Unquenchable Desire (8 page)

Brian growled as if going through
his own hell.

She couldn’t help but wonder what
the ability to control desires would be like between them. He was already
better at holding back emotions than she was. Maybe he was right that tight
control wasn’t always a good thing. But until that killer wolf was caught and
dealt with, she needed to stay in control.

Suddenly she caught the acrid scent of evil and knew it was the killer
wolf. An eerie feeling sent a prickle through the roots of her hair. Nude, half
morphed and womanly, she trembled as she watched the huge black wolf skulking
in on them, his belly low to the ground, his eyes glowing like hot coals. He moved
closer, silent as the night that pressed down on her.
 
No, no,
not now.
While caught in a vulnerable state of morphing they didn’t have a
chance. The chill that shot through Valerie had nothing to do with the breeze
coming from the north-east. She could scarcely breathe. She struggled to get
up.

****

Back at the mansion, Damon
paced Valerie’s room while Angela stood on the terrace, staring out into the
night. As usual, he identified with his wife’s dread, took it on, and added it
to his own.
 
And as much as he hated to
admit it, she was right. They couldn’t lock Valerie up no matter how much they
wanted to. He glanced at the clothes on the floor. Clearly, the curse had hit
his baby once again full-bore.
 
He
worried about her white coat and hunters. But not as much as he feared Reeves
showing up disguised as a friend—or perhaps pulling a sneak attack as a wolf. Even
the knowledge that Hugh was tailing her failed to give him comfort. He thought
about gathering a search party, but those he trusted weren’t readily available.
Rick with his Indian blood and ability to track swiftly was still on honeymoon
with
Victoria
, and
Deeto
was in
Mexico
chasing an escapee for the bounty.

“I’m going after Valerie,”
Damon said.

“She could be anywhere in
the hills. And then I’d have to worry about you, too.”

He strode to the gun
cabinet. “I can’t just do
nothing
.”

Angela’s eyes widened. “What’s
the gun for?”

“I’m going into the
hills—who knows the trouble that might crop up.”

Fear flickered in her eyes. “Even
if you locate Valerie, in her wolf form, she can outrun you and get away
again.”

“I still have to try.”

“I’m going with you.”

Damon wanted to say no, but she
might be in more danger if he left her home with only Kyle to watch after her. “You’ll
have to keep up,” he said, gruffly.

Chapter Seven

Valerie watched Brian leap to his
feet, growling and baring his incisors. The hackles around his neck and
shoulders resembled porcupine quills. He crouched low, splayed his ears
sideways, and issued a low, throaty growl. His eyes glowed like hot coals. His
ferocious look should have frightened off the antagonistic wolf, but it only
seemed to fuel his anger. Valerie shifted her gaze back and forth between her
alpha protector and their slobbering foe. Trembling and unsteady, she struggled
to her feet. With a gripping sense of rising panic, she growled and mimicked
her alpha wolf’s defense posture.

The threatening wolf curled his lips and leapt from
the rock. He sailed through the air and pounced on them like a two-hundred
pound sack of hardened cement, his gleaming incisors bared. Both she and Brian
thrashed about to stop the crazed wolf from closing his jaws on their throats. Brian
rolled, taking her with him,
then
he shoved her out of
the way. He leapt to his feet and the two wolves circled, squared off, gazes
focused on each other, piercing, deadly.

While they circled, she noticed the
crazed wolf’s slimy coat had a bald spot indicating a recent battle. Was this
the killer wolf that had attacked Uncle Hugh?

Brian would want her to run and save herself, but
this time she would not run—would not leave him alone to fight her battles. She
vowed not to give up on him or herself.

While Brian fought the wolf, muzzle to muzzle and
blocked bite for bite, she jumped up on the wolf’s back and dug her incisors
into his neck near the other recent bite. The deafening rumble of the three of
them growling echoed for miles. The big wolf thrust himself against a boulder
and knocked her off his back. The forceful slam resulted in her coming loose
with a mouth full of acrid skin and slimy fur. She spit out the nasty stuff and
watched for a chance to get back into the action.

A cloud eclipsed the moon and under
the waning light, the bodies of both male wolves morphed to werewolves. Their
faces remained wolfish but their hairy, muscular bodies stood upright, slightly
bent and leaning forward like apes. Her alpha wolf held his arms a foot away
from his hairy body, feet somewhat apart. Although he was the smaller, leaner
werewolf of the two, the span of his shoulders appeared at least an inch wider.

He crouched into a karate stance, and
his beautiful muscles flexed in readiness for battle. The bigger werewolf went
into a
clunkier
crouch. Valerie, half-morphed now,
knew very little karate and felt totally out of her element. She backed out of
the way to give them room to whirl, kick, and thrust while watching for a
window of opportunity to help. Her alpha werewolf moved smoothly and
effectively while looking cool and collected. She struggled to find her own
calm place, but failed. The shadows over the moon darkened and added to her
near panicky state of mind. She breathed in and out, trying to fight the
anxious emotions swamping her.
I have the
responsibility to appear invincible and intimidating.

She inhaled a familiar scent approaching,
closing in. Out of nowhere, Uncle Hugh in all his wolfish glory landed on top
of the bigger werewolf and knocked him down. Then he and her alpha wolf circled
the downed werewolf, growling with incisors bared. She closed in as well, mimicking
their actions.

The downed werewolf leapt to his
feet and raked his gaze over them. Apparently, finding himself surrounded and
out-numbered, he fixed his piercing gaze on her, the weakest link. He leapt and
knocked her down. She dodged and rolled out of his reach. For an instant, he
glared at her with blood in his eyes, chilling her bones, and then ran into the
night.

To her surprise, her parents appeared toting shotguns.
Dad lifted the barrel, took aim, and fired. The retreating wolf yelped and ran
on deep into the hills. Then her dad turned and aimed at her alpha protector. She
wanted to scream. “No, Dad, don’t!” But all that came out was a high-pitched
growl.
I can’t let him shoot!
She
jumped her dad and knocked the gun upward. The shot went wild.

“What the hell?” Dad shouted.

“Run,” she yelled at her alpha wolf. This time her
voice almost sounded human. Brian ran into the night and disappeared.

Dear God what
if the killer werewolf is waiting just ahead for him. Did I save him from one danger
only to send him charging into another—perhaps into the clutches of the
throat-ripping monster and sure death?

****

Reeves, the commander of Rory’s
body, waited in the darkness of the cave licking his wounds. He needed a doctor
for the bullet wound. He knew one who, for the right price, would treat him and
forget it. He gathered the moon poppies growing just outside the cave and
jammed them into his mouth. He ate only
enough to maintain control of his thinking and keep his savage bloodlust under control.
In the midst of his moon-heat, he stayed in the shadows as he headed for the
doc’s residence. He felt physically powerful yet he’d permitted those lesser
werewolves to chase him away. He hated to admit that the younger werewolf was
his equal in the fight. The skinny half-animal was skilled, well-trained, and
moved as swiftly as a rattler. But the lightweight alpha couldn’t have run him
off alone. It had taken the whole family.
 
Reeves became one with the shadows, vowing
that next time he wouldn’t take the chance of failure. When he cornered Valerie
she would be alone.
Totally alone.

****

Valerie’s parents said very little
to her on the way home. No lectures, no reprisals for knocking Dad down. Probably
because they figured until she was totally morphed she might take off into the
night and follow the young werewolf.

Valerie suspected that Uncle Hugh
knew the young alpha was Brian. He’d followed them. It wouldn’t be much of a
jump to add two and two, especially after the way he saw them going at it in
the pool. Why else would he have worked in concert with the alpha to run off
the killer werewolf?

The next morning under the glare of
the bright sun coming in the dining room window and over a strangely silent
breakfast with her parents and uncle, Dad finally turned to her, his eyes soft
and sad. “Don’t you get it, Valerie? You were lucky last night. We’re dealing
with an inhuman, indestructible monster.”

She forced her head high. “I know.”

“All right.
I’ll assume then, as the saying goes,
that
when you know better, you’ll do better.
New subject—why
you didn’t tell me about Brian?”

She stopped all movement and with a
strawberry poised on her fork, she glared at her uncle. “Did Uncle Hugh tell
you?”

“He didn’t have to. When you didn’t
let me shoot the young wolf, your actions since Brian came to work here all
added up. Besides, your story about meeting him on his jog never held water.”

“I was afraid if I told you, you’d
fire him and he can’t help how he is any more than I can. And he hates his
curse and wants the cure.”

“You and Brian were partially
morphed. How did that happen?”

“We ate moon poppies and used a
mind-over-matter technique that
Victoria
uses to reverse her morphing when the full moon is still out. Then when the
cloud eclipsed the moon, the process progressed even faster, but the wolf
attack complicated the transformation and we got stuck.”

“Don’t you realize I needed this
information for our study?”

“This was the first time it worked
for me. We were still in the testing stage.” She paused to calm her pounding
heart. “Are you going to fire Brian?”

****

The next day, when Kyle told Brian
that Damon wanted to see him immediately in his office, he felt sure he’d been
found out and would be fired or worse. He hadn’t forgotten the stunned,
heart-stopping feeling of having the shotgun turned on him
.
He hesitated at the door, sweat trickling down his back, damping
the shirt he’d quickly shrugged into. Maybe Damon would try to capture him for
one of his ghoulish studies.
Perhaps I
should just take off and live in the hills. At least I could watch out for
Valerie. And other than a cure, that’s all I want.

Now that he’d seen the killer-wolf
and learned he was a werewolf with blood in his eyes, he knew the creature was
like none he’d ever known before.
 
He
remembered the acrid odor and the tombstone coolness the animal had emitted. He’d
read the supposed myths about the walking dead in college and felt he just met
one. What about the other wolf who seemed to be Johnny-on-the-spot when Valerie
needed him.
 
He hadn’t had time to
question who he was, or why he acted like a protector instead of an aggressor.

Brian took a deep breath and rapped
on Damon’s office door.

“Come in,” Damon called gruffly.

He squared his shoulders and shoved
the door open with force. “You wanted to see me, Sir?”

Damon rolled his eyes upward. “Take
a seat and I told you before to forget the sir title.

“Yes, Sir…or
Damon, Sir.”

“Just plain Damon.”

Brian squared his shoulders again
and sat down. “Damon, then,” he said with all the firmness he could muster. He
hadn’t noticed the guest chair was so low before or that the boss’s chair was
so high. Had the legs of the chair been shortened for this meeting? He watched
Damon spread his files out wider, lean forward slightly, and steeple his
fingers.
Oh. God, I’m in big trouble.
Brian
knew from his experience as a cub member of a wolf pack that size and cool
control mattered. And with Damon, he felt like a cub again and not the holder
of the alpha status he’d earned the right to claim. The AC blowing against his
damp shirt sent a chill down Brian’s back. His nerves jumped under his flesh. “Look,
Sir, let’s not make this more difficult than it has to be.”

“I agree. Why don’t you start by
leveling with me?”

“Am I fired?”

Damon laughed bitterly. “What good
would that do? You’d only hang around out of sight, mooning over my daughter. I’ll
feel safer keeping you where I can keep an eye on you.”

“Are you going to cage me up in
your lab and do inhumane tests on me?”

“That hadn’t occurred to me, but if
you want to volunteer—”

“No, Sir. Not unless you can
guarantee it would lead to a cure for Valerie.”

“I can’t. But thinking of her like
that couldn’t hurt. Being one of us, you should understand our special needs.”

“One of us, Sir…
er
…Damon?”

“I’m sure Valerie must have told
you that our family is cursed.”

He nodded. “But she didn’t say you
were all werewolves.”

“We’re not, but we’ve all paid our
dues.” Damon stood and paced. “Can I trust you?”

Brian nodded again, and then
realizing a nod wasn’t strong enough, he followed it with, “You absolutely can.
I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Valerie or her family.”