coming here to pay me some goddamned respect. Tell him I might have to teach you some while I’m at it.”

  “Maybe I’d enjoy that,” she bit out with a snarl, her canines lengthening a little and fuck it all, he was hard.

  “Maybe you should be careful what you wish for.”

  He let her go with that and she bounded off into the night, her white top glowing in the moonlight, the damned pink bra teasing him. He wanted to shift, run her down and yank it off with his teeth and dammit, it was happening.

  Where was all the control Vice taught him? He couldn’t tell if Vice would be proud or pissed but he didn’t care either way now that the wolf was in control.

  She still ran in front of him, unshifted, looking over her shoulder. She had to know she had no hope of winning this race and finally, her shirt flew in the air, like she knew she had to save her clothing so as not to walk home naked.

  She whirled around and held him off as she tugged off her heavy boots and her jeans. And then she simply stood there in her pink bra and matching lace pink thong, a large tattoo of a dragonfly fluttering delicately across her taut middle. Whirled around and kicked him in the face with a hard roundhouse kick that sent him backward and brought his wolf out hard.

  He forced it back, the way Vice taught him, but that came at a price. His anger would be uncontrollable if this Were continued to assert dominance by fighting.

  For a few moments, she did—when he caught her, she bit and kicked and scratched, her own wolf half out. Finally, she stopped struggling when he howled at the sky and threw her to the ground. Instead of trying to get up, she lay there, watching him. Waiting.

  He jumped onto her, pinning her.

  And she bared her throat to him.

  “I don’t care that you’re a woman. Do you get that?” He’d never be taken in by soft hair or a pretty face or general anatomy again.

  “Good. Think of me as your beta and we’ll be just fine.”

  He took her down, poised his open mouth over her throat, his canines elongated, ready to rip open her life force.

  Her pulse raced but she remained still, throat bared, submissive.

  She was fucking lying.

  He pushed off her. “Don’t ever come back here again.”

  She didn’t say another word and he fought not to limp all the way back to the sunroom, giving himself credit for never turning back no matter how badly he wanted to.

  He stripped in front of the bathroom mirror to survey the scratches from the beta. She hadn’t exactly held her own with him, fight-wise, but he hadn’t expected her to. Still, she hadn’t backed down and that, he hadn’t expected.

  “What the hell? A girl beat you down?” Cyd asked.

  “Can I have some privacy?”

  “You want that, close the bathroom door.”

  Liam glanced at Cyd. “I know you both researched her while I was gone, so what do we know about her?”

  Cyd smiled. “I knew you’d ask. But maybe we don’t have to have this meeting in the bathroom.”

  Liam complied, trailing the alpha into the living room where Cain waited with a file.

  “Violet used to bounty hunt for her old pack out in Wisconsin,” Cain started as Liam flipped through the papers. “There’s no details here about why she left—or whether or not she was kicked out, but after that, she started working with the hunters against the weretrappers. She passed for a while, and by the time they discovered she was wolf, she was too valuable to be let go.”

  “So why come to us?”

  “Why the hell not?” Cyd demanded.

  “We need a beta,” Cain added.

  “Forget it,” Liam said firmly and neither twin argued. “Find out why she left Wisconsin.” Because he would never let himself be burned by a woman again.

  Chapter 21

  It was three days until Jinx felt that all the drugs were out of his system. And he waited an extra few, just in case. By then, both his wolf and Gillian were climbing the walls. There was only so much the roof, fresh air and orgasms could do. And she didn’t understand why they weren’t having sex again—but he wasn’t about to talk mating with her. Not when she already had more than enough to deal with going on inside her head.

  A Dire wolf due for her first shift couldn’t be controlled—he could only hope for containment. Between the Dires and the goddamned hellhounds, he had coverage, but relying on hellhounds to keep monsters out of the way was the most perverse game he’d ever played. And yet, he was trapped inside of it with no way out for the foreseeable future and a potential mate running loose in the woods.

  The one thing they had going for them was that they weren’t likely to run into anyone looking for Gillian Blackwell in the woods, running naked.

  He had to let her run. Tell her that on her birthday, he would take her farther up, maybe even Canada to let her run, but he wouldn’t make a promise he couldn’t keep.

  But tonight’s promise already made her cheeks flush with excitement. She was practically vibrating on the ride over to the mansion. He parked in the garage and they went through the house and the tunnels, and she barely looked at anything. She was focused on the outside and nothing would deter her.

  It was quiet inside the house—he assumed the Dires were out running. Cain and Cyd had left him check-in messages a few times but he hadn’t returned the calls. Instead, he’d texted them.

  Rogue and Jez, he knew, were out in the cemetery, looking for any obvious issues with the monsters. Everything with the trappers had been quiet. And Cyd had personally vetted the woods for him tonight. Maybe he and Cain were out there, prepared to watch out for Jinx. He hadn’t asked them but he wouldn’t put it past them.

  Once in the sunroom, Gillian stripped, faster than he did and she took off. For a second he watched, mesmerized by her speed—and her beautiful bare ass—and then he snapped to, stripped, shifted and let Brother Wolf catch up with her. Or try to. He didn’t know if it was the drugs doing it or what but, dammit all, he was having trouble catching her.

  And the worst part was, he didn’t think she was going at her top speed. She kept looking over her shoulder, slowing to let him catch up and then el
uding his grasp.

  He was so caught up in the game that he didn’t realize how far they’d gone. He couldn’t howl and expect her to stop, so he had to shift instead, which cost him. Thankfully, she slowed a bit and he waved his hands, called quietly, “Gilly, you can’t go any farther—time to turn back.”

  If she heard him, she ignored it, speeding up. If anyone tried to catch her on film and clock her time, they’d know for sure she wasn’t human. The speed with which she moved was incredible. Jinx would have to shift back to keep up and fully protect her from whatever dangers lurked in these woods, ones she seemed oblivious to.

  Brother had no problem with the quick shifts and finally, with effort, he caught her, running in front of her and waiting, forcing her to stop. She did so. Smiled. She wasn’t even out of breath.

  She’d let him catch her. He shifted and grabbed her by the waist as she giggled.

  “You told me I could run. That I needed to.” She put her hands in the air. “That was amazing!”

  He couldn’t be angry. “We just have to be careful.”

  “I’m sorry—I just couldn’t stop. We can go back now.” She managed to look a little chastened but her smile broke through. “When can we do it again? When will I be able to shift, like you?”

  He’d told her everything but that. “On your birthday.”

  “My birthday?” she echoed, her voice suddenly hollow. “Why didn’t you tell me it would happen so soon?”

  “Your birthday is in three weeks,” he said, but she shook her head and his gut tightened.

  “My parents shortened the last name and changed the birthday to keep anyone from connecting the famous Blackwell daughter to the crazy thing they locked up. My twenty-first birthday’s tomorrow, Jinx.”

  Tomorrow, as in five fucking minutes from now. They were exposed, out in the open and too far from the Dire house for his comfort. “We’ve got to go back. Come on.”

  He kept his tone light and guided her through the woods, joking, “You can’t tell my brothers that you beat me running. Or Jez—the deadhead would never let me live it down.”

  She laughed a little, then said, “Wouldn’t running be faster?”

  “It might bring the shift out.”

  “So it doesn’t happen exactly at midnight?”

  “Not always. And it’s past midnight.”

  “Okay, that’s good. Maybe we’ll make it.”

  “Gilly, no matter when it happens, I’ll make sure you’re just fine.”

  She was so vulnerable. He couldn’t call out for fear of calling attention to them, just waited for the familiar signs of the shift and tried to keep her calm.

  They were five miles from the Dire mansion when she said suddenly, “I feel . . . weird,” and yeah, there was that. She clutched her chest and then her throat, stared up at him.

  “Let’s keep going,” he suggested, but a snarl came out of her mouth and as he moved to hold her hand again Brother warned him to back the fuck off. “Okay, we can stay here. But Gilly, this is important as hell—whatever you do—when you shift, you can’t run anywhere but toward the house. You can stay wolf inside the house. You can tear the place apart, but we can’t stay out here.”

  “I thought . . . you said . . . safe?” she asked, more growls escaping. She trembled too.

  “You’re okay,” he soothed her. She was so goddamned beautiful, so gloriously naked. Would she always take his breath away like this?

  “Make love to me, Jinx. Please. Now.”

  So dangerous. All he could do when he was around her was do goddamned dangerous things, and this was no exception. And since he was already good and naked, it made the decision that much easier. Because Brother was tired of thinking all the time, of making the right choice, of watching out for the humans instead of enjoying his own primal nature. Watching Gillian had reminded him of that.

  Maybe he understood Rifter’s position more than he thought. Maybe the king was also hanging on to his structure by a thread.

  This isn’t mating sex, he justified. It was their second time.

  And she’s readying to shift.

  “Fuck it. Time to live on the edge,” he muttered as he yanked her close, ignored the snark and kissed her until she was putty in his arms. Pliable. Maybe Sister Wolf would hold out until they’d gotten their fill.

  He kissed her breathless, until he was barely thinking. Until everything base and primal inside of him took over, laid her on the mossy floor of the woods.

  It was hot. Dirty. The way it should be for them. And Gillian was locking her legs around his waist, driving him inside of her almost immediately.

  “Yes, Jinx.” She arched up into him as he thrust deeply, over and over. Wanted all of her—wanted to own her.

  A part of him already did.

  He wasn’t sure how long they made love in the woods like that—it seemed too short but it was probably closer to an hour, more like a promise than a mating—the second time typically was.

  “Don’t let go of me,” she begged him and he buried his face against her neck, bit down along her collarbone and she groaned. “Do that again.”

  He laughed, did so. And then she bit his shoulder, hard enough to cause his orgasm. It pushed her along and she climaxed with a loud cry—his name on the wind and he bit back his own howl as he tried to preserve any privacy they might have left.

  Maybe they were meant to escape all of this unscathed. Maybe, for once, it would be easy because it felt so right.

  She was stroking his hair. He was still inside of her, still hard. Wanting nothing more than to take her again. But that would have to wait.

  “Gillian,” he started, but something flashed behind her eyes and they glowed a little more.

  “It’s happening,” she whispered. He rolled off of her before she threw him off. In seconds, she was on all fours, her fingers digging into the dirt, shaking her head against the rustling that he knew from experience was deafening by now.

  “Go with it. Sister Wolf knows what to do.”

  “Suppose I don’t make it.”

  “You will. You have to. I need you,” he told her.

  * * *

  It was a feeling Gillian knew she’d never be able to describe thoroughly enough. There was pain—she heard bones popping but she was so absorbed, it was as if she was having an out-of-body experience. The rustling in her ears was as loud as it was calming and she breathed and gave in, because there was nothing else she could do.

  She was done fighting her body’s natural instincts. She’d done that for twenty-one long years and finally, she was allowed to shed her skin. Still tingling from the orgasm and Jinx’s touch, she felt confident. She closed her eyes and felt herself transform.

  She wasn’t sure how long it took, but when she blinked, she knew she was looking at the world from an entirely different angle. She threw back her head and Sister Wolf howled, a loud, mournful sound even though her heart was light.

  She looked down at her paws—the soft fur that covered her was the same color as her hair. Her eyes would have the same glow Jinx’s did. And the rustling was gone, replaced by a low, growling voice that told her, Sister Wolf is here to protect you.

  And me, you, Gillian told the wolf in return.

  When she looked at Jinx, he’d shifted as well. Brother and Sister Wolf nosed one another. And then, they ran, her wolf reminding her of the promise she’d made to Jinx to run toward the Dire mansion.

  She did so. The power she released as she ran was incredible, a rush beyond her wildest imagination. Her paws were strong on the earth, her balance, perfect. She jumped and sidestepped, swiveled and cut as she navigated the dark woods path, her eyesight better than ever.

  Her life would never, ever be the same. And if Jinx hadn’t come to find her, to save her, who knew where she’d be.

  But now, she was happy. And she simply kept running, because that was all that was expected of her.

  * * *

  Gillian was happy. Sister Wolf was gorg
eous. Graceful. Jinx would have a hard time talking her out of staying a wolf for days at a time, but taking the first three shifts quickly was important.

  They’d already run for hours before her shift and she showed no signs of wanting to stop. She was powerful—he’d been right about her warrior ways. They were a part of her bloodline, bred into her, a birthright she’d come into.

  She was trying to run in a direct line toward the mansion, but Sister got easily distracted by scents, different trails and he had to rally her to stay on track. They still were several miles away when shots rang through the air. He saw something whiz by his head and hit the tree behind him. Tranquilizer darts.

  Trappers.

  And they were after Gillian, for no other reason than she was a wolf. He knew he should be grateful for the small miracle of them not being able to recognize her as Gillian Blackwell, but that didn’t make the danger any less real. He supposed they were here and out for blood to avenge their friends.

  When the darts went right above her head, it must’ve frightened her enough that she shifted. Naked, crouched on the ground of the woods, her face shone fearful in the moonlight as she looked to Jinx silently.

  He didn’t shift, went to her and crouched down, hoping she’d understand. She did, pulled herself flat onto his back with her hands in the thick scruff around his neck and she hung on for dear life as he ran them out of the darkness and toward the Dire house, where they’d be safe again. As they ran toward the house, Vice’s white wolf ran past him, followed by Stray and Killian.

  Jinx didn’t stop until they were safely inside the screened-in porch that would forever be protected by Seb’s magic. Jinx eased Gillian off of him and shifted. Gathered her into his arms and walked her through the hallway until he got to one of the guest bedrooms in the twins’ apartment area. He wrapped her in a blanket because she was shivering, checking her first to make sure she hadn’t been hit.

  Her eyes hadn’t changed back all the way yet.

  “I froze,” she whispered, lowered her face as though terribly ashamed.

  “You’re new at this, Gilly. Not used to shifting, never mind having people shoot at you.”