Would she follow his wishes?
Would she find a way to prove him wrong about her having wolf blood in her veins?
First though, she would find out more of his secrets. They would fight the dark beast and save Gwen from the fate that beast had in mind for her. And when that was done, she and Jonas would hopefully, maybe, thrillingly, make love on a bed instead of the hood of her Jeep. For hours. Naked.
To hell with species.
She got that plans didn’t always work out the way they were supposed to, but this one had to work. Jonas had to live to fight another day. Gwen had to be liberated from a Reaper’s clutches. And Tess had to find out who and what she really was or die trying.
So Tess headed for the armory down the hall to get things ready for whatever horrors nightfall might bring, certain there would be plenty.
Chapter 29
Jonas didn’t feel good about this. Tess’s acceptance of his proposal had been too easy and too quick. Still, she had agreed.
He had to keep his hands busy and his mind occupied until then. Making the most of the hours left to him was paramount, and he still had to speak with Gwen. His eyes strayed to the window, to the door and back to his sister who was starting to wake up.
One more time, he told himself. He just wanted to be inside of Tess’s body one more time. He might even die a happy Lycan if granted that opportunity. He’d have one more good thing to hang on to when the curtain fell.
Gwen was sitting up. She rubbed her eyes the way innocent youngsters did when they were sleepy. Yet she was far from innocent, and too damn smart.
“I love you,” Jonas said. “I will always love you, Gwen.”
She slid her attention to him and tilted her head so that long tangles of white-blonde hair curtained the sides of her narrow face. Curious blue eyes peeked out from beneath lowered lashes.
Jonas remembered how she used to like it when their mother had brushed those tangles from her hair. He supposed that no one had given his sister that kind of pleasure after their parents had died in the aftermath of the attack on their daughter. He wondered if Gwen blamed herself for their deaths, though he had no way to know.
Gwen had a bead on the fact that he was antsy. He hadn’t really hoped to be able to keep that from her.
“Tess will come over,” he said. “I won’t lie to you. I’m going out to look for that Reaper, alone. Tess will either stay here with you or take you to her place. She wants to be with you.”
Gwen’s eyes tracked each twitch of his shoulders that threatened to give away the things he didn’t say. She discerned too much and had developed senses like no other Were he had ever known. How those things had gotten inside her was an unanswered puzzle. Just a throwback to the DNA of old? A mistaken turn in her genes?
“It’s time to tell you a few things,” he continued. “You already know how special you are, I think.”
Big eyes. No other response.
“Your uniqueness makes you valuable to our species. Therefore, all avenues toward protecting you have to be taken into consideration. Do you understand?”
The blue eyes blinked.
“She wants to help,” he repeated, thinking in this terribly awkward moment about the way Tess had looked at him when they had made love.
“You can teach her, Gwen,” he coached softly. “Tess doesn’t know what she is. Doesn’t believe it. You can be her guide. She assumes that you need her, but it’s the other way around.”
Gwen was getting all of this. Chills of recognition having to do with his sister’s powers covered Jonas’s back.
“Therefore, you must keep her safe, Gwen. You have to be present to do that. No retreating inside yourself. No getting around the fact that you know exactly what has to be done. It’s time to move forward, leave the past. You’re stronger than all of us and can no longer have the luxury of hiding that.”
Her eyes met his. His sister nodded.
Jonas sat down in the chair. “Tess will want to fight on your behalf tonight. She has an innate sense of justice that’s refreshing, but this isn’t her fight. We can’t afford to let that Reaper see you, so you must promise me that you’ll stay away while I search the woods. Can you do that? Will you?”
“No,” Gwen said. “No promises.”
The shock of hearing her speak made Jonas’s heart skip beats.
* * *
“Damn if I’ll let anything happen to Gwen,” Tess affirmed to herself. “After that, all bets are off.”
The Jeep would get her to Jonas’s cabin faster than her feet would, though she would have liked to comb the area between the two properties for anything out of the ordinary. Like a Grim Reaper.
That monster hadn’t come after her, so possibly she wouldn’t have to worry overmuch about meeting it again. It had three opportunities to harass her and hadn’t dug in. So she was worried about Jonas and what he planned to do. Who the hell knew how to fight a creature that acted as Death’s right hand? Did Jonas?
Although the sun was about to set, his cabin was already lit up like a Christmas tree when she pulled into the yard. Lights were on inside the cabin and on the porch. Red and green bulbs edged the roof, leftover from December cabin rentals, providing an out of season glow and leaving Tess to wonder if perhaps Reapers had an aversion to holidays.
Jonas was already in the yard. It was likely that he had sensed her arrival, but seeing him near the spot where their bodies had entwined made Tess’s insides ripple with excitement.
She didn’t get out of the car after shutting off the engine. Her courage wouldn’t stretch that far. She had to look at him first, take it all in and manage the intensity of her longing for him. She had to settle her restlessness and catch the breaths he had a habit of stealing from her.
He was so unbelievably gorgeous.
At her open window, and before she got a grip on any of those things she promised herself to do, Jonas tugged at the door handle. Yanking open the door, he took hold of her shoulders before Tess could come up with an argument to combat the flash of emotion in his eyes, and pulled her out of the Jeep.
Who was she kidding? Deep down, she had secretly hoped for this kind of reception.
She was in his arms and looking up at him. The meeting of their eyes was full of lightning strikes and forbidden fireworks. As if one look was all it took for her to completely forget her vows, the flames of passion rose to overtake her.
He tilted her chin more so that he had easy access to her mouth. He ran his thumb over her lower lip as his eyes roamed over her face.
Tess could not breathe. Could not speak. Her pulse soared. Her muscles fluttered. It didn’t matter if this was wrong, or if the timing sucked. Having a scary opponent wasn’t an issue right then. Only Jonas mattered, and the expectation of what would come next.
Jonas’s face came close—all those elegant angles and planes that made him seem so perfect. He wasn’t smiling. There was no sign of condescension. He whispered her name as if it was a personal form of torture for him to utter it and rested his hungry lips on hers.
Everything else was lost.
* * *
Hunger ruled Jonas’s actions, and it was a hunger like no other. She was his focus. Tess was the center of the universe and the personification of his need.
Merging heartbeats fueled Jonas’s desire. This was a physical attack of the senses and more like a tryst between two souls destined to join in an otherworldly dance than just two beings meeting for a brief liaison.
He savaged Tess’s mouth. Drank her in. Couldn’t get enough. He felt Tess’s wolf rise to the occasion with its own fiery burst of yearning. He was tugging her sleepy wolf awake and untying its tethers. This kiss was serving to set her wolf free.
Tess wasn’t motionless. Her muscles moved beneath his touch as he swept his hands over her, searching for a way to reach bare ski
n.
Finding the edge of her shirt behind her back, he slipped his fingers under the hem. Tess’s skin was smooth, taut and very hot. She was, for him, a form of liquid desire.
Her hands were on his hips, holding him close. There wasn’t one spare inch of space between them, and yet that wasn’t close enough. He had to be inside her. All the way inside her. Now.
There was no time for undressing or for him to honor the pact he had made with himself after the last time they had met like this about doing things better and taking their time if they were to meet up a second time. Soft beds were out of the picture. The Jeep wasn’t an option and would have been redundant as a makeshift mattress. Hell, they couldn’t even go indoors.
He sensed Gwen moving around in the cabin, and she didn’t need to see what he was planning to do with the she-wolf in his arms. Gwen was too young to understand what real need was and how it could rule even the sharpest of beings.
When he lifted Tess up, she wrapped her legs around his hips. Her arms encircled his neck. Jonas stepped forward with Tess clinging to the front of his body. The spot of her body that he longed to enter, and that was now covered in jeans, was rubbing him the right way.
Now was a concept that was just too damn long, and there were too many clothes in the way to settle this particular score.
Turning, he carried her toward the trees without losing one single second of the kiss that was sealing their date with the fates. Jonas felt feverish and half mad. The world was not a safe place at the moment, and he had to ignore that.
Tess’s back hit the bark of the closest tree with a soft thud that she didn’t acknowledge. There wasn’t even a hitch in her breath. Like the rest of her, her mouth was volcanic. She was an inferno that burned him to the core, and possessing her was the only goal. He couldn’t have been harder or more turned-on.
Peeling her body from his was both a pleasure and a pain, but he could not access her like this. When she slipped to her feet, Jonas leaned in. When his lips left hers, she drew them back to her with her fingers knotted in his hair.
There was no room, no space to find the zipper on her jeans, and yet he had to gain access to what lay beneath all that denim. His mind looped with commands... Be inside her. Get there. Feel her. Taste her. Show her what this could really be like.
Neither of them made a sound as Jonas pushed himself back far enough to slide the metal zipper down its track. Tess’s chest rose and fell. She gasped as he dipped his fingers into the opening the zipper had created. She gasped again when he worked his way downward to the soft spot he craved more than life itself, and then she sighed and widened her stance.
Jonas couldn’t resist her eyes, which were half closed. Already, thin ribbons of shadow were crossing Tess’s face. Night was coming. There was little time left for indulgences.
These were going to be his last hours on earth if his plan worked. He would love Tess Owens, and then he’d be gone. He would show her the depths of his love for her, show her what being a werewolf felt like, and then take all that away.
Yes, he loved her. For others, this would have been hard to understand, but this was how it worked with Weres—lightning fast, absolute, sure. Two souls connecting without the time commitment necessary for many other species to get to know each other. Two bodies and two minds in sync after one meeting of the eyes. The Were way was a beautiful thing, and yet he was going to lose her. Lose Tess.
His fingers paused in their search. Tess’s eyes opened as if she’d ask for a reason. What he wanted most was right here and within reach. All he had to do was to take it. And yet a sudden rush of conscience reared up. He was going to die and Tess would remember this night. He would unleash her wolf, expose her for what she was, and she’d remember every last thing they did.
Although the bonds chaining them together would be broken when he died, Tess’s wolf would be in stasis, neither here nor there, but no longer buried deep. She wouldn’t cope on her own, wouldn’t be able to face who she really was without help, and he had asked a wolf hunter to deliver Gwen to Miami, to one of the strongest wolf packs in the world.
Christ, he had never been a fan of loose ends. Love Tess or not, by mating with her again things would be worse for her. Calling to her wolf, demanding that the wolf show itself and then abandoning Tess when she might need him the most was selfish and self-defeating when he was all about justice.
Hating the part of him that required this level of analysis, Jonas, with one brief brush of his fingers over Tess’s softness, pulled his hand free...and closed his eyes.
Chapter 30
He had withdrawn...leaving Tess with a myriad of emotions. Chief among them was anger over the suddenness of his change of heart. Next came the urge to punch Jonas somewhere crucial and make it hurt. Those things flitted quickly though her mind as she regrouped enough to look him in the face.
She saw immediately that this had not been his plan. Though Jonas had not shape-shifted, his face morphed from one expression to another, landing somewhere between sadness and determination.
He hadn’t meant this half-assed attempt at having sex as a test of her willpower and his. Jonas was breathing hard and working to contain needs that had to rival hers. Jonas had stopped this for a reason, and only that reason could have stalled the inevitable.
His voice was hoarse. His eyes were bright. “Listen, Tess. You can choose to be what you believe you have been for all this time, or you accept your true nature. If I...if we do this again, there won’t be a choice.”
Her voice, and the effort it took to speak, made Tess’s comeback sound jagged and staccato. “You’re good, Jonas, but not good enough to make me lose my mind.”
He shook his head. “It’s not your mind you’d have to worry about.”
She thought about daring him, taunting him, goading Jonas into proving any of this nebulous wolf crap. The air was charged with electricity that had nowhere to land and filled with the scent of arousal.
Arguing with him about this issue would have been redundant.
“Take care of Gwen,” he said so solemnly that Tess felt her small gathering of anger crumble.
She shook her head. “I’m going to help you find this Reaper whether or not we run with our desires. We can’t have a beast like that around here.”
“Gwen needs a guard,” he said. “That Reaper can’t find her yet, without seeing her in human shape. I’m trusting you with private information, Tess, because it’s so important that you listen.”
He gave her a few seconds to wait for the rest of what he had to say.
“If you haven’t believed anything I’ve said to you so far, please believe this. My sister is the future of the Lycan race, and that future is in your hands. You can end it here by allowing the Reaper to take her, or else you can protect her if anything were to happen to me. If you’re the wolf hunter, that choice will be easy. If you’re a wolf, your way will be more difficult than anything you have encountered in your life so far.”
Protests rose in Tess’s mind like whirlwinds of words that remained unspoken. Her life, for the past three days, played like a movie in her mind.
She lowered her chin to break contact with Jonas and said, “I asked you to prove it. Prove what you’re implying. Make a real case for confusing me with your species.”
He said calmly, “I think we’ve already done the groundwork. And I think you know it.”
What if she did? Tess wanted to shout. What if she had started to believe him? A charge like that required proof, and she was in no state to demand that they get on with their exchange of body fluids in order to find out who was right.
“I’d be an unusual guardian for her, Jonas,” she said. “So you need to make sure nothing happens to you.”
“I...” he started to say, but was interrupted.
A guttural growl came from behind them that added to the tension of the
moment. Hearing it, Jonas whirled.
The white wolf was there with her eyes trained on a growing bit of darkness pooling behind the trees where she and Jonas stood.
Tess strained to see what had upset Gwen. She hadn’t been trained to sense Reapers. Before recent events, she had never come across one.
Now she wondered if someone had to have already come close to death in order to truly feel a Reaper’s presence, and that possibly the Reaper’s target’s name was on some kind of list.
Was Gwen’s name on such a list?
Had the young she-wolf already battled either this Reaper or another one like it in the past...and could the frail state of Jonas’s sister be due to something that had happened to her recently, incurring the attention of this Reaper and whoever it served?
Tess’s entire body, so feverish just seconds before, chilled. She zipped up her jeans and stepped forward, placing herself shoulder to shoulder with Jonas. She lamented the loss of her weapons, realizing that silver-tipped arrows and daggers were useless against a being composed of true darkness. Reapers, she supposed, had to reflect the nothingness they represented.
There was no time for more guesses as to why Gwen was this entity’s target. But she hoped to God that this wasn’t what everyone could expect to see when their time was up.
Gwen, formidable in wolf form, circled them before coming up alongside. Like a first line of defense bridging the gap between life and death, the three of them stood there, anxiously awaiting what was to come.
* * *
Jonas cursed the way this was playing out. He actually had expected Gwen to respect his wishes this time. Having her here was going to make things immeasurably worse. Hell, his sister was here to warn him. She probably thought he’d need help with the misty bastard on their trail.
No one spoke.
Wolf Slayer Page 21
