FOURTEEN
Waking up in his own bed was an unexpected experience. For a moment, Garrett nearly wept in relief. The events in the kitchen marched their way through his mind, slowly, deliberately. The fight between him and Raul was fuzzy and a lot of it was a simple impression of pain. For all of that, there was one image that remained crystal clear.
Malinda as a wolf.
His heart clenched in his chest, reminding him of all the pains and injuries and little wounds that hadn’t quite yet healed. The animal spirit within him had kept him alive after Raul’s savage attack, first with his claws and teeth, then with that heavy knife. It couldn’t heal him completely, not in the small amount of time he’d been asleep, but that would happen as sure as…
Wait. How long had he been asleep? And how in the name of God did he get into bed?
Her hand was warm and soft as it slipped into his. Malinda. Her scent, her aura, permeated his mind. She was bonded to the wolf now. He could smell it on her.
Somehow, that made her more like Malinda than before. It sharpened his awareness of her. When he opened his eyes, he could see the definition of her face, every line, every curve, every tiny imperfection on her skin. The usual chocolate brown of her eyes now had flecks of yellow in them, a sure mark of being a Shifter. Her body—the smell of her!—was a landscape of desire and dreams.
“Hey there,” she said to him, feminine allure radiating from each syllable.
At least, that was how it sounded to him.
“What…” His throat was scratchy and dry. He was starving, too, the energy that his body needed to heal his wounds taking its toll. He had to work up saliva in his mouth before he could say anything. “How did I get here?”
“I brought you. It turns out the wolf inside of me kind of makes me stronger.” She didn’t sound upset to admit that she was a Shifter. In fact, she sounded rather proud of herself.
She had dressed herself at some point. A simple t-shirt, tight across her chest, snug at her waist, and a pair of khaki shorts. When she noticed him looking she shrugged. “I had to check on Brandon. Not exactly going to do that while I’m naked. Maybe I should start wearing some kind of body suit under my clothes that can stretch to fit my wolf shape. It’s all well and good for him to see you naked. You’re his father. I’m just, uh… well.”
He squeezed her hand tighter. “You’re my girlfriend. And more.”
The smile she gave him said she was happy to hear him say so.
“Brandon is okay,” she told him without him having to ask. “He’s still terrified. He almost didn’t come out of this little cubby hiding spot he’s got in the back of his closet but when he heard it was me, he came scrambling. He insisted on seeing you before he’d let me put him back in his room. He loves you. Very much.”
“I love him, too.” He shifted to a more comfortable position, and realized that she might have dressed, but he was still naked under the sheets. “Where is he?”
“Locked in my room. I showed him how to escape out that bathroom window like I did, and it made him feel better to know there was an escape route, if he needed one. Thank God he won’t need it. Thank God this is over. For us, and for him.”
Garrett nodded. “He’s a great kid. I’m disgusted that I brought all of this down on his head.”
“You haven’t. You’ve kept him safe against impossible odds. Me, too.”
The sound he made in his throat was mostly bitterness. “If I remember what happened in the kitchen correctly, it was you that kept me safe. Raul nearly killed me.”
She leaned down to kiss him, and he could hear her heartbeat. “You saved me first. There was something that he did to me, there in the kitchen, I mean. He…um…kind of bit me. In a way that was totally not my fault and I didn’t want him to but he found this, uh, sensitive spot on my tail and it was like he owned me when he did.”
All of that came pouring out of her in a rush, a confession of sorts. Garrett knew what she meant. Sex between Shifters was wild and intense. It was as if the animal spirits reached out to each other and joined somehow, creating a force that was impossible to fight against. It wasn’t her fault. Whatever had happened wasn’t her fault. He would never hold it against her.
But he would take it out of Raul’s hide. In tiny bits.
That was the other thing that had been nagging at him. Well, one of them. So many questions, all crowding together to be heard!
“How did you keep yourself from going over the edge?” he asked first. “When you were the wolf, how did you keep it from taking your mind away?”
With a little half smile and a knowing look, she managed to make him feel like the answer should have been obvious. “You’ve been going about this all wrong.” She raised a hand to keep him from arguing. “Look, I know you’ve been doing this since, like, forever. I know that. Still, I’m telling you that you’re doing it all wrong. The reason you black out when your bear takes you? That’s because you’re fighting against it. You’re trying to keep it from taking control when you should be sharing yourself with the animal spirit.”
“What?” He couldn’t help it. That was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. Give in to the animal spirit? Become like Raul, lose his humanity, become nothing but an animal who killed and raped and took whatever he wanted?
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said to him. “I know. But, Garrett, didn’t you feel it there in the kitchen? I was one with the wolf. She didn’t take control of me, and I didn’t try to take control of her. We shared ourselves, kind of. I’m not sure that’s how to explain it but that’s how it felt. I shared my body with her, and she shared her soul with me. We were together, working together like one whole entity instead of two.”
He did remember. He’d done something like that this time, too. He gave himself over to the bear, for the first time ever, because he needed to rely on the animal spirit if he was going to save Malinda and Brandon. For the first time in his life, he’d been able to admit that he needed the bear. When he’d done that, the bear had directed his body, given Garrett strength, instead of overwhelming him. It had been a totally different experience.
We are as one now, the bear had told him.
Could it be that easy?
No. He knew how evil the animal spirit was. He’d seen what it had done to Raul, and he’d been with enough other Shifters to know they preferred to be animals. They gave up their humanity at every possible chance.
But most of them were stable. Sane. And they acted together with their animal spirits. They never lost control like he did with his bear. Not that completely, anyway.
If they were able to live with their animal side, why couldn’t he?
Maybe Malinda was right. She just might have seen something he’d been missing all this time.
He set that aside for now. It was worth considering, for certain. Just not now.
“All right,” he said to her, sitting up in bed and pulling her down with him. “I’m just glad this is over. Raul killed a lot of my people. I’m not even sure how many of them are left, if any. But you’re alive, and Brandon’s alive, and I’m alive.”
When he paused to take a breath, he kissed her, fully on the lips, giving in to the intense feelings she was drawing out of him. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her before. Now that she had an animal spirit residing in her, it tugged on his own animal, drawing him toward her like gravity. Having her be a bear as well would have been better, but this was the way things were. They had both accepted it.
Now they only had to make the best of it.
Which is exactly what Garrett was planning right now.
He took hold of her hand and guided it under the sheet, down the slim bulges of the muscles in his abdomen, down lower, to the throbbing thickness of what was promising to be a spectacular erection.
“I’ll do that for you later,” Malinda promised, her voice husky and her breath warm against his ear. “Right now we need to let Brandon know you’re awake. He was worried sick. And we have to get rid of Raul’s stinking dead carcass.”
Nothing killed the mood more than talking about rotting flesh. That was for sure. Garrett sighed, taking her hand away from his inner thigh to kiss the knuckles of her fingers instead. She was right. As much as he wanted to take her into this bed and stay here for the next week doing nothing but exploring every bare inch of her, he had a household to run. A household that was now in ruins thanks to Raul. He also needed to reassure his son that he was all right, and then…
Raul.
Oh damn.
Oh, damn, damn, DAMN.
“How long was I asleep?” he asked, suddenly very awake and very worried. Why hadn’t he thought of this before now? He must have been beaten up worse than he realized to have forgotten one of the very basic rules of Shifters.
“How long were you…? Six hours, maybe.” She stood up as he pushed his way out from under the blankets. Her eyes widened in panic, sensing there was something wrong but having no way to know what it was. “Garrett, you’re scaring me.”
Six hours. He pushed his hands back through his hair and looked around for his clothes. Six hours! Damn it all to hell. Long enough for him to mostly heal, not long enough to be back to full strength.
Hopefully, not long enough for the worst case scenario running through his mind to become real.
He dove for his closet, pulling out slacks and a white sweater that didn’t match. He didn’t care. Fashion sense was the least of his worries now. Sliding on the pants without the benefit of underwear, careful of the zipper, he ran for the door to the hallway as he pulled the shirt on over his head.
Malinda followed, asking the same questions again and again. Meanwhile, he prayed to a God he hadn’t talked to very much since before puberty. Please, please, don’t let it be true. Please don’t let it be true!
Malinda finally caught up to him and grabbed hold of his shoulder, forcing him to a stop on the middle of the stairs. She was right. The animal inside of her had made her stronger. She stared him in the eyes from the higher step. “Garrett. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on!”
“I don’t have time to explain.” He turned, taking her by the hand, and pulling her along behind him.
She wasn’t the only one who was stronger than humanly possible. Right now that strength was less than it should be, though, and if he was right about what he was going to find, then he was going to sorely regret not being fully healed up.
He had been stupid. So stupid. They all might pay for it now.
Through the hallways to the kitchen he pulled her, seeing the dead of his own people still where they had fallen.
One of them was still on the floor, on his side, but it had obviously been chewed on more than the last time he was down here. Chunks of flesh gone. Entrails…he tried not to think about it.
“You’re sure Brandon is locked in your rooms?” he asked, breathless.
“Yes, I’m—”
“Are you sure?!”
“Garrett, yes, I’m sure. What is going on?”
As they ran through the door to the kitchen, he came to a stop, seeing exactly what he had expected.
Or rather, not seeing it.
Heart in his throat, he pulled Malinda closer, wanting to protect her from a menace that was still out there. Somewhere.