Embracing the Wolf

by Felicity Heaton

  Kat rolled as Amon rose behind Paul, eyes flashing gold and his growl splitting the air. His claws ripped through the back of Paul’s neck in a swift devastating arc. Blood splattered up the wall.

  Paul wobbled on his feet and then crumpled to the ground.

  Kat crouched, breathing hard to control her desire to change completely and her need to vomit at the sight of Paul’s neck snapping.

  Her gaze crept to Paul where he lay in a pool of his own blood.

  Dead.

  ****

  Chapter 4

  Amon threw his head back and howled at the night sky, primal in his strength and raw in his power. Kat cowered, awed and drawn to him by a pull so strong that she couldn’t ignore it. She didn’t want to. His howl called to her blood, to every fibre of her being, and said that he needed her and he would have her. She belonged to him.

  Standing, Kat met his eyes and tilted her chin back. He stared at her. Her breathing turned heavy, her own hunger and love for him growing more intense the longer she looked into his golden eyes.

  Amon stalked towards her, his coat flaring out to reveal a tight t-shirt and jeans that emphasised his lithe body and made her fingers itch to explore. He lowered his head and looked up at her through his lashes. His eyes narrowed. When he was within arm’s reach, he growled. It sent a shiver of need through her. She kept still but dropped her gaze to the ground and turned subservient. Amon was still a danger to her. Even though he hadn’t turned completely, he was still close to the edge. One wrong move and she could end up like Paul.

  Amon leaned in towards her neck and breathed deep. His lips coursed over her skin. He was tasting her, checking her identity and willingness. She was willing. More than willing. He growled again.

  Kat returned with one of her own, instinct controlling her actions. His hands grasped her upper arms. It was difficult for her to avoid tensing. The more compliant she was, the less likely he was to hurt her.

  His tongue traced a hard line up her throat.

  She shivered and moaned, her eyelids falling to half-mast.

  He started to growl but his grip slackened. His knees buckled. Kat grabbed his arm to steady him and placed it around her shoulders. His show of weakness shocked some reality back into her. They had to get out of here.

  “Amon?” she whispered.

  His eyes met hers again. Still golden and deadly.

  “We have to split,” she said and tenderly brushed the bloodied strands of his black hair from his face. “We’ll get you back to the warehouse. Leyton will help.”

  He shook his head, defeat surfacing in his eyes for the briefest of moments.

  “Don’t you dare give up on me now!” She almost growled the words and started walking. Her senses dulled when she changed back to her human form, her canines shrinking back into place.

  She had accepted what she was and had embraced the wolf. Amon couldn’t give up now. She wanted to mate with him and save them both. It couldn’t be too late. It just couldn’t.

  The walk back to the warehouse was slow, Amon’s weight on her shoulders almost too much to bear. She took the time to check him over as best she could. A nasty jagged cut ran from his temple into his hair on the left side of his head, and a deep gash on his right cheekbone. Paul had pistol-whipped him. The image of Amon killing Paul flickered across her eyes. He had been protecting her. He had killed to defend her. If he was trying to keep her safe from harm, he had to know who she was and that she was his mate.

  The warehouse loomed ahead of them. She glanced at Amon. The rest of the wounds that she could see were superficial. His weakness had to be from the head wound, or perhaps his transformation into a feral violent creature. She shook away such a terrible thought and focussed on getting Amon to safety. Everything would be all right. She wasn’t going to lose him.

  Kat’s eyes hurt when they entered the bright white room. The glass walled steel cage stood in the middle of it, exactly as she had remembered. She led Amon over to it and he released her when they were close. He walked in through the open door and she followed him. There wasn’t even anywhere to sit.

  “Where’s Leyton?” she said, realising that she hadn’t seen anyone on the way in. No guards. No Leyton.

  Amon shook his head again and held onto one of the steel bars as though he needed it to steady himself.

  “Gone?” she whispered. Leyton had left him? She couldn’t believe that.

  “At my command,” Amon said and his fingers tensed around the bar. His face contorted in pain. He released the bar and backed away from her. His eyes were wide and full of fear. She had never seen him look so scared and lost. “I changed Kat... when I was back... I came to find you...”

  “Shh,” she said and reached out to him, touching his shoulder. There was a long rip in the black material of his coat that she hadn’t noticed before. Had Paul done it? She removed Amon’s coat from him, wanting to check whether he was cut anywhere on his body.

  He stood motionless, his eyes closed and face pale while she removed his black t-shirt. She kept her touch nothing more than a light caress as she moved around him. Not a scratch on his chest or back. Her gaze rose to his temple and the cut. She needed to tend to it. Did they have a medical kit around here?

  When she stopped in front of him again, Amon’s eyes were as dark as midnight. She was relieved to see that he was back in control again. It lightened her heart and eased her fear. She brushed her fingers across his temple, frowning at the wound. He flinched and inhaled sharply.

  “Sorry,” she whispered and swept away the long tendrils of his black hair so she could see the cut more clearly.

  Her eyes met his again and her fingers paused, tangling in his hair with her fingertips against his scalp. Her lips parted and she dropped her gaze to his mouth. Leaning forwards, she closed her eyes and kissed him. Her heart skipped a beat at the slow kiss. Her beast rose as she poured her feelings into it—love, acceptance, fear. Everything in her heart went into the sensual glide of her mouth against his.

  His hands claimed her upper arms and held her tight, as though he feared she was going to stop kissing him and wanted to keep her there. She’d never stop kissing him. The light caress of their lips stirred her heart like nothing else could, filling her with warmth and shivers of anticipation. She resisted deepening it, wanting to keep it slow and gentle, a reaffirmation of past feelings that they both needed.

  She ran her other hand up his arm to his neck and leaned into him, pressing her body against his broad chest. His heat was incredible, seeping through her clothes into her body. A shift of her hips and she felt the evidence of his hunger and arousal. The thought that he wanted her now as badly as he had ever done reignited the need that she had always felt for him, an intense undeniable craving.

  Her tongue traced along his lower lip.

  Amon jerked backwards with a growl and pushed her away. Kat’s eyes widened, her mind reeling as she struggled to understand what was wrong. He shoved her again, half screaming, half growling at her. The horrible sound made her take a step back. His eyes opened to reveal bright yellow orbs of malice. His teeth grew.

  “Run!” he shouted, pushing her again, desperation and fear written in every line of his face. “Run, Kat! I can’t stop it. It’s too late!”

  With a pained howl, Amon clutched his head and fell to his knees so hard that the entire cage shook. He flung his head back and his claws extended and darkened, digging into his scalp. So much pain and suffering. It was all her fault. She couldn’t leave him now when he needed her most.

  Quiet and resolved, Kat knelt before him. His eyes were screwed shut and blood ran down from the points on the side of his head where his claws dug into his flesh.

  She wasn’t afraid of anything that might happen or where this would take her. Slowly, she reached out to him.

  “I’m not going to run,” she whispered and his eyes opened, narrow pupils fixing on her. Her hands edged towards his chest. “I’ll never leave you again.”

>   Her fingers brushed his pectorals. He trembled beneath her touch and she could sense his struggle and fight against the change. She trailed her hands up to his cheek, grazing it lightly and hoping it would give him the strength to keep fighting to be with her. Finally, her hands covered his and she eased them away from his head. He stared at her, his look boyish and scared, laced with a hint of disbelief.

  Taking a deep breath, she told herself that she wanted this and him. She had to do this.

  Kat brought his hands to her chest and turned them, pressing his palms against her breasts.

  Amon growled and squeezed them through her shirt, his expression turning dark again. She waited with bated breath to see what he would do. The pain in his eyes eased. She dropped her hands to his lap and pushed them up his thighs until they grazed his caged erection. He shifted his hips forwards, hungrily rubbing himself against her palm. This time when he growled, it called to her blood.

  He wanted her. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to save him after all.

  Perhaps she could save them both.

  Leaning forwards, she stroked his hard length through his jeans and kissed him.

  The bars on the bottom of the cage dug painfully into her shins.

  “Isn’t there somewhere more comfortable we could do this?” she whispered between kisses.

  A squeak left Kat when Amon grabbed her, turned her and lifted her off the floor in one swift mind-spinning movement. She clung to his neck, thrilled by the speed with which he moved through the factory and the tight grip he had on her. The tips of his fingers pressed possessively into her side. His eyes darted about, evidently searching for the ‘somewhere more comfortable’ that she had requested.

  “Leyton must have had a bed,” Kat suggested as Amon ducked and weaved through the dark factory corridors.

  Amon’s eyes narrowed and he growled, holding her closer to him until she found it hard to breathe. Clearly mentioning another man’s name was off limits right now.

  “Any bed will do!” She couldn’t take much more of this dizzying pace.

  He kicked a door open. She sighed with relief at the sight of a large dark wood bed, its double mattress covered by a thick deep blue duvet. Judging by the large number of books and the neatness of the room, it had been Leyton’s. She really hoped that he didn’t come back tonight.

  Kat’s breath left her in a sigh when Amon dropped her onto the bed, his heavy body covering hers a second later. He nudged her knees apart and settled between them, his lithe body pressing exquisitely into hers, promising of things to come. His lips scorched her neck with hot demanding kisses that reignited the smouldering embers of their last meeting, fanning them back into flames that consumed her.

  She writhed beneath him as he tore her black shirt open with one hand and greedily covered her right breast with his palm. Thoughts of being skin to skin with him made her flushed with desire. A spark of urgency flickered amongst the flames, a desperate need to have him inside again after all their years apart.

  Amon pulled her up into his arms as though she were a ragdoll and weighed nothing. He stripped the holster from her shoulders, one large flat hand supporting her back, and tossed it away. His face was dark, his eyes penetrating hers with a deadly glare.

  With a light touch, she caressed the line of his strong jaw. His lips parted as though her touch stole his breath and his eyes closed. Her thumb swept over the tempting fullness of his lower lip and she ached to feel his mouth on hers.

  “I’d never use them on you,” she whispered, mesmerised by his mouth.

  With a feral growl, Amon dragged her against him and buried his face in her neck. He ravaged it with playful bites, sucking and nipping it as though he was going to feast on her. She wrapped her arms around him, fingertips pressing into the hard muscles of his arched back as he bent over her.

  She could feel the power in him, the raw primal strength that flowed from his body and into hers. His bites ceased, replaced by the smooth sensual glide of his tongue as he stroked her neck with its velvet tip.

  Kat wished he would do that somewhere else as intense heat pooled between her legs. She scored her nails over his shoulders, arching her body upwards until her breasts pressed against his chest. Her nails turned to claws as he licked the spot between her collarbones and tingles chased across her skin, wave after wave spiralling up her breasts and hardening her nipples.

  Amon growled low into her ear and held her tighter as he licked the spot again. She raked her claws over his taut shoulders, eliciting another growl from him. He liked that. She traced her fingers over his shoulders and then leaned back so she could lightly claw his chest. Amon pulled away and stared down at her, breathing hard.

  Kat collapsed back into the bed when he released her and she licked her lips, drinking in the sight of him.

  The delicious way that his muscles shifted with each breath made something inside her snap. She launched herself at him, tackling him to the bed. Her mouth instantly went to work on his body, her tongue caressing every inch of him as she ran her hands over his muscles. She wanted to feel him all over and all at the same time. She moved to straddle him, her lips never leaving his body as she refreshed her memory of it.

  He pulled on the hem of her top and she sat back, tugging her shirt and t-shirt off with haste and throwing them across the room. She lowered herself again, her bra-clad breasts grazing his stomach as she kissed and licked his chest. He was so warm. His spicy masculine scent made her tremble inside with need. She dipped her hips and rubbed her groin against his hard length, eliciting a moan from him.

  She had to get him naked. Now.

  Moving backwards, she made fast work of his belt and then his jeans. They were off him in a matter of seconds, dropping to the floor along with his boots.

  Her gaze raked back up him, from his feet to his thick thighs, to his long hard shaft where it laid waiting in a nest of black curls. She groaned and tensed her muscles when her groin pulsed with desire. Her tongue poked out to wet her lips. Amon moaned again.

  On all fours, she moved towards it, intent on her target and hungry to taste him again. Her fingers traced the length of the silken shaft and Amon groaned. It turned into a growl when her tongue followed her fingers. She paused at the sensitive head to swirl her tongue around it and then took him into her mouth. His hips bucked up, thrusting him inside. She groaned around him and closed her eyes, imagining him surging into her. God she needed to feel that.

  In the blink of an eye, she was on her back again with Amon on top of her. He thrust against her and she wished her jeans were gone so she could feel him against her. Her jeans dampened the friction, making each thrust frustratingly light. It wasn’t enough.

  Warm fingers tugged the cups of her black lacy bra down and he lowered his head to blow on her nipples, making them pucker. She arched her chest upwards, encouraging him, and then buried her fingers into his hair when his mouth claimed one nipple and sucked it hard.

  “Amon,” she whispered, a plea for him to keep going, to take her as she needed him to.

  His mouth left her and his hands fanned out across her stomach, spanning it and pressing in hard. She ached to feel his body pressing into her like that, heavy and hot as it covered her.

  Delight coursed through her, chased by anticipation, when he removed her boots and her jeans, taking her panties with them. She wriggled and writhed on the bed, her feet on his thighs as he knelt before her, all hard powerful masculinity.

  Amon took hold of her ankles and spread them, forcing her legs apart. His feral growl when he exposed her sent a flash of confidence through Kat that only made her want him more. It had been too long since she had felt desired. She reached out to him, hungry and desperate to feel him against her.

  With a slight smirk, he brought her right ankle to his mouth and kissed it. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back when he kissed up the length of her leg, slowly hooking it over his shoulder. She willed him on, moaning her encouragement and dying to feel his
lips on the spot where she needed him most.