Primal Call

by Sizemore, Susan

  “I’m fine. How are you? How was your day, besides the fire? I’m starting to see and feel things—psychically—and somehow I’m blaming you. Can you explain that?”

  “Um—” was his inarticulate reply. “Uh. I know you aren’t crazy, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m fine,” he added. “Restless. In need of some female company.”

  “You can have any woman in the world,” she pointed out. She hated that her entire being clenched with jealousy as she stated this simple truth. “Do vampires have claws?” she changed the subject as quickly as she could.

  “Yes. Retractable.”

  “Can they fly?”

  “If they have a pilot’s license, or at least an airline ticket, and a passport if they need—”

  “Damn,” Thena said as she caught sight of a truck towing a horse trailer coming up the long drive from the county road. She knew that truck. “Damn, damn, damn.”

  “What’s the matter? What’s wrong? How can I help?” James asked. She heard his desperation in far-off California.

  “Hold on,” she said.

  Thena left the phone on the table and went into the house. She was standing on the porch steps when the truck came to a halt in front of the house. The driver’s door opened.

  “Don’t bother getting out,” she called. “Turn around and go home, Mike.”

  Mike Finn didn’t listen. He never did.

  Ed and Carol came up to the truck. Dogs barked. Sheep Mother spat from her side of the pasture fence. One of the part-time helpers climbed over the fence and trotted to the far side of the truck. James could be heard faintly questioning the situation from the phone’s spot on the table.

  Mike stood with his hands on his hips, but he wove drunkenly from side to side. “I want my horse.”

  “It’s Angie’s horse. Your wife bought it for her.”

  “Bitch!” Mike shouted.

  Thena didn’t know if he was talking about his ex-wife, her, or the mare. She certainly hoped he wasn’t referring to his daughter.

  “You’re trespassing, Finn. You are outnumbered.”

  Ed held up his cell phone and nodded.

  “And the sheriff has been called,” Thena said.

  ###

  James’s hearing was far better than any mortal’s. He had no trouble discerning the confrontation being played out at Athena’s home. It was something about someone wanting a horse. Thena didn’t want that person on her property.

  “Bitch!”

  “Mind your mouth! I’ll rip your heart out!” James shouted back.

  No one spoke to his mate like that. No one threatened Athena.

  He would kill for her. Protect her. Keep her safe. Forever.

  James stared at phone screen. He’d jump through it to get to her if he could!

  “Gennie!” he shouted for his assistant. “Get me the plane!”

  “Flight plan?” she called back, totally unruffled by his demand.

  “Missouri!”

  An explosion roared from the other end of the connection.

  Had that been a gunshot?

  That had been a shot!

  “I’m going to the airport right now!”

  ###

  “What the hell’d you do that for?” Finn demanded after Thena shot out the front tire of the truck.

  “To keep you from getting anybody killed,” she said. “I want you gone, but I’m not letting you drive drunk.” She held her shotgun up again. “Walk home.”

  “You tried to kill me. I’m calling the sheriff!” Finn shouted.

  Ed came up to Finn. “A deputy’s already on the way.” He turned Finn toward the drive and gave him a little shove. “I’m sure you’ll meet up with the cop car on your way.”

  Finn turned and wove his way down the drive. Ed watched him go.

  Thena decided that maybe her world wasn’t so lacking in adventure after all. She took the shotgun back into the house. She’d cleaned and locked the gun away before she remembered.

  “James!”

  He’d hung up while she went about her business, and she couldn’t blame him for that. She called back, but got no answer. So she sent him a long and, she hoped, entertaining, email explaining about Mike Finn, the horse, the donkey that loved it, the llama, her gun-toting hero sister, her aunt seeing vampires, and all the other incidents of what had to be the longest, strangest day of her life to date.

  By the time she’d finished and sent this missive the wind had picked up and dark clouds were moving in. She took her stuff off the porch. As lighting began to flash, Thena unplugged her computers and other electronics because she didn’t trust surge protectors. With the Weather Channel playing on television, she settled down for the evening.

  ###

  “There are tornado warnings up that way,” the clerk behind the rental car counter said as she handed James back his driver’s license.

  The license listed his real name, and he was tickling the edges of the young woman’s thoughts to obscure her memory of him once he’d walked away. The small jet Clan Shagal rented to local immortals was already on its way back to the private airport outside Los Angeles.

  “I’ll be okay,” James said.

  “It’s the car I’m worried about.” She handed him the keys anyway.

  James headed out into the rain. It was a small airport, with a small car rental agency. The choice of vehicles was small as well. He’d picked the only SUV available. He was soaked through by the time he got into the driver’s seat. He set the vehicle’s GPS just in case, but Athena’s presence pulled on his soul. He knew he’d find her without any help from technology and despite any wild weather trying to keep him from her.

  He was blinded by wind-driven rain the moment he pulled out of the parking lot. The windshield wipers hardly helped at all. Rain ran across the road he turned onto. He already knew it was going to get worse the farther he drove into the storm. He didn’t care.

  He’d waited long enough—too long. They would be together tonight.

  ###

  Thena paced, her arms tightly, protectively, crossed over her body. It wasn’t normal for her to pace, but she had to move or scream. Her nerves were on fire.

  Something was coming.

  Something dangerous. Something life-changing.

  She didn’t think it was anything so mundanely deadly as a tornado.

  She had the terrifying urge to run out into the storm and run down the road toward it.

  Outside the lightning flashed, thunder rolled, wind roared and rattled, rain lashed the windows and walls of her house. The electricity had been out for over an hour. There was a generator that could be fired up if she wanted lights, but the lightning-torn darkness suited her.

  She hadn’t heard from James, but he was calling to her. Somewhere in the distance he was calling to her.

  Her thoughts called back.

  “Which is completely ridiculous and stupid,” she told herself. She made her feet stop pacing, but stomped her foot in a childish gesture. She was not a person given to childish gestures and was thoroughly annoyed with her own behavior.

  She carefully sat down on the couch. She forced her body to be still, her mind to go blank. Except, it wouldn’t go blank. Images raced through her head. Headlights? Wheels eating miles of dangerous road? Miles and miles and miles racing and racing and racing by never fast enough.

  Hunger and heat and absolute possession coming toward her. Coming for her.

  It scared the hell out of her.

  Thena’s breath came out in a deep, hungry groan. She rubbed her temples, pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. Her head pounded. Her heart pounded. Her insides pulsed with heat and hunger.

  At first she didn’t realize the loud pounding shaking through all her senses came from outside herself.

  She looked up. Her gaze went to the front door. Her ears absorbed where the sound came from.

  Someone was trying to bang the door off its hinges.

  For a moment she w
as frozen with terror. Driving need overcame it.

  Thena ran across the dark room to fling the door open.

  “James!”

  There he stood, a tall, strong, virile male illuminated by continuous lightning. He was wet, muddy, his dark eyes blazing with fury.

  “Your bloody camel bit me!” he shouted.

  ###

  “She’s a llama.”

  James moved to take Athena in his arms—solid, warm, wonderful woman! “Who gives a damn?” he asked, and brought his mouth hungrily down on hers.

  She pulled him into the house, out of the rain, into heaven.

  They landed on a couch.

  About time I got my hands on you, woman!

  Her hands were on him, unbuttoning and tugging at his soaking wet shirt. Her hands heated his skin. Her hands made him hard, and hungrier than he’d ever thought possible.

  He hoped she didn’t like her blouse as he ripped it off her in one sharp tug. He wasn’t able to be gentle right now, not up to subtle arousal.

  He couldn’t be gentle or subtle or make love slowly. His lips and tongue roamed urgently over her throat and breasts and down her belly. He savored her flesh, breathed in the scent of her arousal. But he didn’t taste her.

  He fought off the urge though his fangs ached and throbbed and the wild part of him begged for blood. The rush of her blood roared in his ears; he drew the scent of it deep into his lungs. He tasted her all over, but only with his tongue and lips. She moaned and arched in pleasure. The energy of her growing arousal fed his senses. He needed all of her.

  But he wouldn’t taste her blood.

  Not tonight. Not without her knowing everything about him. Not without her wanting the tasting as much as he did. His offer. Her choice.

  “Ethics are a bugger,” he muttered against the skin of her bare belly.

  Then he rolled them from the sofa onto the floor.

  ###

  “What?” Thena asked. She was aware James had said something, his lips on her belly, the sound muffled. The words touched her as tantalizing breath on her bare skin.

  The next thing she knew she was on her back on the rug, James was on top of her, inside her, and she didn’t care about talking. Who needed words at a time like this?

  She pulled his head down for a fierce, hungry kiss. Her teeth scraped his tongue in the process. A fiery metallic hint of blood added to the passion between them.

  James went crazy, and Thena came along for the ride.

  The storm outside continued to roar, but it was nothing to the storm they shared. Explosions of orgasms shook her, bright as the lightning, deep as the thunder.

  When James stiffened and came with a banshee howl, she joined him with a scream of her own.

  “You’re an amazing woman,” he told her, his breath coming in hard gasps, his forehead resting on her own. “Though you nearly deafened me at the end, darling.”

  “Ha! I’m not the only one shouting to wake the dead.”

  “No dead were disturbed by us, love. Not that I don’t take pride in your reactions.” His voice was smug, and even in the darkness she caught the flash of his grin.

  “James Wilde—”

  “Call me by my true name. We’re hardly strangers at the moment.”

  “James Martin Strahan,” Thena said. And said it again because she loved the sound of it.

  “Athena Sophia Blaise,” he said. He stood and gave her a hand up. “You have a bed somewhere in the house, don’t you, Athena Sophia Blaise?”

  “This way,” she said, but he picked her up before she could lead him down the hall. He carried her, cradled in his arms like she weighed nothing. She rested her head on his chest, and thought that it was nice his lovely, strong, hard-muscled body was good for more than just showing off to the cameras.

  When they reached her bedroom he put her down on the bed as if she was a fragile piece of glass.

  “Work of art,” he said, climbing into bed beside her. He ran his hands over her slowly and thoroughly, as if memorizing her in the dark. “You are perfect, Athena.”

  She doubted he’d think so in the cold light of day, but she reveled in his admiration for now. While the storm raged and they were together in the dark, the fantasy was real.

  Thena studied James with her fingertips as well. He truly was perfect.

  Touches soon turned to caresses and caresses into exquisite lovemaking. And then they started all over again.

  When one of them finally groaned, “You’ve wasted me! Can we just cuddle for a while? Go to sleep?” Thena shook with laughter. Because she wasn’t the one begging for rest.

  She patted James’s perfectly molded behind. “Get some sleep you poor old man.”

  He snuggled beside her, his arms around her, his head on her shoulder. “You young folk have no respect.”

  She kissed his forehead, and fell asleep instantly.

  ###

  Thena woke in alarm at the sound of someone moving in her room. Her first thought was that Mike Finn had broken in. How? Why weren’t the dog’s barking? Could she get to the gun safe before—?

  She bolted upright and opened her eyes.

  There stood James Wilde, concern in his so-brown-they-were-almost-black eyes.

  It hadn’t been a dream.

  Her pleasantly aching and throbbing insides told her it most definitely had not been a dream.

  She was naked and he was looking at her boobs, and, well, she didn’t mind. Besides, she wasn’t the only one naked, and she wasn’t feeling the least bit modest. She was certain Jimmy didn’t know how.

  “Not one little bitty bit,” he answered her thought.

  With some effort Thena managed to turn her head and look out the window. It was morning. The sun was shining. The storm was passed.

  “Yesterday was the longest, strangest day of my life,” she said.

  “Me too,” James said, and laughed. “I can promise you today will be even stranger.”

  She turned a scared look on him. Images of flashing cameras in the sheep pasture filled her head. “Tell me it won’t involve helicopters over my house.”

  “No one knows I’m here. You have my word.”

  She trusted his word. She trusted him. The voice in her head that had been telling her for weeks that she shouldn’t trust him or believe anything he said was silent.

  “Not even helicopters loaded with SWAT snipers for your protection,” he added. He sat down. She squirmed around until she was settled against his side, a lot of their bare skin touching and his arm around her shoulders. “That was a gunshot I heard over the phone yesterday, wasn’t it?” He pressed her closely against him. “Was somebody shooting at you?”

  “No. I was the one doing the shooting.”

  “Really?” He sounded delighted. “I love dangerous women.”

  “I wasn’t shooting at anyone. Just blew out a tire on a truck. It was for a drunken idiot’s own good.”

  He shifted on the bed, and pulled her into his lap. He held her by the waist for a moment, settled her over his erection and then slowly pulled her down, filling her inch by leisurely inch. Correction, there was nothing relaxing about what this did to her, but it was fantastic!

  “I love dangerous women,” he told her. “Talk to me dirty about guns.”

  She laughed, her breath catching with desire. She held on to his shoulders to steady herself. His hands stayed protectively on her waist. “Brother’s a cop,” she said. “Sister’s FBI.”

  “So you have told me.”

  “Got a cousin in Delta Force—”

  “But he won’t confirm or deny it.” She moved over him while they talked. She had trouble making words as her hips rose and fell, as filled her and withdrew. God, it was wonderful!

  “And?” he urged. He had the most wicked grin on his face.

  “I write—lovely hard hot man!—action stories. Gotta know how the weapons work, don’t I?”

  “Research is important,” he said. “Due diligence.”

/>   He groaned. His hips bucked. And that was the last of conversation for now.

  ###

  “It’s not the unbridled passion I mind,” Thena said. “I like that part. A lot.”

  “Happy to hear it.”

  She lay on her side, her head propped up on her arm, watching the man lying on his back beside her.

  James turned his head to look at her. “What is bothering you?” he asked in that lovely Irish lilt.

  “That the unbridled passion has been unprotected.” She ran a finger down his chest. “I am a cautious woman, generally. But I just now noticed our lack of sense and safe sex.”

  He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “Trust me, you aren’t going to catch anything from me.”

  “What if I get pregnant?” she asked.

  He rolled onto his side, and put a hand on her hip. He looked absolutely serious when he asked, “Would you like a girl or a boy first? Me, I’d like a girl, but my family tends toward boys.”

  She regretted bringing the subject up. She rolled off her side of the bed and grabbed a robe. “Are you hungry? Would you like some breakfast?”

  James was on his feet in an instant, surprising her at how fast he moved. “Starving,” he said. “Protein. You have no idea how badly I need some protein.”