Blood Lust (10 page)

I looked over his unlined face, his youthful eyes. “Max, how
old are you?”

“Twenty-nine.”

He looked younger than that, now that I knew how old he was,
but I remembered thinking that it was impossible to determine his age the first
time I had met him. That ageless quality must have been a werewolf trait. Would
I have that, too?

“What happened?” I asked curiously. “How were you turned?”

A shadow flittered across his face, and he looked down. “It
doesn’t happen often. We take care to keep from biting or scratching any
humans. When someone new is turned, it’s for good reason- or like in your
situation, where there’s a nomad on the loose.”

“You were bitten by a nomad?”

“Yes. And after I changed, I found the rest of the pack. At
the time, it consisted of omegas only. I took over. We tracked down the nomad,
and killed it. We haven’t seen another one- until the one that bit you.”

There was a silence, and Max reached into his pocket,
looking as if he’d just remembered something. He pulled out a cell phone. “I’m
going to call Grandma Sam. I’ll put her on speaker. Listen to everything I tell
her, okay? She’ll believe me, but it’s important that we keep our stories
straight.”

“Okay.” I stayed silent as he dialed her number, and
listened to her phone ring.

“Hello? Max?” Gram sounded strained and tired, and I felt a
pang of guilt.

“Gram, hi. I-“

“Oh, Max,” she cut him off, and her voice was thick with
tears. “Eve is
missing.
We’ve
searched everywhere. I don’t know where she is. The police are trying to find
her, but there’s no trace- it’s like she just vanished!”

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Max interrupted. “That’s why I’m
calling. Eve is with me.”

I heard her sharp intake of breath. “With you!”

“I found her this morning, in the woods by my house. The
fever must have made her delirious, and she wandered off and passed out. She
doesn’t remember much after I left your house on Saturday, but don’t worry.
She’s all right.”

“Oh, thank God! My poor baby. And today’s her birthday, too.
Is she there? Can I talk to her?”

Max glanced at me, and I shook my head. I didn’t know if I
could talk around the giant lump in my throat.

“She’s in the shower right now, getting cleaned up. Do you
want to come over and pick her up? Physically, she’s okay, but I think she’s a
little shaken. She was really disconcerted when she woke up in the woods, and
started looking for help right away.”

“I can only imagine. I’m in town right now- I was looking
for her. But I’ll be right over. Oh, thank you so much, Max. I can’t believe we
didn’t find her when we were searching the forest yesterday. We thought…we
thought maybe that wolf had come back…” She broke off, overcome with emotion,
and I clapped my hand over my mouth, trying to hold back my tears.

“I’ll see you when you get here, Gram. Don’t worry. She’s
going to be fine.”

“Thank you, Max! I’ll see you soon!” She hung up, and Max
and I looked at each other.

“I feel like such a jerk,” I said, blinking furiously. I
wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand.

“Me, too.” He grimaced as he shoved the phone in his pocket.
“I hate lying to her, but there’s really no other option. We’re only protecting
her.”

“Yeah, I guess she’d probably have me committed if I told
her I’m a werewolf,” I said. It wasn’t a very good joke, but Max smiled anyway.

“Do you want something to eat?” he asked, and I shook my
head.

“I’ll just wait till I get home. Gram is probably breaking
the sound barrier right now to get here.”

“Let’s wrap your leg,” he suggested. “She’s not going to buy
that those bite marks healed in two days. It’d be best to keep it hidden for
now.” He stood and left the room, presumably going to get some bandages.

I looked down, toying with a sleeve of Jericho’s hoodie. Had
he gotten to safety before the sun had risen? Where had he been staying before
we were captured? Was he staying there now?

I remembered his hand behind my ear, both when I was human
and in wolf form, a gentle caress that made me crave more of his touch. I
remembered the electricity that had zinged through my entire body when he’d
taken my hand, that first time. I remembered how he had looked when he’d
stripped off his sweatshirt and handed it to me.

I bit my lower lip as a rush of desire nearly overwhelmed
me, turning my legs to jelly. His shoulders had been broad and strong,
practically begging me to run my hands over them. I ached to trace the line of
his falcon tattoo with my lips, brushing them up over his collarbone and then
drifting down, to his chest, his stomach, and even lower…

“Here we go,” Max said, cutting me off mid-fantasy as he
walked in with his bag. I jumped, startled, and immediately flushed bright red.

It didn’t escape his notice.

“Did I catch you daydreaming?” he said with a grin, pulling
a roll of gauze from the bag.

I laughed weakly. “Yeah…I guess my mind was wandering.” I
certainly didn’t want to tell him the truth- that I’d been on the verge of a waking
sex dream when he’d interrupted.

Now that was
not
typical
behavior from me. I’d been turned on before, while engaged in hot and heavy
makeout sessions with my boyfriend back in New York, but I certainly didn’t
start fantasizing in the middle of the day, and especially not in someone
else’s house.

My lust for Jericho was like nothing I’d ever felt before. I
wanted- no, I
needed
to be close to
him. The desire thrumming in my veins was looking for an outlet, and nothing
else would substitute.

I wanted that vampire, and I wanted him now.

Unfortunately, the odds of finding him in the middle of the
afternoon were, shall we say, not in my favor.

“I have to ask you something, Max,” I blurted out before I
could lose my nerve. “Something personal. About being a werewolf.”

“Sure, Eve.” He was wrapping gauze around my leg, and didn’t
even pause for his acknowledgment.

“Does being a wolf…um…like,
change
you?”

He glanced up at me. “I don’t follow. What do you mean,
change? The transformation?”

“No, I mean changes when you’re human. Your temper, your
thoughts, your…desires. Does it change those things?”

There was just the slightest hesitation in his movement, a
tiny twitch that let me know I’d struck a nerve. He finished wrapping the gauze
and taped it off, then put the remaining roll back into his bag before he spoke
again. “It does, to some extent. More for some than others.” He stood, and I
could tell he was thrown by my question. “You have heightened emotions as a
wolf- even in human form. I won’t say it makes your emotions more difficult to
control, but it does make them stronger. When your feelings are hurt, it hurts
more.
When you want something, you crave
it like nothing else in your life. And when you…” He rubbed his chin awkwardly.
“When you fall in love, it’s stronger. Deeper. More intense.”

His gaze locked on mine. My breathing was shallow, my heart
beating erratically. I didn’t want Max, but just his close physical proximity had
me thinking about Jericho again, and I couldn’t control my body’s reaction.

Max turned away, taking pity on me in my obviously unsettled
state. “Your grandmother should be here soon,” he said.

He walked out the door, and I struggled to get my breathing
back under control, feeling absolutely mortified. Did Max have any idea what
was happening to me? He didn’t think I was feeling this way about him, did he?
A shiver ran through me as I pictured his hands on my leg, stroking the
delicate skin just above my ankle…

“That’s enough,” I said out loud. I was not attracted to
Max. Thinking about Jericho was making me crazy, that was all. And I needed to
get a handle on it before Gram showed up.

A few moments later there was a knock on the front door, and
I shifted on the bed, trying to make it look like I was resting my leg. I took
a lacy pillow and propped it underneath my knee, then leaned back. The army of
tiny, useless decorative pillows was awkward to lie on, but I didn’t have much
of a choice at that moment.

“Where is she?” I heard Gram say frantically.

“In Amy’s room,” Max said, and I heard his footsteps as he
led her towards me.

I took several deep breaths, willing my heart to stop
pounding so hard. When Gram’s concerned face appeared in the doorway, her lower
lip immediately began trembling, and of course that set me off, too. I sat up
and she rushed to me, pulling me into her arms.

“Oh, Evie, I was so worried about you,” she cried, stroking
my damp hair and sobbing into my shoulder.

I inhaled deeply, recognizing the smell of her fabric
softener, and reveled in the fact that I could hold her like this without
experiencing that same bloodlust that tormented me while in wolf form. Max was
right. Maybe I could have something like a normal life. The totally boring life
of an attorney- except for three nights a month, I’d be a wolf.

That didn’t sound so bad.

I could live like this.

“What happened?” Gram asked, pulling back and cupping my
face in her hands.

I sniffled and shook my head. “I don’t remember. I remember
Max giving me all those shots, and fixing my leg…and…after that, nothing. It’s
totally blank.”

“It was her fever,” Max broke in. “It made her delirious.
She didn’t even know what she was doing.”

“I can’t believe I wandered so far,” I added, playing along.
“I’m so sorry I worried you, Gram. I promise I’ll never do anything like this
again.”

“Honey, I know you didn’t do this on purpose. I’m just so
glad you’re all right.”

It struck me that she believed Max without question. Coming
from anyone else, my story might have seemed ludicrous, but because Max backed
me on it, Grandma Sam wasn’t questioning it. I knew that most people around
town felt the same way about Dr. Good Crow. He wouldn’t be a bad ally to have,
if I had to live this double life.

“Can we go home?” I asked Gram. “I can’t wait to sleep in my
own bed again. I’m so tired.”

“Of course.” She stood and held out her hand, and I took it
obediently, trying to play the invalid.

“Should you be putting weight on your leg?” she asked, and
we both looked up at Max. I stifled a smile, because she was looking for his
medical opinion, and I was looking for his guidance on how best to lie about the
situation, but we were both trusting him implicitly.

“She should have no problem walking,” Max said, handling the
sudden attention quite smoothly. “Her fever is gone and the bite wounds are
healing well. She knows how to take care of it. You can rest easy, Gram. Eve is
going to be just fine.”

He walked us to the door, and as I stepped outside, Gram
looked down and gasped. “You don’t have any shoes!”

“Oh, it’s okay, Gram. I can walk, what, twenty feet to the
car. And I have flip flops at home that you can bring out to me when we get
there.”

“It is not okay! I do now want you stepping on a rusty nail
and contracting tetanus! Max, do you have any sandals she can borrow?”

Max met my eyes, and the corner of his lip twitched. I could
tell he was trying not to laugh at Gram’s sudden overprotectiveness. “I’ll get
her,” he said, and moved forward. Before I knew exactly what was going on, he’d
picked me up effortlessly, and I grabbed at his shoulders to steady myself.

“What are you doing?” I hissed at him as he carried me to
Gram’s truck. “I know Amy has to have a pair of flip flops I can use.”

“This is so much more fun,” he murmured to me. “Besides, Amy
would kill me if I let you take a pair of her shoes.”

“You’re a wimp,” I said. “Scared of a scrawny little thing like
Amy.”

“You obviously don’t know Amy very well.” He stopped by the
truck door, and I rolled my eyes and reached out to grasp the handle, feeling
incredibly stupid for being carried around when I was perfectly capable of
walking.

Max set me down on the seat, and I resisted the urge to
stick my tongue out at him as he closed the door behind me.

“Thank you so much, Max! I will keep you updated on how she
does!” Gram said as she climbed in beside me.

Max leaned in the window and hooked an arm around my neck,
pulling me towards him so he could place a kiss on my forehead. “I’m sure
she’ll be just fine. See you around, Gram…Eve.”

I was blushing furiously and shooting daggers at him with my
eyes, but I managed to smile through my gritted teeth.

Gram apparently saw nothing wrong with a twenty-nine-year
old man kissing her eighteen-year-old granddaughter, even if it was only on the
forehead, and she was chattering away as we backed down the driveway.

I was very relieved when we turned the corner and pulled out
of sight, and I didn’t have to see Max in the side-view mirror anymore,
watching us leave.

Chapter Six

Gram, bless her heart, insisted on running upstairs and
bringing my flip flops down to me. As though walking through thirty feet of
grass without shoes would somehow kill me. I sat in the truck, watching the
shifting colors of the sky as the sun set behind the trees. It was a relief to
know that I wouldn’t be changing tonight- that I wouldn’t have to worry about
transforming into a wolf again for another month.

The desire that had flared up so unexpectedly for Jericho
had now died down into a dull ache in the pit of my stomach. It was similar to
hunger (and I
was
hungry) but this
feeling was something else, too. I wondered when I would see him again.

“Here you go, sweetheart,” Gram said, opening the
passenger’s side door. She helped me slide the flip flops onto my bare feet,
and even tried to support me as I climbed down from the truck.

“I’m okay, Gram. Really. You don’t have to help me. I
already feel so awful for what happened,” I told her uncomfortably, pulling my
arm from her grasp. “I’ve already put you through so much. At least let me walk
by myself.”