Blood Wolf Dawning (5 page)

Does that mean you plan to keep your hands to yourself?
his wolf demanded, prowling beneath his skin.
’Cause I gotta tell you, that doesn’t work for me. If given the chance, I plan on getting between those perfect thighs of hers and staying there, where we belong.

He made a gruff sound in the back of his throat, wishing the animal would just shut up and leave him
alone.

And by the way, I still think you’re an idiot. Jackass.

Irritated, tired and at the end of his rope, his grip tightened on the passenger’s-side door handle until he’d nearly ripped it off, the beast’s guttural laughter echoing through his head as he climbed up into the truck. It knew it’d gotten under his skin, and he wondered if his friends all had this much trouble with the
possessive predators who lived inside them, or if it were only him. Seemed just his luck that his wolf would not only be a pain of the first order, but a sarcastic son of a bitch, as well.

“Cian?” Sayre said as she cranked the engine and slid him a curious look. “Are you going to sit there growling at your door all day or are you going to shut it?”

He didn’t bother to respond. He didn’t
dare. He didn’t trust anything that might have come out of his mouth at that moment, and his pulse was thrashing in his ears too loudly to carry on a conversation anyway.

Instead, he slammed the door shut, rolled the window down and focused his attention on the surrounding woods, knowing that Aedan could very well be out there, watching and waiting, slowly biding his time. The human thugs
had been his brother’s first play, but they wouldn’t be his last.

And now the clock was ticking.

Chapter 4

A
s soon as he parked the Audi behind Sayre’s truck and climbed out, a terrible sense of doom settled over Cian, hanging around his shoulders like a leaden weight. It sounded embarrassingly dramatic, but there was no denying the emotion. It was like a thundering death knell echoing in his head, warning him that nothing about this situation was going to end in the way that
he wanted it to. He
knew
, damn it...and yet, he couldn’t turn back.

Instead, he simply followed her into the small cabin, doing his best to keep his attention focused on their surroundings and not on how tight her little ass looked in those too-short-for-his-sanity shorts.

Seriously? You sound like an old man who doesn’t even know how to get it up anymore.

“Fuck off,” he muttered
under his breath, mentally giving his wolf the finger. It wasn’t a question of not being able to get it up. It was knowing how quickly she’d have his friggin’ balls kicked in if he let the sight of her in those shorts take hold of him.

While she closed the door behind them, he did a quick survey of the room. The cabin was built with an open floor plan, the walls lined with row upon row of
packed bookshelves, the bindings on the books creased from use. A hallway on the right led to what he assumed would be her bedroom and the bathroom, the kitchen located off to their left. There was a high-tech sound system on a small table in the corner of the main room, but no television. If she watched movies, it was likely on her computer or iPad, and he recalled Jillian once talking about her
sister’s penchant for comedies.

A scowl twisted his brow as he tried to recall the last comedy he’d watched. It’d no doubt been something he’d caught down at one of the cinemas in the human town of Covington with Brody before he’d left, but he couldn’t remember the title. Just that he hadn’t felt like he got even half of the jokes, and he’d hated how old that’d made him feel.

He hated
it even more now, when there was a so-beautiful-she-hurt-his-eyes twenty-three-year-old walking away from him as she headed toward the kitchen. She would probably laugh her ass off if she knew he’d “technically” be pushing fifty in a few years.

His body might be young—he halted the aging process when consuming blood as one of his main food sources—but his spirit felt freaking ancient, as
if he’d lived three times that long.

As she washed her hands at the kitchen sink, she looked at him from over her shoulder, eyeing his blood-spattered jeans and T-shirt, and jerked her head in the direction of the small hallway. “You’re messier than I am. Why don’t you go ahead and grab your shower? It’s the first door on your left. Towels are under the sink.”

Taking a few steps toward
the kitchen, he said, “Actually, I should go and bury the bodies first.”

She turned around as she dried her hands on a towel, blinking back at him with those big, storm-colored eyes. “Um...of course. I wasn’t...I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

Because she wasn’t a natural born killer, like he was. And because she was also probably a bit in shock, after everything that had happened.
She might have grown up in the hard, often brutal world of the Silvercrest, but Sayre Murphy had always been a dreamer at heart. And dreamers weren’t the kind of girls who were accustomed to burying three dead bodies out in the woods behind their homes.

“Is there a shovel in your shed?”

She pulled her lower lip through her teeth and nodded.

The sight of her white teeth on that plush
lip had him sweating, and he cleared his throat a little as he swiped his arm over his forehead. “Then you go ahead and grab your shower,” he told her, the roughness of his voice telling him he needed to get back outside and cool the hell off. “This won’t take me long.”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “Don’t you need help?”

Shaking his head, he said, “I’m not letting you anywhere near
them, Sayre. But I won’t go too far. I’ll be close enough that I can hear you if you need me.”

He turned and walked back outside before she could say anything more, and pulled in a deep breath of the humid air as he headed for the shed. A half hour later, he was shoveling the last scoops of dirt over the place where he’d buried the bodies, the grave situated between two thick blackberry bushes
that would quickly grow over it. He’d checked all three males’ clothing before putting them in the ground, looking for anything that might give him a clue about Aedan’s plans, but wasn’t surprised when the search turned up nothing. His half brother might be seriously twisted, but he was too smart to make a dumb-ass mistake by trusting anyone like these jackasses with vital information. That
was why Cian hadn’t bothered to keep one of them alive for questioning.

That...and the fact that he’d been too bloody furious to let them live.

After putting the shovel away in the shed, Cian made his way back inside the cabin, locking the door behind him. He couldn’t hear the water running, so he knew Sayre was out of the shower. The sound of a hair dryer clicking on told him she’d
be busy for a while longer, so he washed his hands in the kitchen, then went through the French doors that opened onto a small deck and took out his phone. After scrolling through his contacts, he called Brody’s cell phone number.

Within two rings, the Runner answered the call. “Where the hell are you? I thought you were bringing her back.”

“That’s still the plan,” he said in a low voice,
unsure how much of this shit storm he should explain over the phone. “But it looks like we’re staying here tonight.”

Brody exhaled a rough breath. “I told you she wouldn’t do it.”

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t have a choice. We ran into some trouble, which I’ve handled, but this place isn’t safe enough for her in the long term. I need her
in
the Alley, with all of your full security measures
in place.”

“I’ve sent Michaela up to Shadow Peak with our kids, since you wouldn’t tell me what’s going on. And I’ve told Jillian to stay up there, as well, right now. The others are going to stay down in South Carolina until we know it’s safe for them to return with their families.”

“That’s good,” he murmured, wondering what had kept Jillian behind. Had the witch had a premonition that
her sister would need her?

Brody’s next words pulled his attention back to the conversation. “Max and Elliot have been out on a Bloodrun, but they’ll be back in the morning. And the mercs have been working a job over in Tennessee, but they’re expected back in the next day or two. So we’ll have security covered, and I’ll have the scouts from up in Shadow Peak double their patrols. But we need
to know what we’re dealing with.”

At the mention of the mercs, Cian’s already tensed muscles coiled even tighter, and he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. The mercenaries were four badass warriors who had worked with Eli Drake for years, and had decided to stick around once Eli had returned to the Alley and married Carla Reyes, the only female Runner in the
group.

“This silence is getting kind of tiring, man. You there?” Brody asked.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he muttered, keeping a careful eye on the surrounding forest.

“You ready to tell me what’s going on?”

He swallowed so hard he could feel the movement all the way down his throat. “This...it’s not something I want to get into over the phone, Brody.” Hell, it was something he’d rather
avoid altogether. But that wasn’t going to be an option. “And before you try to argue, don’t. You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”

Brody’s deep voice was gruff with frustration. “Yeah, well, it was easier to trust you before you disappeared for five years.”

He bit back a guttural curse, knowing there wasn’t anything he could say to that particular piece of truth. Part of him
was eager to prove to his friends that he was still the same man he’d been before, while another part kept wondering what the point would be, when he would only leave again when it was all said and done.

“Cian, man, I’m serious. You better talk to me or you won’t be welcome back in the Alley. I hate to say that, but I don’t know where your head is anymore.”

He scrubbed his free hand
down his face, his insides knotting. So many emotions roiled through him, clashing like warring, blood-drenched sides on a battlefield, that it was impossible to keep them straight. “I swear I’ll tell you everything when we get back. I just...” He worked his jaw as his words dried up, hating that he couldn’t simply avoid this problem forever. With a tired sigh, he said, “In all honesty, Brody, I need
some time to figure out how to say it all.”

Silence met his admission, followed by a rough, quiet burst of words. “It’s that bad?”

“Yeah. But I won’t leave you in the dark. I give you my word on that.”

“Then we’ll talk when you get back,” Brody muttered. “But I need to know if Sayre is okay. Jillian gave Mic and me an earful for not warning the girl that you were coming for her.
Jilly’s been trying to get her on her cell phone, but Sayre won’t take the calls. Just texted back that she was fine and would be in touch later.”

“She’s good. Pissed, but she’s all right.”

“Okay then. You need any backup on the road when you head back?”

Unable to resist having her all to himself for just a little longer, he said, “Thanks for the offer, but I think we’ve got a few
days before we need to worry.”

“Then keep me updated.”

“I will. And stay sharp. There’s no reason for you to see any trouble when she’s not there, but it’s better to be safe.”

“On it,” the Runner murmured, then disconnected the call. Shoving the phone in his pocket, Cian walked back inside just as the bathroom door clicked open, releasing a wave of warm, Sayre-scented air into the
cabin. He couldn’t see into the hallway from where he stood, but what was probably her bedroom door snapped shut a moment later. He debated going back outside for a smoke, but decided to simply wait her out, loving the way that intoxicating scent was filling his lungs, working its way through his system.

He spent the next moments looking over the titles on her bookshelves, surprised she was
into gritty suspense novels, many of the books ones he’d already read. He lost track of time as he walked around the room, soaking up all the telling details like a sponge with water, hoarding them in his mind. They were like tiny clues that he needed to unlock the mystery of her life, his brain cataloguing everything from the scent of her candles to the type of pen she’d left sitting on top of
a notebook. The sofa was off-white and deep, his mind easily picturing her cuddled up among the matching throw pillows with a book, while the evening sunlight touched on the feminine curves of her body. The sensual slope of a shoulder. The lithe shape of her thighs. He stood in the middle of the room, each breath drawing more of her provocative scent into his lungs, while his hands flexed and released
at his sides. His tension just kept winding tighter...and tighter, until he nearly stumbled from the jolt of hunger that slammed into him when she came back into the room a few minutes later.

Christ,
he thought as he got a good look at her
. Is she trying to kill me?

The cutoffs had been exchanged for a pair of jeans that hugged her curves like a second skin, her tight black T-shirt molding
to a pair of breasts so perfect they made his mouth water. Her skin was still dewy and pink from the shower and the sun, and he had to physically hold himself back from her. Had to fight the animalistic urge to yank her against him and run his tongue up the slender column of her throat, taking all that salty warmth into his mouth. Summer heat had never looked so good on a woman, and he knew
he needed to get out of there before he did something stupid.

“Shower’s all yours,” she told him, her gaze focused on the base of his throat instead of his eyes.

“Thanks.” His voice was gruff, but he couldn’t help it. She’d taken a step toward him, bringing her into the last wash of sunlight that spilled through one of the front windows, the shimmering beams highlighting the strips of
gold buried in all those waves of strawberry-blond. He wanted to search out every strand...wind the long skeins around his fist...and hold her tight. Pull her to him. Into his arms. Until she was trapped there.

And that’s my cue to get the hell out of here.

Grabbing the leather bag he’d left by the front door, Cian headed toward the bathroom without so much as another glance in her direction.
But it was hardly any better once he was alone in the tiny white-tiled room. Her scent lingered in the steamy air, and he pressed his shoulders against the door as he dropped the bag on the floor, his head pressed back against the wood as he squeezed his eyes shut and clawed on to every ounce of self-control he could find. He needed it like an alcoholic standing before an open bar, the shiny
bottles tempting him with
drink me...drink me...drink me
. Though in his case, the words were coming from Sayre’s soft lips, her husky voice curling around him like sensual tendrils of heat.

It actually hurt a part of him deep inside to be near her like this. And, yeah, it’d been pure hell to be so far away from her for so long. But this...
Jesus
. This was torture on a level he’d never experienced
before, and he still hadn’t managed to get a handle on the right way to deal with it.

He ended up taking the coldest shower of his life, knowing if he lingered he was liable to take matters into his own hands. And he instinctively knew it wouldn’t be enough.

Fifteen minutes later, when Cian headed back out into the living room, it felt like he was walking into some kind of surreal new
reality that didn’t fit in his world. The delicious scent of sizzling vegetables and Asian spices drifted to his nose, and he looked toward the kitchen, surprised to see Sayre standing with her back to him as she stirred something in a pan on the stove.

What the...? Was she making him
dinner
?

A slight flush warmed her cheeks as she glanced at him over her shoulder, sweeping those big
eyes over the clean clothes that covered his body. “It’s getting kinda late, so I figured I should throw something together for us to eat.”