Chapter Sixteen
Glenna was about to shatter if Sam’s mouth didn’t touch hers. He knelt at her side, his lips hovering over hers as if asking permission. Not what she expected from someone as rough and strong as he was—someone who wore camo and tattoos as easily as his skin.
Her world had turned upside down. She barely remembered that in her normal life she was engaged. There was no way in hell she should be even thinking about kissing him. But the chemical attraction between them was so strong it pushed right through the shoulds and should-nots, pushing her to throw all her doubts away and lose herself in this man.
She lifted her face and their mouths touched—and she tumbled head first into temptation.
He kissed her with his closed lips barely brushing hers as if he were afraid she’d break if he applied any pressure. He was restrained, gentle. But she didn’t want gentle. She’d had that and it didn’t do anything for her. She wanted the heat and drive she could sense burning just beneath his skin.
She opened her mouth and slid her tongue out to stroke between his lips, and he groaned like a man who hadn’t tasted a woman in far too long. He moved between her knees and she spread her thighs apart, letting him in to wrap his arms around her and pull her in hard. Their lips and tongues stroked and teased, setting fires low in her belly and leaving her burning for more.
The vibration on her thigh didn’t register as anything other than additional pleasure.
“Fuck!” Sam rocked back onto his heels and pulled his phone out of his jeans. He closed his eyes for a moment before answering. “Sam here.” He gave her a long look that said they weren’t finished. A tremor rocked through her and she gripped the side of her chair hard and watched him walk away across the deck, well out of earshot.
What was she doing? She pressed cool hands to her flaming cheeks. He wasn’t a guy she could date—he was her jailor. And on top of that, she had a fiancé. A wedding. Neither Roger or her grandmother would understand why she’d kissed a tattooed muscle man who might be a possible kidnapper. Forget the wolf hallucination, she was either sick or crazy or both.
She had to get away from here. She had to get home where life was sane and predictable.
And boring.
Her stomach still growled, almost painful in its demands, but she took the food to the kitchen and reluctantly stored the amazing sandwich in the fridge. She promised herself she could eat more later, but right now she had a wedding dress to think of. Her stomach would have to eat guilt instead of food.
She cleaned up the kitchen, sneaking looks at Sam pacing out on the deck. He made several phone calls, his mouth tightening into a thinner line each time he hung up and cursed. Finally stuffing his phone in his pants pocket, he turned and faced the cabin, decision written in the grim line of his lips.
She busied herself with wiping the counters, her back to the door when he strode in. “I’m sorry, Glenna. Something’s come up and I have to go take care of something. Get those shoes of Ian’s. You’re coming with me.”
“What? Where’s Ian?” She’d been so focused on Sam she’d totally forgotten to ask about the other man. “Where are we going?”
He grabbed Lana’s jacket off the wall hook and tossed it at her. “Ian left hours ago on an errand for Lana. He’s with her at Ram’s Haven. There’s no time, and no one is answering their friggin’ phones. We have to go.”
“But I’m sick. Won’t I spread the disease?” If she had it, they shouldn’t take her anywhere. If she didn’t, well, now she’d find out.
His expression relaxed. “I know you need information, but we don’t have time. I’ll make it simple. Neither of us is contagious. The disease is only contagious when the carrier has the fever. You’re past the fever stage now, and since you’re a female, it isn’t going to come back until you mate.” He grabbed a leather jacket off the line of hooks. “Grab your stuff and let’s go.”
A line from some talk show came into her head: never go to the second location, that’s where the real violence occurs. All the glow of their kisses faded. She shook her head. What had she been thinking earlier? What had her body been thinking? He wasn’t her lover, he was dangerous and she was an idiot for forgetting it, even for a second.
“You’re crazy. I’m not going anywhere with you but back to Denver. You owe me some answers.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
She sat down and fixed him with the evil-eye she used on the junior accountants when they brought her sub-par work.
“Really? You’re going to do this now?” When she folded her arms across her chest, he shook his head. “Fine, but then we go.”
She nodded. There was nothing she could do anyway if he wanted to force her. He could simply drug her again. And she didn’t want that.
“You have the disease. The media calls it lycanthroism, but they don’t know shit.” He leaned against the counter. “We call it the Bite, because you have to have it break through to the blood in order to catch it. You get it and you get a fever, that’s when it’s contagious and you don’t have the fever right now so you aren’t contagious. The death rate from the fever stage is high. If you survive, which you did, you go through the change and that can take anywhere from a few weeks to months. There are several possible effects, depending on your DNA. Most survivors become wolf shifters, like me and Ian. You call us werewolves.” His lips twisted when he said the words and he shook his head. “We won’t know for a while what you’ll be, but I know you’re changing into something. How long it will take—I don’t know. What we do know is that you survived the attack and the fever and you smell like pack to my wolf.” His eyes gleamed, and a shiver rushed through her, but he stayed on his side of the kitchen.
“What does that mean?”
“That means you’re changing and you’ll be either a wolf shifter, dreamwalker, or spelltalker. With modern science we now know that it takes two genes to show outside effects. If you only have one gene, you get the fever and not the change. We call those people dormants. They don’t have any special talents, but they have a place in the pack. We all have a place in the pack.”
Dreamwalker, spelltalker—none of this seemed real. It was as if she’d gotten stuck in an alternate reality where everyone else knew the rules and she was lost. Words raced round and round in her head chasing questions she couldn’t even begin to form.
Yes. She could. She had to adapt. Alternate reality, dream, disease-induced hallucinations, it didn’t matter. What mattered was surviving. And that she could do.
“A place in the pack? What kind of place do you think you’re going to shove me into?”
“It’s not up to me. It’s up to your DNA. Now, we wait to see when and what you change into.”
She choked back the hysteria that struggled in her throat.
According to the media, the CDC, and the doctor she’d seen at the ER, she had an illness that was supposed to first drive you insane so you attacked people like a rabid dog—then it would kill you in a painful death. But according to Sam she was going to become a werewolf. Or something else.
“I think that’s enough for now.”
“No, it isn’t.” If she were going to make it, she had to know everything. “What’s a spelltalker? Or a dreamwalker for that matter? Are they animals?”
“We can talk more in the truck.” Sam pulled her out of the chair, and helped her into the tight sleeves of Lana’s jacket. “Now we go.”
He shut off lights and locked up. Outside the sun had dropped down and the absolute darkness of night in the Rocky Mountains had fallen. She climbed into the SUV. Automatically she fastened her seat belt, stuffing her fingers under her legs so he wouldn’t see her shaking as they drove down the driveway and made a left up the steep mountain road.
She had no idea what kind of situation this man would consider an emergency in this topsy-turvy world, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She only knew one thing for sure: she was crazy, no matter what the scenario. She’d just climbed into a car with a man who looked like he lifted weights for a living and thought she was about to turn into a werewolf. And now they were going God-knew-where, driving down a strange road into the dark. She’d done the unthinkable, headed to the second location with the man who was keeping her prisoner.