Embracing the Wolf (5 page)

Her heart clenched when
his expression changed to show a trace of hurt, his dark eyes
shining with sorrow.

“
I love you,
Kat.”

Damn him and those four
words. She gritted her teeth and tried to shake away the impact
they had on her. The warm hazy feel lingered in the depths of her
heart and soul.

He reached out to her
again.

“
I need you now
more than ever,” he whispered with a pained look. “I need you more
than they do. I can’t live without you anymore, and I know you feel
the same. I know you love me.”

She struggled to form a
denial and failed. Staring at him, she trembled from head to toe,
still dizzy from his kisses and his declaration of love.

There was a flicker of
anger across his face and then it changed to anguish. He backed
away a step, his dark eyebrows furrowing. His eyes brightened into
pure gold.

He pressed a hand to his
chest, fingertips digging in as though he was trying to grab
something. A feral growl escaped him and he sneered with it,
curling his lip to reveal extending canines. Instinct screamed at
her to run. She backed off and straight into the tomb behind her.
Her eyes locked with his and she couldn’t look away. Pain and fear
mixed with hunger and violence in them. With an anguished cry, he
screwed his eyes shut and clawed at the sides of his
head.

Her heart missed a beat
when she realised that he was fighting the change. Her eyes darted
about, checking their surroundings. If he changed out here, she
would have no choice but to kill him. They were too close to the
busy main streets of the city. She couldn’t let him run
free.

Leyton’s words came back
to her.

Would she kill
him?

Or would she save
him?

The gun felt heavy in her
hand. She stared at Amon, unable to look away while he struggled
against his beast, fighting for control. She didn’t know what to
do. She couldn’t decide.

“
Kat,” he
whispered through clenched teeth. The sound of her name spoken with
such desperation wrenched at her heart. She took a step towards
him, wanting to comfort him, and then stopped herself.

She couldn’t find her
voice to tell him that she was with him. Fear stole it along with
her ability to breathe normally. Her rough breaths filled her ears,
mingling with his low growls and whimpers of pain.

“
Kat,” he
muttered again and gradually straightened. The colour came back to
his face and his hands fell to his side.

“
Amon?” she
whispered and ventured another step in his direction.

He turned away and hung
his head forwards.

“
It will happen
to you too.” He sounded so resigned to his fate that she reached
out to him with her free hand, lowering the gun to her side. “In a
few years, you’ll no longer be able to control
yourself.”

He glanced over his
shoulder at her, deep brown eyes full of hurt that cut her to the
core.

“
It isn’t just
my life on the line, Kat.”

The breeze shifted and he
was gone. She wanted to go after him but couldn’t. She had never
mastered the speed thing. It was something that required her to
accept her beast and use the strength that it gave her.

She stared into the
darkness.

He could have drawn her
beast out. She had given in to him completely and long enough for
him to ensure that she surrendered to her beast. Why hadn’t he? She
knew she would have. If he had changed then she would have changed
right along with him. There was no way that she could have held it
back. Her hunger and need for him would have made her
change.

They could have
mated.

Both of them would have
been safe.

His words rung in her
ears. The image of him so concerned branded itself on her
mind.

He was right.

It wasn’t just his life on
the line.

If he turned, she would
follow him into the darkness.

****

Chapter
3

Amon paced the cage,
mulling over tonight’s events. She hadn’t been surprised to hear
that Leyton had told him. It had been a surprise for him to come
out of his cage only to smell a female. A familiar female. When
Leyton had told him that Kat had been there and she had seen him,
his strength had left him. He had collapsed to his knees, singing
mercy to the gods.

Then Leyton had said that
she was gone and that he feared she would decide to kill
him.

Amon’s heart had sunk and
ached, but not because of the thought of death. If he couldn’t have
Kat, if she had turned her back on him forever and no longer loved
him, he would surrender the fight. He would willingly embrace the
violence in his soul and go into the darkness to face death. It was
preferable to the thought of being alone.

But the thought of Kat
being alone pained him and pulled him back from the brink. She was
his lifeblood, his air, and his everything. Every instinct he had
screamed to protect her. He would fight legions of werewolf hunters
to keep her safe. Not even the insanity of turning would stop his
need to defend Kat. He loved her more than his own life.

He loved her down to the
marrow of his bones and the core of his soul. The darkest night and
most violent storm wouldn’t change that. He would weather the
tempest if only to give her a chance at survival. Kat was his mate.
For her he would do anything. He would bare his chest for her
bullets if she chose to kill him. He would die for her.

Amon paced back across the
cage, his guts twisting with the thought of death. If he died, if
she killed him, who would save her?

In a handful of years, she
would follow him into death’s welcoming embrace. Regardless of the
fact that she refused to change, the need to mate would arise in
her. She could deny the change but she couldn’t deny her nature. If
he died, who would protect her and save her from this terrible fate
of their species? Ice-cold needles stabbed his heart at the thought
of her being alone and hunted. He rubbed the spot over his heart on
his chest to soothe the pain.

The violent darkness would
consume Kat if she killed him.

Unless she found a
mate.

That idea tore him apart
inside. His fingers tensed and curled into tight fists at the
thought of another male touching her, touching what was
his.

Running his hands over his
hair, Amon held it back, clasping both sides of his head. He stared
at the floor and his bare feet, and crossed back to the other side
of the cage, his pacing relentless. There had to be a way to make
her see that without her mate she would turn too. He had to make
her realise that she needed him and him alone. He wouldn’t let
another have her.

Kat was his heart, his
reason for living. Kat was his.

Amon brought his hands
down and rubbed his jaw. He paused and closed his eyes as he
inhaled deeply. His skin still smelt of her and her warm sweet
taste lingered in his mouth. The unique scent of her brought back
so many memories of happier times when things had been simple and
wonderful. His honesty had complicated things more than he had
imagined it would.

He shouldn’t have waited
so long to tell her, not when he had known from their first meeting
that werewolf blood ran in her veins. The rich scent had been all
over her.

He had intended to tell
her shortly after they had met but she had changed the game. She
had kissed him. Things had snowballed after that, and he had done
everything wrong.

It was his fault that Kat
could accept him as a werewolf but not herself.

In all their times
together, those two years of bliss, he had never changed in front
of her. She had only ever seen him in his human form. When she had
been with him, he had been careful to protect her from his true
nature and his pack.

Amon sighed and dragged
his fingers over his hair.

If he hadn’t coddled her
so much, she might have been more comfortable with herself. He had
protected her from himself but he couldn’t protect her from
herself. He couldn’t hide her true nature from her.

But all he had wanted was
time with her. If he had realised the damage he was doing, he
wouldn’t have protected her so much. He would have let her see him
in his true form and would have let her interact with his pack. She
was so precious though. The thought of exposing her to such things
had made fire boil the blood in his veins. He wanted to protect
her. That was all he had ever wanted. Nothing had
changed.

Fear had made him wait.
Fear that she would leave if she knew. Fear that she would hate
him. All fear that was now justified. He had been selfish and had
paid the price.

When she had grown close
to maturing, he had told her in the gentlest way possible. He had
done it so she could find her strength and embrace her true nature,
and they could be together.

He hadn’t expected her to
run.

Then again, he hadn’t
expected her to do everything that she had done tonight. He had
been sure that she would shoot him. He had been prepared for the
pain of silver tearing through his flesh. The instant her guard had
dropped and her eyes had changed to hold a flicker of an invite, he
had felt compelled to have her. His attraction to her had only
grown stronger over their years apart. She had only become more
beautiful. He needed her more now than ever. Craved her body and
mouth against his. Hungered to be inside her.

His body responded, hard
in an instant, pushing against the fly of his jeans.

“
Get a grip,”
he muttered under his breath and sat down, wincing as tight black
denim bit into his erection.

He shifted so he was more
comfortable and leaned back into the bars of the cage, the back of
his head hitting them hard. He stretched one leg out in front of
him and brought his other up, resting his elbow on his knee and
letting his hand dangle limply. He stared blankly ahead. There had
to be way to convince her to return to him and accept who she was.
He had sensed the conflict inside her tonight. She was torn between
acceptance and rejection, between defiance and surrender. He needed
her to surrender to him.

He had to save her from
the madness that he had endured these past four years.

He couldn’t let her suffer
as he had.

Lying down, he curled up
on his side. The cold bars of the bottom of his cage pressed into
him, increasing his hunger for the warm softness of Kat’s body. He
closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. Inside, he growled and ached.
Something gnawed at his soul. It was close. He was running out of
time to save her.

***

Amon rolled his eyes
closed, his breath leaving him on a sigh. He shoved his hands
underneath the pillow below his head and clutched at it. Every
muscle in his body tensed as he fought to restrain himself. Kat’s
soft breath tickled his stomach between each wet open-mouthed kiss
that marked her path across his flesh.

Her exploration of his
body was a slow steady torture, stirring need deep within him.
Fingernails grazed his stomach and he sucked it in, evading her.
She bit just above his hip, light and teasing, wrenching a growl
from his throat.

He brought his elbows
together above his head, forcing the soft pillow against his ears.
It muffled the sound of her movement. The only thing he could hear
was his own ragged breathing as he struggled to keep
control.

Kat’s hands snaked over
his chest, grazing his nipples, caressing his skin into flames.
Amon swallowed hard and focussed wholly on her, following the feel
of her moving ever downwards.

The fact that he couldn’t
see or hear her only heightened how good everything felt. Every
touch was a searing caress. Every kiss branded his flesh as hers.
Every warm breath on his skin drove him out of his mind.

His breathing quickened
when Kat reached his navel and paused there a moment. He was
tempted to open his eyes to see what she was doing, but forced
himself to keep them closed. She would move soon enough. She would
put him out of his misery.

She did.

She pressed a wet kiss to
the spot below his navel and then made a beeline for his jeans. Her
fingers were swift and confident as she unbuckled his belt and then
ripped his jeans open, popping every button in an instant. He
groaned and his hips bucked up, his aching erection hungry for her
attention.

He gasped and tensed when
she lightly ran her fingers along his hard length and then he
slowly melted into the bed. She brushed the sensitive head with her
hair, leaning over him, the light touch maddening him. Her breasts
grazed his jeans-clad thigh and he longed to be naked with her, to
feel her breasts against his chest. He longed to be inside
her.

The temptation to release
the pillow and grab her instead was overwhelming. He couldn’t move
though. It wasn’t how the dream went. He had been in control last
time. Tonight, she was in command.