Embracing the Wolf (3 page)

She ached to serve this
god.

She longed to be served by
him.

Her whole body sung in
response when he claimed her mouth again, thrusting his tongue
between her lips in a show of unrestrained dominance. She cried out
for more, lost in the waves of pleasure rocking through her.
Thoughts of quiet hours spent touching and caressing were torn from
her by the feel of his palm moulded around her breast and his hard
length against her hip. She jacked off the bed again and rubbed his
erection with her thigh, urging him into taking her.

Amon thumbed her pert
nipple before rolling it between his fingers, sending sparks
shooting out from its centre that stole her breath along with his
kiss and sent her mind spinning. He swallowed her moans and thrust
against her hip.

Dazed with lust and the
heat of desire, she wriggled beneath him, desperate to get him
between her legs where he belonged. The burning inside her was too
much. She begged him to quench it.

He growled into her mouth
and moved between her legs, parting them roughly with his knees.
His hand left her breast and in one gasping thrust, he was inside
her. Eyes wide, she stared up at him as he held her captive,
filling her over and over with his hard length.

It was bliss.

Kat relaxed beneath him,
compliant under his commanding roughness. She looked up at him
through hooded eyes. His face mirrored her own, a picture of
ecstasy and hunger. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. This
was how it should be. She was made to love him. He was hers
alone.

Amon’s hand tightened
around her wrists as he rocked against her, his eyes narrowing with
a frown of concentration. The spark of pain his grip sent through
her settled in her chest. She moaned and pressed her body into his,
until they were one flesh, moving together in a mindless frenzy and
rush to come undone.

Their hot, sweat-dampened
skin stuck to each other, hindering their movements but not slowing
either of them. She clamped her muscles around his shaft, quivering
on the brink and desperate to fall into ecstasy with
him.

Her eyes locked with his
and widened. Their now-golden depths betrayed the start of his
change into a werewolf and provoked a powerful response.

Something loomed inside
her, dark and menacing. Panic replaced desire. Her whole body
stiffened as her beast rose to meet his, pushing her to change. She
thrashed against him, desperate to escape him and her own wolf
side. He growled. She froze, mesmerised by the sight of his
glistening white canines. His mouth opened in a howl. Her own howl
surged through her. Her teeth grew. Her body tensed around
his.

Her beast took
control.

Kat shot up in bed,
trembling and breathing so fast that her lungs burned. She gathered
the blanket to her body and brought her knees up to her chest,
hugging herself. Cool air chilled the sweat on her back. Shivering,
she stared into the darkness of her bedroom.

The beast stirred inside
her. She pressed her hand to her chest and took deep breaths to
calm it. It was only a dream. There was no need for it to start
thinking that she was going to change and take it for a
walk.

A few minutes later, it
had quietened again and she no longer felt it. She slipped from the
bed, knowing that she couldn’t sleep now, not with the dream
thundering around her skull.

Flicking the bedside lamp
on, she dragged her fingers through her sweat-slicked red hair and
told herself to get a grip. Her hands shook when she held them out
in front of her. The green numbers on her alarm clock flashed eight
o’clock in the evening.

Kat padded across her
bedroom to the bathroom and went straight for the shower. She
stripped off, turned the shower on and stepped into the bathtub.
Standing there, she let the cold water pound down on her bare
body.

The beast was restless.
She couldn’t shift the images from the dream and they were stirring
the wolf within her. Her body hummed and tingled with the memory of
Amon’s touch. The water became cold fingers caressing her
skin.

She ducked her head under
the jet to clear it and then shut the shower off. Grabbing a
peach-coloured towel from the rack, she dried herself and closed
her mind to thoughts of Amon. Her movements as she went through her
nightly routine were mechanical.

She brushed her teeth,
tied her red shoulder length hair back into a ponytail, and applied
her perfume. Her underwear came next, followed by her black combat
trousers and black vest top. She grabbed her little figure-hugging
black shirt and paused at the mirror.

Her gaze fell to her right
upper arm.

Her fingers traced the
intricate thin black band tattooed around it. It matched Amon’s
perfectly.

She remembered the night
that they’d had them done. He’d been so sweet, holding her hand and
whispering soothing words whenever she had flinched away from the
needle. Amon had always hated to see her hurting.

Pushing those thoughts
away, she slung the shirt on and buttoned it, hiding the tattoo
from view. She went to the chair in the corner of her bedroom and
removed her holster from the back of it. In one fluid move, she had
her arms through it. The black leather sat snug across her back,
the guns hanging at her sides. They still felt heavy tonight. She
ignored them. Her tiredness was reason why the proximity of the
silver bullets affected her. It had nothing to do with
Amon.

If she was weak, just
being near silver made her sick.

When her black army boots
were on and tied, and she had her jacket, she checked herself one
more time in the mirror. Her dark eyes looked cold in her
reflection. An image of Amon appeared behind her. He placed his
hands on her shoulders and smiled. She shook him away along with
the overwhelming need she felt for him. She didn’t need him. She
needed to kill something.

Turning away from her
reflection, she put her jacket on and grabbed her phone. It rang
the moment she touched it.

She flipped it
open.

“
Kat
speaking.”

“
Kat, there’s
been another attack.” It was Paul, her partner at the
unit.

She left the apartment and
started down the stairs.

“
Where?” She
didn’t have any werewolves on her list at the moment. Maybe whoever
had done this wasn’t on the list yet. A chill ran through her when
she remembered Amon pacing the cage. He didn’t trust himself. She
hoped it wasn’t him. She needed more time.

“
The cemetery
again.”

Kat frowned. It was
unusual for a turned werewolf to hunt on another’s territory when
they had only died the night before. Normally it took weeks for one
to move in and take over.

She reminded herself that
her kill last night hadn’t been a rogue werewolf. Amon’s man would
have been there for her, not because he had any claim to the area.
The cemetery must be this new werewolf’s territory. It must have
remained hidden until now. Or perhaps it had only recently turned
dangerous and had been drawn to that area because of a werewolf
death there. A shiver danced down her spine.

“
I’ll check it
out,” she said and then added, “alone.”

“
Understood.”
Something in Paul’s voice said that he didn’t understand but he was
willing to let her off without a questioning tonight.

She paused, struggling to
think of what to say, and then closed the phone. It didn’t feel
right to lie to Paul. She had known him since she had joined the
Werewolf Control Forces and they had been partners for almost seven
years. He was funny and smart, and a good hunter.

Ever since she had
realised what she held inside, she had been distancing herself from
him. Once they had been good friends. Now they were practically
strangers. She wished it were different, but she couldn’t risk him
discovering that she had a werewolf inside her. She would be out of
a job if he did. The control unit didn’t employ anyone who could
potentially make it onto the list.

Kat walked through the
building doors and turned in the direction of the cemetery. A
flicker of fear settled in her stomach. What would she do if the
attacker was Amon? Leyton had asked her to make a decision. Would
she kill Amon or save him?

She wasn’t strong enough
to do either.

Her hand went to her right
gun.

The cemetery loomed ahead
of her. Flashing blue and red lights told her that the clean up
team were already at the scene. She nodded to them as she
approached and looked into the back of the ambulance. By the looks
of things, the victim was alive. The paramedics blocked her view of
their patient so she couldn’t see how bad it was. She turned away.
She didn’t need to see. She had witnessed firsthand how vicious a
rogue werewolf could be.

The ambulance driver
closed the back doors and then the vehicle pulled away. As the
screaming sirens drifted into the distance, she drew slow deep
breaths to prepare herself. The victim would survive this time. No
doubt they would wake up not remembering a thing just as all the
others did. The unit ran the hospitals and the drug they
administered was very effective at erasing recent memories. It was
the only way to stop the knowledge of werewolves
spreading.

Sometimes she wished she
had never found out about them. Other times she was glad that she
had. She was glad that she had shared a short time with
Amon.

“
Kat!”

She turned, her hand
tightening around her gun. Paul jogged over to her, a broad smile
on his face. He was wearing similar black fatigues to her. A pair
of black nine millimetres swung at his waist as he ran. His short
dark curly hair was damp, glistening under the strong moonlight. It
had been a while since she had seen him and now wasn’t exactly the
best time. She wanted to be alone. She needed to make sure that the
werewolf responsible for tonight’s attack wasn’t Amon. If Paul came
with her, he would kill Amon on sight. Her whole body throbbed with
pain at that thought.

“
Paul,” she
said with a breezy smile, covering her feelings. “What are you
doing here?”

“
I thought I’d
come see what was going down.” He slowed to a walk and shrugged.
“Things are quiet in the north sector and this is the only werewolf
on the list.”

There was a hint of
something in his near-black eyes. His smile widened but the tight
scar that ran down the left side of his face and cut across his
lips made it look like a grimace.

“
How’ve you
been?” he said and reached out to her. His question caught her off
guard but she evaded his hand. She wrapped her arms around
herself.

“
Good.” Her
throat felt tight. What was she supposed to say? ‘The man that I
still love might have hurt that person and now I’m petrified of
what I might do if I see him’?

Could she really kill
Amon? The beast inside her snarled at the mere
suggestion.

“
We’re still
partners, Kat,” Paul said with a hint of a frown now. His eyes
looked darker. His thumb caressed the butt of his left pistol and
toyed with the thin leather strap that held it in the
holster.

Her heart hammered against
her chest.

Silver.

Her guns felt
heavy.

Her stomach squirmed and
flipped over.

She needed to get
away.

“
I know,” she
said, dragging her gaze away from his guns and managing to meet his
eyes. “I just need to be alone tonight. Maybe next time we can hunt
together. You understand, right?”

Paul’s eyes narrowed. He
was silent for a few seconds, dark emotion playing across his
features. There was a lot of anger in there. She was trying his
patience now.

“
I’ll hold you
to that,” he said at last, his smile back.

He tugged his black jacket
around him, jammed his hands into his pockets, turned on his heel
and walked away.

She remained rooted to the
spot, watching him go. Her heart began to slow with each step he
took and when he had disappeared from view, it was back to
normal.

Kat took one last look
around to make sure that she was alone and then entered the
cemetery.

It was the largest one she
had ever had to do a sweep of. She worked methodically, starting at
the outskirts and slowly working inwards, her focus intent on her
surroundings so she didn’t miss a thing. She didn’t see the graves
that she passed—a mixture of moonlight-tinted solemn statues,
crosses, plain headstones, and low stone sarcophaguses.

An hour later, Kat found
herself back at the spot where she had killed the werewolf the
night before. No sign of the werewolf responsible for tonight’s
attack.

Kat stared at the grass
where the dead body had been last night. The bright moon made it
easy to see that the blood was gone. It must have rained during the
day. The air smelt fresh and cool. Winter was beginning in earnest
and the night held a hint of snow to come. It had been a while
since she had seen snow. The last time was when she had been with
Amon back at his pack’s home.