“We need to bring her back a bit,” James said, his tone still low, his voice soft.
“We can’t,” Thomas said, “We can’t kiss her, can we? Like he said, she’s got Kane’s mark on her.” He gestured to the blue symbol on Lily’s arm.
“We can give her some blood,” James said.
The werewolves fell silent then and Lily licked her lips, closing her eyes against a wave of dizziness that bordered on uncomfortable.
“All right,” Thomas said slowly. “You do it, James. She seems to like you.”
Lily listened to the discussion with a sensation of being once-removed. As if she were watching a movie. And so, as she would ask a television, she asked, “Won’t that turn her into a vampire?”
At this, Isaac and Thomas chuckled. James smiled and shook his head, his fangs having grown a little more since the last time he’d smiled. “No, sweetheart. No vampires here. Only wolves. And again, no. You won’t turn.”
She nodded, as if that made total sense, and then distractedly ran her hand over her thigh and between her leg. Both of the men in the back seat stilled, their eyes locked on her roaming fingers.
Lily moaned again. She was so warm… so wet. She wanted… something. She needed something. The mark on her arm tingled. She remembered the hand cuffs. The kiss.
Isaac cleared his throat. “Better do it soon, gentlemen. Before one of you goes off the deep end.” He shook his head as a light turned green and he turned another corner. “We’re almost there. Cole wants her docile, not comatose.”
James sat up and shrugged his sports coat off once more. Then he raised his wrist to his lips and sank his fangs into the vein. At the same time, Thomas placed his left hand behind Lily’s head to hold her still.
Lily frowned, wondering what was happening. And then James was placing his wrist to her mouth. “Drink,” he told her.
She hesitated, but he leaned in and placed his lips to her ear. “Drink, Lily.”
She opened her mouth then, and ran her tongue over the welling blood. It burned her tongue like 180 proof alcohol and she tried to jerk away. But Thomas held her fast and James pressed harder. In response, Lily instinctively swallowed, feeling as though if she didn’t she wouldn’t be able to breathe. The blood slid down her throat like fire, and she gasped. James removed his wrist after a single swallow. His wound immediately began to close.
Lily watched him move away and then she closed her eyes. Changes coursed through her. She felt as if she’d been flying and was now nearing the Earth once more. Her feet would touch down any second. The wine’s influence within her began to recede like a tide and the ache between her legs lessened. But it didn’t go away completely. She still felt weak, still groggy and heavy and incapable of quick thinking.
She still craved Daniel Kane.
But she could sense that she was, at least, more coherent. And, in a few seconds, the burning from the werewolf blood ebbed away as well. She swallowed and tried to clear her throat.
“That’s better,” Thomas said, smiling a satisfied smile. “That’s perfect.”
“And just in time,” Isaac said, as a garage door began to slide up in front of him and he pulled the sedan into the darkness beyond.
James said nothing. His mercurial gaze shimmered like melted platinum. In silence, he pulled on his sports coat.
Lily turned to look out the window and when the car stopped, both Thomas and James opened their doors and stepped out. A few seconds later, Isaac did the same.
Lily stayed where she was.
Now that she was here – now that she was seconds away from meeting Malcolm Cole – terror once more bloomed inside her. And the wine didn’t help matters. It effectively sapped away what strength that terror would have given her, leaving her simply scared and stupidly helpless.
Which is how I would have been anyway, she thought. He’s a werewolf, after all. And he’s surrounded by other werewolves and I’m a puny human and he has my best friend. I’m so screwed.
“Please step out of the car, Miss St. Claire,” Thomas said. Lily looked up. All three werewolves had gathered to stand by the door on her left. James offered her his hand. With a shaky breath, Lily took it.
Chapter Eight: The Shield
“We’ve got her, Chief!”
Daniel spun around and strode to the screen where the seated man before it had been working furiously. “They took Highway ten to the East Bank and the signal stopped at….” The man at the computer zoomed in on the screen until the street names were visible. “South River Road and Bird Heights Avenue.”
Daniel straightened and called several officers with him.
Half an hour earlier, traffic patrol around the city had managed to mark Lily’s speedy progress through town as she’d fled his house. There had been reports coming in from all along Bluebonnet, seemingly all at once, about her rapidly changing location – and the laws she was breaking on her journey. Her speed and determination and frank disregard of the most basic safety measures told Daniel that she wasn’t running from him. She wasn’t that stupid. If she had a bone to pick with him; if she was rightly upset with him for marking her without her permission, then she would have waited and confronted him when he’d returned.
This was different. Several officers had claimed that she’d driven on the shoulder, didn’t stop at traffic lights, and didn’t care whether she passed marked police cars. If she’d been running from Daniel, she would most certainly have veered away from anything having to do with the police. She would have tried to attract as little attention as possible from the law. His police force were his eyes and ears and they stretched across the city with long arms.
No. Lily hadn’t been thinking about him. Her mind was on something else.
And Daniel had pretty much known what it was.
After all, Tabitha hadn’t answered her phone. Even as he’d driven to his home to confirm his fears, he would have been willing to bet a thousand bucks and his soul that Malcolm Cole had gotten to Lily and given her an ultimatum – and that it involved threatening Tabitha’s life.
He’d been right of course, and in the space of thirty minutes, everything that Daniel held dear in the world had fallen into the hands of the man he hated most.
A few minutes after Daniel had made it to his house, the boys had located his bike on the shoulder of the intersection on the south end of Bluebonnet and Hillmont Avenue. It was amazing luck that the bike was still there, actually; it was a relatively new part of town and the traffic wasn’t as heavy.
But the key – and Lily – were both gone.
Now, as he left the station, flanked by several accompanying officers, he’d never been more grateful that he’d had a tracking device installed in the key in case of theft.
He was worlds more grateful that Lily had taken it with her.
* * * *
Lily uncurled her long legs and stepped out of the silver sedan. Her movements felt uncoordinated and she had to concentrate very hard to remain steady. She knew it was the wine. She was so angry to be losing this way. She hated feeling helpless; it was eating her up inside and, at the same time, the tragedy of it was that the wine – and the mark on her arm – were blunting her emotions, causing her ire to flag.
Daniel had done something to her when he’d given her his mark. He may have meant to protect her or claim her or whatever it was that his male ego had decided was the caveman thing to do. But he’d done something else to her as well. He had inadvertently made her submissive. She could sense that it was a temporary weakness and yet, the timing could not have been more horrible. Cole must have somehow known about the mark. He seemed to know everything. He’d made her drink the wine to reinforce the mark’s sedating effects. She was walking right into his well-laid trap like some brainless bombshell in a B horror movie who, for some reason, just has to go and check out that strange noise all by herself. In the forest. In her nightie.
Lily was not the submissive type. She’d been known to stand up to drunk,
potbellied men who were waving kitchen knives and swearing about under-cooked pot roast. She’d taken down a wiry sixteen-year-old football player on meth who was violently swinging a baseball bat at her. This wasn’t like her. Not at all. And it was infuriating. Or it would have been, had she had the energy to be infuriated.
As it was however, when she straightened in the car’s doorway, she swayed ever so slightly, and James released her hand so that he could gently take her by her upper arms and steady her.
“I can’t do this,” she said. It just came out. She couldn’t help it. Her knees were feeling weak. She was terrified.
James knelt to speak to her, placing his lips near her ear as if to have a private word. It was a pointless gesture, as the werewolves in the garage could have heard a whisper several houses down. He did it for her benefit and her benefit alone.
“I understand your fear, Lily,” he spoke softly. His hands on her arms were warm, his grip secure. “Mr. Cole isn’t going to harm you. You are the last person on Earth that he would see hurt.”
“What about Tabitha?” Lily asked.
To that, James had no answer. He straightened and gave her another few seconds to compose herself before he gently urged her forward. He kept a steady hold on her so that she wouldn’t trip or fall as he guided her up the set of stairs that led out of the dim garage. And also, Lily suspected, so that she wouldn’t try to run.
At the top, they opened a door and ushered her through it.
They walked through a kitchen and then stepped out into a vast living room. It was devoid of furniture but for a single wooden chair. In the chair sat Tabitha. She had been bound with rope and gagged with a commercial leather gag. Her red cheeks were painted with tears. There were two other people in the room, one to either side of her chair.
A red-haired woman with an impossibly dark tan who looked to be in her late fifties stood to Tabitha’s right.
Malcolm Cole stood to Tabitha’s left.
Lily would have known him anywhere and in a heartbeat. She’d seen this man in her dreams countless times, and each time he’d looked exactly as he did now. He was tall and well-built, with a thick head of dark brown hair. He was even dressed as he dressed in her dreams: tight blue jeans that hugged the muscles of his legs, and a long-sleeved white thermal shirt that had been shoved up on his arms to expose the leather bands around his wrists. He was exactly the same. It was staggering to suddenly be presented with a phantom from her imagination who was anything but a phantom. But what made her breath literally hitch in her chest and her heart plummet into her belly were his eyes.
Those impossible, stark green eyes…
When they found Lily’s and locked on, she froze suddenly in place. She was simply unable to move any further. Those green eyes gazed out from a face so handsome that it was maddening. It was the kind of handsome that made women dig their fingernails into their palms and kick off all of their covers at night. A sleep-depriving kind of handsome.
She could barely stand to look at him.
Yet, he would not allow her to look away. The jade of his eyes darkened to a deep emerald and Cole’s pupils expanded hungrily. “Lily,” he spoke softly. One word and his deep voice reached out across the space between them and wrapped mercilessly around her. It was almost a physical thing, and Lily instantly knew that it wasn’t natural. Daniel’s voice had always been incredibly sexy; it sent shivers down Lily’s spine and warmed her belly. But Cole’s held very real, very potent power. She guessed it was yet another werewolf ability that he possessed and that other werewolves did not. Tabitha hadn’t mentioned it, but she may not have known. She was right about one thing, however. Malcolm Cole was truly powerful.
With that thought, Lily summoned up a great deal of her own power from God only knew where and willfully ripped her gaze from Cole’s. It almost hurt. She partly did it out of stubbornness and partly out of anger that he’d managed to pull her this far into his spider’s web. But she also did it so that she could look at her friend once more.
Tabitha was watching her with very wide eyes; fear practically radiating from her. But there was pride in those eyes as well.
Lily clenched her teeth and pushed air through her vocal chords. “Did you hurt her?” she asked, her voice tight.
Cole’s low laughter licked out and caressed her skin. All tension instantly fled Lily’s body as he invaded her with that laugh and her eyes closed of their own volition.
When his laughter finally died and she opened her eyes again, Cole had closed the distance between them and was towering over her, smiling a very beautiful, very evil fang-filled smile.
She gasped and tried to take a step back, but his right hand snaked out like quicksilver and grasped her left wrist, staying her. She was struck mute, unable to do anything but gaze up at him. His pupils had claimed more of the green in his eyes. Just as she had done when Daniel had cuffed her to his bed, she stared up at her captor and wondered at his beauty. He’s so gorgeous… it isn’t fair.
“We will forego pretense, Lily,” Cole said. “As you wish.”
Oh, he was really getting to her now. It was all overwhelming her – the mark, the wine, Malcolm’s presence, his hand wrapped so securely around her wrist – and his voice. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold out before she just begged the man to strip off her clothes and take her right there on the living room rug.
No! She screamed at herself. Don’t you dare give in, Lily! You. Do. Not. Give. In!
Lily suppressed the wayward moan that had been inching up her throat and, instead, forced her gaze to narrow. Ever so slightly. It was enough that Malcolm Cole was impressed. His smile turned genuine, reaching the corners of his eyes, and he shook his head in wonder. “Never have I met your equal. Your strength is palpable, Lily.”
Really? Lily thought frantically. Because, right about now, I’d love to be both killing you and screwing you and all I can really concentrate on is the latter, so I wouldn’t call that strong. She said none of this, of course. Because he stole what was left of her breath when he raised his left hand and it brushed across her collarbone as he picked up a lock of her golden hair to rub it admiringly between his thumb and forefinger.
The mark on her right arm began to tingle uncomfortably.
“You know why you’re here,” Cole said. “You know what I want from you.” He glanced at the hair he held. His searing gaze slid to her shoulder… her neck… to the slight swell of her breasts above the neckline of her dress. It flicked to her full lips and then once more captured her eyes. “I can hear your heartbeat, Lily,” he told her softly – so softly. “I can smell your desire. You can’t hide it from me.”
Heat was coursing up her right arm. It was coming from Daniel’s mark, as if to protest the way she was feeling toward Malcolm Cole. It was growing hotter and hotter, a steadily building pain that attempted to distract her from the lust that Cole was imposing upon her. But it was failing.
“You’re hurting, Lily,” he told her. He smiled a small smile, cocking his head slightly to one side. He knew what was happening to her. “I can take the pain away.” Malcolm reached down, sliding his left hand along her right arm until he held her right wrist. He lifted her arm, and his fingers lazily grazed over the mark on the inside, sending jolts of both pleasure, from him – and pain, from the mark – through her. She bucked a little in his grip, but he was so close that she only managed to momentarily press herself against him. “But not as long as you wear this,” he told her in that perfect British accent.
Lily whimpered softly; her arm was now on fire. And she couldn’t even pull away from Cole enough to cradle it.
“I am told that all I need from you is your consent, Lily. And I can remove it.” He slowly released her wrist and slid his hand back up the outside of her arm until it lightly grazed her shoulder, sending electric waves of unnatural pleasure through Lily.
Daniel’s mark throbbed. She wanted it to stop. She ached for Cole; she was wet with need. Her mind w
as growing fuzzier. All she could hear was Malcolm’s voice and she just wanted the pain and longing to end.
Cole slid his hand to her neck and wrapped his fingers around it, lightly tilting her head up so that his lips whispered across hers. “Tell me, luv,” he smoothly commanded, his words sending another jolt of pleasure through her. She shuddered, fighting a losing battle as he brought his hand to her face to tenderly cup her cheek in his palm. Then he leaned forward and, as he brushed his thumb across her jaw line, he drew her very close and placed his lips to her ear. “May I remove it, Lily?”
Uncompromising need swept through Lily. It was harsh and exacting and knocked her senseless. His voice had her like a vice; his breath on her ear like kerosene on the fire that was engulfing her. It was unbearable. She was unaware that her right hand had found his hard, trim waist and was fisting in his shirt. She was unaware that her ragged breaths filled the silence in the room. Her eyes were closed, so she didn’t see how Cole watched her, willing her to surrender as he poured wave after wave of his power over her.
She opened her mouth and could not prevent the sound that came out of it. “Yes,” she whispered. “Please.”
At once, Malcolm’s grip on her wrist tightened.
The sound of someone screaming into a gag sliced through Lily’s world. Her eyes flew open only to be instantly claimed by Malcolm’s once more. This time, his were all-pupil, that eerie, unnatural black of the predator before it takes its prey.
Where erotic pleasure had resided, fluxing through her body only moments before, fear now clamored its way back up from the recesses of her mind and gained a strong foothold. She tried to pull away. Malcolm smiled, showing her his fangs once more. “Allow me introduce you to someone, luv,” he told her. His voice had changed, becoming more like a growl, as Daniel’s had done in his bedroom.
The pain in her arm was receding now, but so was her desire. Her mind was clearing and she knew that Cole was reigning in his power, sparing her from its effects now that he had what he needed. He had her permission to remove Daniel’s mark.