Cún fell to the floor and Mark rose above him, his mouth dripping red, his eyes mad, his razor claws poised for the kill. Maria stood, trembling and weeping, and in that second of silence before death, she said, “Mark, you can choose not to do this…”
He froze. Slowly his eyes shifted to look at her. That creature sitting astride the prone Cún was not human. It was a brutal monster, a creature out of dark nightmares, a savage killer, but looking through its amber eyes she could see a human being reaching out to her. She said, “The beast has no choice, but you, Mark, you have. He is your brother. You love him…” She managed a broken smile and sobbed at the same time, “Even though he’s a major jerk, he is your brother, and you do love him. You are better than this. Let him live.”
She gave an involuntary gasp as she watched the grotesque metamorphosis from freakish wolf-man back to human. His clothes hung in torn shreds from his limbs. He stood, and as he did so his brother, lying bloodied on the floor, changed back too. Leaning on the wall for support, Cún climbed to his feet. He looked at Maria.
“You will regret your stupidity,” and turning to his brother he spat at his feet. “You are weak. You allowed a human woman to stop you at the kill. You are a whelp.”
As he reached the door, Mark said, “If this human woman had not stopped him, the whelp would have killed the great wolf, Cún. Learn your lesson before it is too late.”
Cún left.
Mark took a towel and climbed the three steps to where Maria stood trembling. He enfolded her in the towel and she came to him, resting her head against his powerful shoulder. She began to sob and he held her gently in his arms.
He whispered in her ear, “How did you do that? What have you done to me?” She looked up into his eyes. He said, “No human has ever brought a wolf out of the howling. It can’t be done.”
She touched his face with her fingers. “I didn’t,” she said. “You did it yourself. I just reminded you of who you really are.”
He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. There he laid her down and stroked her face with his hands. She was still crying quietly.
“Mark, I don’t understand what’s going on, what I am feeling. I think I am going crazy.”
“I want to kiss you, Maria. I want to make love to you, but not as the animal I have inside, not in the howling.”
She reached up and held his face.
“Kiss me.”
He leaned down and touched her lips with his. She ran her hands over his powerful chest and slipped them behind his neck. A voice in her head told her this creature was holding her as a slave. Yet she could not deny her feelings. She pulled him down to her and softly bit his lips.
Then they were gently rubbing their faces together, kissing at the corners of their mouth, nipping each other’s lips with their teeth. She smiled and he stripped off the remains of his clothes. Naked, he lay on top of her. She ran her hands over his skin. They kissed deep, she sucked on his tongue and as he bit into her neck she whispered, “It is so good to feel your skin.”
She felt his breath, hot on her ear, “The howling is not taking me, why…?”
She held his head in her hands, her kisses becoming harder, more urgent, “Don’t question it. Just go with it.”
His hips were pushing into hers. She could feel him hard on her thigh. His breathing was tremulous, growing faster. She spread her legs, dilating to him. Their kisses were deep and hungry. His hands slid from her face down her body to her waist, and then cupped her hips. She cried out as he slid inside her. His heavy, hot breathing in her ear turned to a growl. She felt his hands grip her ass and she knew the howling was on him, and she wanted it.
She clawed his back, feeling it morphing, feeling his huge muscles swell under her hands. She screamed a scream that was half roar. He rose above her, a horrific daemon, supporting himself on his powerful arms. Their eyes locked in diabolical lust and he began his slow, thrusting rhythm. She felt him, impossibly deep inside her, swelling , growing bigger and harder with every thrust. Her skin, raw from when he had taken her before, stung with the friction, and she sucked in the pain and felt it turn to a pleasure that was beyond understanding.
Then his rhythm was growing faster. She felt his hips pounding into her loins and she was overwhelmed by madness. She saw his fangs, his huge, brutal, animal form, taking her, using her, brutalizing her, and she longed for him. The orgasm gripped her suddenly, like a million volts searing through her skin, sending her into insane spasms of animal ecstasy. She quivered and clenched on him, gritting her teeth, holding her breath, intensifying the pleasure. And then he was roaring, driving through her contractions, and they were thrashing together, tangled, grappling at each other’s bodies, until they lay exhausted, gently kissing each other’s skin, tasting the salt of each other’s perspiration, and they drifted together into delicious sleep.
She had no idea how long she had slept. When she opened her eyes she felt the strange peace of exhaustion. He was still there, next to her, breathing softly. Had it really been less than twenty-four hours? How was it possible that so much had happened in so little time? How was it possible that these insane, terrifying experiences had led to these intense, overwhelming feelings? Could she really feel this for him? She reached out and touched him. He stirred and turned to face her. His eyes opened and she knew he was instantly wide awake. He smiled.
She said, “Mark.” And gently touched his face with her fingertips.
“Maria.”
“This thing that is happening. It isn’t right, Mark. It can’t last.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I am not your slave, Mark. I don’t belong to you. I feel something for you. It has knocked me for six. I am reeling. But I don’t belong to you. I am a free woman. I don’t belong to anyone.”
He heaved a big sigh and sat up.
“Do we have to do this?”
“Yes.”
“After what has just happened. After what we have both done – and felt – this morning…”
“Especially after what we have both done and felt this morning.” She pulled herself up and sat cross-legged, looking at him. “Mark, I have never felt anything like what I feel for you. You are an extraordinary man, and you stir wild feelings in me; feelings that are hard for me to understand and deal with.”
He turned his head and watched her. He gave a lopsided, rueful smile. He said, “But?”
“But that doesn’t mean I am just going to shrug and let slide the fact that you and your family want to hold me as some kind of slave. For crying out loud, Mark! Your mother and your brother want you to kill me!”
He spread his hands in a helpless gesture.
“I don’t know what you expect me to do. You’ve seen I can protect you. We have both seen that I am no threat to you.”
She frowned. “Are you kidding me? What I expect you to do is the right thing. I expect you to let me go home and continue with my career. And I expect you to stop your mother and brother from abducting and killing innocent young women. That girl had a boyfriend and a family. Do you know how much pain and sorrow your mother and Cún caused with that monstrous act this morning?”
He sighed and nodded, staring down at the black satin sheets on his bed.
“Yes, of course I do.”
“It can’t go on like this. It has to stop.”
He laughed. It was a harsh, humorless sound. He climbed out of the bed and stared up at the ceiling.
“You say that like I smoke too much, or I keep leaving the lavatory seat up after I pee.” He turned to face her. “Like I have some kind of lamentable habit which I need to stop.”
She shook her head and pointed at him. “No. That’s what you make it sound like. You try to reduce the importance of this madness, and make it sound like, ‘Oh well, I have this freaky family who do weird things.’ Well, no, Mark, this is not a freaky aunt in Colorado who farms weed. This is a mother and a brother…”
“And a few
uncles, aunts and cousins!”
“Whatever. A family, who have a very serious genetic condition that leads them to rape and kill! Get real, Mark!”
He put his hands to his head. “A family who are at the top of the food chain, Maria. The poorest person in my family is a multimillionaire. They are powerful people. I cannot just walk away from them. I am the Tiarna – the lord – in my branch. I have a responsibility to our heritage, to our pack!”
They stared at each other for a long moment. Finally she stood and went to the wardrobe to get a robe. He watched her. As se put it on she said, “You had better understand something. You need to wake up. Top of the food chain? Really? Then how come you operate in secret? How come you had to get a slime-ball like Zoltan to break into my house in the middle of the night to kidnap me? Let me ask you something else.” She stepped towards him and poked him on the chest with her finger. “How come you don’t like what you do? How come you feel ashamed? I’ll tell you. Because you know it’s wrong. Your ‘pack’ as you call them, operate in secret because you know that people, ordinary, decent people, would not tolerate what you do, because what you do is disgusting and immoral and inhuman.”
She walked towards the bathroom to shower, wanting suddenly, desperately, to wash away the horror of the last few hours. She stopped at the door and turned back to him.
“I know you are better than this. The man I am developing feelings for is better than this. I just hope you realize it. Because if you don’t, for all your power and your bestial magnetism, you will never touch me again, or get close to me again, until I am a free woman, and you have turned your back on the disgusting practices of your family.”
She moved into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Outside she heard him gathering his clothes. Then she heard the bedroom door close.
Seven
She sat on the bed. She had found some Levis and a sweatshirt, and a pair of boots, all in her size, along with other clothes in the wardrobe, and she had got dressed. She had been thinking all the while that Bob would raise the alarm when she didn’t show up for work. She wondered how long he would wait before alerting the police. Then it had dawned on her that Mark would simply have a word with Bob, tell him she was working directly with him, make some excuse. As a major investor in the department and a maverick eccentric nobody would question him.
As for family and friends – she was a loner, always had been. She gave a lopsided smile. A lone wolf.
So what now? What would be the next step in this insane nightmare? She had defied the pack, the lords at the top of the food chain. What could she hope for now? She had seen it often enough in the wilds, in the packs she had studied. First they isolate the prey, then they circle, then they go in for the kill.
She glanced over her shoulder at the door, expecting it to open at any moment and Sylvia, Cún and Mark to come in.
The door.
Something nagged at her memory. Something apparently unimportant. A flash in her memory. She had been about to step into the shower, Mark had gathered his clothes and left. He had closed the door. But she had not heard the clunk of the lock.
He had not locked the door.
She stood and went and turned the handle. It opened easily. Was it some kind of cruel trap?
She stepped into the corridor. It was long and suddenly seemed oppressively narrow. She followed it to the end and came out into the vast drawing room. The sliding windows onto the terrace were open and she could see him outside, leaning on the balcony, looking out over Central Park.
She stood in the doorway and said, “You didn’t lock the door. Your mother and brother going to have me for lunch now?”
He didn’t turn.
“They are not here.”
She stood next to him and looked out at the expanse of the park. There was an odd irony in it: nature imprisoned by civilization, a mirror image of herself, a civilized woman imprisoned by wild beasts, in the heart of Manhattan.
She said, “What will happen when they get back?”
“You are not a prisoner, Maria. You said so yourself. You are a free woman.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time in human history, Mark, that a person died for her freedom.”
He turned to face her. His demeanor had changed. He was serious.
“What can I do, Maria? When I came to you and invested in your department, it was true admiration that drove me. I believe in what you say and I believe you are right, but tell me. What can I do?”
She gazed into his eyes, knowing that her words answered only half of the problem.
“Let me go.”
“And then what? Do you think they will not come after you? And what of us – you and me? What do we do? Do we just forget what we have experienced – what we have felt for each other? And what of me…?” She reached out and touched his arm. He held her hand. “What of me, Maria? Do I surrender to this monster inside me?”
“There may be a way. You know that some of my research might help to explain what is happening to you at a genetic level. Your ancestors may have received wolf DNA by an action similar to the retrovirus. It is possible, if you were willing to help me, that I could find a way to shut down those genes, if you were willing.”
He drew her close and stroked her hair. “I would be willing, of course I would. But what of my mother? What of the Cún? Maria, how can we ever…?”
“You can’t give up. You can’t just surrender to this without a fight. Let me go back to work. Give me samples of your blood. Get me samples of their DNA. Let me study them. I can make a file and prepare a report. We can hold that over them, threaten to hand it to the FBI…”
He frowned, daring for a moment to hope.
“Could you…? Is it possible?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, Mark. Maybe. But it has to be worth trying, hasn’t it? If there is the slightest chance, we have to try.”
The voice came to them like a trickle of poison.
“Cún was right. You are weak. I should have listened to him from the start. But I wanted to believe in you. I wanted to believe that like a wolf pup, you were taking your time, playing, but that you would eventually mature into a real Tiarna. But you are pathetic. This human female has made a fool of you.”
She stood at the open door, watching them. Behind her, her youngest son sneered in triumph. Mark said, “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough. She has to go, Mark. Prove yourself now, or suffer the consequences.”
Bizarrely, Sylvia began to undo her blouse. Behind her, Cún also began to undress. Soon, they both stepped naked onto the terrace. Mark watched them. Maria looked up at him. “Mark…?”
He turned and searched her eyes. Finally he said, “I am sorry, Maria. There is nothing you can do.”
“No, Mark…”
Imperceptibly he breathed the words, and for a second in his eyes all she could see was tenderness and love. He whispered, “I love you, now run!”
And the howling was upon all three of them. In a great bound he was across the terrace. He seized Cún in his claws and hurled him crashing through the garden table and chairs. Sylvia, now a gigantic she-wolf, was on his back, biting into his neck. Hot blood stained her maw. Mark thrashed wildly, throwing himself across the terrace, smashing her against the wall, clawing at his back. Sylvia fell and with a massive swipe he sent her smashing through the plate glass and into the drawing room.
Now Cún was back on his feet and bounded after Mark. They hit the floor, scrambling and thrashing in the broken glass. Blood was flowing freely from Mark’s neck and back. Cún bit deeply into his left shoulder and Sylvia was trying to seize his throat. Mark let out a monstrous bellow, swung Cún in a great arch and smashed him against one of the marble columns. Then grabbing Sylvia in both hands he hurled her across the room.
Maria had run to the shattered window and was staring in horror. Mark was drenched in blood and she could see that he was weakening. Cún was on his feet and Sylvia was crouc
hing, snarling, her long tongue licking the blood from her snout. Mark stared at Maria.
“Go, do what you have to do. Do not let my death be in vain…!”
And with a savage snarl they both leapt on him. He went down under them, snarling, biting and clawing, Sylvia half screaming as she tore at him with her teeth.
Maria ran. The elevator was there. She hammered at the button. Nothing happened. Sylvia raised her head and her flaming eyes locked onto Maria’s. The doors began to close. Sylvia sprang. Maria screamed. The door closed as the great alpha female crashed, clawing against them, and the elevator began to move down.
When she reached the ground floor she ran sobbing across the lobby, weeping inconsolably. She burst out into the sunshine and headed, at a stumbling run, towards Central Park North. There she hailed a cab and headed home, towards Brooklyn.
* * *
The next day she phoned Bob, who didn’t sound at all surprised to hear from her.
“Hey kid, how’s it going?”
“Ah, well, it’s different…”
“I bet! He doesn’t hang around, does he? Our bank balance is very happy right now!”
She frowned.
“Really? That’s good. Listen, Bob. I need to go away for a while. I know it’s short notice, but I need to do this.”
“Sure, Maria. What’s it about?”
“I…” she hesitated. “It’s kind of last minute. I need to go to…” she knew she shouldn’t tell him. She should try to hide the trail. They would come looking for her, but she couldn’t think. She said, “Alaska.”
“Alaska?”
“It’s complicated. I’ll email you, Bob. Can you cover for me?”
“Alaska, wow. Sure, no problem. Mark said you’d be doing some confidential research for a while. I can’t wait to see it.”
“Yeah. It may not be what you expect.”
“You OK, Maria? You sound odd.”
“Yeah, I’m OK. It’s all just been a bit sudden.”
Bad, Very Bad Shifters- The Complete Mega Bundle Page 38
