The moon was only three quarters full. Would he be able to resist her in a week’s time? Or would the moon with her bloated, silver belly demand the ultimate sacrifice from those she ruled over?
Leave her. If you love her, leave her.
By the will of Sekhmet – he loved her.
Far off in the distance a roll of thunder sounded.
His foreboding grew.
~*~
“I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him!”
“Ryan, don’t—”
“I shared my marshmallows with him.”
“What?”
“Nevermind. I thought he was letting go of her.”
“It’s not even been a year for him. A year after my mum died, I would have given anything to have her back. I was looking for clues, a reason – anything – as to why she chose to leave us all behind. Of course he’s going to want to fix this.”
Ryan mumbled something and continued pacing up and down Lawrence’s office, Lawrence himself sitting at his desk in contemplative mode. He had been called in as well, much to Lydia’s annoyance – she didn’t want everyone ganging up on Taylor.
Although Lawrence didn’t exude the anger that Ryan did, Lydia could tell he was seething beneath the surface, and she knew why: he had entrusted her to Taylor.
“Please,” she pleaded, aching from their disappointment in him, “both of you, don’t blame him. I can’t stand it.” Her eyes grew hot as tears welled up in them. “He’s hurt. I just want him back safe.”
“He should have waited for me,” grumbled Ryan.
“Yes, he should. But that would be like asking you to wait for back up if it were me that was in danger, don’t you think? He still loves her.” Her voice cracked over those last four words, despite her effort to show no emotion at the fact.
“Hey, hey, hey…” Ryan finally reined in his temper and took her in his arms. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Taylor’s dedicated to you, I know that.”
Just what she wanted. Three men dedicated to her. Who gave a whatsit about love, anyway. She pulled out of his embrace and sat herself down on the corner of the desk, arms across her chest, ignoring his quizzical look.
Lawrence’s matter-of-factness cut through the awkwardness, and for once she was glad of his detached nature. “Bill and Marco say that Operiphur was used. There’s no way to trace the scent of the Trident or Sarah; Taylor will have the same problem. I’ll make an educated guess that he’ll go back to her house when all other avenues have failed and wait it out.”
“Do you want me to go there?” chipped in Ryan.
The two men exchanged a look.
Lydia’s panic flared. Surely they wouldn’t leave him; he’s part of the pack. He was her mate, even if he still loved his wife. He was a part of her – he was a part of all three of them.
“Go. But stay back, downwind if you can. Observe. Don’t jump in unless you absolutely have to. We want to bring him back alive and undamaged, but that pup’s got a decision to make and he needs room to make it. We’ve all lost people we love; we all know how it feels. Lydia’s right, his loss is more recent than any of ours. Unfortunately for him, he needs to get the fuck over it faster than any of us.”
Ryan nodded.
Lydia’s relief filled the room. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Right, babe.” Ryan, clearly glad at having a mission to let off his steam, swooped in and crushed his lips to hers despite the fact that she’d pushed herself away earlier. Nothing broke him at all, did it? Everything that was ‘Ryan’ seeped its way into her heart as it always had. Her mates totally rocked. Maybe she could love them enough for all of them…
“If that boy doesn’t have an epiphany, I’ll drag him home backwards by his tail until he does.”
Well, what did one say to that?
She smiled her thanks and nodded.
“I mean it,” said Lawrence, “no jumping in.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Ryan shut the door behind him.
“Okay,” she hopped off the desk. “I need to keep busy, so I’m gonna go back to—”
“Lydia.”
She held her breath and turned to face Lawrence. He was all businesslike as usual; gone was the man who’d fucked her senseless just hours earlier. She wasn’t sure whether she was grateful or pissed off beyond words.
“The information that I asked for about your family finally came in this evening. Is this something you feel up to hearing now?”
No. “Sure.”
“Both of your parents were werewolves.”
“No, that’s not—”
“Your father’s werewolf gene is recessive – extremely rare – but possible. It appears that he was mostly shunned within his pack because he could never shift at will, only during the full moon.”
“But—”
“As a boy, he was taken under the wing of Gladys Boswell, not a blood relative and not a werewolf. She was a Human Hand – a term given to the very few trusted humans who know of our existence and have sworn to secrecy.”
Stunned, all protestation left her. She’d always believed her to be her father’s great aunt – a blood relative.
“She introduced him to the woman – the werewolf – who would turn out to be his mate and your mother: Christine Herne. She was a storm-wielder from a pack that lived in Somerset, banished because of her abilities.
“Their union was a blessed one in a way, because no one looked twice at James Martin, he passed himself as human, and Christine didn’t want anyone to look twice at her. But from that point, everything gets a little vague.”
“Wait, wait, wait … my parents, both of them … I’ve never once seen anything to indicate—”
“Think hard. Your dad only ever shifted on the full moon, and your mother would probably have tempered her changes to suit his. How did you used to spend your full moons during your childhood?”
“Well, I don’t bloody know … erm… God. Oh, god. Mum and dad used to go out once a month for dinner, but I don’t know if it was on the full moon, I never had any reason to check. Aunt Gladys would look after me; I despised those nights with a passion – she’s always given me the creeps. Shit, I don’t believe it. It must have been the full moon – it must have been. Every month. Why didn’t they just fucking tell me about werewolves?”
“No doubt they were trying to protect you in case you were a storm-wielder. Sometimes the gene can activate before mating, sometimes only after.”
“And in our case, during,” she added, dryly. “Well, they needn’t have worried. Worst fucking storm-wielder in the world over here.”
“The Trident wouldn’t give two hoots. They’d tie you to a copper pole if they had to.”
“Yeah,” she said, sullenly. “So, what do we do about my dad? Do you want me to call him?”
“Yes, please, and arrange a meeting for all of us – that’s all four of us and him.”
She suddenly felt faint. How was she going to explain this mating foursome to her dad? Ew… Yeah, great – he’ll be such a proud dad.
“I’ll phone him first thing in the morning.”
“Wonderful.” He managed a smile. “Thank you.” He bent his head and began scanning his schedule for next week.
That’s it? No ‘babe’ or ‘sweetheart’? No meaningful look? She sighed. Might as well ask what was on her mind then. “Lawrence?”
“Mmmm?”
“Why was that Trident with Sarah?”
He stared at her a beat before answering. “Why Sarah in particular, I can’t say. But maybe they’re looking to increase their numbers since our warehouse attack.”
“What do you mean?”
He raised a brow. “Haven’t you read your text books?”
“I’m working my way through them slowly,” she frowned.
Surprisingly, it was a small laugh that left him, rather than any sound of disappointment at her lack of reading. “Tridents are humans before they’re turned to Tridents. The species is named after the
late Dr Evan Trident. He was obsessed with werewolves. He wanted to be one; he even placed himself in the path of many – suffered many bites – but, of course, he never became a werewolf from those bites. So, he thought he’d create his own. He spent his time hunting us down, experimenting on the werewolves that he did manage to catch – whether dead or alive – for years…
“Then, one day near Christmas of 1789, he succeeded. He created a werewolf from a human man, using an infusion of Datura to keep him in a death-like state and the newly invented lightning rod to charge his body under a storm and alter the construction of his cells in a way only he and the Trident are privy to – I assume that werewolf blood was combined with the human’s blood during this process.
“The result, however, was more beast than wolf and it died within days of its creation. Not deterred, and like the true scientist he was, he focused on making a better creation; something more superior each time he failed. However, his little mutant army started to make quite a name for itself, causing havoc and killing folk. Wolves were blamed, along with any large dog that townspeople saw fit to point the finger at, and so began our extermination at the hand of man.
“Anyway, the result of his work is the Trident we see before us: stronger than us for the most part, not quite as fast, immune to silver, destroyed by Datura, and suffering a far shorter life span than werewolves if they remain unmated.”
“They mate?”
“With humans, yes. But it’s next to impossible for them to breed, and most don’t find their mates or seem to even have them. With us, it’s different – we’re a natural creation. We still follow the laws of nature, and nature looks after us insofar as it can. Until that balance was knocked by the Trident, we could safely say there was one mate for every wolf. The Trident have never been able to say that about themselves. Mostly, they gather human beings and turn them to Tridents in the same way their creator did. They’re carrying on his work.”
“Oh, my god. You think he wants to turn Sarah into a Trident?”
“That, or mate with her, which would be pointless unless he was going to turn her anyway. There’s no other reason.”
No wonder Taylor had lost his head. Sarah could suffer a fate far worse than death. “Poor Taylor.”
“Lydia,” he pushed his chair back and stood. “I don’t wish that fate upon anyone, but there’s actually a chance that Taylor might be better off if Sarah—”
“No! Don’t even think it. He wouldn’t be better off, he’d be tortured for the rest of his life. If that’s the way things played out, he’d never move on.”
She stood her ground when he made his way to her. “I need him to keep his head more than ever now. You matter more than Sarah.”
“How can you—”
“You matter more to me,” his eyes blazed with feeling, “and you should mean more to Taylor.”
“He loves her, Lawrence. He wasn’t brought up a wolf; he can’t just switch off his heart and pretend being with me is everything that being with her was. I get it, okay? It’s not like any of you – any of us – get a choice of mates. You don’t do love, I know that, but Taylor does. He chose her.”
Some scene she didn’t understand played out in the depths of his eyes, along with the pain she’d seen there earlier today.
“Oh, is that what you know?” he asked, all emotion gone from his tone. How could he be so hot one second and so cold the next?
She felt his chilly withdrawal as certainly as she felt anything about the man. It was as if the door to a giant meat locker had just opened in the room and it sucked all the warmth right out of it.
Don’t do this… Talk to me… She reached up to touch his face, but he caught her wrist and held it fast, his gaze, completely impenetrable now, boring into hers. It left her freezing. Now that she’d seen his fire, known his heat, this felt desolate.
A distant roll of thunder fuelled a flame in her belly – perhaps it was her storm-wielder finally waking up. Anger had her clenching her fist and trying to yank out of his grip, but he wouldn’t let her go.
“Yes, it’s what I know,” she seethed. “I’ve seen no evidence to the contrary. You talk about Taylor turning away from me, but damn it, you’re no closer than he is.”
He stepped into her frame, and wrestled her arm so it twisted and rested against the small of her back, then he pressed her forwards so that any wriggling from her resulted in her rubbing against the length of him.
Arrogant, fucking prick… In spite of herself, her tongue darted out to moisten her suddenly dry lips.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, his own lips inching closer…
“Mr Gunvald?” Lisa knocked on the door as she spoke from the other side of it.
The both of them froze in place.
“I just wanted you to know that the foyer’s all cleaned up now.” She laughed nervously. “The blood didn’t stain and no one saw anything thanks to Act II. Also … erm,” her tone dropped with uncertainty, “I’m not really sure what happened, but I found that guy’s – er – I mean, Lydia’s friend … his clothes were on the floor of the restaurant.”
Lydia grimaced.
Lawrence mumbled something about still not paying her enough, then he marched Lydia backwards two steps. Her backside hit his desk and she fell onto it. He leaned into her, still holding her against him, the heat of him resting between her legs… “You know nothing,” he said, and then he gathered his jacket, yelled that he’d be right there to Lisa, and made towards the door, leaving Lydia wanting, yet confused; desirous, yet furious, and reeling from both his mercurial nature and the night’s events.
Chapter Twelve
He could have watched her all night. He could watch her for an eternity and still never be able to capture the essence of what it is that makes ‘love’. He remembered more than most did about being human, but love had been as much of a mystery to him then as it was now. He’d never sought it out. Sure, he’d loved his mum as a child, but he’d quickly nipped that in the bud – she was too obsessed with her religion to make a good mother anyway. Constant disappointment as a boy made detaching from her all the more easy.
He couldn’t believe he was going to go crawling back, but he had a reason to now, and by the goddess and all the priestesses of Sekhmet, she was going to help him or suffer for it. He wasn’t beyond his Trident nature – snapping her neck wouldn’t cause him to blink.
But he did now know he could control it.
He knew because Sarah had sunk into his pillow with a sigh that had him wanting to sink into her; because she’d filled the room so much with her aroma that opening the window hadn’t alleviated it... Yet, he hadn’t taken her.
No. He had spent all night tying up loose ends and booking a plane ticket, whilst nervously keeping lookout to make sure he hadn’t been followed; not by the werewolf, but by Gabriel. It wouldn’t take too long before tonight’s little fuck-up reached The Trident’s ears. He hoped they were busy with another mission – that would buy him some time.
The werewolf posed no threat to Sarah, but Gabriel did. If he found out the extent of Amil’s attachment to her, he’d use it against him.
So far, so good. However, he still had to get Sarah home safe.
“Amil,” her sleepy voice croaked from under the sheets.
“Here. I’m here, darling.” He perched at the end of the bed and took her hand in his. “You’re fine; you’re safe. We’re in my hotel room.”
“What time is it?”
“About four-thirty a.m. – just before dawn. We need to think about getting you home.”
“Home? Oh … your family emergency.”
He smiled sadly. “I’m afraid so. I’ve booked a ticket to Egypt. The plane leaves at lunch time.”
“So soon?”
“I’m sorry. I wish you knew how much.” In the semi-darkness, he reached out and stroked her face.
She leaned into his touch, then turned her head and kissed his fingers. “I’d like a shower before we go. Woul
d that be all right?”
“Of course.”
“Amil,” she sat up and brought herself to his eye level, nose to nose, “I’d like you to shower with me.”
He sucked in a breath. He didn’t think he’d ever heard any woman say anything so erotic in his life … or maybe it was just the way she said it. Whatever it was, he had to hold himself back from leaping out of his clothes. “Sarah…”
“Please. I have this feeling you’re not telling me everything; that going back to Egypt is somehow dangerous for you or something. It’s fine. You don’t have to tell me everything. But if there’s any chance, any chance at all, that I might never see you again … then let me have this.” Her lips found his and bit by bit, his reservations ebbed away.
Sarah wrapped her hand around his, which still cupped her face, and brought it down her neck to her left shoulder. Guiding his fingers, she urged he slip them under the strap of her dress. Her breathless voice came out as shaky as he felt. “Undress me.”
Tentatively, he did as he was instructed and slid the strap off her shoulder – her smooth, creamy shoulder. How had he never noticed before how completely luscious a woman’s shoulder could be?
The strap moved down towards her elbow and she shifted her weight to get her arm out of it, the movement plumping the swell of her breast…
Unbidden, his earlier dream fantasy hit him full force and he froze midway, fear creeping around his spine like a coiled snake.
She grasped the back of his neck, brought his head to hers and kissed him, wildly this time, smashing herself into him. “Don’t deny me. Please, Amil, I won’t say what I really want to; I won’t utter that four letter word because of all the havoc it’ll cause … although, if there was anyone I would say it to, it might just be you…”
Sweet Jesus, was she saying what he thought she was? Was she telling him she could love him? That he could be worthy of that?
It was more than he’d dreamed, and more than he’d ever have because a plane ride to a three month future was the only thing awaiting him … and the next few hours.
“This is all I ask.” She kissed her way down his neck, unbuttoning his shirt as she went. “Don’t deny me this.”
Cry Of The Wolf (Eye Of The Storm) Page 13