InsatiableNeed (10 page)

Chapter Ten

Zeth wasn’t sure how long it took the wheels in his head to
start churning again after Raegan left. His legs felt weighted with lead, his
heart thundering so hard he wondered if it was trying to break free of his
chest. Every time he thought he had himself under control, he’d remember the
look on her face—the lost, broken fragments she pieced into a mask—and fell
into a hard rage all over again.

He had no patience for cowards—people who hid and wasted
themselves behind a litany of excuses rather than taking life’s lumps as the lessons
they truly were. Nothing wagered, nothing gained. Words to fucking live by.

Raegan was a coward, and the worst kind, at that. She was
the sort that made promises she knew damn well she wouldn’t keep, and not
because she didn’t want to. That was the fucking punch to the balls. She wanted
to follow through, she wanted to take the leap. She wanted to place her faith
into someone else, because damn, she’d been managing it on her own far too
long.

And that wasn’t even the final kicker. The final kicker was
all on Zeth. He could scream his lungs empty over Raegan’s lack of spine, but
that didn’t make him any less a fucking chump. She might have hidden behind her
fear, but he was the fool who had suspended his disbelief long enough to fall
for it.

He was the one who had to find out he was in love with her.
Who tricked himself into hoping things wouldn’t fall apart when the spell
ended. Who was idiot enough to believe the claim he’d made on her would keep
them together, even if the start was rocky.

A claim tying him to her forever. Like it or not, he was
hers. He’d gone and given himself to her, and she had accepted him. Bad enough
the first time out of reflex, but the second time had been all on her.

Fucking claim.

There were times life was a bad sitcom tied in with one of
those soppy Hallmark movies. The thing he’d resisted for so long, the thing he
hadn’t really wanted had happened to him on accident. Claims were more than
just words and magic. Beyond taking her blood and giving himself to her, he had
made a promise. A promise he hadn’t intended to forge, but would keep, better
or worse, for the rest of his days. It was a sign of complete trust—the giving
of oneself to someone else. Laying everything down on the table on the
whispered hope the other person wouldn’t break them. Not many wolves mated
outside the species, and only a handful of those who did had happy
relationships.

In just a few short hours, Zeth had become a cautionary
tale. Kumbaya.

Fuck me.

He’d always been so careful. Wolves were territorial by
nature—it wasn’t unusual for an accident to happen here or there. A man might
accidentally let the possessive word slip in the heat of the moment, but from
birth, all cubs were instructed that the only answer to an uninvited claim was,
“No.” Dating within the species was a safeguard against unwanted rituals. Most
sensible people knew how to say no when a mating claim was initiated.

Other wolves weren’t so lucky. Other wolves were like Zeth,
and liked to live dangerously. Other wolves didn’t listen to the stories Mommy
and Daddy told them as youngsters and, against better judgment, took sexual
partners outside of the species. Other wolves, while breathing in sex and
pheromones, offered a claim in haste, a partner who didn’t know what he or she
was accepting said yes.

Sometimes it worked out. Most of the time it didn’t. Most of
the time the unintended bedmate never completed the ceremony—never claimed the
wolf back—and instead went on with their lives, not knowing what they had done.
Not knowing to what they had just sentenced their one-night stand.

A lifetime of loneliness and need. A lifetime of craving the
one person who would complete the self.

Zeth didn’t know whether or not Raegan knew the fine print.
She seemed to have a working understanding of claims, enough so to respond with
anger after her clumsy acceptance. But damn it, he didn’t want to think she was
so callous to just condemn him to a life of loneliness over her petty fears. He
didn’t want to think she would leave him, knowing she was the only woman his
wolf would accept. The only woman he could touch. The only woman he could want.

If Raegan did know, though, it was clear she didn’t give a
righteous fuck. She didn’t even have enough courage to
try.
To trust
that maybe, just maybe, he knew his heart better than she did.

Goddammit.

A storm began brewing in his belly, winding winds whipping
and twisting into an angry funnel of hurt. It swelled and burned before finally
stretching across his fingers, and the inner wolf ripped free. His bones
cracked and shifted, thick patches of coarse fur stretching across his flesh.
He’d felt the animal roar for freedom several times tonight, but he hated this
sort of transition the most. The out of control Hulking-out sensation that came
with sweltering pain. Most of the time, Zeth kept his wolf schooled under a
tight grip. Fuck knew it had taken him long enough to learn how to master it.
The only time he experienced difficulty anymore was during the full moon cycle,
but even then he typically had enough reign over it to keep from shifting.

All pretense of control had vanished. His clothing—the
pieces he’d managed to find after Raegan’s departure—shredded in a thousand
directions. He shook his massive head, grounded his hind legs and stretched.
Then he was running—racing through the open door and across the church hallway,
toward a scent he didn’t even identify until the man was in sight. The asshole
responsible for his misery.

O’Brien.

Sitting on the steps of the pulpit was Father Kinston
O’Brien. He was a tiny shell of a man with a long face and a receding hairline,
and a throat that was about to be divorced from his body. By the time the
preacher realized he was the target of an angry werewolf, it was too late. He
turned his head with a fraction of a second to spare, and unleashed a shrill,
hard scream.

Zeth bared his fangs and leapt. He angled his bite around
the priest’s throat to avoid use of his incisors, landing it with enough
pressure to leave a mark, but not enough to break skin. Though honestly, the
only thing holding him back was the knowledge a bloody mess would only further
incriminate his kind in Raegan’s mind, and perhaps the smidgeon of humanity his
inner wolf hadn’t completely overshadowed. In the end, he only dragged O’Brien
a couple feet before releasing the man and morphing back to human form.

“Lord my God.” O’Brien coughed, wheezing hard. “Was that my
sign?” He shook his head as though trying to determine where he was, then
rolled over onto his stomach. “Who’s there?”

“Your sign.” Zeth snarled, rubbing the whiskers along his
jaw. “Been waiting long?”

“The Good Lord delivered. I have been reborn.”

“Gotta die first for that to happen.”

“Death is necessary,” the preacher agreed.

“Give me a reason,” Zeth spat, fully aware he stood ass
naked and not really giving a damn. “Give me a reason to put you in the ground.
I fucking dare you.”

The man looked up at last, as though just realizing he
wasn’t alone. His eyes went wide. “Protect this house, Lord my God. In the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—”

Zeth sneered in disgust and delivered a swift kick to the
priest’s gut, which sent a hard, pained gasp off the man’s lips. “Spare me.
Don’t think the Father, Son, or whatever hold men who summon demons to fuck
with people in high regard.”

O’Brien looked up sharply and climbed to his feet. “Demons?”
he rasped. “I am the summoner of demons. Is this why you’re here? To deliver
news?”

A muscle in Zeth’s jaw ticked. “You could say that.”

The priest stepped forward. “It worked? I summoned her?
Jezebel walked this earth tonight?”

The asshole’s voice, thick with hope and eagerness, revived
Zeth’s outrage, and before he could help himself, he’d leveled a meaty punch at
O’Brien’s nose. Bone cracked and blood spurted, but aside from a pained cry,
the priest didn’t protest. Instead, he croaked, “I am delivered,” and fell
again to the ground.

“Do you have any idea what you took from me?” Zeth growled
and, unable to resist, landed another kick to the man’s gut. “Do you have any
fucking
idea—”

“I-I did wh-what you asked for,” O’Brien sputtered. “What
you
all
asked for! Hell upon earth. She was here! She walked. And now
you all will see!” A maniacal grin spread across the priest’s face. “She was
here. She fulfilled her bargain. And you, sinner…” He pointed at Zeth. “Standing
naked as you did the day you came into this world, reborn and ready for
redemption! I understand it now. I understand—”

Disgusted, Zeth aimed another punch, this time knocking the
man unconscious.

Nothing more than a raving lunatic. He would find no answers
here. No one to explain or understand what had been given to him tonight, only
to be taken away again. The most O’Brien could do was serve as an insane
punching bag, but that wouldn’t give Zeth any closure. It wouldn’t change
things. Wouldn’t take back what he’d shared with Raegan. Wouldn’t undo the
claim.

“Fucking shame,” he muttered. “It’d be so much easier to
justify killing you if you weren’t a few peas short of a casserole.”

Zeth sighed and lifted his tired head. The church was empty,
of course, but through the stained glass windows, he saw the first streaks of
morning. Dawn had finally broken the night. And then strangely, he found
himself wondering if O’Brien had been right after all. Perhaps Zeth was reborn.
He certainly didn’t feel like the man he’d been when he and Raegan arrived here
only hours earlier. Things had changed for him.

He
had changed.

He was a man in love with a woman who couldn’t love him
back.

The scent of tears hung thick in the air. Sickened with
himself, Zeth sniffed, pinched the bridge of his nose, shook himself off, and
then shifted back to wolf form.

Over the course of one night, his life had changed forever.
He just didn’t feel like facing it now. And he didn’t have to.

All he had to do right now was get home, crawl into bed, and
sleep.

* * * * *

Raegan tossed her keys onto her coffee table, flicked on the
first light she came across, and limped into the kitchen. In one of the
cabinets, she found a box of Froot Loops. She poured herself a bowl, doused it
in milk, then carried it and the remainder of the cow juice to her breakfast
nook.

Funny. She wasn’t even hungry. But eating was natural, and
one had to do it every few hours lest their stomach start complaining.

Eight missed calls, three angry phone messages, and a note
on her apartment door. Such was the homecoming of a hack reporter who had
missed her deadline. Not that Raegan particularly gave a crap about Higgins or
the story he wanted. He’d known what was going down tonight, and though
stopping Jezebel’s summoning had been her vocal prerogative, he’d indicated
he’d want an article ready one way or another. As a result, she had mentally
composed her letter of resignation the entire drive home, even if her inner
realist knew she would chicken out before she found the courage to place it on
his desk. Higgins knew what the job meant to her—perhaps not as a career, but
he had the details of her past well enough pieced together to occasionally
dangle a scrap of usually worthless information in front of her. Something
about dead coeds or brutal animal attacks the police couldn’t explain.
Something to keep her on a leash.

Honestly, she wondered if Higgins hadn’t introduced her to
Zeth just to see what would happen, and what juicy underworld gossip he could
gleam as a result.

Higgins would have a field day with tonight. Once he
discovered where she’d been, and who she’d been with, when Jezebel’s spell took
effect, he’d likely shit himself in giddy anticipation.

But Raegan didn’t want to write that story, or any story.
Raegan didn’t want to go to work in a few hours. She wanted to shower, slather
her sore thighs with lotion, and sleep for about forever.

Though knowing her luck, Zeth would just follow her into her
dreams.

She set her spoon into the bowl, then wiped away a dribble
of milk that had started skating down her chin. And the next thing she knew,
the bowl was face-down on the ground, her milk jug had toppled over, and hard,
raucous sobs shattered the silence in her otherwise serene apartment. A well of
something
she couldn’t touch had exploded, and the feeble attempt to
keep herself wound and controlled lost what had always been a dying battle.

Raegan held herself and wept. Her chest ached. Her stomach
turned. The house was empty and she sat in the nook, long, hard wails tearing off
her lips as hot tears burned down her cheeks. A good cry could be amazingly
therapeutic, but this one failed to perform. All she could do was picture Zeth.
Zeth’s hands. Zeth’s smile. Zeth’s eyes. Zeth’s voice telling her he loved her.

The look on Zeth’s face before she left the room.

She thought of Zeth, then eventually of Natalie. Of how much
of herself Raegan had placed in her friend’s casket before it was concealed by
the earth. The face of the girl she’d once been, the one she kept buried under
resentment she had never learned to channel, and fear she had avoided since
discovering the horrors of fable were real after all. Then her focus shifted to
Razor, the face she’d given her nightmares so many years ago.

At last her attention landed on herself. The sniveling
weakling she’d become, the caricature of the person she’d wanted to be. She’d
prided herself on independence, on her resilience, on being unbreakable.

But being strong just because no one ever got close enough
to touch her didn’t make her strong. It made her anything but.