“Dalton? It’s Melanie. I thought of something that I thought you might want to know.”
He was instantly awake. “What is it?”
“Well, I’m actually outside your house. I was taking a walk to clear my head when I thought of it, so… can I come in?”
“Actually, I’m not at home.”
“Oh? Where are you? I could meet you.”
“I’m at Julie’s. I felt like it was better if she wasn’t left alone until this is over.”
“Oh. I see. Well, I’m already out, and it’s a short walk. Can I meet you there?”
Dalton sighed. Somehow he doubted this was something that couldn’t be done over the phone, but he needed the information. “That’s fine. Call me when you get here, and I’ll come down. I don’t want to wake Julie.”
Fifteen minutes and a quick trip downstairs confirmed Dalton’s suspicions that this could have been handled over the phone.
“So, you think it was Isaac?” It was a small town, so Dalton had heard that someone had bought the old Stiffler farm, but up until this point, Dalton hadn’t thought much of it. Moving to a new town was hardly a cause to be suspected of attempted murder, but if there was even a possibility that Melanie was right, he was willing to check it out.
“It might not be, but it does seem a little suspicious that he moved here and hardly leaves his house, doesn’t it? I only happened to meet him because we were both in the grocery at the same time.”
“I’m not sure that means that he’s a murderer, but I’ll head over and talk to him tomorrow afternoon. It can’t hurt to go introduce myself and get a feel for him.”
“Oh, be careful when you’re there. If it was him, there’s no telling what he might do when he realizes you’re onto him.”
“I will be, Melanie. Don’t worry.”
Dalton was pretty sure he could handle this newcomer, a human from what he’d heard. Julie, though… it might be best if he left her at home where she would be safe. Just in case.
“You know I’ll worry, Dalton. I can’t help worrying about you.” Her voice was warm, and her hand was on his arm… he needed to get back upstairs. Julie might worry if she woke up, and he wasn’t there. And she was still feeling pretty weak. If she woke up and needed help, he wanted to be there for her.
“Thanks, Melanie. That means a lot to me. I’m going to get back upstairs in case Julie wakes up and needs something. She was exposed to the toxin, so she’s been pretty weak.”
“And she survived? When it almost killed so many of us?”
“She didn’t ingest it. She just got a few drops on her skin. With a few weeks’ rest, she should be good as new.”
“Ah. Well, I hope she gets better quickly.”
Chapter 8
Julie sighed when she heard the knock coming from the lab door downstairs. Dalton had gone to talk to someone that Melanie was suspicious of. He’d asked her not to answer the door while he wasn’t there, but the thought of him meeting with Melanie in the middle of the night was enough to leave her feeling a little bit rebellious. Besides, whoever this was, they were targeting shifters, not lab technicians. And Dalton had called. The lead had been a dead end, and he was driving back.
Slowly and painfully she made her way down the stairs and to the door. She hadn’t realized how much of her weight Dalton was carrying when he helped her down the stairs until he wasn’t there to lean on anymore.
She groaned when she saw Melanie through the glass. At least, she reasoned, this should be a short visit without Dalton here. She opened the door and pasted a smile on her face, determined to follow Dalton’s advice to go easier on the shifter woman.
“Hi, Melanie. Dalton’s not here right now. Do you want me to tell him you stopped by?”
“Oh, I didn’t come to talk to Dalton, Julie. I came to see you.”
Just the effort of staying upright was making spots swim in her vision. As much as she hated to show weakness in front of Melanie, knowing damn well that she, like any shifter, would judge her for it… she had to sit down. She made her way to the closest stool.
If Dalton could see her now, he would probably lose his mind. She’d opened the door, and now she was sitting in the section of her lab that he’d banned her from days ago. She eyed the samples that had been delivered over the last several days. Dalton was going to have to let her work. It wasn’t easy keeping the business that had been her father’s afloat. Labs outside of hospitals weren’t as common as one might think. In an area this rural though, there were enough doctor’s offices without a hospital nearby to keep her in business. Well, to keep her in business as long as she didn’t quit getting their samples processed more quickly than the mail-in facilities in Mobile were capable of.
“Is there something I can help you with?”
“Actually, there is. You can explain to me what the hell your angle is here.”
“My angle?”
“Oh, come on, Julie. There’s no way you were exposed to that toxin. That stuff is so potent that it would kill you, even if it did touch your skin instead of you drinking the water.”
Oh. Shit. Was Melanie involved in this somehow? How had she known about the water? Her mind sorted through possible responses. What would disarm this situation the fastest? When in doubt, she decided, play dumb.
“What do you mean exposed to the toxin? Why would you think that?”
Melanie’s beautiful face twisted into a mask of rage. “So, he’s just here shacking up with you, and he lied to me?!”
Okay, so playing dumb might have been her worst idea ever.
“No. He… I… He told me not to tell anyone. That I was exposed. He thought if no one realized I was involved, I would be safer.” There. That sounded like something Dalton would do.
“So, he didn’t lie to me. You did. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Because even if he thinks you were exposed, I know you weren’t. There’s no way you would have survived. Just like there’s no way that Dalton will get here in time to save you when you’re ‘exposed’ a second time. Only this time your exposure isn’t going to be some cheap ploy to catch a man.”
If she was going to die over her relationship with Dalton, it seemed like the least the universe could have done was make sure she enjoyed it. She stood shakily, wishing to hell that her poisoning had been feigned. Her options were to try to beat Melanie to the water bottle she was currently eyeing—the one the samples had come from—or to try to make it to the door and call for help.
But first, she would try to talk her way out of this. Then it hit her. Melanie’s eyes had gone straight to the water bottle. Melanie knew about the poison because she was the one that had dosed everyone.
She tried to move toward the door as quickly as she could, sending a silent prayer upward that she could somehow find the speed to beat a shifter. A feat she couldn’t accomplish on her best day.
Her prayer fell on deaf ears though, and Melanie was on her, water bottle in hand before she’d taken more than two steps. She was pinned in nothing flat, and Melanie was reaching to twist the cap off the bottle when a dark shape burst through her door, sending shards of glass through the air.
A large, black wolf hit Melanie before Julie had even registered what was happening. The bottle went spinning across the floor, still sealed. Melanie shifted almost instantly into a smaller grey wolf, shredding her clothes as her body transformed.
Dalton—the other wolf had to be him—didn’t pause in his attack. They crashed into each other again and again, but it was obvious that Melanie was no match for him. Soon, Dalton had her pinned to the floor.
Julie didn’t register the tears rolling down her face, didn’t realize the cry that she heard was torn from her own throat, until much later. Dalton, though, somehow heard her even in his enraged state. He paused and turned to her.
That small hesitation was all that Melanie needed to allow her to escape. Julie watched, numb with shock, as the grey wolf fled through the hole in the door Dalton had made
with his entry.
Somehow, she doubted that they would be seeing Melanie again.
Chapter 9
Dalton fought the urge to gather Julie in his arms, to leave town, to run and never look back. His hands shook as he saw the scene in his mind again. Julie pinned to the ground, Melanie about to pour so much of the toxin on her that her life would surely be over within hours. He flinched when Julie’s hand touched his shoulder tentatively, then gathered her into his arms and held her tight against his chest.
“She’s gone, Dalton, and I’m fine. I’m okay.” How odd, he thought distantly, that she was offering him comfort when she had been the one who almost died. He fought for some semblance of control, for her sake.
“It was so close though. You almost—”
Then her lips were pressed against his, and he couldn’t think of anything but the taste of Julie, the feel of her against the length of his body. It had been so long, so damn long, and yet she still tasted just as he remembered. With a groan, he pulled away from her.
“Still, Dalton? We’ve never been together, and yet I still almost died.”
“Yes, because you were tangled up in a situation with a bunch of shifters, because of me.”
“Do you really think you have so much control over my life? Don’t you think that I would have still been working in this lab? That I still would have ended up analyzing samples at some point as widespread as this situation is becoming?”
He stared at her at a loss for words. Somehow the idea that he wasn’t at fault hadn’t ever occurred to him. Julie was his to protect, and he had failed her when she’d been poisoned; he had almost failed her today.
“It wasn’t your fault Dalton. You didn’t hurt me. You saved me. Do you think that if we weren’t part of each other’s lives, you would have been here to stop her?”
Dalton swallowed the lump of emotion in his throat. The thought of her exposed to that violence, without anyone to protect her….
“We should—” His voice was rough with emotion, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “We should look through her phone. We need to figure out who she was working with, and why she would have done this.”
Chapter 10
An hour later Julie found herself standing on a dirt road, the wind kissing her skin to take the edge off a balmy night. Fall was fast approaching, and the breeze carried a hint of the cold that was to come, but right now summer’s heat still clung tenaciously, unwilling to give ground to the coming season. Going through Melanie’s phone had provided more questions than answers. Her communication had been sent through a generic e-mail that had obviously been created just for communicating about the toxin. It wasn’t even old enough, or at least hadn’t been used enough, to have started getting spam.
The communications were to another email address that was just as generic, with no clues as to the identity of the person who was obviously in charge of the operation. The only useful information had been the coordinates for the storage building she was standing in front of. A shiver went through her despite the warm night that surrounded them.
“This has to be it.” The coordinates had been almost dead on. Now she just needed the courage to walk through the front door. Dalton had nearly left her behind, but she’d suggested that Melanie might come back, so she shouldn’t be alone. An obvious ploy and they both knew it for what it was, but Dalton had still been hesitant to leave her behind.
Thankfully the adrenaline that had fled after her earlier attack had returned in spades, making her shaky but capable of standing on her own two feet. If she could just stay scared out of her damn mind so that adrenaline could lend her strength, she thought with a rueful smile, this whole recovering from being poisoned thing might not be so bad. Her brain could just turn itself into a semi-permanent epinephrine factory.
“You should wait here, let me have a look around.”
“I don’t want to be alone. Not after….” Not a ploy this time. The words where true, and it shamed Julie to say them aloud.
“At least let me double-check that no one’s in there. I don’t hear or smell anything, but it never hurts to be safe.”
A few short minutes later he beckoned from the doorway, and Julie moved to join him, clutching his arm for support even though she still felt capable of moving around on her own. Right now, she needed emotional support more than she needed physical support.
She soon realized why Dalton had been able to make sure the building was clear so quickly.
“It’s empty. She must have cleared it out.”
They walked from room to room. There was dust on the rough wooden tables that showed where something had recently sat, but now there was nothing. Dalton said that he could smell Melanie’s scent, a few hours old, and no one else’s. She must have come here as soon as she’d gotten away from Dalton.
“Dalton? I think I found something.” There was a box under one of the tables. Julie reached down to get it, then frowned in puzzlement when she realized there had been a wire attached to the bottom of the box.
A few beeps and Dalton’s frantic shout to get down where her only warning before the world exploded in a flash of heat. The seconds after the explosion were as silent as the grave, but soon the crackling voice of fire filled the void as tongues of flame worked their way up the walls around her. She was still frozen in shock, choking on the smoke—or the heat?—when Dalton gathered her in his arms and carried her out into the night. The summer air that had seemed so warm before now seemed cold in comparison with the scalding heat of the building as it went up in flames.
“Sorry,” she whispered brokenly. She’d almost killed them both. Stupid, so stupid.
“Julie, you couldn’t have known. Hell, I’d have done the same.” Dalton set her gently to the ground and then his hands where on her, brushing over her to assess for injuries. Once that was taken care of, he scooped her up in his arms again. “You’re going to be the death of me if you keep scaring me this way, woman.”
Julie tried for levity to lighten the moment. “You only seem to hold me when I’m half dead. A girl does what she needs to be done when she’s trying to land the man of her dreams.”
She knew she’d taken the right tack when he laughed roughly. “Let’s get you home and cleaned up.”
Chapter 11
Images of Julie flashed through his mind, one after another. Julie ten years ago, tearfully begging him to give them a chance. Julie bent over a microscope, joking with him as she went about the work that she loved. Julie on the ground, about to die at the hands of his ex-lover. Her cry of alarm as the world around them exploded into flames. Her voice as she argued that being with him protected her rather than endangering her. Was she safer with him, or without him?
Did it even matter, when he no longer had the strength left to tell her no?
She came into the room, her hair still damp from the shower, and he decided it didn’t matter. None of it did. Nothing except holding the woman he’d loved since before he understood what love was, the woman he’d nearly lost again and again in the past few weeks.
None of it mattered except for her.
He crossed the room to her with quick, determined strides. She smiled at him, and he nearly came undone. He couldn’t wait, couldn’t deny his need for her. Not anymore. Never again.
He kissed her, forcing a gentle touch. A breeze of a kiss, when his insides were a hurricane. She gasped against his lips, opening her mouth to invite a deeper kiss. He held her face in his hands, tilted her head to give him better access as he tasted her more deeply.
Her moan was all the invitation he needed to continue his exploration of her. He gently carried her to the bed, stripped off her clothes until she was lying naked before him. She was so lovely, so perfect. An almost painful longing filled him. There were so many words one could use to describe her, but at that moment only one came to mind.
“Beautiful. You’re absolutely beautiful, inside and out.”
He joined her on the bed, kissin
g her softly as he explored her soft skin with his hands. Her breathing quickened, and she started to move her hips gently in an instinctual invitation. He couldn’t enter her though, not yet. He’d been dreaming of this moment for years, and he wanted it to last as long as possible.
His mouth followed the trails that his hands had blazed down her body. Her skin, her breasts, tasted as sweet as he’d always known they would. He took his time with them, pleasuring each one until it formed a rigid peak and Julie’s hips were moving with more intensity. He slipped one finger inside her, smiling against her breast as she gasped in delight.
He’d just started to kiss his way lower, intent on tasting her center, when her hands gently pushed him away.
“My turn,” she said with a breathy voice.
Then he couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but need as Julie straddled him and kissed and licked her way down his body.
His cock was so hard, so ready for her. When she slipped her dainty pink lips over the head of it, it was heaven. His hips started to thrust of their own accord, even as some distant part of him remembered that he wanted to feel himself slip inside her, that he wanted to plant his seed in her womb.
“Please,” he said in a roughened voice. Please… what? Fuck me? Please more?
He couldn’t even think anymore, but she seemed to know what he needed as she slipped up to straddle him and took the rigid length of him into her slick, tight center.
He growled in pleasure, forcing himself to stay still and let her set the pace. She rode him in a rhythm where he was once again lost in a maelstrom of pleasure, heat, and need.
Her moans grew louder, the movements of her hips faster, as she reached her peak. She groaned as she ground against him, and when he felt her pulsating around him, he couldn’t hold himself back anymore.
He flipped her over and slid into her from behind, seating his length as deep inside her as it would go before he paused, hoping he hadn’t hurt her.
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