Cry of the Wolf (6 page)

He took her hands from his shoulders and placed them against the mattress above her head, holding them in place with one hand as his body pinned hers. His other hand found a jutting nipple, and she gasped, writhed and swelled beneath him, pulling against his grip… “I want to touch you,” she pleaded.

“No,” he uttered, hoarsely. “I want to own you first.”

A warning gong went off in his head, but it was sort of muffled anyway – especially when he dipped his head and took as much of that perfectly round breast into his mouth as he could, sucking hard so he could taste the metallic tang of her blood.

Underneath him, she jumped, her cry of surprise making his cock jerk against the swell of her belly…

Ahhh, too close!

He was too close, but hell if he could stop now. God damn it, she tasted like flowers everywhere, as if she were a part of the earth itself – an Earth child …
my Goddess
…
mine, mine…

A second gong resounded, but before he could react to his sense of unease, she wrapped her legs around him, twining her ankles at the small of his back.

He couldn’t help the growl that erupted from him. He could feel her slick, wet sex against his balls, and his cock hurt, fuck it. It actually
hurt
.

“I need to be inside you.” He didn’t wait for her reply but smashed his lips against hers, plunging, bruising … he tasted blood and knew he had to be hurting her.

The gong was going at the rate of knots now, and the startling realisation washed over him, that he could no longer pull out of his illusion.

Resist!

Surrender…

Resist…

Surrender…

Sarah half-whimpered, half-sobbed against his mouth.

No, don’t cry.

He ended the kiss, and moved the hand that wasn’t holding her down, up to her throat and pressed against the little sounds she made … sad sounds…

But you’re enjoying this…

The head of his cock brushed against the wet folds of her cunt, and then he was inside her to the hilt.

Fuck! She was tight. But then, he was pretty big and wide, even before he’d become a Trident.

A memory pressed against the edge of his mind: chains, a cold, damp floor, a female above him, devouring him with her strange, slitted eyes as her body ate his up …
See? You’re enjoying this.

Beneath his palm, Sarah’s voice box moved, another whimper managing an escape as he found that sweet spot of hers that had her tightening around him, quivering against him…

Her tears fell onto the back of his hand, and that was the moment he tore in two. At least, that’s what it felt like. In reality, he shifted.

NO! You’ll kill her!

Own her.

Kill her.

Resist!

Surrender…

She shook her head, tried to scream, but he had her firmly around the throat now with one clawed hand, as he pummelled in and out of her, banging against that g-spot, demanding her climax…

Own…

No!

Breed…

SHIT!

He howled his release the moment she broke, convulsing around him, milking him as his cum coated her womb…

Christ!

Holy, fucking shit.

He collapsed on top of her, sated, relieved, no longer in pain…

Pain.

Sarah.

Jesus, what have I done?
He raised his head to look at her, but it wasn’t her that lay beneath him.

His own face stared back at him, lifeless.

With a start, he threw himself off
himself
,
and landed hard on the floor, the back of his head hitting the edge of a table that formed part of the décor of the hotel room.

Hotel room.

Illusion.

Acrid bile surged up his throat.

He looked down at himself, then at the bed. His sperm soaked his mutant paw and the crumpled sheets – not Sarah … as he choked her…

The contents of his stomach rose without any further warning and he vomited on the patterned carpet, the force of his self-loathing rocking his body as he retched.

On all fours, he bulldozered his way into the bathroom, banging the door against the wall as he catapulted inside and into the bath tub.

He knocked the chrome lever of the shower unit to the left and lay under the freezing cold stream as he tried to get himself under control.

There was never any hiding from himself, was there?

Grey, wiry fur malted from his body under the spray, and started to clog up the plug hole.

This is what he was: a monster.

If he had any shred of humanity left in him, he’d leave her. He’d get as far away from her as he could, now, before it was too late, and never come back.

The cold seeped into him and he began to calm, willing his body to shift back to human form.

After it had, he swung the lever the other way, right round towards that red dot, as far as it could go.

A few seconds later, the pelting water scorched his skin, and he relished in the burn. Because this was all he was good for now: pain.

Humanity would never find him again. Not even someone like Sarah, so loving, so giving and caring, could ever love the thing he was – the thing that took over him far too often.

Evil.

Black.

Commanded by a gene that had no right to be in his body.

Curse The Trident … and the man who created them.

Minutes later, when he had become numb to the scorch of his skin, he turned the water off.

His heart rate was almost back to normal now.

Salvation.

That’s what Sarah was: his last chance at salvation.

So, no – he wasn’t going to run away from her.

He’d always been a selfish bastard – even when he’d been human.

Chapter Four

You’re a selfish bastard,
he scolded himself as he made his way up the long, hidden driveway to Lawrence’s mansion. He still couldn’t quite think of it as his home, even though it had been for almost nine months now.

Uncharacteristically, Taylor had shifted into his wolf after leaving Sarah, stuffed his clothes in a hollow barrow he often used when he took that route, and made it all the way back to the Surrey Hills from the Kent countryside in his animal form. Not overly wise in broad daylight under the beaming summer sun, but he needed his revulsion with himself, and his animal half, to end. It’s not like being a wolf was awful – it had it perks: speed, strength, out-of-this-world senses … he just needed to let go of his past … and his heart. He still had his humanity, and that had to count for something – Lydia told him it did. Often.

His heart swelled at the thought of her; her optimism and warmth. Two characteristics she shared with Ryan. But whereas Ryan had no idea what it was like to be human, Lydia would always remember it. And that, she shared with Taylor.

Clearly, Sarah was happy. Enough was enough – he should just let her be now.

He scanned his surroundings with his eyes, nose and ears, seeking out Lydia. His need to see her – his mate – suddenly permeated him, and so did an ache that grew deep inside him at the seat of his navel, as if something was tugging at his belly button from inside.

The ache extended to his heart and his groin simultaneously.

So this is what it was like to have a mate; to pine for her. It wasn’t entirely comfortable, but not entirely unpleasant either, maybe because he was finally coming to terms with it and was willing to go to her. He wondered how Lawrence coped with it, when the guy shut himself off so completely from her.

But Taylor was learning, and it was thanks to Lydia and all that she’d brought to them over the past three weeks. She had taken to her new life so easily and with gusto, considering that a month ago she had had no clue werewolves even existed, and she had lost no less than him, really. He could follow Lawrence’s path and end up a tortured shadow of all he could be, or he could follow Lydia’s path, encompass all of who he was and live with some kind of peace and contentment.

Well, he’d played the emotional torture game for the best part of a year now, and he didn’t want to play it any more.

A whistle sounded ahead of him to his right, and he saw Ryan waving at him from the edge of the woods before turning to Marco, Bill, Doug and Pete, all of them dressed as if they’d been labouring in the forest, but it was felling season for the pine trees, so that made sense. And there was no one better to manage the sustainability of the woods than the wolves who lived in it. They could easily scent the growth of the flora which could often be hard to detect by humans; the nesting habits and migration of the birds and other animals, and whether a heavy frost or rainfall was due.

All fourteen members of their pack lived in different parts of Lawrence’s land: Marco and Bill, the two youngest, shared an expansive bungalow towards the west; Pete had a cottage to the north, and Doug – the only other male that was mated – lived in the south with his female, Maria. They were yet to conceive.

Further in, stood two more cottages. One was the home of Richard, the oldest wolf among them, and his two children, Stephen and Selena. Their mother had died giving birth to Selena. It had been an unforeseen and tragic eventuality that had left Richard bereft and introverted.

In the other cottage lived Hendrickson with his sister, Amelia – doctor and nurse by profession, and medical carers for them all.

Lawrence’s mansion, where Lawrence, Ryan, himself and now Lydia, lived – much to Selena’s scorn – was located in the east.

Together, they all formed a protective guard around the natural, old woodland that had housed their kind since Lawrence’s grandparents had first moved here in the sixties. They lived far enough apart so they were able to get on with their lives privately, but reported in at every full moon, or whenever anything threatened their security.

The four males wandered off as Taylor bounded towards Ryan, shifting into his human self when he was just a few yards away. “Hey,” he greeted him. “Where’s Lydia?”

“Good afternoon to you, too.”

“Afternoon?”

“It’s one o’clock. The guys are off on their lunch break. Lydia was looking for you earlier – where’ve you been?”

Taylor didn’t miss the protectiveness that coated Ryan’s voice. He may not be happy sharing his mate, but when it came down to it, Ryan had surprised him with his complete devotion to her, and if anything caused her worry, the cause of that worry would know about it. So, if sharing her made her happy, or was what she needed to quell the mating aches and pains, he stepped aside.

Taylor hadn’t exactly stepped
into
the space he offered … yet. He instinctively moved backwards so Ryan wouldn’t pick up on where he’d been, but the Alpha was too fast for him.

He was pushed back against a tree before he could blink, Ryan’s nose at the crook of his neck.

“Hey! Naked here!” complained Taylor.
And half-erect
, he added to himself, because of his need to see Lydia.

Ryan shoved himself off him, a warning look in his eyes. “You smell like Kent.”

Taylor exhaled and said nothing.

“Damn it, you’re mated now, Taylor. We don’t betray our mates.”

“There’s no betrayal,” he shot back. “I went to say goodbye. For myself. I needed to know she was okay, and she is. She’s happy. I’m done now. I went to say goodbye.”

Ryan’s stance relaxed and his eyes softened.

“I need to see Lydia.”

“She’s out in town.”

Fuck.

The ache in him grew and he pressed a hand to his abdomen to relieve it.

Ryan noted it and he nodded sympathetically. “She’ll be back soon.”

“How do you deal with it?”

“What, the need? I don’t resist. I go to her every day. I’m with her every day. I mate with her every day. You’ve had sex once in nine months.”

“Twice,” he corrected him, wryly.

“I don’t know if the weird, thunderstorm foursome counts. Besides, you’re bonded. You
need
to be with your mate.” Ryan threw him a sideways glance. “Spend tonight with her.”

“You’re okay with that?”

“No. But it’s not up to me. It’s up to whatever higher power that saw fit to fuse the four of us together, and
I’m
sure as hell not relieving you, so do us both a favour and spend the night with her.”

The unwelcome image of Ryan ‘relieving’ him invaded his mind. Taylor glared at him. “You know, there are some thoughts you should keep to yourself.”