by Ruby Raine
Charlie reached out and stroked her arm. “Your dad’s fine and you’re going to have him back very soon.”
She surprised him by spinning around with tears streaming down her face. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m not normally so... like this.”
“What? Relieved? I’m not going to judge you for that,” Charlie told her.
“I guess I just didn’t realize how much my dad meant to me before today,” she explained. “We’ve always been close, but the thought of losing him, it really scares me. In a way I’ve never been scared before.”
“Speaking from personal experience, Eva, once you get him back, tell him that. Don’t regret not saying it.”
“Oh, God. I’m so insensitive,” she cried. “Here I am making a blithering idiot of myself because of my dad, and you don’t even know what’s happened to yours.”
“I have hope though. More hope than I should probably allow myself to have,” he admitted.
Eva unexpectedly leaned forward, resting her head on Charlie’s chest. He wrapped his arms around her as much for his own comfort, as hers.
A calm came over her. She didn’t fight it. Why am I not fighting this? More than not fighting it, she wanted it. Craved the closeness. Stupid hormones. Not just the human ones, but her wolf too. She needed to find a way to dampen those, it was making her weak. Putting her in a compromising situation that her body was enjoying far too much. And muddled her mind into a fake sense of security.
Eva lifted her head but didn’t back away. Even with all the conversation playing out in her mind, her body acted on its own accord.
“Thank you, Charlie. I couldn’t have gotten through this day without your help. I wouldn’t be getting my dad back.”
He moved his hands up to her face, cupping it, and used his thumbs to clear away the tears still falling. “It will be over soon. This time tomorrow you’ll know your dad’s where he should be.” He didn’t remove his hands and Eva did not pull away.
Charlie’s brain ordered his hands to let go of her, but they refused. I should let go of her. His fingers didn’t budge. A surge of electric pulses kept him glued to her. Unconsciously, he rested his forehead against hers, praying for the strength to let go. Ring or no ring, he did not trust himself. Or rather his wolf, to play nice. He’d promised not to hurt her again.
Eva grabbed onto his shirt, pulling him closer. Her breath, her body, her eyes begged him to kiss her, but instead, he dropped his hands allowing them to slide down her arms and forced himself to back away. “Eva, I...”
“Am being the respectful gentlemen, not wanting to take advantage of a damsel in distress. Still afraid you might hurt me?”
His facial expression agreed with her sentiment.
Eva’s expression spoke something else. Something Charlie recognized. Hunger. Need. A thirst nearly impossible to quench.
Perhaps he had been wrong in thinking it was the wolf he was always trying to control. Perhaps it was just human nature wanting to take over, and the wolf inside him just made it harder to subdue that nature. He and the wolf had been one for so long, maybe he had lost sight of what made him human.
He closed his eyes, a hazy dullness clouding his mind. He opened them to see Eva had pulled him back to her. He didn’t even remember moving. He breathed in, intoxicated by her familiar aroma, although lessened by the ring. Bearable and yet not bearable.
Eva’s life was not in danger. He could have stopped. He could have walked away. But he was weak. Almost too weak to stand. He pushed her back until her body was pinned against the edge of the workbench grasping the far edge to steady himself, keeping his other hand splayed around her waist.
“I can’t explain what you do to me,” he told her. “Do you have any idea how intoxicating you are?” Literally so. He’d gone from sober to drunk in seconds.
“It’s not me, Charlie, it’s you,” Eva mumbled in a dreamy tone, as if not quite coherent.
“You smell it too?” Breathing her in left a light buzz tickling at his nerves.
“It’s like,” she trailed off, unable to finish. “Your eyes. They’re so beautiful, Charlie.”
The silver of his wolf had come out to play. And fuck, did it want to play.
Kissing her is a bad idea. His body ignored the warning.
His lips brushed against hers, lightly. He could taste it. It wasn’t just a smell. His tongue licked out at her lips trailing across her jaw and down her neck. It was there too. Her skin, drenched in a delectable lust that heightened the intoxication. His tongue lapped at her throat unable to get enough of it in his mouth. He lost all thought except he needed more.
Charlie pushed Eva down onto the workbench, pinning her body there. She pulled at his lips with her mouth, feeding him. He ate hungrily. His tongue foraging and plundering deep inside.
Eva shuddered underneath him. Her legs wrapping around him.
A deep growl rumbled in his chest. He left her on the bench tearing off his shirt.
“Your eyes.” He shook his head, squeezing them shut tight. Her eyes didn’t look right. But nothing looked right. There was a hazy film blurring and discoloring everything.
“Are we floating?” Eva exhaled in a drunken haze. She closed her eyes as if reliving a pleasant dream. “Come back to me, Charlie.” Eva reached out splaying her fingers against his chest. Her fingers trailed downward.
He groaned and gasped. Something sharp dug into his skin. He looked down to see Eva’s nails jabbing into him. His wolf snarled, enticed by the pain. Pain he wanted to return. He leaned down over her and grabbed her ass, pulling her into him forcefully.
She arched, meeting him. His hardness attacked, throbbing against her jeans. “Too many clothes,” she got out in a rushed exhale. She needed skin on skin. Her clothes were dampening the feel of him. And she was hot. Her skin burning up. She wasn’t quite sure why, but touching Charlie was the only way to put out the fire.
His hands fumbled at the bottom of her shirt, yanking it upward. Her black laced bra remained in place as he used her shirt to imprison her hands over her head. Teeth scraped across the thin cloth, nipping and plucking at the skin curving out of the thin dark cups. He could so easily sink his teeth in. Taste her. Claim her.
A growl vibrated against her chest.
Eva lost all control. Her body encouraged him, daring him to sink in his teeth. She lost all ability to have a coherent thought or concern. No question as to why she wanted this. Why she had suddenly gone into this needy haze. Or why she wanted him to bite her.
Charlie pinched, threatening.
A cool breeze wafted into the room, sending a rush of cool air swirling at them.
Charlie’s head popped up and flicked to the side, a low snarl stuck at the back of his tongue. Eva moaned underneath him at the loss of contact.
“I’ve got all the stuff on my list,” announced Michael, entering. “How about, oh,” he choked out. He turned around, his empathy drawing in the emotion still hanging in the room. “Jesus. Fucking. Christ.” He shook his head. “I’ll be out here, remembering how to breathe.” He grumbled his way out into the yard.
Charlie stood up, the fresh air catching him. The intoxicating smell engulfing them dissipating. He took a few dizzy steps back, putting a hand to his forehead. What the hell just happened? His silver eyes morphed back into bright blue. His wolf teeth receded. He gazed down at Eva, uncertainty pounding at his chest.
Eva stared, her breath heavy, her gaze confused.
He held out his hand, which she grabbed, and he pulled her up. She sat on the edge and pulled her shirt back down, getting her bearings. She avoided looking at Charlie.
He just stared in silence, his mind still clouded by whatever had just happened. His memory of it falling away, almost like he’d just awakened from a dream and none of it had actually happened.
Charlie stepped back, grabbing his shirt.
Eva got to her feet, needing a second to find her balance.
“I, uh. I think I need some air.�
�� She slipped past Charlie running into Michael just outside. Emotions poured out of her rampantly. Confusion. Fear. Excitement. Desire. Anger. Guilt. Until... nothing. They just stopped as if a switch had been turned off.
“I’ll be waiting by the jeep.” Her tone was even and emotionless as she walked away.
“Huh. Just gets freakier and freakier,” mumbled Michael. He’d never had someone just flip off their emotions like that. He wandered back into the storage room.
Charlie didn’t even look at him. He was holding himself up at the edge of the workbench after putting his shirt back on.
“You okay there, Bro? You need a minute to, you know, cool down?”
Charlie ignored the jeering tone in Michael’s tone and stood up straight, a dazed look on his face.
“The ring didn’t fail did it?” his brother barraged him. “Please tell me you didn’t try to kill her again.”
“The ring didn’t fail. I-I really have no idea what just happened. It’s like I was in a dream or trance or something. But awake.”
“Okay,” replied Michael, beginning to worry. “She really does a number on you, doesn’t she? I wonder what makes her different. Maybe William was right before...”
“About what?” asked Charlie, the haze lifting, brainwaves firing to life again.
“Maybe your wolfy side sees her as a potential mate, or something.”
“Or something?”
“I dunno, like, dinner. But now with the ring, just a snack.”
Charlie shot his brother a look that warned, you’re not helping, but aloud said, “I don’t know what to think. I’d dismissed William’s mate theory but it’s just, I don’t know.” At least he hadn’t bitten her. But even though Eva was just as confused as him, she wasn’t frightened when she left. Maybe she didn’t remember any more than he did.
Had he been about to bite her?
He had the smallest recollection of his teeth on her chest.
Too close. Way too close a call. Again. He hoped the ring really had stopped him from biting her. That he could trust it would not allow him to hurt anyone. And more than anything, not allow him to pass on his werewolf curse.
He could not imagine anything more devastating than biting someone and infecting them.
Nina had told him the ring would not allow him to hurt anyone. He had to believe this was true. So why did he feel like he’d almost just traveled down a dangerous road, from which there was no return?
Michael cleared his throat. “What exactly did happen? And feel free to leave out as many details as you’d like,” he professed, having no desire to relive his brother’s sexcapades.
“It’s all hazy,” Charlie told him. “But whatever happened it can’t be my wolf thing, or definitely not just my wolf thing.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because Eva experienced it too, not just me.”
“I can confirm that,” Michael intimated. “It was sort of obvious the way she was feeling when she,” he stopped, failing to finish. “You ready to go? We do have a ceremony to get to.”
“Um, I just need one more thing, but why are you changing the subject?” Charlie pried while rummaging through a drawer.
Michael let out a frustrated sigh. “When she left, she ran into me just outside the door and emotions were just pouring off from her. Lots of them. She was in the same frame of mind you are. And then, boom. Nothing. Like she somehow just shut them off.”
“Has that ever happened before?”
“No. I’ve never met anyone that could just shut it off at will. Control it to some degree sure. But it wasn’t just that.”
Charlie made a face that said explain.
“It was something about the way she looked. Like she’d gone from emotional hot zone to an icy freeze. And you’ve heard me say it before, but in almost every case where I came across someone trying to control their emotions, they were all trying to hide something.”
Charlie frowned.
“You were the one that first said you thought she might be hiding something, not me. Just remember that.” Michael couldn’t read his brother’s reaction. “Sorry. I know this isn’t what you want to hear.”
“No. But better to know, I guess. Better to keep my distance and figure out,” he paused, unsure what to say.
“The mystery that is Eva Jordan,” Michael finished for him.
“The mystery that is Eva Jordan,” repeated Charlie. He looked down at his filled basket. “Let’s go get this night over with. Something tells me I’m going to need a stiff drink and a cold shower before crawling into bed.” Maybe a bathtub filled with ice would work better.
They headed out to the jeep where Eva waited for them. She was leaning against the back of the jeep with her hands inside the pockets of a vest. “Got a chill, found this in the jeep. Hope it’s okay?” Her voice was even, her face stoic, giving no indication of her emotions.
“Yeah, of course,” said Charlie. “It’s Melinda’s, she won’t mind.”
“She keeps sweaters and jackets all over the place. Never seen a girl turn so cold, so fast,” said Michael. Something in his tone held the suggestion that he was speaking of more than the vest. And by his face, Charlie could tell he was trying to get an empathic read off of her.
Charlie shot his brother a pleading frown. Eva hopped into the jeep, avoiding him. And Michael loaded their gathered items into the back. Once they were all in, they rode in awkward silence towards the rendezvous location.
WILLIAM CAME TO AN abrupt stop on the porch of the Deane Manor.
He never thought he would step foot inside it again. Once the family had left the Isle for good, the manor had remained empty, at least so he had thought. Now that he knew about the secret doors, he wondered how empty the place had really been over the years.
It certainly looked abandoned. The once grand manor looked aged. Tired. Wilted. The steps creaked under even the vampire’s soft step.
“Reminisce later.”
Right now, he needed to find some way to trap this Soul Hunter and save Jack Howard. He raced to the library, taking in his surroundings as he flew past. The brothers had been cleaning. A large screen TV sat atop an old mantle. The place looked barely lived in and was still covered in layers of dust in most rooms.
He got to the library and began sifting through the titles, reading any volume he thought might have some answer. Even with his super-fast reading ability, he did not have much time. He read book after book, finding nothing.
“I cannot let them down. I must find something. Some way to hold the Soul Hunter, keep it from escaping the Isle.”
After reading another handful of books with no luck, it dawned on him what he needed to do. He remembered that Lizzy had said there was no way to ensure the doors remained closed unless she was doing so.
He was thinking about the problem in the wrong way. He was determining how to keep the Soul Hunter from escaping the Isle, what he really needed to be thinking was how to keep the doors from opening at all. A much easier problem to fix, he hoped.
MELINDA SAT IN THE middle of the two Deane brothers as Lucas drove them toward the location they needed to prepare for Lizzy’s return to her body. Riley had offered to sit in the middle in an attempt to deflate any discomfort from sitting between two Deanes, but she had stubbornly insisted she was fine and hopped in.
Now her thought was, Mack was heading this way. Why didn’t I just hop in with her? It was too late now.
Lucas had clearly wanted to tear into Riley but for Melinda’s sake was keeping quiet, staring straight ahead as he drove. Riley was playing with his thumbs. The silence was more than Melinda could take. She could hear her own breathing and wanted desperately to reach down and see if the radio would turn on. As if reading her mind Riley leaned over her and clicked it on.
“Classical? Really, Lucas?”
“My truck. My music.”
“There’s nothing wrong with classical,” argued Melinda, glad of something to say. “Willia
m has turned me on to quite a few classical pieces over the years.”
“William, the vampire?” confirmed Lucas.
“It would have been nice to know you have a vampire,” bemoaned Riley.
“Have a vampire?” Melinda repeated sorely. “For your information, we don’t have a vampire. He’s not like our hitman or something!”
“Really?” Riley didn’t believe it. “He nearly tore my neck out.”
“What?” demanded Lucas, swerving the truck.
“Don’t forget you’re driving behind the sheriff,” spouted Melinda. Okay, talking is a much worse idea than silence.
“Forget about it Lucas, it was really nothing in the end.” Riley conceded begrudgingly. “When we first showed up at the lighthouse we caught them off guard. The vampire was just being...”
“Protective,” suggested Melinda hotly.
“So if he’s not your hitman, what is he? Your personal bodyguard or something?” There was a hint of jealousy in Riley’s question.
Melinda folded her arms angrily, refusing to answer.
“Look, I’m sorry. It’s just that most people don’t hang out with vampires. Even witches.”
“That is true,” agreed Lucas.
“If you absolutely must know, my vampire, our vampire,” she rephrased in a flustered tone. “William, is my friend. One of my closest friends. I trust him with my life. He has been looking out for my family for a long time. He’s practically family, like another brother. A much older, much more intelligent and,” she kept the rest to herself.
She was lying. William wasn’t like a brother to her at all. A confidant, no doubt. A close friend, with absolute certainty. Up until recently her best friend on the planet. A too-hot-for-words star of many steamy dreams.
William would do anything for me, and I would do anything for him. After the last week though? Would he still? He couldn’t even look at me earlier... he’s obviously angry and disappointed with me.
What exactly was their relationship now? Could they even still be friends? If he was so disappointed by what she’d done that he couldn’t even look at her, how would they live in the same house? Or work together?