Linda Thomas-Sundstrom – Half Wolf (страница 9)
Kaitlin winced at the pain turning her head caused, and said, “You would have helped anyone out there?”
He had to think about that, and took too long for Kaitlin’s current need for answers.
Her eyes were accusatory. “You’re telling me the truth? You’re some sort of shape-shifter? I wasn’t mistaken about what I saw?”
He said, “Beneath a full moon, I change from this shape into another one.”
“Only with a full moon? I don’t recall seeing one last night.”
“I can change other times, as well. Only a few Lycans can do that, and not very many of us.”
She fired off another remark. “I’ll be a hybrid because I’m also human.”
“Because you started out human.”
“Why didn’t I die, Michael? What about this blood gift you mentioned? How does that work?”
“If you’re not born into our species, a transfer of blood is the only way to be initiated. It doesn’t take much, and is the only way I know of to heal the damage from a deadly vampire attack.”
“But it creates another werewolf.”
“Yes,” he reluctantly admitted.
Species. Initiated. Heal. Michael wondered how anyone in Kaitlin’s situation could possibly comprehend this.
“Would I have become a vampire if the monster’s blood had been left inside me?” she asked.
“You would have died and then been reanimated as one of them. Just like them. No heart. No soul. No need for breath. Hungering for blood.”
She pried her lips apart. “Maybe you helped me so that you wouldn’t have to contend with one more bloodsucker like the one I would have become.”
“Being like us seemed the better option, Kaitlin. Our genetics cause us to heal faster than normal, and we recover from injuries cleanly. We can survive a lot of things. With wolf blood in your veins to counteract that vamp’s damage, you had a chance. You’ve made it this far. In another month, that wound will be nothing more than a thin white scar. So I suppose...”
He leaned over her, with his hands on the mattress. “I suppose that though this new turn of events is unbelievable, you can be thankful you’re here today.”
Staring at Kaitlin, Michael relived how he had breathed life back into her after she had lain on the hard, damp ground. How he had cradled her in his arms and run his fingers over her bloodless face. He, who prided himself on remaining aloof from the human population, had whispered assurances to this woman, though one of her species had destroyed his family and others like his with a spray of silver bullets.
Did helping Kaitlin make him a traitor to his family, or just a bighearted idiot who made a rash decision on the spur of the moment? He felt like a traitor. Hell, saving a life didn’t equate to being an angel, and might have been an action he would someday regret.
Yet when Kaitlin broke contact and looked away, he wanted to pull her attention back despite his inner protests about keeping some distance. He wanted to lift her in his arms and trade hot, sultry breaths. Fantasies were appearing about pressing her to a tree in the moonlight, where he’d kiss Kaitlin to within an inch of her life, and revel in each second.
And if he were willing to admit more personal blasphemy, he’d concede the desire to go beyond that kiss-fest and have her in all the ways that counted between a male and a female, while listening to her soft growls of pleasure.
He had to close his eyes to shut those images off.
What had been his motivation for going back on an oath? Kaitlin Davies wasn’t human anymore. There was a slight possibility he could have helped her in that park in hopes of just such a situation as this, having been instantly attracted to her, and despite the taboo placed on Lycans mating with human-wolf hybrids of lesser bloodlines.
If that had been the case, though, he didn’t recall it. Nor had he stopped to consider that by saving her he would prevent Kaitlin from becoming a vampire. Neither of those thoughts had crossed his mind. All he saw was her, and how badly she was being hurt.
“I think I’m going to be sick, and I think I’d prefer to be sick alone,” she announced, bringing him back to the present.
She wasn’t looking at him now. He had to go, had to leave her, at least for a while. He also felt sick, confused, sad.
“All right, Kaitlin. I’ll go. Things will work out. You’ll see.”
Promises, little wolf, from what you believe to be a freak of nature, Michael silently added, scanning her profile.
“Werewolves tend to land on our feet, you know,” he said aloud.
“Yeah,” she agreed in a strangled voice, and with a last stab at defiance. “All four.”
Remember that I gave you a choice.
Michael’s words from that night floated through Kaitlin’s memory as she looked into the emerald-colored eyes of the man who had uttered them.
Contrary to what he’d just said, Michael hadn’t made any effort to leave her apartment. Looking at him, she realized Michael wasn’t just handsome, he was extraordinary. Tall, leanly muscled and much too male, he wore a blue long-sleeved T-shirt and faded jeans that fit him like a second skin.
His face was as chiseled as her memory of his abs, and the angularity served up a regal air. Dark hair hung to his chin, straight, shiny, with the slightly mussed look of a man who didn’t give a hoot about his appearance.
But his looks were deceiving, because Michael wasn’t human, even though he appeared to be at the moment. Something much wilder hid beneath his skin, waiting to get out. She sensed that wildness as if she could taste it.
She had witnessed his shape-shifting firsthand. That wasn’t what bothered her at the moment, though. The awful part was the realization that whether or not Michael was a wolf, she was attracted to him. She wanted him in blistering hot, slightly demented ways. Closeness was what she craved...for both Michael and what he kept hidden inside.
Maybe what he’d done to her had caused these feelings. Maybe she was just grateful to him and that was showing up in inappropriate ways. If Michael had turned out to be an emissary from heaven, she would surely have gone to hell for what she wanted to do to him right then and there.
So, it was now official. She might not have died this weekend, but she had gone completely insane.
When Michael moved, Kaitlin wondered if he had felt her attraction to him. Instead of turning for the door, he transferred the paper bag he’d brought from the table to the bedsheets that no longer covered her up.
“You need to eat, Kate.”
His voice was hushed, sexy as heck and full of unacknowledged emotion. He’d used the nickname her family used, and made it seem intimate. Beneath his keen green-eyed observation, Kaitlin felt exposed in her old T-shirt, and she was short of breath. The thin, worn fabric covering her was the only thing standing between them, and as a barrier it was a joke.
When Michael’s gaze landed on her throat, her neck throbbed mercilessly, as if the injury somehow recognized its savior. Her body lost some of its chill and the room began to spin when his eyes bored into hers in a replay of their connection the night she had nearly died. With that gaze, she remembered the dark fur of the animal he had become.
Needing to think and to decide what to do next, she looked away. She didn’t dare show him how badly she wanted him, or how conflicted she was about feelings that weren’t in any way normal reactions to the events preceding this moment.
“Kate. Kaitlin.”
He whispered to her in a sensuous, velvety tone—the voice of a wolf prince walking upright on two legs. Lycan. Werewolf. Wolf. She had to look at him. She felt compelled to do as he asked.
His expression was set and sober. His wolfish eyes gleamed. Oh, yes, she wanted him, all right. She could argue all she wanted to, and pass this off as a trip to Neverland, but she couldn’t lie about her connection to Michael. As absurd as it seemed, with just one kiss at death’s door, he had bound her soul to his.
No dream. No dream at all.
“Kaitlin,” he said again.
“If I won’t be human anymore, what about my family?” she asked.
“You won’t lose them. They don’t even really have to know for a while,” Michael replied.
“You don’t have any idea what they’re like, or how close we are.”
“We can deal with that later. First, let’s tend to you.”
What did he see in her? Why had he chosen her to save? She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, or even close. She didn’t stand out in a crowd, dress for success or anyone’s approval. In fact, she had always tried to blend in.
Her body was lean and athletic, like a runner’s, without accentuated curves and bulging breasts. She had never worn lipstick. Kaitlin Mary Davies was five foot five, and sprang from delicate-boned Irish stock.
She was the eldest of the two Davies siblings and had been taught to question, to test and never to outright rebel. She had been encouraged to stand on her own two feet, as long as she stood on them in relatively close proximity to her family and her home. And though she had come close on a few occasions, she had never actually slept with a man.
“My father is a judge. Mom is a homemaker.” She spoke in a rush. “There are no black sheep in the closet that I know of. It’s a sure bet there are no anomalies in my family tree.”