by Godiva Glenn
NIGHT CAUGHT
A Night Wolves Novel
Godiva Glenn
NIGHT CAUGHT
Copyright © 2019 by Godiva Glenn.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Follow Godiva Glenn at GodivaGlenn.com
ONE
The humans have a saying. There’s no rest for the wicked. These words had become the unfortunate truth of Kalle’s existence. Perhaps he himself was not wicked, but his needs were, and those needs were showing no sign of ever abating.
The sun was high when Kalle finally stood on his own two legs, free of his wolf form. Last night’s full moon had kept him under its spell long into the day. With every passing month spent without a pack, the more imbalanced his soul became. He was going feral. If this pattern continued, he would end up trapped in his wolf form forever. No longer lupine, but a simple beast.
He found his clothing and dressed in silence. Something he’d discovered about being on his own was how much he missed noise. Chatter. Conversations. Not participating in them, necessarily, but hearing them. The woods had sounds and before his exile, he considered it a calming version of silence. Now it was deafening.
Tonight, he’d handle his needs. Not all, but as many as could be crammed into a single instance of debauchery.
While he cleaned up, attempting to make himself look less like a homeless man living in the woods, he tried not to regret his decision. He could have had a pack. Months ago, he’d been invited. But he’d turned it down for various reasons, and now he was facing the consequences.
He held his breath and finished his transformation into eligible bachelor with a light spritz of cologne he’d stolen from a previous trip to town. The scent, a blend of musk and vanilla, wreaked havoc on his sensitive nose, but it did well to mask the fact that he slept on the ground and bathed in the river.
Human females were more discerning than lupine, after all.
His kind naturally attracted attention from humans, but he still preferred to not take chances. It was too risky, and he needed companionship too desperately to rely on pheromones alone.
“My name is Kalle,” he said to the empty forest. It sounded strange. He’d been away from town for a full month, and that was the last time he’d spoken. “You look lovely,” he practiced. “My name is Kalle.”
Pathetic. Disgust for how he’d fallen rose up like bile in the back of his throat, but this is what it took to survive. And he was nothing if not a survivor.
He brushed at his dark shirt and glanced at the sun. Dusk still had a few hours to go. He packed up his things into his backpack and tucked it into the hollow at the base of the tree next to him. Before his date tonight, he’d need food. He was running out of cash, but tonight he’d splurge.
* * * *
Kalle downed a shot of whiskey and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The burger and fries had cleared his palette, and the alcohol made him feel sanitized. His wolf had taken a liking to hunting trout in the nearby lake’s shallows, and though it was safe for him, it felt strange to return to his human form with the taste of raw fish lingering in his teeth. Food was cooked for a damn good reason.
He glanced around the bar, slowly taking in the night’s crowd. This town had a decent number of attractive young women, and there were plenty here. The hard part was making sure whoever he spoke with was single.
He’d made the mistake of flirting with a woman whose boyfriend was outside smoking. It wasn’t a mistake he wanted to repeat. Bar fights meant being banned from the easiest spot to pick up women, after all.
He moved away from the counter and followed the wall, circling the herd. One woman’s attention followed him. Several women had looked his way since he’d entered, but this one was more focused than the rest and had a flattering hunger to her.
She sat alone at a table, her slender fingers picking at the free bowl of peanuts at its center. And as he rounded the pool table to see her better, her deep brown stare didn’t waiver. He paused for a moment and took a deep breath, but one end of the bar smelled close enough to the other. If she had lingering remnants of another guy’s cologne, it was lost to the reek of cheap beer and everything else. His wolf stalked back and forth in the back of his mind, as if he needed a reminder of what tonight was about.
The feral part of him was already imagining taking her outside. Her auburn hair had a gentle curl to it that shimmered in the sleazy light hanging from the pool table, and that was enough for his wolf. He’d never had a redhead before. His appetite craved new, as if a night with her would be a conquest. His human mind didn’t understand it, but that didn’t matter. This was his wicked side, and feeding it meant staying sane a bit longer.
At first, he hadn’t understood why hookup sex tamed his wolf. But that side of him relied on the baser parts of nature. Eat, thrive, survive, not that human women could help with the thrive part since they couldn’t give him progeny.
Maybe the feral pulse throughout him had turned thrive into simply ‘fuck’ or maybe it was the physical closeness. It didn’t matter. His wolf needed it, so he got it. Whenever he found a willing woman to have a good time, his human self gained a bigger foothold. A foothold that diminished each full moon, but until he had a better idea about finding balance, this was what worked.
He arrived at her table and was greeted by her smile, which seemed too sweet for their surroundings.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
“Depends. Are you about to make some lame comment about me being too pretty to be alone?”
“No,” he replied. “To start, I’m not looking for trouble with another guy if you’re taken. Second, that’s your out. If you don’t want me talking to you, you can say you’re with someone, and I’ll be gone.”
“I see.”
“And to be fair, ‘pretty’ is a bit too simple of a word to describe you.”
She glanced away for a moment, and her hands abandoned the stale peanuts. “In that case, I’m alone.”
He held out his hand. “Kalle.”
“Sky.” She shook his hand and her brow wrinkled as if he was doing something strange.
As far as he knew, shaking hands and introducing oneself was standard. It had worked a dozen times for him before, anyways. He leaned against her table. She didn’t have a drink, which struck him as odd. No drinks. No date.
“You look bored, Sky,” he said, committing her name to memory. “Would you like a beer? Or maybe one of those colorful dessert drinks?”
“I’m not in the mood to drink.”
“This seems the wrong place to be, then.”
She shrugged and looked around the room, gaze landing on the far end of the bar. “I was supposed to meet friends. They bailed, but I was already here. I was trying to make the best of the night, or at least stick around until I had a better idea of where to go.”
“Did you want to go somewhere else, then?”
“Oh… I wouldn’t know where else to go,” she said. “We can stay here. I’m pretty new in town. Guess I should get used to this.”
He tilted his head. “You’re new in town and your friends abandoned you? Where did you get these friends?”
Her mouth fell open momentarily before she laughed awkwardly. “It’s a long story. You know what? Maybe we should get out of here.” She slid from her
stool and was the same height standing as she had been sitting, which was not at all tall. “I need some fresh air.”
She barely waited for him to react before making her way to the door. Her head turned left and right as she walked as if she was looking for someone or something. Normally, Kalle would avoid a sketchy female, regardless of how attractive. Unfortunately, his rational side wasn’t in charge.
He was willing to be that she was married or dating or untouchable for some other reason, but he had to do what he had to do. It was either get laid and feed his inner beast or slowly slip further into an unbalanced feral state.
Just watching Sky’s lean hips sway had doused his brain in a thick fog. He wanted to touch her hair, which he imagined would be like silk floss between his fingers. Her large, deep brown eyes held a mysterious hard glint to them, and he wanted to see if it would last through a rough tumble.
She took a deep breath once they were outside and lifted her chin toward the line of trees that met the back of the parking lot.
“You want a moonlit stroll?” he asked.
She slid her hands into the back pockets of her tight black jeans and took a step away. Staring over her shoulder she said, “I think you know what I want, and we can’t handle it in there.”
She walked away, leaving him staring and drowning in beastly lust. Her point was true enough, but in his experience, most women preferred anything to sex in the woods. Cheap hotel room, sure. A car parked in a dark spot, maybe. But the outdoors? She knew exactly how to turn him on.
He caught up to her and placed his hands on her hips. His thumbs brushed under the hem of her shirt, catching the soft warmth of her skin. “Wait.”
“Why?”
He spun her to face him and reached down to cup her chin. She watched him as if in a trance and he dipped down to kiss her. Her lips parted hesitantly but he didn’t mind the nervous drafts that came from her. Like a woman afraid of her own wants—that was fine by him. He wasn’t here to question her decisions.
Hand tangling in her silky soft hair, he closed his eyes and embraced the heavy weight of desire. She was everything he needed tonight and judging by her pounding heart and the gentle sigh she released as he kissed her, she needed him too.
Her hand flattened against his chest and pushed at him. The action didn’t manage to move him an inch, but he got the point and gave her space. She wiped her thumb across her bottom lip and shivered.
“Chase me,” she said in a low breathy voice then sped into the night.
He gave her a moment, holding back the growl that vibrated in his throat and the tremor that heated his blood. How fitting that she would want to play this game. He excelled at this game.
The night cast shadows around him but he could see clearly and track Sky’s lazy dash through the trees with no effort. She danced around, glancing back at him as leaves crumpled beneath her boots. He followed in a bit of a stupor. He couldn’t get drunk off the human’s drinks, but his mind was spinning.
He blamed it on her and the scent of her anticipation colliding with his wolf’s desperation.
He caught up to her and grabbed her by the arm. “I’ve got you.”
Her eyes flickered beyond him for a moment and she grinned. “Or I’ve got you.”
The sheer cockiness of her voice did him in. He pressed her back to the nearest tree and captured her mouth with his. There was still a wall between them, keeping her from giving in completely. Apparently, her words were more confident than her body, but she wasn’t moving away this time.
He gripped her sides and trailed his hands up so that his thumbs traced the underneath of her perky breasts. They weren’t huge but they weren’t small. The perfect medium. A tiny squeak left her throat, riling him.
Impatient, one hand slid down between her thighs, rubbing her through the thick fabric of her jeans. The action released the slightest tease of her scent into the air, making his mouth water.
Leaves crunched behind him and he turned, not as quickly as he should have, but quick enough to notice a man aiming a gun at him. The shot fired, clipping Kalle’s arm, though it wasn’t a bullet that tagged his sleeve. He swatted at the bright tuft lodged in his leather bomber, confusion raining through his thoughts.
“Sky, run,” he said and hurled himself at the stranger. He assumed this was her lover or brother, someone aiming to keep her from living her life. Regardless, the guy was armed and dangerous.
They rolled on the ground, but Kalle held back his strength. Lupine versus human was a deadly match. He didn’t want to kill whoever this was.
A shadow fell over them and Kalle glanced up to see Sky with the gun. Aimed at Kalle.
He rolled away and this time when the man came after him, he caught him by the shirt and tossed him aside. He hit a tree and groaned but stayed down. Whatever was going on, Kalle was tired of playing. He stalked towards Sky, but she wasn’t afraid. Two shots hit his chest and seeing them made him falter.
Whatever drugs had been loaded into the darts kicked in fast. The realization that he’d been tricked barely blossomed in his thoughts before he crumpled to the ground.
TWO
“Fucking hell!”
The feminine voice and swear startled Kalle and he shook. His throat ached, parched and sore as if he’d drank a desert. The noise of angry footfalls echoed in his head. His eyes refused to open at first and he rubbed at them as the previous night’s events slowly came tumbling back to him. A woman—Sky. A man. Tranquilizers.
“Are you up?” the voice asked.
He wanted to stand but couldn’t. The ground was spinning below him, something he felt even though he could barely move. Questions were trapped within him, unable to escape his uncooperative mouth. He managed to lift his head and open his eyes. Blinking, the scene came to him slowly. Sky was glaring at him, and the forest was bright with light. He’d missed an entire night.
He rose to his feet in slow motion, even though his heart and mind raced. Whatever was going on, he needed to get away from her. His fingers pressed to his temples, trying to steady himself. Everything was foggy. Dizzying.
“What did you do to me?” he growled, each syllable scratching his throat.
“Wolfy cocktail. Xylazine, ketamine, and a wolfsbane chaser,” Sky replied. She tossed him a bottle of water, but he didn’t catch it. “Drink that. Or don’t. I don’t care, but it’ll be easier to move you if you’re not vomiting all over the place.”
He took a step back from her and looked around while the lethargy cleared from his limbs. He knew what wolfsbane was and did. The alarming part was that she knew and had figured to dose him with it. And the rest? Xyla-what? No clue. All he gathered was that she was a psychopath.
A psychopath that knew what he was. One who was still watching him, with a disturbing amount of calm in her expression. She dropped the corner of the green tarp she’d been using to drag him through the woods. One glance at the area around them and he could tell they were far from the bar and town.
Whoever she was, she was determined. Whatever she was up to… well, he wanted no part of it. If she knew he was lupine, she was trouble and he was in danger. Hell, the entire lupine community could be in danger if a crazy bitch with a tranq gun was running around. Patting himself down he realized his wallet was gone. Likewise, his leather jacket was missing. Whatever, she could keep both. He turned and dashed.
A sharp stabbing sensation ran through him, emulating from a collar around his neck that he hadn’t noticed before. The pain took him to his knees no more than thirty feet from where he started. He howled at the intense shock, which made it worse, sending him to the ground as his body spasmed. After a moment the agony began to retreat, and he held his breath and counted as he regained control of his senses. Once he could stand, he did so shakily. The crunch of feet behind him made him look over his shoulder.
“If you run, you’ll only hurt yourself,” Sky said. A smug smile graced her face. “And before you think of trying, get too close to me
and that’ll hurt too.”
He took in the distance between them. A few yards. Hardly a challenge. He growled. “I could close the gap between us and have your head before you could push a button to shock me.”
She held up her wrist and pointed to the large metal band wrapped around it. “No buttons. Proximity. But go ahead and try.
He studied her dark eyes, weighing the risk and trying to catch her bluff. But she seemed too confident to be lying.
“It’s a high risk for you to challenge me.”
“You’ll pass out and wet yourself before you get a pervy finger on me.”
“Pervy?” That riled him a ridiculous amount given everything else. “If you’re talking about last night, you came onto me.”
“Only to save another poor woman from being ravaged by you,” she said with disgust in her voice.
His jaw ticked as his teeth ground. “You’ve got some nerve, acting like I’m a sexual predator. You lured me out. Now you’ve got me collared. How can you possibly pretend I was the threat?”
“Because you’re a beast.”
She had it partially right, though the way she said it was an insult. “A beast you were ready to fuck.”
“I was acting.”
The look on her face and conviction in her voice was convincing, but she was only fooling herself. He could still remember the faint scent of her lust. “I’ve known a lot of liars in my life,” he said slowly. “The thing about it, once the ruse falls apart, it’s easy to look back and see the pieces that were red flags.”
“Yeah. We call it hindsight, captain obvious.”
He ignored that. “You only had eyes for me. Got me out of the bar so quick it made my head spin. Had me chase you into the woods… those are obvious. I see that now.” His gaze trailed purposefully over her body. “But that kiss? Your pounding heart, your scent? The way your body—”
Pain railed through him and he leaned against the nearest tree for support until the shock passed. Glancing up at her vicious smirk boiled his blood. Her finger slid along the bracelet.