by Dianna Hardy
Then his mouth did curve upwards. “They’re too busy with drunken girls and boys at this time of night. Besides, I’m good at hiding, you know that.”
No, he didn’t know that. The guy had a black Honda Concept 1, complete with a colossal 1832cc V-twin engine. That thing roared like the monster it was, and Lawrence looked deadly on it. How the fuck he’d never been stopped by the police – ever – was beyond him. Ryan got stopped just walking down the street minding his own business.
“Jesus,” said Lawrence. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks. It’s a new style I’m going for.”
“Trying to impress your mate?”
It’s not like his stonking erection was unnoticeable, but Lawrence remained the gentlemen and said nothing about it. Although he did raise his eyebrows after glancing downwards briefly. “What in god’s name happened to your nuts?”
“They met a jet-powered water hose.”
He grimaced.
“They’re already healing.”
A rare glint of amusement lit Lawrence’s eyes. “You have balls of steel.”
“You have inappropriate humour.”
A gentle groan sounded to their right. They both turned towards Lydia and Taylor. He had her propped up against a crate, although her head still lolled. But her eyebrows furrowed and she was trying to open her eyes.
“What the hell is she doing here, Lawrence?”
“That, I don’t have an answer for.”
“Taylor serviced her.”
“Yes, he did.”
“Never thought I’d see the fucking day.”
“They seem to have formed a connection. There’s something else you need to know.”
Ryan stared at him.
He stared back, unwavering. “Aside from the fact she has no bloody clue werewolves exist … she submitted to me. Grade one. It was just a look, and an action, but it was there.”
“What does that mean?”
“Haven’t a clue, but you’re sure she’s yours?”
“I’ve dreamt about her for over ten years. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life – spent the best part of the last decade looking for her – you know that.”
Lawrence nodded.
Thunder clapped, and with the door open it was damn loud. They both jumped.
“Shit,” cursed Lawrence. “The storm’s right on top of us. All the Trident are down. I’m going to get the chainsaw.”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“I don’t see the woman – their leader.”
They both scanned the bodies on the floor, and then gazed at the open door.
“She fled.”
Ryan shook his head. “No. I don’t think she’s the type to ru—”
Lawrence screamed in pain, arched backwards, then went down.
Talk of the devil. She’d jumped them while they were trying to pick her out from the masses on the floor.
The lead pipe in her hand must have connected with Lawrence’s spine. Hard.
She spun towards Ryan, eyes blazing, and a syringe filled with yellow liquid in her other hand. “Are you ready?” she sneered.
He didn’t have time to reply. Two of their pack – Doug and Pete from what he could make out – pounced on her, taking her down. She syringe and pipe flew out of her grasp.
She changed form whilst fending them off, and sank her teeth into Pete’s hind leg.
He howled.
The bitch was now twice the size she had been as human, and butt-ugly to boot.
“You’re fucking ugly,” said Ryan.
Lawrence shot him a look through his pain. “Is verbal antagonism your new weapon of choice?”
“See me shrug,” he replied, because he couldn’t actually move his shoulders.
In that time, Lawrence had unclipped one of his daggers. He now crawled forward on his elbows and stabbed the thing into the female’s thigh while Doug had her pinned – barely – by her neck.
“Tell me that blade is coated in Datura.”
“This blade is coated in Datura.”
On cue, the Trident convulsed on the ground, her body swelling.
Doug let her go and raced over to Pete who was nursing his leg.
Lawrence rolled away, just before she became a fountain of blood.
Everything went eerily quiet upon her death, until Lydia’s hushed voice cut through the silence. “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”
~*~
This was the most disturbing dream she’d ever had.
The almighty thunder had woken her. Although it hadn’t, had it? Because she was still dreaming about monsters disintegrating, wolves, Taylor, Lawrence, and ah … yes … Ryan. That’s how she knew it was a dream: she always dreamed about him. His scent filled her senses to the brim, and she moaned out loud, squirming at the way her body responded.
Taylor brushed the hair from her face. “No more waiting,” he smiled, and of course, his smile was sad. It pressed her button – she didn’t need to feel her own grief over and over again every time she looked at Taylor. She wished she could punch the sadness clean off his face.
Whoa! Violence? Where was this coming from? And the blood and stabbing that she was seeing – ew. Nice dream, Lydia.
She wasn’t usually the violent type. Clearly, I have more issues than I thought.
“Lawrence, get me the fuck down,” growled Ryan.
Lawrence hurried outside, and without him there she now had a clear view of Ryan. She looked straight at him for the first time, and … holy shit! He was … er … big. Where it mattered.
Don’t look directly at it!
She snapped her head back.
Crap, I’m drooling.
She was. She was actually salivating.
And what the hell had happened to his nuts?
Lawrence walked back into the room with a chainsaw, and another roll of thunder announced his entrance – this one sounding even louder than the one before. Lightning flashed a second later. This storm had to be right on top of them.
Bizarrely, her body seemed to respond to the thunder and lightning, the same way it responded to Ryan: with uncontrollable lust. She hoped she’d be able to remember this dream tomorrow for the therapist. The lightning above her; the men and destruction around her; Ryan looking all … phallic – there had to be some male symbolism thing going on here.
Wait … hadn’t she met a woman? She vaguely remembered a head of long, dark hair and freaky-as-fuck eyes. Was that when the dream had begun? No! That woman had hit her! So … was this real?
Thunder cracked through the sky once more, and she swore she felt the building vibrate, but she couldn’t think on that, because a horrendous pain tore through her as surely as if the lightning itself had. Her dreams had never been this painful before – usually she only got the pain on waking up…
Through her scream, she heard Ryan yell something to Taylor.
Lawrence revved up the chainsaw.
Two hands grabbed her under her arms and she was pulled back against Taylor’s chest.
Oh. Where was her blouse?
Another clap of thunder shook the building, and another scream sounded from her as a second bout of agony ripped through her. Why wasn’t this storm passing?
For a moment she wondered if the lightning had hit her – her entire body felt on fire, as if she were being burnt alive. Then, out of the blue, her body heaved under the weight of an orgasm. It totally blind-sided her, but dampened the torment that tried to rule her.
Only coming down from it could she feel Taylor’s hand between her legs, slipped inside her joggers and underwear, his words in her ear… “Hold on … hold on…”
Ryan swayed furiously in his chains.
“Keep fucking still!” yelled Lawrence. “Do you want to lose a limb?”
“Hurry!”
“I am hurrying!”
Thunder sounded once again. This time the lightning flashed right with it, and the weird
est thing happened: she completely left her body. Floated right out of it and watched the scene beneath her like an observer in a dream, and it was at that precise moment she realised with certainty this wasn’t a dream, because everything suddenly made a strange kind of sense.
She heard herself wail, and saw herself throw her head back against Taylor’s shoulder, grab his hand with her left to press him harder against her; then with her other hand, her palm outstretched, she reached up, up, up…
Even in her out-of-body state she felt the tingle in her palm, felt the crux of that tingle grow into something monumental, important … life-changing.
She saw Ryan drop to the floor and sprint towards her; Taylor trying to keep her pain at bay as he fought with her flailing body; Lawrence staring at her outstretched hand with confusion, then understanding… “Move!” he yelled.
Too late.
The lightning blew the roof apart, and came straight at her.
Chapter Nine
It had been a long time since he’d been dumbstruck, but it was shock that kept him rooted to the spot, unable to sound a single word.
Ryan and Taylor had both been thrown back by the blast that had erupted from Lydia as soon as the lightning hit her body. Lydia herself convulsed on the ground, tendrils of the white heat wrapped around her; the rain that fell through the now abolished roof, pelting her skin – drenching them all – but doing nothing to put out the lightning. She was the lightning.
Not again!
He wasn’t seeing this again – he wasn’t…
Except he was.
“Lawrence!” Ryan bellowed at him, already on his feet. “What the fuck—”
“Storm-wielder,” he whispered, having to force the words out.
He could see it took a while for this revelation to sink into Ryan, and so it should because storm-wielders had become all but myth. For the past two hundred and fifty-odd years, any storm-wielder known to exist was hidden by the pack at their own risk, thrown out, or killed – usually the latter. No one was ever told. Their birth records were thoroughly destroyed, so no one looked for them.
His own sister had escaped being murdered and he would forever be indebted to his belated family for their mercy, but they had secreted her away at their peril and had suffered for it. All of them had.
Before he knew it, Ryan had him by the scruff of the neck, dragging him towards Lydia. “Did you know?” he demanded.
He pulled himself out of his stunned state, anger already flaring at Ryan’s accusation. “No. Not a clue. Did you? In all your many dreams together did you never suspect?”
“No.” Ryan brought them to a stop as close as he dared to Lydia’s charged body. “Fix it.”
“What?”
“You’re the only one who can. Elana—”
Lawrence growled a threat at the mention of his sister, but Ryan ignored him and hammered the point home. “You carry the gene. You can fix it.”
He wrestled out of Ryan’s grasp, fear that he thought he’d successfully conquered pushing his anger to new heights. “It’ll bond us. It’ll change everything.”
“And believe me, it’s the second to last thing I want, but I’ll take it over her death … over mine.”
“My chance to mate was taken from me – it’s gone.”
“Fuck you. It’s fear that keeps you distanced from mating, not inability.”
“I have nothing to offer—”
“Then I’ll offer it. She’s still mine – I can feel it, I can smell it, I’ve dreamt it… You can help her without committing. Keep her alive, I’ll do the rest.”
Frustration erupted from him, and he pushed Ryan away. “Do you really think it’s that simple?”
“Make. It. Simple!” Taylor bit out.
They both turned from their verbal sparring to find him kneeling on the floor by Lydia, staring them both down with steady green eyes, even though they stood above him.
Lydia’s eyelids fluttered uncontrollably, only the whites of her eyes showing.
Taylor held her hand in his. Despite his blackening skin, which fought to renew itself under the onslaught of the lightning, and the fact that it must hurt like hell, he wasn’t letting her go.
The man-turned-wolf eyed Lawrence with a composure and determination he didn’t seem able to find in himself right now.
“I don’t know what you’re both talking about – I don’t know what a storm-wielder is, although I’m forming my own suspicions very quickly – but I don’t give a damn. She’s here for a reason. She found us for a reason.”
Caught up in her electrical web, Lydia let out a little whimper and squeezed Taylor’s hand.
He winced, but tightened his grip on her, and Lawrence’s self-control deteriorated. Hadn’t it ended this same way with Elana – the two of them in each other’s embrace until the bitter end? Could he watch someone else go through it and do nothing? Fuck. He was cold, but he wasn’t made of stone.
“Doug!” he called out.
Doug approached him, still in wolf form, as did the rest of the pack who stared at the sight before them with confusion and apprehension.
“Can Pete walk?”
The wolf nodded once, tongue lolling out.
Pete hobbled into view beside him, unsteady, but already healing.
“Good. Lead the pack back home. Ask Selena to prepare a spare bedroom.”
“She can stay in mine,” protested Ryan.
“That’s fine, but she may need some space,” he snapped back. “She’s gonna wake up to a whole new life.” He turned back to Doug. “Do it.”
The wolf dropped his eyes once in affirmation, then scurried out the door on a string of barks, with the pack at his heels.
Lawrence fell to his knees by Lydia’s head, placed his hands beneath her shoulders and lifted her up so she rested on his chest. The lightning didn’t burn him and he knew it wouldn’t. Instead, the slivers of electricity snaked up his own arms, wrapping themselves around him the way they did her.
Taylor eyed him suspiciously with a million questions in his eyes.
“It’s all right. Trust me.”
He raised an eyebrow and said nothing.
Ryan knelt by Lydia’s feet, eyes boring into her face, his expression, for once, unreadable.
Lawrence let his wolf surface just a little, careful not to fully shift. He felt his eyes change, his teeth elongate, his ears prick with better hearing; then he bit down on his own wrist, tearing through his vein, held Lydia’s head back by her chin, and pressed his blood to her lips.
~*~
The metallic tang hit her nasal passages about a second before the liquid life gushed over her tongue.
Her eyes renewed its focus; the storm tearing through her, suddenly bearable.
Oh, god.
The world tilted, sucked her downwards, and she landed back in her body with a jolt.
She gripped at the arm feeding her, squeezing her lips around the cut to get more of the blood out, not once lingering on the fact that this was blood – she was drinking blood. It didn’t matter. Logic had no place here any more. Everything was instinct and only instinct mattered.
A low groan of pleasure sounded in her ear. Lawrence’s groan.
All at once, she was acutely aware of every single thing: the lightning that enveloped her no longer seared her, and it also enveloped all of them – Lawrence who she was drinking from, Taylor who she held onto like a lifeline, and Ryan who watched her intently with hooded eyes.
He’s real!
She knew exactly what to do, even if she didn’t know what any of it meant. She stopped lapping at Lawrence’s blood, and licked his wound so he’d know she’d finished.
He moved his arm out of her way, and she reached for Ryan with her right hand, still holding onto Taylor with her left.
Ryan crawled forward like a predator, and not for the first time she shivered at how magnificent he looked. Only this time, that body was one hundred percent real, and covered in tendrils of si
lver light that crackled over his skin and yet made no noise. The grounded lightning somehow made his sex appeal even more raw.
Lawrence repositioned himself, and brought her up to sitting, continuing to support her from behind as she fell towards Ryan who pulled her up so she straddled him, her knees bent around him, her cunt hugging the underside of his cock…
“Ryan,” she whispered.
“I’m here.”
And she silently wept as she felt the solidity of him under her; beneath her palms … “You are. You really are.”
“Look at me, sweetheart,” the same gentle command he used so often in their dreams.
She stared right at him; right into those deep brown eyes, his irises turning an iridescent gold as he showed her the wolf in his features.
His hands climbed from her thighs to her hips, he lifted her a little, and then he was there, at the entrance of her sex. Any heat still within her went straight to her groin, and although she didn’t need any encouragement, he guided her down anyway until he filled her completely.
She gasped out loud and his chest made that possessive rumble she knew so well. “My god, you’re amazing – you feel So. Fucking. Amazing.” He punctuated every word with a thrust of his hips, pushing his way deeper and deeper inside her; eliciting moans from her that were just as deep…
But this was also so unlike her dreams. This was more. More in every sense. More because her body ached for him tenfold; more because he physically fulfilled her – spiritually fulfilled her – with a completeness she had never been able to reach when asleep. More because she could feel Lawrence’s blood rush through her with every roll of thunder that passed; because he nipped her neck with his teeth, caressed her breasts with his hands, all as the rain poured down on them… More because Taylor’s hand in hers kept her grounded with the promise of friendship and continuity. This wouldn’t end in loneliness like her dreams did – this would go on. Her need to have him inside her too, overwhelmed her – it swelled her heart.
She turned to face him, fully exposing the right side of her neck to Lawrence as she did so. It earned her some guttural noise of approval from the tall blond who supported her, and she was rewarded by the feel of his erection digging into her backside through his trousers. He tugged on her nipples, fully concentrating on them, rolling them back and forth between his fingers.
