The Heat (32 page)

“I have to work, Lily. I don’t think I can get anyone to cover my hours long enough to follow you around while you play Joan of Arc against an army of ancient werewolves.”

That gave Lily pause. She pulled the suitcase down from the coffee table and frowned. “Exactly how ancient
are
these werewolves? Everyone always talks about how old the Council members are. But, I thought that wolves only aged a little less quickly than humans, not that they were…
immortal
, or anything like that.”

“They’re not immortal,” Tabitha shook her head. Then she pursed her lips. “Well, not that I know of, anyway. But some do age very slowly. Cole, for instance, seems to age at about one-third or one-fourth the rate of a normal human. James is about the same. And I’ve heard that a few of the Council elders have truly earned the name ‘elder’.”

Lily considered that for a moment and then sighed. She edged around the coffee table, her suitcase in one hand, and reached for the car keys beside the lamp in the hall. “Well, let’s hope those old fogies don’t faint dead away when a female, twenty-something Made wolf who has visions comes to argue on behalf of Malcolm Cole, the serial killer.”

Tabitha blinked after her and squinted as Lily opened the front door, letting in vast amounts of noonday light. “Yes,” she muttered, shaking her head as she followed in her friend’s footsteps. “Let’s.”

Two years later…

“Your spawn wants you,” Lily said as she weakly shoved at the sleeping man beside her. He mumbled something into his pillow and then turned to face her.

“No, cher. My spawn wants
you
,” he told her, his southern drawl working its magic on her, even now.

She opened her golden eyes to find that he was staring back at her. The blue of his gaze was being swallowed by the black of his pupils. She knew that look. He was as insatiable as his child was.

“You’re obviously
up
,” she told him, “so go feed him.”

“William’s my son,” Daniel smiled, flashing fangs. “He won’t be happy with anything less than a breast.”

Lily’s gaze narrowed and she raised herself up on her elbow. “Oh?”

And then she was flat on her back and Daniel was on top of her, his strong hands pinning her wrists to the bed on either side of her head.

Lily stared up at him as he smiled his rapacious smile and pressed the hard evidence of his hunger into the thin fabric of her night gown. “You can’t be serious,” she told him, trying not to let on that she was getting wet under his hungry gaze. The last thing he needed was confirmation that he was getting to her.

He’d always been a little too much on the cocky side of confident. Over the last year, they’d worked a lot on their relationship and he’d managed to smooth out a few of his rougher edges for her. Still, he could be such an arrogant prick sometimes.

“I’m jealous,” he told her flatly, his eyes darkening a little more. They glittered with predatory intent. “He gets to have you whenever he wants you.”

Lily rolled her eyes. He was an
immature
, arrogant prick. If she hadn’t come to know and love the real man with the kind heart underneath his uber alpha wolf, she would have flushed her gorgeous wedding ring down the toilet months ago. “Get off, Daniel. There’s milk in the freezer. You know what to do.”

“Get off and I’ll show you.” She smiled a coy smile and made a show of running her tongue over the tips of her teeth. “I promise.”

Daniel was off of her like a light. He stood and waited by the bed as she crawled over to his side and raised herself up on her knees before him. As always, despite his unrepentant rapaciousness, she was amazed at how gorgeous he was. In the middle of the night, after three months of practically no sleep, he was still as starkly handsome as a fallen angel.

She leaned in and captured his lips in a kiss. His hand instantly fisted in her hair and held her fast as he deepened the kiss himself. She could feel him begin to send his deadly pleasure into her through the power of the kiss and she knew exactly when to pull away.

In one smooth move, she pulled her arm back and drove her fist forward, slamming it into the side of his beautiful face. His head snapped to the side and he stumbled backward and into the wall.

Lily put her hands on her hips and nodded approvingly. “Wow. Tabby was right. Punching you as a werewolf is
way
more satisfying.” She couldn’t believe it had only occurred to her to do it now. Having a kid will take the
think
right out of you.

Daniel slowly straightened against the wall, his left hand gingerly rubbing the tenderness out of his jaw. His eyes were completely black now and his smile had only wavered for a second before it was back and as wicked as ever.

“Oh, and I want Starbucks in the morning,” Lily told him as she plopped back down onto the bed and pulled the covers up over her. “But not before ten.” She rolled over then, giving him her back.

Behind her, she could hear Daniel chuckle and finally leave the room.

Slowly, Lily Kane once more succumbed to the embrace of sleep. She recognized the dream state at once and, with a contented calm she allowed herself to float through the fuzzy edges of the tunnel that connected her real self to that other place and time.

As her surroundings solidified into a more discernible shape, Lily surveyed the dreamscape. It was relatively dark…. A club of some kind.

On the stage a band played. Lily waited as sound entered her dream state, and when it did, she felt the rhythm of the drums beat in time with her heart. Long strawberry-blonde hair shook and glided past creamy white shoulders as the drummer, in a tank top, beat on the skins of her toms and the lead singer began to croon to a packed audience.

Lily’s dream eyes scanned the crowd. In the corner, hidden by shadow, loomed a tall figure, his stark green eyes focused on the drummer.

Lily recognized those jade green eyes. Cole.

Confusion furrowed her brow; why would she be dreaming about him again? After all of this time? But something else tugged at her unconsciousness and she spun to see a second shadowy figure enter the club.

He was tall and built and Lily wondered if he was a werewolf, too. His shoulder-length blonde hair was pulled back in a leather knot. His brown eyes scanned the interior of the club.

And then settled on the drummer.

Lily watched him gazing hungrily at the woman on stage and fear began to uncoil in the pit of her stomach. The lead singer’s words echoed through the chambers of her mind….
“He’s a Hunter, bound to claim his prize. Lily, save the hero from his mistrusted eyes…”

It was a vision. The woman in the dream needed Lily’s help.

THE END

Look for The Strip, the second book in this series by Heather Killough-Walden.

Also check out Heather’s new young adult paranormal release, Sam I Am, the first novel in The October Trilogy, now available on Amazon….

SAM I AM
By Heather Killough-Walden

The October Trilogy, Book One

Prologue

61 A.D. Island of Anglesey, Britain….

Keenan stumbled over something he couldn’t see and pretended not to notice that it was soft enough to give beneath his leather boot. “Faolan, lift her more on your end, son!” He hissed the command to his son, who was carrying Ciara’s legs. Keenan had her shoulders and head and though she was a wee lass, she was nearly a dead weight, and the night was without moon or stars.

The terrain was deadly; it had always been, and the druid elders had long warned against going out on the crags at night without torchlight. But for the angry red glow that emanated from the burning village behind them, there was nothing to guide their desperate escape across the rocks and heather of what had become their final home.

“Hurry, Keenan! We haven’t much time!” Ianna spurred them along from where she raced behind them, her small body wrapped in a cloak of sable, to hide her form from the eagle eyes of the Roman army. They all wore the cloaks, for what good it did them. Keenan was well aware that, before the sun rose on the horizon, the cloaks would become their death shrouds.

“I’m movin’ as fast as ay can!” Keenan hissed back, knowing that it didn’t matter. The night would soon be complete and the door that Ciara had opened several nights ago would remain open. All would be lost if it did. The dead traveled through the door to their new destination, the land that had been ruled by Samhain since time began. But this door worked both ways. If it was not closed and locked by the end of the Harvest, the dead could return through it into the world of the living, and with them, their King.

Ciara was the last of their druid leaders; all others had died on the coast with their soldiers and most of their women. The Roman general Suetonius Paulinus had attacked early in the evening and, though the village had managed to take many of their men down, it had lost in the end.

The women, with their torches and long red hair had fallen beside their mates – and even their children. The druids’ spells had immobilized Paulinus’s army for long enough to maintain a steady line of defense for most of the early evening. But the Romans had adapted quickly – changing their tactics to take down the elders first, before the others, until there were no bards left. And no spells.

And no hope.

It was Aidan, the strongest of the druids, who called out to Keenan, even as he lay dying with his own mortal wounds. He had warned Keenan that the spell had not been completed, and charged him and his son with Ciara’s safety.

She was the one who had started it. Only she could complete it.

Alas, we failed yae
, Keenan thought now, as he tried to block out the sounds of another woman being defiled in the night. They had failed in Aidan’s task. Ciara was struck down with a spear even as they ran; the Romans did not mind killing women and children, and not even from behind. There was no honor in their attack, no honor in these deaths. It was slaughter.

But it was still was up to Ciara to complete the spell. Too much was hanging in the balance.

Keenan glanced down to see Ciara’s closed eyelids flutter. The blood still ran from the wound in her side. It meant her heart still beat. If it weren’t for those signs, he would think her already dead.

Paulinus must be Samhain in disguise to attack on this night, in the midst of Samonois,
Keenan thought as he gritted his teeth and took up the slack when his son tripped and momentarily lost his grip on Ciara’s booted feet. She groaned as her body twisted and a new well of blood appeared beneath her leather tunic.

“Careful, boy!” he hissed.

An arrow split the air somewhere nearby. The sound was unmistakable. Was it an errant shot by a ballista? Or had the Romans discovered their hasty retreat across the unlit crags in the darkness?

Keenan hoped for the former rather than the latter. They had so little time as it was. He and his family were already doomed. His entire village was doomed. There was no hope for them – not now; that was clear.

But if they hurried, if nature was on their side, they might yet save everyone else. Humanity. The future – every child yet unborn would still stand a chance.

“There!” Ianna rushed past them, her long arm pointing toward the entrance to the oak grove where the first part of the rite had been interrupted that morning. “In there! She’ll know what to do then!”

There was no response for that; it was too hopeless to speak on what they were all thinking – that Ciara was too far gone. So none of them said anything. They only moved faster, spurred on by sheer terror and desperation.

Another arrow split the night and following its slicing whiz through the air was the unmistakable thunk of its tip embedding itself into a nearby trunk or chunk of earth.

The spirits take him
, thought Keenan.
Take the bastard Paulinus.
The general and his men meant to wipe the Kelts from existence. And they would no doubt succeed; Anglesey was their final refuge.

Ironically, if Ciara could not close the door that had been opened, it would not only be the druids and their people who suffered an end this night. Before long, the Romans would fall as well, victorious or not.

Precious moments passed before Keenan and his son were finally able to lay Ciara down beside the stones that marked the site for this devastatingly important annual ritual.

“Ciara!” Ianna knelt beside the young woman, shaking her gently – but not too gently. Ciara’s eyelids fluttered and opened. Stark gold irises reflected the distant firelight. “You must finish the spell, Ciara!” Ianna pled. Her voice was sheer panic now, sharing in the desperation they each felt.

Ciara closed her eyes and then opened them again, blinking slowly. Her lips were the same pallor as her cheeks, pale and dry. She had once been a very beautiful maiden; sought-after as any lass, with hair the color of polished bronze and a smile that beckoned suitors. But now, she was a shadow of what she had been only that morning.