Kiss and Kin: A Sexy Shifter story Read online

  She didn’t see El and the Czech werewolf anywhere. Another guy, dark haired, joined the group now. Lark concentrated on staying upright while she tried to get the attention of the werewolf next to her. She labored to keep her eyes open.

  “Hey,” she said. It came out nearly inaudible. “Hey!” she tried more loudly, and took one hand off the table to put it on the shoulder of Stefan/Sergei/whomever. He finally looked up at her; she all but sagged on him at this point. He said something. It sounded all muffled and distorted, like it came from underwater.

  He flashed her a smile—an insincere, predatory smile. Panic paralyzed her.

  The other werewolves and the new guy looked straight at her. She suspected they recognized her distress, yet they just stood there and watched.

  The werewolf stood and grabbed her upper arm. She tried to pull away and almost fell down. The other werewolves ignored her. Now she knew they did it deliberately. All around her people talked and danced and jostled. No one noticed her about to pass out while this scumbag clutched her arm and his buddies ignored her.

  She grabbed a chair, trying to pull away. The werewolf put his arm around her waist as if to help her. He kissed her on the cheek. Helpless, more terrified than she’d ever been, she was about to be dragged away in the middle of a crowd.

  She tried again to pull away, then pushed at him feebly—for God’s sake, the guy stood four inches shorter than her. I’m not drunk, she raged helplessly, internally, I’m just…dizzy, and sleepy and scared, and…

  Taran. Taran could help. But she couldn’t see him—she couldn’t see anything. She had double vision, maybe even triple, after only two cosmos.

  Sobbing with fear, she began to scream. “Taran! Taran! Help me! Please! Tar—” No matter how hard she screamed, nothing came out but a thin wail no one would hear over the noise of the club.

  She choked on her sobs and fell silent, but finally people noticed. The crowd in front of her seemed to ripple. A bunch of people screamed and fell down. The creepy werewolf let go. Someone caught her as she fell.

  Please be Taran.

  The scents and sounds of places like this played hell on a werewolf’s senses. Alcohol and perfume, sweat and pheromones and fabric, all ran together in one meaningless smell. Music and voices, ice against glass against bottles, created a background roar through which he struggled to pick out words. He could hear better in here than any human, but nowhere near optimal.

  It took a few minutes for the sound of someone calling his name to pierce the cacophony. A voluble blonde chatted him up; he’d dropped the name of a missing woman, she’d claimed to have known her slightly, but as they talked Taran realized the blonde didn’t know anything useful.

  That’s when he heard it, faintly at first.

  “Taran!”

  Why would Lark call him from across the bar, when he’d just told her…

  “Taran! Help me! Please! Tar—”

  The cop heard the terror in her voice; the wolf responded. Taran shoved his drink at the startled blonde, who didn’t take it. He ignored the dull thud of lead glass hitting hardwood. Soda splashed the blonde’s legs as he closed the distance between him and Lark in seconds. Tables, chairs and patrons flew everywhere. Taran ignored it all, focused solely on the werewolf with his arm around a feebly struggling Lark. The werewolf let go of her abruptly and disappeared.

  Taran caught her as she crumpled. Only then did he become aware of other people around them again.

  He knelt with an unconscious Lark in his lap. Bouncers came running. He snarled, “Call 911, now!” and they ran to comply.

  He smelled the earthy odor indicating incipient change; it came from him. He hadn’t changed involuntarily since his teens; stress could make betas do it, but alphas only did it under extreme emotional duress. A mate’s near abduction would qualify.

  If he changed in the middle of a stirred-up crowd like this, humans and non-humans alike might panic. He lowered his head and closed his eyes so no one would see if they began to yellow. A minute later, he had it under control.

  A guy identifying himself as a doctor checked Lark’s pulse and pupils.

  “I saw her thirty minutes ago. She didn’t get passed out drunk that fast. She doesn’t drink like that.”

  “No respiratory distress, heartbeat’s good,” replied the doctor. “If someone slipped her a mickey, it’ll show up in a tox screen.”

  Denardo dispersed the crowd and leaned over Taran’s shoulder.

  “What do you want me do?”

  Taran didn’t take his eyes off Lark as he stroked her hair and face.

  “You get a look at the wolves she was with?” he asked Denardo absently.

  “No. I was over there.” He gestured to the other side of the room. “I didn’t notice anything wrong till I heard people screaming.”

  “I got a little rough with the crowd,” Taran muttered.

  “I talked to some people at the next table,” the rookie continued. “They said it just looked like a wolf and a drunk girl. She didn’t make any noise they could hear.”

  Drugs might have made her unable to scream. It would explain why none of the missing women created a scene before disappearing. Maybe they’d tried and couldn’t.

  “I thought she looked like she was in trouble, and when I got over here a wolf was dragging her out.”

  He didn’t mention he’d heard her scream. He’d only heard because Lark was his mate. No one needed to know that.

  “Well, now we know how those women went missing,” he muttered. “It happened in the middle of a crowd. No one noticed a thing.” A cold, heavy weight sat in his stomach and something squeezed his heart—probably stark terror, which, like involuntary change, he’d not experienced in fifteen or twenty years.

  He didn’t realize he held her tightly against his chest until an EMT tapped him on the shoulder and said deferentially, “Sir? We need to get the lady on the gurney.”

  He stood with Lark in his arms and laid her gently on the cart.

  “I’m a cop,” he informed the EMT. “I’m coming with you.”

  Chapter Two

  Lark drifted below consciousness. Just as she felt herself surfacing, a wave of cozy warmth would crest, break and drag her back down. Voices rose, fell away and rose again. She rather enjoyed the sensation. Best of all were the dreams of Taran; not sex dreams, but she didn’t mind. In the dreams, he stroked her hair, caressed her hand, talked to her gently. Only in her dreams did he do things like that.

  Eventually, less pleasant sounds intruded—beeps, honks and hisses, several voices speaking at once. The snuggly warmth began to dissipate.

  “I think she’s waking up.” She recognized her best friend’s voice. “Lark? Sweetie? Can you open your—”

  “Move.” Taran, speaking in his real life voice—curt and grumpy.

  “Hey, watch it, assho—did you see the way he just pushed me?”

  “Give the wolf a break, TJ.” Nick Wargman, the Houston alpha and Taran’s best friend, sounded amused. It took a few seconds’ concentrated effort, but Lark opened her eyes to see Taran leaning over her, smoothing her hair with the back of his hand, his face very close to hers. She noted the dark circles beneath his sunken eyes. His customary stubble looked more like a beard.

  “Hi,” he said quietly. “How do you feel?”

  She frowned, confused. Why was he here? She tried to think about what she last remembered. Her mind gaped open, vast and empty like after a big booze binge, only she couldn’t remember going—wait. She did remember going out. Didn’t she? She went out, she…couldn’t remember. She gasped and tried to sit up, suddenly panicked and choked for air.

  Taran gently pressed her shoulders back down. “Take it easy, Lark. You’re okay, you’re—”

  “Hey, sweetie. It’s okay, we’re all here.” TJ came around to the other side of the bed and took Lark’s other hand, casting a “fuck you, too” look at Taran.

  “What happened? Why I am in the hospital?” she a
sked hoarsely.

  “You’re—”

  “Nick,” Taran said loudly. “Would you please ask your secretary to back off? I need to ask Lark some questions, and your secretary is in my way.”

  “You son of a—”

  “Minion, let’s step outside for a minute,” Nick said. “We need to tell a nurse she’s awake anyway.”

  TJ started to argue, then looked at her boss’s face and stopped. Standing on her tiptoes to kiss Lark on the cheek, she whispered “I’ll be back,” and walked out, but not before pausing at the door to toss an “asshole!” over her shoulder. Nick winked and smiled at Lark before he closed the door behind him.

  Taran didn’t watch them go. His gaze remained fixed on her, one of her hands firmly in his; with his other he began stroking her brow again.

  Faded blue jeans and a long sleeved, fitted beige sweater had replaced last night’s suit. He looked stale and disheveled and yummy. Maybe she didn’t care what had happened to her, she thought, as long as he just touched her like this a little longer.

  “Why were you such a jerk to TJ?”

  “Never mind that,” he replied impatiently. “Do you remember last night?”

  She closed her eyes to think. “Yeah. Yeah, I do,” she said slowly. “El picked me up, and we met some wolves she knew. I saw you. Didn’t I?”

  He nodded. “Yes. We talked.”

  “You spilled my drink on me.”

  He grinned at her. She wondered why the heart monitor didn’t explode. “I startled you. You spilled your drink on yourself. I bought you another one.”

  “Okay. What happened after that?”

  “I’m not sure. At some point, someone slipped some GHB in your drink. It’s used as a date rape drug, like roofies.”

  “I know.”

  “I lost track of you until you screamed for me. I ran to where you were, and a werewolf had his arm around you, and…” He paused for a minute, frowning, and stared at the wall above her head. For a moment, his hand gripped hers so tightly it hurt.

  “You looked like you were trying to get away from him,” Taran continued. “When I showed up, he let you go. He and the other werewolves ran.”

  “I remember feeling sick,” she said slowly. “And I tried to—I tried to tell one of the guys at the table, but—they just watched me. They wouldn’t help, and no one…” She paused. She hadn’t cried in front of him in years. “I screamed and screamed, but it felt like nothing came out.”

  “I heard you,” he said quietly. “You called for me, I got to you, that’s what matters. You may have actually helped us.”

  He told her about three women who’d disappeared, all of them last seen at Le Monde.

  She sat up suddenly. They nearly bonked heads. “Eloise!” she gasped. “What happened to Eloise?”

  Taran shook his head. “She wasn’t there when I got to you. I looked her up on your cell phone. I started calling her last night, right after we got here, but she’s never answered or returned the call.”

  “Last night? What day is it?” Daylight shone through the drawn blinds.

  “Sunday.” He glanced at his watch. “About ten.”

  “You think she’s gone, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “You know anything about the werewolves she met there?”

  “Just that they were European; one of them was Czech.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. We’ve been hearing about Eastern Europeans werewolves in town, running drugs and guns and women, and…”

  He stopped as a nurse came in to check on her. After a brief, brisk exam, the nurse said the doctor would be by shortly and left.

  “You want me to go get you something to eat?”

  “No, I want you to finish telling me about the European werewolves. Drugs and guns and women and what, Taran?

  “Just…some very bad things.”

  She thought of the stories she’d heard, of women kidnapped and sold into brothels catering to werewolves, including werewolves who liked to change during sex. She’d always assumed such tales were urban myth, especially as they started in Europe, which never accepted werewolves and shifters as readily as the U.S. and South America.

  “I’ve heard they like women with fae blood,” she whispered. “Because there’s less chance of pregnancy.”

  “Do you know how to get in touch with her family?”

  “No, but someone at work will. Why haven’t I seen this in the news?”

  He frowned and looked abashed. “We wanted to make sure Le Monde really figured in the women’s disappearances. We couldn’t alert whoever’s doing this, because they’d just go to another city, and we didn’t want to cause a panic, maybe start a wolf scare.”

  The doctor arrived. After a quick examination, he announced he wanted to keep her another night. Before she could protest, Taran cut in.

  “Is that necessary? You said she seems okay. She hates hospitals.”

  “Most people do…” the doctor began.

  “No, she really hates them,” Taran said. “If I make sure someone stays with her, can she go home today?”

  “Well…I guess so.” The doctor sighed. “But I want someone with her the rest of the day, just to be sure. The effects of GHB can linger as long as twenty-four hours, so no driving till tonight at the earliest. I’ll start the discharge.” He left.

  “You knew about my hospital thing?”

  He shrugged and looked away. “Yeah. I guess Mom or Myall mentioned it once.”

  TJ had brought some clothes from Lark’s apartment. Taran stepped out into the hallway so she could get dressed.

  As soon as the door closed behind him, TJ jumped at him like a curvaceous little terrier. “Finally. You done? Is she okay? Did you yell at her? If you yelled at her, I swear…”

  Nick slouched against the far wall, silently laughing.

  Taran put an arm across the door to block TJ’s access. “She’s dressing.”

  “So? I’ve seen her naked a hundred times.”

  Momentarily distracted by the image that summoned, he didn’t protest when TJ, all of five foot two, walked under his arm and through the door.

  He went to join Nick against the wall.

  “You okay, wolf?” asked his Alpha quietly.

  “They almost got her. They almost took her, in the middle of a crowd.”

  Nick nodded. “You think they planned it in advance?”

  “No.” Taran shook his head. “Right now, I’m thinking this El chick was the target; they probably expected her to show up alone. Maybe she went willingly, maybe the other women did too. But when Lark showed up with El, and got a good look at them…I’ll have to check my notes, but I think the other women also went there alone to meet someone.”

  “You think they recognized you? Pegged you for a cop?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. It’s possible. If they did, and they saw her talking to me…” He put his hands on top of his head and leaned back against the wall.

  “I keep thinking about her being dragged out of there, no one noticing, and she wakes up alone and terrified, and they…” He closed his eyes, unable to finish.

  Nick crossed his arms and stared at the floor, ponytail dangling over his shoulder. “She’s not your blood, Taran.”

  “No. She’s not.”

  “So…feelings. You’ve got feelings.”

  “Yeah. She’d be shocked to hear it, but yeah,” he said morosely, grateful he could trust his Alpha with this.

  “As opposed to just wanting to fuck her.”

  “Right. Although I definitely want to do that, too.”

  “Are these feelings the biologically imperative, completely out of your control, last for a lifetime kind?”

  “Yep,” he said resignedly.

  “Your mother’s adopted daughter.”

  “Yep.”

  “Shit,” said Nick. “I’m sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I know how—”

  TJ emerged from the room.

  “I’ll drive
her home,” she announced.

  “No,” he said calmly. “I will.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “What if she doesn’t want you to?” the tiny redhead said stubbornly, hands on her hips. “What if she—”

  “TJ, we’re leaving.”

  “Wait a minute, Nick, I want to know why—”

  “TJ.” Nick didn’t raise his voice. But he said it with all the force of a Pack Alpha, and it worked on humans as it did on other werewolves.

  “Fine.” she said quietly. “I’ll meet her at her house.”

  “Whenever I get her there.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Leaving, minion,” said Nick. “Now.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Right behind you, master.”

  Lark looked so forlorn, so vulnerable as she sat the edge of the hospital bed, dressed in jeans and a sweater with her long legs stretched in front of her. Her glorious chestnut hair hung limp around her face. A raccoon mask of smeared mascara ringed her eyes.

  She’d never looked lovelier to him. He’d do anything to protect her.

  “Where’s TJ?”

  “Nick needed her to do some stuff for him,” he lied without compunction.

  “On a Sunday? When her best friend was almost kidnapped? That sucks.”

  He shrugged. “You’re stuck with me.” She just looked at him.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

  She jumped to her feet without a word and ran into the bathroom. He followed when he heard her vomiting.

  “Lark—”

  She waved a hand behind her back to shoo him away. He ignored her. He gathered her thick hair in his hands, making sure to get all the errant wisps out of her face. He held it for her and rubbed her back as she threw up.

  Even as she puked, moaning wretchedly, he repressed a disgraceful shudder of pleasure at the feel of her hair in his hands. He’d wanted to run his fingers through it so many times, for so many years.

  He remembered the hard-on he got when she spilled a drink on herself last night; today he couldn’t keep his hands off her in the midst of her obvious misery. What would he do next, he mused—feel her up in her sleep? If he could get away with it, then yeah, probably so.