She knew she had only one chance and she either took it now or ended up finding out if so many religious belief systems were correct about there being an afterlife.
On hands and knees, Irene made a mad dash for her backpack. She’d just gotten hold of it when fangs gripped her side and flung her back into the midst of the fight. She landed hard, rolling to keep any of her bones from breaking in the process while maintaining a death grip on her pack.
They were still toying with her. She knew that because the lioness that grabbed her could have broken her spine but strategically dug into her side. They didn’t want to kill her too soon. Where would the fun be in that?
Focusing on her task, Irene tore open the zipper on the bag, spraying her papers, files, and computer printouts everywhere. She ignored all that and took hold of what she still had buried inside. Her fingers wrapped around the metal as sharp teeth sank into her thigh and dragged her back.
Somehow knowing this would be her last chance, Irene waited until it had dragged her off into a corner, away from the current battle between lifelong enemies, and then it released her. Before it could get another grip on her or tear into something vital, like an artery or her brain, Irene turned and slammed her homemade weapon against its throat.
Amazing the things one could come up with when bored and reading an electronics magazine. At the time she’d figured if someone named Jack Cover could create the device, why not her? So she’d created three nonlethal ones exactly like his, the one some police stations around the country were using. But she found the nonlethal devices boring. So she’d increased the voltage on the last three as much as she could. Still she’d never used them before but merely kept one in her bag for those long, late-night walks to her car across campus. Until now.
Irene pressed the side buttons she’d added to the device and squeezed. Those increased volts now tore through her attacker.
The hyena’s entire body jerked in surprise—until it began to smoke. The smell of burning fur didn’t deter Irene from keeping her weapon against its throat. She sat up when it started to stumble back and fall over, never stopping the charge or allowing the device to move away from the hyena’s neck.
After sixty seconds, she figured enough had been done and she stood and stumbled away, the hyena remains nothing more than a charred and bloody mess.
Irene quickly remembered there were more, and she spun around with the weapon held up in front of her. Rough breaths came out of her and she could feel blood trickling down her back and thigh, coating the inside of her jeans. As one, they all looked at the hyena’s remains and back at her.
Trying to control her shaking but knowing that with any animal a show of weakness would be her undoing, she yelled, “Well? Come on!”
At first, they didn’t move at all, staring at her with those cold eyes. She thought for sure they’d seen through her. That they could see and smell her fear. But she never looked away and slowly they stepped back. All of them.
They kept their eyes on her as if they thought she was as dangerous as they, and they took another step back. And another. And another. When they had a healthy distance between them, both lions and hyenas turned and trotted off back into the woods, heading to their own territories.
Irene waited until she could no longer see or hear them, then she turned and froze again, briefly wondering how much more she could take. They watched her with eyes much less cold but no less frightening.
It had to be an entire pack of wolves. She lifted her weapon, unable to stop her shaking this time, and waited. The one in front trotted forward and she watched it, waiting for it to make its move.
It did, shifting from wolf to human. And suddenly Niles Van Holtz walked toward her. Irene raised the weapon higher, where his big neck would be if he stepped any closer.
Van Holtz stopped and stared at her. “It’s all right, Irene.”
“I have to go.” Irene ignored the fact that her entire body now shook with fear and panic and pain. “I have to work. I need to go back to my lab. I can’t stay. You can’t make me stay.”
“Irene, I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise. But you’ve gotta trust me and come with me, baby.”
“No. I’m going back to my car. Stay away from me, Van Holtz.” She kind of jerked the homemade stun gun and a few of the wolves stepped back. But not him. “I’ll do to you what I did to him,” she warned, motioning toward the charred hyena. “So stay away from me.”
“They won’t let this go, Irene. They’ll come back for you. You’ll never make it to your car. You have to come with me.”
He sounded so reasonable. He sounded like he cared. But no one cared about her. They cared about her brain and what she could do for them or what she could create. But no one—except maybe Jackie—cared about her at all. Especially Van Holtz.
She had to give it to the man, though. He was persistent.
“Irene, I know you’re scared, baby, and I can explain everything to you. But I need you to come with me.”
“Explain? Explain what?”
“About what you just saw. About me.”
She shook her head. “You don’t have to explain anything. I know all about you, Van Holtz.”
“Because of Jaqueline Jean-Louis, right?”
Irene nodded, but one of the wolves moved and she pointed her weapon again, taking a quick step back.
“Irene.” The snap in Van Holtz’s voice drew her attention back to him. “Tell me what you know.”
“What?”
“About us. About the Van Holtzes. Tell me what you know.”
So she did.
“The Van Holtz Pack are descendants of the Holtzes from Gaul. Barbarians used by the villagers to stop the advancement of Caesar’s armies across the Rhine River. They used pagan rituals to force this”—she motioned to the Pack—“on you. Used your kin as war dogs of a sort. But once it was over, they couldn’t control the Holtzes. No one could. You finished with the Romans and turned on the locals, using them as cattle to feed on until the Christian church took power and went after anything remotely pagan. That’s when the now Van Holtz Pack, due to a marriage involving Dutch wolves, broke apart. Some left Germany altogether and went to other parts of Europe. Eventually, they ended up on the shores of North America and briefly settled in a small town called Smithville.”
By now, almost half the Pack had shifted to human and they stared at her. She wondered how many of them didn’t even know this background information about their own Pack. Probably all of them.
Finally, Van spoke up. “That was amazing, Irene. How did you know all that?”
“I found a book in the library of an old German monastery. Buried in the back and under a ton of other books. It was in Latin, Greek, and some old German.”
“And you understood it?”
“Latin and Greek I already knew. I had to do a little deciphering to figure out the rhythm and structure of the older German. It was quite fascinating,” she added.
“Is that how you found out about Jackie?”
“No. I knew about her first. It was an accident. Her puberty hit early, while we were at a camp for gifted children. She was only twelve when it hit her one night. She must have shifted six or seven times in less than an hour. She couldn’t control it. She told me everything and I never told. I never would.”
Van nodded. “I know that, doc. I really do.”
Irene realized she’d lowered her arm to her side and her body no longer shook. She took another deep breath and it no longer went in or came out shaky. Somehow Van Holtz had calmed her down, simply getting her to focus on the one thing she loved. Knowledge. And that’s when she finally realized Van Holtz was right. She had to trust him, because the hyenas would want her dead for killing one of their own, and the lions, the more pragmatic of the shifters, would want her dead for seeing too much.
“I’ll come home with you,” she told him. “I can call Jackie from your house; she’ll be worried.”
Appearing relieved, Van Holtz nodded and
held out his hand.
Irene took a step—with absolutely no intention of taking the man’s hand—and quickly found herself face down on the ground. Before everything went black, she thought, Ah, yes. Blood loss. I should have accounted for that.
Her wounds worried him. A meaningless scrape on her forehead, but deeper gouges in her torso and thigh. A lovely, still-bleeding gash on the side of her face, a black eye. Her fingers were torn up from dragging on the ground when she was trying to get away. You put up quite a fight, didn’t ya, my little PhD?
“Are you sure about this?” Carrie asked close to his ear.
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“The hyenas are going to want her blood and the bitches will just want her dead,” Carrie needlessly reminded him.
“Call a meeting with the Pride and the Clan. We’ll figure this out, but I’m not letting them kill her.”
Carrie nodded as Van stood with Irene tucked safely in his arms.
“And get Vasquez for me,” he ordered while they walked back into the woods and onto Van Holtz territory. “I’d prefer she not bleed to death in the middle of the night.”
It was that brutal snoring that woke her. How could any human being sleep through all that noise? As it was, Irene wasn’t much of a big sleeper anyway. So any additional noises she found simply annoying.
Irene lay in a wonderful bed on her left side, naked, and she immediately knew why. The slightest movement sent a shock wave of pain through her system. Turning her head slowly, she looked down the length of her body, barely covered with a single white sheet. Some parts were bandaged up and she guessed that was to protect the stitches she could feel every time she moved. The rest that hadn’t been bandaged had lovely black and blue marks. Good thing she didn’t have an ego about her looks; otherwise she’d probably be sobbing right now.
Irene turned her head toward the snoring. Damn. Van Holtz. Had he really stayed by her side the whole night? She wouldn’t put it past him to sleep in his own room and then stroll back here around five a.m. trying to give that impression.
Still, he’d saved her life last night and she couldn’t ignore that. He’d taken a risk by bringing her to his home and not letting the others kill her. As Jackie would say, “This is one of those times where your emotion should be one of gratitude.” And Irene was grateful. Few people ever helped her and she was quite loyal to the ones who did. Although the thought of being loyal to Van Holtz made her butt itch. She knew the man well enough to know he’d take any advantage he could get. So, she’d be loyal but she didn’t need to announce it. Quiet loyalty had its benefits as well.
She stared at him, asleep in that chair. In sleep, he almost looked innocent. Yet he wasn’t innocent. Far from it. Because even in sleep he still had a smirk. Who smirked in their sleep?
He wore only a pair of jeans and nothing else. Since he’d graduated from the university seven years ago, Irene normally only saw the man in a tuxedo. Sometimes a casual dinner jacket. But half-naked except for jeans…yes, this was quite new.
And, if she were to be brutally honest—and when was she not brutally honest?—she’d have to admit the experience was not entirely unpleasant. He had an exceptional body. Perhaps a tad unnecessarily big but his muscles were lean and extremely well-defined.
His body was quite perfect, even by her standards. Long and powerful.
Glancing around the room and seeing that they were alone, Irene allowed her eyes to stray lower, wondering if he were big all over. Clearly he was. And, even more fascinating, it seemingly had a mind of its own. She watched as it grew before her eyes. Then it hit her—he hadn’t been erect in the first place. Well, exactly how big did that thing get, anyway? Was that normal, even by shifter standards? And why did she suddenly care?
“Uh…doc?”
Horrified but not willing to show it, Irene looked into Van Holtz’s face. And yes, the smirk was decidedly worse now.
“Looking for anything in particular there?”
“No,” she answered honestly, “just fascinated by the size. It seems inordinately large.”
Van Holtz shut his eyes. “By sheer will, I’m going to ignore you said that because…well…it’s killing me. And, instead”—he leaned forward in his chair, his eyes examining her body closely—“ask, how are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been mauled by a wild animal.”
“You’re gonna be bragging about that for years, aren’t you?”
“Pardon?”
“How often does a full-human get to say they not only survived an attack by lions and hyenas but that they actually took out one of the hyenas?”
Irene grimaced. “I’d prefer not to…” She shook her head, slowly rolling onto her back, pulling the sheet with her to continue keeping her naked body somewhat covered. “Killing something or someone who was human at least part of the time is not a situation I’d run around bragging about, Van Holtz.”
“You’re right. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize. Based on what the staff and students say about me, I’m sure you thought I’d happily kill another being and mount them on my wall.”
“Haven’t you?”
“Only the students who dare cross me.”
The bed dipped and Irene slowly turned her head to focus on the man stretching out on the bed beside her. “What are you doing?”
“Getting comfortable.”
She glanced at him, took in the way he lay on his side with his head propped up with one hand, and frowned. “Why?”
“Because I can.” He lifted the lone white sheet and peeked down the length of her naked body. “You don’t mind, do you?”
Irene frowned again while he stared under that sheet. “Am I now supposed to have sexual intercourse with you?”
The sheet dropped back into place and Van Holtz’s eyes slowly looked up to focus on her face. “Sorry?”
“Am I supposed to have sexual intercourse with you because you saved my life? Like a form of medieval payment for services rendered?”
Something in her voice stopped him from trying to snag another peek under that sheet and had him looking directly into her face. She wasn’t joking. Nor was she being insulting. She really had asked him if she had to have sex with him as a form of payment.
“Of course I don’t expect that.”
“Oh.”
He waited for more but more, apparently, was not forthcoming.
“Perhaps we should understand each other, Irene. I want you. I have for a long time. But I want to have sex with you because we’ll both enjoy it. Not because you owe me anything.”
“Oh. I see.” She looked up at him with those intense blue eyes and spoke as plainly as any woman ever had before. “The problem is, Van Holtz, I detest sexual intercourse. I don’t mean I don’t enjoy it. Or I’ve had bad experiences and the thought of it makes me uncomfortable. I mean, I detest it. I find the whole passing back and forth of bodily fluids repulsive. And I’m not talking merely semen. I mean sweat and saliva.” She grimaced and it clearly wasn’t forced. “The number of germs passing between two people during those moments would boggle your mind. Besides, I really hate sweating. And I hate being distracted. Because one should pay attention when involved in intercourse, I’ve found past partners noticed when I wasn’t and they were always so offended. Anyway, depending on who I’m with at the time, that could be anywhere from ten minutes to an hour where I’m forced to focus on the needs of one person and, to be quite honest, there are much more important things I should be doing.”
Van stared at the naked woman lying in his bed. “Do you like living like that?” he had to ask.
“Yes. I do. Personally, I don’t understand why people involve themselves in relationships. They’re complicated and often very unsatisfying. Then the only way to get rid of the person is through legal means.”
“Relationships are one thing. I agree with you there. But I’m talking about sex. Don’t you have…uh…needs?”
“Yes. But I take car
e of those by myself. I have a very handy vibrator.”
Van laughed. He’d never met a woman who openly admitted, in general conversation, she liked to get herself off.
“Look, I’m a feminist, Van Holtz. I feel there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a woman physically taking care of herself.”
“I see.”
She glanced at her bandaged side. “I can feel so many stitches. You know, I saw an open-heart surgery once and let me tell you—”
“Irene,” he cut in, before she could run off on some tangent, “I’m still back on the detesting-sex conversation.”
“Oh. All right.”
“Is this conversation bothering you?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Van got comfortable next to Irene Conridge. Normally, a woman told him she had no interest in sex and he had no interest in her. And although his sexual interest in Irene had gone far, far away, he still found talking to her kind of…well…to quote her, “fascinating.”
“Do you ever miss sex?”
“No.”
“Do you ever miss being around people?”
“I am around people. I live with Jackie.”
“True, but I mean, someone in your bed. Holding you. Or do you and Jackie…uh…”
She stared at him blankly and he realized that he could get rid of those kinky fantasies, too. Apparently Dr. Conridge didn’t like “sexual intercourse” with anyone. Male or female.
“If you mean lesbianism, then no. I have no interest in women either. But you shouldn’t feel bad for me,” she calmly insisted. “I’m not frigid in the clinical sense and I like the way my life is. Except for being mauled, it’s relatively simple and calm. And that’s just how I like it.”
“Then that’s all that matters, doc.”
“That’s how I feel.” She gazed up at him. “What you did tonight…I do really appreciate it. I know enough of shifter politics to know you didn’t make any fans this evening.”
“I’ll handle them. You just get better. And any chance you’ll tell me why you were out there in the first place?”
“No. And you know I don’t have to stay if I’ll be in the way.”
When He Was Bad Page 3