How Do I Love Thee? (14 page)

A cry burst from Tori’s lips. Hands clenched, she bit down on her knuckles to keep from screaming as the wolf snapped and lunged at Kaeden. Fear spiked through her, drying her throat and accelerating her heartbeat. She trembled at the thought of Kaeden being hurt. Dear God, she couldn’t live with that.

Kaeden went for the vulnerable underbelly of his adversary. The other animal tried to escape, but Kaeden closed his powerful jaws on its hind leg, keeping it pinned.

Tori’s sigh of relief became a strangled whimper when Liam lifted the bow and aimed in Kaeden’s direction, pulling the string back until the bow bent. She opened her mouth to warn Kaeden, but it was too late. The arrow flew, the momentum carrying it to the fighting wolves. It buried itself in Kaeden’s hindquarters, high on the haunch.

A wave of white-hot anger pulsed through Tori. Her body shook with the force of it. Her heartbeat reverberated in her head. Adrenaline surged. Her gut twisted and a sour taste filled the back of her throat. The fury built. Layer upon
layer of rage she felt at a bone-deep level. Muscles contracted, shafting pain into her limbs.

The animal stood guard over Kaeden as Liam made his way to them. The Alpha nocked another arrow and pulled back on the bow, aiming at Kaeden’s heart.

‘Dear God, no!’

Terror bled into the anger barely contained in Tori’s body. The two mixed, pushed the adrenaline higher. Until something inside her snapped. The pain sharpened. She fell to the floor. Limbs twisted. Tissue tightened and then shredded. Light flickered and the air thickened.

Tori whimpered and the sound came out as a growl. The pain ceased, fading as if it had never been. She rose to her feet and shook her body, surprised to find herself a quadruped. Astounded at the pearl-grey fur that covered her. Her mind opened, things fell into place and she knew what she had to do.

She launched herself at the window, clearing the remains of the fractured windowpane. When she hit the ground, she raced across the clearing and threw herself at Liam Drasser. They went down hard, but Liam recovered quickly. Within a heartbeat, he’d changed into a black-coated beast.

Rage still filled Tori. She wasn’t about to let this man take her
or
Kaeden. She darted at Liam, veering away at the last moment. As he spun to face her, she attacked, directing
the anger into a subtle manoeuvre that landed her on the black wolf’s back. Instinct took over. Jaws snapped. Fastened on the flesh at the back of his neck. She shook her head to do the most amount of damage.

Liam went down. She released her hold on him, but kept watch as he lay panting. She hadn’t killed him, but she
had
hurt him, enough that he ceased to be a threat.

‘Wha—Tori?’

Ross skidded to a halt beside her. Giles and Steve accompanied him. She stared around, her sight even more enhanced in this form. With Liam down, the fight had gone out of his pack. The uninjured slipped away into the darkness, no doubt heading for home. Others reverted to human shape and lay where their enemy had felled them.

Travis, the local cop, stepped forward and nudged Liam in the side. ‘Change back, Drasser. It’ll help you heal.’

If Tori could have raised her eyebrows, she would have. She hadn’t known that Travis was lupine. Hell, she hadn’t known anything about shapeshifters until tonight.

Ross squatted and slid his hand into the thick ruff about her neck. ‘You have the same colouring as your mum. I would have recognised you anywhere.’

Tori whimpered. She wanted out of this shape, but didn’t know how to effect the Change from this side of the fence. She nuzzled at Ross’s hand.

As if he understood her dilemma, he sat on the dusty ground and bade Tori squat in front of him. ‘I’m blown away that you finally Changed. Maybe it was the whole trauma of this that did it.’

Tori bared her teeth and loosed a ferocious growl.

Ross grinned. ‘Rage?’

She dipped her head in acknowledgement.

‘That’ll do it,’ Ross said. ‘Now close your eyes and concentrate. Let the fear and anger flow out of you. Imagine your human body. Keep that image in your mind and the Change will happen automatically.’

Tori did as he said and within minutes felt her body reverse the procedure. When the last flash of pain faded, she dragged in a deep breath. ‘Freak, that hurts.’

‘It’ll get easier as time goes by.’ Ross shrugged out of his shirt and draped it around her shoulders.

Slipping her arms into the sleeves, she clutched it to her and inched over to where Kaeden lay in wolf form, the arrow still embedded in his hindquarters. ‘Why doesn’t he Change back?’

‘Can’t until the arrow is out.’ Ross reached for it, but Tori stopped him.

‘Uh-uh, my fault, my job.’

‘It’s no-one’s fault, but if you want to do it, I won’t stop you. The tip is barbed so you’ll have to break off the
fletches and push the arrow right through.’ He pointed to the feathered end.

Tori wrapped her hands around it and snapped the wooden length in two. Trying not to think about the pain she might cause him, she thumped her fist on the end of the broken shaft and punched it through his leg.

Kaeden angled his head back and howled, long and loud. As the sound faded, the Change grabbed him and dragged him back to the human world. Unconcerned about his nudity, he twisted to inspect the damage to his rump. ‘Not too bad. Another Change will heal it.’

He took the folded shirt Steve handed him and pressed it to the wound. Then he turned to Tori. ‘And you, woman, next time I tell you to stay inside, you’ll do what you’re told. You could have been hurt, or at the very least, snatched by Liam.’

‘
Thank you for saving my life, Tori
.’ She started to scramble to her feet, but Kaeden grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her down.

He raised a hand and cupped her cheek. ‘I
am
grateful, but I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.’

Tori sagged. ‘I was terrified when I saw him lift that bow. Then I just got angry.’

‘I suspect the anger is what helped you realise your destiny. Hell of an introduction to the lupine way of life.’
He leaned in close to her. ‘So you do care just a little about what happens to me?’

‘Damn, you just had to ask, didn’t you?’ She blew out a pent-up breath. ‘Yeah, all right, you’re an arrogant sod, but I guess I’d miss you if you weren’t around.’

‘You’ll marry me?’

‘Stop right there. I told you I wasn’t going to be your broodmare.’

‘Do you think that’s the only reason I want you, woman?’ With a groan, Kaeden clambered to his feet and limped off towards the house.

Tori followed, slamming the door behind them to shut out the smirks on the faces of the pack members cluttering up her yard. ‘What else am I supposed to think? You tell me I’m this you-beaut breeder and then promptly tell me I have to mate with you.’

A growl rumbled up from his chest. He tugged at his hair, gritting his teeth. ‘You drive me crazy at times.’

Oh, I do love that growl.

‘I don’t want you because you’re a suitable breeding machine.’ He pushed his face close, invading her personal space. ‘I’ve been in love with you since I was a teenager. You’re feisty. Loving—well, to everyone but me. Loyal to a fault. Hell, I even get off on your stubbornness. Why do you think our parents agreed to the bonding ceremony in the first place?
I
asked for you.’

That stopped Tori cold. She struggled to work it out. ‘Was your … our kind … having trouble breeding back then?’

He shook his head. ‘No, it’s something that has only come out in the last few years.’

‘So you don’t just want me because—’

Grabbing her shoulders, he wrapped his arms around her. ‘I don’t care if we never have children. I wanted you before I even knew about this. So this is how it’s going to be. Our parents took care of the bonding ceremony. Now you and I are going to make it legal. We’re getting married, because we love each other. Got it?’

Tori’s blood heated up at the feel of his naked thighs pressed against hers. She linked her hands around his neck, her fingers gliding over the slick skin. ‘Oh? Okay. As long as I know you want me for more than just my body.’

Still trapped within the cradle of his arms, she pulled her hands from his neck and rubbed the tips of her fingers together. ‘Ooh, you’re all sticky.’

‘So would you be if someone tried to de-flea you.’

Tori burst out laughing. Then she sobered, struggling to keep her face straight. ‘One final thing, Kaeden. Any more of this ordering instead of asking and you’ll find yourself spending nights in the doghouse. Got it?’

A
NNE
-M
AREE
B
RITTON

‘
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose …
’

Friday and Saturday nights Gerard can be found downstairs in the Muesli Bar tinkling the ivories in a three-piece band, providing the wallpaper background to a dozen conversations. Gerard knows that it’s not too late for him to become a famous recording artist. He just needs someone to hurry up and recognise how talented he is. Monday to Friday, Gerard drags himself off his low futon bed, digs around in the cupboard for something clean to wear, plunges his coffee then drives his old green Beetle to his day job.

In between daydreaming, web-surfing and sending political emails to his friends, he will make more coffee and delegate work to the two other staff. His assistants don’t mind that he rarely ventures out of his box to check on them. They follow his inter-office email directives and are relieved not to see his six-foot frame (bottle-green corduroy trousers, tight red shirt, stained brown jacket) filling their doorway. Grateful that they don’t have to deal with his see-sawing moods or watch him run his fingers through his hair so it is left standing up like an alarmed cockatoo. Each day at exactly one pm Gerard leaves the office and toddles two blocks down to his favourite café. Some days he has pumpkin risotto, other days chargrilled vegetables.

His third great love, after music and being seen at hip outdoor cafés, is conversing about topical issues over a beer. During the week Gerard won’t leave the Courthouse Pub of an evening until his last dollar has been spent and his last viewpoint expressed. There is no-one waiting at home.

The townhouse that Gerard has just moved into has two bedrooms but he only uses one. The door to the second bedroom won’t open because the room is full of boxes that haven’t been unpacked after leaving his four previous girlfriends. Envelopes bulge with receipts for tax returns that are never lodged; boxes contain old reel-to-reel tapes of music by bands that Gerard used to be in but which no longer
exist; dusty overnight bags rest on top of sentimental scarves knitted by Mum and handpainted Christmas cards sent by nephews. None of this worries Gerard. He’ll get around to unpacking one day, and if he doesn’t, then it is all packed and ready to go when he makes his next move.

The lounge room is host to a bookcase full of texts on magic, yoga, astrology, tarot and massage; one dead pot plant; and a faded orange lounge that someone donated after his last split. Gerard goes into, and comes away with, less and less from each relationship. This time he had to get a loan to buy a car, a fridge and a washing machine, but he’d taken her kitchen table and kept his bed.

Gerard sits at the bar for hours each night, nodding at everyone who approaches. This is how he meets Will. Gerard realises that Will promises elevation into a world a couple of steps up from the dreadlocked and bearded philosophers of the Courthouse. He is a lawyer by day and a painter by night. An octopus with tentacles in a variety of networks, he knows magistrates, nightclub owners, computer programmers, politicians and pimps. His paintings always deal with his twin fruitless pursuits: women and love.

Will’s conversations generally begin with: ‘Have you met my new friend … ?’ and end with: ‘Give me your number in case I need to contact you …’ He is constantly tortured by the choice of which name to delete from his phone so
he can add in a new one. He is the cement that binds his social group together.

‘I’m cooking my famous chicken recipe on Friday night,’ Will says to Gerard late one Tuesday before Christmas. ‘You have to come. You’ll be able to meet the delightful Alyssa before she leaves. And that cheeky little blonde I’ve been dating.’

Gerard holds the longnecks under one arm, stands on Will’s doorstep and nervously runs his other hand through his freshly gelled hair. An attractive Asian woman with a glass of red in her hand answers his knock and introduces herself as Alyssa. She has the longest, blackest hair that Gerard has ever seen. She shows him into the kitchen where Will has his head in the oven.

Alyssa stands behind Gerard’s left arm so she can catch Will’s eye, puts her hand on her head to mimic a cockatoo and looks back at Will with a comical face.

‘So you’ve met our artist in residence, hey Gerard?’ Will says. ‘Alyssa does huge canvases. Crazy colourful abstract oil paintings,’ he continues as Alyssa squirms. ‘I’m going to buy one to hang over my bed. She’s off to the US for six months after Christmas on a Churchill Fellowship.’

Alyssa explains, ‘Will is just so amazed that an accountant can have a creative streak that he won’t shut up about it.’

‘I’m a musician myself,’ Gerard says. ‘Work for Treasury during the week.’

Gerard meets the three other guests for dinner: Will’s cheeky blonde, Briana, and another couple whose names he forgets as soon as he has heard them. Alyssa’s attention is taken with Briana and the couple at the other end of the table. Briana keeps filling everyone’s glass before it is empty and Alyssa soon loses track of how many she’s had. Gerard monopolises Will’s attention by talking about his work during the spring roll entree, his music plans during the chicken dinner, and his most recent ex-partner during the Vienetta dessert. Coffee is served in the lounge room where Will has placed a couple of candles and turned off the lights.

Afterwards Alyssa stretches back into the soft lounge and places her painted toenails on the edge of the coffee table. She is in no hurry to leave as her flatmate is interstate for another week and her house is dark and empty. At midnight the other couple leave, thanking Will for a lovely time. Minutes later Will persuades the giggling Briana to pose for a quick sketch in his bedroom. Alyssa taps her feet in time with the Ministry of Sound CD and pretends not to notice when Gerard moves closer to her on the couch.