The Heat

by Heather Killough-Walden

  Lily sat in silence and digested this for a long while. The room grew quiet. He’d just given her a lifetime’s worth of news. She wasn’t sure which was more shocking. Finally, a question slid onto her tongue. It may not be the one she wanted an answer to most, but it was the first one to come out. “I’ll be able to actually turn into a wolf?” she asked softly.

  Daniel nodded slowly. “And I can imagine you would be breathtaking, cher. As you are now.” His tone had lowered, his eyes darkening a little.

  A shiver rode through Lily and the mark on her arm began to warm up. But she wasn’t ready to give into her sex-craved side just yet. She was still blown away by Daniel’s confession. There was still too much she didn’t understand. Too much she needed to know.

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek and then asked, “What do you look like in wolf form, Daniel? I’ve seen you in my dreams, but… I’ve never seen any of you actually, well, shift, I guess.”

  Daniel’s brow knit together. “You mean Cole never – ”

  She shook her head.

  Daniel pushed himself off of the bed and took a step back. “You promise me you won’t go rabbit on me now, cher? The wolf is a hell of a lot harder to control than the man, and both are real hungry right now.”

  There was no doubt in Lily’s mind as to what he meant by that. But she steeled her nerves and nodded once, gripping the blanket tightly in her hands.

  He nodded in return and then there was a strange flash. The light expanded, engulfing Daniel’s frame in a blinding aura, and then it contracted once more, dying out as quickly as it had come to life. When it was gone, Daniel was too. In his place stood a massive wolf with thick blue-black fur and bright blue eyes.

  Lily stared at the massive creature for what seemed like an eternity, her breathing all but stilled, her mind reeling at what she’d just seen. It should not have shocked her – shouldn’t have surprised her this much after all that she’d been through and knowing all that she now knew. But it did. There was just something about knowing for once and for all that the man who loved her was a real, live wolf that blew Lily away.

  The wolf, for his part, watched her too. He never took his eyes off of hers, even as he began to come forward, approaching the bed as cautiously as a lion would have approached a gazelle.

  Lily was fascinated by the way he moved. He was so graceful and smooth and quiet. She could see the muscles rippling beneath his fur. She could hear his breathing, a low rumble deep in his massive chest.

  The mark on Lily’s arm was very warm now. And that warmth was spreading.

  With great courage, she slowly pushed her covers aside once more and slid off of the bed until she was on her knees on the soft, plush carpet.

  Equally as slowly, she extended her hand toward the wolf. He paused as she knelt before him and then, eyes shining bright, he came forward, and very gently nuzzled her out-stretched palm with his muzzle. This brought a smile to Lily’s face that she simply couldn’t control. As if in response to her smile, the wolf gently licked the tips of her fingers.

  It tickled and Lily suppressed a giggle. “How do I taste?” she asked, without thinking.

  There was a sudden flash in front of her and she blinked to find Daniel standing over her, gazing down at her through eyes that were mostly pupil. “Sweet,” he said. His tone was so low it was nearly a growl and his fangs had extended once more. “Promising.” His smile was predatory in the extreme.

  Lily found herself rising quickly, but she was backed against the bed and there was nowhere further for her to go. She wracked her brain as she gazed up at him and fell deeper and deeper into the black abyss that was growing in his eyes. “You said I had two options,” she spoke quickly, almost stumbling over her words in her rush to get them out. “What’s the other one?” She felt the bed behind her with her fingertips and knew that one small move on his part would see them both falling atop it, his hard body trapping hers for good.

  “The other option isn’t an option,” he told her plainly, taking that final step that closed the distance between them. She jerked slightly in his grasp when his strong hands found her wrists and gently encircled them.

  “Then why….” She shivered and tried to swallow, tried to pull her gaze away from his. She failed. There were those familiar waves of power rolling off of him now. Warmth had spread across her middle and wetness was gathering between her legs. “Why did you mention it?” she asked, her voice trembling. He was overwhelming her and this time she couldn’t blame it on his mark. It was just him and his supernatural magnetism – and her ever-reliable, oh-so-hot reaction to him.

  “Well, cher,” he drawled, moving his hands up her arms with painfully slow deliberation. “I guess I was tryin’ to be fair.” His grin was diabolical.

  “Fair’s good,” Lily breathed. “Fair’s g-great.” She tried to summon some strength from somewhere, but it had been a long week. And he was so damned sexy.

  His smile never wavered as he pushed, just a little, and she found herself on her back on the bed. He hovered over her, his arms braced against the bed on either side of her body, his muscles straining under the material of his tight black t-shirt.

  “Please…” she finished, almost moaning the word. She wanted him so badly now that she wasn’t even sure what she was saying “please” for. It nearly didn’t matter what the other option was. A part of her insisted that she was mad just for asking about it. But there was still some tiny, sane part of her in some corner of her mind that, though bullied and blinded, was adamant about its freedom – its choices. She wanted to take that part of herself and throttle it and then toss it out the second story window. Still, she managed to whisper, “I want to hear it, Daniel.”

  Her hands were against his chest now, her fingers pressing into his shirt, aching to dig their nails into the hard muscle beneath it.

  He leaned in until he was nearly kissing her. His eyes were pure inescapable black, his fangs stark against his bottom lip, and his aura one of utter, demanding need. When he spoke, it was with a rumbling growl that was completely inhuman. “You can run, cher. And I can try my damnedest not to hunt you down,” he told her, his words caressing her lips. “But when bums on the street die by my hand and another wolf claims you anyway, you’ll only have yourself to blame.” As he said this, his right hand found her hip, squeezed, and ran slowly up her body, shoving the tank top up to reveal the flesh of her taut stomach as he did so.

  Lily’s breath caught in her throat and she shuddered when his hand found her waist and his skin burned into hers. She could feel a low rumble coming off of him, a barely contained growl that licked at her senses like tongues of flame. She could barely comprehend what he was saying. Her body was too wrapped up in desire, her mind too far gone.

  When his lips finally touched hers, it was with a painful tenderness that utterly belied the stifling hunger of his pent-up passion. Her eyes closed and she found herself arching against him, unable to stop herself. She wanted him. With every fiber of her being.

  Without waiting for him to deepen the kiss, Lily ran the fingers of her right hand through his blue-black locks and moaned into his mouth. His hair was so silky soft. She wantonly grabbed it with both fists and pulled him toward her, swallowing the growl that escaped his throat. She felt his fangs, long, sharp and cruel, and brazenly explored them with her tongue. She was intoxicated with him.

  She always had been.

  Hell, he’d always been on her mind – in her heart. The only men she’d ever dated had somehow resembled Daniel Kane. From the guy with the ice-blue eyes to the man with the motorcycle in college. She’d always gone for Daniel. They were connected somehow. They had been all along.

  Daniel…. She arched against him again and he pressed back. She could feel his rock-hard need beneath the confining material of his jeans and she had the sudden urge to tease him – to run her hand over its length. Maybe she would draw back from him and play hard to get.

  On that impish impulse, she bega
n to break the kiss, and so suddenly that it made her head spin, he was the one fisting her hair, holding her captive as he deepened the kiss in a nearly painful manner.

  At once, unnatural pleasure coursed through her, taking her to the treacherous precipice of an orgasm and dangling her there, teasingly, mercilessly. It was a punishment of the kind that only a werewolf could deliver.

  She was on fire. She was so wet with need that she found her own fingers sliding between her legs; anything for release. But his free hand caught her wrist and quickly pinned it to the mattress beside her. She moaned, thwarted from her reprieve, and the wolf laughed. Low and wicked, the sound rolled over her, teasing her nipples into taut buds. But she still had one hand free. She used it, plunging her fingers beneath the fabric of her sweat shorts and into her panties.

  Moistness greeted her – as did a nearly angry growl that vibrated against her lips. Almost immediately, she felt an invading weakness steal through her and she realized that Daniel was using his kiss to control her body. Painful pleasure one second. Weakness another.

  It wasn’t fair. He was toying with her, laying waste to her defenses. He wasn’t playing by the normal rules. He was playing by his rules, and they were simply unfair. Blissful, but unfair.

  She protested with a “no” that he effectively silenced with his kiss as he let go of her hair, grabbed her other wrist, and pinned them both above her head on the mattress with one of his strong hands. Then he once more straddled her, as he had done in his own bed all of those ages ago. Finally, slowly, he pulled his mouth away, releasing her from his kiss.

  Lily opened her eyes and gazed up at him as she tried to catch her breath. Oh my God, she thought. I’m as good as done for. As if he could read her mind, Daniel smiled.

  She gasped.

  And then he was ripping through her t-shirt and shorts with claws that moved so fast, she couldn’t see them. She had barely enough time to hope that he didn’t end up cutting her too before she was being thrown further up onto the bed, stripped and vulnerable.

  She cried out for half a second before his mouth was claiming hers again and his hard, still-clothed body was pressing her into the mattress. She brought her hands up, unconsciously trying to push him away; it was preservation. She was going to die beneath his hungered onslaught. She would die slowly and it would feel better than heaven, but she would die all the same. She was sure of it!

  Her struggles did no good, of course, and when she felt his hands sliding down her sides to her thighs, she knew there was no turning back. This was it.

  His fingers skated over the front of her legs to roughly grasp her inner thighs. He pried them apart without pity and without pause. Her eyes widened, her heart hammering. She could offer no resistance as his fingers parted the soft curls between her legs and moved lower, claiming the same slick part of her that her own fingers had found only moments before. The sensation was too much. Lily made a desperate sound and it was met with his own unforgiving chuckle, muted by his lips on hers.

  Lily’s hands clawed at his back as he ran his fingers languidly over her lips and sent more unnatural pleasure into her through his kiss. His thumb grazed her clitoris – and then pressed down in just the right spot and Lily cried out. Her legs bent and unbent beneath him, writhing in an ecstasy that was quickly nearing a kind of aching torture.

  When he suddenly and without warning plunged two of his large fingers inside of her, she screamed into his mouth and he drew back, breaking the kiss. With his fingers still embedded deep within her, he brought his other arm up and fisted it once more in her long golden locks, roughly jerking her head back to expose her throat.

  Lily arched against his invading fingers, wanting more of him, and he obliged, pushing further as his thumb continued to press expertly into her clitoris. His lips grazed her chin, touched upon her ear, and then sank lower, to the delicate, exposed column of her throat. There, he paused, his breath hot against her taut skin.

  Daniel slowly pulled his fingers away, and Lily couldn’t stop her cry of protest; she wanted him inside of her!

  She got her wish. She felt him then, pulsing hot and huge as he teased at her opening. With his free hand, he captured both of her wrists once more and again pinned them above her head. Her eyes flew open in sudden alarm, but he gave her no time to consider the situation, and certainly no means of escape.

  When he plunged into her with one swift motion, she screamed in both sharp, ecstatic pleasure and very real pain. She was small and tight and he was massive inside of her, filling her beyond capacity. But, just as it had with Malcolm Cole, the pain only served to excite her further, stoking her infernal fires, and in that fast and furious moment, she was brought to the brink of some kind of gluttonous, velveteen satisfaction. It was just out of reach – calling her name. She bucked beneath him, eyes closing in surrender as her body completely overshadowed her mind. All that mattered was reaching that plateau. Nothing else.

  She was so far gone by the time he leaned down to whisper in her ear that she barely registered what he was saying. “I’m going to take you, Lily,” he told her, his tone low and harsh. “I can’t wait any more.”

  And with that, Daniel Kane pulled back slightly, his long, sharp fangs glistening in the waning sunlight, and as he drew partly out of her and than thrust back in, he plunged those fangs into the side of her throat.

  Lily’s second scream outdid her first. She felt his fangs sink into her throat and the sensation was tremendously shocking. There was a kind of pain, but it was something she’d never experienced before. It wasn’t pain so much as a delicious, demanding throb that synchronized with the throb between her legs and awakened her to a whole new level of pleasure. She reached that plateau and kept on climbing. With each pull against her throat, he seemed to deepen the bite, marking her in a way that she was certain would never heal.

  Surely, he would kill her.

  What a way to die… she thought. It was the last thought she registered. Her body convulsed around him, squeezing him tight over and over again. There was no Earth beneath her any longer. No bed. No room. She was floating on a sea of endorphins that wracked through her, at first with severe and uncompromising razor-sharpness – and then with a slowly rolling pleasure.

  For Daniel Kane, there had never been pleasure until now. There had been only water, and now he was drowning in wine. He’d never tasted another partner during sex. He’d never dared to bite. Knowing the consequences, he’d always held back, hidden his true self, and given away whatever it was the women had wanted. He’d been good at making them happy. It was something in his blood, his being. He just knew what to do.

  But Daniel, in turn, had always gone away barely sated and deep down, slightly more empty than before.

  Now, as his teeth sank slowly into her throat, Lily’s blood welled to meet him, fueled by her rapid-fire heart. In ecstasy, he swallowed. Not a drop was wasted. He fed greedily, his body moving along hers, crushing her into the bed, needing to be so much closer than was possible. He wanted more.

  He pulled at her blood with an insatiable hunger and thrust himself into her harder and harder, knowing that his large size and her small body were probably bringing her some pain. He could feel her tightness wrapped around him, squeezing him relentlessly and yet he wanted to be deeper. Deeper. His gums ached, his head spun, his heart raced, his body plowed relentlessly on, demanding everything that Lily had to give and more.

  The world around him was melting, dissolving into a swirl of sound and color that had no meaning. All that was left was him and his strong, inexorable, unyielding desire – and little Lily, his Dormant angel with the gold-flecked eyes and golden hair and the body to kill for. His mate.

  My mate. Mine.

  With that thought, he pulled his fangs from her neck, jerked her head around, and sank his teeth into the other side of her throat one last time, claiming her in a near cruelty that wouldn’t be sated. He’d wanted her for too long. He wanted all of her.

  And
so he took her. Again and again. When he felt her climax one last time, he couldn’t hold back his own roaring orgasm; his grip around her became so tight it was suffocating. His claws dug slightly into her wrists where he held them against the bed. He yanked his fangs from her throat and growled into the room. Her tight body was convulsing around him, milking him for everything he was worth. He couldn’t stop the monstrous sound that escape his throat, so loud and low that the paintings rattled against the wall and the window shook in its pane.

  He rode the tidal wave down, both man and monster sated and soothed for the first time in their lives. He opened his eyes, the pupils dilating once more to their normal size, and lowered his head to gaze down at Lily St.Claire. His mate – soon to be his wife.

  Her own eyes were still closed, but gently, as if in sleep. Her bruised red lips were parted, her breathing shallow. Her honeyed hair cascaded around her like waterfalls of liquid gold, shimmering against the pillows in the light of the setting sun.

  She was very pale. Large, deep puncture wounds marked both sides of her delicate, slim neck.

  Normally, any wound created by another werewolf’s teeth or claws would take as long to heal for a Made werewolf as it would for any human. It was the reason clan law stated that werewolves were not allowed to attack one another unless strictly necessary.

  However, if the wounds created by wolves while claiming their mates did not heal more quickly, many mates would have been lost long ago. In this, nature and evolution had allowed them one boon. These bites would heal rapidly, shrinking to pin-prick marks much like fabled vampire bites. In a few days, they would be gone entirely.

  They had already stopped bleeding. And Daniel could hear Lily’s heartbeat. It was faint, but it was steady. She had survived the changing. He could smell the slight difference in her scent. It was no longer Dormant. It was awakening and the scent was as enticing to him as hot chocolate, caramel and baked cookies were to a child.