by Michele Hauf
* * *
Glass crashed to the ground. Bella guessed it was the patio door that Severo had only just reinstalled a week earlier. The werewolf had entered the house.
She worked at the second of three hinges, but it wouldn’t budge no matter how hard she hit it with the hammer. Instead of creating more noise, she set down the tools and bent before the door to listen.
Snorts and huffing breaths sounded. Far away. The werewolf was probably walking through the kitchen. Talons scratched across marble. The thunder of each footstep—it was not running, but was slowly taking the foyer’s measure—rocketed her heartbeat to her throat.
He was looking for her. He must smell her. Hell, the werewolf could smell her from miles away. Now his head must be filled with her scent.
Her vampire scent.
“There must be deodorant for hiding vampire pheromones,” she muttered. “Just…let him be calm, to see me before he rages.”
And she closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to the steel door. See me, she repeated over and over. Know me.
The wolf stalked the hallway toward the arsenal. A bang outside the room shook the wall. It seemed angry, impatient to find the creature it scented. It was on the hunt.
On bent legs, Bella twisted to eye the arsenal. What kind of weapon would work against a werewolf? Not a lethal weapon, one that contained silver, but something to hold it back if it intended to take off her head. Something to pin it to the ground while she ran for the garage and hopped in the car to speed off to China.
She didn’t want to die. And to be ripped apart by her lover was not on her top-ten list of adventures.
But she did want it to recognize her—if only for a moment—and know that she had not changed. Sure, she now needed blood to survive. But her heart had not altered. Her soul needed Severo…and the werewolf.
A bang against the door pushed in the steel in the shape of wide knuckles. A chilling scrape of talons down metal sent a shiver up the back of Bella’s neck.
The werewolf howled. Bella did not recognize it as that “I see you and want to mate with you” kind of howl with which he usually greeted her. This one was low and menacing.
A prick to her lower lip made her jump. “Now is no time for the fangs.” Try as she might, she could not will them back up.
The vampire she had become was prepared to fight for survival.
Two more fist marks bulged in the door. The middle hinge, partly released, cracked in half. A kick brought the door down inside the room.
The bullets and guns and knives sitting on the counter behind Bella clattered to the floor as she backed into it. Her hip bone hit the steel, and she winced but did not take her eyes from the approaching threat.
The werewolf seethed, its fangs descending along its extended jaw and glistening with saliva. It howled at the sight of her and stalked up in two long strides, forcing her to jump onto the counter and crouch defensively.
“It’s me,” she cried. “Severo, see me!”
It snarled and tossed back its head. The muscles strapping its shoulders pulsed as it did a caveman chest pound. Powerful thighs flexed. It stomped. One paw swept across the counter, to Bella’s right, tearing the steel in four jagged lines.
Blood drooled down her chin. She’d bit her lip. The blood scent must enrage the wolf beyond measure, she thought. “Hell, I can’t sit here and take it,” she said aloud.
She dropped to the floor and thought to crawl away, but a hand connected with her side. One blow swept her across the room and out the door. She skidded along the waxed marble floor and slammed into a wall with a groan.
Blood seeping from her thigh, Bella scrambled along the floor. Behind her the werewolf stalked at a distance, as if it planned to play with her, exhaust her before the killing.
“You’re not playing fair!” she shouted and scrambled to her feet.
Dashing toward the front door, she reasoned that outside the werewolf would have her at an advantage. The garage door was behind her, behind the werewolf, so reaching the car was out of the question.
Veering right, Bella headed toward the bedrooms. Perhaps the smaller rooms and the furniture would impede the werewolf. For a few seconds.
“Severo, I love you!” she called back. Gripping the door frame, she swung herself into a bedroom.
She slammed the door and locked it, knowing the gesture was futile.
In proof, talons ripped through the wood as if it were fashioned from mere leather. Bella stumbled backward, her spine colliding with the bed. She scrambled across it to the other side. The werewolf pushed the door into the room. On all fours, it lifted its head and sniffed.
With one leap it soared across the bed and knocked her on the floor, its deadly taloned fingers on her shoulders and its knees pinning her feet.
Bella screamed.
She was beyond caring about hurting Severo’s feelings. Obviously she’d been wrong. The werewolf did hate vampires. It didn’t matter if its alter ego was screwing one and claimed to love her. All that mattered was instinct.
“Please,” she said, her voice reedy and shivering with fear. “Please.”
Just…please.
The werewolf sniffed her body. The graze of its teeth over her breast shocked her. Its canines didn’t break the skin, but it wasn’t a sexual touch by any means. Panting and emitting a low growl, it sniffed along her neck. Its tongue swept out to lick under her jaw.
Tasting her? Why not get it done with? And please, if she were to die right now, she much preferred losing her head to being…munched.
Oh, Bella, don’t even think it.
Turning her head, she winced as the fingers curled and talons dug into her shoulders. Not deeply, but it wasn’t aware, obviously, how easily it could damage her tender flesh.
Feeling her heart finish the race, she whined miserably and shook her head. The scent of her own fear was like bad cologne wafting in the room.
But the werewolf’s earthy scent was sweet to her. Her lover.
Don’t forget it is your lover. The man who claimed you as his mate.
“No!” She bashed her elbow across the werewolf’s snout and scrambled away. The werewolf snarled and leaped for her. It gnashed its teeth but halted abruptly, short of biting her on the cheek. “You know me. Remember me? I’m the same Bella. The same one.”
She dragged herself up over the edge of the bed, kneeling, and stepped off the other side. Slowly, she backed away. The werewolf would not kill her before she could give it her all. This vampire was willing to fight to win her lover.
“You once said you loved the smell of fear on me. Recognize it now, Severo. And know I am yours.”
Something clicked in her brain. Bold courage. A willingness to die to achieve her greatest desire. Trust.
She trusted this man would make the right choice, no matter his form.
Bella drew her shoulders straight and lifted her chest. Drawing in a breath through her nose, she found a strange calm amid the chaos.
“Very well, wolf boy.” She bowed her head and looked up through her lashes. “You like it rough?”
The werewolf slashed the bed, taking out some cotton stuffing.
“You think you’re such a beast? All he-man and stalking me?” Tracing her tongue over her fangs, she smiled widely. “Come to me, werewolf. Take me if you can.”
Unzipping her pants, she slid them down and tore open her shirt. The werewolf licked its maw.
Slowly, she slinked around to the end of the bed. Tilting her head, she put back her shoulders. The shirt slid off, leaving her naked. Her breasts sat high and her nipples hardened.
A throaty growl signaled her lover’s desire. She loved that growl.
Turning, Bella bent over the bed, placing her palms flat on the sheets. “Take me. I am your mate. It’s death or mating. Your choice.”
A heavy hand slapped the back of her neck, shoving her face against the bed. A sharp talon cut into her skin. And then it entered her and gratified its instin
ct.
Bella cried out at the pleasure of the intense friction. If this was to be her last breath, she would breathe it gladly.
The wolf howled its familiar boon of triumph, and then it was gone, leaping over the bed and dashing out through the patio door.
Bella collapsed on the bed. She breathed heavily. Her heart still had not started. And her lips were slick with her own blood.
But she had won back her lover.
* * *
Severo shivered and came fully awake with a start. He was naked, lying on the icy flagstones by the pool. As he moved something slashed his ankle. It was glass, scattered everywhere.
The werewolf had broken into the house last night. He’d tried to hold it back but not even he could stop his beast.
“Bella.”
Rushing inside, he didn’t want to think of what he might find. Blood put a metallic taste in his mouth, and the scratches on his arms and palms indicated a struggle.
“Please be alive. I’m so sorry, Bella!”
He jackknifed as he rounded the corner to the bedrooms and ran right into a white towel, stretched out to receive him.
“Thought you’d need this,” she said. A sweetly wicked smile curved her red lips. “Cold out there last night?”
“You’re…” He eyed her up and down as he wrapped the oversize towel about his waist. She was dressed in a sheer pink negligee that revealed the tawny areolae on her breasts and the thatch of dark hair at the apex of her thighs. “Okay?”
“Peachy.” She strode past him into the kitchen and straightened a stack of mail he’d been avoiding for days. “And you?”
“Besides being frozen, I’m… The werewolf didn’t get to you? You were safe in the arsenal?”
She pointed over his shoulder. Hard to miss the havoc in the foyer. The front door had slashes through it. The walls had been clawed and Sheetrock was busted everywhere. He couldn’t see the arsenal door, but a memory of last night flashed before his eyes.
The steel door clattering to the floor…Bella’s eyes flashing wide with fear… The werewolf approaching…
“Tell me,” he said, fighting against the horrid vision.
She leaned in and kissed his jaw, then tapped his chin. “The werewolf loves me.”
“It…didn’t harm you?”
“I got a nasty slash down my thigh, but I don’t think it was intentional. The werewolf was initially out for blood. But then it calmed down. I dared it to take me. Then I offered myself to it.”
“Offered yourself?” he said, his voice falling.
“We had sex. Just like old times.” She kissed him again, this time pulling his head in for a long, deep, hard connection, mouth to mouth. “Mmm, you taste good the morning after, you know that?”
“So the werewolf…”
“Could care less that I’m a vamp.”
Severo shook his head, taking it all in. It was wondrous. It was astounding. The werewolf had accepted Bella. Which meant he need not fear for her. Not ever.
“You’re so brave. I’m sorry I didn’t trust the werewolf. Sorry I locked you away.”
“I think that might have been a good thing. It made it difficult to get to me. Might have given it a chance to think. Anyway, I look forward to tonight. What about you?”
“Tonight?” He lifted her in his arms. “We’ve some catching up to do, sweet. No time like the present.”
“What happens if the fangs come out to play?”
“One rule. No biting.”
“Severo, I’ve sacrificed everything for you. Is a little bite too much to ask of you?”
This time he did not stiffen in her embrace, as expected. Instead, he hugged her tighter and buried his face in her hair. “It isn’t.”
“I want to taste you, lover.”
“Feeling your teeth enter my flesh may just turn me on. But I honestly need some time. Please, Bella, can you love a man who is willing but wary?”
“I already love you. Nothing changes that. And I can wait until you’re ready, until you ask me for the one thing that will bond us completely.”
“It won’t be long. Promise.”
Epilogue
“Soon,” was Severo’s rote answer every time Bella asked when she could bite him. She would never stop asking. One of these days his answer would be “Now.”
It had been a few months since she’d become a vampire. The world was amazing as viewed with her heightened senses and newfound confidence. She’d always been confident, but now she was strong. And standing beside her werewolf lover made her feel powerful.
She enjoyed walking by humans on dark streets, drawing in the scent of their blood. There were as many scents and flavors of blood as people, and she loved to indulge. Severo waited in the car sometimes for her return to him. She would be woozy from the swoon and eager to make love.
Life was good. And it only promised to get better.
Now Severo parked and gestured to her to grab the whip from the backseat. They both got out.
A couple held hands near the hood of a black Mustang. Bella didn’t know a thing about cars, only that this one was cool. The man was tall, lithe, and wore his hair tousled about his handsome face. He had movie-star good looks.
The woman holding his hand was petite and red-haired, and when she saw Bella and Severo approach, she bounced on her heels and stretched out her arms.
Severo let go of Bella’s hand and rushed up to meet the woman. He pulled her into a hug that lifted her feet from the ground.
A prick on her lip alerted Bella. She willed her teeth—and her jealousy—back to the shadows. This woman was no threat to her. She had a man. And Bella was now willing to fight any woman who thought to lay hands on her man. Unless it was a friendly hug.
“Bella.” Severo set the woman on the ground and held out his hand to her. Bella took it and kissed him on the cheek. “This is Aby Fitzroy. Aby, my mate, Bella. I love her. We’re going to marry in the spring.”
“It’s such a pleasure to meet you.” Aby’s green eyes twinkled as she pumped Bella’s hand. “This is my husband, Max.”
The man leaned in to shake Bella’s hand and offered a wink to Severo. “Nice to meet you, Bella. Marriage? Congratulations. I wish the two of you as much happiness as Aby and I have.”
The man, after releasing Bella’s hand, stared at it, and then brushed his own off, as if he’d touched dirt. He winced.
“Wondering what she is?” Severo asked the Highwayman. “He has a sixth sense for paranormals, though the man is mortal himself,” Severo said to Bella. “My future wife is a vampire.”
Bella did not miss Aby’s gasp.
“And I love her.” Severo wrapped Bella in an embrace. “Do you have the whip, sweet?”
Bella held out the coiled silver whip and handed it to Max.
“I happened upon this a few days ago,” Severo said. “I believe it’s yours.”
“Thanks. I thought I’d lost it. Ian Grim stole it.”
“That bastard needs to be taken down,” Severo growled.
“I agree,” Max said.
Aby rolled her eyes and reached for Bella’s hand. “Let’s go inside the restaurant and get a table. We’ll leave the menfolk to growl and plot to take over the world. I love your shoes. Manolos?”
“Louboutins.” Bella clasped Aby’s hand and they wandered away from the guys.
“So you can walk in the daylight?” Aby asked.
“Yes, I have phoenix and witch blood in me.”
“Interesting that Severo chose you.”
“I wasn’t a vampire when we met.” Bella opened the restaurant door. “He’s accepted me.”
Aby halted at the threshold. “I know he has. I’ve never seen that man smile so big.” She turned to Bella, her green eyes sparkling. “You’re the one, Bella. I know it. I’m so happy for both of you.”
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781459241800
Copyright © 2012 by Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holder of the individual works as follows:
FOREVER WEREWOLF
Copyright © 2012 by Michele Hauf
MOON KISSED
Copyright © 2010 by Michele Hauf
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