by Jenna Kernan
Bri wrinkled her nose and crossed her arms over herself at the sudden chill that swept through her.
“Mostly they just tear open a vein.” Mac cleared the condiments and salt and pepper from the table. She gathered up her coffee mug and followed him to the counter. He took the mug from her. Their fingers brushed. Their eyes met.
“You’re cold,” he said, his breath just above a whisper. The hushed intimacy of his tone raised her skin to gooseflesh.
“It’s cold up here in the mountains.”
“I can start a fire. It will take off the chill.” He was already in motion.
The efficiency of his fire building impressed her. The smoke billowed outward for a moment and then went straight up the flue. She moved closer, kneeling next to where he squatted and extending her hands as he laid ever larger pieces of wood on the fire.
She glanced up at him and smiled. He didn’t smile back. Instead he stared with an intense focus that made her skin prickle in anticipation.
She found herself wondering again what it would be like to sleep with him. Was she attracted to him because he was so different from any man she’d ever met? She didn’t usually go for the warrior type. They were too demanding and too apt to make all the decisions for you. She wanted a partner, not a keeper. She realized with a jolt that she’d never have a partner, because no man could withstand her terrible powers.
“Go ahead, Princess. I can take it.”
She startled. How long had she been staring at his mouth? She dropped her gaze and it fell to the white T-shirt that now stretched tight over all that muscle. Her throat went dry, making her words scratchy, as if she had some kind of a cold.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You were thinking about kissing me again. I want you to.”
She met his gaze. Considered it. “That’s a bad idea. Johnny might come back.”
But warrior that he was, he already had his hands on her shoulders, taking what he wanted. He drew her closer slowly. Giving her time to pull back or say no. She should have done either. But she didn’t. Instead, she lifted her chin and angled her mouth to accept what he offered. His lips brushed hers in a gentle exploration that set off an avalanche of desire surging through her. Her reaction was miles too strong for the simple brushing of lips. She tipped into his arms, falling like a skydiver through space. He caught her up in his arms, holding her, keeping her safe. She opened her mouth. His tongue grazed her teeth. She parted her lips, and his tongue slid against hers, bringing a sweet rush of delight and the taste of strong coffee.
Mac cradled her head as he swept an arm around her, leaning her backward as his chest brushed against hers. An electric storm of desire flashed from the point of contact, tearing through her like a tree struck by lightning. His touch scorched her to the core. A moment later her body tingled and flushed with need.
When her back contacted the rug before the fire, Bri came back to herself. She pushed with both hands. Mac lifted up on strong, muscular arms. He looked down at her, his eyes blazing with need.
“Are you certain I can’t hurt you?”
He stretched out beside her. “You’re worried about me again, Princess. I could get used to that.”
“You’re not bulletproof.”
“Well, you’re wrong there. I am bulletproof.”
She sat up and he released her. Bri folded her legs, sat and faced him. His smug smile vanished and was replaced by a haunting sadness that tugged down the corners of his mouth and dragged on his handsome features.
He pressed his lips together in a gesture that was more grimace than smile. His eyes measured hers, and she had the feeling he was deciding something important.
“They shot at me. In this form and in my other one.”
“Who did?”
“The Marines at the medical facility. Just following orders.”
“Why would they shoot at their own man?”
“Testing. No injuries.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I don’t believe in impossible any more. Not since I came back from the Sandbox and started sprouting fur.”
He rolled to his back beside her and gazed at the ceiling. She tried not to stare at the hard definition of the muscles in his arms and failed. But his words haunted.
“It happened there?” she asked. “In the...”
“Sandbox. Afghanistan.” He nodded. “Attacked by an enemy combatant who turned out to be a werewolf. Johnny and I were the only survivors.”
She hugged herself tighter, wishing she could go back to the days when she was blissfully unaware of all the monsters that lurked in the dark.
“I’m so sorry.” She reached out to touch his arm.
He turned his head to glare at the hand that rested on his. She drew back immediately. This man did not want her pity. That much was clear.
His eyes now looked empty. She stared at this stranger and inched back.
Just a moment ago he’d held her with such tenderness and his kiss had been lush as a rain forest. Where had that man gone?
His mouth quirked in a cavalier smile that turned her cold.
“Why don’t you kiss me again?”
“You act as if I can’t control myself. I can.”
“But you shouldn’t. The longer you go, the deadlier you get. After a while you can kill a man without even sleeping with him.”
“Is that true?”
He looked deadly serious now as he nodded. “For you, more is better.”
Her thoughts went to Jeffery again and the miracle that she had not killed him, too. Even before he grew ill, she had known that sleeping with him was a mistake for many reasons, not the least of which was her mixed feelings. But if she’d had known she was some kind of lethal carrier of energy she never, ever would have slept with him.
Jeffery’s sudden, bizarre illness was her fault. She’d nearly killed him.
Bri turned to Mac and held his gaze. “He’ll be all right now. Won’t he?”
“Should be, if you keep your distance.”
If she stayed away from him, he’d recover. The realization that she could never see him again didn’t hurt her nearly as much as it should have. Instead her first reaction was relief. Her response surprised her so much she gasped. She had been fond of him, but now she recognized she had never loved him. He’d loved her. She knew it, and she had hoped that would be enough. It wasn’t.
His insistence more than her attraction had brought her to his bed. The guilt choked her. She should have known better.
He moved closer, breathing deeply, then gave her a sensual look. The potent mixture of virile male and the edge of danger made her pulse pound. She didn’t know if she should step into his arms or run.
“Lucky thing I’m not human. You can’t make me sick.”
She felt her muscles tighten and her stomach flutter. “I don’t think that’s lucky. More like tragic.”
“You need what I can give you, Princess, and I’ll admit I’ve been without since this happened to me. I miss having a woman.”
A woman, as if any woman would do. His words made her cold and his touch made her hot. For him it was all just filling a need, his and hers.
He placed his hand over hers. She didn’t draw back. Her skin began to tingle again. There was no denying the attraction that fired between them. But that was not love, either.
He used his thumb to draw small circles on the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist.
“I don’t have random sex or one-night stands. I’ve only had two intimate relationships and...” Her eyes flashed to his. He must have seen it, the pain that tore through her, because he opened his arms to her and she fell into them. “I killed Matthew and I put Jeffery in the hospital.”
“You didn’t know.”
>
She pressed her hands over her face. “It’s so terrible. I don’t know what to do.”
“You’ll stay here until they come, and then Johnny and I will kill them. If you need a man in the meantime you take me. Do not go out and find a human. You come to me.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’ll come to you.”
* * *
Mac found Johnny sitting alone on a fallen log five feet off the ground, swinging his legs like a kid playing hooky from school.
“There you are.” Mac leaned against the log.
Johnny smelled his nervousness in the sweat that had nothing to do with exertion. He lifted his hands palms up, silently inquiring.
Mac blew out a breath. “I’ve got to ask a favor. I’m...well, I’m attracted to Bri.”
Johnny growled.
“I know, it’s just, she’s beautiful and I haven’t had, well hell, Johnny, neither of us have. But I don’t know if it’s just that or if it’s what she is.”
Johnny shrugged his shoulders, unsure what Mac expected him to do about that.
“Can you get close to her, maybe smell her and touch her and see if she does anything for you. I know you don’t like her. So if you’re attracted it’s the vampire in her, not the woman.”
Johnny groaned.
“Come on, buddy,” Mac urged.
His friend squeezed his eyes shut and then dropped to the ground and cleared the fallen leaves with a bare foot. Then he used a series of twigs to spell out his answer.
“Did that,” Mac read.
Johnny collected the sticks and used them again.
“Still...want,” Mac read.
Johnny collected and lay out his final three words.
“To...gut...her.”
Mac sat back on his haunches. “Really? Well, okay. That’s good I guess. But don’t. Really, that’s an order.”
Johnny wanted to say that he didn’t like her intrusion. That he wanted her dead and, barring that, he wanted her gone. They killed things like her, didn’t they? Instead he nodded his compliance with the order, gave a lazy salute and motioned for them to run.
“Maybe later,” said Mac, rubbing his neck and glancing back to the compound where the flesh eater waited. Mac slapped Johnny’s arm. “Thanks, buddy.”
Johnny loped away. He didn’t like having a female in the house. Her scent disturbed him, made him think of all the things he’d lost since the attack, like his mother and his family and his world. He understood that Mac was using her as a lure to draw more vampires, but if she was staying, at least she could be dressed. Johnny had seen her clothes yesterday. They were wrecked, stained, muddy and torn, so his sergeant had given her a T-shirt, a Marine Corps T-shirt. She did not deserve to wear a T-shirt with the Marine emblem, and he determined to do something about that today.
So he left the bounds of his larger prison, crossed into the national forest and ran until he reached the campsite.
There he staked out an RV park. Didn’t take long for his recon to find a perfect target. The family had a teen daughter about Brianna’s size.
The family of four finished lunch, hamburgers cooked on a gas grill and buns toasted on the charcoal. It smelled great. They ate inside at the large kitchenette, and Johnny wondered why they’d bothered to leave home for the great outdoors. Both junior and the temperamental teen ignored their parents in favor of their electronics throughout the entire meal. Johnny would have given his right paw to see his mom and dad again and to hug his little sister, but these two didn’t know what they had. A lump rose in his throat. Someday, maybe. He still held hope that the doctors would figure out why he couldn’t change back. It was what had kept him from ending himself. That and Mac.
His squad leader was a ballbuster in-country. But not anymore. Not since the attack. Johnny had changed on the outside, but Mac had changed on the inside.
Mac had a thick head and a warm heart and Mac had stood by him, fought with him and lately fought for him getting him out of that cage. It was Mac who understood that in this form, despite the strong urges and the unfamiliar desire to hunt and run, he was the same inside. Sure he was stronger and heard a hell of a lot better, and his sense of smell was outstanding. But he was still John Loc Lam. Back in training, the guys had called him Lock and Load, because of his middle name. He’d heard worse at school in Port Chester, New York, where there weren’t a lot of Asian-American kids in the sea of Latinos. But Mac had asked him what his mother had called him. At first Johnny had thought this was just another way to humiliate him, but he’d answered, and from that day forward everyone under the command of Staff Sgt. Travis Toren MacConnelly had called him Johnny or Private Lam. Mac told him later that if anyone was going to bully his men it would be him. End of story.
Johnny stared out from the trees, waiting for Junior to lumber to the car. The girl didn’t seem to eat anything and was the thinnest in the group, which was good, because Brianna was a small woman, curvy but small. Of course, most everyone looked small to him now.
It wasn’t until the teenager descended from the thirty-three-foot RV that Johnny got a look at her face. Her eyes were ringed in so much dark makeup she looked like a sullen raccoon dressed in black. Steampunk girl, he decided as he watched the family pile into the giant SUV and roll away.
Johnny would have preferred a night raid, but it was as Paul Cummings used to say before the werewolf tore his throat out. He galloped across the open ground, waiting for the screams that didn’t come. Somehow an eight-foot werewolf had not been spotted yet. He only needed one hand to tear the door from its hinges, pealing it back like the lid on a can of tuna fish.
He was inside, pawing through drawers and making a pile in the center of the camper. Once he had what he needed he ripped open some of the food containers for show. They had frozen vegetables in neat unopened bags. He added some to the pile, then threw it in a pillowcase and took off.
His exit was not as smooth as his entrance. He nearly ran over a woman wearing boxers and a loose T-shirt who took one look at Johnny, dropped her bundle of neatly tied firewood and screamed like an actress in a slasher movie. Johnny just kept running, and he didn’t stop until he got back to base.
* * *
When Mac picked up Johnny’s scent, he knew he was close. Where had he been all morning? For a few minutes there, Mac feared that Johnny had gone off grounds again. It had been hell to get him the small amount of liberty they now enjoyed. But Johnny still wasn’t predictable.
Mac wasn’t sure if it was the wolf or post-traumatic stress syndrome. Maybe it was both. God knew, Mac still had nightmares.
Mac admitted to himself that he’d been preoccupied with Bri and turned his gunner down when he’d asked him to run.
Johnny was fast on all fours, but he ran only when Mac was also in wolf form. Now he strode into the yard like a nine-foot shadow monster.
“Where you been?”
Johnny lifted the pink pillowcase and dropped it at Mac’s feet.
“What’s this?” Mac peered within and scowled. He reached inside and drew out a half-thawed bag of soybeans in the pod and a skimpy pink scrap of silken fabric which now dangled from his index finger. “Johnny! What the hell is this? Holy shit! Did anyone see you take these?” Mac now shook a fist full of brightly colored underwear at him.
Johnny looked away.
“She’s not going to wear other women’s underwear.” He tossed the scraps of silk into the trash.
Mac continued to rummage through the sack. Women’s clothing.
“These are good,” he said and tossed them into a pile. Next he discovered several small plastic bags of vegetables. All for Brianna, he realized. Johnny had known she had little clothing to wear and little to eat, since both he and Johnny preferred meat, lots of it, and rarer was better. Mac faced his friend and released his ange
r. “That was a nice thing to do.”
Johnny snorted and Mac wondered at his motives. If he didn’t do it from kindness, than what?
“How did you know she’s a vegetarian?” But he knew the answer the moment he said it because he knew as well. “Smelled it, right? She’s sweeter, somehow. Must be the grains.” Or the fact that she was irresistible to men.
Johnny nodded.
“If anyone saw you, then we are in deep shit. Did they?”
Johnny shrugged, then motioned his head toward the compound.
“You want to give them to her?” he asked.
Johnny bared his teeth.
“Fine. I’ll do it. But don’t run off.” Mac retreated, stopping briefly in the kitchen to toss six bags of frozen vegetables and one box of veggie burgers into the freezer. Then he returned to the kitchen but heard her down the hall in his room. What was that she was humming? “Werewolves of London,” he realized and gave a single sound of mirth. The woman had a sense of humor.
He knocked on the open door, pausing to see her bent over his bed tugging at the sheet. She startled and then straightened as she turned to face him.
“You are so quiet. I never heard you and I hear everything.”
“Habit,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to make the bed, but I can’t do it like you.”
He took in the draped blanket instead of the crisp corners of a tight bunk. Then recalled her bending over and felt his body harden. He lifted the sack. “I’ve got clothes. Johnny’s doing.”
She was looking up at him with rapt interest. Her gaze fell to his mouth and his skin burned. He waited and she glanced away. She wasn’t ready for what he offered, but she was considering it. He could tell by the pink color of her ears and the sound of her heartbeat, audible to him even from where he stood.
“Johnny and I have to report to headquarters. Stay inside or my command will see you on camera.”
“Yes. I’ll stay inside. When will you be back?”
“After dark. Eat what you like in the meantime. There’s a TV, books and video games, though you don’t look like a gamer.”
