by Codi Gary
Greer watched Xander as he shifted back into his human form, but Dakota didn’t seem to notice either of them. She’d pushed Pax off her body and scrambled back against the bed, holding the gun loosely between her hands.
“Dakota,” Xander said softly. “Give me the gun.”
She shook her head, squeezing her eyes tight.
Greer moved forward, ignoring Xander’s vehement gesturing for her to stay back. She thought that comfort from another woman might reach her.
“Dakota, it’s going to be okay.”
When the other woman opened her eyes, her gaze burned yellow with hatred.
“You. This is all because of you.”
Dakota dropped the gun.
“I’m going to rip your throat out!”
Greer scrambled away from the deranged woman as she shifted into a black wolf. Saliva dripped down her fangs to the floor just before she launched herself at Greer.
“No!” Xander yelled, tackling Dakota to the floor. Dakota spun on him, ripping out a chunk of flesh from his upper arm with her jaws.
Greer screamed as blood covered the floor and she threw herself at the wolf, punching, and gouging. When her thumb went into Dakota’s left eye, she howled in pain.
Greer spotted the gun several feet away and rushed on her hands and knees, trying to get the piece. Suddenly, a heavy weight on her back pushed her to the hardwood floor. White hot pain exploded on her right shoulder. Hot, rancid breath burned her flesh and sharp teeth tore so hard into the muscle that it scraped bone. She turned her head to find Dakota tearing at her body, blood dripping from her fangs. Greer couldn’t stop screaming as she tried to get away, to just get her hands on the gun.
A roar shook the cabin and Dakota’s weight on her was gone. A loud crash boomed behind her, shaking the cabin. Greer pushed back the pain as she belly crawled across the floor until her left hand wrapped around the gun. Her shoulder blade was throbbing, but she rolled to her side to see what was happening.
Xander’s wolf was tearing into Dakota, even as Jill’s cougar jaws were locked across her throat. Dakota struggled to get away, but the two of them were too strong for her.
Greer closed her eyes, trying to block out the image and the sounds. Several wet, furry muzzles pressed into her cheek and hands and she jumped back with a scream. Several wolves surrounded her, nuzzling and licking her, as if reassuring themselves that she was okay and a broken sob escaped her lips.
When Dakota was finally still, Xander turned her way, his gray and white fur stained red. He shifted, and strode across the cabin swiftly. By the time he reached her side, his hands gripped her arms and pulled her into his embrace. She cried out as he brushed her wounded shoulder blade and when he looked at the damage, she knew from the way he stiffened it was bad.
“Am I…I…going…t…to…turn?” Her lips were chattering so bad she could hardly get a sentence out. Cold was seeping through her body and she was struggling to breathe.
Shock. I’m in shock.
“God, baby, I’m so sorry.”
Greer dropped her forehead to his shoulder and drew in a long, shaky breath. “How is your arm?”
“Already healing.”
“That’s good. I wasn’t sure you’d get here in time.”
Xander pulled away, cupping her chin in his hand. “You didn’t think I would move heaven and Earth to come for you?”
“I didn’t know if you would need to come up with a plan to rescue and kill them in one fell swoop. I know how important getting revenge for what they did to your family is to you.”
“God, Greer, I stopped caring about revenge the minute I knew you’d been taken. I was so wrong, putting my agenda before everything else and I almost lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“You’re just saying that now because I’m going to be a werewolf.”
She’d meant it as a joke, but there was some truth to it. He’d said she couldn’t understand him and his life because she wasn’t a shifter. Well, things changed.
He looked so incredulous, she almost laughed.
“You can’t actually believe that.”
“Why not? You were the one who said yourself that I would never understand you because I wasn’t a shifter.”
“You are taking that completely out of context. I would never want this. Not for you.”
Deep down, Greer knew that. Xander had always been so careful of her feelings, asking permission and promising to keep her safe.
But now that the initial pain was fading, anger had replaced it, coursing through her veins like a rush of fire. If she hadn’t been in those woods, Pax would have never seen her with Xander. If they hadn’t gone to the restaurant, Kelsey and Sam would never have been targeted. Jill wouldn’t have been bit, and Greer wouldn’t have been turned.
All of the death and heart ache was because of Xander.
Greer pulled away from him. “I can’t do this right now. I want to go home.”
“I’ll take you—
“No. Jill can take me. Clyde can take me. Anyone can take me but you. I need some time.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
It had been five days and seventeen hours since Greer had been bitten, and so far, not much had changed. Oh, she could painfully shift her body now into the form of a cream-colored wolf with deep brown eyes, but other than that, life was the same as it had always been. She took in clients, she made pretty designs, she got paid, and she stayed in watching Swayze and eating ice cream.
She was on a Kevin Bacon hiatus until further notice.
Of course, the police had discovered that the recent murders had been carried out by a shifter who, thanks to an anonymous tip, was found in an isolated cabin with several gunshot wounds to the chest. They hadn’t discovered who killed him, but they did find his last victim down by the river. Case closed.
The Wolfe clan had left this morning. Norma, Betty, and Paulette were still staying with Greer, and although she appreciated their help with the wolf stuff, she wasn’t ready to talk about why she was avoiding Xander. They’d taken off this morning to go exploring with Clyde and the boys. She’d finally convinced them she could survive a day without them.
Someone knocked at her front door, and she opened it to find Jill holding a basket in her hands.
“Really?” Greer groused. “I just got rid of one group of babysitters.”
Jill gave her the look, the one that said she would not put up with her attitude. “Okay, someone is suffering from a major bitch attack and it needs to stop. I am not here to sit with you. I am dropping off a care package from my parents who heard you were sick.”
Greer reached for the basket with contrition. “I apologize.”
“I am actually headed off with Dereck. He is looking at some apartments in town. I told him I was fine with him crashing with me, but he is being stubborn.”
That was a new development. “Dereck wants to move here?”
“Yep. He says it’s for his job, but I think he might be sweet on me.”
That warranted a grin. “And are you sweet on him?”
Jill held her thumb and trigger finger an inch apart. “Just a little.”
“Good.”
“How about you? Have you talked to Xander?” she asked.
Greer scowled. “No.”
“Why are you punishing him? It’s not like he’s the one who bit you!”
“I don’t want to talk about this, Jill.”
Jill crossed her arms, her chin taking on a stubborn tilt. “You’re being snappy and cruel and it isn’t like you. I know this sucks, believe me, I am right there with you, but you can’t blame Xander.”
“Then who do I blame?” Greer asked.
“I don’t know! The two psychos who did it?”
Greer closed her eyes, breathing in her nose and out her mouth, trying to sooth her emotions so she wouldn’t shift. Every time she thought of that night, rage rushed over her like a tidal wave.
“Okay, well, I’ll w
ork on that. Have fun with Dereck.”
“Greer, honey…”
“I can’t right now.”
Jill nodded. “Alright. I love you.”
“I love you.”
Greer shut the door and walked out into her back yard. The snowflakes in the air didn’t bother her, and she actually slid her toes through the fresh powder on her deck. The fall festival had come and gone and now, all anyone could talk about was Thanksgiving and Christmas.
She closed her eyes, trying to think of happy things. Norma had described being bit against her will as a trauma, and that if she needed to talk, Norma had a friend who was a professional. A shifter therapist. She really had been in the dark about the paranormal world.
She heard a twig snap and opened her eyes, her gaze immediately zeroing in on a flash of gray and white fur. Damn, Xander. She hadn’t been ready to talk when he’d come by the day after her first shift and she definitely wasn’t ready now.
“I thought I told you to give me space?”
He came out of the woods, trotting toward her. He sat on the edge of the yard, a good fifteen feet from her as if to say, “See? Space.”
He just sat there panting and fury assailed her, making her skin hum with electricity. Her nails lengthened, telling her she was about to lose control and so she did.
Her bones twisted and fur slid out of every follicle, covering her body. The jaw slid out in front of her, and she shook her head as her ears popped up.
She leapt off the porch, snarling as she ran past him into the woods. She could hear his big paws eating up the ground behind her and she pushed harder, faster. She wasn’t really running from him; she wasn’t sure what she was running from.
She was just so mad. She was furious with herself for getting involved with him, and because of her association with him, Pax had targeted her. Poor Kelsey and Sam would be alive if she hadn’t wanted Xander.
Even though she’d said it and thought it all week, she didn’t really blame Xander. She did, however, blame herself, and that infuriated her even more. She was a victim. She’d gotten bit and had the choice of becoming a were-wolf taken from her. When and if she’d ever imagined becoming a shifter, it would have been during a scenting ceremony, like the one Barbara Wolfe had told her about.
Greer knew she loved Xander as surely as she could breath. The sight of Dakota attacking him had sent her into such a rage that she’d been willing to give up her life for his. Eventually, she would have chosen to let Xander bite her, binding them together forever.
Only that couldn’t happen now. She was surprised that Xander even bothered to follow her with the way she’d shut him out. She just didn’t know how to get right with what she was and what that meant for her and Xander.
She wished that she could be more like Jill, who had initially been freaked but had embraced her shifter side. And she’d set her sights on Derick, even if she wasn’t ready to admit it out loud. Dereck had decided to stay in town, crashing with Xander. So, if she had to hazard a guess, Greer thought pretty soon the two of them would be making everything official.
Suddenly, Greer was knocked for a loop, rolling until she was on her back. Xander stood above her, snarling at her and she snapped her jaws at him. Then he was shifting above her.
He held himself up on his arms, glowering above her, and her heart slammed against her chest.
“Stop it, Greer. Talk to me. Whatever you’re feeling or thinking, if you tell me what you need, I can fix it.”
He wanted her to talk? He thought he could fix this?
She shifted beneath him and pushed against his chest, but he didn’t budge. “It’s the same thing with you over and over again, Xander. You want me to talk. You make promises. But when the tables are turned, you tell me you can’t put it into words or you don’t want to burden me. Well, guess what? I don’t feel like talking.”
“Are you still obsessed with knowing how my parents died? What do you want to know? I will tell you anything you want if you just talk to me. If you’ll come back to me and be that girl I fell in love with.”
She blinked up at him. “What?”
“I said, I love you. I knew it the first time I held you in my arms.”
She didn’t say anything, couldn’t. Her mouth was completely frozen.
“You need more, fine. I walked into my house when I was twenty-three after a bachelor’s weekend in Vegas to find my father on the floor, his skull bashed in. It looked as though they had just unloaded two clips into each of my brothers. And my mother was tortured and raped. That is what I didn’t want to talk about. Can you see why?”
“After that, yes, I was hell bent with revenge, it was all I’d been living for, all that kept me going for five years. Even when I met you, it was hard to give that up. And I am sorry it took you getting abducted to realize that, but even if you hadn’t been taken, I would have figured it out—
She cut him off when she lifted herself up, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Xander had no idea what had triggered the impromptu kiss, but after almost a week of misery, he was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Lowering his body so she didn’t have to stretch so far he kissed her back, unable to hold back or be gentle. His fingers curled into the snowy ground and without another thought, he lifted her up in his arms, carrying her back toward her house. Greer wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms locked around his neck and she continued to kiss him.
When her nails traced across his back, scratching his skin lightly, he stopped and pressed her against the side of a nearby pine tree. He reached between them, gripping his cock in his hand and rubbed the tip against the wet folds of her pussy.
Xander pulled away, his gaze boring into hers. “I’m yours, Greer. And you are mine.”
“I am yours and you are mine,” she repeated, her eyes warm.
With a hard thrust, he seated himself inside her, the walls of her body hugging him, gripping him tightly. He pulled out and pushed in again, listening to the moans, the squeals, the delicious, breathless sighs with each motion.
He wanted more, still. He wanted to mark her as his.
“Do you want me to mark you? I promised you I would ask your permission.”
Her gaze met his and he saw the storm clouds in them, the raw pain.
“It’s kind of a moot point, don’t you think? I’ve already been bitten.”
“The point is that I respect you and there is a difference. Biting only turns you, but when I mark you, I’m claiming you. Showing everyone that we’re one.”
She lifted up and brushed her lips against his. “Thank you.”
He smoothed back her hair with one hand. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes! Fuck, yes.”
Xander pulled out of her and before she could protest, he spun her around to face the tree. The slight downward hill made him just low enough that he could slide up inside her from behind. He placed his left hand on the trunk of the tree above her head for balance and his other came around to finger her clit as he pumped in and out of her. He held onto his control as he waited for the telltale signs that she was going to come. At the first spasm of her inner muscles, he bit her, clasping his jaws around the back of her neck gently. He held on, increasing the pressure of his teeth as he worked his fingers faster against the nub between her legs. Her body shook against his, and just as he could tell she was starting to come down, he grabbed her hips and pushed himself as deep as he could go. His motions turned jerky as his cock flexed, his come shooting inside her as he kept moving. She cried out before collapsing against the tree, trembling in his arms.
“Are you alright, baby?” He smoothed her hair off one shoulder, smiling at the indentation of his teeth in her skin.
“I’m fantastic” she breathed.
He turned her around to face him, his cock slipping out of her. He dipped his head and kissed her, a gentle brush of his lips over hers.
“D
oes this mean I can come home with you?”
She laughed and pulled out of his embrace, backing away from him. His gaze traveled over her full breast, her curved stomach, and rounded hips and found himself getting hard all over again.
“If you can beat me, I’ll consider it.”
She took off, shifting with a leap and Xander chased after her. In his wolf form, he nipped at her hind end, and shot forward, determined to win his prize.
He reached her back door first and turned in several circles excitedly.
Greer shook her head, and when they were human once more, opened the back door. “I let you win.”
“I’ll take it.”
The moment the door closed, Xander spun her around and kissed her, only she broke it too soon.
“Wow, Xander, is that all you think about?”
“Kissing you? Touching you? Loving you? Yeah, actually, that is all I’ve thought about for two weeks.”
She backed away from him, a sly smile on her face. “Well, right now, I want a nice, hot bath.”
Greer disappeared inside her room and he waited, listening as the sound of rushing water reached his ears. She poked her head out a second later and crooked her finger at him.
“Aren’t you going to join me?”
Hell yeah he was.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Greer sat across from Xander in her deep, jetted bath tub, bubbles covering the top of the water and everything interesting.
“I’m going to smell like a damn flower.”
“I told you that you could join me in my bath. And I enjoy bubbles.”
Xander slipped his hands under the water and she felt him tug her to him. She turned around so her back was against his chest, her ass cradled against his groin. His hands ran up her arms and his fingers started kneading the muscles of her shoulders. She moaned as his ministration turned her bones to jelly.
“Why today?” he asked suddenly.
“What?”
“Why did you let me in today? I’ve been trying for days and you just kept avoiding me. Was it about what I said? About loving you?”
