Wanted: Wild Thing (Midnight Liaisons) (7 page)

“Finian?”

His mouth curled into a sneer, huge fangs on display. “He would never come here of his own accord.” He gestured for me to follow him as he launched forward.

I trotted behind him as best I could, unable to stop peeking behind me out of anxiety. Was something hunting us? Was it one of Hugh’s people?

Hugh halted again.

I jerked to a stop behind him, glancing around. I saw nothing. I looked over at Hugh again. “What is it?”

He stared at the thick bushes ahead of us, not moving a muscle. I followed his gaze, curious.

An enormous shape moved forward and I gasped, staggering backward. “Oh . . . shit.”

A rhinoceros on steroids headed toward us. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Even in the low light, I could make out a huge, bulky body, the head lowered. It was as big as an elephant, maybe bigger. Shaggy fur covered it. On the nose was a horn three times the size of what I assumed a rhinoceros would have. The horn was larger than I was.

And it was pointing right at us.

Involuntarily, I took a step behind Hugh’s broad shoulders, seeking protection. “What do we do now?” I whispered. Somehow the creature that had been following us was now in front of us. How had we not heard this monster tromping around behind us?

But Hugh only snorted and said, “Change, Artur. You’re frightening my guest.”

My eyes widened. I looked at the massive creature, then at Hugh. “That’s . . . one of your people?”

“He is a primordial,” Hugh said, his eyes narrowing as the rhino moved forward. “And he treads on thin ground.”

My eyes widened as the enormous head—and horn—moved forward, heading straight for me. The creature seemed to be ignoring Hugh, determined to check me out.

Which frightened the heck out of me. I gave a distressed squeak when it nosed forward, and I moved around Hugh, determined to keep him between me and the monster rhino.

“Artur!” Hugh snapped, a feline growl in his voice.

The rhino only made a noise in its throat and continued to move toward me, disregarding Hugh’s warnings.

The low growl in Hugh’s voice deepened, and he dropped to a crouch, alarming me. I took a step backward. “Hugh?”

As I watched, fur sprouted along his spine, rippling down his back. The transformation ripped through him, stronger and faster than I’d ever seen with any shifter. Within seconds, Hugh was in complete cat form.

And I was stunned.

More than eight feet long and weighing several hundred pounds, his enormous body was knotted with muscle, his chest thick and barrel-like. He had no mane but was covered with more of those strange, bizarre stripes that were evident in human form. Hugh’s animal form looked like a tiger on steroids. Most startling of all were his jaws: his massive head swung, and I caught sight of two foot-long, protruding fangs as he snarled at the rhino and swiped at him with a giant paw.

I stepped backward, shocked, as things clicked into place. When Hugh had told me he was a primordial, I hadn’t realized what that meant. But looking at his animal form now, I realized . . . he was a saber-toothed tiger. I stared at him, then back at the strange rhino he was herding away from me with irritated swipes of his paw.

Holy cow.

Were all the primordials Ice Age shifters? Was that what this place was? Some pocket dimension, where the fae kept supposedly extinct shifters?

Chapter Six

T
he saber-tooth growled low as I stood there in shock, and when the rhino swung that massive horn, Hugh pushed it away with a gigantic paw. I expected the rhino to react badly, but it only gave a humanlike snort and squatted. A moment later, its form morphed—again, so quickly that I could scarcely blink—and a man crouched in its place. He straightened and glared at me from behind craggy, thick brows, a heavy forehead, and an enormous nose that dominated his ugly face.

If it was possible, he was even bigger than Hugh.

I crossed my arms over my scaly chest and took another step backward, my tail flicking with anxiety. “Hugh?”

The saber-tooth crossed in front of me, growling low.

“I smelled a female,” the rhino-man boomed, his voice incredibly deep and incredibly loud. “You bring one here? Is this—”

He was interrupted by a ferocious cat-growl from Hugh.

“I see,” the man said. “Very well.”

“See what?” I asked.

Hugh growled at me.

I frowned at him. “Don’t you growl at me. I’m asking a question. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“You are changeling,” the rhino boomed.

“And you’re a freaking rhino.”

“I am a primordial—” he began.

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I know. Hugh, can you please change back so we can have a conversation about this?”

The saber-tooth’s eyes gleamed, and he hunched his shoulders. Moments later, Hugh was crouching on the ground, naked, then he rose to his feet. I felt a hot blush cover my cheeks when he stretched to his full height in front of me.

I blushed. I mean, I couldn’t help but notice that he was a shower and not a grower. Hugh was definitely big everywhere.

“Artur heard us coming and decided to meet us,” Hugh said, striding past me to clap a hand on Artur’s big shoulder. “And now he is going to quit staring at you.”

I glanced over at Artur curiously and noticed him suddenly averting his eyes, looking over at Hugh. “Forgive me,” he said. “I did not mean to be impolite.”

“It’s okay,” I told him. “I
am
standing here naked, and it sounds like you don’t get a lot of changelings.”

“We do not—” Artur began.

Hugh clapped him on the shoulder and forcibly turned him away from me. “Lead us back, friend,” he said, interrupting Artur’s thoughts.

The rhino-man gave Hugh a curious look. “Come.”

I trailed behind them, frowning. Now no one was looking at me. God, was I that disgusting? I pinched my scaly skin, hoping it would respond and I’d change back to human form. Transformations normally didn’t last this long, but this one didn’t seem like it was going away anytime soon.

I followed the two men as they moved ahead a short distance. They mumbled things to each other, but their voices were so low and my hearing so bad that I couldn’t pick it up, which was frustrating. I felt like a freak, an outcast, and my feelings were hurt. I knew my form was hideous, but they weren’t supposed to be shocked by it, were they?

I mean, I’d just met a woolly rhino and a prehistoric saber-tooth, and I wasn’t flipping out, was I? No, I was not.

The thick underbrush gave way after a time and led to a crude set of caves set into the side of a sheer cliff. It looked like a rat warren, almost, with the hillside riddled with cave entrances. A curving, twisty path led between the entrances, and several of the caves were covered with crude animal hides as makeshift doors.

Hugh glanced over his shoulder at me. “These are my people, Ryder.”

This . . . was not what I’d been expecting. As I stared, my arms crossed over my chest, more and more people emerged, until soon enough, two dozen men had emerged from the caves. The center of the area was churned with muddy footprints, and the trappings of a crude civilization were here—an animal hide stretched over a low-hanging limb, strips of meat drying.

All the men, though, were naked. All had equally wild hair and enormous bodies. And they were all staring at me like I was a freak.

Hugh snarled at them and stepped in front of me, shielding my hideous naked form from them. “This one is my vow,” he explained to them. “Do not touch her. Do not stare at her.”

But some of them stared anyhow, trying to look at me from around Hugh’s big shoulders. Artur moved to Hugh’s side, effectively shielding me from the others’ view.

“How many of you are there?” I asked.

“There are two dozen males of my people.”

Two dozen? Out here living in the wild? “I don’t understand,” I whispered to Hugh. “I thought you guys dealt with the fae a lot? Why are you here living in caves?”

“We have always lived here,” Hugh told me. “The fae only enter our realm when they want something.”

“And we
normally
turn them away,” Artur sneered.

Hugh glared at him, his eyes gleaming with anger. “Say no more, Artur, lest you compromise our friendship.”

Artur’s mouth snapped shut, but I could see the anger burning in his craggy face. “You torture us all with your decisions,” he said. “It is only my friendship with you that allows me to remain at your side.”

Torture? Decisions? I leaned down and peered at the others from under Hugh’s arm. The men here were naked, huge, and just as savage as Hugh, from the looks of them.

All men.

And they all stared at me.

I gasped as things clicked. “Oh, my God. There aren’t any women here, are there? That’s what Finian offered you. A bride.”

“Silence,” Hugh snapped at me.

That pissed me off. I kicked his calf from behind. “Don’t you tell me to be quiet! I’m not some meek little creature that you can boss around. You’re protecting me for the next month, remember? Nothing about that says I can’t talk.” I stepped from around Hugh and glared at him with irritation. Just as quickly, he moved to step in front of me. “I’m right, aren’t I? There aren’t any women here.”

The men looked at Hugh, frowning, but I noticed a few kept gazing at me. Even though I was hideous, they still wanted to look at me. Yeah. I strode to the tree and grabbed the animal hide, shrugging it over my warped wings to cover my body in a semblance of modesty. “Okay, can I just say that this is fucked-up? Pardon the French and all, but seriously.”

“You were the one that wished to see my people.” Hugh gestured at the surrounding men. “Here we are. Does this make you happy?”

He sounded offended. Angry.

It was too much for me to process. I just shook my head. I’d wanted to see them because I’d wanted to understand Hugh. I’d hoped that understanding Hugh would help me come up with a counteroffer to entice him away from Finian’s deal.

But if Hugh wanted a mate . . . I was screwed. “This female that you’re doing the vow for. Is she a primordial?”

“She is,” Hugh told me in a low, serious voice.

I couldn’t compete. “What’s her name?” I asked softly.

“I do not know it.” His eyes gleamed. “The fae keep our females separate from us. We do not know how many there are, or who they are. The fae created this realm for us.” He gestured. “They hold us here. We cannot leave except by their means. No one comes. No one goes.”

I hugged the pelt closer to me, staring at my surroundings. At the naked, enormous men and their crude cave dwellings. “I don’t understand. You have the portal necklace that Finian gave you. Why not take that and just get everyone out of here?”

“And leave our females?” Artur’s deep voice was clearly disapproving. “Abandon them with no hope of reunion?”

I shivered at the bleak looks on the men’s faces. “Do they always offer you this reward? A mate?”

Hugh shook his head. “This is the first time.”

And judging by the avid looks on the men’s faces? It was the thing they all craved most.

Well, hell. I was screwed. “I . . . think I’ve seen enough,” I said faintly. “Can we go back now?”

I felt sick. Finian had promised a mate to Hugh for selling me out. How could I possibly compete?

W
e used one of the caves to draw the door. The others hovered nearby, and it was clear they had questions about me. They kept staring, even after Hugh snarled and tried to drive them away, and even after Artur pitched in to assist him. Eventually, though, they backed away, and we created the portal.

I looked behind us as the portal slowly developed. The men watched me from afar, eyes gleaming. “What’s stopping them from coming after us?” I asked Hugh. “Why not follow us through? There’s only a mate for you, not them.”

“Finian said there were mates for all of us,” Hugh told me. “No one will risk his female’s life.”

“Wait . . . so if you do this, he promised
all
of you mates?” At Hugh’s nod, I felt even more miserable. It was bad enough when I thought I was just competing with Hugh’s future mate. To learn I was competing with the future mates of twenty-four lonely males? I was doomed. Finian had played the ultimate trump card. “I must be worth a lot of money to him.”

Hugh’s grunt of reassurance didn’t make me feel better.

Silence fell, and with it, a weird tension. No one spoke as the air shimmered, the square outline of the portal slowly coming into view like a developing photograph. Once it appeared, Hugh gave the others a meaningful look. “Patience, brothers.” He took the fur throw from my shoulders and tossed it to one of the nearby waiting men, then took my hand and pulled me back through.

And then, a brief second later, we were in the bright, comforting light of my bedroom.

I blinked in surprise. My stomach growled, as if I’d been starving, even though we’d eaten not too long ago. I clutched a hand to it. Immediately, my body shuddered and I felt my wings tighten, aching. Oh, no. “Reverting,” I moaned, crouching low on the carpet in my bedroom. I panted, trying to get breath into lungs that suddenly ached too much.

Hugh squatted next to me and stroked my hair again. “It is the fae realms that affect you. Here, you are able to control things much better. Just relax and let it happen.”

Easy for him to say. His body didn’t feel as if it was twisting inside out. I scrubbed at my scales, waiting for them to disappear under my skin again, and was relieved when they began to recede. I felt my tail and wings shift, and knew they were folding inward. As I changed, Hugh continued to stroke my hair, trying to ease me in the only way he knew how. It was weirdly . . . comforting. I knew he found my form repulsive, but he hadn’t left my side. That counted for a lot in my book.

And in a way, I felt like we were in this together. Finian was using us both to get what he wanted. I hated that, but now I knew that Hugh hated it, too. And it wasn’t just his happiness that was on the line; it was the happiness of all the primordials.

That changed things. If I pursued freedom for myself, I condemned so many others.

The thought ran through my mind over and over again as I sweated and heaved, my body returning back to its human state in slow, deliberate fashion. First my scales disappeared, then my wings sank into my back and my fangs retreated. Inch by inch, I returned to normal. Last, my claws retracted and I was left naked and shuddering and wholly human again.

I was also crouched low in front of Hugh, who was also naked. And now that I was human again? I was very aware of all this bare skin. This time, I was the one to avert my eyes, and I reached for the blanket on my bed, dragging it off and holding it against my skin to protect my naked body.

“So . . .” I said.

“Now you know,” Hugh said in a flat voice.

“Now I know,” I agreed. “And I understand. I really do. It doesn’t make it easier for me, but I understand why you must do what you do.”

He nodded.

“You understand that I’m not changing my mind, though? It makes me sad that my happiness will come at the cost of yours and so many others’, but damn it, I have to think of myself. I’m not going to be some guy’s stud animal. I still plan on finding a way around all of this.”

Hugh looked almost amused. “I expect no less.”

“All right, then.” I rubbed my face, my skin aching from my hard transformation. “I think I need a shower, and a meal, and then we should head off to work.”

“You lead,” he said, gesturing.

“You want a shower, too? I have extra towels. And that realm you’re from isn’t exactly lending itself to clean and fresh skin.”

His mouth twitched, as if amused. “Are you asking me to bathe?” He lifted one arm and sniffed under it. “Smells all right.”

“This is coming from a man who lives in a realm without women,” I teased. “Trust me. You should shower.”

He chuckled. “Shall you join me, then?”

I sucked in a breath, scandalized . . . and titillated . . . all at once. “You realize men are not supposed to offer to share a shower with a woman?”

“Are we not?” He looked surprised. “Is it because your bathing pool is small?”

“My bathing pool is very small,” I agreed, my cheeks flushing red. “And your skin would touch mine. And we’d rub all over. And that would be bad for my monster . . . and your vow.” I shouldn’t have said the flirty words, but I couldn’t help myself. “Wouldn’t want that.”

“No,” he said, and his husky voice sent ripples down my spine. His gaze rested on my face, and then he abruptly stood. “But I will bathe if you request it.”

I blinked, hurt by his sudden change. One mention of my changeling side and it didn’t matter how flirty I was. That stung. I sighed and headed to my linen closet. “I’ll get you a towel.” I thought for a minute, then glanced over at him. He was standing in my bedroom, his back to me, his tanned buttocks flexing as he poked my alarm clock. “I just realized . . . you don’t have any clothes, do you?”

He snorted. “I prefer no clothes. They are annoying and they itch.”

“Um, well, you need some clothes,” I told him. “Unless you plan on not leaving my apartment for the next month.”

“I will remain at your side.”

“Well, if that’s the case, then you really, really need clothing. I won’t get many places with a big naked giant—no matter how sexy—at my side.”

“What is this ‘sexy’?”

“It means women will want to lick you up and down.”

He paused. “You find me—sexy?”