Yearnings: A Paranormal Romance Box Set (86 page)

Seeing Grant’s face contort as he ordered her to run cured her seasickness, though. Her arms and legs pulsed with fear. Her mind raced with it. What should she do? Was Grant making that snarling howl? Childhood fears inched out of the past. A wolf in the woods. Nightmares.

“
Jacob,” Leigh hissed, “what is that?”

He disappeared through the wall. Seconds ticked away. Leigh watched the wall. Her eyes darted to the candelabra. She should try to grab it. Just in case. The howling stopped.

Silence.

Her gaze held to the doorknob. If Grant tried to enter, crazed and making that terrifying sound, she had to have a weapon. Where was Beatrice? Where was Jacob? She called his name in her head. A loud thud hit the door.

Leigh squeaked.

A low whine evolved into a growl. She could hear furious scratching at the wood, and the door moving.

She needed a weapon. She leapt to her feet, raced to the table and wriggled the candelabra stem off its immovable base. She cradled the heavy thing like a baby and scurried back to the bed. The scratching stopped. Any second now, Jacob would come back and explain what in the world was happening. She took a shaky breath.

Grant Connel had gone completely deranged. No other answer came to mind. Well, one other answer came to mind. When she was little, rumors whispered about a man in the next town over bitten by a rabid animal. A wolf or a coyote. He’d gone completely insane and had to be locked up. Her father used to tell her the story to keep her from wandering too far from the house. He didn’t want some rabid animal—or man—hurting her, carrying her off into the woods as lunch.

No. Men did not become wolves. Just like her dad had sworn. People died. Ghosts spoke, but men did not become wolves. The silence on the other side of the door was almost worse than the scratching. Maybe he’d passed out. Maybe he’d died.
Jacob? Where are you?

Here.

Leigh turned, startled. Jacob sat next to her on the bed, so solid that she thought for a moment she could take his hand and grip it tight. Of course, she couldn’t. All her life, she’d known that. As a child, he made it a game and she tried for hours, giggling to sleep. As a teenager, longing for connection, she’d focus all she had on trying to feel flesh and blood where only energy existed.

She was grown now.

This scared, any hand would do, but Lord she wished it was his.

“
What’s happened to Grant?” Please, let there be some plausible explanation. The poodle. Maybe she hadn’t seen the poodle, Duchy, come in with him. He’d gone crazy and the dog had reacted.

Wolf.

“
A dog?” Her fear notched down, logic set in. Of course it was the poodle. Grant wasn’t particularly fond of her, wanted her to leave while he waited for Beatrice. Rude, certainly. But logical. “The dog should be boarded, though.” A piece of her logic fell apart. “He must have sprung her from the kennels.” She looked at Jacob. “Right?”

No. Wolf. Grant. Wolf.

The hairs on her body stood on end. “Wolf? Grant has a wolf out there?” No. Jacob didn’t need to answer. She’d have seen a wolf. No man could board an ocean liner with a wolf in tow. “Werewolf.”

She felt ludicrous saying the word. Once it was out of her mouth, she almost laughed, waited for him to roll his eyes at her. Instead, he tipped his head a little to the side and nodded once.

“
What does that mean?” Her voice grew shrill. “Not werewolf? Partially werewolf?” Another scratch sounded at the door. Distinct sniffing sounds. Pawing at the bottom edge. A scream bubbled up her throat. “It’s going to get in,” she yelled, holding the brass candelabra like a cross to ward off the wolf.

Another growl rumbled through the door. Leigh shrieked, her childhood nightmares coming to life. The woods. The man and the rabid wolf. Dreams of claws on the glass of her bedroom window. Her dad scooping her up and running.

Running.

Leigh
! For a ghost, the echo neared a shout. Jacob’s visage snapped in front of her vision.
This wolf is Grant.
His energy came through even stronger.
“It will not hurt you,” he insisted, his voice more solid.

“
Grant? Impossible. Something else happened. Grant was crazed. He must have been running from the wolf. He came here, saw me, and told me to leave in order to protect me.” Yes. That sounded far more sane and rational. “Someone must have smuggled a wolf on board.”

Jacob gave her a look that spoke for him. Impossible? Did she, of all people, truly believe such a thing was impossible? His energy softened again, back to the usual echo she could feel more than hear.
He will not hurt you.

“
I’m not letting it in, Jacob.” She pushed the candelabra out as though it demonstrated just how decided she was.

“
If you wait much longer, you won’t have to,” Jacob said, clear as day.

She didn’t know what to think of this change in him and didn’t have the wherewithal to ponder what Jacob speaking so clearly outside of a reading meant. “I won’t have to wait? You can’t let him in, Jacob.”

Coming in.
Again, a shift back to the way they normally communicated.

“
Oh, no. Is Beatrice coming back? It will kill her!” She would have shaken his arm if she could grab onto him. Instead, she shook the brass candelabra in her hand. “
Do
something!”

Jacob disappeared.

“
Not that,” she said to the empty room. The scratching paused. A wolf could not break down a door. It could not pick a lock. That wolf would not get in here. Even if that wolf was Grant Connel.

Unless Grant had become some sort of in-between monster— half wolf, still human. Her imagination tortured her with grotesque possibilities. Grant’s stormy eyes staring at her from a distorted and bloody face. His nose a snout. His straight white teeth as jagged fangs. Too vivid.

Her ears roared. She strained to hear movement outside of that door. “Jacob?”

She scooted a little to the left, peering at the gap under the door. Something moved. She inhaled. “Jacob? Come back. Please?”

Her mind fumbled a plan together. If the wolf got in, if it was Grant, would it hurt her? If it was not a wolf but some hideous mutation, would Grant revolt her? What did that matter? She didn’t want to be revolted by Grant. It would ruin everything. Fine, good, think. She could clobber the thing over the head. She grabbed for bedclothes, covering herself against potential claws.

The scratching resumed. No longer at the bottom edge. Higher.

At the doorknob.

Jesus! Jacob was right. It wanted in. Where was Jacob? “If you are helping that wolf somehow, Jacob, I swear to you on my father’s grave, I will never forgive you.”

The scratching stopped. Silence filled the room. Minutes passed. Many, many minutes. Leigh’s heart rate slowed. Her ears adjusted to the room. Carefully, she laid the candelabra down on the bed. It sank into the covers.

“
Hello?” she called.

Silence.

She attempted a whistle, feeling completely idiotic. Wolves and dogs are not the same. Her father often had gone on and on with her mother, explaining that a wild animal feared a human, but if it felt attacked, would kill for self-preservation.

Leigh never thought her momma took the nearby woods as less than a serious matter, or its inhabitants. She just didn’t want her daughter having more nightmares.

A wolf was wild. A man who became a wolf had to be wild as well. Right?
He will not hurt you.
Jacob would never put her in danger. All her life, he had protected her from the darkness of the other side, from the horrors that tried to sneak past.

Leigh got to her feet, wobbling a bit. She’d certainly been lacking nutrition for days. She felt it as she walked to the door, holding onto furniture for support. The tip and loll of the room didn’t make her stomach pitch now, though.

There was that, at least.

No rule stated that she had to check that door. She hardly knew Grant, no matter how close she now felt to Beatrice. Now that she’d calmed herself, Jacob’s words replayed in her mind. He’d been sure the wolf wanted in, and that it wouldn’t hurt her.

Even more than that, Leigh suspected Jacob wanted the wolf let in.

Why in the world would a ghost care about a wolf man?

But he had. At no point had Jacob seemed scared. He’d acted worried. Not for her. For the wolf. He’d physically spoken words. Not impressions of words, but actual words, and without being connected to her like during a reading.

She could do this. Possibly even needed to do this.

Remarkably, her hand did not shake when she reached for the lock. She unlocked the door. She turned the handle, prepared to be attacked, hoping she’d find the anteroom empty. She paused, listened.

Nothing.

She inched the door ajar and peered through. The sight of a beige and brown tail, sent her back a step. The door swung open another few inches. Nothing could have prepared her for seeing Jacob crouched in front of a huge brown wolf, staring eye to eye.

The wolf blinked at Jacob. It bared its teeth a moment then stopped. Neither appeared aware of her presence. Leigh let the air out of her lungs as quietly as she could. Near the main cabin door, clothes lay in a heap. Grant’s clothes? This wolf was Grant.

She stepped past the doorframe, her bare feet squishing into the rug. Simultaneously, the wolf and Jacob turned her way. Jacob stood. Grant—the wolf—did as well. It—he—lowered his head and stared up into her eyes. Their pale blue shade, almost gray, was unmistakable.

“
Sweet Jesus,” she said, using her mother’s own favorite blasphemy. Wonder came over her. “It really is him, isn’t it?”

“
You aren’t scared?” Jacob asked.

Leigh shook her head. “You were right.” The wolf wasn’t out to hurt her. Why then? Because Grant inhabited the wolf? Why would Grant want to get to her? “What does he want?”

Jacob shook his head. “It’s foggy. I can’t tell.” He looked up at her and an understanding passed between them. How many times had it been too foggy for her to understand him, after all? “He needs help.”

“
Uh, yes. I’d say that’s obvious. Unless the man likes turning into an animal,” Leigh said to Jacob, then to the wolf, “No offense.”

The wolf nosed the air.

Leigh immediately smelled the room, too. Woodsy, clean. A touch of citrus, but also feral. The wolf bared its teeth, shook its body. It circled and began to groan.

“
What is it?” Leigh asked. “What’s wrong with him?”

Jacob stepped back. “I think we’re about to witness the body being taken back by the man.”

Leigh gasped. This she wanted to run from. She’d seen plenty of horrific transfigurations, thanks to the curse of a gift she’d been born with. Never something like this. Common sense pressed her to lock herself back in the bedroom, but her feet were rooted to the floor. Her vision was glued to the wolf.

He shook and growled, and Jacob reached out to it in vain.

“
He’s in pain,” Jacob said. “He needs...light? Fire?” He scrubbed a hand over his face, such a human thing to do, yet he seemed so unaware of it. Stress radiated from the wolf.

The growl-whine morphed as the wolf did as well. It arched its back, which widened. Its limbs lengthened. Charcoal gray fur came off in clumps. Two stormy eyes met Leigh’s before it buried its face in paws now becoming hands.

He peered at Jacob. Jacob reached over. He lay his hand on Grant’s shoulder as the last remnants of the wolf disappeared. In its place lay Grant, naked and curled over himself. Jacob’s hand fell away. The low growl became a deep, timbered groan.

“
What do I do now?” Leigh asked.

Jacob glanced up, shrugged, then vanished, leaving her alone with a heaving, sweating, naked man who might not like her very much.

~~~

Chapter Seven

Reality penetrated the muck that clouded Grant’s awareness. Words seeped through, thick and heavy in his head, replacing the images and pure emotion of before. Leigh. Her face became a name. A deep, driving need to protect Leigh carried through. From what? From whom? Even holding still, pain sprawled through his limbs. Every muscle bunched, ready to seize into a cramp. A clump of hair fell off his shoulder. The cool air hit the skin beneath, irritating the raw area.

Where was Leigh?

Hazarding movement, he glanced upward. Two bare feet poked out from a lavender hem. Hell. Those toes belonged to Leigh. He knew it. How much had she witnessed? He couldn’t remember. When he tried, he only saw a dark-haired man, crouched in front of him, trying to communicate. He remembered that much, but it was as the wolf. The black and white images, the thrust of emotions that came with the wolf, didn’t fit in his human mind. A few more minutes, and he’d be able to move. How long had he shifted for? Not long. “Where’s Beatrice?” he grit out.

“
I don’t know,” Leigh answered, her voice soft. “I expect she’ll be back soon, though. She’s been gone some time now. Two, maybe three hours.”