Heart Of The Wolf (15 page)

Amil wrinkled
his nose in disgust. “That smells foul,” he choked out, as he
opened his eyes, that god-awful stench hurtling him into
consciousness far quicker than he'd like for all the bruises he
could still feel on his person. Tridents usually healed faster than
this.

“It's
tea.”

“Not any tea I
know.”

He'd been
brought indoors while he'd been knocked out. This place looked like
the insides of one of those temple ruins he'd seen before climbing
down the well, except this temple – if that's what it was – wasn't
ruined. It looked as good as new.

He eyed his
visitor carefully from the stone wall he was currently propped up
against. “Who are you?”

She bowed at
the waist, balancing his mug of 'tea' in both hands. “I am Aahmas.
I am a servant of Sekhmet. You may call me servant.”

“I'll call you
Aahmas.”

She frowned.
“My status does not allow—”

“Does she
treat you well?”

“Oh, yes, the
Goddess is—”

“I'm talking
about my mother. Last time I checked, she wasn't a deity.”

Aahmas' eyes
widened with alarm. “She who represents the Goddess, embodies the
Goddess.”

So, they
did
know who he was.

“Her name is
Salihah.”

Now she looked
like she might faint from terror. “Dear Sekhmet, forgive me,” she
whispered in a rushed prayer, never taking her eyes off him, maybe
in case he killed her with his words. “I would rip my own ears from
my head before hearing another falsehood against you.”

Oh, good
grief…

He reined in
his contempt. It wasn't this woman's fault, but she was the epitome
– the result – of everything he had come to despise about his
mother. He had nothing against religion or faith – not in the
slightest – but following it blindly
got
you blind. “Relax,
Aahmas…” And she muttered another prayer under her breath at his
use of her name. So he did it again. “Aahmas, fear not. I shall not
be calling her Salihah – I shall be calling her mother. Speaking of
which, where is the Vociferous One?”

Hell, that one
sent her stumbling backwards in a panic. She dropped the mug in
shock, looking on in horror as it crashed into pieces on the stone
floor, that puke-coloured, wretched-smelling liquid spilling all
over it.

That's when he
caught the scent. Only just a trace that he might never have
noticed it at all were it not for her dropping the mug and sending
the brew's aroma seeping into the room more strongly.

His face grew
hot with rage, and the Trident in him surfaced in attack. He
struggled to keep his human form. “Datura?” he growled out.

Aahmas stood
frozen to the spot; petite, afraid …
prey
.

Amil lunged at
her, pinning her to the far wall with his hands around her neck in
two seconds flat.

Her struggling
gasps brought his cock to life, a surge of power running through
him.

“
Datura?
Trying to poison me? Now tell me, whose sweet idea
was that? Is Mother-dearest not too keen to see her only son?”

“Not … that…”
She clutched at his wrists, raking her nails into them in a
desperate attempt to loosen his grip. “Not … uuuuh…”

You're going
to kill her!

Not his first
kill. So fucking what. You're either the hunter or the prey – you
couldn't be both.

He tightened
his grip. His fangs broke through his gums, fur sprouted from the
tops of his hands, and Aahmas' eyes bulged as her face grew
purple.

You're not
human!

FUCK.

Everything
stilled inside him, around him, and the silence made the shrill of
that accusation ring louder –
Sarah's
accusation, shrieked
at him just a few days ago when she'd been in a daze and near to
meltdown, but truthful words nonetheless; as if in that precise
moment she had seen him for exactly what he was.

His mate's
voice bounced around in his head.

He dropped the
woman just as she had dropped the cup earlier, and she fell to the
floor sucking in air like there was no tomorrow, which there very
nearly hadn't been.

Disappointment
and anger tore a roar out of him, but it did little to drown out
the sound of Sarah's words.

“Not trying to
… kill you.”

He turned back
to the 'servant of Sekhmet', barely alive on the ground.

She clutched
her neck as she spoke, like she needed to hold it together to make
sound. He supposed that might well be quite accurate.

Very good,
Amil. You've just proven you're not deserving of the life you came
here to find.

Shit.

He kicked the
wall and then sank right back down in the same spot he'd woken
up.

“Was trying to
help.”

“Datura is
poisonous to me, even in small amounts. Don't pretend you didn't
know that.”

“I know what I
need to. You know nothing.”

He met her
eyes. All the fear in them had vanished, a fierce pride taking its
place.

With trembling
hands – now removed from her bruised neck, so he could see exactly
how much of a murdering bastard he was – she pulled at the front
tie of her plain linen dress.

“What the fuck
are you doing?”

“My duty. It
would have been better if you were relaxed – that's what the tea
was for. It would not have killed you.”

Her dress fell
to the ground revealing absolutely nothing but bare skin beneath.
Holy…
“No.” He shook his head.

“You need
purification before the trials, and also, release.”

What the…
Trials?

“I know how
the moon enslaves you. My body can be your sanctuary – I have been
given permission.”

“I said, no.”
For fuck's sake, he'd just tried to kill her and here she was,
naked, and ready to—

“I am prepared
– see?” She dipped her fingers inside her before he could tear his
eyes away, and when she brought them back up, they were glistening.
If he'd still been human, he'd have wondered how the fuck she could
be aroused,
now
, when she had almost been strangled to
death. As a Trident he was well aware of what the body was capable
of at any given time – anything goes.

“What are the
trials you mentioned? I didn't come here for … what? Combat? I just
want to talk with my mother, that's all.”

“You came here
seeking life, did you not?”

He paused,
tripping over his own uncertainty. What
had
he come here
for? It was a palpable, passionate, emotion that had driven him to
the secret temples of his mother's cult. She called it a religion –
he called it a cult. But that driving force was suddenly hard to
name; to put words to.

“I come here
for … I come here for her.”

Silence filled
the room, and an odd peace fell upon him as that truth sank in. If
Sarah wasn't in the picture, he wouldn't be doing this at all. He
didn't know if he was worthy of life to be honest – he'd spent five
years destroying it – women's lives, men's lives, children's lives…
But he would try for her. Because
she
deserved the chance he
couldn't give himself. Even if he failed, or even if the result
meant they went their separate ways (Christ, how would he cope with
that?), it was still her compensation for the life she didn't know
she had lost – the one she couldn't remember. That erasure might
not have had anything to do with him, but she was his mate, and
what happened to her cut through him as if it happened to him. It
would be the same for her, even if she wasn't aware of it – if he
got a second chance at life, she would feel that too.

“I come here
for her. So, please don't ask me to fulfil your duty – I simply
won't.”

Aahmas' gaze
fell to his crotch.

Yeah – he was
hard and it was obvious. He'd been hard the minute he'd tasted her
fear in the air while he'd been strangling her in rage. “It's that
time of the month,” he added, dryly.

“You won't let
me relieve you? The weight of your release will give you strength,
and not only that, I come to you as the temple for the Goddess – my
body is her temple. Your seed in me will be an offering to Her, and
will be purified through that offering. It will hold you more
favourably in Her eyes.”

He bit back a
laugh. “You said earlier that my mother embodies the Goddess …
well, if having sex with pretty girls is enough to hold favour in
her eyes, I would have been the golden child a long time ago. I'll
take my chances with the deities. If I stink of impurity, they'll
just have to hold their breath.”

Here eyes
widened once more, and for a minute he thought she was going to
start praying frantically again for his brashness. Instead, she
cocked her head to one side and took him in with curiosity. “You're
a strange one, son of Sekhmet.” She bent down, picked up her dress
and pulled it back over her head.

“I am not the
son of Sekhmet.”

She crouched,
touching the tea that she'd spilled, perhaps wondering how to clean
it up. “That's not for you or me to decide.”

What happened
next, he didn't see coming at all: she pounced on him.

Arms extended
and fingers curled like claws, she shrieked and jumped and landed
on his lap, before he could even blink.

Razor sharp
nails dug into his scalp as she pulled his hair hard.

He yelped in
surprise and pain, and fury that had only just started to form at
the realisation of what was happening; then she pushed her fingers
in his mouth.

Too late, he
registered the sharp tang of the poisonous flower on her skin where
she'd touched the spilled tea.
Little fucker!

Too late, he
tried to fight back, but his vision was already blurring; his
tongue already swelling; his muscles already contracting and
feeling weaker by the second.

Too late, he
conjured up the image of Sarah, as he so often did, to give him
strength. Too late…

Too late.

Chapter Nine

Lydia stood
outside Lawrence's bedroom door feeling both nervous and
stupid.

But Ryan had
asked her to talk to him, and here she was.

She'd chatted
with Taylor a while, told him she needed to speak with Lawrence
alone for a few minutes, and then, at her insistence, he'd finally
left her side to grab lunch and finish off the work he'd started
out in the woods before the pack meeting. Ryan had already left.
The thought caused a lump to rise in her throat. Her chest ached at
the thought of him gone, and she hated that she was so dependent on
her feelings – that they controlled her so much. For fuck's sake,
he would only be gone a few hours and he was
just a man
.

Your mate.

Whatever.

What the hell
had happened to her ability to function as an independent
woman?

Gone with the
breeding gene.

Seriously …
she was going to have to find a way to get this frustrating
heredity under control.

But first, she
had to deal with Lawrence. The one who probably got her emotions
more twisted into knots than anyone else.

Her wolf had
led her up here, agreeing one hundred percent with Ryan's advice
about divulging her nightmares, even though she'd argued that the
timing was crap. Nevertheless, her wolf was delighted to be at
Lawrence's door, as was always the case, whether the door was real
or metaphorical. She rolled her eyes at her animal's eagerness,
then knocked on the beautifully carved wooden structure, only to
realise it hadn't clicked shut properly. It swung open a few inches
at her touch and that 'Lawrence musk' wafted out and greeted her …
the way a tsunami greeted the land.
Oh, lord…

Knowing she
shouldn't, but powerless against that scent of forests and lakes,
she pushed open the door and called his name.

No answer.

But his aroma
was so strong. He must have been in here just a short while
ago.

“Lawrence?”

It was only
when she scraped her ankle bone against the foot of an armchair,
that she realised she'd gone right ahead and walked in. She really
needed to walk right back out – wolves were territorial about their
personal space – but it was, bizarrely, her wolf leading her in and
keeping her there. It was unlike the animal to do anything that
would trigger anger from her mate, so with an uneasy acceptance,
she did what it asked of her, too tired to put up her usual
fight.

The bedroom
was massive, just like all the rooms in this house, but it took up
the whole top floor and was bigger than any of the others. And it
was decorated with the most beautiful wood, which she immediately
guessed was Scandinavian – in fact, the décor looked decidedly
'Swedish log cabin', with white-lined everything, wooden beams
along parts of the ceiling and a very minimalist, clean finish.
Gorgeous. And, strangely, more feminine and warm than she would
have imagined.

She guessed
that was an adjoining bathroom through the door she could see on
the far left.

Her gaze fell
to where he slept – a beautiful, king-sized, platform bed with one
pillow in the centre; the platform itself made of the same wood
that decorated the room. From the left-hand side of the platform,
hand rails had been fitted, and to the right sat a wheelchair.

Curiosity
drove her forward – that, and the inexplicable craving she'd always
had to understand him better. If her wolf had been hesitant, she
would have faltered, but as it was, the happy bitch seemed
completely at ease in here, wanting to wander around the place as
if it were her own.

She stroked
the metal of the armchair, a flash from her dreams invading her
mind – a distant scream of agony – and she pulled her hand back,
briefly shutting her eyes against it, her legs already tingling
with the pain of the memory.