Scratch

by Mel Teshco

  “But—”

  “You were followed, recognized. We have a few minutes at best.”

  She didn’t argue. She valued her life far too much.

  Unlike her father.

  She thrust her arms into a checked red-and-black flannel jacket. Twisting her hair, she shoved it up and under a red baseball cap before pulling the visor low. Her leather pants would have to do.

  Blake was taking no chances either and had already dragged up a pair of gray sweats over his jeans. He shrugged a flannel jacket similar to hers over his t-shirt and then motioned for her to follow him into the adjoining bathroom.

  The front door crashed open, the deadbolt clanging as it skidded across the floor.

  She pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream even as Blake cursed and locked the bathroom door behind him, plunging them into shadow. Her vision quickly adjusted and she watched him move to the open window, effortlessly tearing the fly screen from its wonky frame.

  Though her throat was dry and her heart fluttered like a caged bird, it was an odd sensation to realize that she felt safe with this man, this stranger.

  He turned to her, gesturing that she hurry and climb through the window. “It’s a bit of a drop, but you should be fine if you’re careful.”

  He held out a hand and she swallowed back hesitation before she accepted his firm clasp and climbed onto the sill. A shiver shot up her arm at the contact. All her senses buzzed, clarifying the primal danger and toughness hidden beneath Blake’s gentlemanly veneer.

  Traits that could only be advantageous against whoever wanted them dead.

  She released his hand then immediately gulped down breaths to stay quiet at the telltale creak of a floorboard just outside the bathroom door. She closed her eyes, too scared to look below. She’d always had an unhealthy fear of heights. Add would-be murderers on the other side of the flimsy door and she suddenly grappled not to freeze with terror.

  Don’t be an idiot. You don’t need the touch of a man to stay strong.

  Taking a breath, she gripped the sill and swung down, hanging by her clammy fingertips. She gritted her teeth, the tendons in her fingers straining. There was no way she could hang on much longer.

  Gunshots boomed and ricocheted above. She gasped, her eyes cracking open and her heart jerking crazily in her chest. Clearly whoever was trying to kill them had decided there was no longer any need for the silencer. She had to jump.

  She looked below. Holy shit! The ground appeared to undulate, a writhing inky sea of shadowed asphalt that was easily a twenty-foot drop.

  Blake jumped onto the sill in a crouch. “Go!”

  She took a breath and let go, sprawling onto the ground a second or two later in a bone-jarring thud. Her pulse jerking, she looked up. Blake leaped into the air, landing effortlessly on the balls of his feet with his knees bent.

  For a big man he was as graceful as a cat.

  A half-thought edged her consciousness for one ludicrous moment before Blake took her hand and dragged her upright.

  “Are you all right?” he asked gruffly. At her jerky nod he added, “Let’s go.”

  They sprinted toward the end of the pitch-black alley where dumpster bins cast big, menacing shadows along one side of the musty, urine-scented brick walls. Blake abruptly stilled, tugging her against him as a dark van screeched to a stop at the end of the alley, blocking their exit. “Act like lovers.” His mouth covered hers and he kissed her with knee-knocking, nerve-awakening skill.

  This isn’t real…this isn’t real.

  Yet the funeral, the adrenaline and danger of being hunted like criminals, somehow, impossibly, all faded as his dark-spice scent teased and beckoned, his arms shielding her and the tip of his tongue edging her lips.

  It was beyond bizarre that this stranger made her feel safe, secure—as though all the bad stuff in her life was no more.

  He pulled her closer against him, her curves slotting perfectly against his hard torso and his arousal straining against her belly. She groaned, for one wild, shameless moment forgetting about everything but feeling again. She undulated against his cock, aching to have him right there against the stinking wall if need be.

  The muscles in his shoulders bunched, the rumbling of his growl barely audible over her raging heartbeat when she jerked back, gasping for breath, for sanity. “No!”

  The van rolled out of sight. She pressed an unsteady hand to her just-kissed mouth, stifling the chaos inside her mind, inside her body. She was only glad the shadows hid her face, her reawakened body.

  “We’d better keep moving,” Blake said thickly, sounding as dazed as she felt.

  She swallowed, dragging back sanity. “Of course.” Forcing her legs to cooperate, she followed Blake from out of the darkness and across the poorly lit street fronting the apartments.

  He headed toward the parked motorbike. “The Ducati is yours, yes?”

  He’d seen her through the curtains?

  She nodded stiffly. “Yes.”

  Blake cursed as two men burst through the front door of his apartment and charged toward them along the landing, their guns drawn. A shot fired and Blake broke into a sprint, all but carrying her along.

  She fumbled in her pocket, retrieving the Ducati’s key and pushing it into his hand. She knew instinctively he could ride, and ride well.

  He released her and in one fluid motion mounted the bike and inserted its key. Giving it a twist the Ducati roared to life. She leaped behind him, sliding close and snaking her arms around his waist.

  Blake yanked her helmet free from the handlebars. It clattered onto the asphalt. There was no time for anything but climbing aboard and clinging tight.

  The van squealed around the corner behind them, full pelt, and Blake gunned the bike before accelerating at breakneck speed. “Hang on,” he yelled, his words all but snatched away in the wind.

  Her grip tightened. The red baseball cap tore off her head in the sudden airstream. Another shot sounded. A bullet ripped through the air, puncturing Blake’s shoulder with a dull thud she could hear even above the headwind and the Ducati’s engine.

  He grunted, but the bike remained steady and fast.

  Heart in her throat, Alexia risked unbalancing the bike as she twisted in her seat. Beneath the flickering streetlight she could just make out the two men as they threw themselves into the van, the driver then spinning the van’s wheels and giving chase.

  She turned back, immediately distracted by the dark, shadowy stain of crimson all too quickly coloring Blake’s shirt. Oh, shit. She pressed the heel of her hand on his wound to stem the flow.

  The muscles along his arm jerked, but she held on despite his obvious pain. Blood was already pulsing between her fingers, the wind pushing wet streams up her arm and beneath her sleeve before the blood caked dry.

  At an intersection Blake veered a sharp left, and she automatically leaned with him, a part of the bike. At any other time, with the wind madly whipping at her long, tied back hair, her clothes pressed snug against her torso and this big, adept rider in front, she’d have given in to the thrill of the ride.

  Blake handled the Ducati with skill, winding in and out of the tight traffic and the glare of oncoming headlights as though it was a walk in the park. In the backstreets he easily outmaneuvered the less nimble van, and eventually he cut under an old railway bridge and then headed northwest, away from the city.

  She frowned. Her hand was dripping wet with his blood. He should be headed to a hospital, not away from one. He couldn’t possibly stay conscious much longer.

  But the city was hours behind them when he finally pulled onto a dirt road, a full moon emerging from behind clouds and lighting the barren countryside. He slowed further before he turned the bike onto another road that was little more than a pot-holed track.

  Over a small rise, open paddocks stretched before them, eerie in their desolate, half-lit world. Down below, on one side of the track, a huge, gnarled old fig tree spread shadowy branches out wi
de. A large farmhouse framed the distant sky, and farther along, she could just make out a white-railed picket fence that surrounded a barn.

  Blake trundled the small distance to the fig tree and parked the Ducati behind its trunk and overhanging branches. She slid off before he dismounted with a ragged, barely repressed groan.

  “You’ll bleed to death if we stay here,” she said, hating that her voice trembled with anxiety and revealed how much she already cared for him. She’d never had a long-term relationship. Though deep down she knew it wasn’t logical, her mother’s death had taught her that to care for someone was to feel deep hurt, loss and abandonment. Her father’s suicide had only cemented that reasoning.

  “The barn is safe enough,” he croaked.

  “And you know this how?”

  “Experience.”

  At the wry humor in his voice, she couldn’t help but mutter, “On the run a lot, are you?”

  He didn’t answer, but she followed him regardless, trusting him in this, despite the odd heaviness in her belly, the tightness in her chest. Something didn’t sit right. But what did she expect? They were little more than strangers thrust together because of a journal and a name. Not to mention some men who’d tried to kill them.

  She glanced sideways, looking up at his dark profile that no doubt concealed a shitload of pain and a whole lot of answers she’d yet to hear. She cleared her throat, suddenly hesitant, nervous. “Why were the men shooting at us back there? Who were they? Do you know them?”

  His steps didn’t falter. “They were following you. Probably hoping you’d lead them to me. And no, I don’t know them.” He turned to her. “But I know of them.”

  “Oh?”

  He nodded. Then staggered, before righting himself again. His breath hissed and he clutched at his shoulder. He must have wrenched it. Fresh blood stained his already wet shirt.

  “Never mind,” she whispered, her belly churning. “Tell me when you’ve had some rest.” She only hoped he didn’t bleed out first.

  They detoured around the house and approached the barn, where horses took shape out of the shadows. She climbed through the railed fence after Blake. A couple of the horses whinnied, even more snorted and stamped their feet, tossing their manes with their necks extended.

  “Easy,” Blake soothed as one—clearly the stallion—galloped toward them, squealing at the intruders. The horse snorted, his nostrils flaring. The animal quivered as he seemingly picked up the scent of blood, and Blake used his good arm to run a hand over his dark coat, settling him. “Steady boy.”

  The mares, curious now with their leader’s acceptance, milled around them. And though Alexia was a relatively experienced horsewoman, she stayed close behind Blake as he pushed through the horseflesh and motioned at her to sidle through a gate he cracked open. They entered the open side of the barn and she asked, “How did you do that? How did you calm the stallion?”

  “I simply let him understand my intent.”

  “Right. Of course,” she said drily.

  “There’s the loft,” Blake announced, and this time there was no hiding the exhaustion all too evident in his voice.

  She looked up at the long ladder, the moon glinting through a glass window high above them. “Can you climb?”

  She made out his nod. Her gut twisted sharply. He was in far worse shape than he let on. And she was probably a fool for caring so much. She didn’t know this man, had only met him hours earlier. And yet she could easily have believed she’d known him half her life.

  The twenty-second climb took him long minutes. And under the moonlight sweat beaded on his brow, the fresh blood like ink on his shirt. Shit. She’d read somewhere that bullet wounds didn’t always bleed heavily as the surrounding tissues acted as a barrier—unless an artery was involved.

  No, he wouldn’t have made it this far if a major blood vessel had been severed. Still, he was swaying and silent once they’d climbed onto the loft.

  She swallowed back fear and kept herself busy by making short work of a couple of bales of hay and spreading them apart over the wooden floor. He let out a pained moan as she helped him lie down.

  She felt his brow. Shit. He was burning up.

  “Damn it, Blake! You’re hot as hell.” She unbuttoned his flannel shirt and carefully peeled it from his shoulders. His t-shirt was no longer white, though she imagined her face was as she wrenched apart the material to expose his shoulder.

  “We need to see how bad this wound is.” She squinted, but could see little in the semidarkness and with all the blood. She only hoped the bullet had gone clean through sinew and flesh. Her eyes lingered for a moment on his beautifully defined body, before she forced her attention to the far more important matter at hand. “I’ll bind it as good as I can with your shirt, but then you’ll have to see a doctor.”

  “No. No doctor,” he snarled. His face abruptly contorted, his eyes glinting eerily red and animalistic.

  Holy shit.

  Her throat closed as the anxiety of before surged back into life with a vengeance. She scuttled backward, her breath heaving and her belly rolling. “Who are you?”

  He gritted his teeth, another spasm taking hold before he said hoarsely, “You know who…what I am. You’ve always known.”

  Heat rose behind Alexia’s eyelids, her face clammy, her palms wet with sweat. Her thoughts scrambled but she couldn’t make sense of the insensible. “That’s insane! You’re…you’re talking in riddles. I’ve never even met you before.”

  He sucked in a breath, his pain stark. “I’m the proof your father wanted but never had. I’m an Illawatti shifter.”

  Chapter Two

  She swallowed hard, scarcely believing her eyes, her ears. But of course she’d known. She’d always known. She just hadn’t consciously admitted it.

  Not only had Blake’s ancestor’s name been written in code on the decaying journal found with the shifter’s remarkable bones, she’d seen for herself his glowing eyes, the way he’d effortlessly landed on his feet from a great height, his graceful, economical movements for such a big man.

  All the signs had been there. And though he hadn’t openly admitted his identity, they were character traits he’d never once hidden from her.

  Blake sucked in an agonized breath. The moonlight showcased his rippling skin, his muscles that jerked and twisted. His eyes caught and held hers. “I…I can’t stop it…the change is involuntary now. It will…it will heal me.” He gasped, his eyelids flicking shut. “The beast needs to come out…been cooped in my skin far too long already.”

  His eyelids jerked back open. His arm shot out, one hand clamping onto her wrist. His eyes brightened, the pupils dilating. “Don’t be afraid, my beast would never hurt you.” His neck arched. An unnatural growl tore from his throat as his spine popped and grated. He looked up, and she knew then he was fighting with everything he had and then some against the change. “Please. Stay.”

  Alexia nodded, her pulse skittering. She could scarcely believe it, the proof she and her father had wanted all along was right before her eyes. She bit into her bottom lip. Sweat dewed her cold skin, but despite being in the vicinity of a dangerous animal, she wasn’t going anywhere. “Yes. I’ll stay.”

  His hand dropped away, his shoulder and most of his torso wet with blood. How much more could he spare?

  Somehow he found the strength to drag his sweatpants and jeans off. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was an instinctual reflex of habit that he undressed with every shift so that his clothes stayed intact for when he needed them again.

  Her eyes dropped and she was caught off guard by the unmistakable bulge of his arousal. Her breath snagged in her throat as heat poured through her body and centered at her pussy. Lord give her strength, he was magnificent! The perfect male in all his glory, despite the bullet wound and blood loss.

  Did shifting and sex go hand-in-hand?

  She looked away, despising her sudden and unwelcome lewd thoughts when suffering was stamped onto
every crevice of his face. His lips whitened, then braced against a drawn-out groan as his bones crunched and snapped like twigs, his skin stretching and pulling. When Blake’s chest heaved, his head falling back and his jaw locking tight, she bit into her bottom lip, feeling so damn helpless and more than a little afraid.

  No wonder he’d withstood being hit by the bullet, his pain threshold had to be sky-high to endure this torture.

  A minute or two later, Blake’s transformation was complete. At some time in the latter stages he’d passed out. And now in his big cat form, he lay unconscious still.

  She stared at him with something between awe and alarm. He was much larger than any panther or cougar she’d seen in any zoo or wildlife documentary, but he paid a high price for the privilege of being a shape-shifter. His pain had been shocking, awful to watch. She could only imagine the depth of his suffering.

  She sucked in a shuddering breath. He’d asked her to stay and she wouldn’t go back on her word. But she wasn’t about to pretend it was because she was selfless. Seeing Blake shift was a breakthrough of the highest caliber, one her father would have given everything to have witnessed for himself.

  She closed her eyes for a moment. I’m sorry, Daddy, that you aren’t alive to see this, I only hope you’re here with me now in spirit.

  Blake’s bleeding had at last all but stopped, caking his shiny midnight coat at the top of one shoulder like rust. She reached out a hand, touching his dense fur. Despite herself, she was beyond intrigued. They shared a connection. And that was even before they’d kissed in order to evade their would-be murderers.

  One thing was certain, when all this crazy stuff was behind her she’d be finding herself a man for a night or two to give her body the release it so obviously craved.

  Yeah, but will you be thinking of this man when lying with another?

  Her fingers trailed up along his neck, sinking into his soft and glossy coat. She shivered, but she was no longer afraid. Not one bit. It was the chill of the inland night air crawling through her clothes that raised goose bumps on her arms.