Eyes Like a Wolf

by Evangeline Anderson

  “I didn't think I'd see you either.” I hugged him back, content for the moment to just be near him and drink in his wonderful, masculine smell. It was the scent I had missed so much as it slowly faded from my sheets and pillows in the last few weeks. Breathing him in, I felt like a drowning woman who had just gotten her first breath of air in days.

  He pulled back from me and frowned. “You're bleeding.”

  I looked down at the long, shallow cut in my forearm. I had almost forgotten it was there, but sure enough, I was still dripping blood.

  “I cut myself on the window,” I said. “It's nothing.”

  “The hell it's not. Here.” Richard lifted my arm to his mouth and for a moment I thought he was going to bite me. I tried to pull away, but he shook his head, his voice as soft and coaxing as it had been harsh and menacing a moment before when he talked to Gravel Voice. “Trust me, Rachel,” he said. “I would never hurt you.”

  I allowed him to bring my arm to his lips, but instead of kissing or biting, he stroked gently over my cut flesh with his tongue. I gasped at the sudden warm, tingling sensations that shot up my arm. It was as though he licked me somewhere else entirely. I pressed my thighs tightly together and tried not to think about that.

  “What…what are you doing to me?” I could barely get the words out.

  “Healing you.” Richard gave my arm one last, long caress and looked at me, his pale green eyes filled with fire. “Look.”

  I looked down, surprised to see that the long jagged cut in my arm was almost entirely healed now. Only a faint pink scar remained, and even that faded as I watched.

  “How did you do that?” I looked up at him in bewilderment.

  “Born light and dark, yet of one breed. If one is bitten, the other will bleed. Joined as one their bond to seal. If one is wounded the other may heal,” he murmured.

  I had the strangest feeling I'd heard those words before, but I couldn't remember where. “What does that mean?” I asked, looking up at him.

  “It means that I'm your Lanor-zur—your mate whether you want to admit it or not. It's the reason I can heal you—because we're bonded. Because I love you.” He stroked my cheek softly with one hand, and for a moment I forgot that we were standing in a cage waiting for Momo “the shark” Andretti to come do away with us.

  “The same way that bullet wound in your chest healed,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Because we're stronger together than apart. Because we need each other. I missed you, Rachel. I need you.” He captured my mouth in a hot kiss, sliding his hands into my hair to hold me in place. I felt the forbidden fire pour into my veins like a drug and for a moment I melted against him, giving in to the kiss completely. He kissed me long and thoroughly, exploring my mouth as though he needed to reassert his ownership of me. I felt my body heating under his touch, my nipples tightening, and the tender vee of my sex getting suddenly wet. Oh, God, we couldn't do this now…not now.

  It took a tremendous effort but I finally managed to push him away. He tried to kiss me again, almost roughly, as though he was driven to do it, unable to help himself.

  “Please, Richard,” I gasped, putting my hands on his chest and trying to catch my breath after the merciless kiss.

  He frowned and let me go. “So you're still not ready to admit what you feel? What you need?”

  I shook my head. “We don't have time for this now. We have to get out of here.”

  “Like I haven't tried about a thousand times already.” He laughed mirthlessly and sat down heavily, his bare back to the iron bars. “But you're right; if we don't get out of here in the next half hour, your friend is going to be in serious trouble.”

  “Genevieve!” My hand flew to my mouth, and I ran to where she lay in the far corner of the cell. I felt a surge of shame that I'd completely forgotten her in the urgent rush of seeing Richard again. I got on my knees beside her and touched her face tentatively. She lay on her side breathing deeply, but when I patted her cheek and called her name she didn't wake up. There was a small smear of blood on her forehead, and I could feel a lump rising under her bushy brown hair. Gravel Voice must have knocked her on the head with the butt of his gun—I only hoped she wasn't in some kind of a coma.

  “There's nothing you can do for her, Rachel. And if we can't get her out of here, it's better she stays unconscious.” Richard's voice was bleakly pragmatic. Reluctantly, I turned away from Genevieve to face him.

  “What are you talking about? You wouldn't really hurt her, would you?”

  He looked tired and sad. “I won't be able to help it when I change. I won't touch you—you're my Lana-zeel, and I'd know you, know your sweet scent, in any form. But her…to the beast inside me, she's just prey.”

  “I don't understand.” I sank to the ground in front of him, wrapping my arms around my knees. The light in the huge warehouse was growing dimmer and dimmer, and soon the moon would start to rise. “Why couldn't you escape earlier? I know how strong you are.”

  Richard shook his head. “I was weak. I stayed away from you too long, and it took a toll on me.”

  “I was weak too.” I thought of my horrible dreams, the way I couldn't seem to think properly, the way I barely had the strength to do anything in those past horrible two weeks and realized that I felt better now, stronger than I had in the last fourteen days since Richard had left.

  “I knew you would be,” Richard said. “Because we need each other, Rachel.” He sighed. “I wanted to go back after the end of the first week—couldn't stand to be away from you anymore. And I was hoping you might be feeling the same way. That you'd finally be ready to admit what we both need.”

  “So what happened?” I asked, refusing to be drawn into a discussion of what we meant to each other again.

  Richard shrugged. “I was weak with wanting you when they jumped me—too weak to even do a partial change. They beat me. When I wouldn't lose consciousness, they drugged me. I woke up here.” He gestured around the stark confines of the cage. “I think they've been holding me because the big boss is out of town. I guess he's coming back tonight.”

  “And you're supposed to be the prime entertainment,” I murmured, thinking furiously. “Look, Richard, do you think that you could break out of here now? Now that we're back together?”

  He looked thoughtful. “It's worth a try. I do feel better than I have since that last night…the night we—”

  “Well, maybe you should try,” I said urgently, cutting him off. Why was it that we were stuck in a life-threatening situation, and all I could think about was his hands on my body, his mouth covering mine and moving lower in a hot, wet, trail of kisses? Things I knew I shouldn't be thinking about at all.

  Without another word, Richard stood and put his hands on two of the bars. They were rough and thick, about the circumference of one of my wrists and I never would have expected a normal man to be able to bend them apart. But I knew my brother's strength, and I hoped against hope that it would be enough to get us out of this mess.

  He closed his eyes and I saw his biceps and the impressive muscles in his broad back flex as he pulled with all his might. All the veins under his smooth, tan skin popped out alarmingly, and the iron bars gave a low groaning sound. His face contorted with effort and I could tell he was doing the best he could, but they gave less than a centimeter.

  He stopped, panting. “It's no good. Maybe if we hadn't spent so much time apart. Or if we'd sealed the bond. A sealed bond would give me ten times my normal strength. But not now. It's been too long, and I'm too weak.” He sounded bitter, angry, and disappointed with himself.

  I bit my lip, not wanting to talk about the bond between us or what it would take to seal it. “Try again,” I urged. “One more time—they gave a little bit. If they were just a little wider apart, I could squeeze through and go find help.”

  Richard nodded. “All right.” He grasped the bars again with the same result—nothing. But he strained against them until the big muscles of his arms
were jumping with tension.

  “Stop, Richard.” I put a hand on his broad back and felt him trembling. But when he turned to face me, I could see that it wasn't exhaustion that made him shake. His eyes were wide and full, the pupils tiny pinpricks as the pale green fire around them ate the black. I could smell his scent again, and it was stronger than ever, muskier, more animalistic. He looked at me with unmistakable hunger in his eyes.

  “The moon…I can feel it.” His voice was a low growl.

  To my horror, I could feel it too—the familiar, icy fingertips on the back of my neck sensation that told me the full moon was out. And, oh, God, Richard was starting to change! I didn't know what to do, how to stop it. If he changed, he would kill Genevieve, who still lay helplessly on the floor in the far corner of the cage. And if I saw him do that, if I saw him kill my friend and bathe in her blood, I knew things would be over between me and Richard forever. Because no matter how horrible I felt physically when we were apart, I just couldn't get over watching him do something like that. I just couldn't.

  “Rachel, God! I don't want you to watch this. I'm sorry…sorry it had to come to this.” Already his features were distorting. His even, white teeth were lengthening into fangs as I watched, and his eyes were growing wilder, less human, by the second.

  “Richard, stop,” I begged him, as though my pleas would do any good. Inside, I cursed myself. If only I had made love to him, had let him breed me when he wanted to, this would never have happened. In fact, if our bond had been sealed, Richard probably would have been strong enough to break out of here and come back to me. But then, he never would have left in the first place, if I had granted him full access to my body and let him do what he wanted. It still felt wrong to think of letting him do that, to think of letting him take my virginity and shove his thick cock all the way inside me to flood me with his essence. But breaking a taboo that was mostly in my own head would have been infinitely preferable to watching him change helplessly into a beast and tear my friend apart.

  Even as I thought these things, it was too late. Richard's entire body changed. His face lengthened into a muzzle, and his fingers grew together into paws. I watched in the semi-gloom, horrified at what I saw, what I heard. His skin was popped, and patches of thick black fur broke out all over his body. He was shaking, trembling, and I knew the process had to be horribly painful for him. The jeans he had been wearing suddenly split at the crotch and waist with a low, purring sound and fell to the floor at his feet.

  I watched in horrified fascination, unable to look away as my brother became something completely alien. This was nothing like the semi-human monster I'd seen him change into the night after our dinner at Bern's. This was an animal, pure and simple. And as I looked into its eyes, I realized it was a hungry animal.

  “Richard.” I was almost crying in fear and despair. “Oh, God, don't do this! Come back to me!”

  I think he may have tried to talk, but by then his mouth wasn't able to form words at all. I watched as his body contorted and the last of his humanity leaked from the pale green eyes. And then, suddenly, I realized he was completely gone.

  A huge black wolf-like creature with eyes like green fire stood before me. As I watched, it threw back its head and howled, a long, lonely sound that split the night and froze the blood in my veins.

  I was going to die.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Richard?” I said tentatively, my eyes never leaving the huge, shaggy, black form. It stood on its hind legs like a man, or maybe more like a bear that has reared up to attack, but its features were completely non-human. I searched the depths of those pale green eyes, looking for a single spark of humanity, just one faint trace of my brother. But there was nothing to see.

  The beast that had been Richard threw back its head and howled again, a sound filled with hunger and need. Fear crawled up my spine as the beast took a step toward me. It was at least ten feet tall, and thanks to my Amon-kai vision, I could see it very well, despite the fact that it was now completely dark in the warehouse. Its arms and legs were shaggy, its paws tipped with long, deadly looking claws. Its chest and belly were smoother, however, and as I looked lower, I saw that it still had all-male equipment, though it was considerably larger than it had been when Richard was a man. In fact, it was huge—I could tell that, even though he wasn't erect at the time, thank God.

  It took another step toward me, and I shrank away, feeling the cold iron bars brand my back like icy fingers. Oh, God, there was no place to go, no place to run. Richard had told me he would know me in any form, but pure hunger burned in his inhuman eyes. The desire to devour and I was his intended prey.

  “No,” I said in a low, trembling voice. “No, please. Please, don't.”

  The beast whined deep in its throat and took one more shuffling step toward me. I shrank away from it, scooting around the perimeter of the cage, keeping the bars to my back. I didn't know what I was trying to accomplish, since there was no place to run, but my mind was a blank slate, filled with panic. I wasn't thinking very clearly at all. I just knew I had to keep moving, had to stay away from the huge, shaggy nightmare that had been my brother.

  Pale green eyes followed me, but the beast made no move to advance. Suddenly, my foot kicked something soft and giving, and I stopped, confused as to what I had stepped on. I didn't want to take my eyes away from the thing that had been Richard, but I risked a quick glance down at my feet. Genevieve! My friend was still out cold, helpless and defenseless, and I had led the beast right to her.

  She stirred slightly and moaned, and I saw the beast's eyes narrow at the soft sound. Its long pointed snout wrinkled in a silent snarl, and then it began to advance, the hunger burning in its green eyes like torches in the night.

  “No! No, no.” I put out my arms like a traffic cop signaling “stop” and shook my head at the beast. The fear I'd been feeling for my own safety dissipated in my horror at what might happen to Genevieve. “Richard, no,” I told him. “No, you can't.”

  But he, or it, was already sidling around me, sniffing at Genevieve's feet and legs, clad in her customary comfortable flats and black dress slacks. It opened its mouth and I could see rows of teeth gleaming like daggers, white and curved and deadly.

  “No!” I tried to shoo it away, but it growled at me. Obviously, the hunger was too strong to deny. Richard's beast demanded to be fed, and it had to be appeased. But how? How could I stop it from ripping my friend to chunks and shreds and swallowing her whole? I bit my lip and closed my eyes, and then I seemed to hear Richard's voice in my head.

  Once a month, when the full moon is in the sky, I become a creature that is neither wolf nor human but partially both—a form that truly is monstrous. When that happens, there are only two ways to regain my human form. Either I have to join with my Lana-zeel, something I have yet had the opportunity to do, or…I have to kill someone.

  My eyes flew open, and I knew what I had to do. Knew exactly how I would keep Richard from killing Genevieve and get us out of here, too. God, this was going to be so hard. I didn't want to think about it—if I thought about it, my courage would surely fail me. I just had to do it.

  I took a deep breath and started stripping off my clothes. Off went my black pumps and my sensible blouse and skirt combo. Then, not letting myself stop for a minute, I pulled off my bra and slipped out of my nylons and panties. I stood naked before the beast, the metal of the cage floor cold on my bare feet and a chill crawling up my spine.

  The beast still sniffed around Genevieve's feet and legs, paying me no attention in his single-minded hunger. I could see by the way its jaws moved and its impossibly broad shoulders bunched under the black hairy pelt that it was getting ready to pounce. I was out of time.

  By instinct, I reached down by my feet and grabbed my discarded panties. I knew they were damp because the moment I'd been forced into the cage with Richard, the vee of my sex had gotten wet. Richard had told me he would know my scent anywhere. It was time to see if t
hat was true.

  The soft, silky pink fabric of my panties hit the beast right in the snout, and it snorted in obvious surprise. I waited breathlessly to see what it would do. Would it take a bite out of Genevieve? Or come for me? Its huge chest expanded as it inhaled. Then it plucked the pink fabric from its muzzle with surprising agility and dropped the panties to the floor. Then, just as I had both hoped and dreaded, the pale green fire of its eyes turned to me once more.

  The beast growled softly and took a step toward me. I backed up again, but this time to lead it away from Genevieve. I felt cold and vulnerable, leaving my clothes in a heap on the floor of the cage, but what could I do? I had to get it away from her, had to keep its attention fixed on me.

  I saw that it was wavering, its eyes turning from me to Genevieve and back again. “Richard,” I said. “Richard, here. Over here. Look at me.” It seemed wrong to call the beast by my brother's name, but I knew he had to be in there somewhere, even if I couldn't see him. In desperation, I reached between my legs and dipped two fingers into my hot, wet pussy. Why I was still so wet and hot when I was about to do something so horrible was a subject I didn't want to think about. Because surely I didn't want to do this—did I? Maybe it had something to do with the musky, male scent still filling the air. The scent of Richard. The scent of the Amon-kai. I didn't know and didn't want to know.

  “Richard,” I said, taking a step toward the beast and holding out my hand. “Richard if you'll just come here and leave her alone I…I'll give you want you want. What you need.”

  The beast's long head came up, and I saw it sniff the air, inhaling my scent. It took a step toward me again, and then another, and suddenly, it was almost on top of me. I lifted my fingers to its face, reaching up to do it despite the way my heart was practically pounding out of my chest. The long mouth opened, revealing all those rows of sharp, curving fangs, and I squeezed my eyes shut, fully expecting to feel the horrible, searing pain of those teeth biting through my extended fingers.