Gone with the Wolf

chapter Five


Emelia locked up the bar twenty minutes after closing and stepped out onto Porter Street as light plumes of rain drifted down from the sky. She always loved the rain, the way it washed away dirt and grime from the city streets, leaving behind the crisp, curt smell of wet asphalt. Taking a deep breath, she flipped her hood over her head and trudged toward the parking lot across the street.

She fished her keys out of her bag before she approached her green Civic and unlocked it. Years of working in this neighborhood had taught her that one could never be too prepared; she always unlocked her car before she reached it, and she always carried mace. In the month Emelia had worked at Wilder Financial, she’d never had to worry about her safety. Not like this. The place was run like a fort—tight security at the front, mazes of halls to get lost in, and cameras trained on every bustling street corner.

The streets in this part of town were quiet tonight, Emelia realized, scanning one way, then the other. Usually she could hear the hum of the city, the occasional bum collecting bottles out of waste bins. Tonight, there was nothing but the soft pitter-patter of rain against the ground.

And suddenly, footsteps pounding over pavement. Behind her.

Emelia spun, digging a hand into her bag to search out the mace.

Breath froze in her lungs as the biggest, most rugged man she’d ever seen charged across the street and set haunting yellow eyes upon her. His bald head glistened with rain, and the leather coat tightening over his chest shone oil-slick black. He was six-foot-six, three hundred pounds of menacing biker.

Holy Son of Anarchy.

Emelia ran around the back of her car to the driver’s-side door, heart pounding double-time. She opened the door and glanced up before sliding inside. Once the biker was over the curb and in the parking lot, he slowed to a stop and threw up his hands. Strange tattoos were etched into his palms, swirling out toward his fingers. He bent low, peering beneath the doorframe from a solid thirty feet away. Fumbling with her keys, Emelia shoved the right one into the ignition…and paused, when he smiled.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said, inching closer. “My bike broke down around the corner and my phone’s dead.” He held up his cell phone, shaking it side to side like a dead mouse strangled in his fat fingers. “Could I use yours?”

Why was she hesitating? Because her green heap of metal had broken down more times than she could count, leaving her stranded in strange places, too? He might be in genuine need of help. It was raining and the streets were unusually empty tonight…

She glanced through the window at the hard lines of his face, the severe cut of his jaw, and the sheer size of his hands. If he clenched his fists, they’d be the size of melons! A man like that should’ve been fully capable of taking care of himself. She followed her instincts.

“No, sorry!” Emelia yelled through the window, then started the car.

At the sound of the engine sputtering to life, the man sprinted and leaped like a damned gazelle, landing with a deafening thud on the roof of her car.

What the hell?

Screaming, Emelia ducked from the bend and groan of the Civic’s roof. She threw the car into reverse. Hit the gas hard and backed over a parking block. The car jolted and rocked, and a deafening growl vibrated the air like thunder.

Thoughts tangled in Emelia’s head, sticky and incomprehensible. She had to get out of here. What was happening? What was that noise? Who the hell was that guy and why did he jump on top of her car?

Panic sliced through Emelia like a stinging whip. She slammed the car into drive, lead-footed the gas pedal and cranked the wheel toward Porter Street. She plunged down the lot exit at high speed, ripping off her bumper as the Civic’s front end gnawed on the asphalt. A fist from above slammed through her driver’s side window. She screamed, cowering against the flying shards of glass. But as her hands covered her face, Emelia lost control of the wheel. She veered hard to the right, headed toward a parked car. The biker’s arm snaked through the window and snatched Emelia by the throat. She clutched at his arms and tried to scream again, but the sound escaped as a strangled cry.

Clawing into the biker’s skin, Emelia struggled for air. Her lungs tightened, seizing when nothing came down the chute. Emelia pinched her eyes shut and braced for the collision with the parked car. Everything happened so quickly, it was a mangled blur.

They collided with what felt like a brick wall. Emelia’s chest slammed against the steering wheel, sending off starbursts of searing pain into her ribs and down her legs. Her head spun and her eyes blurred. The biker’s hand was clutched around her throat one second, and the next, his massive body was thrown onto the hood. She could breathe! Hot streams of air filled Emelia’s windpipe, burning on the way to her lungs.

Emelia peeled her eyes open. Was that…Drake?

Relief washed over her, and for a split second, Emelia thought he looked more like a knight in shining armor and less like a heartless, calculating jerk.

Drake stood in the center of the road like a steel wall, drenched from head to foot, rain streaming down his scowling face. He glared at the biker, who’d slid off the hood looking unscathed and pissed-off as hell. Why were they standing there like that? Staring at each other, saying nothing, breathing hard, in the middle of the street?

If the biker hadn’t been standing so close to her driver’s door, Emelia would’ve bolted. Instead, she ducked below the wheel and watched, rubbing her tender ribs.

The biker mashed his fist against his chin and popped his neck, then jerked back his shoulders and stood tall, towering over Drake. Clenching his fists, preparing for a fight, Drake snarled with a smile. His teeth were ginormous, blindingly white, and more jagged than any steak knives Emelia had ever seen.

She had to be seeing things. Drake’s teeth almost looked like…well, they almost looked like canine teeth, protruding from his gums into razor-sharp points. The biker laughed and spit in Drake’s face, as his back hunched awkwardly and his shoulders broadened. He grew.

That couldn’t be right.

Swiping condensation off the glass, Emelia leaned forward to get a better look, just as a gunshot rang out from somewhere on the sidewalk. With a guttural moan, the biker fell back and hit the hood, then slid onto the asphalt, clutching at a strange silver vial sticking out of his neck.

But Drake didn’t have a gun. Emelia peered through the rain battering the windshield, scanned the sidewalk, and spotted someone else—Mr. Bloomfield?—holding a pistol at arm’s length. The burly man holstered the gun in the side of his pants and approached the biker’s side. He and Drake exchanged words, though Emelia’s ears still rang from the shot.

This couldn’t be happening. Emelia was dreaming. She was in her apartment, warm in bed, having a nightmare. That was it. Had to be. Things like this didn’t happen. In movies like The Avengers, maybe, but not in real life. Feeling woozy, Emelia placed a hand on her heart—it raced like a rabbit’s, thumping wildly against her hand. Her chest was tight, her breathing shallow. She was going to hyperventilate if she didn’t calm down, but how could she after what just happened?

Drake was beside her in a flash, kneeling outside the driver’s door. When had she opened it?

“Are you all right?” He put a chilly, wet hand to her forehead. “You feel cold.”

“Of course I’m cold, I’ve been in the rain.”

“Oh, good,” he said, as his shoulders lost their tension. “If you’re well enough to have an attitude, you’re going to be fine.”

Emelia laid her head back on the headrest and tried to calm herself. Blood rushed through her veins; her heart thumped in her ears. That biker dude was probably dead in the middle of the street and Drake was…what? A hero? An accomplice to murder? “What happened to him? To the biker dude?” Pointing, Emelia tried to rise up, but Drake held her against the seat.

“Everything’s going to be okay, I promise. Just leave it to me,” he said, though she didn’t believe him. No way. Didn’t he witness what just happened? “Mr. Bloomfield is taking care of everything now. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about?” she screeched. “Are you insane?”

“I just need to get out of here before the cops show up, and then I’ll explain.” His words came out flat and emotionless, like he’d dodged the cops a thousand times before. He slid an arm beneath Emelia’s legs, swiveling her body so that her feet touched the ground. Her skin tingled beneath her soaked jeans. “Come on, let me give you a ride home.”

“But my car…I can’t just leave it here.” Her world swirled, in and out, in and out, fuzzing when she focused on slowing things down. “And why would we run from the cops? We didn’t do anything wrong. That guy tried to kill me. You and Mr. Bloomfield saw it…didn’t you?” She braced the steering wheel. “God, I’m so dizzy. I think I’m going to pass out.”

“You’re having a panic attack. You need to close your eyes and calm down.” His fingers curled possessively around Emelia’s arm. As though he’d toss her over his shoulder and carry her out of the car if she refused to leave. “I’ll take care of everything, but I need you to trust me.”

A dark, shadowed figure appeared at Drake’s side, tapped him on the shoulder, and handed him something. Yup, that was Mr. Bloomfield all right. Short, stocky, and stinking of Old Spice.

“I don’t, Drake. I don’t trust you at all.” Emelia closed her eyes anyway as something bit her backside, just below her hip. Her skin warmed, burning where she’d felt the sting. “Oww! That burns! Was that a wasp?”

“Sleep, Emelia.” Tender fingers, much too tender to be Drake’s, brushed sopping tendrils of hair out of her face. “We’ll work on the trust when you wake up.”

…

“She’s going to hate me for drugging her.” Drake tugged the sheets to cover Emelia’s exposed shoulder. “And she’ll have every right.”

“You could’ve let her see the cleanup,” Raul said. “It took two seconds to drag him to the trunk of the limo, and Ms. Hudson wouldn’t have gotten close enough to the body to see anything anyway.”

“He’d already begun the transformation when you tranquilized him, and Emelia’s much too observant.” Drake lowered his voice so he wouldn’t wake her. “She would’ve asked questions I’m not willing to answer. There was no other choice.”

“Then I’m glad I brought extra tranquilizer darts with me. I must admit, sir,” Raul said, “I’ve never seen you hold off the change as well as you did. I expected you to shift long before I got the tranquilizer loaded up.”

“I couldn’t let her see me that way.”

They weren’t exactly on the best of terms, but any chance Drake had of getting close to Emelia would’ve evaporated the instant he shifted into wolf form.

As it was, they’d cut it close. He wasn’t sure how much Emelia had seen, but he’d soon find out. She’d have a million questions, and he’d have to come up with answers that were as close to the truth as possible. If there was any chance of them being together, he had to reveal the truth to her slowly, and when she was ready.

“Why the hell was there a werewolf on that street? Emelia’s probably gone her whole life without running into a single one of us. She meets me and gets attacked. There’s no way that’s a coincidence.” Drake scrubbed his hands over his face. “I shouldn’t have left her alone in that bar.”

“You went back, sir.” Raul brought over a glass of water and set it on the bedside table. “There are too many members of our pack for you to monitor the second one goes rogue.”

“You really think he was from our pack?”

“What are you implying, sir?”

Drake shook his head. “I’m not implying anything. It’s just too bad he died before giving up any information.”

“Perhaps next time I’ll nail him with one dart, sir, instead of six.”

Drake bit back a laugh. “One can never be too careful.”

Emelia stirred. Little mewing sounds escaped her lips as she rolled over and clutched the sheet against her chest. Something stirred in Drake’s rib cage and he dragged his gaze away. She was innocent, oblivious to what she’d gotten herself into. It was staggering how quickly her reality was going to change when she was ready to accept it.

He hadn’t known Emelia long, but he knew she was full of life with a bright, bubbly spirit. She didn’t ask to be tugged down into their twisted pack dynamic. She wasn’t born a werewolf like the others in his pack—how could she be expected to understand a world filled with werewolves and Luminaries and pack mentalities?

Sighing, Emelia rolled over to face Drake, and tossed the sheets off her body like it was a sweltering summer night. She threw her arms over her head and moaned, robbing the moisture from Drake’s lips. Her tank top had drifted up, revealing a flat stomach and a sexy little belly button…with a silver ring hooked through it. Drake’s breath caught in his throat at the sight. He took back every nasty thought he’d ever had about piercings being trashy or unnecessary or frivolous. All he could think about was smudging kisses over her stomach and gently raking that ring through his teeth.

“Raul, I want you to check into movements of Silas’s European group.” Drake steeled himself for the words. “They’ve remained small and mobile, but I think we have some guys who can track them. I hate to think Silas would stoop this low and try to kill Emelia before we complete the bond, but I’d be stupid not to look into it.”

“Will do, sir.” He let himself out without a sound.

Drake leaned forward, his gaze skimming over Emelia’s succulently rounded breasts, the long, slender curve of her neck, and her petal-pink lips. Her skin was remarkably pale against his black satin sheets. She looked like a porcelain doll with a wild mane of blond hair.

He didn’t want to think Silas’s yearn for total dominance would cause him to send out a hit on an innocent woman, but he couldn’t ignore the humming in his gut, either.

Something wasn’t right.