“She’s weaving through them,” he explained. “No trouble this time. Nothing she isn’t capable of handling, I hope.”
Landau grunted in reply, perhaps not wanting to waste his breath as they picked up their pace.
It wasn’t long before they saw the men they had scented. Aware of Landau’s hesitation, Colton slowed. As soon as he saw who strolled in this park, he slipped behind a tree, leaving Landau to face them. For their sake, not his.
“Judge Landau?” Officer Julias Davidson, of all the rotten luck, said in a surprised tone. “What are you doing out here at this time of night? You do realize how dangerous this place is?”
“Out for a run,” Landau replied, faking a shortness of breath. “My son is out here somewhere, so much faster than his old man that he’ll beat me to the street.”
“Mind if we accompany you to that street?” Davidson asked in that way cops had of giving people the feeling they were going to do what they wanted, no matter the response.
“Not necessary,” Landau protested.
“I’d feel better about it,” Davidson said stubbornly, and also a bit reverently...perhaps out of respect for the elder man, Colton guessed, and possibly also to score some future points in court.
Landau had the sensitivity not to look where Colton had hidden himself. “Well,” he said to Davidson, “I’ve probably lost the bet already, anyway. I’m not as young as I used to be, you know. Dylan will win this race, hands down.”
“How about if we pretend I didn’t hear anything about a federal judge’s personal gambling habits,” Davidson joked. “If you want to jog ahead, we’ll follow. Doesn’t running without shoes hurt your feet, though?”
It’s useless, Colton sent silently to the Were. Davidson, attitude aside, also wore the badge of a protector, and most of the time he took that job seriously. Change of plans. Landau had to lead the cops to the street. The judge, for all his Lycan power and strengths, had an image to maintain. That image, and the shape that went with it, were human.
His own forced companionship with Landau had been terminated. Colton felt sorry about that.
Raising his chin, he sniffed the air. The really disturbing thing about this encounter was that the officers’ weapons hadn’t been what saturated the area with the odor of metal. Nor had anything the judge might have been carrying in his waistband and pockets triggered the smell. Something else was causing it. Colton glanced across the grass in time to see a flash of what looked to him like the backside of a man’s naked body, streaking through the trees.
His heart gave a thump of disapproval.
His beast growled a warning.
The bad wolf criminal element had been wiped from this park a while ago, and cops had been on patrol tonight. So whatever was here had eluded the park’s human guardians.
His claws sprang through his skin in reaction to whatever his beast had sensed, and the familiar undulations began in his shoulders as his ligaments began to stretch.
This naked streaker had been no vampire, so what did that leave?
Colton’s chest heaved. His ribs cracked, with his spine following suit. He tore his borrowed shirt open and unbuttoned his pants without too much thought about how many times he had stripped lately, and how outrageous the events of the past forty-eight hours had been.
“There is no earthly way a demon could have found us so quickly,” he protested as his wulf unfurled. But then demons, by their very definition, weren’t earthly.
Once his shift was complete, Colton ran so fast that he virtually skimmed the ground. If it had been a demon he’d seen, and if it had been hunting for Rosalind, he had to be there when the cursed thing found her. He had to hope to God that a demon wouldn’t touch her.
As if Rosalind had left a trail of breadcrumbs, her lightly floral scent beckoned to him. She hadn’t lost that fragrance or left it behind in favor of others crowding her system. That one thing alone gave him hope. Amid all the changes, Rosalind’s she-wulf maintained a firm enough hold on her to overpower the rest.
That she-wulf was what he wanted to find, coax forth, capture, bed and love. They’d had sex in human form, and it had been good. Many more experiences like that, and their wulf sides would want in on the deal. He couldn’t imagine how that would go down. Wulf to wulf...
Another flash of white downgraded his speed to a lope. Keyed up, his fur rippled with tension. This wasn’t a damn demon though. The bright spot of light turned out to be a lamp post marking a driveway, the first of many driveways bordering the neighborhoods surrounding the park.
Rosalind had gone into public territory, for who knew what reason, with what might or might not have been a demon trailing behind. Being anywhere near to a human neighborhood like this one amounted to a dangerous setback.
Growls rattled in his throat.
He bared his teeth.
Damn it, he had to lose the fur. Things were bad enough without giving the people here a reason to call the cops.
How strong were demons? How crafty, fast?
This didn’t have to be a demon.
Jogging, naked, Colton veered off the sidewalk, aiming for an alley behind the closest row of homes and praying that in one of those backyards he’d find some clothes to borrow, hanging on an old-fashioned line. And that the presence of a Night Wulf would scare barking dogs indoors.
Chapter 24
Rosalind had known the exact moment something new began following her, and tried to process the symptoms of this acknowledgment.
Whatever the creature was, its presence made her head hurt. The vicious pounding behind her eyes caused the landscape to swim by in a blur of movement. The lights she passed beneath were like streaks of pain. Her mouth hurt from clenching her teeth hard enough and long enough to fracture a jaw bone. Her wulf exhibited signs of a rare distress that had made her muscled hindquarters quiver.
Her heightened senses didn’t like this new thing shadowing her.
Outlines of fences, formerly solid, melted into wavering liquid forms. Buildings became fluid, their edges filmy and undefined. The pavement she raced across buckled in her peripheral vision, though it seemed okay when she glanced at her feet. Either the world was actually losing its shape, or she was losing her mind.
The only thing completely in focus now was the feel of the entity behind her. Awareness of it had become a distress.
Not human, not vampire, not Were. Demon? Really?
Afraid to face such an entity in the open, in the darkness from which both it and she had been born, she had instead brought it to civilization. Still, the artificial lights people needed to make them feel safe did nothing to lessen her fear, and streets of houses filled with sleeping humans seemed utterly alien.
Why had she come this way?
Realization struck when she found herself in a corner yard. Familiar smells stopped her cold. This was where she had heard her lover’s wail of grief, and where she had viewed the cause of his despair. On this street sat the house where Colton’s parents had lived and died; now a place where no one would want to willingly return to.
Over the fence in a bound, Rosalind fled to the alley where she had once watched Colton shift shape. In her mind’s eye she saw him there, golden, angry and hurt. That image bolstered her courage somewhat. They had both been Lycans then, at least on the surface, and ignorant of what lay ahead. She had been young in spirit and very naive.
She found the house that still reeked of Lycan death. In the yard behind it, she pulled up to make her stand.
“Come and get it, you bastards,” she said.
* * *
Dread set in the minute Colton’s feet hit the pavement.
Rosalind had made a beeline for his parents’ house, forcing him to confront his compartmentalized feelings about the terrible events that had taken place there.
He hadn’t lived on this street with his parents for years, but had spent a lot of time with them. For that time, he’d forever be thankful. Again, though, why would Rosalind come here?
Vaulting over the fence and landing in the alley, Colton paused to listen for whatever a demon might sound like, not expecting crackling hellfire and devilish laughter. An atmospheric heaviness covered the entire area, as if something not of this world had punched its way through.
He heard nothing at all for the span of several shallow breaths, and then perked up. A growl.
His body lurched into action. Hopping one more fence, he sighted Rosalind crouched on his parents’ back step.
Glorious, rare black fur covered her legs and arms, and her claws were raised and gleaming. At her feet lay a pile of clothes that didn’t smell anything like her, and probably would have confused any creatures coming her way.
Although she might have been scared, Rosalind was magnificent in the fierceness of her pose. Her she-wulf had taken over, leaving no room for debate about the mastery of her Lycan bloodlines. Even in the face of danger, she radiated with the scent and strength of a pure, dangerous wulf.
She made no gesture of acknowledgment. Her eyes were trained on a darker area near the garage. When she growled again, he turned in what felt like slow motion.
He didn’t see a damn thing, though the mere thought of a demon in this yard was viscerally disturbing. Adding a menacing growl to the echo of Rosalind’s, Colton stayed frozen in place in case the thing by the garage advanced, feeling sick over the fact that the yard still smelled like blood.
Rosalind balanced on her haunches over the exact spot where his mother’s headless body had lain.
Narrowing his concentration, Colton awaited what would come next, afraid that if he moved he would spark an unconscionable reaction in one of hell’s denizens.
He felt Rosalind shift position and reluctantly looked to her. When her dark eyes darted to meet his, his heart began to hammer. She was gearing up for a strike, no longer content to play the waiting game.
The air tensed around him. An ungodly, otherworldly shriek that completely stole his breath tore through the quiet. High-pitched and ear-piercing, it shattered the windows beside where Rosalind crouched. A rain of broken glass showered everything, looking like a typhoon of confetti.
In motion, Colton’s first thought was for Rosalind’s safety, and to hell with the demon. But she jumped to her feet and met him on the walkway before he had registered her astonishing move.
Something else met them in the center of the yard: a glistening, hard-bodied entity with a humanlike shape and no eyes in its twisted face. This thing rammed into Colton so hard, he stumbled sideways. After quickly regaining his balance, and with the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears, Colton stopped, stunned.
In the seconds he had taken to right himself, Rosalind had fallen to the ground, and the demon was leaning over her.
Raging, Colton lunged and knocked the demon away. Whirling, he showed his teeth, ready to take on this thing. But the demon seemed to have vanished, taking its filthy intentions with it.
Colton fell to his knees bedside his mate, who had shifted back to human form. Without giving a damn about what damage further closeness to her might do, he gathered her to him, cradling her body, rocking her gently and growling her name.
At first glance, he saw no evidence of serious injury. Her fur had protected her from most of the glass. Splinters of it sparkled in her hair like pieces of fallen stars. Only one jagged shard angled through the smooth, flushed skin of her right cheek.
Instincts screamed for him to go after the demon that had hurt her and tear out its throat with his bare hands. A wildness flowed through him that he had only experienced once before, on the night his parents had died.
Sanity seemed to be slipping away from him by degrees.
When Rosalind’s eyes opened, she gazed up at him calmly. Raising a hand to touch his white muzzle, she said, “Stay with me, wulf. No one dies tonight.”
He had to honor her request. He had to let the demon go. She needed him.
He saw no sign of demon in Rosalind. This monster hadn’t touched her. But he had.
With a swift reverse shift in shape, Colton watched the last of the white fur disappear from his arms. He waited for whatever Rosalind’s reaction would be. The answer came as he looked into her eyes, which were not black or green, but gray, and continuing to fade.
“Are you all right?” he demanded, wary of that change being related to him, and unable to do anything about it. Unable to let her go.
“Hold still,” he crooned, fingering the piece of glass imbedded in her cheek. With a gentle tug, and not so much as a grimace from Rosalind, the glass came free. Colton tossed it away and pressed a finger to the wound to stop the trickle of blood seeping from the cut. Then he bent down to kiss the spot, startling them both.
The moment stretched in complete silence, broken only when he asked, “Has it gone?”
“Yes.”
“It didn’t reach you.”
“You didn’t give it time.”
“I’d have killed it if it had.”
“I could feel it,” she said. “I could feel the soulless being’s spirit trying to get inside me.”
“Did you tell it there’s no more room?”
When she shook her head, glass scattered, making tiny tinkling noises as the pieces hit the concrete.
“I want so badly to go on holding you,” he confessed.
“I want that, too. I feel your pain, way down deep, Colton. How can you stand it? How can you stand up and face that kind of pain?”
“Job to do,” he said tenderly. “Though you’re making that as difficult as possible.”
She smiled, and the wound on her cheek oozed more blood. But that smile was worth everything to him. It was the first one he had seen in a while, and was as dazzling as it was brief.
“I tried to get away from you and the others,” she explained.
“Yes, and how well did that work?”
When she smiled again, dusted with glass and as white as a sheet, Colton was sure his heart would break.
He uttered his vow...to her. To the night. To the moon, and whoever else might be listening. “I will do anything and everything in my power, forever, to protect you, and keep you selfishly for myself.”
Her hair, as white as it was black, her gray eyes, her light skin... Was a ghost so bad? Two ghosts?
He lightly kissed the lips that had temporarily upturned. He kissed her forehead, her injured cheek, her hair, her long, graceful neck. His free hand moved over her, exploring, seeking anything unfamiliar that he’d have to deal with. That they would have to deal with.
If Rosalind could become what others around her were, she would remain Lycan. I’ll see to it.
His mouth came back to hers. He deepened the kiss, separating her lips with his, daring her tongue to dance with his. Her breath was shallow, though her heart raced. Though he felt her energy charging upward to engulf him, she didn’t wrap her arms around him, afraid of what else she might do.
He was nearly blinded by his desire for her—for possessing her in every possible way. He had never been so hungry, so demented by the emotions flooding his body and his mind.
Reason, like a blinking light way off in the distance, warned that he couldn’t devour her now, here, in this place. It wasn’t right. There wasn’t time. And yet with one more stroke of his lips across hers, and upon hearing her gasp of reciprocated longing, some of the horror of what had taken place in his parents’ house began to fade.
He wasn’t alone. He and Rosalind, whatever incarnations they ended up in, would be a family.
As if his life’s blood had begun to return, one precious drop at a time, Colton’s pulse stea
died. Utilizing what was left of his willpower, he drew back just far enough to speak.
“Rosalind, what did the demon want?”
“It wanted you,” she replied.
Chapter 25
The meaning of those words eluded Colton at first. Maybe, he thought, he hadn’t heard her correctly.
“Me?” he said, his mouth still hovering over hers.
She couldn’t have meant that the demon had been waiting for him, as in him personally? Nevertheless, the remark had a haunting vibration that sped through his mind like the tail of a comet.
“Is somebody in there?”
An unfamiliar voice broke through Colton’s mental jumble with the force of an unexpected electrical discharge.
“Who’s there?” a second voice demanded with stern authority. “We heard noises. Stay where you are. We’re coming into the yard.”
It was the police. Colton smelled them.
Obeying that command, of course, was utterly impossible. Colton shot to his feet. The uniforms couldn’t find him like this, and see what had become of him. Not only did he have no badge or ID, both he and Rosalind were stark naked, breathless, rather scary-looking and sprinkled with broken window glass. To an observer it might look as though they’d tried to break into the house.
He turned his head. Dana Delmonico had told him that the terrible event on this premises had been taken care of, no doubt by Weres on the force who found it in their best interest to help cover this particular murder up. If that cover-up hadn’t been accomplished correctly or had been done too hastily, the current window breakage would result in further investigation.
These cops weren’t Were.
“We’ve got to get away,” he said, tugging Rosalind to her feet.
She was light. Her thinness had been further accentuated since he’d first seen her. Her ribs were countable. Her arms seemed frail.
Wolf Born Page 18
