“Sure,” Dylan agreed. “Yet I wouldn’t rush out there right now. The sun’s almost up and the others are on their way here. Together, we can decide what the next move will be.”
Dylan was right again. She perceived Michael’s nearness as strongly as if he had been sitting beside her. She wanted him here, and also viewed this meeting with trepidation. They had made love and would have to deal with that face-to-face, along with everything else, when she would have liked nothing better than to have stepped off the emotional roller coaster for a while.
Eyes shut, Kaitlin voiced the last question she’d have time to ask before Michael arrived. “What kind of creature do you suppose a wolf-Fey hybrid might turn out to be?”
She didn’t like anything about the look in Dylan’s eyes when she risked a glance at him, and the chills made a comeback.
Chapter 21
Michael allowed Adam to precede him into the kitchen. He was just about to move toward the bedroom when he realized Kaitlin was sitting at the small kitchen table with Dylan.
He felt silly, and slightly out of his element observing the warm scene. It all looked so normal on the surface. Michael wished it truly was normal, but he wasn’t one to have his wishes come true.
Kaitlin was dressed in his oversize T-shirt, with a sheet wrapped around her waist. He waited for her gaze to connect with his. When it did, he heard the rumble of a rising protest inside her. Her eyes were gray again.
“Cozy place,” Adam said, helping himself to water from the tap.
“I like to keep my walls close and the front door handy,” Michael returned without taking his eyes off Kaitlin. Her heart beat in sync with his—a further sign of their bond.
“Smart building philosophy,” Adam said. “Tory and I have a similar one. We have a bungalow beside a park that we keep a tight watch on.”
A hush fell over the room after Adam stopped speaking. Everyone here waited for pleasantries to be out of the way so that the real discussions could begin. Where to start was the temporary stalling point.
Kaitlin spoke first. “Fey. That’s what you believe this is? I’d go home to confront my parents and demand some information if I was sure my wolf wouldn’t make an appearance and ruin a perfectly good argument.”
Michael turned his attention to Dylan, who sat at the table with Adam standing at his back. “This isn’t your problem, Dylan. Whatever the Fey are or aren’t, Chavez can’t be allowed to get away again. We need to be discussing a plan of action for that, with you taking the lead. I said I’d help, and my word is good.”
“I think a good plan,” Adam said, “would be to chase everyone in Chavez’s gang toward that damn dark curtain if it remains here for another day or two.” He recounted what had become of the creatures that had gone through. “Whoever is on the other side likes outlaws about as much as we do. They did us a service tonight, though I suppose they might not see it that way.”
When Kaitlin spoke again, her voice was steady and pitched low. “That anomaly is seemingly here because of me, so I’ll deal with it. You catch the bad guys, and I’ll find out what that curtain hides.”
“How do you propose to do that?” Michael asked.
“She wants to go out there and knock on the door,” Dylan answered in Kaitlin’s place. “And she could be right about that being the only way to get the answers she needs.”
“She can’t do that when we don’t understand what that thing is,” Michael protested.
“So some of us can go with her,” Adam said. “We go tomorrow, when the sun is up and before monsters wake and get hungry.”
Michael said, “And Chavez?”
Dylan took that one. “Chavez is another kind of bloodsucker and only comes out to party after the sun goes down. We have that possible place in mind for where he has been hiding, but to go there at night without an army would be suicidal if he has brought more of his old pack with him. That’s when they’re at their most lethal. Who says we can’t face that strange Fey portal first, in the morning, and then go after the prey Adam, Tory and I are hunting here?”
“No.” Kaitlin pressed against the table to get to her feet. She addressed Dylan. “You go after Chavez as planned. I don’t think anyone here can afford to let anything get in the way of that agenda. I’ll go to the park and take one of Michael’s pack-mates with me to see if that thing is still there.”
“I’ll go with you,” Michael said.
Kaitlin shook her head, which made her tousled auburn hair tumble over her shoulders. “Only Rena,” she said. “Rena can go with me.”
Michael’s argument was interrupted before he could make it.
“I’m volatile when you’re around,” Kaitlin said to him. “Your wolf calling to my wolf is how you once explained that to me. It’s better if Rena accompanies me, assuming she agrees to do so, because I won’t have to worry about retaining the ability to keep my shape or speak in a human voice.”
“I’ll worry,” Michael said softly.
Dylan stood. Like a gentleman, he took his plate to the sink and spoke over his shoulder. “Tory, Adam and whoever you have available, Michael, will head out after the sun comes up. Adam and I will leave you two now to hash out the details of how you’ll handle things on your end. Michael, that closet with the blankets you mentioned is where?”
Defusing the standoff easily and quickly, Dylan drew Michael’s focus. Expecting to see something other than the sympathetic expression Dylan wore, Michael backed to the kitchen doorway. “I’ll show you.”
He tossed Kaitlin a purposeful glance that asked her to wait for his return. Her ethereal thinness made him actually believe for a few seconds that he could almost picture, rising from her shoulders, the nearly invisible outline of the small, iridescent fairy wings that Devlin had nixed.
Of all the pairings, wolf and Fey had to be the most inconceivable.
And there was no way in hell he was going to let Kaitlin go anywhere near that damn portal without him.
*
She was determined to go out on her own. Kaitlin had already made up her mind to be braver than she had ever been and to stop involving everyone else in the next few steps on her life’s path.
Since the Weres supposed that black hole in the park had appeared because she was somehow tethered to it, chances were decent that she could find out what it, they, them, the so-called Fey, wanted. Otherwise, the pack’s attention would be riveted to it, splitting their attention from the gravest threat, which was the wolf named Chavez.
“I’m no damsel,” she repeated for the twentieth time in forty-eight hours.
Having told Michael she’d take Rena, and with no idea where Rena lived, she supposed that information was now at her fingertips, and that all she had to do was open up her mind and put out a call to the pack’s only female. Rena, like everyone else around here, would hear that call and either ignore it, or respond. Kaitlin didn’t really care what the outcome was. This next bit was up to her, and her alone.
She returned to the bedroom to find her clothes hanging in the closet, which was the last place she looked because neatness had never been her own strong suit. Michael had racks of clothes, mostly jeans and shirts, all necessary since he ruined or ditched so many of those items every time he decided to change shape.
She had one leg in her jeans when she looked up, feeling the heat of the sexy, sometimes volatile, Alpha’s stare.
Michael was lodged in the doorway, his expression grim.
She sat down on the edge of the bed without bothering to finish dressing. Stripping in front of him in the park was only a dim memory. Dressing beneath that green-eyed gaze of his was out of the question.
“You might turn around and let me get my pants on,” she said.
“I’m afraid to take my eyes off you,” Michael returned. “One blink and you might disappear.”
Kaitlin put a hand to her temple. Like the rest of her body, her head hurt, and the intensity of Michael’s observation doubled the erotic feeling o
f being in his bedroom, partially undressed.
Her pounding heart didn’t help the ache behind her eyes. Michael was only six steps away and could have covered that in seconds. Breathing was always difficult when he was around.
“It isn’t safe for you out there,” he continued. “Please don’t get any ideas about slipping out while I rest. What am I supposed to do? Sleep in the doorway, in case escaping is what you have in mind?”
“Am I a prisoner?”
“Certainly not. Well, maybe.”
“I’m not brave enough to run,” she said. “I would like to be clothed, however, in case any other visitors come calling.”
Michael focused on that. “Dylan told me about the one who showed up. It’s odd there was no scent left behind.”
“Dylan thinks he came for me.”
Michael took one step into the room. Kaitlin’s heart beat faster.
“I won’t let them near you, Kaitlin. I won’t come near you, either, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
Damn that mind reading trick. Could he hear how rapidly her heart was racing?
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “I’m wary of what you can do.”
“I’m fairly sure it’s the other way around, and it’s me who is wary about you.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. I do want to get close, you know,” Michael confessed. “You’ve become like an addiction, and are drawing me to you when…”
“When you don’t want to act on that?” she finished for him.
Michael stared openly, blinking his brilliant green eyes as if trying to come up with a line that might appease her fear of falling prey to so many more things than merely being a new species. He had blocked his thoughts from her, a trick she needed to perfect if she was to retain her dignity in his presence.
She wanted to jump him again. Have him fill her again. Beneath the aches and discomfort she was experiencing, and between her legs, a bigger, deeper ache was demanding satisfaction that only Michael could supply. She hoped that craving was more than just a wishful distraction.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
“No. And you need some sleep.”
He glanced to the shuttered window. “Can you feel them out there? Anything?”
“No. Not now.”
“You felt them before?”
“I can’t separate all the new feelings at the moment. I can’t trim them down to who makes me feel this, and who makes me feel that.”
She was glad she couldn’t see past the shutters. Night would never be the same for her after this.
“I won’t get far if I tremble every time I see a shadow, or if I’m accompanied by a bodyguard each time I move. Is that what’s in store for me, Michael?”
“I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” he replied.
Kaitlin sighed wearily.
Michael took another step. “How did you react to the visitor earlier? Were you afraid?”
She didn’t have to think hard about the question. “I thought it might be a wolf or a vampire at first.”
“And then?”
“Then I knew it wasn’t either of those things.”
“Could it have been a person? A human?”
Kaitlin briefly closed her eyes, letting the words person and human take on shapes that no longer described her. Strangely enough, she didn’t miss them.
“It won’t go away.” She glanced at him. “That thing out there won’t disappear until it gets what it came for. Isn’t that what you’ve decided?”
“It’s only a guess.”
“Why else would that visitor appear, unless he wanted something?”
Michael was almost close enough to reach out to. With fatigue etched on his face and his hair curtaining his cheeks, he still gave the impression of being an angel. It was, she thought, a wonder that people didn’t see that on a daily basis.
Her inner wolf dared Michael to take those last few steps, but reaching her wouldn’t accomplish anything in terms of solving the puzzles confronting them. Still, he was so very tempting. So masculine, alluring and safe.
“Do you believe it’s here for you?” he asked.
“What I don’t know is giving me a headache. I do know you’ve spent most of the night seeing to my safety, with little regard for yourself.”
All one hundred and ninety pounds of Alpha behavior had been extended to her. With benefits. Kaitlin gritted her teeth to stop from remembering how warm his hand had felt between her thighs, and the way she had anxiously anticipated what would happen after that. Every damn second she had known Michael seemed like a dream—unreal, made up, the concoction of an overactive imagination—when the time was past for getting that straight.
His sad smile went a long way toward doing her in.
“Dawn,” he added. “We’ll go out there at dawn and finish this.”
He had something else to finish, as well. Two giant steps later he was beside her, pressing her onto the bed, his musky scent filling her lungs.
*
There was no place for nice.
Michael didn’t even try.
Stretched out on top of Kaitlin, leaning on his elbows and meeting her eyes, he felt their connection ricochet through him, uncontainable and potent in scope.
Kaitlin’s legs, sliding open, making room for him, were an exhilarating invitation. Her eyes—warm, wide, unblinking—dared him to delve deeper into their mysteries.
He desired it all…all of Kaitlin, as if there had been no previous liaison in the park, and these were the first moments of discovery.
Her skin, warm beneath the sweater she now wore, shivered as his right hand skimmed over each curve, each angle that formed the enigmatic whole of Kaitlin Davies.
Kaitlin’s hands weren’t idle, either. She retraced the remnants of the grooves she’d made in his bare back with her fingers and nails, reopening the scratches that had already mostly healed. Hurting him gave her pleasure, though not in the way others might have imagined. Hers was an intrinsic need to hang on to him by digging in, as if she feared these magical moments would stop and he’d go away. As if he could.
He really would have to tell her more about imprinting. She’d need to know what these ongoing cravings meant. Werewolves were the hungriest beasts on the earth in terms of seeking sexual gratification with their mates. It was a primal instinct that never faded or went away.
Kaitlin moaned.
He had shut his eyes, and now, again, met her frank, greedy gray stare.
“I’ll never get enough,” she whispered breathlessly, gripping his shoulders and lifting her hips. “And I have no right to this, at this time.”
Michael growled as he angled his head. The meeting of their lips created a new storm system. The air grew heavy with silence. Michael’s body felt suddenly weighty as he pressed Kaitlin deeper into the mattress.
His mouth was demanding, brutal, unyielding. He took in her breath and gave his breath back to her, completely possessive in directing the necessity for air. Kaitlin’s tongue met his, licking, enticing, tempting, luring. His tongue darted in and out of her mouth as if it were a surrogate for the body part stiffening between her slender pelvic bones. And still, with great effort, Michael waited for a sign that she wanted this as much as he did.
Already, he was burning up. Their mouths, sealed together, were on fire.
Kaitlin tore at his waistband, sliding her fingers through the gap at his lower back. His next thought was that he had been caught, if not tamed completely.
When the sudden burst of cool air ruffled over him, Michael’s skin rippled. His muscles bunched.
Kaitlin made a disturbing sound that sent chills up his spine. The chills were a warning.
He backed up in a fluid motion, and was on his feet seconds later. But he could not move toward the open doorway in front of him. He could not call out, growl or complain about the untimely interruption.
Something stood in that doorway, camoufla
ged by shadows that were as unique as Michael’s inability to sense the approaching danger. His eyes were useless in clarifying what this visitor was.
In a wave of disturbed air, the visitor entered the room, bringing the shadows along. The entity moved to the bed, to Kaitlin, and Michael could only watch, horrified, frozen in place, as that entity extended a semi-visible hand to Michael’s little panting wolf.
Was Kaitlin as helpless as he felt? As immobile as he was? His legs wouldn’t work. He could not turn his head.
As if mesmerized, Kaitlin’s gray eyes closed. Slowly, and as Michael fought against the invisible bonds holding him hostage, Kaitlin sat up and placed her fingers in the offered hand.
Michael’s mind fuzzed over. He had to work to breathe. Helplessly, he watched Kaitlin stand. Half-naked, and with her oversize sweater reaching nearly to her knees, she walked past Michael, now a captive of someone or something else.
Howls of distress bubbled up in Michael’s chest. His skin, so icy that it was beginning to burn, quaked as he fought, strained, groped for a way to move…a way to keep Kaitlin from harm.
But it was too late.
Before the howls reached his throat, she was gone.
Chapter 22
It was the longest five minutes of Michael’s life. Robbed of the ability to move or speak, all he could do was to continue fighting the spell rendering him useless to protect his mate.
He heard footsteps as the chills finally subsided. The doorway became occupied by another interloper, this time an ally.
“Michael?” Dylan met his eyes. His familiar Lycan heat broke the icy, invisible bonds chaining Michael to the floor. Michael rolled his shoulders and punched the air. He let loose another howl.
“I felt a disturbance,” Dylan said with concern.
“They took her.” Michael rushed past the Lycan who obviously had sensed the very thing Michael hadn’t seen coming. That discrepancy in his awareness was unforgivable. Worse, he couldn’t even describe what had happened, since he hadn’t seen much of the bastard that had taken Kaitlin away.
“Right behind you,” Dylan called out as Michael made for the front door.
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