Long Shadows: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 2 (28 page)

“They tried to scramble your memories on the way back,” he said. “All I could do was watch but not do or say anything. You fought off their spells magnificently.”

“I heard you.” I looked up at him. “You told me when to run.”

He smiled, and I became acutely aware of the distance between us, or the lack thereof. “I would tell you it’s because there’s a bond between us that goes beyond magic, but you’d hit me for being corny.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” I closed my eyes and sighed. “I might kiss you.”

A knock on the door startled us apart, and Max opened it to a young man with dark hair and eyes. He was dressed all in black, and his skin was smudged with rust-colored stains, the origin of which I didn’t want to think about.

“We took care of the thugs and wrapped up the wolf. What do you want us to do with him?”

“Take him.”

“Are you sure? The lady can wear him as a fur coat if she likes.”

“Don’t be vulgar,” I snapped. “He was a friend of mine.”

The young man’s eyes widened. “You’re the one they were talking about!”

“Yes, and she is under my protection.” The sharpness in Max’s tone promised untold hurt if the guy betrayed us.

“Best watch yourself, Maximilian. Carrigan’s going to be in a tizzy when he finds out his plans were foiled by a werewolf.”

With a bow, he changed in a flapping of oily black wings, and I got a glimpse of black-tipped claws and a cruel beak before he disappeared altogether.

“Nothing like a vulture to kill the mood.”
 

Max laughed. “You’re adapting to our strange culture very well.”

“For a half-blood?”

“No.” He closed the door and stood behind me. “For a double-blood,” he murmured in my ear, and his lips made the sensitive skin there tingle.

“Keep talking.”

“Let me love you the way I should have. Let me release your true nature.”

His words caused a little trill of anxiety in my stomach, and my spine melted. He reached around me and cupped one of my breasts in his palms. I moaned and arched my back, and he pressed his pelvis into me. I could feel the length of him, and he was longer and thicker than I remembered from even our brief encounters.

“I’m almost afraid to. We keep getting interrupted.”

“Don’t these mortal doors have locks?”

“Theoretically.”

“Stay here.”

He made a quick tour of the house, and I sensed him snapping wards into place.

“Now we won’t be interrupted.”

“Are you sure?” I turned to face him, and I had to close my eyes at the intensity in his gaze.

He didn’t answer, but his lips found mine. He clasped the back of my head with one hand and held my waist with the other. Both spots and where our torsos touched tingled, and soon I was on fire from my forehead to my toes.

“Bed,” I gasped when we came up for air. He tumbled me on top of my neat piles of laundry, and our bodies fit together perfectly, albeit with an annoying amount of clothing. I unbuttoned his wrinkled shirt and pulled it out of his pants, and he tossed it on the floor. In the sunlight, the hard muscles of his chest sparked with golden-red hairs, and I licked my lips.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to change and get all wolfish on me,” he said. “I’m not edible.”

“I would disagree with that.” I unzipped and unbuttoned his pants, and I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows.

“Disappointed?” he asked.

“Intimidated, and no one intimidates Lonna Marconi.” I took my shirt off and pushed him on his back. He reached up to unhook my bra, but I batted his hand away.

“I’m in charge now, mister.”

He flipped me on to my back, and I gasped.

“No one told me you were an alpha female.”

We tussled, and I pinned him. Okay, I knew he was letting me. “You should’ve known better.”

I pressed my breasts into his chest and kissed him again. This kiss mingled the possessiveness of the one in the middle of town with the passion of the one in Aunt Alicia’s house. I knew that if we proceeded any further, I would lose the one thing I’d kept guarded in spite of—or maybe because of—all my relationship failures. My heart.

He seemed to sense my hesitation because he broke the kiss and leaned back to look at me. “Is everything all right?”

I nodded, but my eyes filled with tears. “I’m so scared,” I said.

“Of what?”

“Of falling in love with you. Okay, of you not loving me because it’s already happened to me.”

“What has?”

“I love you, Maximilian Fortuna.” I held my breath and steeled myself for the rejection I knew would come and the excuses and the awkwardness and…

“I love you too, Lonna.”

“What?”

He smiled. “I love you too. It shattered my heart when you kicked us out earlier to think you never wanted to see me again. Then watching Henry almost take and kill you…” He shook his head. “I couldn’t lose you.”

He pulled me to him and kissed me again, and I found something I never thought I would—love and acceptance for who I was, for all the sides of me. He made love to all of them, although I can’t explain how, and when we climaxed together, something broke through. I wasn’t sure what, but before I could say anything or explore it, something slimy licked the arch of my left foot.

“Ew!” I grabbed it, but there was nothing there.

“What happened?” Max asked, alertness replacing the comfortably drowsy expression on his face. “Your foot? I felt it, but it was different.” The light in the room dimmed to twilight dark.

“Max, the light!”

He untangled himself from me, and I reached for him, so aware was I now of how our bodies and minds completed each other. I also couldn’t resist sneaking a look at his muscular back, rear end, and legs. His wide shoulders tapered to…

“Focus!”
Wolf-Lonna had been quiet during our lovemaking, but now she had no patience for any more lust-fueled thoughts.
“We’re in danger.”

Buzzing filled my ears, and I rubbed at them, not sure where it was coming from.

“They’re attacking the wards,” Max said. He grabbed my arm. “Get dressed.”

I nodded and scrambled out of bed. “I can do better than that.”

He put his clothes on quickly, leaving his shirt untucked. We didn’t speak because I could tell he was concentrating on reinforcing his defenses.

“Change?”
Wolf-Lonna sounded hopeful.

“Yes,”
I told her. It was difficult to concentrate on the process with the buzzing and pressure, but I found the will to follow the twisting and turning inward. Once I was my wolf-self again, I paced around the perimeter of the room, sniffing. I sensed his fuchsia magic struggling against something oily that exuded a sense of rot and decay and fetid blood. His power, of energy and life, seemed like it should win, but he was outnumbered by…something. I suspected Henry had returned.

“Good,” Max said. Sweat ran down his face, and he stood with fists clenched. “There are a lot of them, and one of them is using forbidden magic. I don’t know how long I can hold them.”

“Then I am ready to fight.”

“Me, too,”
Wolf-Lonna chimed in.
“We will need to.”

My fur stood on end, and I bared my teeth.
“Bring it, then.”

Max’s wards shattered, and the room was plunged into darkness. My eyes adjusted first, and I growled at Henry, who led the charge this time through the door.

“Not so fast, wolf lady.” He aimed a gun at me.

I leapt at him, and my chest stung. He hadn’t shot me with silver bullets, but rather a tranquilizer.

Dammit, not again…

Chapter Twenty-Three

I woke to the sound of dripping water and the smells of damp and mold. My ears popped, but there was no change in air pressure, only the sense I was sealed in somewhere. Someone groaned nearby—I wasn’t alone.

“Who’s there?” I asked. I wasn’t bound, but I was afraid to move, not sure if my cell mate was friendly. If it had teeth and claws, I didn’t want to find out by stepping on it and pissing it off.

My left foot tingled, and the thing groaned again with a familiar tone. It was Max. I crawled over to him and found him on the floor. My fingers touched something sticky—blood—and there seemed to be a lot of it.

“Max, are you okay?”

“They coshed me on the head good this time,” he said.

“Do you have a concussion?” I ran my hands over his head, but in the dark, I couldn’t see how big the wound was or where it was located.

“How the hell should I know?”

“Uh, you’re a doctor.”

“Oh, right, I am.”

I frowned. “Did they do something to your memory?”

“I don’t think so.” He struggled to sit up, and I helped him lean against the rough-hewn stone wall. “Thank you, Miss.”

My heart dropped to my stomach. “Uh, you’re welcome?”

“So, since it seems we’re going to be in this predicament together, perhaps we should get acquainted.”

“Max, please tell me you’re kidding with me.”

“Oh, since you seem to know who I am, please tell me your name. Have we met before?”

I bit my lip to keep the sob from rising in my throat. “It’s me, Lonna. You were sent to watch over me.”

“I obviously didn’t do a good job if we’re here.”

I leaned back against the wall and stretched out my legs in front of me. My body thrummed with his nearness, but the sharp, hollow pain in the middle of my chest had nothing to do with what may or may not have been done to me physically. I also noticed Wolf-Lonna was silent.

Probably another dose of Luridatone. Maybe they can give me some more to block the emotional pain.

A door opened, and I squinted against the light.

“Maximilian, old chap, what are you doing in there?”

It took a moment for the back-lit bald man’s features to emerge from the shadows of his face.

“I assure you I have no idea, Carrigan,” Max said. “This young lady says I was sent to watch over her, but that doesn’t explain why we’re in the dungeon.”

A smile pulled the corners of Carrigan’s mouth up and back like stage curtains, showing yellowed, crooked teeth. “A horrible misunderstanding. There have been a few of those lately. Come, now, let’s get you cleaned up. You, too, Miss…?”

“Marconi.” I raised an eyebrow, but I decided not to argue that he knew damn well who I was, and he’d orchestrated the whole thing.

I gasped when we emerged into a stone hallway with lights that flickered like torches. “You took the dungeon thing too seriously.”

“There’s nothing like a little Abandon All Hope ambience, isn’t there, Miss Marconi?” Carrigan’s jovial tone insulted me at the same time his words warned me.

“I don’t care about your decorating. Max needs medical attention.”

“Head wounds bleed a lot, and so they look worse than they are,” Max said. He frowned at me. “You do look familiar, but I can’t quite place you.”

I kept my expression neutral, aware of Carrigan’s scrutiny of my reactions.
Does he know we were lovers? The extent of Max’s feelings for me?

I followed Max and Carrigan out of the dungeon, up winding, narrow stairs, and to a back hallway. To the right, the noise of pots and pans punctuated laughing, jeering conversation in mixed English and Spanish. My stomach growled at the scents of Caribbean spices and other exotic things, and I wondered how long I’d been knocked out.

“Dinner will be in the main dining hall at seven,” Carrigan said to Max, obviously assuming I would overhear.

“Everything smells fantastic.” Max looked relaxed like he was happy to be home, and my heart sank a little lower, if that was possible.

We’re from two different worlds.
I shook my head.
There’s no point in sulking. I need to make an escape plan.

I focused my attention externally to try and figure out the myriad twists and turns in what seemed to be an island plantation house with white walls, and dark wood windows, baseboards, and molding. The furniture stood large and heavy, and every surface held a small statue or other tchotchke that looked like it could have some sort of magical significance.

“I’ll send a nurse up to your room to patch you up,” Carrigan told Max.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, we need to make sure that all is as it should be.”

I frowned at the sinister double meaning to his words.

“Great.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I keep getting a sense that someone I care about is in danger, but I don’t know who, so it must be a faulty signal.”

“I’ll send Saraya. She’s good at disconnecting spells like that.”

“What if it’s not faulty?” I asked and ignored Carrigan’s scowl.

“Well, obviously if he cannot figure out who it is, they mustn’t be that important to him.”

Ouch.

Max went into his room and closed the door. Once I was alone in the hallway with Carrigan, his jovial expression dropped.