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She was well and truly trapped, held hostage in her own home with no way of escape. Panic flooded her veins, yet even as it began to overwhelm her, it was rapidly chased away as Leyth, the apparent kidnapper holding her against her will, stepped into her living room. A fresh towel had been wrapped around his hips and his skin was gleaming with water from the shower. His shaggy hair was damp and hanging in ringlets around his harsh, chiselled face. He smelt clean, like soap and shampoo though, as she inhaled, she noted something else teasing her senses, something incredibly manly, something that made her jaw drop open and her heart race. He smelt of lust and sex.
What the hell had he been doing in her shower?
As those incredibly erotic scents hit her, she found herself aching in places she’d long forgotten about. His powerful body flexed in all the right places as he crossed the room towards the kitchen. ‘Coffee?’ he barked over his shoulder.
‘Sure.’ She bit the words out, though her voice was husky, harsh. She hated the way her voice sounded right now and, more than that, detested the way her body was reacting to that man. That smell. Every part of her was tingling with need, with unwanted lust. Her body was betraying her against all logic.
She violently shoved those ridiculous thoughts aside, telling herself to get a damn grip. She’d heard of what they called ‘Stockholm syndrome’; when someone had been kidnapped and kept in close quarters with their captor for extended periods of time, they sometimes fell for them. It was an apparently natural reaction to being around someone; to being in such close proximity for an extended period of time, but hell. She hadn’t been kept here with him for long enough for that to happen. Had she?
Leyth picked up the cup of coffee and walked it over to Tamriel, who was sat on the sofa, wide eyes tracking his every move. Putting the warm mug in her still shaking hand, he sat on the floor in front of her, shuffling the towel round to cover himself as he went; he didn’t want to flash her. Hell, she’d seen enough today.
Briefly wishing he could go and grab his clothes, which were no doubt still outside from his shift yesterday, he muttered another apology.
‘How are you feeling now?’ he asked.
‘OK, I think,’ she croaked. ‘Right,’ Tam visibly pulled herself together, taking a deep breath and eyeing Leyth, ‘tell me what’s going on.’
She was so strong, so determined. He couldn’t help but respect her. Any other female, wolf or otherwise, would have fallen apart at the seams by now. Being pulled out of her life, going through the fever, being confronted by a wolf when you’re down and injured, being told you’re a werewolf… You just had to respect her; she was in a room with a male who dominated her in size and strength, and she was still on the ball.
He ran a hand through his hair. Where to begin?
How did he explain to this fragile-but-deadly female what was possibly going to happen to her? How much did he explain about the Council? How much could she handle?
‘Well. Do you remember the last five days?’
‘No.’
‘OK, that’s not surprising. You went through the “fever”, which is essentially a wolf’s version of puberty.’ She snorted at that, but waved her hand, urging him to go on. ‘You’re supposed to meet your wolf, accept her and then go through the change when the fever takes you.’
‘I’m guessing by your tone of voice that I didn’t go “through the change”?’
‘You didn’t complete your transition.’
‘Shit,’ she cursed, scrubbing a hand across her face in disbelief.
‘I’m sorry, Tamriel,’ he muttered. And he genuinely was; she deserved so much better than any of them had to offer. Tam looked at him, straight in the eye for the longest of moments, before laughing. Laughing long and hard.
‘What?’ He grinned at her, glad she’d found something funny about the situation.
‘I’ve always been different. My senses have always been second to none, and it made me a freak. My entire life, I’ve been a freak.’
‘You’re not a freak. Far from it, in fact.’ He tried to soothe her a little, though this sensitive crap didn’t exactly come to him easily.
‘I am! Now I’ve got a possible explanation for my excessively acute senses, my abnormal strength and speed. I’ve also finally found people who might just understand me. I then find out that I haven’t done it properly? I’m a freak of nature, in my world and yours.’
‘You’re really not a freak of nature, Tamri—’
‘How do you know that? How am I anything but a freak—’
‘Because.’ He cut her off, his mind racing, yet lost for words. He cleared his throat and just said, ‘Because you’re strong. You would make a good wolf.’
She rolled her eyes at him, but at least it made her stop with the ‘freak’ thing.
‘Do you…’ he started, wishing he knew what to say to her. Right now he would just settle for a smoke. ‘Do you mind if I grab my clothes from outside?’
‘What?’
‘When I, uh, shifted, I think I lost my clothes on the way.’
Shock hit her hard.
She opened her mouth, closed it again. Opened it. Closed it.
‘So.’ She put her coffee down and rubbed her eyes. Took a breath. Then another.
‘You were sitting in my window,’ she finally finished.
‘Uh, yes I was.’ Crap. Crap. Crap. ‘I was, uh, making sure you were OK.’ He grimaced.
‘You fell—’
‘Yeah, I lost my balance.’ Tamriel’s eyes darted to the front door, which was currently being held closed with one of her chairs; the damn wood had splintered and broken when he’d forced his way into her apartment.
‘Would you mind if I—?’
‘Nah, go ahead. It’s not like I can get up right now and run away, is it?’ Though she said the words in a fairly light-hearted manner, they cut straight through him. Hell, the truth hurt. She was basically being held against her will in her own house, and though he wasn’t forcing her to stay, she couldn’t leave. And he couldn’t leave her. Damn, walking out of that door and not coming back would possibly be the best thing for the both of them. But he couldn’t leave her now; it wasn’t an option, not with her currently fragile physical state. What if the Council got their hands on her? God, he’d never forgive himself if she fell into the hands of a tuhrned.
The tuhrned were supernaturals that went against the Council, and they did it in the wrong way. Rather than simply going rogue as Leyth himself had once been, they joined the Circle, a powerful group of supernaturals that used dark magic. The ritual sucked the life out of them, and left nothing in its wake; merely the shell of the person they had once been. The Circle could then control the body, using it as a vessel to do its dirty work.
The tuhrned were nicknamed ‘tombs’ because they were like the walking dead. Hell of a way to go, from one controlling bunch of idiots, to another. Honestly, how on earth becoming zombified by a bunch of magis on a power trip was better than living by the strict rules of the Council was something he’d never understand. The only way to kill the bastards was to cut the head off, and that only worked because the eyes couldn’t see much if the head wasn’t attached, so the magi controlling the body usually gave up.
Tamriel shot him a confused look. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what she must be feeling right now. Crap.
‘Just gonna grab my clothes then,’ he mumbled, bolting out of the door, down the stairs and out the building. He flew round the corner to find himself standing in the middle of the patch of grass. Looking around frantically, he found nothing. Then he heard a mischievous laugh. He looked up at Tamriel’s flat to see that she’d hauled herself over to a window and was leaning out, watching him with amusement. She pointed to the bush lining the edge of a wall. Leyth walked over, bent down and pulled a pair of trousers free. They must have fallen off as he shifted.
‘Nice.’ She grinned, eyeing him up. He actually blushed and covered himself, suddenly painfully aware that he was almost naked, wearing only a little pink towel outside in the middle of a town.
Leyth cursed and shoved the combats on, wishing like hell that something could be easy for a change.
A little further down the lawn, he pulled his leather jacket off the bush, and swiftly hightailed it back upstairs to Tam’s flat. As he neared her front door, he couldn’t help but notice the dance his stomach started doing. What the hell was all this crap? He just couldn’t understand it.
As he shot into her living room and secured the door once more, she waved him over, reaching a hand out for his jacket. A little confused, he handed the thing over and watched as she raided the pockets; pulled out his wallet and unclipped his knives before handing it back to him. Smart, not just a pretty face; she had brains on her as well.
Pulling free his ID card, she read: Leyth Aera –White Wolves Inc.
‘Wow. Subtle!’ she chuckled, throwing the card at him.
‘Well, you know what they say, hide in plain sight,’ he muttered, shoving it back in his pocket and grabbing at his cigs. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Nah, go ahead,’ she said, absently fingering his knife set. ‘What happened to your T-shirt?’
‘Ah, they don’t tend to hold out particularly well through the change, probably shredded to pieces outside somewhere.’
Shooting him a stern look, she bent down and rummaged under the sofa for something, finally coming up with a laptop.
‘You restricted my Internet access,’ she said, a statement not a question.
‘I didn’t—’ he started, but she shot him a stern look, making him re-think his words. Damn, he could still physically feel the fear radiating off her, but he could tell she was relaxing, if only slightly. ‘Dax did. You can go online, you just can’t send messages out.’
‘I know,’ she snapped. ‘Who’s Tobias Daniels?’
‘Who?’
‘Him.’ She swung the screen around so he could see.
‘He had a video of one of our pack going through the change.’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘Hell, no! His research was actually really good; we paid him a lot of money to keep researching what he loved, but the catch was that he couldn’t publish any of it. It cannot get out to the media, it’s too risky. We do not want to be exposed.’
‘I see.’ She looked thoughtful for a moment. She had positioned herself on the far side of the sofa, his own knives clipped to her belt.
She moved around to put her laptop back where it had been, wincing as she bent down. Leyth could see her healing well; that wound would be gone by tomorrow morning, but he just hated how much pain she was in.
She needed to be looked at by a professional; he was handy with first aid, but he didn’t want to take any risks when it came to her.
And there was only one man he would trust to look at her wounds and do a good job. That was Doc.
‘You should really let me take you to our clinic, to get your wounds checked by our doctor. I take it you don’t want him here?’
Chapter Six
Tamriel wasn’t entirely sure what to do. She had seen so much proof, so many unexplainable facts that all added up to one conclusion. This man might actually be telling the truth; he might actually be a wolf. And, holy crap, if that wasn’t the story of the century, she didn’t know what was.
The worst part? Try as she might, she couldn’t dislike him. She wanted to hate him, wanted to fear him, fear this situation. But the more time that passed, the more she found herself actually kind of, sort of, maybe liking him? Which was absurd.
Frankly, she figured if he was going to kill her, or be of any real threat to her, he would have done it already. The only thing he had done, is try to help her in her wounded state. Try and tell her what she had thought were lies, yet why would he bother lying about that? And why did his words ring true to her very core?
‘You should really let me take you to our clinic, to get your wounds checked by Doc. I take it you don’t want him here?’ Leyth looked her up and down. He was right, her wounds were pretty bad and she should be seen by a professional. And he was right again; she didn’t want any more strange men in her home. But did she really want to go to this man’s house? To be in a strange place with two strange men all on her own?
If he was going to kill you, he would have done it by now, her inner voice pointed out, but honestly? She needed answers, she needed to know who he was, who this alleged ‘pack’ was.
Her wound was a nasty one, but she could feel it healing even now, much faster than any normal person should be able to. What if she went to a normal hospital and they took her in for testing like a lab rat? At least this doctor would know what to expect.
And at least, if she felt threatened, she could launch herself out of the car; surely they were going to drive through the town, so she would have people around her.
‘OK, you can take me. I need clothes first though.’ She had to admit, as strange and scary as this situation was, she was actually a little excited about getting out of the apartment. Being held hostage would do that to a girl.
After a few minutes of awkwardly trying to dress herself with the clothes Leyth had brought in, she tied her hair into a scruffy ponytail and was basically ready to go. Putting the top and jumper on hadn’t been too bad, the jeans were a pain in the arse, but she point blank refused to ask Leyth for help. She could damn well dress herself. Socks and shoes were difficult though. Try as she might, the wound on her stomach screamed in agony every time she moved forward, forcing her to sit straight again.
‘Here, let me,’ he grunted, sinking to his knees before her and sliding a trainer onto her good foot. He then carefully loosened the second trainer and slid that onto the foot with the swollen ankle, that actually didn’t hurt that badly any more. She flexed her ankle and grinned. Although it hurt like nothing she’d ever felt before, she could actually move it! Leyth smiled up at her as she flexed her foot, his icy-grey eyes meeting hers, shining with amusement and what she could have sworn was something a little more. In that second her heart stopped beating. Her breath caught in her throat. For just a moment, she got lost in the depths of his eyes. No. She was not
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