The outside had experienced an upgrade, too. The yards of rickety fence along the street in the distance had been replaced. My friend, though, wasn’t still working. But his scent was still here—he’d definitely spent the day working up grime and nastiness. My nose directed me toward the barn. The building didn’t have any animals inside, but their presence lingered here. Cows and horses had lived here once before. The chicken coop next to the barn still had the sounds of clucking and such. That was the source of fresh eggs every morning.
As I rounded one side of the structure, I spotted Luda trying to keep her sister Zoya from leaning around a corner.
“What are you two doing?” I asked.
Zoya shushed me and gestured for me to get back.
“We should go back inside,” Luda said.
Were we under attack again?
I peeked around them and blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “Ohhh, my.”
Right there in bright daylight, Tyler’s ass was in full bloom. The tan line from a bikini brief had left part of his buns pasty white, but the view was quite nice by werewolf standards. Water from the outdoors shower dripped down his back. His muscles rippled in his shoulders as he scrubbed his back. I glanced at the twins. The Peeping Tom Twins.
“I’d rub gravy all over that and lick him clean,” Zoya whispered.
Eww. What a waste of gravy.
“Zoya, you’re so bad,” Luda said. “We should give him privacy.”
“Forget gravy,” Zoya purred. “I’d rub olive oil all over him. Rub him down to get rid of that grime. Get ’em nice and clean.”
Uh, no to that, too. I opened my mouth. “Tyl—” A hand slapped down over my mouth.
“Don’t you dare ruin the show.” Zoya twisted me in the opposite direction and pushed me toward the house. “Go learn a spell or something. Quit messing with grown folks’ business.”
I contained my laughter and headed back to the house. By the time I rounded the corner and the house came into view, my insides locked. A lone man blocked the path to the red door.
You may not see me, but I’m always around.
Thorn Grantham had found me.
Like he always did.
Chapter 12
Thorn Grantham had the kind of feral beauty most men would envy. When he met others, they came to like and respect him. His facial features, with a strong jawline and piercing hazel eyes, were my favorite.
I still remember the day he walked back into my life half a year ago. It was almost impossible to forget when sunshine cleared out a storm.
But the man who stormed in my direction wasn’t the same though. His stride wasn’t as strong. He took the footsteps of a man with aches and pains in his joints. With each step he took toward me, reality pressed against my heart. Once blond hair now had speckles of white and grey. Crow’s feet touched the edges of his eyes.
That beauty had faded.
He frowned at me. That part of him hadn’t changed a damn bit.
“Look, I can explain,” I began. “I know you’re mad—”
Strong hands grasped my shoulders and pulled me into his arms. He pressed me close, his breath fanning my forehead. “Don’t ever leave me like that again.”
My heart tugged painfully. “I have a plan. I really do.”
Thorn merely snorted. “I’ve heard that before.”
A perfect calm spread over me from my head to my feet. How had one man given me the same kind of feeling only a magical spell could do? He had that kind of power over me.
He kissed my forehead first, lingering just long enough to take a deep breath. I did the same. When his lips found mine we settled into a set of motions that never got old. Our heads tilted. His hands found my hips. His heartbeat quickened like mine.
When we finally parted I kinda forgot he tracked me down. For a second there anyway.
“How did you find me?” I asked quietly.
“A little detective work. A visit to see your grandmother. Then a visit to Nick’s place. A talk with a rather nice older gentleman who lived there. I followed your trail to a coffee shop where I smelled a dwarf. Then I took another trip to your dwarf friend’s apartment. Tyler’s landlord told me his tenant would be gone for a few months since he had a photo shoot in Russia of all places.”
I rolled my eyes.
“From there, I dialed in a favor to a friend, who got me overseas. From there, I found the Lasovskayas and I visited with a most peculiar succubus in St. Petersburg who directed me north to Vyborg. Your trail was faint, but fresh enough to follow you here.”
Damn he was good.
“So what now?” I mumbled.
“Your parents are worried about you.” He tilted my chin up. “They deserve a phone call.”
“You know what they’ll say.”
“That they are disappointed? That you leap without looking?”
“You sure know how to make a gal feel shitty.”
“I’m telling the truth. I know what you’re trying to do, but this isn’t the way to do it.”
I sighed, enjoying the warmth of his arms. “But I have a feeling this is the place. Tamara has to have a reason to solve the problem as much as I do—”
“I don’t like this place. We should leave.” Thorn glanced over my shoulder toward the barn. I turned to see Luda, Zoya, and a now clothed Tyler.
“Is everything all right, Nat?” Tyler asked.
“Yeah.” I pointed to my husband. “Guys, this is Thorn, my mate.”
I introduced Thorn to everyone.
“Nat, you’ve been holding out on us,” Zoya said. “He’s beautiful.”
Thorn gave me a side glance.
“They don’t get out much,” I said. “Tamara really needs to find them husbands.”
After everyone met Thorn, we went inside for tea. I was tempted to ask Tyler if he knew about the peep show he gave the twins, but doing that in front of my mate wasn’t the smartest idea. He didn’t appear all that pleased and even passed me his cellphone with an expression that said, “Do I make the call or you?”
With a grimace, I dialed home. Dad picked up on the second ring.
“Have you found her yet on that farm?”
“It’s me, Dad.” I waited for it, even cringing for the blow.
A long sigh. “Natalya, of all the foolish things to do!”
I caught the sounds of footsteps on the line, of others surrounding Dad.
This wasn’t gonna be good. At all.
“Where is she?” one person snapped. Maybe Aunt Olga. “I can hear her breathing on the line,” she said.
“How could she do this to her grandmother? Her grandma is worrying and practically near the grave. What an ungrateful girl.” That had to be Aunt Vera. Grandma always had some ailment of some kind when one of her relatives didn’t do something the family expected. I waited patiently to hear that grandma was blind and deaf and perhaps slowly heading for her deathbed.
Then the crackled overseas phone conversation turned to swearing in both English and Russian. My cousin Inna had nothing on Aunt Vera when she was livid.
“You can’t be serious! She is really there?” Aunt Vera spat. “That little troublemaker better not come home anytime soon.”
The sharp sounds of someone snatching the phone made me pull the phone away from my ear. That kinda hurt. “Where are you?” Mom’s voice was pretty easy to make out. Normally it was honeyed, but now I was getting the full brunt of her anger.
“I’m in Russia,” I admitted. “I’m harasho.”
“Harasho?” She stretched out the word as much as possible, her voice rising into a shriek. “The pack alpha had to come after you and move heaven and earth to get there, and you call that fine?”
This was going nowhere fast. Explaining myself wouldn’t help Thorn. Listening to them berate me would only make it harder for me to save Thorn. And if my father got on the phone again and commanded me to come home, I’d feel compelled to comply. He was my sire and still had a measure
of control over my behavior. But I felt more compelled to stay and discover the secret to save Thorn’s life.
Time to end this conversation.
“Oh, no, the reception is going bad.” I made hissing noises into the phone. “Sorry, I gotta go. I’ll try to call later.”
I hung up on them, hoping they wouldn’t have a fresh grave waiting for me in South Toms River.
After hanging up on my family, and then ignoring every call and text message that came afterwards, the next three weeks passed quickly with Thorn at my side. He didn’t do much, merely watching over me while Tamara trained me. I noticed she had become far more polite with him present.
This particular morning he didn’t get up, deciding to lay in bed and rest.
“I’ll be fine,” he reassured me. “I’ve never had a vacation like this. I’m gonna enjoy it while I can.”
I hope he was just saying that for my benefit and not because he wasn’t feeling well.
The farm had been quiet all night into the day. Whatever had attacked us the day after I’d arrived hadn’t showed itself again. I took that as a good sign. There’d be less for me to worry about.
“What attacked you?” Thorn asked me that night before bed.
“I don’t know. I was in the middle of the field with Tamara when something spooked her. We were just standing there and then I heard something in the woods. It seemed pretty big, like a large animal. We were upwind, but there wasn’t any scent I recognized.”
Thorn’s face appeared thoughtful.
“You need to be careful around here.” He made me look him in the eye when I tried to look away. “There’s something out there. I’ve gone out a few times to try to track it, but I never get a good trail. Almost like it leaves for a period of time then doubles back when we stop paying attention.”
I nodded. “I’ll watch out. Anyway, she told me we’d work on the earth today. We can do that inside the house.”
“Be careful,” he advised.
An hour or two later, Tamara had me in the house in the sitting room.
“Do you know why I’ve chosen this element to be the last one for you to learn?” She stood not far from me.
Not really, but I wanted to sound like I’d been listening, so I tried to say something intelligent. “The others hadn’t been too complex. But I suspect when it comes to changing matter itself, like ourselves and the earth, that’s a tall order.”
She pursed her lips. “You could say that.”
She opened her palm to reveal dirt.
“What do you want me to do with that?” I asked. Hopefully, she wanted me to toss it outside where it belonged.
“I want you to feel it.”
I had a feeling this was coming. I took the offered soil and pretended it was glitter. Shiny glitter didn’t feel this grimy, though.
“I want you to close your eyes and just listen. Not with your ears per se, but with everything. Listening is the hardest part for us, since, as werewolves, we don’t know how to listen to what the spellcasters can hear already. You’ve been touched by magic of some kind. I can sense it on you. So, you’ll have to listen carefully.”
Did she mean the goblin magic caused by Bill or something else?
She began to recite the words and I followed along like I always did during a lesson.
After some time, my palm warmed and an array of other sensations ran along my fingertips. From wet to warm to scalding. It was amazing.
“What is this?” I finally asked. I told her what I felt.
She scooped the dirt from my palm and placed it back into a flowerpot near the window.
“That is dirt from a very special place far south of here where there are tropical forests and volcanoes. What you’re feeling is the residual magic in it. Everything in the earth has some kind of negligent pull, but if you touch the right things, there’s a lot more.” She offered her hand.
“Go on,” she must’ve seen the confused look on my face. “Take my hand.”
Her grip was strong when I grabbed her hand, but I quickly caught on to what she meant. An electric hum pulsed from her fingers into mine, growing stronger each second. My breath caught as my knees buckled and I collapsed on the floor. My vision blurred. A fire boiled inside Tamara, so hot, I let go of her.
“What was that?” For some reason, I felt weakened after touching her.
“That was me drawing from you. The sensations you felt was the same thing I felt when I touched you. It was our untapped potential.”
I blinked, trying to take it all in. But why had she hurt me? “But why did you take away my power?”
“As a lesson.” Tamara crossed her arms. “A valuable one. You can take from yourself as a source, but others can steal what you have, too.” She approached me as I crouched on the floor.
“I don’t like that.”
“Are you willing to take from others to save your husband? Playing with the magic from others requires a little finesse, though. I don’t think you’re ready to do that.”
“I’m not willing to do it, either,” I finished for her. I had enough of a bad taste in my mouth after what Nick did to me.
“Your husband barely made it outside today,” she said softly. “Do you want the tools necessary to survive long enough to figure out how to remove curses? You’ll need strength to do that, Natalya. More strength than your weak body can imagine.”
She said the word “weak” like a swear word. My fists clenched and I wanted to smack the smug look off her face.
She extended her hand. “Take back what I stole from you.” She poked me, and I couldn’t suppress the growl stirring in my chest. “Do it!” she snapped.
I snatched her hand and waited for the pull. The tug didn’t take too long. I spoke the words again to manipulate matter.
And I took more from that bitch than she took from me.
As strength returned to my limbs a bitter taste raked the back of my mouth and dizziness smacked me hard. But I didn’t let go of her.
“You learn fast,” Tamara said with a chuckle. “A stubborn bitch, though.”
“Takes a bitch to know one,” I remarked, not bothering to hold in my rising anger.
As the day wore on, the lingering effects from the spell made it hard to touch anything or anyone. In particular, the house itself. The whole place and its inhabitants were weird. I still couldn’t forget that scream from the other day or how the house shuddered when that creature attacked us. Luda had said something important. Something about beings trapped inside the house. As to what she meant, I didn’t know. Questioning Tamara came to mind, but if I pried too much, would she force me to leave?
Tamara had too many secrets, but I had no choice but to stay unless another opportunity came up. Also, even though I had grown to dislike her, I had to admit one thing: I knew more now than I did when I first came here. I just wished I knew how to manipulate the darkness inside of Thorn. I wished I knew how to pull out what ate away at him and protect him.
But even Tamara didn’t know how to do that.
With a slight sense of accomplishment, I settled into bed that night and wrapped my arms around Thorn.
Chapter 13
Instead of daylight tugging me awake, it was a hand over my mouth that yanked me out of slumber. Thorn leaned in close to me and whispered, “Don’t move.”
He kept his hand over my mouth. In the darkness, I watched his eyes shift toward the window. I froze, slowing my breathing as much as I could.
What the hell had spooked Thorn?
Then the moonlight filling the room vanished as something covered the window. After a few seconds, it reached the roof and the moon’s glow bathed the room again.
Something big as hell had come for us.
Thorn uncovered my mouth.
“I wish that had been a squirrel,” I whispered.
More creaking echoed along the rooftop. A form passed over the window, that of a man. With a deep inhale, I caught a whiff of cinnamon.
Spe
llcasters. And maybe their monster minions. And they were all over the freaking house. They’d made it past whatever barriers Tamara had erected.
My breath hitched painfully and heartbeat sped up, but Thorn pressed his hand on my stomach for reassurance.
“Not now,” he said softly.
I closed my eyes to hold back my anxiety. I wasn’t weakened anymore.
A creak outside our door drew our attention. Had they come inside already? Thorn shifted to rise without sound, but failed. He wasn’t as stealthy as he used to be.
The door opened without a sound, and I was prepared to pounce on the goblin blade, but the face we saw was unexpected. It was Tamara.
“We’re surrounded,” she whispered. Her words were simple, matter-of-fact. “You need to leave the house. I can draw them away, but you won’t have long to run.”
“Who is here?” Thorn asked. He pushed me to put on my clothes.
“The warlocks don’t trust their minions anymore to do their dirty work. They’ve come here personally to take me out.” She sighed, her eyes appearing tired for a moment. “I’m rather disappointed they sent weak ones.”
My mouth dropped. Holy shit. Actual warlocks had come here to attack us. I reached for the goblin blade. The weapon had already transformed into a metallic, golden box that could fit in the palm of my hand. Was this the same box I used when I was in Atlantic City fighting Roscoe’s warlock? I didn’t know how it had worked last time, but the goblin blade had disarmed a warlock. A rather handy trick.
“What about the twins and Tyler?” I asked.
“I’ve already spoken to them. Tyler will follow them to the south. You’re going north.”
A thud against a wall to the east of us shook the house.
“They’re persistent.” She coughed and brought up a handkerchief to her mouth. When she pulled it away, there was blood on the cloth.
Compelled Page 10
