Weremones (22 page)

A psychic vision invaded his mind. His first. A brief flash of the monster and her rescuers shone in raw horror movie style. Rage boiled up in him.

Now he knew the whole story.

Adam did the only thing he could. He retreated from the connection before she realized his trespass.

———

In the shower, Diana scrubbed viciously, fighting the horror of Dog’s attack. Each event after she left the bar flashed vividly behind closed eyes.

The moment that the motorcycles first drove up. Diana shuddered.

The sensory memories were both emotional and physical. She could still feel the sick hunger of lust. The heavy hairy weight of the werewolf getting more excited by the scent of her fear.

Diana scrambled out of the shower, threw up, and then brushed her teeth. Her fresh minty breath allowed the coffee smell to be appealing once again. Diana followed its lure downstairs. She hoped the kitchen was empty so that she could use it to fortify her defenses in peace.

It wasn’t. Adam’s drawn face looked up from her morning paper. Lines pinched around the chiseled slash of his mouth. A banked fire glowed behind the blue ice chips that made up his eyes. His white blond hair hung loose around his shoulders, obviously finger combed many times.

The work shirt he wore was as wrinkled as her bed sheets and his feet were bare.

That she thought he was sexy after heaving her guts up less than twenty minutes ago told her something. The comfort she felt at his presence was something she didn’t care to examine closely.

Adam’s nostrils flared. Diana reinforced the shield around herself to keep out the mix of emotions from him and the rest of the house. Her own were too much for her to deal with.

She didn’t need to find out if she could leak her trauma back through the pack bond. The boys, Brandon especially, might not be able to handle the reminder of past rapes.

She probably needed therapy. But any therapist that she told, “Hey, I’m having issues about being nearly raped by a werewolf,” would probably heavily sedate her.

She’d deal. Diana wasn’t willing to go down that road again.

She paused and ignored Adam. She reached into the cabinet for a coffee cup. She was still unhappy with his macho act at the Saloon anyway.

If she tried hard enough, Diana could lay the series of catastrophes last night squarely on his broad shoulders. Sharing the blame made her feel better. Petty, but better.

Diana poured her coffee with deliberate precision, keeping her back to him. She felt, more than saw, Karen enter the kitchen with Bradley at her side. Brandon would no doubt soon follow. The boy was near inseparable from his brother.

Diana took a sip of coffee, waiting for her wolven king, no-
despot
, to explode. Thinking of Adam Weis as hers made her frown. She would not become attached to him.

“I told you to stay in the bar.”

Yes, she decided, that was one ticked alpha male. She took another sip of coffee, pointedly ignored the waves of frustration and anger that poured out of him.

“You deliberately disobeyed my order.”

Diana turned slowly and leaned back against the counter. She rested one arm under her breast, balancing the other to sip her coffee. Let the man stew.

“You kids eat yet?”

She watched Karen and Bradley watch Adam simmer. They looked concerned, as they ought when the pack leader was upset.

Adam drummed his fingers impatiently on the forgotten paper. Brandon answered, slipping past his brother and Karen.

The boy gave Adam a wide berth and stopped next to Diana. His voice was soft and polite while he reached into the cabinet for a coffee cup, filling it for himself.

“We ate the cereal. Karen made biscuits and ham.”

Brandon cradled the cup between his hands and took a drink. His chocolate brown eyes half closed in pleasure.

Diana thought it a little odd that he wasn’t hiding from the tension in the room.

Since emotional and psychological evaluations were beyond her this morning, she pushed the occurrence to the back of her mind and focused on his words.

She figured that all four boxes of cereal and the three-pound hunk of ham were long gone. Matthew could eat … she sighed silently and shied away from the thought.

Diana gave Brandon a quick hug, ruffling his hair. A twinge in her shoulder protested the movement but she pushed away the memory with a false, bright smile.

Brandon’s shy answering smile made the movement worth the pain.

“Would you kids mind running out to the garage freezer and getting the brisket out for dinner?”

She sensed, not through any special gift, but through plain old intuition, that Adam had finally reached the end of his temper holding abilities.

Not that she’d experienced his temper holding ability to be all that vast before.

But he seemed to be doing a better than usual job of it this morning, er, afternoon.

“Pull out anything else you want to add to the menu.” Take your time, she added silently, because when he blows, it’s going to be a doozy.

The kids fled through the adjoining door leading into the laundry room and garage that served as a storage area to more than the freezer. The car lived in the driveway.

His explosion was swift and silent. Diana found her back pinned to the refrigerator, two hundred plus pounds of wolven in her face.

“I told you to stay inside the bar,” he repeated in a low growl.

He wasn’t hurting her. His grip was gentle, yet immovable. Under normal circumstances, Diana would have given him some leeway. She could feel the fear that had finally rattled his cage open leak through her shield. Instincts that drove him to protect what he perceived as his.

She was still angry that he’d butted in to her business last night. Her ego was bruised and she was still hurting from her son’s rejection. Angry that she’d let ‘the Dick’

find a way to rip her heart out a second time, through their son. And through it all, she felt sick and violated by Dog’s attack.

She felt guilty that maybe Adam had been right. Maybe she’d brought it all on herself by leaving.

Deprived of any of the true objects of her fury, Diana rounded on Adam.

“And I told you—you’re not my anything. Get over yourself.”

Diana embraced the fury and pain twisting in her gut and threw it at him like a fireball, a weapon. Dealing with the horror by lashing out at the safest target.

Adam flinched. He let her go and backed up a step.

Diana continued, empowered and on the offensive.

“I know exactly what you are. And I’m not impressed.”

She poked a broken silver nail in his chest, forcing him back yet another step. She embraced the power she’d buried all her life. She’d wasted so much time by hiding and still the monsters had caught up with her last night. The seductive magic of her power flared under her skin, feeding the maelstrom inside.

It felt good. Strong.

“You think you’re so god-damn above the rest of us. That you say jump and the rest of us do it.” She poked at him again. He backed away, a bemused look on his face.

“Not. Me. I’m a grown woman. I will do what I want, when I want. And you can take your macho shit and choke on it.”

Adam stopped and held his ground. Diana took a breath, her fury and power driving her on.

“Or I’ll drive a stake through your chest.”

“That would be vampires, sweet, not wolven.”

His low careful voice contrasted with her yelling. She blinked and lowered her tone.

“Vampires, wolven, whatever. You want to try me Fido?”

She still wanted to fight, to hurt. Picking at him might not be smart, but she knew she was safe with him.

Adam grabbed hold of her arms and gave her a quick, hard shake. His eyes glowed with suppressed emotion and power. The mingled scents of her angry passion and the aphrodisiac scent of psychic power rolling off of her heightened his own needs, making it hard for him to hold himself in check.

Diana snarled and attacked. She screeched with frustration as he held her firmly away from him.

Adam was surprised at the strength of her fury. It threatened to consume him through the bond. The sweet human female that had entranced him was gone, replaced by a mad she-wolf bent on tearing him apart.
If
he let go long enough for her to do so.

Last night his territorial nature had spurred him to displace Bob Benedict in Diana’s affections. He wanted her for himself. He accepted that now.

Even when Amanda, his fiancée, had disappeared, Adam had been angry, more interested in justice than grief stricken. His pride might have been damaged, but his heart had survived intact.

Finding out Diana was missing had frightened him, threatened to carve a hole in his heart. It was a new experience that confused him, making a dangerous predator even more dangerous while he searched the streets for her.

He felt her pain though the pack bond. Like with the boys, it made him feel ineffectual. That riled him as much as the stray’s blood scent on her skin, knowing that strange males had a link to her.

“I’m sorry.”

She didn’t hear and kept trying to get at him. Adam repeated the words with more force.

“
Diana.
I am sorry.”

She stilled and blinked at him, unaware of the tears tracking down her lovely face, even with the alarming red splotches. She heaved a breath.

“Why?
Why
?”

It was a general
why
. He understood that. He didn’t have an answer for her, hated that he didn’t, and offered up the only comfort he could.

“I would kill to keep the hurt from you if I could.”

She shook her head, unaware of the audience they had drawn from both doorways.

“Really? Or just a way to use me for your own gain?”

Adam frowned.

“I don’t understand.”

Diana laughed, harsh and disillusioned. She had a feeling Doc Tank had left out a lot of details in his explanation about dragon delicacies. Otherwise, why would Chase have warned her about being
on the menu
. No one had ever mentioned
why
she should avoid other supernaturals. Just to stay far away from them. Why were the wolven so interested in
her
?

“Oh, I’ll bet.”

“Mom?”

Diana blinked and looked into the doorway where Karen stood clutching Bradley’s arm. Her daughter’s face was pale.

Diana sucked in another breath to calm her skittering emotions. She ran a hand through her drying hair. It always dried in a half straight, half waved mess, like a rumpled haystack.

She needed to get a grip.

Diana cleared her throat, aware of all the eyes centered on her.

“I … I apologize for my outburst,” she said to the room at large.

Every eye seemed to judge her and she thought she came up lacking. Maybe not true, but it was how she felt. The crowd closed in on her without taking a step closer.

The sensory memory of Dog looming behind her made Diana catch her breath. The kitchen pressed in on her.

“Excuse me. I have to get dressed.”

She was dressed. She needed to get away. To hide. Diana angled for the doorway when Adam reached out. To capture her. She didn’t want to be captured. Held down.

Forced against her will. Diana slapped the hand away.

“Don’t,”
she hissed, missing the hurt her rejection caused. “Don’t touch me again.”

Diana spun on her toes and shoved past the two boys in the kitchen entry, cringing at the contact. She prayed her room was empty as she fled up the stairs. Wrapped up in her own pain, Diana missed the confusion she left behind. And in one case, too much understanding.

———

Adam waited until he couldn’t sit still any longer. The sound of the shower barely muffled a sob. Steam filled the bathroom with hot moisture.

Stepping over the pile of clothes, he eased the curtain aside. Wide startled brown eyes met his. His libido reacted instantly to the wet naked curves on display. He pulled the scrubber thing out of her hand and tossed it behind him.

“You’re going to hurt yourself like that.”

“I …”

Adam shook his head. With one finger, he traced the path of a stray drop of water down her cheek. Or was it a tear? A wry smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.

“Sweetheart. You are killing me.”

Diana shook her head. She squeezed her eyes shut. Wrapping her arms around her body, she began to shake.

Caught up in the pain, she lost track of time. One moment she was denying him, the next he was in the shower with her. Naked and holding her close.

He felt familiar. Right.

Diana buried her face against his god’s body and absorbed the comfort of his presence. Her hands traveled over the ridges and valleys of his terrain. She felt the jut of his desire against her hip. Warm water cascaded down her back and buttocks.

Diana didn’t want to remember the horror from last night. She raised her face.

“Make me forget.”

“You’re not ready.”

The unsure squint in his eyes made her grip the swells of his biceps and press against the slick wetness of his body. Sliding her breasts against his torso, she repeated the demand.

Adam’s head descended. The water darkened his hair. Slicked back, his features looked chiseled from marble. Hard and graceful, a work of art. His lips were perfect.

Diana melted into the kiss, taking strength from him like a draught on tap. She wanted this. To feel wanted. To be cared for. To belong forever.

She pulled back with a gasp. The emotions were his, not hers.

Shaking her head, she tried to pull away. She needed distance or she’d be doomed.

“I don’t want a commitment. I just want ....”

His finger against her lips stopped her words.

“I know. I’ll give you a new memory.”

Taking the digit into her mouth, she teased the rough pad with her tongue. She sucked him hard before letting go. The heavy digit at her hip jumped in response.

“No commitment.”

Adam’s answer was to cover her mouth with his. His tongue delved deep. His hands traveled down the line of her back to grasp her full buttocks. Reveling in the slide of their bodies, she looped her arms around his neck as he pulled her up in an easy movement.