by Kresley Cole
“Magic.” Aylin remained plastered against him, her entire body shaking, but her voice was strong and sure. “The mystic-keeper at ShadowSpawn could make you believe that one person had turned into another.”
Skepticism flashed in Nicole’s expression. Despite all she’d seen since becoming a vampire and joining MoonBound, she still insisted that science could explain everything. “Mystic-keepers often use hallucinogenic herbs to . . .”
The sound of Nicole’s voice faded in his ears as Hunter stared at the wolf bed. This was bad. Really bad. The damage someone could do while wearing Hunter’s skin could be—
Skin. He sucked in a sharp breath. Skinwalker.
Holy shit. Neither magic nor hallucinogenic substances had done this. A vampire shifter had. A vampire shifter he’d banished long ago for impersonating another clan member. Son of a bitch.
“This wasn’t a result of magic or chemistry,” Hunter blurted, interrupting Nicole’s lengthy explanation about how hallucinogens worked. “It was a skinwalker. It’s possible he’s the one who brought in the wolf while disguised as me and who then attacked Nicole in the guise of a female.”
Nicole groaned, but not from pain. “Please don’t tell me a skinwalker is what I think it is.”
Unfortunately, he couldn’t do that, and he felt a little bad, because her science-brain wasn’t going to handle this well.
“Skinwalkers come from Native American lore that originated with vampires,” he explained hastily, anxious to go find the bastard. “They can shape-shift into animals, but usually only their own totem animal.”
Aylin pulled back. “But not all of them are limited to shifting into beasts. Before I was born, my father executed a skinwalker who could impersonate humans and other vampires.”
“I banished one from MoonBound,” Hunter said, his voice bitter to his own ears. “But maybe I should have taken a cue from your father.”
Riker frowned. “Are you talking about Lobo?”
“Is that the strange guy who lives in the woods with a wolf?” Aylin asked.
Hunter nodded. “That wolf has to be the one he brought in. It’s the only thing that makes sense. He shifted into me so he could get inside.”
Nicole considered that. “He must have come back this morning to check on the wolf while disguised as someone else. But why was he naked? And female?”
“Does it matter?” Riker helped Nicole to her feet, keeping one arm protectively around her. “He attacked you. He’s going to answer for that.”
“He’s got a lot to answer for,” Hunter said.
The door burst open and Aiden’s lover, Takis, jogged inside, his dark hair hidden under a Seattle Seahawks cap. “Sir, we’ve tracked Nicole’s assailant into the forest. Should we follow?”
A mental image of Lobo kissing Aylin popped into Hunter’s head and triggered his prey drive. “We don’t follow.” He started toward the armory. “We hunt.”
5
Lobo had spent the last sixteen hours pacing the length of his tiny cabin. It wouldn’t be long before Hunter and a team of his warriors showed up at his door to drag him back to MoonBound, but he wished they’d hurry. He needed to see Tehya, and the only reason he wasn’t freaking out right now was that he sensed that the wolf was alive.
The puzzling thing was that she felt different, her energy muted and scattered. It was as if she were half a world away and in no one particular direction.
Beneath his camo pants and T-shirt, his muscles twitched with the desire to do something more than pace around like an idiot. Every time he glanced at the door, scratched up by Tehya’s claws, he had to clench his fists to keep from ripping it open and racing to MoonBound. But the coming confrontation with Hunter needed to happen here, in Lobo’s own territory.
Oh, having the home field advantage wouldn’t help him win a battle—he’d be outnumbered and outweaponed, and he wasn’t planning to fight anyway.
Forcing Hunter to come here would make MoonBound’s chief see Lobo as more than a banished outsider. Hunter would see Tehya’s food dishes and toys. He’d see the rug in front of the woodstove where she liked to lie after coming in out of the snow or rain. He’d see how much Lobo loved the wolf and would, Lobo hoped, understand the forbidden lengths he’d gone to in order to save her.
But, damn, the wait was torture. And he knew torture.
He eyed the jar of hooch he’d gotten from a hermit near the Washington-Idaho border last winter, but before he could calculate how much he could drink and still remain civil when Hunter showed up, the sound of a branch breaking just outside froze him in place. A heartbeat later, something scratched at the door.
Tehya.
The scratching noise sounded again, high up on the frame. If it was Tehya, she was up on her hind legs.
Heart pounding, he threw himself at the door, practically tearing it off its rusty hinges in his excitement.
Not Tehya.
Ho-ly shit.
A naked woman stood on the rickety porch boards, her body covered in scratches and scrapes, her long black hair tangled around sticks and leaves. She was a stranger, but he knew her. Holy Maker, he knew her.
She was the woman he’d seen so many times in Tehya’s mind.
Her slender shoulders rose and fell with each panting, exhausted breath, and she was shivering, but her amber eyes gleamed with recognition.
“You know me,” he said, his voice tight with astonishment and confusion. Where had she come from? Why was she here? How was she connected to Tehya? It was all he could do to keep from blurting out every question at once.
She opened her mouth as if to speak, and he caught a glimpse of fangs. As suspected, she was a vampire. A born vampire as well, or her eyes would be silver.
A blast of hunger hit him in a wave that was almost physical. Desperate need billowed from her, as if she was not only hungry, but chronically starved. She threw herself at him so suddenly he didn’t have time to block her. In an instant, she was wrapped around him like a bear cub scaling a tree, and crazily enough, his first instinct wasn’t to throw her off him.
His instinct was to hold her tighter and tilt his head to give her better access to his vein.
Lobo held the strange female against him, his body responding like a traitor as she sank her fangs into his throat. Pain and pleasure rippled through him, leaving him so unsteady that he had to brace himself against the wall. Ah, damn, this was good. Bizarre, but good.
Thanks to Tehya’s jealousy, he hadn’t fed a female in long time, and he had definitely never fed a strange female who showed up at his door naked and scratched all to hell.
But she wasn’t a complete stranger, was she? He’d never met her, but he knew her. He’d seen her in Tehya’s mind and in his dreams. Hell, she’d even made it into some of his fantasies, the ones that sometimes woke him in the middle of the night and left him drenched in sweat and painfully hard. And how many times had he summoned her image while he stroked himself in the shower?
As if she read his thoughts, she rocked against him, rubbing her bare chest against his, her pelvis against his rapidly hardening erection.
“Hey,” he said roughly, tightening his hold in an attempt to calm her, but all that did was bring her even more solidly against him. “It’s okay. You can slow down.”
If she heard him, she didn’t respond. Keeping his grip on her, he sank onto the bed, knowing that at the rate she was feeding, it wouldn’t be long before he got light-headed.
She took an extremely hard pull, and a burst of extreme pleasure-pain shot through him. “Jesus,” he whispered. “How long has it been since you last fed?”
Her only response was a moan and a slow grind of her hips, which dredged up a moan of his own. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, creating sizzling pops of pain that heightened all his senses. He became aware of the way her breath tickled his skin. The way her hard nipples pressed into his chest. The way her sex rocked against the bulge beneath his fly. His hands shook as he gripped her wais
t, but what he really wanted was to slip his fingers between their bodies, release his cock, and drive into her the way he did in his dreams.
She’d let him. Everything that made him the male animal he was demanded he take what she was offering, flip her onto her back and give her his blood and his seed. But even as he shifted to make it happen, he snarled in frustration.
He couldn’t do it. She was clearly suffering from feeding deprivation, leaving her vulnerable and too easily swayed. So he gnashed his molars together and kept his hands in neutral territory as she moved against him, feeding with increasing fervor. The scent of her arousal surrounded him, chipping away at his willpower—and the enamel on his teeth.
Heat consumed him as she rode his erection, making little sounds of ecstasy with every back-and-forth sweep across his lap. He could feel her pleasure mounting, could practically taste it as an electric bite in the air.
His heart pounded in anticipation. “Come on,” he rasped. “Take what you want.”
She rocked faster, the friction and damp heat between them shocking him with its intensity. He could come like this. An orgasm edged closer, boiling in his balls and swelling in his shaft. Nails scored his back, digging deep, and a heartbeat later, she stiffened and clamped down on his throat hard with a husky shout. Her climax shuddered through her, vibrating his body and putting him so close to the tipping point that he felt the cool wetness of precum spread across the tip of his cock.
Then she went limp, the sexual storm fading as she disengaged her fangs. His body still coiled tight with need, he grimaced as he eased them both onto their sides, and for the first time since she’d burst into his cabin, he got a good look at her face. High cheekbones, flushed with color, sloped gracefully to her hairline, and remarkably long lashes framed drowsy, sated yellow eyes that drilled into him not with their intensity, but with their familiarity. He knew those eyes . . . but from more than just the visions. Why?
“I guess maybe I should get your name now,” he said, his voice rough with unspent lust.
For some reason, she looked hurt. “I—” She broke off and tried again, but what came out of her mouth sounded more like a whimper than a word. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply. “I . . . haven’t spoken . . . words . . .” She opened her eyes. “. . . in a long . . . time.”
He actually understood that. He’d lived alone for so long that if not for his wolf pals, his voice would be wrapped in dust and cobwebs. But he was impatient for answers, sexually frustrated, and a pint low on blood.
“What the hell is going on?”
She shook her head. “This must . . . be so strange to you.”
“What, opening the door to find a naked, starving female who, before now, I’ve only seen in my head? Nah. Happens all the time.”
Wry amusement tipped up the corner of her mouth. “I know it doesn’t, because I’m here almost every day.”
He propped himself up on one elbow and searched her face. For what, he wasn’t sure, but he did know he wanted the truth, and he didn’t want to play games to get it. “You can see through Tehya’s eyes, can’t you? She’s your totem animal.” He paused, not wanting to ask the question that needed to be asked. Finally, his breath burning in his throat, he spit it out. “Does your being here mean she’s dead?”
Instead of answering, she shivered and gestured at his dresser. “Do you mind? You have a flannel shirt that’ll fit me. The green and black one you haven’t worn for a long time.”
“Sure,” he said numbly, his mind racing. How much had she seen through Tehya? His cheeks flamed hot as he thought about all the humiliating possibilities. “What else do you know about me?”
She climbed off the bed, giving him a mouthwatering view of her tight, round ass, full hips, and long, graceful thighs. She was perfectly fit, built like a runner with not an ounce of fat on her body. As she pulled the flannel shirt out of one of the drawers, she shot him a sly grin.
“I know everything.” The grin faded as she donned the shirt and worked the buttons. “You know everything about me too.”
“Look,” he said, reaching the limits of his patience, “this isn’t a joke. I know nothing about you. At all.”
She pointed to Tehya’s dishes in the corner. “You know I won’t eat anything out of my bowl unless it’s clean. You know I like it when you put ice cubes in my water in the summer.” She gestured to the fireplace. “You know I like it when you drag my bed in front of the fire in the winter. You know I love to run with you through the river basin because I’m more agile on rocks than you are when you’re in wolf form.” She met his gaze, and his mouth fell open. Her eyes, holy shit, her eyes. They were familiar . . . because they were wolf eyes. “And you know I like to sneak onto your bed and curl up next to you in the middle of the night.”
His breath cut out as he sat up straight and stared at her. “Tehya?” At her barely discernible nod, he exhaled on a long, slow curse. “I can’t . . . I can’t believe it.” He shook his head, unable to process this. “I have so many questions, and I don’t even know where to start.”
For years he’d dreamed of this woman, and all the while she’d been real and right here under his feet. Literally. He’d tripped over her or stepped on her tail dozens of times.
“Start at the beginning, maybe?” she offered.
The beginning. What a novel idea. Maybe that was where she should start. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth years ago instead of letting me believe you were a wolf?” And how had she maintained her wolf form for so long? As far as he knew, no one had ever held on to a morph for more than two days, and even then, according to the stories, the skinwalker who had made it the full two days had died a week later.
“I couldn’t tell you.” She lifted her silky mane of hair up out of the shirt and let it cascade over her shoulders. His fingers practically itched to touch it. “I was—” She broke off with a growl so wolflike that if he’d doubted her story before, he believed her now. Her head whipped toward the door. “There are people coming.”
That’s when he heard it: the alarm yip of a coyote. It was distant but clear, and it came from the south. MoonBound lay to the south.
Hunter was coming.
Damn it! He’d been so wrapped up in everything going on with Tehya that he’d forgotten how much danger he was in. He’d been willing to face the danger, but now that Tehya was safe, he wasn’t about to sit around and wait for Hunter’s judgment. They needed to get as far away from MoonBound as possible. And, hell, he’d always wanted to see Alaska.
“We gotta go,” he said as he leaped off the bed and snagged his loaded weapons belt off the wall.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
Oh, not much. He’d only broken into a secure compound, impersonated the clan chief, and kissed his mate. “I violated a few vampire laws when I took Tehya—er, you to MoonBound.” Still thinking it was crazy that he was having an actual conversation with Tehya, he buckled the belt around his hips and took his favorite hatchet from its hook near the door. “If we aren’t out of here in the next five minutes, I’m dead.”
And Tehya might be as well.
6
Tehya had never known fear like this. Not even the day she was attacked by a vampire could compare with the sheer terror of knowing that a clan of vampires hell-bent on revenge was only moments away from breaking down the door and possibly slaughtering them.
Lobo shoved his hatchet into a loop on his belt, and the hackles on the back of her neck rose. He never left the cabin without being armed with a few blades, but he didn’t take his favorite hatchet unless he was going to practice with it . . . or kill with it. The muscles in his arms and back rippled as he tore weapons from the walls and from the wooden chest near the fireplace. Every movement was brisk and economical, and within moments she swore every inch of his incredible body was armed.
She watched him, fascinated despite the danger they were facing. As a wolf, she’d loved him, but she’d never felt any kind of sexual feelings toward
him. Which was a good thing, she supposed. But now . . . now she was a woman again, a female vampire with his blood coursing through her veins and a body that was still liquid from the climax she’d had with him.
She should probably be embarrassed by that, but she’d never been very self-conscious—and he’d seen her using the forest like a big litter box, so she was pretty much over being sensitive about bodily functions.
He swung around to her, his luxurious midnight hair fanning across broad shoulders that blocked the single stream of light coming through a crack in the drawn curtains. His dark gaze raked her from head to toe, and she sucked in an appreciative breath. She’d seen him in warrior mode before, but this was hard-core. He was cool. Detached. And why wouldn’t he be? She was a stranger to him.
“You need pants,” Lobo said gruffly, turning away to peek through the window.
She looked down at herself. The flannel shirt hung to mid-thigh, but her lower legs, already cut up from the run through the forest earlier, had no protection. Unfortunately, they’d have to stay that way.
“You don’t have anything that’ll fit me.”
“I have a pair of sweatpants—”
“With a broken string.” She knew that because she herself had chewed on the cord when she’d been bored one day. “I can’t cinch them around my waist.” She brushed past him on her way to the door. “Besides, I’ve spent the last, what—twelve years?—without pants or shoes. I’ll be fine.”
“You also spent the last twelve years without speaking,” he muttered, and she bit back a smile as they slipped outside, moving silently north, in the opposite direction from MoonBound.
Lobo set the pace at a slow run, finding a happy medium that allowed them to move swiftly while creating the least amount of noise. She followed, resisting the urge to overtake him. For years she’d ranged ahead or loped at his side, her wolf senses keeping track of him while remaining alert for signs of danger.
Now she was essentially a month-old vampire with no experience or understanding of her own strengths and weaknesses, and the only person she knew didn’t know her. He knew Tehya the wolf. He didn’t know Kristen Parker, the once-human dental assistant, or Kristen Parker, the screwup newbie vampire who had somehow turned into a wolf and couldn’t turn back.