CHAPTER

Andreas wanted badly to keep Mary talking. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a fruitful conversation where he’d not only learned something new, but also felt calmer as a result of having the talk. But her stomach had growled. He’d been neglectful, and that was unacceptable.

Glancing toward one of the semi-boarded windows, he knelt in front of the small refrigerator he’d installed in the basement and opened the door.

The sun was still out, but dusk would arrive shortly. When the moon rose, he didn’t know how he’d react. He didn’t know if the beast inside him would claw his way out, or if the time for change was too soon. The full moon wasn’t due for another night, but he wasn’t convinced his magic cared so much about technicalities.

“You’re welcome to anything I have in here.” Groaning, he stood and gestured to the open refrigerator. “I apologize in advance for the lack of selection. I tend to shop with speed in mind, rather than thoroughness.”

She gave him a curious look, and then turned her wrist bearing the watch over.

Of course she wants to leave.

Nervously, he shifted his weight. If he were a better man, he would have led her to the door and bid her farewell, perhaps stating, “No hard feelings,” but he wasn’t a better man. He was probably becoming a worse man, because instead of searching his brain for ideas on how to mend the strain in their acquaintance enough that he wouldn’t find himself in jail by morning, he was thinking of ways he could further detain her.

She couldn’t leave. If she left, he’d be alone again, and he was so utterly through with being alone. There was no one else he even wanted to be in his company. Not his absent parents, who seemed to be utterly unaffected by the return of magic. He only wanted the goddess with too many names.

She stood, slowly, smoothing down her skirt and then tugging her cardigan together at the plackets. She moved slowly toward him and the open refrigerator, tucking wisps of hair behind her ears, and stepping gingerly over some tools left on the basement floor. “Given the circumstances, accepting food from you would be unwise.”

He furrowed his brow.

“After all, you did drug me.”

He grimaced. He’d had no intention of apologizing for that, though he did regret having harmed her. At the time, he’d done what he thought he had to. He couldn’t trust people in Fallon.

He still wasn’t quite sure he could trust her.

“I’m so hungry, though, and I guess I picked the wrong week to stop keeping spare candy bars in my purse.”

“Nothing in here will harm you,” he said. “In fact, I intend to eat, too.”

She stopped a few feet from him, rubbing her hands up the sides of her arms. “Well, in that case, feel free to pick something out for me.”

“And you’ll watch me eat the same thing?”

Smiling, she shrugged. “I want to trust you. Really, I do, but like I told you before, I have a really hard time getting a psychic reading on you. Being able to discern when you’re being duplicitous should be easier, especially at this proximity, but I feel like…there’s something…” She made a noncommittal hand gestures. “There’s something between your magic and mine that’s keeping me from being able to get too close. Not physically, but—”

He grunted. She didn’t need to explain further, but he did wonder what she felt. There hadn’t been anyone he’d been able to ask. At least, no one who’d known him both before and after the magic trickled back. There was no one around who would have been able to articulate the differences.

He pulled from the refrigerator a container of deli meat, cheese, and the remnants of a loaf of bread he’d purchased during a trip out to his desert bunker. He’d intended to go back and stay there until the full moon had passed, but he’d driven into Fallon to fetch some items he’d inadvertently left in the Smith Building. He hadn’t expected that he’d encounter anyone there.

“This won’t make for a very sophisticated sandwich,” he said, gesturing toward the items, “but at least most of the food groups will be represented.”

“I guess that’ll have to do.”

“I don’t have plates here,” he said. “I generally eat standing.”

“Holding your food in one hand, I’m sure.”

“I’ve adapted for efficiency.”

She smirked. “I like efficiency as much as the next girl, especially since doing my job well is somewhat predicated on it, but I still prefer to eat sitting down and with the aid of a plate.”

“Oh?” He set the sandwich items atop the refrigerator and then untwisted the tie on the bread bag. “So I imagine you avoid street vendors.”

“Well, not entirely. I make a special exception for shish kebabs and hotdogs.”

“Hotdogs?” He chuckled and lifted the lid from the meat container. “Really?”

“Yes, hotdogs, why?”

“I just can’t imagine you consuming such fare.”

“Such fare, meaning what? Things shaped like dicks?”

He nearly dropped the meat.

“Oh, come on,” she said teasingly. “You were thinking it. I’m convinced that joke is as old as sausages themselves. Men always think about fellatio when they see women putting certain foods into their mouths. Hot dogs. Bananas. Popsicles. The list goes on.”

“To be perfectly honest, I’ve never made that association before and, I assure you, I think plenty about fellatio.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Just that you’re male. Supposedly, men think about sex far more frequently than women do, and you can’t possibly be imagining the sex taking the same form all the time.”

He piled cheese atop the sandwiches and grunted. She was right. His imagination was far too rich for missionary-style fantasies.

“If you weren’t thinking about fellatio,” she said, “then why couldn’t you imagine me eating a hotdog?”

“Because you strike me as being careful and fastidious. The toppings would be hard to contain, and would stain your clothing if they fell off.”

“Ah.”

He handed her one unimpressive sandwich and took a bite of his own before she could demand he taste the food first.

She watched him chew and swallow before taking a bite of hers.

“Satisfied?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes.

He laughed. “So, what do you like on your hotdogs?”

“Hmm. That’s complicated.”

Now that she’d broached the topic, of course he was imagining her sliding one of the messy things between her lips and biting down. He wanted to know what dripped off the end, if anything did at all. She may have been perfectly proficient in keeping every last bit of the mess from going anyplace but her mouth.

Gods.

His cock gave an insistent spasm, and he had to walk away before she glanced down and saw his aroused state. He had no business wondering if she’d take him into her mouth and—further—if when he had his release, whether she’d let him fall from her lips or if she’d swallow down every last drop of his spend.

Fuck.

He adjusted himself inside his snug briefs and regretted the action. There was no good way to tuck his shaft so she wouldn’t see it.

“Most of the time,” she said, “I like my hotdogs to have chili, onion, and mustard, but not everywhere has chili. If I can’t have chili, I take them with ketchup, mustard, onion, and relish. Sometimes a little bit of sharp cheese if I’m in a certain kind of mood.”

“And I’m sure you enjoy a nice beer when you’re eating your hotdogs.”

“Hey, if I’m going to eat empty calories, why not go ahead and have the beer, right?”

“From a bottle, I’m certain.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Closing his eyes, he groaned.

She’d likely be quite the tease as she closed her lips around the bottle’s neck, and knowing full well that she didn’t need to.

She’d probably wink at him as she lifted the bottle and poured the bitter brew down her throat, and when she righted her head, she’d likely lick the drips from around the threads, staring at him all the while.

Fuck.

“Do you drink beer?” she asked, rousing him from a daydream that was quickly devolving from a beverage tease to full-blown pornography. He hated being what he was sometimes—he hated how susceptible he was to those pervasive, sexual urges, made all the worse by the animal living inside him.

That animal wanted to see her wriggling down her pantyhose, and he’d take a long look at what was left under her skirt when they were gone.

“Well, do you?” she queried.

She’d asked him a question, and he’d gone to that salacious place again, thinking about how many layers she wore beneath her skirt. From the brief glimpse he’d had before, there were panties, but they didn’t cover much.

He pulled in a bracing breath and responded, “Yes. I do. There’s a local brand I used to enjoy called Southern Blue.”

“Oh, they closed down before I had a chance to try them.”

“Yes. They needed capital. If I’d known, I would have fed them some.”

“Really?”

“Mmm.” He shoved the remnant of his sandwich into his mouth and, deciding his erection had diminished enough to avoid notice, turned back to face her.

She’d taken her sweater off and leaned over the top of the mini-fridge, daintily holding her sandwich where the crumbs would be caught.

And leaning so the full complement of her bosom was on display. Through the open V of her shirt, her salmon pink bra and the breasts within tempted him brazenly.

The beast within him stirred, and Andreas furrowed his brow.

Does she bend like that at work? Does her employer get to see the same view?

“You’re making that noise again,” she said, and her brow was furrowed, too.

“What noise would that be, sweet Mary?”

“Stop calling me that. I’m not sweet, and certainly don’t sound like I am with this voice. My mother used to tell me I had a Lauren Bacall voice, and I don’t think she meant that as a compliment.”

“Why wouldn’t it be? I happen to be a fan of the late actress.”

“Suffice it to say that my mother is a soprano with attitude, and that she finds my voice a disappointment.”

“Then she’s insane.”

She shrugged gracefully. “My father preferred to say that she had misplaced priorities. And the noise you made was an honest-to-gods growl, and not the kind men at the bar used to make when they thought Jeff had cut them off too early.”

“I see.” Jeff Alstrup was gone, just like Ollie. He’d closed his bar, packed up his house and his motorcycle, and got the hell out of town. Of course, he would have followed his best friend to Norseton, reputation be damned.

Andreas wondered if he was happy, too. He didn’t know if the Afótama were freer about asking such questions.

“Explain the growling to me,” she said.

She was in front of him, somehow. He’d been lost in his thoughts, and she’d put her delectable body directly in his way without him noticing. Those kinds of distractions could very well get him killed if he had the misfortune of encountering the woman in public. She’d make him forget himself and what he was. He didn’t the luxury to forget.

“Andreas.” The edge in her sultry voice was all demand, no scold.

He liked it.

He licked his lips, then closed his eyes and sent chilling thoughts to his cock.

That didn’t work at all. He was hard as a rock, and he was down on his knees suddenly, because that was where the beast wanted him. He needed to show deference to the one who had all the power. It wasn’t him. That was all sweet Mary.

“I can’t explain.” He laid his head against her legs and sucked in a long breath. Her scent was going to undo him, and he didn’t even care.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked, but she didn’t move. She didn’t draw away from him. Instead, she put a hand against his cheek.

He knew why she touched him that way. She was trying to get any information she could off him psychically, and the touch was meant to bolster the connection. But there was nothing worth gleaning, except that she shouldn’t fear him, as long as she didn’t try to leave.

“Yes, you can,” she said. “Just like I tell every other person I have to interview for a case, start with the easy words, and then go deeper. Why do you make that sound? It’s not human.”

“No.”

Not human. Not even close.

“I…” He clutched her legs tight and looked up at her.

She stared down with so much tenderness and curiosity in her gaze, and he felt he really had no choice but to speak the words. He needed to tell somewhat what was wrong, and if she feared him, so be it. Perhaps he deserved any pain due to him.

“I—I’m not the same anymore,” he croaked. “This thing…” He released his hold on her legs and scratched at his chest. He wished he could tear out the monster inside of him and send the beast back to hell or wherever it’d come from, but he couldn’t. The curse that turned him into the creature was part of his DNA, just like his eyes being brown. “This thing inside me, the magic—”

“Magic?” She took a step back—just one step—and she knelt primly, pressing her knees together and smoothing her skirt over them. “What do you mean, Andreas?”

“When Contessa pulled the magic back…” He scratched at his chest again, and at his throat so he’d stop making that gods-awful growling noise that was obviously setting her on edge.

She gripped his wrists in a stunningly hard grasp and shook his hands. “Stop that. Talk to me.”

“The magic. I can’t control this. I don’t even know what it is.”

A swallow convulsed in her throat and she crawled toward him, pressing her knees to his and releasing his hands. “That’s why I can’t read you? Why you don’t feel to me like all the others?”

He nodded. “I’m cursed. It came back when the magic did.”

“What kind of curse?”

He rubbed his sternum and leaned his head to one side, then the other. “There’s some kind of animal inside me. I don’t know what kind. There were always rumors…”

“An animal? How do you know it’s there? I haven’t heard those rumors.”

“I feel it. And I lose hours of memory. I don’t know what makes me turn, only that I’ll wake up in places I’ve never been and that I don’t remember how I got there. Or when I’m wearing that beast’s body, I may catch a flash of myself in a reflective surface, but don’t recognize that I should stop and look. When I’m in that form, thoroughness doesn’t matter. Getting answers doesn’t matter.”

“Tell me about the curse.”

He shook his head hard. “I don’t know all the details. My family didn’t speak of it, except in the most general terms. No one had been affected by it in centuries, not since the gods repealed our magic, and I think my father would have mentioned if it were affecting him. I spoke to him four days ago, and he seemed fine.”

“So now the curse is back, and you’re the lucky victim.”

He dug his fingertips into his biceps and pressed hard. The pain made thinking easier sometimes when the animal in him was so close to the surface, and that animal suddenly seemed entirely too curious. Because of sweet Mary, the beast wanted out.

He shook his head hard. “No. You can’t.”

“Can’t what, Andreas?”

“Not you. The—”

He couldn’t say the word. Couldn’t tell her about the thing that wanted its way, because the thing had its way.

“No!” His bones shifted painfully out of their sockets and his skin pulled taut over lengthening bones and his shifted skull. “No!”

He couldn’t stop the transformation, though. He never could.

Mary scrambled back from him, fear pulling at her features, and reflecting his own.

He didn’t want to scare her, not really. Not anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her. “That I brought you in here…” His body writhed in protest, and he repeated “No!” like a refrain. His voice was more snarl than words as his body became more beast than man.

His consciousness was fading away, but he could see Mary, guarding herself behind a support column, and he wanted to scramble over and plead with her not to run—not to go—because he could fix things, eventually, as soon as he figured out how.

“Ma—ry.”

His throat wasn’t right. His vision wasn’t right, and his priorities were shifting. The beast didn’t care if Mary was afraid, but the beast wasn’t going to let her leave, either.

“You’re…you’re a wolf,” she said.

Am I? he pondered, and then there was nothing.

Just the wolf.