Dog’s breath. He couldn’t even muster the energy to be insulted that she’d thought he was a dog. One of those human lick-heels.
He gritted his teeth and pushed to his feet, agony lancing through his side and stomach, fire racing along his ribs. His shoulder throbbed. And then— realization hit him.
“I didn’t forget to tell you. It’s forbidden.”
Something warm settled in his chest. He only just managed to keep from grinning. “But now that you know— you’re mine.”
A feeling of rightness swept through him, almost enough to override the pain. No one would challenge his claim. His scent still clung to Lyla— faint, but there.
“Um. No. Sorry, sweet cheeks, it doesn’t work that way.”
Aaron’s mouth firmed into a hard line. “It does work that way, Lyla. It’s the Law.”
Lyla shot him an icy smile. “Well, I’ve always wanted to be an outlaw. Let me see if I can find my six-shooter and some silver bullets.”
“Silver bullets aren’t going to help you, sweetheart. Not unless you can find a witch to spell them for you.”
Lyla froze in the act of opening her mouth, but Aaron ignored her. “Lyla, we can argue about this later? Right now I need to use your phone.”
He moved carefully through the kitchen, feeling as weak as a day-old lamb. On shaky legs, he made it to the small table beside the stairs that held her phone. Leaning against the wall, he punched in Cray’s number.
Shit, that was a close call. He really hadn’t expected to wake up. Ever.
His energy stores were badly depleted. He needed rest. And food. And he needed to get Lyla to safety. Because one thing he knew for sure— Marten’s goons would be back.
“Hello?” Cray’s voice was cautious.
“It’s me.”
“Where the fuck have you been?” Cray’s words exploded through the receiver. “Twenty minute check-ins—remember—dog-brain?”
Aaron pulled the phone away from his ear until he was sure Cray was finished yelling. He leaned his forehead against the cool plaster of the wall.
“Sorry, Cray.” He exhaled through his nose and got it out. “I ran into a little trouble. Three of Marten’s henchmen, intent on bringing Lyla back to meet him. Forcibly.”
He could hear Lyla moving to stand in the doorway to the living room behind him, but he didn’t have the energy to turn around. “One of them rabbited, and the other two went after him.” He sucked in a huge breath and let it out.
“They left me for dead. I probably would be—” He pushed himself off the wall, turning to meet Lyla’s eyes. “If Lyla hadn’t found me.” He put the phone back to his mouth and finished. “She thought I was a dog.”
There was a short pause, followed by explosive cursing. “You have got to be shitting me! Lucas is going to lose his mind—”
“Lucas is going to accept my claim. So are you.”
The silence lasted only a moment.
“Right. Okay.” Cray breathed out heavily into the phone. “Lyla. I take it that’s the woman I smelled on you yesterday?”
“That’s right.”
Cray made a derisive sound. “Right. I should have known that meant trouble. Be careful, Aaron. There’s something about her scent— I’m mated, and even for me… it's oddly compelling. And… there’s something… off… about it.”
Aaron leaned back against the wall, watching Lyla as she hovered uncertainly in the doorway. Oddly compelling. That was a good way to describe it. “Just so long as we understand each other.”
“We do.”
“I’ll be back at the house in half an hour. Stay alert. Marten’s flunkies are still out there.”
“Will do. Elizabeth!”
Aaron could hear Cray’s bellow, even though he was no longer speaking into the phone.
“I want you inside this house—” Cray cut the connection.
Aaron knew he should call Lucas. Report. But he didn’t have the strength right now. And he wanted to be back at the house, where he could do a visual on Mari and assure his Alpha she was fine, before he broke the news.
Chapter 7
Aaron levered himself off the wall, moving through Lyla’s living room like he was on a mission.
“You got anything to eat around here?”
Lyla regarded the man stalking towards her with disbelief. Even battered and bruised, and naked—maybe especially naked—he made an imposing figure. He was just so… large.
“That’s it?” She stepped back involuntarily as he brushed by her in the doorway. Her eyes automatically tracked his very attractive butt as he headed into the kitchen. “It turns out you’re a werewolf—” He rounded on her so fast she stopped in her tracks.
“I am not a werewolf.”
“Aaron. You are. Unless you’re a— were-dog?”
Aaron made a pained face and ran a shaking hand through his hair. “Look. I’ve lost a lot of blood here, and I could really use something to eat. Can we argue about this later?”
He sank into a chair and leaned his elbows on her kitchen table. For the first time she noticed how drawn his face was, and the tight lines around his eyes and mouth. Damn. Her anger slipped a notch. In her defense, there had been a whole lot of the rest of him distracting her attention. Now she had to admit he really did look exhausted. He propped his chin in one hand and closed his eyes.
Muttering under her breath—about men in general, and the ones that turned into wolves, or dogs—in particular, Lyla marched over to her refrigerator. “I could make you some eggs, I guess. No bacon, sorry—”
“There’s no time for that. What do you have that doesn’t need cooking?”
“Um… yogurt?”
“Yogurt?” The look on his face was hard to describe. “Don’t you have any leftovers? Steak? Or maybe some cold cuts?”
“Not really. I mostly eat salad. Tuna. Stuff like that.” She rummaged through the fridge and then snapped her fingers. “I know. I have some Lean Cuisine in the freezer.” She pulled it open. “Chicken Parmesan okay?”
Aaron crossed his arms over the table. “Fine.” He leaned forward and rested his head on his arms. “I’ll just… rest… a minute. While you… get it ready.”
Lyla’s throat constricted. Her heart squeezed. She felt woefully inadequate. She just was not prepared to refuel an injured werewolf.
I should not be feeling like this! I am the injured party here. She jabbed the microwave button savagely. Her gaze rested on the figure lying folded over her kitchen table. Well, maybe not. She had a bad feeling he’d gotten that way defending her. Hadn’t he said something about goons wanting to drag her off to meet someone named Marten?
She leaned back against the counter, crossing her arms. “So. Who is this Marten fellow?”
Aaron stirred and pushed himself up off the table. “Marten is the Alpha of a rival pack. Apparently, he’s having a little trouble finding a mate. He sent three of his henchmen here to collect you for that honor.” Lyla felt a thrill of horror run down her spine. Three?
“Any reason he would do that, Lyla? It’s a little unusual for them to hunt down random humans like this.”
The microwave dinged. Lyla jumped. She felt sick. Several things that had never made sense before clicked into place. No. It couldn’t be—
She turned and pulled out the chicken, using that as an excuse to delay her answer.
“I have no idea,” she said as she placed the food on the table in front of Aaron. But she had a creeping feeling that maybe she did.
A dozen different incidents from her childhood flashed through her mind. Her cousin Jenna’s taunting words when she first came to live with Aunt Zoe after the accident. “You think you’re so special—but you’re not.” She’d put that down to simple jealousy. Jenna didn’t like sharing her mother’s attention. Aunt Zoe had spent a lot of time with Lyla those first few years after her mother’s death, so her younger cousin’s attitude was understandable.
“You’re no Daughter of the Stars.
You can’t even do a simple binding spell.” Since Lyla had never really wanted to bind anything to her will, she’d ignored that. Before her mother died, she’d taught Lyla that real witches didn’t get involved with spells like that. Lyla had just sort of gone through the motions to get her aunt off her back. Looking back now though—
Aunt Zoe’s insistence that Lyla join her coven started to make an awful kind of sense. The tiny hairs on the back of Lyla’s neck prickled. Goose bumps raced down her arms. At the time, she’d thought Aunt Zoe was just a little out there. That’s how her mother had always put it. “You know how she is, Peter,” she’d say to Lyla’s father, rolling her eyes. “You can’t take her seriously.”
But nothing about her aunt’s coven had felt right, and Lyla had been careful not to apply herself. She’d only been twelve when the accident had taken her parents, but even then, she’d known better than to get involved in that stuff. She remembered the profound sense of relief she’d felt when Aunt Zoe finally gave up in disgust.
Now Jenna’s jealousy and Aunt Zoe’s obsession with that ancient prophecy took on a whole new meaning, rearranging themselves in such a way that Lyla felt a sinking feeling of dread. If the prophecy had something to do with her—
Jenna’s words came back to haunt her. “I feel sorry for you.” She could still see Jenna’s insufferable shrug and that poisonous smile. “Why anyone would want to mate the sun and the moon, I can’t imagine.” But that was Jenna, in a nutshell. She’d ignored it as much as possible. And it had stopped the moment her aunt had gotten wind of it.
Now those remembered words sent a chill through her. Because maybe Jenna hadn’t been saying the sun and the moon. Maybe what she’d meant was “mate the Son of the Moon.”
“Lyla, I need to get my phone and we need to get out of here.” Lyla started, glancing up at Aaron. The Lean Cuisine was history. Son of the Moon. Her eyes widened. Could that possibly mean—
“Lyla. Babe. Go pack a bag. They’ll be back, and I’m in no shape to deal with them right now. We need to be gone before that happens.”
That snapped her out of it. She felt cold all over. “They’ll be back?”
Aaron met her eyes. “I’m sure of it.”
“I’ll be right back.”
She ran upstairs, grabbed her toiletries, and threw some clothes in a bag. She stripped off the sweats she’d been wearing and pulled on black jeans. She grabbed a thin cotton sweater and pulled it over her head. She needed comfortable clothes, but they didn’t have to be ugly. She shoved her feet into short black boots and charged back down so fast, this time she almost didn’t catch herself at the bottom.
“Okay. I’m ready.”
She stood, breathless, at the bottom of the stairs facing the kitchen. Aaron stood framed in the doorway, naked. Half-healed gashes and dried blood still marred his pale skin. Lyla squinted. Even so, the man really did have the most remarkable body, and his color looked better—
“You wouldn’t have anything I could wear, would you?”
“Oh. Right.” She whirled and charged back up the stairs. What could she give him that would have a chance at fitting? She ended up with a pair of stretch gray exercise shorts and an extra-large Yankees tee that she sometimes used to sleep in.
“Yankees?”
That was all he said when she handed the clothes over. What was wrong with the Yankees? Not that she was a huge baseball fan, but the Yankees were good. Even she knew that.
He grunted as he pulled the shirt over his head. Oh— she should have thought of that. The movement must have pulled at his injuries. She had to look away when he gritted his teeth and pulled on the shorts. It was a tight fit. Good thing the shirt was long, because otherwise—
“Let’s go.” Aaron strode toward the back door. He opened it and peered outside, sniffing the air. “Give me your keys.”
She didn’t have the heart to argue. She could let him drive. This once.
They were in the car for a full five minutes before Lyla thought to ask where they were going. She had been so sure the ax-buying lunatics would be waiting to jump them the moment they stepped out the door.
That had to be the three who had attacked Aaron, right? No wonder why they’d seemed so menacing. Werewolves. In her shop.
It took her a while to calm down enough to think. Aaron had made one stop at the end of the next street over and disappeared into the woods to retrieve his phone. She’d done her best to convince him to just leave it, since—yeah, those ax-wielding maniacs were still out there—but no. He just ignored her and got out of the car. Fortunately, he’d returned before she had a chance to totally lose it.
Other than that, they’d rode in silence. Her thoughts kept going around in circles as she wrestled with the idea that the weird customers from yesterday might really be— werewolves? Werewolves who were trying to kidnap her and take her to some alpha named Marten who wanted to— mate her?
She tried to remember every last scrap of what she knew about the prophecy, but she hadn’t paid that much attention. She’d thought it was just one of Aunt Zoe’s eccentricities. She glanced at Aaron’s grim-faced profile. Apparently, Aunt Zoe hadn’t been quite as out there as she’d thought.
She needed to get her hands on that prophecy. But how? What did it mean— mate the son of the moon? She gazed over at Aaron. Would any son do? She cleared her throat.
“Okay, Aaron. Talk. What’s all this about Marten? How did you end up in my backyard covered in blood? And where-the-hell are we going?” Her voice was pretty shrill by the end of that, but she couldn’t help it. Her whole world was slipping out of control here.
Aaron flicked a glance at her, slipped a large hand over her knee, and squeezed. She let out a breath and felt her shoulders begin to unknot. Just that small gesture was unaccountably soothing.
“We’re going home. To the pack house. Marten is the jackass who took over my former pack. It was when I overheard his goons planning to grab you—one of them carrying an ax—and objected, that I ended up like you found me.” Aaron shot her a hard look.
“Oh.” She swallowed. Cleared her throat. “The ax?”
He shot her another glance. Sighed. “Yeah. Got me a couple of times.”
“Oh, God. I’m so sorry.” Guilt swamped her. “Thanks for… um… objecting.”
“Thanks for dragging me out of there and getting the bleeding stopped. I could tell by the bandages, that’s what you did.” He squeezed her knee again and gave her a grim smile. “I doubt I would have made it without that.”
She swallowed. “Glad I could… help.” She trailed off miserably. She’d told him she never wanted to see him again, and he’d defended her against an ax. A big ax. That she’d sold the guy. And now he was taking her—a witch—to his pack house? This was so not good. Oh, Lyla, how do you get into these things?
He slowed her car to turn onto Teboville Road, checking for oncoming cars. She used the opportunity to study his profile. He still looked pale, but he seemed a little steadier. She squeezed his hand where it rested on her knee.
“I can’t believe this is even happening.” Her hand flicked up. “I mean— werewolves?”
“We are not werewolves.”
“What then— were-dogs?”
Aaron winced. “Not were-dogs. Not werewolves either. We are People of the Moon.”
“That’s what I said—werewolves—people of the moon—” She waved her hand in a ‘same thing’ gesture.
Aaron narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, Lyla?”
Lyla’s head shot up. He tried not to make too much of it, but she smelled startled. Nervous. And he didn’t think it was about werewolves. Come to think of it, she’d been entirely too calm about this whole thing. He’d been wondering when she’d get around to freaking out. Then again, Elizabeth never freaked out—
“Moon. Werewolves.” She shrugged, her wide eyes blinking innocently. “Right?”
“Moon, yes. Werewolves—” He shot her a glance. “No.”
> “But you turn into a…”
“Wolf. Yes. Not a werewolf. A wolf.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes, Lyla. There’s a big difference.” Aaron sucked in his breath and clamped his teeth shut. He was skating pretty close to the edge here. She wasn’t Pack yet. Even if she was, Aaron wasn’t ready to share that particular bit of knowledge with her. There were more important things to discuss.
“Lyla— those men. They will be back.” Aaron couldn’t help making a face. “I know Marten. He’s not the type to give up until he gets what he wants.” He glanced over at Lyla, but she was looking out the window.
“I take it he’s not a nice guy?”
“He’s ruthless, and cruel, and vicious. Not someone you want to meet. Ever.”
She turned to him, and he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye.
“What do I do?” Her eyes were swimming with tears. “If you can’t fight them off, I don’t stand a chance.”
He just managed to suppress a wince at her words. What kind of loser couldn’t defend—
“I’ll have to move back with my family.”
That jolted him.
“With my aunt,” she continued softly. She didn’t sound happy. He was about to make it worse.
“Unfortunately, Lyla, that won’t work. They found you here. They’ll just track you. They’ll definitely be able to find you if you go to your family. It’s only a matter of time. There’s really only one sure way to stop them.”
Aaron took a deep breath and just said it. “He’s looking for a mate, Lyla. And he’s hit on you for some reason.” They came to a stop sign and Aaron stopped. There wasn’t a car in sight. He met her gaze and held it. “As long as you’re unmated, you’re vulnerable.”
“Unmated? So, you’re telling me I have to get— married?”
“Um. No. I don’t think that would work. I think you’d need the whole Moonrise Ceremony.”
“Moonrise Ceremony?” Her voice was a hesitant whisper.
Aaron could feel a blush creeping up his neck. “You need to take a mate. One of the People.” He regarded her steadily. “Our kind mate for life. Once you do that—Marten can’t touch you.”
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