Moonlit Embrace (8 page)

“It’s cute how you think I’m going to let you get away with that. Real cute.”

“Baron?”

“Cute.”

He wasn’t grinning, but she couldn’t begin to hide the smile on her face. Cautious, she backed her way out the bedroom. “We’ll talk about this when I get home.”

“You think you’re funny. You’re not.”

Still smiling, she grabbed her purse, keys and laptop case and headed out the door. She didn’t breathe again until she was safe in her car and even then, she got out more of a wheezing giggle than any actual intake of air.

She was just about to pull out the parking spot when Baron ran from the building waving papers above his head. What the crap had she forgotten? That amazing man. Even after all that torture, he was still a sweetheart. “You’re the best.”

“Sure.”

She gave the papers a quick scan. “Actually, I don’t think these are mine. These are—”

“No?” Baron leaned into the car and in one moment had his hand down the waist of her skirt. She grabbed hold of his arm as he fished around for the controller of the tiny toy still inside her.

“Don’t you dare! I swear, I—”

And he found it. All she could do was hold on to the steering wheel for dear life.

S
he popped out her titillating device while parked on a side street a few blocks north of downtown. She’d been talking pure junk this morning. That toy had never left her apartment. Hell, she’d only used it one time.

She could still picture him grinning in the rearview mirror and tried to shake away the memory. This was her first day back in a week. She didn’t need any distractions.

Too late for that. She walked into work, late, tired and satisfied.

And ashamed.

The kind of ashamed where you hope you get to do the thing you’re ashamed of again real soon. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t scented the wall of fear until she slammed right into it.

With one foot inside the building, the weight of that panic pressed down near to the point of collapsing suffocation. She stepped back, but someone grabbed her from behind and forced her into the lobby.

A robbery? Here? Who robbed the county clerk’s office? The police department was just up the street.

Logic told her to relax. That same logic evaporated when a knee to her back sent her chin first into the floor. Where were the cops? Someone ought to have touched off the silent alarm by now.

She strained her ears, turning one to the ground. Sirens! But no one else heard them. Her relief was short lived as her ringing cell phone brought all attention back to her.

“You answer that phone and I’ll kill you.”

“I’ll turn it off.” She reached to do so and pain ripped through her body.

Pop! Pop, pop, pop-pop!

Five bullets ravaged her. She had time to count them all. Time, because she couldn’t pass out. Wolves almost never did. Every instant, pain burned as bullets tore new channels into her flesh. Some went straight through muscle. Others ricocheted off bone, sending splintering shards of it through helpless tissue.

Two of the robbers shouted for money. One, however, leveled his aim directly at her and fired once more, before running through the door.

The two left behind stuffed cash into their bags until the sirens drew nearer. In their scramble, they stepped on top of her as if she were nothing more than carpet beneath their feet. Tony rushed to her first and tried to hold her stomach together. He screamed of stitches and operations.

What she needed was to be alone. She could heal herself, if they’d all just go away. Shock started its slow evaporation and fear, true fear, took its place.

Tony shouted above her as doors opened and closed. “Officer, please! Over here!”

Beyond the tangy scent of the blood that turned her red skirt, brown, she caught a whiff of something neither human, nor wolf. The owner of that scent, one of the responding police officers, picked her up in muscled arms and carried her away. What was this creature?

“I’ll rush her to the trauma center,” the thing carrying her called back to the rest.

“No!” She fought and scratched, desperate for a way to escape. The one thing more terrifying than dying, was human knowledge of their kind. She refused to become someone’s experiment.

The creature, however, didn’t let go.

“Easy, love. Let me get you to the car. You can heal yourself there.” The officer looked down and puckered his lips at her gasp. His irises lengthened and stretched until they were as thin as a razor’s edge. “You must know that I’m too handsome to be human.”

She gave what she hoped passed for a smile, but the pain left her crying out. The plain-clothed officer dropped her in the backseat of his cruiser and took off, pealing through town.

Johanna gave in to the pain and screamed then. Healing wasn’t cute or quick. Each second lasted an eternity. Each second, a lifetime of agony.

The officer pushed through the crowded streets, until he reached the relative safety of the highway. Even then he didn’t slow. His eyes flickered back to her in the rearview mirror. “How you doing back there?”

“Home. I want to go home.” She called out the address and soon he carried her up the stairs to her apartment. She wanted to ask his name, but her stomach rolled and she threw up on him instead. There was too much pain to be horrified or embarrassed.

The cop shrugged out of his shirt and laid her down on the couch. He disappeared for a moment, but came back with a cup of water in one hand and the kitchen trashcan in the other. “So I came here to protect you and, well, our secret. The bonus was that I’d be your hero and you’d let me take you out sometime. Don’t look outraged. I can smell the dude here. It’s cool. Drink up and give me his number.”

The water spilled, her rattled hands unable to keep it steady. The officer reached for a tissue to dab it up, then took her hand and wiped it dry. “Relax.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Got a sister?”

“Worst cop ever.”

He leaned over the sofa and smirked. “Also known as Jack Wu. You’ll be fine. You’re tough. I can’t help but notice that you’ve stopped healing. Can’t do that, pretty girl. Push through the pain.”

“My phone? Dial Baron. I need him.”

“Only if you promise to keep going.”

The hurting took over, but Jack held her hand and whispered silken words into her ear. She bit her lips until they bled and yet she kept up the healing process. Stopping was not an option. Not with Jack’s knuckles raking up and down her arm, encouraging her to press on.

She had no idea how long he held her like that, but all of a sudden Jack jerked away and jumped off the couch. “I smell something big and crazy coming up. Here’s my card. You’ll be in pain for a while longer, but we need to get our stories straight. For now, I’ll say that I released you into the care of a certain doctor. One of ours.” He took another two steps away from her. “Incoming.”

She hadn’t known how scared and shaken she was until Baron’s voice called out to her through the door. So consumed with her healing, she hadn’t scented him, or Kate, fast on his heels.

She lost it. Wyatt’s red and swollen eyes proved her complete undoing. She cried because she was scared. She cried because it hurt. She cried because, well hell, he cried.

Baron cupped her face in his hands, holding her like fragile and priceless glass. “You’re never going back there. Do you understand me?”

“I could have killed them, but instead I get shot because I can’t let anyone know what I am. It isn’t right. I shouldn’t have to be scared.”

“Shhh, that won’t happen again.”

“You don’t know that, Baron.”

“I do. I know that I’ll never let anything hurt you. I know that I never believed in finding a Mate before. Up until you, I thought it was lust. Hell, maybe love. The idea of you not being with me...I don’t...”

He broke off, looking at her and perhaps waiting for her to say something. She couldn’t. Too much. Too soon. He turned her insides to jelly and her heart filled with him, but the risk of heartache and falling too fast hadn’t gone away.

Baron sighed with a weak smile etched across his face. Silently, massive arms enveloped her and took her to the bedroom. He rocked her while she wept through pain, physical and otherwise. He shook through his own rage, but it comforted her as a balm. He meant it. No one would hurt her again, not as long as Baron was around.

She tried sitting up when someone howled in fury, but Baron, sweet Baron, gently laid her back down.

“That’s just your sister making friends again.” Without leaving her side, he yelled at the screaming pair in the living room to get out. Kate screeched something back, but after another series of shrieks, the heavy door slammed shut and the apartment fell silent.

T
he place stank of blood, vomit, sweat, angry wolf, fear and...

For the briefest of moments, he thought he caught the scent of Wyoming.

Don’t be stupid.

Baron sniffed again.

Not Wyoming, but dragon?

With Johanna asleep, he addressed as many of these as he could. He hated bleach, it burned his nostrils and watered his eyes, but he couldn’t take the scent of her blood anymore. The couch was a total loss. He’d call and have another delivered soon. The money would come out of the restaurant’s discretionary funds if necessary.

Scrubbing on his hands and knees, he came across the cop’s business card and took in a deep whiff. Yep, dragon. He hadn’t smelled one of those in years.

Baron didn’t trust them. No man or wolf could. The whole species was too damned lusty. It’d saved Johanna, but it had also been half-naked.

Johanna wasn’t the issue, there was nothing but trust there. Even if she hadn’t accepted their Mating, it didn’t make it any less true. The dragon however...he sniffed again and caught the slight seawater scented hint of desire. Baron started dialing, but it was a little tough with all the shaking. How long did you get for murdering a cop? Capital murder went for fifty years? Life?

“Hello?”

The gasping voice was female.

“Who is this?”

More gasps. “Allison.”

“Where is Jack Wu?”

“Inside me.”

“Okay.” He took a moment to let that marinate. “Right. Tell him it’s Mr. Wolf.”

The sweet little thing tried, but it trailed off into a groan and a round of ‘fuck me babys’ that left him with a newfound respect for Jack. He should have hung up, but well, the couple on the other end was just getting to the good part. This Allison person’s sex time vocabulary was to be commended. She cried out one final sentence of pure filth, then somebody slapped something juicy and Jack picked up the phone. “Sorry about that. Still there?”

“Allison?”

“Who?”

“The person you’re inside of.”

“Oh...that’s her name. Hey, how’s our girl doing?”

“My woman is fine. I called to thank you for bringing her home.”

“And stake your claim? No worries. She cried for you the whole car ride over. I never had a chance. Now tell me about her sister.”

“Kate?”

“No...no, there’s three of them, right? I’ll take the other girl. The one whose head doesn’t spin around when she’s pissed.”

“Never met her. Look, man, I gotta go, but thanks again. I have a restaurant opening soon. You’ll always have an open seat. Call me back to set it up when you’re not in Allison.”

“Word.”

Word?

Baron ended the call, head still shaking. When he was brave enough, he’d ask Kate what happened between them. For now, there were more pressing things. He and Johanna both needed food and her bandages had to be changed. They were starting to stink.

Standard breakfast fare was not on the menu, even at two in the morning. He wanted carbs - mountains of pasta, heaped with all the meat he could muster up. He set the water to boil and left for the bathroom, hoping for the best. Few of their kind kept bandages around. He might have to improvise something to bind her wounds. Leaving her alone to get something from the store wasn’t on the table.

He couldn’t have been more wrong though. He’d been under the sink since he’d been here, but the storage closet was another matter. The woman had stacks of bandages, pills, tampons and enough toilet paper to wipe the ass of every neighbor in the complex. He grabbed a box of surgical wraps, one of the three hundred-million tubes of antibiotic ointment and joined her in the bedroom, not the least bit shocked to find her awake. She’d twisted and turned all night. “Another dream about the robbery?”

“I thought I heard you ruffling around in there.”

“So you don’t want to talk about it? Okay. New question: why is there a pharmacy in your closet?”

“Nothing wrong with being prepared. You know how it is. I need three or four times the normal dose. When you think of it that way, it’s not very much at all.”

Baron lowered the blanket and opened the top of her pajamas. The dragon had wrapped her up in one long strip of tan banding. She sucked in air every time Baron tried to separate it from the coagulated blood binding it to her skin like glue. Best to keep her talking. “Prepared for what?”

“Stuff. Weather’s rough in the winter and ow—”

“Sorry. Nearly done and you’re a prepper.”

“I’m not.”

“You are and newsflash, you’re also a wolf. If it all goes to hell you can just take what you want.” He put healthy dollops of ointment on her wounds, but was relieved to see her healing so well. The purpling flesh fused together, though it would take some time for all her pain to go away. “You need to rest and eat for the next little bit. I’ll call Kate later and we’ll work out a schedule to keep you company.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“That wasn’t up for debate. Do you feel like eating? I’m going to whip up a batch of pasta and meatballs with a side of steak.”

A wince followed Johanna’s too brief laughter. He went to the painkillers, but she waved them away. “I don’t have spaghetti. Ramen lasts longer.”

“You’re the only woman who could offer me such filth and keep me around.”

“I never thanked you.”

“You never have to. You’re also the only woman I would order takeout for.”