“I know a warlock,” Raiden said slowly. “I will give him a message and see if he would be happy to meet you tomorrow. I trust him, he is a good guy. A friend.”
“That would be great. Cael’s just no help. Though, in all fairness, I have only known him since Friday, and he doesn’t owe me help. But it would be good to speak to someone who knows about this stuff.”
“Especially if witches and warlocks are trying to abduct you,” Raiden murmured. “That’s got me puzzled.”
“You went to Elior?” She paused. “I know he is a vampire, by the way.”
“Of course, you do,” he smiled. “We have spent the last couple of days keeping secrets it seems. Yes I spoke with Elior. He will have another word with Lucian and ensure that he’s not behind this. Elior is,” he shrugged. “Alright for a vampire. No vamp is great, but Elior at least has some honor.”
“I have never known a vampire before,” she led the way back down the stairs. “The most I have had to do with Others is occasionally seeing them on the streets. Grandmother was always very strict about discretion.”
“Protecting you,” he watched her close the door.
“I guess. She did not like to leave the house and wasn’t too keen on me leaving. She used to ward me every morning on my way out,” she smiled a little at the memory. “To hide me from Other’s eyes.”
“The Other world,” he stripped off his t-shirt. “Has its risks. She was being sensible, protecting you as a child. We teach our children to be careful. Being with the pack offers some protection, but you do have to know your way around the Other world, anyway, and have a few tricks up your sleeve just in case you cross paths with the wrong Other.”
“I know nothing,” she slid into the bed and waited for the moment when the warmth of his skin came up against hers with a decadent sigh. “I love that,” she admitted, shyly. “When I feel your skin against me.”
“Me too,” the Other was in his eyes, and she could feel him hardening against her. “It is two weeks until the full moon, Lia,” he leaned over her and cupped her cheek with the palm of his hand. “You know I want you as my mate, which means the full moon ceremony.”
She reached up and ran her fingers through his glossy curls. “Its… daunting, Raiden,” she admitted. “I have only known you since Friday, and I have never had a boyfriend before. What you are speaking of, the full moon ceremony, becoming a werewolf and your mate, is forever.”
“Yes, it is,” he turned his face and pressed a kiss against her palm. “But you are mine and I am yours and it is really that simple when you get down to it. We belong together, Lia. But you don’t have to decide tonight, I just wanted you to know my intentions so you can think about it a bit.”
“What about Paris and Brock? He intends to turn her on that same full moon, doesn’t he? And she won’t know until he does? That seems… unfair. And a betrayal for me not to warn her.”
“Leave it to Brock, Lia,” he replied. “Subconsciously, she knows that he is hers, but because in her world werewolves and mates don’t exist, she can’t put a name to how she feels. She won’t be angry, after. She will be… Well,” he grinned with a hint of wickedness. “It is very physical after. Werewolves take the honeymoon literally.”
She slid her hand down his stomach to close around him and he drew in a breath dropping his mouth to hers, his kiss gentle. “Werewolves are very physical in general,” he said wryly, acknowledging his hard on. “And you are my mate. My Other wants you, constantly.”
“And what about this you,” she asked him, brushing her lips against his.
“Oh, this me wants you constantly as well,” his hand stroked down her body, and he smiled. “I think this you wants me, too.”
“Yes,” she pulled his mouth down to hers, deepening the kiss and exploring the contours of his mouth.
The window exploded inwards, a brick thudding onto the floor, and shards of glass spraying across the bed. She saw blood well along Raiden’s back and a slice across his cheek, as he turned, the Other rising in his eyes.
His shift was seamless, from man to wolf in the twist of his body, hair flowing across skin, so that by the time his hands hit the mattress they were the paws of a truly massive beast, facing the shattered window, golden eyes flaring and long, curved teeth bared as the velvet upper lip peel back. He snarled and leapt through the blowing curtains out into the night, his claws tearing her bedcover.
The bedroom door was thrown open and a naked Brock ran across her bed, leaping through the window, shifting in mid-air.
She could hear Paris screaming in the background and wondered what had occurred to scare her so upstairs.
Lia ran for the walk-in-robe, feeling the bite of glass underfoot. She pulled on her jeans and t-shirt, standing on one foot and then the other in order to hurriedly brush the glass fragments off the soles of her feet, wincing and pulling out pieces that had sunk into her skin. She pulled on sneakers, not caring about the blood that would get on them, before running towards the bedroom door.
“Got you,” someone said as they grabbed her around the waist.
She screamed and kicked and clawed. She saw the flash of red Other in the eyes of the man who had her, and the elongated canine and premolars as he snarled, her heels landing against his shins and her fingers gouging his cheeks. Vampire, she thought. Although they were stronger, they felt pain the same as anyone else.
“Stop it,” he snapped at her as if she were being unreasonable fighting against him.
“Surgensque percusserit,” she shrieked, and the glass shards lifted from the floor and surged forward like crystalline arrows. She felt one strike her cheek, and the vampire cried out, releasing her as the glass shards impaled into him, spraying blood across her bed.
She fell to the floor as he released her, and skittered across the corner of her bed, and then the floor, grabbing for the door handle, and throwing herself into the hallway, striking the opposite wall before she managed to redirect her feet to the front door.
As she threw open the front door and ran across the porch, she saw a wolf impact with the side of the Ute, the metal denting beneath the massive beast. The wolf crumpled on the floor, and she screamed, not sure if it were Brock or Raiden.
“Impedio cresere et vampire!” She jumped off the porch, forgoing the stairs, landing on her hands and knees on the grass, sending her power into the grass so that it appeared to heave with its sudden growth, its blades shooting for the sky, entangling around the vampires that fought against the other wolf.
She slid over to the collapsed wolf, placing her hand on his side. His heartbeat strongly beneath her hands, but he whimpered. She saw the other wolf tear off a vampire’s arm and heard the vampire’s scream rip the night.
The first vampire leapt from the porch, crossing the porch railings and the expanse of grass in one impossibly athletic leap, to land beside her, his brown hair covering his face. He thrust it back with one hand and sneered.
He grabbed her, one hand closing over her mouth, holding her jaw closed so that she could not utter another incantation, and sank his teeth into her neck, her shriek of pain smothered by his grasp. “No more spells from you witchy,” he growled at her without withdrawing his teeth from her neck. She felt her blood trickle over her skin before he sealed his mouth over the wound, and the drag of his tongue was unpleasantly intimate.
He lifted his head, his mouth, and teeth red with her blood. “Stop playing with the wolf you fools, and get into the car, I have her.”
He bit his wrist and released his grip on her jaw long enough to force his wrist against her mouth. She bit him, causing him to laugh. “You won’t have so much fight left in you, now, sweetheart. Sleep.”