by Tina Donahue
Even so, he wanted to hear the words from her. He kissed her hair, damp with rain, and whispered, “Are you all right?”
“No.”
Not expecting that answer, he held her closer. “Are you cold?”
“Turned on. I want more, dammit.” She gulped air and squeezed her muscles around his shaft.
He bit her shoulder playfully, smiling at how she wiggled. “You want me to take you again?” He could all night. He wouldn’t stop until she ordered him to do so.
Gwen looked over her shoulder, the scant light reflected in her eyes. “In bed, when we go back. Right now, I want another fucking guard.”
She couldn’t have doused Kuma’s passion faster than if she’d said you disgust me. He frowned. “One a night isn’t enough? You need to keep risking your safety?”
She sighed. “I have to have you safe too and with me…for as long as you want.”
There was no arguing with her. He recognized Gwen’s building determination, her intent to see this through.
“How long do you intend to stay?” she whispered.
That question angered him further. “Do you even have to ask?”
“Guess not.” She smiled in satisfaction, losing it quickly when she attempted to pull away and he wouldn’t allow it.
“Hey, wait,” she ordered.
He did not, taking her again, knowing she wouldn’t protest for long.
She didn’t. Gwen softened within his embrace and allowed Kuma whatever he willed, enjoying what they both required. What might be their last act of passion if events turned against them tonight.
Once Gwen made certain Kuma’s clothes weren’t all that wet and he assured her the night’s chill didn’t bother him, she insisted they resume their hunt.
During the following hour, they continued to prowl the city. No other guards attempted an attack on her or any other female. Not even the few they passed on the streets.
“Prostitutes,” Gwen whispered to him when they were well past this last group and the women couldn’t overhear. “Like my mother. I lived with her until I was eight. The authorities showed up from nowhere one day—maybe a neighbor called them, I don’t know. They put me in foster care. I hated it, but it was better than what I might have faced. My mother’s so-called boyfriends were beginning to get too friendly with me. God only knows what might have happened if I had stayed with…”
She didn’t finish.
“What is it?” he asked, sensing her distress.
Her expression changed, as though she was recalling a painful memory. “The last day we lived together, I remember sobbing, trying to run back to her as the social workers dragged me away. I kept waiting for her to say something. To tell them to stop. She didn’t. She looked relieved.” Gwen’s eyes filled, but no tears fell. She ran her hand down her face, inhaled deeply and continued.
“For years, I didn’t want to believe that she had never wanted or cherished me. It was too hard to accept. To this day, I’m the one who initiates contact. I’ve tried to stay away from her, I’ve tried to hate her but I can’t. She’s my mother. I send her as much money as I can each month to help her out.”
Kuma wondered why she was telling him this. Why she’d become sad so quickly. On a hunch, he gestured to the women down the street. “Is your mother one of them?”
“What? No.” She smiled briefly. “She’s too old to do that anymore, and she never conducted business on a street corner. Always worked out of her apartment instead. Slightly less depressing, you know?”
He didn’t. “Why?”
Gwen sighed. “Despite what my mother was doing, at least she was in her own place, not some strange man’s car.”
“These women don’t have their own places?”
“Sure, but they also have pimps. You know, guys they’re doing this for. Ones they think they love.”
Even with Gwen’s explanation, Kuma didn’t understand a woman giving herself to men she didn’t know, and all to please the one man who should have protected her the most.
“Why would their men allow them to do this?” he asked.
“Allow them? Uh-uh. It’s more like they’ve either conned or forced these women to do this so the girls make money. You know, legal tender to buy things like food, shelter, clothing, jewelry, drugs, whatever their pimp wants or thinks he needs.”
On E4, he and his pack worried about none of that, living off the land. “How do you make your money?”
“At the hospital, where I work.”
“Why don’t these women work there too?”
“They can’t.” As though she expected him to ask why, she added quickly, “It’s complicated.”
He looked back. A car stopped by one of the females, a petite woman with dark skin. Very pretty. The man behind the wheel lowered the window closest to her and said something Kuma wasn’t able to hear. She laughed a bit too hard, her sorrow and what appeared to be a small measure of fear evident beneath her mirth. After a moment’s hesitation, she climbed into the rain-sprinkled car, safe from the guards, at least for tonight.
“She didn’t put on her seat belt,” Kuma observed.
Gwen laughed softly.
“What did I say?” he asked.
“Nothing. Sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you.” Gwen patted his shoulder, then made a face at the mud on it. She wiped her palm off on the back of her jeans. “They won’t be going far, so putting on her seat belt is the last thing on her mind.”
“Where will he take her?” Kuma asked.
“On a side street, where they won’t be seen.”
“Why not to his home—apartment—place?” Kuma wasn’t certain which word fit best. “Doesn’t he have one?”
“If he does, he probably also has a wife or girlfriend. What those on your realm call a mate.”
“Yet he asks this woman to be with him? Why?”
“He’s a selfish prick, just like the guards, hurting women rather than treating them with respect. Come on.” She took Kuma’s hand to lead him down the street. “We need to get back to business.”
Chapter Fourteen
The rest of the evening proved uneventful. Gwen sensed the guards were still around, waiting, perhaps watching them, determining their next move. However, she couldn’t detect them as easily as Kuma could. For once, she didn’t press him on it. The slump of his shoulders as they walked back to her place told Gwen how brutal tonight’s transformation had been on him.
She sucked her lower lip and wondered if his changing into a wolf then back to human form weakened his immune system or somehow damaged his DNA. Would it put him at risk for disease? If it did, would he be able to heal himself as he had those scratches the night he’d rescued her? What if he couldn’t? What if the illness was something she’d never seen, making it impossible for her to nurse him back to health? By how many years would it shorten his life?
Aw shit, why are you thinking about that now? Or ever, for that matter.
Suddenly, Gwen couldn’t stop. Her mind went in too many directions, none of which she wanted it to go. How long did his kind live? He wasn’t fully human. He wasn’t even from this dimension. On E4, he and his pack were hunted by the guards and rulers or taken down by one of the realm’s other predators, so how long did they last if they escaped all that? He’d said E2’s scientists had created his ancestors as a super species. What exactly did that mean? That he was immortal?
Maybe. But what if that only held true if he remained on E4? In this dimension, things might be different, his lifespan reduced to decades just like everyone else’s. Unless his days were now measured in animal years, his heightened metabolism causing his body to break down faster, each pump of his heart bringing him closer to death.
God, don’t even think that. She held back a shiver.
“What is it?” he asked, always sensitive to her smallest reaction.
Thankfully, he couldn’t read her mind. She had to find a way to hunt the guards alone. Kuma was putting too much of a strain on hi
s system by changing back and forth. That had to stop.
“I’m just a little cold,” she answered. “You okay?” Gwen rubbed his back as they reached her house.
He glanced at his filthy clothes. “I’m dirty.” He fingered the edge of her hoodie. “So are you. We should take a shower.”
He still wanted to play, despite how shitty he must have felt. God love him.
Gwen steered him toward the back of her house, entering it through the kitchen. To her surprise and relief, Teeko and Staci were fully clothed and seated at the table rather than writhing on top of it.
Staci stood so quickly her chair tipped back. Teeko caught it. “What happened?” she cried. “Where’ve you been? It’s nearly dawn. You’ve never been out that long. We thought something happened, not that we could call the cops or anything, given what you’re doing.” She continued to bounce in place. “Good God, you guys look awful. Is that blood?” She pointed at Kuma’s jeans, her hand shaking.
“It’s mud. And we’re fine,” Gwen assured her. She directed Kuma to a chair. “Sit.”
He didn’t. “We need to take a shower.”
“You need to sit. You’re exhausted.”
“Why?” Staci circled them, taking in how crappy they looked. “What happened?”
“Did the guards attack you?” Teeko asked.
Gwen put the device on the table. “One tried. Kuma and I tossed him in the portal like he was a freaking rag doll, right, babe?”
“I transformed too fast,” he answered Teeko and sank in the chair as though his legs wouldn’t hold him any longer.
“Where does it hurt?” Gwen asked, worried all over again. “Are you experiencing more than muscular pain?”
He shook his head as he continued to rub his thighs.
“Get my Icy Hot,” Gwen ordered Staci. “And my heating pad. They’re in the linen closet. Go.”
Staci bolted down the hall. Gwen helped Kuma out of his jacket and tee.
“I can do that,” he grumbled.
“So can I.” She handed the soiled clothing to Teeko. The younger werewolf took them, then promptly dropped the garments on the floor.
Typical man. Gwen frowned. Teeko ignored her. Figures.
She dropped to her knees and took off the running shoes and socks she’d bought Kuma, perfect fits unlike the last. When she unbuttoned his new jeans and lowered the fly, he didn’t argue with what she was doing. Once his jeans and the briefs she’d also purchased were on the floor with the rest of his stuff, he spread his legs, flaunting his erection.
“Here.” Staci ran back into the room with the ointment and pad. “I got the—” She stopped, staring at Kuma’s cock.
“You should sit over here, out of the way,” Teeko said to the girl. He pulled out the chair nearest to him. Its legs scraped against the floor, doing nothing to capture Staci’s attention.
Gwen elbowed her cousin, then inclined her head toward Teeko who was clearly jealous of his woman gawking at any male except him.
Staci dropped the items on the table and finally looked at everything in the room except Kuma.
“This will feel cold at first,” Gwen warned him, “then it’s going to get really warm. That’s okay. Nothing to be worried about. It won’t hurt you. At least I don’t think it will.” She read the ingredients, having no idea what they’d do to someone from another plane. “We should test it first, just to make sure. I’ll put a little bit on your shoulder—no, your hand…maybe your thumb. It might be the—”
“She talks too much,” Kuma said to Teeko. “Does Staci do the same?”
The younger man nodded.
“Hey,” Gwen said, lightly smacking Kuma’s shoulder. “Show some respect.”
“Yeah,” Staci echoed.
She’d said it all breathy, like she was aroused, not insulted.
“Bring me one of the steaks,” Gwen said to her cousin.
The girl bent at the waist and studied Kuma’s face. “Is he getting a black eye?”
“No. It’s for him to eat, all right?”
“Oh. Sure.” She hurried to the fridge and back, slapping the slab of meat on the table in front of him.
Gwen resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “A plate might be nice.”
“You bet.” Staci went to get one.
With a bit of the ointment on her fingertip, Gwen wanted to smear it on his thumb but couldn’t bring herself to do it, fearful of hurting him.
“Do you want me to eat that too?” Kuma asked her.
She would have laughed if she hadn’t been stumped for an answer. Could be with his genetics the Icy Hot would work better internally, rather than topically. “The moment I put this on your hand, tell me if it hurts, stings, burns or feels weird in any way, all right?”
He nodded solemnly.
Gwen smeared a bit of it on the side of his thumb.
Kuma regarded the area as she did. His skin didn’t blister. She sighed noisily. His head fell forward, his body slumping in the chair.
“Oh my God,” Gwen gasped, snatching back her hands.
“What did you do?” Staci cried. “Did he faint? Is he dead? We have to call 911.”
“Are you nuts?” Gwen pushed Staci’s hand away from the phone. “We can’t call for EMTs. The antidote,” she said, suddenly recalling it. “Maybe it will bring him out of—”
Teeko’s laughter interrupted her. Gwen gaped at him, then Kuma, seeing his shoulders shaking with his laughter.
Bastards. She spoke through her teeth. “So you’re all right?”
He nodded, lips pressed together as he tried to control himself.
“You think this is a joke?” Gwen snapped. “You think your survival on this plane is funny?”
Kuma sobered quickly. He regarded her for a long moment, then murmured, “I love your voice.”
At his guileless tone, heat rushed to Gwen’s face and belly. Her irritation fell away, replaced by renewed concern. “I worry about you. You transformed too fast tonight. It hurt you. I saw that on your face.”
“I’ll be fine. I won’t change so fast the next time, even if I have to kill a guard.”
Staci made a whimpering sound and dropped into a chair. With her arms folded on the table, she lowered her head to them.
Gwen couldn’t blame her. She would have liked to sleep for the next month, curled up next to Kuma in their bed, with him handcuffed to it of course. That seemed to be the only way to keep him out of trouble. “If this hurts at all, please let me know.”
She rubbed the ointment over his shoulders. He stiffened for a moment, then relaxed, no doubt because the mixture’s heat had kicked in. As well as she could, Gwen massaged his muscles, running her hands over his broad back, down his biceps, to his pecs. They flexed at her touch.
“Better?” she murmured.
“Oh yeah,” Staci said. “I think I could sleep here all night.”
Gwen exchanged a glance with Kuma. He winked. The gesture was so human and endearing, she couldn’t keep from hugging him.
He cradled the side of her face and whispered, “Let’s go to bed.”
Gwen’s thought exactly. If she wore him out further, he might sleep a full day, allowing her to go back out at twilight. Alone.
In the alley, Etaw stood next to Jeete, a guard new to this dimension, a mirror image of himself. Moments ago, Vakar had ordered the man here.
Jeete took in the surroundings and frowned. “You lie.”
“No.” Etaw placed his palm on the side of the building, its surface rough against his fingers. “The portal the female created was here. She must have gotten the device from one of the other guards that the werewolf attacked days ago. They’re working together in this. I watched them mating.”
He’d seen the female’s desire for the creature, his need of her. It was like nothing Etaw had witnessed in the Pleasure Palace, where rulers and guards demanded and indulged in every sexual vice while the pleasure slaves had no choice except to obey. The creature and female touche
d each other as though their bodies were somehow precious, not merely tools for sexual satisfaction. Their passion seemed rich and deep, not forced or faked, making Etaw envious for what they had, what he’d never known.
He might have voiced his feelings if not for the look of disbelief and disgust on Jeete’s face.
Etaw reined in his emotions and spoke quickly, “Even though hours have passed, you can still feel the gateway’s residual cold. It’s worse than the bite of tonight’s air. Go on, put your hand where I have. It’s proof I’m telling you the truth.”
Jeete made no move to touch the building. “Why would a female here mate willingly with one of the creatures? How could the tranquilizer not have affected her? That’s never happened. You claim Huatt’s dart struck her, but it must have missed.”
“I know what I saw. He hit her in the shoulder. She drank something and then pretended to fall down. The man with her transformed, taking wolf form, distracting Huatt. The woman ran into him then. She pushed Huatt into the portal.”
Jeete stepped closer, crowding Etaw. “And you did nothing to stop them?”
The back of his neck prickled. Sweat rolled down it. “If I had, the werewolf would have killed me, or the woman would have also sent me into the gateway. You never would have known what had happened to Huatt and what else I learned.”
“More lies?” Jeete scowled. “The creature has a superior sense of hearing and smell. How did he not detect you?”
“I was inside that building over there.” He pointed.
Jeete regarded the structure. “Then that explains it.”
It did? “You believe me?”
“I’m repulsed by your fear, hiding while Huatt did all the work and was attacked. Coward.”
That Etaw was. He didn’t want the werewolves to tear him apart on this plane or on E4. To avoid it, he’d reasoned this out. Now all he had to do was convince Jeete of it. “I was hunting for females inside the building when I heard Huatt in the alley. I went to that window there.” He gestured to the second floor and waited for Jeete to look up.