Cry of the Wolf (18 page)

The Trident glanced at Lydia briefly, seemed unsure as to what to do, then took Sarah in a protective embrace. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said, snatching her hand.

That
was her hot date? Holy fuck…

They both ran towards the revolving door and out into the night.

“
Sarah…”
Nope. He was still barking. Damn, he needed to shift back.

With concerted effort, he finally managed it, a yelp of agony escaping him as his bones crunched into place around his wound.

“What the hell are you doing?” cried Lydia in panic. “You shouldn’t ever shift until your wound’s healed up, you know that.”

“Sarah!” he called out after her again, properly this time.

Too late. She was gone.

His head fell back to the floor in defeat.
No
, he couldn’t give up. Fighting his exhaustion, he rolled onto his front and attempted to rise.

Lydia grabbed him by the arms. “No. Taylor, please sit down.”

“I have to go, Lydia. I have to save her.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“I couldn’t be there for her last time; this time I can be.”

“You
were
there. You killed the rogue wolf – you told me so. She’d be dead without you.”

“I couldn’t comfort her.”

“Because you were bleeding, like you are now. I called Ryan. He’ll be here any second with Marco and Bill. Let them go after her.”

He shook his head. “It might be too late. She’s in real danger.” Biting his lip to stop from screaming in anguish, he shifted once more until the wolf ruled his body.

“Taylor,
please
.” her voice cracked. “Don’t you know what you mean to me? I can’t lose you.”

Her words from earlier tore through him. God, no, this wasn’t about that. Of course he was coming back to her.
You won’t lose me.

He licked her once on her neck; a couple of times on her face.
I just need to save her.

With difficulty, he ignored her crumpled face as he hobbled out through the revolving doors. But her broken words, chasing after him, were impossible to shrug off… “Then you’ll be saving her forever.”

Chapter Eleven

“It’s following us,” she gasped, for what must have been the hundredth time as they pulled up outside the Holiday Inn.

“No, it isn’t,” he seethed. “It can’t follow us – we’re in a car. It would have lost our scent by now. Besides, you wounded it.” Pride filled his chest at that image: his Sarah, throwing herself on the animal with no thought at all for her safety.

For him.

She went so pale she was almost translucent.

He switched off the ignition after parking up and took her hands in his. Blood had crusted on both of them, although the right held more signs of her wrestle.

She gazed down at her fingernails, aghast. The blood had congealed under there, too.

He lifted her chin up. “You saved my life.” It was no small amount of reverence in his tone.

She let out a half-manic laugh and shook her head. “No. I was stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“How can you say that? You’re the bravest human being I know.”

“No, no…” she kept shaking her head. Then, if it were at all possible, she went even paler, eyes glazing as if replaying the scene in her mind.

Shit. She was on the verge of hysteria.

Following nothing but instinct, he pulled her to him and kissed her, marvelling in the feel of her softness. Had he ever been so tender before? With anyone? She made him feel so—

“Human,” she exclaimed, pulling away from him with a start. Her eyes blazed with clarity. “You’re not human!”

Every cell in his body came to a standstill, the instinct that had told him to kiss her, now urging him to kill her.
No! She can’t know!

But then her eyes grew hazy again and she sank in her seat, despair settling over her. “I’m sorry … I’m … shit, what a stupid thing to say.” Her voice was a stuttered whisper. “I don’t know why I said that. I don’t, I don’t…” Her face fell, and she sobbed into her bloodied hands, shoulders shaking with the effort of those heaving breaths.

Jesus fucking Christ. Her pain radiated through him as if he’d coated himself in acid.

“It was like I suddenly remembered … a … dream I had,” she wrenched out. “And now it’s gone again. I don’t know why I said that.”

“Forget it. They were just words.” He unclipped her seatbelt for her. They wouldn’t have been followed, not least because he’d thrown his larger vial of liquid – a fragrance called Operiphur that confused the hell out of any hunting animal so they lost their prey – behind his car as he’d raced away like a Formula 1 driver, but he didn’t fancy taking any chances right now. “Let’s get you inside and warm you up.”

She turned to him, wide-eyed and confused. “But it’s a baking hot night.”

“And you’re as cold as ice, Sarah.”

She gazed back at her hands, dumbfounded. “Oh.”

He sighed.

Fuck.
He’d done this to her. “I’ll let you out. Don’t move.”

He scrambled out of his car, quickly scanned the area with both his eyes and nose, and when satisfied, ran around to open the passenger door.

He didn’t bother waiting for her to get out. He leant in and scooped her into his arms, awkwardly – he wasn’t little – then slammed the door shut with his elbow.

For a minute, he thought she was going to protest, panic flaring in her eyes for the briefest of seconds; and then she breathed a sigh of relief and nestled into his chest, clearly exhausted.

He had no idea what he was going to do once he got her inside. Three weeks ago, the answer would have been crystal clear: fuck her brains out, then hold her captive until the full moon, when he could go chase a thunderstorm and make her his. Tridents and wolves had chased thunderstorms on much less of a pull.

But something had changed.
He
had changed.

With slight bemusement, and a whole load of foreboding, he realised he wanted to make love to her – slowly and gently. More than that: he wasn’t hard. No hint of an erection stirred in his pants. Yeah, the
want
was still there, but he was too damn worried about her in his heart; in his—

He stood stock still, breathing heavily as the understanding dawned on him.
In his soul.
He could
feel
his soul, and Sarah wrapped around it like the rays of the sun.

Astounded, he looked down at her in his arms, fast asleep, the chaos of the evening finally taking its toll.

The moon was only three quarters full. Would he be able to resist her in a week’s time? Or would the moon with her bloated, silver belly demand the ultimate sacrifice from those she ruled over?

Leave her. If you love her, leave her.

By the will of Sekhmet – he
loved
her.

Far off in the distance a roll of thunder sounded.

His foreboding grew.

~*~

“I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him!”

“Ryan, don’t—”

“I shared my marshmallows with him.”

“What?”

“Nevermind. I thought he was letting go of her.”

“It’s not even been a year for him. A year after my mum died, I would have given anything to have her back. I was looking for clues, a reason – anything – as to why she chose to leave us all behind. Of course he’s going to want to fix this.”

Ryan mumbled something and continued pacing up and down Lawrence’s office, Lawrence himself sitting at his desk in contemplative mode. He had been called in as well, much to Lydia’s annoyance – she didn’t want everyone ganging up on Taylor.

Although Lawrence didn’t exude the anger that Ryan did, Lydia could tell he was seething beneath the surface, and she knew why: he had entrusted her to Taylor.

“Please,” she pleaded, aching from their disappointment in him, “both of you, don’t blame him. I can’t stand it.” Her eyes grew hot as tears welled up in them. “He’s hurt. I just want him back safe.”

“He should have waited for me,” grumbled Ryan.

“Yes, he should. But that would be like asking you to wait for back up if it were me that was in danger, don’t you think? He still loves her.” Her voice cracked over those last four words, despite her effort to show no emotion at the fact.

“Hey, hey, hey…” Ryan finally reined in his temper and took her in his arms. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Taylor’s dedicated to you, I know that.”

Just what she wanted. Three men dedicated to her. Who gave a whatsit about love, anyway. She pulled out of his embrace and sat herself down on the corner of the desk, arms across her chest, ignoring his quizzical look.

Lawrence’s matter-of-factness cut through the awkwardness, and for once she was glad of his detached nature. “Bill and Marco say that Operiphur was used. There’s no way to trace the scent of the Trident or Sarah; Taylor will have the same problem. I’ll make an educated guess that he’ll go back to her house when all other avenues have failed and wait it out.”

“Do you want me to go there?” chipped in Ryan.

The two men exchanged a look.

Lydia’s panic flared. Surely they wouldn’t leave him; he’s part of the pack. He was her mate, even if he still loved his wife. He was a part of
her
– he was a part of all three of them.

“Go. But stay back, downwind if you can. Observe. Don’t jump in unless you absolutely have to. We want to bring him back alive and undamaged, but that pup’s got a decision to make and he needs room to make it. We’ve all lost people we love; we all know how it feels. Lydia’s right, his loss is more recent than any of ours. Unfortunately for him, he needs to get the fuck over it faster than any of us.”

Ryan nodded.

Lydia’s relief filled the room. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Right, babe.” Ryan, clearly glad at having a mission to let off his steam, swooped in and crushed his lips to hers despite the fact that she’d pushed herself away earlier. Nothing broke him at all, did it? Everything that was ‘Ryan’ seeped its way into her heart as it always had. Her mates totally rocked. Maybe she could love them enough for all of them…

“If that boy doesn’t have an epiphany, I’ll drag him home backwards by his tail until he does.”

Well, what did one say to that?

She smiled her thanks and nodded.

“I mean it,” said Lawrence, “no jumping in.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Ryan shut the door behind him.

“Okay,” she hopped off the desk. “I need to keep busy, so I’m gonna go back to—”

“Lydia.”

She held her breath and turned to face Lawrence. He was all businesslike as usual; gone was the man who’d fucked her senseless just hours earlier. She wasn’t sure whether she was grateful or pissed off beyond words.

“The information that I asked for about your family finally came in this evening. Is this something you feel up to hearing now?”

No.
“Sure.”

“Both of your parents were werewolves.”

“No, that’s not—”

“Your father’s werewolf gene is recessive – extremely rare – but possible. It appears that he was mostly shunned within his pack because he could never shift at will, only during the full moon.”

“But—”

“As a boy, he was taken under the wing of Gladys Boswell,
not
a blood relative and not a werewolf. She was a Human Hand – a term given to the very few trusted humans who know of our existence and have sworn to secrecy.”

Stunned, all protestation left her. She’d always believed her to be her father’s great aunt – a blood relative.

“She introduced him to the woman – the werewolf – who would turn out to be his mate and your mother: Christine Herne. She was a storm-wielder from a pack that lived in Somerset, banished because of her abilities.

“Their union was a blessed one in a way, because no one looked twice at James Martin, he passed himself as human, and Christine didn’t
want
anyone to look twice at her. But from that point, everything gets a little vague.”

“Wait, wait, wait … my parents, both of them … I’ve never once seen
anything
to indicate—”

“Think hard. Your dad only ever shifted on the full moon, and your mother would probably have tempered her changes to suit his. How did you used to spend your full moons during your childhood?”

“Well, I don’t bloody know … erm… God. Oh, god. Mum and dad used to go out once a month for dinner, but I don’t know if it was on the full moon, I never had any reason to check. Aunt Gladys would look after me; I despised those nights with a passion – she’s always given me the creeps. Shit, I don’t believe it. It must have been the full moon – it
must
have been.
Every month.
Why didn’t they just fucking tell me about werewolves?”