Saving a Wolf: Moonbound Series, Book Six (3 page)

“But I do,” she whispered. “You feel like you have to be a part of me, like our bodies belong together. You want to fuck me right here, in the open air, and keep fucking me until neither of us can walk straight.”

Her voice was so low, so seductive, and he was in such a haze of rushing blood and thoughts, he couldn’t argue with her.

That’s exactly what I want
.

Luther shook his head, pushing her back onto the couch and scooting away. “For all I know, you’ve got spy lipstick on, with drugs in it, and I’m going to pass out in three seconds so you can take what you want from the boat.”

Maggie laughed and crawled toward him. “I’m not a spy.”

He held a hand out to stop her and made sure to grab her shoulder. “I don’t believe you.”

She took his hand and laced her fingers through his, pulling him to his feet. “Then come with me, and I’ll tell you everything.”

Luther thought about pulling back, about resisting. But after what he’d seen on the monitors at the boat house, and the strange happenings of the last few weeks, he couldn’t afford to take any chances that she might be right.

And if it was a trap, it would be the most beautiful trap he could imagine.

T
hey entered the apartment building
, and Maggie led Luther up the stairs to the door of the team’s flat. Multiple heartbeats sounded from inside. Niko hadn’t answered her text, but there was no turning back now. She turned the key and pushed open the door.

Andrea and Hannah glanced up and their eyes widened, flashing bright yellow for a brief second.

“Shit, Mag!” Niko growled from the hall opening. “You could’ve texted or something.”

“I did, Niko,” she shot back. “Where’s your damn phone?”

“What the fuck?” Luther slammed the door behind him.

Maggie caught the glint of metal flash beside her and she whirled. Luther had pulled a Glock and was pointing it straight at Andrea and Hannah.

Niko snarled, the sound much more animalistic than Maggie wanted to hear at the moment.

“Don’t you dare, Niko.” She waved off the irate mobster and stepped directly in front of Luther’s raised gun. The last thing she needed was Niko to shift again and all hell to break loose. “Are you going to shoot me?” Maggie asked, attempting to command Luther’s attention. Her eyes narrowed and she breathed deliberately through the thick waves of magick churning between them.

Dammit.
If this is what Rain and Nora had experienced, she didn’t know how they’d managed to ever
stop
fucking each other.

He stared through her for several moments, studying the other two women. Then his focus shifted and he met her gaze head on. Heat seared through her body and liquid pooled in her core, dampening her panties. Her legs trembled, but she didn’t move and neither did anyone else.

Luther lowered his gun and then holstered it beneath his left arm. He licked his lips and then slowly shook his head. “No.”

“Good.” Maggie tried to make the tension flow out of her body. “Then I can introduce you to the team.”

“There’s something wrong with those two.” He nodded toward Hannah and Andrea.

“Nothing that isn’t normal for us. Relax, I told you I’d tell you everything.”

“Wait.” His forehead wrinkled and he took a step forward.

Maggie paralleled his movements, keeping her small frame between him and the rest of the team.

“You work for the hotel. Both of you have been to the docks…” He peered down at her and cocked his head. “Were you the last shot at me?”

Maggie grinned. “We almost sent Niko, just to test the waters.”

“Snarly over there?”

She followed his gaze. Niko had relaxed his stance and was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his white wife-beater.

“Apparently, all we needed to perk your interest was a tiny tattooed firecracker that doesn’t take no for an answer.” Niko chuckled, flashing Maggie a quick smirk.

“Bite me,” Maggie bit out.

“I’m pretty sure that responsibility is going to fall on Luther.”

She hissed, but the asshole just laughed again.

Donavan appeared beside Niko, along with Hannah. “Everything okay out here?” Donovan’s Kentucky twang calmed Maggie’s frayed nerves.

“How many people do you have packed into this tin can of an apartment?” Luther sighed and Maggie felt him relax just slightly.

“We’re fine. Would you guys all head downstairs for a bit? Luther and I need to discuss the
details
of our situation?” Maggie tipped her head toward the door.

Each of the team members nodded, and filed across the room.

Luther moved aside and they exited the apartment.

Niko paused beside Maggie and gave Luther a hard stare. “If you hurt her, I’ll rip your tongue out through your throat with my teeth.”

“Niko,” Maggie hissed.

The blond smiled and shrugged. “Just letting him know how it’ll be.”

She shoved him toward the door and he closed it on his way out. A sigh slipped from her chest.
Now the hard part really starts.

“Come sit. I need to show you what we have.” She crossed the room and scooped up her tablet before taking a seat at the small dinette table.

Luther still hadn’t moved or spoken since everyone had left.

Maggie patted the spot next to her at the table. “I promise not to bite unless you ask me too.”
Damn it. Why did I let that slip out?
She tapped the screen and entered the back door she’d programmed into Adrian’s penthouse security feed. Video feeds popped up from all around the island. She spun the tablet and caught his interest. “Have you seen these?”

He stalked toward the table and sank slowly into the chair beside her. Then took the tablet from her hands.

Their fingers grazed ever so slightly and her breath was all but vacuumed out of her lungs. Her skin warmed and magick tingled up and down her arm. She wanted to touch him again. And keep touching him. Over and over and over.

“How do you have this?”

His question shook her imagination out of the raunchy gutter it’d crawled into, and she blinked. “When we broke into Adrian’s security room in the penthouse, I left myself a back door so I could find the hidden feeds.”

He tapped one of the small camera feeds and made it larger on the tablet. “What is this? I’ve never seen this before.”

“It’s somewhere on the island. That’s all we know. The source of all these feeds is somewhere out on that island.”

“I saw something today…a girl in a white dress…”

“That’s the uniform that his female servants wear.”

“Female servants?”

“Yes. But that’s hardly the worst of it.” Maggie took the tablet from his hands and typed in the time code for the horrible scene she’d seen that morning. When she’d shown it to the team, no one had been able to speak for several hours.

She tapped to make the feed start playing and handed it back to him. Thank the gods there was no sound on the cameras or she’d probably need to vomit.

“This is going to be very hard to watch.” Maggie slipped out of her chair and walked across the kitchen. She didn’t want to see it again. Didn’t need to. The pain that poor woman had experienced as a human and a wolf was etched into her mind’s eye for all eternity.

If she couldn’t convince him with words, this was her only chance. He had to
see
the atrocities with his own eyes. Feel their pain in his soul. The good, caring, protective soul she knew he had. He’d just buried it.

“Fuck.” Luther laid the tablet on the table and looked up at Maggie. “I can’t believe this has been happening under my nose…” His eyes traveled back to the screen again. “Fucking hell, what are they going to do with that cattle prod?”

“You need to watch. You won’t understand why it’s so imperative that we stop him unless you keep watching.” Maggie gritted her teeth and breathed deeply through her nose.
Please don’t run. Please don’t run.
The phrase ran over and over through her mind.

“What the fucking shit? She changed and then…” He stood abruptly, knocking his chair backward. “What the hell.”

“They electrocuted her until her wolf took over. We’re stronger in wolf form. Her instincts wanted her to fight back.” She unbuttoned her shirt and let it drop to the floor. She toed off her shoes and then pulled off her socks.

Luther stared. “We?” His eyes were filled with confusion and disbelief. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Her shorts were next. And panties. Then her bra.

His eyes devoured her naked body. As angry and confused as he was, the attraction he felt for her couldn’t be dismissed.

The pull between them was stronger than ever.

Maggie closed her eyes and embraced the warmth of the magick that always surrounded her. Her skin tingled and she sank to the floor as she called her wolf spirit forward.

L
uther couldn’t breathe
. The animal practically materialized in front of him, out of Maggie’s body. It was the most sensual thing he had ever seen, the way she peeled off her clothing, and then became this beautiful wolf.

There were any number of drugs that could’ve produced this hallucination. He wasn’t sure how Maggie fed them to him, but it was pure genius. She should work for the CIA.

He could get her an in.

With a shake of his head, he stepped back. “Shit, this is good stuff, whatever I’m on right now. Because I swear, everyone is turning into fucking wolves.”

The air shimmered again and Maggie stood in front of him, completely naked, her tight body humming with energy. He had a much better vantage on her tattoos, without clothes to hinder him. The dark greens and blues and purples wound their way up her arms and fanned out onto her shoulders. The creamy white skin stood out against the thick, rich colors—the flowers, the vines. He couldn’t name any of them, but they gave her a spritely air.

Her nipples pointed at him, begging for his touch, but Luther steeled himself. If this was all a hallucination, he didn’t want to let himself go there.

“You’re not
on
anything,” she said. “Except maybe magick, but no drugs.”

“Of course, you’re going to say that.” He took another step back. “You’re fucking around with me.”

“I am absolutely not doing that.”

“Then I’m just supposed to believe that you can…that you’re some kind of, what, werewolf?” He shook his head. “No.”

“Not exactly like werewolves that you would’ve heard of. We’re not a hybrid race. We don’t become werewolves. We’ve got wolf spirits in us that take wolf form. It’s the result of some very powerful spells that were cast two thousand years ago.”

She kept nodding at him, like it was the most sane thing she’d ever heard of. Standing naked in a sparse little living room, turning back and forth from wolf to human.

This was fucking nuts.

“You saw it on the screen.” She pointed to the tablet. “I was just proving it to you.”

He didn’t want to look back at the screen. The girl, the torture. And worst of all, he recognized the two men in the frame. Would he have hallucinated Drake and the rich Italian who’d come to visit Adrian last week?

At least it wasn’t some Hollywood thing with green screens. No way they would’ve gotten Drake and Mr. Italy to pose for something like that. But the way Maggie had just…changed…
no way
that was real.

Maggie crossed her arms under her perky tits and settled her weight onto one foot. “I promise you, you’re not on drugs.”

“I don’t believe you.”

She sighed and shimmered into the wolf again. This time, she walked up to him and nuzzled at his hand. He could feel the moist pad of her nose on his palm, then the coarse, thick fur between his fingers. He grabbed the animal with both hands and knelt on the ground.

Luther gazed into the creature’s eyes, holding the fur of its neck in each hand, flexing his fingers through it, then stopping. It sure as hell felt real.

But why would a wolf be this close to him and not bite his face off?

Instead, the wolf’s tongue darted out and licked his cheek. It was wet and warm and…so real.

He sat on the ground, dumbfounded. No way this was real.

In another flash of air, his hands were around Maggie’s shoulders. His tanned, roughened hands were a stark contrast to the colorful tattoos and white creamy skin. Her eyes were the same dark, solid brown. She stared at him while he tried to normalize his breathing.

“Do I need to shift again?” Her eyes flickered back and forth, moving between his, a rounded concern etched there.

“No.” He relaxed his hands and they dropped to the floor. Maggie was practically straddling him, and he could smell a sharp, musky scent that could only have been her arousal.

A glance down, and he could see her natural bush hovering just over his thighs. She was buck-ass naked, and he was too horny for his own good. The silence seemed to swirl with something that made him hard and urged him forward, toward Maggie.

But he couldn’t. He refused to think about sex at a time like this.

Of course, his dick was another story, and if she was looking in his lap the way he’d just looked at hers, she would see the outline of his erection against his shorts. He picked her up and set her on the floor.

“Then what do you need?” she asked, sitting back on her heels.

“I don’t understand any of this.”

“Hang on.” Maggie stood and went to her clothes, reaching for her shirt. “Let me go get the guys. They can all shift in front of you and then maybe you’ll believe me.”

“No.” He caught her arm and stopped her in front of him, trying to ignore her nakedness. “I don’t need to see any more.”

“So tell me. What do you need?”

Luther got to his feet and paced in front of the kitchen table. “Tell me what the hell is going on here.”

Maggie wrapped her arms around her body, bouncing on her toes. “Adrian Rossi is a wolf. We call ourselves Moonbound, because the curse gave us the power of the wolf, but bound us to the moon. My family has been tracking him since we realized he’d been running a werewolf brothel in Guadalajara.”

Luther pressed his palms into his eyes. “Werewolf brothel. What, the actual, fuck?”

“Just…you saw what they were doing on the video. We found out he’s doing it again here, in Choaca. Only this time, he’s gotten smarter. He moved his operation somewhere he could contain it and control it. And he’s got security now.”