‘Finally. My love.’
The voice was only a whisper in her mind, but it vibrated through her to her very core. It frightened her. The longing in it. The need.
But it wouldn’t let her pull away. ‘Closer. We need to get closer.’
She couldn’t deny the need. It was too strong, too woven into the fabric of her being. With a cry, she pushed forward, one hand a fist in his hair, the other pulling at his shoulders, gripping the strength of the muscles straining in his back as he endeavoured to be gentle.
‘Touch me. I need your hands on me.’
Her voice. It touched something deep inside him, overrode the shock of her mouth on his. Her fingers buried in his hair, pressed to his scalp, drove his desire higher. It wrested control out of his hands. Iain had no choice but to do as she asked.
Angling his mouth, he sucked on her lower lip, pulling it into his, nipping. He growled in satisfaction as she jerked in his arms. One hand dug into the glorious mane of tawny hair, still damp from her shower, the other dropped to her waist, hauling her closer. He angled her head so that he could deepen the kiss, his tongue tangling with the sweet taste of hers.
Her heart beat frantically, the wild sound music in his ears. He pulled her even closer, growling as she rubbed her breasts against his T-shirt-clad chest. Sweeping his hand up, he closed it over one ripe firm breast. The hard peak of her nipple pressed into his palm through the thin material of her dress. He groaned at the exquisite sensation. More. He wanted to give more. To take more. He left her lips and closed his mouth over the frantic beat of pulse in her neck. She stilled under his proprietary touch, but he didn’t let go, her desire thick in the air around him telling him she liked what he was doing.
‘Bite me. Mark me.’
Her whisper was an unsteady caress, but more perfect than anything he’d ever heard before. Even so, he didn’t immediately do as she asked. He’d wanted this ever since he’d stopped her from running away. Standing naked before her, her eyes running over him in a way that made him hungry for more than the touch of her gaze, he’d known this was coming. He hadn’t intended to, had tried to ignore the desire he’d seen in her eyes. But at the same time, some demon inside him pushed her, teased her, sought that desire out. Then he’d kissed her before their session and all pretence was over. The moment his lips had met hers, even in that faux-friendly kiss, he knew this was going to happen. He knew he shouldn’t have promised a rain check, should stop this right now. He was a Lone Wolf for fuck’s sake. He had nothing to give her beyond the passion in the moment. But God help him, he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t make himself do the right thing and walk away. Morrigan would turn into a saint before he walked away from Eloise right now.
He licked the salty, fragrant skin over her pulse.
She tipped her head, baring her neck. ‘Please. I need to feel you.’
Her words were a stroke over his sensitised skin. His wolf lunged to do as she asked. ‘Do you know what you ask?’ Even through the passion-hazed fog, he knew marking her in such a way would create a bond he wasn’t sure either of them were ready for.
Her hand brushed over his cheek, fingers curling in his hair, pressing him closer as she rubbed against him. ‘Please.’
The desire-laden word snapped his control and he could no more deny her than he could stop the breath in his lungs, the beat of his heart.
He sank his teeth into her throat. She jerked. He swept his tongue over the small sting of pain, then did it again, her pulse a living entity under his fingers, in his mouth. It was strong and bright and sweet; oh so sweet. It pulsed in time with the blood that pumped through his veins. That pulse thrummed through him, a painful beat in his suddenly rigid cock. A cock that was on fire with the need to be inside the slick heat of her; a heat he could scent all around him, drugging him, driving him insane. Insane enough that he ignored the voice screaming a warning in his head. She was still so young, so naive and innocent; certainly wasn’t ready for the demands of his ravening wolf. But he couldn’t ignore its demands. It wanted to take. More, it growled. And Dark Moon damn him, he wanted the same.
‘Kiss me.’
Releasing her pulse point, a slave to her desires, he kissed up her neck, enjoying the little sounds she made deep in her throat as he nipped and licked the sweet saltiness of her skin. His lips found hers—home. He was home.
Her fingers gripped his hair, clung to his shoulders. Her fingernails bit into his skin as she kissed him with a desperation that would normally have had warning sirens going off in his head. But with her tongue a wet glide against his, her breath in his mouth, the cool silk of her hair in his hands, the satin smoothness of her skin against the roughness of his fingers, his lips, he couldn’t make himself move away.
He needed.
She needed.
That was all that mattered.
If this was insanity, then bring it on. When she’d pressed her lips to him, opening herself to his touch, to his caring, it was like he’d woken with a start and seen the world for the first time. A world that would never be whole or full of colour without her at the centre of it.
His hands moved over her, pulling her closer, moulding her slight frame to his muscular one. She was his. His.
Then he scented it. The sting of fear. Her fear. It was the only thing that could have driven him to his senses in that moment. Gentling her as she tried to cling to him, he pulled back, his thumbs sweeping over her cheekbones, brushing back the mess he’d made of her hair. She trembled all over, her breath coming in shallow little gasps. There was a fine layer of perspiration on her skin. She whimpered and turned her head to try to capture his thumb with her seeking lips, but he held her firm. ‘Shh, Eloise. Shh. We don’t have to rush. It’s okay.’
She opened her eyes. They were swirling gold mist.
The sight shocked him out of the euphoric, desire-laden state. ‘Eloise?’ Fear trembled through him.
‘Not Eloise, my love.’ The voice was deeper, slightly accented. He should have noticed the change when she’d spoken earlier, but he’d been too caught up in what she’d been doing with her tongue, with her body, to have taken it in.
‘Who are you?’
‘One who has waited an eternity for this.’
‘Morrigan?’
She laughed, the swirling gold mist in her eyes glinting. ‘She cannot have you. You are mine.’
‘Who are you, then? Tell me your name.’
She frowned, the gold flickered with black. ‘You do not know me, my love?’
‘Eloise. I only know Eloise.’
‘Do you love her?’
‘I barely know her.’
‘Then why would you kiss her like you did?’
‘I—’ There was no answer. He had no clue why he’d let an innocent kiss escalate like he had. ‘You did something.’
Tears welled in Eloise’s eyes. ‘Nothing you did not want me to do.’ Her hand dropped to his chest, her palm pressed to the muscle over his heart. ‘Listen to the beat and you will know I speak truth.’
‘I don’t want truth from you. I want you to release Eloise. Give her back to me.’
Her lips trembled and she nodded. ‘Your will is mine, my love.’
She jerked. The gold flickered to black then flickered to gold, which swirled away like fog at sunrise. She blinked up at him. ‘Eloise?’
‘Iain.’ Her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed into his arms.
Chapter 8
He picked her up, swivelled around and took a seat on the armchair, her slight body cradled in his arms. Her breath was a welcome puff of warmth against his aching skin, her heart a steady thump–thump in her chest. He held her close, rocking back and forth. ‘Fuck, fuck,’ he murmured, trying to come to terms with what had just happened. But he couldn’t. How could he? It was beyond his experience. He wondered, was it beyond hers? Had this happened to her before? He brushed her hair from her cheeks, kissed her sweaty brow, lips lingering on flesh that still smelled of desir
e and need.
‘Come on, Eloise. Wake up. Don’t leave me to figure this out alone. Please, come back to me.’ His mind was spinning with questions. Who had just taken over her body? It said it wasn’t Morrigan, but did it mean them ill? It had called him ‘my love’. But he’d never loved anyone—not like the presence had implied—and none of his lovers had died or possessed the kind of magic you’d need to take over another person. Besides, he refused to believe that presence had been here for him. He was nothing. A Lone Wolf. He may have been a lieutenant in the McVale Pack, but he had no real power in the scheme of things. What use could he be to anyone, let alone a person with the kind of power to take over a Witch-Shifter’s body so completely?
His fingers tightened on her arm. Yeah. He had questions and hopefully Eloise could answer at least some of them. ‘Come on, Eloise. Wake up. I need you to wake up.’
Eloise moaned and pushed against him, her head lolling against his shoulder. He cupped her cheek and tipped her face up so he could look in her eyes. ‘Eloise. Come back to me. Come back to me.’
Her eyes flickered open. Green-gold eyes. He breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Iain?’ She tried to sit up but then clutched her head, collapsing back against his shoulder. ‘What happened? Why are you holding me?’
‘You passed out.’
‘Really?’
‘You can’t remember what happened?’
She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘I remember coming out of the bathroom.’ Her frown deepened. ‘You came in to get me for lunch and then—’ She gasped, her eyes snapping open, going to his lips. It felt like a caress. ‘I kissed you.’
Her hand rose, shakily, touched her lips, felt how swollen they were. ‘Oh, Goddess. I kissed you.’ A hazy memory wavered across her mind’s eye—of her leaning forward and pressing her lips against his, just like he’d done with her earlier. The rain-check kiss. Except it had felt nothing like the previous kiss. The gentle tingle of passion had been engulfed in demanding, hungering flame and she’d been lost. ‘Oh.’ Slowly, she looked at him. ‘Was it bad?’ She slapped her hand over her mouth. Why had she asked that question?
‘It was… amazing.’
‘Yes,’ she breathed. Cheeks ablaze, the memory of her lips pressed against his, clinging, opening, rushed over her. Her veins throbbed with liquid heat that made her want to run from the room and rub herself all over him at the same time. It hadn’t felt bad to her. Exquisite. Perfect. Except, somehow the kiss didn’t seem to belong to her. Perhaps at the start but not what it had become.
‘It wasn’t you,’ he said, seeming to read her mind.
‘No. It wasn’t me.’ The half-lie bit at the back of her throat. It had started out being her—but she didn’t have to admit that.
‘It’s gone, whatever it was.’
She flexed her fingers, realised they were gripping his T-shirt, pressing against his hard chest. It was so tempting to stroke, to shape the vivid line of muscle under that thin material. Her fingers tingled with the knowledge of something just beyond her grasp. With a gasp, she thrust away from him and stood up so fast she stumbled, would have fallen over, except Iain steadied her. His touch stoked the heat flaming through her body. ‘Please. Don’t touch me right now. I… I don’t seem to have full control and I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
He looked at her and then slowly let go. ‘You should sit down.’
She wanted to argue, but her legs didn’t agree. They were shaking, hard. She plonked down on the bed, her legs sprawling gracelessly in front of her.
‘Has this happened to you before?’
‘What? Blacking out and kissing men I hardly know? Oh, all the time.’ His eyes widened as the words tumbled out. The look on his face was even more priceless and she couldn’t help but laugh, a snorting, almost hysterical sound.
‘How can you joke about this?’
‘Hysteria?’
His lips twitched but he didn’t laugh as their gazes met, held. Something soft and wondering swirled inside her as she stared into those too familiar eyes. He shouldn’t be so familiar given how little time she’d actually known him. He shouldn’t feel like coming home, but he did. She had no idea when she’d begun to feel like that. Right now, she was glad of it.
‘We’ll get to the bottom of this, Eloise. I promise.’
His voice was soft, slightly rough, but it broke into the moment and she was able to blink, look away. ‘Of course. You need to make sure whatever took me over is no danger to the pack.’
He came out of the armchair and down on his knees in front of her, took her hand in his, held on even when she would have pulled away. ‘No. For you. Only for you.’
Her throat was suddenly too thick to speak, so she nodded, blinking fast.
‘We need to tell Bron and the others. Maybe get Cordy in on this too. They’ll know how to figure it all out.’
‘Sure,’ she managed.
‘Lie down. I’ll go get Bron.’
‘Okay.’ He helped her lay down on the bed and then left. She wanted to ask him to stay, but that would be cowardly, and too needy. She closed her eyes, breathing in deep. His scent was all around her. She licked her lips. She could still taste him.
Soft black swirled behind her eyelids in a stroking wave and she tried to remember the kiss, the strength of his muscled body pressed against hers, his desire. The memory wove around her, caressing her, making her soften into the bed. Sink through it. Falling. She was falling.
She opened her mouth to scream, but only laughter came out as she landed on a bed of softest feathers, the hard muscled warmth of a masculine body following her down, pressing her into the mattress. Strong arms banded around her as plump lips met hers and inside her head, she heard a voice whisper, ‘Home. My beloved. He is home.’
Yes. He was home.
Giving in to the dream, she floated away.
When Iain, Bron and River rushed into the room, they found Eloise fast asleep. Loathe to wake her, Bron simply checked her aura and then pulled the two men out into the hall behind her, leaving the door partially open.
‘She seems fine now and is sleeping peacefully. Tell me exactly what happened.’
Never a man who talked about his private life, Iain was even more reticent to talk about what he’d just experienced with Eloise, but he had no choice. He couldn’t tell Bron about the presence without telling her about how it had manifested.
After he finished, Bron regarded him for long, untenable seconds, arms crossed, teeth biting into her lip. ‘I’ve never heard of anything like it. The closest thing to possession we’ve seen is when Morrigan took over Skye’s grandmother’s body, but that was different. Morrigan overrode the soul, killing it, and took over the body.’
‘Or when Harrison and Adeline took over Shelley,’ River added.
Bron rubbed her brow. ‘Yes, perhaps it was more like that. But not quite.’ She looked at Iain. ‘You say that Eloise remembered what happened to her?’ He nodded. ‘And the entity spoke to you?’
‘It called me “my beloved” and seemed upset I didn’t know who it was.’
Bron tapped on her bottom lip as she thought. ‘It could be a past-life regression thing.’
Iain snorted, but Bron arched her brow. ‘After everything we’ve seen, I can’t believe you’re sceptical about that. I mean, you’re a Werewolf and I’m a witch and some kind of Darkness tried to possess River last year and make him kill me with his Beast. I think past-life regression is tame on the paranormal reality scale compared to that.’
‘Could the Darkness have tried to possess her?’ River asked, face paling.
Iain stilled, River’s words cutting into him. Oh, God, no!
‘No. It wasn’t the Darkness,’ Bron said.
‘How do you know?’
‘I don’t think its tactic is to kiss us to death.’
Despite the humour in her tone, he found her words comforting. ‘If it wasn’t that kind of possession, if it was a past-life regression, th
en why did it respond to me?’
‘Because you could be someone from her past life that was important to her.’
‘How do you know it was a her?’ River asked, a smirk on his face.
Iain didn’t rise to the bait. ‘I don’t. It just felt like a woman. That’s why I thought it was Morrigan at first. But as Bron so rightly pointed out, Morrigan wouldn’t kiss one of us.’
‘Then we’re left with a mystery,’ River said.
‘We can’t leave this mystery unsolved. You didn’t see her face when she realised what she’d done.’
‘I know how you love puzzles, Iain.’ River gripped his shoulder. ‘I’m sure you’ll figure it out.’
‘I don’t know if I’m up to this task.’ Iain scraped his fingers over his stubble-roughened jaw. ‘You have no idea what it was like when she was kissing me. It was so—’
‘Familiar?’ Bron said.
‘Right?’ River suggested.
He couldn’t deny their words. ‘This is so fucked.’ He raked his hand through his hair. ‘What are we supposed to do now?’
‘Well, if it’s a past-life regression, there’s not much we can do aside from help her explore what it is if she wants to control it. The thing is though, it might never happen again, so we might be opening an unnecessary can of worms.’
‘And if it isn’t?’
Bron said, ‘There’s no sign of anything wrong with her aura—and there would be if the presence was dangerous to her. Strangely enough, her aura is looking better than it has since she came to us.’
‘Wow, it just goes to show that old adage is actually true,’ River said.
‘What adage?’
‘That a kiss can make everything better.’ He turned to Iain. ‘Although yours must pack a pretty powerful punch to heal an aura.’
Iain punched him on the shoulder.
‘Ow!’
‘This is serious, you idiot!’
‘I love you too, man.’
Iain nodded, gaze meeting in deeper understanding than words could ever express. River of the past would never have been able to joke like that.
Shifter Bound Page 10
