Desire the Night (35 page)

“Tomorrow night, I want Jared, Tyler, and Joe to patrol the fence line. I want the rest of the men to take cover on the outside of the fence, in pairs. I don’t want Rinaldi’s men to know what hit them. They’ve killed two of ours. I want to even the score.”

Brett nodded. “They’ve got it coming. I’ll alert the pack.”

“If they decide to attack us in force, do you think they’ll wait for the full moon?” Greta asked.

“I don’t know. I guess it depends on how anxious Rudolfo is for revenge.”

“So, they won’t come busting in here with guns blazing?” Gideon asked, glancing at the others.

“I don’t think so,” Kay replied, grinning.

“Why not?”

Kay stared at Gideon. “Why not?” she repeated, then shook her head. “I don’t know. Brett? Greta?”

Brett answered. “It’s not our way. We’ve always done our fighting during the full moon, pack against pack, or Alpha against Alpha. Or on the sly, the way Rinaldi’s men killed Bobby and Stewart. As a declaration of war.”

Kay mulled that over for several minutes, then pushed it to the back of her mind to reexamine later.

“So, Brett, have you tried shifting yet?” she asked.

“No.”

“Try it, now.”

Rising, Brett stepped into the middle of the room. He stripped down to his shorts, then took a deep breath, his brow furrowed in concentration. At first, nothing happened; then, little by little, there was a change in the air, a subtle ripple of preternatural power that gradually grew stronger until it raised the hairs along Kay’s arms.

A growl rumbled low in Brett’s throat and in the blink of an eye, his shorts shredded and a large brown wolf stood before them.

Kay smiled.

Greta clapped her hands. “It works! It really works!”

“I think it would be a good thing if our whole pack could change at will,” Kay remarked. “It would give us the upper hand if it comes to a full-scale war. We’re stronger in wolf form. Harder to kill. Our senses are sharper.”

Gideon shook his head. “Are you sure about this? Won’t it make them all Alphas?”

“No,” Kay said. Her father had told her that only a few of each generation were born with the Alpha gene. When she had asked why, he had told her that if every pack member carried it, there wouldn’t be any werewolves after a while, because they would kill each other off. “That gene is only passed to a few in each generation.” She shook her head. She’d had it all this time and never knew. “I’m the last of my father’s direct line. The only other pack member who might have the gene is Brett and Greta’s son, Isaac.”

“So my blood somehow enables them to shift at will and that’s all?”

“Well, as far as I know,” Kay said. “There’s no way to be sure.”

“If you decide to go ahead with this, then Isaac should be exempt until we determine whether he carries the gene or not,” Greta said. “You know how unpredictable young Alphas can be.”

Kay nodded. Young males were never left alone until they learned to control their wolf.

Kay glanced at Brett, who stood in the middle of the room, watching her.

“Now for the hard part,” she said. “Brett, can you shift back?”

It took him less time than usual to resume his own form.

“How do you feel?” Kay asked.

“Good,” he said, pulling on his pants. “I feel good. Hell, I feel better than good. I feel like I could take on the whole Green Mountain Pack by myself!”

“Any desire to take over our pack?” Kay asked, eyeing him somewhat apprehensively.

Laughing, Brett shook his head. “No. None at all.”

Greta picked up his shoes and socks and tossed him his shirt. “Let’s go bring the pack up to speed. We’ll all need to get a good night’s sleep. Good night, Gideon,” she said, nodding in his direction. “See you in the morning, Kiya.”

Shrugging into his shirt, Brett followed his wife out of the room.

Kay stared after Brett.

“Something wrong?” Gideon asked.

“No. I was just thinking—Brett was able to shift right away. Why did it take me so long?”

“Probably because you’re only half wolf. Or maybe because you’re female.”

She punched him in the arm. “Chauvinist pig vampire!”

“Ouch!”

“You’re probably right about the half wolf thing. Even though it didn’t happen right away, I could feel it coming,” she mused, remembering how her appetite had increased, until it seemed that she was hungry all the time. There had been other symptoms, too, changes in her body that she couldn’t explain at the time. She stretched her arms over her head. “I think I’m ready to call it a night,” she said, yawning. “Are you ready for bed?”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

He didn’t say so, but she knew he was going out to feed. She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll meet you upstairs.”

“Fifteen minutes,” he said. “Twenty at the most.”

She shook her head as he vanished from her sight. If only he could pass on that ability to vanish at will, she thought, heading for her bedroom. That would really give them an edge.

Thinking of Gideon, she changed into her nightgown, then washed her hands and face, combed out her hair, and brushed her teeth.

When she returned to the bedroom, he was there, lounging against the pillows.

“You look like a sultan awaiting his harem,” she remarked.

He jerked his chin in her direction. “Pretty small harem.”

“Are you complaining?”

His gaze moved over her, ever so slowly. “Nope. You’re all the woman I need.”

“And don’t you forget it.” She climbed into bed beside him and pillowed her head on his shoulder. “So,” she asked, a smile evident in her voice, “if we decide to share your blood with the pack, do you have enough to go around? I mean, we never discussed that part of it.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got enough.” He stroked the side of her neck. “But if you’re offering …”

“Anytime,” she murmured, and closed her eyes when his fangs skated lightly over her skin. Hard to believe she had once thought such a thing repulsive.

She was sorry when he lifted his head. “I’ll never understand why that feels so amazing.”

“I can make it hurt if you want.”

“Are you always so gentle with your prey? Does it feel as good to them as it does to me?”

Gideon dragged his hand over his jaw. Women. They sure asked a lot of difficult questions.

Kay poked him in the side. “Well?”

“In the beginning, I took what I wanted any way I could get it. I didn’t worry about those I fed on, or what they were feeling. Later, as I got older, I guess you could say I refined my eating habits. I never thought of myself as being gentle, but …” He shrugged. “A lot of vampires get off on causing fear. I did, too, in the beginning. There’s a certain thrill in the hunt—you probably know what I mean—but eventually I learned it could be just as satisfying to seduce my prey as it was to scare the crap out of them.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t know if it feels the same to everyone, Kiya. All I know is it’s not the same for me. No one’s ever made me feel the way you do.”

His words filled her with a soft, radiant glow. A glow that quickly sparked to flame when he covered her mouth with his in a long, searing kiss that robbed her of every coherent thought save the burning desire to feel the weight of his body on hers.

He lifted his head, his dark eyes tinged with red, his smile revealing a hint of fang. “There’s no hurry, love,” he whispered. “We have until dawn.”

Her hands moved over him. “I can’t wait that long,” she replied breathlessly. “Gideon …”

“All right,” he said, positioning her body beneath his. “A quickie for now.”

“And later?” she asked, gasping with pleasure as their bodies became one.

He laughed softly. “I’ll surprise you.”

Chapter 40

After a late breakfast, Kay decided it was time to tackle a chore she had been putting off—packing up her mother’s things. She would have to go through her father’s things, too. Not only his personal effects, but pack business, as well. But that could wait for another day.

She paused outside her mother’s sitting room, her hand on the knob. Although her parents had shared a bedroom, her mother had insisted on turning the adjoining bedroom into her own private place. It was only fair, she’d once told Kay, since Russell claimed the den as his own. It had been years since Kay had been inside her mother’s room.

She took a deep breath, let it out in a long shuddering sigh, and opened the door.

The scent of her mother’s favorite perfume lingered in the air. Standing inside the doorway, Kay glanced around the room. A lovely Queen Anne desk and matching chair made of gleaming cherrywood stood before the window that overlooked the backyard. A small bookcase held her mother’s favorite books; a curio cabinet held a collection of Royal Doulton figurines. An old-fashioned record player and an iPod sat side by side on a small table beside an antique fainting couch. Another table held a number of framed photographs. All the pictures were of Kay and her mother, Kay and Mark, or the three of them together. There were no photos of her father.

Murmuring, “Oh, Mom,” Kay picked up a photo of herself and Mark. It had been taken in front of the fireplace one Christmas morning. Kay wore a red flannel nightgown and cradled a beautiful ballerina doll in her arms. Mark was strumming a guitar, a huge grin on his face. They had been so happy then, innocent, certain that life would only get better.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, Kay replaced the photograph. She quickly folded up most of her mother’s clothes, then left the room to get some boxes.

She wished Gideon was there. She needed to see him, to be near him, even if he was asleep. But, ever cautious, he had refused to spend the day in the house. She supposed she couldn’t blame him. Hopefully, when this trouble with the Green Mountain Pack was over, they could have some kind of normal life together, she thought, and then laughed ruefully. There was no way for an Alpha werewolf and a three-hundred-year-old vampire to ever have a normal life, but she would take whatever she could get.

It was near sundown when Kay called the pack together. Briefly, she explained her plan. As expected, not everyone was thrilled at the idea of drinking vampire blood, even if it was just a little. Deciding a picture was worth a thousand words—or, in this case, a demonstration—she asked Brett to shift.

Murmurs ran around the room as several of those gathered thought she was kidding and others scoffed, saying it was impossible for Brett or any of them who weren’t Alphas to shift when the moon wasn’t full. When it wasn’t even fully dark outside.

“Brett.” Kay nodded in his direction.

There were gasps of surprise and exclamations of disbelief as Brett shifted, then glanced around the room with a wolfish grin.

Kay looked at Greta. “Wow, I’ve never seen him shift that fast before!”

“I know. Do you think a little vampire blood would enable me to shift faster, too?”

“I don’t know.” Kay smiled as she overheard the comments of those closest to her. “But I think the pack’s convinced it works.”

Tyler and a werewolf named Hatten Red Shirt, scheduled to patrol the outside of the fence line that night, were the first pack members to drink Gideon’s blood. The rest of the men came next, then went out two by two to take their places on the outside of the fence. It was decided that the women, who were even less thrilled about drinking Gideon’s blood than the men had been, would wait until the following night.

Kay paced the floor. The house seemed too quiet. Brett and Gideon had gone out with the men. Greta was in the kitchen, making coffee. Isaac was in the living room, playing a video game with one of his friends.

Needing someone to talk to, Kay went into the kitchen. “I hate waiting! How long do you think it’ll be before Rinaldi’s men make their move?”

Greta shrugged one shoulder. “These things are usually done in the wee hours of the morning, you know.”

“I know.” Kay tapped her fingers on the tabletop. “I should be out there.”

“If they need you, I’m sure they’ll send for you.”

“That’s not the point. I’m the Alpha now. My father wouldn’t be hiding out in the house.”

“You’re not ‘hiding out,’” Greta said. “You’re keeping an eye on the home place in case they decide to try and sneak in here.”

“Right.”

“The other women and kids are gathered in the clubhouse watching a movie. Do you want to go over there?”

“No, I don’t feel like a lot of company.” She huffed a sigh. “I wish I knew what was going on out there.”

Gideon moved quietly through the night, his feet making no sound as he followed the fence line, checking on the wolves who were lurking in the shadows.

He had circled the perimeter four times when he picked up the scent of a trio of Green Mountain Pack members stealthily approaching from the north.

A thought took him toward that end of the property. Brett was patrolling that section of the fence on the inside; Tyler and Hatten were hidden in the brush on the outside of the fence.

Gideon dissolved into mist, hovering near the branches of a tree. It would have been easy for him to take out the three intruders, but it wasn’t his fight. The Shadow Pack hadn’t asked for his help, only his blood. Coldhearted as that sounded, he knew this was something Kay’s pack needed to handle on their own. If the fight turned against them, then, for Kay’s sake, he would interfere.

As it turned out, they didn’t need his help. As soon as the intruders approached the fence, Brett shifted and vaulted over the wire.

Taken by surprise, the three men reeled backward.

Brett killed the first one.

On silent feet, Hatten ghosted up from behind and took out the second one, while Tyler finished off the third.

It was over in less than a minute.

Gideon assumed his own form as Brett shifted.

Brett and the other two men grinned at each other.

“All too easy,” Brett said, wiping his bloody hands on the dead man’s shirt.

Hatten nodded. “Wish I could have seen the looks on their faces when you shifted!”