Heart Of The Wolf (19 page)

“Er … no. This
is what we came here for.”

“But
he's—”

“He's just a
man. Sarah, what's wrong with you? You're usually the sensible one
with her head screwed on.”

She had no
idea what the matter was. She'd been skittish ever since they'd
parked up. How had she ever thought this would be a good idea?

“Just let me
do the talking,” reassured Beth, which was hardly a soothing
thought – Beth and talking were never a good combination.

She crossed
her arms, suddenly cold despite the warm evening sun, and followed
Beth.

Holly, to her
right, linked her arm through hers. “Relax. She's right – this is
what we came here for.”

Sarah nodded,
still unable to get rid of that ache in her throat that had sprung
up when she'd held back her scream. She fixed her eyes on the
stranger as they approached him, and couldn't look away. He was
mesmerising in all the wrong ways; for a start he seemed to be
missing half a face, and that instantly made her think of the wild
dog that had attacked her at the theatre a few days back. But
oddly, it wasn't that, alone, that made him mesmerising: it was
everything else. His stare was dark – black eyes on a white marble
face, framed by black hair – and only now, nearing him, could she
actually see how tall he really was.

Bloody hell!
He had to be over six and half foot! And she had thought Amil was
tall. This guy didn't have Amil's bulk, but he was clearly
well-defined, and solid through and through. From what she could
tell, his physique was all hard, lean muscle, and they were in so
much shit if he was an axe-wielding murderer.

From in front
of her, Beth stretched her arm behind her back and formed an 'OK'
sign with her fingers and thumb.

No way!
When they were horny teens, fantasising about who their next
boyfriends should be, that had been their secret signal for 'he's
hot'.

Are you
kidding me?! You think
HE
is
hot
?

But she
daren't rip into her for her shoddy taste in men, now that they
were within hearing distance of said man.

“Hi!” greeted
Beth, all teeth and smiles.

The man said
nothing. In fact, he sort of did look like marble the way he was
all staring and unmoving.

Undeterred,
Beth put her right hand out in greeting. “I'm Beth.”

No
response.

Well, this was
awkward.

Holly gripped
her arm a little tighter.

After a longer
pause than necessary, Sarah almost lunged forward to slap Beth
upside her head when she stepped forward, took the
might-be-a-murderer's hand in hers and shook it anyway.

Holly's breath
hitched in her ear. “That woman is so bull-headed,” she whispered.
And honest-to-god, she couldn't figure out if the man looked amused
or pissed off – his expression didn't give much away and it was
hard to tell what expression it actually was with only half his
face in working order.

“Are you the
owner here?” pressed Beth.

He grunted –
could have been a yes, could have been a no.

It didn't faze
her best friend. “Well, you need a clearer entrance. We've been
wandering around for ages trying to find the main house. We're here
to see Taylor Harper.”

Those
piercing, black eyes roamed over Sarah, then Holly, and then
settled back on Beth.

Sarah caught a
faint blush creeping up the back of Beth's neck.
Unbelievable.
The absolute worst taste in men.

Ever.

“He expectin'
ya?”

He said
what?
His voice was so low, and kinda gravelly, she was only
fifty percent sure she'd heard him right. Maybe whatever had
happened to his face had ruined his vocal chords too.

“Nope.
Surprise visit.” Beth grinned again. That smile had simultaneously
attracted and repulsed a whole army of men. Fierce was the word for
it. Beth went into things – as proven exactly sixty seconds ago –
with no holds barred. She was so completely full-on that most
potential boyfriends fled before they got to know her. In her early
twenties, she'd gone through a phase of intense dating, in which
she'd lost a man every three days, for about a month.
Out-of-character for Beth, she had sunk to a low after that, and
Sarah had sat her down, with cocoa, and had had it out with her –
brutal honesty, friend-to-friend. “You come on too strong,” she'd
said. “You need to tone it down. Be subtle. Be … you know – a
lady.”

Right.

Beth had
listened.

Beth had
tried.

It had lasted
one week before she'd thrown off that mask, pulled herself together
and decided any man too scared to get to know her could stay on the
other side of town.

Could-be-a-killer took a step closer, towering over her.

Oh, my
god.
Sarah finally found her voice and piped up. “Of course,
we'll leave whenever you like.”

That earned
her a stare from Beth. “
After
Taylor knows we're here.” She
squared her shoulders and turned back to face him.

“Bull-headed,”
whispered Holly once more.

The man
suddenly looked up as if he'd heard something or seen something, or
… smelled something? She could have sworn she'd just seen his
nostrils flare, although, again, the slight movement was sort of
obscured by his scarred face.

“What is it?”
she asked, not really meaning to speak, but that apprehension she'd
been feeling this whole time had just shot up again.

He didn't seem
pleased. In fact, his entire self darkened with an equally dark
look on his face, and Sarah had the insane impression he was about
to turn into something … else. She shook the bizarre thought out of
her head.

“Trouble,” was
the curt reply. “Come on.” He turned and walked deeper into the
woods.

The three of
them stared at each other, unsure of what to do. “Where are we
going?” Beth asked after him.

“You wanted to
see Taylor. Looks like you might get what you want.”

Beth threw
Sarah a triumphant smile and a thumbs up, then hurried after
him.

Sarah looked
at Holly.

Holly
shrugged. “This
is
what we came here for.”

Sarah sighed,
wishing she was anywhere else on earth, and then followed Beth with
Holly still glued to her side. “If it turns out I
am
married, when we finally get out of here, remind me to get a
divorce.”

~*~

“Wake up.”

Amil groaned
and tried to move. But maybe he'd drowned. Drowned down that well,
because he wasn't even sure he was breathing. Movement seemed
impossible.

“You have to
wake up.”

A young voice.
A child's voice – too young to tell if it belonged to a boy or a
girl.

“This is what
you came here for.”

Five years
old? Couldn't be much older.

“Remember what
you came here for.”

He turned
towards the voice – or tried – and perhaps he succeeded, because a
wave of an aroma encircled him; enticed him and got him hard in an
instant.
Sarah.

His hand
travelled straight to his ridiculously painful erection, took hold
of it and squeezed.

“Oh, fuck
that's good.”

“No, no …
that's the moon. Lunar. Lunacy. Illusion. Remember what you came
here for.”

The child's
voice knocked him for six this time – broke through some barrier
keeping him under the spell of slumber.
There's a child right
next to you, idiot!

“Shit!”
Probably not the best thing to say, but his exclamation threw him
awake, ripping him out of his drugged state.

Drugged! That
Sekhmet-serving bitch!

Awareness
didn't creep up on him slowly – it hit him all at once. That woman
had pounced on him (what had she done to him?), he was no longer in
the stone chamber, but lying on sand, stark naked, close to climax
with a
fucking child next to him
.

With another
curse, he rolled onto his front to hide his nudity. “I'm sorry,” he
called out to the child, and then risked looking up so he or she
might see his sincerity and not be frightened. “I'm sorry – I
didn't mean to…”

He was
alone.

That's not
possible.

He looked
around him, but all he saw was desert floor reaching beyond his
vision in every direction. There was nowhere for anyone to
hide.

“Hello?”

He'd expected
silence as his reply. What he got was a drawn-out moan of someone
in pain … or ecstasy.

This time,
when he turned towards the sound, he spied a female body – adult,
thank god – writhing on the ground, grains of sand glistening off
her pale skin under the silver full moon. When had it become dark?
And where, by all things holy, had she come from? Her hand was
moving frantically between her legs, anything there he could see,
also glistening, and that was
all
he could see from this
angle: feet, legs and an inviting cunt.

He growled
with want, his teeth elongating, before he could stop himself. The
need to shift and claim, pounced on him the way he wanted to pounce
on that shapely form working itself into a frenzy. Oh … he could
give her what she wanted – hard and fast, too.

And he almost
did.

With the
moonlight beating down on him .. and beating down and beating down
… he almost threw away all he'd come here for. What stopped him was
the sudden glimpse of her blonde hair, and something familiar about
it.

Oh, no
… “Emily?”

She turned her
head at the sound of her name. Her hooded eyes – wanton,
lust-filled – met his, and she opened her mouth in an 'O' that
signalled her nearing state.

Christ!
He could feel his sperm surge to the tip of his cock.

“Amil.” His
name on her tongue, the word drenched in sex, was just about all he
could take.

Hold it
together!

He rose onto
all fours and dug his hands and nails into the sand, as far down as
he could, to keep from leaping over to her and embedding himself in
her. It didn't help that he'd been somewhat attracted to her in the
first place. And it
really
didn't help that he could see
every fucking inch of her, open and slippery.

“You promised
you'd meet me.”

Was it seven
o'clock already? Wait … no … what was she doing
here
? This
wasn't right…

Her fingers
slid over her swollen clit faster, her knees bending, her legs
parting and widening to aid her in her goal. “You promised.
Remember?”

Dear
god!
He looked down so he wouldn't see her, although that
didn't erase the musk of her need permeating the air, and his nose,
his taste buds, his skin…

He bucked his
hips, unable to help it. His balls tightened.

“Oh, god,
Amil, please … you promised … remember?”

Remember…

Remember what
you came here for.

Upon the sand
he fixed his gaze on, the moonlight drew his shadow. It wasn't the
shadow of a monster, but of a man. He hadn't shifted yet – hadn't
given in to the Trident that wanted to best him.

Remember what
you came here for.

To beat the
Trident.

Remember what
you came here for.

For a second
chance at life.

Remember what
you came here for.

For wild, dark
hair on creamy skin. For full breasts upon the gentle swell of a
smooth stomach and strong, wide hips.

Remember what
you came here for.

For her.

The image of
Sarah consumed his mind, and he let it … their last meeting. She'd
been so brave, so trusting of him.

It was odd how
her face, her body, the memory of that final night, calmed him down
and took the edge off his urge. It should have been the other way
around and he couldn't make sense of it, but it was his heart that
swelled, not his pulsing cock. It earthed him. And she smelled of
earth, didn't she? Sarah was always an intoxicating blend of
flowers and fresh rain; of the coolness of spring.

Refusing to
look up, he turned and fled, still on all fours, and that's when he
realised that he
had
just shifted. He had shifted and
remained in control.

The man in him
led the Trident's body.

Although, he
hadn't a clue where they were both going.

Chapter Thirteen

It had taken
her ages to find Lawrence. When she had, he'd been standing outside
the boarded up doorway of one of the dilapidated outbuildings next
to house, staring off into the distance and seeing god knows
what.

When he'd
heard her approach, he had turned to face her and the regret in his
eyes had almost skewered her, but it hadn't been the time to talk
about it – healing would have to wait.

“Sarah's here
with two other women. They're looking for Taylor. Pete's with
them.”

They hadn't
wasted another second. They had raced to Lawrence's motorbike and
were now hurtling their way through one of the narrow paths through
the woods that led to where she said she'd heard Sarah.

He slowed to a
stop and Lydia leaned forward behind him so he'd catch her words
over the sound of the engine. “I think it's further that way. I was
near a huge patch of bluebells. I remember thinking this is the
wrong season for them.”

“I know where
you mean. I can't go any further on the bike – the path ends. Come
on.” He switched off the ignition and took himself off the seat.
Lydia followed.

“What the hell
is she doing here?” he mumbled.

“They must
have found something to indicate her connection with Taylor. I
heard them refer to him as her husband.”

“Does he know
she's here?”

“I don't think
so – I haven't seen him anywhere to tell him. I came straight to
you.”