The rest of the wolves . . . they were pack. Pack was sacred. Pack was strong.
What would she have to do in order to belong? What would she have to sacrifice?
And did it matter?
Sarah took Lucas’s hand and kissed her old life good-bye.
Lucas didn’t take the woman back to his house on Bryton Road. The place was probably still crawling with cops and reporters, and he didn’t feel like dealing with all that crap.
He called his first in command, Piers Stratus, to let him know that he was out of jail and to tell him that there were two unwanted coyotes in town.
The woman—Sarah—didn’t speak while he drove. He could feel the waves of tension rolling off her, shaking her body.
She was scared. She’d done a fair job of hiding her fear back at the police station and then at the park, at first anyway. But as the darkness had fallen, he’d seen the fear. Smelled it.
Sarah had known she was being hunted.
He pushed a button on his remote. The wrought-iron gates before him opened and revealed the curving drive that led to his second LA home. In the hills, it gave him a great view of the city below, and that view let him know when company was coming, long before any unexpected guests arrived.
When the gate shut behind him, he saw Sarah sag slightly, settling back into her seat. The scent of her fear finally eased.
Like most of his kind, he usually enjoyed the smell of fear. But he didn’t . . . like the scent on her.
He much preferred the softer scent, like vanilla cream, that he could all but taste as it clung to her skin. Perhaps he would get a taste, later.
With a flick of his wrist, he killed the ignition. The house was right in front of them. Two stories. Long, tall windows.
And, hopefully, no more dead bodies waited on the steps here.
He eased out of the car, stretching slowly. Then he walked around and opened the door for Sarah. As any man would, Lucas admired the pale flash of thigh when her skirt crept up. And he wondered just what secrets the lovely lady was keeping from him.
“We’re going in to talk.” An order. He wanted to know everything, starting with why the dead human had been at his place.
She gave a quick nod. “Okay, I—”
A wolf bounded out of the house. A flash of black fur. Golden eyes. Teeth.
Shit. It wasn’t safe for the kid. Not until he found out what was going on—
The wolf ran to him. Tossed back his head and howled. Sarah laughed softly.
Laughed.
His stare shot to her just in time to catch the smile on her lips. His hand lifted, and almost helplessly, he traced that smile with his fingertips.
Her breath caught.
Lucas ignored the tightening in his gut. “Shouldn’t you be afraid?” After the coyotes, he’d expected her to flinch away from any other shifters. And Jordan was one big wolf, with claws and teeth that could easily rip a woman like Sarah apart.
She looked back at the wolf who watched them. “He’s so young, little more than a kid. One who is glad you’re—”
No.
Understanding dawned, fast and brutal in his mind. I’m more than human. She’d told him that, he just hadn’t understood exactly what she was. Until now.
His hands locked around her arms and Lucas pulled her up against him. Nose to nose, close enough so that he could see the dark gold glimmering in the depths of her green eyes. “Jordan, get the hell out of here.” He gave the order to his brother without ever looking away from her.
The wolf growled.
“Go!”
The young wolf pushed against his leg—letting me know he’s pissed, ’cause Jordan hates when I boss his ass—and then the wolf backed away.
“Now for you, sweetheart.” His fingers tightened. “Why don’t we just go back to that part about you not being human?”
Her lips parted. She had nice lips—sexy and plump. He shouldn’t be noticing them, not then, but he couldn’t help himself. He noticed everything about her. The gold hoops in her dainty ears. The streaks of gold buried deep in her dark hair. The lotion she’d rubbed on her body—that vanilla scent was driving him wild.
He was turned on, achingly hard, for a woman he barely knew. Not normally a big deal. He had a more than healthy sex drive. Most shifters did. The animal inside liked to play.
But Sarah . . . he didn’t trust her, not for a minute, and he didn’t usually have sex with women he didn’t trust. A man could be vulnerable to attack when he was f**king.
“You know what I am, Lucas,” she said and shrugged, the move both careless and fake because he knew that she cared, too much.
“Tell me.” Her mouth was so close. He could still taste her. That kiss earlier had just been a tease. Want more.
“I’m a charmer,” she whispered.
A charmer. The weakest of the paranormals, and, in his mind, the damn sneakiest. Charmers blended the best with the humans. They got to live in the bright, fake world of date nights and football games. They passed as humans all the time, had all the perks of human life, but charmers had magic inside, weak, but still there.
Charmers were able to communicate telepathically with animals. To “talk” with them. Each charmer had one type of animal that she or he could talk with—some spoke to bears, tigers, hell, he’d even known one lady down in the South who could talk snake to a Burmese python.
“Who do you talk to?” Because his suspicion couldn’t be right. No way. It was impossible.
She bit her lower lip. That sexy, red lip—
Shit.
He kissed her. Lucas crushed his mouth against hers and let the hunger take over—the hunger that had been building the whole time he’d been trapped beside her in that SUV, trapped with her soft flesh so close and her sexy scent surrounding him.
He’d had a piss-poor day. Time to stop playing nice and get back to doing things his way.
Hard and dirty.
Her mouth opened, lips quivering. Perfect. His tongue swept inside, driving deep. Her kiss wouldn’t be as good as before. Couldn’t be. He’d imagined that lick of fire, that wild arousal, that—
His c**k jerked. Dammit.
Her br**sts pushed against him, ni**les tight and pebbled. The scent of her arousal teased his nostrils, and Lucas realized he was in serious trouble.
Just as bad as before. No, just as good, and that equaled one big-ass problem.
Growling, he pulled back. “Who . . .” He swallowed, and tried to sound more like a man than a beast as he demanded, “Who do you talk with?” Who, what—same thing in his world.
Her lips were red, swollen, and her eyes were so wide. “Wolves.” Her voice was husky, tinged with the same need that had him aching.