Bitten & Beholden (Children of Fenrir Book 2) Page 6

  “So much for being a doctor,” I mumbled.

  “You wanted to be a doctor, like a surgeon?” Ty asked, eyes wide.

  My own gaze hardened. Why did people always find that so hard to believe? “Not exactly. I was close, dammit. One more year of med school…”

  “A surgeon. Truly?”

  “At first, yeah. But after so long in med school I’m more interested in the inside of a person, mentally. But none of that matters now.”

  Ty leaned a bit closer but didn’t reach out to me. “I am sorry this was forced upon you. Such things are not done anymore. Raul was out of line and will be punished. You can still have a normal life after this is over.”

  Bones ached as fangs grew within my mouth. Normal, yeah right. Only if crazy was the new normal. “I want to be the one to punish him.”

  To my surprise, Ty nodded. “That is your right. You will be given the opportunity to do so after his sentencing, and you will be able to pass down his sentence, with the Council’s approval.”

  Anger spread out from my center as if riding on my very blood itself. The sensation reminded me of hard whiskey burning all the way down to one’s stomach, only in reverse. My skin crawled as if the tiny hairs along it had been stirred by a breeze. Sitting back against the bench, I rubbed my arms. The crawling magnified, turned into a burning, as if that breeze were now brushing against sunburned skin.

  “Easy, there, easy,” Ty soothed, a hand reaching out to touch my arm.

  His cool fingers helped ground me, bring me back to myself a bit. That glacial gaze of his pulled me back from the brink of rage so completely I found myself leaning toward him as if those eyes were magnetic. But it had to be more than that because he began to lean toward me as well.

  “It is best not to focus on anything that makes you angry for the first week or so,” he said, breaking the spell.

  Inches from his face, I leaned away quickly, feeling utterly foolish. “What if I don’t want your help with the becoming?”

  His big fingers wove through each other as if he needed to keep his hands busy. “That part is not an option. Every new varúlfur must be guided through the verða by a kennari. That is the law, and for good reason. There is a lot to learn that will keep not only you, but those around you, alive.”

  I sat up straighter, palms pointed skyward. “So I will feel compelled to kill people?”

  Blond hair light as wheat flashed in the streetlights bouncing off the river as he shook his head. “No. But your emotions are heightened and they will be harder to control. If you get angry and lose that control…” His voice trailed off as he shrugged.

  Sighing, I nodded as I tried to take it all in. “I get it. So I can control this thing with help. Will I actually turn into a wolf?” My voice dropped to a whisper on the last part.

  A gentleness entered his eyes, softening them like spring melt. Oh damn, now his pretty eyes had me thinking all poetic. “Yes, but it isn’t like the movies or books. You will be able to change at will. Emotions will be heightened during the full moon, but it will not force you to change. You will want to that much more.”

  Hell, why not dive head first into the crazy? “Will it hurt?” I was no stranger to pain, and a hard life had given me a high threshold, but I wasn’t looking forward to more.

  “Only if you fight it, like how your jaws ache when you try to hold back the fangs. I will teach you to control your emotions, and that will help curb the instinct to shift.”

  The fact that he knew about that made it seem more real, more plausible that he wasn’t pulling my leg. Obviously, he wasn’t. The fangs made that clear. But still, part of my mind couldn’t let go of the possibility that this was all a hoax. Sadly, that part grew smaller by the moment. The breath in my lungs eased out. There was one more thing I had to know sooner rather than later.

  “You said something about being sorry you didn’t get to Raul before he bit me. Did you know he was going to do this?”

  He shook his head. “I suspected he was searching for a woman to bite in to be his mate, and since I knew he did not have the Council’s permission, I was following him to keep an eye on him. I had no idea he would go to the extreme of biting someone in without their permission and knowledge.”

  After a long moment he stood and offered me his hand.

  “I have overwhelmed you enough for one day. What do you say we get you something to eat, then let you rest?”

  My stomach growled at the words. The bag of food I had filled from my pathetically stocked kitchen had run out and it had been hours since I’d eaten. Even then, that had been a granola bar. I accepted his hand and let him help me to my feet. The warmth of his rough palm felt amazing, like a hot tub I wanted to sink into. It was all I could do to force myself to let go. I needed to get this over with, get back to med school, and most importantly get away from this guy before I made another poor decision.

  “All right, let’s go. But, Ty, will you promise me one thing?”

  He grinned. “Only one?”

  My expression hardened. “Only one. Don’t keep secrets from me.”

  His smile vanished as if blown away by my words. “I promise.”

  We walked back to the Jeep in silence, if I didn’t count the chaos of thoughts going off like fireworks in my head. Part of me wished Ty hadn’t been the one to be here, hadn’t told me all of this. But not knowing wouldn’t change it. The world had upended, leaving me drowning in a foreign universe. I was bad at being human. How I was going to be a werewolf, I had no idea.

  Chapter Six

  Ty

  We rode back from the park in a tense silence broken only by the buzz of traffic around us. From across her classic Jeep, I did my best to sneak looks at her without getting caught. I could not help it. Everything about her, from her slightly pouty lips and remarkable brown eyes to her long, jet-black hair, drew me in. Amazing. But I was not as shallow as all that. More pulled at me than her knockout looks.

  The way she was handling all this, for one, was pretty impressive. I had never known a newly bitten, but I did not imagine any of them took it in such easy stride. True, anger radiated off her, but she was not afraid. Even if she had been able to hide it from me, I would have smelled it. But all I smelled coming off her was her unique spicy scent that managed to be feminine and sultry at the same time. From her adaptability to her spunkiness, none of it was what I had expected out of a woman chosen by Raul. She surprised me, and I liked that more than I cared to admit. But I had to admit it to myself, if only to strengthen my resolve to keep my distance.

  It was not just that she had been traumatized by Raul. From what I had been taught, over half of the newly bitten did not make it through the verða. They lost their sanity, meaning they could not control their wolf selves, which resulted in them having to be put down. Any big distractions, like family, friends, or attachments could mean the difference in her surviving or not. I would not be the reason my first assignment did not make it.

  I wanted to be a gentleman and allow her to be the one to break the silence, but there was so much I wanted to know about her. There were things I needed to know.

  “We will be away for a while. Do you have anyone you need to contact?” Not the most subtle way to find out if she was involved with someone or would have complications with the verða, but it was a legitimate reason. We could not have anyone looking for her.

  She snorted and damn if it was not cute as hell.

  “No.”

  Her voice slid over me like mist, tingling and hair-raising. The sensation traveled all the way down to my cock, threatening to make it stand up and take notice. I forced my mind to recall the most boring thesis I had the displeasure of reading last year. By the third chapter I had stopped my blood from flowing to my groin. A crude method, but effective. Nemi, she was my nemi, damn it.

  “No family or friends that might worry?” I asked once I could focus again.

  We rolled to a stop at a red light.

  Her voice d
ropped in both volume and energy as she glanced out the driver’s side window. “No. You don’t have to worry. No one will come looking for me.”

  That statement held a world of pain and unsaid words. I tried to catch a glimpse of her expression, but she would not turn back to me.

  “I apologize. I did not mean to pry into painful territory, but I had to know if there might be complications.”

  She shrugged and looked back at the road as the light turned green. “Don’t worry about it. I’m a struggling college student who tended bar in a town far from the place I grew up in until yesterday. College students don’t have time for complications,” she said, voice carefully controlled.

  A War and Peace–sized novel of unsaid words lay within her tone, but I was not going to press, not yet. The comment did make me wonder, though. Did I need to rethink my first thought of Raul choosing her because she was special? That she was special, I had no doubt. But Raul was a bit too shallow and dim-witted to put that much thought into his choice. It was easier to believe he had chosen her because she had very few connections to her community and might not be missed for a while.

  “That is most certainly the rest of the world’s loss,” I told her, unable to not say at least something. It was hard to imagine anyone not missing this woman.

  She shot me a sideways glance filled with a mixture of distrust and appreciation. Someone had hurt her, badly, and I was guessing it was not just Raul. She did not reply and I did not press the issue. To do so would only make it worse. I could tell by the way her eyes narrowed. Trust was a long way off yet.

  We pulled into the parking garage and walked through the darkness back to our hotel room in silence. She peered into every shadow as if expecting something nefarious to leap out of it. But she did not look ready to flee. She looked ready to fight. I had to hide a smile as I opened the hotel room door for her and stepped aside to allow her entry first. She cocked an eyebrow at me as she entered, never quite turning her back to me. A breath eased from her as her eyes scanned the two queen beds.

  “I took the liberty of changing the room Raul had reserved to one with two queen beds. I tried to get a suite with a sofa sleeper in a separate room, but one was not available,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she snapped.

  I hoped the sharpness in her tone had more to do with the idea of meeting Raul here than it did with anything I had said or done. Unless, of course, she was disappointed in the idea of not sharing a bed with me… No. I couldn’t let my mind go down that road. She was attractive, yes. But I was to be her kennari. Which meant I would have to be on my best behavior. Ancient law forbid kennari to get involved with—let alone copulate with—their nemi for good reason. Going through the change heightened everything, emotions included. Taking advantage of her, let alone being a potentially deadly distraction, was not something I was willing to do. No matter how delicious those large breasts looked or how alluring her strength and resilience were, it was not worth the pain such an indulgence would cause.

  I took my time at the door, allowing her to choose which bed she wanted. She dropped her bag—which she had vehemently refused to allow me to carry from where the valet had left it inside the door—onto the bed farthest from the door. Such good instincts made me smile, and I had to quickly turn away so she would not see and misinterpret it.

  The peel of her bag’s zipper seemed infinitely loud in the silence that fell. After pulling a number of items out of it, she looked up at me. Though her mouth was set in a hard line, a softness in her eyes told me her anger was dissipating.

  “I didn’t mean to snap. I’m sorry. Just hearing his name kind of pisses me off,” she said.

  This time I let the grin pulling at the edges of my mouth show a bit. “I understand.” Oh, did I ever.

  Toothbrush and paste in one hand and clothes in the other, she started for the bathroom. “I hope you don’t mind if I crash right away. I’m kind of wiped out,” she called over her shoulder as she entered the bathroom.

  “Of course. I understand,” I said.

  The door closed behind her and I did my best not to picture her changing. Those long, darkly tanned legs, that perfectly shaped ass… Yes, I completely failed.

  Sleep remained elusive and sporadic, and not only because I was worried about Raul sending some of his friends after her. Despite the Council’s ruling, he was bound to try. The arrogant asni would not give up after going through all the trouble of biting her in. He had taken a huge risk. Incarcerated though he was, he would fight to finish making her his. If he did not, he would be condemned to an arranged marriage. And that was the last thing Raul wanted, player that he was. Of that I was sure. But that was not the main reason I tossed and turned all night.

  Sonya’s soft, steady breathing might as well have been brushing across the sensitive skin of my ears. She slept heavy due to the verða. Her spicy scent crept down into me, warming me and stirring my blood. I could not stop thinking about the spark that lit her eyes, the strength that kept her together when so many others would have crumbled. The way her hair shone in the light that filtered through the hotel curtain made it look like spilled silk around her curvy silhouette. A constant hard-on made it difficult to sleep, to say the least.

  I just had to hold out through the full moon, when the verða was over. Then, if I still felt this way and she was interested, I could possibly pursue something with her. The strength of my reaction to her surprised me. After what had happened with my last girlfriend, I had not expected to feel this way about anyone again. A professional distance was best not only for her sake, but my own as well.

  Less than an hour before dawn, I could not take it anymore. I rose, made my bed, and grabbed a fresh change of clothes. After placing a chair in front of the motel room door just in case, I started for the bathroom. One last glimpse at Sonya revealed the thin sheet covering her had been cast aside. The tantalizing curve of her ass cheeks was more exposed than covered by her incredibly short cotton shorts. My blood rushed to all the wrong places, making me hurry to the shower. Cold though the water was, it could not cool the heat radiating from within me. I turned it down even colder. The water pounded against me, running down the sensitive skin of my cock, making me harder. I could not take it. To go back out there and show any modicum of professionalism, I was going to need release.

  I grabbed a bar of soap in one hand, my cock in the other, and went to work.

  Chapter Seven

  Sonya

  The sound of a shower running yanked me from the slumber of the dead. All right, not quite the slumber of the dead. I was becoming a werewolf, not a vampire. Eyes opening to take in the hotel room crowded with two queen beds, I froze. Sunlight seeped in to frame the curtains drawn over a huge window on the opposite side of the room. Not more than three feet from the side of my bed, Ty’s bed lay empty, made up perfectly. If not for the sound of the shower and the sight of his hiking boots sitting on the floor at the foot of his bed, I might have thought yesterday had been a dream. But then, there was no way I would have dreamed up such a sexy guy only to have a disturbing conversation with him.

  Yawning, I sat up, eager to get away from the overwhelming smell of the flowery fabric softener that had been used on the sheets. The scent made me want to hurl. Muscles stretching with ease, I yawned and raised my arms above my head. Blood pumped through my veins at the thought of all Ty had told me yesterday. At least, I tried to convince myself it was our conversation and not the memory of how he had filled out the clingy muscle shirt that caused the reaction. Why did he have to be so fine?

  It didn’t matter that he was nice, polite, was a career man, and had just a touch of a sexy accent. I needed to focus on myself right now. Getting through this craziness and being strong on my own had to be my priority. The sooner this becoming stuff was over and I had a handle on everything, the sooner I could get back to paying off my student debts enough to return to school.

  I realized I felt good, well rested, and almost eager. When I h
ad lain down last night, I hadn’t thought I’d be able to sleep at all. Not only had my head been buzzing with all I had learned, and wanted to learn, I had been in a room with a stranger I didn’t exactly trust yet. A stranger who was a werewolf.

  The water shut off, but even over the bathroom’s exhaust fan I heard the drip, drip, drip of the showerhead. A towel bar rattled, filling my mind with a delicious image I had no time to be picturing. In only a little tank with a built-in bra and cotton shorts that barely covered the cheeks of my ass, I wasn’t exactly dressed for company. It made me wonder, had I been under the blankets when he’d walked to the bathroom? The idea of him getting an eyeful excited me in ways I wasn’t ready for yet. I couldn’t trust my judgment after Raul.

  A groan slid from me as I jumped from the bed, retrieved my bag, and dug out something to wear. A pair of black panties followed by my favorite blue jeans—they were all I had left that was clean—made me feel a touch less vulnerable. As I pulled the last shoulder strap of my lace bra on, soft footsteps padded on the carpet.

  A sharp intake of breath followed by what I thought might be a curse word in a foreign language came from Ty in a husky whisper.

  “I am sorry,” he said after a moment. Yet he didn’t leave the room.

  Like the ghostly fingers of seduction, his scent drifted to me: soap and shampoo that had the bare scent of those natural shampoos people make at home. Beneath it, like a present waiting to be unwrapped, lay his alluring male musk. I knew I shouldn’t have been able to smell such details, but then, I shouldn’t be sprouting fangs every time I got pissed, either. He smelled so enticing that I didn’t mind the former.

  Back turned, I tried to pretend I wasn’t worried too much about modesty. I picked up my T-shirt and pulled it on. “No need. So what is that language? I’m guessing it’s the same one as those words you spoke last night, am I right?” I could almost place it, but I needed to hear him say it to make it real.