The Dark-Hunters (312 page)

The sound of that nickname on his lips brought a shiver to her. She loved the way he said it—sure, deep, and protective. It was almost like an endearment.

“So is there anything I can do for you?” she asked.

Wren stiffened at her question, in more than one way. The one thing he wanted from her was the one thing he could never ask—to have her naked in his bed. And that added a deep, inexplicable burning to his chest. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? I could get—”

“Aimee?” he called, interrupting her.

The door opened instantly to show him the bearswan. She passed a quick look between them as she drew near the bed.

“She needs to leave,” Wren told her.

Aimee nodded, then reached for Maggie.

She shrugged off Aimee’s touch. “Wren…”

“I need to rest, Maggie. Please.”

Marguerite hesitated at the strain she heard in his voice. How could she argue with that? He was in extreme pain because he had saved her life when most men would have turned the other way and not bothered.

“Okay.” She moved back toward the bed and leaned down to kiss him lightly on the cheek.

Wren couldn’t breathe as desire roared through him. It was all he could do to not pull her into his bed.…

Before he could think better of it, he caught her head as she started to pull away and pulled her lips to his. He growled at the sweet taste of her. At the softness of her lips under his. It was the first time in his life he’d ever tasted a woman, but even so he couldn’t imagine any woman tasting better than this one. She was incredible.

Maggie’s lips were soft and decadent. They awoke a fierce hunger inside him that craved nothing but her. It was a hunger that both scared and thrilled him in a way he would never have thought possible.

He shouldn’t feel this. Not for a human. Not for anyone.

God save them both from his ragged emotions.

Marguerite moaned as she tasted the feral wickedness of Wren’s mouth. His tongue swept against hers, making her shiver. He smelled of patchouli and antibiotic cream.

More than that, he smelled of raw, earthy male. Of wicked midnight delights that she wanted to spend the entire day sampling.

He pulled away with a deep snarl. “Go, Maggie. Before it’s too late.”

His words confused her completely. “Too late for what?”

“Aimee,” he said between clenched teeth as he refused to look at Marguerite.

Aimee pulled her back. “C’mon, Maggie. He really should rest.”

Wren watched as the women left. His heart ached at the loss. Even now Maggie’s scent clung to him. It filled his nostrils, making the beast inside him roar with possessiveness. It wanted her in a way that was hard to deny.

He placed the heel of his hand against his groin, which was rock hard and throbbing. He’d never wanted anything more than he did right now to have a night alone with her.

But it was impossible and he knew it.

She was human and he was an animal … in more ways than one. There was no way he could trust himself with a woman. No way he could trust himself with anyone. He could turn vicious in a single instant. It was the curse of his people and his breed.

Even his own mother had turned on his father.…

Sighing, Wren looked at the gray sweatshirt Maggie had brought to him. He felt a smile curl his lips, and that was the most amazing thing of all. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if he’d ever smiled before in his life.

A foreign feeling entered his chest. He didn’t know what it signified. He held the tissue paper to his face. It held the faintest trace of Maggie’s sweet, feminine scent. He crushed it in his fist as a brutal wave of desire consumed him.

Moving the paper aside, he held her gift in his fist as he lay back down.

Someone knocked on his door.

His breath caught as he hoped it was Maggie again, but it wasn’t. Aimee entered the room.

“You okay, cub?”

He nodded. Aimee was the only person he allowed to call him
cub.
She didn’t use it as an insult but more as a friendly pet name. Of all the people and animals in Sanctuary, Aimee was the only one who had ever made him feel halfway welcome. But she, like the others, feared him. She was afraid even now, though she was trying to hide it.

She crossed the room. As she reached for the bag and paper, he hissed and growled at her. She straightened up instantly. “I thought you’d want it thrown away.”

“No.”

She held her hands up in surrender. “Just so you know, I sent her home.”

It’s where Maggie belonged, but the thought lacerated his heart with pain. He didn’t want her home. He wanted …

He wanted her here with him.

How stupid was that?

“Why didn’t you give her her backpack?” Aimee asked in an innocent tone.

He glanced to the corner where Maggie’s black Prada backpack was resting. Maggie had left it in the bar, under the table, during the confusion of last night. Aimee had found it not long after Maggie had left and told him about it this morning. He’d immediately ordered Aimee to bring it to him. He hadn’t wanted anyone else to touch something so personal to Maggie.

“I forgot.”

Aimee nodded. “You want me to take—”

“No!”

The bearswan gave him a sharp stare. “You need to curb that temper, cub. You know what
Maman
has said.”

He returned Aimee’s stare tit for tat. “I don’t want your scent on her property. Understand?”

Aimee rolled her eyes at him. “What is it with you freaky cats? I swear I don’t know who’s more territorial, you or the wolves. Artemis protect us from the lot of you.”

He watched as Aimee left the room and gently shut his door. He cradled the shirt to him as he closed his eyes and conjured up Maggie’s face. Nick had been right, she was a beautiful lady. He finally understood what Nick had meant when he’d called her top-quality goods. It bled from every part of her.

And he was nothing but a hunted piece of shit whose life was as worthless as a twig.

It was true. His life was worthless. He was worthless. He’d destroyed everything he’d ever touched.

Aching with the truth, he let his human form dissolve into that of a tiger. He stared at his large white paw on the shirt. What he wouldn’t give to be a human male. Then again, he would kill to be anything other than what he really was.

All he’d ever wanted was to belong somewhere. Anywhere. But it wasn’t meant to be.

Part of him wanted to rip the shirt apart to rid it from his sight, but the other part refused to let him. Maggie had given it to him. She had gone out of her way to bring it here. It was a gift. A real gift, and he would treasure it as such.

Closing his eyes, he could still taste her kiss. Smell her scent on his skin.

And God help him, he wanted more.

*   *   *

Marguerite couldn’t get the taste of Wren to leave her. She’d never had any man kiss her like that. It’d been sinful and wicked. Decadent. Possessive and hot.

He was so not the right kind of man for her to think about. He was a busboy. Her father would have an apoplexy if he ever learned she’d spoken to, never mind kissed, a man like Wren.

But that didn’t matter to her. Wren was wonderful.

“And he saved my life,” she said under her breath. There was no way Blaine or Todd would have done such a thing, and even if they had, they wouldn’t have walked her home with a bullet wound in them. They would have lain on the ground, screaming for an ambulance and the best surgeon money could buy to be flown in from the Mayo Clinic.

But Wren had never said a word about his injury. Then again, he wasn’t exactly chatty. She’d never met anyone who spoke less. And yet she was more attracted to him than she’d ever been attracted to anyone. He said so much more with silence than most others with a thousand words.

She couldn’t help wondering if part of his appeal was the fact that he was so socially unacceptable to her father. She could just imagine introducing them.

“Hi, Dad, this is my boyfriend. I know he needs a haircut and that he works in a biker bar, but isn’t he great?”

Her father would instantly have a seizure.

Even so, she still tasted Wren’s lips. Felt the steel of his hand cupping her head as he tasted her.

How could anyone make her this hot?

“Put it out of your mind.”

Yeah, that was easier said than done. All she wanted was to head back to the bar and see him again.

“I can’t.”

As much as she liked Wren, she loved her father, and her father would never, ever accept her dating someone like Wren. She couldn’t do that to him, even if he was an egomaniacal SOB who was more worried about his constituency than his daughter. He was still her father, and since her mother’s suicide, he was all the family Marguerite had.

She couldn’t see Wren anymore. She couldn’t. No matter what these weird feelings inside her thought or argued, their acquaintance was over.

Chapter 4

Marguerite tucked her books into her borrowed backpack. She still hadn’t found her Prada. She couldn’t imagine what had happened to it. She’d checked the lost and found at the library a dozen times. It wasn’t like her to lose something like that.

Sighing, she got up from her desk to head off to the library and meet with her group.

As she left the building and headed across the lawn, she wasn’t paying attention until she heard a man calling out, “Maggie.” His voice was so deep and rumbling that it sent a shiver down her spine.

There was only one person she knew who held a voice like that. Only one person who called her Maggie nowadays.…

Pausing, she turned to see Wren coming toward her from the street. He moved with a graceful, masculine lope that sent a heated wave through her. He had on a pair of faded jeans that had holes in both knees, black biker boots, and a black T-shirt with a ragged red and black flannel shirt worn over it that he’d left unbuttoned. She’d never known anyone to dress so haphazardly, and there was something about the clothes that made him seem like a young teenager.

But that aside, it was obvious that he was completely ripped. A fact she knew firsthand since she’d seen him without those shirts on. There was also a dangerous confidence about him that said he was a lot older than he appeared at first glance.

He kept one arm behind him as he moved to stand just before her. She shivered at his commanding presence. He was so much taller than her, and those eyes …

There were times when they didn’t seem quite human.

“Should you be upright?” she asked.

He shrugged with a nonchalance that she couldn’t fathom. “I told you it wasn’t fatal.” He brought her backpack around from behind him. “But I thought you might want this back. You left it in the bar the other night.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” she said, delighted to have it returned to her.

“You stunned me so much when you came to my room yesterday that I forgot I had it.”

She smiled up at him, grateful that he’d gone to such trouble to bring it here. “You didn’t have to bring it to me. You could have just called and I would have come for it.”

“I didn’t have your number.”

“Oh,” she said as she realized that she hadn’t given it to him. Which brought up another question. “How did you find me here?”

He didn’t answer. In fact, he looked rather uncomfortable at her question. “I should be going.”

“What the hell is this?”

Marguerite looked past Wren’s shoulder to see Blaine with a group of his frat brothers. She drew a sharp intake of breath. This wasn’t good. Knowing Blaine, he’d see this as a direct violation of his territory by Wren, and with his friends backing him, there was no telling what he might do. Blaine could be a total prick when he wanted to.

“It’s none of your business, Blaine,” she snapped in warning. “Go on and leave us alone.”

He didn’t take her obvious hint.

Blaine glared at them. “What are we having here, revenge of the busboy? In case you haven’t noticed, pal, there aren’t any tables out here in need of cleaning.”

She could sense the rage that was swelling inside of Wren. Luckily, he was holding it back.

She glared at Blaine. “Leave him alone, Blaine. Now.”

Blaine sneered at Wren as he raked a disgusted stare over Wren’s clothes. “What? Can’t you afford a real pair of pants? Or are you so hot natured, you need natural ventilation?”

“Blaine,” she growled.

“What kind of hair is that?” another of the frat boys asked. “Don’t you ever wash it?”

“It’s dreads, mon,” another answered in a fake Jamaican accent. “All the better for smoking the ganja, don’t cha know?”

Blaine tsked, then passed a feigned sympathetic look at her. “Really, Margeaux, why are you hanging with such lowlifes? I know you can’t help who your mother was, but damn, woman, I would think your father’s genes would take some dominance.”

“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Wren said in a quiet voice. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“You’re not embarrassing me,” she said between clenched teeth. “They are.”

Still Wren didn’t look at her. He started away from her, heading back toward the street.

“Yeah, keep walking, busboy,” Blaine said in an acidic tone, “and don’t come sniffing around her anymore.”

As Wren moved past them, Blaine shoved at him. Wren’s reaction was swift and violent. He slammed his fist straight into Blaine’s face. Blaine hit the ground hard as his frat cronies jumped Wren.

“Stop!” Marguerite shouted, afraid they would hurt Wren. But to be honest, he was cutting through them with little difficulty. He slung one over his back, onto the ground, then punched him hard while the other two were swinging at him.

All of a sudden, campus security was there, pulling Wren off. He turned on the officer with a growl and slugged him before he realized it wasn’t another student.

The other officer pulled out a club and struck Wren’s injured shoulder with it. He growled loudly and shoved the officer back. Marguerite realized that Wren was about to attack him as well.

“Wren, stop!” she shouted. “They’ll hurt you.”

He froze instantly.