"Rest, Maya." His lips quirked the faintest bit. "When your strength is back, I'll have my turn."
His turn. She liked the sound of that.
A knock rapped at the door. A male voice called, "The girl's awake."
The girl. Cammie.
Adam drew the sheets over her. Pressed a kiss to her lips. "Rest." He stalked to the door.
Maya closed her eyes.
"You…worried me."
Her eyes squinted open at that.
"I thought you were going to die, before I could get those bastards off you." A muscle flexed along his jaw. "And I thought that I was going to fucking kill them all."
She didn't know what to say.
His gaze held hers. "Don't risk yourself like that again." An order.
Then he was gone-
Leaving her with the memory of a selfless pleasure and with the strength of his blood spreading through her body.
The second time she awoke, Maya's senses were sharp and focused-and she realized that she wasn't in their dump of a motel.
The room was big. With white walls and windows covered by thick shutters. She was lying in a brass bed, and a leather chair sat to her right.
Where the hell was she? Her clothes were at the foot of the bed. Not the clothes she'd worn earlier, because those babies were probably ripped to shreds, but clothes she'd left in her bag, back at the motel.
She rose slowly. There was no sign of Adam. Probably with the girl. She'd better go find them, make certain Cammie was all right-and figure out exactly where she was.
Maya pulled on the cotton panties and the plain white bra. Jerked on her jeans-
And caught the scent of a wolf.
She spun around.
He pushed open the door.
Dark hair, blue eyes. She didn't even need to glance at his ear to recognize the asshole who'd tried to kill her.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" she snarled, raising her hands, claws at the ready.
His gaze met hers. One black brow lifted. "I'm not here to hurt you, vampire."
"Yeah, well, I can't make you the same promise." She remembered the jerk's claws raking across her back. "You didn't answer my question."
What could have been a smile curved his lips. "This is my house. One of them, anyway."
She was in the wolf's house? Why hadn't Adam thought to mention that important little fact to her? Maya yanked up the zipper of her jeans, snapped the button closed, and reached for her T-shirt.
"Don't dress on my account," he murmured and his gaze dipped down to her chest. "I find the view rather enjoyable."
Oh, she just bet he did. Maya wrenched the shirt over her head-then slammed him back against the wall. "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now." She didn't have any warm, fuzzy memories of this guy. No, he was just a pain in the ass.
One that sorely needed to be eliminated.
"I shouldn't have attacked you," the wolf said. "I'm sorry."
Maya blinked, caught completely off guard. "Er, what?" No way he'd just apologized.
"Uh, you're cutting into my flesh." Spoken calmly, with not a hint of pain in the words.
Glancing down, she saw that her claws were, indeed, buried in his chest. "Oh, my bad." But she didn't feel particularly bad about the slip.
She hadn't dug nearly as deep as he had.
But still-she stepped back.
He exhaled.
"Who are you?" she asked him softly, keeping her body tense, ready. Just in case this was all an act and she had to attack.
"My name is Lucas Simone. I'm the leader of my pack."
Yeah, she'd guessed he was the boss.
"Why have you been hunting me?" she pressed him, eyes narrowing.
"He wasn't." A softer voice. Male, but younger. Not as hard.
Maya slowly turned her head. She'd caught the other wolf's scent just seconds before he spoke, but since she didn't particularly view the kid as a threat, she hadn't reacted.
The teen looked cautiously at Lucas, then glanced back at her. "He was following me."
Her gaze darted between them. Same dark hair. Chin. Nose. Hell, subtract about twenty years from the alpha and he and the kid would almost be twins. "So what's the deal?" she asked. "You his son?"
"Jordan is my brother."
Ah.
"I thought you'd attacked him, tried to kill him, and I-"
"I did," she said. Hell, no sense lying over that one.
Lucas stiffened.
"But she also came back for me and carried me out of that hellhole," Jordan whispered.
Yeah, but she had shot him.
She didn't look at the alpha, just kept her eyes on Jordan as she said, "I didn't want to hurt you."
Damn, those words sure seemed hollow and he looked so young. He was pale, but his injuries, like her own, seemed to have healed. "I had to rescue the girl and it was obvious you weren't going to let me pass unless I'd either killed you or incapacitated the hell out of you." A touch of admiration filled her tone.
The kid was a fighter.
She liked that.
"I thought you were gonna hurt her. Thought you were just another vamp come to make her scream." He swallowed. Glanced down at the floor. "They were always coming to make us scream."
Bastards.
"Well, I've got to say, you sure managed to hold your own against me." She tapped her right foot. The ankle was fine now. "You were about five seconds away from taking my foot off."
"Kill or be killed," Jordan said, the words cracking slightly. "I was ready to die."
To protect Cammie.
The kid was gonna grow up into one fine man.
"I think we're even," she murmured, then pointed a claw at him. "But don't ever so much as think about coming at me in wolf form with those teeth again."
His lips hitched into a half-smile. "I-I won't."
"Good." Now she looked back at Lucas. So he'd been tracking his brother. Good cause. But she still didn't trust the asshole. "The first night, at Marie's place, you should've just told me you were looking for the kid."
"You didn't give me a chance."
Because the pack had been coming for her, fangs bared, talking and playing nice hadn't exactly been on her mind.
He rubbed his shoulder. "But you sure as hell gave me something to remember you by."
"I don't like to be forgettable."
"You aren't."
The floor squeaked just beyond the door. Hell, someone else? The room was getting too crowded as it was. She inhaled, expecting another wolf, but she caught the scent of-
Nothing.
No one.
The floor squeaked again and Adam strode inside. His eyes narrowed when he caught sight of the wolves.
"I-I should go," Jordan muttered, ducking his head and then brushing quickly by Adam.
Lucas sighed. "You scare him," he said to Adam.
"Smart kid."
Adam's eyes darted to Maya's bare feet. Then back to the wolf. "Am I interrupting something?"
A hard edge sharpened the words. A hint of anger.
She shrugged. "Just trying to figure out why wolfie here has been trying to kill me."
"Um." Adam was still staring at Lucas. "Damn good thing he didn't succeed."
Lucas held his gaze. "I told you what happened. I came here to clear things up with her."
He'd been trying to find his brother. By tracking her. "What made you think I'd even know where your brother was?"
It was Adam who answered. "Because he heard you were working with me."
Lucas nodded. "I knew the same vamps who'd taken his niece had also taken Jordan."
Her breath expelled in a rush. "Shit. They were planning some kind of special feast for Nassor, weren't they?" Two shifters. So much power.
They would have been drained dry.
What a great Welcome-Back-to-the-Undead-Life gift for Nassor.
"Once you started helping Brody, I figured you had to be blood linked to that bastard Nassor."
Yeah, like she could help that.
"I knew you could lead me straight to him." One brow lifted. "Then that fool demon sent me chasing shadows."
Ah, Tim. She'd known to count on him to sell her out. "But then you smarted up, didn't you? You went to the hospital, threatened Sean, and found out exactly where I'd gone."
Adam's head jerked toward her. "What?"
Maya pursed her lips at the surprise on the wolf shifter's face. "What? Damn, give me some credit, would you? I knew you were there when I called him."
"How?" Lucas looked pissed. Poor wolf. He'd probably thought he'd been so smart.
Not smart enough.
"Sean warned me."
"No-I was there, I heard everything."
" I heard his heart, beating too fast." A deliberate tip, a method they'd used in the past. "I told him where I was, knowing that you'd come." She'd just hoped to have a little more time-enough time to free Cammie and disappear. "You got here faster than I thought." And her grand plan had gone to hell.
But at least she'd gotten the girl out.
The fact that Maya had nearly gotten herself killed, well, that had definitely not been in the master scheme.
"You should have told me," Adam snapped, taking a step closer to her.
She winced. Yeah, she'd known he wouldn't be too pleased about her keeping that fact secret.
"We had to move, Adam. The fact that the pack was coming-it didn't matter. We had to get into that feeding room."
If the clock turned back and she had to do it all again, knowing she'd wind up in that alley– shit, did it always have to be an alley? –she'd do it.
"For the record," she said, "I don't appreciate it when my friends are threatened." She smiled, showing her fangs. "I don't appreciate it one damn bit."
Lucas nodded. "Message understood."
"When I get back to L.A., I expect to find Sean unharmed. He'd better be."
"He is."
She grunted. "Don't ever threaten him again, wolf. Got it? Ever." She didn't trust the wolf. Not as far as she could throw his furry ass. And that would be about ten feet. She still wasn't sure how she'd wound up in his house and as soon as he got his butt out of the room, she planned to grill Adam.
A vampire hiding with a pack of wolves. That just had bad news written all over it.
But, then again, any of Nassor's goons who happened to be searching for her and Adam sure wouldn't expect to find them rooming with the wolves.
"So I guess we have a truce, vampire," Lucas said, voice soft. "For now."
Maya's head tilted back. "I guess we do." Weak truce though it was.
She watched him stalk to the door. "Lucas."
He glanced back at her.
"Tell me, when you were having a grand old time destroying Temptation, did you happen to kill a tall, too-pretty vampire with blond hair? He would have been hurt already, shot in the back."
She'd missed his heart, dammit. But there hadn't been a choice when she'd fired.
The asshole had been between her and escape.
"Torrence." Lucas spit out the name. Ah, so he knew about the vamp leader. "Bastard got away."
Hell.
"I'll find him," the wolf shifter said. "He's the one who took Jordan. I'll find him-and I'll peel the skin from his bones."
Nice visual. Maya knew the guy meant every dark word. No empty threat from the wolf.
"Easy, wolf. That bastard is mine," Adam said. "Keep your claws to yourself."
Lucas just shook his head, then left the room with his shoulders tense and his back tight with tension.
Uh, oh. A pissing match for death rights.
She'd put her odds on the dragon.
Maya faced Adam fully and found him staring at her with narrowed eyes. "What?"
"He wants you."
A choked laugh slipped past her lips. Damn. That had been the absolute last thing she'd expected him to say. "Uh, I think he wants to kill me."
"No." Definite. Angry. "I could smell his lust. He wants you."
She hadn't smelled a hint of arousal from the other guy, but-
Adam's senses were sharper than hers.
She rubbed her temples, aware of a steady, dull throbbing. "Well, I doubt it was anything personal. I mean, show a guy a pair of breasts and he usually gets horny."
"What?"
She looked at him then, really looked at him. The hard set of his jaw. The tight lips. The narrowed eyes. "Slick, are you jealous?" Of a hairy wolf? He didn't answer, just stared at her with glittering eyes.
Well, well. First worry, now jealousy. Wasn't the dragon just full of surprises? A smile began to tilt her lips.
Adam moved in a flash, his fingers clamping around her arms. "Don't play with me, Maya. You don't want to rouse the beast."
Maybe she did. A heady excitement swept through her. Adam had been at the edge of his control with her before. What would it be like to see that power completely unleashed? To push him over the edge? Oh, but she wanted to find out.
Maya lifted her hand, trailed a sharp nail down his cheek, and watched his eyes flare with arousal. "You didn't finish what you started earlier," she murmured.
His fingers tightened around her. "Maya…"
She liked the way he said her name. Liked the hunger she heard in his voice.
It was a pity that she'd have to leave him soon.
