Werewolves in Love 1: Kiss and Kin (11 page)

“Cowgirls. I met TJ and the girls, but they had to leave. I was gonna see, if, um, you wanted to meet me? If you’re not working, or busy or, you know? I got your message.” He could hear her blushing.

“Why are you whispering?”

“Because I’m not alone.”

“So? How can anyone hear—Lark, who’s with you?” But somehow, he already knew.

“Danny.”

Gossen gasped.

“You know, your rookie?” she said when he didn’t answer. “He came in a few minutes ago. He reminds me of someone. I can’t figure out who. He says he just has that kind of face.”

A brief moment of sweaty, nauseated, near-howling dread, and then—nothing. He exhaled. His vision cleared, his bones stopped morphing, intellect evicted emotion, and he shifted smoothly into combat mode. Mind over instinct.

“Danny’s there? With you?” He kept his voice level.

“Yeah,” she said uncertainly. “Why?”

Denardo could hear everything Taran said.

“I need to see you, baby. I want to see you—right away.” He needed her out of there. “Go to my place.” He snapped his fingers at Gossen, who nodded and picked up the phone. Gossen quietly ordered a unit to his house as Taran continued, “Tell Danny I need my mate and he’d better not get in my way.” He said it lightly, but if Denardo had done what Taran thought he had, he’d understand.

She laughed throatily. “Okay, that’s kind of embarrassing, but I like it. Do you—”

“Leave now, Lark.
Now.
Call me when you’re in your car, hear me? I love you.
Go.
”

He hung up.

“You want me to come with you?” asked Gossen.

“No. I want a unit at Cowgirls. And nobody stopping me on my way home.”

Racing through red lights toward I-10, he reached for his cell phone on the front seat and punched in Nick’s number on speed dial.

“Did you get my text?” Nick asked in lieu of “hello”.

“Wha—no, you send me one?”

“Yeah. The roughneck finally sent me the picture. Sure looks like Kuba to me.”

“Okay. I’ll look at it in a minute.”

“Do you—”

“I got a problem here, Alpha.” He filled Nick in.

“You’re not sure about Denardo?”

“No. It’s just a hunch.”

“You have good hunches. What do you need me to do?”

“Call Cowgirls.” The managers and bartenders were all wolves. “If Denardo’s there, tell them to watch and track him. Lark’s driving to my place. If—” his voice cracked for a second, “—if she got out of there all right, and he’s not with her, she’s fine. I just need to know where she is, where he is. Hanging up.”

He drove with one hand as he raced onto the freeway. With the other he pulled up Nick’s message and attached photo.

It was Kuba, all right, a good frontal shot of the Czech wolf sitting at a table. Another guy at the table sat with his profile to the camera. He couldn’t tell for certain, looking at his phone in the dark of his car, but it sure as hell looked like Danny Denardo.

He punched the accelerator and hit speed dial for Lark. It went to voicemail.

“Baby, I told you to call me. Do it now.”

The GPS receiver showed her car headed northwest—the right direction—but who drove it? Was she alone?

He hit redial, got voicemail. “Lark? Where the fuck are you?”

Traffic slowed as he approached Washington and stopped altogether at the Loop, all four lanes locked solid. Self-control slipping, cool melting, his emotions pounded at the door and demanded readmittance. Intellect gave way.

He smelled it, heard it, felt it under his skin. He quit trying to fight it and pulled the car over. Just as well—he’d get there faster on four feet than on four wheels anyway. Let Fast Tow take the car.

He unbuckled and jumped out just in time. Wolves didn’t strip and change in public very often, certainly not on the shoulders of major freeways. He’d probably show up in the
Chronicle
tomorrow, maybe even with a pho…

…shaking his head and howling as the last human thought evaporated, the wolf raced for home and mate.

She watched her rearview mirror all the way from Cowgirls, but no car followed her. Maybe Danny Denardo didn’t realize she’d remembered him.

No—surely he smelled her fear. For some reason, he let her get away.

When she saw the cop car in Taran’s driveway, she parked under the streetlamp in front of his house. Turning off the engine and resting her head on the steering wheel, she gave in to tears and shakes.

She didn’t see anyone outside gawking at the red and blue lights. Taran’s house was one of only four on the small cul-de-sac; his neighbors might well all be out on this Friday night.

He’d arrive any minute, crazy with worry or furious at her for not calling. Probably both. She assumed Danny took her cell phone.

She got out and shut the door behind her. Then she looked up and screamed.

Danny Denardo stood in the middle of the street.

The cop—probably a werewolf—yelled, “Ma’am? Ma’am! Get out of the way!”

Too late. Denardo slammed into her, pinning her against the car with his hands on her shoulders. He looked past her to the cop.

“Put the gun down. Don’t touch your radio. I don’t want to hurt her.”

“You don’t?” she asked tightly. “That’s not why you’re here?”

Danny stepped back but didn’t let go of her shoulders. He trembled as badly as she did. His battered face, sallow beneath the streetlight, wore a miserable expression and his dark, haunted eyes searched hers—looking for what, she didn’t know.

“I’ve never hurt a woman before.”

“You didn’t kill Eloise?”

“No. I just told Kuba about her. He did the rest.”

“Why?” She had to keep him talking. The cop could only stand and watch.

“I owed him money. Gambling.” He paused. “I used to be an honorable wolf. I swear to God.”

“I believe you.”

They regarded each other in silence.

“Why’d you let me leave Cowgirls?”

“Was that the first time you remembered me?”

She swallowed, nodded. “Yeah. When I was walking back from the bar, you turned to look at me, and it clicked. You were standing just like that at the table at Le Monde that night.”

“You weren’t supposed to remember anything after we put the GHB in your drink.”

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Why’d you do it?”

“Because Eloise was supposed to show up alone. They said if I didn’t help get rid of you, they’d kill me. But then I realized you were Taran’s cousin, and I met you later, and I liked you, and I like him, and now you’re his mate, and…” He closed his eyes and shuddered.

“Did you take my cell phone?”

He laughed humorlessly. “Yeah. You left your purse when you went to pay the tab. You really need to be more careful in bars, Lark.”

“Are you gonna give me the chance, Danny?”

A tear slid down his cheek. “I don’t know what to do. Kuba’s gonna kill me.”

“Taran’s gonna kill you first. You can kill me and the cop, but Taran’s on his way and he’s not gonna—”

“I know. I
know
!” he agonized. “What do I
do
?”

“Give yourself up.” She prayed the scent of her fear wouldn’t push him over the edge. “The police will protect you.”

“I could get life!”

“Not if you testify against Kuba. He’s big. They’ll deal for him.”

She waited on a knife’s edge of apprehension. Sirens wailed nearby.

He blinked, nodded and stepped back further, releasing her shoulders.

“You’re right,” he said dully. “I can’t get out of this, and I’m not a killer.”

She heard movement behind her and held up a hand.

“Wait!” she called to the cop. “Don’t shoot. He’s surrendering.”

Danny put his hands up and smiled sadly. “Thank you,” he mouthed.

She nodded. Together they turned toward the driveway where the cop waited, gun aimed at Danny.

Not only did werewolves run too fast for human eyes to track, they ran too quietly for human ears to hear.

Danny jumped, gasped and vanished from her side. She felt a stroke of fur and rush of wind as a large dark shape sailed through the air and bore Danny with it across the street into the neighbor’s yard.

The cop flew after them.

Fangs snapped, flesh ripped. She froze. Then Taran’s howls and Danny’s screams and the cop’s shouts shattered her paralysis.

“
Taran! Stop!
” She didn’t know she could scream like that. Every werewolf in Memorial heard her.

His head came up and swiveled to her. Another cop car and an ambulance streaked around the corner, lighting up the cul-de-sac like a football field. She stared at her love, his wide yellow eyes shining in the headlights, blood dripping from his gaping jaws, his chest heaving.

Their gazes locked.

“Stop,” she whimpered, “please, baby, stop.”

He didn’t move, and she didn’t take her eyes off him, as a policeman approached from the side.

“Miss,” he said in low, urgent voice, “are you Detective Lloyd’s mate?”

She nodded mutely.

“Would you please go to him? We need to get to Officer Denardo, and Detective Lloyd smells very close to loco, ma’am.”

She tried to move, found she couldn’t.

“I’m scared.” Her voice sounded strangled. Her heart felt like it, too.

The cop kept his voice low and soothing. “I promise you, ma’am, he won’t hurt you. You’re the only one who can approach him right now, and we need to get to Denardo before he bleeds out.”

“Danny wanted to surrender,” she whispered wretchedly.

“Yes, ma’am. We can save him, if you’ll go to your wolf.”

Her werewolf. He needed his mate.

She wobbled across the cul de sac on shamefully unsteady legs. He didn’t move, made no sound as she approached. She stopped a few feet away from Danny’s body. Forcing herself not to look, she stared fixedly at Taran instead.

“I’m all right, baby. See? I’m fine.” Tears poured down her face, but she didn’t flinch as he crept slowly to her. She’d never been this close to him when he was furry; his back came level with her waist, his head just below her breasts. “I’m sorry I did something stupid and freaked you out. You really love me, don’t you?” She held her hand out; he sniffed it uncertainly and leaned into her. “Shit, you’re a horse,” she gasped, sniffling a laugh. “You said I’d have time to get used to all this.”

He pressed his head against her ribs and whined softly, quivering from nose to tail. She stroked the thick, stiff fur of his neck. When she sank to her knees, he stretched out on the grass beside her. She murmured nonsense with all the love she could push into her voice and slowly, slowly, his body relaxed and his breathing returned to normal.

The cops and the EMTs moved in to pick up Danny’s body. She stayed in the grass with Taran and stroked his flank until the ambulance took off, sirens blaring. Maybe twenty minutes had passed; it felt like they’d been there for hours.

“Lark?”

Taran raised his head, and she turned to see Nick standing a couple feet away. She started blubbering in earnest and rose to her feet.

“No, Lark, don’t,” he said softly. “Stay there. I’ll come to y’all.”

Taran whined softly to see his Alpha.

“I couldn’t do that,” she snuffled.

“Do what, honey?” Nick replied as he stroked Taran’s head and made alpha-sounding noises.

“Touch his head. The blood and stuff—it’s squicking me out.”

Nick laughed, loudly, and it jarred something loose inside her. She could breathe freely again.

“Yeah, there’s quite a bit of squick around here, isn’t there? That’s what happens when a wolf thinks someone’s about to hurt his mate. Werewolves can be icky, says TJ.”

She snorted, then hiccupped. “Hey. Where’d the cops go?”

“Huh? Oh, I sent them on,” Nick said casually as he pulled at Taran’s ears. “Y’all can give statements and everything tomorrow. Or Sunday. Whenever.”

She gaped at him. “The cops do what you tell them to? I mean, I know they’re werewolves, but still…”

He shrugged. “I didn’t tell them what to do, I just suggested it. Come on, pretty girl, why don’t you go inside and get some sleep.”

“I can’t sleep after all this!”

“Honey, you’re about to pass out. I want you to do it in his bed, not out here.”

“What about Taran?” she protested as Nick took her hand and pulled her up.

“I’ll stay with him. He won’t change for a while yet, and he’ll need me when he does. Take a shower and go to bed.”

“Oh. Shit. I don’t have my stuff here anymore.”

“Your bag’s in my car. I picked it up from TJ’s.”

She stared at him in wonder. “You’re incredible.”

Nick sighed. “Yeah. That’s what I keep telling TJ.”

He awoke with a brutal jolt; asleep one minute, awake the next, and for one terrifying moment he didn’t know who or where he was.

The clock said three p.m.

He closed his eyes as scenes from last night floated through his head. A wolf’s human memory of time spent on four feet varied depending on mood, circumstance, and emotion. More sensate than factual, impressions rather than events, remembering what happened while furry felt to a wolf like watching a movie with earplugs and a see-through blindfold. You could follow the plot, but it felt distant and removed.

Where was Lark?

She’d been here, asleep, when he finally fell into bed in the wee hours of the morning. Nick had stayed with him while he changed, then helped him into the house. He’d showered, careful not to wake her. She lay curled up in those damned flannel pants and T-shirt, smelling of apples and girl soap and Lark and love. He’d tucked the blanket around her and run a hand through her still-damp hair before Nick softly called him out to the kitchen to eat.

Lingering in the shower, he stretched as scalding water ran over his aching shoulders. Two showers, three showers, four might still not work out the soreness and stress of the last two weeks.

He finally relaxed when he heard Lark moving about in the bedroom. A part of him had worried she’d fled again.

The bar on the outside of the shower door was empty when he put his hand out for his towel. He stepped out, dripping water on the carpet.