Linda Thomas-Sundstrom – Blackout (страница 2)
Next she went at her bullet-proof vest.
The unmistakable rip of Velcro fastenings being torn apart was the only sound remaining on an otherwise now extremely quiet crook of road.
This cop was a real cop. Dylan wasn’t imagining it. Not only was it the strangest thing he’d ever seen, the event seemed out of time… Removed from reality.
The cop flung her vest aside, revealing a fitted white short-sleeved T-shirt tucked in at the waist of her pants. Dylan glanced down at his arms, covered in light brown fur. He moved his hair-covered fingers. He was a wolf-man hybrid, yes, but he was all male just the same.
He looked up at the cop.
In a flash, the T-shirt was over her head. Hair spilled across tanned shoulders like liquid darkness being poured from the sky above. Moonlight streaked the darkness with a pearlescent sheen.
Dylan rose to half his full six-foot-two height, ignoring the sound of his ligaments extending, withholding a growl.
She wore a black bra. Not only was this a surprise, but an unexpected turn-on. Never would he have imagined sexy lingerie beneath a crisp, pressed, unisex uniform. Sure, maybe he’d fantasized about such a thing when he had an attractive female officer in the witness box, but…
When she reached for her zipper, Dylan straightened completely—and everywhere a male body could. Vying for his attention though, came a wayward premonition that pummeled him square in the gut.
He shifted his weight, feeling a bit of a voyeur, unable to move. The sudden premonition had brought with it a chill.
She’d dropped the pants down around her ankles, then leaned over to rip at the laces of her regulation shoes. Shoes off. Socks off. Pants off. She wore nothing now but the sheer black bra and a matching pair of tiny underwear.
Dylan made an appreciative grunt. The woman had a spectacular body. Lean muscles and elegant curves. Long neck. Long legs. Delicate ankles. She filled the black bra nicely.
Her hips were rounded, feminine, vastly alluring. Her thighs were those of a runner. She was, against all odds—and every human male prayer for this very sort of occurrence—standing in the street, beside her car, for all intents and purposes…naked. And all that dark hair of hers, straight and shiny and nearly as black as her underclothes, settled velvet-like around her face as she stood up, half covering her features.
Dylan’s premonition kicked maniacally at his mind.
The officer had shed her clothes—perhaps just as she was about to shed her skin and much of what made her human. The woman was about to become what he was. Maybe for the first time.
His beast was very interested in this. Seemed the sight of the woman’s exquisite body had diluted his own sense of survival.
Leaping from the curb, Dylan saw the woman’s body begin to twitch. Her head flew back. He heard the crack of her spine and responded as if the sound were a supernatural plea for help.
His beast’s howl preceded him as he raced toward her. The woman stood there, unseeing. As Dylan, in his man-wolf form, reached her, her expression became visible. Dark, wide, frightened eyes in a face strained white. Long nose. High, arched brows. Mouth open in a silent cry.
Her hands were raised before her, the smooth skin starting to bubble as though something boiled underneath. Something waiting to get out. It was the “push.” Had to be. Her legs would go first, then her shoulders. She shook her head, fighting whatever was taking her over.
None of her training would help her here.
Her flimsy underthings tore with a very small sound that would have been erotic to any male on the planet, and certainly was to a wolf. The tearing of the scrap of lace hit him like the call of the wild. Although his libido had no place here and Dylan wanted desperately to help this woman, his beast’s hard-on would have been envied by a stallion.
The woman doubled over the second Dylan reached her. Her muscles were shifting all right, hence the generic name for what she had to be.
Dylan didn’t touch her, though he allowed a growl of warning to emerge. The sound brought her gaze to his. She staggered backwards, shocked by what she saw. Hell, he would have been shocked by his appearance, too.
Frantically, the woman looked toward the flashing lights, then back to him—or what was left of him in the beast’s presence. Her eyes were green, flecked with gold, half-covered with dark lashes, unblinking. She couldn’t fathom this. She couldn’t even run.
Shock tipped her over the edge. Her lovely face began to transition. The full-lipped mouth flattened into a pained expression. Her eyes started to glaze over.
Dylan watched, reliving the horror. In the past six months he had barely come to terms with his own dilemma. The first change had been so terrible, he’d banned it from memory. He’d been in denial, with no elder to lead the way, no kind hand of support.
The thought made him sicker inside. Where were her people? Her family? Her police partners? He’d never heard of a female strain of the curse. Had she been bitten? Was she something else, other than wolf?
He had to do something to help her. Her bones were beginning to snap. A whine of pain escaped from her throat.
In a swift move, and without thinking, Dylan picked her up. He held her close as her body convulsed, rocking along with her. With his own beast’s strength, he tightened his grip, unwilling to see her face morph.
Turning, he sprinted for shelter. Sometimes, hiding from the moonlight was enough to stop or slow the change. Maybe it would work for the woman who felt so very light and fragile his arms, though she rode the streets of Miami with a badge and a gun.
And maybe it wouldn’t help.
Still, fifty-fifty was worth a shot.
Chapter Two
“Hang on,” he urged, riding out his own body tremors, pressing his back to the brick wall of an ancient apartment building and hearing the words as his human self would have said them. Seems the shelter theory had worked again, for him.
He held tightly to the woman in his arms as he finished rearranging back to a more acceptable shape. The hair covering his body sucked inward with a pinch and a sting. His jaw unhinged, then jammed back into his face. The woman in his arms was jolted as he tripped. He nearly went down when his knees bucked, but he didn’t let her fall.
The cop doubled over in his arms as each pain hit her, riding it out as best she could, no doubt drawing upon the superior pain threshold of a Florida law enforcement officer. Though her face was ashen and her breathing harsh, her skin still appeared smooth in the shadows hiding them both from the moon. Her bareness felt soft against the bareness of his chest, and very feminine.
He hoped to God she couldn’t feel anything below his waist.
“It hurts, I know,” Dylan soothed, setting his shoulders, itchy all over, and fearing the beast would win in another minute or two, no matter the reprieve. She felt so very good in his arms.
The beast wanted her. The pressure inside his chest had grown incredibly intense. His blood backflowed in an audible rush. It was either speak or scream.
“Out of the moonlight, the process will be stalled temporarily,” he said, cresting the wave of distress causing his voice to emerge sharper than he had anticipated. “If you take in too much moonlit air, even in the shadows, if you breathe too deeply, the process will accelerate again.”
He rocked her gently. “Do you understand?”
The woman in his arms shook her head, unable to understand anything, hurting. Dylan didn’t want to remember the details which might help her further; refused to delve mentally into his own experience, though watching her brought some small portion of it back. The unparalleled pain of a body coming unglued. The darkness that had seized his mind, and now would be doing the same to hers.
“You’ll be okay,” he said. “The roof over our heads will slow the damn thing down, at least until you can breathe.”
The woman stopped twisting, as if she had heard what he’d said, though her teeth continued to chatter behind her full pink lips. Lips he could have kissed to stillness in some other time and place.
“Calm down,” he urged. “Relax if you can.”
Of course there was no way in hell she could relax. Some beastlike entity was inside of her, fighting to gain control, angry over the difficulty it was having. Worse yet, his own beast was fighting against restraint. His beast liked what he held in his arms. A naked female was catnip, no matter her choice of careers. Up close and personal, she could have been anyone.
For sure, she was a knockout. A prize. Her breasts were firm, full and surrounded by tan lines. Very small patches of white barely outlined her drawn, rounded pink nipples. The white parts gleamed in contrast to her caramel-colored abdomen and arms. Below the woman’s hips, between her thighs, lay a thatch of dark fur with its own white triangular outline.