He said, “I haven’t told a single person in over five hundred years what I am, and I’m not planning on breaking my streak now.”
“Why the big cloak-and-dagger?” I asked. “It can’t matter that much if people know what you are.” I poured a palmful of the stink over my head. I tried to face away from him, toward the rock, so my see-through camisole was aimed at something innocuous.
“If they know what I am, they can better anticipate how I may react in a certain situation. Secrecy may aid me only a little in that respect, but the unknown tends to be more frightening than reality anyway.” He grinned. “As a rule.”
He literally towered over me, but the weird thing was, I didn’t feel threatened by him at all. It bugged me, because he was a predator, most likely a natural enemy of mine. I should feel threatened nonstop. My hackles should be raised and I should be baring my teeth. Shifters rarely got along with other shifters. We were animals. Animals fought. They didn’t hang out in a creek together splashing around. My wolf should want to rip her canines into him and sever his jugular, not mew at him like a lovestruck teenager.
Instead of ripping his heart out, her tongue lolled out while she enjoyed the view. Put your tongue back in your mouth. You’re embarrassing me.
I stopped dumping water over my head to take in what he’d just said. “So, let me get this straight. If people think you may be … let’s say, a saber-toothed tiger, they’ll be more afraid of you than say … if they found out you were a common house cat? Is that the real reasoning behind all your mysterious mystique?”
Rourke chuckled. “Jessica, you’re no shrinking violet, that’s for damn sure.” He shook his head back and forth, water spraying us both. “My ‘mysterious mystique,’ as you so nicely put it, has gone a long way in facilitating my reputation as a resident badass. If you build up the rumors and the fear, it makes your job a hell of a lot easier. I like easy.” He pinned me with his eyes. “And I can promise you I am most certainly not a house cat.” He chuckled again.
I stopped moving.
When he’d used my name in the familiar, blood had thundered around in my brain. My wolf and I had both snapped to immediate attention, the effect of his words had been physical. My blood pumped wildly and little tremors broke out all over my body, making me twitch. I don’t even know this guy. He shouldn’t have any effect on us. What just happened? Why is our body doing that? My wolf was too busy running in circles excitedly yipping to answer me. Plus I was having trouble focusing on what I’d just been saying as Rourke raised his arms over his head again. Water coated his face and ran freely down his body. A low sound emerged in the back of my throat. I brought a hand to my neck. Jesus, you have to stop doing that. Calm yourself down! I seriously hoped that sound had not been uttered out loud. Listen, you have to get a hold of this. We’re not sleeping with every single person we meet. My wolf was just short of jumping up and down. You can’t be into this guy like that. He’s a mercenary who was hired to stalk us, possibly even kidnap us. We are not going there. Do you hear me? She wasn’t listening because she was lost to her own personal frenzy.
I left her there.
We climbed straight up. Our wet clothes and shoes dried fairly quickly in the heat—thank goodness. Rourke had taken the lead and so far hadn’t glanced back. I had no idea if he was being chivalrous or if he was just anxious to reach a safer location. After a couple hours, I picked up my pace and lessened the gap between us.
The sulfur had definitely helped mask us for a while, but as it dissipated I clearly smelled the deep clove musk emanating from every pore on Rourke’s body.
There was no way to get rid of it. Our scent was intrinsic to us; you couldn’t turn it off.
The wolves had it in their memory banks and could absolutely track it, it was just a matter of time. We had a day at most.
Rourke paused beneath a tall tree. I trailed behind him, coming to a halt right as my stomach grumbled like rocks were being ground up in my intestines. Rourke arched an eyebrow.
I shrugged. “What? I’m hungry.” Another rumble. “Actually, scratch that, I could eat an entire restaurant full of food.”
“We’re almost there, and there’s food at the cabin.” He started walking again. “When I made my first change, I was insatiable for a solid year.” His voice held a soft purr. “In more ways than one.”
I caught my footing in time and managed not to nosedive into the ground as I followed after him. “So I have this to look forward to for a full year?”
“Pretty much.”
I complained after him. “You know … It’s not like a normal hunger. It’s more like I’m trying to feed something else—something craving so much more than I can give it. Food doesn’t fill it. It’s like a gigantic void and nothing I seem to do can satiate it.”