“Your big brother is keeping watch, Gwen,” he silently messaged his sister, pulling her along without pausing to address her second act of rebellion as a real issue. Just because he couldn’t hear his sister’s thoughts didn’t mean she couldn’t access his.
“Possibly you need to learn to use more control, hun.”
Jonas let her go in a spot near the rocky overlook and placed his considerable Were bulk between Gwen and the path behind them, daring her to try to get past him.
Gwen waited without moving for a minute or two before turning to focus on that path in a way that made Jonas’s neck chill.
Tess hadn’t been content to let the two Weres go. He should have known the white wolf would pique her interest and get her hunter blood pumping. Could he blame her? In Tess’s place, he probably would have done the same thing by following them. She was coming now.
Unfortunately, there was more at stake here than Tess Owens hoping to do her job. And he was caught between two females on opposite ends of the DNA spectrum that had gotten a good whiff of each other. Two females with the power to mess things up before the real mess began.
Christ, he could feel that other thing he had feared getting closer. The thing he dreaded most. The air was thicker, wetter. He didn’t want to lose Gwen. Besides his own feelings, the future of his species might hang on her survival.
In Jonas’s mind, the woodsy fragrance of the wolf hunter’s cottage was suddenly blotted out by the odor of impending doom. He now had Tess and Death to worry about, and it seemed that his worst nightmare was about to come true.
“Run,” he sent to Gwen, giving her a gentle shove.
For once, his sister did as she was told. She took off, heading west like a bullet shot from a rifle, leaving him standing on the rocks with his claws raised.
* * *
To Tess, this felt wrong—not only for the fact that she had let her family down, but because of the entire night and the way things had gone.
She had never seen a wolf like the one the Lycan had tamed into submission, and that brought the tally to two firsts in one night. It had been two wolves against one hunter in her front yard, and yet the handsome Were hadn’t allowed the white wolf to take her on when that would have served him better.
Uttering a string of curses and oaths, Tess again sprinted through the trees and brush. There was still time to put things to rights, she told herself...at least there would have been time for that if she hadn’t become so interested in this Lycan and what he was up to by showing her a sensitive side.
Not only had he not gone after her tonight, he had kept the white wolf from doing the same. Why?
What was his connection to that white wolf? Had his hesitancy to fight been due to his desire to see that real wolf unharmed?
She wasn’t dressed for this. Her feet hurt like hell and there was a good possibility she wasn’t thinking straight. The only weapon she had was the blade. One damn blade against that Lycan’s cunning and mounds of muscle. She was going after a werewolf in an outfit that amounted to little more than sleepy-time underwear.
What a pretty picture that presented.
But it was okay, Tess supposed, since it wasn’t in the Lycan’s favor to let her catch up with him. Additionally, he had no reason to want to see what she’d do next since he had gotten the better of her twice already without lifting a claw.
The differences between this Were and other werewolves she had dealt with were major and lent an air of fantasy to the craziness of this night.
If she could only get him out of her mind...
If only her wits would return and warn her that a strange attraction to this guy was surely going to be her downfall...
But she was fighting those what-ifs and in need of other answers. Tess wanted to stop the madness that had been caused by meeting this guy, no matter how interested she was in his behavior. She didn’t have to admit to anyone, including herself, that she was curious about him for more reasons than his actions alone.
That face.
The sculpted physique.
His deep voice.
It was strictly forbidden and an unforgiveable sin for wolf hunters to cozy up to their prey. They were two different species. Leniency showed weakness. If word about her inability to do her job were to spread, other monsters would arrive.
Still, deep down in Tess’s mind lay another reason for her interest in this guy that scared her more than anything else.
Having been tight up against him had caused her well-tuned willpower to backfire. In man form, he was mesmerizing. In the other shape, he was forbidding, but with an intelligent gleam in his eyes.
She wasn’t caving on the job. She just wasn’t sure what had happened tonight.
“There is something about you...” she said aloud. “And I will probably regret finding out about whatever that actually is.”
Against all inner warnings, though, Tess didn’t turn back. Sensing a change in the atmosphere, as if the moonlight had somehow suddenly grown brighter, denser, she slowed, then stopped to look up at the rocky ledge above her with her blade ready and her heart in her throat.
He was there. Contrary to everything she had just thought about the situation, he stood in the open—this tall, muscled, wickedly formidable and one hundred percent Lycan werewolf. He seemed larger than life and looked to have been carved from the surrounding stones.
Even in this setting where animals prowled, this guy with his bronze skin and light brown hair stood out as another kind of being entirely. Her new nemesis was a crazy anomaly within his species. Something new and exciting.
Maybe that’s why her heart was beating so rapidly she could barely draw a breath. Maybe it was also the realization that running wasn’t what had winded her. She was breathless because she found this Lycan so fascinating.
He had seen her. The growl he issued was soft, low, and did things to her that Tess refused to acknowledge. She didn’t speak, didn’t reply. Couldn’t do either of those things.
Though he was motionless, the werewolf wasn’t at ease. Tess sensed the tension flowing through him, and like an airborne contagion, that tension quickly transferred to her.
He was looking at her, not as if she might be his plaything, but as though he wanted to say something to her that his shape-shift had prevented him from saying several minutes ago.
Having witnessed his ability to manipulate his shifts so quickly, Tess observed him carefully, fully on guard. When she could draw a full breath, she said, “I don’t think I like whatever kind of game it is that we’re playing.”
He sank to a crouch. In other werewolves, this would have meant he was ready to spring. This guy didn’t translate that kind of intention to her. It was as if he didn’t want to appear too large or menacing.
He was still bare from the waist up and wearing faded jeans. The guy was a magnificent example of this species, and only by looking at him through narrowed eyes did Tess see the more wolfish parts. The harder she tried to zero in on those things—the extra layer of muscle and the claws—the less she saw. The wolf aura surrounding him hinted at the term werewolf, rather than anything pertaining to the purely physical aspects of his countenance.
Tess had seen him run. She didn’t take her eyes from him now. Man and wolf were such an unlikely combination, who else but the few people in the know would have believed anything like this possible?
She showed him the blade. “This is all I have at the moment. Will you challenge?”
When their gazes connected, heat streaked through Tess that was akin to having gotten too close to the sun. Her pulse thundered in her neck, pounding out beat after merciless beat that lifted the skin beneath her ears.
Her interest in him would be her death.
“So tell me,” she said, pitching her voice low to hide any telltale signs of quavering. “Is the neat trick of attracting th
e hunters who are hunting you some special kind of power you possess?”
The beast perched on the rocks above her couldn’t answer that question unless he used more of his magic Lycan voodoo to transform himself into a more vocal version of the one he presented to her at the moment. It was entirely possible that he wouldn’t change back, so that he could avoid answering her altogether.
His tension had become like a separate living thing. Swallowing back a lick of fear and determined to ride this out, Tess asked, “Do you also have the ability to call real wolves? I’m wondering if they realize what you are and that you might at one time have been related.”
The Lycan’s shoulders twitched briefly before quickly settling back to stillness.
“Why don’t you jump? I’m standing here like an idiot, breaking every rule I’ve ever had pounded into me about dealing with the likes of you,” Tess said.
The Lycan’s next growl was more like a touch than a sound and caused Tess to lean toward him. “Stop it,” she commanded. “I came here to ask you about another thing as well. That veil of darkness that blew in and passed over before you and your four-legged friend appeared on my doorstep.”
Breaking eye contact, he turned his attention to the distance.
“It rolled west, toward you,” Tess continued. “I liked it about as much as I like you. Still...”
Her voice trailed off.
The werewolf on the ledge above her took that jump and landed beside her. The blade in Tess’s hand was useless. Her lungs were useless, and so were her legs. She found herself in the Lycan’s arms, being swept off her bare feet.
Then they were moving in the direction of her cabin, and any protest Tess might have wanted to make would have sounded like the next growl that came from the Lycan’s throat.
Chapter 8
Jonas was frightened by Tess’s mention of a rolling darkness. He and Gwen had barely settled in, so it didn’t seem feasible for Death’s minion to have found them already.
It was possible, reason told him, that the darkness Tess had spoken of had nothing to do with that. There had been no hint of it at the cabin. His sensation of having felt that darkness earlier hadn’t panned out, and Gwen had seemed more concerned with Tess than anything deadlier.
Maybe there was time, and they were safe at the moment. Possibly Tess was wrong.
Jonas looked down at the woman in his arms. He could sense she was allowing him this leeway only out of curiosity and to see what he was up to. Her left arm dangled as they moved. The knife was ready in her hand.
No surprise he could have offered her would have thrown Tess too far off her mark, he supposed. She was watching him closely and was far from relaxed. One slice with that blade across an artery in his neck or thigh, and he’d be hurting.
Jonas had wanted to touch her again and had taken the liberty, figuring he didn’t have long before she’d put up a fight.
He liked holding her. She was a good fit in his arms.
Tess’s unique scent was backed by the fire of determination and grit. She might be tough, but underneath that trained exterior lay a woman who was alone in the middle of nowhere out of necessity and loyalty to a cause.
She was light in his arms and weighed next to nothing. Her leanness was necessary for speed and for sidestepping any trouble that came her way, though it was also misleading. Tess Owens was nobody’s fool.
Jonas waved off the desire to shift back and speak to her, thinking about what he could have said to explain things better. What words would best describe a Lycan who was willing to break with tradition and treat himself to time with a fair-haired morsel like the one in his arms, when other situations were dire?
Her gaze was similar to the fire in her scent, though Tess’s skin was cool. She wore shorts, exposing long, slender legs that were as ivory as her face. Her thighs were shapely. Her calves were soft. Jonas tried not to concentrate on her knees. Against the skin of his forearms, those bare legs felt like silk.
She didn’t touch him back; didn’t sling an arm around his neck for balance. Beneath her blond lashes, blue eyes the color of an afternoon sky invaded his privacy by seeming to look right through him.
Her gaze was intimate to a degree he could never have anticipated, and continued to jolt his insides. He should have been able to understand the reason for their unexpected connection. Weres and humans weren’t a good mix, and yet his desire to be close to Tess felt as necessary to him as the moon was.
Things were more treacherous here than he had anticipated. After two short meetings, he was developing unusual feelings for Tess that were reserved for she-wolves. Those feelings of lust, need and an intense longing to possess her, were all part of the emotions he couldn’t shake off.
Getting this close to an enemy was a game, as Tess had suggested, but that game had already gone too far. As soon as either of them stopped playing, the situation would change. She would change.
How far will you let me take this, wolf hunter? Are you also searching for something in this forbidden closeness?
He might not have intended to soak in more of her delicious details, but that’s also the way this back-and-forth sizing up worked. With Tess pressed against him and her heartbeat matching his in the way talented hunters had of tuning into their prey, their bodies were absorbing things that couldn’t be found any other way. Naked skin to naked skin. A brief meeting of their eyes.
Oh yes, you’re good at this, Tess Owens.
She was no amateur when it came to reading her opponents either. Part of her plan might have been to give him a false sense of accomplishment, and then, when ready, she’d challenge that.
They had only gone a few yards from the outlook before that moment came. With a slick move he almost hadn’t seen coming, Tess had the silver blade against his throat.
“Really, wolf,” she said. “Do you think I’m completely insane?”
* * *
Tess knew it would have been easy for the magnificent Lycan to have tossed her aside. Being in his arms had given her new insight into the power his body commanded. Her knife seemed insignificant in light of that, and yet he had stopped and was waiting for whatever she might do next, when she didn’t know what her next move might be.
“What do you say if we cut this out and get on with things?” she suggested, hearing lingering echoes of that same request from their first meet-up.
The problem facing her was that this Lycan just didn’t look like a werewolf. She couldn’t slide the blade into his bronze-skinned throat and not feel as though she’d be hurting a human. There was no wild and wooly fur. No gleam of moon madness in this wolf’s blue eyes. Those eyes were on her and focused. Inside them, golden lights danced.
He was alive, warm, masculine. Like her, this guy more or less lived on the fringe of society where secrets ruled the shadows. He might also be a loner and at times in need of company other than the kind with fur.
And maybe not.
Tess thought about closing her eyes to distance herself from those ideas, but that would have been her next ridiculous move in a night already full of them. She was blowing things, big-time.
“For your information, no one is less interested in being a damsel in distress than I am,” she said, turning the blade slightly to emphasize the importance of that remark.
“I met the first of your relatives when I was a kid. Wolves have been my sole addiction since then. So you can put me down and face me. Show me how much of an animal you are and that everything I’ve learned hasn’t been wasted.”
Instead of acknowledging her words, the Lycan again began to walk, dismissing the silver blade biting into his throat as if it were merely a minor inconvenience. As Tess saw it, this left her only two options. She could shut her eyes, bury the knife in this guy and never look back...or postpone that part and find out what else he had in mind.
He was cont
inuing to look at her as if reading her mind was part of his Lycan skill set. When he shook his head, soft strands of shiny brown hair tickled her face, bringing back that deep inner rumble she had worked so hard to hide from him and from herself—the one that had kept her from dispatching this guy to werewolf heaven so far.
Letting him get on with this charade had been a very bad idea, though. In truth, she actually was a fool, a complete idiot and no longer to be considered trustworthy.
Taking the silver blade from his throat, she let her hand fall. His reaction was to nod his head and smile.
“Time’s up,” she said, irritated by that smile. “Make a stand.”
He obliged enough to put her down but didn’t back off. A third option for dealing with this, and him, suddenly presented itself.
She could just walk away and be done with it.
Given this Were’s refusal to fight and the nearly naked state they were both in at the moment, that third option seemed like a good one. The only one.
Then he did another strange and unexpected thing. Still unable to speak, he pointed a lethally clawed hand toward her bruised, scratched and slightly bloody bare feet. Tess didn’t like what he might have been insinuating by that either. Had he offered to cart her back to her cabin so that she wouldn’t hurt herself any more than she already had, and out of the kindness of his little Lycan heart?
Damn it...
Acknowledging the pain in her bare feet wasn’t part of the deal. You are the deal, wolf.
As if he had heard that thought, as well as the half dozen others Tess had kept to herself, he backed up slowly, facing her without offering a growl and taking his incredible heat with him.
Realizing he was done for tonight and that he was going to be the one exercising option three, Tess waited.
After backing into the shadows, the Were turned from her and walked off. Tess watched him go. She couldn’t call him a coward when this wolf was the most formidable opponent she ever had met. But she could pin the coward label on her own sorry backside for letting him go, again. She muttered something to that effect as she watched the magnificent Lycan melt into the darkness.
Wolf Slayer Page 6
