Weremones (30 page)

“How’s it going up there?”

Brandon jumped. His eyes touched on Adam then focused on the linoleum.

“Okay.”

“Come sit down. I want to talk.”

Brandon froze. He struggled with something inside and glanced at the back door.

He looked like a cornered animal.

“I was going to get a breath of air. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Adam smelled the lie and moved to close the distance between them. Brandon erupted into motion. Panic and fear rolled off of the teen. The kid dodged for the patio door, intending to go through the glass. Adam was faster.

He launched into a tackle, rolling to take the brunt of the fall. Brandon changed quickly and smoothly, under his hands and lit into Adam. The boy was a flurry of dark fur and teeth, fighting to get away. Survival at any cost.

Adam growled at the pain and took the damage.

“Cut it out!”

The boy landed a vicious bite on his arm. Adam moved fast to pin Brandon both wrist and neck.

“Damn it! That hurt. What’s got into you?”

Underneath him, the boy writhed and growled, trying to escape. Sharp teeth snapped a few inches from Adam’s face. He switched his neck pin to include the jaw.

“Stop it. Now.” All the authority of the Canis Pater went into the command.

Brandon’s attacks ceased. The wolven boy strained against the confinement.

Desperation was a bitter aroma in Adam’s nose.

He settled his weight solidly. Underneath, the rise and fall of the kid’s chest panted out harsh breaths. The boy’s furred ears laid flat against his head.

“Shhh. Easy. No one’s going to hurt you,” Adam crooned and feathered his thumb over the pinned wrist. “Shhh. Don’t bite. Look at me, son. Shhh.”

“I won’t do it.” Brandon’s voice was muffled under him. “I won’t do it. Lemme up,
please.
”

The
please
tore Adam up.

“First tell me what’s got you so upset.”

“I won’t do it. The coyotes. I won’t go.”

That was the last thing Adam expected. All right, maybe it should have been the first, but for some strange reason he kept assuming his pack would recognize the difference between him and his predecessor.

He let go and sat up. The silent stares of the rest of the pack, the strays included bored into Adam from the doorway. Their lack of trust hurt. The constant waiting for him to screw up hurt more.

He stood up and looked down at Brandon. The boy poised to flee. Adam sighed and shook his head.

“No. You’re not going. I’ll kill Benjamin Gates for what he’s done. But you’re free Brandon.” Adam waved a hand at the patio door. “Go if you want. I’m not keeping you or anyone else against his will.”

Adam ran a hand through his hair. He rested his hand on the back of his neck and looked around the kitchen. The area was trashed. Diana would probably skin him alive for busting up her table.

He turned to walk out. The others moved aside to make room for his passage.

“Where are you going?”

Brandon’s small voice stopped him. Adam didn’t turn around.

“I’m going to find a place to crash for a couple of hours. I’m tired.”

Diana blinked awake. She carefully turned her head to look at the light filtering in around the curtains. Apparently, she’d finally mastered the fine art of passing out in her own room and waking up there again.

Sitting up proved exhausting. For her next trick, she was going to try not to pass out again.

How long had she been out?

Snatches of blurred memory came to her. The man at the restaurant parking lot kidnapping them. Wrestling to keep him in the car while Karen escaped.

Karen had to have gotten away and come back. Diana rubbed her fingers against her forehead. She thought one of the boys might have been there but she could be imprinting her time here over their escape.

She pulled down the loose neck of her nightgown. Diana saw the healing wound above her right breast. It had the look of days, maybe even weeks of healing.

The last time she’d woke up remarkably healed, she’d had the same foul taste in her mouth. Like—

No, she really didn’t want to make a simile. Anyone who’d bitten her tongue would know what the flavor was. The thought churned her stomach.

The clock said six fifty-eight and the little dot for pm was lit. Diana figured that the way things had been going lately, she should probably spring for one that displayed the date too, for the next time she passed out.

She tried to think of that fairy tale about the guy who slept for so long, maybe a hundred years, but kept mixing it up with Rumplestilskin and the princess who spun gold from hay. Jax, the gnome, would know for certain.

Maybe she would send him an email or something when all this was over.

Diana made a face. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She had enough problems with werewolves, pardon,
wolven
, and assorted fringe psychotics, ah, psychics. She didn’t need to drag the fairie realm into the mix, too.

Besides, the gnome expected certain strings if she asked for favors, even knowledge. Diana had reservations enough about dating a werewolf, er, wolven to think about gnomes. She pressed down a shudder. She wasn’t prejudiced. She happened to like her men
a lot
taller than gnome sized. Jax made a perfectly sized friend.

She gingerly moved to the side of the bed. Deep in her chest, a warning tickle made her pause so as not to trigger a coughing fit. That would hurt. A lot.

The room spun a little when she stood. She steadied herself on the bed and listened. Were her senses getting better?

Chase, the biker wolf guy, had said females didn’t contract lycanthropy because of PMS. Beneficial hormonal surges? Go figure.

She heard something and shuffled to the door to investigate. The hall was no biggie to navigate. Just hold onto the wall and do the geriatric slide to the stairs.

At the stairs, Diana looked down the long bumpy tunnel. It was going to be a bitch. She was already winded.

By holding her breath, she ascertained that people were indeed in the house.

Karen’s happy laugh floated up the stairwell, unclenching the painful knot around her heart. She should go down and see with her own eyes that her daughter had made it out all right.

All Diana had to do was make her way down the looong flight stairs and across eternity in the hall to the living room.

In the past few weeks Diana had been chased down by a pack of werecoyotes.

She knew that first incident for what it was. She’d been attacked by a gang of biker werewolves, and kidnapped and stabbed by a killer after the werewolves. In each instance one of the supernatural wolves had come to her rescue. And Karen’s.

Oh, yeah. And Matthew had taken up with his asshole father for college tuition.

But that was on a more personal, sucky, note. Diana decided to shuffle back to the bathroom instead, where she could wallow in private.

Tank materialized in front of her. She sucked in a sharp breath of surprise.

Her eyes watered, her chest itched deep inside. Diana held her breath, hoping not to embarrass herself by hacking up a lung. Finally, she gave in to the cough, grabbing a fistful of the shirt in front of her for support.

Afterward she realized what,
who
, she was hanging onto and couldn’t quite seem to let go.

The dark velvety swells and plains of Tank’s muscles were tense under her hands.

The glorious stretch of too small sweatpants announced his untapped potential as an underwear model. Billions of women everywhere were deprived of this sight. And thankfully so, she thought, with more than a little possessiveness on her part.

Diana wondered if she was becoming a slut. Psychic wolven groupie slut, that was her.

“What are you doing out of bed, little sister.”

“I’m not your little sister,” she grumbled and pushed away, her pride pricked.

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom. You scared me. Don’t swoop out like that.”

She glared up at him, feeling childish. Simply because he wasn’t interested didn’t give her cause to throw a guilt trip at him, but she didn’t feel like exercising any selfrestraint.

“I apologize for the fright.” He was so serious. A professor on steroids. Tank unclenched a fist and raised his hand to brush his knuckles down her cheek.

“And for the physical complications our
blood donations
, mine and Chase’s, have caused you. The addition of more supernatural blood will cause your hormone levels to shift while your body readjusts.”

Huh?
The reason she was so worked up was because of all the wolven blood she’d ingested lately?

Tank ducked his head. The thin braids slid over his shoulders and swung free.

Unfortunately, whatever subtle cologne he wore made her feel even more childish. She opened the bathroom door and slammed it behind her.

Too bad he didn’t feel like apologizing for anything else. Like being a man and blaming her mood on hormones.

Diana sighed. God, she was being a bitch. She knew it and that made it worse.

She felt hypersensitive physically and emotionally. She wanted to cry and laugh at the same time at how absurd her life had become. Memories of the near rape by Dog blurred with the kidnapping.

Suddenly, she wanted to see that Karen was all right, not just feel the happy tug that was her daughter in the back of her head.

But first she needed to wash away the nightmares that danced behind her eyelids.

She turned the shower on. The need to scrub the nastiness away before she was too exhausted to crawl back to the bed was more imperative than drawing her next breath.

“Diana!”

The thumping on the door made her drop the purple squishy scrubber. Diana clambered out of the tub in defense of the bathroom door. She snatched her towel from the rack and held it to her chest, letting it drape down to cover the important parts.

“Hold on. I’m coming.”

“Diana, open up or I’m going to break this door down!”

“Good God. Don’t get your tail in a twist.”

She jerked open the door. Adam stood in front of her, fist raised to pound her poor door in. A muscle ticked in his whiskered jaw. His facial hair was a couple of shades darker than the straggled mane on his head. The pale husky colored eyes were blood shot.

He looked exhausted and still ready to take on an invasion. Behind him more huge males ranged out. She heard the boys rather than saw them.

“What are you all? Thor and his pals from Valhalla?”

Someone behind the men sniggered. He stared. The men stared. Diana held her chin up, held tight to her towel, and stared right back.

Adam swept her up. She squealed and sucked in a breath. Her chest might be healing super fast but didn’t like being jarred.

Adam froze. He carefully finished scooping her up, one arm under her knees and cradled her close to his chest.

“Adam! Don’t!” She tried to readjust the towel and failed miserably. She knew she flashed everyone in visible range. Thank God the boys were behind the men.

“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

The man looked and felt so worried she couldn’t help but grin.

“I’m fine. Can I
please
have some clothes?”

He nodded, shouldering past the crowd to her bedroom door.

“Everyone back downstairs. I’ll holler when you can come back up.”

“But, I want to see my mom.”

Karen’s voice was somewhere in the back with the boys.

“Is she okay? I want to see she’s okay.”

Their protests lightened some of the sadness in her heart. She felt …
needed
.

Adam set her on her bed like a fragile treasure and went back to shut the door.

Diana started to get off the bed. She really wanted her clothes. The towel clamped to her chest just wasn’t enough.

Adam waved her back down and went to her nightgown drawer. He pawed around before pulling out a long blue nightgown she’d treated herself to a few years ago at a pricey boutique in Tyler. It managed to be both conservative and sexy at the same time.

“Turn around.” Diana circled the air with one finger. “Look for the robe on the back of the closet door.” She told him while she slipped the gown on, and then stood for a moment to smooth the silky fabric down.

Turning back, his facial expression said how sorry he was that he’d missed the show. The robe had been buried behind several other, less appealing, robes of terrycloth, cotton, and flannel. Too bad.

She rubbed her nose. He smelled different, stronger, as if he’d been drenched in male pheromones. Like Tank had in the hall. Of course the hall had smelled like a testosterone factory.

“So. What’s up?” She asked, taking the robe and belting it around her waist. As if it was a normal day and he’d come by to pay a visit. Chit-chat.

Adam rounded the bed and pulled back the fresh sheets someone had changed in her brief absence. He picked her back up, tucking her under the covers.

“Hey! I’m not crippled.”

His face set in stone. Concrete male determination filled him.

Diana laid a hand over his. She wasn’t sure what emotions she was receiving from him and what were her own.

“You don’t have to do this. I’m fine.”

He cocked his head to one side and stared at her with the wolfy expression his permanently furry cousins in the wild reserved for scientists and the like.

“Of course I do.”

She gripped his hand on impulse, pulling him down to sit beside her.

“We need to talk. And shut up before you say something stupid, like I need to rest.”

She still didn’t know what had happened after she passed out. She felt her mouth opening, heard the words pouring out, and couldn’t stop them.

“What’s wrong? Is it about the werecoyotes? Did you find Brandon?”

Adam blinked at her like he’d been blindsided. His lips curved into a sensual grin.

“You’re not all soft and sweet, are you, Diana Ridley?”

She narrowed her eyes and gave his shoulder a smack.

“I’m not a dessert.”

He grinned. She smacked him again.

“Seriously.” She took a breath, and then grimaced as a cough took over. Adam dove for the tissue box and shoved a handful into her hands.