Gone with the Wolf

chapter Eleven


A cool washcloth pressed against Emelia’s forehead, jarring her awake. She gasped, sitting upright in a strange bed, in a strange room. Drake sat on a leather chair beside the bed, his face a dark mask. He looked tired—shadows hovered beneath his eyes and stress lines indented the corners of his mouth.

“Thank God you’re awake. I was beginning to think you’d never wake up.” Drake leaned back in his chair, though he still seemed on edge. “How do you feel?”

“Hungry. Tired. Achy.” Like she’d been flattened by a steamroller. “Where am I?”

“After the gala I brought you to my house outside the city. It’s the most heavily guarded home I have. Consider it your personal Fort Knox.”

She felt safe with Drake, no matter if she slept in Fort Knox or his mansion in Seattle, but she appreciated the fact that he wanted to make her feel that way.

“Is your head pounding?” he asked, rubbing his hands down his slacks.

She winced, touching the back of her head. Memories of the gala fought to the forefront of her mind. Why couldn’t she remember details from that night? Why was the event a blur after Drake’s speech? “I feel like power drills are grinding into my skull.”

“That’s good, under the circumstances.” Drake crossed his legs, bringing his ankle up over his knee, causing Emelia’s concentration to blow apart.

She hadn’t noticed until now: his tie was missing and his dress shirt was unbuttoned to his waist. As Drake shifted in his seat, the sides of his shirt fell away, revealing tan, sculpted muscle on his chest and downright lickable washboard abs. Despite herself, Emelia’s tongue shot out over her lips.

“A power drill is playing tic-tac-toe on the back of my head. Remind me how that’s a good thing?” She dropped her head back on the pillow and groaned. “My insides feel raw.”

“Raul is bringing you some Tylenol along with breakfast. Is there anything you want in particular? I’ll bring doughnuts if you promise not to practice your pitch on me.”

“Very funny.” As Emelia’s stomach growled, a hunger pang ripped through her. “This is going to sound crazy, but I’d kill for deep-dish pizza. Too early?”

“Not at all.” Drake laughed, the tension in his gravelly voice washing away. “I’ll have Raul bring you the best pizza in the city.”

His eyes glazed over and his head kinked to the side. Almost as though he floated somewhere in his mind. Then, in the next breath, he was back again, the same specks of worry shining in his eyes.

Suddenly, Emelia realized she wasn’t wearing the dress from the gala. “What’s this?” she asked, tugging on the collar of a men’s white cotton T-shirt. The thing was huge, dwarfing her body and sagging over her shoulders.

“After I brought you here, I changed you out of your gown. It had a few stains on it. I didn’t peek.” Smiling, Drake put up a hand in pledge. “Swear on the Bible.”

“You probably don’t even own a Bible.”

“I washed your face,” Drake continued, “and took down your hair. I thought you’d be more comfortable that way.” He grabbed a bottle of water from the bedside table, unscrewed the top, and handed it to her. “Here, take it. I’m sure you’re parched.”

Drake was right—her throat was abnormally dry. Like she’d wolfed down a package of sandpaper. She meant to take a sip of the water, but couldn’t stop guzzling once the water hit her throat.

“How long was I out?” she asked, handing back an empty bottle.

“It’s Tuesday morning, so…two days.” He checked his watch and frowned. “Did you dream?”

Two days? How could she have slept that long? She’d been known to sleep until nightfall on weekends after pulling an all-nighter at the bar, but still. She had to get back and check on the bar. Although the Knight Owl was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, Emelia would have to call Renee right away to make sure everything went smoothly over the weekend. Renee wasn’t a stranger to running the bar, and Emelia was grateful she had someone to call while she ran off to the city with Drake, but it was time to get back.

Drake’s voice droned in her ears, fighting with odd, resurfacing memories from the gala. Hadn’t there been fur and…snapping teeth?

She blinked quickly, realizing she hadn’t answered his question. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Did you dream while you slept?”

“No, no dreams.” She stroked her collarbone, remembering stabbing pains shooting through her neck. She pulled the collar aside and rubbed where she was sore. Nothing but pink, swollen flesh. Her right thigh was sore, too. Steading herself, Emelia glanced under the sheet. A light purple bruise marred her skin. Memories slapped her cold. The attack. The wolves. Drake. She forced herself to remain calm and get answers to the questions buzzing like bees in her brain. “Everything…really happened, didn’t it?”

“Yes.” Drake’s lips fell into a grim line and he folded his arms across his chest. He looked like he was protecting himself from something…but that would be ludicrous, wouldn’t it? What would he have to be afraid of in his own home?

“I’m sorry for what I had to do,” he said. “But after what happened, there was no choice. You must have a million questions.”

“The stranger from city hall…” Emelia swallowed hard. Drake handed her a second water bottle that she downed as quickly as the first. “He was your brother?”

Where did this insatiable thirst come from? And why was Drake acting like he knew what she’d want, before she wanted it?

“Unfortunately, you met my twin, Silas. I can’t apologize enough for what happened. I’d meant to keep you out of all this and I sure as hell didn’t expect him to attack you. Rest assured he’ll pay with his life for what he did to you.” He spoke with heated determination, each word gruff and clipped.

Emelia licked her cracked lips, then let her tongue settle on the jagged tip of her newest canine. “My teeth, they’re—”

“Canines.” Standing, Drake circled his chair and gripped its raised back. He looked weary and concerned. Like he wanted to put the chair between them for a reason. “Your teeth will change at first, but they’ll go back to normal once you continue with your regular diet. They’ll only elongate at the full moon after that.”

“What are you saying?” Heat rose to her cheeks. “The full moon will…what?”

Now it was Drake who tensed. “My brother and I are werewolves, Emelia, born to werewolf parents. After Silas bit you, I had no choice but to bite your thigh and finish the process he’d started. If I’d left you the way I found you, you’d be dead. But now, because of the two bites, your body will”—he rolled his shoulders back and slapped a stoic, unreadable expression on his gorgeous face—“have the ability to shift into a werewolf as well.”

“What the hell!” Emelia jumped out of bed so quickly, she dragged the blankets with her. “Werewolves? This isn’t happening, I’m dreaming, that has to be it. This is a horrible dream brought on by the attack the other night. Right? Drake, tell me I’m having a nightmare.”

Drake reached out for her. “I wish I could tell you that this is all a bad dream, but I can’t.”

“You’ve got to be f*cking kidding me! Werewolves? In Seattle?” Her legs twitched, cramped, seizing with sharp knots of pain. She paced, stomping to shake the quivers out of her legs. “I’m a werewolf? Wonderful. I’m going to turn into a monster and howl at the full moon like the bloody, hairy mess in American Werewolf in Paris and shit. Oh God, your brother told me what would happen if he bit me. I saw…”

Drake in wolf form, fighting his brother…to protect her.

Drake tunneled his fingers through his dark mess of hair. “Yes.”

“I saw you…as a wolf.”

“I should apologize for scaring you that way, but what I did was absolutely necessary.”

“You didn’t scare me,” she corrected, stopping in front of him. Drake’s complexion had drained to ghastly white, as pale as the shirt pulling taut over his chiseled body. “I was never afraid of you.”

The panic whirling inside Emelia died down as she stared into Drake’s smoldering dark eyes. She became hyperaware of the heat radiating from his body. Of the magnetism pulling her body to his.

“Emelia, you’re handling this really well,” he said. “Most turned werewolves can barely hold on to a thread of sanity for the first few days.”

“Believe me, Drake, I’m not handling any of this well.” Emelia fought the urge to grab Drake by the waist and claw her fingers into his sides, raking her nails along the hard grooves of his abs…instead, she clutched the fabric over her stomach and gritted her teeth. She should be panic-dumb and tingly numb, not focusing on her arousal and how hot Drake looked. “I feel like I’m rotting away. My insides feel raw and worn, yet I feel like there’s fire chugging through my veins. My arms are tight, and my legs ache like I’m having growing pains.” What would she become when this was over? A wolf like Drake—one who is commanding, yet has an uncanny sense of calm about him? Or would she turn evil like his brother and become a wolf who kills for her own gain? “I don’t feel right…I can feel myself changing. I don’t want to become a monster.”

“Just because you shift into a werewolf doesn’t mean you’ll start terrorizing small villages like in movies.” He spoke tenderly, his voice warm with remorse. “We’re more civilized that you’d believe.”

“I don’t know what to think.” Cold from the inside out, Emelia shook her head. “Who the hell am I now?”

Drake cupped her chin in his massive hands. “You’re Emelia Hudson, but your friends call you Emie. You love Château Lafite and hate costume parties. You curse like a sailor, have an unrivaled sense of pride when it comes to your bar, and are as stubborn as a mule. You’re also the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in all my years on this earth. You’re kindhearted and humble, showing compassion to every person who comes into contact with you. Beneath all that, you now have the molecular structure of a werewolf and will shift into one at every full moon. You’re going to be fine and I’ll be here to help you every step of the way.”

Something in Emelia’s chest fluttered, then caught. No matter what happened two nights ago, or two nights from now, Emelia knew she would be all right. An unnatural sense of calm inked through her, blanketing her frayed nerves. “How can this be real? Werewolves? Next you’re going to tell me vampires are real, too.”

“At least your sarcasm hasn’t gone anywhere,” he laughed, dropping his hands back to his sides. She wished his hands would return and stroke over the goose-bumpy skin beneath her shirt. “Vampires aren’t real, at least not that I know of, though I suppose they could be in hiding like we are.”

As the air charged with something electric, Emelia stepped back, then blew out a deep breath. It was the oddest thing…she could almost taste the energy sparking from Drake’s body. It tasted exactly how he smelled—dark, spicy, and deliciously male.

Drake’s dark eyes widened in hunger as if he understood what she sensed. “Your system will be on overload for the next few days. Senses and emotions will be heightened to extremes and fluctuate on whims. Impulses will be nearly impossible to control. Your inner thermostat will run freezing cold, then blistering hot.”

“Basically, you’re saying I’m like a computer that’s about to crash: unreadable, unmanageable, freezing, then burning up.”

The hard line of his lips quirked. “If you say so.”

“Not that I’d know from working with Wilder Financial’s computers or anything.”

“Um-hmm.”

Smelling the aroma of roasted garlic, succulent tomatoes, and buttery crust, Emelia’s mouth watered and her gaze homed in on the bedroom door. Two short knocks pounded from the other side.

“Thank you, Raul,” Drake said, striding to the door.

Taking care of business in his usual dominant manner, Drake rolled in a heaping cart of food, and stopped it near the table in the corner. Emelia hadn’t noticed, but the bedroom wasn’t really a bedroom at all. It was more like an elegant studio apartment with rich cherrywood furnishings, a partial kitchen—fully stocked, no doubt—and an open door that led to a gigantic bathroom.

“How many werewolves are out there?” Emelia asked, staring at the steaming pizza, her insides curling into one giant knot. She couldn’t bear the thought of eating, though that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? She was hungry, she had to be. She hadn’t eaten in two days. Twenty minutes ago she’d wanted pizza, now…she couldn’t pinpoint what she wanted.

Drake poured a glass of scotch from a bottle on the bottom rack and drank. “In the United States there are four hundred, and over a third of those belong to my pack.”

“Your pack?” Her gaze shot from the stuffed crust to Drake.

“My father was an Alpha, and the ruling of the pack continues down generational lines.”

Did he dominate everything in his life? “And your twin? Is he an Alpha, too?”

“Since we’re twins, we’re both technically Alphas by birthright. Catch the rub?” Drake sat on the leather sofa in front of the curtain-covered windows and leaned forward, stroking his thumb across the lip of the glass. “Our father was determined not to have his empire weakened by being split in half, so he decreed that the first son to find his Luminary would become Alpha and gain control over the pack, and the other son would take over the investments.”

“What’s a Luminary?” Emelia asked, taking the seat next to Drake. His natural scent seemed to soothe the ache hollowing her middle. She couldn’t be close enough.

“I think it might be best not to get overwhelmed in the details. Not yet, anyway. Right now we need to focus on easing your transition. Why don’t you get something to eat? The entire cart is for you. There’s breadsticks, soda, salad, pizza. I promised the best in the city.”

Emelia felt her face crinkle. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Craving flips are normal. If the pizza’s no longer appealing, I can get you something else.”

Emelia had never been cared for this way. Not before her parents kicked her out at eighteen for being too rebellious, and not when things had been good with Undercover Jackass, before he left her at the altar.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked.

Drake’s expression softened, and once again, Emelia glimpsed the kindhearted Oz behind the ironclad business facade. “If you don’t eat, the transition will only get more difficult to handle. Your body needs fuel.”

“No,” she said, staring at the crisscross patterns in the rug. “It’s more than the transition.”

“You’re a very special woman, Emelia.” Drake set his empty glass on the floor and turned to her, sending waves of chills rolling through her body with a single glance. “If you weren’t already spoken for, I’d show you just how special you are.”

“I don’t know what gave you the impression that I’m spoken for,” Emelia said, “but believe me, on a scale of single to married, I’m beyond hopeless.”

“Your Facebook relationship status says ‘it’s complicated,’ so I assumed—”

“You checked my Facebook?” Emelia felt the first surge of anger like a lightning strike. It was harsh and hard-hitting, lancing through her temples. “You don’t seem like the social media type.”

“Trixie checked for me.”

“I see.”

“I also checked county records,” he said. “You filed for a marriage certificate, but when you applied with the temp agency, you declared that your title was Miss Emelia Hudson.” Drake’s tone slipped into accusatory territory. Like she’d kept something from him that she should’ve revealed.

She didn’t owe Drake an explanation of why the marriage didn’t happen or why she’d chosen not to tell anyone at his company. Emelia couldn’t explain why heat surged through her at the mention of her close-call marriage—maybe it was because she’d tried so hard to separate Jackass from anything involving Drake. Or maybe she was more irritable than normal. Whatever the reason, Emelia didn’t care.

She didn’t owe him anything, but she couldn’t hold back.

“I filed for a marriage certificate because I’d planned on getting married,” she spit out the words as if they were poison. “But that didn’t happen when Mr. Jackass decided he’d rather run off into the sunset with one of the strippers at his bachelor party than marry me. He left me to face everyone the next day at the wedding, to tell everyone that my shattered dreams were his amusement, to stare into everyone’s shocked faces. I wasn’t the one who wanted a big wedding in the first place. I told him I wanted to elope, but it’s not like he listened to anything I said anyway. I didn’t change my Facebook because my life is f*cking complicated all around, so I thought the tag was more fitting. And if I get asked about him again, someone might lose a head.”

Drake sat in silence, gazing across the room as if he was lost in thought. The eruption of anger felt damned good. Emelia could breathe again. Think again. A weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Still, the tension clenching her stomach remained as intense as ever.

As Drake’s gaze returned to her, Emelia could’ve sworn there were thoughts of murder brewing in it. “I’m sorry for what happened,” he said, his hands clenched into fists at his side. “It’d be my pleasure to hunt down your ex-fiancé and bring him to you.”

“If you hunt him down, kill him while you’re at it,” she said. “Why the hell would I want him brought to me?”

“You accepted a proposal of marriage. Where I come from, he is still yours.”

“That’s absurd.” Emelia laughed, sensing something new emanating from Drake. It reeked of jealousy, knocking her anger off-kilter. “I don’t love him anymore.”

Drake stiffened at her words. “Then that’s something different entirely.”

There it came again—the scent of arousal blooming on the air, overpowering Emelia’s other senses. She could almost taste Drake’s pheromones. They flowed thick and rich into the air, calling her to come closer, coaxing her into submission. Her body responded to Drake on a primal level. Warm wetness pooled between her legs and her nipples hardened, waiting for his touch.

“What can I do?” Drake asked, his voice a velvety husk. “You won’t eat and your temper flares are mild compared to others I’ve seen. You’re taking the transition so much differently than other turned werewolves. I don’t know what you need unless you tell me.”

“I feel like I need…”

Crazy hot sex to drive away every last, irritating thought about her old life—the one where she was angry at the world for dealing her a sour hand.

“What?” he prodded, keeping his distance. “Tell me what you need.”

“I need”—something hard to pound away the ache—“to feel.”

As something inside Emelia cracked, she leaped on top of Drake and attacked him with her mouth and hands. Her lips crushed his. Her hands covered his body, neck to chest, to the ridge of his pants. The kiss was hot and intense, dizzying Emelia so much that Drake had to hold her in place with a firm hand against her back. He tasted like warm, buttery scotch and dark temptation. He was everywhere at once—clawing up her back, digging his hands through her hair, plunging his tongue in her mouth. It was sensory overload that drove Emelia to the brink of insanity.

Desperate to eliminate the space between them, Emelia straddled Drake’s middle. Threw her head back and ground her hips against him. As the hard rod of his arousal pressed against her stomach, Emelia groaned and kissed him again. Harder. Deeper. Opened her mouth wide and explored the wet cave beyond his rich, supple lips. They melted together as Emelia raked her fingers through Drake’s hair and pulled him against her, mashing his lips against hers. When she was finished with him, he wouldn’t be able to pry her off with a crowbar.