Chapter Sixteen, The Kicker

It was sound that first made it through the blanket over Charlie’s awareness. Sonic booms that sounded like fire crackers on the fourth of July. Sirens wailing in the not-too-far distance. The gentle hum of an air conditioner. The sound of a man breathing. And then….

A heartbeat. At first, it was a soft, steady rhythm. But as she continued to listen, it became stronger. It was Malcolm’s heart beating. She knew it without knowing how she knew.

Charlie opened her eyes and blinked at the stark contrasts around her. She saw the window as a stream of yellow moonlight slicing at a horizontal angle through the room and carving its way into the carpet. The edge of the bed was a cliff’s precipice, delving off into darkness far below. The mirror in the bathroom across the room reflected a backwards world, but one that was outlined as clearly now as it was at high noon.

There was a woman in that reflection. It took a precious moment for the realization to solidify within her brain, but when it did, Charlie stilled where she sat on the bed.

And stared at the woman with glowing ice blue eyes.

Her scream was strangled at first, but then it set itself free from her throat to pierce the night air and fill the gaps of silence in the large suite.

Half a second later, Cole’s arm flexed where it was wrapped around her waist like an iron band. In one swift move, he was rising over her and shoving her down into the mattress, his green eyes glowing like flame-lit emeralds, his fangs fully extended, every muscled ounce of him in fight mode.

He seemed to search the shadows of the room around them and then, when he realized there was no danger, he gazed down at Charlie. She gasped and panted beneath him, her expression one of stark confusion and fear.

“My eyes!” she finally told him. “They’re – they’re glowing!”

Above her, Malcolm stared down for a moment more – and then, much to Charlie’s befuddled surprise, he broke out laughing. The sound was intoxicating; a deep, rumbling belly laugh, laced with a touch of that resonating British tone that instantly managed to quell the worst of Charlie’s anxieties and bring her nerve endings to anticipatory life. As he laughed, his fangs retracted and the glow in his eyes died down to its normal light green.

“What the hell?” She gazed up at him, wondering why on earth he would think this was funny. Obviously, he did something to her – it was the only logical explanation. Because normal sex with normal men didn’t leave you with glowing eyes.

Cole’s laughter died to a soft chuckle and he rolled off of her to lay beside her, propped up on one elbow. He was still fully dressed and that realization reminded Charlie that she, in fact, wore not a single scrap of clothing.

Self-consciously, she pulled the pillow from the top of the bed and held it in front of herself. “Why are my eyes glowing?” she demanded, narrowing that glowing gaze so that he knew she meant business.

His smile was truly beautiful. It was disarming. She wanted to be alarmed and a part of her ought to have been terrified, but laying there beside him, beneath the comforting weight of that perfect, white smile and those glittering, mischievous green eyes filled her with a sense of comfort that could not be denied or fought off. It was like an opiate. It just felt really good.

“Explain,” she demanded through clenched teeth.

“When we… when I…” he rubbed his jaw for a moment, his gaze skirting from her face to the flesh that was bare above the pillow she held. And then he lifted his index finger. “One moment.” He rolled out of bed and went into the other room. When he returned, he was carrying her jeans and t-shirt.

“Put these on, luv. I can’t have a serious conversation with you as long as only a pillow separates me from your naked body.”

Charlie’s breath caught in her throat at his heated gaze and a prickly warmth flushed through her long, lean form. She felt wetness build between her legs – but she also felt a little sticky.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she told him flatly, grabbing the clothes out of his hand with a flourish. “And when I’m done, you’re going to tell me why the hell my eyes are glowing!”

With that, she rolled off of the bed and stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

* * * *

Alexander Kavanagh knew the moment he was no longer alone. Any werewolf would notice the brief shift in the flow of air around him as animal magic quickly ebbed and then receded in the space of the massive hotel suite.

Not only could he smell the other werewolf where he suddenly stood in the shadows of the hallway beyond, he could also hear his thoughts.

And so, gently he put down the delicate cup filled with tea in front of him and reclined in his hard, leather-backed chair.

“It’s been a long time, Ulrich.”

“Indeed, it has, little brother.”

Alexander waited while the other werewolf came away from the shadows of his suite and approached the table where he sat. He didn’t move as the other man pulled a chair from the table and gracefully took a seat.

“Malcolm Cole informed me of your involvement in this situation. I can’t say that I’m exactly surprised,” Alexander spoke softly. “But I am disappointed.”

“Of course you are,” Ulrich stated simply. “Because once more, you fail to see the big picture.” Ulrich shrugged and Alexander noticed that his left shoulder did not rise as high as his right.

“Cole injured you.”

“And I, him.”

Alexander sighed. “What do you want, Ulrich?”

It was a moment before his older brother replied. But when he did, his tone had lowered. “Your granddaughter is a rare creature, Alex. Are you certain that Cole is the right mate for her? She dreamed of him, yes.” Ulrich paused, adding to the weight of his next words. “But she also dreamed of Phelan.”

Instantly, Alexander’s ice-blue eyes began to glow and the air became oppressively hot around them both. In the kitchen, the microwave turned on. The lights overhead flickered, and the curtains in every room rammed shut on their electric rods. The televisions turned on and then off again.

Sweat began to bead on Ulrich’s brow; the heat in the room was becoming stifling. He straightened under the weight of his brother’s sudden display of power, and his chest felt tight. He swallowed hard past the lump that was forming in his throat.

Across from him, Alexander Kavanagh was the very image of cool, collected calm, but his gaze narrowed, and his starkly glowing eyes were positively terrifying in the handsome frame of his face. “Do not speak to me of my son’s murderer, Ulrich. That you aided him in any way is enough cause for me to kill you here and now.”

A muscle in Ulrich’s jaw ticked.

Kavanagh continued. “I permit you to live only because it was our mother’s wish.” Now it was his turn to pause, allowing the silence to stretch until he finished with, “But, if you want the honest truth, then all diplomacy aside, I would just as soon see you join her in her grave.”

“You have no vision,” Ulrich told him, his words hissed past clenched teeth. “You never have been able to consider the future with any real foresight. Already, dormants are dreaming of not one, but two alphas. They’re being given powers as they Change. They’re more rare every year and you continue to sit there, in your throne, allowing the humanity within us to override the wolf.” He stood up then, a barely suppressed rage causing his tall, strong form to go rigid as he gazed down at his younger brother.

“We are not human, Alex. We never have been and we never will be human, no matter how hard you try to form us to the contrary. And in our world, Alex – in the wolf’s world – the strongest win. It’s survival of the fittest. Damn it!” He slammed his fist into the nearby television, sending the electronic box flying in the opposite direction, a big black comet trailed by a shower of sparks.

The wounds on his wrist and across his knuckles instantly began to heal and he ignored them. “As long as you fail to accept that, we will continue to die out!”

“Get out of my sight, Ulrich.” Alexander’s tone was very low. Very quiet. He remained sitting where he was, gazing up at his brother with those unearthly eyes. “You worked for the man who murdered my son and his wife. You allowed another man to beat your own niece until she bled. And now you stand in my presence, in my territory, and ask me to validate your actions.”

Alexander pulled his gaze away and stared at something in the far distance – something unseen. “And all I have to say to you,” he continued, his powerful, calm voice never shifting, “is that if you come anywhere near my family again, I will kill you. Promise or not.”

Silence followed on the heels of his words and neither wolf moved for several long moments.

Then, slowly, Ulrich took a deep breath, letting it out through his nose. “I promise you, Alex, you’re going to regret heading in the direction you’re headed. It’s a one way street. And I won’t help you back out of it.”

Alexander said nothing.

“Very well, then,” Ulrich whispered. Magic rushed out of him, like the force-field of an unseen, unheard explosion. When it receded again, he was gone.

* * * *

As the warm water ran over her hair and face, Charlie closed her eyes and tried not to think about the fact that they were glowing behind her lids. She pushed her long locks away from her cheeks and forehead and stood there for a while, just letting the heat and massaging action of the showerhead melt the tension from her shoulders.

Eventually, mind still spinning, she shoved the rivulets of extra moisture out of her face once more and finally opened her eyes so that she could locate the shampoo and conditioner. Her hair didn’t need to be washed again, but she’d already wet it down. Now it was a done deal. If she didn’t wash it and condition it, it would just dry frizzy.

As she turned in the shower and found the small hotel bottles filled with shampoo and conditioner that would most likely dry her hair out like a nineteen-eighties curling iron in a steamy New Orleans hair salon, she sighed. When she reached up to grab the bottle filled with gold liquid, she noticed the inside of her right arm.

The intricate green mark that Malcolm had left there a few nights ago was gone.

In its place, her skin looked slightly puckered. Raw, maybe.

She frowned and ran her hand over the strange redness, noticing that it seemed to have a pattern to it. The steel head board? No. It wouldn’t look like this. Her frown deepened. It didn’t hurt, but it did feel warmer than the water running over her. Warmer than the rest of her arm.

She blinked and pulled her hand away from it, holding it up in the light. Then she blinked again. “WTF?” she whispered to herself.

But no answers presented themselves. The truth of the matter was, she simply didn’t know enough about the werewolf community to understand what was going on with her body at that moment. Lily Kane had told her much, but she’d also left a lot out. Deliberately, it seemed.

Maybe she’d been hoping that Cole would explain it. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted Charlie to know… because it was really bad.

With a heavy sigh, she dropped her arm and reached up with the other arm to pull the shampoo from the shelf above her. She blinked and went still when she noticed the same raw redness on the inside of her left wrist. Both wrists bore the same developing mark.

Christ! What the hell was going on?

“Charlie?”

Charlie’s head snapped up and she looked toward the door to the bathroom, which she could see through the steamy glass that surrounded the large shower. Cole was on the other side.

She could hear him breathing. His heart rate was elevated. She could actually hear it. And she could smell… something.

Oh my god, she thought. It’s fear. I can smell his fear. He’s afraid right now.

For me?

“Are you okay in there?” he asked, and somehow she knew that his hand was on the door. Ready to open it. It was the tone of his voice; he needed to hear her now or he would come in and check for himself that she was all right.

“I’m… I’m fine,” she said softly. “I’m just… it’s just… female stuff, is all!”

He was quiet on the other side of the door. But she could almost hear the wheels turning in his head. He wasn’t buying it. And, well he shouldn’t. Because she was lying her ass off and she sucked at lying and her heart was probably beating way too fast for someone who was just dealing with “female stuff.” And he could hear it.

Just like she could hear him.

“Charlie-”

“Just back off, Malcolm!” she yelled, hoping that the harsh irritation in her tone would convey with efficient clarity that she wanted him to go away and give her space and time to think. She needed room to deal with this.

As her gaze drifted down to the strange redness on her arms, she heard Cole shift beyond the door. She could smell the anger in him now. It was almost like being able to read his mind. Even beyond the steam and the soap and the sex that she could still detect clinging to her body, she could scent the werewolf in the other room.

And he smelled good. Really good.

But he also smelled like an animal that was growing frustrated, edgy, and mean.

What the fuck is happening to me, she wondered. I can see in the dark. I can hear a man’s heartbeat. My eyes are glowing. And my wrists have some kind of rash on them… and it’s getting darker, she thought. It’s forming into….

Into some kind of design. Her breath caught once more, and her heart slammed hard against her rib cage. Holy crap.

With that, Cole popped the lock on the door and it swung open, its security catch now broken and useless. On impulse, Charlie put her arms behind her back to hide the burgeoning red marks. Her breathing was too quick, her pulse too fast. He knew something was going on.

“Charlie, tell me what’s wrong.” His tone was a low and calm command and his tall, strong form filled the doorway like a brick barrier. It was almost symbolic. She wasn’t going to get out of this without going through him.

She spun away from him and put her face in her hands as if she were about to cry. Anything to hide the marks. She didn’t even know why she didn’t want him to see them; but it seemed essential. “I’m just overwhelmed, okay? I can hear your heart beat, for Chrissake! I can smell you, Malcolm. I can see….” She shook her head desperately. “Everything. In the dark!” She was surprised to find that, once the words had begun spilling from her mouth, real tears started to build in her eyes, and they grew heavier there as she went on. “And my damned eyes are glowing! I mean…. What the hell? What did you do to me?” There was no need to pretend now. She really was overwhelmed and she really did need answers. Her tears drops mingled with the water from the shower and a sob racked through her body.

The door to the stall flew open and Charlie looked up to watch Malcolm step into the shower, still fully dressed.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, as he moved forward and took her into his strong arms, heedless of the warm jets of water that were raining down on them both.

“Malcolm –”

“Shh. Hush, Charlie. It’s okay, luv. You’re okay.” His werewolf power poured over her again, familiar to her now, and with it came a heavy, relaxing sense of calm. His voice wrapped around her as surely as did his arms, swathing her in his nearness, his strength and protection. “I’ll explain everything, I promise,” he told her. “But you need to know that there’s nothing wrong with you. This is all good and natural. You need to accept it. Do you understand me, Charlie?”

After a few long seconds, Charlie nodded against his drenched shirt. Cole retained his grip on her with one arm and used the fingers of his other hand to gently push a dripping lock of her hair from her face. At the touch, her eyes fluttered closed and she leaned more heavily into him, relaxing against his tall, hard form.

“Good girl,” he said, softly. “That’s it.”

Beneath her cheek, his heart beat steady as a pulsing drum. The sound was intoxicating. She could keep time to it. It was rhythm more perfect, more soothing, and more mesmerizing than any she’d ever created on her own.

She ignored the wasted water for once. She forgot about the marks on her arms. At that moment, all that existed was the man holding her and his unbroken heartbeat. She was content to stand there and listen – forever, if need be. And it would seem that he was just as content to let her.

* * * *

When Malcolm finally left Charlie alone and unmolested in the shower, it was fifteen minutes later, and he was grateful that the hotel had so much hot water. The last thing Charlie needed right now was to finish rinsing her hair under an ice-cold stream. She was already shivering enough.

He gently closed the now-broken door behind him and briefly considered all of the damage he’d done to the suite since he’d arrived. It was fortunate for him and his pack that they had a very good standing with the hotel. And that Steve Wynn thoroughly enjoyed every one of Cole’s books.

Malcolm made his way across the room to where the dresser rested against the wall and began to unbutton his long-sleeved linen shirt. His clothes were soaked through, as were his socks and shoes.

When he’d finished undressing, he bent and sifted through the garments he’d folded and placed there a few days ago. He selected a pair of blue jeans and pulled them on, not bothering with underwear. He finished with a gray t-shirt that stretched taut over the muscles of his arms and chest.

His thoughts were on the wet leather bands that he had yet to take off. They were uncomfortable against the skin of his wrists, but he really didn’t want to see those marks right now. They were the bane of his existence.

And Charlie was his angel.

He’d just stepped foot into heaven and, by God, he wasn’t going to slip back into Hell right now by gazing down at the Roma curse that a woman had etched into his arms and soul more than fifty years ago. So, he left the bands on and decided that they would dry soon enough in the desert night air.

In the bathroom, the water shut off and the Cole listened as the shower door opened. Charlie was getting out and drying off. He imagined her body surrounded by curling tendrils of steam that clung to her fair skin in droplets. His body reacted quickly and painfully and he groaned in frustration and forced himself to think of baseball.

Of manuscript deadlines. Global warming. Anything to ease the sudden stiffness back out of his dick.

In a few moments, he was comfortable again, but he was learning that now that he’d tasted Charlie and felt her beneath him, he had to be eternally vigilant with his thoughts. Until he could either learn to control the urges she awakened in him or tie Charlie to his bed for a month straight, he would need to ban certain things from his mind. Or the wolf within him would take over.

After he’d finished pulling on a pair of engineer boots and running a towel over his head, he took a long-sleeved sweater from the bottom drawer of the dresser and headed for the bathroom.

He knocked on the door.

“Yeah?” came the soft reply.

“I’ve got a sweater for you, if you’re cold,” he said. He inched the door open just a tad and slid the garment through the crack, allowing her the privacy she most likely wanted. There was a brief hesitation, and then Charlie took the sweater from his hand.

“Thank you,” she told him, with genuine gratitude.

He smiled to himself. They were making progress. “You’re welcome, Charlie.” He closed the door again and left the room to make a phone call.

* * * *

I should take her first, he thought to himself, before the wounds are too much. Before the blood began to ruin everything. She was nice enough looking. She had nice tits. Lean. Attractive body.

But not as nice as Charlie’s.

No one was as good as Charlie. Charlie was perfect. No one would ever fight him like she did. No one was strong enough to last….

Gabriel gazed down at the woman tied to a chair before him. Her hair had come loose from her braid hours ago and hung in dark, sweat-soaked locks on either side of her face. One threatened her left eye, which was steadily blackening where he’d had to strike her during her initial struggles.

It was a shame, really. She had pretty eyes, deep brown, almost black. Like coffee. They were big and soulful and she had that certain look about her that only young mothers had: youth force-fed wisdom, portrayed through the finest of lines that were testament to a broader, more intelligent view of the world.

Such a shame…. But it had to be done, because in the end, she wasn’t Charlie. No one was.

“It’ll all be over soon, sweetheart.”

The woman whimpered behind the gag he’d forced into her mouth. It was nothing more than a cloth, covered with a piece of duct tape. It was certainly not his favorite way to gag a woman, but it worked. It would suffice. For her, anyway. Not for Charlie. No. Charlie deserved the best. He had plenty of very nice gags he would love to see pressed between Charlie’s plump, pink lips.

“Since you won’t live out the night, I thought you might be curious as to why I’m doing this.” Gabriel turned and paced slowly toward an old, chipped wooden chest of drawers along one wall. Atop it was a round mirror, and tucked into the rim of the mirror were pictures of a little boy and a little girl, both the same age, and both with the same hair color and eyes of their mother.

He glanced at these pictures, carelessly, and then turned around, leaned on the dresser, and crossed his broad arms over his chest.

“You see,” he began, softly, “the man I want to bring here tonight is cursed. He bears marks placed upon him by a gypsy long ago. And any time there is a murder, without heart, without purpose or reason – grisly enough to make the front page news,” he flashed the woman a straight, white smile, “he has no choice but to pop out of existence wherever and whenever he may be and pop back into existence at the scene of the crime.”

He laughed softly then as the woman stared at him with eyes that were wide with shock and fear, despite the puffy nature of one of them.

“I know. It’s a horrible curse, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “I don’t envy the man.” Gabriel paused and frowned. “Well, that’s not strictly true. I do, actually. He claimed Charlie first, and I can’t deny that I’m jealous over that. Still, it doesn’t matter. He’ll soon be dead and when he is, Charlie will be unclaimed once more.”

The woman in the chair began to struggle in her bonds. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what was coming.

Gabriel gave her a cursory glance, but paid her labors no further heed. She was bound tight. He’d had years of practice tying knots that held.

* * * *

Charlie lifted the giant sweater before her and marveled at its size. Cole was a big man. She would be swimming in it. But she was grateful for it. When the world overwhelmed you, it helped to be able to hide in something warm.

She placed the sweater on the counter, pulled on her jeans and t-shirt, lamented the fact that she had no underwear or bra, and then pulled the sweater on over everything else. Her hair was already beginning to dry in the arid Nevada night. So, she flipped her head over, ran her fingers through it, and then straightened again, calling it good.

She had yet to look at herself in the mirror, however. She was certain that she looked like a ragamuffin draped in the fleece that Malcolm had given her and that her legs probably resembled stilts, sticking out the bottom in their fitted denim – but she didn’t really care to see it, because if she did glance in the mirror in order to adjust her wardrobe, she might see her eyes again. She wasn’t quite ready for that.

She sighed heavily. Gotta get used to it, sweetheart, she told herself. While he’d held her in the shower, Cole had tried his best to explain things to her. Things about the werewolf world and the fact that she was even more a part of it now than she had been a few hours ago.

He’d told her that when he’d bitten her, her body had accepted that it was time to make the Change. The dormant wolf within her climbed to the surface, forever altering her physiology and the way she would feel and behave.

Her knee-jerk reaction to this news had been anger. Had she been adequately warned? Was this even fair? But as she stood there and listened, she realized that this final turning point had been her destiny all along. And that, yes, she had been warned. Gabriel Phelan had intimated that as much would happen. Lily Kane had hinted at it. And the very fact that she’d been “marked” in the first place was a reminder that she was special – and that she represented a hope for the werewolf community that they could not find in any other woman. That hope was for procreation and survival.

She could only do that if she was one of them.

Cole explained to her that the glowing eyes she seemed to be so upset over were actually very beautiful, and quite natural for a werewolf. He assured her that she would very soon learn to control the light of emotion behind her “baby blues.” Though, he claimed he wouldn’t mind if they looked like that forever. He said she was stunning and gorgeous and that she would never know what she meant to him.

And when she’d finally stopped crying and was able to return his gentle smile, he’d left her alone to finish bathing.

All along, she’d managed to keep the red marks on her wrists hidden from him. She still wasn’t certain why she had bothered. She just felt that it was important somehow and that this new and delicate treaty of understanding between them would be ruptured should he catch sight of the red tattoos that had by now fully formed on the insides of her arms.

Charlie shoved the sleeves of the large sweater up to her elbows and gazed down at the strange new brands. They were nearly as intricate as Cole’s emerald green mark had been, but there was a wicked, unkind appearance to them. They were the color of blood and the angles were sharp and unforgiving.

He hadn’t mentioned anything about new marks when he had been explaining her Change and the symptoms of it a few minutes ago. It was possible that he forgot. But it was far more probable that he didn’t know about them. And Charlie was willing to place money on that.

She sighed and dropped the sleeves, effectively hiding the marks. Then she opened the door to the bathroom, allowing a thick cloud of steam to swirl upwards and out as she stepped into the hallway beyond.

The air that hit her face was air conditioned and much cooler than it had been on the other side of the door, and she was instantly grateful for the big, soft sweater draped so comfortably over her. She wrapped her arms around her waist and tip-toed into the hallway, craning her neck and listening carefully to catch any sign of Cole in the rooms beyond.

But they were empty.

She stilled when a delicious, deeply enticing scent wafted toward her and caressed her senses. She entered the dining room to find that candles had been lit on the table and several porcelain plates had been filled and left for her.

There was wine; a deep blood red that she could tell would burn wonderfully across the tongue and down the throat. There was a plate filled with chocolate covered strawberries – six of them. And most enticing of all, though she never really ate red meat, was the rare steak that waited on a plate closest to her. Its surface steamed in the chilled air, its scent carrying across the room toward her, pulling her closer.

Her mouth began to water. Her stomach growled. She hadn’t even realized how famished she was until now. With a rush, she closed the distance to the table in long, quick strides and sat down in front of the steak. She picked up the fork and knife and began to eat.

As the first piece hit her tongue and fairly melted across it, she closed her eyes, lost in some sort of primal ecstasy. Her teeth ached in her gums. She wanted to rend, to chew, to swallow more of it. She finished the steak in five minutes and then reached for the glass of wine that had already been poured for her and left beside the plate.

She downed the wine and it did burn. But as she drained the glass and replaced it, she realized that there was no immediate buzzing sensation leaping to life in her body. There was no dullness seeping to her extremities.

Non alcoholic wine? No matter, she thought. It was probably better that way, because she was really thirsty and wanted to drink more of it.

She poured herself another glass and then started in on the strawberries. She ate with abandon, not caring about morality or fat content or cholesterol or calories. She chewed slowly, but continuously, her mouth ever filled with the next bite, the next taste, of this amazingly delicious fare.

The front door beeped and its lock clicked in its hinge. Charlie set down the last bit of strawberry she was holding and stood, turning around to face the entrance. She swallowed just as Malcolm came through the small foyer and into the hallway.

When he exited the shadows and entered the light of the dining room, he stopped and gazed steadily at her. “Christ, you’re beautiful Charlie.” He stared as if in wonder, his light green eyes drinking her in, despite the over-sized sweater hiding most of her body from him. “You have no clue.” He shook his head. “None,” he whispered.

Charlie blushed beneath his scrutiny and the unexpected praise. She hugged herself, wrapping her arms around her middle. He tsked her gently and came forward, crossing the room in long, slow strides. “I told you not to hide yourself from me, did I not?” he asked her, his tone one of gentle but stern reprimand.

She didn’t move her arms. She remembered his words well enough – she would never forget them. But she felt strong, just at that moment. She stayed where she was and lifted her chin in defiance. As she did, her heart rate sped up.

He stopped a few feet away and smiled, the dark pupils at the centers of his eyes expanding quickly. “I would love to remind you of what happens when you disobey my commands, Charlie, but as it is, we’re late.”

Charlie blinked. She ignored the first half of his statement and focused on the last bit. “Late for what?”

“Come with me,” he told her, offering her his hand.

She hesitated just for a second and then slid her hand into his. As they always did, his fingers curled around hers possessively. He led her from the room and down the hall to the elevators.

“Where are we going?” she asked again, as the elevator doors pinged closed once they’d boarded.

“You’ll see.”

She turned and pinned him with a hard gaze. “I’ve had enough surprises for one night, Cole. Where are we going?”

Instantly, Cole was hitting the stop button in the elevator, his green gaze cutting a fast line to her and pinning her to the spot. The elevator lurched to a halt and Charlie gripped the brass bar beside her. She could feel his sudden surge of anger. She could hear his heartbeat speed up and smell the adrenaline in his veins.

It was both intoxicating and terrifying.

“My name is Malcolm, Charlie,” he told her, his jaw tight and his tone low. “A lot of people call me Cole. Friends. Editors. Werewolves. The Overseer.” He stepped toward her, closing the distance between them. “But the woman I just slept with will call me by my first name.” His tall form towered above her, filling the space of the elevator with werewolf power and heated frustration. “My mate will call me Malcolm. Do you understand?”

It didn’t take a genius to see that this had become a sore point with him. And so, though she felt defiant and strong, she decided this probably wasn’t the best time or place to display it. She nodded. Once. She could always give him a hard time about something else later.

Malcolm turned and hit the same button again and the elevator began moving once more. An amp somewhere near the top of the elevator came to static life.

“Mr. Cole, is everything all right?” asked an unseen speaker.

Cole gazed steadily at Charlie and then slowly, he looked away to glance up at the tiny black camera lens that rested, half-hidden, in the top corner of the lift. “We’re fine,” he said calmly. “Thank you.”

“Very good,” came the static reply.

The elevator reached the casino level and the doors pinged open. Cole gestured for Charlie to exit first, and she did. She was a tad more nervous now than she had been a few minutes ago. “You really aren’t going to tell me where we’re going?”

“Almost there,” he replied, this time reaching down and grasping her hand firmly in his. The touch instantly warmed Charlie. It was a gesture of reassurance and was almost electric. She wondered if her touch had anywhere near that kind of effect on him.

Cole led her through the Casino and out into the Las Vegas night. People were gathering along the stone wall in-between Las Vegas Boulevard and the lake in front of the Bellagio. They spoke with one another and laughed out loud and many of them were drinking. But every now and again, they glanced back at the lake and seemed to be waiting for something.

Charlie wondered what it was.

“Here, luv.” Cole pulled her attention back to him and she looked up to see that he was gesturing toward a break in the copse of bushes to their left. No one else seemed to notice it and she speculated as to where it led. “After you,” he said, softly.

She searched his face for some hint of the secret he was keeping from her, but his expression gave nothing away. He simply smiled an easy, sexy smile and waited for her to duck into the small pathway.

Charlie sighed and stepped through. On the other side was a ledge and a drop of about six feet. Lucas Caige and a few other members of Cole’s pack were waiting for her down below.

Caige turned as she came through the bushes and he raised his arms. “Come here, Charlie. I’ll help you down.”

Charlie blinked at him and then turned back toward Cole. He was right behind her. He nodded, urging her forward. Then he turned to Caige. “Make it quick, Caige. They’re due to start any minute.”

Now Charlie was as confused as ever, but she decided to resign herself to it and allowed Caige to lift her off of the wall and help her down. It wasn’t necessary. In her training over the past several years, Charlie had learned how to jump distances that were much further down and quite a bit more painful than this one would have been. But she knew that Cole’s pack wouldn’t know that. And they were trying to be nice.

“To the boat, Charlie,” Caige instructed, nodding toward a small row boat that had been pulled up at the edge of the lake. She walked toward it as two other werewolves held it still.

“Get in, luv,” Cole instructed, a gentle hand at her back, urging her forward. She carefully stepped into the boat, admiring its polished wooden edges and carved designs as she took a seat and waited.

Cole stepped in after her and then sat down. He nodded toward Caige, who gave the boat a gentle shove with his motorcycle boot. The boat drifted from the white ledge of the hidden walkway and Charlie watched as the shadows of the looming hotel above her receded and the boat coasted out into open water.

All around her, revelers gazed in their direction, but none of them pointed. Their behavior didn’t change. They continued to talk and drink and glance at the lake expectantly. It was as if the boat was not even there.

“Can they see us?” Charlie asked.

“Yes and no,” Malcolm replied. He pulled two oars from the bottom of the boat, shoved them through the loops at the sides of the craft, and began to row them further out into the lake.

“What do you mean?”

“They possess the capability of noticing us,” Cole clarified, his smile broadening mischievously. “However, I’m not allowing them to.”

Charlie blinked. “You’re – you’re what?”

“Charlie, many werewolves are born with gifts that set them apart from others of our kind – ”

“Oh, crap, don’t tell me you can read my mind!” Charlie immediately exclaimed, thinking, instantly, of her grandfather and those exact same words that he had uttered.

Now it was Malcolm’s turn to blink. “What? No! No, I can’t read your mind. Why on earth would you ask such a thing?” And then comprehension dawned on his handsome features and he nodded. “Ah. The Overseer.” He nodded again and rowed them a little further in. “No, as far as I’m aware, Kavanagh is the only one who possesses that particular ability. Along with several other very useful talents,” he added, softly.

“Then…” Charlie ventured. “What are you doing?”

“I have the power to control human minds, or their actions, that is. To a certain extent.”

“And you can make them blind to us?”

His grin broadened. “That’s a lovely way to put it, Charlie. I’ll have to recall that for one of my books.”

Charlie had no response for that, so she focused on the lake and their boat. “The lake is very pretty, and the night is gorgeous,” she admitted softly. “But is this what you brought me out to show me?” She recalled his words to Lucas Caige. Something about being late. “What were you talking about when you told Caige that… they’re due to start any minute?”

Cole didn’t have a chance to answer her because, at that moment, the speakers embedded in the walls around the lake began to vibrate with music. Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” rode across the water’s smooth, reflective plane and the lake’s surface started to bubble. Charlie looked around the boat, her eyes wide, and realized that the bubbling was surrounding them on all sides. The small vessel was right smack in the middle of some kind of churning water work.

The music grew louder and Dion’s voice caressed the audience. Water began to break the surface of the lake, spraying in what seemed like a hundred fine streams of fountained beauty. The lines of water swayed back and forth in time with the music.

Charlie’s breath caught in her throat and her face broke into a smile that she simply could not suppress as the song crescendoed and canons of water shot straight into the sky, drum beats of majestic, liquid beauty that pierced the darkness hundreds of feet in the air.

All around them, the crowd gasped in wonder and Charlie found herself laughing, unable to hide her joy. Werewolf or not, she couldn’t hear the sound of her own exclamations over the roar of the music and the crowd and the sonic boom of the Bellagio’s fountains.

The water began to fall back down to Earth and Malcolm produced an umbrella, seemingly out of nowhere, opening it with perfectly timed precision in order to place it over them both as the fountain’s droplets slammed into the lake.

Charlie smiled broadly at her mate, too amazed to say anything. But she didn’t need to. As the song continued and the fountains erupted around them, her glittering eyes told him everything he needed to know. And his smile was a reflection of her own.

There was nothing else in that moment. There was nothing but the music and a kind of magic that seemed to swell within and around them. Charlie would never forget this moment. This precious space in time seemed to freeze, like the water suspended in space above them, drifting on sound waves of bliss and hovering, poised before the love-struck gazes of a thousand gasping children. Children, because they laughed and cried and abandoned themselves to the beauty that was before them.

For the space of a song, they were no longer forty or fifty or twenty-one. They were four and a half and in lust with life.

A single tear escaped the corner of Charlie’s once-more glowing eyes and, as she smiled at the beautiful man across from her, it trickled down her cheek, the only drop of water that managed to fall into the boat that night.

In that moment, Malcolm gazed at her with a kind of expression that he’d never shown her before. It was a breed of wonder, a kind of gentleness and of astonishment. Beneath the ballistic sound of rockets at the climax of the display around them, Malcolm took the umbrella in one hand and cupped her face with the other.

She closed her eyes as he leaned in and, when his lips softly brushed hers in the first, tender moments of a kiss, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. It was a kiss that reflected the happiness he’d awakened within her, in the middle of this tiny lake, beneath a rain storm of man-made magic.

He groaned against her lips and took possession of her mouth, his hand sliding to her nape to hold her in place. She melted beneath his touch and let him take control. He was better at it.

But then he was breaking the kiss, drawing back just enough to gaze down into her eyes and whisper across her lips. “You’ll make me lose control of them, Charlie,” he told her, his grip tightening in her hair. She realized he was talking about the humans; the humans whose minds he was willing not to see them. His once-green eyes had again gone completely black with hunger. “Not here,” he told her. A single shake of his head.

She shuddered as he released her and set down the umbrella. The fountains had died down to a low, soft sway. Cole picked up the oars and began to row them back to the private walk where his men waited for them.

Charlie tried to calm the erratic beating of her heart. Moisture had gathered between her legs and, because she wasn’t wearing underwear, she was more sensitive to the sensation. Distractedly, she rubbed at the inside of her right wrist. She lifted her legs and hugged them to her chest as she gazed across at Cole and watched the taut muscles of his broad chest flex and relax beneath the tight material of his t-shirt. She thought of how those muscles would hold her down; how warm his body would be against hers. She rubbed distractedly at her other wrist, this time, harder.

She hissed in pain, but barely realized what it was that was hurting. She was too wrapped up in everything that was Malcolm Cole. She wanted him to say something, anything, just so that she could hear his amazing voice and that sexy accent of his.

She wondered if she were falling in love with him….

Again, she drew in a sharp breath, and Cole’s gaze narrowed. He followed her movements as she wrapped one hand around her other wrist and squeezed.

“Ow…” she hissed, now fully aware of the dawning pain. “It hurts,” she whispered. She’d said the words before she could stop herself, and he heard them loud and clear.

They bumped against the walk and Cole was immediately up and stepping out of the boat. Just as quickly, he was reaching in, lifting her into his arms, and hauling her out as well. He set her down in front of him and gave her no time to steady herself before he was grasping her right arm in his left hand and shoving the sleeve of her sweater up with the other.

He froze. Charlie could hear his heart skip. And then it slammed against the inside of his chest with a fierce thud. “No.” His eyes were wide in his handsome face, and they were no longer black. They were a vivid, emerald green that glowed eerily in the darkness.

Roughly, Cole took hold of her other arm and shoved its sleeve up as well, exposing the matching red mark on her left wrist.

“God, no,” he choked, “No, no, no….” He released her and then, in what seemed like one clean, swift movement, he ripped the leather bands off of his own arms and gazed down at the insides of his wrists.

His marks were gone.