Cry of the Wolf (9 page)

The way he said that last sentence – practically growled it out – made her stomach clench with anticipation and … yep, there was a clenching elsewhere too, which proved she wasn’t a nun after all.

“I’ll be ready,” she breathed into the phone, far more heavily than she’d intended, then realised what she sounded like. In the mirror, she caught herself going beetroot.

Amil laughed. “Wear something sexy, sweetheart. I want to peel it off you slowly. Every inch of you that’s revealed to me as you move and glide under my hands tonight, is
mine.
” He kept his tone light over his dark words. It was the darkness she responded to. It made her wet. And achy.

She bit back the moan that wafted over her tongue, but Amil must have taken her silence the wrong way because suddenly, he sounded uncomfortable. “You know I’m only teasing … I mean, we don’t have to—”

Oh, god no!
“I’ll be ready, Amil,” she repeated, this time with absolute conviction as she let him hear the weight behind her words.

Another pause; a heavy breath … “Fuck,” he whispered. “I can’t wait. See you soon, darling.”

He hung up.

Sarah’s eyes landed on the dress on her armchair.

Red it is then.

Chapter Six

Lydia almost whooped for joy and started clapping when the pick-up truck made it all the way up the hill.

“Ha-ha! I knew you could do it!”

Her new baby may be wizened, but she was a tough old crone. She should really give her a name – she deserved a name. She could call her Violet – it was her middle name and what her mum had wanted to call her at birth, but her dad had objected, saying she’d be picked on at school because of the colour of her eyes, so they had settled for Violet being her middle name.

Pulling the gear stick to neutral, she switched off the engine.

“No,” she said aloud to herself, “I can’t call you Violet. That’s a stupid name for a hunk of metal, no matter how awesome you are.”

The breeze picked up briefly as it wafted through her open window, Aunt Gladys’ wretched perfume hinted on it once more.

What the…

She scanned her surroundings for the second time that day.

Nothing.

What was going on?

She sniffed at the air and could no longer detect what had clearly been there a second ago. Maybe everything was starting to get to her; all these new senses and feelings, and heightening lust. She couldn’t deny that her father and Aunt Gladys worried away at her mind. Them, and whatever the ‘truth’ about her background was. She hadn’t once contacted them since she’d discovered she was a werewolf, too uncertain of her reaction towards them and what they might have to say. The werewolf thing alone was almost too much to deal with. Some unexpected bombshell about her heritage might just tip her over the edge and at the moment, she too often felt her control on reality slipping as it was.

Dismissing her thoughts about her estranged family, she turned her attention back to why she was here. Her stomach knotted and her legs suddenly felt weak as she pushed the door open and stepped out of her truck.

She’d been careful on timing. The bikers weren’t due until three-thirty – Saturdays were the only day they rode to
Barry’s
in the afternoons – and it was now three o’clock. This was just enough time to see Brendan, explain things quickly from her end, then get the hell out of there before he asked too many questions.

Guilt enveloped her.

Damn Lawrence for making this hard. If he hadn’t forced her out of this job…

She let out a huff and tried not to look like she was scowling. Brendan couldn’t know anything was wrong or he wouldn’t leave her alone.

Since she’d ‘disappeared’ three weeks ago, he’d been leaving messages and texts on her mobile every day. Last week, she’d caved in and texted him back, saying she was fine but had some family issues to sort out, and that she was sorry she had to leave the way she did – that she didn’t
want
to leave that way. And that was the honest-to-god truth.

Damn you, Lawrence!

Brendan had not taken the hint. In fact, his texts had become even more persistent after that, demanding to know what was up, and Lydia couldn’t bring herself to be irritated by that. She’d left him and his father in the lurch, and it had been right after that horrendous night when Simon had attacked her. Brendan had been worried, and he’d been a good friend. So no, she wasn’t annoyed that he was beating down any wall she put up to try to reach her. But she didn’t want done to him what had been done to Taylor’s wife: his memory wiped because he knew too much or discovered something he shouldn’t. So she
had
to stay away from him. Far away.

That was the sole reason she’d made no attempt, other than that text, to get in touch with him. Certainly not with three male wolves around who could hear any conversation she might have from a distance.

But she owed him some kind of explanation, so here she was, hoping she was about to make peace, rather than everything ten times more difficult.

She made her way around to the side of the café, then towards the back where she knew Brendan would be, not least because she could smell his cigarette smoke.

And there he was with his back to her, his blond hair, neat, looking as familiar as always. She had only been living in Guildford two months when she’d started her job here, and despite the sexual slant on their friendship, Brendan really was the best friend she had here. She blinked back tears as she approached him. She did want to make peace with him, but she knew deep down that she was also saying goodbye, and it cut her up more than she had prepared for.

“Penny for them?”

He spun around so fast he dropped the unlit smoke he’d just pulled out of his carton. “Jesus Christ!”

Two strides towards her and she was in his arms, unable to keep a fresh surge of tears at bay.

“I’m gonna kill you when I’ve finished holding you,” he breathed, and then he squeezed her tighter and she settled into his bear hug, wishing she was human for the first time since she’d discovered otherwise.

She tipped her head back to look up at him. “Please don’t be mad.”

“Don’t be mad? Are you kidding me? You take off with no explanation, and after that dickhead tried to rape you as well, and you’re asking me not to be mad?”

“I know. I do. I came back here to … I needed to see you to let you know I’m okay.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?” His words held his anger, but he didn’t loosen his hold of her, as if she’d slip away again if he did. “I know this has something to do with Ryan and Lawrence – your neighbour said they cleaned your place out, and by the way –
not
keen on your neighbour. Fuck, Lydia, what’s going on?”

“It’s complicated.”

“You’ll have to do better than that. I even went to the theatre where you work. That was on the Saturday after you went missing. Your colleague said you were ill, but that you’d be back at work the following week. I waited; I went in again; I never saw you there.”

Yeah, she’d been avoiding him…

“So then I tried to see Lawrence.”

Oooo, that’s
so
not a good idea…

“But he’s never bloody around either. I feel like I’ve been ramming my head against a brick wall trying to find you.”

“Oh, Brendan,” she pulled out of his arms, but not without struggle – he seemed completely unwilling to give her up, “you should’ve listened to what I said in my text.”

“That you have family problems?”

“It’s true. I … er … Lawrence and Ryan – they sort of are my family, I just didn’t know it at the time. It’s part of the reason I came to Guildford. I wanted to find out more about my past, and from the stuff my dad had told me I knew this was a good place to start.” She hoped it sounded more like truth to him than it did to her. “It’s why I was asking about them that day Taylor came into the café. I suspected they were part of what I was looking for, and it turned out I was right.”

Brendan looked completely baffled. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Because I haven’t ever told anyone. It felt so private. I’m sorry. And I’m especially sorry about taking off the way I did – that was inexcusable.” She silently cursed Lawrence for the hundredth time for sending in her fake resignation letter the way that he had.

“Why
did
you take off like that? I was worried out of my mind.”

“I know. I guess I just … I learnt a lot about myself in a really short space of time, and I just needed some breathing space to let it all sink in.”

He stared at her in silence, his expression unreadable, then finally ran a hand through his hair and let out a sigh. “I don’t buy it, Lydia.”

Shit.

“Something feels off. Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“No! No trouble. Everything’s fine. It really is just a case of dealing with emotional stuff I wasn’t expecting.”

He studied her. “The family issues.”

She nodded, but could tell that he remained unconvinced.

Another silence had her shuffling her feet.

“Are you coming back to work?”

She bit her lip and shook her head, regret in her heart. “I want to, I do, but … I can’t right now. Not until I sort these—”

“Family issues out,” he finished for her, arms crossed and looking utterly pissed off.

Lydia said nothing – what else could she say? “I can’t stay. I just wanted to say—”
goodbye
“—I’m sorry.” She turned to leave, and wasn’t surprised when he grabbed her arm and kept her from going.

“That’s it? You’re running off again?”

Indignation at his accusation got the better of her. “I wasn’t running.”

“That’s what it looks like to me.”

“Hey! You don’t know me, okay? You don’t know anything about me or my life, or what I’ve been through the past month.”

“Because you never let me in! I’ve tried to get to know you, I’ve tried to help you, I’ve offered my hand of friendship in so many different ways, and all you do is lock yourself up and away from anything that brings you close to feeling something for anybody. Even Heidi gave up trying to be your friend – yeah, did you not think I noticed how she tried to get to know you? And my dad’s been nothing but supportive of anything you’ve asked for,
and
all the orders you mess up…”

Holy shit!

It was all coming out now, from where she didn’t know. She always kind of thought Brendan just accepted her for who she was – even if who she was, was locked away from everyone else. Even if that meant he was always stuck on the peripheral of her life.

Selfish girl.

She felt like she’d just been slapped in the face. She stood there, mouth open, unable to think of anything to say except, “I don’t lock myself away…” But her protestation was weak, even to her own ears. Is that what she did? Had she pushed everyone away?

Her sarcastic inner-voice reared its irritating self with a round of applause.
Affirmative! Ever since that time at school when you got laughed at for opening up to your friends about your dreams – around the same time your mother killed herself.

Oh.

“I … I didn’t mean to…” She couldn’t quite form the words she really wanted to say, her mind and heart still a jumbled mess, but she no longer needed to worry about that, because a low rumble ran through the earth, heading this way from the small road by the side of the woods. And she’d know that sound anywhere.

‘Fuck’ did not even cover the potential chaos of this moment.

She didn’t bother to peek around the wall to see if Lawrence was looking for her – she knew he would already have scented her here. “I have to go.”
I so have to go!

“No – wait, please,” Brendan grabbed her arm again, sorrow in his tone. “I didn’t mean half of what I said.”

“You did, and it’s okay, I’m not upset about that … well, I am a little, but you’re not completely wrong … and I
really
have to go.” She shrugged out of his grip, pretty sure that another man touching her – a man who wasn’t Ryan or Taylor – would not go down too well. “Please say sorry to your dad for me.” She sped around the corner of the café towards the front of the building and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Lawrence standing his full six-foot-three in front of his bike, looking unmovable, staring her down and …
god
, his
eyes!

She could
feel
the rage in them, and surely all that anger couldn’t just be for her? So she’d snuck off to see Brendan without telling anybody, but
hello!
Full grown woman here! She was allowed to do that – she didn’t have to tell anybody squat!