Cry Wolf (27 page)

“It’s okay,” Malcolm said, pressing his forehead to hers. “I know. I don’t like it, but I know. I wish I could take care of you, but God, I might as well be a child against him. Put me to sleep if you need to.”

She touched his cheek and gently pushed him down onto the armchair until he lay with his head drooping to the side, completely relaxed and completely vulnerable. A gash ripped through the muscle of her heart that he trusted her enough to be put under—and that he would rather be unconscious and at the mercy of the two of them than awake and running.

“There. He’s out of the equation. Will you leave him alone now?” Kelly asked, brushing her thumbs against Malcolm’s dark eyelashes.

“I’ll help the boy, but his company
was
getting tiresome,” Abraham said.

Kelly whipped around, her braid flying again. She moved her arm in an arc as though swinging it for a backhand blow in spite of the distance between them. Abraham stumbled to the side when the magic struck him, but he had been expecting the blow, and her use of magic broke through her own shield. When he regained his balance, he raised his hand to grasp her throat. She lifted off the ground and floated to him, fruitlessly kicking her legs. He made it harder to shake off this spell until she was right in front of him. He dropped her, and she landed on her feet like a cat.

“Come, my dear, even he knew that you were the one I really wanted to see,” Abraham said, chucking her under the chin.

“So you want to add a lycanthropic witch to your list of conquests?” Kelly said. She was quiet only from withholding the full measure of her fury, because it had begun to interweave with her magic. There were just too many potential casualties if things went wrong.

“I want to convince you to let me help you,” Abraham said.

“The way you helped all the other women in this room?”

Before he could respond, Kelly conjured the knife into her hand and slashed another line across his chest. She pulled Abraham to her by the open ends of his clothes until her mouth was on him again, drawing the new blood to the surface.

She had been less careful in her knife play than he—the blade had cut deeper into his skin. He hissed as her tongue and teeth pulled the flesh back so that she could reach deeper inside him. But he wrapped his arms around her to bring her closer, walking them back until he slammed against a wall. He pressed her head down, encouraging her now that he knew she could handle her own appetites.

Even if she couldn’t, she was sure he had an alternative.

He coaxed her up to kiss him, but she would have none of it. She lingered near the wound, taking her own sweet time, then slowly mouthed her way up his neck and over his chin before finally pressing against his lips. He couldn’t suppress a groan as their tongues met and battled for dominance. Neither gave ground. He tasted his blood on her. Although human, perhaps it tasted like conquest to him.

Magic pulled her dress down over her waist and hips. She pulled it back up, withdrawing.

“Don’t tell me you’re shy,” Abraham said.

“What is this even about?” Kelly snarled, shoving him back against the wall. She was holding her magic back, but she did nothing to restrain her werewolf strength. Abraham grunted. “I’m not some little girl gazing adoringly at the charming con man, attracted to his position, his power and the strength of his preaching. What do you want from me?”

Kelly glared at him, breathing heavily, her hand pressed against his chest to hold him to the wall. He didn’t answer, but his dark irises flared with fire. Within her rose a different hunger, something that had already been there, but all of a sudden it seemed to expand like a night-blooming flower to the glow of the moon. She whimpered as it electrified her body.

She brought her other hand to his chest and smoothed over the lightly furred planes. He had the body of an academic, lean but soft in places, and the hair on his chest was dotted with white, like the thick, slicked waves of hair on his head. She slowly spread open his upper clothing that she had undone, and he stepped forward so that she could push them down. They fell in a wrinkled clump on the floor.

“I want you to remove your clothing,” he murmured deliberately in her ear, bringing her braid forward to pull off the elastic band. He unwove her hair. His hands brushed against her breast as he worked. “I want you to love me.”

Kelly swayed into his hands. Her mind swam with heady fog, as though she had drunk too much wine. At this point, she wanted nothing more than to rid herself of her clothing, which suddenly constricted her with its conservative modesty. She unzipped the back of the dress and pulled it down so that she wore only her thick tights, black shoes and the long-sleeved shirt. Abraham combed through her wild honey hair and swept it behind her shoulders.

“I’ve had those starry-eyed girls before. They over-process their hair and paint their faces as though I can’t tell it is merely a carefully crafted mask. But you don’t mask anything, do you?” Abraham said, lightly stroking his fingertips over the pale lines of her eyebrows and the almost not there flutter of her eyelashes, down the short length of her nose, over her lips, soft from kissing him and stained at the edges with his blood.

“I’ve had men fall to my feet, begging to lick my boots if I will only make them powerful or take away what makes them less than a man. Sometimes I don’t even have to try. But sometimes, my dear, a person will make it a little harder. If I’m willing to put in the effort, though, you’ll find I’m quite…convincing.”

He drifted his feather-light fingers down her neck to the small, mother-of-pearl-like buttons of her blouse.

After the third button, Kelly’s head fell back. She stared sightlessly at the ceiling, in the grips of a flash of vision.

Abraham was working at one of the covered tables, an old writing desk converted into a makeshift altar with a chalice, a knife and an open book on its surface.

Before she had a chance to inspect it more closely, she snapped back to the room as he undressed her, his magical hold on her broken.

She didn’t yank herself away or strike Abraham with magic again, but she wrapped her hands around his wrists to stop him from undoing the rest of her buttons.

“There are few things I find less appealing than a man who takes away someone’s will,” Kelly said softly. She shook, practically vibrating.

“And there are few things I find more appealing than someone who is able to cast off my influence,” Abraham said. His voice dropped even lower, a devastating husky edge to it. The curve of his cock pushed out his trousers.

“I
detest
will-breaking, Abraham,” Kelly said.

“You’ve never given someone a little push?” Abraham asked. He released her shirt. The open collar fell to the sides of her filigree tattoo, which he eyed with interest before beginning to circle her. “Never made your young man over there do something for you?”

Her trembling grew stronger as he passed a hand over the small of her back. She wasn’t afraid, nor was she cold. She was simply awake, aware in a way that she had never been before. That awareness tunnelled through her, lighting her up from the inside out. Abraham had roused something within her that responded to him, only to him. It wasn’t his will-breaking magic, nor was it simply her anger.

“No,” Kelly said. “I don’t do that.”

“Can you?” he asked, as though he knew the answer and just wanted to hear her say it.

“I can. I don’t.” Kelly raised her eyes to him as he completed his circle around her. Although she was more clothed than he, his gaze had burned her through her clothing. “I don’t have to. I’ll play puppet master for someone’s safety, mine or theirs, but I don’t make them
want
to do something.”

“We were gifted with the ability to manipulate these people,” Abraham said. “Why should we not use what we were given?”

“Just because you have it doesn’t mean you have to use it,” Kelly replied. “I don’t think anyone believes that if you have a gun, you should shoot your child in the head, or that if you have a dick, you should stick it into anything with an orifice. We have a responsibility. But it’s not only irresponsible to take someone’s will away just because you can. It’s sick.”

“So you would rather do it the old-fashioned way,” Abraham said. “Favours and bribery and sexual coercion.”

“What makes you think—?”

“I may not know you the way I know many of the people I bring to my room, but I see another man in your life before this boy. You kept a collar on him even though he was convinced he had his hooks in you,” Abraham said with a smile. He started undoing her buttons again and, because she didn’t sense any manipulation magic, she allowed it. Every inch of her he exposed, the more she could use.

“I’m not averse to using more conventional means,” Kelly said. She gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering.

“The ends are the same whether I use conventional or unconventional means.” Abraham shrugged with a nonchalance that was almost adolescent, yet strangely ageless on his older body. “What do the means matter?”

“I find that disgusting,” Kelly said. “And a little sad.”

“Do I seem sad to you?” Abraham asked, but it was clear that the question was rhetorical since he immediately followed it with a less rhetorical question. “What on earth have you done to yourself?” he asked with a sense of wonder as he stared at the canvas of her skin.

She just bent down to remove her shoes and peel off her tights.

“Pierced with a thousand needle pricks and still unable to keep the beast at bay, yet you refuse to let me help you.”

Kelly drew him to her without touching him. When he was close enough, she took his chin in ungentle fingers, his facial hair prickling harsh and delightful against her sensitive skin. She pulled his face level with hers. His gaze was drawn to her lips.

“What makes you think that this is because of the werewolf?” she asked.

Kelly licked his lower lip then shoved him against the wall again. She floated herself the short distance to him before unfastening the button and zipper of his trousers. He wore nothing underneath, and as she took his cock in hand, she pressed their lips together. The kiss was less of a battle this time, but that took none of the edge off his desperation as he jerked his erection into the warm circle of her hand. She wrenched a moan out of him and drank it down with relish.

Her hand tightened around him as his magic flew them through the air and dropped them onto the bed. The springs creaked under the dark coverlet. He winced when her falling momentum made her tug too hard on his erection, but he forgot about that brief pain as she slid her hand farther down to cup his sac, teasing the flesh behind it until his breath caught.

Abraham eased her hand off him so that he could remove his trousers. Then he knelt above her, tracing the serpent up over her hip and taking in the glint of metal in her nipples. He touched the dark filigree that started just below her breasts and slid his hand up, tilting his head to the side as he studied it.

“Amazing work,” he murmured. “It’s like a drawn spell. A very appropriate one.”

“I don’t understand,” Kelly said, propping herself up on her elbows.

“You put it on your body, but you don’t know what it means?” Abraham asked incredulously.

“It came to me in a dream trance,” Kelly said. “I awoke with the knowledge that I had to ink it in, but I never knew why.”

“You mean you never saw the words?” Abraham asked. “It’s subtle, but once you see it, it cannot be unseen. It’s clear as day to me.”

Kelly clenched her fists in the coverlet, incensed. Her own magic had taken over her body and made her draw the design, had compelled her to put it on her body. She had seen it for two years every time she’d looked down or looked in a mirror. It had never revealed its secret to her. But it had revealed itself to him. He, of all people, had been given the answer to the mystery. Kelly’s claws pierced through the blanket.

He covered her with his shadow, tenderly stroking the halo of hair around her face.

“You are magnificent,” he whispered. “To have all this magic and not even know what you are capable of, to not even know what you are or what you could be. And yet you insist on imprisoning yourself in this wolf.”

Kelly wrapped her leg around his and deftly flipped them over so that he was beneath her. His laughter was abruptly cut short when she brought the sharp tips of her claws against his throat, poking his prominent Adam’s apple. He swallowed, but his amusement remained.

“Tell me what it says,” Kelly said.

“Why, Kelly, where are your manners?” Abraham chided. “Put the monster away. This isn’t the time for that kind of magic.”

“If I were as unscrupulous as you, I’d turn you here and now,” Kelly said. Lupine teeth grew from her gums, clicking against each other as they set.

“Why don’t you put the wolf away and convince me in a more civilised fashion—with the gifts that interest me?” Abraham said.

Kelly opened her mouth wide, displaying the full range of deadly teeth, any of which could deliver the cursed bite on his bare, vulnerable flesh. She shredded the magic that tried to tell her she wanted to become wholly woman and submit to him.

She was more than a little insulted at this point by his efforts to control her, by his assumption that she was there to service his pleasures alone, that he wanted her to force him the way he had forced her. He wanted to make her into the kind of witch that he was when all she wanted to do was eat him up, spit out the bones and take the sleeping Malcolm as far away from Salvation as possible.

“One of these days,” Kelly lisped through her mouthful, “something will show you what a monster
you
really are. Monsters like you shouldn’t be able to hide so well.”

“So you admit that these, too, are the instruments of a monster,” Abraham said, taking her hands in his to feel the pricks of the claw tips on his palms.

Kelly lowered herself onto his thighs. Abraham cautiously pushed himself sitting so that they were on an equal level.

“I can take this away for you,” he said.

“No, you can’t,” Kelly said. “You aren’t going to take the werewolf away from me. At best, you can disguise it as you do yours.”