Wild (39 page)

Long and hard, that's how he liked to run when he was alone, mastering the rough terrain with the help of his inner beast. He dodged fallen branches, moved through the trees, took steep inclines, and rounded sharp curves with practiced ease, and was barely out of breath. It felt good to push himself harder and harder each day, going farther, running for longer stretches of time. It was refreshing and usually made the rest of his day much easier to cope with. What it did not do, unfortunately, was ease the sexual urges that beat at him this morning with unfettered insistency.

There were three weeks until the full moon. Twenty-one days until the night lycans were the horniest and the only night on which they could claim a mate. Five hundred and four hours of complete torture, Malec thought, if he didn't find some way to relieve this excess energy very soon. If none of them had other plans, Channing, Malec, and Phelan visited the same bar just outside of Blackbriar on the night of the full moon. It was owned by a lycan and frequented by other shape-shifters and mythological beings that walked the earth in human forms. While the moon didn't affect the other beings in the same way that it did the lycans, Selene, the moon goddess, had long ago made sure her night of crowning glory was recognized in some way by them all.

Running even faster Malec told himself that was Blaez's concern because he was the one who had claimed a mate. Fool that he was. Malec had never disrespected the alpha, but he disagreed with any lycans tying themselves emotionally and physically to another. All his other rules and beliefs aside, it was a weakness, he thought, even as Caroline's face appeared in his mind once more.

Malec despised weakness. He despised any chinks in the armor he'd built around himself, anything that another—an enemy—could use against him. Still, she not only appeared in his vision, but as he closed his eyes and tried to focus on anything else she was there.

Her voluptuous body, curving in all the right places, those tempting lips, and he couldn't forget about the piercings. His dick pulsed hard and hot against his thigh as he recollected the two beads on either side of her puckered nipple.

Malec came to a quick stop at that moment, leaning over, hands on his knees, chest pounding, but not because he was out of breath from running. No, he hadn't pushed himself that hard just yet. This time he was out of breath because the need was so strong and so urgent he couldn't take another step. Instead, he felt his body tightening, felt the need rising in his throat until he opened his mouth and howled.

The sound was loud and long and reverberated through the forest. Seconds later Malec's hand thrust quickly down the band of his sweatpants, freeing his erection. With fast motions—up and down—from base to tip, jerking so hard to a passerby it might seem painful, he gave in to the heat that had been burning in him since that day in town. Since the day he'd seen her.

Tilting his head back and closing his eyes once more Malec let the visual take shape, let it form until it filled his mind and guided his hand.

She was lying there, on that exam table where the deer had been, her hands gripping the full mounds of her breasts, the silver glint of her piercings a direct contrast to the dark tone of her skin. She played with them, lifting them until her tongue extended to stroke along the smooth skin. Malec grunted as his gaze skimmed lower to the soft span of her hips, watching as her legs spread wide and dropped to the side for him. Her pussy opened like a precious flower, her vulva lips glistening with arousal, clit hard and puckered, aching for his touch.

Malec moaned this time, moving until his back flattened against a tree, the motion of his hand on his dick never ceasing. His mouth opened as he heaved, sharp teeth elongating and pressing painfully against his lip. The beast was awake, and it was hungry, as hungry to be inside this particular female as it had ever been for another.

Oh, how he wanted to climb up on that exam table and to thrust his thick length deep inside of her, imagining her tightness clench around him until he struggled for breath. Because that's how it would feel, he knew without a doubt. She would strangle him with her perfection, smother everything he thought he knew and wanted in this life. She was a threat—a delicious and enticing threat—that had his balls tightening and his come spewing in thick white streams in a wide arch before falling onto the forest floor.

He wasn't even finished, his dick was still hard, the need still raw and burning in his chest, as Malec threw back his head once more and howled louder and longer than he had before.

Then his head fell forward, his body caving to the exertion of running, coming, and howling in quick succession. He stood for seconds attempting to regulate his breathing and to will the hard cock away, stuffing it into his pants with an angry motion that disgusted him. He was shaking his head, trying to clear the traitorous thoughts when he heard it.

Another howl.

One in answer to his own.

Another lycan was in the forest.

No, Malec thought, standing up straight and looking all around him. He could see just as clearly in the dark as he could during the day. However, in the time he'd been out, the sun had begun to rise, creating a dusky haze that weaved its way throughout the tall lodgepole and ponderosa pine trees, falling in bright slashes along the ground.

Nothing was there.

He inhaled deeply, letting everything from the scent of the dew on the leaves to the scat of a bear miles north toward the mountain filter throughout him.

Malec shook his head again, convincing himself that he'd been hearing things because he hadn't picked up the scent of another lycan. None at all. Which meant there were no wolf hybrids in this forest. Only the true animals that belonged there. So it was quite simple, Malec thought; he was losing his mind and hearing things.

Breaking into a slow and steady jog he headed home, keeping thoughts of what he'd just done and the reason why tucked securely in the back of his mind. He'd just made it into the house when the vibrating at his hip reminded him that he'd clipped his cell phone to the band of his pants earlier.

“Zenta,” he answered.

“There's another one,” Caroline said, her voice husky, words coming quickly.

“Another what?”

“Another buck. It was here, wrapped in a tarp in front of the office when I arrived. And it wasn't alone. There's a lynx wrapped with it. Both of them are injured, but not dead.”

Malec's teeth clenched, his hand tightening on the phone.

“I'll be right there,” he said without hesitation.

*   *   *

He pulled up in a black Lamborghini Aventador, sliding the half-million-dollar car into the spot alongside the curb of the animal clinic as if he were parking in Manhattan instead of the small mountain town. So he was rich as well as drop-dead gorgeous, Caroline thought as she moved away from the window and headed to the front door.

There were a couple of things in this life Caroline knew without a second thought, and one of them was cars. Natalie, the foster mother that had taken her in when Max died, dated a mechanic. His name was Joey. And Joey liked Caroline, a lot. So much that he'd been the one to take her virginity about ten minutes after she'd turned eighteen and twenty-four hours, give or take, before Natalie had put Caroline and all her stuff out on the streets. She'd stayed with Joey in his apartment above the garage for the next four months—in which time she'd learned things about herself and him that would change the rest of her life.

So Malec Zenta had to have money to own a car like that, or he was into something illegal, which she had a hard time believing considering how he cared about these animals. In her world, that type of compassion couldn't possibly come from someone who facilitated the sale of drugs to anybody who could pay, thus killing more people than he could with a loaded pistol. And again, he was fine as hell.

As she opened the door to see him standing there wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, shades covering his eyes and that come-and-get-it-if-you-want-it look he possessed, Caroline had to take another breath. She was aroused already, she thought, moving to the side and letting him walk past her. Aroused and ready to be fucked. To some it would probably seem strange the way she could admit that to herself and not feel one ounce of recrimination. She owed that to Joey as well. He'd opened her eyes to her sexual appetite, piercing her nipples and showing her how to get the most out of her own self-pleasure. He'd been one hell of a first boyfriend, even if the word
loyalty
was like a foreign language to him. She supposed she should have known, but she was grateful for all that she'd learned in the process and thankful for the day she'd finally gotten him out of her life.

She was so grateful that she watched Malec's ass as he walked down the hallway toward the same exam room they were in before with unadulterated pleasure. He was in front of her, so he didn't see her reach a hand up to pinch her nipple and the piercing, sending a bolt of pleasure/pain shooting straight to her clit. It was a brief and mild reprieve to what felt like a building storm inside of her.

“Was there a note with them?” he asked.

Caroline shook her head as she came to a stop on the other side of the exam table, licking her lips and taking another deep breath before replying, “Not one that I saw.”

He looked up at her, glasses still in place. “Where's the lynx?”

“It didn't make it,” she said, her voice just a touch sadder than before. “These cuts are deeper than the ones on the other buck. That one lived after surgery, and I was able to call someone from the national park to come and retrieve it. He'll convalesce there and then be returned to the forest when he's completely healed.”

He was quiet, and so she looked up from the animal to find him staring at her. No, she couldn't see his eyes through the dark lenses, but she knew he was looking at her. The heat circulating throughout the pit of her stomach rose steadily until her breasts felt full and her mouth watered. Damn, she wanted this guy, more than she thought she'd ever wanted anyone before.

“Why didn't you call me?”

She swallowed at his words, trying to assure herself that he wasn't asking on a personal level.

“For one, you weren't a paying patient. And for two, I had other paying patients in the clinic that day. I called the national park and had the buck taken care of,” she replied, her words and breath coming a little too fast.

“I asked you to call me with the results of the surgery,” he continued.

His tone was scolding, and from his stance and the way his head was slightly tilted toward her, Caroline got the impression that he might actually be considering spanking her too. That was ridiculous, she admonished herself. No way did this guy, with that car and that supercut body, want her, a twenty-seven-year-old stranger to this town with big hips, tits, and ass. She was certain she wasn't his type—no matter how hot he made her. Yet he had pushed up on her two days ago. She remembered that moment and the feel of his long, thick cock pressing against her ass as if it were just yesterday. She both recalled and relished it.

“Look, if I'm going to attempt to save this one, I have to get to it. And since it's still too early for my staff to be here, you're going to have to help me,” she told him and then stepped away from the table to gather the tools and supplies she would need.

“This one won't live,” she heard him say, and she turned around in time to see his hand splayed across the buck's stomach.

“Do you have a degree in veterinary medicine?” she asked him as she moved back to the table and put the supplies down.

“No,” he told her simply. “But I know animals. His heart rate is dropping because he's lost too much blood. Like you said, the cuts were much deeper this time, almost as if it was meant for him to die.”

Caroline looked down at the buck, whose breaths had gone noticeably shallower. Pulling the penlight from her jacket pocket, she looked closer into the buck's eyes, saw the waning of life there. She lifted the earpieces of her stethoscope to her ears and leaned forward, placing the diaphragm over the buck's stomach, just a few inches from where Malec's hand still lay. When he didn't move, she did, going around his hand to listen in several different locations, until, with a heavy sigh, she pulled the stethoscope free, dropping it onto the table.

“Why not just kill it in the forest and eat it? I don't understand,” she said with a shake of her head.

Malec's hand slid off the animal slowly, his words coming out in a measured way that had Caroline looking up at him.

“I think I do,” he said.

“Really? You want to clue me in on why you think that?” she asked.

“No,” he replied quickly.

A simple, curt response that had Caroline frowning.

“Where's the tarp?” he asked, flipping gears so fast Caroline blinked in confusion.

“What?” she asked in reply.

“You said the animals were wrapped in a tarp. Someone wrapped them up and brought them here to you. I want to see the tarp.”

She was already shaking her head. “I put it out back.”

“I'll get it,” he said before she could ask him another question.

Alone with the buck, the second dead animal she'd had the liberty of seeing before it was even eight o'clock this morning, Caroline sighed, her heart heavy with the loss. The one constant in her life had always been her love of animals. From the time she was five when her mother had purchased a hamster for her and Henny—that's what she'd named him—had gotten sick and died, she'd known what she wanted to do with her life. She would heal the sick animals of the world and try to keep other owners from going through the agonizing pain of losing them the way she had. Of course, as she'd grown up and watched her mother die after suffering for years with cirrhosis of the liver, Caroline had understood that loss was a necessary part of life. Without it, one never learned to be grateful for what one had and to not take anything—not time, people, or circumstances—for granted.