“Hey,” Sam whispered. I knew he could see the desperation in my eyes when I opened them. “I wish I could help you with what you’re going through, but this internal struggle is your own, and I keep getting in the way of the outcome. Nature always wins, Honey. However it turns out, I’ll be waiting for you on the other side of it.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
Sam lowered his lips to mine and gave me a tender kiss. “Stay here and trust us. Alright? Holden may have more faults than California’s geography, but he won’t let anything hurt you. Don’t cry, Honey.” When he hugged me to his chest, I drew his scent deeply into my lungs in an effort to banish Holden.
When he released me, Cecil took my hands and stared into my eyes until I flinched and looked away. “Bear shifters are born. A bear shifter is only one being who has the ability to take another form. It is different for werewolves. When a man emerges from the fever, he is no longer what he was but is reborn as something new. You are fractured into three parts and must become one within yourself, but you fight against the healing of your natures. You are a woman, a Wendigo, and a werewolf. To find peace, you must become one. Look.” He showed me a matchstick that he pulled from a pocket. “Break this in half,” he said as he handed it to me. Humoring him, I did. He handed another one to me. “Again.” After I’d broken three of them, he took out three more and held them together. “Now, try to break them all at once.” He handed them to me.
“Can’t.”
He nodded. “You are each of those matches. You keep breaking yourself. Rozene is strong, but she is still a fragile human. She doesn’t heal as quickly as she could if she accepted her other parts. She is stubborn and afraid, but her heart is strong.” He grunted. “Until the day when she is ready, her mates must keep her safe. Now, I am going to strengthen this place against evil. Do an old man a favor. No matter what, do not leave this building.”
“But, Holden….”
“Rozene, what we face is far more dangerous than what you fear.” With those words, Cecil left us.
I started to open my mouth to try yet again to convince them to let me go with them. Before I could utter a single word, Hunting Wolf said, “No.” Then, he kissed me and followed after Cecil.
Colby said, “We’ll take care of Sophia and be back before you know it. Promise.” He kissed me and gave my butt a tap with his hand. Emotionally stunned, it took me a moment to follow after him. They were already in the parking lot.
“Not a scratch, Colby. Do you hear me?” Holden said.
Colby was straddling the seat of Holden’s motorcycle. He, Sam, Hunting Wolf, and Cecil were borrowing bikes from Holden and his men. Stuck with us at the hotel, they wouldn’t be using them. I hadn’t realized they could ride, but it just went to show me what all I had yet to learn about them.
Holden eyed Colby with obvious misgivings. “I mean it. Not a scratch. She’s my baby.”
Colby said, “Oh, I understand. We’re leaving our baby here with you. Not so much as a hair.”
“Ma’am, do you mind backing up?” An unusually large male wedged himself between me and the parking lot. He gave me no choice. It was either back up or get intimate with his belt buckle.
“What the hell?”
“Sorry, ma’am, but you’re supposed to stay inside and not be within six feet of an exit. We’ve got our orders.”
Automatically, my hands went to my hips. “Oh, who the fuck gave you that stupid, motherfucking bullshit order?”
“I did,” John said as he walked up to us. I recalled hearing that he had served as or colonel or some shit during the Civil War. He didn’t look ancient. Rather than being on a display in a museum of natural history, he looked like he was in his thirties.
“Lay off of the men. They’re following orders. If you want to rail against someone, let me have it. You’re not the only one who wants to go and confront Sophia,” Holden said as he came inside.
“Then, why don’t we?” I yelled.
A deep sadness filled his eyes. “You know why. Anyway, I loved her. It’s best if we let your Stillwater-Reeves boys prove themselves all manly and capable of protecting you. Being around me has given their masculinity a hit.” He ignored it when I gaped at him. To John, he asked, “Are we prepared?”
“Yes, sir. We’re ready for anything from fire to night hunters.” John tipped his head to me and walked away.
“Rozene, that was some mighty strong language you just used with Cord,” Holden scolded.
Blushing in anger, I glared up at Cord. “My apologies, Cord.”
“Ma’am,” he responded, but his eyes, far above, appeared to be filled with humor.
I clenched my jaw as Holden’s scent once again overpowered my senses and sent hot need down to my aching core. Turning, I hurried up the stairs and to my room.
Chapter Nine
With the door locked, I paced back and forth. Why couldn’t they have taken Holden with them? Oh, right. It was Sophia’s fault. Dividing and conquering was a tried and true technique, so I wondered if she had planned this. Holden and I, her presumed targets, were sitting here conveniently for her to attack. Had they even asked for my opinion? No. I wasn’t stupid. I could strategize. Instead of treating me like a partner, they had left me here with Holden. I wanted to lick his skin and rub against his naked flesh, and they’d left me with him. No! No, I didn’t. Kicking off my shoes, I left my adorable, ruined outfit in the wastebasket and got into the shower. Marcello had removed the glass from my skin, my cuts had healed, but I felt itchy. However, even after scrubbing with soap and turning the water to cold, I still felt the itch. It wasn’t something I could scrub off.
Dressed, and lamenting the fact that I seemed to be going through clothing with the speed of a werewolf, I picked up the complimentary pad of paper and pencil deciding to approach my problem rationally. “I’ll make a list of all of the reasons why Holden is an asshole.”
The first time we’d met, he had pretended to be a polite, concerned man checking on my safety because of the scary werewolves when he’d in fact been their leader. Asshole. He had done a good job cutting firewood.
Then, he’d gotten into a brutal, bloody fight with Duke before speeding away. He’d been naked when he’d straddled his bike. No! Don’t think about him naked!
Only, he’d come back and brought his wolves with him. They’d gone to all out war with the bear shifters and Wendigoag in my yard. He’d broken my backdoor, scared my puppies, kidnapped me, forced me to kiss him, handcuffed me to a nightstand, and allowed Gideon to torment me.
Under his leadership, his pack had killed civilians during their attacks on Silver Springs.
Holden had lured Puck and Macduff away after a rabbit and chloroformed me.
I had filled up most of the notepad when a knock sounded on my door. “Who is it?”
“It’s me. Open up.”
“Go away, Holden.”
“No, you’ve been hiding and sulking in there for hours. Open the door.”
“I said to go away.” I added rude and uncouth to my list.
He got quiet, and for a moment I worried he’d break down the door. In a soft voice imbued with power, he said, “Rozene, open this door and let me in.”
“Not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin,” I responded.
He laughed. “Have it your way.”
Something in his voice set my insides to flame all over again. Even his scent beckoned to me through the door. The push and pull between worlds started to claim me against my will, and I fought against it making myself stay in my own realm. The pencil snapped, and something jabbed into my palm. Breathing heavily, I stared down at my hand. One half of the pencil had fallen to rest on the bed near my thigh. The other half was embedded in my palm.
“Shit.”
The eraser seemed to be mocking me from where it poked up. The pencil’s bottom half was stuck in my hand under my middle finger. It was like the pencil was telling me to fuck off for having squeezed it
so hard. My hand kept me distracted from the sound of metal scraping inside of the lock on my door. The next thing I knew, Holden had opened the door and filled its frame.
“Screw your privacy. I smell blood. What happened?”
“Ew,” I said in sickened disgust as I showed him my skewered hand. “Ow.”
“What the hell did you do?”
“I don’t know. I squeezed it too hard when I started to shift. Then, it was in my hand. This is all your fault. Stay away from me.”
Suddenly angry, he said, “My fault? I have been! Do you think this is any easier for me?” Noticing the pad on my lap onto which I was dripping blood, he picked it up and skimmed it while I glared at him. Sighing, he dropped it to the bed. “Not a hair, my ass. Shit. Get up and come with me.” Holding the arm attached to my injury, he ushered me from the room.
“Where are we going? The bathroom is back there. Just yank it out.”
He closed the door behind us and led me down the hall. “What do you think will happen if they come back and smell your blood in the room? Your hand is gonna bleed when I pull the pencil out of it.” Opening the door to a room, he pointed. “Bathroom.”
Stepping inside, I held my hand over the sink. I glanced up at the mirror and his reflection as he walked in behind me. I wanted to close my eyes so I wouldn’t be able to see his blond hair, tan skin, and bulging muscles. I encouraged myself to feel the pain in my hand as a distraction. Elizabeth clawed at me from within, wanting to get out so she could mate. Need pooled between my thighs becoming an intolerable ache. Tempted to take my chances with my hand and run, I froze when he took a firm hold of my wrist, yanked the pencil free, turned on the faucet, and rinsed out my gushing puncture wound. My blood circled down the drain along with my willpower. Taking a clean, rolled washcloth from a decorative bowl on the counter, he applied pressure to my hand and tossed the pencil into the wastebasket.
“Rozene, I know I’ve done things. I haven’t always behaved toward you as I should.” He looked up from my hand and into my eyes. “Please, Rozene. Please, forgive me. Give me a chance to make things right. I’m not whole without you. Since that first night, I’ve been like that pencil. I screwed everything up so badly. I wish I could erase my mistakes with you and start over. Can you forgive me?”
My heart thundered in my throat. It was bad enough that he smelled like heaven and was a solid wall of warm muscle standing so close to me. His deep voice, with notes of pain, sorrow, and repentance adding to its cadence, was more than I could take. “I’ll try,” I whispered.
Warm, strong arms surrounded me. My injured hand was trapped between our bodies, but I moved my other hand around to his back and felt hard muscle beneath my palm. Trying to ignore my physical reaction to his proximity, I concentrated on my emotions. While we stood quietly embracing each other in his bathroom, I did my best to let go of some of my anger and resentment for him which I had been carrying around in my heart. I felt like I was losing a battle and the coming war.
“I can’t break my vows. I love Sam, Colby, and Hunting Wolf. Everything I feel for you is wrong.”
Smoothing my hair and kissing my forehead, he said, “I know, sweetheart. They know it, too. But, there is something else we know that you don’t.”
“What?”
“Instinct is stronger than any emotion or conviction, and fighting against it can tear a person apart.” He let go of me and stepped out of the bathroom. “Come here.” When I hesitated, he said, “Come on,” and guided me over to his bed. He pulled back the covers and tucked me in. Then, he kicked off his boots and got in beside me. I didn’t resist when he slipped an arm behind my neck and held me. “See this hand? What Cecil said to you was true. You’re fighting against yourself. Your hand should have healed already.”
“I don’t know how to stop.” I clutched the washcloth against my throbbing palm.
“We’ve got that in common. I’ve been fighting everything and everyone my entire life. I’ve spent decades trying to bend the world to my will. You’re the first time I ever realized I didn’t want to do it anymore. I still want you to do what I want, but at the same time I don’t. I want you to look at me the way you do at them with your eyes full of happiness. Right now, it seems like both of us have been twisting this way and that so hard while fighting against each other that we’ve broken ourselves. I don’t know which way is up anymore, and I don’t think you do either. What do you say to pulling out our splinters and smoothing out the sharp edges between us?”
“There’s more between us than branches needing to be mended, and you know it.” My panties were soaked, and I knew he could smell my desire.
“They know how your body reacts to mine and how badly I want you, but who did they leave you here with?”
I felt his hand on the bare flesh of my back and realized that he had pushed my dress all of the way up. Suddenly, I found myself on my back with my dress being pulled over my head. I gasped when in one swift motion, my panties were gone, and Holden’s face was between my thighs, his tongue deep within my folds. His fingers were splayed out against my thighs while he did things to me with his mouth that turned all of my thoughts and ideas into pencil shavings dumped from a sharpener to scatter into the wind, never even making it into the trash basket. The unrelenting need was finally being met. He was in my blood and had partially made me what I was. The push and pull yanked me back and shoved me forward.
Holden looked up at me in surprise. His hands were pressed against her jeans. Growling deep within my chest, I hurried to undress. He pulled off her boots, my boots, and moved to tug the jeans down my legs. I tore at his shirt until only golden skin and hard muscles were beneath my palms. He pushed a finger between Elizabeth’s aching folds.
“No, I can’t do this.” I was pleading with myself while my body and emotions waivered with uncertainty. Shimmering again into my own form, I looked down and saw Holden’s finger buried deeply within my own body. I felt him there and moaned.
“You aren’t two people, Rozene. You’re one person. You aren’t torn up inside because of Colby, Hunting Wolf, or Sam. You’re torn up because of us. We belong together, and you need to accept it.” He moved his finger in and out of me while I panted and watched. “Do you feel my finger moving inside of you?”
“Holden….”
“Do you feel it?” he asked gruffly.
“Yes.”
Lowering his mouth to me, he sucked on my clit and added a second finger to the first. My back lifted up from the bed as I came. He laid beside me on the bed and watched me. “Come here. Join us together. Do your part to make us one, and I’ll do mine.”
The burning need within me hadn’t been quenched. It had been fanned higher. Hating myself for what I was doing, I slid my leg over him, positioned my swollen, aching entrance above him, and lowered myself down his thick, hard shaft. I gasped in pleasure as an orgasm tingled its way from my clit to my nipples, nipples that Holden instinctively knew to pinch. I continued to lower myself until I was fully seated, spread wide and impaled upon him.
“Look into my eyes,” he pleaded. “Know this, Rozene Stillwater-Reeves. I love you unlike any love I’ve ever felt. One day, I hope you’ll love me in return. Now, shift,” he commanded, forcing my body to obey. I looked down at our joined bodies to where Elizabeth’s dark pubic hair tangled with his of blond. He thrust his hips up savagely into her. “Embrace your wolf,” he ordered.
At his command, claws tore free from my hands. He growled. In a blur of speed, he was behind me. He held me firmly by the hair and forced me to my knees. Elizabeth whined and begged. Dragging her from the bed, he shoved her over to the dresser. In the mirror, I watched as he shifted into his werewolf. Liquid need slid down my inner thighs, and I widened my stance. I pushed back, begging with my body to be entered.
“Please, Holden.” Her voice was barely recognizable to my ears.
He pulled back hard on my hair. “Who are you?” He growled through a mouth full of sharp teeth.
“Elizabeth.”
I heard something whistling through the air and then felt a sharp sting as he slapped my ass. “Who are you?” His eyes glowed angrily in the mirror’s reflective surface.
“Elizabeth.”
“Look in the mirror!” he growled. Again, the hand flashed down with a punishing force, making me yelp. “Who are you?”
I fought against him. He had no right to hit me. Wrenching my hair free, I raked my claws against his chest. Blood beaded in lines across his skin before quickly healing. His sharp teeth filled my sight. Flipping me back around to face the dresser, his hand flashed down in several hot, stinging blows against my ass. Enraged, fury stole my reason. I glared helplessly at his reflection. He held my head still with a fist tight against my scalp holding my hair. His other hand was raised to strike me yet again.
“Who are you?”
Anger and resentment burned hotter within me than Elizabeth’s passion. Before it, she burned to ash, and her eyes died as I looked into them. They burned like embers from within my face. Forgetting the werewolf behind me, I stared. I’d changed. At the moment, I wasn’t simply a woman, werewolf, or Wendigo. I wasn’t Elizabeth. My hair was no longer black. It had taken on its own shade of coppery golden-brown, similar to my natural shade but more vibrant. My own face stared back at me. I lifted my hand, now healed, and touched my face with claw-tipped fingers. Gazing from my hand to my form, I saw that my body still retained the strength of a female werewolf, strong, fast, and deadly.
“This is your true form,” the werewolf behind me said in a soft, guttural tone. “Who are you?”
Looking at my mahogany eyes in the mirror, I said, “I’m Rozene.”
“Is Elizabeth still there?”
Internally, I searched for her and couldn’t find her. A sob escaped me. I still knew what she had known. Instinctually, I knew I could take her form if I chose to do so, but I was no longer trapped by her. “No, I’m free. I’m free.”
Wendigo Conjuring Page 13