Trent: Her Warlock Protector Book 7 (7 page)

After that, he could no longer speak, not as bones crunched, forcing him to all fours. His face stretched out and teeth erupted from the gums. His ears crawled up the side of his head. Viscera rearranged within his gut. Eventually, he was fully changed, long since used to the pain of it. It was a dull ache now, something to be borne when changing bone and trading flesh for fur or feathers. Slipping out of his clothing, he glanced up at Elaine and howled, hoping she understood the message repeated again.

Run with me
.

• • • • •

The pain was as sharp as it had been the past times. That was the first thought that occurred to her. The second strongest one ringing through her mind was that she was nuts. Here she was listening to a man, no a Corps member out to recruit and, well, bed her. Here she was embracing the freak half she’d worked to keep secret. Here she was turning into a damn wolf all over again.
 

She screamed as the pain continued, like a million needles digging themselves under her skin and twisting all at once. Eventually that scream became the anguished howl of an animal. Then it escalated to whimpering.

Pain, run, escape
.

Then she noticed the scent, the musk of another wolf. Looking up from the tangles, she eyed him. He was large, easily twice her size with huge hulking shoulders.

Elaine bared her fangs and growled.

Leave me. My territory.

The other wolf chuffed and shocked her by rolling over onto his belly, exposing all of it for her to see. Confused, she tried to remember. Before there’d been the chickens, delicious in her mouth, their blood flowing over her tongue. Then dark quiet. Now she was with horses, neighing loudly, but she didn’t want that. One of them smelled of her own scent, was hers, but not as food.

She wanted to run.

But first, she wasn’t sure how to escape the confines she’d become aware of. Twisting again, she felt her paws slip deeper into the mess of cloth and, despite herself, she whimpered.

Looking up, she found the other wolf nearing her face. She snapped at him and missed his muzzle by inches when he darted away. The wolf snorted and came close to her again, shocking her when he lay his head by hers, making sure his throat was prominent. She growled. She could have him now, kill the threat.

Except no real threat would make himself vulnerable twice over.

Confused, Elaine cocked her head at him and whimpered again.
 

I won’t kill you
.

That wolf nodded and then helped tear her bindings with his teeth. When she was free, Elaine circled him. Taking his docile nature as an invitation, she started to sniff, but it was then the wolf pulled away. She snorted, confused by his antics. First trying to submit to her when he was bigger then refusing a good sniff? What kind of wolf was he? All she could tell was that his smell drew her in––a familiar musk she couldn’t quite place. It smelled strong of sex and power, and it called to her as a mate, made her stomach rumble. At the same time, odd things surrounded it, the artificial smells of those bald things.

The humans
.

She barked and showed some fangs.

Elaine? Can you hear me?

She growled and started running from the other creature––it wasn’t a true wolf––not when sounds were in her head. Turning tail, she bolted from the barn, out to where she could see Mother Moon. Her long legs leapt over the straw and grass even as wind whipped through her fur. Paws dug deep in dirt and helped her launch herself again. After a few minutes, she craned her neck to see him, see if that strange not-quite-wolf was behind her.

He wasn’t.

Relieved, Elaine slowed her pace to a trot as she approached the woods.
 

But when she looked toward the nearest gathering of trees, her fur stood on end. Somehow, he had gotten ahead of her. All there was left to do was fight.

• • • • •

Trent dodged the lunge she aimed expertly at him. He’d been in many animal forms over the last decades, and part of that had included fights with other beasts and shapeshifters. With Elaine, though, she was still new. Even if she was running on instinct from the wolf side, she wasn’t used to the new body.

Her lunge was slow and rickety.

With a quick sidestep he’d repositioned around her, and clamped his jaws as gingerly as he could around the tip of her tail. She just needed to get a hold of herself, to let her human consciousness fully resurface. Communication was a start.

Elaine! Get a hold of yourself. You’re Elaine Blackhawk and you’re a witch, not just a wolf.

She rounded on him and snapped at his shoulder, but he was angled too far for her to reach.
 

“Rawr!”

Great, we’re making so much progress,
he huffed in her mind.
Elaine, look into my eyes
, he said, gazing deeply into the yellow of her eyes that had replaced the soft brown tone.
Remember.

She kept growling and squirming but didn’t avert her gaze. Trent kept talking to her mind, quiet and calming, just as she’d have talked to Rainstone, as he reached out to the human part of her. Finally, the great she-wolf before him stopped her frantic snapping and blinked back at him. The words that reverberated in his head were small and hesitant but at least they were cogent thoughts.

Trent?

He nodded and finally dropped her tail, glad when she didn’t lunge for him.

It’s okay.

Elaine circled and then sniffed his neck. Wide, scared eyes blinked back at him.
 

I didn’t remember anything!

He wondered if she even noticed how deeply she was whimpering as she “said” that. Trent would wager anything she didn’t. Leaning down, he nuzzled at her neck.
 

Instincts are strong when you take a form, but you’ll learn. Just center on something human like your family or you job, whatever grounds you in your civilized self
.

She snorted.
Like that thesis I should have worked on this week instead of answering the call of the wild
?

Exactly!
He said, howling loudly and wagging his tail. Maybe at heart they were just excitable puppies. Giant excitable puppies with massive teeth.
Now, let me show you how fast we can really run.

ELAINE WAS BREATHLESS by the time they finished their run and snuck into the back of his house. Stretching on the floor by his bed, she squirmed and whined as her bones reshifted. The pain was still deep, but not as sharp as the first few times. She wondered if it would always hurt, if it were possible to get used to this. Watching as Trent’s skin seemed to flow effortlessly from the fur, and he stood on human legs, she assumed it would.

Of course, he was still grimacing and panting even after he had returned to human form.

Kneeling down on his haunches, he took her head in his hands and smoothed the fur back from her forehead even as it kept receding.
 

“Shh, Elaine, embrace the pain. It just means the changes are coming.”

“Hurts,” she mumbled, trying to ignore the way that her voice came out garbled and strange––inhuman.

“I know, but I’m here,” he said, still panting. Her keen ears could make out the rapid beating of his heart, as if he’d run a marathon. “Come back to me, country gal.”

Closing her eyes, Elaine bit her lip and suffered through the pain of her final changes. When she finished, she was covered in sweat, breathing so hard she felt she might shake apart, and naked except for the wolf’s tooth necklace hanging between her breasts.

Normally, being in the arms of a man as gorgeous as Trent would be the stuff of nighttime, Skinemax fantasies. Currently, she was so tired and sore that all she wanted was to revel in the warm comfort of his embrace.

“Feel like I swam the English Channel or went five rounds with Layla Ali.”

“That’s the drain of the magic. We have powerful gifts, but they come with a price. The exhaustion after a spell like this or a ritual can be debilitating,” he said, helping her sit up.
 

She was still wobbly and leaned into his chest. It was a beautiful site. Tan, sun-kissed skin stretch flawlessly over rippling muscle. His abs would put the average superhero to shame.

“You’re so warm.”

“You are too. There’s a lot of metabolism being revved up when we change.”
 

His breath was even hot on her cheeks and spicy-sweet.

“You’re amazing,” she said, feeling like that same unsure teenager she’d been with Stephen.

 
How could he do that to her? She’d had lovers between then and now, but being here in Trent’s arms felt like the first time for all of this. Her heart felt like it was pounding out of her chest, and she assumed he could hear that. He could probably smell the arousal pooling between her thighs. She blushed and tried to pull away, but he held her still.

“You probably shouldn’t. There’s a lot of dizziness and exhaustion after a shift. You’re not used to all of it just yet.” His tone was protective and brimming with authority. However, he was still looking deeply into her eyes and stroking her bangs. She doubted a protector had to do that part. “Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are?”

“With people I know at school I’m ‘exotic.’ I hear that so much it makes me want to punch the guys at bars who think it’s a compliment, like treating me as some other piece of meat. At the rez, I’m too pale, just a bit too much like my mother.” Elaine sighed and sat up a little in his embrace. “I’m not looking for pity or shallow compliments. It’s just hard to feel you fit.”

He nodded and kissed her forehead.
 

“I get that. My dad was a warlock. My mother isn’t. Dad was killed on a mission when I was just a kid. I went through my teens not understanding why I could see in darkness like I was under flood lights or hear a mouse burp fifty yards away. Most of the time–”

“You thought you were going crazy?”

“Exactly.”

“Yeah, sucks being stuck between two worlds. Hard enough when it’s the life at the rez and then with life on campus. I don’t even know how to reconcile the fact that I can have four legs and a tail with it too.” She sighed and tried to force the tears out of her voice. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

He kissed her then, and it was as amazing as it had been the first time in the field, that insistent need. The hunger was consuming her and gnawing into her bones, making them flush with heat. Elaine returned his eagerness by changing her position and sitting on his lap. His erection was already rigid against her.
 

Grinning, Elaine reached down and stroked the head of his cock. He hissed a curse and closed his eyes, and she licked her lips with pride and desire. She loved that she had this power over him. A warrior of the Magus Corps, an expert shifter, and one of the sexiest men she’d ever seen, and she could make him shudder with a touch. Maybe it was all the witchcraft between them. Elaine had never been anything special before this, her senses and nascent abilities aside.
 

“Damn country gal, I’m going to come right here if you keep that up.”

She grinned and kissed his neck, working her way down his collar bone and sucking at his neck, nipping at his clavicle. When she pulled back, Elaine’s stomach flip-flopped at the line of fresh hickeys she’d left there.

Mine. My mate.

The word was ringing through her brain. Maybe it was because their powers were the same or maybe because he was the first person to truly explain what she was. Or it could be because he was a god when he was shirtless. The feel of him, the smell of his scent, even the way he massaged her breasts…all of it screamed to her that he was hers. He always had to be.

Of course, Elaine was merely his assigned case. All she had was his word he’d never initiated a witch before—not that he’d offered. He claimed he’d never shared anything truly intimate with a Wiccan woman before, not the type of bond both she and her feral side craved.
 

“You stopped a bit, started looking far off?” he asked, stroking her cheek.
 

“I just…what are we doing? Is this ‘initiating?’”

He shook his head and her heart sank.
 

“It’s not that. You might not fully initiate at all, that’s your choice. Right now, I just want to make love to you, to show you how good truly touching nature can be.”

“So tomorrow?”

He kissed her and Elaine, despite everything, melted into the embrace.
 

“Tomorrow we’ll figure things out from there. Right now, do you trust me?”

“I don’t know if I trust anyone with my heart.”

Trent shook his head and those same tawny eyes, like liquid amber, gazed into her soul. She felt as if he could see every secret thought she was trying to hide, every insecurity.
 

“Trust me, Miss Blackhawk. You won’t be disappointed.”

That’s what Stephen said
.

Elaine kept her mouth clamped shut for fear she’d say something that stupid. She was twenty-three, damn it, and not sixteen. The hurts from seven years ago, even the constant rejection from her people, those didn’t matter here. All that mattered was the passion stemming from those tawny gold eyes and the strong hands gripping her sides.

“That’s a promise or a threat?”

“Oh a threat, country gal,” he said, his voice a low husk that made her inner wolf howl and her channel wet with anticipation and need. Trent took a sniff and grinned. “I think you’re ready.”

“Then, city boy, show me what you can do.”

• • • • •

Elaine had an amazing ass.

He’d never been an ass man per se, always more interested in long legs and fine, succulent breasts. While his lover had long, shapely legs that complimented her tall frame and breasts that seemed made for his hands, it was her ass that tantalized him the most. The perfect mounds in front of him were rounded like ripe melons. He reached out and traced the copper skin, enthralled by its silkiness. The skin there was smooth, unblemished and so warm beneath his touch. As he slid one hand over it, Elaine shuddered and then giggled.