by Jory Strong
Chapter 3
Analia swayed in place, the imprint of Kellen’s body and the heady impact of his kiss still fogging her mind. It took a heartbeat, and then a second for the embarrassment to creep in along with self-consciousness and pain.
What had just happened?
Had she been taken out for a trial run, and found lacking?
She hadn’t imagined the hard ridge against her mound—but then, he was a guy, and her obvious willingness could have been turn-on enough.
She hadn’t imagined the things he’d said—but then, maybe they’d just been lines, and the ease of his conquest had meant he was only interested in a challenge.
Heat flamed in her cheeks even as an icy hollowness formed in her chest.
She’d been so caught up in the fantasy of finally meeting the man meant for her—a fantasy strengthened by possession of the apple-shaped charm and by the tarot reading—that she’d gone onto the dance floor defenseless.
Not that she ever went heavily armored, emotionally speaking, but she’d surrendered herself in a way she’d never done before with a total stranger.
She watched as the other dancers parted, allowing Kellen a clear path to his table, and the Supernatural Ops agents who’d returned to their seats. He didn’t look back at her, sat without even a glance—worse, his attention was quickly caught by a woman heading his way, a woman who had plenty of men losing track of their conversations to stare at her and nearly drool.
Confident strides carried the woman forward, the sway of her hips conjuring masculine fantasies. Shimmering black hair reached her ass, caressing it, practically begging male hands to cup and grip.
Analia turned away, back toward her own table, telling herself she was glad Kellen had done what he’d done. Clearly the tarot reading had been wrong, or at least their interpretation of the cards had been wrong.
She reached the table and dropped into her chair. Sabra gave her a sympathetic look. “You nailed it with your first impression. What a hound dog.”
Neither of them brought up the reading, though Sabra sent a frown toward her purse, where the cards were safely stashed. And Ace was thankfully out of sight, and hopefully hadn’t witnessed the hot kisses on the dance floor followed by the quick, cold abandonment.
Analia tried to shrug both reading and brushoff away with a quick lift and lowering of her shoulders. She should get out on the dance floor again, shake what’d happened with Kellen off, but her heart urged retreat.
“I’m going to grab some fresh air, walk along the beach.”
“You want me to come with?”
“And miss the chance to capitalize on The Lovers?” Not that Sabra was into sex with strangers either, but strangers turned into friends with benefits, and tonight was still an excellent night for Sabra to meet a new friend and have that happen, regardless of the tarot reading.
“Easy come, easy go,” Sabra said. “Say the word and I’ll take a walk with you.”
Analia smiled, warmed by Sabra’s total willingness to put friendship first. “I’m good.”
“Text me before you head home, so I’ll know you’re safe?” Not that the beach stretching out in front of Stones was a hotbed of criminal activity. It was well patrolled and, even at night, had plenty of people out enjoying a walk along the surf.
“I’ll text,” she said, but didn’t manage to leave the club without a glance in Kellen’s direction.
No surprise, the sexual goddess who’d been heading his way now stood in front of him.
His back was to Analia, so she couldn’t read his expression, but when the dark-haired woman’s attention snapped to her, as if sensing her interest in him, the fury directed at Analia was a furnace blast accusing her of going after someone else’s man.
He asked me to dance, Analia mentally protested, but it didn’t lessen the tight knot in her stomach or the heavy feeling in her heart.
It was definitely time to get out of there.
* * *
“Hunt elsewhere,” Kellen growled at Deidra, aware of his amused audience. “I’ll tell you what I told my sire, you’re wasting your time by coming here. I’m not taking a mate.”
Deidra’s eyes narrowed. “Because you prefer humans?”
“I prefer freedom.”
“We’ll see.”
Deidra’s tone matched hard eyes and promised the ruthless pursuit of her goal. Kellen shrugged and turned away from her. Not a retreat. She had no power over him, but there was little point in debating the future with her, especially as Gaige and Crew watched.
His gaze went to Analia’s table. Her female friend was there, but she wasn’t.
An involuntary growl accompanied a scan of the dance floor as he imagined Analia in the arms of another man.
The remembered scent of her arousal propelled him forward. He didn’t like that she’d disappeared. Didn’t like the thought that she’d chosen to satisfy her need by leaving with another man. Didn’t like the possibility that she and the blond she’d been sitting with were friends with benefits.
A deeper growl vibrated in Kellen’s throat, and he wanted to claim it was a reaction to the unfriendly glower directed at him by Analia’s friend.
He scanned the dance floor again, spotted the blond returning to the table, without Analia. And then he encountered a pocket of her alluring scent and turned toward the club’s exit.
He refused to consider the reasons why he continued forward. Why he followed Analia’s scent out of the nightclub. Why he surrendered to the overwhelming need to shed the human form and become hound.
In four-legged form it was far easier to track her. It was far easier to convince himself there was no harm in yielding to the instinctual need to seek her out and remain at her side—if for no other reason than to ensure that Deidra didn’t somehow consider Analia a threat.
He found her sitting on a bench along the boardwalk, facing the ocean. The waves were hardly worthy of calling them by that name, but boogie boarders were out in the water, playing in the moonlight.
A bark alerted her to his approach, and pleasure shimmered through him when she turned toward him without fear. The Irish Wolfhounds native to Earth could weigh one-eighty, but he was larger, bulkier, heavier.
She held out her hand, murmuring, “Aren’t you a handsome guy.”
He went to that hand, half closed his eyes when she stroked his head and neck. Her scent filled his nostrils, tempting him to trade hound form for human, to carry her onto the beach and stretch her out beneath him on the sand.
Impossible of course. Humans weren’t ready to know the truth, that their world was both a destination for supernatural beings and a portal world used by supernatural beings when they traveled from one realm to another.
“Where’d you come from, boy?” she asked, concern in her voice as she combed through the fur at his neck, checking for a collar.
Her gaze lifted and searched the area around her for someone who might be looking for a dog. He put his chin on her knee with a heartfelt sigh, drawing her gaze back to him. She smiled, gave a small, self-conscious laugh and said, “You’re the second hound dog I’ve encountered tonight, only the first one was in human form.”
He cocked his head, encouraging her to continue. “I thought…” her voice caught and she looked out toward the ocean. “It’s just as well. He was obviously cheating on his girlfriend, or was thinking about it.”
Kellen curled his lip, showing a hint of teeth though he refused to ask himself whether he was aggravated at the thought of another man hitting on her, or aggravated on her behalf.
She found the spot behind his left ear, massaged it with her fingertips and sent pleasure down to his canine toenails. “Well, on the bright side,” she murmured, “I guess it means I’m not totally lacking when it comes to attractiveness. Until she came into the club, and made it clear he belonged to her, I was thinking I’d failed some kind of kiss test.”
Denial howled through Kellen, chased by guilt. Surely she didn’t thi
nk he belonged to Deidra. Surely she didn’t think—
“One minute he was telling me he needed more, and the next he was walking away without looking back.”
Fuck! She had it completely wrong! He was the good guy here! Doing the right thing!
If not for Gaige’s interruption, in another minute he’d have hauled her right out of the club and been lucky to make it back to his place before taking her. Scent didn’t lie and she wouldn’t have said no!
“He made me feel beautiful and desirable,” she whispered, and the guilt deepened. “When our eyes met the first time, I let myself believe there was a connection. And the tarot cards made it seem like he was the one. Then he asked me to dance and when he kissed me… Sappy, huh? And I know tarot cards aren’t always right. That sometimes they reflect what you’re thinking about, not what’s in your future.”
Her pleasure-producing fingertips moved to his other ear. “I should have known better. Given who he was with, he’s probably some hotshot Supernatural Ops agent, and look at me, I’m a rehabilitation counselor. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. I love helping people and being their cheerleader. But mostly success can be measured in baby steps, not saving the world or bringing criminals to justice, or whatever it is they do in Supernatural Ops. I can’t stack up against the women in his world.”
Part of him wanted to slink away. Fuck, now he felt like a total dog!
Maybe he should slink away, find another camera-free patch of darkness and shift form then return to make certain things clear. First, no female had a claim to him, especially not Deidra. And second, Analia had no reason to doubt her attractiveness. She was just lucky he hadn’t done her on the dance floor!
The only reason he’d walked away from her was because of her friendship with Saffron. If not for that…
On a sigh, she combed her fingers through the hair on the back of his neck. “What I love about dogs is there’s no pretense. You’re a gorgeous wolfhound, a total hound dog, so I know what to expect. You’re sucking up the attention right now, but if a female in heat comes along, adios, you’re going to give chase. If someone with better treats or a more magical touch when it comes to ear and belly rubs comes along, you’ll give in to temptation. And that’s okay. I know that going in, and it’s okay. No hurt feelings. No heartbreak. But men… Men are a totally different story.”
She gave a shaky laugh and pressed a kiss to the top of his head, whispered, “But one of these days, that’s going to change. I am going to meet Mr. Right.”
And there it was, confirmation that walking away from her had been the right thing. She was exactly the kind of human female he avoided, one who was looking for something more than sex.
He didn’t have more to offer than sex.
His trust of humans—hell, the entirety of his trust, didn’t extend beyond a handful of Supernatural Ops agents.
Leave, his conscience urged.
Stay, his instinct countered, fueled by her heady scent and the equally heady feel of her hand on his body, even if he was in fey hound form.
The sound of a cried, “No!” reached him before the battle between conscience and instinct escalated.
“That’s mine!” the same anguished male voice yelled.
Laughter met the claim.
Metal wheels traveled across concrete. A shopping cart, Kellen thought, easily picturing one of the homeless he’d seen in this area.
“No!” the man cried again.
There were metal thumps, a crashing sound. It was far enough away that Analia remained unaware while Kellen’s more sensitive ears easily picked up the sound of another male voice, this one aggressive and slurred. “Loser.”
The comment was followed by what might have been a body hitting the ground, a sharp cry of pain, and then drunken male laughter.
Kellen stood, lifting his head from Analia’s knee.
Another drunk taunted, “One-legged freak.”
A deep growl accompanied the rise of hair along Kellen’s nape. Centuries later and completely healed, he still remembered what it felt like to be on the receiving end of cruelty because of his withered forearm.
Thuds followed by sharp cries carried the image of a downed, helpless man being kicked and beaten. Kellen charged away from Analia, his mind hazed red by fury.
He raced past Stones, running at full speed for a block, and then another block, then barreled into a parking lot. The assault was being watched by club and beachgoers with phones in their hands, cameras pointed at the violence.
Five men stood around a sixth dressed in dirty, torn shorts and a stained tank top. Three kicked the homeless man while their two companions wrestled with a prosthetic right leg.
Kellen leapt at one of the three men, not bothering to give a warning, only barely hanging on to enough restraint to go for an arm instead of a throat.
Don’t kill the humans—unless absolutely necessary—had been drummed into him before he’d been allowed to enter the portal that would bring him to Earth. And that message had been reinforced frequently since joining IRE.
The drunken man screamed, a high-pitched sound of fear now that he was on the receiving end of an attack.
Powerful jaws crushed bone as sharp teeth easily shredded skin and muscle.
The man beat at Kellen’s head, but his strikes were ineffective as the force of Kellen’s launch had already sent the drunk backward.
The man slammed to the concrete, his head bouncing.
Kellen released the arm, snarled in the man’s face before chasing the man’s drunken friends.
They’d quickly abandoned their fun and their companion. But even if they’d had a head start measured in minutes instead of seconds, they wouldn’t have been a match for Kellen’s hound form.
Even if they’d been sober he could have easily caught them. They hadn’t been smart enough to separate, and so he took them down one at a time, mercilessly sinking his teeth into arms and legs, pausing only long enough to warn them with a menacing growl not to get to their feet.
They remained where they lay, curling around their injured limbs, crying or gasping or moaning.
Sirens sounded all around him, approaching fast from a multitude of directions.
He raced out of the lot, leapt from the walkway onto the beach and ran, putting additional distance between him and Analia. Instinct driving him to lead the danger away from her, and then to plunge into the surf to erase his trail.
Water splashed up his legs and along his sides. He kept going, finally spotting a place where he could leave the beach and shed his hound form for a human one.
Kellen returned to the bar. He sauntered in as if he hadn’t decimated humans who even now were being loaded into ambulances.
There was no sign of Deidra, which was a good thing. If he’d seen her, he might well have returned to hound form and torn her apart—though he had a bad feeling it wouldn’t reduce the guilt vibrating through his chest.
Fuck! Analia should be grateful he’d walked away from her! And she was absolutely right, the tarot cards, and whatever she’d read into them, were wrong!
Absolutely wrong.
He dropped into his seat. Gaige lifted an eyebrow while Crew inhaled deeply. “Apparently our friend’s walk on the beach led to an encounter with a certain human female. I can smell her scent on him. Dare I say the word?”
Kellen bared his teeth and growled, “Don’t.”
Crew grinned. “Do you mean the word mate? Because that’s the only way I can interpret his actions.”
Gaige nodded. “It’s the only interpretation that makes sense. First avoiding looking at her. Then surrendering and hauling her to the dance floor as a form of foreplay.”
“Intense foreplay,” Crew corrected. “If he was a dragon, her clothes would have been piles of ash on the dance floor.”
“The very same dance floor he fled from when I warned him that she was friends with Saffron. And yet moments later, upon noticing she’d left the club, he was chasing after her.”
/>
Crew laughed, a small hint of smoke escaping his nostrils. “If it looks like a mate, and smells like a mate—”
“Then it must be a mate,” Gaige said.
“I knew Saffron was going to bring trouble when she caused Taine to torch three expensive cars in quick succession,” Crew said.
A pained expression settled on Gaige’s face and Crew added, “Oops, I keep forgetting that the yellow Maserati held a special place in your heart. Foolish of you to offer it up in a poker game.”
“Back to the matter at hand,” Gaige said, the growl in his voice as deep as the one that’d been in Kellen’s, though he was no fey hound. “I believe we can both agree that our companion here—the second companion in a short period of time—has in fact, stumbled upon his mate.”
Crew tapped his fingertips on the table. “It doesn’t bode well for us. Bad luck tends to come in threes. The question becomes, do we put in for temporary transfers? Leave the area for a century or so?”
Gaige took a swallow from his beer bottle. “And miss the show?”
“There won’t be any show,” Kellen snarled. “Unlike the both of you, who one day intend to take mates, I will never take a mate.”
Gaige and Crew shared a glance. Crew said, “Does that sound like famous last words to you?”
Gaige nodded. “It does. It surely does.”
Thankfully a threesome of well-endowed humans arrived at the table, preceded by the scent of their desire, and derailed the conversation.
“Dance,” the blond in the group purred, trailing long, red fingernails down the center of Crew’s chest.
A mocha-toned female made Gaige her target, while a brunette with sultry lips and inviting eyes made Kellen her target. “Dance with me, handsome?” she asked, her gaze dipping to the front of his jeans.
Crew stood, as did Gaige. They shared another glance, this one setting Kellen’s teeth on edge. When they looked at him, there was speculation and challenge in their eyes.
He stood, curling a hand around the brunette’s arm as if he’d hurry her onto the dance floor and then off of it, going somewhere to fuck.
