But he hadn’t lost his breath.
He was breathing now.
Colton suddenly sensed something else. He reached out to this new presence with his senses.
“Hey.”
The voice cut through the swirl of gray. He classified the sound as a word. Beyond it lay a familiar fragrance that was nothing at all like the stench of vampires.
Flowers. Musk and flowers.
Not hell, then.
“Can you open your eyes?” the soft voice asked.
It was an odd request, he thought, since he’d been sure his eyes were already open.
“Can you see me?”
This was said in the slightly husky tone of a female’s whisper.
Turning his head took effort.
“I’m not supposed to be here, but I had to see you,” she said. “My father will take me away tomorrow.”
Father? Some feeling came, centered in Colton’s chest. He knew that particular word because he had a father.
Sharp pain struck without warning, as though an arrow had pierced him. It was the arrow of past tense. He’d had a father. But not anymore.
“Can you talk? Will you make the effort to speak to me?” the female asked, her breathy voice bringing with it another hint of the taste of a floral bouquet. Roses. Bloodred roses, rich in color and sprinkled with dew.
No. Not dew. These roses were covered in fur.
Black fur.
Memory zigzagged. Colton wanted to slap his head to make things work more smoothly, but couldn’t move his arm.
A Were with a black pelt? Had he seen that out there?
Absurd.
Why should he remember that, when there were no true black-pelted Weres? Dark brown, yes, but not black. The color itself denoted unfathomable darkness. Even black-haired Weres in human form shifted to a different color.
“Yes,” she, whoever she was, coaxed. “I’m here. If you open your eyes, you’ll see me.”
The voice struck a distant chord. It was filled with submerged emotion and as demanding as it was inviting. This voice was the human equivalent of the howl of invitation a she-wulf had issued to him in that blasted park.
It’s her.
You.
Wanting nothing more than to see who was near, Colton struggled to do as she asked. His eyes hadn’t been open, after all. He opened them, sorry that he had when a glare of hurtful light hit him.
“Wait. I’ll dim the lamp,” she said. “It’s just one lamp, by your bed.”
Absorbing the ache that followed so much time spent in darkness, Colton forced himself to focus. His vision took a while to get into working order, and then he found himself gazing into a pair of large green eyes, very near to his.
His insides stirred restlessly.
There was something about those eyes. Not exactly familiar, but...
A surge of heat broke through his numbness. Again, he heard a howl, far away now, but there, all the same. He saw a dark-pelted wulf charge in to help him, and join in the fight.
His nerves began to simmer, then fry, which in turn caused feeling where there had been nothing but a wasteland.
The fire spread.
Hunger came upon him, heated, and with a ravenous need for the She with that mesmerizing voice.
His biceps tensed. His toes curled. He heard the crack of his spine straightening as whatever power those green eyes held hurled him toward full consciousness.
The flames tearing through him called up his beast. His wulf unfurled as fluidly and easily as if he’d merely spread his arms, the shift silent and uncommonly fast. It came on in a wave, similar to a smooth ruffle of air between two breaths. No extra pain. No forethought. No moon necessary.
Left panting from a transition that had no right to have happened in the first place, Colton, in werewolf form, squatted on a soft blue cloudlike surface, trembling and in shock. All he saw was the brilliance of the green eyes across from his that had not wavered in intensity or retreated by so much as an inch.
This female wasn’t afraid of him.
I know you, he thought again.
His growl was the sum total of his strange new feelings of hunger and longing, and lingered in the space around him.
“I knew it,” the green-eyed woman beside him said. “You’re still in there.”
* * *
Rosalind felt the throb of this werewolf’s blood in her veins. The erratic rhythm of his heart spoke of the depth of his inexplicable need for her.
There was no second-guessing what this need was. It came across as primitive, hotly sexual, and was, Rosalind would have known without the rapid acceleration of her own pulse, very much reciprocated.
She wanted to be with him. Be like him. She wanted to meet him wulf to wulf. Wanted everything this male had to offer.
Exerting pressure to control herself, Rosalind knew that she had been right. They had imprinted not long ago, without their eyes meeting, a fact as unusual as this wulf’s snowy-white pelt. Their hunger was mutual, no matter what shape he was in.
Rosalind was glad she had locked the door. As she stared into his eyes, she could barely keep her hands off the wulf on the bed. Her beast was starved for his beast. She craved his touch, and was left trembling.
“Yes,” she whispered. “We have bonded.”
Tremors rocked her. Similar tremors moved through the white wulf beside her. He was sharing the effects of their bond. He felt what she felt.
“I don’t understand why they would separate us,” she said, tilting her head, trying to speak slowly. “You’ll need details of what happened, some of which you probably already know.”
Rosalind swallowed her beast’s needs down and lowered her voice. “You’ve been badly hurt, attacked by bloodsuckers in the park. The same suckers that killed your family, I suppose. We’ve taken care of those fiends, got rid of them. My father and the judge brought you to Landau’s house. Judge Landau’s wife has been treating you.”
Placing a hand on her chest, as if that would slow her racing heartbeat, she continued. “These vampires were savages. The Landaus say you’ve knocked on Death’s door and stepped across the threshold, only to be pulled back by the strength of your will.”
It was impossible for her to slow down. A deep breath didn’t help.
“You’re alive, but changed. I don’t know how, exactly. I’m not sure what your white pelt means. They won’t tell me everything. They never have.”
The creature her father had called a ghost remained almost motionless, though his white fur rippled with the force of his pulse.
“I’m Rosalind Kirk,” she said. “My father is Jared Kirk. You’ll need to know those things in order to find me.”
The white wulf stared at her soundlessly.
She fell silent for a minute, maybe two, noting how the room at the top of the Landaus’ house that posed as a one-bed makeshift hospital ward smelled of clean laundry and antiseptic. It was sparsely furnished, with a large bed, one soft chair and two bedside tables. The window in the wall opposite the bed was open. The curtains moved in a faint breeze.
Rosalind had no idea what kind of care they had given this Were, or what those treatments entailed, but he had pulled through. Her actions in the park hadn’t killed him.
She blinked slowly to take that in.
On the surface, most of the stink of the vampires had been wiped clean from this wulf, and from the room housing him. Underscoring the room’s aura of calm, however, Rosalind still perceived hints of vampire. Black glittering molecules, as shiny and sharp as polished shards of glass, seemed a part of every breath she took.
Wary of this, and mindful of the fact that she had sneaked upstairs when the judge’s wife had gone for food, Rosalind went on.
“You’r
e at the Landau estate at the edge of the park. Since you’re a cop and a Were, I’m guessing you know Judge Landau and about some of the secrets kept in this place.”
The white wulf growled softly, as if trying out his voice through a throat the bloodsuckers had ripped open several times over. It seemed to Rosalind that she might have made a similar sound without realizing it, because her own throat felt raw.
The eyes looking at her were intent, piercing and the palest green. They were ringed by deep purple circles, leftovers indicative of how badly his face and body had been injured.
She didn’t want to think of how he had looked when her father and the others had come to the rescue. All that blood. And she had seen glimpses of bone beneath his torn and mangled flesh.
At the time, it seemed that a true miracle would be necessary in order for him to survive. “You look better,” she said, hoping this might calm him.
And that was true. He did look better. Already, after just two days, new skin covered bone and sinew, though several patches of fur and flesh were missing from his neck and shoulders, leaving lines of raw, reddened flesh. Red welts lined his face like the stripes of a tiger, but they were no longer oozing blood.
His moon mark, an indication of his superior place within their species, showed through the colorless fur of his left upper arm. It was riddled with tiny puncture holes, as though the vampires had purposefully gone for it with gusto, hoping to tear the mark clean off.
For a Were, removal of a moon mark was a blasphemy. For this big male, it would have been a forced emasculation. But the filthy blood drinkers hadn’t tackled this Lycan easily. He’d fought hard before succumbing to the sheer number of attackers. Burned into her mind was the image of the brown Were feverishly taking on the monsters.
“Brown or white, Were or ghost, you are the most beautiful, the most courageous being I have ever encountered,” she said.
And I have nearly caused your death.
“I’m to be taken away,” she repeated. “They will separate us, and it will hurt, when you’ve already been hurt so badly.”
Another growl came from him, noticeably stronger, and meaning for her to go on. Coming from this formidable creature who had looked Death in the eye, the sound seemed strangely exotic, and took her breath away.
“I come from the bayou country. I’m seldom allowed out from under my father’s strict supervision and rules. We have no modern forms of communication there. No computer, no television, no phones. Only a radio,” she said, pausing as the absurdity of these facts registered. “I learn about the world through that radio.”
They had, in fact, been living like they were deprived backwoods folk. Compared to the Landaus, they were decades behind the times. Backwoods cousins.
“This is the first occasion the Landaus have hosted us as guests, and I think this was due to an important meeting between Lycan elders. For me, it’s a quick visit here, and then back.”
They had so little time. She could hear it ticking away.
“Landau’s son and some of his pack aren’t here, though I’ve heard them talked about. I’ve seen no one my age, and only briefly have met Landau and his wife. I don’t think I’ll be allowed here again after this.”
She waited out a span of several shallow, rapid breaths before continuing, needing to get all this out in the open.
“There are other secrets hidden here. I don’t pretend to understand what’s really going on, only that some of those secrets pertain to me. I can sense being the focus of this meeting, and believe those secrets are why I’ve been kept away from other Weres, and ultimately why I’ll be kept from you. There is, I think, something wrong with me.”
Do you want me to go on?
The wulf continued to study her intently. He hadn’t moved.
“I understand the pain of loss.” Her voice was beseeching. “My mother was killed by hunters. Not vampires, but monsters in their own right.”
The white wulf blinked slowly, as if he was riding out a wave of pain.
“My father says that your fur has turned white due to the intensity of the injuries you have sustained. It might also be a physical manifestation of devastation and loss.”
She cleared her throat. “I wish I could take away the anguish of that.”
It had taken more than a dozen vampires to gain hold of him. This Were had fought like he was the right hand of Death, when even death, as vampires proved, didn’t have to be the end.
“I feel your pain. And I am so very sorry.”
She was hurting for herself, and for him. In sharing his heartache, she had to let him know how sorry she was that he’d been injured so badly. As much as she could bring herself to confess. When their imprinting was complete, he’d find out her secrets by easily reading her. They would eventually share thoughts.
“I didn’t help you enough out there,” she said, noting the alertness in this ghost’s eyes.
She couldn’t go on, was unable to utter the words that might have freed her from the terrible, plaguing guilt. If she spoke the truth in its entirety, if she confessed what she had or hadn’t done now, her white wulf wouldn’t want her. There was no way he’d come after her, find her, mate with her, when she wanted those things so desperately.
“I—” She paused when the green eyes across from her began to recede, and the white wulf shape-shifted in a slick, soundless, reversal.
“I couldn’t leave you to face them alone,” Rosalind whispered as the man from the park, who was now just as captivating with his white hair framing his wounded, angular face, reached for her.
* * *
Colton jumped to his feet. With both of his hands on Rosalind Kirk’s shoulders, he backed her into a corner so quickly that her breath escaped in a startled hiss of surprise.
He gave her no opportunity for further sound or protest. His mouth covered hers as if her breath alone could make him whole again. As if the beating of her heart against his bare chest could jump-start his, and prove finally, absolutely, that he was alive.
His need was all-consuming. His body was on fire.
He drank her in as if his survival counted on those things.
The fragrance of her breath seemed familiar.
Rosalind Kirk was a young, black-haired, oval-faced vision, and slight to the point of an ethereal thinness. Although her mouth was momentarily motionless beneath his, Colton sensed with every instinct he possessed how much she wanted to respond.
There was a possibility, he realized, that she didn’t know how.
Her lips were warm, supple, tender, sweet and not in the least bit rigid. In her stillness came a reminder of what she had told him. She had been kept from others. She’d been sheltered from actions like this by an overprotective Lycan father. She had no family or friends. This might, in fact, have been her first real kiss.
He wanted her in that moment as much as his beast had desired her in the park. Every inch of him yearned for her, now that he’d been awakened, and had captured her in his arms.
Had this slight, ebony-haired creature truly fought beside him, placing herself in jeopardy in order to help? Was she the one who had come to aid him in a time of trouble?
“You,” he whispered with his mouth on hers. “It really was you.”
Ignoring shaky limbs that refused to behave properly, and his heart’s offbeat rhythm, Colton leaned into her. Licking gingerly at her lips, nipping lightly at the corners of her mouth before again sealing his lips to hers, he took her breath into his lungs, and felt that breath warm him. One word resonated in his mind, on its own loop, playing over and over.
Mine.
He wasn’t dead. This moment was real. Where there was feeling, there was hope, and he desperately needed some.
He kissed her, and the kiss drew a gasp. The raspy sound of Rosalind’s breathlessness
shuddered through him as the pleasure of being close to her far outweighed the nagging internal pain he harbored.
His captive wore a black shirt he hardly noticed, except that it felt cool and silky against his bare chest. His current impulse was to tear the shirt from her and get down to it, chest to chest, groin to groin. This was his animal side taking over. His beast voted for that.
Injuries be damned! This Were female had a name that rolled easily on his tongue. Rosalind. A name as creamy as the sexual act itself.
Her black hair, worn long and straight, spilled over her shoulders in a gleaming cascade. Her face, with its prominent, sharp-edged bones, would suit few people, but somehow suited him. She had a small, tapered nose. Perfectly arched eyebrows looked like dark smudges of paint on ivory skin decorated by huge, penetrating green eyes.
Her shoulders were narrow, her hip bones like blades. Lycan females never had overindulgent curves or ponderous shapes due to their super-revved metabolisms and the frequent nighttime sprints, and Rosalind didn’t break that mold.
Small, firm breasts, perfectly proportioned to the trimness of her body, pressed against him through her shirt, begging to be touched, licked, suckled, by someone who would understand what she needed in a mate.
She was no mere pretty young thing. This was a category of female he had never expected: unique, sensual, animal and almost supernaturally beautiful.
Mine.
Colton’s wulf roared, possessive and protective of Rosalind Kirk in spite of the fact that she had been a freaking lightning-quick fighting machine in that park.
Couldn’t have been her, his mind still argued. The female in his arms had a trembling, succulent mouth. The Were in the park had been lethal, black-pelted and incredibly fast.
Thoughts fled as her lips parted and her tongue, extremely hot and seductively moist, tentatively met his. The action cued something in Colton’s body that had long lain dormant. It was a real need for her, having nothing whatsoever to do with the concept of superficial. He longed for closeness and connection. He wanted to hold in his hands something fine and special and long-term. In the face of those needs, self-control was not an option.
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