And this woman was fragile enough for the beast to break in two.
Her head was shaking slightly from side to side now, as if she was trapped in a nightmare. Each move made her groan softly, those sounds reaching Parker below the belt, as if an invisible hand, her hand, had cupped him there.
“Stop!” he whispered, to her as much as to himself. “Enough!” She was now a patient in this hospital and deserved better treatment than libidinous thoughts from one of the physicians on staff. Parker knew how to calm her, knew what had worked before, but speaking to her now might make things worse. For him.
When she groaned again, the sound tore at his heart just as surely as if she had reached into his chest to take hold. He swallowed hard, unlocked his jaw and closed his eyes briefly. He would talk to her. That had worked before. In order to erase his covetous thoughts, he would talk about whatever came to mind.
“The night the changes began,” he said, listening to her struggle for breath in her sleep, “I was sure I was dying of some lethal disease. I was sequestered at home for days, alone, sick, believing death would inevitably arrive. The pain of my body changing was excruciating, debilitating, draining.”
Parker stared at his hand on the blanket, surprised that it had returned there without his awareness. He half expected claws to pop. They didn’t.
“All that money, I thought at the time,” he said. “All of my parents’ hard-earned cash spent for my education, and I was going to die without ever realizing the dream.”
But he hadn’t died. On the contrary, he had given life to something new inside him.
“I’ve gone through the scenarios many times since the night the changes began, and I’m tired of rehashing old possibilities. Maybe I had been exposed to a toxic chemical in med school, I thought. I might have a genetic disorder, some sort of bent DNA sequence starting to show itself. If that were the case, however, shouldn’t my parents have counseled me before they died? Advance warning of such a potential problem would have been nice. Not exactly helpful, maybe, since I might have morphed anyway, but at least I might have understood what happened.”
No, he hadn’t died. His parents had. He’d gone through a living hell on earth and had been spared. He had torn his apartment apart and shredded every stick of furniture he owned, but had eventually wakened from the nightmare to find his own reflection in the mirror. Looking like death, feeling like death, but breathing.
“To this day, I’m not sure how I survived that first ordeal. I put a name to the symptoms only after watching television. An old Hollywood movie had used the term werewolf. What other title described my condition? The transformation, the mindless ripping to shreds of my belongings and the remolding of my body. I used the Internet for a diagnosis, searching not medical records, but the horror genre, and going from there. More specifics came to light, terribly, unbelievably. All there. All pertaining to me. Full moon. Lunar draw on my outsides and insides. The shape of the hybrid creature I became.”
Parker blinked slowly, and continued. “In all my research, the one specific I missed was that I hadn’t been bitten by a wolf or werewolf, as the stories and legends went. I had never been close to a wolf at all. No camping, hiking, zoos or nights under the stars were possible for dedicated med students attempting to get through our courses. So, how did a man become a werewolf?”
And where had the impulse come from that made him want to bite the woman beside him now? To take the smooth white skin at the base of her throat between his teeth and slowly, agonizingly, clamp down?
Parker drew back, creating more distance, pressing his lips together. His hands shook.
Reluctantly, he went on, confused, knowing he had to.
“My parents hadn’t seen this side of their son, thankfully. Although they didn’t live to see me graduate, they knew I’d eventually become a doctor. They had started me on this path. It had always been my dream and theirs that I follow in my father’s and mother’s footsteps, only in this country, rather than in some foreign place. There was plenty to do here to take care of people.”
He had to hand it to his parents, though. They gave back. Doctors Without Borders and treating the sick in every way possible had been their passion. The last time his folks had seen their motherland had been when he’d been accepted at Harvard. They had arrived from the Brazilian rain forests looking half wild themselves, and had thrown him a party.
He hadn’t seen them since, and never would again. They were gone, both of them lost to a landslide in some remote woods, leaving no trace of their bodies and no goodbye note. Parker missed them every damn day. He missed the closeness, the memories, the talks. He missed belonging.
And now he had become a monster.
But not so very far gone, maybe. This girl, this woman, had been beaten and left to die right in his path. Whether by chance, accident or serendipity, single-handedly and half-unconscious, she had somehow drawn him from his objective. She had sidelined his vow to keep his distance from others. By being here, and in her present state, she had reacquainted him with his humanity, the part missing since the death of his folks and what had happened to him since. A big accomplishment for such a small female.
Parker blew out a sigh as he studied her, lying helpless in the bed beside him. He had informed the night nurses on staff that he would take care of this patient tonight, personally. In the morning, the E.R. docs who’d done the repairs would check on her. The cops would arrive, like clockwork. Detective Wilson would flip open his notebook and ask the woman lying here what the hell she had been doing out there in the dark—questions that would bring her anguish back.
“There’s no way to keep you from that,” Parker whispered, his eyes flicking hungrily over her face. “There’s no name on your chart. There are no numbers for us to call to notify someone of the events that have taken place.”
There had been no cell phone hidden in her pocket. “Who doesn’t carry a cell in this day and age?” he asked her.
What had taken her out there, only to put her in harm’s way? And so near to that stone wall, where he’d been waiting? The simplest thing would be to ask her, as soon as she was able to speak. Would those questions hurt her?
A second sigh moved through Parker as he surveyed her bandages. Her closed eyes showed through the turban of gauze, and also a small patch of her forehead, and one cheek. The undamaged one. Parker feathered his index finger over the swollen contour of the bandages swaddling her features, and fended off another spark of arousal.
Better not touch her at all.
“Better not be here when you wake, little mummy.”
She wasn’t a monster, he reminded himself, just bandaged to look like one. She probably had a very normal life, a boyfriend, fiancé or significant other. Parker detested the thought of her being “taken.” And despite the inner warnings, he wasn’t able to keep his hands off her.
Very carefully, he pressed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. A silky golden tendril. She would carry the scars of this night with her for a long time, physically and mentally, he knew. If she had great insurance, plastic surgery would take several passes at her, after which she might be recognizable to herself and others who had known her before…he met her.
A shudder of empathy moved through him for her future as someone marked by a certain kind of otherness. The better parts of him, the good and honorable parts, told him to run, get out now before it was too late and he became seriously attached. Before he might injure her further with the knowledge of what he had become. Other parts of him, the darker, unexplained parts, maintained their appetite for her with a heated, palpable passion.
She was a delicious morsel for a man-beast. An unexpected feast. She’d feel nice under him. Her green eyes would stare deeply into his when he made love to her. She would be a quiet lover. She hadn’t shouted or thrashed in the midst of her horrible crisis. Small, yes, and at the same time tough enough to take him inside her. This woman would accept all he would give her, and give some part
of herself in return. The part of her that adhered to life so vehemently told him this. The part of her that had rebelled against her pain.
Heaven only knew he wanted to take her now. Wanted to miraculously heal her, then make love to her. The desire was so strong, Parker brought his face close to hers—this woman who had ensnared him, captured a part of him, and would now have every right to mistrust men.
He swept his gaze over every bit of her face that showed. Her long lashes lay golden against the ghostly pallor of her skin. Her lips, pink, lush, swollen, were slightly parted.
He ached to taste those lips.
Leaning even nearer, Parker paused with his mouth suspended above hers, a mere breath away, millimeters, imagining what a kiss would be like. One turn of his head or hers, one good shiver, and he would have that taste. Weren’t there kids’ stories about princes waking princesses with a kiss? What if fairy tales were based on truth?
One kiss. Parker closed his eyes to savor the sweetness of being so close. But rationality reminded him, on the verge of a traitorous act, that there was a syndrome for patients who fell for their doctors. This woman might feel beholden if she found him here when she woke. She might transfer her thankfulness for survival to him, in the form of adoration. Extreme emotions would come into play, none of them viable or lasting. He had seen this before with his colleagues.
So, what about the reverse? Could his interest in her be due to having paid such a hefty price for helping her out? Couldn’t he be groping for a reason to justify the loss of his objectives?
Had something deeper happened that he didn’t yet understand, in the simple act of his eyes meeting hers? It had been in that instant, out there, that he’d imagined he felt something snap between them, a connection.
He thought back to that, and what she’d said. The word she had used, the only word she had been able to mutter, was trick. He remembered that clearly now, and the effort it had cost her. Trick. What did it mean?
The answer that came to him was as dark as the night outside the window, and twice as unsettling. What if this woman had been some sort of bait, meant to lure somebody else to the scene? Beat up a woman to catch a male they could rob, maybe? Plausible, and also quite gruesome.
Unless maybe they wanted to snare something other than a man? Something more than a man?
Nonsense. This girl had likely just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe she hadn’t said “trick” at all.
Parker lifted her hand from the covers. He stroked her open palm with his fingertips, experiencing both a thrill and another warning he chose to ignore. It was all right to hold himself in check. Good practice. There would be time tomorrow to prepare himself for what he might again encounter out there—how many hours away now? Maybe he would find that pale wolf, a gift from the moon for helping this girl.
Hovering over the woman like the guardian angel he most certainly was not, Parker blew a faint breath across her mouth, wanting to say to hell with it all, wanting to go backward in time and just live. Maybe he should have buried himself out there in the middle of nowhere with his mother and father, and this newest temptation was payback for desiring a more comfortable life.
Comfortable? Had he thought that? What a joke. His head hurt. His hands hurt. His teeth hurt. His heart ached. The beast within lay curled up, waiting to spring. The moon ruled his outer shape, and there was nothing comfortable or comforting about that!
“It’s lucky I found you,” he told her. Lightly, with his body continuing to shake as if negating what he was about to do, Parker brushed her lips with his own. It was the merest touch, yet his insides roared and turned over. His awareness began to distance itself from the room around him, all senses focused on this meeting of their lips.
The sharpness of the antibiotics they were feeding her lingered around her mouth to mix with her sweetness—a heady cocktail for a physician turned wolf. His beast unfurled, wanting in on the action, wanting to take part. Both halves of him were in full accord now, with the beast struggling for the lead.
What would that part of him do to a female? Parker didn’t want to think about that, lost in the illicit sweetness of the moment.
Holy hell!
His heart rate suddenly spiked and his eyes flew open. He heaved himself backward, away from her.
Whatever the hell she was.
Eyes wide, fearing to breathe, he searched her bandaged face, not quite sure what he expected to see, but knowing, through that kiss that wasn’t a kiss, that the woman in this bed wasn’t completely human…either.
Chapter 7
Her thrashing started after midnight, causing alarms to go off. Great explosions rocked her. She moved jerkily, back inside her nightmare.
Parker left his place at the window, where he had been studying the stars in a night that called to him fiercely. He leaned over her, careful not to touch her this time, wary of being too close, no longer trusting himself.
“It’s all right,” he soothed, not so sure about that, after all, or even what she might be.
She didn’t waken. Nor did she seem to hear him. Her gyrations increased. Her broken left wrist, in its splint, came loose from its binding. The machines were going nuts and, instructions or not, would bring the night nurses running.
Parker beat them to the door, barked for a sedative and strode back to the bed. “Who are you?” he whispered.
The sedative arrived and was inserted into her IV by a nurse, who checked the monitors and then stepped back. “What is it, Dr. Madison?”
“Hell if I know,” Parker said, waiting for the drug to kick in, wondering if it would, since it took a while for the woman in the bed to calm down. For her weight, which he guessed to be about a hundred and five pounds, the sedative should have immediately knocked her on her butt, right before sending her off to Never-Never land. Instead, the meltdown took its own sweet time—two minutes, maybe three, though the medicine had gone directly into her vein.
Not quite human.
Eventually, she gave up the struggle, caving to the call of twilight. Parker waited through a few more erratic heartbeats of his own before remembering the nurse.
“She’s all right now,” he said. Though it was pretty damn clear that he wasn’t.
“She’s sweating,” the nurse noted.
Recognizing the voice, Parker turned to find Nikki Reese from the E.R. “She’s been alternating hot and cold,” he said. “It’s probably her fever breaking. Aren’t you working late?”
“I’m taking Lucille’s shift. She had an engagement. Literally. Big shiny ring and everything.” Nikki came back to the bed. “Have you got her name?”
“She’s scarcely opened her eyes.”
“You brought her in?”
“Yes,” Parker said.
“She has broken bones. The wrist, and a bunch of ribs.”
“I saw the chart.”
“Did you notice anything funny about it?”
Parker tilted his head. “Funny?”
“She has some pretty significant wounds, including that hit to the head,” Nikki Reese said. “On top of it all, though, she has a series of punctures, as if, having gone through everything else, she was attacked by a pack of dogs.”
Parker felt a wave of sickness knot his stomach. “Punctures? Where?”
“Upper arms and shoulder.”
He peeled back the blanket and pushed up the loose sleeve of her gown, appalled. No extra light was needed for him to see the damage. He hadn’t even thought to look the rest of her over, he had been so focused on her breathing, on her face, on her lips, and on the latest discovery. Plus the beast would have liked seeing what lay beneath the covers a little too much to dare anything of the sort.
Parker had assumed her injuries were all related to the beating she had taken, but any doctor worth his salt should have found the strange marks on her shoulder and the upper arm. His odd feelings of connection might have ended up hurting her chances of getting out of this.
“
That one’s the worst,” Nikki said, probably noticing his scrutiny. “Whatever did this tore out a chunk of muscle and flesh. It was already infected, and must have hurt like—”
“Hell,” Parker finished, carefully lifting the adhesive binding the bandages to her skin. Upon seeing what lay beneath them, he bit back an oath. This wound was indeed serious. Although the injured area had been stitched closed expertly, it was puckered, red and weeping. Ringing it were indentations that presented in the shape of a set of teeth.
Parker felt himself blanch.
“A really big dog must have done that,” Nikki said. “Some nasty beast. Rottweiler. German shepherd. Doberman. It would have taken a huge effort to shake such an animal off. Poor thing, beaten and bitten out there. What’s the world coming to?”
Parker fought for a calm that eluded him. The mysterious wound nagged at his mind. A dog bite would have wrapped around her arm. This wound was circular, like…
Feeling as if the room didn’t have enough air to sustain him, Parker ran a palm over his own upper arm, able to detect the scar on his left biceps, which had the same general outline as hers. But he’d always had his scar. She’d just received her wound. There were no parallels to be drawn. His mind was attempting to establish connections where there were none.
Bitten. The word stood out like a bright neon sign.
Under Nikki Reese’s watchful gaze, Parker traced the outline on the girl’s arm, a wound that showed no atypical or miraculous signs of healing. So, he had to be wrong. Maybe she was human, and just very, very ill. Maybe what he had felt in her closeness was in fact the effects of a dog bite. His own scar was a leftover from an early allergic reaction to a tetanus shot, or so he’d been told. A kind of reaction that a werewolf with miraculous healing powers no longer needed to fear.
Looking at the woman in the bed, though, he suddenly wondered who needed a sedative more, her or himself.
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