Taming the Moon (4 page)

The room was decorated in warm beiges and dark reds, giving it a calming effect and making him feel like he was home. The stress of travel—the endless tension of being surrounded by humanity first in busy airports and then on crowded flights—began to fade. All he needed was a few hours to himself and then he’d feel…

He stifled a snort of disgust. He would never feel like himself again, not with this
thing
now a part of him, this beast that roared with fury and hunger.

He turned his attention to the other side of the fireplace, where a set of French doors let in the early evening sunlight. He wandered over and looked through the glass. A cobbled patio with a table and chairs and, beyond that, a small flower garden enclosed on all sides by bushes covered in white and dark pink blooms.

“Oleanders,” Pelicia murmured at his side. When he glanced at her, she made a gesture toward the outdoors and explained, “The bushes that line the yard are oleanders. Declan told me they’re poisonous, so don’t try to eat them.”

He raised one brow. “Don’t eat the bushes. I’ll try to remember that. Thanks.”

She smacked him lightly on the arm. “You and Declan are both a couple of smartasses. No wonder you get on so well together.”

“Hmm.” Sully wasn’t so sure about that anymore.

“You do.” Pelicia put her hand on his arm. Her blue eyes earnest, she said in a soft voice, “For what it’s worth, if you hadn’t been there, that wolf might have attacked me. You saved my life.”

He grimaced. “So…all I did was get in the way, is that what you’re saying? It wasn’t anything I did on purpose.”

“No, I’m not saying that at all.”

Unable to maintain a serious expression, he grinned.

She smacked him on the arm again. “See? A smartass, just like O’Connell.”

“Hey. And here I was thinkin’ you liked my ass.” Declan walked over to them.

She just rolled her eyes again. Turning around to face the living room, she pointed at a doorway on the right. “The bedroom and
en suite
bathroom are through there, and there’s a small kitchen on the other side of that wall.” She motioned toward an opening on the left of the living room. “Though we do insist you take your meals with us.”

“Of course.” Sully picked up the largest of the suitcases and started toward the bedroom. He paused in the doorway and looked back at his friends. “I think I’ll have a short lie down, if that’s all right.”

“That’s fine.” Pelicia’s voice was soothing. “We’ll have a late dinner at eight p.m.” She grinned. “Well, that’s a normal time for me, but late for Americans. That gives you”—she glanced at her wristwatch—“three hours to get situated. It’ll be dark in about an hour and a half or so, but the walkway is lighted.”

“Ah, he won’t need lights, darlin’.” Declan wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her tight against him. “Remember?”

A light blush moved under the fair skin of her cheeks. “Oh. Right.” She looked at Sully with apology reflected in her eyes. “Sorry.”

He shook his head. “Don’t start with that again. It wasn’t your fault.” When she opened her mouth, he forestalled her
by raising one hand. “I’m fine. I ate at the airport during my layover, so dinner at eight is fine, too.”

God, three hours to be by himself. He didn’t know if he should be happy or panic at the idea of being alone again with his thoughts.

“Okay, then.” Declan walked over to him and put one hand on his shoulder, giving a slight squeeze. “It’ll be all right, mate. Trust me.”

Sully lifted his chin in acknowledgment but didn’t say anything.

Declan gave another squeeze, then he and Pelicia left the guesthouse, closing the door softly behind them.

“He seems so…bereft,” Sully heard Pelicia say, her sweet voice holding a wealth of worry.

“He’ll be fine.” Declan’s voice held no doubt.

Sully wished he could be as sure.

He stood there in the doorway of the bedroom, holding onto his suitcase like some bloody befuddled bellman. With an oath he dropped it in the doorway and flopped onto the bed, legs hanging over the edge, feet flat on the floor. He closed his eyes but couldn’t slow his swirling mind.

The need to move, to try to escape his thoughts, rushed through him. His skin prickled, the hairs standing straight up on his arms and the back of his neck. His jaws began to ache, his eyes burned.

Deep, deep inside the wolf howled to be set free.

Sully surged up off the bed, toed off his shoes, and yanked off his socks. He tossed aside his clothing with an urgency that made his hands shake.

Even though the next full moon was still two weeks away, he felt the pull as surely as if it were bright in the sky. Declan had said that could happen, but Sully hadn’t
wanted to acknowledge it. He was still human, still a
man.
He wasn’t ruled by his beast—he would be able to control any desire to set the wolf free.

But, at that moment, he couldn’t fight it.

He didn’t
want
to fight it.

He wanted—
needed
—to be as wild as he felt.

Bones began to shift. Some lengthened, others shortened, all drawing muscles, cartilage, and ligaments into their new forms. Sully fell to his hands and knees, agony screaming through every cell, his breath rasping in his throat as, against his primeval instincts, the part of him still human fought against the change.

In the span of a heartbeat, fur sprouted over his skin. One more and his shuddering transformation to wolf was complete.

After a few seconds, waiting for the pain to fade, he lifted his head. So much clearer now.

Smells, stronger. One in particular. His nose twitched. What was that? He bent and sniffed at one leg. Whatever the smell was—kind of woodsy with underlying scents of pine and citrus—it emanated from him.

He lifted his head and padded into the living room. Stopping in front of the patio doors, he stared through the glass. A hummingbird fluttered near the bushes. Sully could see the edge of every tiny feather, the flutter of its wings.

He had to get out there, outside, now.

He lifted one paw and pressed down on the door latch. As the handle moved, his paw slid off it and the gold latch went back into its original position. He growled in aggravation and tried again, slightly curling his paw over the handle.

The door popped open. Sully nudged it open far
ther with his nose, then slipped through the doorway and into…

Freedom.

Ignoring the hummingbird and a small lizard that skittered across the concrete patio, he shoved his way through the oleanders. On the other side of the bushes was a small gulley—a wash, he remembered hearing them called.

He trotted down the wash on all fours, nose twitching as he took in the new smells of this foreign place. The flap of large wings caught his attention, and he stopped, head up, and watched a hawk circle overhead.

Free.

Run.

With a low grunt, he dug his paws into the sand and took off. As he found his footing, he increased his speed, running full out for several minutes until his lungs felt like they would burst. He settled into an easy lope. A jackrabbit, startled from its cover beneath a large bush, darted out in front of him.

Its heart raced and big feet threw sand behind it as it ran. Sully gave chase, scrabbling in loose dirt, trying to keep up as the smaller animal twisted this way and that with incredible speed. Just as he was about to close his jaws around it, something else caught his attention.

The jackrabbit skittered off while Sully lifted his nose to the wind for a better sniff.

There was that scent again—the one something like pine and citrus. Like him, yet different. This one smelled…

Female.

O
livia sighed and wiggled on the driver’s seat of her rental car, trying to get comfortable. Mid-April, and it was already well over ninety degrees in the Sonoran Desert. She didn’t want to keep the car running—more because she didn’t want to draw any attention to herself and less because of environmental concerns—so without any air-conditioning her T-shirt stuck to her back and sweat trickled down her cleavage.

Hell, she was getting ready to kill a man. She didn’t have the luxury—or the energy—to worry about things like comfort and car emissions.

She sighed again. At one point, on the airplane from London to New York to Phoenix, she’d rethought her plan. She wasn’t stupid. There was no guarantee, even if she did kill Sully, that Eddy would let Zoe go. And if he did, the little girl and Olivia would still be in danger from him—

For the rest of their lives unless she could find a way to escape.

That way could be Sully and his friend O’Connell. But only if Eddy wasn’t surrounded by his pack. No way could three werewolves take on an entire pack.

And Eddy was never away from his pack. Ever. So she was full circle back to the original plan.

Kill Rory Sullivan.

She’d found out where Sully’s friend Declan O’Connell lived—easy as pie to do an Internet search on the man—and had the car parked on a little dirt road off the larger street where O’Connell lived.

Far enough away to not draw attention, but still close enough that she could keep an eye on things with her enhanced werewolf vision.

She’d seen the three drive up in a low-slung Mustang almost half an hour ago. Using her citrus-based perfume liberally in order to mask her scent, she’d already scoped out O’Connell’s place and knew the best options for a quick entry and exit. The last thing she needed was for them to be on the lookout for a strange werewolf that had been on the property.

She figured she’d wait until closer to midnight, when they should all be asleep, and then she’d go after Sully.

This was something she had to do. For Zoe. Olivia pushed aside the guilt that insisted on tapping her on the shoulder. Perhaps if she’d been able to establish some alliances within the pack she could have gone to someone for help. As it was, everyone took out their bad moods on her. She highly doubted if any of them were willing to help her, though she figured that sooner or later someone would try to seize power from Eddy.

Whoever took over—it would be a bloody battle for dominance—could be even worse than the Alpha they already had, although she was hard-pressed to imagine how.

Eddy had turned her into a werewolf, made her the Omega of the pack regardless of her natural assertiveness,
and threatened the life of her daughter. As far as Olivia was concerned, it couldn’t get any worse.

Or, at least, she couldn’t
let
it get any worse.

Giving up on comfort, she opened the door and climbed out of the car. After carefully and quietly closing the door, she stretched, hands on hips, shoulders back. That didn’t help. She felt…antsy. Like thousands of the little critters were crawling across her skin.

She needed to run. As much as she sometimes hated being a werewolf, one thing she did enjoy was running as a wolf. There was such freedom, such exhilaration in being alive. When she went the way of the wolf, there were no worries. No fears. Just instinct.

She went around to the passenger side of the car and, after checking to make sure no other vehicles were coming down the dusty, barely there road, she took off her shoes and socks, tucked her socks inside one shoe, and tossed the shoes onto the floor mat in the back. She unfastened her watch, checking the time—five-thirty, which meant it would be dark in just over an hour. Then she quickly took off her clothes, folded them haphazardly, and tossed them onto the backseat. Closing her eyes, she pictured her wolf form in her mind.

Deep breaths helped her control the pain as she went through the transformation. Eventually, as she got used to it—or so she’d been told—the pain would manifest itself as mere discomfort. But, as she panted through the last shift of muscle and bone, it hurt like hell.

She opened her eyes and saw the world differently. Shades of gray, black, and white, with some smatterings of blue and yellow, met her gaze. Turning, she darted into the desert and, as she picked up speed, dodged various cacti and thorny bushes.

Does everything out here have prickers?

She’d been running at full tilt for only a few minutes, the wildness on the inside churning with each step, when she skidded to a stop, halted by a strange yet vaguely familiar scent.

Lifting her muzzle, she sniffed the air, turning her head toward the direction from which the tantalizing aroma—one that smelled much like sage—wafted.

She inhaled again. Her ears swiveled toward the sound of paws padding closer.

Another
werewolf
.

Male.

The wildness inside her churned in a different direction, heightening her carnal senses. Sex now would be good.

Very good.

Sex would let her escape reality, however briefly, much more than going wolf did.

Werewolves were territorial, and though O’Connell hadn’t been home very long, he would have realized if another wolf was close by and would have driven him off. Or been driven off.

Since he still lived there, that obviously hadn’t happened. So the wolf was either him or Sully.

The wolf moved closer, and she recognized the scent.

Sully.

Then he was there, pushing his way between two scruffy bushes, and he was magnificent. Almost completely black with a hint of brown in his undercoat peeking through as his fur shifted with the breeze. Broad chest and large paws, and an alert stance that clearly indicated he was alpha. Amber eyes stared at her with intelligence and a hint of wariness in their depths.

That was unusual—an alpha unsure of himself. Or per
haps it was that he was so newly turned and
that
was where the uncertainty lay. And, she saw as she looked more closely, more than a hint of self-loathing darkened those amber eyes.

She walked forward with measured steps, taking care not to make any sudden moves that would startle him or, worse, move him to aggression. She got quite enough of that from her pack.

When she reached him she paused.
Strike now
. He wouldn’t be expecting it.

She hesitated. That damned vulnerable look in his eyes cut her to the core. It was her fault he was in this predicament. Her fault he held loathing for himself.

And he’d hate her, the one who’d created him.

After all, she hated her creator, too.

Strike now.

She brought her head forward and gave a delicate lick to the side of his muzzle.

A quick kiss “hello.” A gesture meant to put him at ease.

He responded with a low grumbling growl, not one of irritation but rather one of interest. She gave him another lick and, before he could anticipate her plan through her stance or expression, she lunged and fastened her teeth in his throat.

Sully reared back under the unexpected attack. The she-wolf’s change in demeanor shocked him, as he suspected it had been meant to.

Damn. Bitches were bitches the world over, no matter what form they took.

Instinct—both that of his wolf and of his hand-to-hand combat training from the Yard—took over. Instead of
fighting her, he relaxed. It threw the she-wolf off balance, and she stumbled backward, loosening her grip on his throat.

It was enough. Sully shook himself free, ignoring the white-hot agony searing through him as fur and flesh were left in her mouth. He pushed through the pain and launched his own attack.

She managed to dodge his first strike, but after feinting to the left, he ducked past her flank and bit down across the back of her neck. Using his greater bulk and strength he forced her to the ground.

He swallowed the blood filling his mouth, never loosening his grip on her, fighting the primal urge to finish her. He didn’t want this strange wolf dead. He wanted answers.

Beneath him she shuddered with the large breaths she took, though she growled at him instead of whimpering in surrender.

She was beaten but refused to accept it.

He admired her tenacity even as it rankled.

The she-wolf bucked against him, trying to dislodge him, and he held firm. He knew his bite hurt, but it wasn’t a fatal one. Merely one to keep her down until she acquiesced.

With one last shudder she lay still. He felt muscles moving beneath him, felt fur receding. He let go of her and stepped away a foot or so as she continued to metamorphose back into her human form. Not wanting to give her an opportunity to get away but knowing he needed to be human in order to get any answers from her, Sully focused on changing back to his human form.

He rode through the agony of muscles and bones sliding into another shape, his body quaking. When the shift was
finished, he rose to his feet, still shuddering from the pain. His cock rose like an iron rod. He had the fleeting memory of Declan telling him that he would be aroused after shifting from wolf to man, but in his anger he hadn’t paid much attention. In his first time shifting from wolf to man, he gritted his teeth against an agony completely carnal in nature.

The other werewolf, also in human form, knelt in the sand, her head bowed, long, dark hair obscuring her face. Beaten.

Submissive.

The taste of her blood lingered on his tongue. His heart racing from the heat of the life-and-death struggle, Sully realized that, for the first time in years, he felt alive. Finally felt more than just going through the motions of life. More than just putting one foot in front of the other; getting through each day on a job that, while he loved it with his entire being, held more cynicism than hope.

And that
more
was something rich and dark. Primal.

He looked at the woman with one thought—
his
. He’d fought her and won. She was his.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice rough with anger and arousal.

She didn’t respond.

With a muttered oath, Sully strode forward. Bending, he grasped her by the upper arms and hauled her to her feet. He gave her a little shake. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m nobody.” Her voice was low, throaty. Sexy as hell.

He licked across suddenly dry lips. Crooking his fingers under her chin, he lifted her face to him. Clear blue eyes dark with pain met his. He caught his breath at the emotion reflected in her gaze. It was from more than the physical pain, he knew. Declan had told him enough so that he
understood a shift from one form to the other brought about accelerated healing.

After all, his throat was fine.

No, the pain he saw in her eyes went soul deep.

Even as it made him wonder, his aggression still rode high.

She gazed down his body and stopped at his cock. Her nostrils flared.

Amid the scents of anger, fear, and defeat, another smell arose.

Lust.

His erection engorged even further.

She reached out toward him, and he knocked her hand away. She’d just tried to kill him. As much as he’d like to feel her hands and mouth on him, no way in hell was he letting her anywhere near such an integral piece of his anatomy.

“I don’t think so, sweetheart.” When she made to move away from him he tightened his grip on her arm. “Tell me who you are.”

She looked at him again. He saw something shift in her eyes, courses of action considered and discarded until she made a decision. “You can call me Marie.”

Marie. Probably not her real name, but it was better than
Oi, you!
“Marie it is.” He studied her a moment. “Mind telling me why you just tried to kill me?”

She sighed. “It was a mistake. I’m sorry.”

Hmm. Sorry she made a mistake—which he wasn’t so sure he bought—or sorry she hadn’t been successful?

She shifted her stance, widening her legs, and a fresh wave of the scent of her tangy arousal wafted to his nostrils. She put her hands on her hips and moved her shoulders back, thrusting out her breasts. “Well? Am I forgiven? Or do I need to…make it up to you?”

God. She wanted it as much as he did. Didn’t have to ask him twice. And as long as he kept her facing away from him, she wouldn’t have another chance to try to kill him again.

His cock pointed toward his belly, the tip ruddy with arousal and already dripping with pre-cum.

This stranger, her silky skin beckoning him, was just as lust-ridden as he. Sully wanted to pound into her like the animal he was.

Which was just what his wolf wanted.
Needed
. A fast, hard fuck.

The woman slowly turned her back to him and knelt, then dropped forward onto her hands and knees. Arching her back, she thrust her shapely ass toward him, letting him see the slick folds of her sex.

Thank God. She was wet and ready.

So was he.

Sully went to his knees behind her. Grasping her hips, he held her while he rubbed his cock through her cream.

“God!” Her voice was throaty, low. “Get on with it already.”

The musky scent of her arousal—mixed with a citrus aroma—wound around his senses, tightening around him with silk-like threads. Sully brought one hand down and guided the tip of his cock into her pussy. Dear God, but he felt like he’d die if he didn’t feel her around him now.

Lust, sharp and raw, surged inside him. With a growl he began pushing his way past slick, tight muscles until he was snug against her, his tight balls resting against her swollen sex.

She mewled and pushed her hips back, pressing against him, her inner muscles fluttering around his cock like tiny fingers. She lowered her torso, supporting herself on her forearms.

The movement inched her off his cock. Sully snarled and yanked her hips back, shoving his cock as deep as he could get it. Unable to stop the instinctive motion of his hips, he began thrusting inside her. Deep, hard.

Fast.

The drag of his cock through the tight clasp of her cunt had him howling inside. He needed…more. Something…