Chapter Eleven—True Identity
Baylor staggered to his feet and clutched at his spurting jugular. Within seconds, the flow stopped and the wound began to close. He aimed his gun at the wolf’s head. And then, with a vile curse, he stuck the automatic in his pocket.
“I kill you, damn Templar, and I kill me.” He looked up to see tiny flames seeping from the kindling. “Let’s see how you like your witch when she’s burned to a crisp.” He grabbed the manuscript and went to his own car, gravel flying as he drove away.
Sara tried not to choke as a plume of smoke rose around her. She struggled with the bindings. Dear Goddess, I don’t want to die! Help me! Brighid, I call on you!
She felt the first splatter of a raindrop and then another. She lifted her face as the heavens opened and rain began to fall. Her tears mingled with it as the fire was doused and she could breathe again. “Thank you, Great Mother,” she whispered.
Michael began to stir as the cool water revived him. He shook his head and struggled to sit up. It took another moment before he realized that Sara was tied to a post. He staggered drunkenly toward her.
“My God! What— Where is the devil?”
“Gone,” Sara said. “You’re more accurate than you think. He really is the devil.”
Michael edged around her and, back to back, began fumbling with the ropes on her wrists. Finally he got one end loose. As soon as her hands were free, Sara quickly unwrapped the rest of her bonds and untied Michael’s hands. Then she rushed over to the wolf and dropped down beside it.
“It’s still alive,” she said as she felt its pulse in the massive chest. “Help me get him inside where it’s dry.”
Together they managed to lift the big lobo and carry him inside close to the hearth. “I’ll light a fire,” Sara said. “You need to go for a vet.”
“I’m not leaving you here by yourself,” Michael said.
“I’ll be fine. Baylor thinks he’s killed me. He’s got the manuscript. He won’t be back. This wolf saved my life. I have to try and save his. Now go.”
Michael rose reluctantly. “I won’t be long. I also need to notify the sheriff that there are two dead men in a car that went into a ditch not far from here.”
The street fighters. Sara wondered if Baylor would stop and take his money back. She nodded and walked him to the door, making sure to draw the bolt after him.
She lit the wood in the hearth and then grabbed some towels from the bathroom. Slipping down beside the wolf, she pressed a towel to the wound but realized it was no longer bleeding. In fact, the blood had coagulated quite quickly.
The wolf stirred, and she drew back. It was a wild animal, after all, and wounded. What would it do when it awoke inside a building? Was it strong enough to attack her?
She started to ease away and then stopped, staring, not believing what she was seeing. It couldn’t be.
The lobo was transforming. Its hind legs straightened and its forelegs stretched even as the chest began to broaden and the muzzle receded.
Its face widened as the fur was replaced with firm bronze skin.
In another moment, a naked Lucas lay in front of her, eyes closed. The wound had completely healed.
Sara sank back to the floor. She knew otherworldly creatures existed.
She had seen her share of manikins, dryads, undines, and sylphs in her use of white magic.
She had called on elemental forces, too.
And Nim was a powerful, ancient faerie. But she had never believed in human werewolves.
That was something Hollywood had thought up.
But it did explain, in a very unnerving way, the unusual color of his eyes.
And maybe it explained the animalistic lust she felt for him whenever he was around her.
Her attention turned to the physical. The towel she had used to press against the wound covered Lucas’ groin.
She had seen his biceps bulging from beneath the tight fabric of a polo shirt, but the defined pectoral muscles of his chest and hard flat abs were the work of the gods.
The heavily corded muscles of his thighs and calves would have done honor to Cernunnos himself.
Her eyes lingered on that intriguing bit of cloth covering what she really wanted to see.
Her hand reached for it and then withdrew. She shouldn’t do this. But he would never know. She stole a glance at his face, but his eyes were still closed, his breathing deep and relaxed. Her fingers itched. Just one little look.
She lifted the corner of the towel and then involuntarily gasped.
Even in repose, his shaft was long and thick.
What would it be like…? She longed to stroke it and feel the satiny texture of the smooth skin that covered it.
Then, to her fascination, it suddenly began to harden and grow even bigger as it raised itself toward her.
“Like what you see?” Lucas asked.
She felt her face flame as she dropped the cloth. To her mortification, he was not only awake but seemed amused at her embarrassment. How long had he been pretending to be asleep? Best to go on the offensive.
Sara forced herself to look him in the eye. “I think you’d better explain to me what it was I just saw. And I don’t mean your, uh, present state.”
The smile faded from his eyes, turning them almost metallic. “I didn’t mean for you to see the wolf.”
“What…what exactly are you? Human?” she asked hesitantly.
“Mostly human,” he answered. “We all have a beast inside us. Mine just tends to materialize on occasion. It’s a…” He hesitated as though searching for the right word. “It’s a genetic defect.”
“Are there others like you?” The idea of the average person on the street changing into a wolf was unsettling. Her world felt like it was spinning on its side.
“Perhaps. I’ve never met another wolf.” He smiled and his eyes crinkled at the corners in a very human way. “Are you frightened of me now?”
She tilted her head. “Can you control it?”
He looked serious again. “As long as I hold my emotions in check. I obviously lost it when I saw what Balor was planning to do to you.”
Her blood heated. Did he care for her or would he have come to the rescue of anyone in that situation? “Were you the wolf who came to my aid the last time I was here at the ranchita?”
He nodded and watched her carefully.
She took a deep breath, remembering how she had thought the animal had grinned at her when it loped off into the woods. “What turned you that time?”
“You were in danger. It was easier to fight the she-wolf in my lobo form. I didn’t have to kill her since she understood I was the alpha-male.”
He was certainly the alpha-male, all right.
Even now, while she was still trying to accept the reality that he was a werewolf, she was drawn to his magnetism.
The reality of what that deliciously hard, nude, bronzed body could do with her made her inch closer and she saw the lust in his eyes as his lids lowered partially and a corner of his mouth quirked up.
He reached over and pulled her down across his chest. His mouth slanted over hers, his lips warm and firm as his tongue probed for entry. Sara teasingly denied him and he sucked on her lower lip, causing her to whimper as raw passion overwhelmed her and drew deep into her belly.
One hand slid slowly upward along her ribs to caress the rounded mound of her breast. His fingers kneaded it gently while his thumb flicked over the already hardened nipple. Sara moaned and arched against him.
His tongue thrust deep into her mouth, his lips ravaging hers as their bodies pressed together. And then he growled.
Sara suddenly found herself on her back, but Lucas had moved away from her. He was hunched over several feet away. “Leave!” he rasped. “The beast wants you. I don’t know that I can control it so soon. Move away!”
Even as he spoke, his eyes turned predatory. She scrambled to her feet and stared at him. “What’s—”
He bared his teeth and she could see fangs. She thought only vampires had those. Not that vampires existed. She felt a bubble of hysteria rising in her throat. But what did she know? Lucas made a noise that sounded suspiciously like the beginnings of a howl.
She stepped back quickly as Lucas turned and ran for the door. She went to the window and watched his towel-clad body disappear into the brush.
Dear Goddess, she was in love with an alpha-wolf.
****
Lucas took a deep breath as he slowed to a walk, willing the wolf back down. To his surprise, it whined. He couldn’t ever remember it doing that before.
He should have known not to take the risk of kissing her when he was in a weakened state from the transformation. To say nothing of healing the wound.
He reached his car, parked well off the road and quickly put on the clothes he’d left there when he called the wolf. The familiar lethargy had not hit him yet, probably because the taste of Sara still lingered in his mouth and kept his testosterone running wild.
Bel’s fires! He’d nearly bitten her. And for a wolf, that was a big mistake. He didn’t know if he could actually Change someone, like Gavin could, but he didn’t want to wish his way of life on anyone.
He paused. She really had taken the discovery better than he thought.
And she still wanted him. The pure scent of female arousal had nearly saturated his still sharply canine senses.
He wondered what she’d do if he told her he was immortal, too.
Lucas gave a short bark of a laugh. What in blazes was he thinking?
The only two living who knew were Gavin and Balor.
Balor. He had nearly killed him today. Had wanted to rip his throat out as much as the wolf did, even knowing that ending Balor’s life would also put his and Gavin’s into the totally human span of years and they would die too.