Wolf Slayer

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  The Lycan...and her...naked on this bed.

  Had he heard those thoughts as well? His face got closer. The smile was gone and all she could see were those haunting blue eyes. The full lips...

  Before his mouth rested on hers.

  * * *

  Jonas found himself propelled forward and into a dream world where actions didn’t have to be analyzed, nothing was forbidden, and old enemies found common ground.

  His mouth was on Tess’s and she tasted like a lush and dangerous cocktail of the senses.

  Neither of them moved. Possibly she was as stunned by this as he was, but Jonas refused to regret acting on instinct. He had wanted this all along, deep down, when anything having to do with Tess Owens should have been off-limits. His desire for her was inexplicable, as if an outside force was propelling them toward each other at high speed for no other reason than to watch the impact.

  Tess’s lips were a soft contrast to the tautness of her body. Her eyes were closed. With his hands on the sides of her face, Jonas traced the faint lines of her scars beneath his palms, knowing this would anger her. The kiss was bad enough. Bringing attention to her scars would be, for her, a heinous act, especially when those scars had been caused by werewolves.

  Neither of them dared to take a breath as Jonas waited for Tess to strike out. Surely, she would have to. He spoke to her with his mind, sending messages along those forbidden channels while trying to decide what she tasted like and how bad her reaction to a personal space violation would be when she decided to show him one.

  “We don’t have to be enemies, Tess.”

  No slap came. No shove. He might have finally pushed her over the edge. And what the hell. If this was a dream, he was all in.

  He added pressure to this crazy meeting of their mouths, though the lips beneath his remained closed and unresponsive. Tess would have to do something soon or she’d realize he might take her silence as a green light of acquiescence. He doubted she would allow things to get that far.

  His own warning signals were flashing, urging him to back off, ease the pressure, forget the thrill that being so close to Tess produced. He couldn’t afford to anger her to the point of no return and make her extra intent on hunting him down for the transgression.

  Then again, it was probably already too late to stop that.

  “This thing between us...” His lips moved over hers to form the words, planning to say something useful to ease the situation. But then she moved. Her lips parted. And the taste of something metallic soared through his senses with an effect similar to having just sucked on a bolt of lightning.

  Jonas drew back, blinked his eyes. In seconds, Tess was in his face in a very different manner—smooth expression, eyes like steel.

  “Dream on, wolf.”

  Her hands were on his chest. She pushed him back using a good example of the strength she had lacked moments before and said, “I’m not into your tricks and not into you.”

  She was on her feet and had him backing to the window where sunlight bathed her in an afternoon glow. It was then that Jonas saw the detail he had missed before.

  Tess’s skin wasn’t white or a light tinted gray. It was, in fact, a very pale blue when seen in direct light. Blue skin surrounded her big blue eyes, with a slight variation of the color lining her lips.

  Along with his notice of those things came a terrible sudden awareness of what that meant and what Tess had done in that other room.

  Tess was torturing her system in order to enhance her healing powers and her strength in much the same way that some athletes used steroids to up their games.

  She supposed that silver was the bane of all werewolves and the equivalent of deadly nightshade or a plant aptly known as Wolf’s Bane. Silver bullets, silver-tipped arrows and silver blades could take a wolf down when others modes of execution couldn’t, she would suppose, as most hunters did. This information was a hunter’s bread and butter. Basic werewolf hunting 101.

  But it wasn’t always true.

  It was an ingenious idea, he had to admit, for dealing with werewolves whose blood had been diluted. What Tess had done to herself could in some instances give her an edge if a pair of fangs or claws drew blood. Not here, however. He had been trained to deal with silver.

  “Sorry,” Jonas said as Tess quickly produced another blade from the table behind her. He wondered how many she had stashed around the cabin and if he wasn’t her first unwelcome guest. He added, “In this case, your secrets won’t be of much use to you.”

  She stared back defiantly. “We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?”

  “Lycan,” he repeated, as if either she didn’t remember he had already told her this, or she truly was lacking a few specifics about his species in general.

  “All the same to me,” she snapped a bit too breathlessly to have the impact she might have wished for.

  Shaking his head, Jonas strode forward to stand beside her. When she raised the knife, he clearly saw that using the weapon wasn’t what she really wanted to do and that Tess didn’t trust herself where he was concerned. Why had she held back on the kiss if her overall intent was to hurt him? Was her hesitancy due to the fact that she hadn’t wanted him to feel the detrimental effects of the silver that would by now have saturated every membrane in her body? She had saved him from that?

  He took the blade from her calmly. “We have evolved,” he explained. “Some of us have, anyway. If a species continues long enough, the basic details about us get blurred.”

  Tess was breathing hard. The mysterious attraction between them had been cranked up a notch by coming here today. Tess knew this. So did he. They both wished someone could tell them why.

  What if it turned out that she might have been willing to use that mattress if it hadn’t been for a round of fresh thoughts on protecting him from the silver in her body?

  Jonas took hold of her shoulders. Though she put up a decent effort to resist, Tess showed nothing of the strength she now possessed.

  He swung her toward the bed, threw her on top of it and looked down at her with new insight. Fires were blazing between them and the flames were growing. For him, this latest round of attraction was dangerously close to the emotions he had been trying to avoid. Imprinting wasn’t possible for him with a human female, he reminded himself. Imprinting was the Were equivalent of placing a ring on a female’s finger.

  Tess’s eyes didn’t meet his. Perhaps she imagined the game was over and he was about to prove that to her. Maybe she didn’t fear her own death and had seen it coming. If that was true, she hadn’t believed a word he had said.

  “Lycans have developed a tolerance to all sorts of things,” he explained with his face close to hers, leaving out the part about how the silver still sat sourly on his tongue. “Enough for some Weres to get past the pain of silver and other metals touching our skin.”

  He failed to mention how the buildup of those tolerances had nothing to do with getting past feisty female wolf hunters.

  “That makes monsters unstoppable,” she said.

  Jonas shook his head. “I will again say how sorry I am that you haven’t met many of the good guys. Weres who patrol the streets on the lookout for monsters. Weres who go after the criminal element so decent folks of all species can stay safe.”

  Witnessing the skepticism in her expression, he went on.

  “You don’t need to electrocute yourself in order to deal with me, Tess. A simple truce between us will do.”

  The fact that Tess dared to again close her eyes gave him hope about building trust that didn’t last long. With a stupendous burst of refueled muscle and speed that must have been gathering inside her, she was out from beneath him and reaching for him from behind.

  “Damn it,” Jonas muttered, catching her in both hands and following her to the wooden floorboards. Straddling her writhing body, he added, “Ar
e you deaf? So completely brainwashed that you can’t listen to reason?”

  Christ. He mentally backpedaled. Maybe he was the one being brainwashed, because they were in a unique position for Tess to rub him in all the right ways and in all the right places. And he was aroused.

  As if Tess sensed this, she stopped moving her hips. Her cheeks flushed pink. Thoughts of what he’d like to do with her on this floor returned. Although Tess was human, Jonas was sure they’d be a good fit. They could make this work if they tried.

  Yep. He had gone completely insane.

  “I want you, wolf hunter,” he whispered to her. “How’s that for a confession from the big bad wolf you’re so hot to take down?”

  Motionless, she appeared to be as stunned as he was by his confession.

  “Don’t you imagine these strange feelings we’re ignoring are equally as tough for me?” he asked.

  Her lips moved, daring Jonas to turn his attention there. When Tess spoke, it was to confirm what he had suspected all along.

  “Feeling anything for you is a sin and against everything I stand for, wolf.”

  Jonas nodded. “Then you do feel it.”

  “In this position, I’m able to feel everything you’ve got.”

  Yes, he supposed she could.

  “Then you see the truth in what I’ve said about this attraction having nothing to do with fighting,” he said.

  Her jaw was tight. “If I let down my guard, all will be lost and you will be to blame.”

  “Conversely, if I were to follow up on the look in your eyes when they meet mine, I’d be distracted from doing what I came to this area to do, all this hunting business aside.”

  “I’m all for you walking out that door, wolf. Both my reputation and my sanity depend on it.”

  She was right. He had to let the promise of the moment go. He’d have to do that willingly. Reluctantly. Nodding to Tess while curbing his appetite for her, Jonas got to his feet. Before offering her a hand, he asked, “Do I get that truce?”

  “Only until I come to my senses,” she replied without getting up off the floor. “And for the short time it takes you to use that door.”

  It wasn’t an actual agreement to his terms, but Jonas supposed it was a small step in that direction. Sweeping his gaze over Tess’s lovely long limbs, her expressionless face and the burn marks on her arms that were still livid, he took note of all the details. Nothing of the telling blue cast to her skin was evident without the sunlight. On that floor, looking vulnerable without actually being vulnerable, Tess just looked like a really attractive woman who was undecided about what her future might bring.

  She was extraordinary.

  And she was his sworn enemy.

  Yes, he desired her too much and too badly. He didn’t really get that or how these feelings had come on so strongly, and his regret over having to leave her was like nothing he could recall.

  “For now,” he said without extending his hand.

  Either he’d be back, or she would come to him.

  This would be a very wild ride when the time came. And all the silver in the world wasn’t going to stop him from taking it.

  Chapter 14

  “Don’t come back.” Tess called after the Were before stopping to think how mundane that statement was in light of what had almost transpired in her bedroom.

  Hearing the front door close, she got up. Satisfied to be alone again with her new dilemma of what to do about Jonas, she looked around. The sun was still shining. Light from the window crossed the floorboards, rendering her mood dark by comparison. The house was quiet again, except for the steady boom of her heartbeat. The room she stood in felt empty without the Lycan’s presence to fill it. She felt empty standing in it.

  Tess put a hand to her forehead, ran her fingers down the side of her face where he had touched her with gentle hands that hid ten lethal claws. For a large man hiding a beast, this guy’s tenderness was a curious anomaly. So was his offer of a truce.

  The sound of an engine revving drew her to the window. Jonas had started up a dusty green Jeep. After putting the car in gear, he sat idling in the yard.

  “No,” Tess said out loud with a firm head shake. “Go now. You have to leave.”

  She put the full force of her willpower behind that directive and waited to see if their connection was as mind-blowing as she had imagined. “Do you hear me, wolf?”

  Finally, the Jeep backed up, turned and drove off at a pace slow enough for her to have caught up with it at an easy jog. Did her Lycan want to turn back? Humiliate her some more? Why else had he turned up at her home, if not to test her?

  She stared after him, thinking back, mulling over the things he had told her.

  I’m here to keep something bad from happening, he had said. My reason for being in the area is important to people other than myself.

  Those remembered words rang with the promise of being backed by truth. Instinct wasn’t always right though, so could she trust her gut this time and believe him?

  As for his remarks, what was going to happen and to whom?

  Unlike other challengers, it seemed to her that Jonas hadn’t come here to go against the local anti-werewolf enforcer. However, the reason for his relocation remained unclear. It was time for this guy to fill in a few blanks. But first, more time was necessary for her to get her breath back and allow the silver concoction to be fully absorbed into her system.

  The infusions had always given her confidence and would do so now if she waited it out. Silver particles shored up her backbone and would point her in the right direction to solve this mystery. “Hopefully.”

  By the time she had finished talking to herself, the afternoon sun had dropped lower in the sky. This was fine with her. Outside and without the loneliness of the cabin, she didn’t feel so alone.

  Tess closed her eyes.

  The big Were next door might have discovered a couple of her secrets, but not nearly all of them.

  There were other reasons for taking silver into her body. The instructions her parents had left her were perfectly clear about that, without actually explaining why. Ultimately, Tess would have to discover this for herself. Each time she applied those electrodes, she prayed that kind of enlightenment would come.

  What she hadn’t planned for was how each new infusion also deepened the hole inside her that had begun to feel bottomless.

  Her isolation wasn’t just about being different from other people. This was something else. Something deeper. Her sense of being alone got worse each time a full moon rolled around.

  “Enough!” Tess shouted, listening to the fading sounds of the Jeep. “We’ll need to unravel your secrets first, my fine wolf.”

  Glad to have a direction that would take her mind off of herself, Tess went to the weapons room to begin preparations for the night ahead and whatever the damn werewolf’s secrets might turn out to be.

  * * *

  This was not good and in no way acceptable, Jonas admitted to himself in the darkness-cloaked yard of his cabin. Feelings of unease hadn’t left him.

  He turned to Gwen. “Did you behave yourself today?”

  Jonas would have given a lot to have his sister answer him.

  “All day?” he pressed.

  Gwen might have been smiling. He liked to believe she was. She was also fidgeting. Darkness always made Gwen restless. She wouldn’t sit down, needing to burn off excess energy that increased day by day. Her need to pace was wearing out the carpet and the porch floorboards.

  “I’ll go with you out there,” he said, observing his sister carefully and imagining what this must be like for her. She needed a break from being cooped up.

  She stopped pacing.

  “One hour only, and then we come back here. Do we have a deal, Gwen?”

  She was already starting that hour of freed
om. Her arms were twitching. Her eyes were bright. “One hour, Gwen,” he repeated, determined to keep up if she bolted away. “And we stay away from the neighbors.” Jonas placed himself squarely in the center of the porch archway. “Especially that neighbor. You know who I mean.”

  Gwen pushed past him as if he had just let her off a leash and as if she wouldn’t be able to breathe until she got away from the cabin. One minute she was standing on the porch. Seconds after that, Gwen was on all fours and running for the hills like a bolt of white lightning.

  “Hell,” Jonas muttered as he sprinted after her. “I might never get used to that.”

  He ran easily once his legs caught up with his desire to stick close to Gwen, but he wished he’d had time to remove his boots. Bare feet to the bare ground was another way werewolves tested their surroundings.

  Gwen moved in large circles that expanded with each pass, pretending to heed his warning about Tess, though Jonas still feared some sort of rebellion. Now and then, Gwen slowed to look back at him.

  When she stopped near the base of the hillside, he stopped beside her, his skin prickling when Gwen turned her head to sniff the air. Catching a whiff of a scent she didn’t like, Gwen crouched down the way wolves did in the wild when either the smell of their prey or a disturbance in the distance reached them. She was so still, so intent on whatever she had locked onto, that the back of Jonas’s neck chilled.

  The scent he noticed soon after needed no processing.

  “Wolf,” he said. “More than one of them.”

  Can’t be, Jonas inwardly added. Surely Tess would have known if there were more werewolves in the area. Wouldn’t she have mentioned it? Then again, why would she have mentioned it to him?

  Wait. Was that why she had indulged in a silver infusion? She had been expecting more company?

  Gwen brushed up against his legs, seeking permission to do the very thing Jonas had feared she might do, which was to go after these intruders. She was shaking, barely able to hold herself back and growling fiercely. Rogue wolves had hurt her. She wanted payback for that.