The Wolf in Her Heart Page 3

  When Lou’s hand stroked along her side, it was enough reassurance to let her drift off.

  The car stopped, jolting Sam out of dreamless sleep.

  “We’re here. Well, we’re here enough, anyway. We’re ditching this car and walking to the motel half a mile away.”

  Sam yawned. “Okay. Hope you have something to pay with.”

  “It’s owned by a member of a friendly pack. We can hole up for a day or two.” Lou turned off the car, wiped the steering wheel, wiped the keys, and stuck them in her pocket.

  Sam started to question the activity, but thought better of it. She then looked around to gather her things up, but realized she had literally nothing to gather.

  Everything she owned was at the apartment, and it wasn’t safe to be there right now. The thought of her comfortable bed and her kitchen wasn’t useful right now, though.

  She got out of the car, hurrying to catch up to Lou.

  Walking wasn’t the same. It was the same, but not exactly, not quite. There was an effortlessness to it. Sam wondered about this, then assumed the muscle changes were already taking place.

  “You’re crazy, you know that?” Lou stopped and faced her. “You did something totally fucking crazy and I’m angry about it.”

  “I had reasons.” Samantha bit her lip and looked Lou in the eyes. “If I had to do it again, I’d do it again. We’re stronger now.”

  “We—“ Lou stared, then started walking again, then stopped again. “We shouldn’t have to be stronger. We shouldn’t have to be monsters. You had a normal life. You may have lost it forever.”

  “I’d already lost it! Rick did what he did. I can’t change that. I can’t help that the Colbys are tied to me.”

  “You could have kept me away. Rick was stable. Rick—“

  “Was a controlling jackass.” Sam felt tension in her sinuses.

  “You were innocent.” Lou muttered the words, her eyes casting down.

  “I was never innocent, Lou. I haven’t been innocent since I was eight years old. The world doesn’t let it last long.”

  “Well, I was innocent once! And now I’m—I’m this! The last thing I ever wanted was for you to end up like me. Now you are.”

  “I chose it, Lou! I chose this. I chose you and I chose to turn.” Samantha’s cheeks felt wet. “Dammit, Lou, I love you and I don’t want to be apart from you. If what it takes to be by your side is being a wolf, then I’ll be a wolf.”

  Lou sighed and shook her head. “You could have been with me without turning, Sam. That’s all. I’d have protected you.”

  “I can protect myself, now.”

  Lou turned and started walking. “I guess so.”

  Sam blinked. Was that what it was, to her? Just protecting some silly plain human woman?

  Samantha watched Lou trudging along the side of the road for a few moments, then started walking too, but didn’t bother trying to catch up.

  When she got to the door, Lou was already inside, but had left the door open.

  The motel room was a place to sleep and little else. Two beds, a perfunctory piece of art on the wall by the bathroom door, a dresser and a television. The blinds were closed, and stray light cut around and through them across the room.

  Lou was flopped on one of the beds, still clothed. “In the morning we can get an idea of what’s going on with the Colbys.”

  “Meaning?” Sam hesitated. Lou was in the center of the left bed, as if to suggest Sam should take the other one. Did I fuck this all up?

  “Meaning, they’re either going to sweep it under the rug, in which case, you’re probably off their Christmas card list but safe. Otherwise, I think they’re going to go on the warpath. In that case, we are going to have a hell of a time just—just surviving.”

  Samantha walked over to the other bed and sat herself down on it. “I don’t care.”

  “You should! You should fucking care!” Lou whirled over, glaring at her. “What the hell is wrong with you that you did this? Why are you taking this so calmly?”

  Samantha blinked and shrugged. “Shock, I think. I mean, would you rather I was panicking?”

  “Kind of, yeah.” Lou tilted her head, then sighed.

  “Lou, were you only interested in me because I wasn’t a werewolf?”

  Lou’s brow furrowed. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

  Samantha felt warmth in her face. “Yeah. I am. You’re acting like I did something wrong. I didn’t. I just did something you didn’t want me to do. That’s not automatically wrong.”

  “You used me to do it. Are you really wondering why that hurts? Were you only interested because of the wolf?”

  Sam drew a long breath. “No. But—I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t—“

  “Couldn’t what?”

  “I couldn’t not touch you. I was scared and alone and you were the only one there and I needed something so I could know I wasn’t holding you back. I was terrified.” Samantha clenched her teeth and shut her eyes, a leak of tears running down her cheek. “You’re strong, and you can do so much and you know so much and you have a pack and—“

  Lou held her hand up. “Stop. None of it matters, because I took everything away from someone else.”

  Sam knew what Lou meant. A few years back, Lou had woken from her change to find half a human corpse laying next to her, the other half in her gullet. “You mean the woman you killed while you were changed?”

  “I took her existence away. There’s no way she was a threat to me, and I killed her out of pure instinct.” Lou shook her head.

  “I met your wolf, Lou. It didn’t seem like a monster. It just seemed sad, like you get sometimes.”

  Lou shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I know it’s a killer, no matter what kind of puppy dog eyes it used trying to get to you.” Lou yawned and settled into the bed. “Get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”

  Sam stared at Lou’s back, letting a few stray tears fall, until at some point she actually fell asleep.

  A knock came from the door.

  Instantly, Sam was awake and alert. Her body tensed like a bow about to release an arrow. Instinct told her the faint scent curling into her nose was another wolf. She kept her voice at a whisper. “Who knows we’re here?”

  “It’s okay. Trust me.” Lou yawned and waved her hand, then got up and answered the door.

  The man who stood there was thin and wore glasses. He had the beginning of a receding hairline and a few days of scruff. He held two grocery bags. “Delivery for the new guests?”

  “Sam, this is Alex. Alex owns the place.” Lou took the bags. “Did Reggie pay you?”

  Sam’s body slacked again. “Oh. Hi, Alex.”

  “Hey. Yeah, for today. I’ll try to bring something by tomorrow if I can.”

  Lou nodded and embraced the man at the door. “I appreciate it. Seriously, you’re a life saver.”

  Alex nodded, and looked between Sam and Lou for a moment, then shrugged. “If you hear a fire alarm, go out the back window, and run. Don’t answer the door unless it’s me.” He shut the door and footsteps signalled that he was walking away.

  “How will we know if it’s him?”

  “I recognize his scent. You just don’t answer the door, okay?” Lou set the bags down on the little table near the window and pulled out a bag of something brown. “Rare roast beef. Awesome.”

  The scent tickled at Samantha’s nose. “Guess going vegan isn’t really an option any more, huh?”

  Lou cackled. “Like it ever was. You haven’t really tasted ham yet. Or bacon.” Lou grinned. “Wait until you taste bacon with your new senses, Sam.” Lou’s eyes met Sam’s, and then her smile vanished and her eyes searched the floor as she turned away.

  Sam bit the inside of her cheek. What killed that smile? “Hey. What’s wrong?”

  Lou didn’t turn around. “Nothing. Never mind. I’m sorry.”

  “Tell me what you were thinking.”

  “You don’t want to hear it, Sa
m.” Lou’s brow furrowed deep, and she shook her head. “So, now we lay low for a day or two. See how the Colbys react once they find Rick’s body. If they sweep it under the rug, we’ll hear about Rick being in an accident. That means they accepted that he did something wrong and paid the price for it.”

  Sam sighed. “And if they don’t?”

  “Then we’ll hear that he died under mysterious circumstances, or worse, that he was murdered. If we’re mentioned, then we can assume the worst.” Lou sighed. “We’ll be on the run, at least for a while.”

  Samantha shook her head. “I wish I’d never met that asshole.”

  Lou gave a mirthless chuckle and turned back to the bags of food. “If you were lucky, they’d have turned you before the test results wrecked everything. You’d still be with Rick. You’d still have a reasonably comfortable existence.”

  “Shut up.” Sam’s gut writhed at the concept. That Lou would say such a thing, and after Rick not only kicked her out but then drugged her to try to get her back, made her hands into fists. She forced herself to unclench them.

  “It’s true. You’d have been better off with Rick.” Lou turned back. There was that thing, again, in her eyes. That broken, worthless sense of self-hatred.

  “Shut up!” Samantha had crossed the room and slapped Lou before she could think about it. “You can’t undo things. He threw me away, and you’d rather I was still with him?”

  “You’d be better off.” Lou rubbed her cheek.

  “Better off? Better off as a rich prick’s family incubator?”

  “Better off without me.” Lou’s eyes slipped away. “I can’t make your life better.”

  “You already made my life better, Louann. You changed everything. You woke me up. You’re who I always wanted, I just didn’t understand it.”

  Lou bit her lip and sighed. “I’m not good for you.”

  “Not your call to make, is it?”

  “Why not? How long do you think the thrill of being a monster is going to last? You signed on for a lifetime commitment to being a werewolf. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Thrill?! I love you! That’s why it’s so hard to watch you do this every time, Lou.” Sam took one of Lou’s hands in her own, then pressed the other one, palm flat, over her heart. “I love you. I trust you. Trust me to know me. Trust that I know what I’m doing being with you. I’m not some thrill-seeking idiot. I want to be with you, whatever it takes, wherever it takes me.” She held Lou’s gaze, and hoped the thumping in her chest could make her accept things, even if it was just a little bit.

  There was a crack in Lou’s expression, and then her eyes shut tight. “Okay.”

  “So we lay low, like you said.” Samantha squeezed Lou’s hand. “Give it a few days, check the news, and we’ll know what to do.”

  “Yeah.” Lou breathed the word out, then closed her eyes. A leak became a tear and rolled down her cheek. “I still don’t understand why you let it scratch you. Maybe I never will.”

  “I let you scratch me. I didn’t want to be different than you.” Samantha felt another tear roll down her other cheek, and sat on the bed again. She buried her hands in her face. “I was scared you’d leave me.”

  “What?” Lou’s question was muffled.

  “It’s the reason behind the other reasons. I was scared. I was scared that our differences would make you not want to be with me. I was weak.” Sam couldn’t hold back the wet, choking sobs.

  Lou knelt in front of her, and took her wrists, pulling them away from her face gently. “You were never weak, Samantha. I knew you were strong from the first time I met you. Some people would have been destroyed by what Rick did. Some people would have given up on themselves or on life. You didn’t. You hurt but you didn’t stop.”

  “That’s not what strength is.”

  “That’s everything strength is,” Lou whispered, and leaned in to press a kiss to Samantha’s lips, warm and gentle, possessive and comforting all at once.

  Sam whimpered and tears began to flow like a river. Everything crashed into her brain—two days of her life gone with no memory, Lou bleeding and fighting Rick, Rick’s throat gone and gushing blood, and Lou’s wolf, whining outside the bars of the cage, uncomprehending why she wasn’t with her mate.

  Lou wrapped tight around Sam. “Shhh. I know. I know it’s a lot. I know I’m angry but it’ll—it’ll fade. I love you too and I just don’t want to see you become something you hate, Sam.”

  “I won’t. I won’t because we’re together. I won’t because you love me and you won’t let it happen.” Sam wiped away tears. Just saying it made her feel sure it was the truth. Lou might not be perfect, but she was trustworthy and she was loyal.

  Lou leaned back, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips. “You are such an optimist.”

  “I have good reason.” Sam kissed Lou, putting her arms around Lou’s neck. “I have you.”

  Lou was trying to maintain a disapproving glare. “I’m still mad at you.”

  “I know. I know you are, and I’m sorry it happened this way, but I’m not sorry it happened.” Sam met her gaze. “I’m not sorry I’m with you. I never will be.”

  Lou’s brow furrowed, but her eyes softened. “I was supposed to save you.”

  “You did save me.”

  “I mean from all this! You should be home, finding yourself, talking to your mom. You should not be hiding from monsters and working out when the next full moon is so you don’t kill someone.”

  “Stop. You can ‘should’ all day long, Lou. It doesn’t change what is. I am a werewolf now. You and I are mates.” Sam pressed another kiss to Lou’s lips.

  “You hurt me. You hurt me and it was wrong.” Lou’s voice had shifted, the anger no longer its primary color.

  “That’s why it’s called make-up sex, doofus.” Samantha stamped little kisses along Lou’s cheek, then suckled on the side of her neck. “I love you, Lou. I’d do anything for you. Kiss me. Touch me.”

  “You don’t want that. You just think you do.” Lou gave a soft whine, her hands quivering and warm on Sam’s back. “This is your wolf talking, Sam. You’re not thinking straight.”

  “I am definitely not thinking straight.” Samantha nuzzled under Lou’s chin, giving little licks there, moving to her neck. Even just the taste of Lou’s skin was different, more intense and varied and strange. “I’m thinking about you. I’m thinking about how you taste. I’m thinking about your hands holding my wrists.“ It was the truth. Sam wasn’t precisely sure how she’d slid into it so easily but it was on her mind. Maybe it was proximity. Maybe it was coming down off almost being killed and finally being somewhere safe. Maybe Lou was right, and it was the wolf, but the wolf was part of Sam now and nothing would change that.

  Lou gave a soft growl and both of her hands slid, slow and cautious, down to the small of Sam’s back. “To think I called you ‘innocent’.”

  Sam bit her lip and lifted her eyes to meet Lou’s. ”Maybe I didn’t want to be innocent in the first place.”

  Lou’s hands finally stopped to squeeze Sam’s buttcheeks, her fingers pressing into soft, warm flesh. She turned her head and took Sam’s neck in her teeth.

  Samantha gave a loud whimper and felt herself become a little slack all over. The bites had always been electric in her flesh, but now they were more. Something in her instincts told her this was simply where she belonged, being pushed back on the bed with her throat in her mate’s teeth. Blood sang in her veins as she squealed.

  Lou was on top of her. “You are so lucky I don’t have anything to tie you down with.” Lou crossed her wrists and pinned them against the bed. “I’d tease the shit out of you and leave you frustrated.”

  The thought sent confusing shivers through Sam’s spine. Lou’s face said she was serious, that she was perfectly capable of doing exactly that and leaving Sam burning, needy, open. “You don’t, though, and that’d be so petty.”

  “I suppose you have a better suggestion?”


  Samantha forced herself to say a thing she’d bit back a few times now, afraid to find out if it was the truth. Her voice faltered, but she got all the words out. “I seem to remember s-someone saying they could make me scream . . . with just their mouth.”

  Lou’s eyes narrowed but her mouth flashed the razor grin Samantha had come to know and shiver at. “I did, didn’t I?”

  Samantha panted. She was hungry, hungry for raw meat and sunlight and racing through the woods—but more than anything, she was hungry for Lou, for the strange perfect woman on top of her in the darkness. “So was it just talk?”

  Lou’s grip on her wrist tightened. “It wasn’t.”

  Sam bit her lip. “Show me.”

  Lou’s lip curled slightly, her teeth gleaming in streaks of light that shone through the blinds. She took her free hand and hooked two fingers into the cleavage of the blouse, then yanked down hard, pulling at the shoulders of the material, sending buttons to the carpet and cool air over Samantha’s upper body.

  Samantha bit back a squeal. The sensation of slack fabric with loose torn threads on it felt strange, but right somehow as well.

  Lou slid a hand behind Sam’s back and lifted her, then pulled the bottom of the blouse up under her, taking the whole of it right off her arms. Lou aimed a hungry stare at Samantha, panting, then dipped her head down.

  The first target was her collar bone, somehow. Gentle pressure of teeth on skin gripped it through her skin, and Samantha squirmed at the bite as Lou’s tongue lashed over the flesh. Licks came after, as if apology. Most were over the bite, but then they spread to the center of her chest, over her hammering heart.

  “I can smell your fear, Sam. You don’t have to do it if you’re afraid.” Lou’s words washed over saliva-slick flesh.

  Samantha had the horrifying thought for a moment that Lou might stop. “I want it. I’m scared but I want it. Please, Louann.”

  Lou brought her mouth to Sam’s and took it, snarling softly into Samantha’s mouth as she did.

  Sam whined, stroking Lou’s tongue with her own, unable to stop herself.