* * * *
Luke Wallace stared at his for a moment. She may think that now, but he was certain that, given time, they could eventually change her mind. She required a slow, gentle seduction and that was what they would give her if it killed them. He made the vow knowing that it just might. Once the el calor took control of their senses, it would take their deaths to keep them from her if she hadn’t already submitted—gods, how he didn’t want it to come to that.
It was imperative to get their mate down off this damned snow-covered mountain before he and Dan lost all control. The mating heat rode them harder and harder every day they spent in her company and nothing but a complete mating or their deaths would stop it. Sooner or later it would drive them mad and when it did, he counted on the others in Paradise to put them down before they hurt their mate.
Turning from Sabrina, he walked outside and stripped down to nothing more than his jeans and boots with the hope that the frigid air would help cool his blood and his ever-present erection would finally go away—at least for the moment. After ten minutes, Luke realized he couldn’t get that lucky. Just the thought of Sabrina, the memory of her sweet scent, even her infrequent smiles and abundant expressions of distaste, turned him on. Jesus, he had it bad.
We’ve both got it bad, Daniel agreed through their mental link. No matter what I do, or how many times I strip myself bare and roll in the snow or plunge into the icy river and dunk myself in its frigid depths, I cannot escape the burning hunger my body has for her. We must get her to town where the others can keep her safe when we eventually lose our minds to the el calor.
Luke knew his best friend was right. If Sabrina didn’t submit to them, sooner or later the mating heat would envelope their senses, masking the differences between right and wrong. When that happened, they would become more animal than man—a rutting, rabid animal wanting nothing more than to mate their female whether she wanted it or not. We must manage to get our mate down off this mountain before then. They have all been through enough. The last thing anyone needed was for them to attack and rape their mate on the trail. The stronger the hold of the el calor grew, the more likely they would lose their minds. And he, for one, would never forgive himself. Luke wanted to love his mate, to hold her and protect her from monsters like he and Daniel would become. He never wanted to hurt her, to cause her to fear them for any reason.
I feel the same way, old friend, Daniel added. You know I feel the same.
What they felt, how they felt now wouldn’t matter when the beasts took over. The el calor was a hard, relentless ache that would eventually drive them mad. Nothing they could do or say would ever change the fact that the mating heat was upon them and eventually it would take over their will to do the right thing.
He stood in front of the cabin, his breath visible in the cold air. He continued to breathe slowly, deliberately, drawing the frigid air into his lungs in an attempt to assuage the hunger he felt for one small, dark-skinned woman.
Nothing in his life could have prepared him for the flood of emotions he felt when he first drew her lovely scent into his body. No one could have warned him how he would feel. Had they tried, he would have deemed them either mad, liar or fool. In all his life, he never expected to feel the way he did for anyone, least of all a woman he’d just met.
Still, over the last few months, they had managed to convince her they were stuck on this high, snow-covered mountain and they’d had a chance to get to know her. Now their time was up. Now they must make their way down to Paradise where the others could keep Sabrina safe from harm should he and Daniel lose control of their beasts.
Chapter Two
Sabrina fumed as she gathered up the boys’ things. She couldn’t help but be grateful to the men for going back to their parent’s car and removing their things. The familiar clothing and toys helped them to adjust to the cabin faster. She knew what it was like to go through a traumatic thing and she also knew having familiar things made it just a little easier.
After running from her sister, Samantha, and her mates, her first stop was Virginia Beach and their apartment. She didn’t stay long. She knew better than that. However, she’d managed to talk their landlady into getting her things. She explained someone abducted them, but not Aiden and his friend. She also told her to expect to hear from her sister, Samantha. Sabrina was sure that her sister had contacted the old woman to get their things by now and she wondered how long it took Samantha to realize their photos were gone.
Sabrina didn’t have the photos with her, she’d gone into a store, scanned them all to disk, then deposited them into a safe deposit box in a bank near Newport, Rhode Island. The last thing she’d wanted was to lose them and not have anything of their parents and grandparents. The photos were the only thing either of them had left of family.
Tears streaked down her face as she thought of her sister. She hadn’t wanted to leave, but she’d known she couldn’t stay. How could she stay with Samantha when she seemed so happy? Somehow, Sabrina knew she would never be truly happy again. Nothing could ever give her such a gift. She looked down at the two boys who sat on their small cot looking up at her with confusion.
“Why don’t you want to go, Brina?”
Smiling at Tommy, Sabrina moved closer and knelt in front of them. Gathering them into her arms was so easy. It felt so right. She wasn’t sure how she would ever let them go, though she knew she eventually must. “It’s not that I don’t want to go with you.” Sighing, she squeezed them tight. “Don’t think I don’t want to go with you. Never think that. It’s just…” She paused, wondering how she could explain her actions to two such small children. What would they understand? “I want to go. It’s just that…I’m afraid I don’t like Luke and Daniel much.”
“We’re sorry to hear that.”
Sabrina cringed. She didn’t even turn around to see if they both stood there. Some strange sixth sense told her they stood in the doorway, their expressions blank. As always.
“She is more afraid of us, than anything else, Tommy.”
She actually felt Daniel step up behind her.
“We know that she has been through a lot, just as you and your brother have been through much. We will give her the time she needs to get to know us better.”
Ha! Like that’s really going to happen. She didn’t know for sure, but she was relatively certain the two men were shifters, like the two men her sister fell in love with. If they were, she didn’t want to have anything to do with them. It was bad enough that they were men.
Stiffening her spine, she stood and turned with an obviously false smile. “Good. I’m glad you two came back in here. The boys need someone to carry their bags down the mountain.” She gestured toward the two medium-sized suitcases that held all of their clothes and a few toys. “They’re all packed and ready to go.”
“Are you ready?” Luke stepped forward, the expression on his face wary as he looked at her. He probably wondered if she was going to make him carry her down the damned mountain.
Well, he can just wonder for a little while longer. She sniffed her distain and moved to where she had set her bag. Picking it up, she gave the two men a glare. “I’m ready if you are.” As she stalked from the cabin and into the bright sunshine, Sabrina fought the urge to cover her eyes. The sunlight, coupled with the white landscape, nearly blinded her. She loved the way the icicles glistened as they hung from the roof of the cabin, melting in the warm rays, but the sparkling reflections were almost enough to cause a migraine.
Sabrina wanted nothing more than to lay back on a sun-soaked rock somewhere and absorb the healing rays of the sun, but she knew it wasn’t possible. The men would never leave her on this mountain until spring and it was just too darned cold to do something like that now.
She headed down the mountain, not waiting for the men. They could just work to catch up. She stomped through the snow, looking for the path that would eventually lead downward. She’d seen it, not two weeks ago. It couldn’t be that hard
to find. She continued to move through the small yard and stepped into the brush, the crunch of snow beneath her feet giving her the courage to keep going.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She heard Luke stomping through the crusty snow behind her and began to move faster. “I’m leading the way down the mountain, if you don’t like it, tough crap.” The closer he got, the faster she moved until she broke out into a full-fledged run. It didn’t take long for him to catch up. His longer legs ate up the distance between them until she could practically feel the jerk breathing down her neck. Sabrina put on one last burst of speed, trying to stay out front. Wasn’t it just like a man to have to be in the lead?
His fingers closed on her arm and pulled her to a stop. Sabrina turned around with a growl. “What’s the matter, you creep? Don’t you like a woman leading the way?” She fisted her free hand and socked him in the stomach. She didn’t think it would do much good. Though she’d given him a good solid punch for a girl, the big gorilla didn’t even grunt. Figures. “You know, I pegged you for a male chauvinist pig a long time ago. I’m just not sure I’m happy to be right.” She tried to jerk her arm from his grip with no luck. “Let me go.” She looked around him, hoping the boys weren’t close enough to see this going down and frowned. “Where are the boys?”
“Probably on their way down the mountain with Daniel,” Luke said, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Where do you think you’re going? I told you what I would do if you resisted. I will not leave you on this mountain to die of exposure or to starve to death.”
Holding her in place, he bent, put his shoulder into her stomach, then straightened. “Put me down, you Neanderthal!” Sabrina kicked, her fists pummeling his back as he turned and headed back in the other direction. “Where do you think you’re taking me?”
He sighed. “I am taking you down the mountain.”
“That’s where I was going. I just wanted to lead the way. Why should I have to follow you two everywhere?”
“You should follow us because we know where we are going and what we are doing. Unlike you, we have been on this mountain hundreds of times. We know when we are headed up, down or toward a blind cliff…unlike you.”
Sabrina stilled, arched her back and looked back the way she had been heading. “I wasn’t going downhill?”
Luke chuckled, the sound rumbling through his chest. “Honey, you weren’t even going sideways. You were headed straight up to the blind cliff. Another fifty feet or so and you would have been over the edge before you knew it. The wind blows the snow in drifts that hang out over the edge. You could have been ten feet off the side before you realized you stood upon a thin shelf and plummeted through the snow to your death.”
Sabrina stopped fighting and slumped down. God, she’d almost killed herself…and for what, to prove a point? She stayed still for a moment, watching as Luke’s butt cheeks rose and fell with each step. It was a good thing she vowed to never have anything to do with a man, otherwise, that rear end may have looked enticing. A year ago she would have jumped at the chance to stare at an ass like that. As it was, she turned her head to the side and ignored it for a few minutes before clearing her throat. “Um…do you think you can put me down now?”
“I told you what I would do if you tried to leave.”
“I know, but I wasn’t really trying to leave you guys now, was I?” she reasoned. “I was attempting to lead us all—”
“To our doom.”
Sabrina bit her lip. “I suppose it could seem that way.” Would the man never stop and put her down? “I-I think I’m going to be sick. If you don’t put me down, I’m going to throw up all over you.”
“Uh-uh. You’re just saying that so I’ll put you down and you can make another run for it.”
Sabrina sighed. “It’s your back.” There. That should get him to let her walk down this mountain on her own and if it didn’t, she would aim for him as she vomited, the arrogant jerk.
Luke finally stopped bumping her along on his shoulder and set her on her feet. It didn’t stop him from keeping a tight hold on her wrist though.
How in the world did she always manage to find herself in these situations—those where she had no say in what she did, where she went or whom she spent her time with?
First, their mother dumped them off with their grandmother, never to return, then her sister, Sam, insisted that their future was in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia and dragged her off to parts unknown. Personally, she would have rather moved to the country instead of a metropolis boasting one of the United State’s largest Naval bases along with several other military installations. She knew that much testosterone in one place couldn’t be a good thing.
Sabrina had always wanted to live in a small town. She wanted that for as long as she could remember. The Norfolk, Virginia area with its nearly two-million people, certainly wasn’t on her list of ideal places to live.
About a year and a half after her sister, Samantha, dragged her to Virginia, they were both kidnapped by shapeshifting crazies. It was only after their escape and their subsequent rescue by her sister’s Special Forces boyfriend that Sabrina decided to take charge of her own destiny and do what she wanted to do for a change.
Ha! What a laugh. She’d been her own woman for all of four months when she stumbled upon the twins, then the cabin. The two Neanderthals in her company now, intruded on her peaceful life a month or so after that.
She stared at Luke’s hand on her wrist, wishing she had the power to burn the crap out of him as he dragged her along and they caught up with Daniel and the boys. She suspected the others were walking slowly so as not to lose her and Luke, though why Daniel would bother was beyond her. He had to know Luke was more than capable of dragging her down the mountain, by her hair if need be. He was certainly animal enough to do it.
Sabrina scowled. She was tired and her butt muscles were starting to hurt. She was out of shape and the trek down the mountain sure was taking its toll on her exhausted body. “Hey, Hitler, can we stop for a minute? I’m tired and I need a drink.”
Chapter Three
Daniel looked behind him and bit back a grin. Our mate doesn’t look happy. It was all he could do to keep the smile off his face. She looked fit to be tied as Luke led her through the woods, his fingers wrapped securely around her wrist. There was no way for her to get free, no matter how much she may have wanted to.
Luke gave a mental snort and smiled as she jerked on her arm, testing his grip. Of course she doesn’t. She was happily heading toward her death, glad to be rid of us. I carried her back most of the way until she threatened to puke down my back.
I don’t blame you for putting her down. Daniel chuckled through their mind link, not daring to allow their mate to know they found anything about this situation amusing. Silence was better for their health. He was sure of it. Giving his mate an assessing glance, he stopped and turned to the boys. “We will rest here.” Kneeling down, he looked both of the younglings in the eye. “If you are tired, now is the time to rest, but do so quietly. We don’t want to scare the wildlife. We are the guests in these woods. This is their home.”
The two boys nodded up at him, glanced back at Sabrina as though she hung the moon and danced over to her. He envied them that. He wanted nothing more than to stroll over to her and wait for her to gather him into her arms and hug him to her breast. He wanted to rest his face against her neck and see if her coffee and cream skin was as smooth and silky as it looked, to inhale her heady, unique scent and to remove her clothes slowly, like unwrapping a much anticipated present.
“We thought you weren’t coming.” Tommy hugged her as she knelt to gather them in her arms.
“Tommy said you didn’t love us.” Timmy hung back a bit, his thumb moving toward his mouth in the gesture Daniel recognized as his way of expressing anxiety.
It was a wonder either of the boys were able to communicate at all, given the trauma they had been through, even after healing them. Sett
ing their shattered minds to rights had been the right thing to do. Making their memories of their parent’s deaths fade was the most humane and kind thing he and Luke could have done for the two boys.
“Of course I love you.” She hugged them to her. “How could anyone not love you two?”
Timmy shrugged, then wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I dunno.” He stared down at his feet as he scuffed them in the melting snow. “I was scared.” He rested his head on her shoulder as she continued to hold them.
Looking up, she met Daniel’s gaze. Her expression was unreadable and, though he was tempted, he hesitated to examine her thoughts. The more either of them did things she found abhorrent, the more difficult she would find it to trust them when they finally told her they were shifters—and he was sure she would find their reading her mind repugnant.
Sabrina stood, took each of the boys by the hand, led them to a felled tree and sat down. “Don’t you two ever think that I don’t love you. Even if I can’t be by your side, I will always be thinking of you. Just like your parents. They can’t be here, but they both love you dearly.”
Daniel watched his mate with awe as she continued to hold each of the boys’ hands and tried to comfort them. She was a smart girl to realize their fear of leaving her behind was rooted in their fear of losing someone else they had come to care for. The two boys had lost a lot in their young lives. The last thing they needed was to lose another adult they’d come to trust.
He watched as she released the boys, pulled her pack in front of her and dug into it for a bottle of water. A lock of raven hair fell over her eyes and she pushed it back impatiently. She was obviously beyond caring what she looked like, or perhaps she just didn’t care what they thought of her. He was sure she would be shocked to know exactly what they thought and it had as much to do with possessing and protecting her as it had to do with sex.
Seduction in Paradise Page 2
