Savage Transformation

by Lexxie Couper

  He drove his nails into his palms, sucking in lungful after lungful of night air. Focusing his senses on the filth and shit at his feet. Blocking out the potent sweetness of Jackie’s desire.

  He had to control himself. He had to stop the shift. If he didn’t, he would claim Jackie here and now, mark her as his own, and his plan would be doomed to fail. How could he use her if she was his mate? How could he catch Einar if the one thing Einar hunted was the only thing Marshall could no longer use as bait?

  Catching his ex-partner was the plan. Not claiming a mate. Jackie Huddart was a means to an end. He had to remember that.

  He couldn’t mate with her. Dire wolves mated for life and Jackie Huddart’s life was all he had to catch a killer.

  Bait.

  That was what she was. That’s all she could be.

  Bait.

  “Your friend’s not here,” he ground out, stepping farther away from Jackie. His beast howled, furious. His body screamed in denied agony. Halting the shift so close to commencement was like plunging naked into a frozen lake. Halting his desire was like stepping into a burning house. He turned his head, unable to look into her face. Unable to stand the wretched confusion and disgust he saw in her eyes. “We should go.”

  Silence stretched between them. Thick. Suffocating. He stared at the far wall, at the revelation some wannabe graffiti artists had spray-painted over its peeling plaster, Don’t worry. It’s only kinky the first time.

  He wanted to look at her. To see what she was doing. Instead, he crossed the room, moving into the black shadows until he couldn’t feel the heat of her body caressing his.

  The faintest of sounds played in the silence behind him. Jackie was moving. He clenched his fists, seeing her in his mind. Graceful and purposeful at once. Beautiful and menacing.

  The sound stopped and Marshal held his breath. Waiting.

  For what? For her attack?

  He ground his jaw. If she did, he would have no choice. He’d subdue her and bind her. As woman or thylacine. He couldn’t let her get away from him.

  For all the wrong reasons.

  Silence pressed upon him and, unable to resist any longer, he turned. He needed to know what she was doing. He needed to see her.

  She stood in the far corner, beside the open doorway leading into what looked and smelt like an old freezer, her stare locked on something on the ground. Something Marshall couldn’t see.

  He frowned. What was she looking at?

  In a fluid move, she dropped into a crouch, picked up the “something” from the floor and straightened to her feet once more.

  Marshall’s skin prickled. He drew in a quick breath, trying to detect what she held in her hand. Flowers. A hint of flowers and—

  “Delanie,” Jackie said from the other side of the room. She lifted her stare from her closed fist and gave Marshall a flat look. “She’s been here.”

  Face expressionless, she opened her hand, showing him what she held.

  Pale moonlight glinted off the small golden circle, catching the tiny diamonds embedded in the yellow band, turning them to pinpricks of white light. An earring. Just one. Looking abandoned and wrong on Jackie’s palm.

  Marshall’s gut tightened. Damn it, Rourke. Does Einar know your plan? Why would he have left something like this behind unless he was taunting you?

  “I gave her these as a gift ten years ago.” Jackie’s calm voice jerked his stare to her face. Her expression was detached. Somehow empty. Broken. “She had them in her ears today.”

  The statement fell in the taut silence between them, but before Marshall could respond, before he could destroy the space between them and take her in his arms, she crossed the room and walked through the doorway. Out into the cool night. Her shoulders square, her eyes unreadable.

  Her scent lingering in the air. Tormenting him.

  Haunting him.

  He bit back a low growl and followed her from the cafeteria.

  He hated himself. Jesus Christ, how he hated himself.

  Delanie paced the small shack the hunter had deposited her in after removing her from the greyhound track’s cafeteria, rubbing at her arms with her hands. She was cold. The linen trousers she’d worn to Richard Smith’s funeral kept her legs protected from the dropping night temperature, but her light-weight cotton shirt did little to keep her warm. She was cold, hungry and frightened.

  Not for herself. For Jackie.

  Stopping at the shack’s only door, she uncrossed her arms, curled her fingers around the rusted knob and gave it a sharp tug. Just as it had the ten previous times, the door refused to budge. Delanie bit back a curse. The place may look like a dump, but the door—the only way out—must have come from Fort bloody Knox.

  “Damn it.”

  Her mutter echoed around the confined space and Delanie winced. Even to her own ears, she sounded petrified.

  No, Del. Not petrified. You can’t be petrified. Petrified isn’t going to get you out of this situation. Petrified is going to get Jackie killed. Suck it up, woman, and get out of here.

  Delanie rolled her eyes. God, she was an annoying pain in the arse. How did Jackie ever put up with her?

  Fixing her stare on the door—a tricky task given the irritating lack of light in the room—she walked backward, her heels stumbling over the odd empty can and bottle until her backside bumped the wall behind her. Whoever Jackie’s hunter was, he had a thing for derelict buildings. First the abandoned cafeteria at the dog track, and now this, whatever this once had been.

  The inconsiderate bastard. If you’re going to abduct someone and keep them prisoner, at least do it somewhere nice. And warm. Preferably with a television and, oh, I don’t know, a direct phone line to the cops!

  A mirthless snort sounded in the back of Delanie’s nose. Yeah, sure. That’s what the psycho was going to do. Take her somewhere public. She’d never been hunting before. Shit, she’d never been fishing before, but she’d watched enough animal documentaries to know the hunter always had the same approach. Separate their target from the safety of numbers, get them away from protection and attack.

  Wherever she currently was, she would bet her freebie Prada stilettos it was nowhere near people.

  From what she could gather, the hunter was leading Jackie away from the populace. Taking her from one place to another in an attempt to draw her from the safety of civilization.

  And Jackie would follow. Delanie had no doubt. Her best friend would get Del’s scent in her nose and track her right to this very spot, and when she did, the insane bastard would plunge that evil, massive knife in Jackie’s belly and kill her.

  You have to stop that from happening, Del. You have to get out of here. Now.

  Delanie stared at the closed door on the other side of the shack, focusing her entire energy on the large black rectangle. She bent her knees slightly, springing up onto the balls of her feet. Readying.

  Balling her fists, she bunched her shoulders, dragging in five long breaths. This is gonna hurt, Del.

  Too bad.

  She burst forward, sprinting full force at the door, right shoulder lowered. Clenching her jaw and squeezing her eyes shut, she collided with the solid panel of wood. And bounced backward.

  Splintering pain exploded in her shoulder. Up her neck. She staggered away from the door, shoulder a world of pain, her head a whole universe. Her heel snagged on something hiding in the filth on the floor, and before she could regain her balance, she fell, landing on her arse with a teeth-clicking snap.

  “Fuck!”

  Her furious scream shattered the silence of the room, breaking into a choking sob at the very end. She dropped her head into her hands, hot tears stinging her eyes. Oh, God. What was she going to do?

  “Have you hurt yourself?”

  The hunter’s calm voice snapped Delanie’s head up. He stood in the open doorway looking at her, his expression concerned, pale moonlight outlining him in a silvery white glow.

  She leapt forward, shutting out the pa
in in her body and the fear in her gut. Running for the open door. For the night beyond. She had to get away. Away. She had to warn—

  The hunter smashed his fist into her chest.

  Agony exploded through Delanie. Hot and total. She stumbled back a step and collapsed, red shards of pain stabbing into her lungs. Black stars burst before her eyes and she pressed her hand to her left breast, gasping for breath.

  Crossing the shack’s threshold, the hunter swung the door behind him, giving her a worried frown. “Now, that was a silly thing to do, wasn’t it?”

  Delanie glared up at him. “Go fuck yourself,” she rasped, pain ripping her chest with each word.

  “While I appreciate the need for masturbation, sexual release is not my priority at this moment.”

  Hate surged through Delanie’s veins. “That’s right. Your priority is butchering an innocent woman, isn’t it?”

  The man’s frown furrowed deeper, and he shook his head. “Butcher is such an ugly word. A negative word. What I do is…” he lifted his gaze to the right, as if contemplating, “…eradicate.”

  Delanie shot up her eyebrows, cold fingers of horror threading through the burning pain in her chest. “Eradicate?”

  “Besides,” the hunter continued, returning his sharp blue stare back to her. “Jacqueline Huddart isn’t a woman, is she? She is a shape-shifter. A paranormal creature.”

  Removing her hand from the burning ball of pain in her chest, Delanie shook her head. “She’s a woman,” she snarled, pushing herself to her feet. Fresh black stars blossomed behind her eyes, and for a sickening second the shack seemed to tilt and sway around her. “She was a girl,” she continued, planting her feet more firmly on the floor. Anger rolled through her. Tight anger. “And a teenager. At eight she fell from the top of my bunk bed and broke her wrist. At twelve she stacked my pushbike and cut her knee so badly she needed six stitches. At sixteen she had her heart broken by Travis bloody Callister and cried for a week.” She fixed the hunter with a hot stare. “What kind of paranormal creature does that?”

  Emotionless blue eyes regarded her. “A clever one.”

  “And that’s it? That’s your reason for wanting to kill her? She’s clever?”

  The hunter shook his head, his lips curling into a smile that screamed you poor dumb child. “No, Delanie. I want to kill her to see her die.”

  Delanie widened her eyes. Hot disgust churned in her gut. “To see her die?”

  A smile curled the corners of the man’s mouth, a wistful look falling over his scarred face. “I killed a manticore in Brazil in 1875. Its last act was to defecate. I killed a keron-kenken in Russia in 1915. The last seconds of its life were spent sobbing and squealing for mercy. I am quite fascinated with the reaction to death. Every paranormal creature’s life perverts the natural order of the world, you see. They draw the essence of the world into their existence. They feed on it. It nourishes them. Strengthens them. Gives them their power.” He turned his gaze on Delanie, his smile friendly and relaxed. “They are parasites. As with all parasites, the very last moments of their existence, the very last second before they expire, their croi magnifies. Their fight to survive intensifies their life essence, and the moment their existence is terminated, that essence is released.”

  “And you are there to what? Absorb that power?” Delanie curled her lip, letting him see her contempt. “You’re going to kill my best friend, the last of her kind, just to suck up her power?” She shook her head. “Doesn’t that make you a parasite too?”

  The hunter laughed, a soft, carefree sound that sent an icy spear straight into her chest. “No, no, no, Delanie.” He crouched down, bringing his gaze level with hers. Delanie flinched, scurrying backward, not wanting to be close to him, but he didn’t seem to notice. Or care. “I do not absorb their power. I do not wish it, nor need it. I am very old. I have my own power, one much more in tune with the earth and her magick. I have hunted and killed creatures that do just that however. Creatures who kill for no other reason than to absorb the croi of their prey.” His friendly smile stretched wider, his blue eyes dancing with excitement. “It is better for the world they no longer exist.”

  “But Jackie is not like that.” Delanie’s heart thumped, a wild beat that made her chest ache. “She’s just…” She faulted. What was Jackie, exactly? A human? An animal? Or a…

  Monster?

  The hunter raised his eyebrows. “Just?”

  “She’s my friend,” she finished on a whisper, her throat tight, her mouth dry. Oh, God, Jack. What do I do? How do I convince him? “My best friend.”

  With a shake of his head, the hunter leant forward a little, his stare locked on her face. “Your friend is unique, Delanie. Her magick is unique, and as such I long to kill her to see what she does when she dies. And to look into her eyes when I plunge my knife into her belly and have her see me. Have her see the man who tracked her down, hunted her, caught her. That is why I am going to kill Jacqueline Huddart.”

  Cold fury incinerated Delanie. She screamed, throwing herself at the man, fingers hooked, aiming for his impersonal, insane eyes.

  Hands moving so quickly she didn’t see them, the hunter snatched her wrists, yanking her arms wide apart. He smiled, a small furrow dipping between his eyebrows. “Now, now, Delanie McKenzie. This is unbecoming.” His fingers drilled into the soft underside of her wrists and his smile vanished. “And pointless.”

  He threw her across the shack, slamming her into the far wall. Before she could fall to the floor, before her body could register the pain tearing through her, he leapt on her. Sinking his fingers into her neck, he jerked her upright. “Hush now, Delanie,” he murmured, eyes wide, smile once again stretching his lips. “Or I will rip your throat open and paint the very wall behind you with your blood.”

  Chapter Five

  “I think we need to—”

  “No,” Jackie cut Rourke’s obvious statement short, refusing to turn her stare from the Audi’s passenger window and the dark bush blurring past them. “We don’t.”

  Her animal growled, a low rumble in the pit of its existence. That the damn thing was still horny, still wanting to break free and mate with the Texan irritated the hell out of Jackie. That she agreed with the sentiment pissed her off even more.

  Her skin prickled and she knew Rourke was looking at her. Which annoyed her further still.

  She heard him stir behind the wheel, and the car picked up speed, taking them away from St. Helens and deeper into the bush surrounding the sleeping coastal town. “You don’t know what I’m going to say.”

  Jackie pulled in a long, steadying breath, the subtle leather of the luxury car doing nothing to lessen the potency of Rourke’s scent.

  “‘I think we need to talk about what happened back there in the cafeteria,’” she said, finishing what he’d begun. She gave Rourke a quick look over her shoulder before returning her stare to the night-covered countryside outside the car. “To which the answer is, no. We don’t.”

  “I don’t make it a habit of making love to someone I’ve only just met, Detective Huddart.”

  A hot, wet spear stabbed into Jackie’s core at Rourke’s statement. She ground her teeth, wishing the traitorous response would go to hell. “We didn’t make love.” She turned from the window and gave him a flat stare. “We didn’t even fuck. You were fully dressed and my feet never left the ground.”

  The corner of Rourke’s mouth twitched. “And that’s your benchmark for sex? Your feet off the ground? I’ll remember that for next time, darlin’.”

  Jackie’s sex constricted. Next time? Oh, God, yes, next time. “There’s not going to be a next time,” she snarled, both to the infuriating man behind the wheel and herself. Mainly herself. “This time only happened because…”

  She stopped, the pulse in her neck leaping away.

  Rourke cocked an eyebrow. “Because?”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. The rest was too shameful to finish.

  Rourke stu
died her, his eyes glowing silver in the cabin’s shadows. “Because your inner animal was on the verge of taking over, of emerging, and the only way you could prevent that happening was to release the tension another way.”

  Jackie’s heart stopped. She stared at the Texan, her lips tingling, her blood roaring in her ears. “How did you…” Her mouth felt dry. Drier than the Simpson Desert. “How did you know?”

  Silver eyes held her stare. Rourke’s expression was collected. Controlled. “Because it’s the very reason why I stopped.” He turned back to the dark road ahead, the car’s powerful headlights piercing the night’s blackness. “If I’d kept going back there in the cafeteria—and trust me, I really wanted to keep going—my inner animal would have taken over. My inner animal would have emerged and it wouldn’t have been a man mating with you. It would have been a wolf.”

  Wolf.

  The word made her breath catch in her throat. Wolf? He was a shifter. Just like her. A bloody werewolf from America. No wonder he moved so quickly, could detect Delanie’s scent when she couldn’t. No wonder the animal inside her—

  And then the rest of his statement penetrated the stunned realization roaring in her head and she gasped.

  Mating with you.

  The statement sent a tight shard into Jackie’s core and her sex constricted, still wanting release. Her clit throbbed, her nipples ached.

  Mating with you.

  Her thylacine rumbled with need, lurking too close to the surface for Jackie’s peace of mind, hungering not only release, but Rourke. A primitive, carnal hunger that made her pulse pound and her head spin.

  She needed to mate. She needed to release the tension. She couldn’t focus on finding Delanie until she did. Christ, she could barely concentrate on anything but Rourke’s heat, the taste of his lips, his saliva. The earthy musk of his scent.

  Jackie froze, her breath catching in her throat. His scent. She could smell him now.

  And you have since you first kissed him. That’s why your animal is straining for release—Rourke’s scent is in every breath you pull, in every molecule of air you draw into your lungs. He’s there. He’s in you already.