Hunger of the Wolf (2 page)

Chapter Two

The turmoil the woman had thrown him in to almost cost them both. The woman's scent had sent him so far off kilter into emotional turmoil that he'd begun to shift even before she came into full view, and, once he'd gotten his first really good look at her, it completed his descent into chaos. His instincts took over completely, and even those were wildly out of control.

He was so focused on her he'd completely forgotten the threat that had led him into the park to begin with.

Fortunately, the rogue was in no better shape than he was. The moment he bellowed a challenge and leapt from his hiding place to confront the woman, it jogged Dante's territorial instincts. Dante uttered a challenge of his own and leapt out to confront the rogue, feeling a surge of both fear and rage as he realized he was going to be too late to intercept the rogue before he reached the woman.

Uttering another snarl, this one of pure rage, he charged toward the rogue full tilt.

The jolt of electricity that leapt from the woman's hands lifted the rogue lycan clear off his feet and threw him a good six feet before he hit the dirt and skidded, narrowly missing Dante. As stunned as he was, Dante didn't slow. He was well beyond any ability to reason by that time.

This was
his
territory. And that was
his
woman. The only thing driving him at that point was possessiveness—because whatever was within his territory belonged to
him
, was under his protection and his law.

She stared at him in wide-eyed horror as he charged toward her, wavered on her feet for a moment, and finally just wilted to the ground without making a sound.

Dante was almost as stunned by that as he had been by everything that had preceded it. He halted, stared down at the woman in consternation for a moment, and finally turned to study the rogue. Padding over to the lycan, he sniffed him for any sign of threat. He was breathing, but he was out cold—which was enough in itself to thoroughly confuse Dante.

The stench of burned hair drew his attention, and he studied the burn pattern on the rogue's belly. Lifting his head again after a moment, he studied the woman indecisively.

Kill? Protect? Kill? Protect?

The rogue was down. As tempted as he was to rip his throat out and take care of the troublemaker once and for all, it went against the grain to attack him when he was incapable of defending himself.

But what to do about the woman?

He knew what he
wanted
to do with the woman, and that was the problem. What he wanted to do wasn't necessarily what he should do and he knew that, too.

He couldn't just leave her, though.

Shifting back into his human form, he moved to the woman and checked her pulse. It was weak but steady enough he thought she would be alright. He shook his head, trying to shake the lingering effects her scent was having on him, but there was no shaking it to clear his mind for more rational consideration. He had to take her—somewhere—and his instincts were telling him to take her to his lair.

There were a wealth of little problems with that.

He'd shifted without bothering to remove his clothing first—the first time he'd done that since he'd been an untried pup. His clothes, what there was left of them, were hanging on him in tatters, and he wasn't going to go unnoticed looking as he did at the moment.

Especially if he was carrying an unconscious woman.

A woman who was unconscious, he finally realized, because she'd blasted the rogue with a charge of electricity potent enough he still hadn't regained consciousness. After staring at her doubtfully for a moment, he rolled her onto her belly, tore of a strip off his already ragged shirt and bound her wrists behind her. If she came to before he got where he was going....

When he'd finished, he checked her briefly for weapons, torn between the need to search quickly and the desire to examine her thoroughly. He was more confused when he found nothing than relieved.

Struggling with the urge to explore the tantalizing scent wafting from her skin more thoroughly, he lifted her into his arms. She roused almost as soon as he'd picked her up and began to jog back through the park. He knew the very instant she regained consciousness. He felt her stir against him.

His body, which had barely cooled one iota since he'd first caught her scent, but which had cooled
some
, stirred to life again the moment she did.

Gritting his teeth, he struggled to ignore the effect she had on him and focused on avoiding the few humans he detected along the way, sniffing the air and pricking his ears for any sound or smell that might threaten discovery, wishing he'd thought to gag her while he was at it. If she screamed....

"Where are you taking me?” she asked finally.

Her voice was husky, a bare whisper of sound. The sound prickled over his skin like a caress, impossibly, making his cock harder than it was already. Sweat beaded his brow. It was a struggle to keep his breathing even close to normal. “To a safe place,
chère
,” he growled, his voice harsher than he'd intended.

She digested that in silence, and he realized she was still weak ... from whatever it was she'd done. Almost as if she'd read his mind, she spoke again. “Why are my hands tied?"

A trace of humor flickered through him. “I've no mind to end up like the last man you encountered."

He heard her swallow. “Lycan."

He glanced down at her, frowning faintly as it dawned on him that she hadn't been surprised—at all. Fearful, yes, when the rogue had bounded out at her, but not surprised.

A human female well aware of the lycan community? She hadn't fainted from shock and terror—or maybe she had, but not because it was unexpected.
She
had informed him that it was a lycan that had attacked her, though.

Moreover, she'd sensed their presence before she'd seen them. It wasn't coincidence that she'd shifted from a jog to a run—not that running was ever wise when dealing with a lycan. It only goaded them to give chase.

"Are you a hunter, then?” He hadn't sensed that, but then, wryly, he had to admit that his senses had gone to shit. She was a pretty woman, petite, and nicely rounded in all the right places. His eyes had told him that before he'd picked her up. Now his body was screaming it to the heavens and driving him crazy.

Her pretty, heart-shaped face, big eyes, and cupid's bow lips would've been enough to draw any man's interest even if her figure had only been average, but it was well above that.

And then there was her scent.

He had an uncomfortable suspicion that she could've looked like the south end of a north bound mule and her scent alone would've been enough to drive him out of his mind.

Something she'd bathed in to attract lycan, he mused?

But that didn't sound right. If she'd deliberately baited lycan, she would've been prepared to kill and she hadn't been carrying any weapons.

Correction, he hadn't found a weapon. She'd used something to stun that rogue, though.

She chuckled derisively. “Runner, actually. Or maybe huntee? I knew I shouldn't have come in to the city."

As provocative as that statement was, he decided to explore it another time. For all he knew the rogue pack was converging on the park by prearranged assignment. He could assume his own pack was still shadowing them, but he wasn't particularly interested in taking a chance on the possibility that they'd managed to give some, or all, of his men the slip.

He wasn't exactly keen on the idea of taking the woman to the lair, if it came to that. If she had the same effect on the others as she was having on him she was liable to set off a mating frenzy that could get really ugly, really fast, but he needed answers.

Fortunately, he'd regained enough self-control to recall that he'd left his vehicle only a few blocks from the northern tip of the park in an alley off a street that saw very little traffic after dark.

Actually, he supposed that wasn't entirely true. He hadn't regained a hell of a lot of control or much reasoning ability. His mind was working at a snail's pace, but the thought
eventually
occurred to him.

He'd reached the spot he'd chosen to go over the park wall when he made a discovery. He was getting hot—really fast—and prickles of stinging awareness were rushing along his arms and through his chest—at every point where he touched the woman. He froze, dragging in a shuddering breath as his lust began threatening to completely overwhelm him. It was as he was staring down at the woman in his arms, contemplating the inadvisability of throwing her down on the ground right then and there and assuaging the need choking him that it dawned on him abruptly that
she
was doing ... something.

He pushed his face into hers until they were nose to nose. “Unless you just
want
me to throw you down right here and fuck you six ways from Sunday,
chère
, I'd suggest you stop whatever it is you're doing,” he growled.

Instantly, the prickling ceased and the heat began to subside to a more manageable level so that the blood pounding in his head and groin receded. Dragging in a handful of ragged breaths, he focused on surveying the area for anyone close enough to see them, and, when he determined there was no one nearby, tightened his hold on her and sprang over the six foot hedge and wall, landing on the sidewalk on the other side and launching immediately into a sprint. He didn't discover until he'd reached his SUV that the woman was barely conscious. It made him uneasy, but he knew the rogue hadn't actually touched her, couldn't possibly have hurt her. Settling her in the back, he closed the rear door and hurried around to the driver's door.

He was shaking all over, he realized with a twinge of disgust when he'd located the spare set of keys and finally managed to shove them into the ignition. He stared at his hands for a moment and finally raked both through his hair to get it out of his eyes, taking in several slow, deep breaths to calm his racing pulse.

His lips tightened into a grim line as he started the SUV and backed carefully out of the alley. He didn't know what the fuck was going on, but he was
going
to know before the night was over.

Chapter Three

In retrospect, Shilo thought with a mixture of fear and self-disgust, it had been pretty damned stupid to try summoning her gift when she was so weak already. Not only had it not had the desired effect—in fact almost the
opposite
effect that she'd wanted—but it had further depleted her strength until she was hanging onto consciousness only by a thread. She struggled with it for a while after the Lycan had settled her in the back of his vehicle, hoping against hope that she could find some hidden reserve within herself and draw enough to her to escape.

After a while, though, it finally dawned on her that she was only making things worse, expending energy she couldn't afford to waste, and she gave up the effort to remain conscious, slipping into a healing darkness.

* * * *

Without surprise, Dante discovered when he reached the lair that none of the others had yet made it back. He'd been counting on it, actually, and removed the woman from the back of the SUV and carried her inside and up the stairs to his room. She was still unconscious—or had passed out again. It worried him, but her pulse and breathing seemed normal enough—not strong, but not alarmingly weak.

After staring down at her for a few moments, he untied her wrists. There were bruises around them, and his conscience smote him, but he dismissed it and began to strip her clothing off, examining each piece for wires—some kind of device. There was nothing. She'd been wearing nothing but jogging shorts and a light knit top, and he'd known it was unlikely either article could possibly conceal anything, but he wanted answers and she wasn't in any condition to give him any.

He stared at her bra and the tiny scrap of fabric concealing her pussy from him, tempted, oh so tempted to remove those, as well, but, regretfully, gave up the notion. No way in hell was she hiding anything with those articles of clothing except two points of exquisite interest to him that made his mouth water. He was having enough trouble trying to keep his mind on business as it was, though. He didn't need more stimulation, or more temptation.

With an effort, he dragged his mind from his aching cock. Settling on the edge of the bed beside her, he lifted her palms and studied them. Unlike the rogue, there were no burn marks. Considering his state at the time, he couldn't put a lot of faith in what he thought he'd seen, but something had damned sure happened.

Remembering the sensations that had washed over him when she'd come around he realized that, as hard as it was to swallow, the woman had done it—without any sort of manufactured weapon.
She
was the source of the electricity.

Which would explain why she was out like a light. She was still too weak to regain consciousness.

The little fool!

He lifted the palm of one hand to his nose, sniffing. The scent reached inside of him and fisted around his testicles, drawing them up into his throat until he felt like he was choking on them. He'd sniffed his way all the way down her arm and across her shoulder to her throat before he realized what he was doing and sat back abruptly.

The urge that washed over him was
more
than the desire to shove his cock so deeply inside her moist warmth she screamed and pound into her until he found release from the lust that had filled him until he felt like he was choking on it. He wanted to
bathe
himself in her scent, rub all over her until his skin was coated with her—and
she
was bathed in his scent.

That scent that was driving him to distraction wasn't manufactured either, he was almost certain. It was wafting from her skin. It was
her
.

And it completely baffled him. He shouldn't feel this—not with a human female. If she'd been lycan he would've had to accept that he'd finally found his true mate, the one female so completely irresistible to him that he had no interest in any other female. She wasn't lycan, however, not even a half breed. She was pure human.

Setting that aside with reluctance, he turned to pondering the most immediate problem—what to do about her ability to knock him halfway across the room if she came to? He studied her wrists again with great reluctance, idly stroking the bruises and finally got up and repositioned her in the center of the bed. Tearing strips from the sheet, he extended her arms out to either side of her and secured them to the bed posts. After checking each several times to make certain the strips were snug enough to keep her from pulling her hands loose and still loose enough to keep from chafing her wrists worse, he stepped back to study her and discovered with a jolt of surprise that she was watching him.

"If this is your idea of keeping me ‘safe', thank god you didn't have evil designs,” she murmured.

His lips tightened. Anger flickered through him, but he dismissed it. Grabbing the comforter when he saw her skin prickle with chill, he tossed it over her.

It didn't hurt that, incidentally, it made it a little easier for him to focus on something besides fucking her brains out. “You're safe from the rogues here,” he said harshly. Striding away from her, and temptation, he pulled a drawer of his chest of drawers open and rifled through the contents in search of a change of clothes. He discovered when he'd stripped that she was watching him. He felt her eyes crawling over him like a caress, but he didn't delude himself into thinking there was any actual welcome in her perusal, despite the fact that her gaze snagged on his engorged cock and stayed there. With a casualness he was far from feeling, he dragged a t-shirt over his head and reached for a pair of jeans. Gritting his teeth as he tucked his aching balls into the opening and tried to find a comfortable position for his stiff cock, he zipped the pants with great care.

"He was targeting you,” he said when he returned to stand beside the bed to stare down at her. “Why?"

Instead of answering, she frowned. “You called him a ‘rogue', why?"

Irritation flared, but there was no point in hedging. She knew he was a lycan. “Because he's the alpha of a rogue pack."

Something flickered in her eyes. “And you're the alpha of the pack that considers this your territory?"

"It
is
my territory,
chère
,” he responded tightly. “What did he want with you ... besides the obvious?"

She shrugged. “Besides what
you
want with me, you mean?” she asked tightly. “Damned if I know."

It irritated the
hell
out of him that it was so obvious to her that he was aching to get his hands on her, and embarrassed him. Despite the dull color he felt creep up his neck and into his face, or maybe because of it, and because he could see she didn't exactly reciprocate his sentiments, he scowled at her. “You shouldn't get too bent out of shape about that,
chère.
You're a woman and not hard on the eyes. Even if you were, you're still a woman—and I'm a man. It's nothing I can't control—or you need be overly concerned about."

She didn't look like she believed him, which pissed him off thoroughly even though he was obliged to admit
no
female had ever had that kind of effect on him and he was having a hell of a time controlling himself. Still, she sure as hell had no way of knowing that. “Lycan, you mean,” she said derisively.

That thoroughly pissed him off. He felt the heat in his face become more pronounced, though this time it was more from anger than embarrassment. “Even so,” he gritted out, “still a male. One female is much the same as the next as far as a randy cock is concerned—they aren't terribly discriminating. But my tastes don't run to humans,
chère.
Quite aside from the fact that they're weak, insipid creatures, and wouldn't know real passion if it bit them in the ass, my bloodlines have never been weakened by the taint of human blood, and I intend to keep it that way."

A flicker of satisfaction went through him when she flushed and looked away. It died at the glimmer of hurt he saw in her eyes before she averted them.

"If we're finished trading insults...?"

"Why did you bring me here, then?” she asked, her voice a little stronger than before.

"I thought I had already made that abundantly clear,
chère."

She pursed her lips, drawing his gaze to that enticing bow of a mouth. He wondered, feeling a twinge of both amusement and another unwelcome surge of desire, if she realized the absolute impossibility of twisting those lips into anything even remotely unappealing. She looked almost as vulnerable trying to scowl as she did when she was merely staring at him with her big eyes—hazel, he decided—widened with trepidation.

"If you only brought me here to protect me, why am I tied to the bed?"

He gave her a look. “I may be a ‘beastman’ to you,
chère,
but it would be a mistake for you to allow yourself to believe I've no more brains than a dumb beast,” he said dryly.

She blushed, seemed to wrestle with herself for a moment, and finally looked up at him with an expression he would've sworn was pure innocence and absolute honesty—if he hadn't been certain by that time that she was incapable of any other expression. She didn't have to
try
to appear vulnerable and completely guileless. It came to her naturally.

"I'm too weak to do anything now—honestly."

He allowed his gaze to flicker over her assessingly, which was a mistake.

She saw the rise of desire in his eyes. He knew it the moment she spoke again.

"I wouldn't try to fight you anyway,” she said in a husky voice.

He dragged his gaze back to her face with an effort. He knew, instantly, that she was trying to seduce him to get the upper hand—and it still took an effort to shake the urge to take her up on it.

He moved a little further from the bed, trying to adjust his cock to a more comfortable position surreptitiously. It hadn't actually gone down a hell of a lot, despite his efforts to focus his mind elsewhere and the anger she'd aroused in him that had cooled his ardor enough to allow him some breathing room, and it didn't take a lot to make him as hard as stone all over again. Leaning against the door when he reached it, he crossed his arms over his chest. “I thought we'd already established,” he growled pointedly, “that you're not interested. I'm not particularly interested—and I'm not stupid."

Consternation filled her eyes. She sucked her full lower lip into her mouth, giving him a glimpse of a dainty pink tongue that made beads of sweat pop from his brow as images flooded his mind of that mouth wrapped around his cock, that tongue curled around him. He cleared his throat. “You said you were a ‘runner',” he prompted. “I have to admit this is something I'm not familiar with."

She left out a huff of irritation and looked away. “I'm not stupid, either,” she responded tartly. “I've noticed there's something about me that seems to draw a lot more interest from lycans than I like."

He could've told her
exactly
what it was, but he discovered he was a good bit more pissed off by the discovery that he wasn't alone in his fascination with her than he was relieved. A sense of possessiveness tightened in his gut. “So you thought it was a ‘mistake’ to come to town?” he prodded. “You can sense the presence of lycans?"

Her lips flattened, but she frowned. “I don't know. I don't actually have to. They sense me ... somehow. If there's one anywhere around, they come ... which is why I hardly ever take a chance on going into heavily populated areas, aside from...."

"Aside from ... what?” he prompted when she broke off.

She studied him for a long moment. “You saw what I can do,” she said finally. “I don't want to end up in a research facility or on a dissection table. The only way to
stay
free is to stay away from people altogether."

An unwelcome sense of empathy settled over him as he heard the loneliness in her voice. “So ... you were sick of your own company and decided to ‘chance’ a run in with the local lycan pack?” he asked, still not certain he completely believed she'd had no ulterior motive.

"Something like that,” she muttered. “I don't suppose you'd untie me and let me go to the bathroom?"

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.