The Willing (10 page)

I sighed. “Ugh. No. You’re
impossible.”

He waved away my dismissive attitude.
“In my mind, America has a handful of real men. There are too many
boys running around thinking they are men and even calling
themselves men, yet they’ve done nothing to prove themselves worthy
of that label and its rights and privileges thereof.”

“And yourself?” I countered. “What have
you done?”

Josh pulled up a well-tailored sleeve.
“As you’ve probably noticed, I subscribe to the ultimate theory of
self-control.” He gestured at a row of raised flesh. “Those scars
are the result of a blistering hot band of metal fastened around my
arm for several moments while I recited selected excerpts from The
Code of Hammurabi. Mind over matter. The delicate balance of
physical strength and iron will.”

“That’s stupid,” I said hotly. “You’re
not a monk.”

He yanked his sleeve down over the
scars. Maybe I had ruffled his pride a bit. “So says the Whore of
Babylon who spreads her legs for anyone randy enough to take her.
Do not mock that which you do not understand, especially when you
are not yet a woman.”

I ignored his insult. Of course he
wanted to draw first blood. “I believe I possess all the necessary
parts, ones which you enjoy frequently whether I approve or
not.”

“Yes, and you possess all the
stupidities your sex is steeped in as well. Perhaps I am mistaken.
Welcome to womanhood. I hope it’s everything you expected. Now take
off your clothes. I need some relaxation after this oh-so-startling
debate of wits.” His condescending tone mocked my entire existence
in one sentence.

“I am not a whore.” My voice came out
shakier than I would have wished, but I cannot fall back on my
intelligence for many things when Josh is concerned. He is just so
much smarter than me in everything—not that I would ever tell him
that.

“Not a whore?” he asked incredibly.
Then, his voice dropped several octaves as he recited in a
chilling, methodic rhythm: “’And on her forehead was written a name
of mystery. Behold the great mother of harlots, and of earth’s
abominations. And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of saints
and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her I marveled
greatly.’”

I stared at him for a moment too
long.

“It’s from the Bible,
Emily.”

“I know that,” I snapped.

“You’re too pretty for your own good,
but also too uneducated about your life and ours to offer much in
the way of amusement. You love this life and you hate it, but you
don’t know what to do with it. You need a purpose, Emily. Hating me
will not fulfill that purpose. Let me guide you to a greater
purpose.”

I mulled quietly over his words, my
anger sitting coldly in my gut.

“Now,” he murmured, almost tenderly.
“Do something useful with that open mouth instead of contemplating
scripture. Be a good little pack mate. Blow me.”

“I am not your whore.”

“You’ve said that. It is now a moot
point since you will obviously have sex whenever you are told, as
demonstrated by not only me, but even the lowest humans of this
camp. It would take a phenomenal effort to rape someone like you.
Even then, you would probably enjoy it.”

“I’ve been raped before,” I solidly
stated. I felt the anger in me rising, but did not want him to have
that control over me. “I don’t understand those women who get off
on it. Personally, I think that entire erotic fantasy of being
raped is overrated.”

He looked at me as if I were indeed
crazy. “The experience doesn’t seem to have bothered you too much.
I must be right.”

“I came to love him.”

He laughed, which made me jump since it
was a reaction I hadn’t expected.

“You fell in love with your
rapist?”

“Yes.”

“You are a seriously messed up young
lady.”

I bristled. “You shouldn’t mock what
you don’t understand,” I mimicked in his educated drawl.
“Dickhead.”

His eyes turned hard and a hand shot to
my throat. I pulled away, but his quick movements caught me and my
breaths came out in rasps. Frustrated with my helplessness, I
Changed in his grip. His hands loosened as I yanked myself away
from him.

He, however, was not angry, only
amused.

“Think you’ll bite me or something?” he
asked coyly.

I flexed my claws in the dirt. It was
cool and stable, something I was not at the moment. I growled
deeply as the hair on my neck slowly rose with my building fury. I
knew I could survive anything that happened as long as I didn’t
lose too much blood or he didn’t sever anything vital.

He smiled and removed his shirt, slowly
and sensually as I knew he would. My clothes lay in a desperate
pile beneath me, but Josh hated to lose his stylish threads—the
thought of blood on them would be anathema to him.

I stepped forward as his hands went to
his designer jeans.

“Now don’t go cheating by jumping the
gun,” he warned. “Then I’d have to do something equally unfair.”
The glint of metal caught my eye as he allowed the gun to wink at
me from the low pocket of his jeans. “And you’re too pretty to
waste a bullet on.”

Gun or no gun, I leapt. Of course his
reflexes were just as good as mine, so up came the gun and
pop—

I was out.

Obviously I’m not dead, but a bullet to
the skull—silver or not—will down even the best of us.

I awoke human, naked, dizzy from blood
loss and slightly confused as to what had happened. Then I
remembered:

The motherfucker shot me.

The anger coursed through me, but I
wasn’t strong enough to Change. Between the attack from the
vampires, the pregnancy, and the gunshot, I could barely summon the
strength to crawl. So the anger surged through me in its rawest,
most human form I had experienced before meeting Will almost a year
prior.

I went through so much for him, allowed
him to break my rage into bits small enough for his use, traded in
my dignity for loyalty, and he tried to kill me. It was then that I
knew the things I’d do, the people I would hurt, and the ones I
would lie to. I would use whoever I had to get back at him. I would
destroy him.

Luckily for me, there are people out
there just as bent on achieving that goal.

Unluckily for me, I can count. Using a
calendar and the bits of my fragmented memories with Josh, I’ve
figured out that if the father of my child was willing to kill me
in self-defense, then surely I could do as much to a man who
thought he was the father of my child. I would never take Luka’s
life, but after these events ran their course, I knew I would be
dead to him—a fate worse than death, as they say. Only Shasta and
her band of vampire brethren would be of equal rank to me in Luka’s
eyes by the end of it.

Shasta

I never wanted to meet her like that.
Especially when I found out what a good person she is. I was
starving that day in the market. The others are too strong. We knew
we could never take Josh, and the others always stayed together.
But when she ventured out alone, she was easy prey. I hadn’t eaten
in almost two months. The Lycanti were finding ways around us all
the time. The young foolish ones we usually preyed on found packs
to run with. We were all hungry. Desperation destroys.

She lay there that night on the ground
with the stink of Josh and his clan all over her. They, however,
were no longer around. They had moved on to Alaska by that second
night, running hard against the bitter winds. My own family was now
safe, and we could feed in peace. So we moved in on the young girl
to finish the job which had been interrupted by the proximity of
her pack two days ago.

She never even heard me coming. I took
her throat in my mouth, savoring that woodsy scent of her as I bit
down. She was so weak that night, barely lifting a hand towards me.
I could practically feel her disorientation inside her veins, all
swim-swirly in my mouth. Her eyes widened as she saw my pale skin.
But only one word slipped out of her mouth.

“Shasta.”

I pulled my mouth away from her. The
blood trickled down from the puncture wounds in her neck,
slithering over the wounds from my last feeding. I was completely
taken aback. No one had called me that since I Died.

My eyes strained against the darkness.
No, just like two days ago, there was nothing discernible about her
which I remembered. She was just another girl.

I watched as her eyelids fluttered and
her consciousness faded. Humans are always easier to take in this
state. I hate it when they fight.

Emily

“This place bring back memories for
you, doesn’t it?”

The Brazilian palm trees waved only
slightly in the tropical heat. I lay in a hotel bed watching them
with a touch of apathy. I still hurt from Maria’s vicious attack,
and watching Luka sullenly stare at a wall instead of making
conversation was getting to me.

Luka looked at me, his bright blue eyes
searching my face. “Yes. I am reminded of happier times, before all
the turmoil. Before my service in America.”

“Before you met Will.”

“Before I met you.”

That stung a little. I cringed and his
searching eyes saw it all.

“I love Brooke, but I still want you. I
do not understand it.”

“And I loved Will, but I always wanted
you. Why do you fight it now? You didn’t fight it that night in the
woods.”

His face twisted with emotion. “I was
weak. I will not be weak again. Why do you keep bringing this up?
Why must I tell you again and again that it was a mistake, and
neither of us will make that mistake again? It is beyond you to
understand?”

I didn’t feel angry at this, just sad,
and can’t explain why.

“Luka, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged noncommittally. We were
both tired of revisiting the same mistakes, I think, but it’s so
hard for me to let it go. I felt the tension between us with every
overdrawn breath, lust practically breathing out onto the surfaces
before us.

“Luka, look at me.”

Amazingly, he did. And I fell into
those sapphire orbs the same way I did the first night we met, when
he was just Will’s friend, and I Will’s new toy.

“I am sick of looking at you, Emily.
You seem to think you hold some power over me if I look at you.
That is the thought of a vain little girl.”

Now that did piss me off. “Do you feel
the need to be an utter asshole the entire time we’re here?” He
glared at me. “You’re fucking home. Enjoy it, for Christ’s
sake.”

He stood as fluid as water from his
chair. “And you have a son in Mexico somewhere beneath the roof of
the woman who just tried to kill you. Yet you sit here lounging,
staring at trees as if they hold the secrets to life.” He waved his
hands at me in dismissal.

Heat rose through my limbs, flooding
every inch of me. “I think about Micah every minute of the day, but
I don’t feel the need to bitch, moan, and complain about it every
minute of the day! You, however...”

In a flash, his snarling face was in
front of mine, eyes a dangerous aqua wave in my face; my words got
stuck in my throat. The heat of his skin felt like any moment it
would ignite and combust the heat from mine own. The deeply kindled
ashes felt like they would begin to burn again if he stayed close
to me even though his eyes blazed with resentment.

His hand slid down over my breast, but
he didn’t stop the fondle me. Instead, his fingers jabbed into my
tender, broken ribs. I grunted with the pain, and my hands shot up
to clench over the fleshy steel of his arm. It was no use to try to
remove them; Luka was far more toned than I would ever
be.

My breath came in ragged gasps as I
struggled against him. A sad sight I must have been as I had just
been stitched up with a total of 148 stiches in various parts of my
torso, arms, and legs, but I wriggled nonetheless, howling with the
pain.

Luka’s voice cut sharply through my
protests and curses. “Silence!”

I whimpered a little. His fingers had
eased on the pressure to my ribs, but they hovered there, a
constant threat. They moved slowly down to my hips, and I loosened
my grip on his arms, hoping that this would help me be calm and
breathe more slowly. His hot breath pushed its way into my face,
its pleasantness ruffling the loose strands of my hair. He leaned
over me as if here were going to kiss me, but I knew it was only to
hold me down if I struggled.

“Now that you have calmed yourself, you
will listen,” he stated evenly. His hand crept back upward, but
this time his hand lifted my shirt. He caressed the skin with his
coppery fingers and a sliver of warmth rushed up to that point. His
face now brushed my ear and he leaned fully on the bed, his manhood
dangerously close to my body as he leveraged his weight while
teasing the fringes of the stitches up my left side.

He continued, “You have brought discord
to the Lycanthrope clan with your demands. You are a Lycanti
through and through, of that I now have no doubt.” His voice fell
to a hoarse whisper. “Your deceit and arrogance has put you in
danger, but now you endanger my family as well. And I will have the
truth from you: Whose genes does Micah carry?”