Sex Symbol (23 page)

His explanation was dizzying.

“So you somehow got a vampire’s blood and mixed it with werewolf blood. Then what?”

“Then we injected it into my bloodstream and tada! As you can see, it didn’t work out like we’d planned, but it did work. I have to stay in that damn chair when I’m human, but when I transform…I get to walk again.”

As horrific as his story was it was also heartbreaking.

“I’m not exactly a vampire and I’m not exactly a werewolf. Since the two don’t mix naturally, I guess you could say I’m just fucked up. Normally if someone is bitten by a vampire and then a werewolf, they’ll take on the traits of whoever got there first. In my case, since I couldn’t contract lycanthropy on its own, I took on a little of both.”

I rose to my feet and backed up slowly. Ron rolled over and was lying facedown in the dirt, growling as his body continued to reform itself.

“That stupid necklace delayed my transformation or I’d have caught you in the woods.”

His voice was even deeper now and nothing could have hidden the malice in his words.

“Why are you here?”

He lifted his face up and I gasped. He was covered in hair, but he didn’t grow a wolf snout like Nick had done. He looked like a human wearing a monster costume. A really good monster costume.

“I’m here because you have been marked.”

Okay, I’d had enough of this shit. “What is everyone talking about with this damn mark?”

He laughed. “You really don’t know? It’s an honor, Luce. You’ve been chosen.”

“For what?”

“To mate with the alpha who helped me.”

I retreated so fast that I stumbled over a wheelbarrow full of garden tools. It’s a miracle I didn’t stab myself with something.

“What the fuck?! You can’t just decide you want to mate with someone! Is that why you’re here, to bring me to him?”

“Yes,” he snapped. “And you’re lucky it’s me. His second choice would not have been as kind.”

“You call this kind?! You show up, scare me to death! You probably killed James! I don’t understand. We really did used to be friends. At least, I thought we were. Why would you do this to me, Ron?”

“It’s not all about you,” he spat. “I recommended you for the position because he needed a good woman. You were the only one who was ever kind to me. I thought that if anyone could love him it would be you. So, when he gave a sample of his blood to the shaman for the mark, I gave him your name. There were other recommendations given by other members of the pack, you know. We had no way of knowing who had actually gotten the mark. That is until recently.”

“You’re delusional. I don’t know any fucking shaman or any such bullshit. You’re doing this because you’re sick. Let me help you, Ron. It might not be too late. I know someone who—”

“Eramus,” he growled, cutting me off. “You should forget about him right now.”

Ron rose to a crouching position and as he did so his clothes ripped off, he’d completely outgrown them.

“Once you get a taste of a real alpha werewolf, you’ll forget all about that monster hunter.”

I backed up until my back hit one of the poles that held up the barn. My hand wrapped around a wooden handle and I clutched it for dear life. If he came any closer I was going to hit him with it, whatever it was.

“I still don’t understand why you’d do this to someone you thought was kind. Isn’t being raped by a monster something you save for your enemies?”

He laughed. “My master has never had to rape a woman. Your blood calls out to him. He’s become a part of who you are. Even now you are drawn to the wolf in me, whether you like it or not.”

His words were shocking. But even more shocking was the fact that he was right. I was drawn to Ron. It wasn’t necessarily sexual, but I definitely had the urge to touch him.

Well fuck that. I’m not some weak minded fool who can’t control her libido when her life is at stake.

“Just let me go, Ron. Pretend you couldn’t find me…for old time’s sake.”

“No such luck, Luce.”

He lunged at me, but I was expecting it. I snatched the handle behind me and brought it around as fast as I could. Ron must have still been affected by the silver, otherwise I never would have been able to hit him. I’m nowhere near as fast as a werewolf. For lack of a better term, that’s what he appeared to be.

I didn’t even realize until the tool swung past my face that it was a pitchfork. I jabbed it through his chest just below his armpit and he howled.

“I’m not going to kill you, but you shouldn’t press your luck.”

I pulled the pitchfork back and stabbed it through his throat. Ron’s eyes showed just how surprised he was as he fell to the ground. If he got back up, this might be my only chance to escape. He was still clawing at the pitchfork, trying to get it out when I ran through the front doors and out into the storm.

The rain was still coming down too hard for me to see the road, but I knew it couldn’t be far. On a clear day you could see the barn from the side of the road across from my house. I had to make it to Eramus. “This is not the night I die,” I kept telling myself.

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you’re running from something and you can never seem to get anywhere? That’s what it felt like trying to get to the road. Part of me expected to wake up at any minute and curse whatever it was I’d drunk before going to bed. Vaguely I was aware that I’d stopped feeling cold. That could either be because I was running flat out down a hill or because hypothermia was starting to settle in.

Keeping in shape was something I enjoyed, but I was a casual exerciser. I enjoyed long walks and gardening. Occasionally I’d use the exercise bike in my spare room. But I was not in the kind of shape to be running like this without passing out. Not normally. Ron’s words haunted me as I continued my mad dash through the rain, completely exhilarated and not even remotely tired. Had my blood really been mixed with an alpha werewolf? I sure as shit knew I couldn’t run through the woods and then clear across a large ranch without even a stitch in my side just a month ago.

Maybe this was just the effect adrenaline had on my body, but I doubted it.

When I finally reached the shallow ditch beside the road I tripped. The rain was too heavy to see through and I fell face first. I turned my face up to the rain as I gasped, sucking down air like I’d been underwater. I ran my hands over my face and down my arms, wiping away the mud. I’m not sure why I felt the need to take a mini-shower in the rain, but I am obsessive-compulsive to a slight degree.

My shoes touching the pavement at long last was a bit surreal. It seemed like a lifetime since James and I had driven out of the yard. Now he was somewhere on the other side of the woods, possibly dead, and I was on the run from a monster who used to be my friend.

There was no sign of Ron following me yet, at least none that I could detect. I ran across the road and up to Eramus’ front door. As I knocked it occurred to me that if he didn’t let me in I had nowhere else to go. My keys were in my coat. And my coat was in James’ car. Even though Eramus had returned my spare key, I’d forgotten to put it back outside underneath the flowerpot.

If he didn’t come to the door then I was fucked. I started to beat frantically. Where was he? I peeked through the living room window. The lights were off. Before I could look around more a howl was lifted up on the night wind and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I looked around, desperate for a place to hide when I spotted Eramus’ garden. More specifically, I found his flowerpot, the one where I’d told him to hide a key. I ran over and nearly slipped down when I reached for the large planter. At first I thought he hadn’t taken my advice, because there was nothing underneath the heavy pot.

I sat down beside the flower and saw something sticking out of the dirt near its roots. It was a key box! I pulled the little black box out of the soil and found a shiny silver key inside. I was so excited that I could barely hold onto it as I looked for the door.

I splashed around in the grass for what felt like forever. There was no freaking door! What had he done with it?! I could hear Ron howling again and it sounded like he was halfway there!

Then I hit my toe on something hard and looked down to find a large stepping stone. It was pretty and decorative and under different circumstances I would have liked it. But right now I wanted to smash it for being where the door should have been. Wait a minute. I bent down and found that the rock lifted more easily than I’d expected. The stone was the damn door!

Eramus had said something last week about having the door replaced, but I hadn’t given it much thought. I’d assumed he meant to put another door. You know, that actually looked like a door. This made sense though. If this place was meant to hide things, a door would be pretty obvious if you couldn’t cover it back up. And who could do something like that from underground?

I lifted the flat stone up as far as I could and slid down into the room beneath, not bothering with the last few rungs on the ladder. The sooner I got out of the storm and away from Ron, the better. I had no doubt that Eramus would find me—eventually.

The door slapped shut above me and I shivered. Soaked to the bone and suddenly exhausted I turned to get a look at my surroundings. It was then that I felt a presence in the room and realized I wasn’t alone. My first thought was that Ron had found me. I almost ran back out into the storm. But what if I was wrong? What if I ran out and he caught me? I heard something, though I wasn’t sure what.

The room was lit by candles. There was one small table and a few shelves in one corner of the room. A shelf of some sort blocked my view, but when I stepped around it I saw where the sound had come from. Eramus was chained to the wall. One arm was locked above his head and his feet were shackled where he stood. I ran to him.

“Eramus, who did this to you?”

I started to look around for a key, but he stopped me, putting his free hand on my shoulder.

“I did.”

I stood there for a moment and just stared at him.

“I don’t understand. Why would you do this to yourself? How do you expect to ever get free?”

“The shackles are controlled by a machine. In twelve hours, it will release me.”

“Why? What happens for the next twelve hours?”

The look on his face was pained and though I made a move toward him he turned his face away, stopping me once again.

“The full moon,” he answered.

It took me a minute to find my voice. “Eramus, a wolf chased me, he—”

“I don’t know who’s doing this,” he said. “But if I am to have the strength to fight him, I have to stop suppressing what I have become. I thought that I could pretend to be a man in order to…in order to love you.”

Tears stung my eyes, but I ignored them. “If you’re not a man, then what are you?”

“A beast.”

The pain in his voice was like nothing I had ever heard. And all the sadness in the world was in the eyes that looked back at me as they slowly turned to amber. I understood what he was trying to say and it made no difference to me. I touched his face and as his fangs grew he started to cry.

“Get out of here,” he said.

“I’m staying.”

He was still human to all appearances except for the short fangs and amber eyes. He looked like something wild and a passion stirred in me such as I have never felt before. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and when I placed my hand against his chest it seemed to me that his flesh burned.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he pleaded.

“Then don’t.”

When he looked at me I felt a flame ignite in my soul like hellfire. Anything I felt before was in comparison to a match. The tortured look in his eyes broke my heart in two. I didn’t think it could ever be repaired, but he was surely welcome to both pieces.

I kissed him and my heart leapt. It danced against my ribs to a beat all its own and Eramus trembled at my touch. Sweat shown on his forehead like a fine mist and as I trailed my hand down his face I could feel his stubble already starting to grow.

A low growl escaped his throat as he said, “You should be running.”

“Didn’t you know? Beauty is incomplete without the Beast.”

I didn’t call myself beautiful because of my own opinion, but because he always said that I was. It may seem ridiculous, but I was not afraid. Not just because he was chained, but because whatever he became, he was still my Eramus underneath. And I was completely and irreversibly in love with him.

Our lips met once more and I pulled him as close as his chains would allow.

“We don’t have much time,” he whispered. “Soon, I won’t be able to control it.”

“What will happen when you turn?”

“I don’t know, this will be the first time I haven’t suppressed the transformation for a while now. I’m afraid that holding the Beast back has only made him stronger.”

I ran my hand down his chest and he winced as if in pain. When I reached the top of his pants I understood what sort of pain he felt. I unbuttoned his jeans and slid the zipper down.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “This is dangerous, I might—”

But I cut off his next words with a kiss as I ran my hands down his pants. I held him in my hand and felt him grow hard in an instant. No coaxing or foreplay, just a growl as he forced me to loosen my grip by his sheer size.

I took a step back to undress and was devoured in sections by his hungry eyes. My wet shirt peeled from my body with a slippery sliding noise that excited me. It flopped to the ground in a wet heap and I moved to my pants. First I unbuttoned them and Eramus licked his lips. I had known from the first time he looked at me that he wanted to eat me. And now I knew by the way his amber eyes flashed, exactly what was on his mind.

I slid my pants down just enough that my tattoo became visible and he paused, staring intently at the markings on my skin.

“You like roses, don’t you?”

He growled again and the hairs on my arms stood on end.

“It is symbolic.” But he didn’t offer further explanation at the moment.

Just a short while ago I would have been upset at the very idea of being close to a werewolf, but not so anymore. I peeled off my remaining clothing and tossed it aside in a sodden heap. I could feel my hair, plastered to my shoulders and back and as I tossed my head back I liked the way the wet locks smacked against my skin.