Circle of Desire

by Keri Arthur

  She found a signpost and leaned back against it, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath in the hope it would stop the spinning. It didn’t seem to help.

  But it didn’t matter. Help was on the way. She reached into her pocket and dragged out the chocolate bar. Tearing it open with her teeth, she began to munch on it as she waited for Ethan to arrive.

  ETHAN SLOWED AS HE NEARED THE CREST OF THE ROAD, HIS breath ragged gasps that tore at his lungs. The smell of death and blood tainted the night air, and for the briefest of moments, he was afraid to go on. Afraid of what he might find.

  An odd reaction, given all he’d seen over his years as a cop.

  He flexed his fingers and walked on slowly. The metallic tang of blood got sharper and mingled with the warm scent of summer he’d come to associate with Kat. He glanced to his right. There in the shadows, leaning against a signpost and surrounded by discarded pieces of chocolate wrapper, sat Kat.

  Relief surged through him, but it just as quickly disappeared. Blood soaked her left hand and dripped steadily into a small puddle near her fingers. He knelt next to her, noting there was a stake of some sort sticking out of her arm. If it hadn’t been for the smell of death, it was possible to think she’d had an accident, maybe fallen and stabbed herself with a tree branch. But that smell was an echo of the driver who’d rammed them, and he didn’t think it was a coincidence.

  “Kat?” He touched her face. She was trembling and, though her skin was cold, sweating profusely.

  She looked at him. The pain in her green eyes seemed to echo right through him.

  “You need to take out the stake.”

  “You need to get to a hospital.” He reached for his phone, but she stopped him. The strength of her hold was surprising, given that she looked like hell.

  “Just take the stake out, then wrap the arm and take me back to Gran. It’s really not as bad as it looks.”

  “I’ve been a cop long enough to know a bad wound when I see one, and this—”

  “Is not what you think. Just take the goddamn stake out and stop arguing.”

  “If that stake has hit an artery—”

  “Look, will you just pretend I know what I’m talking about for five minutes and take the stake out?”

  Her voice rose and cracked, and the desperation and pain in her eyes grew. He swore under his breath but turned his attention to her wound. The stake appeared to have pierced the fleshy part of her upper arm and had gone right through. The section visible near her breast was barbed.

  “I’m going to have to thrust it right through,” he said. “Otherwise the barbs are going to take half your arm as they come out.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes. “Just do it.”

  “It’s going to hurt.”

  “Imagine that,” she muttered.

  If she could manage to be sarcastic, she obviously wasn’t as bad as she looked. He took off his coat and ripped off a shirtsleeve to use as a tourniquet. Then he lifted her arm and carefully gripped the end of the stake. “Ready?”

  She bit her lip and nodded. Sweat dribbled down her cheeks and fear touched her eyes.

  “One. Two. Three.” He ripped the wood from her skin, and she screamed—a sound of pain that tore right through his soul. Blood poured from the wound, but it didn’t pulse, indicating that at least he hadn’t ruptured an artery. He grabbed the sleeve and wrapped it tightly around her arm. Somehow, she stayed conscious through the whole thing, though her breath was shallow gasps and her skin was pasty.

  “Back to Gran,” she said between clenched teeth.

  “This needs stitching at least, and—”

  “Trust me. Just this once,” she muttered and fell sideways.

  He caught her before she could whack her head on the ground, gently lowering her the last few inches. He took a deep breath, then got out his phone and, against his better judgment, dialed Gwen.

  “What’s happened?” she asked immediately.

  “Kat’s been injured. She’s had some sort of stake thrust through her arm and—”

  The old bird’s swearing cut him off. He raised his eyebrows and wondered if she’d been in the navy. She was using words that would make old sea dogs proud.

  “Where are you?” she asked eventually.

  He glanced at the signpost and gave her directions. “But you’ll have to catch a cab, because the keys to the rental car are in my pocket.”

  “I have a rental, remember, though in this particular case, the driver can stay in his bed,” she said. “Be there in five.”

  She hung up. He checked the tourniquet on Kat’s arm, and then her pulse. It was a little thready but reasonably strong. He rose and walked a little farther up the road. The source of the smell was easy enough to find. There were three bodies that he could see, and at least one other farther up the road he could smell. Somehow, she’d beaten four of them.

  Shaking his head in amazement, he squatted beside the first two. She’d called them zombies, the walking dead, and that was exactly what they looked and smelled like. Bodies that had been dead for some time. As he watched, the skin on their faces seemed to be sucked closer to the bone, giving them a gaunt, skeletal appearance. An advanced rate of decomposition is what she’d said they’d go through. It looked like she wasn’t kidding.

  Lights swept across the trees, approaching fast. He rose and walked back to Kat. The car skidded to a halt and Gwen climbed out.

  “Did you take the stake from her arm?”

  He nodded. “But she’s bleeding pretty heavily—”

  “That doesn’t matter.” Gwen lowered herself beside Kat and checked her pulse, then her arm. “Good job, lad. Pick her up, and we’ll get her back to the cabin and tend that arm.”

  “But shouldn’t we—”

  “No. Believe me, we know what we’re doing.”

  He bit down on his annoyance, but knew he had to trust that both Kat and her grandmother did know what they were talking about. If only because they might be his only chance of getting Janie back safely.

  As Gwen turned the rental around and sped back to the cabin, he cradled Kat’s head on his lap. She looked absurdly young, innocent almost—which she very obviously wasn’t. He brushed the dark strands of hair from her eyes and wondered why someone like her was still single. Granted, she had an attitude she wasn’t afraid to use, but she was a stunning-looking woman. A good catch, by anyone’s standards.

  Except his, because he didn’t have standards. And had no intention of ever being caught.

  When they got back to the cabins, he carried her inside. Gwen pushed him gently toward the second cabin. “You strip her and put her into bed, and I’ll go fetch my medicines.”

  “I don’t think she’d appreciate—”

  “Don’t go getting shy on me, Ethan. You’ve seen all there is to see anyway, haven’t you?”

  He stared at her, at a loss for words. He’d never met anyone as forthright and open about sex as these two seemed to be. Maybe he just had to get to the big cities more often. “This is different than sex.” It was more personal.

  “Rubbish. And watch that arm doesn’t bleed all over the sheets.”

  She walked away, leaving him with no option but to obey. He carried Kat into the other cabin, stripped back the comforter, and laid her down. He grabbed a couple of towels from the bathroom, placing them under her arm before he began removing the tourniquet. Amazingly enough, the wound didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore. He stripped off her clothes, trying to ignore her warm scent, trying to ignore his own reaction to the sight of her naked body.

  Gwen came in and sat down on the bed. “Here,” she said, thrusting a bowl of what looked like dried herbs at him. “Hold this.”

  He did as ordered, watching as she washed down the wound with a soft wet cloth. When the wound was clean, she grabbed the bowl and began packing the herbs in it. He couldn’t ever remember seeing this step in any of the first-aid manuals he’d read over the years.

  “What is that you
’re using?”

  “My magic mix. Kat heals fast naturally, but this will ensure no infection gets into the wound over the next couple of hours.”

  “Hours? It’s going to take a week, if not more, to heal a wound like that.”

  Gwen smiled. “By the morning this will be nothing more than an annoyance. Hand me that bandage, will you?”

  Werewolves could heal that fast, but he’d never known a human to do so. Maybe it was simply a matter of magic—something he would never have even half believed before meeting these two.

  Still, time would tell which of them was right. He grabbed the white roll off the side table and handed it to her. She quickly bandaged the wound, her movements deft and fast despite her gnarled hands.

  “There,” she said, rising a little stiffly. “That should do. Make sure she takes it easy for the next couple of hours, but after that, you both should be all right.”

  He chose to ignore the twinkle in her eye. “Are you going to be okay alone in the other cabin?”

  “Safer than you are, Detective.”

  “Because of the stones?”

  She nodded. “To satisfy your curiosity, when the stones are placed in certain sequences they can provide protection against either magic or evil.”

  “Oh.”

  She patted his arm. “Don’t worry, my boy. By the time this week is over, you’re going to believe in a whole range of things you never have before.”

  He didn’t trust the sparkle in her eyes. He watched her leave, then grabbed the comforter and drew it over Kat. She stirred, murmuring something he couldn’t quite catch. He let his fingers brush her cheeks, then ran them down to the lips he wanted to kiss and keep on kissing.

  He snatched his fingers away and walked into the next room. It was going to be another long night without sleep.

  KAT STIRRED. THE NIGHT WAS STILL, AND THE ACHE IN HER arm was little more than a twinge—one that shouldn’t have been strong enough to wake her. She didn’t move, just opened her eyes. She was in the cabin. In bed. Alone—although that in itself didn’t surprise her.

  What did surprise her were the condoms scattered on the bedside table. Ethan had obviously had intentions of doing something during the night.

  She could hear no sound, and yet awareness stirred. But not an awareness of evil. It was an awareness of longing. Need.

  She reached for one of the foil packets, then looked around. Ethan stood near the window, his arms crossed as he leaned against the frame and stared out. He wore black silk boxers but little else, and his hair looked rumpled, as if he’d spent the last few hours tossing and turning rather than sleeping. But if the pristine sheets on the other side of the bed were any indication, he certainly hadn’t tossed and turned with her.

  She took a moment to simply enjoy the sight of all that firm, hard flesh, then threw off the comforter and padded across the room to him. He didn’t move, didn’t say anything, but his shoulders tensed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Everything.”

  She touched his shoulder, and he flinched. She ignored it and ran her fingers lightly down his spine. “Tell me.”

  He took a shuddering breath. “My niece is out there. Maybe alive. Maybe dead. And all I can think about is how badly I need to sate my lust.”

  “You can’t do anything more about your niece than what you’re doing.”

  She slipped her hand around his waist and took a step closer, pressing her breasts against his tense back. His skin quivered, as if touched by fire. And that was what raged through his system right now. A cold, moon-spun fire that needed to be quenched before things got out of control. She knew enough about werewolves to know she didn’t want to face the consequences of that.

  “That doesn’t stop the feeling that I should be doing something,” he replied. “That I should be looking, or going through the files again, or going over her room—”

  “If you didn’t find any clues the first few times, what makes you think you’d find them now?” She slipped her hand down the flat of his stomach and under the waist of his boxers.

  He sucked in air. “Hope. Desperation.”

  She ran her fingers down the length of him and pressed feather-light kisses across his back. Still he didn’t move, though his whole body shook with the effort of control.

  “Don’t,” he said softly.

  But she continued to caress him. He needed the pressure released, and she was more than willing. While she had no doubt this first time would be hard and fast—more so than at the beach—they still had hours left until daylight. There would be time enough for her.

  “Kat, stop,” he all but groaned.

  “Why?” She ran her tongue across his neck and shoulders, tasting him as he’d tasted her earlier.

  “Because you’re injured. And because my need is so great I might just hurt you.”

  “Your need is a bigger danger than my wound.”

  She touched his face, forcing him to look at her. His eyes were almost otherworldly. The moon fever truly had him in its grip, and once he was released there would be no going back until the fever was sated. It was a wonder he’d had enough control to resist her this long.

  She kissed him gently, then said against his lips, “Take me, werewolf. Take me now.”

  He groaned and grabbed her, pulling her so close his heat nearly melted her skin. His mouth claimed hers with such ferocity that her head swam. He forced her back, not to the bed but to the rug in front of the fireplace, and lay down beside her. He kissed her lips, her throat, her shoulders as his hands set her alight with an urgency as great as his own. She was more than ready when he thrust inside her, and she groaned at the sheer pleasure of it. His powerful strokes drove deep, promising satisfaction, but they were too fast, too soon. He came with a roar that flushed heat through her body and left her trembling with unfulfilled desire.

  When his shuddering stopped he kissed her again, gentler this time but no less urgently. The fever still raged in his eyes, and she knew that at this moment she was just a body on which he sated his needs. He didn’t actually see her. Yet.

  But this wasn’t about her. For the moment, it was about him.

  He continued to kiss her, and after a while he grew hard again. He replaced the condom, then slipped inside of her, stroking slow and deep, until it felt as if there wasn’t an inch he hadn’t delved. Pleasure rippled across her skin, became a pulsing need that grew more urgent as his stroking quickened. He kissed her neck, burned a trail with his tongue down to her breasts, then took one nipple in his mouth and sucked hard. She groaned, arching against him, wanting it faster, harder. He complied. When he came a second time she went with him, her whole body shaking with the force of it.

  But the moon fever wasn’t finished yet.

  He pulled her to her feet, picked her up, and carried her to the bed, where he continued to make love to her until the flush of dawn touched the skies and the pile of condoms was severely depleted. But the fever finally left his eyes, and the last time they made love it was her he saw. Her he made love to. Then he left her and went to sleep out on the sofa.

  KAT PULLED ON HER SWEATER AS SHE WALKED THROUGH the living room. Ethan still slept on the sofa, the blanket tangled around his hips, revealing the lean planes of the body she now knew so well. She let her gaze linger on him for a moment, her pulse stirring as she remembered the feel of his skin against hers, the heat of his touch—the way he’d claimed her, at first with such ferocity, then later with such tenderness and passion. She swallowed to ease the sudden dryness in her throat and walked on.

  It was barely eight and, after his efforts last night, she really didn’t expect him to surface for another couple of hours. Which was a good thing, because she wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to say to the man who could create such magic with his touch and yet refused to allow the slightest bit of intimacy afterward.

  Gwen was in the process of carrying a large tray of food over to the table when Kat entered the
second cabin. She took the tray from her grandmother’s hands and placed it on the table, then walked over to the small coffeemaker and poured them both a cup of coffee.

  “You feeding an army?” She sat down and surveyed the platters of bacon, eggs, Danishes, and fruit.

  Gwen’s eyes twinkled. “Thought you two might need some sustenance after last night.”

  Kat grinned despite the slight flush of heat to her cheeks. Last night the walls could have been thinner than air, and she wouldn’t have cared. “The man does have stamina, I’ll give him that.”

  “He’s a werewolf and the moon is rising. That’s a given.” Gwen plucked a Danish from the plate and began eating it. “As long as you were careful, that’s all that matters.”

  Kat gave her a long look. “We’re not sex-mad teenagers. Both of us are able to contain our hormones long enough to take care of that.”

  “Maybe, but listen to an old woman who knows what she’s talking about and make sure you keep your wits about you, because as the moon gets closer, he won’t.”

  She stared at her grandmother for several seconds. She’d lived with this woman all her life, and still there seemed something new to discover almost every week.

  “You had a werewolf lover?”

  “Oh, yes.” Gwen’s reply was more a sigh. “And a most enjoyable six months it was, too. They’re very athletic lovers.”

  She could vouch for the stamina, but the athletic part was still to be discovered. But then, Gran had always been more adventurous than she was, and even now thought nothing of making love someplace horribly awkward or public. “Are they all … wary of intimacy, or is it just mine?”

  Gwen frowned. “Werewolves can be strange beasties. Did you know that they mate for life?”

  Kat blinked. “How can that be possible if they screw themselves silly every full moon and aren’t particularly fussy about with whom?”

  “That’s sex. Most men separate sex from love, but in a werewolf’s case, that line is more defined. But when he—or she, for that matter—gives his heart, it’s given forever.”