The Alpha's Mate (8 Sexy, Powerful Shifters and Their Fated Mates) Page 19

  "I'm sorry you have to find out like this," he said.

  The shift only took a second to happen, but the second felt like an eternity. His energy focused inside, on bringing out the wolf part of his being, Damien let the power take him over. His muscles changed, stretching and contracting, his bones snapping with a crackling sound into the new skeletal configuration. His snout stretched and pushed out his face as fur sprouted through his skin, feeling like a million pinpricks all over his body.

  "Another shifter," the wolf growled. "Why are you here?"

  As if from a distance, he heard Julia screaming, screaming, oh god he felt her screams shatter through his mind. He fought the terror back, putting up a separation between them. He could still sense her, but as he gained control over his wolf form he was able to distance himself from her emotions. The wolf was in front of him. That was the most important thing.

  "My pack is traveling," Damien snarled, trying to seem intimidating. He hated to fight if he could avoid it. "Let us go through."

  "You're blind," the shifter said. "You have no chance against me. And she is not part of your pack."

  Damien sniffed. No other wolves were around. He might be able to take on one wolf, even if it was a large one. And from the deep sound of his voice, this wolf was a large one.

  "You have no business with either of us," Damien said. His fur bristled.

  "I'm here for the girl," the wolf said. "You should leave her alone."

  "Why do you care?" Damien asked.

  "Why do you want her?"

  "She's my mate," Damien said, and at that moment, he knew that it was perfectly true.

  The wolf snarled and snapped his jaws forward.

  "You don't know what you're dealing with."

  "I know I won't let you hurt her."

  "Leave now, or die."

  Claws scraped the sand, and Damien could visualize the wolf crouching down on his haunches. The soft intake of breath as the wolf readied himself to leap forward.

  Damien crouched as well, readying himself in case the wolf lunged for Julia instead of for him. He had no chance of taking on the wolf head on, and no chance at running, never mind that he wouldn't leave Julia to be by herself. He stood perfectly still, every muscle in his body tensed. Already overpowered because of his blindness, his nose and ears were on high alert, and the adrenaline coursing through the veins of his body only heightened his awareness. He could hear each grain of sand compacted beneath the wolf's paws, each breath, and could tell that the wolf favored his right side. That was how he would attack.

  "I don't want to kill you, blind man," the wolf said. Damien could sense the indecision in his growl, but also his overconfident sincerity. The wolf was telling the truth: he didn't want to kill Damien.

  "Then turn and run," Damien said.

  The wolf snarled and shifted his weight back, the last motion before a lunge. Damien braced himself and prepared to roll. Once they were grappling, he would have less disadvantage, but the first hit was crucial. He had to force the wolf into contact without being too severely injured in the process. The last real fight he had—well, he had lost his eyes.

  The wolf crashed into Damien with a force of impact so great that at first Damien thought his ribs had cracked. But no, it was just the breath being knocked out of him. They rolled across the ground. Julia shrieked as they tumbled into a bush but Damien finally got a hold onto the other wolf's neck. The wolf twisted and kicked, and Damien felt the claws rip through his skin. He clenched his teeth hard, but the bite was not lethal, and he could not get a better hold without the other wolf getting loose. It was a precarious position to be in, and Damien felt himself start to lose his grip.

  The other wolf shuffled backwards out of the bush, shaking hard. Damien's body whipped from side to side until he realized that there was no way to gain the upper hand with such a hold. On the next downward shake he let go and hit the ground, yelping as he rolled out. The other wolf lunged and bit him in the leg, and Damien howled in pain.

  Fear. An overwhelming sense of fear rippled through Damien's being, and he froze on the ground. Then he realized that it was Julia, Julia watching him fight, watching him hurt. He opened himself up to her and felt the fear, but also love shining through. Then a sharp tearing pain brought his attention back to the wolf whose teeth were still firmly clamped into his leg. The wolf shook, and Damien went limp, bringing his leg up underneath him. He tensed his leg, getting ready to spring when the time was ready. There would be just a second's chance to get him, and Damien's strength was running out. He waited until he heard the other wolf inhale slightly harder, and knew that he was getting ready to release. He could not kill Damien by biting his leg, after all.

  As the wolf let go to adjust his bite, Damien pushed off of his tensed leg and sprang upwards, feeling as if in slow motion the fur of the other wolf bristling against his own coat. He bit into the wolf's throat and knew from the bite that he had him. The other wolf screamed, a horrifying sound, and his legs kicked upwards. Damien could feel the claws scratching him through his fur but he did not care. Blood filled his mouth and he bit down harder, harder, until the wolf went limp. He could have killed him then, ripped out his throat. All of his brutal instinct urged him towards finishing the job.

  A cry from Julia, though, stopped him. He released the unconscious wolf. Blood dripped from his jaws, and he resisted the urge to lick, adrenaline pumping through his system. He was ready to fight, ready to mate. The smell of blood filled his nostrils, and the sun was hot, too hot. He was dizzy, faint. He had to shift back now, or else—

  The snaps of his body shifting back to human form were familiar, but as he wiped the blood out of his eyes he could hear someone crying. He was naked, his pants on the ground where he had left them when he shifted, and he was covered in blood. The wolf on the ground breathed shallowly, whimpering.

  "Julia—"

  He held out his hands toward here and heard her choke back sobs. Her footsteps retreated from him slowly, her crying muffled by her hands.

  "Julia, please don't go—"

  "What just happened?" Her voice snapped shut on the words, and he felt a wave of terror and confusion sweep through the air toward him. Her terror. He wanted to put his arms around her and comfort her, but no. How could he assuage her fears when the thing she was afraid of was him? Julia was scared of him; he was a monster.

  The blood was sticky on his hands, and though he heard the other wolf still breathing, the thought of another's blood on him made him shudder.

  "He'll be okay. I need to wash this off," he said, stumbling toward the water. Yes, water. He would be able to drink, to cool off. He would be able to forget. The steps toward the lake's edge took forever, and Julia followed him at a distance, the fear still coming off of her in intense bursts of emotion. He could almost see the fight now through her thoughts, the vision of two wolves floating through his mind. Two wolves snarling, biting, then blood, blood—

  He dropped onto his knees into ankle-deep water at the lake's edge and splashed his face. When the blood finally stopped overpowering his sense of smell, he turned back to Julia.

  "What the hell was that?" she asked.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Julia

  Julia kept an eye on the wounded wolf, but it soon became apparent that the animal was too wounded to walk anywhere, let alone attack again. She thought it would die for certain.

  Keeping her attention half on the wolf, she followed Damien to the edge of the water and watched as he washed himself clean. The water around him turned pink with blood but that soon disappeared. Still he washed, splashing his hair with water, until there was no trace left. Questions thrashed through Julia's mind and she could not help but blurt out the first thing that came into her head when Damien turned to her, still naked.

  ""What the hell was that?"

  "The fight?" Damien asked. She noticed now that his leg was bleeding, but he did not seem to care.

  "Did I—was that real? D
id I hallucinate that?" She half-hoped that she was crazy instead of...whatever that was.

  "It was real," Damien said. "Can I have my swimsuit?"

  Julia breathed steadily, walking back to where the suit had dropped from his body. She made sure to circle widely around the injured wolf, just in case. Damien waited patiently and held his hand out to take the swimsuit from her. She dropped it into his hand without letting their fingers touch. He pulled on the suit, unembarrassed, but when he turned to her, she saw the light flashing from his golden eyes.

  "Who are you?" she asked. She'd been scared before, but now that Damien was staring directly at her, blindly, she was completely unnerved. "What are you?

  "I told you, I have a genetic condition. I can shift...change into my other form," he said.

  "Into a wolf."

  "Yes."

  "You're a werewolf." Julia couldn't believe this.

  "Sort of," Damien said. "Yes. Not like in the stories."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "I don't, like, eat humans. I don't shift when there's a full moon. Nothing like that."

  "I'm going insane," Julia said. She sat down on the sandy shore of the lake, her head in her hands. Either she was crazy or Damien was. And she didn't want to think about either option seriously.

  "You're not insane. I'm sorry." He walked over and sat next to her in the sand. Her eyes tracked his every movement and when he grazed her with his arm as he sat down, she flinched.

  "I scare you," he said. His voice and face were clear: he was miserable. Julia felt sorry for him, in a strange way.

  "It's okay," she said quietly. "Really, it is."

  "I shouldn't have shifted like that in front of you. I know you were scared."

  "You have no idea," she said, shaking her head. "This whole thing is impossible."

  "I'm sorry, Julia. I wanted to tell you in a different way, I swear," he said.

  "The girl you're with," Julia said, suddenly. "The one who was guiding you. Is she..."

  "She's a shifter too."

  "That's what you call them? Not werewolves?"

  "Right," Damien said.

  "So she's in your...your pack?

  "Yes." He paused, his expression pained. "I should tell you—I want to be completely honest. I can't lie to you anymore."

  "What is it?" Julia asked, her voice a whisper.

  "She's the one I'm supposed to mate with."

  Julia swallowed back a sob. She knew. She supposed she had always known, ever since the beginning. He couldn't be hers. Nobody like him could ever really be hers. The girl he had been with was beautiful, gorgeous even. Thin and sexy and everything that Julia wasn't.

  "Okay," she stammered. She started to get up and Damien's hand clasped down hard on her wrist.

  "Wait. Don't leave," Damien said.

  "What do you want from me?" Julia said. She was on her knees in the sand, facing his golden, sightless eyes. They glimmered, or was that the sun? It didn't matter. His beautiful eyes, his beautiful face—none of it belonged to her. "You're a liar. You've lied to me since the moment I met you!"

  "Julia, how could I have told you the truth? You wouldn't have believed me."

  "You could have told me about her," Julia said. "You could have told me that you belonged to somebody else from the start. Instead you fed me all this bullshit about being lovely. Calling me sexy, saying you wanted to take me out on a date."

  "Julia—"

  "No! You can't just do that!" Julia was furious now, and her cheeks again were wet with tears—when had that happened? She yanked her arm out of Damien's grasp and wiped her face as she stood up. "You made me fall in love with you and you knew all the while it was impossible!"

  "It's not imposs—"

  "You have someone else already! What did you tell her about me? What lie did you tell her about coming out with me today? So that you could fool around with me and then run back home to your real girlfriend?"

  "You don't understand." Damien's voice grew low. He tried to stand up, but his leg buckled under him and Julia saw his wound start to bleed freshly. "You don't know—"

  "I don't know anything about you!" Julia cried, wanting more than anything to turn and run. "And I don't want to know!" Looking at Damien's leg, she realized she couldn't abandon him here. He realized her thoughts a second later.

  "It's fine," Damien said. "I can get home from here."

  "How can you get home when you're..." Julia's words faded in the hot air.

  "Scent, usually," Damien said, pulling out a cell phone from his pocket. "But I need to call one of my friends. He's a doctor."

  "Your leg," Julia said.

  "Not for me," Damien said. "For him."

  Julia looked where Damien nodded and saw the injured wolf lying on his side.

  "You'll have to stay here, too." Damien said.

  "I'm not going to stay with you," Julia said, her arms crossed defiantly.

  "Unless you want to risk running into another one of those wolves, you'd better stay," Damien said. Julia's breath left her body in a whoosh as she thought about encountering another wolf on the trail. It was miles back to the trailhead, and she had nothing for protection. Except Damien. Except...

  "Don't worry," Damien said. He smiled sadly at Julia, and she saw his golden eyes flicker underneath his dark brows. "They'll be here soon. And I promise not to bite."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Damien

  Damien smelled the three wolves in his pack before they emerged from the forest. Sitting on a log by the lakeshore, Julia kept a safe distance between the two of them. Damien could feel the soft ripples of feelings coming off of her body. Sometimes an intense wave of emotion would sweep across him, and he could almost get a hint of the thoughts she was thinking: "don't believe it, can't believe it...never have someone like him...liar...liar"

  He was crushed. Though his senses might be misleading him, his heart pointed solely in one direction, the direction of his Calling. There was no helping it. Julia was his mate, his true partner. For her to reject him now made perfect sense, but he was crushed nonetheless.

  "They're coming," he said to Julia.

  "What?" Julia asked. She turned around, saw the wolves emerging from the forest, and shrieked.

  "Damien! Wolves!" she cried.

  All of a sudden she was next to him, her arms clutching his body. Before when she touched him, it felt like heaven, but now her fear spiked intensely through his own nerves. His heart pounded, and he had to convince himself that he was alright.

  "It's okay," he said, trying to calm them both down.

  "Oh god," she said, her fingers digging into his skin. "There's three of them. You can't—"

  "Julia," Damien said, turning to her and caressing her cheek with his hand. "It's okay. It's my pack."

  He felt her emotions twist from fear to confusion to relief in an instant. Then she dropped her hands from him and took a step backwards, and the deep connection was lost. Only a ripple of anger came from her, and after that, embarrassment. She was embarrassed to seek his protection. He wanted to tell her that it didn't matter, that he would always protect her, but she clearly didn't want his help or his assurances.

  Jordan shifted first, dropping his bag on the ground before he changed, and Damien heard Julia's gasp of fright as the wolf turned into a human.

  "I thought you said she knew about us," Jordan said. He pulled open his bag and took out a change of clothes to cover his naked body, and the rest of the wolves followed suit. Damien could tell that Julia was watching Katherine shift when a blast of embarrassment hit his mind. Embarrassment, jealousy, guilt. He wanted to kiss Julia right then, to promise her that she didn't need to be jealous of anything, but he couldn't.

  "I brought some painkillers," Jordan said, kneeling down next to the injured wolf. "Looks like he's already unconscious, though. We'd better get him back to someplace I can stitch up these wounds."

  "You really did a number on him," Kyle said. As he sp
oke, Damien sensed Julia's anger near him.

  "I was defending myself," Damien said, a sliver of guilt inching its way outward of his skin. "Will he be okay?"

  "He'll be fine," Jordan said. "Just need to stop the bleeding. We parked the car as close as we could. It's a straight shot through the woods here."

  "I can carry him," Kyle said.

  "This is your pack?" Julia asked softly. Damien knew that all of the other shifters could hear her speak; in human form their hearing was duller than it was in wolf form, but still acutely sensitive.

  "Yes," he said. He felt her anger turn towards him, and he didn't understand why until Katherine spoke.

  "So this is the girl whose house we were looking at," she said, striding toward Julia, though her words were aimed at Damien. "Guess you haven't convinced her yet to sell."

  "Katherine, don't," Damien said.

  "Strange," Katherine said. "I would have thought you would seduce her a lot more easily. But I suppose shifting into wolf form would scare off any human."

  Julia's breath rasped between her lips.

  "I'm leaving," she said.

  "Guess we are too," Katherine said pointedly. "Back on the move."

  "Julia, please wait," Damien said. He followed her footsteps toward the trail. "I need to talk with you about all this."

  "There's nothing you can say that I want to hear," Julia said. Her anger washed red over Damien's mind, like storm clouds full of bloody wrath.

  "What if there are other wolves?" Damien pleaded.

  "Then they'll kill me."

  "Julia, don't do this—"

  "Go back to your goddamn pack and forget about me!" Julia said. Her voice was trembling, on the edge of tears, but all Damien sensed was rage in the air. She stormed off and left Damien standing alone.

  "I can't," Damien whispered, but she was already gone.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Julia

  Julia went straight up to her room when she got home. Granny Dee was in the kitchen baking and the last thing Julia wanted to do was explain why she was crying her eyes out.

  Oh, that guy I fell madly in love with? Yeah, he's a werewolf. Oh, and he already has a girlfriend. She's a werewolf too. And they wanted to take our house.