Wolf Slayer

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  Slowly at first, he worked his magic. After a few more strokes, he began to build up speed, and the delicious physical attack took on a rhythm that threatened to knock her senseless.

  Tess wrapped her legs around him so that he didn’t have much room to move, and still he managed to make one sweet thrust after another, each one better than the last. With a firm hold on her hips, Jonas slid her closer to him. Locked together, she met him with a molten moistness, lifting her hips, taking him in, massaging him in ways that were primal and instinctual.

  Her pleasure came in waves that bordered on ecstasy. He’d attack and retreat. Tess moved to accept and accommodate the pressure and friction of their bodies melding in perfect harmony.

  Oh yes, he knew how to pleasure her, though that might not have been so very difficult since he was her first talented partner and the first male she had wanted inside her this badly. Hunters conserved their energy by forgoing the rituals that came with sex and physical gratification with others. More often than not, she had pleasured herself after a good hunt that ended well and left it at that. But this...

  You...

  The energy they were exuding bordered on insane. Faster. Deeper. God, this was so incredibly good.

  When it seemed as though he couldn’t possibly do more or do it better, he did.

  She was sitting up now, with her arms around him and her head thrown back. Her legs were open and he stood between them, buried to the hilt. Heat came from everywhere at once—his body, his moves, his breath. They were joining like this as if they both had become possessed. Or mad.

  Or both.

  The height of sensation he provided her was like running, screaming and chasing her destiny all at once. Each fresh rush of feeling was almost too much to handle and at the same time not nearly enough.

  Tess dug into her lover with her nails, wanting to hurt him for changing things for her, and needing him to feel what she was feeling. She nipped at his mouth each time he came in for a kiss and still was left needing more, already addicted to the level of pleasure he was showing her.

  More.

  There was more. She knew this.

  And when he reached her core, the place with a direct link to her soul, the world tipped on its axis. The surrounding darkness lightened with fireworks that went off like the Fourth of July.

  Tess finally let go of the cries that had been building, and Jonas, with one final, perfect thrust, joined her with a cry of his own.

  Their sounds merged, mingled. Hers was an orgasm that continued endlessly without letup. Waves of pleasure and streaks of light hit over and over until finally Tess was able to draw a much-needed breath. Even then, she couldn’t open her eyes. This was what sex was supposed to be like—fierce, powerful, masterful, perfect.

  But there was something wrong; some little hitch in the afterglow.

  Wrapped tightly in Jonas’s arms, Tess began to spiral back to awareness with a new flutter inside her that felt as though it didn’t belong. It was fear, and it quickly took over where pleasure had reigned, because there had been a mistake.

  The cries of ecstasy she had heard had not been cries. The sounds Jonas had made were growls, but there had been more than one voice making them...and one of those voices had been hers.

  * * *

  Jonas was afraid to move. He felt the sudden spikes in Tess’s heart rate and didn’t want to let her go.

  Tess had growled. And she had just realized this.

  The moment was one of confusion and mental backtracking. They were still on the downside of an orgasm that had shaken him to his boots, and the necessity of their coupling and what they had done had stunned him completely.

  Still, the bigger issue of note here was he had been right about the female in his arms. Tess was not the human she had always assumed she was. Not even close.

  It had taken sex with a Were to unlock the secret of what lay hidden in Tess’s blood and DNA. That secret was so large and startling, Jonas couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

  How was it possible that her family could have neglected to tell Tess something this important? That she belonged, not to the human race, but to the species she hunted so fervently?

  Possibly a secret like this was the reason the Owens clan had preferred to live in so remote an area. It was obvious to him that they hadn’t wanted their daughter to know anything about her real heritage since Tess’s secret beat out all other secrets combined.

  She had no clue that she was a Were. How could she?

  Those scars she bore might have been the wounds that had indoctrinated Tess into the moon’s clan. Still, how could she not have known about this after so many full moons had passed...enough of them to have turned those old wounds into scars?

  Jonas was at a loss as to how to explain this. If things had gone according to Tess’s plans and she had managed to take him down, or if he hadn’t come here in the first place, there was a chance she might never have known what she actually was.

  But she had an idea about that now. She’d just had her first look at the real Tess Owens, whether she liked what she had found or not.

  She was a wolf, all right. And this explained a lot. It made sense out of their immediate attraction and their need to be with each other. They actually had imprinted with the first look into each other’s eyes, and had just sealed their fate as a couple on the hood of this car without any prior knowledge of what would happen.

  The wolf hunter was one of the creatures she hunted. About that, there was no mistake. The only mistake had been to cover all that up and let her go on believing she was above all that.

  “It’s the reason for the immediate attraction I felt for you,” Jonas explained, holding her, waiting for her pulse to slow. “And it’s the reason you’re here with me now, I suppose.”

  He understood that there was no way Tess could speak, let alone get a grip on this kind of news. For her, it would be the worst of all outcomes and totally unbelievable. Discovering the truth was momentous in terms of her future.

  “Imprinting is a state that only happens between two of us who are meant to mate.”

  “You mean meant to fuck,” she said.

  “No. Anyone can fuck. Imprinting is the way we find our true mates. It starts and ends with our needs. Weres mate for life.”

  Who could blame her for not fully accepting what had happened tonight? After a shock like this, Jonas didn’t see how she was going to recover, but as the key to this momentous discovery, he planned to be with her until she did.

  She sat on the edge of the hood of her Jeep, naked from the waist down, with a shocked expression on her beautiful face. He had done this to her. He had inadvertently hurt her by wanting her so badly.

  Selfish idiot.

  Now what?

  How many times could he tell Tess how sorry he was when his own wish was to keep her with him? Had he just lost her because of that wish?

  Gradually, she began to pull away from him. Without asking him for her pants and without getting off the car, Tess just sat there, looking at him as if she was in a trance.

  Then she said, “It’s a lie,” shoved him back and jumped down. She bent over to pick up her jeans and boots and, putting them on, turned from him and walked toward the cabin like nothing had happened.

  Tough Tess. Strong Tess. When will you crack?

  He observed the way she climbed the steps, using the railing with both hands and placing each foot carefully above the next. He should have stopped her, kept her from going inside where more secrets awaited. But those were his secrets, and it was too late for stopping Tess now.

  If the daughter of Tamsen and Marcus Owens was going to go after werewolves in the future, Tess was going to have to start with herself.

  * * *

  Tess’s world was no longer recognizable. Each step she took was a chore that required a concerte
d effort. All of this was a dream, a nightmare. Any minute now, she’d wake up. Please.

  Tess didn’t recognize the cabin she was about to enter. Her current objective was to reach the front door. By going inside, her wits would return and she’d be able to think straight. The night had become a pressure squeezing her into an unfamiliar shape. Her body felt heavy and unreal. The air she breathed was thick.

  The wolf was watching her, his focus blisteringly hot on her backside. She had let him in, brought him close and been alarmingly intimate. The blurring of the images of what had taken place between them was due to guilt, shock, shame.

  She had mated with a Lycan...and it had been like nothing in her experience. She had been lost inside his wolfish aura, where desire had its own set of claws.

  But that was all. That was it. He had hinted at so much more, yet imagining she was like him was an overindulgent fantasy on Jonas’s part. He had lied to her about that. He had to be lying. Besides having sex with the enemy, this wolf had to be into mind games.

  The latch felt cold on her hand. The heavy wood door swung inward quietly. Tess stepped into a room that wasn’t vastly different from her own front room, except that this one was warmer, with a roaring fire in the grate.

  Two leather chairs had been placed near the tall stone fireplace. Between them, a braided rug covered the floor. All of this would have been well and fine, homey even, if it hadn’t been for the ghostly appearance of the young girl curled up in one of those chairs.

  This, Tess’s senses told her, was the secret Jonas had kept to himself. This was the girl he had been protecting and the reason he was in South Dakota. Here was the girl that she had seen projected in the evil entity’s thoughts. The one she had assumed Jonas might be hiding.

  Small, fragile, rail thin and with a whitish glow on her young, skeletal face, the girl in that chair had platinum hair, instead of brown, and wore no clothes. Seemingly at home with being stark naked, the girl eyed Tess with an unsettling blue-eyed stare.

  “Shit,” Tess whispered as the door swung closed behind her.

  Chapter 24

  Tess could see that the girl Jonas was protecting was more otherworldly than almost anything she had seen—with the exception of the entity hidden in the dark mist. The appearance of two strange creatures in one scarcely populated area was rare and not to be underestimated.

  Tess didn’t know whether to speak or turn around and leave when Jonas would be outside the door. This was a young girl, however ethereal she looked. The fact that the girl was naked at the moment was bothersome. She had to have been at least fifteen or sixteen years old.

  “You’re the reason Jonas is here,” Tess said, testing the waters of forced social skills and wanting desperately to retreat.

  The girl didn’t respond to that statement. She continued to stare. Maybe she couldn’t talk. Due to the extremes of her thinness, it was possible she didn’t have the energy to speak. Chances were, this girl could be ill.

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Tess went on. “I...”

  She looked around for Jonas.

  “I’ll go,” she added, turning for the door.

  A cool hand stopped her. The girl was beside her, having moved so quickly, Tess hadn’t caught any movement at all. The hand on her arm was a nonverbal request for Tess to wait.

  Tess turned back. Deep inside her, a noticeable flicker of fear returned. Wolves were a species she could deal with, for the most part. This girl was different. Although the cabin smelled like Were, the female in it carried no particular scent at all. She was like a white-skinned black hole for details pertaining to who she was and what she could have been doing here with Jonas.

  Hadn’t he told her a couple of times that Tess’s education had been lacking?

  Tess didn’t look at the door. Jonas was standing on the other side of it, biding his time, waiting for the right moment to enter. She felt him there. In her mind, she saw him place his hand on the latch.

  “Can I help you?” Tess asked the girl. “Do you need help?”

  The girl’s face was expressionless, but the blue eyes weren’t. Her eyes were a light sky blue like Jonas’s and like her own, and they were the eyes of someone who was smiling.

  Questions like “where are your clothes?” and “what are you to Jonas?” went unsaid. Intrinsically, Tess sensed that this girl wanted her here despite the awkward nakedness. She just couldn’t get a handle on why.

  Everything surrounding Jonas was a mystery and had been from the beginning. Meeting this girl was just one more layer of that mystery. Saying the whole thing was strange would have been an understatement.

  “I have to go now,” Tess said.

  She’d have to get the hell out of there. Tension was again mounting. Maybe the cabin had a back door she could use to avoid Jonas as well as the mysterious female he associated with.

  And where was the wounded white wolf that Jonas had strong feelings for?

  The hand on her arm was firm and much stronger than Tess would have guessed. The girl’s eyes never left her. This pale creature wanted something. What?

  “Can you speak?” Tess asked. “Can you tell me who you are?”

  That got a reaction in the form of a slight shake of the girl’s head, proving that Jonas’s young friend had understood at least one of those last questions.

  “I’m sorry,” Tess said, growing more uncomfortable with each passing minute. There was a residual ache between her thighs. Deeper than that and tucked away inside her was a sensation of emptiness that demanded to be filled. And there was only one way to do that. Damn if she would satisfy that urge again. Mistakes were piling up.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated, again going for the door. The hand on her arm loosened and fell to the girl’s side. Tess looked back as she pulled on the door.

  The mysterious girl had sunk to a crouch, a position that needled Tess’s mind as being uncannily familiar. Still, there was no time to reflect or dig into memory. Jonas was blocking her exit and looking past her, his eyes on the girl.

  * * *

  “Tess, wait.” Jonas moved his gaze back and forth between Tess and Gwen, who was now in human form but crouched like a wolf ready to spring into action. Gwen was also buck naked. Seeing a human like that had to have further messed with Tess’s equilibrium.

  “Out of my way, wolf,” Tess said.

  “It’s important that you don’t mention her to anyone. If I had the power to erase minds, I’d use it now, on you,” Jonas said.

  “If you had that kind of power, I’d beg you to erase what happened here tonight,” she snapped.

  “This isn’t between you and me, Tess. What’s at stake here is so much larger than that.”

  “Thanks for the overview.”

  “You don’t have to believe me about what you are. You do have to believe that trouble is looking for her and has already arrived.”

  Her eyes blazed. “Have you forgotten that I’ve seen that thing, and also who it’s looking for? I know this girl might be the one on its radar.”

  He nodded. “Then you realize how important it is for that thing not to find her.”

  Jonas saw that Tess got that without being privy to any of the particulars, though her mind wasn’t going to allow her to let the details go for long. Their sexual liaison had tainted the moment and left a bad taste in Tess’s mouth for mysteries. He had led her toward enlightenment about her true spirit, and she was fighting that.

  But it was too late for changing paths. They had imprinted. Sex had sealed the deal. Tess would eventually have to come to terms with that, as well as the reasons underlining why it had happened. Sooner or later, she would have to believe.

  Imprinting meant that they would crave each other from now on and demand that they satisfy those cravings. The animal inside each of them would push those urges to the limits. Physical
and mental closeness was the way this worked. Wolf to wolf. No exceptions.

  He stepped out of the doorway.

  Tess hesitated briefly, as if about to say something, and then breezed past him with the kind of speed all wolves possessed without stopping to wonder how she had found that ability.

  Jonas’s heart ached to keep her there. He wanted to explain things. But, he thought as she got into the Jeep, that the hunter parts of Tess were going to be difficult to dislodge in order to make room for the truth, because her parents had kept that truth from her.

  “Silver,” Jonas said in afterthought. “It’s the silver, and how you’ve been using it. That has to be the key.”

  “Good luck with your pale friends,” Tess called back over the rev of the engine. “And with whatever dark things are lurking.”

  In a flurry of kicked up dirt and pine needles, Tess was gone...and Gwen was limping toward the steps, intending to go after her.

  “No, hun,” Jonas said gently. “Let her go. If she has any reason to believe why we need her and what we see in her, she will be back.”

  He laid a hand on Gwen’s head. “That’s what you sensed, isn’t it? That Tess is like us? It’s the reason you went to her?”

  Gwen made a sound that was half growl, half protest. Still, it was a response after so many weeks without one. Heartened by that, Jonas faced her.

  “Is it also because Tess is a female? You crave her company because of that?”

  Gwen’s gaze strayed to the trees in the distance. Jonas supposed his sister might be straining for a sight of the Jeep.

  “We’re close now,” he said. “You know that thing is here. You’ve seen it. I can no longer keep that from you. What I didn’t realize was that it couldn’t see you in the wolf form you presented to it. That’s invaluable information. It might be safer for you to be a wolf until it arrives on our doorstep. What do you think about that? Can you manage it? Maintain it?”