It Begins With a Rogue's Bite (3 page)

She looked once more outside while wiping her eyes when she saw it. A light from far up ahead on the road seemed to be getting bigger, brighter. Could it be? Yes, yes, someone came up in reverse on the one-way road.

Hope returned, and she swung her door open, jumping out of the car. She barely closed her door before running up onto the road again, heading for the approaching lights. Waving her hands over her head, she screamed, “Over here! I’m over here! Help!”

She knew her savior was too far away to hear her cries, but they empowered her as she progressed toward the car. Within a few moments, the vehicle came close enough for her to realize it was the black pickup truck. The son of bitch had come back. Thank the Lord for sons of bitches, she thought. At least this one had a heart to come back and help her.

When it was about forty feet away, the truck stopped, and the door opened. Why in God’s name did he stop so far away? Wiping the cumbersome rain from her eyes, she tried to focus on him. The man looked tall and slim. He closed his door and began to walk toward her. His face remained obscured in the darkness.

She shouted out, hoping he could hear her that far away. “Thank you for coming back. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t!”

The dark silhouette of a man continued to walk toward her in silence. He seemed to contort his neck sideways, and she swore she heard cracking sounds as if his bones began to break. Then he gurgled, and his voice turned into a deep growl.

What the hell? She couldn’t believe what she saw or heard. Before her eyes, the man’s body transformed from a tall, thin man, to some type of husky, deformed beast.

As her life suddenly played before her, panic struck her with a shocking blow, and her instincts screamed in her mind, “Run!”

It didn’t take her body long to react to the warning, and she spun on her high heels, darting into the woods to her right. She needed to escape him, or it. Whoever, or whatever, it was obviously didn’t come back to help her. No, he, or it, came back to do something bad, really bad.

Chapter Two

Helplessness sank into Thomas’s bones as the pouring rain outside drummed on the car’s roof and the radio played “Bad Company.” He and Shane had been on the road forever it seemed. So many hours had passed since they left on their search. What if by now the Rogue werewolf found the woman and it was too late? God help them.

Shane rubbed his eyes and yawned aloud, bringing Thomas out of his despair. “Maybe we should head back. Maybe this isn’t the right road.”

He shook his head. “We’ve turned back four times already. Let’s continue on for a bit longer and see for sure.”

“Yeah, okay.” He leaned forward and lowered the music.

“Why did you do that for?” Frowning, Thomas briefly glanced at him before turning his attention back on the road ahead.

“I wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

“The vision.”

Thomas sighed, recalling it. A chill of dread crawled up his back, and he involuntarily shivered. Hoping his brother didn’t see his movements, he asked, “What about it?”

“We never discussed it further.”

“So what do you want to discuss about it?”

“Tell me again what you saw, Thomas. I want to make sure our visions were identical. Maybe yours could have been slightly different from mine, and there’s a clue we are overlooking.”

“All right.” He paused to think, then began to recite his vision.

Once he was finished, Shane asked, “But did you see any details about the Rogue werewolf? Did you recognize him?”

“Nope. I couldn’t get a good look at him for some reason, though I was able to see her pretty good.” He knew a smile lightened his features, but he didn’t care. The beautiful woman was the only thing from his vision worth remembering. She was simply stunning.

“Me too.” Shane sighed, and Thomas swore it meant much more than a simple acknowledgement to his brother. “Why do you think we couldn’t see him but we could see her so well?” Shane continued.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged.

“Don’t you find it weird we haven’t had any real significant vision in years, and then all of a sudden, we have one now?”

“Why is it weird?”

Shane remained silent for a few moments and shook his head. “Never mind. I’m probably wrong.”

Thomas slapped his brother’s upper arm in irritation. “Don’t start that with me again, Shane. Spill it.” He hated it when Shane did this to him, piquing his curiosity and just shrugging it off like it wasn’t important.

“Okay, okay.” He rubbed his arm. “Ouch, that hurt.”

“Sorry.” Thomas briefly looked at him in guilt. Stress had obviously influenced his actions just now.

Taking a deep breath, Shane said, “I find it weird we had a detailed vision after almost a decade. I think we had it specifically for a reason.”

“A reason?”

“Yup, I think we had it because we were meant to save her.” He gulped.

“Why us? What makes us so important? We’ve never saved anyone.”

“Yes, we did. We saved the Council from the earthquake years back. Fate now decided we should save her.”

“Why should we be the ones?”

Shane huffed in frustration. “How the hell should I know? But I think Thorak knew that we, and only we, could go after her. That excuse about no Voyeur scouts being available to help us was pure bullshit. If he wanted, he could have called one back to help us out.”

Shane remained quiet for a few moments, but his mind obviously churned with ideas because Thomas heard him tapping his fingers on the passenger side window. He only did something like that when he did heavy thinking.

“Maybe,” Shane blurted, then paused. “What if Thorak saw it, too? What if he knew about our vision and wants only us to save her because it’s our destiny? You know how powerful his visionary powers are. He is the most powerful Voyeur in the society.”

“That makes sense he could have seen it, too.”

Shane stared out the side window and scratched his head before turning to look at him again. “But why would we be destined to save her? Is she an important human who is going to change our world? Change the human world?”

“Damn if I know. All I know is she’s beautiful,” Thomas admitted his thoughts aloud.

Shane nodded. “Yeah, she’s beautiful.”

“Too bad she’s human.”

“Why do you say that?” Shane asked.

“If she were an immortal…” He trailed off as he imagined being up close to her, touching that soft alabaster skin of hers, gazing into her deep blue eyes. Her voluptuous body from his vision tempted him, and the crotch of his pants tightened around him as his cock expanded along with his imagination.

Shane sat up straight, frowning. “Yeah, if she were a werewolf, then things could get complicated. We haven’t exactly had good luck with the lycanthrope opposite sex. They have torn out our hearts, eaten them, and then dumped us in the past.”

“No, that happened to you, bro. Not me. But yeah, I haven’t had much luck in the love department either.” Thomas nudged him. “What, our unsuccessful love lives got you down, Shane? Don’t tell me you’ve sworn off of women, have you?”

“No, I have needs, big sexual needs as every other male werewolf has,” Shane confessed.

 
“You wouldn’t want risking transforming into the uncontrollable beast on the next full moon.” Thomas smiled.

By mating on a full moon werewolves could easily resist the primal need of transformation and the hunger to feast on flesh that came with it. The uncontrollable beast that each werewolf kept hidden deep within them was an eternal, damning curse they all had to bear in life.

Shane continued. “Exactly. But that doesn’t mean I’m looking to fall in love again. And definitely not with a human. That’s just like adding fuel to the fire. All you get is burned, Thomas. Trust me.” Shane shook his head.

“Not always. Just because you got burned in the past doesn’t mean it’s always the case.” Thomas’s hopeful mind wandered. “But her being human complicates things. If she was transformed…”

His own wishful thinking puzzled Thomas. Where did these forbidden thoughts come from? They certainly didn’t slip by his twin.

“Whoa, Thomas. What stupid ideas are coming up in your head? Voyeur werewolves protect humans, remember. We don’t turn humans. No matter how freakin’ drop-dead gorgeous the damsel in distress is.”

Thomas shrugged off the taboo idea. “I was just thinking hypothetically.”

“Good. Good. Glad to hear it. Boy, you worried me there for a second.” Shane sighed obviously in relief.

Thomas stared out at the road ahead. The rain hadn’t let up in hours. Visibility was poor. They could barely make out what was ten feet ahead of them. How the hell could they find her before the Rogue did? Odds couldn’t have been stacked higher against them. Yet, the odds suddenly didn’t discourage Thomas like they had moments earlier.

On the contrary, they spurred him on. No matter how bleak or dire their situation, he needed to get to the woman of his vision before anything happened to her. Beauty such as hers could not die. Never.

He’d do everything in his power to see she lived, even if it meant that he’d have to transform her to do it. Damn the Voyeurs’ rules.

Something deep in his psyche, and if he looked even closer he’d say something deep in his soul, urged him on. He’d move mountains to save her if he had to. Why in heaven’s name did he want to? He didn’t know. Maybe it had to do with destiny as Shane had theorized before. Maybe destiny pulled the strings. It made sense why he was so obsessed with finding her.

Speeding up, he squinted, focusing on the road. She was somewhere up ahead. He could sense her.

Chapter Three

Something told Shane that soon they’d be treading in deep waters, and God help them, he knew Thomas would sink fast.

The loud warning he gave his brother moments earlier still rang in his ears now. A human female was nothing but trouble. Actually, any female fit that description. He’d learned that lesson the hard way a few years ago.

Sure, Thomas had had his share of heartache, but Shane was the one who experienced it in a more severe degree. At one time, he had been deeply and madly in love and had actually gotten married. He’d been married for three years when Marian, his wife, got pregnant and told him about the baby.

He couldn’t have been happier to hear the news until she told him that the baby wasn’t his and that she and the baby’s father had been secretly seeing each other for over a year. They had fallen in love, and now, getting pregnant was a sign that they were meant to be together and that she didn’t love Shane anymore.

He tried to reason with her through blinding tears, it was the first and only time he ever cried, that she shouldn’t throw their marriage away. He still loved her and could make her fall in love with him again, but she didn’t listen. Her suitcases had been waiting at the door for her speedy departure. She didn’t even give him a second glance before stepping through those doors, never to be seen again.

His broken heart never healed. Yes, he went on with his life, but he formed a shield high enough to protect his heart and soul from getting broken once again. He had sex with many passing females. After all, he was a werewolf whose sexual urges became primal whenever the full moon came upon him, but he never opened up his heart. No, he’d keep it shielded forever from love if he could.

But today when he saw
her
in his vision, something stirred in him. A sexual call, of course, though it was laced with something that rattled him. His comfort zone shifted through that vision, and he didn’t like it one bit.