Taming The Shifter (Nocturne Wolf Romance)

by Lisa Childs

  Was that why he had attacked her earlier—to give himself an excuse to kill her? The man was that manipulative and that evil. And if they weren’t able to distract him long enough for Kate to grab her gun, they wouldn’t be able to stop him from killing them all.

  *

  Warrick fisted his hands at his sides and held his breath, so that he would not give away his presence too soon. His uncle didn’t know him at all. Warrick didn’t need blood spilled to track someone’s scent—at least not Kate’s. He had picked up their trail from where Uncle Stefan had killed her ex, and he’d followed it back to the abandoned building near the bank. This one had once been a restaurant, the room in which Stefan held the women captive a cooler. At least the refrigeration unit had been shut down, so Kate wasn’t freezing.

  Warrick had found the building but not the room—until Uncle Stefan had come back. Too soon. He hadn’t fallen for the trap Reagan had tried setting for him. The man was really very clever.

  And too dangerous for Warrick to make any sudden moves without thinking them out first. But then Uncle Stefan stepped closer to Kate and farther inside the room. Before the old man could swing the door shut behind himself, Warrick jumped from the shadows of the hall and burst into the room with them. “Let her go!”

  Stefan’s pale eyes widened in surprise. He had underestimated Warrick.

  But Warrick had underestimated him, too. He had never realized how clever—and complicit—the old man really was. Warrick had loved him—even more than he’d loved his own father, who he had never been able to please. While his father had denied him affection or respect, Uncle Stefan had always seemed to care about him. He had always taken an interest in him…but his only interest had been in planning Warrick’s destruction.

  “Here you are, my boy, just in time for the party.” Madness hardened the old man’s gaze and he grabbed for Kate’s hair, yanking her to her feet.

  Warrick swung his fist and connected with Uncle Stefan’s jaw. The contours of it were already beginning to change, as were Warrick’s, the bones stretching and reshaping as hair spread over his skin. The old man stumbled back—over the broken table on which Kate had been lying. When he fell, she twisted free of his grasp.

  “Get out of here!” he yelled at her. Nothing stood between her and freedom now.

  But she shook her head.

  “Sylvia, get her out of here!” Warrick ordered. Sylvia was beginning to turn, too. And the links of the chains that held her to the wall snapped as her muscles grew.

  “I’m not leaving you!” Kate said.

  “Good, then you’ll die together.” Uncle Stefan pulled a weapon from his shirt just as the material split and fell from his hairy torso. But before he could tighten his claws around the gun, Warrick knocked it from his grip. It flew across the room toward Kate.

  “Grab it!” Warrick yelled at her.

  But she already held a gun. Had she kept the bullets in it that Reagan had given her? Had Reagan given her real silver bullets? Warrick had thought so when he’d inspected him.

  But he had spent so long distrusting his brother that he couldn’t entirely shake off his suspicion of the other man’s motives. And why would he have armed Kate when she might have used one of those silver bullets on him?

  While Warrick was worrying about Kate, his uncle rallied his strength and attacked. He launched himself at Warrick, who fell to the ground. His uncle clawed at his throat, digging through the hair to the flesh.

  Sylvia screamed as Warrick’s blood began to flow. “Shoot him!” she yelled at Kate.

  *

  Kate tightened her grasp on her gun and lifted the barrel. This time she would shoot the right man. Actually the right beast.

  Both men had turned into werewolves, and they looked so much alike with their black-and-silver hair and enormous, muscular bodies. And they kept rolling across the floor, tearing at each other.

  If only she could see their eyes…

  Then she would know.

  Sylvia gasped as blood spurted across the walls from fresh wounds. “You have to shoot,” she said, breathing hard with fear and lack of oxygen.

  She had changed, too. Her coat was golden, her eyes that brilliant green. She studied the fighting wolves and shook her head. “But if you shoot Warrick instead…”

  Then he would be gone to Kate—to both of them—forever. And she would be left alone in a small room with werewolves whose law was to kill any human who learned of their existence. She only had so many silver bullets; she had to make each one count.

  So she steadied her hand, directed the barrel and fired. Once, twice, three times…

  Sylvia screamed again before uttering Kate’s greatest fear aloud, “You shot the wrong one!”

  Chapter 18

  “I can’t believe he’s dead,” Kate murmured, still trembling in the aftermath of all that had happened that night.

  Paige wrapped her arm around Kate’s shoulders and offered a comforting squeeze. “He’s gone. He can’t terrorize you anymore.”

  “Which man are you talking about?” Kate asked. “Warrick’s uncle or my ex?”

  Paige smiled slightly. “Both.”

  Kate sighed and leaned back in the booth in Club Underground. Daylight now, the bar was closed. She and Paige were the only two people—or whatever—in the place. “Yes, they’re gone.” Despite Sylvia’s fear, Kate hadn’t shot the wrong wolf. All her silver bullets had gone into the uncle—not the nephew.

  “What about Warrick?” Paige asked, glancing toward the hall that led to that strange back room of the club. To their secret clinic. “After Ben patched him up from the injuries his uncle had inflicted with his teeth, he took off. Do you think he left Zantrax?”

  “I don’t think he’s gone yet,” she replied. If he was, he hadn’t said goodbye. But then, if she truly meant nothing to him, why would he have bothered? “He will need to return to his pack soon.”

  “Part of his pack is in Zantrax, isn’t it?”

  Kate shrugged. “Sylvia is still here.” Ben had checked her out, too, making certain that she and her baby—babies, actually—had survived the ordeal. “I don’t know about Reagan.”

  “So if Reagan is gone, why is Sylvia still here?” Paige asked.

  “Maybe she realized that she picked the wrong brother.” That Warrick was the better man.

  “You have your own choice to make,” Paige said. “You’ve been given a reprieve.”

  “Because you, Ben and Sebastian pleaded my case,” she surmised.

  Paige nodded. “Time’s up, Kate. You have to decide or we won’t be able to protect you anymore.”

  “So I guess I’m not done being terrorized,” she said with a weary sigh.

  “Is it wrong that I’m glad you found out?” her friend asked, her blue eyes clouded with guilt. “It was horrible keeping such a secret from you. And it was horrible to think that one day, when you began to notice that we weren’t aging, that we would have to leave.”

  Kate’s breath caught. “I hadn’t thought about that—that I won’t be able to stay here, to stay friends with Lizzy and Campbell.”

  “We have some time. Maybe years even.”

  She chuckled. “We can claim that Ben hooked us all up with plastic surgeons.”

  Paige smiled, her face beaming with relief. “So you’ve decided? You’re going to join the secret society?”

  “It’s that or death, right?”

  “I thought you had another choice,” Paige said. “The pack…”

  Kate shook her head. “That’s not a choice for me.” Warrick had made that absolutely clear to her.

  “But you love him,” Paige said, squeezing Kate’s shoulders again. “I know you do.”

  “I love him, but I’m not the right woman for him.” He had already chosen his mate. Reagan may have stolen her away, but the young woman was too smart to not have come to her senses by now.

  And if Reagan was already gone, as Kate suspected, then Sylvia would need help rai
sing the babies she carried. “So if the society will have me…”

  *

  “I’m sorry,” Sylvia said, her voice cracking with regret and sincerity.

  “Why?” Warrick asked, turning back to her. He’d been packing the few belongings he’d brought to Zantrax back into a duffel bag. He had no reason to stay in the vault any longer. There was someplace he needed to be more.

  Sylvia stood nervously on the other side of the vault, as if she was afraid that he was still as angry as he’d once been, and those old brass bars might protect her from him. “Because I hurt you.”

  “You hurt my pride more than my heart,” he admitted. “That’s why I acted like such a jealous fool.” He had accused her and his brother of being selfish and unfeeling. But they had actually felt too much—for each other—to deny their love.

  “You realize that you never really loved me?” she asked.

  He didn’t want to hurt her but he nodded in reply. “I’m sorry…”

  “No, that’s great,” she said with a breath of relief. “You realize you never loved me because now you know what true love is.”

  Sylvia had always been a romantic, more a dreamer than the practical, no-nonsense woman for whom he had really fallen. “And why did I realize what true love is?” he asked her—even though he knew the answer.

  “Because you love Kate,” she replied, her smile fading as she added, “the way that I love your brother.”

  “Reagan’s a fool,” Warrick said. “I can’t believe he took off without even seeing you.”

  Sylvia’s eyes widened with pain. “He knew I was here?”

  Warrick nodded. “But I don’t think he knows about…” He gestured toward her swollen belly.

  She slid her palms over it, already stroking the babies she carried. “He had left before I even found out for certain that I was pregnant,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “And I haven’t heard from him…”

  “He feels such guilt over breaking us up,” Warrick said. He’d seen the misery in his brother’s eyes. “And over everything else that happened.”

  “So instead of dealing with it, with me, he’s going to just keep running?” she asked. “Uncle Stefan is dead now. There’s no reason he can’t come back to the pack unless you still want justice for your father’s death…”

  Warrick shook his head. “Kate killing Uncle Stefan is all the justice I need.” She’d hurt the man who had hurt her, who had hurt them all. “Reagan can come home and resume his rightful place as leader of the pack.”

  “But he doesn’t want it,” she said. “He’s giving it to you to make up for how he feels he wronged you.”

  Warrick pushed a hand through his hair. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll explain that the only one he’s wronging now is you by staying away when you need him.”

  “You don’t have time to track him down now,” Sylvia said. “You need to go back to St. James and lead the pack. After everything they’ve been through, they need a strong leader. You can be that strong leader, Warrick.”

  He shook his head. “My father didn’t think so.”

  “Your father was an egotistical ass,” Sylvia replied, coming out from behind the bars to offer him her support. “He had no idea who you are. But Reagan always believed you would prove to be a better leader than him. You can do this.”

  Warrick reached out and caught her delicate hand in his. “Don’t worry about you and the babies. I will take care of you.”

  “What about Kate?”

  “What about Kate?” he asked, his heart pounding faster at just the sound of her name.

  “She’s the woman you love.”

  With all his heart. But after she’d shot his uncle, she had never looked at Warrick again—as if she couldn’t bear to face him after his rejection. He’d wanted to explain and apologize, wanted to give her the words she deserved. But could he give her what else she deserved?

  If leading the pack made him as busy as his father had been, he would have no time for Kate. And then she might grow as bored as his mother had and just leave…

  His mother leaving had nearly destroyed ten-year-old Warrick. All the tears he’d shed were why his father had thought him so weak. Kate leaving him, after becoming his mate in every way, would kill thirty-year-old Warrick.

  “If I am to lead the pack, I cannot shirk my responsibilities,” he said. It wasn’t as if Kate would even give him another chance. She probably hated him for all the trouble he’d caused her.

  Sylvia’s silvery green eyes filled with sadness as she studied him. “You would choose responsibility over love?”

  He straightened his shoulders. “I will do what I have to do.”

  She shook her head as if disappointed in him. At least the romantic in her had to have been. “Then you are the one who is meant to lead the pack.”

  “I intend to take the responsibility very seriously. I will take responsibility for you and your babies, too.”

  “As part of your duties as leader?” she asked, again with disappointment. “Because I don’t want to be just another one of your responsibilities.”

  “No, as their uncle and your friend.”

  She blinked as tears filled her eyes now. “I don’t deserve your friendship. But I hope we can be friends.”

  He nodded. His anger and disappointment—even his infatuation with her—was completely gone. “Of course we can.”

  “Then as your friend…” she drew in a deep breath, and continued, “I’m telling you that you’re making a big mistake. You love Kate, and she loves you so much. I didn’t know which wolf you were. I couldn’t tell you apart, but Kate just knew. She loves you that much that she instinctively recognizes you no matter what form you’ve taken.”

  “I don’t deserve her love,” Warrick said.

  “You love her the same way she loves you,” Sylvia said. “I see it in your eyes. I saw it when you looked at her, when you thought your uncle was going to hurt her—it nearly tore you apart.”

  He gasped as the remembered pain and fear rushed over him. If his uncle had carried through on his threat to spill her blood…

  Kate, as a human yet, would have died quickly and painfully—because of him.

  “That’s the kind of love that defies all boundaries—between human and werewolf—detective and leader.” She smiled. “It’s the kind of love that lasts forever. It’s rare and wonderful and…” Her smile faded as she said, “…sometimes miserable but always special. It’s the once in a lifetime, mate-for-life kind of love.”

  The kind of love she must have thought she would have with Reagan until everything had gone so wrong.

  “You can’t walk away from that,” she urged him. Not like his brother had.

  Warrick couldn’t—not even for the role of leader of the pack that he’d always coveted. He couldn’t leave Kate.

  But Sylvia could leave him.

  She hugged him first, kissed his cheek and then walked away—passing another man who’d slipped into the bank unnoticed.

  After she’d passed him, Sebastian turned to Warrick and asked, “So you’ve chosen her over Kate?”

  Was the vampire freaking invisible as well as occasionally telepathic? Warrick hadn’t detected his scent or his presence. Neither had Sylvia as she’d walked right past him.

  “What?” There was no choice.

  “That’s what Kate thinks,” Sebastian said. “It’s why she asked me to turn her.”

  “You’re turning her into a member of the Secret Vampire Society?”

  “And not a moment too soon,” Sebastian replied. “If I don’t do it right away, she’ll be killed. Other members of the society are upset that she’s lived this long after discovering the secret.”

  Once again Warrick had failed her. He had left her alone and in danger. He had waited too long to make her his mate. She had made her decision, and as stubborn as Kate was, he didn’t know if he would be able to talk her out of it—if she would talk to him at all.

  *<
br />
  “Where do you think you’re going?” a deep voice asked.

  Stunned, Sylvia stopped on the sidewalk outside the bank building. Her voice soft, she admitted, “I don’t know…”

  And she had no idea.

  “You could go back to the pack,” he suggested.

  She shook her head. “They wouldn’t welcome me.”

  “Warrick offered you…” his voice cracked with emotion, “…his protection.”

  “You heard that?” He had been that close to listen to their conversation and she hadn’t felt him? But then she’d been convinced that he was gone. “You’re still here?” She winced as she heard how ridiculous her question was. Of course he was still in Zantrax.

  He was talking to her. Or was she only imagining his voice in her head?

  She drew in a breath and turned toward him. He was leaning against the brick wall of the old bank building—his face in the shadows. But then he stepped forward and she noticed the bruises and scrapes.

  And gasped. “Are you all right?”

  He shrugged off her concern and instead reached out, his hands settling on her swollen belly. “Are you?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She nodded. But he wasn’t really concerned about her; he was concerned about their babies. He hadn’t even looked at her, his gaze instead on her stomach. She couldn’t not look at his face. Even battered, he was so handsome. “What happened to you?” she asked. “Uncle Stefan said he didn’t fall for your trap—that he didn’t see you.”

  “He didn’t,” he said.

  “Did Warrick do this to you?” She’d thought that the brothers had made up and had been working together. And these bruises looked fresh.

  “No,” he said. “He finally let me explain what happened—why I did what I did.”

  She nodded. “That’s good. But that doesn’t explain…” She lifted her hand to his face, and as her palm slid across his cheek, she shivered in reaction. It was still there—even all these months later—that undeniable attraction. She glanced up and found his gaze on her face now.

  And the look in his eyes had her shivering again.

  “It’s cold,” he said. “Let’s go someplace where you’ll be warm.”