Loving Lucius (Werescape) (8 page)

A chill prickled to itchy attention on the back of my neck.

Desire is bad. He would want to know more. He needs to stay at a distance. Keep that skin far far away.

Stay or go? Maybe he stared to see if I cooperated. Has to be.

Why do I feel self-conscious when I'd just thought him the only man I'd ever wanted touching me earlier today? Better to board the ferry. I just needed to stop looking. Stop analyzing what his scrutiny implied. I grabbed Violet's warm palm and led her to where the others waited.

Lucius and Hadrian pulled the ferry, hand-over-hand along the rope, a few minutes until the ferry brushed against the pier on the other side of the river. We were then hustled across the gray weathered boards onto a grassy bank.

"This is a safe place to sleep without worry of Bounders," Marcus noted to my left.

Obviously so I won't be wondering what we are doing here. I scanned the forest.

The island wasn't big. And the forest wasn't truly more than a wooded section of the small island. No buildings. Just a pier. So, where are we sleeping?

Apparently, on the ground.

Right at the edge of the water. We were left to prepare our beds in the waning light.

This time, Tacitus unrolled his bedroll next to Sherry.

Why her? I was the one told to undress. Sherry acted abominably. And now she gets the coveted attention of a huge protective Shifter? What in the hell happened between them? And does Tacitus know about the extent of our healing powers yet? Her stupidity will endanger Violet and I. And Sherry gets the Guardian mate. Why does she get the warm strong warrior? Probably because that's the way life goes. Those oblivious to reality are more likely to get eaten by it while the rest of us hide from what's considered normal. I settled down into the warmth of my sleeping bag and shut my eyes.

Shut out the stars overhead. Pretended nobody but Violet is with me. Not a muscle. Nor a stray observant eye. They're gone. All gone. And everything will be fine.

My mind didn't cooperate.

Probably because I started to sweat. As always from wearing too many clothes. I sat up and yanked off my shirt jacket, undressing down to my tank top, but laid back and attempted to go right back to sleep.

Where is that man who made me feel some level of safe? Just to talk to him. To learn why I'm not as good as Sherry. Good enough to keep close. Or more. Why am I average? Aside from Sherry's glistening fiery hair. The fiery personality. Of course, I just lived like a weak little quiet thing. Father's dark-haired nondescript daughter who followed instructions. There isn't anything special about me to lure a man into following me closely. Or Lucius would be here next to me, protecting me the way Tacitus did Sherry. I'd been wrong about his attention all day. So mistaken. He hadn't been attracted to me. No. He's suspicious about us. About what Violet revealed about aliens and our healing powers. Life is truly insane. And Langston fed us to the wolves! We're in so much trouble if Lucius doesn't take us to his sire.

My heart rattled until falling into a pit of cold numb fear.

I just need to sleep. To forget about something that couldn't possibly matter. Tomorrow, yes, tomorrow, I could forget about my childish infatuation with Lucius while I slept and deal with pretending we didn't harbor an ungodly amount of alien DNA.

****

The hum lured Elise out of her dream.
The strangest sound
, she noted. Almost familiar.

My eyes popped open.

Something oddly familiar. I stared into the diamond-like stars in the night sky. The almost-full moon hung low in dark velvet overhead. Violet's hand warmed my skin where curled around my upper arm.

The sound. What made that hum? I know I heard it. And now only a cricket chirped.

Sherry mumbled something in her sleep.

I slid my gaze to where she stretched out a dark lump etched in moonlight.

Tacitus' bedroll lay flat.

Where had he gone? Have all the other Shifters left? I scanned their unrolled bedrolls.

Equally flat. They'd gone somewhere. Why?

The faint coo of the hum, maybe a motor, barely took hold of the night.

Far away. But growing in intensity. Approaching. What makes the noise? And where are our Guardians? Does it matter whether or not we're on an island now because our Guardians abandoned us?

A dot of light near the moon's disc popped into the night sky.

My gut soured.

Nobody on Earth flew aircraft AEI. Fuck. And things are beyond bad when a lady thinks that expletive.

****

"Holy shit, Lucius. Elise is up. Running," Marcus twisted and gasped at me, his eyes glowing with his Wolf in the darkness. "I'll go and keep her quiet so she doesn't wake the others and panic them."

Mine
, Wolf growled.

"No." What in the Gods-be-damned hell is she doing? It isn't bad enough a spaceship is flying over The Wild. No, Wolf's woman is jacking around in the middle of the night. I shoved off the grassy forest floor. "Stay here. I'll take care of her." I wove through the dark linear lines of the tree trunks.

As long as the others slept, discussing the latest alien activity would be easier. I'd be lucky to get Elise back to sleep though.

She fumbled around the heaps of saddles on her knees.

Feeling for something. I silently eased up behind her form.

She'd taken the tie out of her hair. Hanging like a dark drape, her hair covered all but a line of pale cloth down her back.

Whatever she wore under that plaid over shirt.

Her bare elbows jerked something long into the air.

"Elise?"

She leapt, twisting to face me, pointing the long barrel of a rifle at me.

"Whoa." I threw out my palms. "It's Lucius."

Her wide eyes glistened with moonlight. "Fool." She lowered the weapon, revealing the seductive curves of a woman in a tank top, the curves she hid for days. "Don't you know not to sneak up on people in the middle of the night?" she snarled.

Damn. She'd wake the youngster and the mouth. "Sh."

Play
, Wolf whined.

She blinked wildly as if detecting Wolf's message.

Impossible. But I'd pretend Wolf and I didn't notice the curves of her breast. Or the narrow waist above the gentle swell of her hips. Oh to curl my hands around that waist and pull her against me. She'd be warm. Soft. And without that shirt…

Mine
.
Mine
.
Mine
, Wolf growled.

She snatched the gun up as if fearing a real wolf unleashed a warning.

"Don't worry, Elise. We'll take care of the aliens."

She sighed. "Did you see the spacecraft?" she hissed her whisper.

"It's gone now. We never see them out here. It must have just been flying across country. Nothing to worry about." I waved a hand at her sleeping bag. "Get some sleep."

"But we're out in the open," she groaned.

At least she didn't argue irrationally like Mouthy Red. "It won't matter. The ship is gone. Please, Elise, try to sleep." So I can forget about that perfect body beneath your perfect face.

"Fine. Tell the woman to go to sleep." She stepped off with the rifle.

An anxious woman might shoot someone in the dark. I grabbed the barrel, my little finger overlapping a part of her warm hand.

She flinched and snapped a bitter gaze to mine.

Like my touch pained her. Or frightened her.

She jerked the weapon from my grasp.

For merely a second. I caught the hard cool cylindrical barrel.

"Give me the rifle," she growled, her grip on the cold hard steel as solid as the weapon's metal.

And maybe I caught something more by her reaction to me. Maybe prejudice against Shifters? Just like Red. Is my touch repugnant? Does she see me as an abomination like most Normals? Maybe that's the truth she concealed. And I'm not insane for my suspicions about her sisters being planted among us to infiltrate our outpost.

Fine. I'm waiting. Watching. Ready to end their little charade. Because my sire will be upset if I don't have proof of their guilt before getting rid of them. But she isn't going to have a gun on hand to shoot any of the Shifters. I drew Wolf into my eyes and ears to use my Wolf eyes as a warning. "Release the weapon."

Chapter Four

Wolf's hearing caught the woman's heart freezing up in another death choke where she stood in the night's revelatory moonlight. Yes. Fear grabbed her heart cold. Revealed something drove her to arm herself against me with a firearm. Oddly enough, moments after an alien spacecraft flew overhead. How ironic. She will drop the weapon. I stared her down.

Her grip loosened and slid away.

All the better for my brothers and Tacitus. A gunshot wound in the right place could kill a Shifter. "Back to sleep." I tossed my chin toward her bed.

She stormed past me, her hair flapping out behind her like one large dark ghostly wing.

All seductive and mesmerizing. Long. Around the sleek curves of her feminine form.

Mine
, Wolf growled a desperate partial whimper but part demand.

No. But what a pity she disliked Shifters. Nothing incredible like her ever trotted past my tail. I tucked the rifle into the tack.

"You don't have to growl at me," she snarled.

True. But it's more of a subconscious thing when a Wolf trapped inside a man speaks its mind. Involuntary. And good to know she doesn't misinterpret the sound as territorial. She could use that against me with sex. I pivoted and headed to join the other Shifters hidden among the trees.

"Gods-damn, she's perfect," Marcus hissed where he squatted in a pool of darkness.

He obviously hadn't been eavesdropping on my little confrontation with the woman. "Don't waste a thought on her. That one hates Shifters." I knelt to where we looked one another golden-Wolf-eye-to-golden-Wolf-eye.

"You're wrong," Marcus scolded. "She never once led me to believe that."

Why is he arguing with me? "You couldn't see what just happened."

"No, Lucius," Tacitus growled, his eyes embers, "Sherry declared to me that she's the only one of her family who had a gripe about Shifters. The others, Violet and Elise, Lucius, have no qualms with us."

Throw tail at a pack and chaos ensues. Unmated Shifters can be such fools. "Why are you arguing with what I just experienced?" I waved a dismissive palm to end the subject. "Tomorrow, we stop at the wire and message the outposts. The Elders need to know about the spacecraft. And anything else we come up with about these females."

"Women," Marcus snapped condescendingly as if my Wolf disliked tail. "And if you're finished with Elise, she's mine."

Mine
, Wolf insisted.

The fool has no business discussing my relationship with Elise. "Don't give me a fucking ultimatum."

"Calm down, Lucius," Tacitus warned low and methodically. "He's in the right to voice a claim."

Gods. Do I have to listen to this crap all night?

"She's yours then," Marcus said, no resentment in his tone. "She's scared, Lucius. I don't know why. But you better do something about it before one of us has to befriend her and piss your Wolf off in the process."

Wolf leapt at him.

Tacitus's iron ass jumped between our jerking bodies like a fucking side of a mountain.

Marcus would hear what they all needed to hear. "Mind your own Gods-be-damned business." I shoved at Tacitus' iron chest. "Get the fuck away from me."