The Shepard's Agony (4 page)

“Will you be quiet now?” he asked after a moment.

Even if he wasn’t pressed so closely to her, she would still be able to smell the dried blood and dirt on him. Proof to her senses that he was one of the attackers who crashed her
pack's
party
. Her fury intensified. Just to be spiteful, she glared and shook her head.

He wasn’t impressed. “That’s fine. I’ve got some duct tape in the drawer over there.” He nodded toward the nightstand. “Let me just grab it—”

Gwen made a protesting sound beneath his hand and frantically shook her head.

“Are you going to keep quiet?”

Reluctantly, she nodded this time
, but
continued to
glare.

He
hesitated for a moment before finally removing his
hand. "Alright."

She never took her eyes away from him and he didn’t move to grab the grocery bags he’d dropped. He just continued to stare at her with sorrowful interest.

“
What do you want?” s
he asked, a thousand other questions on the tip of her tongue. She almost couldn’t believe her own eyes.

Was this really David? Her
gentle David who asked her to dance even though she was no good at it? Who listened when she spoke to him about her feelings and hopes? Whom she had loved?
Because
, right now, he had her tied to a smelly bed in a dingy motel. How could he do this to her? Why hadn’t she seen it coming?

He
ignored her. “I made you bleed,” he said, removing himself from her side and returning to the bags on the
floor
. He arranged them on the table before pulling out a tissue box, small patch bandages, and peroxide.

Gwen watched him carefully
. When he looked over his
shoulder
, their eyes
met
and he quickly turned away.

Whoa.
She'd felt the spark. The same one she always felt whenever he looked at
her
.
But
, he never turned away from it
before
. After what he did, she shouldn’t still be having it.

He seemed reluctant
, but eventually returned to her
side
. Wetting some tissues with the
peroxide
, he applied it to the spot just above her nose.

Gwen only remembered
being slashed with a machete when the sting exploded and pain spread over her face.

“
Sorry,” David said at her hiss, but he didn’t slow his careful
tending
. When he was finished, Gwen found herself with an awkward brown bandage over her nose that she could almost see if she crossed her eyes.

Crossing her eyes made her dizzy, so she asked, “Does it look bad?”

David’s mouth quirked and he ran a finger over the bandage, causing her to
shiver
. He jerked his hand away, disguising the motion by scratching his
head
, but it was too late. Her shiver passed from her body to his, but he ignored it. He needed to until any feelings he had left for her were out of his system. He came and got her as planned, now all that was left was to find someplace safe for her to be.
Then
, he
could
get out of her life forever.

“
I don’t think so
. It might scar, but in a few years you won’t notice it.”

Gwen had
prominent scars as well as some that had faded over
time
; all were either products of deep bites from other werewolves while play fighting or real fights to protect the pack. However, not one scar took up residence on her face and she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of having her first one.

“
It won’t be so bad,” h
e said when he noticed the look on her face.

“
I wouldn’t have it in the first place
if it weren’t for you!” she yelled, remembering to be angry over everything that he’d done. “Untie me.”

“
No
.
And
, I saved your life,” he said with a growl.

“
By doing what? Kidnapping me?” Gwen asked, sarcasm
dripping
in each word. “Well, I can take care of myself, thank you! People are going to come looking for me. My father, John, Bill, and everyone else you attacked,” she said, hoping to scare him into releasing her.

Didn’t work
one bit. “Don’t you mean your pack?”

Gwen’s eyes
bulged. She tried to loosen the bonds on her wrists and squirm away from him, but she couldn’t summon the strength to move.

“
How could you know
that?” Then she shook her head.

She felt like an idiot. He’d taken her in her wolf form and tied her to a bed as a human, of course he would’ve put it together
.
But
, there was no surprise radiating from him that usually came with the emotions of people who’d just discovered that werewolves did indeed exist. Just a calm, collected, shadow about
him
; a darkness she’d never seen on his face.

He was looking at her like she was the enemy.

“
Don’t be stupid. I know what you are. I saw the birthmar
k the last time
we
were together.”

The words were like a physical
blow
. Gwen’s throat constricted and she couldn’t breathe. Despite the extreme urge to not believe him, she couldn’t help but put together what had happened in her mind.

That was why he wasn’t surprised or shocked about her condition. He already knew what she was. The first time they’d made love was also the last time since David Shepard was nowhere to be found the next morning,
leaving
the left side of her bed cold and empty. No sign of him was left, not a message on her machine, not even a note to say he’d be back, and she hadn’t heard from him since.

The crescent moon birthmark on the inside of her thigh, a sign of Lycanthrope found only on those who were born werewolves, was inches away from her panty line. John had one just like it on his upper right shoulder.

Of course David would end up seeing it,
but
, at the
time
, she was sure he wouldn’
t have know
n what it meant, just like her other boyfriends before him who assumed it was a little tattoo in an odd place.
But
, he’d seen it, he knew what it meant, and he left.

Gwen wanted to cry
. Hell, she wanted to bawl her eyes out. Finally knowing the reason for David’s departure was something she didn’t want to deal with. If he’d just been another jerk who left that would have been one
thing
.
But
, to know that a man she’d sincerely loved couldn’t handle what she was, something completely unchangeable, was something else entirely.

Instead of crying like she wanted, Gwen swallowed painfully and glared at him. “So you ran
away like a scared little boy?”

David sneered. “By then they were already planning the
attack
. I had to work around it and get you out of there!”

“You couldn’t have warned us?”

“
Of course not!” He abruptly got up and went back to the bags on the table, taking out the contents and slamming them on the table just to be away from her.
He tossed several things to Gwen even though she couldn’t catch them. Clothes.

He leaned over to untie her.

“
The second I’m
free
, I’ll kill
you
,” she
warned
.
She
was so consumed with rage that she wanted to tear her claws into him and make him feel the pain that she was feeling.

David jerked away. “I guess I won’t untie you then.”

Thinking quickly, Gwen said the first thing that came to mind. “I need to use the bathroom.”

“No you don’t.”

“Just untie me.”

David hesitated and then smirked before leaning over her. “What would you be willing to do to get me to untie you?
Or
, maybe I should just keep you tied up like that?”

Gwen jerked into the bed, shocked with the suggestion his voice gave
away
, but also with her own reaction. Her heart was pumping and her breathing sped up. “You … you wouldn’t.”

He grinned wickedly, tickling his rough fingers along her arm. “I’m not talking about doing anything you wouldn’t want me to do. I think you’d like it. We’ve never done bondage before.”

Without meaning to, Gwen found herself responding to his
touch
; tiny shocks of pleasure and anticipation tingling from her arms to the rest of her body. Everything was hyper sensitive and her nipples hardened.

He pressed his lips to her neck and she groaned
, pressing herself closer to him. As much as she hated him, she wanted him to put his hand between her legs.

Why would he be touching her like this when he made it clear they were over? Gwen couldn’t think straight anymore.

Okay, so maybe she still missed him, but only a little. Even the little things that used to annoy her like his playful grin
or the goatee that he insisted on
keeping were becoming endearing now
.
But
, that was normal considering she was still getting over
him
.
She
also couldn’t help but
notice
an electric pull between her and David that never existed with John.

The memory of John and the promise she’d made to him was a hard shake back into reality
. Gwen pulled back her arms, freshly insulted that he could think of doing something like this at the worst possible time.

“
Don’t touch me! And the only reason we never got a chance to do anything else was because you took off as so
on as you got what you wanted!”

At those
words, David snarled again. “That’s what you think? Why you—” He stopped himself before he could say anything regrettable. He took off in the middle of the night while she slept off the buzz of their sex after he promised her he would never hurt her. She did have a right to be angry, but she wasn’t listening to his explanations either.

“
Whatever, if t
hat’s what you want to think,” he
said
. He got up and walked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Gwen
let out a frustrated growl.

"You don't have anything to be angry about!" she
yelled
, but
since she
could plainly hear shower water running, she wasn't sure if he could hear her.

Gwen searched around the room again, looking for a clock and hoping that not much time had passed. The longer s
he was away from her
pack
, the worse the situation could be.

Gwen gasped when she saw that it was half pas
t midnight.

***

“Hey!”

John turned, Di was running to him.

“
Are you alright?”
she asked, her red hair in frizzy tangles from the
fight
and dirt smudging her
face
. She didn’t look so great.

He shook his head. “I still can’t find Gwen.” The last time he’d seen her she’d been fighting off some human, an easy job considering he was practically killing himself for
her
. John was
then
distracted by two identical men with guns, and when he turned back, Gwen was gone. He’d thought nothing of it at the time, but now she was missing and he was buzzing with guilt and frustration.

If he found her
alive
, he swore he would kill her!

Di’s eyes widened. “You mean you … no one …?”

John eyed her
suspiciously. “What’s wrong?”

She nearly exploded in
despair. “I saw one of those humans carrying her off in the middle of the fight!”

John swore and pushed passed her. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

She trailed behind him. “I thought someone already went to look. I didn’t think no one
knew
! I would’ve helped
her
, but that vampire kept getting in my way.”

John could sense her sincerity by the guilt in her emotions, but he was in no mood to be sympathetic. “Did you get a look at who took her?” He’d already
committed the faces of his own attackers to memory, but it would help to know the number of people they had to deal with as well.

“
He was tall, about the same size as
you
, I think. He had blond hair and a beard-thing, like he hadn't shaved in a few
days
. When he carried her
off
, she was still a wolf. Do you think she bit him?”

Some hunters still believed that killing the wolf
that
bit them would cure them.
But
, if that particular hunter thought such a thing, why carry her off? Why not just kill her right then and there?

John went to the
cars and trucks on the property and began checking for keys. “It doesn’t matter, the point is he has her. Anything else?”

She ignored him. “Are you going to tell Larry?”

John stopped. That was right, he still had her father to think about. Where
was
Larry’s truck anyway? Maybe he could borrow it and wouldn’t have to worry about driving a dead man’s vehicle.