No one was unbreakable, and no one was honest. Razor hadn’t been what he seemed, and Natalie had gotten herself killed as a result. Zeth hadn’t broken her yet, and he hadn’t lied to her, but then again, if she didn’t give him the chance, she didn’t have anything to lose.
Zeth didn’t know her outside the office. How could he love her and mean it?
How could anyone?
“The claim was a mistake,” Raegan said, wincing at the pain that stretched across his face. His haunted, too-beautiful face. “Come on, Zeth. You have to know it.”
His jaw tightened. “Do I?” he spat. “I have to fucking know it? You’re telling me what I have—”
“I’m trying to make this easy.”
“Good job.”
“The claim was… It felt right, yeah. But—”
Zeth’s nostrils flared. “Damn right it did.”
“But that didn’t mean it was. I’m not on the market.”
“By choice.”
“By necessity.” She waved an arm. “I don’t know anything else, Zeth. This is who I am. I get up, I go to work, I type up some bullshit story, I go home, nuke some Ramen noodles, spend hours on the web looking for a werewolf who fucked up my life and good, then go to bed. That’s the life I chose. I don’t know where you fit in that world.”
He took a step forward, and the sudden eagerness on his face nearly destroyed her. “We’ll find out,” he said. “We’ll find out where I fit. Rae, what happened with your friend won’t happen with me. I’d cut off my arm before I hurt you.”
Something in her gut wrenched. “I know.”
“Then you know I’m serious. That wolf, Razor, I can help. The pack stopped looking for him a long time ago—”
Raegan reeled in shock. Whatever else, she had not expected him to drop that name. Granted, she’d told Zeth in no uncertain terms what she thought of his kind after he initially wolfed out in her apartment, and the factors contributing to her opinion, but she’d never mentioned Razor by name. “What? You know about Razor?”
Zeth stared at her a long moment, then sighed, his shoulders dropping. “That’s the kind of shit you don’t keep outta the grapevine. I’ve known about Razor since you’ve known about Razor. Rae, I was on the fucking committee to hunt the bastard down.”
Silence fell between them. She blinked, trying to grasp hold of the information, process it into something that made sense. What little was left of her brain sizzled out completely. “Why…why is this the first I’m hearing about this?”
“I didn’t think it’d matter.”
“You didn’t think that you hunting down my best friend’s killer would matter to me?”
Zeth threw his hands in the air. “Well, fuck, Raegan, it’s not like we’ve ever actually talked, is it? You haven’t ever let me in. You found out what I was and went running scared.”
“Can you blame me?”
“After what you went through? No, of course not. But you made it perfectly clear talking about your friend and the wolf that killed her was off limits the next time we talked.” Zeth shrugged. “I don’t wear my victories on my sleeve. Not where family business is concerned. Of course I was on Razor’s tail. The Midwest is my territory, and even though I don’t go around policing the place, I do maintain some authority when it comes to what happens around here. I try to stay out of our kinds’ politics, but hearing what happened to Natalie Meyers pissed a lot of people off. Not just you. Rogue wolves don’t have any friends. Not among your kind or mine. We hunt and kill the way other animals hunt and kill, but we don’t murder. Those who do get our justice. Trust me when I say when Razor’s found, he’s gonna wish he made it easier on himself.”
Raegan stared at him a long moment, her chest heaving. In all honesty, she’d never given any sort of consideration to Razor’s actions in terms of how he affected his kind. Now, though, overlooking that much seemed beyond stupid on her part. She’d known Zeth long enough to understand the creatures that went bump in the night had some sort of working justice system…or, at least the wolves did.
“You’re right,” she said slowly. “We didn’t talk.”
“Raegan—”
“We’ve never talked. Not really. I come and say something bitchy, you counter with something annoying, I ride your ass until I have a workable story to give to Higgins and then it’s back to normal.” She scrunched her nose. “How can you love me when that’s all we’ve ever had?”
“Because I do.”
“I don’t believe you.”
His eyes flared yellow and patches of fur erupted along his chest, arms and torso. “Now?” he rasped. “Now you don’t believe me? You wanted me to whisper it over and over again not twenty minutes ago, but now that you’re done using me—”
“Using you?” Raegan’s defenses flared. “When did I ever use you? This was mutual, remember? This had to be something we both wanted or it wouldn’t have happened.”
“Which part?” he snarled. “The fucking or the claim? We were already fucking, Rae. My loving you had nothing to do with that.”
“I don’t—”
“And yeah, you used me. ‘I’m yours, Zeth,’ ‘touch me there, Zeth,’ ‘tell me you love me, Zeth.’” Long, hard breaths rocked off his chest. His hands had balled into fists and shook tightly at his side. His jaw was clamped and his yellow eyes no longer looked human, burning with fire that would have—should have—terrified her. “You’re running scared. I gave you something real, the first something real you’ve had since I don’t know when, but instead of letting yourself open up, instead of owning yourself…” He trembled and tore his gaze away. “Goddammit, you’re my mate. You think it matters if I claimed you in the heat of the moment? You accepted. You said you were mine. You can’t take that back.”
Raegan inhaled deeply, her mind a confusing rush of want versus propriety. It would be easy, she supposed, to fall back into his arms—to pretend the things that frightened her didn’t frighten her, to pretend the bad she’d seen had been a nightmare all along. To try to forget what happened when she allowed herself to get attached, to love. Zeth might not be a monster of Razor’s caliber, but that didn’t prevent other monsters from existing. There were no guarantees as to what happened tomorrow, and if she lost herself as he wanted, if she gave herself over to a sea of sensation and allowed her heart to mend, to love as deeply as she’d once wanted to love, the inevitable day when it was ripped from her would do more than reshape her world. It would destroy her.
If she gave herself to Zeth, if she let herself love…
The thought felt too tempting for words, but it similarly remained too complicated for easy solutions. The place in her heart where love should live had stood unoccupied and neglected too long, and the thought of allowing someone into that place terrified her more than she wanted to admit. To open it to a werewolf would defy everything she’d taught herself to believe.
A shiver of panic seized her spine. Her heart raced and her throat tightened, tears stinging her eyes. Zeth would only destroy her. She couldn’t make him happy. Once he really knew what she was like, he’d head for the proverbial hills.
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. She had her shoe now. She had everything she needed. “I’m so sorry, Zeth… I just can’t.”
The stoic look had returned. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t do anything.
She half expected him to follow her. When he did not, it was all she could do to get out of the church before falling apart.
She hated herself almost as much as she feared loving him, and at the moment, she didn’t know which sensation was worse.
Chapter Ten
Zeth wasn’t sure how long it took the wheels in his head to start churning again after Raegan left. His legs felt weighted with lead, his heart thundering so hard he wondered if it was trying to break free of his chest. Every time he thought he had himself under control, he’d remember the look on her face—the lost, broken fragments she pieced into a mask—and f
ell into a hard rage all over again.
He had no patience for cowards—people who hid and wasted themselves behind a litany of excuses rather than taking life’s lumps as the lessons they truly were. Nothing wagered, nothing gained. Words to fucking live by.
Raegan was a coward, and the worst kind, at that. She was the sort that made promises she knew damn well she wouldn’t keep, and not because she didn’t want to. That was the fucking punch to the balls. She wanted to follow through, she wanted to take the leap. She wanted to place her faith into someone else, because damn, she’d been managing it on her own far too long.
And that wasn’t even the final kicker. The final kicker was all on Zeth. He could scream his lungs empty over Raegan’s lack of spine, but that didn’t make him any less a fucking chump. She might have hidden behind her fear, but he was the fool who had suspended his disbelief long enough to fall for it.
He was the one who had to find out he was in love with her. Who tricked himself into hoping things wouldn’t fall apart when the spell ended. Who was idiot enough to believe the claim he’d made on her would keep them together, even if the start was rocky.
A claim tying him to her forever. Like it or not, he was hers. He’d gone and given himself to her, and she had accepted him. Bad enough the first time out of reflex, but the second time had been all on her.
Fucking claim.
There were times life was a bad sitcom tied in with one of those soppy Hallmark movies. The thing he’d resisted for so long, the thing he hadn’t really wanted had happened to him on accident. Claims were more than just words and magic. Beyond taking her blood and giving himself to her, he had made a promise. A promise he hadn’t intended to forge, but would keep, better or worse, for the rest of his days. It was a sign of complete trust—the giving of oneself to someone else. Laying everything down on the table on the whispered hope the other person wouldn’t break them. Not many wolves mated outside the species, and only a handful of those who did had happy relationships.
In just a few short hours, Zeth had become a cautionary tale. Kumbaya.
Fuck me.
He’d always been so careful. Wolves were territorial by nature—it wasn’t unusual for an accident to happen here or there. A man might accidentally let the possessive word slip in the heat of the moment, but from birth, all cubs were instructed that the only answer to an uninvited claim was, “No.” Dating within the species was a safeguard against unwanted rituals. Most sensible people knew how to say no when a mating claim was initiated.
Other wolves weren’t so lucky. Other wolves were like Zeth, and liked to live dangerously. Other wolves didn’t listen to the stories Mommy and Daddy told them as youngsters and, against better judgment, took sexual partners outside of the species. Other wolves, while breathing in sex and pheromones, offered a claim in haste, a partner who didn’t know what he or she was accepting said yes.
Sometimes it worked out. Most of the time it didn’t. Most of the time the unintended bedmate never completed the ceremony—never claimed the wolf back—and instead went on with their lives, not knowing what they had done. Not knowing to what they had just sentenced their one-night stand.
A lifetime of loneliness and need. A lifetime of craving the one person who would complete the self.
Zeth didn’t know whether or not Raegan knew the fine print. She seemed to have a working understanding of claims, enough so to respond with anger after her clumsy acceptance. But damn it, he didn’t want to think she was so callous to just condemn him to a life of loneliness over her petty fears. He didn’t want to think she would leave him, knowing she was the only woman his wolf would accept. The only woman he could touch. The only woman he could want.
If Raegan did know, though, it was clear she didn’t give a righteous fuck. She didn’t even have enough courage to try. To trust that maybe, just maybe, he knew his heart better than she did.
Goddammit.
A storm began brewing in his belly, winding winds whipping and twisting into an angry funnel of hurt. It swelled and burned before finally stretching across his fingers, and the inner wolf ripped free. His bones cracked and shifted, thick patches of coarse fur stretching across his flesh. He’d felt the animal roar for freedom several times tonight, but he hated this sort of transition the most. The out of control Hulking-out sensation that came with sweltering pain. Most of the time, Zeth kept his wolf schooled under a tight grip. Fuck knew it had taken him long enough to learn how to master it. The only time he experienced difficulty anymore was during the full moon cycle, but even then he typically had enough reign over it to keep from shifting.
All pretense of control had vanished. His clothing—the pieces he’d managed to find after Raegan’s departure—shredded in a thousand directions. He shook his massive head, grounded his hind legs and stretched. Then he was running—racing through the open door and across the church hallway, toward a scent he didn’t even identify until the man was in sight. The asshole responsible for his misery.
O’Brien.
Sitting on the steps of the pulpit was Father Kinston O’Brien. He was a tiny shell of a man with a long face and a receding hairline, and a throat that was about to be divorced from his body. By the time the preacher realized he was the target of an angry werewolf, it was too late. He turned his head with a fraction of a second to spare, and unleashed a shrill, hard scream.
Zeth bared his fangs and leapt. He angled his bite around the priest’s throat to avoid use of his incisors, landing it with enough pressure to leave a mark, but not enough to break skin. Though honestly, the only thing holding him back was the knowledge a bloody mess would only further incriminate his kind in Raegan’s mind, and perhaps the smidgeon of humanity his inner wolf hadn’t completely overshadowed. In the end, he only dragged O’Brien a couple feet before releasing the man and morphing back to human form.
“Lord my God.” O’Brien coughed, wheezing hard. “Was that my sign?” He shook his head as though trying to determine where he was, then rolled over onto his stomach. “Who’s there?”
“Your sign.” Zeth snarled, rubbing the whiskers along his jaw. “Been waiting long?”
“The Good Lord delivered. I have been reborn.”
“Gotta die first for that to happen.”
“Death is necessary,” the preacher agreed.
“Give me a reason,” Zeth spat, fully aware he stood ass naked and not really giving a damn. “Give me a reason to put you in the ground. I fucking dare you.”
The man looked up at last, as though just realizing he wasn’t alone. His eyes went wide. “Protect this house, Lord my God. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—”
Zeth sneered in disgust and delivered a swift kick to the priest’s gut, which sent a hard, pained gasp off the man’s lips. “Spare me. Don’t think the Father, Son, or whatever hold men who summon demons to fuck with people in high regard.”
O’Brien looked up sharply and climbed to his feet. “Demons?” he rasped. “I am the summoner of demons. Is this why you’re here? To deliver news?”
A muscle in Zeth’s jaw ticked. “You could say that.”
The priest stepped forward. “It worked? I summoned her? Jezebel walked this earth tonight?”
The asshole’s voice, thick with hope and eagerness, revived Zeth’s outrage, and before he could help himself, he’d leveled a meaty punch at O’Brien’s nose. Bone cracked and blood spurted, but aside from a pained cry, the priest didn’t protest. Instead, he croaked, “I am delivered,” and fell again to the ground.
“Do you have any idea what you took from me?” Zeth growled and, unable to resist, landed another kick to the man’s gut. “Do you have any fucking idea—”
“I-I did wh-what you asked for,” O’Brien sputtered. “What you all asked for! Hell upon earth. She was here! She walked. And now you all will see!” A maniacal grin spread across the priest’s face. “She was here. She fulfilled her bargain. And you, sinner…” He pointed at Zeth. “Standing n
aked as you did the day you came into this world, reborn and ready for redemption! I understand it now. I understand—”
Disgusted, Zeth aimed another punch, this time knocking the man unconscious.
Nothing more than a raving lunatic. He would find no answers here. No one to explain or understand what had been given to him tonight, only to be taken away again. The most O’Brien could do was serve as an insane punching bag, but that wouldn’t give Zeth any closure. It wouldn’t change things. Wouldn’t take back what he’d shared with Raegan. Wouldn’t undo the claim.
“Fucking shame,” he muttered. “It’d be so much easier to justify killing you if you weren’t a few peas short of a casserole.”
Zeth sighed and lifted his tired head. The church was empty, of course, but through the stained glass windows, he saw the first streaks of morning. Dawn had finally broken the night. And then strangely, he found himself wondering if O’Brien had been right after all. Perhaps Zeth was reborn. He certainly didn’t feel like the man he’d been when he and Raegan arrived here only hours earlier. Things had changed for him.
He had changed.
He was a man in love with a woman who couldn’t love him back.
The scent of tears hung thick in the air. Sickened with himself, Zeth sniffed, pinched the bridge of his nose, shook himself off, and then shifted back to wolf form.
Over the course of one night, his life had changed forever. He just didn’t feel like facing it now. And he didn’t have to.
All he had to do right now was get home, crawl into bed, and sleep.
* * * * *
Raegan tossed her keys onto her coffee table, flicked on the first light she came across, and limped into the kitchen. In one of the cabinets, she found a box of Froot Loops. She poured herself a bowl, doused it in milk, then carried it and the remainder of the cow juice to her breakfast nook.
InsatiableNeed Page 9
