Growl

by Eve Langlais

  Some died; the weaklings, her dad said, not without a little scorn. Some recovered, victims of an attack. But some … some turned Lycan, the first moon triggering the full change. After that, with practice a male could control his inner beast and allow only parts of it to emerge. Except when the full moon shone in the sky. Then they all went 100 percent hairy, no matter what.

  Not that she’d ever experienced it. Megan, to this day, remained human.

  So how, some might wonder, if it took a bite to infect, was she descended from a line of male wolves that went back generations? Simple. Her family was freaking nuts.

  Each generation birthed a son or two, sometimes more. And each generation got bitten by their dads on their sixteenth birthday. It was barbaric. It was also tradition.

  It was also for guys only.

  Girls couldn’t turn wolf. Women were immune to the bite.

  No one was sure why. Daddy said many had tried. Hell, apparently Grandma made Grandpa bite her because she wanted to be furry like her boys. It failed.

  Luckily, the men could still marry human women and father children. Mostly boys in her family, with the occasional girl like Megan, who was raised among wolves.

  Had she mentioned the psychotic part?

  “Ahem.” Fabian cleared his throat. “You know, while all these lovely introductions are fascinating, I’m finding myself less intrigued with your banter than I am with the body on my floor. Doesn’t he work for me?” Fabian asked as he nudged the thug with a bare toe.

  At that announcement, Megan snapped her attention to her cousin. “He’s one of yours? I can’t believe you sent a gunman after me. Wait until my daddy finds out.”

  Alpha of a contending clan or not, Fabian vehemently denied it and perhaps even blanched a little. “I most definitely did not send him after you. I’m not insane enough to challenge your father.”

  Dear Daddy. His reputation since his return from the war preceded him.

  “Then if you didn’t send him, who did?”

  They all stared at the thug, who groaned as consciousness returned to him.

  With so many violent personalities in the room, it didn’t take much threatening to have him spill his guts. The verbal kind, not the messy intestinal ones.

  His voice earnest, the hired gunman told them what he knew, which wasn’t much. “I was hired for the job. Well, less hired, more like I accepted an open call.”

  Broderick, who tapped away on a laptop Fabian had fetched by his guards, confirmed it. “What do you know? I’m on the forum he was talking about, and here’s the posted bounty.”

  The forum he referred to was an online Web group under several layers of security and encrypted so that only those in the business could decipher the contents.

  Megan, gun tucked in the waistband of her pants—no panties because she couldn’t find them when she’d fled earlier—peered over his shoulder.

  Sure enough, as she scanned the board she saw the announcement.

  A whistle blew past Fabian’s lips. “Five million to end your life. That’s not what I would have paid.”

  Affronted, Megan shot him a dark look.

  He grinned. “I would have paid more of course, dear cousin.”

  His face set in a perpetual scowl, it seemed, Gavin paced before Broderick. “How do we get this message taken down?”

  “We don’t. Only the poster can erase it.”

  “But we can nullify it to a certain extent,” Fabian added. “We will post a message saying that if anyone succeeds in killing dear Megan they will incur my wrath and I will hunt them down myself and ensure they die screaming.”

  “I was planning on doing that anyway,” added Gavin, his tone quite ominous.

  And sexy. Damned wolves and their protective ways. To think Daddy wondered why she had fled to the East Coast. Grandma and Megan’s mother understood and had abetted her departure. Now Daddy sulked because his little girl left him.

  “Gavin, I am most delighted to see this violent side. And to think I’d wondered if you were soft when it came to justice.”

  “Sometimes the law just isn’t enough,” Gavin replied.

  Megan shook her head. “Men. Always promising more violence. I’ll take care of this. After all, this person dared to screw with me.”

  “What do you plan to do?”

  What a dumb question. “I’ll kill whoever is behind this of course. No money getting paid means no attempts on my life. Simple.”

  “Easier said than done. We don’t know who is bankrolling this.”

  “Yet. Given their erratic behavior, I’d say it’s not long now before they reveal themselves.”

  “But do we have that long to wait? They’ve set a pretty trap around you, Megan,” Broderick reminded. “The cops are currently looking for you on account of the body in your apartment.”

  “What body?” she asked. They brought her up to speed, and she lost her smile. “This is getting ridiculous. What the hell did I do to incur this kind of vendetta?”

  “I’ll admit I’m a tad jealous. No one puts this kind of effort in their attempts on me,” Fabian huffed.

  “It’s because you’re soft.” She coughed it in her hand, and her cousin glared.

  She beamed.

  “What if we could get the charges dropped?” Gavin said.

  “Exactly how are you going to do that? You have seen the pile of evidence they’ve gathered, right? The best we can hope for is having the most current arson and murder charges dropped.”

  “That’s what you think. I have a plan.”

  And it was a good one, too.

  In return for their letting Larry—the hotel intruder—live, he would not only confess to his part in the murder and arson at Megan’s place, which resulted not long after her threat to remove his ability to procreate, but also admit he’d killed Pierre and framed the innocent secretary for it. It should be noted that, despite the measures they used to make him speak, Larry swore, and quite unimaginatively, that he didn’t have a part in that plot. Not that it mattered. Given the choice between life in prison and facing their wrath—which again, Megan punctuated with more bodily threats, good ones that made all the men wince—Larry wisely chose the least harmful route.

  With their plan in place, it was decided that Gavin would bring Larry in on a citizen’s arrest. Gavin would concoct some story about having taken down Larry when the thug visited Megan at her hotel room. Brave lawyer traps criminal intent on killing his scapegoat. Why Larry wanted to kill her they left vague. With a confession in hand, it was doubtful the cops would dig too deeply, especially once one of Fabian’s men on the inside pushed the paperwork through.

  “I’m going to time it so that I arrive about a half hour before the end of shift. The cops will just want to process the paperwork as fast as they can to get out of there.” Gavin eyed the watch on his wrist and tapped it to set an alarm.

  Wearing no underpants and no bra, Megan felt quite unprepared beside his impeccably turned-out attire. She didn’t let his suave exterior beside her grubby one, though, daunt her.

  After all, I’ve seen him naked. And dirty. Oh, so dirty. She crossed her legs in the chair she’d once again commandeered.

  “With Larry’s confession, it will be a cinch to get the arrest warrant for Megan canceled. Then I’ll work on the rest of the charges. You’ll be a free woman. That is, if you can stay out of trouble. Anything else I should know about? Some other crime that will pop up to mess with my plan? Did you perhaps sneak out and kill someone while I was sleeping?” He fixed her with a dark stare.

  She snorted. “As if you gave me enough time. I barely got any sleep.” Too late she realized what she’d admitted, aloud, to an audience. Killer since her college days or not, she blushed.

  Wisely, no one remarked on it.

  Gavin shot a look at Larry, who sat quietly on the floor, no longer so intimidating when surrounded by real predators. “Broderick, zip tie his hands, would you, and put him in the car.”

&nbs
p; “Why me?”

  “Because you owe me. That and I need to speak to my client some more before I handle the cops. Also”—he poked Broderick in the back—“after you’re done with that, I want you to work on unscrambling the identification of whoever posted the bounty. While you”—he jabbed a finger in Fabian’s direction—“need to do something criminal that I can tie back to you so I can at least throw you in jail for a few nights for irritating the fuck out of me.”

  “Only a few nights? I take it I am forgiven for introducing you to Megan.”

  “I forgive you nothing, but I am willing to forgo the exhilaration of seeing your ass in an electric chair out of deference to the fact you’re related to Megan.”

  “You would show me mercy because of Megan? How interesting,” Fabian mused aloud.

  Megan frowned. What did her cousin mean? Before she could speculate, Gavin dragged her from the room. Only because she allowed it, though.

  Now that she didn’t need to hide who she was, she could have broken his hold—or his wrist. Daddy made sure his little girl wasn’t defenseless. Besides, Gavin was right. They did have some things to discuss in light of recent events and revelations.

  They didn’t go far, only to a small parlor with a pair of hidden sliding doors, which Gavin whisked shut as soon as he had her in the room.

  He whirled on her. His presence—large, confident, and oozing primitive maleness—filled the room while his gaze drilled her. He advanced on her with the slow steps of a predator.

  Despite her upbringing, she couldn’t help mincing steps back. The cautious retreat of prey. A prey with a racing heart, heated blood, and tingling parts.

  “So, little rabbit. It seems I’ve misjudged you. It’s not often someone can say that.”

  “My ability to blend is why I’m paid the big bucks.” Her wan joke didn’t crack a smile.

  “Speaking of big bucks. You could have afforded a lawyer but didn’t hire one. Why?”

  “And ruin my cover? Part of my defense was the whole benign-secretary thing. If I could keep it and have the charges dropped, then I wouldn’t need to reinvent myself. I’ve heard new fingerprints are painful.”

  “You didn’t need me to take on your case for free.”

  “Are you about to complain about me wasting your time? Would you feel better if I offered to pay you the going fee, discreetly, of course?”

  He’d kept advancing as they spoke, and she couldn’t help but retreat from him until her back hit the wall. Did she retreat from fear? Not quite, more like an excitement that had her heart racing and her body tingling.

  He framed her body with an arm braced on either side of her head. “I don’t need your money.”

  “Because Fabian is paying for my defense of course.”

  “No, he’s not, and I would never take a penny from him.” Gavin invaded her space, not quite touching her but close enough for her to feel the heat of his body.

  “If he’s not paying you, and you don’t need my money, then what do you want?”

  “Other than the truth?” He rubbed his face against hers, a jaw shadowed in stubble against her smooth skin. Having been raised among wolves, literally, she knew what he did. He marked her with his scent.

  That didn’t bode well. “What if I promise you the truth from here on out? No more surprises.”

  “I don’t think we need to go that far. While I will expect forthrightness from you, as for surprises…” He blew warmly against the lobe of her ear. “Some surprises are delicious.” He nipped the tip, and she shuddered, arousal tensing the muscles of her sex.

  “I’d have said ‘dangerous.’” Her voice emerged a touch more high-pitched than she wanted as she tried to distract herself from his mouth. “You do know I’m a trained killer.” An assassin who was thinking if she hooked her foot around his ankle and caught him off guard she could tip him onto the floor, straddle him, and do things on the plush carpet that would totally be more fun than this conversation.

  “I like danger.” Wolf or not, he practically purred the words.

  Jump him. How she wanted to, but she knew what a bad idea that was now. Distraction was what she needed. “So what happens next, with my case, that is?”

  Talking didn’t stop his lips. On the contrary, the hot puff of air as he spoke so close to her skin was almost worse. “Larry will be charged. You go free, and we find the real culprit behind all these acts.” He dragged his lips down the column of her throat.

  “Whoever it was initially didn’t want me dead, or they would have killed me when they planted the stuff.”

  “True, but they definitely wanted you punished. Which reminds me. I’ve been wanting to ask, how did such a savvy assassin get caught and framed in the first place?”

  She babbled in an effort to fight his tantalizing mouth, which sucked the sensitive skin at the base of her throat. “I should probably begin by telling you my plan in regards to Pierre. Given I was almost done with the deed and asset transfers Fabian wanted, I concocted an office-robbery scenario. Business guy stays late because I create a bit of a panic with one of his distributors. He’s alone. Unarmed. A junkie breaks in and shoots him, the junkie being me. First, though, I had to establish an alibi. On the day of the murder, I went home and got some Thai takeout on the way, making sure I kept a time-stamped receipt and that my credit card was used. I made sure the lobby camera for my building saw me coming in. Once I was at my place, my plan was to change into some concealing clothes and whip back out using the fire escape. A tenant, two floors down, who’s in Florida for the week, leaves her bike chained by her window. I planned to borrow it and use it to get there and back, with no one the wiser.”

  His suckling of her skin paused. “Except you never left your apartment that night.”

  The lips resumed their roaming adventure. “I never even made it in the door. I’m assuming someone darted me with a heavy-duty sedative, because the last thing I remember is juggling my bag of food so I could unlock my door.”

  She barely held in a disappointed sigh as his lips stopped again.

  “So you really didn’t kill him?”

  “No.” The reminder helped put a damper on her burgeoning arousal. “Which is why I was so pissed the next day when the cops showed up and began pulling the supposed evidence from my apartment. I was framed.”

  His blue gaze met hers, and a lilt curved his lips.

  “This isn’t funny,” she pouted.

  “Yeah, it is, because I can’t believe an assassin is complaining about getting framed for murder.”

  “Hey, you would, too, if it happened to you. I mean, not only did I not get properly paid for that wasted month of working for my target, but I now have to clear my name and find the real culprit.”

  “Your name will be clear by the end of the day.”

  “But whoever started this war against me is still out there.” Only for as long as it took her to find them. Once she did—

  Gavin’s lips moved upward, hovering over her mouth, taunting her with their closeness. “I take it asking if you have enemies is a moot point.”

  “Are you implying I’m not well liked?” She batted not-so-innocent lashes at him.

  “I’d say that anyone who likes you too much is asking for trouble.”

  “A good thing you discovered this sooner than later then,” she replied, somewhat miffed.

  Sure, she’d not exactly expected their one night of passion to change things between them. Hell, she’d been the most vocal about not indulging, but it rankled knowing that her profession and true self were too much for Gavin to handle. It seemed she’d grown to like Gavin, despite their short acquaintance—and the fact that he turned furry.

  Well, at least I know where we stand now. Not that things would have gotten much further. Once her family found out about him, it wasn’t just her daddy who might have an issue with her taking up with an unknown wolf—and a lawyer at that.

  “Yes, it is a good thing I know what a troublemaker you are
. I’ll have to call my security company and have them increase their service if I’m going to keep you safe.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He leaned in close, forehead leaning against hers, his lips but a hairsbreadth from hers. Intimate, close, heart-stopping. “Oh, you didn’t think something like you being an assassin would chase me away, did you? I am a wolf, little rabbit. I thrive on danger. And now that we’re both unmasked, we don’t have to hide who and what we are anymore.”

  “I’m not looking for a relationship.”

  “I wasn’t asking. I’m stating that, like it or not, we’re a couple.”

  The feminist in her bristled at his domineering statement. The woman in her melted and then puddled as his lips tugged at hers, a slow, languorous embrace that had her breath stuttering.

  If only they had the time. No, what am I thinking? Bad idea. She’d grown up with wolves, and she knew better than to get involved with one. “Aren’t you supposed to go to see the cops?”

  “I will, in a minute. First, I think we need to take care of more pressing business.” His business pressed against her lower belly.

  Again, so tempting, but Megan wasn’t some doe-eyed idiot who thought having sex in her cousin’s house, with him just up the hall, probably on the phone to her dad, and with a contract on her head sending every Tom, Dick, and Hairy—as in furry shifter—coming after her was a good idea.

  She ducked down and slid sideways out of Gavin’s intimate grasp. Only the sparring she’d done growing up gave her the dexterity needed to evade his lunging hand. Oops. Nope. He caught her, moving fast, like only a Lycan could.

  Or did she allow him to catch her?

  “I wasn’t done with you.” Such heated promise in those words, and damn if she didn’t melt as he, once again, dragged her into his embrace and plastered his lips over hers.