Venice Heat (12 page)

A shadow moved across the path up ahead, and she froze. Whoever it was made no move to come closer or to go in the opposite direction. She told herself to take a deep breath and ascertain whether the person was human or something else, but her chest burned holding it in. The shadow stirred, and her heart hammered in her throat. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked, and then another sound rent the air. Shae sank to the ground, her shoes slipping from numb fingers.

She dug her cell phone from the tiny purse she carried. Thank goodness she’d brought it. The display read “Eiji,” and she almost wept anew.

“Eiji,” she breathed.

“I’m at the house, but you’re not here. You are not well enough to go out yet, Shae,” he scolded.

She shut her eyes and tried to wet her dry throat. “He…he…”

“Shae!” This time his tone was sharp with concern. “Where are you? Is he there with you? Tell me everything.”

“I’m somewhere on a canal street, near Dell. Eiji, he made me…” Horror washed over her, and she sank farther toward the ground. Having no idea where the shadow had gone or if someone stood over her ready to kill her, she clung to the phone, drawing strength from Eiji’s voice. He seemed so close, yet so far away, and the desperate need to feel his comforting arms overwhelmed her.

“I will find you.”

The phone went dead, and she yelped in alarm. Minutes ticked by, and each sound in the night banged loud in her ears. Something splashed in the water, making her jump. The dog’s bark appeared closer, and a man’s angry voice rose above it all, his abusive words to whomever he spoke grating Shae’s raw nerves.

At any moment, Darryl might figure out she’d left, or Charlene and the other woman might tell him. He could track her and get there before Eiji. Could she resist the magic he’d used on her and fight him? Was the man she’d hurt giving her description to the police even now?

At the end of the short canal, someone flashed a light into the darkness. Her heart leaped in her chest. She fell backward onto her ass and scraped her leg on the asphalt. Two men spoke, and she imagined one had the authoritative air of a cop. She rolled to her knees despite the pain and scrambled for her shoes. A splash. Damn, now she realized what the first splash had been.

She took flight in the opposite direction from the men. Reaching the corner, she had to stop dead because of oncoming traffic in both directions. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out which way led back to the house. Maybe she shouldn’t go there anyway. Darryl knew where she stayed, and he had more than enough people backing him up. Eiji would be no threat whatsoever.

A woman on the opposite side of the street watched her with leery eyes, and Shae started walking. She hoped the fact that she had no shoes on wasn’t too obvious. People walked around in bathing suit tops and Daisy Dukes all the time out here, so being shoeless shouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

A car inched past her and then came to a stop not far away. Drivers from others who couldn’t get around in the narrow street laid on their horns. A man stuck his head out the window and looked her way, a black man. Shae stopped walking and backpedaled a few steps. She could call her protector—no, it wasn’t fair to drag her family and their employees into a fight with wolf shifters and not tell them fully what they dealt with. She couldn’t explain what she was becoming, and besides that, Eiji might be caught in the cross fire. Despite everything, he had been good to her, and she didn’t want him to die.
If anyone had told me a couple weeks ago I would want a shifter to live…

“Hey, baby, need a ride?” the man shouted.

She raised her voice and heard the tremor when she spoke. “No, I’m good. Thanks.”

The passenger door opened, and light-headedness assailed her.

“Don’t be like that, pretty girl.” The threat in his tone had to be her imagination. Not right here, where anyone could see her or hear her scream? Or was Darryl in the car waiting to use his ability to draw her, without a struggle, into its dark interior? All she had to do was scent him, but fear blocked everything, including common sense. She had no idea what to do. Instinct said run and don’t stop. The man took a step toward her, still ignoring the cars lined up behind him. Shae stumbled when she stepped on a rock, and a steely arm encircled her waist. She started to scream.

“Easy,” came Eiji’s deep, commanding voice, and she sagged into his embrace.

The man from the car tossed out an insult she ignored and jumped back into his car. Soon traffic moved forward, but Shae clung to Eiji with all her waning strength.

“You lied,” she muttered against his throat. “You said I had a choice.”

“We’ll talk about it when we get back to the house. Where are your shoes?”

“I don’t know.” Tired beyond reason, she couldn’t muster more than a sulky answer and slapped his hands away when he tried to carry her. She followed him to his Jeep, parked nearby, and climbed into the passenger seat. By the time they reached her rental, which took no more than a few minutes, she was nodding in and out of sleep.

Eiji touched her cheek, and she jerked away. His mouth tightened. “What happened tonight?”

She left the Jeep and walked up the steps to the door. He came behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist to lift her aside and then unlocked the door himself. A cold chill ran along Shae’s back, and she cast a glance into the street behind her, toward the bushes and in the shadows. Nothing stirred. The moon came out from behind some clouds to mock her. Where had its bright light been when she was alone on that canal road? Then again, the moon gave no comfort. The pale chunk of rock belonged to the wolves.

She stomped past Eiji in the entrance and went to the kitchen to find a drink. A glass with a splash of rum and pineapple juice and a few cubes of ice, and she found her backbone again. She slammed the glass on the counter and turned to Eiji just entering the room.

“Explain to me why I had to learn the hard way that Darryl can control me any damn time he’s good and ready. Why didn’t you warn me, and how can I fight it?”

He pierced her with those eyes, and she found herself wondering what he looked like shifted. “You can’t fight it. Right now, you belong to him.”

Chapter Eight

Eiji fought panic and rage. He smelled
him
all over Shae as if they’d lain together. She’d told him Darryl didn’t have sex with her the night he bit her, and Eiji knew it to be true. He would have picked up the scent without trouble. However, now she carried a bit of the man inside her. She would always reek of his enemy unless she mated, and he had spoken the truth. She belonged to Darryl.

“Oh hell to the no! I’m not having that.” She made herself another drink. He knew if he attempted to stop her, she would fight him, so he stood where he was. Her big brown eyes accused him, and that was enough to fuel his guilt. “You need to stop holding back, Eiji. Tell me everything, and don’t start spouting that crap about making me your mate, because it’s not going to happen.”

He hitched his shoulders and moved to make tea. “Tell me everything that happened tonight.”

“Isn’t it obvious from this getup?” She snatched at her dress with derision curling her full lips and then, in an impulsive move, drew the offending garment over her head and threw it on the floor. Eiji’s cock hardened with the first sight of her bare breasts and the scrap of material that was her panties. She didn’t seem to notice how she affected him or whether it was appropriate for her to strip there in the kitchen.
American women.

“Did he hurt you?” he broached to get her talking again.

“He humiliated me.” And then she sniffed, fighting tears.

He threw the teakettle aside and shoved a chair from his path, overturning it. When he drew her into his arms, she came without a fuss, still struggling to remain strong. He carried her to the bedroom and held her tight to his chest. He wanted to go on holding her, but instead, he laid her down on the mattress and took a seat beside her. Shae gave him a look filled with hatred, and she climbed up the bed until she reached the headboard. She dragged a sheet and blanket with her and tucked them beneath her chin after she’d drawn her knees up to it.

“He had full control, and I didn’t realize it. I thought I got a crazy idea in my head to go out and have some fun. I selected my clothes, my shoes, even where to party. Something should have told me this was all strange since I never even knew that place existed.”

Eiji remained silent, allowing her to share her tale.

“I pushed up on him all night. I let him touch me as we danced. I would have gone further and done whatever he wanted, and now that I think about it, all his boys were laughing at me. The girls were jealous, maybe ’cause they wanted his low-life ass, but it was one of them that warned me about what was going on.”

“How did you get out?”

Her eyes widened as she stared at him. “Wait, because I shouldn’t have been able to? Is that what you’re saying?” Before he could answer, she went on. “One of the guys had to talk to him about something. That took his attention, and he was done with me for the moment.”

Eiji nodded. “To control another in his pack takes concentration of his power, and it does drain energy.”

“Power?” Shae repeated.

He hesitated. Eiji had known all of this could happen, but he never expected it to happen before she made her choice. He knew he’d had a few more days before she changed for the first time and Darryl would return for her. He had hoped to have that time to explain the reality she faced.

“The alpha of a wolf pack has the ability to control his people to a certain extent, to influence them, to strengthen them, and even to heal them.”

She gasped, and in her distraction, the sheets slipped. He couldn’t stop his gaze from lowering to her bare breasts. The dark area around her nipples called to him to trace it, to taste her skin. He had never lain with an African American woman before, but Shae had quickly become an addiction, one he found no reason to deny himself. That is, unless she mated with Darryl. He could not let that happen, even if he did tell her she had a choice.

“You’re telling me an alpha wolf can make people do whatever he wants? That’s…that’s…” Her chest rose and fell at a rapid pace, and her lips parted, her voice weak as if she had to force it to work.

“Not any people,” he corrected. “Only his pack.”

“I’m not in his damn pack!”

“But he did make you.”

“Make me!”

“Shae, shouting will not help us find the solution.”

She rolled her eyes at him and rose from the bed to find a nightie to pull on. The decision gave him relief and disappointment. “He made me like y’all, so he can throw me around like a rag doll. Can you do that to me too? Is that why you and I did—”

“No!” He blew a breath out through his nostrils and spoke with more reserve. “I told you. I am a rogue. I do not have a pack. I am not an alpha.”

She put a hand on her hip, considering him. “But you do have the power of one, don’t you?”

He refused to answer that question. “You are correct. You are not a member of his pack, so he controls you only because he made you, and there was a level of intimacy started between you.” Eiji ground his teeth. “When you are fully wolf, he will have the ability to mark you as his mate and claim you.”

“Which means?”

“You walked away from him tonight because you wanted to. As his mate, you won’t want to.”

The bathroom door slammed shut, and the lock clicked into place. Eiji banged on the door, but she refused to answer. He picked up the sound of retching, and he shut his eyes, resting his forehead on the chilly wooden panel. No matter how many times he called out her name, she ignored him.

After some time, the toilet flushed, and the faucet water ran. The low
shoosh
of a toothbrush being used started up, and then more water. She gargled, and the shower turned on. All the time, he waited, listening for sniffs or sobs. There were none. He’d known from the first time he met her she was strong. Yet, often he thought there was more to her, something beyond normal American women. He couldn’t be sure, and she hadn’t shared all regarding her family. He had seen the hesitation whenever the subject arose. He considered it rude to push and waited for her to trust him. If she had done so earlier, tonight would not have happened. Still, he couldn’t blame her.

A new scent met him, and a low growl began in his throat. He took another second to listen in on Shae’s movements and then left the house. Not fifty feet away, the beast waited. Eiji shut the door and walked into the shadows. The brown wolf was nothing special, big body, conical head, and shorter legs. He bared his teeth at Eiji and crouched low as if ready to attack, but Eiji didn’t sense the intent to kill, at least not at the moment.

They stared into each other’s eyes a long time, assessing. Eiji didn’t risk looking away. He knew the wolf would take it as him giving place or as fear. Even if he didn’t mean to attack, he would do so because he thought he had the advantage. Eiji would not give him the opportunity.

“Change,” Eiji commanded, growing tired of the game. “You have something to say.
Hai
?”

The wolf gave a low, annoyed yip, and then he did shift to a human form. Eiji recognized him right away, although he had known before now. Travon, the third in Darryl’s pack.

“What do you want?”

Travon spit on the ground in front of Eiji. “I came with a message from Darryl.”

Eiji waited in silence.

“He wants to thank you for taking care of his girl.” The grin that spread over the man’s face said the words were far from gratitude. “You’ve done a good job. You got her over the hump when our kind risks dying. A lot of our women die before…” For a few seconds, real emotion appeared in his eyes, and then it disappeared. “Darryl says keep your hands off her now. Don’t even think about having sex with her because he’ll know if you do, and you’ll find yourself dead like your cousin.”

Eiji stilled. “What do you know of Izumi?”

Travon waved a hand like that wasn’t important, but Eiji stormed him and whipped the man off his feet, holding him by the neck. Two strides forward, and he slammed Travon against the tree behind him. Travon’s feet dangled inches off the ground. He tried prying Eiji’s hand from his throat, but failed.