Hunger of the Wolf Read online

  He chuckled. He couldn’t help it. “You don’t give up easily, do you, chère?”

  She glared at him. “We’re not friends,” she snapped. “So you can stop calling me that!”

  He chuckled again. “Woman?”

  “My name’s Shilo—Shilo McKenzie.”

  He tilted his head, resisting the impulse to respond in kind. He could see she was waiting for him to, though, anticipating an opportunity to inform him she didn’t give a fuck who he was.

  She looked away from him after a moment, frowning. “What’s your name?” she asked finally.

  “Dante.”

  “Dante’s inferno,” she quipped, making him grind his teeth.

  “Clever,” he retorted dryly. “I haven’t heard that one before. You have sharp little teeth, Shilo McKenzie. Unfortunately for you, that didn’t sting even a little.”

  She reddened right up to the roots of her naturally ash blond hair. “I still need to pee,” she said sullenly.

  He studied her, but the truth was he couldn’t just leave her tied to the bed—couldn’t hold her right on. Despite his wariness of her ‘gift’, he had to resolve this situation somehow. Releasing an impatient breath, he shifted away from the door and approached her. After studying her for a moment, he climbed onto the bed and straddled her waist.

  She studied him uneasily.

  He tried to ignore the fact that his jeans were pinching the hell out of his erection as he leaned to reach one wrist and carefully untied it. She tried to snatch her arm free the minute she felt the binding removed. Tsking at her chidingly, he sent her a wolfish grin and dragged her arm down, pinning her wrist beneath his knee as he reached to free her other arm.

  “That hurts!” she ground out.

  He looked down at her when he’d freed her other wrist. “Want me to kiss it better?”

  She gave him a look.

  He chuckled. “I didn’t think so, chère,” he retorted cheerfully, tamping a twinge of disappointment as he settled his rump on her thighs and very carefully lifted her arms, urging her to sit up. He was excruciatingly aware of her as she did, of the soft press of her breasts against his chest as he guided her arms behind her and tied her wrists together, and even more uncomfortably aware of the fact that the shift in their positions had nestled his engorged member against the apex of her thighs.

  She was aware of it, too. He could hear her heart rhythm step up several notches, could hear her breath catch in her throat. He might have put it down to fear except he caught a whiff of desire, as well. Unfortunately for both of them, he didn’t have to see it in her eyes, which she kept carefully downcast. His lycan senses recorded it all and drove his own desire upward several notches.

  He got off of her as soon as he’d secured her wrists behind her back. Scooping her off of the bed, he settled her on her feet, wrapped his fingers around one arm to steady her, and guided her toward the bathroom. She looked at him with a mixture of outrage and embarrassment when he left her standing by the toilet and checked the window and then gathered up both his razor and the pair of scissors he used to trim his hair when the mood struck him, which admittedly wasn’t all that often.

  “How am I supposed to manage … like this?” she demanded when he moved to the door.

  He paused in the doorway, swiveling around to look at her. The impulse, he discovered, was just too strong to ignore. Tossing the razor and scissors onto the top of the chest of drawers near the door, he strode back to where she stood. Stopping when he was toe to toe with her, holding her gaze, he hooked his thumbs in the sides of her panties. Her expression went completely blank with shock as he peeled them downwards.

  He should have stopped at that. He knew he should. He didn’t, though. When he’d peeled them down as far as he could reach, he sank into a crouch. After staring at the curly thatch of hair on her mound at eye level to him in that position, he released his grip on her panties and skimmed his hands upward. Settling his palms on her buttocks, he jerked her against him, burrowing his nose against her mound, breathing in her heavenly scent, relishing the fire that coursed through him in reaction. His mouth went dry. He wanted to taste her. God, how he wanted to!

  He wrestled with the urge. She was human, though, he reminded himself while he could still think at all. A taste might seem harmless enough, to him, even though he knew damned well he was so perilously close to a complete loss of control that that might be all it took to push him over the edge—probably would be. To her it would be far too risky, though.

  He didn’t have to bite her to infect her with lycanthropy. It was in all of his bodily fluids, including his saliva—and the tender flesh of her mouth, and her pussy, was far too vulnerable to assault. He might lick every inch of her luscious little body and run little risk of infecting her, as long as he confined himself to less sensitive flesh, but he almost certainly would if he did what he wanted to do … at the moment.

  It was against pack laws. It was against his personal scruples.

  Regardless of the little myths, humans did not fare well when infected. More didn’t survive than did, and, when it came to human females, they were the least likely to survive.

  Reluctantly, he released his grip on her buttocks, lifted his face from her, and got to his feet. He didn’t look at her again as he strode from the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

  He leaned shakily against the door for a moment after he’d closed it, scrubbing his hands over his face. Completely aside from the fact that he couldn’t keep the woman indefinitely without risking the local authorities launching a manhunt, he couldn’t handle a lot more close proximity to her without doing something he was going to have trouble forgiving himself for later.

  Pushing away from the door abruptly as he heard the sounds of someone entering the house and punching in the security code, he strode from the room almost with a sense of relief.

  He’d already reached the foyer before it dawned on him that she was going to have a hell of a time pulling her panties on again, but he was completely certain that going back up to her at the moment was probably one of the worst ideas he’d ever had—especially with her panties around her ankles.

  Chapter Four

  All three of his top ranking pack members were standing in the foyer when he arrived and all three instantly stiffened, lifting their heads and sniffing the air. “Don’t even think about it,” Dante growled, fixing the men with a level look.

  Maurice, his second in command, met his gaze speculatively. “Where did you find the psychic?”

  Surprise flickered through Dante. He said nothing, but he didn’t have to. After studying him for a moment more, Maurice grinned. “You’ve never run in to one before, have you?”

  Unwilling to admit it, still wondering how Maurice had discerned it, he merely returned his look with a steady one of his own.

  “It’s that mouth watering scent,” Maurice responded finally, “the one you’ve been wondering why it has you rock hard and unable to get your mind off of fucking the daylights out of her. It’s like catnip to lycans—except about twenty times more potent—and roughly ten times more potent that being around a female in heat.”

  “She’s human,” Dante growled. “It doesn’t matter what it is. By pack law, she’s untouchable.”

  Maurice glanced at Jessie and Kane, saw that they were still completely focused on the female in the room above them, and returned his attention to Dante. Unlike the others, he wasn’t Cajun. He was originally French Canadian, and he’d done a good bit of traveling before he’d settled in the low country. None of them, he realized, had ever run across a psychic female. Otherwise they would’ve known all bets were off. “The laws don’t pertain to psychics,” he responded finally. “They’re a breed apart.”

  Dante frowned, lifting his head to glance up the stairs. Noting the hunger in his gaze, Maurice considered stopping at that. Unfortunately, he was the beta male and he already knew he couldn’t take Dante. If he was to have a taste--and he wanted one--h
e would have to wait his turn. If Dante was convinced she was off limits, then none of them would have a chance at her.

  “They’re far stronger than the average human,” he continued after a moment. “They can be infected—mostly—but not all, and even those who are infected can handle it. And that one,” he added, nudging his chin in the direction of the upstairs bedroom, “is the most powerful one I’ve ever been anywhere around.”

  Dante frowned. Ordinarily, he trusted his second implicitly. In this case, he didn’t. He’d been wrestling with his wayward libido ever since he’d first caught her scent and he knew damned well he had a hell of a lot more self-control than the others. “I brought her here for her protection,” he responded tightly.

  The information Maurice had supplied him with at least explained why he was having so much difficultly, he thought wryly, unable to question that much of Maurice’s explanation. It also explained why Shilo had a ‘problem’ attracting lycans. Apparently, she was as ignorant of that particular fact as he had been.

  The wonder was that she’d been able to elude the unwanted attentions of male lycans as long as she had—and as youthful as her face was, and her firm little body, he knew she was no girl. She was all woman, he reflected, remembering how easily she’d slipped into the role of seducer—and without any coyness or uncertainty.

  Several emotions flickered across Maurice’s features in quick succession. Disappointment was uppermost. “Why … if you don’t mind my asking?” he added as Dante’s eyes narrowed.

  “The rogue alpha wants her … and I want to know why.”

  That comment finally pierced Kane’s and Jessie’s abstraction. They looked at him for the first time, and he had no trouble interpreting the possessive look in their eyes. “You found her on pack territory,” Jessie growled. “That means she’s ours.”

  “To protect,” Dante reminded him.

  Kane and Jessie exchanged a speaking glance. “You don’t mean to keep her?” Kane demanded. “How are we going to protect her if she isn’t under our protection?”

  Dante sent him a look of annoyance and finally turned, striding into the living room. The others followed, dropping onto the couch and chairs scattered about the room.

  “She doesn’t live on pact territory,” Dante said finally. “I got that much from her anyway. She’s only visiting.”

  “That doesn’t mean she can’t be persuaded to stay,” Maurice put in.

  “Unlikely,” Dante said flatly. “This wasn’t her first encounter with lycans and to say she isn’t thrilled would be an understatement.”

  Maurice mulled that over. “She hasn’t been claimed, though.”

  Dante eyed him with a mixture of impatience and interest. “And you arrived at this how?”

  “If you’d claimed her, would you let her go?”

  “Not willingly,” Dante admitted, albeit reluctantly. “But then again, I haven’t been around the woman long enough to actually know what living with her would be like,” he added dryly.

  Maurice smiled grimly. “She could be a royal bitch outside the bedroom, and it wouldn’t change a damned thing.”

  “It doesn’t matter one way or the other. Even if what you say is true of lycan law, and as little interest as I have in man’s laws ordinarily, she’s human. We don’t need the kind of attention we’d get if we even considered what you’re suggesting—assuming she was willing, which she isn’t. When human’s go missing, the authorities start searching.”

  “If you don’t know her, then you also don’t know that she couldn’t be persuaded,” Jessie put in.

  Dante studied Jessie speculatively. “You wouldn’t like what she can do to you if she takes exception to your methods of persuasion,” he said finally.

  Maurice frowned, sitting forward in his seat abruptly and draping his arms over his knees. “Now I’m really curious. What kind of psychic is she?”

  Dante lifted his dark brows at his beta. “You are so well versed in these things. Why don’t you tell me?”

  Sending him a look of irritation, Maurice sat back in his seat. “I can’t tell that from the scent,” he growled. “All I can say is it’s psychic—more powerful than anything I ever ran across—and different from anything I’ve ever run across.”

  Dante felt somewhat mollified by that. Maurice’s superior attitude had irked the hell of him, although he’d never particularly given a shit before. Maurice had traveled, and none of them had, but the truth was that Maurice was from an area nearly as ‘back water’. He might think of them as ‘southern red neck hicks’ but he was still a red neck hick himself—just from north of the border.

  He frowned over the question in Maurice’s voice. He had no experience with psychic abilities, and he wasn’t even certain of what to call what he’d seen her do—wasn’t entirely sure he knew what she’d done. He hadn’t exactly been in any condition to observe with any sort of objectivity. “Electricity,” he finally said since that was the closest he could come to describing what he’d seen. “It leapt from her palms when the rogue attacked her, and it was a powerful enough jolt it lifted him clean off the ground and threw him nearly ten feet. He was still out cold when I left him.”

  Maurice, Kane, and Jessie exchanged varying expressions of doubt and uneasiness.

  Kane frowned. “How did you manage to get her here if she could do that to the rogue?”

  Dante narrowed his eyes at the man, but his expression was curious not accusing, and he relaxed after a moment. “She fainted. I thought, at first, that it was just from the encounter—humans rarely handle an encounter with a lycan very well. She was weak, though, even when she came around, and I’m almost positive she sensed the lycan was laying in wait for her. I am positive it wasn’t her first encounter. She knew what we were. There was no disbelief, no coming to terms with a fact that most humans consider a myth to scare little children.”

  Maurice lifted a hand to pluck at his lower lip thoughtfully, a habit that had always irritated Dante. “That’s why they wanted her,” he said after a few moment’s thought.

  Dante sent him a questioning look.

  “We all know they want war, but we also know it’s a small pack and not that much of a threat. They know it, too. With her, though … .”

  “I’m not following,” Dante said irritably.

  “Because you’re not familiar with psychics,” Maurice retorted. “It’s like I said, the psychics handle lycanthropy differently than ordinary humans. With the weaker ones, sometimes they can’t control it and they become, more or less, a lycan themselves. The stronger ones can utilize our strengths, though. If they convinced her to become a member of their pack, infected her, she would not only be more powerful than she is right now, she’d recover faster … theoretically, anyway.”

  Maurice fixed him with a hard expression. “Your instincts were right … as usual. We can’t let them get their hands on her.”

  * * * *

  A shiver skated through Shilo as Dante left her alone. Try as she might to convince herself it was revulsion, however, she knew better. She’d never been inclined toward self-deception, though, and as relatively inexperienced as she was with men in general, she was completely familiar with her own body.

  As unwilling as she was to admit it, the man made everything inside of her melt and quiver every time he looked at her.

  She still didn’t know why. Granted, he was a gorgeous specimen—if she’d been naïve enough to actually think of him as a man. He wasn’t a ‘man’, though, even if he did look like one—a drop dead gorgeous one. He was a beastman, and she’d already seen him in that form, knew he could morph into one at the drop of a hat and all that male beauty would vanish just like his human-like behavior.

  It was a façade, nothing more.

  A knee shaking, handsome façade, but still no more than outward appearance, and she was too damned old to be that shallow—she thought.

  Maybe it was that French accent, she thought wryly? Maybe she was just as much a suc
ker for a deep, male voice sugar coated with an enticing accent as the next idiot woman?

  Then again, maybe it was the mouth it came out of, because there was no getting around the fact that that mouth was enough right by itself to make her belly quiver. Add that raven hair, golden brown eyes, the swarthy complexion—to say nothing of the unnervingly appealing features of his face and a long, leanly muscular body that was about a fifteen on a scale of one to ten and you had a walking, talking woman’s Waterloo.

  Not hers, though. He could keep right on giving her those ‘I could eat you up’ looks. She wasn’t going to forget he was a damned lycan!

  As cold-blooded, calculating, and totally ruthless as she knew human men were capable of being, she had absolutely no desire to go off the chain in the opposite direction.

  Men had been the bane of her existence as far back as she could remember--and lycan males had contributed their fair share to her misery.

  She barely remembered her father, but what she did remember was all bad. She couldn’t say a lot more for her mother, she supposed, but then she figured her mother had been almost as much of a victim as she had been. Maybe she was lying to herself and her mother had known what her father was doing, but if her mother had been agreeable, why would the men have come for her when her mother wasn’t there?

  She had to wonder how her father had explained the ‘windfall’ he’d gotten for turning her over to the government for their little ‘experiments’, but then maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he’d just taken it all for himself?

  Shuddering, she closed her mind abruptly to that train of thought. It had been years since she’d allowed herself to ‘revisit’ the time she’d spent growing up in a government research facility, and she wasn’t about to allow it to touch her now. That part of her life was over. She was never going back. If she had to spend the rest of her life in hiding—alone, lonely—then so be it. It was better to be alone than to endure what she’d had to endure.

  She just wished she’d thought about that before she’d yielded to the desperate need to be around people again. She’d been climbing the walls, though, endured as much isolation as she could stand.