She clutched at his shoulders, trying to get closer still. Her mouth became hungry—as hungry as his. The frantic ebb of her emotion tore her apart, inciting her pain, pushing her own needs to the surface in full force, either because she had been moved or because she had been forced into such close proximity to one of her own kind. Either way, it was a hell of a thing.
Unable, unwilling to stop himself, Parker kissed her back. He caressed her mouth with his, licked at her warmth, nipped at her lips, sucked her moist tongue between his teeth…and the heat, so extreme, burned him up.
She was fire, her mouth an inferno. Her body strained toward his. Her arm wound tightly around his neck as if she wanted to climb inside him, melt into him, become one with him, have all of him. Every last bit. And those feelings were mutual. The moment was as frightening as it was powerful. Over-the-top bliss that came with a hefty price tag.
His beast’s nearness flashed beneath his skin with the shock of an electrical flame, drawn by the rawness of their passion and the rightness of this wedding of their lips. Whatever particles of beast she had incubating inside her—so tiny at this point, Parker thought, so minuscule—called to his, encouraging, demanding that this closeness be allowed.
It should have been foolish to resist such an invitation, yet the very thing they both wanted at that moment might kill her unless he did.
Her body’s need was throbbing through him—pulse after pulse, in his neck, his chest, his groin. Their breath mingled like flames entwining.
Yes, he could have kissed her like this forever. He could have held her endlessly, taken this further, been consumed by the greed. But he would not hurt her.
Shocked by the strength his own conviction, Parker lifted his head. A blast of cool air slashed through the flames curling between himself and the woman in his arms. For seconds, minutes, hours, her green eyes bored into his. And then, as if separating from her had cut the strings of a puppet, her head fell back, her eyes fluttered closed, her mouth opened and she screamed.
Chloe heard the noises she was making and couldn’t stop. There was no shutoff switch. She couldn’t open her eyes or lift her head.
This time when the man who held her—the man who had kissed her, the man who had burned her with his reciprocal need for possession—closed his mouth over hers, it was to stifle the sounds. His lips made no further advances. His dexterous tongue did not dance. But somewhere within him, his soul cried out to hers. Soul. That ethereal part of people that made them what and who they were, distinguishable from all others. And because this touch felt so personal, so immediate, it manifested inside her as sexual longing.
Sick, breathless, Chloe wanted to be consumed. She wanted more. Hotter. Parker Madison was in control of the flames, but even as he called them forth, he snuffed them out. A touch and not a touch. A call, yet not a call. An internal war she hadn’t the ability to name, and was losing.
She’d been injured, then stretched too thin. Everything ached, from her toes to the roots of her hair. Raging hormones had shoved all that pain aside for a time, but it was only a postponement.
The blackness returned in the form of a wave. Chloe rode it like an inexperienced surfer, dipping in and out of that darkness, crashing, tumbling repeatedly. Parker’s arms were corded with muscle that contracted against her back, her shoulders and her bare legs as she dangled in his grip. He was immensely strong, but she shouldn’t have liked or admired that. She had always been independent to a fault, she remembered through a gap in her disconnecting consciousness, and didn’t need to be carted anywhere in a man’s arms. A man who was not just a man, but something extra.
Each time she opened her eyes, his face took on a darker aspect. A face unsure of what it wanted to become. What did he want from her? Would he take her upstairs and tuck her away? Wrap her up? Kiss her again? The longing for that kiss nearly overwhelmed everything else, except for the knowledge that her pain had moved in to stay.
The lights of the hospital hallway dimmed. The fraction of her brain still retrieving and processing data told her that the musty odor she inhaled was from the same hospital stairwell she took every time she worked in this facility.
The sinking sensations she was experiencing weren’t entirely due to losing her grasp on consciousness, but because he, Dr. Madison, was taking her down the stairs. Not up to the lobby, the E.R., or back to a room in the ICU. Down, which meant the underground parking structure.
He was taking her out.
Away.
The moon’s silver song played so loudly in his ears that Parker couldn’t have ignored the call much longer.
Carrying his fragile cargo, and with her arms still wrapped around his shoulders, Parker strode briskly through the garage, keeping to the unlit spaces, dodging cars on his way up the long, winding ramp.
He wouldn’t fully transition until he felt the moon’s light on his body, and yet that invitation was powerful enough to vibrate through him from a distance—which caused the woman he held to vibrate in the same way, as if she, too, knew what would happen next.
Actually, she had no idea.
“Not long now,” he whispered to her. A promise on so many levels. Any second now the creature inside her would feel the call of the wild, as he did.
Warm air found him as Parker exited from the garage. Night smells rushed at him. High in the sky, surrounded by thousands of stars, the moon blazed icy-white, her shine tickling his skin and quadrupling his energy output.
His beast acknowledged its freedom with a groan. His heart skipped a beat.
Her heart skipped a beat.
She was tuning in to him, mimicking, patterning herself after him, taking his lead as if he might know what he was doing. Realizing this, as well as that for the time being there wasn’t much he could do about it, Parker spoke some of the last words he would probably be able to utter.
“You will hate it, at first,” he said.
Chapter 11
Thoughts ripped through Parker’s head. The moonlight beyond the overhang made his skin chill, then flash hot, as the familiar intoxication struck.
Moving fingers of silver hit his shoes, searching for a more direct route to the rest of him. Legs apart, body braced, Parker stood on the sidewalk, holding the girl. Streetlights glowed. After the quiet of the hospital, the city noises seemed deafening.
He couldn’t linger. There would be no helping her once the change took place. There’d be no driving a car. If he had been right in his assessment of the girl’s condition, her convulsions would return as soon as moonlight hit that part of her waiting for it. He had to keep her out of the light.
A sharp glance to his right brought into focus an EMT truck with its back doors open. Parker went over, hopped inside, grabbed a blanket, and from there examined the street.
The bus stop across the boulevard had a roof meant to keep day travelers out of the blistering sun. Watching for a break in traffic, Parker covered the girl with the blanket, then covered his own head and shoulders. Hooded, nearly blind, he ran to the bus stop and pressed the backs of his knees against the bench so that not one drop of moonlight would hit them.
“One down.”
He punctuated those words with an oath. Calculating the distance to the next building’s overhang, Parker took off again, praying he’d make it that far. He did.
But how many more stops to go?
Cold sweat beaded on his brow as he planned his next move. It would be hit or miss, finding shelter until he could make it to the safety of the park’s trees. Would anyone see him and dial in for help? Hopefully not. In his favor, his blue scrubs might identify him as someone relatively trustworthy.
If they only knew.
Inside him the beast writhed, not at all happy about being restrained. Parker figured he had three more minutes, max, of this hide-and-seek game before the moon sent a punishment for holding back. If the moon loved monsters, what possible punishment might that be?
“Get a move on. Can’t let the moonli
ght reach her.”
He raced for the next overhang, and the next one after that, counting the popping sounds of his spine realigning. Four vertebrae had already separated in what amounted to a freakish structural miracle.
The scent drifting up from beneath the blanket was like an aphrodisiac, turning him on. His awareness of the weightless body nestling against him made things worse. He had to maintain a tight rein on his hunger, shun temptation. Heaven help him if his humanity were to slip any more.
It looked as if one more run would distance them from the hustle and bustle of the street. One final dash to tree cover, and then he could let go. He would need the beast’s added strength to get the girl to the other side of the park grounds, and the couple of miles beyond it to the place he had in mind. He would ask the people there to keep her safe, if he could speak at all by then.
He’d take her to Fairview, a psychiatric facility and haven for anomalies, nervous breakdowns and dysfunction. He had no experience with it, but he’d never forgotten his meeting at a conference early on in his career with the striking female doctor who ran the hospital.
Dr. James was young, sharp, and known for her care and treatment of deviations of all sorts. He’d be willing to bet the fortune he didn’t have, though, that she would have never seen anything like this, if moonlight touched his little Jane Doe. A woman becoming a wolf for the first time was sure to be a show-stopper.
“Maybe it will work. There’s nowhere else,” he whispered hoarsely to his precious cargo.
Stuffed away in one of Fairview’s private rooms, this beauty who moved him in so many ways might contain what lay growing within her. Having never been exposed to the light, her beast might back down. Alternately, if the girl’s beast recognized its time and got tripped by the moonlight between here and Fairview, she might go insane, just like he had, once upon a time.
The possibilities were endless. But she only had to make it through one night. Just one. Tomorrow, he would take her back. He’d get his hours covered at the hospital, drive out there, pick her up and take her someplace safer. He would watch over her, try everything.
Not an option. He understood this just as quickly. He couldn’t take responsibility for her when he wasn’t sure how his own beast would react to another creature like itself, in the flesh. Look what had happened in that hospital hallway. No, he wasn’t to be trusted with her, or near her. If she made it through this night, she’d need help getting through another. And another. For her first transition, she might need care for a week or longer. How many nights had it taken him to get through the indescribable ordeal?
Five, give or take.
Fairview had to agree. Parker would write a prescription for them to hold her. He’d…
“Ah. Shit.” The moon.
And the girl in his arms had gone completely still.
Throwing off his own portion of the blanket, hugging his bundle tightly, Parker ran for all he was worth for those trees, willing himself to make it.
Madame Moon had other plans.
White light hit Parker square in the face as his hair streamed behind. The light caused his skin to glitter as if covered in sparkling confetti. His final fade began with the force of a soft but vehement slap on his back with a damp towel. Unavoidable moonlight did the rest.
On came the beast.
He skidded to a stop, roared, shook as his flesh tore apart and rearranged. But he hung on to the girl, careful not to let her fall. The sound of tearing cloth filled the quiet. His clothes. He kicked off his shoes.
Fully transformed, he opened his mouth and roared again as the girl stirred. But instead of twitching this time, she began a slow, provocative climb up the front of his body.
Like a vine.
Her arm squeezed tightly around his new shoulder musculature. Her bare, silky legs twined around his waist, so that her buttocks rested just inches—mere inches—from the engorged proof of his raging, ravenous need for her.
She tucked her face into the curve of his neck. His beast’s neck. And the fight began. A beast’s needs versus a man’s powers of reason. If he moved, his beast would take her to the ground, stretch out on top of her and finally get his way. Mate. Rut. Find that hot, tight triangle of fur nestled between her sleek thighs. Maybe her molecules were urging her in that same direction. There was a possibility she ached for this as much as he did. If he didn’t have her, both man and beast would explode.
But the nobler parts of Parker’s mind kept repeating the same litany. She was too small to fight and too weak to protest. She was out of it, ill and oblivious to the perils of the night. Easy prey.
Back off, beast! We must help her. Do the right thing.
Shaking all over from the immensity of the struggle, Parker hauled himself back from the face-off and moved forward a step.
Yes. Do the right thing, he chanted.
Chapter 12
Chloe struggled to wake, gasping for air. The most important thing was to keep breathing. Everyone knew this. Her cells wouldn’t die if they were processing oxygen.
She kept her eyes shut, afraid to open them, afraid she’d be unable to. Behind her closed lids she saw flashes of white light, yellow light, inky darkness, long gray shadows, and wasn’t sure what those things were. She had an innate sense of having traveled, ending up somewhere she shouldn’t be.
Her body pulsed irregularly with seismic internal hiccups. Pain was focused in one of her upper arms, sharp, insistent, though she didn’t know which arm. One ache had become indistinguishable from another. Pain was everywhere, unyielding, unending, all-consuming.
“Are you awake?”
Sounds filled in around her. Chloe reeled with the sudden break in the quiet.
“Are you awake?”
More sound. Slightly familiar. Getting somewhere.
“Can you tell me who you are? Can you tell me who brought you here?”
Somebody was speaking. To her?
“Do you know why you’re here?” the voice persisted.
No. She got that one. Big fat no!
“Can you open your eyes?”
No!
“Please try to open them now, if you can.”
Don’t want to. Don’t ask me to.
“You’re all right. You’re safe.”
They were the same words she’d heard before, only the voice wasn’t the one she wanted to hear them from. This voice was female. Not her doctor. Not him.
She was no longer in his arms, feeling his heartbeat against the side of her face, able to hear that tremendous rhythm in her ears. She was no longer snug in his grasp, no longer experiencing the warmth radiating off him. She felt cold again, and hated the suddenness of its return.
“Go ahead. Open your eyes,” the woman said softly. “See where you are. It’s all right.”
This voice was authoritative in a good way. Certainly it didn’t belong to the dark?
“Let me help you,” the woman said.
Yes. Need… “Help.”
“Good,” the voice acknowledged. “Good. You’re here. You’re with me. Will you try again to open your eyes and look at me?”
The voice was beguilingly persistent. Chloe found herself wanting to obey.
“I’m Dr. James.”
Memories flooded Chloe’s malfunctioning brain like the rerun of a movie. White hallway. Chilled floor. Inescapable shaking. His—Parker Madison’s—confident approach. He had held her, taken her from the confinement of the hospital, allowed her room to breathe. How then had she gotten back inside?
“Can you look at me?” this doctor again asked.
Chloe opened her eyes, blinked at the brightness of the light and promptly closed them again. Light was torture.
“I’ll turn the lights down. I’m sorry if they hurt you. Your eyes are sensitive, then.”
The brightness dimmed. Chloe fluttered her eyes open, gasped in a breath of air that tasted of sterile environment, and felt a cool cloth brush across her forehead. The same forehead he ha
d not long ago stroked with tender fingers. Him. Parker Madison.
Where was he? Who was she with now?
“I’m going to apply some bandages,” the female told her. “Your scratches need attending to. Is that okay? Is it all right if I treat those areas?”
“Yes.”
She remembered that now, too—tearing the gauze from her head, seeing the destruction in the mirror, looking at the face that was hers and yet not hers, one cheek marred by rows of sliced-up flesh, many blue nylon stitches in her forehead. This woman had said scratches. A gross understatement meant to appease her?
“You’ll feel something cold. That’s the ointment,” the woman explained. “We’ve already given you something for the discomfort.”
Another gross understatement: discomfort.
“What?” Chloe managed to rasp.
She actually felt the woman trying to understand what she was asking, but the thought of stringing together too many words at once for clarity’s sake seemed daunting. She slid her jaw side to side, unclenched her chattering teeth, tried a second time.
“What, for pain?” she asked.
“I’ve given you a mild sedative. Are you in pain at present?” the voice reported.
“Yes.” Unending pain.
“Where do you hurt?”
“All.” Short for everywhere. Best she could do.
“You can have more medication in a while. Not one shot right on top of another.”
Of course. A shot. More of her neural functions must be returning. That had been the pinch she’d felt. They had injected her with a painkiller in her left arm, the one with the broken wrist. But the other arm, her upper right arm, was now hurting like nothing she had ever encountered before, with pain that had taken on a life of its own.
How had this doctor known she was in distress, and if she might need meds? Was “shoot first and ask questions later” usual procedure? The doctor had no doubt found the trail of pinpricks from her escape stint from the ICU.
Wolf Trap Page 16
