The bronze figure’s eyes changed to a deep gray and he fell, shifting into a wolf. Frozen in place, he stared at me before dropping his head in submission. Something changed between us; there wasn’t fear, or darkness, but a sameness. A synergetic existence that felt almost comfortable. I hesitated before I reached out to touch his bowed head.
Josh’s voice rang through the darkness, and strong magic beat against me like a windstorm. Josh’s voice came closer. More voices came out of the abyss. The blasting wind stopped. I heard Sebastian telling me to come back. I focused on the wolf, and just as I leaned in to touch him, I was jerked back violently.
The spell ended. Josh was pressed against the wall, the room was a mess, and Sebastian was bent over on the floor.
I was in the library on my back. I covered my eyes at the bright light, opening them enough to see Sebastian’s and Josh’s hazy figures over me.
“You’re hurt,” Josh said, his eyes just as dark as the place he’d pulled me from. The cleansing breaths he took weren’t enough. Magic reverberated and hummed off him. He took several steps from me and then rested back against a bookcase.
After a few minutes, he had come to a reasonable calm, and tepid blue eyes were staring back at me. “What the hell were you doing, Sky? You were pulling magic from everywhere. We weren’t connected, so I don’t know how you did it.”
My heart was still pounding so hard I couldn’t focus on Sebastian talking to me. For a few moments, I forced myself to drown it all out, reducing it to just white noise as I tried to make sense of it all. No matter how I framed and dissected the events, I had no clue what had happened.
“Did it work?” I asked, focusing on Sebastian once he took up a position in front of me.
He lifted his shirt to display the visible mark and frowned, his tone heavy with disappointment. “Nope. Still there.”
The others came in and displayed theirs as well.
I didn’t have to turn, I sensed his presence. “Ethan, what about you?” I asked, spinning on my butt to look at him.
“Sky, you’re bleeding.”
My body had become numb as it thrummed with magic. I was too intent on trying to bring it to a calm to focus on anything else. I looked down, where the claws had raked over my stomach. Blood soaked my shirt.
I repeated my question, my tone more forceful.
He didn’t lift his shirt to check. “It’s gone.” His voice had fallen to a light whisper for my ears only, but in a room of were-animals that wasn’t possible. The only person who might have missed it was Josh, but his look, forged from suspicion, doubt, and mistrust, suggested otherwise.
He held my gaze in silence, and then the questions came, and I didn’t know which one to ask to get the answers I wanted. I decided to just ask whichever one came to mind when Dr. Jeremy rushed in, panicked. I knew he’d seen worse, but you wouldn’t have known it by the way his eyes widened and he rushed me to the clinic.
“Am I going to make it? Do I need to say good-bye to my loved ones?” I teased.
He grumbled, “Not if you keep giving me lip.” Then he frowned. “You’ve been hanging around Winter too much—you sound just like her.”
“Probably because we’ve noticed you have a flair for overreaction.”
“Well, excuse me, back in my day a gut wound was kind of a big deal. But I’m old-school.” He directed me to an exam table. I walked, only aware of the wound because of my shirt, which was sodden.
Once he had me on the table, my skin exposed, I realized that maybe he wasn’t overreacting. The cuts were deeper than I’d thought, but minutes later they started to heal, faster than my usual healing process, and within minutes, it was as though they were never there.
“I don’t say this often—I’ve never seen anything like that. Skylar, you, my dear, are quite the anomaly.”
“That she is,” Cole said from the doorway. Before he could walk in, Ethan pushed past him, looking concerned. When he looked at my stomach, his brow furrowed.
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah, I’m right there with you,” Dr. Jeremy admitted. But it didn’t stop him from quickly going into mother hen mode and directing Kelly to help him.
Kelly was tasked with assessing me, and as she took my vitals in the same automated way she had before, I studied her as much as she studied me. A sweet, inviting smile was her mask and she wore it with ease, but I knew I wasn’t the only one concerned by the keen way Dr. Jeremy watched her from across the room. Was she really adapting to her new life, or was she putting on a very believable act?
“How is she?” Cole asked. Ethan shot him a cold, sharp look but didn’t respond. When he stepped in, the gray pulsed like a heartbeat along his pupils, and his hands clenched tight enough to cause the muscles of his forearms to bulge.
Cole was equally reactive, taking a defensive stance. When their eyes locked on each other, Kelly slipped in between them. She easily eased into a docile role that forced them into the need to protect her from harm and made them unlikely to attack each other with her in the middle. Even though she was a were-animal, there was something so delectably human about her, and I wondered how long it would take before she shed it, if in fact she ever did. It was intertwined into her very existence, from her unassuming, wise walnut-colored eyes, to her delicate features, even to the thick coiled hair that lent her a more youthful appearance.
It made her tenacity and her smart-mouth behavior easily forgotten. Lacking in strength, she resorted to another way of handling situations, and it worked on most people—with the exception of Sebastian. He saw past the act of innocence when she stepped over the line that she toed very closely. When she crossed it, she quickly slipped into her submissive mode, making an attack against her undesirable—preying on the innocent, cowardly.
“She’s doing fine, but we really need to check her out more. When magic is involved, you can never be too sure.” It was a true statement. “I’m not sure if we are going to keep her. Cole, do you mind stepping out and coming back?” When he started to look in my direction, she spoke again, directing his attention back to her. “You can do something to help me help her. Why don’t you tell me everything that happened?”
She guided him out of the room, and reluctantly he let her. Taking a page from Kelly’s playbook, Dr. Jeremy intervened, asking Ethan questions about the removal of his mark, but he didn’t offer anything of use, simply that he’d felt the magic, and once the crashing and the magic had stopped, he’d looked and the mark was gone. I had a feeling he knew before he’d looked and was connected to the magic more than he was admitting.
I didn’t make an effort to hide what I was thinking, and I was sure it was displayed heavily on my face. When he turned from Dr. Jeremy to approach me, if he’d mistaken the look for anything else, there wasn’t going to be any mistaking my words. “There is a reason that you were the only one who was fixed—are you going to tell me?”
He started to open his mouth, and I stopped him, raising my hand and giving him a quelling look. “I don’t want an excuse, or a reality in which you want me to believe. I want the truth, Ethan. Nothing else.”
As he focused on the wall for several moments in consideration, his tension and indecisiveness were evident.
“Ethan, I can’t deal with the secrets. It’s not fair to me . . . and if there is still an us, I can’t continue without you being honest and open.”
He exhaled a long breath. “I know,” he said heavily. I could see the internal battle that threatened to consume him, and for a moment I felt a twinge of guilt. His secrets were an armor of protection for him, his brother, and this pack. But they were obstacles between us. I’d had become an open book to him, everything about me displayed clearly to him, but he was a tapestry of lies of omission, convoluted distraction, and stories manipulated to serve his purposes. Behind the nobility of the intent, there were still the lies and manipulation.
He stepped closer to me and pressed his forehead against mine, the internal battl
e so intense I could feel it. He kissed my forehead, then said, “I can’t. If that is something you can’t live with, I’m sorry. You have my answer; now you need to make that choice.”
He turned, heading in the opposite direction from the one Kelly had taken Cole in. Minutes later, she walked in and stopped, inhaling the air, and then she made a face and looked off into space, distracted.
“What’s wrong?”
“Gavin’s here.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
She shook her head. She hadn’t adopted the fluidity of movement seen in most were-animals, nor did I see hints of her animal in her eyes or her mannerisms. It was indeed a separate part of her, but it had only been a couple of days.
She looked in Dr. Jeremy’s direction, and for a few minutes he just stared; she smiled. As if they had their own language and nonverbal way of communicating, he stood and excused himself, but I couldn’t ignore the troubled look that was profoundly displayed on his features when he looked at her. Guilt was an odd emotion that distorted the facts and outcomes in an unusual manner. It forced people to take responsibility and bear the burden of things that were beyond their control, and ignore any streams of good that might come from a situation. Kelly was alive, that was a good thing. He focused on the other things, and I believed no matter what I said, what cogent and logical argument I delivered, he would wear that burden like a scarlet letter.
“Everything’s different. A lot. I can hear the conversations down the hall. I can smell the scent of blood, and I feel things deeply. A lot.”
I was born a werewolf, so those things had developed as I grew, and I had always accepted that I was a freak of nature with heightened senses. I could imagine how much one had to adjust to the changes.
“You’ll get used to it. It’ll become your norm.”
She made a face. “And Gavin?”
“What about him?”
“I can sense him and his scent . . . he smells . . .” She chewed on her bottom lip. “Delicious.”
That wasn’t any of the things that went through my head when I thought of Gavin’s scent. Spiced oak: yes. Musky earth: yes. But not in a million years did I smell him and think “delicious.” The wanton look on her face didn’t indicate if delicious meant she wanted him on a plate with potatoes and a side salad or if she wanted him in her bed so she could do naughty things to him.
She continued leaning in as a light blush rose over her cheeks and she cast her eyes to the floor. “I’ve been avoiding him, because when he’s around—” When she looked up, I didn’t have to guess anymore. She looked the way I felt when Ethan emerged from the woods naked, exuding a primal allure that made me want to ravage him, not the way I looked at the basket of Swiss chocolates David gave me as my full moon gift. She didn’t want him on a plate with a side of anything. Not by a long stretch. How in the hell did I get in this conversation?
“That’s understandable. I don’t think you should avoid him. I think the feelings are mutual.”
She relaxed into her smile, and I knew that whatever she wanted to do was probably going to be explored really soon, and I needed to get out of the house quickly. Very quickly, because I’d walked in on enough romps from people sparring and it going a little too far. I’d sparred with plenty of people, and not once after punching them in the face had the urge to rip off their clothes and ravage them become an option, but for most of them, it was foreplay and a prelude to carnal activities that blurred the lines between eroticism and violence. I found myself a voyeur far too often, confused and mesmerized.
When Gavin came to the door and rested casually against it, one look at Kelly and I knew that if I didn’t get out of there soon, I was going to become an unwilling observer to them going at it like animals in heat.
“Hi,” he said.
She smiled. And responded. The pheromone-drenched room was getting to me. I briefly wondered what Gavin did to women. First Sable, now Kelly.
I slipped past them as they slowly approached each other; I hoped to get to the door and out before the “delicious” happened, but I wasn’t totally confident they cared whether I was there or not. I stood at the door and inhaled, trying to determine Cole’s location. I wanted to avoid him about as much as I wanted to avoid what was clearly about to happen between Kelly and Gavin.
“Who are you looking for?” Kelly asked.
I looked over my shoulder and wondered if she could tell I wasn’t looking for anyone but rather trying to avoid someone.
“Cole. Which room is he staying in?”
Her brow furrowed. “He’s staying at a hotel. He decided that was best once he issued a challenge for the Beta position this morning.”
I whipped around. “What?”
She stepped away from Gavin, who had settled into her, oblivious to my presence. Apparently she smelled delicious, too, because he kept his face cradled in her neck and she had to nudge him away.
“You didn’t know,” she said softly.
I swallowed, afraid to ask the question because I knew the answer, but there was a part of me that wanted to believe otherwise. “Did he accept or is he going to step down?”
Kelly stood in front of me, her words laced with sympathy and compassion. “Sky—” She stopped and sighed as if she was hesitant to say it out loud as well. I started out the door, and she grabbed my arm. “Cole agreed to wait until after we find a way to reverse the curse. He’s not unreasonable.”
She seemed reluctant to say I should try to talk him out of it. Perhaps there was a rule about trying to discourage it, but I didn’t care—I was about to break it. It was common knowledge that Ethan would be an Alpha in any other pack, but that didn’t offer any comfort. He was going up against another Alpha, and I’d seen Cole fighting when we’d rescued Kelly. He was a terror, a skilled and merciless fighter. A dichotomy of the human mask he wore, and it was indeed a facade, concealing the ruthless warrior I’d seen. My mouth was dry, and controlling the panic was getting harder to deal with. Another issue compounded by the existing ones.
Kelly gave me the name of the hotel he was staying at; it was close to the city. I wondered if he’d chosen to move out or had been strongly urged to do so. Did he consider it in poor taste to stay here when everyone knew that he was out looking at property to move into?
CHAPTER 18
You need to make that choice. Ethan’s last words to me at the pack’s retreat stayed with me. I rolled over and pressed my face into him. When he’d shown up the night before, I should have sent him away. I’d wanted to, but I’d needed to sleep beside him.
I cuddled in next to him, my face resting against his bare chest. I kissed him, my tongue slipping out to taste him. Moving up, I rested my face in his neck, inhaling his masculine musk. I inhaled again, my teeth grazing over his skin. My tongue laved over him, tasting. He groaned, exposing his neck to me, and pulled me closer. I nibbled at first, then bit down. Hard. Drawing blood. He cursed and pushed me away. My gaze was fixed on his neck, the hunger throbbing in me, the enticing aroma of blood appealing to my palate. I moved in again, and he pushed me away harder. Rolling away, he ended up on his hands and knees, fixing me with a hard stare.
“I’m hungry,” I admitted.
“Clearly,” he said in a rough voice, studying my eyes. He eased away and headed for the bathroom and brushed his teeth and washed his face. He kept a watchful eye on me as he moved out of the bathroom and slipped out of the room. I screwed my eyes closed. What the hell? I was hungry, and Ethan smelled good in a way he normally didn’t—appetizing. Maybe I had lost more blood than I’d thought when the bronze man cut me. I wanted that to be the case.
When I smelled fresh meat in the air, I inhaled, letting the scent of raw flesh wash over me. I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I didn’t need to look in the mirror—the taste for blood was an indicator of what I would see: a terait, an orange ring around the pupils that vampires got when they were experiencing bloodlust. It was a constant reminder of how I had come
into this world. It was never this bad. I wasn’t sure that nearly raw meat would be enough.
Ethan slid the plate with two steaks that had barely touched heat, just a hint of brown and the rest red and succulent, in my direction the moment I entered the kitchen. He cut a piece and put it in my mouth. He cut another. I waited impatiently, fighting the urge to grab the entire steak and shove it in my mouth. His platinum eyes flattened with concern as he cut up several more pieces and kept them coming, faster. Sensing that it wasn’t fast enough, he moved the plate closer to me and handed me the utensils.
I devoured the second steak, feeling sated. I looked up at Ethan, who was looking at me with apprehension. Kelly’s words came back to haunt me, but I wasn’t convinced my “delicious” was the same as hers. Each time I looked up from my plate, I found him staring at me—at the corners of my eyes. The terait was probably still there, because the hunger was.
“Have you ever tried to feed from someone?” he asked.
“Why would I? I’m not a vampire.”
He moved closer and traced his finger over my lips and with a faint smile said, “You’re not quite a wolf, either. Now are you?”
Hey, kettle, stop calling the pot out, why don’t you?
“Neither are you,” I pointed out.
He made a face. I thought it was at the comment until the doorbell rang and the brackets of his frown increased and steel gray flooded his eyes.
I opened the door to find Cole standing there with two cups of coffee, a smile flashing across his face as his silver eyes shone with amusement. “Things can get ugly if you don’t have your coffee, right?”
Moon Cursed (Sky Brooks Series Book 5) Page 24
