by Michele Hauf
“Oh, my God, Daisy, you’re so gorgeous.” A kiss there at the base of her throat, and he laid his head against her skin. “I can feel your pleasure vibrating in your body.” He slid his fingers between her legs, and the slip of one of them glancing over her clitoris sparked the orgasm anew. “Come again, faery lover. Mmm, I love to hold you close.”
Her body grew liquid within Beck’s embrace. The room indeed smelled like winter. Though Daisy had never thought to describe the scent of her dust like that before, it fit. Riding the orgasm, she melted forward onto Beck’s strong arms and chest, nestling her head on his shoulder and sighing. Wrapping her legs about his hips, she then curled her wings around to hug them both.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“What for? I like to turn you on, Daisy. It turns me on. That doesn’t need any thanks.”
“Thanks for being someone I could trust enough to do this with. That meant a lot to me. I’ve never come like that before. It was amazing.”
“I’ll say.”
All of a sudden, Daisy’s body jerked without volition. Her gut clenched. The tips of her fingers tingled. And she knew what wanted to happen. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?”
She ran toward the bathroom. “Don’t follow me!” Closing the door, just as her wings folded down, a wolf tail popped out. “Damn it!”
“Daisy?”
She tilted her head against the door, sensing Beck stood just on the other side.
“Your wolf?” he asked carefully.
“Yes. Just uh, give me a minute.”
“Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
She spread her fingers over the door and closed her eyes. Hearing Beck land on the bed and puff up a pillow, she couldn’t help but smile. So the worst had happened. Before her lover. He hadn’t freaked. And she hadn’t freaked. Too much.
Everything was going to be okay with Beck. Whether or not she ever got her faery and wolf to play nice together.
Chapter 16
The phone on the nightstand vibrated. Beck grabbed it. Daisy’s phone was encased in hand-tooled brown leather. Probably something her dad had made for her.
She was still in the bathroom. Poor girl. She’d been nervous about showing her wings to him and risking her wolf sneaking out—and it had.
He checked the incoming call info.
“Can’t a guy get a break?” he said. “Seriously. The man is stalking me.”
The bathroom door opened, and a naked faery wolf without a tail or wings wandered out to the edge of the bed.
“It rang while you were in there.” He handed her the phone. “Still ringing.”
She kissed him, then answered. “Hey, Daddy.”
The dad. That man had impeccably discomforting timing.
Beck sat up, his feet hitting the hardwood floor. At least the old man hadn’t intruded on their pairing last night. Or this morning.
“What?” Daisy’s fingers flexed near her thigh. She paced beside the bed. “When? How is he? I’ll be there as soon as I can get there.”
She began collecting her clothing from the floor. Beck sensed her urgency and scented her sudden fear. “Daisy, what is it?”
“It’s my brother Stryke. He’s been hurt by a hunter. Hit with a silver arrow.”
“Ah hell.” Beck joined in the clothing search and pulled up his jeans. “Is he okay?”
“Yes, he was just grazed. Mom called in a witch to help him get through the silver poisoning. But I’ve got to go to my parents’ house right now.”
She jumped on one foot as she pulled up her jeans and buttoned them. Beck tossed her the sweater he’d pulled off her last night. “Thanks. I’m sorry to leave like this.”
“Don’t be. Your family needs you. I’d go with you but—”
“But that’s okay.” They knew Beck would not be welcome in her father’s home. “Will you lock up for me? I have to leave right now. But you can stay. Shower. Whatever.”
He nodded. “Call me when you get a chance, okay?”
“I will!” she called as she ran for the front door and shoved her bare feet into the pack boots on the rubber tray. “Last night was great! We need to do it again. Er, without the wings and tail fiasco, I mean. Talk to you soon!”
The front door closed. Beck collapsed backward onto the bed and closed his eyes. Last night had been great.
But should he have been out looking for the hunter with the silver arrows instead of here? He might have prevented her brother’s injury. Hell, the brother could have been killed.
Arrows? Was that another weapon in the hunter’s arsenal, or was there more than one bloodthirsty human wandering the local woods in search of werewolves?
* * *
The family had gathered in the Saint-Pierre living room. The vast country cabin featured an open layout, the cathedral ceilings two and a half stories high. The south wall that looked out over the nearby stream was entirely windows. Daisy had spent many a sunny summer afternoon swimming in the stream that boasted a waterfall a half mile west. Now it was iced over until March, or even April.
Stryke lay on the comfy leather couch in wolf form. Daisy beelined for him and hugged her brother. “Oh, Stryke.” She nuzzled her face into his brown variegated fur. He smelled like winter and blood. “I can’t believe this happened to you. Is he going to be okay?”
Her mother sat beside her and pulled aside Daisy’s hair from her face. “He will be. He just needs to rest. I sent Kelyn to the witch for more wolfsbane. Dez is the keeper of the Book of All Spells and is very wise. I trust her. She said we need to keep feeding it to Stryke to counteract the poison.”
“Wolfsbane? Isn’t that dangerous to us?”
“If used incorrectly. In the right dose,” her mother explained, “it can heal. I don’t want any of my children going into the forest anymore.”
Daisy cast her eyes over Trouble and Blade, who sat on the other couch. Trouble’s fist bounced on his jittering knee, contained anger tightened his jaw. Blade’s silence was always stunningly chilling. Her father stood in the kitchen, arms crossed high upon his chest.
“That’s an impossible request, Rissa,” Malakai said. “If they stick to my land, they’ll be safe. Why was Stryke out on public land anyway?”
Trouble tilted his head back against the couch, looking toward the ceiling. “He was wasted.”
“Since when does Stryke drink?” Daisy asked. He was the cool, calm and collected brother. The wise one the other brothers always went to for advice. “Blade?”
The darkest of the family closed his eyes and shook his head.
“It’s a woman,” Trouble offered. “She was snarking about him to her friends. He’s been really down.”
“Idiot,” Kai muttered. Then he looked directly at Daisy. “Daisy Blu. Outside. Now.”
“But I want to sit with Stryke.” She leaned across her brother’s body and nuzzled her face against one of his soft tufted ears.
Kai strode toward the side door. “I won’t repeat myself.”
Feeling resentment at her father’s command, Daisy reluctantly rose and wandered out behind him. Since she’d left the family home years ago, she’d expected more independence. It seemed her father would never grasp the concept that he could no longer tell his daughter how to live her life.
The formidable werewolf wore a flannel shirt and jeans. He’d strode out barefoot onto the heated concrete sidewalk that led from the house to his workshop. It was a great place to return to while still in wolf form to warm the chilled footpads.
Kai paced a few lengths, then turned on Daisy. “I thought I told you to stay the hell away from Beckett Severo?”
Daisy cringed from his tone.
“I can smell him all over you.”
Shoot. Should have showered before she’d come here. Big mistake.
Her father stepped closer, using the intimidation tactic that he often used with his sons. She’d never garnered harsh words from him. Had always been his
little girl. Could do anything and get away with it.
And she wasn’t about to stop.
“You can’t tell me who I can see, Daddy. I’m a grown woman. I have relationships. I—” She wouldn’t go so far as to say she had sex with men. He knew that. “I wish you’d respect my privacy and my need to make my own life.”
“There is no privacy within the pack.”
“There should be! How’s a girl to ever find a boyfriend if she’s always got her father breathing down her neck?”
“I don’t do that!”
“Yeah? Well, you’re doing it now. And besides, Beck is a good man.”
“Who sneers at the idea of a pack. He may be good—hell, I respected his father. The boy came from good stock—but he’s not right for you, Daisy.”
“I’m not going to listen to this. You’re spoiling everything. I came here to support Stryke, and now you’re making this about me.”
“I’m...” Kai blew out a breath, jammed his hands at his hips and looked aside. “You’re right. We need to focus on Stryke and making sure he heals. We’ll talk about this later.”
“I’m not going to be here later.”
Daisy marched back into the house. But once in the kitchen, her bravery waned. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she neared the hallway. From behind she felt Blade’s arm slip around her shoulder, and he led her outside through the front door and pulled her into his embrace.
Blade was the second-oldest of the brothers, but so different from his siblings in his darkness and utter stillness. He moved like a shadow, and most paranormals feared him without even knowing him. His vampire was wild yet controlled, a fierce warrior. He’d suffered for his vampire’s hunger. And he had the scars to prove it.
But he’d ever been gentle with her, his older sister. And she and him were close because they were each part faery. Yet Blade had mastered his faery side beyond Daisy’s expectations for her own faery.
“Why the tears?” he asked.
“Oh, Blade, sometimes Daddy can be such a hard-ass.”
“It’s because of the guy I smell all over you, isn’t it?”
“Seriously? I should have showered before coming here.”
She hugged her brother, who stood in a shirt and jeans, no shoes, despite the below-zero weather. His black hair, which was so black it gleamed blue in the pale daylight, spilled across her cheek.
“It’s Beckett Severo,” she confessed to him. “He’s not in a pack, and that is driving Daddy crazy. Blade, I think I’m falling in love with him. Well, I’m already in love with him. But I just stumbled into serious like, too.”
“Like,” he muttered. Blade knew Daisy’s definition of love and like were very different things. “Really?”
“Yes, I like everything about him. And while it should be fun and exciting and silly and sexy, Daddy is making it so not-fun, and he’s ruining it.”
Her brother kissed the top of her head. “I’m pretty sure that’s what fathers are supposed to do. How about the men who believe they’ve the worth to woo their daughters? But did you ever think maybe Dad does it because he wants to challenge Beck?”
“I don’t understand.”
“If the Severo man can stand up to Malakai Saint-Pierre for you, then he’d be a worthy wolf. I’m guessing that’s in Dad’s thought process.”
“Yeah? Well, he needs to stop it and let me have some fun. It’s not like I’m picking a mate.”
“You’re not?”
“No. I don’t know. No. I don’t think Beck has that in mind, either.”
“Then you should ask him. Because if you don’t, Dad will. Or maybe your brothers need to ask him what his intentions are?”
“Blade, no. Stay out of my love life, will you? Why does this have to be so difficult? Just let me have this with Beck.”
She pushed past him to head back into the house, but his final words reached her.
“Sometimes family can be a bitch, Daisy Blu.”
* * *
Beck strolled into the small pawn shop off of Lake Street in Minneapolis. He’d begun to search for silver dealers, and after seeing just how many in the Twin Cities did sell, he decided to try a different tact.
A gruff, leather-clad, bandanna-wearing shop owner strode out from the back room. The beaded fringe before the door clattered and slid over his shoulders. He looked the classic bearded, motorcycle-riding bit of well-worn human who probably worshipped Lynyrd Skynyrd and never met a beer he didn’t like.
Thinking about the band rushed a sudden and overwhelming heat to Beck’s heart. He gripped his chest, so visceral the feeling was as it quivered the muscles in his jaws and tugged at the corners of his eyes.
His father had listened to the ’70s rock band all the time. Severo had been what this man was before him now. Easy, laid-back, seasoned and worldly-wise.
“Help you, son?”
What Beck wouldn’t give for one more moment standing before his father, waiting to hear whatever it was he wanted to say to him. Whether it was to suggest he buy land in the country instead of getting a house in town, or to tell him about the time when he’d had to escape a vampire tribe that had kept him and his parents captive, only to then witness the hunters slay his parents.
His father had been the strongest man Beck had ever known. Physically and mentally.
“Boy?”
“Uh.” Beck shook off the memories that threatened to release tears. “I’m looking for some silver. The purest stuff you’ve got.”
“All sold out. Don’t get a lot of it lately. Silver is trading at a prime price.”
“Actually, I’m trying to find someone who may have bought some from here and altered it for a shotgun shell or an arrow.”
“Why? You a cop? You don’t look like a cop.”
Beck raked his fingers through his tousled hair. “I’m not a cop. I’m just trying to solve a puzzle. Do you get a lot of hunter types in here looking for silver?”
“What would a hunter do with silver? Unless he’s hunting werewolves, eh?” The man chuckled, and shrugged off the joke as he walked around behind the glass counter and slid aside a velvet tray filled with gold rings. “You going werewolf hunting, boy?”
“I can’t honestly tell if you’re joshing me or if you’re serious. Do you believe in werewolves, mister?”
“If you watch the news, you would. You hear about that big white wolf monster that’s stalking the hunters?”
“The ghost wolf. I think it’s the other way around. The hunters are going after the wolves. The ghost wolf is trying to protect his own.”
“Aren’t you all save-the-wolves?”
Beck’s eyes landed a bumper sticker under the counter glass that touted Will hunt for fur. He realized that this man would probably shoot a wolf if he had the chance. His hackles tightened, but he gritted his jaw so he wouldn’t growl.
The man shook his head. “I’m just having fun with you, boy. But no. No one looking to make silver bullets.”
Beck pulled out the tissue he’d tucked into a pocket and spread it on the counter. “You ever see anything like this?”
The man bent to study the glass bead, then grabbed a jeweler’s loop to give it a closer inspection. “Is that silver inside crystal?”
“Glass. The glass shatters on impact, and the silver leaks out.”
The man straightened. Now his look grew hard, and Beck scented an edge of fear. “I think you should leave, boy.”
“Does that mean you have seen it before?”
“It means I don’t entertain idiots who think to hunt nonexistent creatures. I suppose you’re packing a stake for Dracula, too?”
Beck swept up the tissue and backed away. “Thanks for the help. Sorry to have bothered you.”
* * *
Denton proved a better aim with a bow and arrow than the modern rifle he’d attempted to use previously. Though the rifle had served him a kill, it hadn’t been the breed of wolf the spell required. And that other wolf had been there. Sna
rled and snapped at him. He’d decided to let the dead one lie. He couldn’t use it.
It had been the first time Denton had killed for a reason beyond to bring food to the table. And he wasn’t much of a hunter, which explained his thin frame. But he’d made five kills in the months he’d been in this horrible time.
“Only one left.”
He eyed the arrow, which had a glass point filled with silver. He’d gotten it one hundred years from now. But he only needed it to work once, in this year, and finally he could concoct the allbeast spell.
Chapter 17
Daisy finally cleaned up a photograph using Photoshop. The white wolf stood on powerful hind legs. Its head was ruffled with thick white fur. Ebony talons scythed the air. Its eyes glowed red.
She couldn’t publish this photo. It exposed her lover for a monster.
But not publishing it would compromise her chances at winning the internship. This was truly a prize-winning photo. Dare she? Did she really need it? Maybe journalism wasn’t her thing?
She needed this internship to finally prove her independence to her father.
* * *
The day had been long and cold. Icy rain slicked the tarmac. Yes, he lived in Minnesota. Cold was a natural state six months out of the year. Why hadn’t his parents moved to Florida to raise him? He could seriously work the beach-bum vibe.
A stop for groceries on the way home was necessary, but Beck wasn’t feeling motivated after the shop owner’s rude treatment. Though he felt deserving of it. How to ask around about silver bullets without sounding like a complete wacko?
The blinking blue neon sign outside the Blue Bass bar—the last dive bar before Burnham—called to him. A shot of whiskey to warm his bones sounded more interesting than squeezing oranges in the produce section.
Inside the small bar paneled in wood timbers and blinking madly with various beer signs hung all over the walls, a few men played a game of pool under the watchful milky eye of the bar’s mascot, a stuffed blue bass. One man sat at the bar, his head bowed and long black hair concealing his face.
