Keeping Kaitlyn (2 page)

Her eyes widened and she went stock still. A man sat on the metal bench near her reading a book. He didn’t budge. Seemingly, the voice was in her head. That was
so
not a good thing.

Come to us.

“Come to you?” The words slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them, a gut reaction to the whispered request of one of the men who were only supposed to exist in her fevered, overworked imagination.
 

The man on the bench shifted uneasily and glanced at her.

A train sped by, blowing an empty drink container around the platform and buffeting her hair.
Come to us
, the voice breathed again. She turned to run away, off the platform, down the street, anywhere to escape the voices in her head, but she knew she couldn’t run from her own crazy. Maybe wonky doodle was catching.

Something tingled through her body. A pulling sensation tugged at her clothes.

The train whipping in front of her seemed to speed up and grow longer. She looked down the track and couldn’t see the end of it; it was just one long stretch of blurry silver. Paper and trash buffeted around her feet. The air from the passing train became stronger, thrumming around her head and yanking at her clothing. She stepped back and saw that the man with the paperback was gone. Had he run away…or just vanished?

The wind grew stronger, roaring in her ears. The train sped impossibly faster. She turned to flee and she staggered to the side. Her tote slipped from her shoulder and dropped to the pavement. This was not right. This was
not
normal.

Her vision became fuzzy. She dropped to her knees. Throwing back her head, she shrieked in fright, but the roar of the wind swallowed the sound, tossing it away like it was nothing.

Blackness. Silence. Floating.

A couple moments later, her throat raw from screaming, and she lay on something soft and cool. She cracked her eyelids, letting in a flood of bright light. Her pupils weren’t ready for that. She pushed up and scrabbled backward, shielding her eyes with her forearm.

“Take it easy,” said a low, male voice.

She whipped her arm down and blinked owlishly. The cool soft stuff was grass. The bright light was sunshine. The low, male voice came from…..

“Oh, my….god.” She must have had a psychotic break at some point, because one of the men from her daydreams was standing in front her, though this experience lacked the wispy, vague, removed quality that was always present.

This was real. Real grass. Real ground. Real sunshine.

Real man
.

She squinted up at him, drawing long, deep breaths into her lungs to stave off a panic attack. Had she leapt completely into insanity? She pushed to her feet. “What the hell is going on?”

It was the dark haired one. He looked just as he always had—tall, broad, dark-haired, black tattoos snaking down his sinewy arms and crawling up his throat. Chocolate brown eyes that were deep and dark, full of mysteries she wanted to explore. A face as if chiseled from rock, not quite handsome, one cheek marked with a long, white scar. Full, expressive lips—lips that made a woman want to suck, nibble at; lips that made a woman think the most impure thoughts. She wondered what a man could do with a mouth like that.

His body seemed chipped from rock, just like his face, yet she bet his flesh was warm. She wanted to find out, wanted to explore the planes of his chest with her fingertips, trace over the ridges of his abdomen. She could spend hours exploring a body like his.

He was, in short, her dream man. One of a matched set.

The man walked to her. “Kaitlyn Isabella Gannet.”

“Y-yes.” Then she understood that it hadn’t been a question.

He knew her name.

He pulled her against his body. She was too shocked to do anything but let him. He was hard and warm and his arms felt good around her when she should have been terrified. His gaze held hers and her breath locked in the back of her throat. His head dipped suddenly and his lips caught her lips. His breath warmed her mouth, scented like the sweetest mint. His tongue slid into her mouth. Kaitlyn’s knees went wobbly and her spine turned to marshmallow. This man, whoever he was, had engaged every hormone in her body in under three seconds.

She wanted him. No…she
needed
to have him. Now.

For a moment, she struggled with one of the strongest, most primal instincts she’d ever had in her life.
Sex. With this complete stranger. Right now.
It wasn’t right, wasn’t safe, definitely wasn’t sane. She had to break this spell before she did something she’d regret in the long run.

She reached into her pocket, drew her pepper spray and squirted him in the face, knowing she was close enough to get a little of it too.

White hot fire hit her eyes. They pushed away from each other, both coughing hard enough to break a rib. She scrambled away blind, her eyes burning and watering, trying to get as far from him as she could.

“Stop,” came his low, commanding voice from behind her.

“No way. I don’t know who you are or where I am.” She wiped her watering eyes and glanced behind her to find him on his knees, covering his face and groaning.
Good.
“Why did you bring me here?” She continued to move away from him, feeling her way forward, hindered by her blurry eyesight.

“I didn’t bring you. You were drawn.” He spoke with an accent she couldn’t place. “You came because you were meant to come. You belong here with us.”

She stumbled, not understanding his words. Belong with who? Those two hunky guys from her fantastical daydreams? No way.

“
Stop.
” He sounded really close now.

She glanced behind her and saw that the pepper spray had apparently worn off. Her eyes still burned and she hadn’t even taken a direct hit. What was with this guy? He strode to her as if completely unaffected. Was he superhuman? She hastened as much as she could, but her eyes were still watering. Her shoe caught on a clump of weeds and she fell.
Hard.

By the time she’d flipped to her back, he was looming over her. Through her burning eyes, she watched him extend a hand. “Don’t be afraid. Come with me.”

Don’t be afraid
, easy for him to say. He was ten thousand times her size.

She narrowed her eyes. “Why?” The man was too gorgeous for words, but that didn’t make him trustworthy.

“I am Lucas. You are my mate. Mine and Rafian’s.
Ours.
That’s why.”

She stared at him, trying to comprehend what he’d just said. “Mate? What does that mean?”

Lucas shifted impatiently. “Woman, I speak English very well. I learned it for you. You must know the meaning of the word
mate
.”

She blinked through achy, reddened eyes. “Mate as in
sex,
or mate as in joined in some kind of….marital type arrangement?”

His teeth flashed white as he bared them, looking predatory for a moment. “Both. Lots and lots of…
both
.”

 
Kaitlyn’s mouth went dry. “Uhm. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m a software engineer from Chicago. I have a career back there. I can’t go off
mating
with a couple strange men from—wherever this is.”

His head lifted as if he heard a sound in the distance. All she heard were twittering birds. “We’re not safe here.”

She glanced around at the lush forest that surrounded them. They were in a meadow dotted through with tall grass and daisies. All the scene needed were cavorting kittens. “What’s not safe about this place?”

Not a millisecond after she’d muttered the sentence the sounds of shouting, horses, and men crashing through forest filled the air. Lucas’s gaze caught hers and held. Then he moved, leaping to the side almost faster than her eyes could track. His form blurred and a curious sound she couldn’t identify came from his direction….a stretching, popping kind of sound. It was a fleshy, organic,
alien
noise that made cold, stark fear race up her spine.

It happened so fast, she barely registered the event through her shock and primal emotion. All she knew was that one minute the gorgeous man was there….

And the next moment he’d turned into the biggest wolf she’d ever seen.

Chapter Two

Her breath caught in her throat as the creature’s head turned and a pair of dark, mysterious brown eyes met her gaze. Those were wolf eyes, but the soul in them was the same.
This was Lucas
. All black, furry, and big as a pony, but it was him. Impossibly.

Oh, holy… Her supposed “mate” was a werewolf?

The sounds of the approaching riders grew louder and the wolf gave the forest his full attention. He repositioned himself, putting his huge body between her and whatever was about to burst into the clearing. It was an oddly protective gesture that made her sorry she’d pepper sprayed him.

A low growl issued from the wolf’s throat. It made all the hair on the back of her neck rise. His hackles rose as a group of five men rode out into the clearing and a vicious snarl erupted from his throat. The horses all shied and whinnied when they saw the wolf. The leather-clad rider in front—a broad-chested guy with salt-and-pepper hair—looked past the wolf to where she sat on the grass. His eyes narrowed as he spotted her and her blood turned to slush in her veins.

Never had she been so sure someone wanted to kill her.

A flash of white caught her eye. Another wolf, of the same size as the first, leapt into the clearing and ran flat out for the men. Lucas broke into a run too, striding beside the white wolf. Some of the horses reared, dumping their riders off their backs. Others bolted. It was mass chaos as the group tried to get away from the oncoming rush of teeth and claws.

The head of the group held her gaze for a moment longer and it was like only the two of them existed in the world. The look on his face told her clearly that he would end her life one day. Then he turned his mount and disappeared into the dark forest.

Kaitlyn took a few deep breaths. She kept expecting to wake up, as if this was all some weird dream. But the hard ground beneath her told her otherwise…as did the crazy beating of her heart. Not to mention the remnants of the pepper spray which still stung her eyes. No way was she dreaming or imagining any of this.

Both wolves trotted toward her and her heart rate ratcheted into the stratosphere. There was nothing warm and fuzzy about having two pony-sized wolves running toward you, even if you were pretty certain the wolves had just protected you from a psychopath. She scrambled to her feet and retreated backward until the wolves came to a stop before her.

The black wolf blurred again and the sound of one organic creature becoming another reached her ears. It was a noise she couldn’t even describe, but it made her think of bone, blood and stretching tendons. She turned her face away. When she dared a glimpse again, Lucas lay on his side in the grass…naked. The white wolf stood silent sentinel, his yellow eyes focused intently on her.

“What the hell is going on?” She put her hand on her hip and tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to mask the quaver in her voice. All she really wanted to do was pass out, but no way was she fainting in front of these guys.

Lucas pushed up from the ground, shaking his head as if to rid it of ringing. “We’re still not safe here. That was a hunting party that came across us unexpectedly. They’ll be back with reinforcements. We need to move out. Kaitlyn, ride the wolf. He can carry your weight.”

“
Ride the wolf?
No way.” That was just one strange thing too many for her right now. She eyed the eerily calm white creature, who eyed her back. “I’d rather walk.”

Lucas stood and all the rest of the words on her tongue disappeared. The man was naked and not apparently modest. Glancing down, she raised an eyebrow. And she could see why. A man hung like him had every reason to show off.
 
“We aren’t walking; we’re running. Think you can keep up?”