by Holley Trent
He rubbed what he could reach of her matted fur and whispered, “You don’t have to understand me. Just let Sweetie out. Let me feed her and get her warm.”
She squirmed ineffectually, but the wolf’s sense of self-preservation won out. The fur-covered, shivering pile of bones in his arms shifted.
Brown pelt gave way to dirty, tan skin. The yellow in her green eyes withdrew rendering them more human and more familiar. Her dark hair fell over her face in tangled clumps that she blew away in a surprised huff as he set her bare feet onto the snowy ground.
“There you are.” He yanked off his coat and wrapped it around her shivering shoulders before picking her up. He cradled her and followed his tracks out of the woods, though he didn’t really need them. He’d followed her so much during the past six months he had nearly every inch of the forest memorized. Mark could still teleport, but holding her felt so good and he wouldn’t give up the hike for anything.
“A-angel?” came her hoarse voice against his chest.
He leapt over a fallen tree, being careful to land softly so as not to jostle the already-nervous Sweetie.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“What are you doing?”
“I should ask you the same thing. You didn’t have to do this.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“We always have choices.” He held her tighter and trudged through the knee-deep snow of the clearing.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Claude’s place. He loaned me his cabin. I’ve been living here since June.” Claude was one of the supernatural delinquents Mark called a friend. Claude and his half-siblings had a fallen angel for a father. They’d been part of his invaluable support group during his transition from angel to … well, whatever he was now. They’d said they’d owed it to him for being epic pains in his angel ass. They’d gotten him into some fantastic brawls in the past three years. It’d been a wonder the big guy upstairs hadn’t kicked him out of the angelic ranks just because of the company Mark kept. Well, that the angel who went by the name of Mark kept. He was known as something else by his maker. Few others knew that name.
“Claude? He’s…”
“He’s fine. Everyone’s fine. Well. Almost.” He cringed, and was thankful she couldn’t see it. “Suffice it to say, you missed a lot since summer.”
“Did y’all get Ross?” Ross was a troublemaker they’d been helping the pack root out before Sweetie left.
“Yeah, we got him. I helped the boys dispose of what was left of him.”
“Oh, good.”
She’d missed the big fight, but then, so had he. He’d been watching her. It’d been the only time in his long life he’d refused to come to the aid of people he’d considered to be friends. They didn’t malign him for it, but he felt the guilt all the same. Guilt was an odd thing. He’d never been familiar with it until now.
“You should have just let me stay out there,” she said. “Adjusting … the back and forth, it’s too hard. If my wolf takes over again—”
“I won’t let her.” He bumped the unlatched cabin door with his hip and carried her over the threshold. Shifting her to one arm, he closed the door, locked it, and kicked the rolled rug against the bottom to halt the draft.
He’d left the fire burning in the hearth so the one-room cabin was warm and inviting for Sweetie. Mark set her on the bed pushed into the back corner of the room and pulled the pile of fleece covers up over her. The bed was also for her. As an angel, he hadn’t needed sleep. Now, as whatever he was, he needed a bit, but not on a human schedule. He seemed to require sleep after overly exerting himself. Teleporting too frequently, for instance.
“Angel, I’m f-f-filthy,” she said through clattering teeth.
He sighed, and nudged his glasses up his nose. “You’re really worried about that? Of all things?”
“I-I-I don’t want to get them d-d-dirty,” she said, stroking the soft blankets.
“There are plenty more. I … went shopping.” He’d never admit how much he enjoyed such a thing. He’d kitted out the cabin for her recovery. Everything he’d purchased had been with her comfort in mind. “Get warm. I’ll get you something to eat, and then we can see about getting you a hot bath.”
“Kn-know what happens when you sp-spoil a wild animal?”
“What?”
“They still bi-bi-bite you in the ass.” She stared at him, her green eyes narrowed just over the top of the covers, daring him to disagree.
He didn’t. If he had any intention of letting her back out into the wild, he might have tried to assuage her, just as a matter of course, but she didn’t seem to understand yet that his presence wasn’t because of pity.
“I always suspected you were into kink,” he said drily.
Her eyes widened and what he could see of her olive skin flushed red before her head disappeared beneath the covers.
“Is there running water here?” she asked in a small voice.
“Yes. Hot water, at that. Behind the curtain in the other corner is a tub and sink.” He pointed to the corner of the one-room cabin where the tub was installed. The curtain was new. Claude, being a bachelor at the time of his occupation of the cabin, hadn’t needed privacy and hadn’t bothered closing the space in. Would have been easier for him to tear down the cabin and rebuild a modern one from scratch, probably. “Toilet is in that closet.”
“Okay.”
Mark rubbed what looked like her shoulder and stood. “It’s Christmas,” he said, and tried to weave some sunshine into his voice. That used to be easier for him. “I think a roast chicken would be appropriate, but that may take too long to cook. I’m sure you’re famished.”
She didn’t say anything for a long while, but finally nudged the covers off her face and cast a disbelieving stare on him.
He chuckled. Now that she was warming up a bit, that spunk he loved so much was coming back.
“What?” he asked.
“Even my mama wouldn’t haul my feral ass out of the woods and make me show up for dinner, Christmas or otherwise. What are you up to?” She bolted upright, knocking the covers off her.
The coat he wrapped around her out in the woods lay open at the chest to reveal just enough of her breasts that he had to turn his back to her. Vision foggy, he yanked open the refrigerator door and fumbled for the fruit bin. He’d never been susceptible to temptations of the flesh until he met her. Wolves weren’t hung up on nudity, and he’d had plenty of opportunities in the past couple of years to see every bit of her from the top of her black hair to the soles of her feet, but he’d never looked.
He wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he looked. Angels generally took an antiseptic view of the human form, but Sweetie had been hard to ignore. More so now that he had hormones to go along with his functioning junk.
“Is this a trap?” she asked. “Did Mama put you up to this?”
He heard the pads of her feet hit the floor. “Wait, are you gonna lock me up here and try to force-mate me to some wolf?”
Her blow to his back was weak, but drove her point perfectly well. He closed the refrigerator door and turned to her. “You know me better than that.”
She startled, but held her ground, though her shoulders hunched. She looked up at him with tired eyes, but her fists were balled at her sides.
He pushed his glasses up again. “Sweetie, I would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to do. That’s why I didn’t try to drag you in from the fucking woods six months ago when you ran. Enduring the mania was your choice, and I respected it, even if I didn’t agree with it.” He’d been pretty vociferous about it, in fact. He’d insisted she take a mate—any mate—because he didn’t want this to happen to her. There was a point of no return. As much as it would have broken his spirit to know she was with another man, at least she’d be herself. At least he’d still have his friend.
He’d let her go, and she’d taken his joy into the woods right along with her.
&
nbsp; “So why would you bring me in now? I’m just going to go right back to the way I was. Your energy’s only gonna keep me at bay for so long, and then you’ll have to put me out.”
That would be true if he’d only intended to give her a sip of what she needed instead of filling her up. If she didn’t refuse him, he’d give her everything she needed. He couldn’t just spring this on her, though. She’d tell him no just to be contrary. She’d berate him for doing what needed to be done.
“I’ll never put you out.” He picked up her shaking right fist and opened it. He put an orange in her palm and closed her fingers around it. “That’s to hold you over, and I’ll make you a sandwich, too. Do you need help peeling it?”
She blinked. Her lips parted, but no words came out. Then, she shook her head.
“Good. The chicken, then, I think. The steak will keep for another day. Go eat the orange.”
His authoritative tone must have startled her because her bloodshot eyes went very round for a second. Recovering, she backed away and said, “Okay,” in a tiny voice.
Tiny. The Sweetie he knew lived life in a big way. She wasn’t a meek woman who kept her voice low and head down. No, Sweetie was the kind of woman who laughed at inappropriate times and took the lead even when there was already a leader. Somewhere in that broken shell, that woman lived. He was determined to usher her back and his joy along with her.
Her turned her by the shoulders and have her a little push toward the bed. “Keep warm. You don’t have an ounce of fat anywhere on you. Of course you’re cold.”
She walked slowly to the bed. There was none of her old sway and swagger in her gait. She moved as if walking upright pained her. Maybe it did, but she needed to get back in the habit of it.
“Best diet ever,” she said. “I’d been trying to lose five pounds.”
“And now you’ll have to gain it all back.” And then some, if he had a say in the matter. Most wolves tended to be rather lean in their human forms, but Sweetie wore curves like a silver screen movie star.
“The wolf part of my brain likes me to be a bit lighter,” she said. She sank onto the bed’s edge and worked her thumb beneath the orange peel.
“As light as you are now?”
She shook her head.
“Problem solved. Just spend less time in your wolf form.”
“Easier said than done, Mark.”
Mark. Had she ever called him anything besides “Angel”? If she had, he couldn’t remember it, but she’d have to get used to it.
He wasn’t an angel anymore.
There was no word for what he was, besides … fallen.
CHAPTER TWO
Sweetie clamped her hands around the overloaded submarine sandwich and watched Mark move about the small kitchen with a familiarity she didn’t expect. He hummed some tune she didn’t recognize as he arranged a whole chicken in a baking tray. Then he rubbed some blend of spices onto the skin and inside the cavity.
She’d never seen him cook anything. He didn’t have to eat, so cooking would have been wasted energy. He liked eating, though. He’d said before that it was one of his few indulgences, and he liked all kinds of food. That generally made his hosts happy because he would eat whatever he was offered and be gracious about it. Maybe it’d become sort of a hobby for him.
Hell. Come to think of it, she didn’t really know much about him at all. Sure, he was her friend, but what did she really know? She knew he worked in an advertising agency and that he kept an apartment in Wilmington. She knew he’d be assigned as her friend Ariel’s guardian. She knew he didn’t really need those thick-framed glasses, but they’d become part of his uniform of sorts. He wasn’t what she’d call well-dressed or fashionable, but his clothes were always neat and clean. Already, he was doing far better than most of the unattached wolves did. Those men acted like wearing a clean undershirt was a blow to their self-esteem.
She sighed, and took a small bite of the sandwich. Eating the orange hadn’t been much of an ordeal, but chewing the bread required true labor. Already, her jaw hinges ached. It was as if she hadn’t been eating. Had she been? Before the mania set in, she saw everything through her wolf’s eyes. The last six months were a blur and most of the memories were shut off to her. Surely the wolf would have hunted, just on instinct.
Instincts were what got her ass in trouble in the first place. She’d felt the instinct to take a mate, starting around the age of eighteen, and she’d ignored it. She’d known the deal. Wolves needed to form a mate bond not too long after finishing puberty or else the wolf hormones took over. Most wolves paired off pretty young, but Sweetie had approached quarter-life with no interest whatsoever in the men in her pack. Everyone called her picky. A snob. Her! Of all people, a snob?
Well, shit, maybe she was one.
She didn’t want to latch herself onto someone she didn’t feel anything for. She knew every wolf in the area and none of them hit the right notes. The same had been true for her brother—he hadn’t found a mate until he was nearly thirty—but he didn’t get the kind of flak she did. Of course, he was a famous baseball star so he could do whatever the hell he wanted and nobody gave him crap. Except Mama, but Mama gave everyone crap.
Calvin had been ready to go feral, too, but then the right lady fell onto his lap. She wasn’t even a wolf. Apparently, that didn’t matter as much as they’d always thought. They’d been closed off to outsiders until half-demon Julia came along. They’d lost their collective memory that there were others whose energies played nice with wolf auras.
It was because of Julia, in a roundabout way, that Sweetie knew Mark. Julia was John’s sister. John was married to Ariel, the woman Mark had been charged with protecting. Sweetie and Mark started as mutual friends, and then became friend-friends—I-tease-ya-’cause-I-love-ya friends. Fall-asleep-atop-him-on-the-sofa-while-watching-movies friends.
She’d cursed the fates the moment she met him, because that was all they could be.
He was too good for her, angel that he was. Of course, no man compared to him, but she couldn’t have him.
No one could have him.
“You look like you’re thinking really hard,” Mark said, and sent her thoughts scattering. She hadn’t even noticed he’d knelt in front of her holding out a bottle of water.
She took it, nestling it next to her hip as she tried to formulate sentences that made good sense.
“What are you thinking about?” He draped his forearm over her knees.
“I, uh … ” His skin on hers and the intoxicating nearness of him sent a tingle of awareness from her heart down to where her thighs clenched. She dragged her tongue across her dry lips and tried to meet his gaze.
There was too much wisdom in those dark eyes and looking into them always seemed to freeze up her brain. It was as if no mortal woman was equipped to be in his orbit, but she’d never been able to help herself. His energy was right and kept her wolf at bay. He hadn’t minded all the touchy-feely shit she’d needed from him in the past couple of years, but eventually, she did.
She wanted to do more to him than hug his back or have him hold her hand, and that was wrong. Of course she’d run off. She didn’t have a choice.
He squeezed her knee. “You in there?”
She set the sandwich down on its plate and lifted his arm from her legs. God, he felt so good. She never wanted to let go of him. She wanted to pull him on top of her and wrap her legs around his thighs and hold him there until he kissed her.
So she dropped his arm and scooted closer to the foot of the bed. “I was just wondering how it is you don’t have other plans on Christmas day. Isn’t that a big day for angels?”
She pulled her knees up to her chest, closed her borrowed coat around her legs, and rocked. She wanted to pull her head into the down-filled jacket like a turtle, and just inhale his scent. That was all she could have of him.
Some emotion flitted across his face, but it was gone so quickly she couldn’t be sure she’d even seen it. She ce
rtainly couldn’t peg it.
“This is the only place I need to be right now,” he said.
“Can’t be very much fun for you. I bet the gang in Mortonville is doing it up. Calvin and Julia are probably having a big shindig with the wolves, too.”
He nodded. “They are.”
“Wouldn’t you rather be there?” She rocked, and the gentle sway soothed her frayed mind, but sent frissons of pain into her hips and spine. Whether her wolf liked it or not, having fat on one’s ass obviously had some advantages.
“No. I’m here because I want to be.”
“Angel complex.” She rolled her eyes. Same old thing, and typical Angel. She couldn’t help calling him that aloud. Mark just seemed too intimate. “You want to save the world one wolf at a time, right? You know you can’t fix me, right?”
“I’m not interested in the world right now. I’m only concerned with you.”
“You know that when you leave I’m going right back to where I was, don’t you? I can’t control it anymore. When you pull your energy away, within a couple of hours I’m gonna shift, and maybe I’ll have a day or so where it’s still me in there. After that, it’ll all be instinct and the part of me that’s Sweetie is gonna hide. And I … ” She gripped the bottom of the coat and fiddled with the buttons. “I … don’t know what my wolf does. I’m not in control of her anymore.”
Before the mania, she’d always been in control of her wolf. Now, she felt like a big old hunk of her brain was missing. She had werewolf Swiss cheese in her head. Animals did what they had to, to survive, and she was under no pretenses that she wasn’t a predator in both her forms. Did that disgust him?
Mark’s expression gave no clues. “I’m not leaving.”
Her joy was short-lived. Common sense filled in where fleeting hope had been. “You can’t stay here and babysit me all the time. I won’t let you. And you’ve got to go back to work at the ad agency after New Year’s, I bet.” That was still seven days away. The idea of spending seven days with him …
