by Woods, Erica
Slouchy took a hesitant step forward and stopped. “Just . . . just give us the girl,” he pleaded, and I almost felt sorry for him. It was clear he wasn’t comfortable with what they were doing, that he was terrified of the other two. But that didn’t mean I wanted to go with them.
“Who are you after?” Ash asked, tone conversational. A pang of panic bled through my other emotions as I wondered if he was considering their request.
No, that’s not possible. Not after the way he reacted when he heard the car.
A suspicious grunt from Mr. Bossman. “The girl. The human that you’re harboring.”
“And what do you want with her?”
“What do you want with her?” Mr. Bossman tucked his chin in and licked his lips, looking like a man who’d found a sparkling rock and was trying to determine its worth. “And what would you be willing to give up to save her?”
Ash stilled so suddenly, so completely, that I struggled to see him. My gaze wanted to glide over him, past him, anywhere but at him. “You want to use her against us? Blackmail us? Threaten us?”
Slouchy stumbled back a step. “H-he wants—”
“Shut up, you idiot!” Mr. Bossman interrupted. “You know what he will do to us if he finds out we’ve been blabbing?”
“Interesting,” Ash murmured. “You fear your alpha this much and yet . . .” His eyes shimmered, the light blue of his irises growing darker while the pupil expanded. “You do not fear me?” The way his eyes raked over the three men, filled with such cold disregard, was almost enough to make me shudder. This was not the Ash I’d come to know and care for. This was not the warm, careful man who’d comforted me and brought me peace when everything in me was in turmoil. This Ash was cold and dangerous. Authoritative and terrifying.
And yet . . .
This was the Ash who’d killed Tim. Who’d protected me when I hadn’t known I needed protecting.
It was two sides of the whole, and finally seeing that other part of him, the part he kept hidden, made something inside me blossom in understanding and kinship.
Slouchy and Piercing jerked back, horror etched across their drawn faces. Even Mr. Bossman paled.
“Fáinn. Mahír fáinn.” It was Piercing who’d reverently whispered the strange, alluring words, but it was Slouchy who stumbled back, arms windmilling as though he was trying to run before his feet had caught up to his brain.
Before his companions could flee, Mr. Bossman turned on them with a snarl. “Lies!” he cried. For a moment, it looked like he was going to strike his lackeys, but instead he turned back to Ash, dragging contemptuous eyes over my guardian. Fear and suspicion fought until it seemed the latter won. “You’re not fáinn.” His lips twisted into a sneer. “Why should I fear you? Without your minions you are nothing. Out in the real world, the world we live in, you wouldn’t last a day.”
“Where do you think I started out, pup?” The words were wrapped in darkness, each one a little more deadly than the last, a shadowy presence layering his voice until it echoed off the walls.
Mr. Bossman hesitated, but only for a second. Then he jerked his chin and lowered it to his chest like he was getting ready to charge. “Like all the others, Alpha,” he spat. “Born from power, into power, and never knowing the struggles you condemn us to face day after day!”
“You have choices,” Ash replied. “Join a pack. Carve out your own territory. But do not come here and expect me to sympathize when you have chosen this path.” He bared his teeth, voice lowering to a whisper. “And if you bring harm to those under my protection . . .” Letting the unspoken threat hang in the air, Ash drew up to his full height and looked each of the men in the eye. “Now you have a choice. Leave and I will forget this ever happened. Or stay. But if you stay, we will battle. And you will lose.”
The breath got stuck in my throat, and a strangled sound escaped me. Stumbling back from my peephole, I clapped both hands over my mouth, but it was too late.
“She’s back there!” someone exclaimed. Piercing, maybe?
I scrambled to my feet, not wanting to be caught unaware should they throw themselves over the furniture blocking my sight.
“Get down,” Ash said, keeping his eyes on the intruders. Without the heavy authority of his penetrating gaze, I found the courage to disobey. I couldn’t let him face these lycans by himself. He was only one person, and I’d seen what those terrible claws and those vicious teeth could do.
Just one slash and Ash could be lost to me forever.
“C’mere, girly,” Piercing crooned, his earlier fear having fled in the face of his leader’s bravado.
Mr. Bossman piped in. “Yeah. Come and we won’t hurt your boyfriend here.” The slithering smirk on his face revealed it as a lie. He wanted to hurt Ash. I didn’t know why, I only knew I couldn’t let him.
“Get down, Hope,” Ash told me again, this time with the bite of command to his tone.
“No.” I squared my shoulders and addressed the three men, ignoring Ash’s angry hiss. “You should leave. Before the others come back. They’re already late and should be here any moment.” I was lying through my teeth, but hopefully they wouldn’t be able to tell.
A deranged giggle escaped from Piercing. The sound was disturbing enough that even Slouchy cringed and took a step to the side, away from the other two.
Mr. Bossman joined in, lips stretching over smooth, white teeth. “I doubt that very much.” Before I could say anything else, he threw himself at Ash. As he sailed through the air, his body effortlessly flowed from one shape to another. Clothes tore; floated from his body like ashes after a bonfire, and the creature snapping its muzzle closed inches away from Ash’s throat was not a man but a huge red wolf.
Ash threw the wolf aside, whipped his head around and yelled, “Run, Hope!” As soon as the words left his mouth, he turned back to the men circling him—Mr. Bossman in wolf form and Piercing, still human.
Oh god! I thought, keeping half an eye on Slouchy. If he joins the fray as well, Ash will be killed!
Tearing his eyes away from his opponents for a precious moment, Ash roared at me, “Run!”
It cost him.
As soon as his concentration was split, the wolf attacked. If Ash hadn’t reacted as fast as he did, the teeth that sank into his forearm would have ripped open his throat.
I ran.
Not so I could escape, but so I could find a weapon.
I skidded to a halt in the kitchen, frantically searching for something to help Ash when my stupefied brain reminded me that I was in a kitchen. Running to the drawer Ruarc always kept me away from—saying the knives were too sharp for my fragile, human skin—I wrenched it open and looked down at the deadly blades.
I took two; one as long as my forearm and a smaller one I thought of as a dagger. As my gaze roamed across the counter, I spied one of Ruarc’s huge skillet pans, and, after securing the dagger in the waistline of my jeans, heaved it over my shoulder.
It was heavy.
Half running, half dragging the huge pan, I nearly collided with Piercing’s back. A wound in his neck was bleeding profusely, and a vicious part of me thought, good!
He stumbled, slapped a hand against the wall, spun around. The second he saw me, the pallid color of his skin darkened with an excited flush, lips curling into a mocking smile. But the heavy pan was already at my shoulder, my chin, as high as I could heave it, and before he could grab me, I brought it crashing down on the side of his head.
He crumpled to the floor.
I jumped over his limp body, not letting myself dwell on the nauseating thought that he may be dead, and ran back to Ash. Covered in blood, eyes flashing with violence, he was a terrifying sight to behold. The red wolf, Mr. Bossman, lay at his feet in a twisted heap, and Slouchy was cowering in the corner.
“A-Ash?” When he turned to me, when that furious gaze took in the raised skillet and my pale face, a terrifying rage ravaged his face.
A hook beneath my ribs, a vicious yank, a furi
ous flood of foreign emotion. Something inside me lunged forward, and my vision went black.
But only for a second.
If it had lasted any longer, I would have panicked. If the heavy chains I threw around my monster had not held, I would have fallen to my knees.
But it didn’t, and they did, and so I forced the fear away—the fear that I’d hurt Ash, hurt any of the guys when I inevitably lost control again—and packed it away beneath the mountain of horror that rose out of my subconscious; always waiting, never wavering.
So many memories were buried there, so much fear and hatred and denial and sorrow, that one more incident wouldn’t topple it. It would stand, as it always had, crushing me beneath its weight; grinding my bones to dust.
My hand slowly lowered—my muscles protesting the heavy pan—and I watched as Ash lurched over to me.
“What are you doing?” His voice was harsh, but when I drew in a nervous breath, he stilled and closed his eyes. When he looked at me again, some of the wildness had receded.
After sweeping my gaze over every inch of him, making sure none of the blood was his, I glanced around the room. “I . . . I guess you didn’t really need my help,” I said uselessly and dropped the pan. The dagger I’d pressed hilt first into the waist of my jeans got to stay, as did the long carving knife in my other hand. Just in case one of the intruders got up when Ash’s back was turned.
“What did you think you were doing?” He stared with a mix of exasperation and reluctant humor.
I followed his gaze to the pan at my feet and felt a small smile tug at my lips. “It’s very sturdy. And I’d rather hit someone over the head with a pan, than stab them anywhere with a knife.”
His lips flattened. “You should not have to do either, banajaanh.”
A groan from the hallway pulled Ash’s attention. Piercing stumbled to his feet, eyes widening when he noticed Ash’s deadly glare. “Gather up your friend”—Ash nodded to Slouchy cowering in the corner—“and leave.”
The man blanched, gaze darting to the wolf at Ash’s feet. “What about—”
“Leave,” Ash whispered.
Piercing yelped and hurried to Slouchy. With a last, terrified look at Ash and their leader, they ran outside. A few seconds later, the sound of a car speeding out the driveway broke the silence.
When Ash didn’t say anything, just kept staring out the window after the retreating car, I looked down at the wolf at his feet. “What now?”
Slowly, he peeled his attention back to me.
I almost wished he hadn’t.
Mouth a slashing line, the bones of his face were harder, somehow. Sharper. The way his scrutiny bored through me made my skin prickle with some deep, forgotten instinct. An urge to run.
Tight control finally broken, Ash was unleashed. Stripped bare in all his predatory glory. His restraint had been replaced by a wildness I’d only ever sensed in one other male—Ruarc.
But this was different.
Where Ruarc’s fury was a hot burning thing, all feral savagery and vicious wildness, Ash’s was the quiet before the storm. He was the icy depths of the treacherous ocean, the tremor beneath your feet before the earth split open and swallowed you whole. He was both the first rumble of thunder across the sky, and the last, booming strike of heaven’s hammer. He was nature’s wrath and I . . . I was all that stood between him and the rest of the world.
Heat—molten, alive, terrifying heat—erupted in my chest. My breath caught, my lungs charred. I stared up at the deadly male, waiting. Waiting for the explosion that would destroy the Earth.
And just when I thought it would happen, it didn’t. All that tempestuous energy contained, leashed, and only Ash remained.
My Ash.
His eyes gentled, his mouth relaxed, and a heavy breath whooshed out of him.
One whooshed out of me too.
“Now we wait,” he said, and I could hear his weariness, see the weights he carried on his broad shoulders. He too harbored something dark inside him. He too knew what it was like to struggle with control—although, from the looks of it, control was something he’d mastered a long, long time ago.
When I looked up into those gentle eyes, felt the effort he’d expanded and remembered the cold, calculating gleam of the beast that lived inside him, my heart broke and was put back together—this time with an extra piece added to the mangled mess.
“Ash,” I murmured and took a step toward him.
He looked at me.
“Thank you for protecting me.” I moved until the heat from his body seeped into mine, chasing away the cold that had taken root when strangers had invaded my sanctuary. “Thank you for taking me into your home when I was all alone.” I moved closer, a boldness I didn’t know I possessed taking over and making me raise my hand to cup the strangely smooth skin of his cheek. “Thank you for everything.”
A heavy sigh, then Ash put his hand over mine and entwined his long fingers with my shorter ones. “I regret that it was necessary at all,” he murmured. “I wish . . .” His expression darkened. “I wish your life had been easier, but I cannot regret fate bringing you to us. Not now. Not anymore.”
I stilled. “You . . . you regretted meeting me?”
“No. Never that.” He watched me, stared deep into my soul as he searched my eyes, hesitated, then asked, “Do you regret it?”
Did I regret it? “Ash . . .” He’d saved me. Again. “How could I? Meeting you all . . .” My throat constricted and I couldn’t go on. Couldn’t tell him that they’d made me feel as close to whole as I’d ever been.
But he must have seen it in my face. Moving with a deliberate slowness I knew was for my benefit, he let go of my hand. Before I could mourn its loss, he put both arms around my waist and closed the tiny space between us.
My body jolted to life as he pressed us together. Firm chest against my cheek. Hard stomach against my breasts. Our clothes offered little protection from the tension crackling between us, but when nothing more happened, I realized this was all he was offering right then. All he needed.
A hug.
So I melted into him, let his heat rush through my body as my limbs became languid and his turned protective, allowed his presence to soothe the last of the fears left over from the attacking lycans.
I don’t know how long we stood there. But when a whine rose from the wolf on the floor, Ash pulled away and all traces of softness disappeared.
“You must be tired,” he told me without taking his eyes off the wolf. “You should go relax while I take care of this.”
Again, that heavy responsibility hung like a mantle from his weary shoulders. He needed someone to share his burdens. To share that exhausting responsibility. “I’ll help.”
“No. I do not want you anywhere near this.”
“Why not?”
He finally looked at me, expression grim. “Because you have been through enough.”
“So have you,” I whispered, watching for any hint of what he was feeling.
He was quiet for a moment, then said, “If you want to help, go to the bathroom next to your room and grab me the two spray bottles from the cabinet under the sink.”
I was too happy that I could be useful to question what he wanted with it. “Okay,” I chirped and flew up the stairs, rummaging through the items stacked neatly in five rows of three until I found what I was searching for. But . . . he’d need something to wipe the blood? And what about his injuries? The wolf had gotten his arms, but . . . had the gashes already healed?
Casting the bottles in my arm a doubtful look, I grabbed a washcloth and, not finding any bandages, a towel that could be cut to make our own.
Just in case.
Once I’d gathered everything, I rushed back down and into an empty living room.
Ash was gone and so was the red wolf.
9
Jason
“Could you please relax?” I asked a growling Ruarc as I made the last turn on to the road leading up to our house.
“Am relaxed,” he snarled, glaring at me when I laughed at the ridiculousness of his statement. He’d been huffing and puffing all day, displaying some of the restlessness driving us all. It’d made my own control that much harder to hold onto, and during the last hour, all I’d wanted to do was shed my human skin and race home.
“Could have fooled me,” Lucien muttered from the back seat.
“Why are you in such a bad mood, Lucien?” Of course, I knew why he was upset. Like us, he was itching to set his eyes on the human treasure in our midst. Unlike us, he was unwilling—or unable—to admit it.
“Being stuck with you two all night is not enough of a reason?”
“Don’t blame me, I wasn’t there.” I grinned when I thought of how I’d spent most of my night. “By the time Hope fell asleep”—in my arms, not that it would be a good idea to taunt Ruarc right then—“you two were hunting. Rebecca and I ended up having a lovely time. She made me cake, you know?”
“Shut up,” Ruarc snarled. All his attention was focused on what lay ahead, claws shooting in and out of his fingers as he struggled to control the possessive urge riding him.
My smile slipped.
I felt it as well. The pull. The urge to see Hope, to smell her and make sure she was okay while I brushed my scent all over her pale skin.
But Ruarc . . . Ruarc was almost one with his wolf. Stronger. More vicious. Instincts too close to the surface.
The perfect protector.
My stomach twisted.
I’d never minded the thought of sharing a mate. It meant being part of a family, of being connected in the most intimate of ways; working as a team to protect our mate and making her feel loved and secure. Having been denied a family growing up, that pull to belong had settled deep in my bones. But I hadn’t foreseen the almost overwhelming urge to keep parts of her to myself. Or the wrenching fear that I wasn’t what she needed—that I never could be.
But I’d made her smile . . .
At once, my mind flashed back to last night; to her skin bathed in moonlight; to sweet, ripe lips parted around a shy smile; to her fingers digging into my shoulders, her eyes wide and innocent and her cheeks flushed with excitement at the new experience I had given her.
