Читать книгу The Black Wolf - Linda Thomas-Sundstrom - Страница 14

Chapter 5

A dark, sticky rain was falling. But it wasn’t rain, really, and nothing that resembled water.

Rafe let out the breath he had been holding and stared at the spot where the vampire had been standing. He was afraid to look at Cara in vampire mode. Shock over witnessing what had happened here made his stomach turn. This was something he would never forget, though the whole event had happened so fast, he hardly believed it had happened at all.

Finally, he did look at Cara. He had to see her to try to make sense of it all. She hadn’t just exposed a gleaming set of fangs—she’d exposed one of her secrets. And even with her fangs, pale skin and flat black gaze, she had the ability to mesmerize.

Many features remained of the Cara he had met earlier tonight, only slightly rearranged. She had sharper cheekbones with gaunt hollows beneath. Dark crescents underscored her eyes, contrasting with the whiteness of her skin. The only color she possessed was in the tiny drops of blood speckling her lips, which were half-closed over a daunting pair of unnatural teeth.

The rumors were true. Cara had transformed into this new version in less time than it had taken for him to catch his breath. Rafe found himself equally fascinated and repelled by her new look and by what he had seen Cara do to the vampire. No stranger to violence himself, he sympathized with Cara, and how her life probably consisted of one fight after another. He wondered if she would ever be able to find the kind of peace she might crave.

Hell, he was speechless, and therefore couldn’t ask her how a shape-shift like hers was possible, or what it felt like. Plus, it wasn’t his place to ask her tough questions or make her feel any more ill at ease than she already did.

Cara Kirk-Killion, in whatever incarnation, had just possibly saved his sorry ass from a date with a vampire. He couldn’t believe it Using fangs had likely been Brandi’s intention all along. The skimpy lingerie had been camouflage. Lilac perfume had masked the unfamiliar scent. They probably never would have made it as far as the bed.

Cara had freed him from having to deal with his first vampire—a bloodsucking parasite so like a human, he had fallen for its charade. What about the curvaceous body Brandi had sported, and the silky tousled hair? Would he have discovered the truth if he’d gotten close enough to the creature to discover that her chest contained no heartbeat?

And what about Cara? Did her vampire form come with a vampire’s thirst? If she had those kinds of urges, she was controlling them well. She stood three feet from him with her hands at her sides, radiating no perceptible aura of danger, though for a few seconds back there, he’d had doubts. His ears still rang with the sound of her fangs gnashing.

“Can you change back?” he asked, slightly out of breath from the recent adrenaline surge. “Will the vamp characteristics fade away on their own?”

Maybe those weren’t the questions Cara had been anticipating, but they were the only ones she was going to get from him at the moment. Her eyes were trained on him. She said nothing in reply as he led her down the sidewalk.

In the glare of his building’s exterior security lights, Rafe glanced away from her lingering gaze long enough to note the rips in the shirt he had loaned her and the blood soaking it in several spots. She didn’t seem to notice any of that.

“We’ll need to see to those scratches,” he continued, stepping aside so that Cara could precede him to his apartment. “We can make a quick stop at my place if you’re up for that,” he added. “I have a first-aid kit.”

When she shook her head, Rafe paused, then rallied enough of his wits to say, “Thank you, Cara.”

Her red-rimmed eyes, still dilated by an interior darkness, met his. The tips of her extremely white fangs seem to glow against the color of her blood-flecked lips.

“That’s what you meant when you said ‘it’s you,’ right? You smelled that vampire on me?” With the adrenaline still flowing, he kept up the nervous chatter. “Now that I think about it, I invited that thing inside. What kind of a fool does that make me?”

Cara finally spoke. “I told you they are deceptive in their disguises. Like we are.”

Like we are...

She meant werewolves masquerading as humans.

As Rafe watched, Cara’s face began to shift back, resuming the beautiful human features Rafe had first seen on the beach. The hollows in her cheeks disappeared, and some color returned.

He couldn’t have explained what the process actually was or how it worked. When the redness around her eyes faded, Rafe wondered whether the face she now showed him was what Cara actually looked like, or if its beauty was another kind of stunt for suckers like him to fall for.

In the light from the building, Cara was even more beautiful than she had been in the moonlight. Could he trust his eyes?

Werewolves didn’t shape-shift easily. Transformations were always painful. Some Weres shifted faster than others, with full-blooded Lycans being masters of the pain game. Cara’s switch to vampire mode and back had been different. It was silent, fluid, as if she had merely coaxed another shape into existence.

She continued to observe him with a keenness that made his inner wolf anxious. Just another shape-shift in my repertoire of them, her expression suggested. Nothing special.

Hell, did she even know what special was?

“Can you control when you become like them?” he asked, unabashedly curious. “Do you make it happen?”

“It just is,” she replied.

Though the fangs were gone, flecks of blood still dappled her mouth. Rafe tried not to look.

“There’s no control button or on-off switch?” he pressed.

She shook her head.

“Can you do that with any supernatural creature, Cara? Look like anything that comes your way?”

“For the most part.”

“Christ,” Rafe muttered. “I see why you’d rather not be in an unfamiliar place when the moon is full. What could your werewolf side possibly be like when coupled with so many other talents?”

“My wolf side isn’t much like yours,” she said and left it at that.

The weird thing was how much Rafe desired to get closer to Cara in spite of the warning flags his mind was waving. He should have felt sorry for her and her burden, yet she seemed to be up to the task handed to her, if tonight was any indication. Though her family and background were intimidating, part of him needed to see past all that and find the real Cara. He tried to guess whether anyone had ever seen the real thing.

Telling her he’d like to help in any way he could seemed ludicrous, given the fact that she had just killed a vampire with relative ease. Still, when he gestured again for Cara to precede him to the stairs, she obliged docilely, as if she trusted him and they were fast friends.

As they began to move, the soft growl of a well-tuned engine broke the silence. Rafe had almost forgotten about the emergency call he’d made to his father before the vampire attack and had mixed feelings now about how quickly the call had been answered. He would lose one-on-one face time with Cara. There would be less of a chance to get to understand her.

Cara was listening to the same sound. When she turned to him, her eyes were again the color of polished emeralds, flashing with curiosity as she wiped the flecks of blood from her lips with the back of one hand.

“I’m sorry,” Rafe said as the musky scent of approaching Weres became more pronounced. “We’ve got company, but it’s all right this time.”

Almost immediately, he caught sight of his silver-haired father and Cameron Mitchell, another large Were Rafe knew very well, who was a senior detective on the Miami force. They were heading their way.

“I’ll go up and get more clothes for you,” Rafe said to Cara. “We never found yours, and the picture you present in my shirt is...”

Cara tilted her head to one side, waiting for him to finish. He didn’t. Couldn’t. This hybrid Were was sexy, lithe, strong and more than a little bit scary.

Yep, he was a fool, all right, for sliding into sympathy with her so effortlessly. Telling Cara he was attracted to her, scary bits and all, wasn’t going to help their situation and would confuse them both. But that was exactly what Rafe was thinking when he’d only known her for, what? About an hour? As she had said, he didn’t really know her at all.

“Rafe?”

His father’s deep voice was only a sampling of the kind of power Dylan Landau possessed. Cara looked at the alpha coming their way with a flicker of interest. Before stopping to think, Rafe reached out to offer her his support with a light touch on her arm.

Fire erupted inside him as her eyes met his. More flames licked at his throat, bringing on a whole new level of heat. There was no way to acknowledge the suddenness of these feelings, their origin and what they might mean.

“Cara. Are you all right?” his father asked, slowing as he reached them.

When she remained silent, Rafe didn’t answer for her. He was struggling to control his own feelings. Cara had told him she needed time to adapt and get her bearings, and time was exactly what he needed, too, because his heart seemed to stop each time their eyes met. The reaction was not only absurd, it was irresponsible.

“Come with us,” his father said, gesturing with a wave of his hand toward the car parked a short distance away. “And welcome to Miami.”

Rafe’s father hadn’t gotten to be a respected judge without having serious social skills. The alpha’s tone was calm and free of any hint of chastisement over her earlier escape. There was no anxiousness in his bearing. There usually wasn’t.

Between his father and Cameron Mitchell, Cara was in good hands. Rafe should have been relieved to let her go.

Yet he didn’t feel relieved. Far from it. He felt as if he wasn’t going to allow them to take her.

Cara slowly turned toward the two men without visibly revealing the concern Rafe knew she felt. On the inside, Cara was on fire, just like he was. They shared the flames that had been kindled between them tonight. He should have feared that, or at least been wary of the speed with which this had happened.

Ignoring the others, Cara said to him, “That vampire wasn’t after me. It wasn’t waiting for me out here tonight.”

Rafe gave her a questioning glance.

“It was here for you,” she said.

Cara was probably right, Rafe realized. Having missed her earlier opportunity, Brandi had been waiting for another shot at draining him dry, whether or not he had company.

But there was a slight problem with that, if the stories were true about werewolf blood being a turn-off to vampires. He chose not to point that out for the time being. Brandi had been trying hard to seduce him. If it wasn’t dinner that wily creature had wanted, what had she been after in her attempt to take him down?

* * *

Cara wasn’t in a position to protest the presence of the two new Weres, so she tucked those arguments away. She didn’t like this interruption of her time alone with Rafe Landau. In less than an hour, she had become comfortable with him. Now, with the other Weres present, she again felt tense.

The stab of regret she felt when Rafe dropped his hand and spoke to the others was a new kind of pain. She didn’t like pain. A fresh round of defiance rose inside her over the idea of being separated from him.

“What vampire are we talking about?” the silver-haired Were asked nonchalantly.

His scent was similar to Rafe’s. The older wolf was notably alpha, and had to be Rafe’s relative. Father? He was tall and handsome. His long hair was tied behind his neck, and he had a younger Were’s build that made him appear half the age he’d have to be if Rafe was his son.

Rafe answered the Elder Were’s question. “We had an argument with a vampire a few minutes ago.”

Cara observed how the alpha moved with the same kind of grace Rafe possessed. However, she could tell the older Were was a pure-blooded Lycan and wore his power like an emblem of high birth and rank.

“Cara, this is my father, Dylan Landau, host for the duration of your stay,” Rafe said, interrupting his father’s line of questioning. “And this is Cameron Mitchell, a good friend of ours.”

“Please forgive the lack of introductions,” the alpha said with a polite dip of his head. “We were very worried, and happy to find you in good hands.”

The alpha took in the scene through pale eyes, missing nothing, assessing the situation without comment. When his gaze landed on the tears in her sleeve, Dylan Landau said, “Not a heated argument, I hope, with that vampire?”

“Nothing too bad,” Rafe lied.

The alpha nodded. “I knew your father and your mother, and I’m glad they agreed to let you visit. I’m sorry you didn’t have such a warm welcome, Cara, and would like to make that up to you. Would you come with us to see where you’ll be staying?”

Cara didn’t look at Rafe. She could have been wrong about the tension that seemed to be building up in him. She knew he wanted her to comply, to reach a safer place than this one. He had worried about her from the start.

Even more interesting was the fact that Rafe’s father didn’t appear to be too concerned about their encounter with a bloodsucker. Every Were here should have known this was worthy of further investigation.

Unfamiliar sensations continued to flood Cara’s system when she stole a closer look at Rafe. The flares of heat were new and something she didn’t fully understand.

As if he had the ability to read minds, Dylan Landau addressed her last thought. “Rafe, why don’t you ride along with us? Maybe you can loan our guest some clothes until we get her home.”

Rafe’s father didn’t ask how she had lost her clothes in the first place, and Cara felt herself warming to his social skills.

It looked like there was going to be a benign ending to this eventful evening, although she’d now witnessed for herself the vampire presence in Miami and how far this city’s bloodsuckers had evolved. The appearance of the one she’d met tonight, along with the fact that it had purposefully lain in wait for Rafe, was highly unusual. Vampires tended to act on instinct when finding their next meal, and didn’t usually set traps to ensnare their victims. Yet it seemed to her that this one had.

“Male or female vamp?” Rafe’s father casually asked.

“Female,” Rafe said.

The alpha asked Cara the question directly. “New or old?”

“Not too ancient,” Cara replied. “But talented.”

Dylan Landau nodded. “Well, it will be a relatively short ride to our home. It won’t take long. We aren’t going far.”

Unlike with his father, Cara could read Rafe’s emotions as easily as she had read the tides. Rafe wanted her to go along with the plan his father had laid out, and at the same time, he was sorry she had to.

Cameron waved a hand toward what Cara supposed had to be the waiting car. She looked to Rafe, whose nod indicated it was all right for her to follow.

She was trapped. There was nowhere for her to run, and she couldn’t rely on the ocean to take her away.

“I’ll be right behind you,” Rafe said. “I’ll just get those pants. I hope you like jeans.”

Cara followed the two Weres from the beach without argument, already counting the minutes until Rafe would again be at her side. She continued to watch Dylan Landau closely, gauging his strengths, needing to ask the alpha what he knew about her parents, while knowing she’d have to behave and honor his wishes if she were to piece together the puzzle of what had happened to them here nineteen years ago.

Had her mother and father been cast out of this pack for being different, or for being dangerous? What had made them outcasts? Who had been alpha of the Landau pack back then?

Her parents had never spoken to her about these things. Questions about the past were taboo. Getting answers was part of the reason she had gone along with the plan for her to visit Miami. It was the reason she was going with these Weres to the car. Still, there was another path to explore here in Miami as well. The path revealed by her dreams...and the wolf that had haunted them.

Right here, tonight, whether it had been coincidence or the fates had played a hand, that wolf dream was no longer just in her imagination. The wolf had come to life, and his name was Rafe Landau.

They were in some way connected. Even in the reality of the moment, Rafe Landau was haunting her. His looks, his presence and strength, all pointed to something she had yet to grasp. If events were lining up and falling into place, did that mean she was on the path to get everything she wanted?

The questions she needed to have answered were the reason she had helped Rafe fight off the undead attacker, and was wearing his clothes. Her curiosity had prevented her from making Rafe pay for appearing in her dreams and disturbing her sleep. It suddenly seemed to Cara that Rafe, for good or ill, was going to be the key to what lay ahead. He was the central clue in the mystery of her existence that she had to unravel.

Do you know this, Rafe?

She didn’t send that question to him over Were channels because the answer would have been about what lay ahead. If she stayed.