Читать книгу Last Wolf Watching - Rhyannon Byrd, Rhyannon Byrd - Страница 9

Chapter 3

The human is mine…

The unbelievable words echoed through Michaela’s head, the evocative warmth of Brody’s breath against the sensitive shell of her ear enough to make her tremble with something sharper, darker, more visceral than shock or fear. She struggled for the source of her reaction to the possessive words—then realized it was hunger, urgent and sweet, spreading hypnotically through her system. A craving—a primal, instinctive need—that moved like warm, thick honey in her veins, settling deep within her like an intimate, pulsing glow of heat that she wanted to curl herself around. And it centered on the Bloodrunner who held her in his hard-muscled arms, the resonating beat of his heart banging out a powerful rhythm against her back.

Oh God, this can’t be happening.

“If you promise to behave,” he whispered in a low, husky rumble, his lips moving against her hair, “I’ll take my hand away from your mouth. Do you promise, Doucet?”

She gave a jerky nod, and sensation pierced through her like a physical jolt as her lips rubbed against the masculine roughness of his palm; the musky, outdoors scent of his skin filling her head.

Shocked murmurs continued to work their way through the surrounding pack, marked by low snarls and grumblings of disapproval, but a strange buzzing noise, like static, started to fill her ears as everything she’d experienced in the last few moments crashed down on her. She shook her head, trying to clear the confusion, but couldn’t escape the growing feeling of unreality. Through a hot sheen of tears, she watched as the Elders huddled into a tight circle. Only Dylan Riggs cast a sharp glance in her direction, before lowering his head and joining the other Elders in a heated conversation while the pack clustered together in groups of their own. She could see a few human mouths, as well as Lycan jaws moving, but couldn’t hear the words they produced over the frenzied noise thudding against her skull.

When a nearby group of Lycans suddenly stepped toward them, Brody moved with whipcord strength, shoving her behind his back before she even knew what was happening. “Mason, get her back to the Alley,” he grated, and she almost sighed with relief as the words sank into her system, the static whir slowly fading away. “The others can help me deal with things here. We’ll meet back up with you at the cabin when we’re done.”

Vaguely aware of Torrance grabbing on to her wrist and pulling her away, Michaela stumbled, looking back over her shoulder toward the clearing, watching as Eric Drake walked toward the incredible creature her brother had become, his dark fur gleaming like black satin in the moonlight. Eric began talking with Max’s guards, reaching for the chains that bound him, when his father broke away from the Elders and advanced on them. She struggled to see what was happening, but everyone was moving around and too many bodies blocked her view.

Looking back to the spot where Brody had stood, her muscles clenched with panic when she found him gone, lost somewhere in that swarming chaos of activity. What if something happened to him? It would be her fault, wouldn’t it? Male voices, raised in anger, reached her, and she knew instantly that it was Brody arguing with Stefan Drake. They both sounded furious, but she knew the Runner would win. And then he’d come to the Alley, where he expected to find her waiting.

Michaela had never considered herself a coward, but after the crushing experience with her last relationship, she’d grown wary of putting her trust in the opposite sex. And more importantly, she no longer trusted her judgment—or her body’s physical desires. And God only knew the powerful way she reacted to Brody Carter was enough to make any sane woman cautious. It was too much. Too…everything.

No, she wasn’t a coward, but she sent a sharp look toward the trees, wondering…

“Don’t even think about it,” Mason warned her with a gruff chuckle, the corner of his mouth edging up into a strained grin. “You wouldn’t make it more than ten feet before he had you down.”

Had her down? A hazy image of being trapped beneath Brody’s long, hard, muscular body flashed through her mind, and she trembled. God, talk about emotional overload. She was shaking so hard she could barely see straight.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered, turning a dazed stare toward her best friend. “What just happened, Torry?”

Arching one slim red brow, Torrance shot a questioning look toward her husband. “If I had to guess, I’d say you’d just been given a personal bodyguard.”

Mason nodded, his handsome face carved into a cautious expression of concern. With a strange bubble of emotion in her throat that felt as if it could end in either laughter or tears, Michaela wondered who that concern was for. Was he worried how well she’d deal with his brooding friend? Or was that hard expression that looked as if it’d been chiseled from granite for Brody? Did he think she’d lead a reign of terror over the quiet Runner’s life?

“And I get him?” she groaned, knowing it couldn’t be true. There was no way in hell Brody Carter had just volunteered himself…to what? The job had sounded more like a watchdog than a bodyguard. “When he said that I’m his, he meant his to watch over, right?”

Mason snorted a low, purely male sound under his breath, and led them deeper into the forest.

It took an hour of sitting there in the Dillingers’ cozy kitchen, with Torrance pouring another pot of herbal tea into her system, before Brody finally came to collect her. Michaela heard the commotion at the front door as he and his partner arrived. For a moment, she felt torn between the strangely opposing urges of running into the living room and demanding he comfort her, and sneaking out through the cabin’s back door, disappearing into the darkness…as if she could run away from the ugly reality of the night.

But she couldn’t move.

She waited, her breath held tight in her chest, until his broad-shouldered body filled the archway that led into the kitchen. His shadowed, dark green gaze trapped her the second he set eyes on her, refusing to let her look away, holding her with the sheer force of his will. The lines around his mouth were tight with strain, and at his sides, his hands were fisted, his knuckles bruised and a little swollen. His auburn hair was damp at the temples, his shirt torn at the shoulder and the sharp line of his left cheekbone had been scraped raw. Her brows pulled together in a tight frown as she added the details together and came to an unsettling conclusion. “You…you didn’t fight after I left, did you?”

“Are you kidding?” Cian snorted, edging past his partner as he walked into the kitchen. “It was just a playful scuffle. Hell, there were only ten of them, hardly enough to call it a fight. And none of them were brave enough to battle against Brooding Brody,” he drawled, hitching his hip against the counter. He crossed his arms over his chest, a cynical smile twisting the hard curve of his devil’s mouth, but Michaela couldn’t tell if he was teasing or not.

“And Max was okay?” she asked, her attention focused on Brody while Torrance filled the sink with hot, lemon-scented dishwater and Mason finished off the sandwich he’d made while waiting.

Brody nodded in response to her question, but didn’t move away from the archway. Instead, he crossed his own arms and propped his right shoulder against the wall, the recessed kitchen lighting glinting off the burnished stubble on his square chin, softening the stark lines of his scars. “Eric took him away before we left. He’ll take good care of him, Doucet. No harm will come to your brother during his training.”

Michaela worked to ignore the devastating effect of his deep voice—that husky, intoxicating baritone that slipped into her with a sweet, provocative slide and made her hot beneath the skin—but it didn’t work worth a damn. The tight, black cashmere sweater that had kept her warm outside now sat too heavy over her damp skin, filling her face with heat. Lowering her gaze to the steam rising from her tea, the china cup fragile within the straining hold of her hands, she asked, “And after that? After the training?”

“If he doesn’t pass, then we’d all stand together to ensure his safety, if it comes to that,” Mason told her. She flicked her gaze up to see his easy grin as he added, “But if he’s anything like you, that’s not going to be a concern. If there’s one thing I know about the Doucets, it’s that they’re tough as nails.”

“Thanks,” she murmured with a wry twist of her mouth. “I think.”

“Don’t worry,” Torrance laughed, sending her husband a teasing look. “Mase’s compliments are still a little rough around the edges, but he means well.”

The Runner flashed his wife a wicked, hard-edged smile and playfully wagged his brows. “Face it, Tor. You love my rough side.”

“Behave,” Torrance admonished under her breath, but her green eyes glittered with excitement, her cheeks flushed a warm shade of rose. The love the two shared was so potent, so rich and heady and intense, that it seemed to fill the room, making Michaela painfully aware of how…alone she was. All she’d had was Max, and now even he had been taken from her.

“Max will pass his training,” Brody rumbled, breaking the awkward silence. “And until all of this is over, I’ll…be with you.” It almost sounded as if that last bit had stuck in his throat, and she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.

“If you’re not up to the task,” his partner drawled, reaching behind him to snatch up one of the cookies out of the perpetually stocked cookie jar, “I could always be a pal and step in for you, partner.”

Brody didn’t so much as twitch, but she could see the vein that began throbbing in his temple, pulsing beneath the dark sheen of his skin as he tilted his head and glared at the smirking Irishman. Energy, red-hot and raging, surged around him like a fiery glow, so real Michaela almost flinched from the burn. “Like hell you will.”

“Why not me?” Cian laughed, sending her a teasing wink. The irreverent Runner obviously loved goading his partner and friend, but Michaela could sense something deeper than mere irritation in Brody’s reaction, and she didn’t need any of her so-called powers to see it.

“Why not you?” he softly snarled. “Because you’d be too busy bedding her instead of protecting her, that’s why!”

Cian choked on another sharp bark of laughter, while Michaela made a soft sound of surprise, thoroughly insulted to think that he’d lumped her into the same class as all the other women who willingly fell into Hennessey’s arms simply because of his looks. “I’m going to assume you’re letting your irritation talk,” she murmured, “and that you didn’t mean that to sound as insulting as it did.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Cian snickered, just before Mason elbowed him in the side on his way to the sink with his plate. The Irishman rubbed at his ribs, but couldn’t stop his soft chuckling, and the frustration in Brody seemed to coil like a viper.

All it took was a woman’s keen intuition to realize that he thought she’d rather have the pretty-faced Irishman watching over her than him. And while it was one thing for other women to prefer his dark-haired partner, something inside of Michaela compelled her to say, “As charming as you are, Hennessey, I’m…that is, I think the current arrangement will work just fine.”

“Wow,” Cian drawled, gifting her with a boyish smile as he rubbed one hand against the sharp angle of his shadowed jaw. “I don’t think I’ve ever been turned down so nicely before.” He looked toward his partner, arching one midnight-black brow. “Seems the lady is happy with you after all, boyo. Congratulations.”

Brody’s scowl deepened and a charged silence settled over the room, the only sound that of the running faucet as Torrance worked her way through the dishes. Too restless to sit still, Michaela shifted to her feet, pushing her chair back in at the table before taking her cup to the sink. “I’ll finish up, Torry. I need something to keep me busy.”

Torrance gave Michaela a quick hug, then slipped into a chair beside her husband. Together, they began talking with Cian about Jeremy and Jillian’s wedding, which would take place later that week in the Alley. Michaela began to lose some of her tension as she listened to their easy, quiet chatter, when she suddenly became aware of Brody standing beside her. His left hip rested against the counter, long arms crossed back over his chest, and she felt that little catch in her breath again. She tried to act natural, but his strangely seductive presence speared through her system like the residual traces of a fine wine, making her senses hum.

From the corner of her vision, she watched his gaze settle on her mouth, before lifting to her eyes. “I know you’re probably afraid of me,” he stated in a quiet rasp.

“Afraid of you?” Michaela shook her head as she looked toward him, wondering where he’d gotten such an idea. “Why would I be afraid of you?”

He arched one auburn brow in an expression that reminded her of his partner, wearing a cynical look of disbelief, as if the answer should be obvious. But the truth was that she didn’t fear him, at least not in a physical sense. No…her caution came from a different source—a basis more intimate than mere intimidation. It came from one that played his scarred, seductive image across the darkness of her mind when she closed her eyes at night; that made her pulse flutter whenever he was near. That reminded her time and again that men weren’t to be trusted.

Not that she was going to explain any of that to him.

“I mean it, Brody,” she told him in a soft voice, the armor around her heart breaking a little at the shadow of vulnerability she could see there in that dark gaze. “I’m not afraid of you.”

For several moments, he looked as if he’d argue, those compelling green eyes narrowed on her profile as she turned her attention back to the dishes. Finally, he sighed and said, “This isn’t going to work the same as it did with Pallaton and Reyes. I’m not going to waste time watching you from the outside looking in.”

A shiver slipped down her spine, but she managed to keep her voice steady. “How do you mean?”

“From what Wyatt told me, they tried to keep a reasonable distance, but I’m going to be on the inside with you at all times. If something happens, I need to be close enough to make a difference. Like it or not, I’m going to be like your shadow.”

She slanted him a sideways look as she asked, “You didn’t agree to watch over me just to keep me from causing trouble for the pack?”

He shook his head, and she watched, mesmerized, as the auburn tips of his thick hair shifted over the soft cotton of his black T-shirt, the material hugging the firm muscles beneath. “There’s more going on here, Doucet, and you know it. I’m doing this for you, not them.”

“My name is Michaela,” she sighed, shifting her gaze back to his, irrationally irritated by the way he continually called her by her last name. It was so impersonal, which was exactly why she figured he did it—and it occurred to her that they were like two opponents circling one another, wary of the other’s motives.

“I know your name,” he muttered, his tone dry.

Michaela lifted one shoulder. “Couldn’t prove it to me, since you never use it,” she countered, noting the strange blend of exasperation and wariness in his sexy, almond-shaped eyes. “So you plan to protect me while keeping me in line, then?”

“I doubt anyone could keep you in line,” he snorted, the corner of his mouth twitching in a reluctant grin. “What I am going to do is keep you safe.”

“That’s not what—”

The green of his eyes flashed with emotion. “Forgot what they said at the clearing, okay? As much as I don’t care for Riggs, he knew that one of the Runners would accept responsibility for you so that we could keep you alive. There isn’t a goddamn chance that Drake plans to let you live,” he rasped, the softness of the words in no way lessening their impact. “Not when he knows he can use you to get to us, just like they did with Max. The only problem is that Max lived. Now I think they’ll come after you even harder, or turn it into a game and play with us.”

“By keeping me scared?”

“Yeah.”

Grabbing at another plate, she ignored the shaking in her hands. “Drake really is the one behind all the trouble, then, isn’t he? The one Anthony Simmons was working for, who’s tempting Lycans to turn rogue, teaching them how to shift during the daytime?”

Michaela knew the past few weeks had been chaotic for the Runners. On top of learning that a traitor was working to expand the number of rogue wolves in the area, they’d discovered that those who had turned had been taught how to dayshift. That was the first clue that had pointed the Runners toward an Elder, once they’d learned that the ability to teach a wolf how to take his shape beneath the sun was a power possessed only by those who served on the League, meant to be used as a defensive weapon during times of war.

After the Runners had realized they were hunting a traitorous Elder, Stefan Drake had become their obvious suspect. Drake and his followers made no secret of their fanatical hatred for humans and Bloodrunners alike, but it wasn’t until Jeremy had accepted his place within the Silvercrest pack and returned to Shadow Peak that they were truly able to investigate Drake.

Thanks to Pippa Stanton, the lone female Elder, Jeremy had learned about Drake’s grudge against the League itself. According to Pippa, Drake had never forgiven his peers for forbidding the assassination of his wife after she left him for a human. They also knew Drake was responsible for the recent attack on Jillian’s life. Using his own daughter as a weapon, Drake, along with the help of an unknown Elder, had performed a task believed impossible by most Lycans, pulling Elise’s wolf from her body against her will. Once the change was complete, Elise’s beast was controlled by Drake, and would have killed Jillian if it weren’t for Jeremy and Mason’s intervention. When Jeremy later confronted the Elder, accusing him of the crime, one of Drake’s followers, a man named Cooper Sheffield, had tried to kill him, dying instead by the Bloodrunner’s hand.

To make matters worse, Drake wasn’t the Runners’ only problem. Over the course of the past month, Michaela knew that Brody and Cian had been investigating a series of gruesome killings. Four human females had been found murdered, three in the mountains and one in the city. At each scene, there had been no trace of Lycan musk—only the acidic scent produced by a Lycan who had dayshifted, which was untraceable. Each of the victims had clearly been a rogue kill, their hearts eaten from their chests in some kind of psychotic, symbolic gesture. Only one of the victims had clearly been the work of Anthony Simmons, the rogue who had targeted Torrance’s life, and who had been killed by Mason in a Challenge Fight shortly afterward. The other three crimes were still unsolved, and the Runners couldn’t be sure that Drake himself was behind them, his accomplice on the League…or one of his twisted followers.

“Drake all but admitted his guilt to Jeremy after the attack on Jillian’s life,” Brody rumbled, his deep voice suddenly pulling her from her troubling thoughts and back to their conversation. “He already hated us before, but now he has a reason to risk taking us out. It’s either get rid of the Runners, or accept that we’re going to destroy him and whatever he has planned.” He shrugged, and Michaela found herself momentarily fascinated by the way the casual gesture traveled across the broad width of his shoulders, his muscles flexing beneath the thin cotton of his shirt.

She tried to keep her focus, but damn, she couldn’t get enough of those shoulders. Hoping she didn’t sound dazed with lust, she managed to say, “So what happens now?”

“Would you like me to take you home tonight? We can stay in Covington for a day or two so that you can get your things together, close up your shop, then head back up.”

“Close up my shop?” Her hands went still beneath the running water as she rinsed the suds away from a mug. She’d already made arrangements with one of her employees to run things at Michaela’s Muse, her paranormal specialty shop, for a few days—but she hadn’t considered that she might be away longer than that.

As if following her train of thought, Brody said, “I want you in the Alley, Doucet. In my cabin.” The dark sound of his voice shivered across her senses, but his expression remained unreadable, as if they were discussing nothing more interesting than the weather. “I don’t trust what’s happening in the pack and we’re too vulnerable in town.”

She wanted to argue. She had a life, a business in the city. And yet, none of that would ever be the same again. Max wouldn’t be coming back home with her. Working with her. Living with her. The pain crushed down on her again, but she battled against the tears. “Let’s go down tonight,” she said shakily, hoping he didn’t hear the tremor in her words. “I can get what I need from home, then go by the shop and close things down. My customers will just…have to understand.”

“You don’t have to close. David would be more than happy to keep it open for you,” Torrance suggested from the table, having obviously been listening in on their conversation. David Sharp was a loyal, longtime employee who had worked at Michaela’s Muse while getting his degree in advertising and had recently returned home to Covington.

“I don’t know,” she murmured, picking up a coffee mug. “He’s a sweetheart, but I couldn’t ask him to—”

“Sure you could,” Torrance said softly. “It shouldn’t take you more than a day to go down and get the accounts all settled. You can even show David how to do the payroll, then leave everything in his hands until it’s safe for you to go back.”

Michaela gave a wary nod, knowing she had little choice if she wanted to remain in business, and turned back toward the sink, moving on to the last dish. “So what time do you want to leave?”

Brody didn’t answer—just stood there watching her with a strange, intense expression hardening the grooves that bracketed his mouth. “What?” she whispered, wondering what was bothering him.

“Nothing,” he muttered. Then he uncrossed his arms and started to shift away from the counter, only to stop. Shoving his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans, he suddenly asked, “Can you use it on me?”

Michaela blinked at him in confusion. “Use it? Use what?”

He jerked his chin at her, his dark eyes narrowed and heavy-lidded. “That witchy thing that you do.”

“Witchy thing?” she repeated, trying to stifle a laugh when she realized he was deadly serious. “I can assure you, Brody, that I’m not a witch.”

“I want to know, Doucet.”

“Know what?” she pressed, finding some perverse pleasure in pushing his buttons. And he was still calling her Doucet, which just made her feel ornery.

He stepped closer, invading her personal space, and the moonlight spilling in through the open kitchen window played across his face, revealing the stark angles and hollows. His nostrils flared, as if he were breathing in her scent, and she realized that from this close, she could see his scars in vivid detail as they cut over his face, slashing from his left eyebrow, across the bridge of his nose, down to his opposite jaw. Her fingers itched to reach out and stroke them, wishing she could wipe away the deep-seated pain that lingered in his eyes. He tried to hide so much behind his angry scowls, but she saw through them. The liquid depths of his bottle-green eyes were like a window into his soul, beautiful…and yet, so filled with hurt, as scarred within as he was without.

“Just ask me, Brody,” she whispered softly, trying to tell him with her gaze that he could trust her. “I promise I’ll be honest with you.”

Something wild and hot and primitive flared in those mysterious green depths, lost as quickly as it appeared beneath the lowering of his lashes—and in a husky, silken slide of words, he said, “I want to know if you can you read me.”