Animal

by Lexxie Couper

  What a beautiful little man…”Call me Benie.” She took off her coat. “Everyone calls me Benie.”

  Two hours of therapy later, she walked into her apartment with a bounce in her step. “Hey, Ian! I’m home!” Benie’s voice almost echoed off the back walls of the large space. She loved the way it sounded.

  “Hey Ian! Ian, Ian. Echo! Echo, echo.” She felt good, better than she had in a long time. Dr. Gray had actually given her some hope.

  “Benie! Quit being such a nerd,” Ian yelled from his office in the back.

  Throwing her scarf on the floor, she snorted, “You’re one to talk.”

  “And pick up your scarf, you slob!”

  “Don’t you start with me!” She swore he had ESP, or OCD, or PMS. No wait, the last one was her. Well, one of those initial thingies.

  Feeling frisky and oddly carefree, she headed back to his office. “So what’s new, Einstein?”

  His back was to her while he hovered over his laptop pecking in numbers at a mile a minute. “That’s Mister Einstein to you.”

  His dark brown hair was mussed and greasy. He’d been holed up for two days at his desk. She didn’t think he’d even slept much more than a few catnaps. He swiveled his tall and naturally wiry body around in his chair.

  Ian wore his favorite flannel pajama pants and a holey brown T-shirt that said “98% Chimp” with a picture of a double helix.

  Benie smiled. “You’re a mess, Ian.”

  “This is the latest in geek-chic, baby.” He grinned. The dark bluish-black circles under his true-blue eyes made him look much older than his sweet young twenty-two. “How was Dr. Gray?”

  She sat down in a ratty old recliner. The blue flowery fabric felt like burlap, but Ian insisted that he couldn’t live without it. “It went great. The doc is awesome. Thanks for recommending him.”

  “No problem.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I told you that you’d like him.”

  “He didn’t even freak out when my hands turned fluffy green.”

  He smiled again. God! Even looking tattered, he could raise a shiver of lust in Benie. She loved him, but she wasn’t in love with him, she told herself. He was more like a brother.

  A brother she’d like to bang. Ack!

  She shook the uncomfortable thought from her head. Ian seemed almost asexual at times, even if he wanted her like that, how would she know? The dude didn’t date.

  Ian chuckled. “I told you before, you should wear clothing that’s more neutral, closer to skin tones.”

  “Hey! I love that coat.”

  “Don’t get your panties in a wad. I’m just saying.”

  “Yeah, yeah. What did you tell him about me anyways? I’d figured he’d call 911 on me, but he was cool about the whole deal.”

  “I didn’t tell him anything.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “I told you he specialized in all sorts of…unique…behavior.”

  “It’s okay, you can say strange. I know I’m strange.”

  “It’s not that, Benie.” He scratched his head.

  “Wait. What are you not telling me?”

  “Gray is half dagar.”

  “What?” Benie’s skin started shifting into blue with ugly yellow flowers. “You sent me to an other worlder?” She silently cursed, wishing that whoever or whatever had given her the gift to fight OWs would have given her some kind of way to recognize them instantly. The ones who could pass for regular people, well, they looked like regular people.

  Ian slid back in his chair. “Only half other. His father was human.”

  “Oh, then that makes it half better.”

  “Just listen.” He stood and walked to Benie, placing an arm around her shoulders. “That’s how I knew he could help you out. He had some stuff to overcome in his life as well. I think that’s why he became a behavioral psychologist. I’ve known him for years. I took one of his classes during my undergrad work. He’s a good guy and a great teacher,” he said with conviction.

  If Benie had a pet peeve about Ian, it was his defense of the others. She supposed it was the scientist in him trying to understand the impossible. Benie had to admit that he’d developed useful contacts over the past decade. She’d even developed an informant-type relationship with a few, which is how she’d found the incubus so quick.

  Taking a deep breath, she counted back from ten. The yellow flowers were all but gone, and the blue faded. Dr. Gray had been kind, but sheesh. She’d been raised to hunt and slay most monsters, and now she was supposed to let one head-shrink her?

  “I’ll give him a chance. But if he even looks at me funny, I’m taking his head off and cutting his heart out for good measure.”

  “Agreed.” Ian grinned. “I’d better call him and give him a warning.”

  Mortified, she watched her skin shift to the color of the nearby mahogany wood paneling. “Don’t you dare say anything!”

  “I’m kidding, Benie. Mellow out before you completely disappear.”

  She laughed. Then Ian hugged her good and long. Her lower body clenched. His embrace was even more potent than that of the incubus. She often wondered if her attraction to Ian was more about his pure acceptance of her flaws than any real chemistry between them. Then his hand trailed her back and her knees weakened, and Benie knew it was full-on attraction.

  She sighed and placed her forehead against his chest. “You smell, Ian. Get thee to the tub.” She pushed him away and swatted his butt as he walked past her. “And put on clean clothes before those pants are walking themselves.”

  “Nag, nag, nag,” he said on his way to the bathroom.

  Benie would have smiled, if she could’ve mustered one. It sucked lusting after Ian. It wasn’t fair to him or to her.

  The shower turned on, and Benie heard Ian humming the Big Bang Theory song. Geek.

  Exhausted from the physical altercation and the psychological detox, she decided to take a nap. Just for a few minutes. So, she dragged her tired ass to her room and fell face-first onto the bed.

  Chapter 2

  The persistent loud knocking woke Benie up. She groaned as she rolled over and wiped the drool from her mouth. Shit. How long had she been out?

  “Hey, lazy bones! Pizza’s here!” Ian’s sweet promise of sustenance had her up and stumbling into the living room.

  She arrived in time to see him at the front door, hair wet and wrapped only in a towel. Obviously, she hadn’t been asleep for very long if he’d just gotten out of the shower. Experience had taught them to never open the door to someone she didn’t know. Granted, she wasn’t a child anymore, but years of conditioning made stranger-danger very real in her world. “Wait a minute,” she said.

  Ian looked over his shoulder at her, his gaze twinkling, ready to tease her about worrying too much. “I checked. He’s wearing the uniform and a puzzled expression. It’s definitely the pizza guy,” he said as he unlocked the door.

  Then he flew across the room, courtesy of a deliveryman who didn’t have any fucking pizza, even though he wore the familiar red and blue shirt and shorts. For a split second, Benie saw the man’s eyes. They were a clear, golden-amber. He also had a spiral tattoo on his neck. He was a fucking tracker! The worst pieces of other world scum. They were basically mercenaries for hire, and almost nothing was off limits.

  She watched the split second it took for his face to broaden and his nose to lengthen. Hair sprouted and fell along his exposed skin as his whole body shifted into something that was more wolf than human. Which answered the question as to what kind of OW the tracker was.

  “Shifter!” Benie yelled. She crossed the living room, getting between the werewolf and Ian. She kicked out the asshole’s left knee, and it roared with rage.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d come up against a rogue shifter. One had surfaced a few years back and demolished a dry cleaner’s, killing the owner and his wife. Very messy business. They were strong, powerful, and relentless, and their razor sharp claws could rip through a
human chest without any difficulty.

  The beast barreled toward Benie, arms wide and head tucked. She side stepped the attack and sent him sprawling across the floor…near Ian!

  “Watch out,” Benie shouted.

  The shifter howled in triumph as he slashed Ian across the right thigh.

  A cry of pain tore from her best friend’s throat.

  “Ian!”

  He bled badly. Benie’s heart thundered in her chest as terror ripped through her body. Adrenaline flooded her system, and she screamed a battle cry she’d never heard from her own lips. She leapt into the air, alighting with her legs wrapped around the upper body of the shifter. She landed a straight fist to the demon’s throat.

  The monster tried to shake her off, but Benie punched him again. He howled as he turned in a quick circle. She scrambled up, wrapping her legs around his neck. Benie squeezed tight as she threw the rest of her body back, hard toward the floor. The shifter lost his balance, and they both crashed downward.

  “Benie!” Ian shouted.

  She looked up in time to see Ian slide one of her Bowie knives across the floor. The bleeding on his thigh had slowed, but he looked pale.

  Her heart skipped a beat as she realized she could well lose Ian if she didn’t kill the tracker.

  The knife slid past her.

  Her attacker stood up with Benie still wrapped around his neck and threw her against the wall, slamming her into the drywall and leaving a torso-sized dent. She slid to the floor and touched her neck where he’d ripped into her skin. When she looked at her hand it was coated in her own blood, which royally pissed her off. She popped to her feet, fury burning away her fear for Ian…until he started moving toward the fight.

  She took a defensive posture against the werewolf to draw the creature’s attention. “Get out of here, Ian!” she shouted. He might be a whiz with DNA, but he hadn’t been trained as a fighter.

  Of course, he didn’t listen.

  Stupid head.

  Instead, Ian grabbed a lamp from the nearest end table and clocked the shifter in the head. It wasn’t a hard enough blow to do anything more than piss the hairy beast off. Its amber eyes widened then narrowed in rage. It slashed at Ian in a flash of unnatural quickness, striking him across the chest.

  Ian went down, his chest bloody. Benie ran to him, cursing his idiocy, as she pushed him away from the shifter’s next blow. Luckily, Ian had enough presence of mind to get behind the couch for cover.

  Rage built inside Benie, an ugly, malignant tumor of utter wrath. It was one thing to come at her. She was used to it. A lifetime of fighting rogue other worlders would do that to a girl, but the beast had hurt Ian, and Benie would make it pay.

  The shifter snarled in her direction.

  “You don’t want to mess with me, dog.”

  The shifter reared back then charged. She sidestepped the enraged monster and swung her leg around in a sweeping kick, using its own momentum to drive it into the floor. It landed with an oofing sound.

  Benie didn’t miss a beat. She’d learned a long time ago that she who hesitates dies. She smashed the heel of her foot against the back of its head then proceeded to kick the shit out of the spot until she felt his skull cave. She spotted the blade Ian had tried to pass her near his torso, and in one swoop, she grabbed it and plunged the sharp blade into the base of its thick, furred neck.

  The werewolf went limp, but she didn’t stop until she’d almost severed his head from his body. During her rage, it had shifted back to his human-passing form. She kicked him again for good measure. He was dead. Good riddance, Fucker.

  “Benie.”

  She looked over and saw that Ian had moved to the front part of the couch. He had blood on him, but not as much as she expected, but his hands splayed across his chest were covered in a deep red.

  Benie dropped the knife and ran to him.

  “I’m all right,” he said, trying to reassure her.

  She wouldn’t take his word for it. Instead, she began checking him over. The claw marks weren’t as deep as she’d originally thought. Even the ones on his thighs were little more than surface scratches. How was that possible?

  “Oh, man. I thought he got you bad, Ian.” She was positive the shifter had hurt him much worse.

  “Me too.” He chuckled, but not like he thought it was funny.

  If seeing her best friend being shredded by a rogue shifter hadn’t freaked out Benie enough—his miraculously quick recovery put her squarely into the what-the-fuck zone.

  “You shouldn’t be okay.”

  “Maybe because your blood touched the scratches when you pushed me away,” he hypothesized.

  “That’s stupid.” Benie looked down at her palm. Her blood was mostly gone from where she’d wiped her hand on her jeans during the fight, but it had been covered when she’d touched her neck wound. Was Ian right?

  Ian raised a brow. “It makes the most sense right now. Look, I’ll take some skin scraping of the wounds and check them out.”

  “Always the scientist.”

  Ian’s smile softened her ire. “Your blood intermingled with mine, Benie. Your hand was covered with it. You know one of my theories is that your blood has healing properties.” She opened her mouth, and he raised his hands in surrender. “It’s all I got right now. A theory. Nothing concrete.”

  She sat next to him and took his hand in hers. “You seriously think my whacked-out genes healed you?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Benie stared at Ian for a moment as the adrenaline of the fight and worry for Ian’s safety waned…and something else began to take over. Like the fact that he was naked, and how it suddenly mattered. A shiver of lust pulsed along her skin as she took in every naked delicious inch of him. She let go of his hand and traced the scratches on his chest with the tip of her index finger. She was grateful he was alive—and healing, and hell, if her blood could do that then maybe her freak-show abilities weren’t so bad.

  But that wasn’t even her main concern.

  Benie found herself fighting the unnerving impulse to throw him down and lick the blood from him, which should have been ewww, but at the moment sounded so delicious.

  Through gritted teeth, she asked him, “Are you certain you’re okay?”

  “The scratches burn a little, but I’ll live.” He diverted his gaze to Benie, and his eyes softened. “You’re glowing.”

  “I…” She couldn’t think. It was like all her hormones had abruptly kicked up about fifty notches. She pressed her palm against the center of his chest.

  “What are you doing?” He didn’t try to move away.

  She tilted her head sideways, watching Ian. The unexpected hunger clawed at Benie—a strange insatiable impulse that demanded satisfaction. It wanted her to either eat or fuck, and since Ian looked like dinner and dessert, she chose the latter.

  “Wait. This isn’t you, Benie.” He worried his lower lip. “The OW who bit you today, I think this might be—”

  “Stop talking,” she said, cutting him off. His words meant nothing to her lust addled brain—less than nothing. She straddled him and kissed him hard on the mouth to prevent any more protest.

  After a momentary stillness, he responded, his lips and tongue moving with hers. His body melded to the shape of her own, his hard erection pressing against her abdomen. As the kiss became more aggressive, Ian stopped and pushed her slightly away from him and stood up. “Benie.”

  To her shame, she found herself getting up and placing her hand on his chest. “I…” Her breath was heavy as she tried to formulate her need into coherent words. It took all her willpower not to throw him down and take him. Mine, a voice cried in her head. “I don’t want to hurt you, Ian, but it’s this or…”

  He must have seen something in her eyes or heard the desperation in her voice, because he placed a finger over her lips, and then replaced it briefly with his mouth. “Whatever you need, Benie.”

  She needed it to be mind-numbing, balls to
wall, no messing around sex. Otherwise, her other instinct—the one that wanted to hurt Ian—might take over. “Fuck me, Ian. Don’t hold back.” She couldn’t believe the words falling past her lips, but the passion she saw in his responding gaze made her not care.

  Ian shoved Benie against the wall, his lips moving with hers, only parting long enough to strip her shirt over her head and press his chest to her bare flesh. He cupped her breasts as his mouth went from her lips, to her neck, kissing and licking over her skin.

  This was an aggressive Ian, an almost feral Ian, and Benie didn’t only need more, she wanted more.

  “Your shoulder,” Ian said, tracing the bite mark from her incubus kill. It had mostly healed. The puffy flesh was much like Ian’s healing wounds. Maybe she had healed him somehow.

  “Don’t stop,” she said, her voice thick.

  “I’m not planning to stop.” He took her hand and led her to his bedroom. She watched the way his lean muscles moved when he walked. He was tall with a thin frame, but had she noticed how little body fat he had before? Somehow, with his messy wet hair, the drying blood on his skin, and his aggressive expression, it made him seem hyper-masculine, almost caveman-like. The look of possession in his eyes when he stared back at Benie added to his virility.

  She began to think she wasn’t the only one with a lust that needed satisfying. His body was devoid of hair except for a pleasure trail leading to the short curly brown patch framing his erect cock.

  Benie licked her lips, eager to taste him, to have his rigid length in her mouth. He leaned over to kiss her again, but she pushed him down to the bed. “Not yet,” she said, moving so that her face was in line with his groin, hoping this wasn’t a huge man-eating mistake. But she might not get another opportunity once this, whatever this was, was over. “I want to suck you.”

  Placing her hands on the outside of his thighs, she twirled her tongue over the thick tip. Every caress of her mouth brought new noises from his throat, some whimpering, some primal, but each one charging Benie’s lust. Sucking and licking, she admired the firm, smooth shaft that slipped like silk between her lips.