Clawing into the biker’s skin, Emelia struggled for air. Her lungs tightened, seizing when nothing came down the chute. Emelia pinched her eyes shut and braced for the collision with the parked car. Everything happened so quickly, it was a mangled blur.
They collided with what felt like a brick wall. Emelia’s chest slammed against the steering wheel, sending off starbursts of searing pain into her ribs and down her legs. Her head spun and her eyes blurred. The biker’s hand was clutched around her throat one second, and the next, his massive body was thrown onto the hood. She could breathe! Hot streams of air filled Emelia’s windpipe, burning on the way to her lungs.
Emelia peeled her eyes open. Was that…Drake?
Relief washed over her, and for a split second, Emelia thought he looked more like a knight in shining armor and less like a heartless, calculating jerk.
Drake stood in the center of the road like a steel wall, drenched from head to foot, rain streaming down his scowling face. He glared at the biker, who’d slid off the hood looking unscathed and pissed-off as hell. Why were they standing there like that? Staring at each other, saying nothing, breathing hard, in the middle of the street?
If the biker hadn’t been standing so close to her driver’s door, Emelia would’ve bolted. Instead, she ducked below the wheel and watched, rubbing her tender ribs.
The biker mashed his fist against his chin and popped his neck, then jerked back his shoulders and stood tall, towering over Drake. Clenching his fists, preparing for a fight, Drake snarled with a smile. His teeth were ginormous, blindingly white, and more jagged than any steak knives Emelia had ever seen.
She had to be seeing things. Drake’s teeth almost looked like…well, they almost looked like canine teeth, protruding from his gums into razor-sharp points. The biker laughed and spit in Drake’s face, as his back hunched awkwardly and his shoulders broadened. He grew.
That couldn’t be right.
Swiping condensation off the glass, Emelia leaned forward to get a better look, just as a gunshot rang out from somewhere on the sidewalk. With a guttural moan, the biker fell back and hit the hood, then slid onto the asphalt, clutching at a strange silver vial sticking out of his neck.
But Drake didn’t have a gun. Emelia peered through the rain battering the windshield, scanned the sidewalk, and spotted someone else—Mr. Bloomfield?—holding a pistol at arm’s length. The burly man holstered the gun in the side of his pants and approached the biker’s side. He and Drake exchanged words, though Emelia’s ears still rang from the shot.
This couldn’t be happening. Emelia was dreaming. She was in her apartment, warm in bed, having a nightmare. That was it. Had to be. Things like this didn’t happen. In movies like The Avengers, maybe, but not in real life. Feeling woozy, Emelia placed a hand on her heart—it raced like a rabbit’s, thumping wildly against her hand. Her chest was tight, her breathing shallow. She was going to hyperventilate if she didn’t calm down, but how could she after what just happened?
Drake was beside her in a flash, kneeling outside the driver’s door. When had she opened it?
“Are you all right?” He put a chilly, wet hand to her forehead. “You feel cold.”
“Of course I’m cold, I’ve been in the rain.”
“Oh, good,” he said, as his shoulders lost their tension. “If you’re well enough to have an attitude, you’re going to be fine.”
Emelia laid her head back on the headrest and tried to calm herself. Blood rushed through her veins; her heart thumped in her ears. That biker dude was probably dead in the middle of the street and Drake was…what? A hero? An accomplice to murder? “What happened to him? To the biker dude?” Pointing, Emelia tried to rise up, but Drake held her against the seat.
“Everything’s going to be okay, I promise. Just leave it to me,” he said, though she didn’t believe him. No way. Didn’t he witness what just happened? “Mr. Bloomfield is taking care of everything now. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing to worry about?” she screeched. “Are you insane?”
“I just need to get out of here before the cops show up, and then I’ll explain.” His words came out flat and emotionless, like he’d dodged the cops a thousand times before. He slid an arm beneath Emelia’s legs, swiveling her body so that her feet touched the ground. Her skin tingled beneath her soaked jeans. “Come on, let me give you a ride home.”
“But my car…I can’t just leave it here.” Her world swirled, in and out, in and out, fuzzing when she focused on slowing things down. “And why would we run from the cops? We didn’t do anything wrong. That guy tried to kill me. You and Mr. Bloomfield saw it…didn’t you?” She braced the steering wheel. “God, I’m so dizzy. I think I’m going to pass out.”
“You’re having a panic attack. You need to close your eyes and calm down.” His fingers curled possessively around Emelia’s arm. As though he’d toss her over his shoulder and carry her out of the car if she refused to leave. “I’ll take care of everything, but I need you to trust me.”
A dark, shadowed figure appeared at Drake’s side, tapped him on the shoulder, and handed him something. Yup, that was Mr. Bloomfield all right. Short, stocky, and stinking of Old Spice.
“I don’t, Drake. I don’t trust you at all.” Emelia closed her eyes anyway as something bit her backside, just below her hip. Her skin warmed, burning where she’d felt the sting. “Oww! That burns! Was that a wasp?”
“Sleep, Emelia.” Tender fingers, much too tender to be Drake’s, brushed sopping tendrils of hair out of her face. “We’ll work on the trust when you wake up.”
…
“She’s going to hate me for drugging her.” Drake tugged the sheets to cover Emelia’s exposed shoulder. “And she’ll have every right.”
“You could’ve let her see the cleanup,” Raul said. “It took two seconds to drag him to the trunk of the limo, and Ms. Hudson wouldn’t have gotten close enough to the body to see anything anyway.”
“He’d already begun the transformation when you tranquilized him, and Emelia’s much too observant.” Drake lowered his voice so he wouldn’t wake her. “She would’ve asked questions I’m not willing to answer. There was no other choice.”
“Then I’m glad I brought extra tranquilizer darts with me. I must admit, sir,” Raul said, “I’ve never seen you hold off the change as well as you did. I expected you to shift long before I got the tranquilizer loaded up.”
“I couldn’t let her see me that way.”
They weren’t exactly on the best of terms, but any chance Drake had of getting close to Emelia would’ve evaporated the instant he shifted into wolf form.
As it was, they’d cut it close. He wasn’t sure how much Emelia had seen, but he’d soon find out. She’d have a million questions, and he’d have to come up with answers that were as close to the truth as possible. If there was any chance of them being together, he had to reveal the truth to her slowly, and when she was ready.
“Why the hell was there a werewolf on that street? Emelia’s probably gone her whole life without running into a single one of us. She meets me and gets attacked. There’s no way that’s a coincidence.” Drake scrubbed his hands over his face. “I shouldn’t have left her alone in that bar.”
“You went back, sir.” Raul brought over a glass of water and set it on the bedside table. “There are too many members of our pack for you to monitor the second one goes rogue.”
“You really think he was from our pack?”
“What are you implying, sir?”
Drake shook his head. “I’m not implying anything. It’s just too bad he died before giving up any information.”
“Perhaps next time I’ll nail him with one dart, sir, instead of six.”
Drake bit back a laugh. “One can never be too careful.”
Emelia stirred. Little mewing sounds escaped her lips as she rolled over and clutched the sheet against her chest. Something stirred in Drake’s rib cage and he dragged his gaze away. Sh
e was innocent, oblivious to what she’d gotten herself into. It was staggering how quickly her reality was going to change when she was ready to accept it.
He hadn’t known Emelia long, but he knew she was full of life with a bright, bubbly spirit. She didn’t ask to be tugged down into their twisted pack dynamic. She wasn’t born a werewolf like the others in his pack—how could she be expected to understand a world filled with werewolves and Luminaries and pack mentalities?
Sighing, Emelia rolled over to face Drake, and tossed the sheets off her body like it was a sweltering summer night. She threw her arms over her head and moaned, robbing the moisture from Drake’s lips. Her tank top had drifted up, revealing a flat stomach and a sexy little belly button…with a silver ring hooked through it. Drake’s breath caught in his throat at the sight. He took back every nasty thought he’d ever had about piercings being trashy or unnecessary or frivolous. All he could think about was smudging kisses over her stomach and gently raking that ring through his teeth.
“Raul, I want you to check into movements of Silas’s European group.” Drake steeled himself for the words. “They’ve remained small and mobile, but I think we have some guys who can track them. I hate to think Silas would stoop this low and try to kill Emelia before we complete the bond, but I’d be stupid not to look into it.”
“Will do, sir.” He let himself out without a sound.
Drake leaned forward, his gaze skimming over Emelia’s succulently rounded breasts, the long, slender curve of her neck, and her petal-pink lips. Her skin was remarkably pale against his black satin sheets. She looked like a porcelain doll with a wild mane of blond hair.
He didn’t want to think Silas’s yearn for total dominance would cause him to send out a hit on an innocent woman, but he couldn’t ignore the humming in his gut, either.
Something wasn’t right.
Chapter Six
Emelia smelled the doughnuts before she saw them. Her stomach rumbled, and for a split second she’d forgotten everything: the biker, the attack, Drake.
She gasped, shooting out of bed. Good Lord, it wasn’t even her bed. It was a steel-poster king-size bed built for a mammoth. The black-cherry covers had been folded back and the satin sheets had been pulled up. Someone had covered her.
Instinctively, Emelia clutched at her chest. Beneath her hands, her ribs were sore and tender to the touch, but a tank top covered her breasts and pants covered her bottom. She was still dressed.
Thank God.
Where the hell was she? The room was cloaked in shadow, with heavy drapes covering the entire wall on the left side of the room. A flat-screen television—had to be at least a 90-inch, the biggest she’d ever seen outside of a theater—was mounted on the wall in front of her, and below that was a small table filled with breakfast goodies.
Towers of pancakes, an opened box of doughnuts, plates full of bacon and sausage, and—heavenly Keurig above—coffee ripped Emelia out of bed. She scrambled to the table, shoved the first cup she spotted under the Keurig machine and punched brew. The lapping sound of coffee hitting porcelain made her stomach clench into a hard fist.
How long had it been since she’d eaten? She was starving…and determined to mow down the entire breakfast spread before someone opened the door and caught her. She shoved a doughnut into her mouth, chomped away, and chased it with a taste of coffee. If she was going to get out of here, wherever “here” was, she would need her strength. Yup, that was it: doughnuts plus coffee equaled strength. She’d always been killer at math.
She groaned, savoring the sticky glaze of the doughnut, as someone knocked on the door. Nearly choking down the food, Emelia frantically searched for a way out. Windows? Bathroom? Could she fit under the bed?
“Emelia, you awake?”
Drake.
“Mmeah,” she fumbled with a mouthful. “But donncomein, I’mmnotdecent.”
The knob turned anyway. Damn it. Emelia dropped the mangled doughnut on the table, set down the coffee, and wiped her mouth with sticky fingers.
Drake strode inside the room and flicked on the light, stopping when their eyes met. Emelia felt like a deer in headlights, frozen when every instinct in her body should’ve been screaming at her to scramble out of there. He wore dark dress pants slung low on his hips and a steel-gray dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves and unbuttoned to mid-chest. Ripples of tan muscle bulged beneath the shirt, leading to biceps that might’ve been bigger than her thighs. He seemed to flex and tighten under the weight of her stare.
The sheer size of him, and the way he stood so stoically as if he didn’t know what to say, brought memories of the night in front of the Knight Owl raining down.
“What happened?” Emelia fired. “Where am I?”
“You’re at my place. I hope you slept all right.” He paused, staring at her face, her lips, then reached out for her mouth. “You’ve got—”
She flinched, not trusting a single move he made. “What are you doing?”
“You’re…” His eyes squinted to dark and stormy slits. Drake swiped his tongue over his bottom lip and reached out hesitantly. “You’ve got something…”
“What?” She backed away, rubbing her bottom lip, her cheek. “Spit it out.”
His stony demeanor cracked as a smile curved his lips. “You’ve got a glaze mustache.”
Disaster. Drake was drop-dead gorgeous, and wore business attire in his own damn home. Emelia was a doughnut-slathered, hyperventilation-prone bartender, wearing the same clothes from last night. They were in two completely different leagues. The unevenness of their pedestals had never been clearer.
Wait, she scoffed to herself, who cared if Drake was once nominated as Forbes Businessman of the Year? He’d shot down the biker on the street like it was nothing!
Emelia smothered her lips with a napkin. “Better?”
Drake nodded, shoved his hands into his pockets, and took a giant step back. “I didn’t mean to disturb your breakfast. I thought I heard stirring up here and came to take a look.”
She swiped her hands on her jeans and licked the last traces of sugar from her lips. Drake’s eyes seemed to darken, shadowing from brown to matte black.
“I’m done eating anyway,” Emelia said curtly, humiliated that she’d slept in Drake’s bed and eaten his food. She should be at her place, in her own bed, rummaging through her fridge for something that wasn’t stale. “What am I doing here?”
“Saturday night, after I left your bar, I came home and did some work, then decided that I wanted to see you home after all.” He brewed a cup of coffee for himself and settled into the plush leather chair in the corner. “Mr. Bloomfield drove me back, and I did business in the backseat until you closed for the night. I got so absorbed in the stock roll that I didn’t see you lock up. I didn’t know what was happening until you came barreling out of the parking lot.”
“What…did happen?” She needed to hear the words from his lips before she went ape-shit.
He tapped the edge of his mug. “What do you think happened?”
“Some of the details are a bit fuzzy, but I remember some biker dude wanted to use my phone, and I remember seeing him leap on top of my car.” She shuddered at the creepy mental image. As she tried to sift through the haze of the rest of the night, Emelia mindlessly picked up another doughnut and settled on the edge of the bed. Her side ached, just below her hip. She rubbed the spot, then met Drake’s guilt-ridden gaze. “Something bit me right before I zonked out.”
“I should explain.” He took a deep, labored breath. “I used a very mild tranquilizer dart to put you to sleep.”
“You…what?”
“You were panicking when I needed you to stay calm. I had to get out of there quickly and knew you’d ask a ton of questions and slow our escape.”
“So you drugged me?” As white-hot pulses of anger surged through Emelia’s veins, she chucked the doughnut at Drake’s head. He dodged it effortlessly, causing it to splat against the wall behind him. “Who
does that? Are you sick? Do you belong to some Seattle-based mafia?”
“I’m sorry, Emelia.” Sucker looked sincere with his plush, downturned lips. “I swear I’ll never do anything like that again. I’m not mafia of any kind, and you were never in any danger.”
Emelia’s insides squirmed—she had to move. She plopped down her coffee cup on the makeshift buffet before striding out of the room. “You didn’t roofie the coffee, did you?”
“I’m not a creep,” Drake said, following her down the brightly lit hall. “I did what I had to do to protect you and get you out of there. I’m not going to slip something into your drink to have my way with you while you’re unconscious.”
“Wouldn’t put much past you now,” she snapped.
Stopping at the top of the stairs, Emelia looked right, down a hallway lined with marble figures. Looked left, down another hallway just as elegant as the other. She’d stepped out of Drake’s bedroom and right into the Louvre. She hadn’t remembered seeing such elegant masterpieces the night of the office party—he must’ve had his valuables moved out. Golden blankets of sunshine spilled through the massive skylights, casting favorable light over his entire great room. Artwork in gold-trimmed frames and elaborate tapestries covered the walls while knights in full armor seemed to guard every closed hallway door.
“Do you honestly believe I’m capable of something like that?” Drake followed her winding flight down the stairs, his hand sweeping over the banister moments behind hers. “If you’d slow down a minute we could clear some things up.”
Gone with the Wolf Page 5
