And look where that decision had gotten me.
“You wouldn’t understand,” was all I said.
His gaze was steady and yet penetrating at the same time. “I thought we’d just established that we’re both capable of understanding a lot more than the other realizes.”
I let out an impatient sigh as a burst of frustration coursed through me. “All right then, how’s this? I don’t want to tell you. I don’t know why I’m even talking to you. You’re my captor.”
“Not really.” Softly, but the words still resonated. “You’re part of the pack now. And as enforcer, I keep the pack safe. Even if it’s from themselves.”
This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to explore. I wasn’t ready emotionally or mentally. I yawned, not bothering to cover my mouth, hoping he’d take the hint.
He did. Daniel pushed his chair back and stretched. “Are you going to give me any trouble if I take a shower?”
I eyed him warily. “I won’t throw a radio in with you, if that’s what you’re talking about.”
He grinned. “Good to know, but I meant can I trust you not to run away while I’m in the shower? I don’t want to have to tie you to a chair, but I also don’t feel like chasing after you with soap in my eyes.”
I looked away from his smile, which was charming, sexy, and dangerous all at the same time. It wasn’t the dangerous part that unnerved me; it was the other things.
“I’ll stay put.” But only because you’d hear me if I didn’t.
Daniel went in the bathroom and I sat on the bed, debating whether to climb under the covers since the room was chilly. Finally I decided to wait. I’d shower once Daniel was done, then I’d borrow one of his shirts to sleep in again. At least they were long enough that modesty wasn’t an issue.
I cast one longing look at the window and the freedom that lay beyond it but then sighed. Daniel would chase after me, stark-naked and soapy, then he’d probably tie me to a chair after all. The thought of sleeping sitting up while duct-taped didn’t appeal to me. No, I’d wait for another chance to escape. One had to come up.
After about ten minutes, Daniel finished with his shower and appeared in the doorframe. His hair looked darker wet, and drops of water still beaded his skin. All he had on was a towel slung low on his hips, the white color emphasizing his deep tan. He ran a hand through his hair, flinging more droplets away. With that simple, muscle-rippling gesture, some intensely feminine part of me reared up, forgot everything else, and just stared.
No wonder he isn’t human, I found myself thinking. No normal person could be this sculpted and gorgeous.
Far too belatedly, it occurred to me that I was still staring at him even though several seconds had ticked away. He’d have to be a regular, blind human not to notice, and he was part-animal with superheightened senses.
Look away, stupid! the sane part of me urged. So I did, finally dragging my gaze up his body to meet his face.
He wasn’t smiling smugly over catching me admiring him for the second time in only two days. He also wasn’t scowling over my objectifying him, and I had been staring at him as if he were a piece of meat and I was starving. No, he was looking at me with such open lust that I felt an almost painful clench of answering desire. All at once, I wasn’t chilled anymore. Instead, I was so warm that I was bordering on sweating.
This is wrong. All wrong. Don’t you dare. You need to snap out of this right now, I mentally berated myself.
“Stockholm syndrome,” I whispered. It could only be that. Who in their right mind got turned on by their kidnapper, no matter what he looked like?
“Or something else.” Daniel’s voice was equally soft, but it contained an undertone that sent a reckless shudder through me. “Wolves can tell their intended mate by scent, sometimes before they’ve even sighted them. Once the two meet… things are inevitable from there.”
That wildness was lurking in his eyes again, as if the animal in him was reaching through his guise of humanity to make itself known. Seeing it was nerve-racking, but the man himself was so dangerously enticing; I found myself twisting the bed sheets with my fingers just to keep myself from reaching out to him.
“I’m not a wolf,” I managed to say in a shaking voice.
Daniel just smiled, dark and sensual and promising.
“You will be soon.”
Chapter Ten
A tentative knock sounded at the door. “Can I come in?”
The voice was feminine. I would have said no, but there was no lock and my wishes were pretty much ignored by everyone, so what was the point?
“Fine.”
A girl with auburn hair came in. It took a moment, but then I recognized her from the other night. Daniel’s cousin. Damned if I could remember her name.
“I brought you some clothes,” she said. “Hope they fit, but if they don’t, you can take them back. The store’s right down the street.”
The girl set a couple of bags on the bed. I’d barely left this room for two days, not since the night of the gauntlet. Confusion and uncertainty had begun to overwhelm me. What had started out as a twisted, supernatural hostage scenario had changed into something more. I could now sense the rain before it started, hear noises from farther away than humanly possible, and had recurring dreams about turning into a wolf, which had changed from terrifying at first to strangely exhilarating in the recent ones.
All of that was disturbing enough, but what had me hiding in my room for the past couple of days was the fact that I was increasingly drawn to Daniel. I craved his scent more than food, followed him with my gaze whenever he entered the room, and had to fight with myself not to touch him when he was near. I’d never been hooked on drugs, but this must be what addiction felt like, and it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. The worst part was, I was pretty sure Daniel knew what I was going through. From the heated looks he sent my way, he knew it wouldn’t be long until I gave in to the rising wildness within me, and he was looking forward to that.
That’s why I’d refused to talk to him for the past two days. I could hardly stand to be in the in the same room with him anymore, hence my shutting myself away. The simple truth was that I didn’t trust myself. I should be focusing on the fact that I was changing into a monster and not be secretly fascinated by my new senses or lusting after the person who was holding me prisoner. The night of the full moon loomed in front of me like an executioner’s axe. Whatever control I had over myself now, I knew it would be gone as soon as that ghostly orb rose in the sky.
And the worst part? Some primal, burgeoning part of me wasn’t just looking forward to it. I was yearning for that release.
“…thought we could have a soak,” the girl was saying. “That always helps me unwind when I’m upset.”
“What?” I hadn’t been paying attention to a word she was saying.
“The hot springs,” she repeated. “We have indoor and outdoor ones. I bought you a swimsuit. Anything’s got to be better than being cooped up in this room day and night.”
Outside. With just her. I gave the girl a quick, cagey look. Maybe this was my chance. She was petite, looked about nineteen or twenty, and seemed nice. Let’s hope she was gullible too.
“Sure. Thanks,” I added, smiling. “What’s your name again? I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
“Laurel,” she said with an answering smile. “Here, I’ll leave so you can change.”
“Can we go to whichever spring has the least amount of people? I’m, ah, shy about being in a bathing suit around strangers.”
Growing up spending my summers at Lake Michigan, that was a lie, but she didn’t know that.
She nodded. “Sure.”
I lowered my voice. “He doesn’t need to come, does he?” I asked, with a nod toward the living area of the cabin, where Daniel was. “I’m so tired of him shadowing my every move.”
I wished that were still true, but it wasn’t. I’d gone from being frightened of Daniel to being annoyed by him to being
driven mad from desire by his nearness. What I was really tired of was fighting my urge to give in to everything I was feeling, but I could hardly share that with Daniel’s young cousin.
Laurel lowered her voice as well. “I’ll talk to him.”
My smile widened. Nice and gullible. Maybe my luck was finally changing.
***
If circumstances were different, I would have been awed at how beautiful this place was. The cabins were set near the end of the mini-town and spaced well apart for privacy. The mountains loomed majestically around all of it. Forests bridged the bottom of the mountains, adding a more secluded feel, and the steam rising up from the rock-bed hot springs looked both soothing and inviting.
It was stunning, but all of this wide-open beauty seemed to mock me because I was still trapped. As I sank into the warm mineral water, I was reminded of my tub at home in my apartment. A stab of longing went through me when I thought about my parents, whom I’d meant to call before leaving on my camping trip, but I hadn’t. Or my older sister, Leigh, whose birthday was next month. My little nephew, Todd, who’d just turned one recently. My coworkers, who made the long hours from nine to five pass much more quickly. My best friend, Brandy, who’d always been there for me. And her boyfriend, Tom, who’d told me in confidence right before they left that he was finally going to pop the question. Tears began to burn my eyes. Would I ever see any of them again?
I will, I promised myself fiercely, refusing to give up on everyone I’d ever known. My out-of-control emotions for Daniel were nothing more than a symptom of my illness, and every illness had a treatment. I’ll get away, and I’ll find a doctor to cure me, I thought with renewed determination. There must be a way. I just have to get away from here. No matter what.
“Feeling better?” Laurel asked. She leaned back, settling her arms around the edge of the rock lip.
“Yes.” And I did. I’d committed myself to a course of action and I was determined to follow it through. No matter what.
“I don’t know why you’d be embarrassed to be seen in a swimsuit, Marlee,” she went on. “You’re very pretty. Finn’s already interested in you.”
“Finn?” I asked blankly.
“My cousin. The guy with the long black hair. You met him the same night you met me.”
Oh, yeah. I couldn’t care less, but the more she talked, the more she might let her guard down. “He looked young,” I replied neutrally.
She laughed. “He’s forty-two.”
My jaw dropped as I remembered the smooth-skinned, flirty Finn. “He can’t be!”
Laurel gave me a slanted look. “There are advantages to being one of us. You know how one year equals seven in a dog’s life? Well, we have the reverse of that. And you already know that we heal a lot faster than normal people. Plus when we change into a wolf, we experience the world in ways no one else can. I don’t know how anyone would rather be just a human, in fact.”
I gaped at her. Did she really believe all of this? Could some of what she’s saying even be true? Just when I thought things couldn’t get any stranger.
“How old are you?” I managed to ask.
She settled back more comfortably in the natural rock formation. “Oh, I’m only twenty, but the good news is, I’ll look like this for a long time. The age-slowing doesn’t happen until puberty’s over, thank God. Imagine being a teenager for forty years?”
I couldn’t, and I didn’t even want to. “And Daniel?”
“I’ll let him tell you how old he is,” Laurel replied with a little smirk that made me very wary.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Like hell. She was obviously itching to say more.
I scooted closer, lowering my voice. “What?” I asked insistently, but smiled as though we were sharing secrets.
Laurel’s smirk widened. “Normally when someone’s exposed to us the way you were—which is very rare, I might add—Daniel is the one to bring them in, but he doesn’t watch over that person personally, let alone the whole time. He’s big on having his own privacy. He’s never had someone stay at his cabin for four days straight, even a girlfriend. Add his refusal to let Finn even visit you and, well… he’s acting possessive. Like a wolf with his mate.”
I was alternating between being shocked and feeling a ridiculous sense of triumph. Daniel, seeing me as a potential mate? So it wasn’t just me who’d been so affected by our close proximity these past several days!
But that presented a whole new set of problems. It was one thing when I thought that Daniel was being so attentive just because it was his job as the pack’s enforcer. Or thinking that he was merely reacting to my obvious attraction for him the way any healthy, single man would. Knowing that he might also feel the same startlingly deep, emotional attachment that I was beginning to feel for him would decimate the slim hold I had on my control, and I still needed to get away from here. Not complicate things to a fantastic degree by giving in to those feelings.
Or, I reminded myself, ruthlessly reining in my emotions, Laurel could be wrong. Daniel could be keeping me close because he knew I hadn’t really accepted this as my new life. She might be reading in hidden motivations that didn’t really exist. Either way, I had to take advantage of my chance away from him, which was why I’d agreed to this hot-spa outing in the first place.
I hunched a little, letting an expression of pain spasm across my face.
“What’s wrong?” Laurel asked at once.
“Cramps,” I said with another grimace. “I think I’m getting my period. Could you do me a huge favor? I don’t want to embarrass myself by, um, springing a leak while walking back to town. Do you have any tampons you could bring me? I’ll just wait here.”
As I spoke, I climbed out of the hot water and sat on one of the large rocks, wrapping a towel around me. Here’s hoping the universal sympathy every woman had for that time of the month would result in Laurel doing something very stupid.
She gave me such an odd look that I cursed myself for not coming up with a better reason for her to suddenly go away. Well, I didn’t have much time to think up a clever ploy, and with how fast werewolves healed, I could hardly fake a sudden injury, either.
But then, at last, she smiled. “Sure. Be right back.”
Laurel got up, fastened a towel around herself, and walked away. I waited, barely breathing, until her rounding a cabin took her out of sight, then I bounded up and began running flat out of the nearest line of trees.
Chapter Eleven
I didn’t have shoes on, so all the rocks I ran over cut into my feet, but I ignored the wounds. It would only take Laurel ten to fifteen minutes to return. That’s all the time I had to get away, so I had to make it count.
I ran as if I were trying to outrace a wildfire, noting with a growing sense of awareness that I was moving faster than I ever had before. I was in decent shape, but I had never been an athlete… until now, it seemed. I wasn’t even getting winded. Maybe the werewolf curse inside me would actually help me to get away.
Go faster, I urged myself. Head for the mountains. It’ll be harder for them to track your scent over all that rock.
Even as I ran far faster than I ever had before, I couldn’t help but notice that the forest was alive with sounds. The cries of birds. The rustling of branches as they rubbed together in the wind. The thuds my feet made on the drying leaves strewn over the uneven ground. The awful feeling of the world crashing down on me began to lessen, replaced with an inexplicable joy over simply running as hard and fast as I could. I might be running away from this life, but right now, I felt strong, free, and wild, like the forest itself was spurring on my steps. That strange joy caused me to run even faster, allowing me to forget the pain in my feet, until the trees became almost a blur around me.
Giddiness bubbled up inside me. This felt so right. Like I’d been waiting my whole life to run this way.
Something hard suddenly collided with me, snatching me up. My heart was already pounding
, but it kicked into another gear as I glimpsed the person who’d grabbed me. Daniel.
He whirled me around to face him. His hazel eyes were now blazing amber, and they seemed to pin me as tightly as his grip did.
“What were you thinking?” he demanded, giving me a shake. “You’re only wearing a bathing suit and a towel! I should have waited to go after you. Maybe spending the night in the freezing cold would have knocked some sense into you!”
My emotions were on overload from the adrenaline rush of my attempted escape, the frustration of being caught, and the residual exhilaration of the incredible run. I didn’t feel like myself anymore. That seething wildness hiding inside of me had finally broken out and taken over.
I grabbed Daniel’s hair and yanked his head down, slanting my mouth across his. For a split second he froze—and then his mouth opened, his tongue twisting with mine. His hand tangled in my hair, jerking me closer while his other hand molded our bodies together. The intense heat coming from him made me gasp, but I pressed against him, wanting more of it. He made a low, deep sound in his throat that could only be called a growl and kissed me deeper, harder, unleashing a flood of lust inside me that shook me to my core even as it frightened me enough to cure me of my earlier recklessness.
If you don’t stop now, you’ll end up having sex right here, right on the ground. Just like the animal you’re turning into…
“No!” I wrenched away, my breath coming so fast that I was panting.
Daniel let me out of his arms, but his hand tightened on my wrist, not letting me get entirely free. “What’s wrong?”
I let out a despairing bark of laughter. “You. Me. Everything.”
He pushed his hair out of his face, staring at me with an intensity that made me shiver. “None of that is wrong. It’s right, even if you don’t want to admit it yet.”
At some point, my towel had fallen to the ground, leaving me in just the bathing suit. Daniel’s eyes dipped, and his gaze slid over me with the same effect as an intimate caress. Tremors ran over me and I swayed, feeling as if my body were trying to move toward him with a will of its own.