by Nina Croft
“Tell him I’m coming to see him. Tell him I need to talk about”—she took a deep breath—“werewolves.”
She shut off the call before Lissa could say anything else. After pulling on jeans and a sweater, she crossed to the window and peered down. Still no car, but she already knew Bastian hadn’t come back. Perching on the bed, she accessed her emails on her phone and found the one Jason had sent her yesterday. It repeated the information he’d told her, but also gave the address of Bastian’s other home. She took a note of it. If he wouldn’t come to her, she would go hunt him down. But first, she needed to talk to Daniel.
“So you’re ready to talk?” Daniel said. “It took you long enough.”
“Six measly months,” she muttered. “Hardly a lifetime to come to terms with what you have to admit is a pretty world-shattering life change. And if I understand rightly, it took you six years.”
“Yeah, but I had an evil pack leader to deal with while you’ve got a great one.”
“Big head.” But he did have a point. Her brother was pretty cool.
Daniel led her through to the sitting room where Lissa was curled up in the corner of the couch. Julia went across and pushed up Lissa’s sleeves. “Just checking for rope burns.”
“Ha-ha.” Lissa said.
“Your wife was a bit too taken with the bondage stuff last night—I thought she might have convinced you to try it out.”
Daniel’s lips twitched. “Not yet, but you never know.”
“Ugh.”
“So,” he said, “you want to talk? Does this mean you’ve come to terms with it?”
“I’m not sure. But at least I’m willing to talk about it and maybe stop pretending in between bouts of FMS that I’m normal.”
“FMS?”
“Full moon syndrome,” Lissa said from the sofa where she was curled up. “She gets it bad.”
“Okay, so what do you want to know?” He’d been standing gazing out of the window, now he came and sat on the sofa next to Lissa and opposite her.
Most important things first. “You told me that it’s against the rules to tell…normal people about us, but there must be exceptions. After all, Lissa knows.”
“Ah,” he said. “Now I understand the change of heart. This is to do with a man.”
Lissa sniggered. “You’re so shallow.”
“Not so much shallow as focused.”
Daniel sat back. Obviously, it was not an easy question to answer. “Things are changing. The pack has always maintained the utmost secrecy. It’s how we’ve survived. But you’re right—there are people who know of our existence, people who live on the edges of our world. And not only people.”
“What do you mean, not only people?”
“Has it ever occurred to you that if we exist, then what else does?”
Yeah, every time she looked at her Buffy mug. “Maybe.”
“I’m new and I’m still learning, but there’s a whole crazy world out there.”
“So…have you met anything else, you know for certain.”
“No, but I’ve been approached, things hinted at. So far, I’ve resisted because I’m still settling in, but I’m guessing Ethan dealt with some of them. Now they want the same arrangement with me.”
“And that’s not going to happen?”
“Probably not. I’m not Ethan.”
“No, thank God.”
But then her brother was no ordinary werewolf. He was freaking super wolf. He was a scientist and he’d used his knowledge to investigate the changes in himself. He’d found changes to his DNA and taken them further. Apparently, werewolves gained strength as they aged, and in effect Daniel had aged himself about five hundred years. He’d also found a cure for the silver poisoning. Silver was the only thing that could harm a werewolf. Silver knife wounds were hard to heal and a silver bullet could kill. He’d given Julia the cure, so now silver couldn’t hurt her, but she’d refused the other stuff—she had no urge to make her wolf stronger.
“I take it this is all about your new neighbor, Sebastian Crane.”
She bit her lip. “Has Jason spoken to you about him?”
His gaze sharpened. “No. But what he did say was that if you didn’t, then he would. What is it I need to know?”
“Actually, I’m not sure. But he’s been holding out on me. I sort of thought that if I tell him my secrets maybe he’ll tell me his.”
“I think your secrets might be a little…bigger.”
“Maybe. Maybe his are nothing more than wanting to get away from a woman and a lifestyle he found distasteful.”
“What did Jason find?”
She told him about the apartment, Melanie, then she took a deep breath and told him about Colin.
“I’ve met the guy,” Daniel said. “He lives on the fringes and has some awareness of our world and you’re saying he knows Sebastian?”
“He arranges fights for him.”
Daniel’s eyes widened. “Shit. I knew I’d seen him before. He just looked a little different.”
“Different?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this, but she was through with hiding from the truth.
“He’d just taken on two of my guys and beaten them. Of course, they were in human form, but all the same you know how strong most of us are.”
She did.
“He took a beating, was pretty much covered in blood, which is probably why I didn’t recognize him last night, but those eyes. And does he have a tat?”
“Yeah, a sort of Celtic thing on his chest.”
“That’s him. They call him Warlock on the fight circuit and he’s never lost. Shit, he was good, this sort of mix of martial arts and downright viciousness.” He glanced across at Julia. “What have you gotten yourself into?”
“Nothing. He’s an accountant. Maybe he finds it a little boring and needs to blow off steam.”
“Yeah, he does that all right. By beating up two werewolves at the same time.”
“And let’s not forget the tying up women and whipping them.” Lissa put in.
“He doesn’t!” she protested. “Or at least he hasn’t—not with me anyway.” She so did not want to have this conversation with her brother. “He’s nice and sweet and…” And Leloo hated him.
“You’ve thought of something else,” Daniel said.
“Leloo hates him.”
“Leloo?”
“You know my”—she took a deep breath—“wolf. Every time he comes close, she growls. Except for a week when she didn’t do anything, but last night she woke again. She scratched me—it hurt. Is that normal?”
“I don’t know. It might just be your wolf growing in strength and letting you know she’s there.”
“Did it happen with you?”
He thought for a moment. “Only with Lissa, and my wolf liked Lissa. A lot.”
That didn’t help much. “You’ll ask Joe.”
“Yes. So do you intend to keep seeing this guy?”
“If he hasn’t run away. I…like him.”
“You don’t think it’s a coincidence him turning up as your next-door neighbor?”
Did she? “No.” Of course, she’d spent much of the night going over what Jason had told her, but she couldn’t work out how he could be after anything from her. She was one hundred percent sure he didn’t know her little secret. “I think he’s looking to change a lifestyle he doesn’t like anymore. He’s an accountant, maybe that’s who he really is, who he wants to be.”
“As opposed to a vicious cage fighter who owns a whip,” Lissa said.
She flashed her friend a dark glance. “You’re not helping here.”
“Just don’t want you making a mistake, getting involved in the wrong type.”
“Great advice from Mrs. I-Married-a-Werewolf.” She peered at Daniel through narrowed eyes. “You’re not going to go all dominant on me are you—tell me I can’t see him?”
Daniel studied her for a minute, and she resisted the urge to squirm. For the first time, it
really struck home that while Daniel was her brother, he was also the Alpha werewolf and leader of the pack. She’d never vowed her allegiance to him, though she knew all the other pack members had. It seemed too weird with her brother. But if she reached out with her senses she could feel the roil of power emanating from him and a feral light glinted in his silver eyes. She wondered if he would push it, and if she could actually fight him on this. If he told her not to see Bastian again, she was going to find out. Then he shrugged and the air cleared.
“I hoped you were going to settle on a wolf; they would have been able to…deal with you.”
“Deal with me? Never going to happen. I’m not into doggy sex.” Though as she said the words she had a flashback to her on all fours, while Bastian plunged into her from behind, and a flush heated her skin.
“You’re blushing,” Lissa said.
“Am not.”
“Am.” She grinned at Daniel. “I’m betting your little sister likes it doggy with Bastian.”
“Not something I needed to know,” Daniel said. “But no, I won’t order you not to see him, not that I couldn’t if I wanted to.”
“Yeah, you and whose army?”
He smirked. “I could lock you up. We have a silver cell just waiting for disobedient wolves. Or I could give you a couple of minders like Lissa.”
She didn’t like either of those options. “But you won’t.”
“No. The fact is you’re changing, coming to accept what you are—”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far.”
“I would. I was losing faith that would happen, and I can only presume it’s down to this man, though why I can’t see.” He studied her some more. “I’ll tell you what.”
She had an inkling that she wasn’t going to like this. “What?”
“You come to the pack meeting before the full-moon run and put your case for making this man a friend to the pack. And we’ll go from there.”
“That will mean I have to run with the pack afterward.” There wouldn’t be time to get anywhere else safe enough to shift and run.
“Yup.”
“And if they say yes?”
“We’ll need to ask a few more questions. If he checks out, you can tell him. But I’d like to meet up with him first.”
“You would?”
“Just a friendly chat.”
“I’ll see what he says.”
“And, Julia, be careful.”
An hour later, she stood at the concierge’s desk in a super-swanky apartment building south of the river. She’d been back home, but as she’d suspected, there was no sign of Bastian.
She was going to have to hunt him down.
“Try again,” she said.
He’d already rung twice and not gotten any answer, but something told her Bastian was there. She had to tell him she didn’t care about the Melanie thing, that she was willing and able to help him put that part of his life behind him. But she was feeling a little jumpy.
When she’d first met Bastian, she’d thought he was a nice, normal guy, if a stunningly gorgeous one. But this place must be worth millions. Bastian was not normal. Maybe he was accountant for some huge company or for the mafia or something similar. Maybe she should have waited for Jason’s report.
But she needed to see him.
“Just one more time,” she asked, giving him her sweetest smile—the one that showed her dimples.
He tried. This time there was obviously an answer.
“You can go up to the penthouse,” he said to her after putting down the phone. “Use the elevator directly in front of you.”
“Thank you.” The elevator only had three buttons. B presumably for basement, G for ground and a P for Penthouse. She pressed the P.
A few seconds later, the elevator doors opened directly into the apartment. It must cover the whole floor. She revised her estimate of the property’s value upward. Bastian stood staring out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, his back to her, showing no sign that he even knew of her presence.
But he knew.
Inside her, Leloo’s hackles rose.
She stepped inside and peered around. The room was huge, and it was…black. And red. It reminded her a little of the dungeon at Mel’s Dive and that thought did absolutely nothing to dispel her worries.
Bastian matched the room. Still in his black leather pants and T-shirt, she wondered if he’d even been to bed at all.
She walked up behind him, her boots clicking on the marble of the floor, but still he didn’t turn. For a few seconds, she stared out of the window. The view was magnificent, the whole city spread out below her. But she was procrastinating.
As she rested a hand on his arm, he flinched, then turned to face her, and she gasped. His cheekbone was split, one eye puffy, his lower lip cut and swollen. Amateur boxing? She didn’t think so. He was still beautiful but tinged with violence.
And there was an aloofness about him, a don’t-touch aura, that made her drop her arm and place her hands carefully by her sides. His expression was empty, his eyes the only color in his pale face.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Jason gave me this address,” she said.
“That’s not what I asked. What do you want, Julia? What do you hope to gain by coming here?”
She chewed on her lip for a moment. “We need to talk.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “We do? About what?”
“Us.”
He looked her up and down, his eyes still cold. “There is no us.”
Shock ripped through her at his words, followed quickly by anger. She gritted her teeth, and her hands fisted at her sides. “You reckon?”
“We slept together a few times. That hardly makes us a couple.”
He was trying to chase her away and as soon as the thought entered her mind, she couldn’t banish it. Instead, the idea grew stronger. He wanted her out of there and quickly. Before what?
Before he gave way and kissed her? Or was that wishful thinking on her part.
She took a step back and studied him, trying to work out who was the real Bastian. This scary badass in his black leather, or the Bastian who was scared of heights but had still tried to save her when she fell. The Bastian she had grown to love. At the thought, she stopped short. Love? She’d known she was coming to care for him, but love was a whole load of scariness.
The truth was she had come to love him and for a second, she had to fight the urge to run. But maybe she was in love with someone who didn’t even exist.
“I thought we were friends,” she said.
Something flickered in his eyes, a softening but only for the briefest of seconds. He waved a hand down his attire. “Do I look like anyone’s friend? You’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
“Well, whose fault was that?” she snapped. Her anger rising again. “Who came around my place in his pink shirts and his I-need-to-borrow-some-milk routine? And the my-girlfriend-doesn’t-understand-me thing was a great touch.” She stepped up close and jabbed him in the chest. “So Melanie doesn’t understand you?”
She thought he might have flinched again, but then his body went tense.
“You really want to know why I came to see you that morning? Why I pretended to live in that god-awful fucking house in that cutesy little street?”
His face wasn’t expressionless now but wore a sneer of disdain. Something dark moved behind his eyes, and suddenly she didn’t want to know. She wanted to get out of there.
But at the same time, she wanted to reach out to him, stroke away his pain, save him from the darkness. Leloo whined; she wanted to save Bastian as well. But from what?
“Come on, Julia,” he almost crooned the words, low and husky. “Don’t you really want to know why a man like me would make out with a woman like you?”
She swallowed. “Tell me.”
“I made a bet.”
Chapter Fourteen
Shock blossomed across her pretty face, and Bastian wanted desperately to tak
e the words back. Except he had to find a way to make her leave him of her own accord. Then she wouldn’t be back. And that was important, because he didn’t think he had the strength to do this twice.
Aw, poor Bastian. But you do know if you tell her about it then the bet will be null and void.
It was anyway, but he didn’t plan to tell her about the real bet, that would take rather too much of the truth and no way was Julia going to enter into his fucked-up world. He would do her a favor, kill her brother, and her links to this world would be severed. She could have the nice, normal life she deserved. Even if her brother didn’t harm her himself, the connection would always be there, bringing her to the attention of the likes of Dante. She would never be safe, free from danger. He could give her that at least.
Bastian, the saint. Savior of damsels in distress. So you’ll kill the werewolf to free her, but not me. And we’ve been friends for how long?
“You made a bet?” Julia dragged him from his inner monologue. “About me?” Her brows drew together in a fierce frown. “What sort of bet?”
“I bet Melanie that I could get a good woman to say the words ‘I love you.’”
The frown faded as she obviously went over the words in her mind. “Why?”
He gave a casual shrug. “No real reason. We were bored. Melanie thought it would be amusing to see if we could dupe some sweet girl into believing I was a nice guy.”
“You set out to make me fall in love with you? And then what?”
“And then I would have turned around and walked away from your boring, middle-class life. Back to where I belong.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You found me boring?”
“Oh yeah. All that cute vanilla sex. You saw last night what I really need.”
“You’re a very good actor.”
“I know.” She appeared way too calm. He’d expected her—needed her—to get into a temper and run away. Instead, she was studying him intently, and he had to fight back the urge to squirm. She needed to come to the conclusion he was a waste-of-space bastard and leave and never come back. And that thought made him…
Aw, I’m going to cry, really I am. I honestly never thought you had it in you.
“Fuck off,” he growled.
