Cursed To Death

“Have you ever been in the shadow lands?” she asked coolly, never taking her eyes off his. “Have you ever seen the labyrinth of caverns in there?”

“No,” he said in a low rumble, closing the gap between them. “Show me.”

“Hunter took Silver Hawk in there on a shaman spirit walk, and its not advisable. Besides, I don’t know if your physiology will handle it, just coming out of a hard transformation. You’ll die.”

“Why do you keep trying to save my life if all you do is torture me?” he asked in a sullen tone, the low timbre of his voice a melancholy rumble. “Where is your mercy?”

“I don’t want you to die, don’t want our clans to go to war, don’t want to pit brother against brother, and… shit… what do you want me to say? I care about you, all right? I’m made of flesh and blood just like you are. But I’m trying my best to function with honor under some really fucked-up circumstances.”

Why tears had risen in her eyes, she wasn’t sure. All of a sudden she felt trapped and claustrophobic inside the tight ambulance confines. She needed air. Being this close to Shogun and all that beautiful naked skin was making it hard to breathe or make sense.

Shogun finally nodded and conceded with his intense, almond-shaped eyes. “You were gone for hours… I didn’t know what to think.” He let out a weary sigh. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, either… my honor crumbles before you. Yes, Hunter is my brother… but…”

“Don’t say it,” she whispered. “Please don’t say it.”

“When you were gone with him for hours… all I could think of was that you’d given yourself to him as I lay in agony unable to change out of my wolf and leave like a man. Sasha, have you any idea what that was like?”

She couldn’t answer that charge, nor was it advisable to get into the fine points about the fact that she was, after all, Hunter’s life mate. Not right now, not when Shogun was like this-irrational, and making her that way, too.

“I came back to be sure you were all right… and you weren’t.” That was no lie, even if the rest of what she’d said had been a series of evasions and errors of omission.

His fingers gently traced her cheek and found her hair. “No, I wasn’t all right and I’m not sure that I am now.” He nuzzled her hair, breathing her in, pulling her into a deep embrace. “Sasha…”

The moan he released when his body molded to hers felt like a depth charge inside her womb. He took her mouth with desperate hunger, his hands splaying across her ass and the small of her back, moving against her as though already inside her, pulling at her clothes to get her out of them.

Functioning with a divided mind, she was losing her personal battle with resistance. Rational thought ebbed by the second. Primal urge replaced promises and protocols. His breathing was ragged, trapping hers and making it follow his. She held his back when she’d meant to push him away. God, he felt so good; his scent was so undeniably male. Her body was becoming pliant, moving with the ancient give-and-take rhythm of all species that right now invited disaster. The temptation to allow her palms to slide down over his sweat-slicked ass made her hold the small of his back harder. Want dampened her, began to swell her to discomfort with sudden heat. His nostrils flared as he picked up the scent of her need and groaned. She lolled her head back, almost too weak to stand.

“We can’t do this,” she gasped as he rained hot kisses down her throat. Her hands played over sinew-thick shoulders and caressed his biceps. “We’re not in our right minds. There’s a-”

Another harsh kiss blotted out her words and made her legs go wobbly. A shudder claimed him, claimed her, and brought her out of the kiss on a breathless gasp.

“Shogun, there’s a spell,” she breathed out when he sought her neck again, pressing a throbbing erection against her thigh. Oh, shit, safe haven, and there wasn’t a shadow big enough to claim her-except for his. “We’re under the influence… we’re…”

“I know,” he rasped, hands sliding up her back beneath her shirt. “It’s taken me over since the first time I saw you-oh, God, Sasha, I’ve wanted you like this for so long. If it’s war, so be it.” His hands rounded her torso in a burning sweep that covered her breasts and made her cry out. “Can you stop this? Do you want to stop this?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer as he pulled her bottom lip into his mouth.

Sasha’s back slammed into the wall as Shogun pressed his body against her, his tongue tangling with hers, and she barely felt the ambulance jolt to a halt. A few seconds later the door opened and the distinctive click of a shotgun stilled Shogun’s passion. She heard him snarl. Frantic, she wrapped a leg around his thigh to slow him down from an instant death lunge.

“Don’t attack him if you care for me,” she said quickly. “He’s my dad.”

CHAPTER 11

“Step away from my daughter or die where you stand,” Doc said, his voice low and deadly. Rage danced in his eyes, the muscles in his arms and shoulders twitching from it.

“He’s not hurting me, Doc,” Sasha said quickly, not releasing Shogun, quite unsure of how either man would react.

But it only took a second of staring into Doc’s eyes to see that he was under the dark magick influence. His normal cool-under-flre demeanor was shattered. That’s when it hit her: Doc was 50 percent Shadow Wolf. Even if he did take after his mother’s human side and couldn’t shape-shift, he still had more wolf in him than even Woods and Fisher, who were familiars. His allegiance would still be with the clan alpha… Hunter, Silver Hawk, the North American Shadow Wolf Federation, where his father hailed from. And Doc would now be an outraged father. Holy moly… this was rich even for Vampires.

Eyes wild, in a fighter’s stance, Doc flung Shogun’s clothes onto the floor of the ambulance.

“He may not be hurting you like I thought, but this here, what I’m witnessing, is cutting me to the bone!”

“If you shoot him,” Sasha said calmly, “I’ll die right along with him-you don’t have a clear shot.” She glanced around. Thankfully, Doc had pulled over in an abandoned parking lot nowhere near Dugan’s B &B.

“Take your hands off my daughter,” Doc said evenly. “You won’t molest her while there’s breath left in my body.”

Shogun nodded and lifted his hands slowly in the air. “That’s not my intention, sir… I love her.”

“You didn’t ask me for her! Your brother did-respect! She brought your mangy Werewolf ass back to life-I gave you meds, and this is how you repay me? With disrespect? Trying to rape her?” Doc brought the shotgun up higher so he could stare through the sight. “I thought you were fighting her in there, heard the side of the vehicle opening up like a tin can… heard your transition wails… then heard the punch and the thump, and didn’t hear her voice and got nervous.”

“It’s cool… uh, Dad,” Sasha said, appealing to whatever altered reality was playing itself out in Doc’s head. “He never laid a hand on me-like that.”

Doc lowered the weapon. “Then if he ain’t forcing you, what the hell is he doing all over you, huh?”

Shogun closed his eyes and cocked his head to the side. Sasha could feel the muscles in his abdomen coil with the need to pivot and lunge.

“There was no disrespect intended,” Shogun said through his teeth. “What happened here was… spontaneous.”

“Are you out of your damned minds?” Doc uncocked the weapon and looked from Sasha to Shogun, bewildered. “Do you have any idea what Max Hunter would…” Doc’s words trailed off as his gaze finally settled on Sasha.

Shogun backed up carefully. “Can I turn around and collect my clothes?”

“Yeah! Put on your goddamned pants.”

Sasha closed her eyes and rubbed her palms down her face. This was so not how any of this was supposed to go. Doc walked in a confused circle for a moment, took one look at Shogun’s groin, and spat.