Once Bitten_Wolves of Hemlock Hollow

by Heather McCorkle

  Being in his arms felt good and right. One of his legs nudged between mine. I opened them for him. The slight scruff of his five-o’clock shadow scratched at my hand, thrilling me. His pine and lake water scent surrounded me, melding with my own scent to become something even more amazing. He tasted like the wild blackberries we had eaten during our run as wolves: rich, sweet, and tart enough to make him delicious. Tongue thrusting deeper into his mouth, I tried to crawl down inside him. But that wasn’t what I wanted, not exactly. I wanted him inside me. My legs lifted to wrap around him, when the night exploded.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ty

  A loud boom, like thunder colliding directly overhead, broke the quiet night and shook the ground beneath me ever so slightly. Almost as one, Sonya and I leaped to our feet. The sound had come from around the front of the house. For a moment it sounded like hail falling. A piece of blue metal landed not far from my feet. Gods, my truck. The snap and crackle of flames—a lot of them—made me realize the “hail” sound was probably shrapnel from an explosion. Unfortunately, it was not a sound I was unused to. Yellow light flickered from around the edge of the house. Wide eyes on Sonya, I took a step toward the path leading around the house.

  “Go, I’ll be right there,” she said as she scooped her clothes off the ground.

  No way was I leaving her. Eyes scanning the darkness around me, I stepped where my pants lay on the ground when I saw something moving in the trees at the edge of the lawn. Eyes shone in the black: yellow and bright. They held a sense of malice that made me start toward them. I felt the press of two more figures moving in behind me. Dammit. The bastards had lured me away from Sonya just enough to cut me off from her. The soft brush of shoes against grass behind me stopped me. I turned to see Sonya wrapped in the arms of a man. Growling, I took a step toward her, but the two men who had been flanking me cut me off.

  Instead of struggle, Sonya found her footing and settled her weight down into the ground. She stomped, hard, coming down on her captor’s foot. The man grunted in pain. Arms thrusting out before her lightning fast, she shoved her butt backward at the same time. The second higher pitched grunt of pain told me she had slammed right into her captor’s scrotum. I laughed as she spun out and away from him.

  My own problems moved in on me. Dark as it was, I could not see much more than the shine of his eyes. By concentrating, I adjusted my eyesight to that of my wolf, thereby seeing better in the dark. It was not as good as night-vision goggles, but it was good enough to make out the men’s tall frames. Sliding into a fighting stance, I glanced in the direction of the other set of eyes I had seen in the trees. A second man approached from that direction, shorter than the first, but broader. I growled and bared my fangs at them in warning, but they attacked anyway.

  I sidestepped the attack of the man who had first approached, driving a round house kick into his kidney as I moved. He let out a cry of pain followed by, “Bastard!”

  Having no time to respond, I thrust a back kick out with my other leg that caught the second man in the gut. Air left him in an audible rush as he doubled over. Before he could even think about grabbing my leg, I whipped it back in to my body, chambering it like an arrow preparing to fly again. No easy feat when your balls were swinging free, but I managed without pinching anything vital. The first man took another step toward me and I let that arrow fly in the form of a front kick that drove the ball of my foot between his pectorals. He stumbled back, arms flailing. Movement out of the corner of my eyes told me I did not have time to watch and see if he went down. The second man started to straighten back up. Leaping into the air with one knee to get more lift, I brought my other leg up high and slammed my heel down toward the man’s shoulder. When the strike connected, I whipped my hip back and down, putting all the power and speed into the move that I could, which was a lot.

  The kick was so dangerous that it was illegal in most martial arts tournaments. An axe kick, some called it. It was aptly named considering it could split a person’s skull or crush their spine. In this case, it drove the broad man to the ground, but his bones did not break. It took a lot more than that to break the bones of a varúlfur. I spun back toward the other man, only to find him fleeing into the trees. On instinct, I started to give chase, halting before entering the deeper darkness of the trees to turn back to Sonya. Her attacker had a hold of one of her shoulders and was rearing his fist back.

  Swooping in, I grabbed the man by his fist and hauled him backward. He was shorter than me by at least half a foot, but I did not stop once his feet were off the ground. I lifted him as high as my reach would allow, letting him dangle, choking, legs kicking at the air. It forced me to hold him out away from myself so he could not reach my balls, but my varúlfur strength made it easy. Nor did it hurt that I spent at least an hour a day in my home gym.

  “You son of a hóra! How dare you come to my home, threaten my nemi, and blow up my truck!” I roared.

  Letting out a vicious growl, I threw the man to the ground, following him down to pin him there with a hand on his chest. My fingernails grew into claws that punctured the man’s shirt. The material around each claw began to darken and the tang of blood mixed with the smoke that flavored the air. His heart pulsed directly beneath my hand. Pissed as I was, all it would take was closing my fist. Eyes so wide I could see the whites around them, the man whimpered and went very still.

  “James and Calder made me. I didn’t want to come after you, never you, but we had to,” the man said in a voice that shook so badly I barely understood it.

  “Isak did not send you?” I demanded in a cold, calculating voice.

  If it was Isak, his Alpha, I would kill the man, regardless of what that meant.

  “He doesn’t even know we’re here,” the man said.

  My fingers clenched a bit and flesh tore beneath my claws. The man cried out, his legs twitching, but he did not try to get up. “And are you prepared to die for what these two want? Neither of them is your Alpha.”

  “No, but they’ll hurt someone I care about if I don’t help them,” the man groaned, the word laced with more pain that I would have thought only one word could hold.

  The shine of his eyes disappeared as his lips slid closed. His chin lifted a bit as if he were preparing to die with honor, or bracing for the pain. Despite being pissed at him, a reluctant respect bloomed.

  “Ty, don’t, please. I don’t want anyone to die because of me, not even this bastard,” Sonya said.

  I heard her soft steps approach a moment before she laid a hesitant hand on my bare shoulder. The warmth from her skin and power seeped into me, calmed me. A sigh shuddered through me. I withdrew my claws and rose to my feet. Her hand slid from my shoulder as my height took it out of her reach, but she let it slide to the middle of my back and rest there. Her touch continued to soothe me, helping me to breathe easier, to think past the rage.

  “She saved your life today, remember that, because I will not spare it again,” I said through clenched teeth.

  The man crab-crawled backward. He did not pause to roll over and scramble to his feet until he had reached the trees.

  “Oh God, Ty, your truck,” she said, a piece of metal in hand.

  She turned and ran for the front of the house. Hesitating, I scanned the trees, listening hard and smelling the air. It was difficult to tell over the crackle of a raging fire and the scent of the smoke, but I did not think anyone else was around. Barefoot but not even feeling the rocks, I ran onto the gravel drive after her. Flames engulfed the front end and cab of my truck, their orange and yellow fingers reaching high into the night, banishing the darkness. Sonya stood before it, fire extinguisher thrust too close to the flames. I could smell that the heat was searing her flesh. The white foam disappeared into the roaring flames, hardly making a dent. I ran to her, clamped hands around her waist, and hauled her back.

  “Sonya, no, it is only a truck,” I said.

  Her lips curled back from fangs. “But it’s your tru
ck and it’s my fault,” she protested.

  I picked her up and carried her back several feet. She threw the useless fire extinguisher on the ground and turned to me. Fire reflected in her angry eyes. I rubbed my hands up and down her already healing arms, lending my power to hers to help speed the process.

  “It is just a truck. We are not immortal, only hard to kill. Fire is one of the things that can do a good job of it, though,” I said.

  Her gaze flicked to the impossible inferno that now engulfed my truck, then to her Jeep parked on the other side of the circular drive. “We should at least go after them.”

  I shook my head. “Their scent is all over the hood of your Jeep. They disabled it so no one could follow them.”

  “But…”

  My brows drew together and I took her face in my hands. “But nothing. The truck can be replaced, you cannot,” I said.

  She dropped her gaze. I moved closer, acutely aware that I was still naked. My relief over her being all right morphed into something deeper, more profound. Her eyes bore into mine and her hands started to work their way up my bare back as she leaned closer. The loud blare of a fire engine’s siren echoed from somewhere far away.

  “Dammit,” I swore as I pulled away.

  I took hold of one of her hands as I started to return to the backyard. “I have got to get some clothes on before they get here,” I said.

  Throwing a last glance back at my burning vehicle, she followed without a word. The now mostly risen three-quarter moon lit the backyard in an eerie glow, revealing the shape of my sweatpants on the grass where I had left them. Orange and red flames reflected off a metallic garden ball, casting eerie lights on the flagstone pathway. The sight sent a chill through me, along with a sudden desire for this night to be over. It had started out so promising. While I dressed I did my best to recall the names of the men who had attacked us so that when I saw them again in Hemlock Hollow, I could make them pay. For now we had more pressing matters, though. The wail of police sirens joined the fire engine sirens, promising that this was going to be a very long night in all the wrong ways.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sonya

  The distance the sunlight had traveled across my bed told me it was hours past dawn when I finally woke. Little surprise considering how late we had stayed up dealing with the fire department, Ty’s truck, and talking to the cops. Having been raised with a deep-seated distrust for law enforcement, I’d been more than happy to let Ty do all the talking. He was good at it. Too good. It made me think he’d had to do that kind of thing a lot. But then, he had belonged to a speed-hungry group. Umbrella pack, whatever. The story he fed them about an irate student who was failing summer school and in jeopardy of losing his scholarship appeased the cops. But, they had only left after Ty promised to come down to the station in a few days to give a more formal statement.

  Sadly, we had fallen into our separate beds after all the chaos settled. As much as I had wanted to spend the night in his arms, we were both too shaken up. The desire was still there, but the timing was off. He seemed more worried about watching the security monitors and windows than jumping my bones. Disappointing as that was, it helped me sleep soundly knowing he watched over me.

  Having already showered before going to bed, I rushed through my morning routine. The desperate need to see Ty, to make sure he was all right, sped each movement. It was silly, I know. Clearly the man was more than capable of taking care of himself, but knowing that didn’t make the need go away. After running a brush through my long black hair and putting on a pair of cutoff blue jeans and a yellow tank top, I made my way to the kitchen.

  Gaze going every which way, I checked the hall, the open floor plan of the living room. The second I stepped into the kitchen I knew something wasn’t right. The air smelled like that coarse, orange soap mechanics liked so much when it should have smelled like breakfast. Then there was the guy bending over and digging around in the fridge. He was muscular enough to be Ty. But he didn’t smell or feel like Ty. The feel of his power told me he was a varúlfur.

  I lunged for the counter and snatched the biggest knife from the knife block that I could. The man in the fridge stood up so fast he smacked his head on the freezer.

  “Ouch, shit!”

  He turned toward me, rubbing his head with one hand and holding a beer in the other. Overly long, wild blond hair stuck up in every direction, stuck in a few places with something dark, grease maybe. His stance remained relaxed, so he didn’t exactly look threatening. Still, I wasn’t about to let go of the knife. My fighting skills were progressing at a snail’s pace so I needed every advantage I could get.

  “Whoa, easy there, little wolf. I’m a friend of Ty’s,” he said.

  “A friend? To an outcast, lone wolf?”

  The man’s brows bunched together. “Helheimr yes. We lone wolves have to stick together.”

  Pace and stance casual as could be, he walked from the kitchen and planted himself on a bar seat. The fact that I held a knife as long as my forearm apparently didn’t faze him. That, or he was really good at hiding it. He popped the top off his beer with one thumb and took a long drink.

  “Lone wolves sticking together. You seriously expect me to swallow that?”

  The man grinned. “I don’t care if you spit or swallow, darling. Gorgeous as you are, I’m not one to mess with a friend’s woman.”

  Whoever he was, his quick wit made me like him a bit despite my caution. I sat the knife on the counter, but didn’t let go of it. “So you’re a friend of Raul’s?”

  One side of the man’s lips rose to bare a fang. “Never. I didn’t mean him, because clearly, you aren’t his.”

  My eyes widened. “Oh.” I gathered myself and cleared my throat. “Why are you here?”

  “I brought Ty some parts for your Jeep. Those bastards did a number on it.” One eye remaining on me, he took another drink of his beer. “I like that you’re cautious, means you’re smart. No wonder you’ve brought him out of his hiatus.”

  “Hiatus?”

  “On women.”

  It was a good thing I didn’t blush easily.

  “Really, little wolf, you can relax. I’m one of the many that left the Draupnir pack with Ty. You won’t find more loyal wolves to him than us.”

  I sat down on the stool farthest from him. “Left with him?”

  Blond eyebrows rose until they disappeared into his unruly hair. “He didn’t tell you. Of course he didn’t. He’s too damn modest.” He sat his beer down and leaned his elbows on the bar top. “Almost half the pack left with Ty in a show of support. Helheimr, we’d even follow him if he wanted to start a new pack, but he has no taste for leading. Can’t say that I blame him with all the shitty politics.”

  The shock made me take a moment before responding. “Half the pack? Even though he didn’t fight?”

  “Because he didn’t fight. Our Alpha wouldn’t have wanted him to fight, and he respected that, honored his memory by not doing it.”

  It took a special kind of man to walk away from a fight. I respected the hell out of that. “That’s pretty amazing.”

  “It is. I’m Lars, by the way.” He extended his hand and I accepted it. As much as I didn’t want a stranger touching my hand, it was better than sniffing my ass. Okay, that wasn’t fair. But I had only met a handful of varúlfur and I really didn’t know what the norm was.

  “Sonya.”

  “I know.”

  I groaned. “Guess everyone knows.”

  Lars shrugged off my discomfort. “People don’t know shit. I know what Ty’s told me, not bullshit rumors. And you’ve nothing to worry about. He says only good things about you. Incessantly.” He rolled his eyes at the last part.

  Heat rushed up my neck to my face. The impulse to ask what he’d said about me swelled, but I clamped my teeth together, determined not to embarrass myself.

  The gentle pull of Ty’s power pulled at me a second before he walked in the front door. His eyes widened as t
hey went from me to Lars. In the next stride, his muscles relaxed so much his shoulders dropped and he managed to put on a casual smile. Concern lingered in his eyes and tinged the feel of his power.

  “Well, Lars is still upright, which means you two meeting could not have gone too badly.”

  I smiled, partly because I liked Lars, but mostly to ease that look of worry from Ty’s eyes.

  Lars clapped Ty on the shoulder as he walked by. “Don’t worry, félagi, I told her nothing but good things.”

  I looked to Ty. “Fél…” I stopped because I couldn’t get the word to come out sounding right.

  At the sink, Ty squeezed some of the coarse orange soap beside the faucet onto his greasy hands. “It roughly translates to ‘mate’, as in packmate, which he should get out of the habit of calling me seeing how we are no longer packmates,” Ty said, glaring at Lars as he said the last.

  Since he was turned sideways to me, it was hard to tell, but I thought I saw Ty smile.

  Head back, Lars downed the rest of his beer in one drink. Bottle in hand, he stood. Rather than go for the trash, he took it to the cabinet where Ty kept his recycling. “Oh, before I go, I heard from Vidar yesterday, said he tried to get a hold of you.”

  As Ty turned around Lars handed him the towel from the fridge door. The guy knew his way around so well it was clear he hung out here a lot. Yet, I hadn’t met him. It made me wonder how much of his life Ty had put on hold for me.

  “Really? Damn. I have not been checking my messages since I brought Sonya here. We could not risk the distraction.”

  Lars gave him a crooked grin. “Riiight. Well, anyway, he said there’s something he has to talk to you about. He’s coming back to do it.”

  Ty’s eyes popped open wide. “From Iceland? I thought he was studying at the temple and could not leave. All because I did not answer my phone? Did you tell him I was all right?”

  “Of course. That’s not why. He said it’s something he has to talk to you about in person, before you go to Hemlock Hollow again.”