Wolf Bait

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  You feel so damned good.

  Matt brushed Jenna’s lips with his own, closed his eyes as he rested his lips on hers, reveling in her clean, familiar scent, allowing his lungs to breathe in her essence.

  Just one kiss.

  We can handle this.

  Encouraging her mouth to open, he kissed her tenderly first. Then he swiped his tongue sensually over Jenna’s teeth, whispering his hunger into her…with the beast’s voice.

  She reacted as though she had been shot.

  Her body went rigid, tight, distant. But he kept his mouth on hers, kissed her in the fierce manner she had always preferred. A devouring kiss now, long, wet and uninterrupted. An indicator of the fact that only reluctantly would he let her up for a breath. A golden promise of what might come next.

  He felt himself slip. Felt the physical snap within his body that signaled danger. Oddly enough, though, as his own awareness began to fade, Jenna’s body began to loosen. Never meek when it came to sex, there was a chance she was as intoxicated as he was by this incredibly savage meeting of their mouths, and in the risqué landscape of the cell. She pulled at his hands, moved her hips, flexed her arms.

  Horrified by the hunger that was taking him over and by what he was doing, Matt tried at pull away, tried to separate from the part of himself that was guiding the hunger. The part that shouldn’t have been noticeable, let alone acting on its wishes.

  But Christ, the beast inside him wanted Jenna just as much as he did.

  He tried to rally. Struggled to jam the snarling beast back where it belonged. Jenna’s attempts to free herself were invigorating the beast further; inviting the beast to cling to the surface of his emotions.

  “Matt…” Jenna’s lips formulated his name with a quick, plush, blistering volcanic slickness.

  Not now. No explanations.

  Can’t.

  Have to get out.

  Have to get away.

  Releasing her hands, Matt, or whoever the hell he had become, didn’t sprint in the opposite direction. Instead, he tore at the buttons of Jenna’s lab coat as he continued to kiss her.

  Surely she kissed him back? Drove her breasts and hips into him seductively? Wanted this?

  If he could forget, lose himself in her…

  Her coat came off with a tearing sound. He had no idea what she wore in the way of a shirt, except that it felt crisp to the touch. His need had built to a frenzy. His hands glided up under the fabric covering her, pursuing the purpose of the rattling, rock-hard, indescribable thing he had become. It was true that the roaring, morphable beast inside him couldn’t show its hairy face or get a physical grip without the moon’s light, but it sure as hell could force a daring rendezvous and create a long-overdue reunion.

  Maybe, in some way, he should be glad about this?

  Wasn’t Jenna’s willingness to take part in this situation confirmation enough that she loved him? That she’d forgive him?

  Was he thinking clearly?

  He had her on the ground, on her back, in a blink. His kisses moved over her cheek. She let out a staccato sigh.

  Willing his hands to stop, but unable to control them, he ripped at her shirt, heard the buttons go, and feeling the warm, luminous skin of Jenna’s stomach beneath his fingers, almost came right then and there.

  And, miraculously, against all odds, Jenna’s palms moved over him, kneading the tense muscles of his upper back, digging her fingernails in. She pulled him closer. He could feel her heartbeat next to his chest. He could see the pulse in her neck where it met the sharp angle of her prominent collarbones.

  Her breath was fragrant on his face, rich.

  His love swelled.

  Her hands were on his lower back, working their way down his sides, onto his hips, traveling exotically toward the front, over his thighs, headed for an erection that virtually raged with need.

  Jenna, I?

  A sudden sting came, as though a thin-bladed knife had pierced the muscle between his shoulder blades. Followed by a similar painful stab to his left thigh.

  His growl of distress hurled outward through his open mouth.

  He roared again.

  Hurts like a…

  Like a…

  Dammit.

  Dammit to hell and back.

  Jenna winced, rolled over, winded, and looked up. It took several more seconds to speak. “Thanks, Jim.”

  “No problem,” Jim said, holding up the empty syringe he’d just plunged into Matt’s back. “That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

  He offered Jenna a hand, which she took.

  “The doc’s not himself, I’m thinking,” Jim added.

  Understatement of the century!

  “You’ll okay the use of the tranq?” Jim asked.

  “I certainly will.”

  Jim nodded once, made no mention of her state of disarray as she straightened her skirt. “You got him, too?”

  Jenna glanced at the empty syringe she was palming, hoping with all her heart that a shared needle, in this circumstance between Matt and the other creature knocked out in the corner, wouldn’t prove to be a horrific mistake.

  “More for the surprise impact,” she said, on her feet and still trembling uncontrollably. “There wasn’t enough left in this syringe to drop a Chihuahua.”

  Pressing her loosened, disheveled hair back behind her shoulder, she signaled to Jim and then watched Matt being lifted by his arms.

  Her gaze shifted from Matt to the motionless creature in the corner and back to Matt.

  “What the hell,” she muttered to herself out loud, “is going on?”

  Chapter Four

  The blackness behind Matt’s eyes turned charcoal, then gray, lightening quickly, shade by shade, until the sensation became one of whiteness. The color of clouds.

  For a while he felt at peace. Couldn’t think of anything in particular, except that he didn’t hurt, ache or feel pressured by anything at all. Which, in itself, seemed strange.

  He wiggled his fingers, moved his head, unable for the life of him remember where he was…until a familiar odor caused his heart and eyelids to flutter.

  Drugs. Seeping out of his own pores.

  And beyond that, the lingering aftertaste of narcotics, like he’d just sucked on tinfoil, mixed with one other chemical composition. Lip gloss?

  Panic struck. His body jerked. Beating down the rising fear and inner commotion with a tremendous effort, Matt opened his eyes. Though he could have sworn he heard his synapses reconnecting, a whirl of vertigo all but hijacked the dryness of his tone. “Anyone here have an aspirin?”

  “As a matter of fact, we do,” Jenna replied, rattling a plastic bottle.

  The small, next-to-insignificant noise thundered in Matt’s ears, nearly overshadowed by the roar of the blood rushing back to his head. With the blood came more awareness.

  “Oh, geez,” he muttered from between tight teeth, turning his head, having to look up to see Jenna sitting in a chair above him. A hard wooden chair that damn well looked exactly like the attendant’s.

  Chills dripped down his back. His forehead felt damp, though he didn’t reach up to find out for sure, because he was flat out on his back, on a white surface. What had seemed like a cloud was, in fact, he now realized, a cell.

  This hadn’t been a nightmare, after all.

  “One or two?” Jenna asked, concern evident in the question.

  “Ten,” he answered. “Unless salicylic acid is contraindicated for whatever the hell you hit me with.”

  “Least of your worries, don’t you think?” Jenna rallied.

  He waited that one out, coming up with no immediate response at all. Virtually tongue-tied.

  “If you want aspirin, I’m afraid you’ll have to chew them,” Jenna added.

  What she hadn’t said was that a water glass in the hand of a nutcase might be as dangerous as a knife.

  Just f-ing great!

  Grimacing, Matt ignored the ensuing kick of pain that radiated
up his neck and said, for lack of anything better coming to mind, “Well, that was mind-blowing. Was it good for you?” Stupid, lame-ass words to fill a space so terrifying, he wasn’t sure if the space could actually be breached.

  “Not particularly,” Jenna gamely replied.

  Matt’s throat was so dry, he couldn’t have gagged anything down, though he gazed longingly at the aspirin. “So,” he ventured, “I suppose you’ll want to talk about it?”

  “Don’t you?”

  He had a flash of recall that was tainted with a reddish hue. The girl. Werewolf. The fact that he had to get her out of here. Equally as important, now he had to get himself out of here.

  He moved his arms casually, and with relief. No straitjacket.

  “How long have I been knocked out?”

  Tiny licks of anxiety nipped at his arms. As he shoved his body to a sitting position, he rode out a bout of light-headedness.

  “Two hours,” Jenna said. “Don’t worry, you didn’t drool.”

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  A hesitation, then, “She is next door.”

  “We have to?”

  “What are you?” Jenna interrupted calmly, though he heard the unevenness of panic underlying the point. “Who are you, and what have you done with Matt Wilson?”

  Heart suspended for a beat, Matt said, “You really wouldn’t believe the story behind that one.”

  “Today, I might believe anything, so at the risk of sounding clichéd, try me.”

  “Can we talk about this outside? Anywhere but here?” He added adamantly, gazing up at the lights, “What time is it?”

  After considering him for several infuriatingly slow seconds, she said, “It’s seven o’clock, and you haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

  Seven o’clock? He’d been out for two hours? He didn’t even know a word bad enough to describe this predicament. He wasn’t up on werewolf lore enough to know how he might react to the drugs. They hadn’t worked too well for the girl.

  His voice came out breathy. “Listen to me. We have to get her to my car. Before dark.”

  Something you can’t see.

  No time to explain.

  “Are you ill?” she countered.

  “Yes, but not in the way you might think. Nothing you can cure with a pill. Will you help us get out?”

  “With no more explanation than that?” Jenna said, not exactly appreciating the finer art of avoidance.

  “Only a hiatus, I promise. Get us out and I’ll tell you everything. I owe you that and so much more.”

  Although Jenna drew back at the “everything,” she said, “Just let her walk out of here? With you?”

  “Actually, I’ll have to carry her.”

  “And if I were to call the FBI?”

  “I don’t think they’ll want to carry anybody.”

  Jenna’s expression was stern. Matt knew that if he didn’t get out of there, out of her sight, there might be no hope left to cling to.

  “And if I’ve already called them?” Jenna said.

  “Cancel.”

  “How?” she asked. “How would you cancel a call to the FBI?”

  “False alarm. Woman high on drugs and beating on herself. Make something up.”

  “You mean ignore the fact that a woman is turning inside-out? That she’s becoming a frigging animal in front of my eyes?” Jenna pointed a finger at him. “And that you said you’re like her? That for a minute back there, I believed you were?”

  Matt’s heart rate spiked again. Reason was to a psychiatrist what food was to most other people. In her profession, Jenna James was part pit bull.

  “You’ll need to destroy the camera feed. All of it,” he suggested.

  “That might take care of the records, but what about the Hippocratic oath?”

  “You can’t do much for that poor woman here. Or me. Knowing this, are you willing to let someone else try? Are you so stubborn that you think you can help everyone, in every damn circumstance?”

  “I don’t know that I can’t help. Not for sure. So, why should I believe you can?”

  “Because you love me,” he replied, getting at least that much out in the open. “And sometimes, love has to be blind.”

  Jenna smiled at that answer, without meaning to. Her expression was a burst of immediate sunlight in a grave and colorless situation. It was a smile that brought Matt a much needed boost of confidence, in spite of the fact that it faded all too quickly.

  “Not good enough,” Jenna stated firmly.

  But Jenna had slipped?from her technical voice to her real voice. The after-hours Jenna was here in this room, if only temporarily. The Jenna who had allowed him sexual leeway, in fact encouraged it. The Jenna who had given as much as she had taken, then sat on his bed, naked, legs tangled in the sheets, blissfully humming out-of-tune songs.

  The knot of hope in Matt’s chest doubled in size.

  His inner whine had nothing whatsoever to do with the beast this time.

  It was a given that he wanted to console her. It was also a given that he couldn’t touch her again. Not here. Not tonight.

  But oh, how he wanted to.

  “Help me,” he said, getting to his feet, almost pleading for her to believe him?except that he hadn’t yet told her anything at all, actually.

  There was that.

  He shrugged it off. Of primary importance now was getting out of this hospital. In another half hour, outside at least, he wouldn’t be able to utter a single syllable. He was good for only as long as the daylight lasted. In here, with the pressure, the anxiety, the closeness to Jenna and whatever had been in that damn syringe, he was a loose cannon. Sure of nothing.

  Can’t take a chance.

  “Someone might question the missing tapes,” she proposed, he guessed to get him talking again.

  “Then it’s a good thing Fairview is still in the Dark Ages, without updated recording systems,” Matt shot back, steadier now that the vertigo had passed and he’d had at least a glimpse of that faded smile of hers.

  “Where would we take her?”

  “I’m taking her,” Matt corrected. “You’ll stay here.”

  Jenna got to her feet, shook her head. “She’s my responsibility.”

  “Not anymore. This one is out of your reach. It happens.”

  “Are you saying I’m incompetent?”

  “Not saying anything of the kind. Just that there are people better equipped to help her.”

  “And they can help you?”

  He met her eyes, wanting to drown himself in their icy, baby-blue depths. “They are trying to help me, yes.”

  Her eyes maintained their defiant shine. “I can’t meet these people? Know about them?”

  “I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”

  “That’s a bit vague, even for you, a bona fide detective.”

  “I know how it sounds. I just don’t have time to talk now or beg. Night is coming. There’s a full moon. If you thought what happened to us a while ago was strange and you press me for answers much longer, you’ll be in for the ride of your life outside of these walls. And not in a good way.”

  “Threats, Matt? Maybe you’ve gone over the deep end. Maybe you belong here, after all. For a while.”

  “Maybe I do,” he agreed. “But I can’t take you up on the offer just now. Not today.”

  Man, he wanted Jenna back. At least, she should be given a chance to understand. Without her, none of it mattered to him, anyway, or would ever matter to him again. Not the job, the research he had been doing since his own first Change, or the workings of the world outside, the one in which Jenna lived and breathed.

  Thing was, he just couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t make himself say the words that would prove how life truly was at times stranger than fiction. Or that this was one of those times. As he gazed at Jenna, willing her to help, to trust him, just this once…

  As he saw himself running out of options and excuses…

  As he inwardly vowed never
to hurt her, leave her or hide anything from her again, ever, as long as he lived, if she would just give him this one chance…

  She nodded her head.

  Excitement rode the air like barely contained rage. Panic was in there, too, along with dread and the urge to hyperventilate.

  Thank heaven, Jenna thought, Jim hadn’t questioned her orders.

  Matt had been out the door in a flash, motioning for the she-creature’s cell to be unlocked. They had hit the woman up again with an injection, and she, as director here, had okayed all of this. Because it was the right thing to do? Jenna no longer knew. Maybe she’d done this for Matt as a last farewell. A parting favor. It was obvious he cared for the woman in that cell more than he cared for her. He would risk everything to help someone else.

  End of story? Merely a really bad dream? Fact. Matt had become more than Matt in her presence. A blackness had slid behind his eyes when he’d pinned her to the wall, chasing out the green. She could hardly function thinking about it, vowed to get to the bottom of this, no matter what.

  She watched Matt lift the woman, now nearly covered in hair that was clumped and matted with sweat, and whose breath came in great chest-rattling rasps, though she’d been given enough tranquilizer to knock out a horse.

  It was downright freaky.

  Matt cannot be like her.

  Not my Matt.

  A genetic mutation? A cluster of cells gone awry that had hidden behind Matt’s flawless exterior until now? An illness carried in his lineage? Age-related, maybe? Drug-related?

  Why hadn’t I known?

  Matt was all but running down the hallway, the creature’s listless body held tightly in his arms. He anxiously waited while she unlocked the iron door.

  His body was fending off a series of visible shudders that made her grimace each time she watched one hit. She heard him swear, suck in air, swear again.

  His angular features were tight, but the same ones she had always craved. He looked the same. He just didn’t feel the same. She’d noticed it the moment he’d entered the hospital, but had been too preoccupied with her inner thoughts and hopes.

  If he was ill, seriously ill, she wanted to help.