She wanted him.
The rush of hunger astounded her. It was so misplaced she had nowhere to put it, no context by which such an absurd upwelling of desire could be understood. She stood and gaped at him.
He finished speaking to the men with him. Two of them peeled off, racing toward the gate, and he—he looked at her. Right at her.
“It’s you,” she whispered.
Did he hear her? She couldn’t tell. His face gave nothing away. He started toward her, moving slowly, like a big cat stalking its prey … would a part-time wolf be insulted if you called him a cat? His gaze never left her.
He made a gesture with one hand, some kind of signal. Two of the other men fell into step with him. “Lights,” he said. A second later Arjenie was blinking against the sudden flood of light—all of it directed out at the yard and the road. The porch itself remained unlit. The men remaining on that porch looked watchful and wary, but she could tell they didn’t see her.
He did.
His eyes never left hers as he stepped off the deck and kept coming. He looked about forty, with crow’s-feet tucked in the corners of his dark eyes. His face had no expression at all. He didn’t so much as blink. Maybe he was a robot? A robotic lupus, because she somehow knew he was last night’s wolf. A Native American robotic lupus, because that copper skin was stretched taut over broad cheekbones bisected by a high-bridged blade of a nose.
Apache? Navajo? She wanted to ask him which tribe, and why he could see her, and why his men weren’t asking him what he was doing, stalking something they couldn’t see. She wanted to stretch out a hand and touch him … and that was stupid, because he was a lot scarier in this shape than when he was a wolf. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry.
He stopped about five feet away. He’d been a big wolf. He made a very big man. “I am so scared,” she whispered.
“You don’t smell scared.” His voice was so low, rumbling out of him like a big cat’s purr. “You don’t smell like anything.”
“You can hear me!”
“Hear you, see you, but I can’t smell you.”
She blinked. That was interesting. Apparently her Gift didn’t work on him, but Dya’s potion did. “That’s because of the potion,” she whispered. She could not bring herself to speak out loud while using her Gift. Or maybe her voice was strangled by fear.
“You’ll tell me about that shortly.” He gestured at the cane she was leaning on. “You fell last night. Are you injured?”
She nodded. “Are you? I heard shots. So many shots.”
“Nothing significant.”
“Benedict?” one of the men with him said—a redhead with freckles everywhere. Truly everywhere. He hadn’t bothered with cutoffs. “Who are you talking to?”
“You don’t see her,” the robotic lupus Native American said. The redhead shook his head. “Do you not hear her, either?”
“No.”
There was no point in exhausting herself further. She was well and truly caught. With a sigh, Arjenie released the draw on her Gift.
“What the—”
“Where did she—”
“Ohmygod, she—”
Arjenie squeaked. It wasn’t good to startle armed men. A gun had practically jumped into the hand of a blond man on the porch. He aimed it right at her.
The large robotic lupus in front of her never looked away from her face. “Who drew?”
“I did,” said the man who was pointing his gun at her.
“Put it up. You and Saul go to the Rho’s. Wake him and report.” He used another of those hand signals, this one sort of like a beauty queen’s wave. The two men took off at a run in the general direction indicated by that wave.
For a moment she watched them. She couldn’t help it. They were so lovely and so swift.
The one they’d called Benedict shook his head. “Damned if she didn’t deliver you to me. You might as well tell me your name.”
FIFTEEN
“I’D rather not,” Benedict’s Chosen said apologetically.
Her hair was red. Somehow he hadn’t expected that. It was also insane. She’d pulled it back, as she had last night, but it was so frenetically curly he half expected to see it wiggle out of its bonds right before his eyes.
There were many details he’d missed last night. Part of him noted them, appraising an intruder who’d violated Clanhome’s boundaries for an unknown purpose, using unknown abilities, on the same night that Lily had been attacked and injured.
Worry beat in him like a second heart. Lily had needed surgery. She’d made it through that, and Nettie was consulting and would fly out if she was needed. Benedict could do nothing right now to make Lily safer or speed her recovery, so he focused that worry where he could make a difference—on Clanhome’s security.
Even as he did, part of him drank in other details.
His prisoner wore jeans, a jacket, a T-shirt, and ugly brown shoes. The shoes looked orthopedic, suggesting he’d been right about a physical impediment. No visible weapons aside from the cane. She wore a silver pinkie ring on her left hand. A Wiccan star.
Her skin was porcelain, with a few freckles sprinkled across a small, crooked nose, as if someone had salted her. Her eyes were the color of sea glass.
Her glasses were framed in thin black metal. The lenses weren’t Coke-bottle-thick, but were substantial enough to suggest she saw poorly without them.
Her jacket was too large for her. It hid her breasts.
It could also hide a weapon. He didn’t smell one, but he didn’t smell her, either. That disturbed him. Both that lack and his response to it made it hard to assess her properly.
Her legs were long. Though she was only slightly above average height for a woman, she looked taller because so much of that height was provided by those long, thin legs. He wanted to know what those legs felt like wrapped around his waist.
She presented no physical challenge, but her abilities and motives remained unknown. He had to treat her as a possible danger.
“You’re staring at me.”
Yes, he was. The breath Benedict drew was ragged. He wanted to sink his hands into that crazy hair. To sniff and taste that smooth, pale skin. He was supposed to do those things, and more. She was his mate, though she didn’t know it. This fragile woman with huge, frightened eyes was his mate.
Was the Lady insane? “What are you doing here? Were you looking for me?”
“No, I—oh, I should have said yes. You might have believed that.” Her face fell. “I can’t tell you why I’m here, but it’s a good reason. I’d like to leave now.”
“No.” Benedict refused to feel sorry for her, no matter how fragile and frightened she seemed. “Matt, call Seabourne. Tell him to meet us at the Rho’s house. Be sure he knows we’re on yellow alert.”
“Cullen Seabourne?” She had pretty eyebrows, perfect half circles she lifted now over the frames of her glasses.
“You know him?”
“No, but I … I talk too much. I should shut up now, but I need to call my aunt.”
“Your aunt.”
She nodded vigorously. An escaped curl bobbed into her face and she brushed it back. “I’m going to pass out soon. I don’t want her to worry, so I need to let her know ahead of time.”
“How soon?”
She gave that a moment’s thought. “It’s hard to say. Within the hour, probably.”
Matt called out, “Cullen’s not answering.”
“Then go get him.” Matt leaped off the porch, hitting the ground at a run. Benedict spoke to his captive. “Give Shannon your cane and your tool belt and remove your jacket.”