And then he was speaking to her, his slow drawl breaking through the blanket of fuzzy chaos she’d enveloped herself in. “I’m here, Lily,” he spoke to her softly, kissing the top of her head. “I’m here, cher. It’s okay.”
She could hear things happening around them. Violent things. She recognized some of the sounds. She didn’t care. Daniel was holding her and he was solid and real and hard-wearing in a world that seemed to demand no less of him. She tried to squeeze him as hard as he squeezed her, but dizziness swept through her. So, she relaxed in his arms and let him rock her.
She knew that she must look awful. She knew that she was covered in her blood. It must be matted in her hair. But she couldn’t care. She’d been through hell.
Slowly, gently, Daniel pulled back from her and began to stand. She whimpered. She couldn’t help it. She was cold and he was her sole source of warmth. She looked up and found herself locked in his stark blue gaze. “Easy, cher. I just want to get a look at you.” He trapped her there, forcing wave after wave of his power over her. Each one draped over the other, wrapping around her like warm, dark fleece and holding her motionless before him.
“She’s lost too much blood.”
Lily recognized Valentine’s voice. But she couldn’t take her eyes off of Daniel long enough to check. He held her fast in his thrall. She watched, with a sort of dazed absorption, as he parted his lips, exposing his long, sharp fangs. He lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit deep. The blood welled instantly.
He dropped to his knee before the bed and, with one hand at the back of her head, he guided her lips toward the wound. “Drink, Lily.”
She didn’t hesitate. She couldn’t. It smelled too good. She closed her mouth over the wound and swallowed.
*****
Before her, Daniel closed his eyes. For a werewolf, sharing blood was an incredibly powerful experience. It caused the dormant lust within a wolf to spike so hard and fast that it was breathtaking. Most of the time, a werewolf allowed only one or two swallows. It was all he could give before his own hunger in turn overtook him.
It was especially difficult for Daniel because Lily was his mate, and a new mate, at that. He was already filled with so much need for her, so much desire for her, that it hurt him in ways a mortal man would never understand. Giving her his blood was like giving him a gallon of aphrodisiacs after not letting him cum for a month.
It hurt. He wanted her. He was coming fresh from a fight and the waning adrenaline in his blood didn’t help. However, right now, Lily needed more than a few swallows of his blood. Allan Jennings had hurt her too many times, in too many ways.
So with tremendous effort, he reigned in his wolf, forced it to heel, and even as he began to tremble slightly and break out in a sweat with the effort of denying himself anything in return, he held her fast against his wrist.
When a full minute had passed, she began to pull away. He almost stopped her. But she opened her eyes and looked up at him and he was stunned.
“Christ, you’re beautiful,” he muttered. Her eyes shone like gold. Her hair was nearly the exact same color. A soft glow had infused her skin and her cheeks were once more flushing with the warmth his blood afforded her.
He lowered his wrist. As his self-inflicted wound began to heal, he continued to stare at her. He could gaze at her forever. She was perfect.
Then, as if she could read his thoughts, she did the most amazing thing. She smiled a shy smile. Her perfect white fangs were small and sharp. His breath caught in his throat. His heart actually ached. He gently cupped her face with both of his hands. “So, so beautiful,” he whispered.
Lily shivered.
Daniel blinked. Instantly, he was up and pulling off his t-shirt. Behind him, several other people moved as well and Lily peered around Daniel’s tall form to see who it was.
“These are the men in my pack, Lily,” Daniel told her as he knelt before her and began to drape the tremendously large shirt over her slim form.
Daniel’s men were pulling off jackets and shirts and handing them to Daniel. One after another, he placed them on her until she was swimming in them – but she was at least warm again.
While he worked, he caught Lily staring at his broad chest and the muscles that rippled across it and his thick arms. He noticed her cheeks burning just before she forced herself to look at the floor.
And then she blanched. Daniel followed her gaze. Allan Jennings was laying on the floor, his body flopped at an unnatural angle, his eyes swelling shut, his nose and lips utterly disfigured. But he was also handcuffed. Daniel could hear the man’s heart beating and he knew that Lily would be able to as well.
“He’ll be turned into the Clan council and questioned,” said James, who had clearly been paying attention to Lily as well.
Lily looked up at Valentine, who was standing over the unconscious prisoner. “What he can tell us about other Hunters is too valuable,” he told her, his tone one of consolation, as if he was trying to tell her that he was very sorry.
“Everyone of us wants to rip his throat out, Lily,” said detective Knight.
“But Valentine is right,” said Stark, who stood a few feet from Daniel.
Daniel watched as she took in the appearances of his pack members as if memorizing them. Lily’s gaze flicked to Stark’s gray-gold eyes. “The Hunters have become too powerful,” he continued, his tone gentle. “We need all the intel we can get.”
Lily hugged her gifted clothes more tightly around herself and then looked back at Daniel. “His father killed your parents,” she told him softly.
Daniel froze. An invisible wall slammed itself into him and the wind was knocked from his lungs. Memories assaulted him – pain immeasurable. He instantly saw red and wanted to stand, to destroy Jennings, to mutilate his body until it was unrecognizable as animal.
But Lily gazed at him steadily, her breathing soft and ragged, and though the air around them all had become stifling with his unrolling power, he did not move. He did not take his eyes from his mate.
After a long moment, he closed his eyes and his hands dropped to the bed on either side of her. There, they fisted in the mattress, his claws breaking through the material until it was balled uselessly in his grip. And then Lily was running her hands through his hair and pulling his head against her chest. She cradled him there, without saying a word.
The werewolves in the basement grew silent. Respect for the lost.
Thunder rolled in the distance.
Somewhere outside, a storm was moving on.
Epilogue
“I don’t think you should do this.”
Lily rolled her eyes and sighed. “Not you too.”
Tabitha held up her hands in a just-hear-me-out kind of way and went on. “It’s just that the Council is…. Well, they’re really, really powerful, Lil’. You don’t wanna go and draw attention to yourself with them. Once you’re in their sights, you’re always in their sights and who knows what kind of trouble they could make for you if you do this?” Tabitha followed Lily as she moved from room to room, looking everything over and double-checking to be sure she’d packed what she needed.
“Look Tabby, the Council doesn’t scare me. I’ve been kidnapped by three different men, hand-cuffed to two different beds, shot more than thirty times, drowned in a hot tub in the middle of a raging fire, and turned into a werewolf.” She stopped in her tracks and fixed her best friend with raised brows and wolfen eyes. “What the hell else could the Council do to me? Hmm?”
Tabitha’s jaw dropped open and she inhaled sharply. “Oh! Girl, you have no idea! Most werewolves spend their lives tryin’ to avoid being noticed by the Council! Don’t get me started on what they could do to you –”
But Lily was turning and moving away once more and Tabitha was forced to follow her around the house again as she argued her point. “Listen Lily, don’t ignore me on this. I’m serious. The Council is a force of good, yes. I’ll admit that much. And if what you say is true, then I feel sorry
for Malcolm Cole too. But in the end, it’s your word against theirs and if they think that you’re in league with a serial killer, it could cause all kinds of big, bad horribleness to rain down upon you!”
Lily grabbed her sweater off of the wooden bed post in the guest room and then whirled on her friend. “Oh my God, Tabby! Would you listen to yourself? You just now all but admitted that Cole was innocent and that you believed me! How can you possibly be okay with every werewolf in the world thinking he’s guilty of committing countless gruesome murders?” She brushed past Tabitha in a huff and stormed her way down the hall and back into the living room, where her suitcase sat open on the coffee table. She threw the sweater into the suitcase and spun to face Tabitha once more.
“And, furthermore, do you really think there’s even the slightest chance that the Council would honestly think I was in cahoots with a killer? I’m a social worker, for Christ’s sake! I can’t kill a stupid spider, Tabby – I have to pick it up in a jar with a piece of paper over the top and take it outside!”
Tabitha shifted from one foot to the other, opened her mouth as if to say something, and then shut it again, running her hand through her hair in a frustrated gesture.
Finally she located something in her head worth saying and took a quick breath and asked, “Do you even know where Cole is?”
“No, of course not. No one does and you know that. He went into hiding again after I….” Lily’s voice trailed off.
“Burned down his mansion?”
Lily shot her a hard look. “Yes,” she said, through a jaw that was tightly clenched. “That.”
“Uh-huh,” Tabitha put her hands on her hips. “So, if he’s in hidin’, then what the hell does it matter whether people think he’s innocent or not?”
Lily sighed in frustration. “I swear, sometimes you’re just as bad as your brother.”
At that, Tabitha’s eyes widened and her expression became genuinely offended. “What? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“He told me not to go too.”
Tabitha blinked. “He did?”
Lily’s look was dead pan. “What do you think? He not only told me not to go, he pretended he actually had the clout to make me care that he was telling me not to go.” She shook her head. “As if.” Daniel was a good man, but he’d lost too much in his life and he’d been forced to take on too many responsibilities too quickly. As a result, he was frankly an asshole sometimes. She loved him because she could see the good in him; she’d been able to see the good in him since high school. But he had another thing coming if he thought he could play the big bad cop routine with her.
“Well, of course he did!” Tabitha reiterated, changing tactics. “He’s worried about you, too!”
“Honestly Tabby, I don’t see what the big deal is. I’m just going to go to headquarters and ask to speak with the Overseer so that I can tell him what I know about Cole’s past and try to get the man exonerated for crimes he didn’t commit. Why is this such a bad thing?”
“Well, for one thing Lil, you’ll be the first woman to ever go before the Council,” Tabitha shot back.
Lily straightened from where she had been folding and stuffing socks into the sides of her suitcase. “Seriously?”
Tabitha nodded once, and crossed her arms over her chest.
“The first ever?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Tabitha looked proud of herself.
Lily’s gaze narrowed then. She cocked her head slightly to one side and put her hands on her hips. “Wow, Tabitha. Don’t you think that’s a little, um, how shall we say it?” She pretended to search for the right word. And then her full pink lips turned up slightly in a bitter, dry smile. “Puritan?” The word dripped acid.
Tabitha blinked. And then she blushed and her arms dropped to her sides. “Well, in all fairness, you’re not exactly like other Dormants, you know.”
“Really? Do tell.”
“No other Dormant has gifts like you do. None of the other turned or Made wolves can glimpse visions into the future or the past the way you can, Lily. You’re different.”
Tabitha had a point there. Since the moment Daniel had left his mark on her arm, Lily had been having dreams and visions, for lack of better terms, about people. It had started with her dreams about Malcolm and his time at Dachau. They hadn’t been just dreams. They’d been glimpses into the past – his past – and they’d been extremely revealing.
Now Lily was seeing glimpses into lots of pasts. In the two weeks since Daniel and his men had rescued her from Jennings, Lily had caught glimpses into three different lives. Some of them werewolf lives. She’d managed to warn a female born teenager not to take her father’s truck four-wheeling because, if she did, she would turn the vehicle over and get crushed beneath it.
That night, it had stormed, and Daniel’s police force had responded to several calls of overturned vehicles in the same area that Lily had seen in her vision. The female born was not among the injured – because she’d heeded Lily’s warning and stayed home.
Lily had also managed to save a werewolf boy from what most likely would have resulted in scarring injuries when she’d had a vision of him attempting to light the barbeque pit by himself while his parents were away from home.
The visions came in the forms of dreams most of the time. However, every once in a while, they would simply flash before her mind’s eye and Lily had to be careful not to drive off of the road or crash her bicycle when that happened.
“You’re right, Tabitha,” Lily agreed coolly, as she turned back to the task of packing. “And while I forgive my predecessors for ‘minding their places’ and keeping quiet and dutifully popping out puppies for the betterment of wolf-kind, I may be the beginning of something new, Tabby. Perhaps it’s time that Dormants became more than dormant. Times are changing.” She shot her friend a hard, meaningful look. “You said so yourself.”
To that, Tabitha had no reply. She realized somewhat belatedly that she’d talked herself into a corner.
Lily realized it, too. Though she was grown up enough not to rub it in. “It’s time one of us ‘Made wolves’ stood up and spoke out,” Lily continued. “And what better reason could we have than to defend someone who is good from people who think he is bad?”
“Malcolm Cole can take care of himself, Lily.”
“Maybe he can. And maybe he won’t. Either way, I’m going to do the right thing. If I don’t, I won’t be able to live with myself.” Lily closed her suitcase and zipped it up. “Well, that’s it. Am I missing anything?”
“Just James,” Tabitha answered, softly.
Lily’s gaze cut to her. She recognized the slight blush that had suddenly come to her friend’s cheeks, and the vague look of something akin to yearning in Tabitha’s hazel eyes. “Wow. You got it bad for that man, don’t you?”
Tabitha looked up. Her blush deepened. Finally she sighed. “Let’s just say that, though I’m glad he’ll be takin’ care of you and keepin’ you safe – I sort of wish he wasn’t going.”
Lily smiled. “If you’re gonna miss him that much, why don’t you come with me?”
“I have to work, Lily. I don’t think I can get anyone to cover my hours long enough to follow you around while you play Joan of Arc against an army of ancient werewolves.”
That gave Lily pause. She pulled the suitcase down from the coffee table and frowned. “Exactly how ancient are these werewolves? Everyone always talks about how old the Council members are. But, I thought that wolves only aged a little less quickly than humans, not that they were… immortal, or anything like that.”
“They’re not immortal,” Tabitha shook her head. Then she pursed her lips. “Well, not that I know of, anyway. But some do age very slowly. Cole, for instance, seems to age at about one-third or one-fourth the rate of a normal human. James is about the same. And I’ve heard that a few of the Council elders have truly earned the name ‘elder’.”
Lily considered that for a moment and then sighed. She
edged around the coffee table, her suitcase in one hand, and reached for the car keys beside the lamp in the hall. “Well, let’s hope those old fogies don’t faint dead away when a female, twenty-something Made wolf who has visions comes to argue on behalf of Malcolm Cole, the serial killer.”
Tabitha blinked after her and squinted as Lily opened the front door, letting in vast amounts of noonday light. “Yes,” she muttered, shaking her head as she followed in her friend’s footsteps. “Let’s.”
Two years later…
“Your spawn wants you,” Lily said as she weakly shoved at the sleeping man beside her. He mumbled something into his pillow and then turned to face her.
“No, cher. My spawn wants you,” he told her, his southern drawl working its magic on her, even now.
She opened her golden eyes to find that he was staring back at her. The blue of his gaze was being swallowed by the black of his pupils. She knew that look. He was as insatiable as his child was.
“You’re obviously up,” she told him, “so go feed him.”
“William’s my son,” Daniel smiled, flashing fangs. “He won’t be happy with anything less than a breast.”
Lily’s gaze narrowed and she raised herself up on her elbow. “Oh?”
And then she was flat on her back and Daniel was on top of her, his strong hands pinning her wrists to the bed on either side of her head.
Lily stared up at him as he smiled his rapacious smile and pressed the hard evidence of his hunger into the thin fabric of her night gown. “You can’t be serious,” she told him, trying not to let on that she was getting wet under his hungry gaze. The last thing he needed was confirmation that he was getting to her.
He’d always been a little too much on the cocky side of confident. Over the last year, they’d worked a lot on their relationship and he’d managed to smooth out a few of his rougher edges for her. Still, he could be such an arrogant prick sometimes.
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