by Diana Seere
Asher’s eyes drifted down Gavin’s body, narrowing with regret as he spotted the rust-colored dots.
“I don’t lie,” Asher muttered.
That was true. Asher could be an egotistical, domineering, power-hungry son of a bitch with control issues and a thick need for obedience, but he was not a liar.
The man had some redeeming qualities.
“And frankly,” Asher added, sinking onto a leather club chair and downing the rest of three fingers of scotch, “it’s the only sign I’ve had so far that she has half a brain. Leaving was the most intelligent choice she could have made once you revealed a centuries-old secret to a woman whose crowning victories in life are rescuing a stray dog and serving drinks with a smile.”
“Don’t you talk about her like that!” Gavin crossed the room on unstable legs, muscles fueled by hurt and fury. He twisted his torso, the pull of freshly scabbed wounds restricting him, the give of flesh against flesh a startling pain as he tore open his gashes.
The wounds Asher had caused.
“You’ve gone mad, Gavin. Completely, utterly insane. In Grandfather’s time you’d have been thrown in Bedlam.”
“My only claim to insanity is that I ever listen to you, Asher.” Gavin’s eyes took in the room. They must have brought him back to his house, dragged him here, tended to his wounds. Frantic, he marched over to his closet and flung the doors open, snatching the first shirt he could find.
As he slid his arms into the fine cloth and began to button, blood bloomed through the front tail, like poppies against snow.
“You need to rest and recover.”
“What the hell did you do to me last night?” Gavin roared, turning on his brother.
Footsteps, hurried and powerful, grew louder in the hallway and then—
Edward.
“I did it, Gavin. Blame me.” His younger brother stood like a bearded sentry, stalwart and alert, eyes flipping between Asher and Gavin, showing pain and indecision. Of all the brothers, Edward was the one who hated conflict. He would not shy away from it when called, but he did not seek it out either.
“You? You stayed in human form last night. I saw you carry Webb off,” Gavin insisted.
“I came back after we had him out of sight. I knew I needed to be there when you and Asher...well, someone did.”
“What about Derry?” A gnawing suspicion made Gavin’s breath hitch.
“Derry is with Lilah,” Asher said in a tight voice.
“Where?”
“In Boston.”
“He went with her?” Gavin said, the incredulity in his voice no match for the hurt in his heart.
“He escorted her home to make certain she was safe,” Edward assured him.
Gavin did not find this reassuring.
“You told him to do it,” he said to Asher.
“I did no such thing. She asked to go home. Demanded it. Derry said she never wants to come back here.”
Gavin’s face twitched, eyes blinking, as if he’d been slapped.
“My God,” he whispered, the blood spreading across his fine Italian shirt.
Edward’s eyes caught the stain. “We need to redress your wounds. Let me get the first aid kit.”
“I need to go to Boston. Where’s my phone? I need to get the jet and—”
“No.”
Asher’s word hovered in the air, a challenge. A warning.
A grenade.
“You have dozens of guests here, Gavin. Do you have any idea what you have done, all for a piece of human ass?”
“Don’t you dare—”
“You nearly killed Mason Webb. Killed one of the biggest names in the tech industry. Can you fathom what this could have done to expose us if you had murdered him?”
Murder.
“I never intended to murder him.”
“You were out for the jugular last night, Gavin. Don’t tell me what I saw.”
“He was trying to rape her!”
“That doesn’t justify what you did. You could have stopped him without the bloodlust. Knocked him unconscious. Done it all in human form. Instead, you went crazy, nearly killed him and came damn close to exposing our secret.”
His chest rising and falling in great, overwhelming heaves, Gavin sat in silence, breathing. Asher and Edward watched him intently, with completely different expressions on their faces.
Gavin sank into a chair, the faint sense of additional pain from reopened wounds registering in the distance.
“Webb lived,” he finally said.
“Yes,” Edward answered.
Asher’s boiling point seemed to have been reached. “Yes, but he’s babbling that you’re a wolf! For fuck’s sake, Gavin, show some discretion! First, you cannot control your shifting, then you shift to save a woman and nearly kill an international tech financier. And when you’re told all this, you want to abandon a private conference and offend the biggest international business players in the world. You’ve lost your head.”
“I lost my heart,” he groaned in answer.
Edward gave him a sympathetic look.
“Teenagers. It’s as if I herd teenagers,” Asher mumbled.
“No one believes Webb,” Edward said, interrupting before Gavin could retort. “Eva has done a fabulous job with damage control. She’s making sure people think he was drunk or high when he saw what he claims.”
“He’s telling everyone Gavin Stanton is a secret werewolf,” Asher said.
“I am,” Gavin said simply.
“The world cannot know that,” Asher replied. “You know what happens when we’re revealed.” Family lore told the tale of an incident in the seventeenth century, in portion of what is now the Czech Republic. Most of the Stanton family was killed in a wave of peasant uprising. Only Gavin’s great-great-grandfather and his brother had survived, making their way to England and changing their name to Stanton.
Contempt aimed at someone who is different can be deadly.
Is that what Lilah felt for him now? Contempt? His soul certainly felt dead. Disconnected. He tried to call her in his mind, but the pulse just echoed into the enormity, an infinite series of ripples that touched nothing. No one.
“When we’re revealed,” Gavin said dully, repeating his brother’s words. And then, “She really left? Said she never wanted to come back?”
Edward just nodded. Asher stared out the window, frowning.
Gavin felt the life drain out of him. Of course she was horrified, disgusted—revolted. “I will respect her wishes.”
Asher turned his head, cocking one eyebrow. “You will?”
Bleak as death, Gavin nodded. “If that’s what she wants.”
“Derry said she was determined. Determined to leave and never come back.”
The words hurt more than his torn flesh.
Never come back.
She was repulsed by his wolf form. Lilah would never love him for who he really was. If she did, she would not leave. Flee.
Disappear.
As if on autopilot, his mind called her again.
Nothing.
“Perhaps you were right, Asher,” he said.
Edward and Asher jerked their heads in surprise.
“Mating with a human is stupid and dangerous.”
So was loving one.
Chapter 17
Alone in her own bed, Lilah dreamt.
She walked through a misty forest, dazed and slow, desperately searching for something she couldn’t name. Her hair hung loose down her back, stroking the bare skin between her shoulder blades. She wore nothing but a red corset and high heels and was filled with a carnal craving so deep that her legs could barely carry her across the fallen leaves.
A silhouette of a wolf between the trees made her cry out with sudden conviction. “Gavin!” It was him she was looking for. She didn’t know why she hadn’t remembered at once.
The wolf disappeared into the shadows, leaving her feeling as cold as she’d ever felt in her life, as if the blood had been
flushed out of her body. Shivering, she stumbled off the path to follow, heedless of the brambles scratching her bare shins, her thighs, her buttocks. Her torn skin burned, but she pressed on.
You’re bleeding. Gavin’s voice filled her mind as it had when they were together. Like caramel and ice and gold, striking her deepest notes, filling her with his essence.
“I’m fine,” she said aloud, but her mouth was dry. She touched her lips, craving a kiss.
Come.
She spun around but couldn’t see him. “Where are you?”
Find me.
The ranch loomed to her right beyond the trees. The windows were brightly lit from within, and the noises of a party seeped out into the woods. She knew he was inside with the party. It was his party and he wanted her to come. She hurried over to the glass door and reached for the handle.
Suddenly aware of her corset and bare lower half, she blushed at the thought of walking inside. People in expensive, fashionable clothes mingled as they had at the ranch. She recognized a few members of the Platinum Club, a prince or two, a movie star.
“I’m naked,” she whispered.
Now, he replied.
Trembling with fear and desire, she opened the door. All conversation stopped. Every head turned to her. The wind picked up just as she stepped inside, whipping her hair around her in a soft cloud, making her feel powerful, magical, wild.
Like him.
In his wolf form, he crossed the room, parting the crowd like a silver arrow. She moved to meet him, aware of her bare flesh, her most private parts exposed. In a moment of panic, she glanced down at herself, confirming her nakedness, wanting to run. But when she looked back up, Gavin stood there in a tuxedo.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, striding forward and closing the gap between them. He touched her between her legs first, just sliding his fingers between her thighs until he was buried in wet heat.
She cried out and fell against him.
“I’m going to make love to you,” he said, holding her body up with one strong hand as the other continued stroking her.
The crowd rearranged itself around them, revealing an enormous bed. He guided her to it and lay her down on her back.
Half the men around them disappeared, leaving wolves in their place. The walls faded into the mist. She wanted nothing more than him. All of him.
“You’re mine,” Gavin said.
She reached for him. “Gavin.”
“Spread your legs for me, my love.”
She wanted him so badly, so badly. Licking her lips, she let her knees fall apart. Her heartbeat pounded so violently in her ears that she could barely hear his next words.
“I’ll die if I can’t have you,” he whispered.
She arched her back, stretched her arms wide in welcome supplication.
Rough kisses told her where he was: on her ankle, behind her knee, between her thighs. Her dream blossomed and became an abstract, sensory wonderland. She closed her dreaming eyes and swam through the alternating waves of pleasure and torture, gasping and moaning under his skilled touch. He was everywhere, driving her to the edge of the abyss and holding her there, demanding she wait, insisting she fly with him.
He loved her, he demanded she love him, and everything was naughty and forbidden and magical and perfect, and it felt so real, and she wanted more and all of him. She wanted to be like him, so much so she actually felt her skin stretching, her bones aching, her muscles straining with untapped potential and raw, animal power. It was incredible. Wondrous. Intoxicating. She wanted more, she wanted all of it. Was this what he felt when—
Now, he said in her mind, pushing her off the cliff with a kiss. She climaxed in a blinding flash just as she felt him arrange his body over hers to take her completely, to fill her, to give himself—
And at that moment, she woke up.
In a feverish, exhausted daze, Lilah stared at the ceiling, still shaking, and tried to blink herself awake.
She’d soaked the sheets.
Damn.
Oh, Gavin. God.
Stroking herself where the dream Gavin had been, she felt tears come to her eyes, wishing it were him, desperate for it to be him. The vividness of his presence faded away, leaving her bereft, cold, broken.
She buried her face in the pillow and cried. Long, hard, silent sobs shuddered out of her. Her grief was as powerful as the joy in her dream. Surely, she thought, it would kill her never to feel that way again. After several minutes, she rolled over and sucked in an unsteady breath and looked at the window with swollen, blurry eyes.
She couldn’t keep having dreams like that. She couldn’t. It was only midmorning, but there was no way she was going to try to fall asleep again. Her body ached for him so deeply she needed an ibuprofen.
She washed up and got dressed, the dream still haunting her body and her mind, and decided to tackle the practical matters of everyday life. What else could she do? After trying to convince Jess she was fine, just fine, Lilah packed up Smoky and caught the bus to Watertown.
Her mother was surprised to see her walk into her bedroom with a dog and a cup of her favorite coffee.
“Jess wasn’t supposed to tell you,” Marilyn Murphy said, throwing down her crochet. “Now look at you, rushing back from that beautiful trip just to waste your time with me and my stupid hip.”
Anxiety about her mother’s health eased at the sight of her sitting upright and alert, her enormous green tote bag filled with yarn and crochet needles overflowing at her side.
Lilah set Smoky’s carrier down before rushing over to kiss her on the cheek. Her mother’s familiar scent washed over her, reminding her of easier days and happier times, almost bringing her to tears. “I love you. How could you try to hide this from me?”
“Careful, you’re going to spill the coffee.” Marilyn took it from her and inhaled deeply. “Ah, bless you. Don’t tell Jess, but you know where to buy a proper cup.”
“The McDonald’s near the bus stop?”
“It’s what I like. Your sister insists on getting complicated.” Marilyn took a sip and stared at her over the rim. Her tilted hazel eyes, so much like Jess’s, narrowed with concern. “You look terrible.”
“Thank you very much,” Lilah said.
“Oh, sweetie. When’s the last time you had a decent night’s sleep?”
“Forget about me, how are you? Does it hurt? Jess thought it went well.” New layers of relief filled Lilah, making tears nearly crash through. Until she was in front of her mother, she hadn’t realized how much she missed her. Needed her to be healthy and OK.
“Of course it went well. You know I’m strong as a horse. Just two little incisions anyway.”
“We’re going to have to tie you down so you can recover,” Lilah joked.
“Activity is essential for a full recovery,” Marilyn said. “The physical therapist told me that.”
Stifling a yawn, Lilah sat on the small chair near the bed. “I’m staying as long as you need me. I brought Smoky.” She and Jess had already told her mother all about the little dog, and she was skeptical but willing to have him in the house on a probationary basis.
“You will not! You’re paying Sophia to be here. Why pay that agency so much money if you’re going to stay here too?”
“Sophia?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know who Sophia is,” her mother said. “Although she refused to blame you outright, I know you’re responsible. Though how you can afford a miracle worker like that, I shudder to think.”
Sophia?
“Tell me about her,” Lilah said carefully. “You like her?”
“Of course I like her. I want to marry her. She cleans, she does the shopping, she sorts the junk mail into recycling and trash. She folds the laundry. She even fixed the squeaky hinge on the bathroom cabinet.”
Lilah had been searching for a home health aide for her mom but hadn’t found anyone yet she could afford, even with the Platinum Club salary. She’d thought the operati
on was a month or more away, and—well, let’s be honest, she’d been busy falling in love with Gavin.
Gavin. She had mentioned her mother a few times to him, explaining about her bad hip, the operation, living alone. How Lilah was saving up her money to hire some help for her, not just as she recovered from the operation but for cleaning, mowing the lawn, odd jobs.
“Remind me,” Lilah said, “what’s the name of the agency again?”
“Don’t you remember? I’d think it would be seared into your brain every time you paid the bill.”
Lilah cast her mind back to a phone call months earlier, when she was a different person in a different world. “Xavier Rand?”
“That’s it. Strange name, isn’t it?”
“It is. That’s why it slipped my mind.” Lilah turned away from her mother to hide her face.
Gavin had sent somebody to help her mother, somebody her picky mother wanted to marry, and never said a word.
Lilah pulled herself together. “How long has she been here?”
“What kind of billing does that place have if you don’t know the answer to that?”
“Monthly billing.” Lilah couldn’t tell her the truth without unloading all of it—which her mother would believe even less than Jess had. “First and last, paid in advance.” The man had more secrets than the CIA. What else was he hiding?
“Well, she’s been here just over a week. I’ll have to get the exact date out of my calendar and send it to you. Make sure they’re not cheating you, sweetheart. You know how gullible you can be.”
“I am,” Lilah said with feeling. “I really am.”
“When I told her about the operation, she said she’d stay overnight all week while I recovered. She’s trained as a nurse, of course, but didn’t like working in a hospital. When I’m up and around, she’ll cut back on her hours.”
A trained nurse who cleans and fixes cabinets. And her mother was calling Lilah the gullible one? “She sounds incredible.” Too good to be true. Just like the rest of her life lately. Now that Lilah had run away from Gavin, anything could happen. The Xavier Rand agency would probably withdraw the miracle-working Sophia at any moment.
