Dark Forest (Secret Blood, Book 1) (7 page)

Rose was too important to risk in any way. Fangs and claws retracted. He’d never tire of looking at her this way, but his body demanded he relieve the growing ache. He tugged off his shirt and removed his shoes and pants. His gaze never left her. He kneeled in front of her. The scent of her sex drove him wild. He pushed her legs apart as far as they would go. He parted her with a slow lick and was rewarded with a shimmy of her body. He loved her tangy, salty taste. He’d said he was going to devour her, so he did. Not long after, she was moaning and squirming. She laced her fingers through his hair and pulled his face in closer.

She came so beautifully and hard.

Before the first wave of orgasmic convulsions subsided, he hooked his arms under her knees, shoved her up farther onto the bed, and impaled her. Her cry was of passion and surprise.

“Look at me, Rose,” he demanded. “I want to watch you.”

His hands fisted into the blankets. He drove into her as hard and fast as he could, hammering in deeper and deeper. He wanted to be so embedded inside her, they’d never be able to be parted.

Her body pulsed and quivered under him; her sweet cries filled the air around him. How long they went on like this, he didn’t know, but his gaze never left her face. Aiden watched every nuance of her face, each change as he forced her body beyond where they’d been and to some place new. He couldn’t get close or deep enough. It wasn’t enough. In a desperate attempt to keep from hurting her, his mind reached out for hers. Her emotions and physical sensation coiled around him and pulled them both into ecstasy, and then oblivion.

The scent of smoke woke Aiden from sleep. “Rose.” Fear edged his voice. “Baby, you need to wake up.”

She stretched, and then curled into him. “Not ready…” Her eyes snapped open as she sat up. “What’s that sound?”

The dull roar of a growing fire filled the room.

Aiden was out of bed in the next second. He pulled his shirt over Rose’s head, and then shoved his pants into her arms because he wasn’t going to need them yet. “The house is on fire.”

“How can you…” She turned. “The window.”

“Julian is there,” Aiden said without having to look. Terror ate away at his spine, but he had to keep it together. The animal part of him was terrified of fire. He had to keep his cool, and use the human part of him to get them out of this without jumping, literally, into whatever trap Julian had waiting outside.

“You’re sure there is a fire?”

Aiden put the back of his hand to the bedroom door and could feel the heat. “Yeah. Come here.”

Rose pulled on her shorts and shoes before moving in close.

He kissed her because there was no way to tell if this crazy idea was going to work, but he was not going to drop her into the hands of a crazy werewolf. “I love you.”

Her body shuddered, and her arms wound tight around him. “I love you, too.”

He kneeled down in front of the door and pulled her down with him. “Cover your nose and mouth with the shirt.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine,” he lied. Once he was lycan, any damage to his lungs wouldn’t matter. He needed to get them out of the burning house before it killed them. He covered her body with his to protect her from a possible backdraft, shoved open the door and curled over her. Flames and heat rushed into the room, swallowing up the curtains, and scorching the wall. He waited as long as he could before he moved, bringing Rose with him. They made it to the middle of the living room, fifteen feet from the front door. Before the fire could become too intense to be able to crawl under it, he pulled Rose up into his arms, and rolled up to his feet and leaped forward, using the power of the shift to propel them both to where they needed to be. His lycan form took him, his body curled around Rose as they crashed through the window by the door, rolled out onto the porch, and then down the stairs.

He rolled them up onto his feet, Rose clutched tight to his chest. The keys to the truck were in the house.
Damn it!
There was no safe place to put her.

A gray lycan rounded the corner of the house, its eyes glowing, teeth bared. It growled. “Mate mine!”

Shit!
Talking in that form wasn’t the easiest thing to do, and it said either Julian had a great need to speak, or he was completely out of his mind. Aiden went with the latter. Rose didn’t want Julian. Aiden eased her on her feet. “Behind me,” he managed to say with great effort. His jaw ached with the snapping and growling of human words.

“Aiden.” There were tears in her voice.

He growled.

Rose shot behind him. He was the only thing standing between Rose and death. To force a mate to do anything went against shifter law. Julian was going to use her for whatever perverted desire he had, and then dispose of her the same way he had Kiera. He knew it as much as he knew he was a wolf. He crouched, ready for battle, and growled at Julian.

Julian howled. One long, low menacing sound. If he had a pack close by, Aiden was screwed, but he hadn’t scented any other werewolves with the logging company. Just the one. There was hope.

Julian lunged.

Aiden moved forward in a rush, catching Julian between powerful arms. He lifted the other lycan up and slammed him onto the ground. Julian caught his leg, yanking him onto the bare earth. Aiden twisted to avoid being bitten. They rolled across the ground, snarling and snapping. Claws tore into skin and fur. Teeth sank into flesh, trying to break bone. Rose’s scream echoed in his ears.

Fighting like this took a tremendous amount of power. Fatigue threatened him, but Aiden couldn’t stop until Julian was dead. His right shoulder burned. His left flank oozed blood. He scrambled out of the way to keep vicious claws from raking across his back. The crazy ones always seemed so much stronger than was normal.

Julian bit into his side.

Aiden roared in canine pain.

Then Julian stopped. He pushed up onto his legs, and then shimmered back into a man. “Where the fuck did she go?”

Aiden took his advantage. He knew where Rose would go. He charged Julian.

The son of a bitch shifted the second Aiden touched him. Aiden flew backward, slamming into the side of the burning house. His ears rang, and his vision blurred. Four wavering Julians stared at him for a moment before sprinting into the woods, along the path taking him to Edith…and to Rose.

* * * *

Rose ran. Not for her life, but for Aiden’s. Grams was going to kill her for bringing a werewolf brawl to the yard, but she didn’t have another choice. She didn’t know how much of a head start she had, but she needed to get to her grandmother’s house before the werewolf did. She ditched his pants along the path as she broke out of the tree line in a dead run. She dashed up to the back door Grams never kept locked and burst into the house. “Grams! Grams! Call the sheriff. Aiden’s house is on fire.” She tore through the house and to the gun cabinet. She grabbed the key out from under the potted spider plant, unlocked the gun safe with trembling fingers, got the rifle Grams had in case of bear, and several rounds of ammunition. She loaded the gun and headed out the way she’d come in.

Grams met her in the kitchen. “Rose?”

“Call Sheriff Jones. The house is on fire! Both men shifted!” She ran out the door, and into the yard.

The lights in the house went out. Rose smiled. She might not have cool werewolf night vision, but the full moon allowed her to better see the night’s shadowy details without the glare of artificial light affecting her sight. She put the rifle to her shoulder and started for the path leading her back to Aiden.

A snarl.

A streak of silvery gray.

Rose held her rifle steady. Fuck him. If Aiden was dead, she was going to kill this son of a bitch and not feel one drop of guilt for doing it. She listened for the sounds of the forest. This was her home. Where she’d spent her summers. Where she lived after her parents died. Even if Julian had all the power of a shape-shifter, this was her home. She knew it better than Julian ever could. She ran for one of the trees she’d climbed as a teen. It was a quick, easy climb. With one last glance around her, she hung the rifle over her shoulder with the strap and then climbed up to a branch she hoped Julian wouldn’t be able to reach without having to work for it. She settled herself and readied the rifle. She yelled as loud as she could, “Come out you son of a bitch, so I can kill you.”

A very naked Julian—as a man—stepped into view. “You’re not going to kill me. Come down. You smell like my mate.”

“You don’t smell like mine,” she snapped back. She aimed her weapon, but even though she willed herself to pull the trigger, she wasn’t able to make herself do it.
Damn him!
She couldn’t get her brain to let her fire on another human.

Julian laughed. “Come down before you hurt yourself.”

“Fuck you.” Then she knew what could make her work past her little glitch of conscience. “Where is Aiden?”

Julian squatted down and then jumped vertically. His hand caught a branch, and he pulled himself up.

Rose lost her balance. She fumbled with the rifle before it fell out of her hands. The strap caught on the way down. Rose hooked her legs on the thick branch she was on, and fell backward, giving her the reach she needed to get the rifle. She pulled herself back up as Julian climbed farther into the tree. She aimed, and hit the bastard square in his chest. He dropped out of the tree and landed on the ground with a thud. Colored light swirled around his body as it changed back into the shape-shifter’s lycan form. She slipped the rifle strap across her body, and braced herself when he charged the tree, ramming it. The shaking of the tree was so powerful it dislodged Rose from her perch. She caught a branch on the way down. Julian moved back, ready to ram the tree for a second time.

Rose scrambled to get into a position she could shoot him again.

A black shadow shot out of the darkness and plowed right into Julian. Both werewolves rolled over on top of each other with terrifying snarls and growls. The big black lycan landed on top. Rose turned her head as Aiden went for Julian’s throat.

She could hear Aiden’s labored breathing as she climbed out of the tree. He snorted and growled as he stood over the body fading back into its human form. Her hand trembled as she reached out to touch his forearm. “Aiden?”

He turned on her with a snarl. He glanced down at the body and then back at her. His head dropped back, and he howled a heartrending sound before he darted into the forest.

Rose was sitting on Grams’ front porch with a blanket wrapped around her when a truck pulled into the driveway. Dawn had begun to break over the horizon. The fire was out, but it had destroyed Aiden’s house.

The sheriff refused to let her go on the search party to find Aiden. Her worst fear was a lynching, even if Sheriff Jones promised it wouldn’t happen.

Davis Baker got out of the truck with a rifle in his hand. He tipped back his baseball cap as he walked toward her. “Rose.”

She jumped to her feet. “Did you find him?”

His expression went grim. “He was pretty torn up when the sheriff found him. Aiden found Kiera in an old outbuilding on the Asher place…alive.” He pulled his cap off and crumpled it in his hand. “She was bit up bad…like Aiden. She was babbling about a gray wolf and how Julian killed Hank.” He put his cap back on. “You might want to stay indoors until we make sure there are no other wolves in Dark Forest. The sheriff said he called the wildlife association. He thinks the wolf might have been part of a program to reintroduce them into the area.”

Rose found herself holding her breath. She let it out in a rush of air. “Where is he?”

“He’s at Doc Hanover’s place. He asked me to bring you to him.”

Rose dropped the blanket, and then picked it up. She stopped just inside the front door and tossed the blanket on the chair closest to the door. “Grams! They found him! Davis is going to drive me to Doc’s place. Do you want to come?”

Grams rushed out of the kitchen. “Of course I do.” She grabbed her purse off the table next to the door. “Move along or I
will
run you over.”

Rose smiled for the first time in hours. The drive out to Doc’s place took twenty minutes. Rose was out of the truck before it even stopped. She shoved the clinic door open and ran inside. “Hello? Sheriff Jones? Aiden?”

She stood awkwardly in the waiting room until Sheriff Jones appeared at the door leading back to the exam rooms. “He’s this way.”

She followed him into the hallway with a half dozen doors. “What’s happening?”

“The killer is dead, Aiden’s secret is safe, and I think his reputation has been restored.”

Rose glared at him as she followed him into the last room in the hall. “How is he?”

“Hurt.” He led her into an empty room.

She stomped her foot. “Take me to him!”

“I will,” he said in a soothing tone. “But you need werewolf aftercare instructions. I need for you to pretend you’re taking him to one of the big hospitals in Pittsburgh, and then stay with him for a couple of weeks somewhere. We’ll use the excuse that it’ll take too long for an ambulance to get here to transfer him, or some such nonsense. He’ll heal on his own overnight, but he doesn’t do it as a human. He needs to be gone long enough for the town to think his injuries healed the way ours do.”

“Got it. I have a friend with a cabin near Lake Erie. I’ll take him there.”

“Sounds good. Does your car have a large back seat?”

Her brow furrowed. “Why?”

“You’re going to want him to heal before you drive all the way out to Erie,” the sheriff said.

“We can stop in a hotel overnight. His house…I want him to come back to something.” Her mind spun a mile a minute trying to figure out everything she needed to do.

“Shh,” Sheriff Jones murmured. “One thing at a time. Just get him healthy, and then we’ll worry about his property.”

Her head bobbed up and down, and stupid tears stung her eyes. “Where is he?”

Sheriff Jones guided her out of the room and to the first door they’d passed. Rose quietly opened the door and peeked inside. “Aiden?”