Rosko, Mandy - Mate of the Wolf (Siren Publishing Classic) (10 page)

“Your mate should have sent you away, but since he was so eager to keep you,” Pearl kicked the chain still attached to Shelley’s ankle, “you shall feed me and make me strong for the skinning.”

Shelley’s eyes widened. She screamed inside her head.

Pearl chuckled. “Not you, pet, him. He is a very rare specimen. A werewolf with true silver hair. My father is the king of all vampires, and he demands only the best. He wishes to wear the coat of your mate.”

Pearl talked about it like she was discussing buying a fur coat or something. She fingered the heart locket at Shelley’s neck. There must have been a few hairs poking out because she laughed. “Even you acknowledge its beauty. Even you wish to have it, to wear it.”

Shelley wasn’t shocked. She hadn’t known, but the news that Michael’s fur was real silver didn’t stun her either, not after everything she’d seen and heard. Michael had told her he wasn’t allergic to silver, and she did see how shiny his coat was. So his hair being real silver wasn’t such a stretch.

Pearl brought her back to the present by planting a kiss on the bare side of Shelley’s neck, then a tender lick to scoop up the collecting blood from where she’d bitten. Shelley shivered.

“The king sent his half-breed daughter to hunt me down and collect what’s in your locket,” Michael snarled, eyes furious at the sight of Pearl’s lips on his mate’s neck. “Only he wants all of it.”

Pearl hissed back at him, literally hissed at him, her hand tightening over Shelley’s bandage. She winced at the sting but could do nothing else.

“When I deliver your skin to him, he shall acknowledge me as his. I’ll be a true princess, and you will be dead.”

“You can only skin me if I’m a wolf, otherwise there’s no fur.” Michael fisted his long sandy hair, completely void of any silver. “Worthless. No praise from
Daddy
.”

Pearl growled again, and while her body became tight with rage, she seemed to forget she was holding onto Shelley.

He was goading her, Shelley realized. Teasing Pearl into letting her guard down.

“That’s why he sends you out, right? To earn your keep?”

Pearl threw Shelley to the floor. She had barely enough strength in her arms to catch herself, and she couldn’t crawl away.

“Silence!”

“Not the youngest or the oldest, but you’re the only one of your siblings that was sent out to find me. Do you have to bow to your little sister even though she doesn’t bow to you?”

Pearl flew at him. Had the door been shut they would have crashed through it. Instead they landed on dirt ground outside, kicking up a comet trail as they rolled and fought.

Shelley tried to get her body to move. She lifted her head, trying to keep Michael in her vision, as though if she could see him that would somehow keep him safe.

She blinked away the dizziness, summoned as much strength as she could from her sleepy limbs, and crawled forward. That crazy woman wanted to kill them. What Shelley could do to help, she wasn’t sure, but there was no way she was going to hide.

Shelley crawled out the door and onto the little porch. She pushed herself to her knees, grabbing onto the wooden rail to keep her balance. Whatever that psycho bitch’s teeth had put into her system was wearing off. Probably because it hadn’t been in her neck for long. Either way, she could see the fight clearly.

It was gruesome. Like watching a pair of snarling, fighting bulldogs. And that’s what it nearly was. Even though their bodies moved quickly, each one trying to best the other, Shelley could see the hair growing out of Michael’s face, his eyes turning gold and wild.

No. That wasn’t a good thing. When he was the wolf, he was something different altogether. He had no memories of being the wolf, so was it safe to assume that the wolf had no memories of being a man? If he changed, he’d be at a disadvantage, for only a few seconds, but it would be enough.

“Don’t change!” Shelley screamed, her voice strong in her panic.

Michael landed a strong punch in the vampire’s face, sending her back into the trees. He looked at Shelley, his face partially wolf, like the Wolf-Man from the old black-and-white movie. Then he ran to her.

Her hands went to his hair-covered cheeks. His went to her chain. Wrapping both hands around the metal, he pulled, yanking the links apart with an easy snap, like the metal was made of tinfoil, freeing her.

“Run.” His voice was barely human. He pointed to the truck, as though telling her to get inside and drive away.

She couldn’t leave him like this, couldn’t even if she wanted to because her legs were still working off whatever was inside her. “No, you need me here, to keep you human. Don’t let her get to you. Stay in control. Beat her and we’ll leave.”

She smoothed a hand over his brow, the skin returning to normal as she caressed him.

Pearl flew like a jet from off to the side, body-slamming him into his truck with a metallic crunch. The thing toppled to its passenger side as though it were a toy. A toy that made a loud crash of breaking glass and bending metal that kicked up a lot of dirt. Shelley screamed.

Pearl stood above her, purple bat-like wings stretched out behind her, her nails as long as rulers, pointed like spikes and dripping with some kind of pink venom.

She stepped toward Shelley with one of those nails stretched out. “His transformation is required if I am to have the silver pelt.”

Shelley tried to scramble back, but her legs were still shaky.

“Please don’t,” Shelley begged, hating herself for it but unable to get up and run. She was never very courageous. She could barely even act out the emotion in the movies she played in.

“If putting down his human brings out the monster, then that is my mission.”

Pearl reached her hand out to grab her, and then her body jerked and she went stiff. Her mouth opened and blood dripped from between her lips, a dark circle spread in the middle of her chest, staining the white skull on her tank top red.

The vampire looked over her shoulder. Michael was there, fully human, and he’d stabbed her through her shoulder blades with a long dagger.

Her mouth gaped open at him as he tossed her to the ground. The dagger in his hand glistened with her blood. He raised it again as though he meant to stab her in the throat, but he held his hand steady. “Now you listen to me. The only reason I don’t kill you now is because I don’t want to defeat you by stabbing you in the back. But if you ever come near my pack, my mate, or myself ever again, I’ll get you any way I can take you. Then I’ll hunt down your father and brothers and sisters personally. My pelt is my own and not for that fat bloodsucker to wear. Understand?”

Shelley didn’t know how the vampire managed to survive the wound she had already received, probably an undead thing, but the woman nodded. Fear glistened in her wide, mismatched eyes.

“Good. Now get the fuck off my property before I put this in your heart.” Michael pointed with the blade toward the trees.

Pearl got up, still clutching her bleeding chest. Through her trembling she sent a nasty glare over her shoulder as she spread her wings and leapt into the dark sky.

Shelley breathed a shaky sigh as the woman became a dot in the distance and disappeared into the black clouds. Then it all came on her, and she couldn’t hold it back, so she put her hand over her eyes to try and hide her tears. She didn’t even want to touch her neck where that woman had bitten and kissed her. She was going to have to wear another bandage to match the one on the other side of her neck.

Michael was on his knees with his arms around her in an instant, gathering her close, crushing her to his chest. “Don’t cry, baby, please. I’m so sorry. You’ll never see her again.”

She wanted to stop, but she couldn’t. Her tears just kept right on coming, and her throat kept making that lousy sound that was something between a sob and a hiccup.

After a few minutes of petting and kissing her hair, Michael left her, for just a second it seemed, before coming back. He scooped her up and held her as though she would crumble like dust.

Shelley wiped and opened her eyes when he settled her down on a cushioned seat, wrapping something around her with a click.

She looked down and knew where he’d gone. To set the truck in its proper position. He’d placed her inside and put her seat belt on. The window on her side was completely smashed out. Now he was climbing into the driver’s side.

“Where are we going?” Shelley asked as he started the engine, wishing her voice wasn’t so shaky.

He didn’t spare her a glance, just clutched the steering wheel with white knuckles as he pulled away from the cabin. Shelley was impressed the thing was still in working condition. “I thought she couldn’t find me out here, otherwise I would have let you go the second I knew you were mine. I never would have put you in harm’s way like that.” He shook his head at himself and clutched the wheel so tight it looked in danger of popping right out.

“It was my blood that led her here,” she said, toeing the bandage on her foot.

“She already knew I was in the area.” His lips thinned. “Careless. I was careless. She must have tracked my letters, or maybe I was seen by one of her servants in town.”

He kept right on talking, apologizing and listing all the ways he could have been found in the middle of the woods, but Shelley barely heard him as he drove down the narrow dirt road, headlights leading the way through the trees.

A bolt of dread struck her. He still hadn’t answered her question.

“Where are we going?” she asked again.

He still wouldn’t look at her. Shelley’s dread intensified.

“I’m taking you back to your original campsite. I assume your car will still be there. It hasn’t been long.”

“To…get my things, right?”

He pressed his lips together. She watched his Adam’s apple bob deeply as he swallowed.

“You’re sending me away,” she said, tears rising again. “But I thought—”

“You are my mate. You’ll always be mine, but there’s a good chance Pearl will return regardless of my warning. When she does, I don’t want her using you to get to me like that,” he said. “I’ll go back to my pack and tell them what happened. I’ll command them to watch over you, keep you safe, but you won’t ever see them.”

“Will I ever see you?” Billion-dollar question.

“No.”

Shelley let her tears fall. She turned away from him and curled into her seat. Mate or no mate, he was sending her off after she had just discovered what they really were to each other, after they’d had sex in his bed. She felt like a one-night stand.

The truck jerked to a stop, and Michael was beside her. He tried putting his arms around her, but she shrugged him off and pushed him away

“You’re not a one-night stand to me. Don’t think that.” His voice was firm.

Oh, right. She’d forgotten about the whole mind reading thing too.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Read my mind. You’re not allowed to do that if you’re dumping me.”

“I’m not dumping you.” She heard the sad sigh in his voice.

She spun on him. “Then what do you call
this
?
”

“I call it keeping you safe.”

“But it won’t keep me safe!” she yelled. “You just said you’re going to have some people watching me. If I ever see someone following me, how will I know if they work for you or that woman? I’ll never feel safe if I’m on my own. I never felt safe to begin with anyway.”

He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “I’ve lived in the public’s eye for a year now, but even with everyone watching me, taking pictures, I still had a stalker.”