Must Love Lycans

by Michele Bardsley

  “Don’t start that again, Skippy.”

  “Start what?” he asked coldly. “And don’t call me Skippy.”

  “Yeah. That’ll happen. Skippy.” I waved my hand in the air. “You know, where you go back to being all stoic and serious. You wanna act that way with other people, then okay. I think it’s stupid, but you know . . . okay. But not with me.”

  “And how should I act with you?”

  “Like you like me.” I took a huge bite of sandwich. The bread was homemade—sourdough, OMG—and there was ham, salami, and roast beef layered with spicy mustard and dabs of mayonnaise. “Mmmmphhggggrrrr.”

  “What?”

  I swallowed the bite. “Mighty phenomenal sandwich.”

  One eyebrow arched. “All that noise sounded like dialogue from a bad erotica novel.”

  “You read a lot of those?” I asked.

  “Every chance I get.”

  “You should try some of the good ones,” I said.

  His eyebrows hit his hairline. The chilly look in his gaze melted. You know, he had really nice eyes. And his face was GQ model material, all sculpted cheeks, square jaw, and aquiline nose. I wondered how he would taste. Better than my sandwich, I bet . . . and that was a mighty fine sandwich.

  “What?” I said primly. “I’m allowed to read dirty books.”

  “Hmm.” He sipped on his can of—

  “What is that barf you’re drinking?”

  He choked. It took him a full thirty seconds to get his breath back. “It’s not barf!”

  “Smells like it.”

  “It’s the werewolf version of an energy drink. It’s good.”

  “If by good you mean barf.”

  “Stop saying ‘barf’!”

  I smiled at him sweetly. Then I ate my sandwich.

  Damian apparently lost his taste for the werewolf go-juice. He pushed the can away and stole my Sprite. I was only a few bites away from finishing my snack, but I was full—and now soda-less, so I pushed away the plate. “That was awesome. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I can’t help but notice that I’m in a big T-shirt.” It covered my ass, and I was still wearing my bra and panties, but I really wanted a shower and more appropriate clothing. “Where are my clothes?”

  “The shirt was destroyed and the pants are in the bedroom.” He frowned. “I will get you new clothes.”

  “When?”

  “Ah. When you run out of my T-shirts.” Then he looked at me, I mean really looked at me, and this wave of red and heat and lust roared over me.

  My nipples went hard, and my breath left in a rush, and my panties got soaked.

  “You’re flushed. Are you okay?”

  I swallowed the knot in my throat. His desire beat through me like ancient drums, so primal and raw that I was held hostage by the intensity. I sucked in oxygen, but my body was on fire, as if he were touching me, and kissing me, and . . . oh. Sweet mamma jamma.

  The more he looked at me, the worse it got. Well, the better it got, I should say, because pleasure tingled through me, gathering hot and tight between my legs. I bit my lip and dug my fingernails into my legs.

  This had never happened before.

  I stared at him with wide eyes.

  “What’s going on?” he asked softly. He was studying me, his own body tense, his gaze burning. “I can smell your arousal.”

  “It’s your fault,” I managed through clenched teeth.

  “I haven’t touched you.”

  “Well, duh.”

  He wanted to touch me. Badly. There was so much color in his emotions. Like those emotionally colored ribbons I’d discerned earlier. This, however, was mostly red, mostly passion, and I could hear whispers of words like “beautiful” and “need” and “take.”

  What the hell? Emotions had never come in colors and I wasn’t telepathic, so I didn’t understand why I could hear words. It all pulsed together, a living, breathing thing, amazing and powerful.

  “I’m an empath.” It was the first time I’d ever told anyone about my gift. “And I seem to be absorbing your lust.”

  He grinned.

  “Seriously?” I was flabbergasted. “Me being an empath doesn’t freak you out?”

  “Why would it?” His grin widened. “I’m more interested in my ability to make you come.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not touching you,” he pointed out again, “and you’re nearly vibrating.” His nostrils flared. “You’re close, aren’t you?”

  I gulped.

  He captured my gaze; another wave crashed over me.

  I pushed my thighs together and sucked in air. “I can do it back,” I threatened.

  His lips hitched. “Go ahead.”

  Knock, knock, knock.

  “I may have to murder whoever that is,” said Damian.

  His passion receded, but not by much. I tried to get myself together, but I couldn’t enact my shields. Something about Damian—about whatever this was between us—forbade me from closing the connection.

  It was really a day of firsts for me.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  The kitchen doorway opened directly onto the foyer, so I could easily see Damian answer the front door, and the two people who came through it. They both stamped snow off their feet. The woman was blonde, and had a classic beauty. She was well dressed—though I thought it odd she wore no coat. She definitely had that air of wealth about her that I knew from my mother and her circle of friends. The gentleman with her was a tad more . . . well, blue collar. He wore a light jacket, jeans, and Nikes. His raven hair was shaggy, his eyes a gold-green, and his casual stance could not hide the raw power that swirled around him. He was dangerous, in the same way Damian was dangerous.

  “Oh! You must be Kelsey.” The woman hurried past Damian, who flashed me a look of worried surprise. She settled on the end of the bench, and smiled. “You are quite lovely.” She extended her hand. “I’m Elizabeth Jones,” she said. “And this is my husband, Tez.”

  “Hey,” said her husband. I noticed then he was holding a Louis Vuitton suitcase—one that cost six grand by my estimation. He put it down, then leaned over the table to shake my hand. “You’re the shrink.”

  “Psychotherapist,” I corrected. “We do the same thing as shrinks, but we use smaller words and keep our egos in check.”

  He laughed.

  Neither he nor Damian chose to sit. Since I was connected to Damian, I could feel his need to protect, to stay alert even among friends. He was not the trustful sort. I couldn’t help but wonder about the events that occurred that caused his current emotional responses.

  And here I thought I was gonna give up psychotherapy.

  “We understand that you had to leave in rather a hurry. I hope you don’t mind, Kelsey, but I brought you some clothes.” She waved at the suitcase. “They may be a tad big,” she said, frowning. “But I think they’ll do until you can get a new wardrobe.”

  I glanced at Damian, but he’d gone all stoic. He’d shuttered his emotions again, or at least tried to, but I could still feel wisps. He couldn’t hide from me—and I couldn’t hide from him, either. I felt a rush of warmth for the way he’d been caring for me. It felt nice to the recipient of someone’s concern. “You’re very kind,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “It’s our pleasure.”

  Scents were tickling my nose. Elizabeth’s perfume, yes, but underneath a sorta crispness, like dried leaves. And coming from Tez was a musk I associated with maleness, but something else, too—the closest example would be the dark, rich scent of wet earth. He was like Damian, but not. The scents I had associated with Damian did not match Tez’s.

  Wait. I’d been associating scents with Damian?

  Oh, my God. I really was turning into a werewolf. And it appeared that there was a whole world of beings that populated secret corners of the world. It was amazing and te
rrifying all at once.

  “Forgive my rudeness,” I said. “But what are you?”

  “I’m a vampire,” said Elizabeth. “And Tez is a were-jaguar.”

  Dazed, I looked up at Tez, who grinned widely. The Cheshire cat, I thought, feeling a bubble of hysteria rise within me. Then I turned my gaze to Elizabeth. She’d brought me clothes, so I couldn’t help but think of her as the Hatter. “You drink blood.”

  “Yes. But only Tez’s. It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” She reached over and patted my hands, which I had clasped on the table. “It will be dawn soon and you look tired. Get some rest. Things will look better this evening.”

  “It feels as though the world has gone upside down,” I said.

  “It has,” said Tez. “But it’s a much better viewpoint. C’mon, Ellie Bee. Damian’s girl looks as though she’s gonna fall over.” He stretched out his hand, and Elizabeth took it. Their connection blazed as bright as a golden rainbow—linked together in a way I’d never seen or felt, unbreakable and shining.

  “Good night, Kelsey.” She laid a hand on Damian’s arm. “Good night, Damian.”

  He gave them a short nod. “Elizabeth. Tez.”

  Tez smacked Damian’s shoulder, his grin still wide, and a little knowing, and then he escorted his wife out of the house.

  For a moment, Damian and I stared at each other, saying nothing, but feeling everything. Then he had to go and ruin the moment by saying something stupid. Men.

  “I shouldn’t have bitten you. I had no right, but I cannot take it back.”

  I slid out from the bench, watched as his gaze dipped to my bare legs, and then how his jaw tightened. He was having a difficult time boxing away those emotions of his. “Can the effects be reversed?” I asked.

  “Doubtful.”

  “Can you nullify the mark? Remove its protections, or change its implications?”

  He shook his head.

  “So I will either be werewolf, or I will be dead.”

  He looked at me, his gaze haunted. “Yes.”

  “And I cannot change either of those outcomes.”

  “No,” he admitted. “And neither can I.” He meant to move away from me, but I wrapped my arms around his waist. He stilled immediately. “Don’t do that, Kelsey.”

  “Why?”

  “It makes me want what I cannot have.”

  “I killed someone a year ago.” My confession threw him off—in fact, he was so stunned by my admission, he forgot to feel guilty and tormented. I could sense him trying to regain his control, and not quite succeeding. “Let’s go in the living room,” I said kindly. “I like all the books.”

  “All right.” He sounded guarded, and I felt the weight of his caution. And his ever-present ardor. He couldn’t hide that he wanted to have hot, feral, sweaty sex with me.

  I had no doubts that we would have each other.

  It was inevitable. Like sunrises. And taxes.

  I took his hand and for a second, I thought he might try to shake free of my grip. Instead, he brought my hand up and turned it to show my wrist. He planted a kiss on my fluttering pulse.

  I almost melted into a puddle right there.

  He led the way into the living room and settled onto the couch. I considered my seating options, and chose his lap.

  “I’m not sure I will be able to conduct a rational conversation this way,” he said.

  “You’ll manage.” There was a green throw draped over the back of the couch. I snagged it and put it around us. “Better?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “I’ll tell you about what I did,” I said. “But you have to answer one question first. You have to be honest—no omissions. And you have to buy me cupcakes.”

  “What do cupcakes have to do with this question?”

  “Nothing. I just really want some. Okay. Here it is: Are we married werewolves?”

  He blinked down at me. “I am a werewolf, you might be a werewolf, and we are not married.”

  “Oh.” I felt disappointed. I don’t know why. I’d never had the urge to be married before, mostly because I had never been able to find a guy who was emotionally honest. It was why, too, I’d never had sex. There were a few almost scenarios, but men couldn’t hold back their true feelings when lust ran rampant—and I couldn’t focus on keeping my mental shields strong during an act of socalled love. All too often (okay, every time), I would find out how a guy really felt about me, and it ruined the moment. Doused the fires. Killed me a little inside. I hadn’t found a single man who’d wanted me. Sex, yes. To impress my mother, yes. (Not the sex part, the dating-me part.) Show me love and tenderness, no. Sad, wasn’t it?

  “The nightmare you had earlier . . . it has something to do with you killing this person?”

  “Yes.” No regular nightmare would propel a reasonable woman into the arms of a werewolf. The longer we were together, or maybe it was proximity thing, the harder it was to build psychic walls. I wondered if this new aspect (aka empath fail) was because of my werewolf issues, or because of Damian’s bite, or because of the connection I felt with him. Maybe it was all three, tangled in knots as emotions often were.

  I wanted to tell him the whole story. Maybe because I wanted to see how he’d react. Or maybe I just needed to share with someone who didn’t know anything about what had happened—and maybe wouldn’t judge me as harshly as everyone else. And he knew more about me, about my secrets, than anyone else.

  “Tell me what happened, Kelsey.”

  “Okay.” I took in a breath, and began again. “The whole empath thing is why I became a psychotherapist. That, and my mother really wanted me to be one. Anyway. I had this patient named Robert Mallard. He was a sociopath. Well, a psychopath, but he was trying, at least I thought he was trying, to get well. Not that you can fix a sociopath—or psychopath. You can’t. So I . . . I gave him what I thought were good emotions. I tried to give him what he didn’t have, but I didn’t consider that he wouldn’t know what to do with emotions. Sociopaths don’t really have a moral core.

  “He started killing girls. Blonde, blue-eyed teens. He wanted to drink their essence. He had this whole ritual, you see. He brought the last one to me . . . to my house. He’d figured out I was an empath—and that was my secret, Damian. No one knew. But Robert said he saw me for who I really was, and he wanted to free me. He wanted us to be together, so he brought me an essence to share.”

  I told this story many times before—except for mentioning I was an empath. That little nugget of information was mine alone. Until now, of course. But the other stuff had become rote. I knew which facts were more important than others, what the police and then the FBI wanted from me. They had case files, some had written books, Robert became a footnote in a couple of psychological profiles, and closure. Everyone had closure—except me. Robert had killed his first girl in Texas—while on vacation with some of his friends. The next three . . . and the final fifth (if you didn’t count me, and no one did, since I’d lived) he had killed in Oklahoma. Crossing the state lines had made it federal—that and when they’d established he was a serial killer.

  I looked up at Damian. I was blocking his emotions because . . . well, I didn’t want to know how he’d feel after all. I’d opened myself up to his judgment, but it wasn’t like I could hide from my past. The whole world—well, the human world—knew about me and my mistakes. “I’ve known for a long time that I was an empath, but it was only a few years ago that I figured out I could do more than sense what someone was feeling. I can absorb other people’s feelings . . . and I can give them feelings, too.”

  Damian’s expression went flat. “Give them feelings?” He stared at me, his whole body stiff with sudden, righteous anger. “Is that what you did to me?”

  Chapter 6

  My psychic shields slammed down, hard and cold and fast. Me and my romantic notions of being connected to Damian . . . Hah! I easily severed our emotional link—and he felt it, too, because he flinched as if I’d slapped him.
>
  “Really?” I asked with only a slight quiver in my voice. “You’re so nettled by your attraction to me, you’re gonna blame me for how you feel? And should I return the favor by blaming you for turning me into a werewolf? Oh, but wait. I’m sure that’s my fault as well. After all, if I hadn’t forced you to like me then you wouldn’t have bitten me.”

  I clamored off his lap; then I looked down at him, deeply hurt by his accusation. “If you want to believe that I used my abilities to manipulate your emotions, then you’re a coward. You feel what you feel—you can own it, or you can discard it, but don’t you dare try to escape responsibility for what you’ve allowed into your heart.”

  I felt numb and exhausted. I had nursed a sliver of hope that I’d found something different, something just for me, no matter how little time I had to enjoy it. I was scared, no, terrified, of what the future held. What would it be like to be a werewolf? What would it be like to die? Would it hurt? Would it be quick? Would I be missed?

  It was a morbid turn of thought, but unsurprising, really. This was a familiar place. When Robert attacked me, I didn’t think anything. It was instinct and fury and motion and terror. But before that moment, I had plenty of time to ponder my mortality—while he cut the girl, while he waxed poetic about essences, while he wooed me with blood and death.

  Damian stayed on the couch, slipping into his Statue Man mode. Inside the maelstrom of my own mind, I heard my mother’s voice say, “Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.” She did love a good Benjamin Franklin quote. I often responded by quoting back Dr. Phil—complete with Texas twang. Margaret Morningstone did not like hearing the advice of her competition flung at her (which is, of course, why I did it).

  “I would like to rest, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’ll take the couch.”

  “Thank you.” I walked to the bedroom. The lamp was still on, the huge bed with its oversized pillows and thick covers. I wanted to cry, and I knew the value of a good keening, believe me. But mostly I was exhausted and sad and really not in the mood to indulge my tear ducts. Something hot and heavy and dark sat in my chest, like an ancient stone, moldy and crumbling.