Damn. She hadn’t meant to sound like she was begging. She found his gaze to tell him more forcefully but the look in his eyes had her heart skittering back into overdrive. His face was inches away, his lips parted. And, for a second, just a second, she let her body tell her what to do.
She leaned in.
Lust flared hot between them and he closed the gap. His breath skimmed her face. The details of his eyes became absolutely clear. The dark ring around blue irises, the fringe of lashes that were too thick, the way his pupils had become huge and black.
Her breathing quickened. She was still held captive by his hand wrapped around her shoulder. God, he smelled so good, his sweat underlain with cinnamon and cloves. He was almost there, almost kissing her, and she wanted the heat of his mouth on her lips more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.
She jerked her mouth away from danger. “No!”
His gaze iced over.
She pulled slowly out of his grip, yanking her short sleeve back into place. “I mean it. Let me go. I need to go home. See my family, my sister.”
“I can’t.” He’d let her go, but he’d stayed too close, keeping her heart beat drumming way to fast.
“Why not? You said I’m not contagious, and I’m not like you. I’m not a—” she cleared her throat and tried for calm “—wolf.”
“You are like us. You just don’t know it yet.” His hand drifted up, scooped her fall of hair out of her face and tucked it behind an ear in an oddly gentle gesture that belied the heat still burning in his eyes. “I didn’t know it, until just now.”
An urge to run pushed her to make her aching body move, to run, to get anywhere but this crazy dream that kept getting crazier by the moment. Instead she marshaled her courage and demanded, “What do you mean?”
“I nearly attacked Ian today. I didn’t pick it up. You don’t smell like a wolf because you haven’t shifted yet. But I think your pheromones have changed and my wolf is picking it up, seeing you as a potential mate.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Despite my best efforts, and all the fucked up results of the first time, my wolf is determined to mate.” He shook his head and the motion ran down his body, as if he were shaking off the idea like drops of unwanted water. “So, we know you’ve completed the first stage of the change. We know you’re going to be some form of pack now, we just don’t know what kind.”
A cold chill slid down her back.
She drew back, as far back as her seat on the rock could take her.
“I’m not a wolf. I’m human. Look at me.” She stood up, held her hands out palm up, flipping them so he could see the smooth hairless backs. “I’m human!” The air wouldn’t come fast enough, and black spots danced in front of her eyes.
“No, sugar. You’re not.” The hawk keened, its distant mate keened back. Sam’s eyes were deep and dark, as Glenna’s world twisted inside out. “You’re one of us. And now we know—you can never go home.” The echo of Sam’s words thundered in her ears drowning out the sound of the birds.
You can never go home. Never go home.
Black crept around the edges of her vision, stealing away the dawn’s bright light as the truth seeped in—this wasn’t a dream, it was a nightmare.
There was the sound of an engine, and Ian pulled up in a big, black SUV. Glenna couldn’t move. Did they honestly expect her to believe this was real? Lycanthroism made you think you were a wolf. It was all a hallucination as you sickened until you died. Were they all victims with some crazy mass delusion? Or was she so deep into the disease that she’d created an entire community of people in her mind?
“Come on, let’s get you back to the cabin.” Sam’s arm curled around her shoulders.
She shoved him away. “No!” The word tore out of her throat.
He moved in, wrapping his arms around her in a straightjacket and trying to swing her off her feet. She fought, her arms and legs wind-milling in a furious attempt at freedom. She had to push him away, push it all away.
“Glenna, stop.” Sam’s voice shoved her harder into her flight response, and she screamed, clawing and scratching whatever part of him she could reach.
“You have to calm down, Glenna.”
Calm down. Calm down. Be a good little girl. Don’t run. Don’t yell. Don’t cause trouble.
His face was a blur. His call to Ian for help too far away for her to hear as panic rose up inside and took over.
She didn’t even feel the needle jammed into her arm and she fought all the way down into darkness.
Chapter Fourteen
His second cell phone rang and Alastair’s pulse jumped as he saw Bryan’s number. Perfect timing. Night was on its way and with all the enforcers busy, he’d be able to leave the school and get Glenna.
“Hello?”
“It’s done.”
“Great.” His office phone began to ring and he smiled. “I have to go. The chaos is starting and I don’t want to lose a minute.”
“Don’t you want—“
Alastair hung up on Bryan, cutting him off. He didn’t want details—he wanted to respond to the emergency naturally, with shock, just like everyone else.
An hour later he had a huge smile on his face. Bryan had done surprisingly well. A large fire threatened Windy Gap’s pack territory, miles away from the school and from Lana’s house. Three quarters of the school’s staff had gone, either to help with the evacuation, or heading to Ram’s Haven to get ready for the evacuees from their fellow pack. Now was his chance to slip out and retrieve Glenna.
There was a knock on his door. Ray Owens, the enforcer liaison to Ridge School, poked his head in. “Alastair, we’ve got trouble.”
“What do you mean?” A sense of foreboding rose inside him. Ray’s face under his receding hairline was wrinkled in worry. This couldn’t be good.
“Steven Clawbender’s escaped.”
“Damn it!” Alastair slammed his hand down on his desk, ignoring Ray’s surprised jump back. “How could that happen? Wasn’t he in isolation?”
Steven Clawbender was one of the most recent group of boys to take the Bite and had turned out to be a shifter. Shifters had the worst changeover. One of the worst side effects was the need to hunt down and take a mate. It faded as the fever faded and the shifter learned how to work with his new inner companion, but combine teen-age hormones with a wild wolf urge to mate, and you had a problem on your hands. The school had five or so boys currently locked up in the basement holding rooms until they were calm enough to come out. Aggressive and moody, Steven was one of the worst.
“Hell if I know how it happened.” Ray scratched his head, the very motion irritating Alastair.
“We’ll have to start a man-hunt.”
“I can smell his trail, but we’re short staffed because of the fire. Is there anyone we can call in to help?” The shifter’s increased anxiety was noticeable even to someone without a wolf’s senses.
Not for the first time, Alastair wished for a more competent enforcer in the liaison position.
Damn Steven’s timing. There was no way he could go get Glenna now. As principal the boy was his responsibility. “Put the rest of the students in the basement assembly room, and get any staff we have left in the building up here now. Even the dormants can help. I’ll make some phone calls.”
Ray nodded, his relief palpable.
Alastair shook his head. Shifters, always at the mercy of their wolves. And, being a beta, Ray was no help in this kind of situation. Good thing Alastair didn’t have those kinds of issues. The shifters might not acknowledge it, but spelltalkers were great in emergencies.
He started dialing number after number, but just as he suspected, they were all hours away dealing with the fire. One escaped boy didn’t rate against the threat of the property and lives lost. Alastair stared at the list of numbers and names and a bitter laugh escaped.
He needed help now and there was only one group of enforcers left—the ones holding Glenna. How ironic. No matter how he tried to get ahe
ad, fate was always screwing with him.
Chapter Fifteen
Sam couldn’t wait anymore. It was five o’clock. Long past time for Glenna to have recuperated from her very early morning excursion. He knew she was hiding down in the basement, hoping to avoid him, but she couldn’t hide any longer. He knew about putting off confrontation—nothing good ever happened from it. He put the last finishing touches on the simple meal he’d prepared and called down into the dark stairway.
“Glenna, I’m eating dinner. If you don’t get up here and put some meat on those skinny bones, I will be coming down to help you do it.”
He would like nothing better than to feed her again, watch her sultry lips open up for his food like she was receiving nirvana. He clamped down hard on the arousal shooting through his body and hardening his cock. She’d made it plain yesterday afternoon, she wasn’t interested. And he wouldn’t chase her. He was never doing that again. He’d already been down the road of rejection before and had barely clawed his way back to sanity.
He placed his foot on the first step. “I’m on my way.”
She came up slowly, avoiding his eyes, but looking at the food sideways, her nostrils flaring like it was a trapped rabbit and she a starving coyote. He remembered the gnawing, constant hunger of the change. Even though he’d also had male adolescent hunger on top of it, he was sure that after the two weeks she’d spent sedated, her body was more than capable of clearing out a refrigerator like a starved adolescent.
“Finally. I thought you’d sulk down there for the entire rest of the day.”
“I wasn’t sulking.” Her chin rose. “I was sleeping. My walk this morning made me tired.”
She looked tired. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and her face looked even more drawn and pale than before.
He frowned. “Your walk?” Her escape attempt, more likely. He let it go. For now. “Dinner is out on the deck.” He didn’t want to be inside where her raging pheromones would fill the small space of the kitchen and drive his wolf wild. He held the door wide open, making sure she had plenty of room and wouldn’t have to touch him to get past.
“Thank you.” She moved out onto the porch, her body movements stiff, avoiding both his body and his eyes, and despite his resolutions to keep away from her he was disappointed.
Her rejection of him shouldn’t feel as bad as it did. She wasn’t in any shape or form to choose a mate now. She was still reeling from the shock of their world and her introduction to it, and the change was wreaking havoc on her body. She should wait until the change had calmed down and her natural choice of mate ramped her hormones back up again for the mating. He shouldn’t feel it personally. But he did.
He put their food on the table and took the seat directly opposite so she would have to look at him. He shouldn’t needle her, knew it was playing with fire. But he did it anyway because what he really wanted to do was take her in his arms and kiss her senseless. Since he shouldn’t do that, pushing her buttons was the next best thing.
Her stomach rumbled.
“Maybe you should have come up earlier.”
She shot him a dirty look, picked up her napkin and unfolded it, and placed it on her lap. “Maybe I would have if you’d cooked earlier.”
He snorted.
She sat, hands folded neatly in her lap. Not eating. He could see the hunger etched in her face, but she was resisting the warm grilled sandwich and salad. Acting as if she wasn’t near drooling with hunger.
“If you aren’t going to eat, we can talk,” he said, making every effort to keep his voice normal, controlled, not revealing the intense anticipation racing through him at seeing her near food. The sensory experience of her eating lasagna still seared fresh in his memory, every bite, lick, and moan.
“It’s polite to wait until your host picks up his food first.” Her voice was stiff but her eyes were clamped on her dinner.
“Well, la-di-da.” He picked up his sandwich and opened his mouth to take a bite. And watched her do the same.
Her even, white teeth sank into the bread and her eyes slammed shut. Pleasure washed up her face and she made a sound in the back of her throat.
He hadn’t even bit into his food and he could almost taste the crusty French bread layered with the pungent flavors of homemade pesto, feta cheese, and slivers of smoked pastured ham and chicken. She swallowed and opened her lips for the next bite.
It shot straight to his groin.
He put his sandwich down so he could focus on Glenna. Her slow, savoring sounds and movements. The flush high on her pale skin. His palms grew damp and his muscles tensed as he waited for her next taste of his food.
She chewed in slow reverence, denying what he knew to be her body’s urge to devour.
He shouldn’t be doing this. She wasn’t his. She would never be his. His wolf had had its chance with Serena—and he was never giving it another shot at fucking up that badly ever again.
Every instinct of self-preservation told him he should be putting some space between himself and Glenna’s sensual enjoyment of the food he’d carefully put together just for this reaction. But he didn’t move. Wasn’t sure he could move.
If she experienced a sandwich like this, God only knew what she’d look like for dessert. And he’d worked hard on dessert.
He shook off his desire and picked up his sandwich. He had to get his brain off sex or he’d be lost. “Glenna, we need to talk.”
She swallowed, delaying her next bite and his question by asking, “What kind of sandwich is this?”
“Chicken and pesto.”
Her eyelids had dropped low, and her sensual gaze was now locked with his. He’d wanted her to look at him, but now, he could tell it was a mistake.
“Oh, wow,” she said and took another mouthful. After she chewed and swallowed she waved the sandwich at him. “You could sell these.”
“I do.” He smiled and finally took a bite of his own sandwich, letting the flavors roll over his tongue.
“What?” She put the sandwich down. “But I thought you were—” her eyes flickered away from his “—a security guard.”
“Don’t stop. I’m enjoying your pleasure. It’s not often I get to see someone who truly enjoys their food.” He shouldn’t watch her eat anymore. It was a sensual torture of the worst kind, but he didn’t want her to stop. “Try the salad.”
She took a forkful. “Oh, that’s so good! What is that?” She took another bite, and another.
“It’s just something I threw together. Lettuce. A little vinegar and oil. Parmesan. Some olives.”
“That’s it? Is that all that’s in there?”
“Maybe a few other things,” Her enjoyment in his food had him grinning like a fool. And he almost didn’t care. “You like it, that’s what’s important.”
“I more than like it, I could live off it forever.” She reflected back his grin-like-a-fool expression. “Tell me how a security guard sells food like this?”
“I’m not a security guard, I’m a pack enforcer.” He blew past the tiny wrinkle in her forehead to the term. “We’re a mostly volunteer force. I actually have...had—” he corrected himself, his grin fading “—I had a restaurant with my brother—a small family deli that my dad started.”
“Had?”
“He got married. I moved away.” He didn’t want to talk about it. Couldn’t talk about it with the lump that rose in his throat at the thought of everything he’d lost. Gabe would have worked with him. Gabe and Serena. He put his sandwich down suddenly not hungry. “Anyway, that’s when I went full time as a pack enforcer.”
Her face had gone stiff and polite at his obvious emotion. “Pack enforcer. I’ve never met a policeman before.”
He’d made her uncomfortable. He forced a smile and continued talking. “It’s stretching it to call it police. We’re the pack council’s muscle.”
She pushed her plate away with only half of the sandwich and three quarters of the salad eaten. He could almost feel her hunger,
like a whisper on his skin.
“You aren’t full.”
“That’s enough for now.” Her eyes dropped away.
“That’s not what I said.” He pushed the plate back towards her. “Are you full? Satisfied?”
“I should stop.”
“Are you anorexic?” Maybe that explained the extreme state of thinness that was more than the last two weeks.
She shook her head hard. “I just shouldn’t, that’s all.”
He picked up his sandwich and bit into it, considering her while he chewed. “Someone’s done a number on you.”
Heat washed over her pale cheeks. “It’s none of your business.”
“Yeah, it kinda is. First of all, it’s my food. By not eating, you’re insulting the chef.” He put his sandwich down and stood up. “Second, you’re my responsibility until Lana gets back. And I take my responsibilities seriously.”
He moved to stand next to her. Her breathing sped up and her pupils darkened. Her reaction to him tingled along his skin.
Fuck what he should do. Fuck his good intentions.
He wanted her—wanted her to react to him the way she reacted to his food. Wanted her shaking and quivering and flushed beneath him. Wanted her making those sounds she’d made earlier for him, as he sank inside her warm, wet center.
He should leave her alone. He had all the reasons in the world to leave her alone—but he couldn’t resist.
“And third of all, sugar, you’re disappointing me.” He dropped down until his face was level with her flushed one, close enough now that he could feel each panicky breath like a lover’s touch raising all the hairs on his bare arms. “I like watching you eat.” His eyes flicked down to her lips and back up. “Every bite you put in your mouth goes straight to my cock.”
He placed his arms on either side of her, grabbing the arms of her chair and turning her to face him. Then he moved in closer. She clamped her knees together, but she didn’t tell him to stop. He knelt down and brushed her hair back behind her ear. Lowered his face to her exposed neck and skimmed his hot, damp breath along her skin.
Blood Enforcer (Wolf Enforcers Book 2) Page 8
