by Lia Silver
At first all she was conscious of was the cold and the effort it took to not pull away from it. But as Roy’s body slowly warmed against hers, she relaxed into his embrace. She’d never before been held by a man big enough to make her feel small. It gave her a sense of being safe and protected.
Laura’s breasts were pressed up against Roy’s chest. She had her head nestled into his muscular shoulder, inhaling his clean scent, her forehead tickled by strands of his silky hair. How long did it take for a military haircut to grow out that much? Had he not had a chance to cut his hair since he’d been wounded in Afghanistan?
She wondered if that had even happened, then decided that it probably had. She doubted that he’d lied to her. Omitted some things, obviously. But he struck her as an honest man. An honest werewolf.
It was odd that it didn’t scare her to curl up in bed with a man who could turn into a wolf. But like his size, it made her feel more safe, not less. Now that she had a chance to think about it, it made her happy to know that amazing, magical, impossible things like werewolves really existed. And Roy had been a magnificent wolf.
“You are hot,” muttered Roy, pulling her even closer. He’d stopped shivering. “I mean warm.”
Laura laughed. “Told you.”
She couldn’t help enjoying lying there with him, his strong body pressed so intimately against hers. If she turned her head to the side, her lips would touch his throat.
Kiss him and make it better, she thought. An impulse came over her to do just that, so fierce and demanding that it was all she could do to resist.
She forced herself to hold still. Roy was holding her because he was chilled, not because he wanted to hold her. He’d barely had the strength to lift a cup of tea. The last thing he needed right now was to have to gather his energy to give her a “I’m just not into you” speech.
His breathing had evened out, his chest rhythmically rising and falling against hers. She lifted her head to see his face. He seemed to have fallen asleep. He was still pale, but not the deathly white he’d been before.
She gave a last glance at the curtained window before she let exhaustion pull her down into a deep, dreamless sleep.
***
The cold woke her. Laura fumbled for the blankets, still half-asleep. Her hands found nothing but chilly, rumpled sheets. Then memory rushed back, telling her that Roy ought to be beside her.
Her eyes flew open.
The candles had burned low, and the blankets had been shoved aside. Roy was sprawled at the edge of the bed, in danger of falling off, with one hand under the pillow and one dangling down to the floor. His face was turned away from her, and every breath he took ended in a low moan of pain.
Laura sat up, alarmed. “Roy?”
He didn’t stir or answer.
She chewed on her lip, wondering if she should touch him. The last thing she wanted was to startle him when he was half-asleep and had his hand on a gun, even if he didn’t literally have his finger on the trigger.
“Roy?” Laura called again, louder.
He rolled over. Roy looked dazed, his eyes glassy and unfocused. His hair was wet and clinging to his flushed face.
He put his hand to his chest, then pulled it away, wincing. “It hurts. Was I hit?”
“You were shot. Don’t you remember?”
“It hurts,” he repeated, but Laura didn’t think it was in answer to her question. “I need… I need…”
She touched his forehead. It was as hot as if he’d been lying in front of the fireplace.
“You’re burning up,” she said.
He shook his head. “I’m freezing.”
She pulled the blankets back up, then reached over him for the bottle of ibuprofen. Laura went to the bathroom and filled the mug with water, then came back and sat on the edge of the bed.
Roy’s eyes followed her, but he didn’t try to sit up. Nor did he try to help her when she lifted his head, put the pills in his mouth, and held the mug to his lips. He just obediently swallowed. She remembered him the night before, determinedly standing in the doorway. It frightened her to imagine how weak he must feel to not even try to hold the cup.
“I need…” he said again.
Laura waited for him to finish, but his voice trailed off.
“What, Roy? What do you need?”
He didn’t reply.
“More water?”
He shook his head.
“The bathroom?”
He shook his head again, looking frustrated. His jaw was clenched, and every ragged breath told her how much pain he was in.
Laura sat there, feeling completely helpless. What Roy needed was a hospital, and instead he had a first aid kit from a supermarket, a bottle of painkillers for cramps, and an ex-con artist with no medical training. She couldn’t even figure out what he was trying to ask her for.
When he spoke again, Laura almost jumped out of her skin.
“I need my pack,” he said.
“Your pack?” she echoed blankly. “Your backpack? Is it in the barn?”
“My wolf pack.” His gray gaze fixed on her, full of desperate longing. “I need my wolves.”
“Where are they?” Laura asked.
He gave a deep, despairing sigh. “I don’t know.”
“Are they—”
He spoke over her, his words slurring together as if he was drunk or half-asleep. “I don’t know where they are. I don’t know who they are. It’s killing me. If I can’t have my pack, I want my buddies. I want DJ and Marco and Alec, but they’re half a world away. I don’t want to be alone!”
The anguish in his voice wrenched at Laura’s heart. She put her hand on his shoulder. “You’re not alone. I’m here with you.”
He turned his head away. “You’re not a wolf. You’re not pack.”
“Are your buddies all werewolves?”
“Only DJ.” After a moment, he added, “That I know of.”
Laura wondered about that, but filed it away for later reference. “Then I can be your buddy, right?”
She expected him to argue that she wasn’t a Marine, but he seemed to consider it. “You’ll guard my back?”
“I will. I didn’t leave you behind, remember?”
That apparently cinched the deal. “Okay. We’re buddies. Your watch.”
With what looked like a huge effort, he lifted his hand and laid it over hers. Then his eyes fluttered shut, and he relaxed into sleep.
Laura got back in bed with him. He obviously didn’t need her body warmth any more, but his fever might turn to chills at any moment. And there was no way she’d leave him to wake up alone.
Chapter Five: Roy
Cold Beer and Remote Control
Roy shaded his eyes against the pale dawn light. Every muscle in his body ached. He felt like he’d been run over by a tank. But that was a major improvement over what he remembered of the night before.
His right hand was still clutching the pistol under the pillow, so tightly that his fingers were cramped. Roy pried his fingers off the grip of the Raven .25 and rolled over, cautious of re-opening his wound. When there was no sharp pain, only a dull burn, he sat up. The room lurched around him, then steadied itself.
When his vision cleared, he was looking down at Laura. She was fast asleep in a nest of blankets, her brown-sugar curls spread out over the pillow and her soft lips slightly parted. If she’d been his girlfriend, he wouldn’t have been able to resist leaning down and kissing her.
She wasn’t, unfortunately, so he’d just have to resist. But though he didn’t touch her, he couldn’t stop looking and longing.
Last night she’d been so warm and soft beside him, with her generous curves and pillowy breasts. He’d been so cold and sick and hurting that it had been hard to think of anything else, but he’d wished he’d been in better shape, so he could appreciate it. More, he’d wished she was lying there because they were about to make love, not because she was trying to stop him from dying of shock and hypothermia.
>
He tried to recall what had happened after she’d gotten him into bed. She’d given him tea and laid down beside him, and they’d joked a little about that. He’d fallen asleep or passed out. And then…
His memories were foggy, but he recalled feeling hot, and then chilled to the bone. He’d had the nightmarish sense that the walls of the cabin were pulsing around him. The blankets were heavy as concrete, threatening to crush him. Every breath had felt like a knife driven through his chest.
And then Laura had woken up, and…
Heat again burned through Roy’s body, but this time it was embarrassment rather than fever. He had a horrifyingly vivid recollection of raving about being alone and in pain and missing his buddies and demanding that she keep watch over him. How pathetic was that?
He crossed his fingers that she’d been half-asleep and wouldn’t remember any of it. But he doubted it. He had the awful feeling that he’d said some very memorable things.
The air was heavy with the smells of blood and sweat and candle wax, overpowering Laura’s lemon-sugar. Roy’s pajamas clung to him, still damp in patches where he’d sweated through them.
He stood up slowly, pistol in hand. His legs felt wobbly and his chest hurt, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. He could hardly believe how quickly he’d recovered.
Roy walked out, quietly so as to not wake her. Apart from the bedroom and bathroom, the cabin had one big room divided into areas: an open kitchen separated from a dining room by a counter, and a living room with a sofa, a TV, and a huge picture window. The fire was out in the fireplace, and the wood stove was burning low.
He fed the stove and lit the fire, then went from window to window, looking for signs that the enemy werewolf had returned. The storm was over, though snow was still falling gently. Laura’s car was buried up to the windows. No footprints or paw-prints marred the thick carpet of white.
Roy went outside, pistol ready, and made a sweep around the cabin, using all his senses to search for any trace of a hidden enemy. He found nothing but snow and trees and earth, fluffed-up birds in the trees and rabbits hiding underground.
He risked a quick trip to the barn. There he grabbed the clothes and toothbrush George had so generously bought for him, claiming that Roy had saved him from having to pay a contractor hundreds of dollars to fix the roof. Roy had managed to get George’s pajamas on, barely, but only because pajamas were supposed to be baggy. No way would he fit into anything else George owned.
The cold sank painfully into Roy’s wound, and he started feeling shaky and chilled on the return trip. Werewolf healing powers notwithstanding, the trip to the barn had been pushing it. He locked the cabin door behind him, listened to Laura’s peaceful breathing, and walked to the bathroom—slowly—to take a hot shower.
Roy opened the door, then stopped and stared. No wonder he’d smelled blood—it was all over the place. He must have scared Laura half to death.
The last thing he felt like doing was getting down his hands and knees and scrubbing the floor, but he couldn’t leave that horrifying mess for Laura to mop up. He spent a good half-hour cleaning the bathroom before he stepped into the shower, leaving the blood-soaked rug and the clothes he’d worn the night before in a tied-off trash bag.
Roy leaned against the tiled wall, letting the hot water wash over him. It soaked the bandages on his chest and back until the tape peeled away. The wound in his chest was raw and red, surrounded by a huge black bruise, but closed and visibly healing, as if it had been inflicted weeks ago rather than the night before. The water stung a little, and the soap stung a lot. But it was a good kind of pain, the type that said his body was working right.
He reluctantly got out of the shower, dried off, and used the last two bandages in the little first aid kit, thankful that he had enough shoulder flexibility to stick one on his back. After he’d spent the night babbling God knows what at Laura, he didn’t want to have to ask her for any more help.
She was still breathing in the deep, peaceful rhythm of sleep when he put the pistol in his belt and left the bathroom. He walked softly, barefoot, so as not to wake her as he went to the kitchen. There he rummaged through the supplies and started some coffee, then mixed up pancake batter.
When the first pancake started sizzling, he heard Laura’s breathing change. A moment later, she bolted into the kitchen, her hair adorably mussed. There was a smear of dried blood on her cheek, but no injury. His blood, he supposed.
Her jaw dropped when she saw him. “You weren’t kidding when you said you were hard to kill. There were a couple moments I was afraid you weren’t going to make it. When you woke up in the middle of the night and said—”
“I’m a lot better now,” Roy said hastily. He flipped a pancake. “Do you like blueberries in your pancakes?”
Laura grinned. “That’s a blueberry pie on the counter, but let’s go for a double. Throw them in.”
“If you take a shower now, they’ll be ready by the time you’re out.”
She gave him a look that made him wonder if he had said something wrong.
“I didn’t mean to imply that you need a shower,” he said. “Just that if you were going to take one…”
“Of course I need a shower. I’m covered in your sweat and…” She rubbed at the blood on her face, then glanced at her fingers. The smile fell off her face, and she walked out without another word.
Roy stood looking out at the empty air where she had been until he smelled his pancakes burning. He threw them out and added blueberries to the batter, listening to the shower running.
He felt terrible. That man who had attacked her must have actually been after Roy—why else would another werewolf have showed up in the middle of nowhere and out of the blue? Roy had thought he’d been keeping others out of danger by not contacting anyone he knew, but all he’d really done was endanger a completely different set of people.
Even though Laura hadn’t been physically hurt, she’d obviously been traumatized by seeing him get shot. Witnessing that sort of violence up close and personal was hard on anyone, even Marines. And she was a civilian, a bank teller and an actor’s daughter. It didn’t get any more peaceful than that.
He had to get out of her life before someone else came after him, and she again got caught in the crossfire.
A wave of dizziness swept over Roy. He staggered to the nearest chair and fell into it, feeling like he’d just powered through the world’s toughest obstacle course. He couldn’t believe he’d gotten that worn out from taking a short walk and making pancakes. Okay, and scrubbing his own blood off the bathroom floor.
I’ll give myself a week to recover, max, and then I’ll get out of her life, he promised himself.
It was probably the aftereffects of his injury, but he felt empty inside. Like he was lost and alone and freezing to death.
The soft padding of Laura’s footsteps jarred him out of his gloom. She was a delicious sight in black jeans and a pale blue blouse with lace around the throat, every bit of it hugging her luscious curves. Her dainty little feet were bare, with pink polish on her toenails.
While he was still debating whether he could stand up, she brought the pancakes and plates to the table, then whisked herself back to the kitchen.
“Cream and sugar?” she called.
“Yes, please.”
He watched her as she fixed the coffee, hers with two spoons of cream and no sugar. He filed that away for future reference. Laura settled down across from him and passed him his cup.
“Thanks for cleaning the bathroom,” she said.
Roy shrugged. “It was the least I could do. It was my blood.”
Laura pushed the pancake platter over. The scents of coffee and pancakes and melting butter rose up, making him ravenous. Laura apparently felt the same way. For a while, they were both too busy devouring blueberry pancakes to speak.
Roy felt better once he’d gone through a stack of pancakes, a slice of pie, and a mug of coffee. He took a second slice of
pie, then stole a glance at Laura, who was still working on her pancakes. Her drying hair curled in wisps around her face, and her own tangy scent wafted up from her fresh-scrubbed skin.
She abruptly looked up, catching him watching her.
“I wanted to tell you…” Roy began, then stopped. There was a lot he wanted to tell her, but some of it would be dangerous for her to know and some of it would be unfair for him say when he didn’t plan to stick around.
He settled on, “You saved my life three times over.”
“Three times?”
He ticked them off on his fingers. “Once by shielding me with your own body. Once by hauling me out of the snow. And once by… um… keeping me warm.”
Heat crept across his cheekbones. It was ridiculous, but he was blushing like a boy.
Laura gave him a mischievous smile. “It was my pleasure.”
Roy told himself that no matter how tempting it was, he was not going to take advantage of her when he planned to leave in a few days and never see her again.
Determinedly, he went on, “When you ran out after I got shot and guarded me—that was one of the bravest things I’ve seen in my life.”
He’d expected her to be gratified, but she looked disbelieving. Worse, her lower lip quivered as if she was about to cry. Did she think he was playing her?
She stared down at her plate, mashing a blueberry with her fork. “I know you mean well, but…”
“I’m serious,” Roy insisted. “Yeah, I’ve seen people run out under fire to drag someone to safety. But they were Marines. They were trained and armed, and they had body armor and covering fire. You did it unarmed and untrained, with no protection and no one to back you up.”
At that, Laura’s coffee-brown eyes met his. Softly, she said, “I did have someone. I had you.”
The emotion in her voice was so raw and sincere that Roy had to look away. Why did he have to meet Laura now, when his very presence endangered her?
“Had you ever seen that guy before?” he asked, to change the subject.
“Never.” Laura recounted how he’d pounced on her, and she’d stalled him while extracting information.
