Claimed by Love

by Skye Jones

  Someone touched her, almost making her scream.

  “Take a nice deep breath in, honey.” Julie’s soft drawl didn’t soothe any.

  Kayley straightened, her fear receding as anger rushed to take its place. Somehow, she knew Luke had been the one to hurt Will, and she fumed with the realization.

  She turned to the team leader. “How could you?” She pointed her finger at him, jabbing at the air. “What are you? A psychopath? Look at his neck. How could you? You sick fuck.”

  Luke shot out of his chair and moved toward her with a grim expression etched on his handsome face. Heart hammering, she shrank back, fear returning tenfold. The strike she waited for never came. Instead he stopped dead when she cringed away.

  When she finally tore her eyes from Luke to look back to Will, her hand shot to her mouth. Her cousin’s eyes glowed an odd color. They shone out of his face, eerie and compelling.

  No human possessed such eyes. Either her mental health problems were back full force and she was going crazy…or Will wasn’t human!

  Nothing else mattered then, except for the driving urge to run. Fight or flight kicked in, and she turned and headed for the door. She saw the coffee table corner a split second before her leg caught on it. She crashed to the ground with a grunt, the wind knocked from her, leaving her struggling to breathe.

  “Help her up,” Luke said, quiet but firm, and still not moving from where he stood.

  Sean walked over. Kayley tried to scramble away, but he placed his hands under her arms and helped her to stand. As he walked her back to the dining table, Kayley tried to hold still, clamping down on her urge to flee when Will started to speak.

  “Please, Kayley, don’t panic and don’t be scared.” Will stood in front of her, taking up her line of vision, those haunting, glowing eyes more normal once again. “You’ve got it wrong. It’s not what you think. None of it is. I’ve not been honest with you, but you have to know, no one has hurt me. Not in the way you think. You’re in no danger here. I would never put you in such a position.”

  Desire to believe Will vied with the absolute terror still holding sway.

  “What he says is the truth, you’re not in any danger.” Luke’s voice reached her, quiet but authoritative. Against all odds, something in his tone soothed her jagged nerves. Crazy maybe, but she couldn’t deny the truth of it.

  With a shaky exhale, she sat. She focused on dragging breath into her lungs and tried to calm her overwrought nervous system.

  “We’re not what you think.” Luke hunkered down to her eye level. “What I’m about to say is going to sound…well, it’s going to sound completely insane, not to put too fine a point on it. We are a team, and we do live and work together but there’s more to it. We are wolf shifters.”

  “You’re what?” Kayley didn’t know what the hell he talked about.

  “Werewolves,” Will said.

  “We’re really not werewolves,” Taylor spoke for the first time, his deep bass resonating in the room. “In fact, werewolves don’t exist. Not in the sense of beasts that only change during a full moon and can’t control it. And of course werewolves wouldn’t be able to—”

  “I don’t think we need the shifter versus werewolf debate right now, do you?” Sean snapped.

  Kayley started to shake her head. Werewolves? Clearly coming off her meds had been a mistake. “I think…I think I need someone to call my doctor.” She raised a shaky hand to her face. ‘Will, her number is in my purse upstairs. I think…I might be having some sort of episode.”

  “You’re not going crazy, Kayley. This is huge for anyone to grasp but trust me, what we say is true.” Luke watched her, concern writ large on his handsome face. He made no move toward her, as if he realized to do so would only panic her further. “Show her.” Luke nodded at Sean.

  “What?”

  “Show. Her.” Luke ground the words out. “Shift.”

  Sean shrugged and stood. He glanced to Kayley before shedding all his clothes, actions quick and smooth. Embarrassed for him, she began to look away.

  “Watch him.” Luke’s voice still held calm reassurance, but a steely undertone made her unable to disobey.

  As Kayley watched, a halo surrounded Sean’s body, bright and shimmering. As if the very sun itself glowed within him, blinding those who tried to look directly his way. The halo died down, and Sean had vanished. In his place stood a very large, very beautiful, silver wolf.

  “Oh, my God!” Kayley jumped out of her seat, only to fall straight back into it as her legs gave way.

  Luke came to stand by her. He took her hands, pulled her out the chair, and moved them toward the living area. His hand under her elbow supported her as they crossed the room to the sofa. Luke sat, and pulled her down beside him, and all the while he kept hold of her, as if he understood she needed grounding.

  “Sean, come over here.” He crooked a finger at the wolf, beckoning him.

  As the creature padded across the room toward her, she moved back on the couch.

  “It’s okay, honey.” Luke’s voice caressed her like silk as he murmured to her. “It’s Sean. He’s in there and fully in control. You should be no more scared of that wolf than you would be of Sean walking up to you.”

  When it came within a foot of them, the wolf stopped and sat, bowing its head. Luke reached out to ruffle the thick fur on the back of the animal’s neck. It gave a soft growl, more like a purr than a threatening noise.

  “Touch him.” Luke pulled her hand forward. “He won’t hurt you, I swear.”

  Kayley let her hand be guided toward the wolf. The moment she touched its fur she gave a short little cry.

  “Oh!” Her eyes widened. “He’s so soft.” The wolf looked right at her, and its eyes were piercing blue, not the warm amber she’d expected. The shock made her drop her hand away, but Luke guided it back, pushing her fingers through the luxurious pelt.

  Tears threatened to spill as she pet the large wolf. As she sniffed, Sean whined low in his throat and nudged his wet nose against her leg. She gave a snuffling giggle, half laughing and half crying.

  “Are you okay?” Luke stroked his hand through her hair, gently brushing it back from her face, his touch making her shiver despite everything else happening around them.

  “He’s so beautiful.”

  “Yes,” Luke smiled at her. “Yes, he is.”

  The cool floor under her feet served to ground her along with Luke’s soothing presence by her side. “Can you all do this?” She looked around the group. They nodded at her. “Even you?” She looked to Will.

  He nodded his head once but at her sob ran over and dropped to his knees right next to Sean, putting his hands in her lap.

  “I’m so sorry. Please, please believe me I’d have told you if I could think of a way to do it.”

  “But why? Do you have to be able to…to do this to be in the team, for your job?” Her mind reeled as she tried to make sense of it all.

  “Yes, you have to be a shifter to be on the team, but it’s not why I became one. I only worked with them on occasion, helped out. I didn’t know what they were. Luke did this, made me one of them, to save my life,” he sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face.

  “I got shot. I’d joined the guys on a job, investigating a felon who had run to Alaska to hide out. We were going to interview some people who had called me during the course of my inquiries and claimed to have seen him. I nearly went alone, but Luke suggested we all go. When we arrived to do the interview, it turned out they were working with him and it was a trap. Shit went down, and I ended up the one being shot. The irony is, if any of the pack had gotten hit, they would have been fine. I was anything but okay. I was dying.”

  Will? Dying? The idea was utterly unbearable. She rocked forward, moaning as fresh tears filled her eyes. They ran unchecked down her cheeks, stinging the hot skin before slipping between her lips, filling her mouth with salt.

  “I’m so sorry.” Luke whispered the words, wiping tears away
with the calloused pad of his thumb as he spoke. “It’s my fault. I didn’t know what to do, and I panicked. I turned him. I did it without his consent. I shouldn’t ha—”

  “Don’t say sorry.” Kayley cut him off. “You saved his life. Do you even know what that means to me?” She shifted on the sofa and turned to face Will. “And, Will, are you happy as a…a…shifter?”

  Her cousin cocked his head to one side. “To be honest, Kiki.” The childhood endearment filled her with warmth, wrapped her in a cocoon of treasured memories and feelings of safety, slowly lessening her utter shock. “It’s kind of hard to take in but it sure beats dead.”

  She laughed then hiccupped, wiping away tears with the palm of her hand. A sense of hesitant acceptance settled over her, a light, warm cloak of truth telling her what she saw was real. Incredible, but real.

  Kayley had always believed there were things on this earth no one could explain and many things humans didn’t understand. Her grandmother believed the same and was said to possess certain gifts. Although Kayley’s mom used to say Grams was simply eccentric, Kayley wasn’t so sure. As a small child she’d seen the spirit of her beloved grandpa, but never told anyone, and on more than one occasion she’d dreamed of a place, only to visit weeks or months later, every detail the same.

  Her art! The realization hit her full on, knocking the breath out of her all over again. The silver wolf in front of her was so like the one she drew over and over.

  Then another memory surfaced of childhood dreams of running with wolves through the arctic snow. “I think I’ve dreamed about you.” She petted Sean.

  “God. Yeah. Your crazy wolf dreams. I’d forgotten about them,” Will exclaimed.

  “You dream about wolves?” Julie asked from where she and Taylor hung back, still in the dining area.

  “As a child I did. It was so vivid, so real. I’ve not experienced it for a while.” She flushed at the memory of her more recent nighttime adventures and decided not to raise that particular subject.

  Luke spoke. “In a way, it might have been real. Precognition. You were dreaming your future.”

  The import of what he said sliced into her. With a shocked little squeak, she gently moved Sean’s head to one side and slid off the sofa. “Are you trying to say I’m going to become one of you?” She paced, agitation setting in.

  “No.” Luke held his hands up. “Not necessarily. I’m saying it could be one possible path. If you did eventually join us, it would only be because you wanted to.”

  “Would you let me join?” Her voice came out tight, scratchy, as if unused for a long time.

  “Of course.”

  “Really?” Will’s eyes shone bright.

  “She’s your cousin, your family. You are our family. Therefore Kayley is our family too, there’s a place here for her if she wants it.” Luke hitched his broad shoulders as if what he said was the most natural thing in the world, and Will’s beaming grin told Kayley he’d love for her to join them.

  “If you all change now, will I be safe? I’d like to see you all in your wolf form.”

  “Not Will,” Luke said, “Sorry.”

  Will nodded and turned to Kayley. “I’m so newly turned I can’t control myself too well. I changed today without meaning to. I…” He trailed off, throat bobbing as he seemingly fought for control. “I attacked Sean.”

  Kayley bit her lip as her cousin spoke. Her initial conclusions on seeing Will’s scar were so very wrong. Luke and Sean hadn’t hurt her cousin deliberately; instead, he’d attacked them.

  “He’s fine though,” Luke cut in. “Aren’t you?” He reached out a big hand and the silver wolf nuzzled into it. “Will didn’t mean to do it; it’s hard to keep control when you’re new. We heal very quickly, so we’ll be good as new in a few days.”

  “Explains the strange scar.” She touched her own throat, glanced again at Will’s injury.

  Luke removed his hand from Sean. Rubbed it over his jaw. Kayley followed the movement, loving the sheer masculinity of the motion. “Few things can seriously harm us, we don’t generally get sick and we can’t catch disease.”

  “Wow! So no cancer or heart attacks?”

  He shook his head. “Not even the flu. We do feel pain if injured, and our bodies can ache if we overdo it, but we don’t suffer human illness.”

  Will cleared his throat. “Why don’t you all show her your wolves?”

  None of them moved. “Please?” Kayley whispered.

  Julie and Taylor glanced at Luke, who gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head. They all started to remove their clothes.

  “Oh jeez.” Will tsked. “They always do this, they could go change discreetly but instead they have to do the stripping thing, and they call me weird for wanting to retain my privacy.”

  “There’s no point shifting if Kayley can’t see it happen.” Julie laughed, her long red hair falling around her naked shoulders in a rich cloud of color. “You’re such a prude.”

  Moments later they all stood side-by-side, as nude as the day they were born. Kayley guessed she must be a prude, too, because she didn’t know where to look. The one place she wanted to look the most, at Luke’s divine body, she studiously avoided.

  They all glowed with the same halo she’d seen shimmer around Sean and moments later three wolves stood in front of her.

  The animal in Julie’s place was covered in brown fur with a tinge of red as if some fox got mixed in with the wolf. Taylor’s wolf possessed a coat of glossy dark brown and stood smaller than the rest, an odd juxtaposition with his larger than life size and persona as a human.

  The final wolf moved and grabbed her attention. Huge, its sleek black fur was tinged with hints of silver at the ruff and gleamed in the light. Gold eyes watched her, giving her a moment’s hesitation before she reminded herself Luke looked through those preternatural orbs.

  “He’s massive,” she whispered to Will.

  “I know. He’s the biggest wolf shifter I’ve seen. Not that I’ve seen many,” Will confessed, also on a whisper. “He’s amazing isn’t he?”

  “He’s magnificent.” Kayley’s voice cracked.

  Hesitantly, she crossed the room to Luke. With trembling fingers, she reached out and stroked his fur. Luke’s head reached past her waist he stood so tall, and he rubbed his muzzle against her side.

  Off to one side, Sean gave a high-pitched yelp and ran to Luke, knocking into his back end. Luke gave a bark in return and head butted Sean in his side. Sean stopped stock-still and bowed down onto his front legs.

  Will jumped up to stand on the sofa, pulling her up beside him as the wolves started to careen around the room, rushing one another and play fighting.

  “It’s incredible. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.” Kayley wanted to shout her joy at witnessing such a spectacle.

  After they played a while, Luke came to a stop in the middle of the room and gave a low howl. The rest of the pack ground to a halt and joined in. The plaintive sound caused the skin on Kayley’s arms to chill-bump in answer.

  The wolves gathered together in the center of the room, heads down, tongues lolling out. Seconds later the bright halo surrounded them and then they were gone, four naked humans standing in their place, chests heaving. This time Kayley wasn’t remotely embarrassed about their nudity, for she found herself focused on the outright joy suffusing their faces.

  “Does it feel good?” she asked Will quietly, observing the blissed out beyond belief group. “Becoming a wolf I mean.”

  “For them, I think it’s incredible. For me, it’s all so new it’s still somewhat scary but in a promising way. It’s like…I can tell how amazing it could be because there’s all this power coiling inside me, but I don’t know how to harness it or control it…yet.”

  “Wow.” She really couldn’t think of anything else to say as with a jolt she realized these people really were his family now.

  When Kayley glanced back to the group, they’d clambered into their clothes and were mill
ing around, still seemingly high from their quick change.

  She stood from the sofa and wandered to the far side of the room. The others headed to the kitchen area and started to fuss over the food in the stove.

  Minutes passed, she wasn’t sure how many, when she sensed someone by her. Sean gently bumped her shoulder and passed her a glass of wine.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I am actually. Seeing how beautiful you all are, and your joy at changing into your wolf form, it’s awe-inspiring. I’ve always had an open mind but who knew such incredible things exist as you all? Not that I see you as things.” She hastened to add.

  He leaned into her space and placed the softest of kisses on her cheek, the velvet of his lips a caress against her skin. “You’re amazing.”

  Guilt flared, cutting off her happiness and reminding her of how badly she’d fucked up.

  “Sean?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Hmm?”

  “I’ve done something awful, something you need to know about. I, um, I kissed Luke.”

  Before he could react, she went on, imploring him to understand. “I’m so very sorry. I know there’s nothing I can say to make it right, but you need to understand it came from the strange place I’ve been in recently.”

  “So it’s about you, not him?” Sean bent his knee and placed the heel of his foot on the wall behind him. He leaned back, the lines of his body languid. “You don’t find him attractive?”

  She looked into his beautiful, kind eyes and the lie fell away.

  “I do find him attractive, very attractive. I think…” She blushed and looked down before making herself carry on. “I think those same feelings are there for you, too. It’s crazy, I know, and as I said to Luke, I’ll leave. I wouldn’t ever want to come between you. And don’t worry, I would never share what you’ve shown me today. You are Will’s family now. You won’t ever have to fear me speaking of this.”

  “We don’t want you to go.” He took hold of her hand, his warm and solid against hers. “We both want you the same way you want us. I want you. You make me yearn.” He leaned in closer and his warm breath caressed her cheek. “You make me want things I never realized I needed before.”