“I want to leave,” she said stiffly.
His arms tightened around her, pulling her lower body tighter against him. “Where’s the fear, Gwen?” he asked in his crisply accented voice. “You should be scared, baby girl, because you’re not going to like this one bit.”
She stiffened against him, and suddenly her blood ran cold. “Don’t hurt me.”
He smiled against her hair, inhaling her scent deeply. “I’d never. That’s not what I want from you.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, and shuddered. He was so close, close enough to see the way his eyes were liquid blue and changing, close enough to see the fine lines in his dark skin, and close enough to see the slight points of his canines when he spoke. “I don’t think my disobeying you warrants this type of punishment. Can’t you pretend I’m sorry and go on your way?”
He actually smiled, and it was devastating. Devilish. Wicked. Sexy. “Don’t you want to know why I chose you? Chose you from the hospital?”
She shook her head. “No. Not at all.”
He ignored her refusal and continued, a bitter smile tingeing his words with resentment. “Christian was locked up there, caught in a park when the moon was near full. He found your drawing, and I needed to see you, to know if you were a threat to my people. And you are, Gwen.”
She remained silent against him, completely unmoving in his arms but her heart going a hundred miles an hour. It was beating so hard she could feel the pulses in her neck. “I’m not a threat. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
“But you already did.” Languidly, he splayed his palm across her stomach, kneading her flesh gently, and it only made her nervousness worse. She wanted to wiggle away from it, and did for a second, but stopped when she felt the large bulge at her back, hard and insistent in his jeans. “Um, Eben…”
His voice dropped an octave. “You told as soon as you were found and taken to the hospital. You told your mother, doctors, everyone. You even drew pictures to show them, and that I can’t have. My people’s lives depend on secrecy, and you were destroying that.”
She began panting as she realized what he was saying. “So you’re going to kill me?”
“I wish I could,” he murmured, lowering his mouth to the side of her neck, letting his lips brush her soft skin in a small kiss. She shivered in reaction, and he smiled. “I wanted to, but there’s another problem.”
She waited on tenterhooks, wanting him to finish, but he just stood behind her, his hand lowering gradually over her tummy. His hips arched against her, and he groaned, making her twitch in his grasp.
“What are you doing?” she whispered harshly, her fear dropping back for a minute as she tried to figure him out. He looked like an axe murderer, all dark and dangerous. He could probably even use one of the ones hanging on his wall. “Eben…”
His mouth stayed against her skin. “I want you, baby. Badly. I wanted to fuck you the second I saw you in the hospital. You were sick and weak, and I still wanted you, even then.”
Her eyes widened in shock and her knees almost gave out. Her head snapped around. “You don’t even like me!” she hissed. “You can’t stand even being in the same room with me!” It couldn’t be. It made no sense! She tried to turn her body, and he let her, although he still kept her pressed against him. Facing him, she shook her head slowly. “What’s wrong with you?”
He took her hand in his and jerked it down his body, pushing her palm flat against the thick ridge in his jeans and holding it there. She tried to tug away but he held her firm. He spoke through clenched teeth, his voice deep and lethal. “I get hard every time I’m near you, Gwen. And it hurts.”
She shook her head again, not wanting to believe him. “So, what? You’re mean to me? You’re rude? Eben, people don’t do that!”
“It’s not easy for me,” he bit out.
Gwen clamped her mouth shut, her eyes narrowing slightly. It wasn’t an answer. It was an excuse, and a bad one. Finally, she asked, “What do you expect of me?”
He dropped her hand and let his palms rest on her hips, tucking her right against his swollen flesh. Gently, he rolled his hips and moaned at the sweet agony of it. “You’re mine, Gwen,” he growled, letting his head fall toward her as he manipulated her body. “Christian and Connor know, my pack knows, and I know. You are mine.” He punctuated his words with a hard pull of her hips, thrusting in time with them.
Gwen’s breath stopped in her lungs with the movement. A coil of heat like nothing she’d felt before pooled low in her groin, and she wanted it to stop, needed it to stop. “So you want me to have sex with you.”
His dark hair rested against his forehead, blue-black and slightly wavy, so thick she wanted to run her hands through it. “Not sex, Gwen. I want to fuck. Hard, soft, any way I can. I want to lick you everywhere. I want your lips around my cock. I want it all.”
His words made the heat worse. It built in her and mixed with the fear, sending little waves all through her body. Her legs were weak, and her breasts ached. Her nipples felt like small, burning points. She gulped for breath and looked at him steadily. “What if I don’t want any of that?”
His smile was mocking. “I can smell your arousal. You can’t lie to me, Gwen.”
“Oh God.” Blood flooded her face in embarrassment. “I need to go. Please let me go.”
“You disobeyed me,” he whispered against her ear. His tongue darted out and swiped against her lobe, the motion so quick she wasn’t quite sure she’d even felt it. “You destroyed any trust we were building, and you will pay for that.”
His arms loosened. Panicked, Gwen darted away and leaned against the wall, her chest rising and falling rapidly. As she watched him, Eben reached down and adjusted the large bulge of his cock within his jeans. He gave it a firm caress before walking around the counter and pulling a bottle of water from the fridge.
He swallowed and she watched the thick line of his throat, saw his muscles flex. He finished the bottle in a few more swallows and set it on the counter. Then he turned back to her.
His pale eyes blazed, and she realized how angry he really was. He was dangerous, vengeful and just plain pissed. “I’m moving your things into my rooms. You’ll spend your nights there, in my bed. I want your scent thick there, Gwen.”
She looked away from him, needing to focus on something inanimate. She picked the basket of fruit, arranged artfully by Connor just that morning. “Like I said,” she breathed, trying to keep her voice steady and methodical, “I’m not your responsibility, and I don’t belong to you. If you’ll excuse me…” She stepped from the room, every muscle in her body shivering and twitching. She was absolutely terrified. At least, she hoped that’s what it was.
Connor looked up from his book when he heard Gwen exit the kitchen. She went right past and didn’t even see him.
When Eben followed a minute later, he stared in the direction Gwen had gone. He didn’t look pleased.
Conner asked, “Did you tell her?”
“No.”
He sighed and laid his book aside. “Are you going to?”
Eben turned and came into the living room. He sat in the chair across from Connor and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his head bowed. He sighed and said quietly, “No.”
“She has to know she’s your mate.”
His head rose. He stared at Connor, his eyes filled with angst, guilt and determined ruthlessness. “Not until I’ve had her.”
Connor shook his head. “Eben—”
“She’ll run from me,” he said sharply, angrily. “If I tell her before, she’ll try and leave me.”
“She may try that anyway,” Connor said simply, but he gave up and went back to his book. “Just be honest, Eben. You’ll gain more from that than from withholding the truth.”
“I’ll try,” was all he said.
Gwen hid out in the barn. It seemed like the safest place, considering, and she figured the horses would give her the heads-up if he tried to corner her th
ere.
Christian was already busy feeding the horses. He moved stiffly, especially when using his right arm.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, closing the door firmly behind her. Two of the horses raised their heads in their stalls, saw her, and went back to munching contentedly.
He leaned on the pitchfork he was using and studied her. “Christ, I’m fine. How the fuck are you? You look like hell.”
She smiled and shrugged. “Connor gave me an ibuprofen, and that helped with the swelling. We did stitches this morning, but otherwise I’m okay.” She shrugged again, the resulting pull of the stitches reminding her to be careful.
He shook his head and went back to slowly cleaning stalls. “I’m surprised Eben let you out of the house like that. Thomas is lucky he’s dead. Eben would have ripped his spine out and skinned him alive.”
Somehow, Gwen didn’t think Christian was teasing. “Actually, I kind of left the house without telling. I needed to get out.”
He looked over at her, one eyebrow raised. “He’s going to kick your ass when he finds you.” He tossed a forkful of soiled straw toward the wheelbarrow, then halted for a minute. “You need to be careful with him, Gwen. He’s not like the rest of us.”
She studied her hands carefully, noticing the jagged edges of her nails. “Do you mean like a human, or like what you guys are?”
“We’re Weres. Not monsters or werewolves, but Weres, and judging by the pictures you’ve drawn, you’ve seen at least one of us before. Not many of us would do what Thomas did to you.”
“What’s wrong with werewolf?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Would you like to be named after some silly creature that has no sense or intelligence, and seems to always chase after the pretty, vapid girl and get nailed with a silver bullet, which by the way, doesn’t work at all. Have you seen any of the movies, or read the stories? Each one of them makes us either into a cannibalistic beast, or a paranoid freak covered in lots of hair, with a perpetual hard-on.”
“So you call yourselves Weres,” Gwen intoned. “Isn’t it just semantics?”
Christian raked fresh straw into the stall as he continued. “So what if it is? We are what we are, and we’ll be called what we want to be called. We’re pretty simple creatures, Gwennie. We like a good hunt, a good run and a good fuck. In our pelts, we’re likely to chase you down if you run, but after that you’d probably be left alone, if a little bruised. That’s the animal instinct in us, so remember that if you’re faced with one of us after the change. We’re like humans in a lot of ways, hon. There are bad Weres, just as there are bad people.”
“Which one is Eben?”
He looked over at her, his eyes darkening slightly. “He’s a bit of both, and that’s what makes him so strong.”
She groaned and dropped her head into her hands. “I’m in trouble, then.”
Christian smiled at her sadly. She was such a young, inexperienced woman. “Yeah, you are.”
She made Christian go to the house first and call the barn, just to make sure Eben was in his shop. He laughed at her, but she ignored him, more interested in avoiding another confrontation than anything else.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in his offer, because there was a part of her that definitely was. Actually, a large part. But what would she do once she was in his bed? Her mother had accused her of being a slut from the time she had her first period. The last thing she wanted to do was prove her right.
She skipped dinner and spent the time in the studio drawing scenes of Christian, his body reshaped into that of his Were form. She also drew a sketch of the man who’d attacked her, Thomas, in the middle of his change, with his bones at awkward angles and his face frozen in pain.
When she went downstairs a few hours later, all was quiet. Connor read in his leather chair, every now and then reaching over for the glass of brandy at his side. He didn’t even look up when she came down the stairs.
She was more than ready for bed. Her jaw throbbed, her back ached, and all she wanted was her own personal sanctuary of peace and quiet. And sleep. Lots of sleep.
When she got to her bedroom, her jaw flopped open. She couldn’t even manage to gasp or shriek as she stared at her empty room, devoid of even proper sheets and blankets.
“That bastard,” she finally whispered. She rushed through the room, pulling open drawers and cabinets, each one empty of her possessions. He’d even taken her shampoo from the shower.
She did a small twirl around the room. It was like it had never been hers. Not even a sock was left behind.
She stood in the room for several minutes fuming, unsure what to do, her hands clenching over and over again. She couldn’t confront him, he’d have her hauled into his bed in a minute flat, and that wasn’t something she was ready to tackle. She was best off avoiding him completely and handling the situation on her own.
She said nothing to Connor as she crossed the living room and stole a towel from his bathroom, but his eyes twinkled as he followed her march through the living room, which only made her irritation worse. Just to be bitchy, she also picked up the blanket from the sofa, daring him to say anything.
She showered quickly, afraid Eben would barge in at any moment. When she was done, she wrapped herself in the stolen blanket and lay on the bare mattress. It felt strange and a little scratchy, but she clenched her jaw and made herself relax. She was getting stronger, day by day, and she refused to give in. Minutes later, she fell asleep with the image of Eben, shirtless, in her mind.
Connor wasn’t surprised when Eben came downstairs after midnight, a scowl on his face.
“Where is she?”
He nodded his chin toward her room. “There. She snagged the blanket from the sofa.” He smiled at the memory of Gwen stomping through the living room, her jaw set.
Eben ran a hand over his hair, pushing it back from his forehead. He was shirtless, but wore a loose pair of pajama bottoms that hung around his muscular waist, hanging off his hipbones. He slept nude, but he was obviously making an effort not to scare his human mate.
He sighed and scratched absently at his chest. “Hell, she’s becoming more rebellious every day.”
Connor flipped the page of his book, his eyes sparkling merrily. “She’s comfortable, Eben. Probably for the first time in her life.”
Eben turned toward her room and halted. His shoulders stiffened as he asked, “Am I wrong to want her so badly?”
Connor’s book lowered as he too remembered what it was like, finding the woman that both parts wanted, the man and the beast, with equal measure. It was a need, violent and pure, but so strong it was frightening at times. Especially when it was for a human. “I don’t know. I truly don’t know, Eben.”
A minute later, Eben came through the living room, holding Gwen’s blanket-wrapped form. She snuggled into his bare chest, completely oblivious to the tension she was creating.
“Good night,” Eben murmured, going up the steps as silently as he’d come down.
“Good night,” Connor whispered. “And sweet dreams.”
Chapter Eight
Gwen woke with a stretch and a happy sigh. Any night without nightmares was a blessing, and she took each one as a gift from God. She’d feared that after the attack, her nightmares would return with a vengeance, the two memories merging together to create an entirely new and terrifying version, but they hadn’t.
She blinked her eyes open and stared up at the ceiling. After a few seconds, she cocked her head and stared harder. She didn’t have a ceiling fan in her room, yet one was above her head.
Sitting up slightly, she studied the room. It was larger than hers, and there weren’t any bookshelves lining the walls. There were two windows in this room, both large and looking out onto the forest. A wooden rocking chair sat next to one of them, and a heavy wooden dresser next to the other. The bed dominated the room—it was huge, with tall posts at each corner and thick, fluffy blankets covering it, which only made it seem even
bigger. Eben lay beside her, sprawled out on his stomach, all dark skin and muscle. And tattoos, she noticed.
They were thick and black, Celtic in design. They ran around his upper arms and joined in the center of his back, running down his spine in a spiraled pattern, and eventually tapering midway down. She missed them in the forge because it was just too dark and dingy.
Bloody hell,” she muttered, scrubbing her hand over her face, then wincing as she rubbed too hard across her jaw. She’d been so proud of herself, outwitting him at his own game. And in the end, it turned out she hadn’t.
She moved the covers and prepared to slip out, the rustle of them sounding noisy in the quiet of the room.
“Going somewhere?”
She halted with the sheets pulled up partially. Her eyes closed and she pursed her lips, sighing. “I’m getting up.”
He rolled toward her, dragging the blankets and sheets with him. He rested against the pillows with his hands behind his head, his chest bare in the weak light. She immediately felt breathless.
“You slept well.” His eyes traced the bare skin of her shoulders and back.
With a huff, she leaned forward against her knees and wrapped her arms around them, hiding her nudity as best she could. “Where are my clothes?”
“Here,” he rumbled. “Some in the closet and the rest in the dresser. Why are you nervous, Gwen?”
She shook her head over the quick subject change. “I wake up in a bed that’s not mine, nude, with a man I don’t know very well who until eighteen hours ago, I thought didn’t like me very much. Gee, I wonder what could possibly make me nervous. I want my clothes.”
He blinked lazily, his lashes looking impossibly dark against his pale eyes. “Then go get them.” A slow, lazy smile bloomed on his face, and she suddenly became breathless. Good lord he was beautiful.
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