Beauty Dates the Beast (24 page)

“Wendigo,” he sat up on the edge of the bed and rested his elbows on his knees, as if he was exhausted from the day.

I watched him with concern. In my mind, Beau was strong and tireless. Seeing the weariness settle around his eyes and mouth made me feel horrible for giving him so much trouble. I knelt behind him, placing my hands at the base of his neck and kneading the tight knot of muscles there.

Beau groaned with pleasure, tilting his head back and leaning into my hands.

It was a pleasure to stroke his neck and feel the fine hairs there, the soft skin behind his ears, the hard muscles below his collar. His shirt was in my way, so I leaned forward and unbuttoned it. “So tell me about the Wendigo.”

He sighed heavily. “They’re … cannibals.”

My hands paused, then pushed his shirt down his arms.

“Have you heard the Native American legends of the Wendigo?”

I kneaded his shoulders, soothing him. “No. What are they?”

“Some of the tribes believed that a man who ate the flesh of another man could steal his power. But if you did so, you became a Wendigo—a terrible
creature that needs another creature’s flesh to survive. They smell foul, like the grave. They’re stronger than any other living creature, and thirst for blood.” He paused. “Those legends were mostly wrong. Only a shifter can turn Wendigo.”

“Oh.” I removed my hands so I could wring them in silence. “And of course, everyone we know is a shifter.”

He said nothing.

“Both of those girls at the morgue looked like me. So does this mean that someone’s going to try and eat … me?”

“They shouldn’t. You’re not a shifter.”

“So why are they going after me?”

“I don’t know,” he said darkly. “But I intend to find out.”

T
he next morning, my cell phone woke me out of a sound sleep. My head was cushioned against Beau’s broad, warm chest, my legs tangled with his. On his nightstand, my cell phone buzzed, and Sara’s ringtone played.

I jerked up at the sound and winced when I realized my long hair was caught under his head.

He opened his eyes and smiled at me. “Good morning. Sleep well?”

I untangled my legs from his. “I don’t remember going to sleep at all,” I teased.

I wanted to slide underneath him and feel his heavy, wonderful weight over me. I wanted to burrow against his chest and let the world fall away.

As the phone continued to blare my sister’s ringtone, I sighed “I need to get that.”

He reached over and handed the phone to me.

I flipped open my cell phone. “Hey.”

“Hey, Bath!” she said, entirely too chirpy. “You took forever to answer. What’s up?”

“Nothing,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t hear the blush in my voice. Beau pulled me back down against him and I squirmed away. “How are you? Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s good. Very quiet. We’ve mostly been playing on the computer. Ramsey’s terrible at it, but I think he keeps trying for my sake.” I could hear her munching on something—probably toast. “How about you? Are you keeping busy?”

I choked. “Uh … yeah, I’m—I’m fine.” A nervous laugh escaped my throat. “Just staying busy with work and all.”

“Mmmhmm.” She paused. “Beau’s right there, isn’t he?”

Oh, God, shoot me now. “No, he’s not. Whatever makes you think that?”

“You have this high-pitched squeak in your voice.” Munch munch. “And Ramsey told me that Beau was crazy about you. You like him, too, don’t you?”

Beau snorted and rubbed his foot against my calf. “I never used the word ‘crazy.’ ”

Of course Beau could hear everything Sara said. What could be more humiliating than that? “Nothing’s going on,” I said, even as Beau’s hand
slid to my very naked behind and pinched it, making me squeak.

“Of course something’s going on. You’re dating him. You’re
sleeping
together.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” I said, stifling the moan that threatened when Beau’s fingers lightly danced along the inside of my thigh. “What’s going on?”

“So, uh, I don’t know how to break this to you,” Sara said slowly, and my heart dropped.

“What is it?” My mind automatically went to panic mode. If we left town tonight, we could still get away. Pack up under the cover of darkness …

“Ramsey knows,” she said.

“He knows what?” My heart pounded in my chest. Maybe we were talking about two different things.

“About the wolf thing?” Beau said lazily. “He’s always known.”

I stopped breathing. I couldn’t think. “I’ll call you back,” I said breathlessly to Sara, then hung up the phone. “What do you
mean,
you know? What wolf thing?”

“Your sister is the wolf the Anderson pack has been looking for,” he said, following me up the bed, a cat stalking its prey, as I shrank backward.

I was stunned. “How … how did you know?”

He shrugged. “Any shifter with a nose can tell
as soon as she walks in the door. I kept smelling wolf on you and thought it was some sort of carryover from work, and when I met Sara it all clicked. That’s why Ramsey’s shadowing her—he’s going to keep her safe until we get Savannah back.”

Tears blurred in my eyes. I felt … I didn’t know how I felt. I was a volcano, ready to explode with rage. I was a balloon that had just been deflated. I repeated Beau’s words, still not comprehending. “He’s going to keep her safe?”

His hands slid to my waist and he pulled me down the bed and under him, then began pressing kisses to my belly button. “That’s what I said.”

“But … but the wolves …”

“We would never give your sister up to them in return for our sister,” he said, and nipped at my stomach. “You realize that, don’t you?”

Sara was totally safe? No one would trade her to the wolves, taking her away from me forever? The relief was so overwhelming me that I felt like sobbing. For six long years it had been us against the world, always hiding, always frightened. Knowing that we had people to share our burden stunned me into silence.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Beau asked.

No!

But that wasn’t fair. I knew I had to say the words somehow. I breathed deep, trying to bolster
my courage. “When I was in my first semester of college, Sara met a man. She was only seventeen and he was really controlling. When I found out she’d moved in with him, I went home to talk some sense into her. She got so upset that … she changed into a wolf right before my eyes. That was when I learned about werewolves. And that she’d been bitten. We tried to hide from him, but he came back for Sara and … I killed him. Shot him.”

Would he hate that I had killed a man? I had blood on my hands, and I wasn’t regretful in the slightest.

Beau rested his chin on my stomach, looking up at me. “It was necessary,” he said simply. “You needed to keep her safe.”

“I shot him after he bit me, too,” I said softly. “He was going to kill Sara, and I shot him dead, and buried him in the backyard.”

Beau’s eyes gleamed, and I knew that he didn’t disapprove of me. He understood doing whatever it took to keep loved ones safe.

He pressed another kiss on my stomach, then glanced up at me. “But you didn’t turn?”

I shook my head. “It didn’t affect me at all. I don’t know why Sara was more susceptible than me, but she just was. She became a wolf and I became …” Her keeper, I wanted to say, but it sounded so unfair. Sara hadn’t chosen it. When I’d
found her she’d been broken and frightened and so close to being wild, and I’d nursed her back from the edge. I regretted nothing.

He didn’t look surprised by my words. “It happens. Some people are born immune. The theory is that most people have an ancestor that could shift, or so they carry the gene and are susceptible. It’s rare to find someone who’s totally immune.”

“Sara and I have different mothers,” I reminded him. “But you know what this means?”

“What?”

I swallowed hard. “You can’t turn me. I’ll never be a shifter. I’ll never be able to have a shifter’s children.”

I waited for him to grasp that I couldn’t ever be the right mate for him, to stiffen and move away. Instead, he nipped my hip hard enough to make me squeal in surprise. “Hey! I’m trying to tell you something here!”

“You’re telling me that you can’t have my litter, so I can bite you as much as I want,” he said, his voice a low, contented rumble. “Or did I miss something?”

“You don’t care?”

His fingers flexed against my hips, the same way a cat might knead, and he gave me a serious look. “If it matters to you, we could always adopt.

I know of a gentle were-bear that could use a home—”

I snorted. “Absolutely not.”

He grinned. “You’re distracting me from your story. So you and Sara killed the rogue wolf and ran from the wolf pack?”

I nodded. “We moved to another state, looking for someplace with fewer wolves. Giselle offered me an office job but wouldn’t say what it was, and I nearly passed out with fright when I realized exactly what her business was. I thought she’d set me up.”

He chuckled. “I bet.”

“But we needed money so badly we had to stay. No choice.” I ran my fingers through his hair. “A few weeks passed, and Giselle said nothing about Sara. Then she suggested that I hire my sister to help out in the office. Sara was tired of running, so she went in that first day expecting Giselle to bust her, but … nothing. Giselle had no idea what Sara was—or at least, I thought she didn’t. It seemed like the perfect way to keep tabs on the wolf packs and hide right under their noses, if we were careful.” I sighed. Telling the story was taking an immense weight off my shoulders. “We’ve been careful for six years now. Sara can control it a little better, but she still has bad moments—a lot of them.”

“And you never dated? Anyone?”

I shook my head. “It would have put Sara at risk.”

“You’ve had a tough life, but it’s made you strong.” He rested his chin on my stomach, as if thinking, then said, “Is that why you said you don’t want to be with me?”

“That was the original reason. But now Giselle knows Sara’s secret. And she’s going to sell her to the wolves unless I keep dating other men that she sets me up with.”

A low, possessive snarl started in his throat. “You’re not going to date anyone else. You’re going to be with me, and together we’re going to protect Sara. Understand?”

I wasn’t sure if I could turn over Sara’s well-being to someone else that easily. I was too used to taking care of it all, of always remaining vigilant.

“Or is it that you really don’t want to date me, either?” Beau’s gray eyes searched my face. “Is that why?”

It dawned on me that I’d hurt his feelings. “You know better than that, Beau.”

“Actually, I don’t.” His voice sounded grim.

I stared at him, vulnerability warring with shyness. I opened my mouth, and a squeak came out. Mortified, I cleared my throat and tried again. “I …”

“You … ?” He lifted an eyebrow, waiting.

I slapped his naked chest. “I
like
you, all right? At first I only dated you because of the Rosie thing,
but I slept with you because I like you. I’m in this bed with you because I like you—not because of anything I owe Giselle. I like you a little
too
much, maybe.”

He grinned, all self-confident cat once more, and brushed a strand of hair off my cheek. “I know.”

“If you knew, why did you make me say it out loud?” My face burned hot. I hated leaving myself open like that.

Beau tilted his head, regarding me. “I wanted to make sure you knew it, too.”

“Oh, thank you, zen master,” I said sarcastically and pushed at him. He didn’t budge. With a sigh, I ran my hands down his back. “I suppose I should call the office and tell them I can’t come in for a few more days. Lay low until we figure all this out and both Sara and Savannah are safe.”

“You should,” he agreed. His muscles flexed under my hands, clearly enjoying my petting.

I continued to glide my hands over his back, fascinated with the play of muscles under his smooth skin. His spine had the most amazing indentations, and I trailed my fingers down to the swell of his buttocks.

If all shapeshifters were made as wonderfully as him, why did they need a dating service at all? My fingers slid to his buttocks and I grasped them, fighting the sudden urge to bite the rounded muscles.

Beau’s eyes gleamed that catlike green-gold. “You’re doing it again,” he said in a husky voice.

“Doing what?” I looked up at him with glazed eyes.

“Thinking about sex,” he murmured, then his mouth descended on my neck.

“It’s a shame that thinking is all that’s happening,” I teased.

His hand slid under my leg, hiking it up around his waist, and the rest went just as I’d hoped.

No one was answering the phone at the office. That disturbed me, and when I suggested that we check things out, Beau didn’t protest. It would allow me to explain to Giselle face-to-face why I needed to be absent, and would also let me find out what was going on.

I pushed open the door.

The front office was silent. Were Marie and Ryder taking a few hours off? If so, who was manning the office? Giselle? That would explain why the phones weren’t being answered—she thought she was too good for that. A quick glance at her office showed the light was on, the door shut.

I told Beau, “I’ll talk with Giselle and get some time off of work. You stay here.”

“I don’t smell anyone,” he said and moved past
me. “No one recent, anyhow.” His nose wrinkled as if he smelled something. “Old Spice?”

Jason’s cologne was so strong that it had probably lingered, and Beau’s sensitive nose had picked it up. “A client who came in yesterday,” I said.

He headed for Giselle’s office, and I planted my hands on his back and steered him toward the file room. “Let me talk to her first, Beau.” When he balked, I continued, “Five minutes. That’s all I ask.”

“And you’ll stay with me until we figure this out, so I can protect you?”

“Yes, but I have to let Giselle down easy. She won’t like it if you come in and start throwing your weight around, demanding things. Let me handle her.”