7
The sound of a female voice humming a classic Johnny Cash song was something Lobo had never awakened to. What he had awakened to, several times, was intense, throbbing pain. Not often, but enough to know it always meant that something had gone terribly wrong during a fight.
What had he done to deserve it this time?
He peeled open his eyes as his brain tried to crank out an explanation as to why he was wet, in agony, and lying on his back in some sort of . . . room? Shack? What the hell?
“Lobo!” Tehya filled his field of vision as she stood up from a booth covered in cracked, ugly-ass avocado vinyl. “You’re awake.”
“What . . .” He cleared his raw throat and tried again. “What . . . happened?”
Tucking her damp hair behind her ears, she sank down next to him on what appeared to be an elevated mattress. Mildewed, frayed gingham curtains hung near his head and at his feet, and it took him a few precious seconds to realize they were inside an old camper.
“You were struck by an arrow. I thought you were dead.” Very gently, she peeled back a bloody, folded towel from the wound just beneath his left collarbone. “Do you remember being chased?”
Now that she reminded him, he did. They’d reached a cliff on the edge of the river, but he didn’t know what had happened after that.
“Yeah,” he croaked. “Sort of. But how did we get here?” Wherever “here” was.
“You fell into the water.” Her voice faltered with emotion, and he knew exactly how she’d felt. It had torn him apart when he’d seen Tehya suffering from the poacher’s gunshot wound. “I went after you. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead, but I held your head out of the water and floated us downriver until I was sure those people weren’t following.”
So she was beautiful and smart. The river split into several streams, creating multiple escape routes for their pursuers to have to check out. “Where are we?”
He sucked air as she replaced the dressing on the wound. “Sorry,” she murmured, before folding her hands in her lap. “Remember that rusted-out camper we found a couple of years ago?”
It took a second for his brain to kick in, but he finally remembered. They’d been tracking an injured deer that had likely been hit by a car, and they’d found the abandoned camper deep inside state forest lands. If this was that same camper, they were a good ten miles downriver from where he’d gone into the water.
So, yep, he remembered, and he grinned. “I seem to recall that you peed on it.”
Her cheeks flamed red, the bright color spreading all the way to her ears. “I had to mark my territory,” she said, adding a haughty sniff for emphasis. “Be glad I didn’t pee on you.” The crimson in her face deepened. “I mean . . . you know, I was a wolf. . . .”
He chuckled, but a stab of pain ripped through his chest, turning his laugh into a moan.
“Shouldn’t you be healing faster than this?” Her gorgeous eyes darkened with concern. “Vampires are supposed to have super healing powers, right?”
His gaze slid to her mouth and the pearly fangs that peeked between her slightly parted lips, and to his annoyance, his cock stirred.
“You’re a vampire too,” he pointed out as he casually adjusted his hand to cover the swell in his damp jeans. “You tell me.”
Windblown tree branches scraped the top of the camper, something that would have freaked out wolf-Tehya, but vampire-Tehya didn’t so much as bat an eye. “I wasn’t a vampire for very long before I turned into a wolf.”
He blinked in surprise. “How is that possible? You must have been born a vampire. If you were turned, you’d have silver eyes.” Plus, she clearly had native blood running through her veins, and because the vampire race had begun in native tribes, most people who were born vampires tended to have at least some American Indian blood.
“I don’t know why my eyes remained this color after I was turned,” she said, “but I assure you, I was born human.”
A human had been born with eyes the color of golden amber? Eyes that belonged only to wolves . . . or skinwalkers? Huh.
He had a lot of questions for her, but he figured they could start with the basics. “I should have asked this sooner, but what’s your name? Probably not Tehya.”
“It’s Kristen.” She looked at him almost shyly. “But I prefer Tehya. What’s it mean?”
His face grew so hot he actually looked around for a furnace. “Precious,” he said, feeling like a fool. He had few memories of his mother, but he remembered her calling him “Tehya,” so when the wolf he’d rescued had survived, he’d given her a name he associated with his very best memories.
“Precious.” She said it like she was tasting it on her tongue and was pleased with the flavor. “I like it.”
Silence fell, made awkward by the fact that they were both in foreign territory. Literally and figuratively. How could he know someone for years and yet not know her at all?
“So what made you turn back after all this time?” he asked, as much to break the silence as to learn more about her. And was it weird that he missed the wolf?
Yes, he knew the wolf and the person were one and the same, but they were also very, very different. He knew the animal, understood her. But the female sitting next to him was a stranger. A beautiful, sexy, long-legged stranger.
“I don’t know.” She sighed, her full cherry lips parting slightly. “It wasn’t like I didn’t try to turn back. I did. For years. But I didn’t know how. I have no idea why it was different this time. I just woke up in that lab, and I was like this.” Her gaze met his, and in their jewel-toned depths, he thought he saw a glint of accusation. Or maybe it was his own guilt being reflected back at him. “You said you took me there. Why, if those people hate you?”
Damn, she must have been terrified. Remorse racked him at the thought that she’d awakened in a strange place all alone.
“You’d been shot,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “MoonBound has a doctor. It was your only chance of survival. How did you get out of there?”
“I ran until I found an exit.” She looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. “But I think I hurt one of their females.”
Ah, shit. He was already up to his eyebrows in trouble. This was going to be the final stitch in his death shroud.
“And she was pregnant.”
Double shit. A sinking sensation made his gut feel like it had dropped through his spine and was sitting on the mattress beneath him. Tehya was now in nearly as much danger as he was. Had he saved her just so they could both be dumped in the same shallow grave?
Closing his eyes, he tried to work out all possible scenarios for how this could play out, but every one of them ended badly. Worst of all, he couldn’t see how they could escape from any of them. Hunter might have given up the search eventually—if one of his clan members hadn’t been injured. But now . . .
So. Much. Shit.
“You said I was shot,” Tehya said. “How bad? Because I woke up healed.”
“It was a critical wound. Probably fatal for any other wolf.” He opened his eyes and stared up at the sagging, mold-dappled ceiling. “But shifting can repair most damage, and it’s probably what saved you.”
Leaning forward abruptly, she gripped his hand in a bruising hold. “Then you need to shift. Your injury—”
“I can’t.” He interrupted her before she got her hopes up. “In order to sneak you into MoonBound, I had to take the clan leader’s form. It takes a lot more effort to do that than it does to shift into an animal, and it temporarily drained my ability to shift into anything.”
She took in a startled breath. “You can assume someone else’s identity? Can I do that?”
If not for their dire circumstances, he’d have laughed at how eagerly she sat forward, reminding him of her wolfy counterpart. If she’d had a tail, she’d have been wagging it.
“I doubt it,” he said, hating the disappointment in her expression. If she’d still been wolfy, he’d have given her a treat and a pat on the head. “The ability is among the rarest of all vampire gifts, and it only manifests in born vampires.” At least, that was what he’d been told by the tribal elders in Sedona after he’d made a pilgrimage there half a century ago. “Even if you could do it, it’s forbidden.”
“Is that why the clan is after you?” She leaped to her feet and peered out a couple of dirt-caked windows, as if speaking aloud about the clan would summon them like demons. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that they didn’t need to be summoned; they’d be here soon enough all on their own. “Because you shifted to save me?”
The devastation in her voice was like a punch to the heart. He didn’t want to lie, but he couldn’t let her think this was her fault either.
He settled on a sanitized version of the truth. “Not entirely,” he hedged. “There’s bad blood between us. This would have happened eventually.”
“Why the bad blood?”
Because MoonBound is full of assholes. He contemplated telling her everything, but time was at a premium, so the abbreviated version would have to do.
“MoonBound’s old chief led an assault against my clan that wiped it out. His warriors found a wolf cub in the bushes, and they tied it up while they finished raiding my clan’s camp. When they came back for the cub, there was a toddler there instead.”
“You?”
He nodded. “Me. Some of them thought it must be a trick, but others wanted to slaughter me right then and there.” At her uncomprehending expression, he elaborated: “Skinwalkers and people who can speak to animals are considered evil by some.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, well, some vampires are superstitious fools.”
She looked out the windows again. “Obviously they didn’t kill you.”
No, but there were many times when he’d wished they had. “They took me back to MoonBound. Named me Lobo and kept me like a dog, even though I didn’t shift again. Not until I was an adult.” He hadn’t known he could. No one had told him about his past. All he knew was that they’d slaughtered his parents and then literally treated him like a dog, keeping him on a chain at night and forcing him to do all the shit work around the clan. It wasn’t until a staged battle for position among MoonBound’s young males that he’d shifted into his totem animal, a wolf.
“What happened when you shifted? Were you afraid?”
“Of shifting?” He shook his head. “I was more afraid of what they were going to do to me.” He closed his eyes, but the memory of being nearly beaten to death played out right there on the back of his eyelids. “It was Bear Roar’s son, Hunter, who talked his father out of killing me. Convinced him I’d be useful. Animals could go places vampires couldn’t, like into other clans’ territories, you know?”
A year later, Hunter had killed his father; and not long after that, Lobo had discovered that he could shift into people and not just animals.
“So what went wrong? Why are you not still with the clan?”
“Because as bad as they think shifting into an animal is, shifting into another vampire is far worse.”
“They kicked you out for that?”
“They could have killed me,” he said. “Most of the clan members wanted to.”
“Those bastards.” Brow furrowed with worry, she hurried back to him, taking his hand once again. God, she was warm. He hadn’t felt a female’s touch in so long—at least, not a female who wasn’t covered in fur. “So what can we do? We can’t just wait here for them.” Scowling, she nibbled on her lower lip. “Wait. You need blood, right? I remember reading somewhere that vampires heal faster when they drink blood.” She flipped her hair away from her slender throat. “Do it.”
There was no hesitation, reminding him once again how brave she’d always been. She’d once gotten between him and a cougar, had been ready to defend him to the death. Her loyalty and willingness to sacrifice herself had always humbled him, and nothing about that had changed.
“Please, Lobo, take it.”
His mouth watered and his fangs punched down, but even as the primal urge to draw her against him and sink his fangs into her rose up, his brain countered with a depressing dose of reality.
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can. I’ve seen you bite plenty of women.”
Was it his imagination, or did she sound a little—or a lot—jealous? It shouldn’t surprise him, given that, as a wolf, she’d barely tolerated the females he’d met for moon feedings. And if things started to get sexual, as most feedings did, her snarls had put a damper on the situation, fast. She’d been so aggressive that he’d even left her locked in his cabin once while he met with a MoonBound female. Hunter might hate him, but there were more females than males in the clan, so he looked the other way when it came to the bimonthly moon fevers.
Lobo had returned home to destroyed furniture, ripped bedding, and a chewed-up door. And when Tehya had smelled what he’d done with the female, she’d bitten him. Hard.
“I won’t take your blood, Tehya. There’s no time. You’re going to need your strength.”
“We’ll make time.” Reaching up, she yanked on her shirt collar, busting one of the buttons and exposing even more of her long, creamy neck and the shadowy hint of cleavage. “You need to heal.”
He inhaled deeply, seeking the same patience he’d always summoned when she gnawed on his shoes or hid his socks, but all he got now was the odor of rusting metal, mildew, and ancient layers of dust and rot. This piece-of-shit trailer smelled like the past, which was probably all he and Tehya had now. Even if Hunter didn’t kill him and lock Tehya in a dungeon for harming a pregnant clan member, they couldn’t be together. They were skinwalkers, shunned by most clans and banned from mating each other.
Wouldn’t want to increase the odds of spawning skinwalker offspring, obviously.
Bitterness soured his mouth. He rarely wasted time dwelling on the unfairness of his situation; he was what he was. But now, with his back up against a wall—or in this case, against a filthy mattress—all he could think about was how he’d been robbed of a future.
Of a pleasant future, anyway.
Damn, that pissed him off. The female of his dreams, literally, had finally come into his life; but even if he survived Hunter, Tehya still couldn’t be his because of some bullshit vampire law.
When have I ever obeyed any law?
True enough. He’d lived on the fringes of vampire society since he was born. Why the fuck should he conform now?
Because I’m about to die, and Tehya’s life is in my hands. Well, there was that.
“Lobo!” Still tugging her collar away from her throat with one hand, she used the other to push down on the towel covering his injury. Not hard, but enough to get his attention. “Drink.”
“You know,” he said lightly, hoping to distract her, “you used to nip me when I ignored you.”
She bared her teeth. “I still can.” Another button popped as she yanked on the shirt. “But you first.”
Fuck, that made him instantly, painfully hard. Every instinct screamed to take advantage of what she was offering, ancient instincts passed down from primitive ancestors whose only pleasures in life came from the acts of filling bellies with food and offspring. But in order to eat and mate, they had to stay alive.
“You got us to safety and bought some time,” he said, his gaze lingering on her throat, “but I know Hunter, and he’s a hell of a tracker.” He snapped his eyes up to hers, hoping she’d feel as much as see the inevitable finality of the situation. “He’s going to find us.”
“I know.” Her voice was grim, determined, and her expression reminded him of how she used to plant her paws and refuse to budge when she wanted something.
“You need to go.”
Instead of arguing—or leaving—she yanked on the shirt, destroying another button, and climbed fully onto the mattress. Or, more accurately, she climbed onto him. Oh, she was careful not to hurt him, letting herself lie half on, half off him, one thigh resting on his pelvis, her breasts pressed against the uninjured side of his chest, and her throat only inches from his lips.
“I’m not leaving you.” Her hot breath whispered across his ear, and his groin tightened. “I’d rather die with you than die alone.”
“Run,” he said, his voice rattling as if he’d eaten a load of gravel. “Once they have me, they’ll forget about you.”
Gently, she used the tips of her fingers to tilt his face even closer to her neck. “I can’t survive out here by myself. I don’t know how to be a vampire. Please, Lobo,” she begged. “You took me in when I was starving all those years ago, and you saved my life again just days ago. Let me do this for you. You might not be able to escape from Hunter, but you can face him with as much strength as I can give you.”
Ah, damn. He shouldn’t let himself be swayed, but he was a selfish asshole. He wanted to taste her, to have that connection with someone one more time—for what might be the last time. Besides, she was right. She most likely wouldn’t survive on her own—and while Hunter might punish her for harming a clan member, he wouldn’t kill her, and he wouldn’t turn her out to die. MoonBound’s clan leader might be a son of a bitch who’d learned to govern from a bigger son of a bitch, but he wasn’t a monster.
His hand shook as he threaded his fingers through her hair and pulled her head closer to his. His chest screamed in agony, but he breathed through it, his need to feed distracting him from the pain. Her skin felt like warm satin on his lips, and as he opened his mouth over her jugular, he felt her pulse flutter madly against his tongue.
“Ever been bitten?” He licked at her, tasting the earthy notes of the forest she’d lived in with him for years. “After you became a vampire, I mean.”
She arched against him with a breathy, “No,” and he shivered in anticipation. “Will it hurt?”
“Does a wolf shit in the woods? Never mind, I know the answer to that.” She called him a foul name and nipped his ear, and he grinned before getting serious again. “It’ll only hurt for a second, but it’s a good hurt you’ll want over and over.”
This time it was she who shivered. She shifted even closer, draping her body over his until he could feel the burning heat of her bare legs through his jeans and against his hips.
She’s not wearing any underwear.
His brain fogged at that thought, and before it stopped running the show, he tapped his tongue against the back of his teeth. Instantly his fangs tingled as the glands behind them released a fluid meant to heighten the pleasure of penetration, and his body hardened in anticipation.
Tehya squirmed with equal eagerness, and he didn’t make her wait. Closing his eyes, he sank his fangs into her throat. She gasped and stiffened, but even as he repositioned his mouth and latched on, she relaxed. And when he took his first pull, her silky blood flooding over his tongue, she let out a surprised and husky, “Oh, my.”
Oh, my. Her sultry voice fueled his hunger and made him feel as if he was starving. As if he’d missed a dozen moon fever feedings in a row. It wasn’t the full moon, but his need for blood was nearly as fierce, his need for companionship far more intense. His body grew hotter with every pull on her vein, until he swore his own blood was on fire.
Tehya clung to him, wrapping her leg around his hips as she ground against him the way she had back at his cabin, her teeth in his throat. She’d come beautifully, her soft cries nearly undoing him as well. So when she reached between their bodies now and tore open his fly, he almost moaned with relief.
Her blood rushed through him, and he could practically feel his flesh knitting back together and the pain fading; but even if he’d been at death’s door, he wouldn’t have protested when she took his shaft in her fist. Dropping his hand from the nape of her neck to her hip, he slipped his fingers under her shirt to caress the smooth skin of her firm, round ass. She quivered at his touch, spreading her legs even wider as she straddled him so she could rock against his shaft, coating it in her slippery juices.
Sensation lashed at him, the intensity building with the speed and fury of a forest fire during the dry season. If she didn’t—ah, fuck, yeah. She sank down on his cock in one smooth, hard motion. Impossibly tight, silken heat surrounded him, a powerful combination that made the world around them fade away.
Right now, nothing mattered more than experiencing the best that life had to give.
Tehya pumped her hips to the rhythm of his draws on her vein, connecting them in a circuit of lust and life and warmth he wished could go on forever. No male alive could resist the feel of Tehya sliding up and down on his shaft so furiously that the slap of wet flesh striking wet flesh drowned out everything else, even the sound of his own internal alarms.
What if Hunter and his warriors were, right now, outside the door?
Tehya clenched around him, and, yep, he just hoped Hunter would wait until the trailer stopped rocking before he burst inside.
A harsh cry escaped her, and then she was shuddering, her body spasming as she came. Sloppily he lapped at the punctures he’d made, and flipped her, ignoring the fresh pain in his chest.
Damn, she was beautiful, her hair splayed wildly across the mattress, her skin glistening with perspiration as she shouted at the peak of another orgasm. He drove into her, his body taking over as his climax hovered, close and so hot his skin burned.
He shifted, but his injury gave a big hey, I’m still here, you dumbass shout-out that drove his orgasm back behind the imminent line. This was going to be so good—
“Lobo!” The alarm in Tehya’s voice froze him on the very razor edge of pleasure. “I hear them.”
No, no, no! Her hearing as a wolf had been better than his, and apparently that was still the case. Fuck.
Adrenaline punched him like a blast from a cold shower as he rolled to the side and forced his aching cock into his pants. “Whatever you do,” he said urgently, “don’t tell them anything.”
Heart pounding, he leaped off the mattress and wheeled toward the door, keeping Tehya behind him even as she struggled to shove past him. His chest shrieked in agony, and he had to catch himself on the crumbling countertop or he’d have gone down. He must have lost his weapons in the river—not that they’d do him much good at this point. But it would have been nice to have a blade when Hunter tore open the door.
And tear open the door he did—right off its brittle hinges.
“Lobo,” Hunter growled, his body filling the doorway. He smiled, but it wasn’t a smile of amusement. It was one of victory, the smile of a predator that had cornered its prey.
If Tehya hadn’t been there, Lobo would have let rage and unspent lust fuel the first punch. He’d have gone down cursing and fighting. But fighting now would only piss off Hunter more, and there was no way Lobo was going to take risks with Tehya.
So all he said was, “Don’t hurt her,” and when Hunter’s meaty fist came at him, he stood his ground and welcomed the darkness.