The Willing (6 page)

I repeated my sentiments anyway. “You
are nothing to me. You’re a monster, and I hate you.”

“I own you,” he said with a dangerous
calm. He was fighting his anger, fighting the Change. Josh is the
most composed Lycanti I know. He always wanted to deal with me as a
human. “You belong to this pack.”

However, I am not so put together as a
Lycanti. A cold fury crept over me at his statement, the fog of
anger waxing over me like the moonlight.

“Let go of me.”

“No,” he said, jerking me to him. “I
think it’s time you became a full member of this pack.”

“I don’t want to stay with you. I have
other plans.”

He ripped the jacket away—not that it
had been covering much anyway, but it served its dramatic purpose.
“I know what your plans are.” Cold eyes moved possessively down my
body, stopping at my abdomen. “And I hope you know that I tolerate
no children in my pack.”

“All the better reason for me to not
join your pack.”

Josh looked me over again, hungrily
this time. He leaned in, stroking my breasts and ribs in a rough
parody of our previous times together, moving his hands down to
grip my hips, the jacket slightly trailing over my pubic bone. I
wanted to snap at his throat with my human canines and rip the
carotid artery open to the world. I would have drank his blood with
the pack watching had I known they would support me.

“I will own you, Emily,” he said before
the lust flowered fully. “You will owe your allegiance to no one
but me by the time I finish with you.”

I cringed at that, but his lips had
already found mine, ignoring my struggle against him. He threw the
jacket away. I heard it hit the fire and temporarily dampen the
crackling flames. Another fashion statement lost. The other Lycanti
were silent, too quiet—expectant. I yanked my head away from Josh,
but his main intention was not to kiss me, so he ignored my
movement, bringing his hands to my breasts and massaging them in
circular motions and moving his lips to them instead.

I pushed him away as hard as possible.
He didn’t even stumble; rather, he just stepped back away from me,
slightly amused. Contrary to popular belief, werewolves do not have
superhuman strength. I brought my weaknesses as a human to my
Lycanti life, and Josh towered over me.

He chuckled. “Really,
Emily?”

“Fuck off.”

“Oh Emily,” he purred softly, as if it
were just us in a room together. “How easy it is to arouse the
human in you.”

“You say that like it’s a bad
thing.”

“You have no idea what it means to
truly be Lycanti.”

My voice shook as I remembered Will. “I
know there’s more to this life than living like an
animal.”

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You
honestly think that we’re destined to go around doing charity or
something?”

Sycophant laughter erupted around the
fire. I glared at them, but I have to admit that I’m probably not
that intimidating, especially standing next to the leanness of
Josh.

“Layla,” he said without allowing his
concentration on me to falter. “Get the rope.”

The female across the flames rose and
disappeared. I stepped back from him, fear edging in on my anger. I
had to Change, no matter what it cost me, had to get away. His calm
demeanor could only mean something bad for me. I let the emotion
overwhelm me, felt my mind slipping into survival mode, my gut
clenched in anticipation…

A hard grip at the nape of my neck
brought me back. “No bitch,” Josh snapped. “You’ll deal with this
as a human since you’re so gung-ho to be one.”

My arms trembled. Why couldn’t I
fucking Change when I wanted to? Why should Lycanthrope and Josh be
the only ones with that power? I needed it now!

I tried to shake out of his hold, but
it was useless. I needed him to hit me, do something to provoke me
so that I could lose myself in the Change. As it was, my fear and
anger clashed too much within me and Josh held me to this corporeal
world of humanity.

The woman Layla brought a thick knot of
rope back with her, displaying a slinky smile as she handed it to
Josh. “Hold her,” he commanded. I flailed, but Layla took hold of
me, then the two males rose from their fireside seats and helped.
Bile rose up in my throat. This could not be happening. Josh had
promised me protection.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a
while,” he said in my ear softly. “I just don’t get why you want to
be human.” He gestured to the rest of the pack. “They’re human
right now, and there’s nothing special about them. We’re stronger
when we embrace ourselves for what we truly are. You fight it too
much.”

I listened to his tirade with an
awkward ear. It’s hard to fully pay attention to a lecture when
you’re busy thinking about why there's rope around your limbs and
what the vicious werewolves around you have planned.

Josh stepped back. “Now I want you to
see what the human in you can experience at the hands of other
humans. I have an odd feeling that they will do far worse to you
than I ever did. Good luck.” He turned and began to strut away,
walking like a perfectly balanced dancer.

“Josh, don't do this!” My voice
registered panic, no matter how composed I tried to remain. Humans
who knew what I was…free to do what they wanted with me?

He looked back over his shoulder but
did not pause in his stride. “I'm not, but only because I have
other matters at hand. Good luck with your human
captors.”

Layla grinned widely and reached
forward to grip the back of my neck. I growled and snapped at her
with my human canines, but she easily avoided me.

Then the backhand came. The sting,
luckily, was not bad, but anger swamped my senses. My body burned
against the cool night sky.

“You fucking bitch,” I snarled and
bucked against my restraints. “Don't you dare put your hands on me
again.”

Now both of her hands wrapped around my
throat, cutting off my breath. I gagged against the suddenness of
her attack. Just when I started to see blue lights against the back
of my eyelids, her hands were yanked away from me, letting blood
rush back to my brain. Dizziness washed over me.

“No,” David told Layla, practically
throwing her hands away from me. “Josh would be mad.”

“He'd get over it.”

Michael's voice, so melodious to me in
the past, seemed like an angel's that night. “You should leave her
alone. She's pregnant.”

That defense sounded so weak to me that
Michael seemed like a naïve idiot rather than an angel
now.

“Josh said it was okay,” Dahlia
prompted. I glared daggers at her. She usually ignored me; it was
Layla who had always hated me for some reason.

“Josh isn't right about everything,”
Michael said.

“He's right about this,” Layla
insisted. “She needs to be taught a lesson about loyalty to her
pack.”

“He said to give her to the humans,”
Michael reasoned. “Not to suffer at your hands.”

For a moment, the dangerous gaze on her
face brought up the buried anxiety in me. I swallowed. Michael’s
gaze did not falter, and the moment grew pregnant with tension.
Finally, Layla’s breathing slowed.

“Oh, Michael,” Layla purred
dangerously. “You are such the humanist.” She sighed heavily. “I
guess she will just have to deal with the hospitality of our lovely
humans.” She stared at me, almost as a butcher measuring out cuts
of meat. “They are, after all, such a wonderful species,
yes?”

“I won’t be part of this,” David said,
stalking off into the darkness.

Coward
, my head screamed. But in my heart, I knew that he could
not, and would not, fight the decision of his pack leader. Nor
would any of those who had jealously watched Joshua’s possessive
acquisition of me for the past few weeks save me.

Dahlia joined Layla’s cruel laughter,
and Michael’s slumped shoulders told me all that I needed to know
about what was about to happen.

I have no desire to tell you of the
inhumanity of humanity. We see it daily with the wars and the
violence. Lycanti may be the most base passions of humanity come to
surface for exploitation, but these humans had been frightened
beyond the need for them to hold out hope. They knew they were
going to die, consumed by their captor Lycanti, and there was only
one thing left to achieve before death.

Revenge.

And Joshua had delivered it to them,
bound and gagged.

Emily

Maria stared hard at me. The angular
planes of her face brought the memory of Will surging to the
forefront of my mind so vividly that my head spun. I could even
breathe him in again, feel the razor blade touch that heated my
flesh every time we were together.

“I see you are still alive,” she said
stiffly. “A veritable miracle for someone of your
intelligence.”

I shrugged off the insult. “It’ll take
more than a boy with a knife and a flannel nightgown to kill
me.”

“Hmph,” she snorted, not even bothering
to deny knowledge of the attempt at my life last year which would
have effectively kept me from polluting the “pure” Lycanthrope
line. “And I have no reason to finish the job now?”

“I am under Luka’s protection, as you
well know.”

“Yes,” she growled. “An unfortunate
fall for him. I knew he had a love for Changelings, though I cannot
imagine why.” She wrinkled her nose.

“Your own son was Lycanti,” I
challenged.

“He is of the purest blood through me,
you fool. His father was an exemplary human. One or the other,
human or Lycanthrope. Lycanti is not the path I would have chosen
for him,” she stated calmly, as if Will were a vase that had
offended her by being the wrong color. “His own foolishness tied
him to that professor who Changed him.”

Luka stepped forward and placed a
supportive hand on my shoulder.

“I loved Will as a brother, and yes he
did make mistakes, as we all do. But Emily did not ask for her
circumstances either. My father sent someone to kill her worse than
dead, and it is through the assassin’s incompetence that Emily is
Lycanti.”

Maria’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits.
“Yes, well, in the South it is a dog-eat-dog world. Thank God we
have more manners here than to kill every single human who comes
along.”

Luka growled and bowed up to his full
height, dwarfing me. Everything about his stance radiated
aggressiveness and even I felt the thrill of fear. Maria, however,
remained unmoved.

“You dare challenge my house?” he asked
gruffly.

She waved his words away. “No challenge
at all. Surely you realize the power of jests when appropriate.”
She gave a flattering grin, a very vulpine glare that set me on
edge, even with Luka’s strong presence.

“So it seems,” Luka said through
gritted teeth, blue eyes blazing. “I hope you’re not offended by my
reaction.”

“Yes, well, our families go far back,
and knowing your family as I do, I am curious as to know why you
claim the right of protection for this…” she sniffed disdainfully,
“…girl.”

Luka nodded as if this exchange were
going just as he wanted it. “We have a mutual matter, but she is
quite capable of presenting the issue herself.”

Maria hesitated at Luka’s reluctance to
speak. She arched an eyebrow. “Is this a matter for the
Council?”

Luka stepped back from me, but I felt
his energy tied to me like a buoy.

“No,” I answered. “This is a matter
between just you and me.”

“What business could we possibly
share?”

“The best kind of business. The one of
blood.”

“Don't be dramatic,” Will's mother
snapped. “I have no time or patience of young girls who think they
have earned the right to speak in a court of adults.”

I bristled but maintained control. “You
have a grandson, Maria.”

The blood drained from her face.
“William's child? You have William's child?”

Luka's slight sigh from behind me did
not escape my attention, but the room suddenly felt colder. “Yes. I
want the protection he is owed as your grandson and my own assured
also.”

Shrewdness crept back across her face.
“I owe you nothing. However, I will see this child.”

I folded my arms across each other. “I
did not offer.”

“You seek the sanctuary of my House and
still act this way?” She clicked her tongue. “Leave now then. Do
not return. I do not care what you think you have.”

“You are bluffing,” Luka said
carefully. “I know what Will's child means to you. My father has
told me how you longed for grandchildren, of how you still mourn
Will. There is no one here to see your weakness.”

Maria's face was practically purple
with rage.

“Luka...” I began to silence him before
he could say something incriminating.

“No,” he growled at me. “By the gods,
you interrupted my life and now have interrupted hers. We will
settle this here.”