“You were right,” I said. “He did come back.”
“And?”
“I think the bag may have helped; I grabbed the holy water when he turned up. It was when Wolfgang and Luc were fighting it out. But Tom did something also. It… repelled him somehow.”
My mother nodded sagely. “I’ve spoken with Tom a bit; he seems to have some of the same powers that run in our family. Sometimes they manifest themselves most in periods of extreme stress.”
“Like having a werewolf try to rip your throat out,” I said.
“Or something along those lines,” she said.
“Something really weird happened. During the fight, I was able to talk to Tom. Mentally.”
She nodded. “You both have some talent in the psychic department, and you and Tom have a strong connection.”
“But I couldn’t, before. Even when we were in the cave in Round Top. Except…” I remembered the episode in the Driskill Hotel with Boris and Dudley, and the way Tom had turned up just in time. Had he heard me then?
“The ability may come and go,” she said. “It’s not reliable, unfortunately.”
I sighed. What was reliable? Other than my—and my family members’—ability to get into trouble, that was.
“There was something else, too,” I said. “In the middle of the fight, there was this weird sensation—it just kind of built up in me, like a ball of energy. I don’t know how, but it kind of, well, hurled itself at Elena. And it seemed to have an effect on her.”
She smiled. “I’ve been talking with Tom about that incident,” she said. “He sensed it, too. Between that and the conversation the two of you shared in your minds, it seems you and he share some unusual powers. Unusual even among werewolves.”
“Really?”
“Part of the reason he is so well respected in the werewolf community—or at least this is what I gather from your father and from Tom—is his special abilities, which are evidently quite rare. I don’t know whether you inherited them from me or from somewhere in your father’s background, but it appears you have been gifted in the psychic department, too. Perhaps Tom can train you when you’re better; he had some instruction in Norway, when he was younger.”
“So I heard,” I said. So much for being average. Even among the werewolves, I was abnormal. On the plus side, at least I was in good company; although I wasn’t sure how I felt about Tom being able to read my mind. I was starting to wonder what he might have discovered about me during our little connection when there was a sudden pain in my arm. My mother was poking at my bandages. “Mom!” I yelped. “What are you doing?”
“I was trying to see about that ring,” she said, “so we can get rid of him once and for all. But it’s all covered up.”
“What are you going to do to it?” I asked, glancing around nervously, looking for hedge clippers.
“I brought a few spells I thought might work,” she said.
“You’re not going to cut it off, though?”
“Of course not!” she said, as if she’d never gone after me with a giant pair of shears in the past.
“You can look,” I said grudgingly, wincing as she carefully unwrapped the bandages. I couldn’t bear to watch.
Suddenly, she gasped.
“Is it that bad?” I asked.
“No—I mean yes—but…”
“What?”
“Your hand is a mess. I mean it’s awful. But the ring is gone!”
“Gone?”
“Unless I’ve got the wrong hand.” She glanced over at my intact hand, but my fingers were unadorned.
“Where did it go?” I asked.
“I’m guessing maybe Elena tore it off of you,” she said, wrapping my hand back up. “That’s a pretty nasty slice she gave you, though. I hope it heals well.”
“So, I guess that’s that,” I said.
“It’s odd, though. I couldn’t pry or even cut that thing off. Maybe when you experienced that power you directed at Elena…”
“I also knocked off the ring?”
“It’s a possibility,” she said.
“Well, however it happened, he’s gone.”
My mother checked her watch. “He may be, but I decided to invest in a little insurance policy.”
“An insurance policy?”
Before she could answer, someone called up the stairs for my mother. She disappeared, returning a moment later with a short, chubby man wearing a priest’s collar.
“Hello there, Sophie,” he said, blue eyes twinkling in a ruddy face.
“But…” I stammered, confounded at seeing a priest in Sit A Spell.
“Yes, Father Roland is a priest, dear. I told him what the situation was, and he’s agreed to perform the exorcism.”
“She looks pretty good,” he said, eyeing me critically.
My mother smiled at him. “Like I said, Father, she’s not actually possessed. She’s just been targeted. We just want to make sure he doesn’t come back.”
“And you’re certain of the entity’s name?” he asked my mother.
“Positive,” she said, nodding vigorously.
“But…” I said again.
“Hush, dear,” my mother said, patting my unbandaged hand as Father Roland set what looked like a small suitcase on the bed and snapped it open. “It’s just a precaution.”
I was about to protest, but decided against it. If my mother was scared enough to press a Catholic priest into service, it wouldn’t hurt to go along with things. Even though I was pretty sure any connection between Mark and me had been severed at the Howl.
Once Father Roland had set up shop on my dresser—he laid out a vial of holy water, a cross, and a Bible—he turned and looked at me, his voice lowering as he chanted in Latin. A whole hour passed, during which I was showered repeatedly with droplets of spit and holy water. Father Roland was nothing if not enthusiastic. About halfway through, my mother had to offer him a cough drop, as his voice was becoming hoarse.
Finally, just as I was about to request an iPod and an umbrella, he stopped and closed his book, panting heavily and mopping his beet-red brow. “I think she’s fine,” he said.
My mother squinched her face. “Are you sure?” she asked. “I didn’t feel anything.”
“That’s because there was nothing to feel,” he said. “If there was a connection before, there doesn’t seem to be one now.” He turned to me. “Did you feel anything?”
Other than the constant shower of moisture, I hadn’t. I shook my head.
He smiled and popped another cherry cough drop. “Well, then. I think that’s that.”
“Thank you, Father,” my mother said, not looking entirely convinced.
“My pleasure, Ms. Bianca,” he said, packing up his case. “In cases like this, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Absolutely,” she said.
He fixed her with a bright blue eye. “And I’ll look for you in church this Sunday. I’ll be giving the sermon this week. It’s one of my favorites, all about dedicating one’s life to God. I think you’ll find it most absorbing.”
“Sounds riveting,” she said feebly. “Perhaps, if my daughter’s feeling better, I’ll look in for a bit. But I do want to thank you for taking the time,” she said, escorting the father and his little case from my room. As they headed downstairs together, still talking, I thought back over the last hour. I hadn’t felt a thing, even when the priest was at his most strident.
My eyes strayed to the hand that no longer held Mark’s ring. Did the absence of feeling mean he was truly gone?
Or just that the exorcist wasn’t up to snuff?
About an hour later, I was staring out the window at the trees and wondering if I should hobble over to my father’s room and say hello when the roar of a motorcycle sounded outside. My heart leapt when it stopped outside Sit A Spell.
As footsteps sounded on the stairs, I reached up to rake my hair into place, wishing I could reach the mirror on the dresser.
Then
he was in the doorway, and it just didn’t matter.
“Sophie,” he said, stepping inside and closing the door softly behind him.
He was dressed, as usual, in faded jeans and a T-shirt that molded itself to his muscular chest. His gold hair spilled over his broad shoulders, and his golden eyes burned.
My body quivered at his nearness. Now that Lindsey and Heath were together, I knew, there was nothing to keep us apart. Except, unfortunately, for the cast on my right leg.
“Tom,” I said quietly. He closed the distance between us and sat down on the side of my bed. I could feel the heat of him, and his smell… I struggled to catch my breath.
“Have you had any time to think about things?” he asked.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “What things?”
“The pack,” he said levelly, his eyes fixed on mine. “The position is yours by right.”
“If I took it,”—I sucked in my breath, trying not to think of what his skin looked like under that T-shirt—“wouldn’t that mean I’d have to leave Austin?”
The light from the window gleamed on his blond hair as he shook his head. “You can organize it however you like,” he said.
I thought about that for a moment. Tom was saying I could run the pack from my loft in Austin if I wanted to. I’d probably have to give up my job at Withers and Young. Then again, since Adele was doubtless going to rescind my partnership as soon as she found out I’d exorcised my star client, perhaps that wasn’t such a big deal.
“The question is whether or not you want to,” he said.
“What does an alpha do?” I said, still struggling to keep my thoughts on track, even if my eyes kept straying down his exceedingly fit body. His smell was getting stronger, it seemed, or maybe I was just hyper-sensitive to it.
He chuckled throatily. “The alpha runs the pack,” he said. “It’s not a democracy. You’re the queen.”
“And if I don’t take it?”
He sighed. “Then the betas battle it out until there’s a successor.” He eyed me. “I think you would make a very good alpha, if you want my opinion.”
“I just don’t know,” I said. “This is all so sudden.”
“Think about it,” he said. “You can close the Howl tonight as the acting alpha. You don’t have to be sworn in until you’re ready.”
“So I don’t have to decide immediately?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t wait too long, but I think you can take a couple of weeks.” He reached out and brushed a stray bit of hair from my cheek.
“Have you thought about… other things?” he asked in a low voice. His eyes found mine. “Like us?”
“It depends,” I said, thinking of all the rumors I’d heard about Tom’s love life. And his relationship with Lindsey. “Do you still have feelings for Lindsey?” I asked.
“I care for her,” he said slowly. “But my feelings for you are in another league altogether.”
Could I believe him? I wondered.
“I think the important question,” he said “involves you. What are your thoughts? Now that Lindsey and Heath are together, and your client… well, his mask has been removed.”
“I’m relieved, I think.”
He leaned closer, and his scent intensified.
“Surprised, of course, but also …” Before I could say another word, his mouth was on mine, his right hand cradling my head.
My body surged in a way I had never felt before, as if an animal that had been caged up for years had finally been set free. I reached for him, clawing at his T-shirt, desperate to remove all barriers between us. His mouth was hungry on mine, and a low growl escaped him as his fingers tore at my nightshirt, ripping it from my body, until I was naked beneath him.
The feel of his skin against mine was electric, and as his tongue blazed a hot trail down to my breasts, I fumbled with the button of his jeans. He was hard against me, and he groaned as I closed my hand around him.
“Sophie,” he said, his voice rough. His hand dropped to the moist cleft between my legs, and I arched my back, moaning with delight as he touched me. He paused as his fingers grazed the plaster cast. “Your leg,” he whispered.
“Don’t care,” I mumbled. I felt nothing but the heat of wanting him. He spread me apart on the bed then, his mouth engulfing first one nipple, then the other, then blazing a hot, wet trail farther down. When his lips touched me, I almost dissolved into a million bits. His tongue was hot on me, and I felt myself rise to the top of the wave, moments from cresting. Just before the peak, I reached down and gently pushed his head away.
“I want you inside me,” I said.
He paused, his eyes fixed to mine, pupils dilated with lust, only a thin ring of gold surrounding them.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said roughly, and he got to his knees on the bed, spreading my legs farther, and gently, slowly, thrust himself into me.
I pulled him down to me, biting into his shoulder, growling with pleasure. He tasted like he smelled—exotic, male, all animal. The touch and smell of him, even his taste, was incredible, and unlike any man I’d ever been with. It was as if Tom was something my body had been craving my whole life; now, I couldn’t imagine how I’d survived without it.
Tom thrust deeper, filling me again and again, his mouth lapping hungrily at my mouth, my neck, my breasts. I groaned in pleasure, loving the feel of him inside me, the reverberations shuddering through my body, driving me to the brink of ecstasy. I was in my element now—all animal, all instinct, lost in a jungle of pure lust. Just before I succumbed, I heard his echo through me.
I love you, Sophie Garou.
A second later, everything dissolved around me. The orgasm that ripped through my body was like every pleasurable feeling I’d ever experienced, distilled and poured into one single moment. This is what you’ve been waiting for, I realized; there was a rightness, a connection between us that I’d been longing for since I was born, only I hadn’t known it.
A second later, Tom’s body tensed above me, and he emitted an animal groan that made me shiver.
I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think I may have howled.
It felt strange returning to the Graf Ranch knowing that it no longer belonged to the enemy, and that my father, instead of being chained up in the garden cottage, was in the backseat of my M3 with my mother, chatting about all of my relatives in Provence and Auvergne and replaying the highlights of my battle with Elena. “We’ll have to change that name,” my father said as we passed through the gate. “Garou Ranch sounds so much more melodious, don’t you think?” Tom was in the driver’s seat, his hand on my cast-free leg, his mouth twitching as he suppressed a grin.
“You were incredible, chérie,” my father continued from the backseat, picking up the monologue that had been going almost since we left Austin. “Particularly for one who has not had any training.”
“All the same, I’m glad I wasn’t there,” my mother said.
“Oh, but she was spectacular, Carmen. You’ve done a fantastic job raising her. Just marvelous.” I glanced in the rearview mirror at my father, who was already practically healed from his encounter with Wolfgang. He and my mother had spent most of the afternoon catching up, and he would be in Austin another week or so, trying to track down Boris and Dudley. And what remained of Georges, so he could be shipped back to France.
“You can’t just kill them, you know,” I’d told him.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m the alpha, remember? And they need to be tried.”
His eyes twinkled. “Oh, so you’ve decided to take the position?”
“Since I’m no longer employed at Withers and Young, I thought I might.” I had called Adele just before five that afternoon, back at Sit A Spell. After listening to a five-minute harangue, during which she upbraided me for disappearing without calling and told me that our star client, Southeast Airlines, had canceled its contract, doubtless due to my less-than-professio
nal behavior, I had calmly informed her that I was resigning.
“What?” she barked.
“I’ve been offered another position,” I said.
“But…”
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” I said. “I’m sorry for the short notice, but I’m going to have to resign effective immediately.” This wasn’t how I wanted to leave the job I’d worked so hard to earn, but I couldn’t risk another encounter with Mark. “I’ll be in to clean out my office next week.”
Adele started backpedaling. “Sophie. I may have been a bit harsh. You’re still a valuable employee. I was thinking, maybe if we went down and visited Mark Sydney together…”
A shiver ran through me at the sound of his name, and I almost thought I caught a whiff of his smoky smell. Goose bumps rose on my arms as I said, “I’m not sure he’s the kind of client you want.”
She sighed. “I can’t say I agree with you, Sophie. I mean, Southeast Airlines—one of the country’s top companies.” She was quiet for a moment, thinking of the billing opportunities she’d just lost. “Well, it’s a good thing Sally passed her CPA exam,” she said. “It looks like we’re going to have a vacancy to fill.”
I clutched the phone. “What?”
“Didn’t you know? She’s been taking night classes for the last year or two. She just got her results in; she passed with flying colors.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said. No wonder she’d been dressing more conservatively; she’d been angling for a job. My job.
“We’ll miss having someone of your experience and caliber, though. I always viewed you as a bit of a protégé.” She paused for a moment. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider?”
I looked over at Tom, who was sitting on the end of my bed watching me. “I’m sure,” I said.
“Well, if that’s your decision, I guess that’s it,” she said as he got up and walked over to me.
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