Wild Hearts 2: Wild by Night

by Jodi Lynn Copeland

  Candace couldn’t deny it and yet she also couldn’t make herself get up and turn on the light. Not until she had some idea what to expect when she did finally see him. “What do you mean, you’re hurt? Why are you hurt? How? What’s wrong with you?”

  Help…me. Light. Please…

  Shit. He wasn’t going to tell her. He was just going to keep begging her until he couldn’t beg any longer. That he was begging at all said something and it was that she couldn’t lie in this bed a second longer.

  Wrapping the top cover around her and tucking its end between her breasts, Candace moved from the bed and over to the light switch. She flipped it on, then held her breath as she slowly turned around. Her heart constricted at the sight before her while the air cruised from her lips on an agonizing gasp.

  She’d seen Duane in his almost-wolf form that night he’d lost control but she’d never seen him completely as a canine. He looked exactly as he had in her dreams and nightmares. Exactly, but for his wounds. Flesh and fur hung lifelessly from numerous gashes. Dried patches of crimson stained his chestnut coat, singeing the air with the metallic tang of blood. A wide, jagged laceration ran over his left eye and the tip of his nose seemed to be hanging on by little more than a thin strip of cartilage.

  Candace’s stomach turned over and whispers of fear chased along her spine. Pushing both sensations away, she rushed to Duane’s side and dropped down to take his face into her hands and examine his injuries more closely. His tongue slipped from his mouth to hang limply at one corner and his eyes faded to slits that seemed to scream suffering. Her belly tightened anew, her heart balling into a fist of anguish for his pain, while a blinding truth slammed into her mind and soul.

  She’d thought that Andy was her solution to forgetting him, to moving past her feelings for him, but she would never be able to do either of those things. She cared about him too much. Cared about him beyond everything, including anything that might have happened between them in the past. Even more than what he was.

  She couldn’t think about feelings now or the mistakes she’d made these last months in not giving him the chance to prove himself when he said he could maintain control no matter how intense things might become. All that mattered was helping him and that meant distancing herself from the situation, from the man and the wolf. The only way to distance herself from Duane was with anger.

  Shutting out the caustic turning of her belly and insistent press at her heart, Candace lifted her hands from his face and stood. She stepped back and, fisting her hands at her hips, glared at him. “What the hell happened to you?”

  His eyes flickered open. Panther.

  There were panthers in Clarion Heights? That was extremely creepy. Not to mention impossible. Unless they weren’t normal panthers. Unless they were werepanthers. Oh, God, when had her mind gotten so warped that she could even consider something like that as being real? Probably about the same time she’d given her heart away to a werewolf whose favorite late night snack was her breasts.

  She shivered at the thought then, remembering what she had to do here if she was to be any help to Duane, forced sarcasm into her tone. “Right. A panther. Because there are just so many panthers in Clarion Heights.”

  His eyes lulled shut again and he sprawled onto his belly. Don’t know. Help. Please.

  “Stop saying ‘please’! Or thinking it.” She couldn’t even pretend to be angry when he was pleading with her that way. She also couldn’t pretend she knew what to do, because she didn’t. “You should never have come to me, you idiot. You need serious help. A doctor.”

  Need you. Can’t…shift. Weak.

  “Then a vet. The point is I can’t help you, Duane. I don’t know anything about treating werewolves. Hell, I don’t know anything about treating regular wolves.”

  A low howl escaped him and he slumped onto his side. Torn flesh and muscles glistened with the tint of red and Candace closed her eyes against a threatening wave of tears. She sucked back her emotions and opened her eyes. She tried to glare, to stay where she was and act pissed. She couldn’t do either.

  The emotions returned in a wash and this time she was powerless from caving to them. Sniffing at the tears that slid over her cheeks, she dropped to the floor and leaned over Duane’s body, touched a finger to his broken flesh, wondering, if he looked this bad on the outside, what did it say of the shape of his insides? He whimpered in response to her gentle probing and her own fearful sigh slipped free.

  “God,” she whispered, “you’re injured in so many places. If you die, I swear I will—”

  His head lifted a bit, angled toward her until she could see his pale, watery eyes. His lips curled back in what she guessed to be a smile. Can’t…kill…me….then…

  For his benefit, Candace forced her own smile while inside her guts twisted into searing knots. He was right. If he died, she couldn’t kill him. And that was exactly why he couldn’t do it. Life might be easier without him around but it would be a hell of a lot less worth living too.

  She rocked back on her heels and narrowed her gaze. “You won’t die! You hear me, Duane, you will not die! That’s an order and I don’t want to hear anything else about it, so just…shut up.”

  His head returned to the ground and his tongue lolled back to the side of his mouth. Eyes closed, his thoughts came through slowly, drunkenly. Y-ou…f-ix…m-e….

  The uneven sound of his breathing slowed and his thoughts tapered off to nothing. His body lay inert, save for the barest of movement with his heartbeats. If ever she believed he possessed magic, she knew now she’d been wrong. If he were magical, he would fix himself. He wasn’t, he was just human. In a wolfish sort of way.

  Candace fisted her hands to keep from reaching out and pummeling him. Not because she wanted him to suffer any more pain, but because she knew he was no longer with her—at least consciously—and she was clueless what to do to help him.

  “Wake up, Duane,” she ground out. “Goddammit, you cannot pass out on me! I don’t know what to do.” She added in a gentler tone, one thick with emotion, “Please, wake up for me. If you wake up, I will do whatever you want. I’ll give in, Duane. I’ll admit you were right about us all along. Just open your eyes and look at me.”

  His body remained silent, his thoughts the same, and she closed her eyes and blew out a ragged breath. Shit. Shit, shit, shit!

  She had to get herself together. Had to take stock of his injuries as best as she could and do everything in her power to try and fix them. She had to because he wasn’t going to die. He couldn’t. Because if he did, she would never be able to forgive herself for not admitting to the way she felt about him.

  * * * * *

  “Candace.”

  At her whispered name, Candy turned back from where she stared out the window at the dawning of a new day. Dim light bled into her bedroom from between the curtains and onto the bed where she’d managed to maneuver Duane when he’d been semi-coherent several hours ago. His eyes were open and he watched her with alertness that spoke to fact he was more than semi-coherent now. He was awake and…alive. Her heart squeezed with near painful relief.

  Thank God, he was going to be okay.

  Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to distance herself from him last night. She’d battled with panic and sorrow the entire time she’d spent tending to his injuries, suturing those wounds that needed it and applying gauze and tape to the remainder. She’d experienced those emotions right up until a few short hours ago when she gave him one of many washcloth baths in the hopes of keeping his fever down.

  She had almost completed the task of wetting his fur with cold water when his body moved under her hands. She’d held her breath, prayed he was regaining consciousness. Only he hadn’t regained consciousness. Instead, he’d shifted. The sound of bones grinding together as they changed shape and size had had her belly roiling in an instant. The sight of his naked, sweaty human form beneath her palms when the shifting process was over had the roiling in her belly tu
rning to a pang of hunger that settled much farther down than her stomach.

  Due to Candace’s fear of covering him and bringing his temperature up in the process, Duane was still naked now and her gaze automatically moved over his body. She tried to view him as a patient, tried to take in his many wounds and the way they already seemed to have significantly improved. Tried not to notice how long and lean and perfect he looked laying in her bed, his dark head resting on her pillows. She failed on all accounts the moment he shifted his leg to reveal a quickly lengthening erection.

  Her own body pulsed to life with the sight of his strong, sturdy cock jutting up from a thick patch of chestnut brown hair. Juices flowed deep within her pussy and dampened the crotch of her cotton shorts. She hadn’t had time to worry over underwear or a bra last night; she’d barely even had time to throw on a T-shirt and shorts. Since she wasn’t about to look down and check, she could only assume her wetness was visible against the pale gray cotton.

  Wrenching her attention from his groin, Candace crossed to the side of the bed. Duane’s nostrils flared at her approach and she sensed her own response on instinct, inhaling his intoxicating scent and making her clit tingle with awareness.

  God, she wanted to touch him. To prove to herself he really was here in her bed and looking so much healthier than he had even four or five hours ago. She couldn’t touch him. Not now, when he was still her patient. And, more importantly, not until they had a chance to talk about things. Since she planned to follow up that talk with action of the most pleasurable kind, it wasn’t happening until he was completely better.

  “You’re awake,” she finally said, stunned by the sound of her own voice. The house had been dark and silent for so long. She hadn’t even heard Carrie leave for her sadistic morning run.

  Duane’s gaze left hers and he looked down at his body. He glanced back at her and his brow furrowed as he croaked out, “When…”

  Candace reached for her glass of water on the nightstand and brought it to his dry lips. He lifted his head but didn’t even try to maneuver the drink himself and that told her even more than his low, scratchy voice that, while he might be feeling some better, he was still in a good deal of pain. “Drink slowly and only a little bit, or you’ll get sick,” she said in her nurse’s voice.

  His question returned to her as he drank and she fought off a shiver over the renewed memory of his shifting. “A few hours ago, when I was giving you a cool-down bath. Between the fact I never expected it to happen and I never imagined when it did happen it would sound so incredibly disgusting, it’s safe to say you scared the fuck out of me.”

  He took a last sip of water, then laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. “I’m…sorry.”

  “Don’t talk.” By the sound of his rasped words, it hurt him to do so. Even if it didn’t, it still hurt her, squeezed pressure at her heart and had her chest swelling with ache for him. “You’re doing better, unbelievably so, but you still aren’t in the clear. You need more sleep.”

  Duane’s eyes popped open and he shook his head. “No—”

  “Damn it, yes,” Candace snapped, instinctively responding to him the way she always did when he acted difficult, with temper. “I am the professional here, remember? You want to be a pain in the ass tomorrow or whenever it is you’re able to get your butt out of my bed and go home, fine. Today, we do things my way. And that means you go back to sleep.”

  He stared at her, his eyes searching her face for several long seconds, and then they closed again and he rolled onto his stomach, emitting a yelp in the process. She opened her mouth to tell him to roll back over, that it wasn’t smart to be lying on his stomach when his wounds were still so fresh. Nothing made it out short of a whimper.

  Candace took a step back to keep herself from giving in to the temptation his ass presented. Tight. Taut. Perfect. She wanted to grab a cheek in each hand and squeeze. She wanted to turn him back over, straddle his groin and grab hold of his buttocks as she drove herself onto his magnificent cock. She wanted to forget about waiting on the talk and say the words right now so she didn’t have to feel so damned guilty about standing here, ogling him. She didn’t do anything she wanted but crossed her arms over breasts made heavy by arousal and turned her back on him.

  “You were right.”

  Muffled by the pillow beneath him, Duane’s words were barely audible and brought her swiveling back around to ask, “What?”

  He placed a palm flat on the mattress near his shoulder and, groaning with the effort, rolled back over to eye her somberly. It was an expression she’d seen on his face only one other time. Last year, when he’d realized the way his savage behavior had hurt her.

  Whatever he was about to say had to be life altering, or at least close to it. That knowledge took any residual heat she was feeling from that spectacular view of an even more spectacular ass and destroyed it. “Whatever it is you seem to think I was so right about, just tell me already.”

  “We don’t belong together.”

  Candace’s belly lurched, her pulse skittering while her mind turned with disbelief. He was wrong, damn it! She had not been right. It didn’t happen often—okay only twice in her whole entire life—but it had this time. They belonged together. And he knew it, too. “You’re sick, Duane. Probably even hallucinating from the pain medicine I gave you. You don’t mean what you’re saying.”

  “Yes, I do. You are my mate, the only woman I will ever want, but that doesn’t matter any more. I would rather be alone forever than let this—” he lifted the hand he’d placed at his ribs to gesture to his wounded body, “—be your life. It isn’t a life and I won’t let you go through it again. I shouldn’t have last night. I just…” He broke off on a wheeze that quickly turned to a rasping cough and shook his entire frame. When the coughing ceased, he finished on a whisper, “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  Because there had been no other place. She’d been scared, unsure how to treat him, and yet she’d known, almost from the moment he’d shown up in her room, she wouldn’t have wanted him to go to anyone else for help.

  Once more the urge to touch him coursed through Candace. She dropped her arms to her sides and, fisting her hands, eased that impulse away. Soon. Very soon. Now he needed the woman she hadn’t been able to be last night, the strong, stubborn one who relied on severity to get her out of many a tight situation.

  She narrowed her gaze and said firmly, “You did the right thing in coming here, Duane. Now be quiet and go to sleep. You’re tiring yourself out and wasting your breath over nonsense.”

  “I scared you,” he murmured.

  The shit out of her and then some. “Outside of when you shifted, which, I already told you the effect that had on me, you didn’t scare me.”

  His mouth twitched, started to turn into a frown that edged into his goatee, then instead sparked into a weak smile. “I could sense your fear last night, Candy, sweetie. I can still sense it now.”

  And she could sense the number that sexy smile of his was doing to her shorts.

  God, she could so not think about the insistent throbbing of her pussy right now. “If you think so, then your sensors are seriously in need of a checkup. I was worried last night, if anything. Worried my sister would come in and find you in my room. Worried about how I would ever get your blood out of my carpet. Worried about getting even a wink of sleep.” Worried once he closed his eyes he would never open them again.

  Candace pushed away the thought, refusing to let it affect her emotions and start up the tears she’d cried too many of last night. “That’s all it was, just worry.”

  Duane’s smile faded and he eyed her down hard. He didn’t have to tell her she’d been anxious enough right then to have her thoughts coming through to him loud and clear, the bite in his lowly spoken words was clear. “Don’t lie. I hate it when you lie. It makes me angry. It makes me want to get out of this bed and take you over my knee.”

  That wasn’t supposed to be an invitat
ion she thrilled in and had her cunt flooding with excitement but somehow it managed to still affect her that way. “You’re not getting out of that bed,” she growled, determined to get him back to sleep even if it took all morning. “I didn’t save your sorry ass just so you could go and die anyway.”

  He snarled at her and the sharp points of burgeoning fangs showed just past his lips. “Then tell the truth.”

  In the past, the sight of those fangs had brought Candace fear, now they seemed nothing more than a part of him. A part of the man she cared deeply for and, if she was ever going to have the opportunity to prove it to him, the man she had to get healthy again. “That’s what it’s going to take to get you to listen to reason, the truth?”

  He looked thoughtful, as if he were contemplating if she seriously meant to tell him, and then nodded. “Yes.”

  “Fine. I was scared. I was scared shitless, as a matter of fact, and it wasn’t about my sister, the carpet or any damned thing else but you.”

  Duane pulled in an audible breath. “Because I was a wolf and you thought I would hurt you the same way I did before.”

  “No, you idiot, because I thought you were going to lose consciousness and never wake up again. I thought… I thought I would never get to say I was sorry.” Candace’s voice broke on that last and she rolled her eyes and cursed her stupidity. She did not want to talk to him about feelings now and, if she started in with the blubbering again, there wouldn’t be a single damned way around it.

  Curiosity filled his eyes and he asked quietly, “For what?”

  “Nothing. For nothing. I’m just rambling. I do that when I’m tired. I only got an hour of sleep last night thanks to someone. Now go to sleep, so I can do the same.”

  To her astonishment, Duane closed his eyes as if in agreement. Ten minutes passed and his breathing evened out. Relieved to finally have him asleep, so she could do the same, she crept toward the bed. She’d almost reached it when his eyes snapped open and he looked at her. “Where?”