by J. D. Tyler
“Listen, I know for a fact that Micah loves you more than anything,” he told her. “Once he realizes he’s been rescued, and that you’re here, nothing will stop him from getting well.”
“You sound so certain.” Her voice held so much hope.
“I am.”
He studied her closely, and she returned the favor right back. She wasn’t the most model-gorgeous woman he’d ever met, but there was something about her that attracted him. She radiated inner strength and a spine of steel, but her sharp features were softened by a hint of vulnerability that made him want to take her in his arms and not let go. A new awareness crept in, and it took a few seconds before he recognized what it was.
Rowan’s scent.
It didn’t jolt him as her touch had done, but rather, filled his senses slowly, like the aroma of a lit candle finally reaching him from across the room. An ocean breeze and tropical flowers. That was the beautiful essence of her, and it sank into every cell of his body, calling to him—and to his wolf—as nothing else ever had.
Underneath the sheet, his cock swelled rapidly, filling until the damned thing was rock hard and aching. Aw, hell. He raised one knee a little, hoping she didn’t notice his problem. He wasn’t easily embarrassed or made uncomfortable, because he just didn’t give a fuck what most people thought. But this sudden, overpowering need he felt to press his naked skin to hers, to be inside not just any woman, but her, baffled him. And scared him a little.
“Sounds like you know my brother well,” she said.
“We were in the SEALs together, and later joined the Pack. I guess when you practically live with guys for years, you sometimes know them better than their own families do.”
Stark pain crossed her face. “Too true.”
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, frowning. “I didn’t mean to imply I know Micah better than you do.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m sure in many respects you do.” Pausing, she looked down, absently regarding his IV. “Micah never told me he left the SEALs and joined Alpha Pack. I’m assuming you were all forbidden from telling your families where you were and what you were actually doing?”
“Under Terry Noble’s leadership, yes. Nick urges us to be careful what we say to our families and old friends outside this place, but he’s not quite as rigid as Terry was. He trusts our judgment.”
Pinning him with her gaze again, she asked, “What do you tell your family?”
“Nothing,” he said shortly. “I don’t have a family anymore. My mother is dead.”
Beryl, the bitch, and his stepfather didn’t count. He didn’t give a damn where the old bastard was now or what had happened to him, and the next time he met up with Beryl, he’d tear out her throat.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too.” He tried a reassuring smile. “It was a long time ago. I shipped off to the Navy and she died after my first deployment.”
He hadn’t been able to leave home fast enough after she’d married the asshole. Had waited years for his freedom, then joined the service and never saw her again. The pain and guilt never healed.
Rowan didn’t seem to know how else to respond, and settled on steering the topic to her brother again. “You were held captive with Micah.”
So here it was—the real reason for her visit. He’d wondered when she’d get around to it. “Yeah, but I didn’t know he was there until right before we were rescued.”
“Did he say anything to you about what they did to him?” Anxiety laced every word.
“He wasn’t conscious by the time I was placed in the cage next to him,” he said carefully. “Until he wakes up, we can only speculate on what he went through.”
“But they were experimenting on people in that awful place.”
“Yes.”
“You, too?”
Nope, not going there. “Look, I don’t have the answers you want. I wish I did—then maybe I could help him.”
For the first time, her posture slumped. “That’s all I want, too. I’d just hoped… well, never mind. You’ve obviously been through the wringer and I’ve kept you awake. Thanks for talking with me.”
“Anytime.”
She turned to go and he realized he meant that—he’d like to be there if she needed him. In fact, he didn’t want her to go at all, but there wasn’t a good way to encourage her to stay without sounding like a creeper, what with being a stranger and Micah being so sick.
Before she reached the door, she looked at him over her shoulder. “I hope you’re feeling better and out of here fast.”
“I feel better already,” he replied softly. He held her gaze to make sure she got the message.
A quick smile, and she was gone.
Aric sagged into the pillows with a heavy sigh. “Jesus, what’s wrong with me?”
Already he hated her being away from him. Where he couldn’t get to know her. Touch her.
Fuck her against the wall.
Hadn’t something similar happened to Jax when he’d met Kira?
“Oh, shit.”
No. That was not what was wrong with him! His neglected libido was reacting to an unattached female, nothing more. Wait—was she single? He hadn’t seen a ring, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a boyfriend.
His wolf snarled, totally pissed off at the notion that there might be another male in her life. Someone waiting for her, wherever she was from. His lungs constricted, it became hard to breathe, and he knew one thing for sure.
He. Was. Fucked.
Closing the door behind her, Rowan leaned against the wall, allowing her composure to crumble. The man—Aric—was every bit as delicious as she’d thought when she saw him last night. More so, with the beard gone. Deep auburn hair falling around that sexy-as-sin face, startling green eyes that had seen too much. Intelligence sharp as the blade of a knife. He was—
“What the hell am I thinking?”
Micah was deathly ill, and he needed her at his side. She had to help him pull through. That was why she went to see Aric, to find out if he had any insight into what had happened to her brother. Not to moon over the wolf like a teenager.
Wolf. Crap, was she actually starting to accept all of this? Looked like she had no choice, really. Hard to refute what was right in front of your face, and last night had been the clincher. Thanks to a crash course, her thinking about the world and the creatures in it was already changing.
Pushing away from the wall, she walked two doors down to Micah’s room and padded inside. The silence was eerie, life evidenced only by the beep of a monitor and the rise and fall of her brother’s chest. Pulling up a chair, she sat and gazed into his now clean-shaven, but still ruined, face, willing him to open his eyes.
Heart aching, she rested her arm on the bed and stroked his hair. During the long, lonely night, she’d attempted to brush it, thinking the action might stimulate him somehow, but the locks were such a snarled mess it would take a haircut and several washings, plus a good conditioner, to have it looking decent again.
“You’ll feel better when your hair is clean,” she whispered to him. “You’ll see. We’re gonna make sure you eat well, take lots of vitamins. When you’re stronger, we’ll work out together and I’ll beat you at the hundred-yard dash like I always have. Right?”
The man slept on, and she had to wonder if he was dreaming. If she gave in to exhaustion and drifted off, would she be able to reach him? Faced with days ahead of watching him lie there like a corpse, she was desperate enough to try anything.
As it turned out, she didn’t have to coax her tired brain to cooperate. Her head felt so heavy, she needed to rest it on the bed next to his shoulder, just for a little while. The instant she did, sleep claimed her.
A loud keening noise burst into her awareness and quickly ramped into a hideous, drawn-out scream. Rowan bolted upright, pulse pounding, hand automatically reaching for the gun that still hadn’t been returned to her. A glance at Micah cleared the cobwebs in a hurry.
Her brothe
r’s body was taut as a bowstring, dark head back, eyes screwed shut as he gripped the sheets, screaming as though he was being skewered and sliced into little pieces.
“Oh, my God! Micah!” Without thinking, she laid a palm on his chest, hoping to calm him. Instead, he began to thrash. “Honey, it’s me, Rowan!”
At that, he flung himself sideways off the bed. Where he got the strength she had no clue, but she made a desperate grab for him and was taken to the tiled floor so hard the air left her lungs in a rush. They landed in a jumble of limbs and his IV line, and the rolling thing that held the bag of fluid crashed to the ground as well. He fought like a wildcat—or a terrified wolf—as she pushed him facedown and lay across his back in an attempt to subdue him.
“Micah, stop!”
“No! Ahhhhh!”
He was completely out of his head. Fighting his tormentors. He bucked wildly, shouting, trying to get the leverage to dislodge her.
“Someone help me!” she yelled.
Even in his horrible condition, Micah’s well of strength was incredible. Drawing up his knees, he flung himself backward. Rowan was along for the ride and the back of her head slammed into the floor, pain blasting through her skull. Her vision grayed out, but she saw Micah looming over her, lips pulled back in a feral snarl, his normally brown eyes gone black. His nose began to elongate into a snout, fur sprouting around his face.
He’s going to kill me.
“Micah, no!” she cried, shoving at his chest.
The door crashed open and Micah’s weight suddenly disappeared. The sounds of fierce growling and snapping, furniture being shoved, reached her ears, the unmistakable fury of two canines battling it out. Sitting up, she clutched the back of her head and gaped at a pair of wolves—one brown and one red—fighting for dominance.
They were a blur of speed and motion. The brown wolf rolled, dodged, but the red one advanced, teeth bared, backing him into a corner. The brown wolf was smaller, his coat dull and matted when it should’ve been as full and lustrous as that of his red and cream counterpart. The brown, she guessed, was Micah.
As evidenced when he toppled over and passed out… and then changed back to human form. The red wolf approached his fallen companion, sniffed, and whined softly. Then his fur slowly retracted, limbs reshaped, and became a human male crouching where the wolf had been.
A very naked male. Aric.
Later, she would appreciate the memory of the view. At the moment, she stood on shaky legs as he did the same, scooping her brother into his arms and carrying him to the bed. A woman she hadn’t met before, who by the white coat she presumed was a doctor, and a young male nurse, hurried to help Aric get Micah into another gown and settled once more. The nurse fussed with the IV while the doctor checked his vitals, listened to his heart and lungs.
Aric righted an overturned visitor’s chair and pushed her into it. “Are you okay?” His tone was quiet and concerned, and he brushed away her hand to examine the back of her head. Fingers probed gently at a lump forming there, and she winced. “You’re going to have a bit of a headache, and you were already about to drop. Why don’t you go to your room and lie down for a while?”
Her throat tightened with fear. Misery. “I can’t. He needs me.”
“He needs you to stay well,” Aric countered. “He doesn’t know you’re here right now and a few hours’ sleep will only help you.”
“That wasn’t my brother,” she whispered.
“I know, honey.” His knuckles grazed her cheek.
The small act of caring was nearly her undoing. And suddenly, a man calling her “honey” wasn’t so bad either, coming from this man. Hanging her head, she struggled to hold back the flood of tears that threatened to spill.
“Go ahead and cry if it’ll make you feel better.”
She gave a watery, humorless laugh. “You know, I was shocked and grief-stricken when that asshole told me Micah had been killed. But now I don’t feel a whole lot different, except I might be losing my mind.”
“No way,” he teased gently. “The limit on crazy is one sibling per family.”
This time, her laugh had a bit more heart. But only just. She turned to look at him, kneeling by her chair, handsome face full of nothing but concern. Against her will, her eyes did a quick tour south, but in his position, with the arm of the chair blocking her view, she could see only see his sculpted upper half. His chest was broad with a nice sprinkling of dark hair and two bronzed male nipples puckered from the air-conditioning.
God, he was beautiful. And it had been too long.
Shaking herself, she looked away and fell back on her cop persona. “Normally I arrest people for walking around like that.”
Ignoring the doctor’s humph of agreement, he snickered. “Encounter a lot of streakers, do you?”
“Some. Especially around Halloween.”
“Hey, here it’s Halloween all the freakin’ time.” He waggled his brows. “What a bonus.”
Glancing up from her patient, the doc grumbled, “Put on some damned clothes, Savage.”
“You’re just jealous ’cause mine’s bigger than yours,” he shot back. “Mel.”
The glare the other woman leveled at him told Rowan how much she appreciated that nickname.
“It’s Melina, dickhead.” To Rowan, in a marginally nicer tone, she said, “Dr. Melina Mallory. I already know you’re Rowan, Micah’s sister. Believe me, we’re going to take really good care of him.”
“Thank you.” She looked at Aric. “And thanks to you, too, for intervening when Micah lost it. I think he would’ve hurt me.”
“Not you, the demons in his head. He wasn’t seeing you at all.”
Not a comfort. Recalling the incident, she thought of something. “How did he have the strength to lunge out of bed like that? I mean, I’ve subdued plenty of perps who were high on all sorts of drugs, and although the shit in their systems can make them seem almost superhuman, I can usually take them down. Physically, I was nowhere near my brother’s match, weak as he should be.”
“There are a couple of good reasons for that,” Dr. Mallory said, coming around Micah’s bed to stand in front of Rowan. “One, even at his weakest, like now, he’ll still be stronger than several human men if he feels threatened. The other reason is that the drugs those barbarians gave him to keep him sedated are working their way out of his system. His awareness is returning, and with it, the real concerns begin.”
“His mental state, and reaching him.”
“Exactly.” The doctor patted her on the arm. “I won’t kid you. Getting him well isn’t going to be easy, but he will make it. I’m going to make sure of it. Now follow the obnoxious redhead’s advice and get some rest. I’ll ring your quarters if there’s any change.”
She sighed. “Okay. But just for a while.”
Dr. Mallory frowned at Aric, her gaze dipping to the bloody hole in his hand where he’d yanked out his IV. “And you! Get your ass back in bed! Noah, take him and get him settled,” she ordered. The cute nurse turned from straightening the room and hurried over to Aric.
“But—”
“Now, or I’ll keep you indefinitely,” she warned.
Rowan thought it was sort of funny, the stern but diminutive doctor with the cap of short dark hair, ordering around a shifter who could take her apart. But Aric caved, though from his scowl, he wasn’t happy.
“Damn it, fine.” He squeezed Rowan’s hand. “I’ll check on you whenever Attila springs me.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary—”
“It is. Trust me.”
With that, he stood and headed out, Noah draping a gown around his shoulders and blocking what surely would’ve been a nice view of his butt. When the door closed, Rowan shook her head and looked at Dr. Mallory to see a bemused expression on her face.
“What was that all about?” Rowan wondered aloud.
“I don’t think he knows,” the other woman said cryptically. “But he will.”
Whatever that
meant. “I take it Aric’s not usually the warm and cuddly type?”
“Not by half. But he was definitely different with you.” This seemed to please the doc to no end, a smile softening her harsh features.
“I don’t know why,” she said with a shrug. “We just met and I’m not all that cuddly myself.”
“Go, get some rest.”
“What if he gets upset again?” She studied her sleeping brother, biting her lip with worry.
“I gave him something in his IV to keep him calm. It’s nothing like the crap those so-called scientists were giving him before,” she assured Rowan. “But it will help him adjust as he comes back to us.”
After a long moment, she gave in. “All right. I’ll be back later.”
“He’s in good hands.”
Rowan rose and left before she changed her mind. Passing Aric’s hospital room, she thought for one second about stopping by to make sure he was as well as he seemed to think. An inner voice, however, urged her to keep going. No matter how drawn to the man she felt.
Aric Savage was like no man she’d ever met.
She couldn’t help but think that might be a very good thing.
Six
“I’m going out of my fucking mind,” Aric muttered, pushing the buzzer thing. Wasn’t that supposed to bring the pipsqueak running? What was his name? Oh, yeah—Noah. “Stop the damned Ark, Noah. The wolf wants off.”
No response.
“O-kay, that’s it. I’m outta here.”
Working at the tape on the back of his hand, he picked up one corner. Then, holding the tube in place, he pulled the strip off carefully, wadded up the tape, and stuck it on the nightstand. Last, he slid the IV out, wincing at the slight discomfort. A little blood beaded from the hole, but nothing like last night when he’d ripped out the whole thing trying to get to Rowan.
Thinking about the incident, he felt his gut clench. Never had he felt anything like the rage that had overtaken him yesterday when he’d seen Micah in wolf form, pinning his sister to the floor with madness in his eyes. The need to protect her had consumed him. He’d wanted to kill the other wolf for threatening what was his.
