No. Irresistible wasn’t the right word. Nor was intoxicating or any other adjective attributed to what she’d represented last night. There was no word. For that one moment before his hands had touched her skin, she’d represented the very reason he existed, and that wasn’t like him at all.
He always had an iron grip on all his faculties. He prided himself on it. Especially when anything less could get him into deep shit with the Road Dogs just as he was finally getting that freak Courtland to trust him.
No matter how much he’d wanted Freya since he’d first laid eyes on her, he would have never broken protocol and risked any more issues with the Dogs than already existed due to Claire and Irish.
But that scent she’d thrown off, the heady, mind-boggling, irrepressible odor had drugged him.
Literally.
He should have known that was why the very blood coursing through her veins left him with absolutely no control. He’d heard about the drug. He’d read about it. But he’d never experienced it other than with the rare patient. How Freya had gotten anywhere near it or why she smelled like it was next on his agenda of things to talk about.
But he decided she deserved to really let him have it first.
Because drugged or not, he’d turned someone against their will and it was considered unconscionable in his circles—in any paranormal circle.
Speaking of—cue angry ex-werewolf.
Freya had apparently gathered enough steam to hold up her finger. It shook momentarily before she righted it and pointed it at him with a wag. She opened her mouth to speak then snapped it shut.
He clucked his tongue, planting his hands on his hips. “You’re pretty mad, huh? So mad you can’t speak?”
She sucked in her cheeks and nodded her beautiful blonde head with a vehement bounce, her tousled hair falling around her creamy shoulders in messy waves.
Liam nodded back his understanding. “You want to call me ugly names and maybe take a shot at me, but right now you feel like too much shit to do it?”
Freya’s eyes, thickly fringed with lashes, widened as she bounced her head once more then reached for balance by placing the heels of her hands on her bed. Once she stopped rocking, she pointed to the space between her eyes and cringed.
Ah. Yeah. The incessant throb of a newb headache. He’d heard about it. “You have a headache, and it’s drilling a hole between your eyes?”
She narrowed those very eyes at him and nodded again with a grimace.
A stinging pang of sympathy sliced through him. Shit. “That’s because you need to feed, Freya. It’ll go away. So will the weak feeling. But it might take a couple of days to adjust to some of the other aspects of, well…being a night dweller.”
Liam rose from his haunches and crossed over to her white-washed dresser, where he’d placed a wine glass of the synthetic blood his clan was running so short on.
Once he’d realized what had happened, what he’d done, and that she was going to wake up hotter than a poker dipped in a bonfire, he’d slipped out and grabbed some from his stash.
And promptly run into Claire as she was dropping off Freya’s car, frantic and in a panic after not only searching Ahab’s from top to bottom, but the woods as well, where she was sure Freya had, in her drunken stupor, drifted into.
Somehow, he’d managed to convince her that he’d found Freya wandering the parking lot of Ahab’s drunk, and given her a lift home, making sure she was safely inside.
Thankfully, Claire had believed his explanation after she’d peeked in on Freya and found her tucked into bed. She’d ushered him out the door with one of those Claire looks of disapproval and gone home, leaving him just enough time to grab some blood from his place and feed it to a barely conscious Freya before she was irretrievable.
Kneeling in front of her again, he cupped her chin with his hand and tipped the wine glass to her lips, but she made a face and shrank from his touch.
Blood. It grossed-out all the freshly turned even as it called to them. “Trust me, when you take your first sip your distaste will turn to gratitude. Now c’mon, be a good little newb and drink for me.”
Her full lips turned into a thin line, but eventually she complied, taking a hesitant sip of it at first then pulling the glass from his hands and virtually pouring it down her throat.
As he watched the blood course through her, bringing full animation back to her body; he could also almost see her brain begin to work again. Turning, spinning, processing.
He was in for some shit.
* * * *
Like she’d been plugged into a wall socket, everything happened at once. Her limbs went from wet noodles to devices with which she might tear Liam’s head off his amazing shoulders.
Her tongue no longer felt like a thick, unruly entity in her head, but the sharp, finely honed device she loved to eviscerate people with—and it wanted to cut someone.
Liam someone.
Pulling the blankets around her, Freya fought for control. With the surge of sudden energy came another equally powerful urge to kill him.
He’d turned her into a vampire. Liam was surly and probably ten times as difficult as his brother Irish had ever been, but she knew their clan code of honor and it didn’t include turning anyone against their will—ever.
What. The. Hell?
Before she could pop up off the bed and tear one of his nonworking organs from his belly by way of his nostril, he held up his hands like two white flags.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said in a soothing tone, his beautiful face all sorts of easygoing rainbows and sparkly unicorns.
She clenched her teeth tight. “How about, for clarity’s sake, you let me be sure you know what I’m thinking. Because I want there to be no misunderstandings here.”
“Fair enough,” he grumbled.
Her finger went for his pec, the very pec that had cradled her head last night before she’d passed out and become a bloodsucker. “First things first. You turned me into a vampire, Liam. A vampire. Do you have any idea what’s going to happen to me now because you couldn’t keep your fangs to yourself?”
Courtland was going to hunt her down like some rabid animal and kill her, that’s what.
But wait. That might actually be better than mating with him…
“Courtland will be angry,” Liam said with a calm that rankled her.
She widened her eyes in mock disbelief and gave him a light shove. “Naw. Ya think? Why would he be pissed that his new BFF didn’t just bang the life out of his intended mate, but turned her into a vampire, too?”
“Let me explain, Freya, and then you’ll understand. You know me better than this. I don’t turn for sport.”
“Um, no. I don’t know you, Liam. I know of you. I know you’re resentful for being stuck in this town away from all your hoity-toity doctor friends. I know you can barely say the word ‘werewolf’ without gagging on it. That’s all I know about you. The rest is a mystery because you’re not exactly warm and nurturing when it comes to making friends. Which is fine because neither am I. But—and that’s a big but—I do not know you, because I’m a dirty werewolf and you don’t like getting in the mud with those you consider beneath you!”
He cocked his beautiful dark head as if in thought. “I don’t recall ever saying werewolves were beneath me. That’s inaccurate at best, a complete lie at worst. I want to think the best of you, Freya, and believe you’re not one to partake in rumors.” Then he grinned, perfect, delicious, maddening.
“I’m going to kill you, Liam McConnell, and when I smash your head in and your crushed skull is oozing all over my carpet, I’ll dance—in—your—brains!”
He arched an eyebrow at her in question, totally calm. “Do you dance? I didn’t take you for someone who enjoyed the arts.”
Freya narrowed her eyes. This wasn’t some joke. She was a goddamn vampire! “Okay, smartass. Joke all you like. While you make with the funny, I’ll just go to your clan’s council and tell them what you did to
me. Do you favor handcuffs of garlic and writhing deaths at dawn?”
“Aw, c’mon. You know you won’t go to the council because then you’d have to admit our dirty little secret.” He winked a luscious eye at her, trailing an infuriating finger along her cheek.
Okay, there was that—but…But what, Freya? You were just as much into it last night as Liam. Or don’t you remember, dirty girl?
“Fine. I concede. I wouldn’t go to the council. I’m just as guilty, but it won’t matter whom I go to. Once anyone, especially Courtland, gets wind of this, I’m toast! They’ll kill me, Liam. It’s not like I can hide this new shade of pasty white!” She jammed her arm under his nose.
Liam’s jaw hardened then, going back to the way she knew him best—angry and resentful. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Freya.”
More anger surged along her spine and hit her right between the eyes. “Aren’t you a real knight in shining armor? You won’t be able to stop them from staking me through the chest, because while you don’t have to prove to me you’re a big, strong vampire, I doubt you can take on all the Dogs alone—and alone you will, or are you forgetting you were booted from the Fangs? You have no back-up.” She shook her head. “Forget it. All I’m saying is, the mob mentality in this town is strong.”
He tipped her chin up and gripped it between his long fingers—fingers that made her shiver in delight—and stared at her. “No one will hurt you. No. One.”
She stared back at him, forcing herself to adjust to her new HD eyesight. “You can’t be everywhere.”
“I can if I have to.” His voice was low, the menace in it very real, sending a distinct shiver of pleasurable possession along her spine.
She rubbed her arms, as though she could rub the feelings Liam evoked in her from her skin. “I have my doubts. But how about we set that aside for now and focus on why this happened? I don’t know you at all, that’s true, but I’d like to think, from what I’ve heard about you, you’re not a bloodsucking monster. That said, I’m a vampire! Have I said that enough for it to sink in? So explain before there’ll be so much gore in this room it’ll rival the set of The Walking Dead.”
“Those are zombies,” he said, deadpan, the deep grooves on either side of his face fighting a grin.
Her temper soared again. He was purposely avoiding the topic and she was genuinely trying to keep her fury in check, but she couldn’t hold out for long. “Wanna find out if vampires can turn into zombies? That’s where you’re headed if you don’t tell me why you bit me, Carnivore.”
“Seventh Heaven.”
Her ears pricked. Somehow those words sounded familiar, but she couldn’t remember why. “What?”
“Seventh Heaven. It’s a drug and it’s highly effective on vampires. It turns us into rabid, sexual animals with absolutely no control over our impulses.”
Her mouth fell open in disbelief. “You mean that drug that all the vampire teenagers were using to get high and have the ultimate sex?”
Liam nodded his head, but this time his face was solemn. “That’s exactly what I mean. You reeked of it last night. When a vampire takes it, we get high. Vampire to vampire, it creates an unbelievable sexual experience. Or so I’m told. When it’s given to a human and a vampire smells it on them, it’s literally irresistible. Which is why it’s a deadly, illegal substance. So the question here is, Freya—why did I smell it on you?”
Chapter 5
She rose from the bed so quickly, she tripped and fell, shrugging off Liam when he attempted to right her. “Did you just accuse me of taking drugs?” There was a squeak to her question and it was one of disbelief.
Who in the hell did Liam McConnell think he was? She was a lot of things. Abrasive, sometimes pushy, direct, liked the occasional tumbler of whiskey, but she was no damn druggie.
He stared down at her and said nothing. Those lips that had wrought such ecstasy last night now a thin line.
Freya narrowed her eyes at him. “I asked, did you just accuse me of taking drugs?”
He shrugged his shoulders arrogantly, the width of his chest expanding. “What other explanation is there?”
“Have you lost your damn mind? Who the hell do you think you are?
“Then why did you smell like it?”
“How do you know what it smells like? Is it because you’ve taken it?”
“Ex-pediatrician here. I’ve seen my fair share of Seventh Heaven, Freya, and I’ve heard that for a vampire, it heightens the scent of humans and other species of paranormal. That’s how I know what it is. Looking back on our encounter, I had all the typical side effects of the drug.”
“How did you get side effects of a drug I allegedly took?”
“It has a different effect on you than it does me. You might experience euphoria after taking it, but it’s nothing compared to the effect it has on me.”
That made some sense. She’d been vaguely aware her reaction to the whiskey was heightened, but the insatiable lust she’d experienced was more than just the influence of alcohol.
But then her eyes narrowed again in ultimate suspicion. “Well, hold on, Mr. Ex-Pediatrician. If you knew what it was, why didn’t you stop yourself before you bled me damn well dry?” She pointed a finger to her neck where the two small bumps he’d left on her neck were, still a bit sore.
“Because you don’t know what you’re smelling until after the fact, Freya. All I could smell was you. I didn’t know your scent was heightened due to the drug because I couldn’t think straight. When I treated a patient for it, it was in the privacy of their home and I knew what it was because the vampire I treated presented all the signs of an OD on Seventh Heaven. I always wore a mask for safety. When it first became popular with kids a couple of years ago, the clan made sure we were aware of the symptoms so we knew what we were looking for. It’s incredibly dangerous.”
He said that as if she’d known it was incredibly dangerous and had taken it anyway.
Freya gazed up at the deliciously hulking man accusing her of being some kind of addict, and rolled her eyes. “So when you started to experience these ‘symptoms’, you didn’t stop to think you might turn me into one of your own? What kind of pediatrician are you?”
Now his jaw really tightened, and his dark eyes glittered. She’d questioned his dedication to his profession, and he didn’t like it. “I was a damn good one with a well-respected practice, thank you very much. And I’ll repeat—you have no control over your impulses. Absolutely none. Hercules couldn’t stop himself from dabbling in your charms, Ms. Ashe. We literally had to quarantine users. That’s why the drug is so damn scary. So I’ll ask again, where did you get it?”
If she was angry before, it didn’t even come close to what she was feeling now. Without thinking, she let the sheet drop, hurling it to her bed as she dug around for her clothes, retrieving her sweats and jamming her legs into them while she yelled, “You son of a bitch! I have never, nor will I ever, take drugs. So check that right off your list of suspicions about me. Why the hell would I take a drug meant to attract the likes of you? And here’s another question for you. How do I know you’re telling me the truth? How do I know I really smelled like this Seventh Heaven? What if you’re just full of shit?”
He bent at the waist and picked up her shirt, handing it to her with a scowl. “So I bit you just because? Is that what you’re implying? Are you implying I bite for sport?”
That stopped her dead. Had he? To what end? It would only cause trouble for him with the Dogs. But if the drug hadn’t really played a part in it, that would mean she was so irresistible to him, he’d risk his own life just to make love to her.
That was too farfetched even for her.
Yanking her shirt from his grasp, Freya pulled it over her head and glared at him, trying to slow her brain down enough to decide the next course of action. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I just know I’m going to be flayed alive when Courtland finds out. That’s the biggest problem at hand right now.”
&n
bsp; Grabbing her by the arm, Liam stopped all movement. His gaze was direct, his eyes on fire. “Then he’ll have to get through me first.”
She fought a shiver and decided sarcasm was best. “Is that because I’m now your mate?”
His nostrils flared, but he raised one eyebrow and smirked. “For life.”
Touché. Freya licked lips nervously and took a step back from him. She had to or she’d be forced to tear his clothes off again. All those rushing hormones returned, slamming through her veins with a roar of painful, wanton lust. It was sudden, and she suspected it had a little to do with his possessive statement.
But she refused to acknowledge it. She didn’t need a man to protect her. She shouldn’t take such pleasure from a man telling her he’d protect her.
Popping open the door to her bedroom, she moved as swiftly as she could down along the hallway and into her kitchen.
And that’s when the weak sunlight hit her eyes full force, making her hiss and drive the heels of her hands into her skull. “Jesus Christ!” she yelped, making Clarence scuffle away in fear.
She reached for the counter in her kitchen, knocking the bowl of fake green apples onto the floor.
Liam’s strong hands were instantly around her waist, pulling her close, covering her eyes as he walked her backward, and then she heard him fiddle with the shades.
Her face, buried in his muscled chest, felt so good. Too good. He was a vampire maker. He wasn’t allowed to feel good. “You’ve ruined sunsets for me forever, you big jerk.”
His voice grumbled in his chest, settling in her ears. “I’m sorry, Freya. I would never do something like this purposely. I can only tell you, I know what I was experiencing.”
Ridiculous as it might seem, she believed him. Liam was many things, but he wasn’t vengeful. “Then I don’t know how this happened.” But she’d damn well rack her brain to figure it out.
She fought to remember the night before at the bar. She’d had a lot to drink—more than was usual for her. Had someone slipped it into her drink? “Can this Seventh Heaven be crushed up and dumped in a drink without you knowing?”
Outlaw Alpha Page 5
