And maybe the more important question was—Why now?
Chapter Five
Uncharacteristic behavior is a plea for attention; be sensitive to your dog’s needs.
—Man’s Best Friend:
An Essential Guide to Dogs
C laire dove onto the couch and hunkered low, peeking above the couch’s back to look out the salon’s glass-tinted windows.
“Er, can I help you?”
She glanced over her shoulder. A young, beautifully coiffed receptionist angled her head and looked at her with startled, blinking eyes.
Claire turned back to scan the parking lot, dotted with the random assortment of vehicles for a slow Tuesday afternoon, and answered over her shoulder, “I have a five o’clock appointment with Terry.”
“Sure,” the receptionist said in that cautious tone one uses when dealing with someone unstable. Not unlike the voice Claire had used that morning with Gideon. “Just one moment, please.”
She slid deeper into the buttery leather cushions, the smell far more pleasing than the overwhelming aroma of chemicals stinging her nose. No sign of a Jeep anywhere, even though she had sworn the vehicle followed her into the parking lot. Sighing, she swung around and took a moment to observe her surroundings. The salon looked expensive, from its marble receptionist’s counter, to the custom-framed artwork and leather couches. Maggie must live on credit to afford such a posh salon on a teacher’s salary with three kids. Another customer watched her warily, magazine forgotten in her hands.
“Claire?” A man stood by the receptionist’s desk, garbed in an oatmeal-colored man-gown. His lovely flaxen hair flowed to his shoulders in artful waves. “I’m Terry.”
This was Terry?
Maggie hadn’t mentioned her hairdresser was a man. And he was definitely male. Even if he wore a dress. Her gaze swept the broad shoulders stretching the fabric.
She followed him, lowering herself into the hydraulic chair he indicated with a wave, bouncing in her seat as he worked the chair higher. Tugging her ponytail free, he examined her closely before fluffing her hair off her shoulders and declaring, “Hmmm, no body. None at all.”
She smiled wryly. “I know.”
“Okay.” He clapped his hands with an air of efficiency. “What we need to do is give you layers for lift—” He fluffed her hair some more for illustration, frowning when it drifted back into place, flat as ever. “—and lighten up all this brown.”
“Lighten? As in bleach?”
“Highlights,” he admonished. “And with your shade of brown we can be generous with them. They’ll blend in nicely.”
Her shade of brown. He meant mouse brown. Not dark enough to be sable. Not light enough to be honey. She regarded herself in the mirror for one long moment, disliking what she saw. A plain woman with plain brown hair sliding prematurely into middle age.
Claire didn’t understand what compelled this desire to change, but it was long overdue. She didn’t understand why her appearance was no longer good enough, but it simply wasn’t.
She nodded decisively. “Do it.”
“Great!” Terry beamed, clearly not accustomed to winning such immediate and complete agreement from a client. At least not without more convincing. “You’ll be a beauty. Especially with those eyes to set off your new hair.”
“My eyes?” She frowned, having no problem focusing on the freakish silver orbs. Although she had tried, repeatedly, she couldn’t ignore them. She had let everyone at work assume she was wearing contacts. It was easier than explaining the truth—especially since she couldn’t provide that either.
She had scoured the Internet during her lunch break for any explanation of sudden eye color change and arrived at nothing. There was no getting around it. She needed to make an appointment with an opthalmologist. No amount of drugs or allergic reaction to tetanus could change her eye color for this length of time.
Standing behind her, Terry framed her face with broad hands that looked like they belonged behind a plow and not in a salon. “They’re stunning. Do amazing things for your face.”
She glared at her reflection.
He didn’t understand. The eyes were all wrong. They weren’t hers.
In spite of her eagerness to change her appearance, her eyes had changed through no effort of her own. At least when she colored her hair she would know it came from a bottle. That it was her choice. And not a result of something else. What that something else was she couldn’t begin to fathom. Wouldn’t dare try.
As Terry led her to the back of the salon, she tried to reclaim her earlier enthusiasm, reminding herself that she was going to shop for new clothes after this and not feel the least bit guilty about it.
But a dark, mesmerizing voice insinuated itself into her mind, not to be forgotten, not to be ignored.
On the next full moon, you will shift. And you will kill.
No amount of pampering and self-indulgence could block out that deep voice. Not as long as he lurked out there, watching, waiting, a shadow that couldn’t be lost. It was just a matter of time before he showed himself again.
Claire stepped through the school’s main double doors and squinted fiercely against the blinding sun the following afternoon. It felt like she had stepped into a sauna. Moist heat hugged her and sweat broke out on her top lip.
Students bumped against her as they rushed to escape. But what did she expect only five minutes after the final bell? Claire usually remained at school at least another hour grading papers. But not today. Today, bobbing in a sea of fleeing teens, she craved escape as much as the students. Even if she hadn’t, she still needed to leave right after the bell to make her ophthalmologist appointment.
She walked quickly, eager to put the day behind her. The reactions her new look elicited had grown tedious. The students clearly approved—to an embarrassing degree. By sixth period, she had boys sitting in her class who weren’t even on her attendance roster. Their admiration uncomfortably clear, she spent most of the day managing inappropriate behavior…and in a far harsher manner than was her tendency. Much to her concern. What happened to her limitless patience? Her forbearance?
Through the horde of bodies, she spied a familiar flash of maroon ahead. Her heart accelerated and her steps faltered.
Her fingers clenched tightly around her keys, indifferent to the steel digging into her tender palm as that familiar face came into view and the day’s injustices fled in face of another.
Damn. She still hadn’t figured out how to deal with him and here he was—ready or not—parked alongside the fire lane, arms crossed and leaning against the door in a casual pose. She stopped a few feet from him and glared. Students swarmed around her like fish moving downstream. Eyes trained on him, she paid little heed to them as they hurried past.
“Nice hair.”
Her hand went to her hair. Terry had done wonders with it. Three shades of gold mingled with her brown strands to fashion a creation that resembled honey struck by sunlight. Sassy layers brushed her cheeks and neck in the softest of caresses.
The hair was only part of her transformation. She watched and waited as his gaze traveled a path from her hair to her face to her new outfit: a short, flirty skirt and sleeveless gold blouse. She felt stupidly eager to see his reaction. His. Not a teenage boy’s. But the reaction of a flesh and blood man.
Claire could kick herself. Was she really so desperate, so starved for attention, that she craved the good opinion of a lunatic—even if he was good-looking?
The longer he stared at her in that silent, consuming way, the quicker her breaths came. Noisy, jagged little spurts of air that made her face heat up.
She had her answer. Yes. She had stooped that low.
“Nice duds.” Something in his tone sounded distinctly insincere. In fact, he sounded heartily…unimpressed. No, unimpressed wasn’t the word. She studied his stony, hard-to-decipher face. He disapproved.
“What are you doing here?” she snapped.
“Keeping an eye o
n you.”
Fleeing students jostled her closer to him. Conscious of being overheard, she hissed in a low voice, “This has gone far enough.” With a deep breath, she bluffed, “I’m going to the police.”
“If you were going to do that, you already would have,” he replied with a light shrug that said he didn’t care either way.
She strove for a smart, pithy reply but came up with nothing. He was right. Why hadn’t she gone to the police? Despite the return of her purse, he had broken into her apartment. He was stalking her. Threatening her. Turning her insides into knots.
As if he could hear her internal dialogue, he answered smoothly, “You haven’t gone to the cops because, deep down, you know I’m right. Your feel it in your blood. That wasn’t a dog in the alley. It was Lenny.”
She shook her head vehemently and held up both hands as if she could block his words. “That’s ridiculous.”
Gideon studied her for a long moment, his eyes searching, probing. “You still think he’s alive,” he concluded, shaking his head.
Since he claimed the dog he killed was Lenny—an absolute impossibility—yes.
“Have you heard from him?” Gideon pressed, his look knowing. “Has he come to class?”
“I haven’t seen him,” she admitted, “but that doesn’t mean anything. Kids skip class all the time. It doesn’t mean Lenny is dead or a—” She looked over her shoulder, fearful someone might overhear, but the stampede of students had dissipated to a lone boy, scuffing his sneakers on the pavement as he walked past, oblivious to them. Just the same, she whispered angrily, “Werewolves do not exist.”
His green eyes glittered at her with unwavering resolve. “Lycans,” he corrected.
“Whatever,” she spat back, perspiration trickling down her spine and dampening the small of her back.
“The longer you fight me, the less time we have to find the lycan that infected Lenny. If we don’t—”
“You’ll kill me, right?” Arching one brow in challenge, she held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t agree, that he was just crazy and not truly dangerous.
At his curt nod, her breath expelled from her body in a whoosh. Nothing ambiguous about that. “That’s not going to happen,” she vowed, her voice barely audible but no less determined. She didn’t care that he made her blood race. She wasn’t about to let him kill her.
He studied her, his green eyes shrewd, searching beyond her face into her very soul. As if seeing something there, he shook his head regretfully. “The lycan’s already gotten to you. It’s inside you. Maybe it’s already too late.”
“Because I won’t agree to you killing me?” She pressed a hand to her chest, her voice tight. “That’s basic self-preservation.”
He smiled, a hint of remorse in the curve of his well-shaped lips. “This isn’t you.”
“How do you know?” she countered hotly, even more angered because he happened to be right. She was different. Inside and out. “You don’t know me.” She waved a hand in front of her, encompassing herself with the gesture. “Maybe I’m like this all the time.”
“Are you?” he asked in an even, steady voice no less demanding for its mildness.
She lifted her arms wide at her sides. Instead of answering him directly, she exclaimed, “You’re threatening to kill me. That might give a woman a bit of an attitude.”
The wild urge to strike him overwhelmed her, but that would only confirm his accusations, so she restrained herself and added, “A lot of people would react aggressively.”
“Not you. You should have run for help by now. That’s what good girls do when they wake up and find a strange man in their apartment.” He stepped closer and the scent of him filled her nostrils—fresh cut wood, soap, and male musk. “You’re different,” he declared, “changed.”
Claire found herself struggling to make sense of his words, but the increased pounding of her heart filled her ears, heated her blood, confusing her so that she couldn’t help leaning closer, letting her breasts brush his hard chest and her nose fill with the masculine scent of him.
Fascinated, she studied the throbbing pulse at the base of his neck. Calm. Strong. Steady. The mad urge to press her mouth to that spot and taste him seized her. Cocking her head to the side, she lifted her gaze to his. The pale green of his eyes glowed as if lit from a fire within.
His scent altered then. Her nose twitched at the subtle difference. The air around him seemed to color, darkening to a wine-red haze. The pulse at his neck quickened. She licked her lips.
He lowered his head until they were practically cheek to cheek, his breath rasping her ear and raising the tiny hairs on her nape as he whispered, “Can’t you feel it?”
Yes, she felt it. Like a fever. A ravaging disease infiltrating and killing the old Claire. She blinked several times, both frightened and exhilarated, before jerking back to focus on his smug face.
“You feel it,” he announced, his voice much too satisfied for her tastes. “That’s the lycan in you.”
Jaw clenched, she stepped back and flexed her fingers around her purse strap. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know more about you than you think.”
Ignoring the worry that ambiguous statement elicited, she muttered, “No. You don’t.”
He couldn’t see her. No one saw her. No one knew her. She had spent a lifetime building walls to keep people out, to stay safe and warm inside where pain could never touch her. He couldn’t have breached those walls.
“Claire,” a faintly breathless voice sounded from behind, as if in a hurry to catch up to her.
She spun around and stopped short of groaning. Cyril advanced, slowing his jog to a slight skip, briefcase swinging at his side.
He stopped next to her. “You’re leaving early today. I went by your room.” He smoothed a hand over his thinning hair as if the few strands needed taming.
He looked to Gideon suspiciously, asking slowly, “How’s it going?” The translation was clear. Is this guy bothering you?
“Good. Fine.” She forced herself to sound normal, to act as if she was not caught conversing with a dangerous man.
“Hello.” Cyril extended his hand to Gideon when it became evident she wasn’t going to introduce them. “Cyril Jenkins.”
He really was a nice man. An unexciting, nauseatingly nice man. Why couldn’t she like him? Things would be so much easier if she could.
“Gideon March.”
She watched, tense, as the two shook hands.
“You’re a friend of Claire’s?” Cyril inquired.
Gideon nodded and draped an arm across her shoulder, the muscle in his jaw flexing wildly.
Cyril’s gaze swung back and forth between the two of them. Her face burned as she fought for composure, resisting the urge to wiggle out from under Gideon’s arm.
Gideon turned a stunningly white smile on her, transforming the hard lines of his face from broodingly handsome to drop-dead gorgeous. “Don’t be surprised if you see me hanging around. Can’t stand to be away from my girl here.” Leaning down, he grasped her face, long fingers burning an imprint on her cheeks.
Immediately, she felt the cadenced rush of blood through the callused pads of his fingers, a drumbeat reverberating directly to her heart.
She stilled, motionless, as he dipped his head, eyes intent on her lips. His lips settled over hers, warm and firm, a man who knew what he was about. She sighed and he swept his tongue inside her mouth. He tasted of heat and man—sex—and she arched against him. Slanting her head, she drank greedily, her fingers digging into his hard biceps.
And then it was over. Gideon set her from him with a jerk.
Her eyes snapped open. He stared down at her, smiling smugly. Only the muscles bunching beneath her fingers told her he wasn’t unaffected.
Feeling stunned and slightly dizzy, she slowly uncurled her fingers from his arms. Dropping her hands at her sides, she gulped a steadying breath. Remembering that they weren’t alone, she glanced at Cy
ril.
“Claire.” He nodded, lips tight and unyielding. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” With a dark look for Gideon, Cyril strode past them.
Leveling an angry glare at Gideon, she hissed, “What did you do that for?”
“You don’t need the complication of a boyfriend right now.”
“Cyril’s not my—”
“Not the point. He wants to be. And whether you realize it or not, you’re caught in a dangerous game here. The fewer people involved, the better. Since I’m going to be your shadow from now on, it’s easier if people just think we’re dating.”
“No one will believe we’re dating.” A dry laugh escaped her at the very idea. Strange how bitter it sounded even to her ears. “They need only take one look at you to know that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Never mind,” she muttered, dropping her gaze and staring at her new, open-toed shoes. Her red toenails peeked out at her.
“Tell me,” his deep voice commanded.
She looked back up at him in exasperation, readjusting her purse on her shoulder. “I would never date a guy that looked like you.”
She thought she detected a twitching of his lips before he responded. “Why not?”
“You—” She waved her hand at him, her voice struggling and sputtering like a dying engine. “Me—”
She was too proud to say what raced through her mind: that he was too attractive, too confident, too everything, to want her. Guys like him didn’t date women like her.
His eyes glinted knowingly. He understood. And was amused. Great. It was one thing to feel inferior, but an entirely separate matter to acknowledge it. Humiliating, in fact.
“What’s so unbelievable about you and me?” The husky rumble of his voice sparked a shiver in her.
He pulled back so his gaze could trail over her. Her breath caught, suspended in her throat as she suffered his prolonged inspection. From the way his eyes darkened, she somehow doubted he saw the same thing she did. She stopped breathing altogether when he added, “Any hot-blooded man would want you.”
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