PAWN AMONG WOLVES CH. 03

Gemma's phone beeped as they turned the corner into her road, and she twitched it out of her pocket while Bethan murmured wickedly, "Mmmmm-Mac?"

It was.

'Don't go back to the flat yet, I haven't cleared it.'

What? Gemma stopped on the street and stared at the terse message, incredulous.

"What is it?" asked Bethan curiously, watching the flush mount slowly in her companion's cheeks.

Gemma's eyes were sparking anger as she looked up, before passing the phone to her friend. Her teeth were gritted too hard to actually speak. Yesterday he'd made her drool, plead, and beg - and then left. Complete goodbye, The End, cut-off, nada. Don't call me. You are not part of my life.

And now suddenly she wasn't allowed back into her own flat either, into her own life, because he hadn't cleared out of it yet. What, was he afraid she'd steal a t-shirt as a keepsake?

And was that itchy feeling between her shoulder blades, the ghostly sense of being watched, due to him, his lot? I'll feel a lot better if that's all it is, she admitted to herself.

She looked across at Bethan, who, having read the text, was watching her friend with a strange expression.

"Are you going to explain? I didn't realise that mind-blowing sex made you all submissive and obedient."

Delete. Delete. I am not thinking about that. Despite her desperate internal evasion of certain memories, the flush in Gemma's cheeks flared a darker red. The images heating her blood wouldn't go away. Irritated, she unwound her jaw enough to mutter grittily, "I never said we had sex."

"No, you just turn scarlet whenever I mention Mac, or his gorgeous hair, or his eyes, his body, or ... um... the hearthrug..."

The hearthrug.

Gemma's cheeks flared from scarlet to purple, and she had to stop moving and shut her eyes.

"It really was on the hearthrug?" exclaimed Bethan, incredulous. "Way to go, girl!"

It was getting beyond irritating. Gemma found that her eyes held an infuriating sheen of moisture when she reopened them, and she glowered back at Bethan, snapping back into a quick march up the road.

"Sorry, sorry." Her irreverent friend sighed as she caught up. "Oh, I'm sorry, Gemma, I just never expected it to be tr-, sorry. My big mouth." Then, abruptly, "And what does he mean, he hasn't cleared it yet, is he leaving?" This time it was Bethan who stopped dead. "But-."

They looked at each other. Dark eyes into dark eyes. A pause.

Bethan's eyes shifted to the fading purple marks of the healed wound on her friend's neck, then back to Gemma's shrouded eyes, and she asked carefully, "Do you want to talk about this?"

"Not right now, no," responded Gemma, glancing away, then back with a wry smile as they got moving again.

"Okay. Do you want to come around to ours for a cup of coffee? - I've even got some carrot cake left unless Kate's swiped it. Leave him time to clear out? Watch a few repeats? Finger painting?"

Thank god for friends.

Gemma smiled her thanks, then slowed to a snail pace up the road towards the flat, thinking. She hadn't been able to sit still in her room at her parents' after the conflagration with Mac in there yesterday, what with also being fully healed - she refused to dwell on just how she'd been healed. Refused. Totally. Refusing.

I am not thinking about it. You hear? No, no tongues allowed in my thoughts- no. No. Damn.

This was now Day Two of bouncing off the walls with frustrated sexual tension. She'd stubbornly placated her way through her Mom and Dad's arguments and counterarguments and eventually boarded a plane back home. Not so she'd be alone to think. No. And definitely not to find Mac. No. More, just striving to be normal. Whatever that was, now.

There was the other reason she'd hurried to be gone - she had wanted to avoid the next dressing change appointment with the nurse. Gemma had covered the faint mottling on her neck with a fresh gauze before her parents had returned, it would have been tricky finding plausible explanations as to how, within a few hours, the seeping, festering wound, which had flummoxed the doctors for days, had miraculously healed. It had been a relief to take the gauze off at the airport. No more pretence, no more wolves. Safe back in her own, normal life.

I hope.

She was growing more tense the closer to home she got. And the text message was not helping. Her eyes darkened further as she thought a bit more about the different meanings of the verb, "to clear". As in the police clearing an area – of enemies? What if that was what he meant? What if the flat wasn't clear?

The memory of Nick stalking her around her bed trembled through her frame, and she gritted her teeth.

She could feel Bethan's eyes on her, and realised she couldn't go to her friends' home, because she didn't want to talk, or avoid talking, even with the best of friends.

"Tempting, thanks, but, I think I'll head into work," Gemma ignored the exasperated sigh from her companion, "My boss has been screaming at me for the results he needs for his presentation on Friday,"

"And is incapable of getting his own lily-white hands dirty," interjected Bethan grumpily.

Gemma grinned at her, continuing, "Besides, I've got some stuff of my own I'm dying to look into." Stuff that felt like it was burning a hole in her backpack.

Bethan rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Gem. I would've thought that of all the things to teach you that there's more to life than work, work, work, sex with Mac - the live erotic fantasy of the western world - would have finally done it." A pause, then, provocatively, "Or is he, after all, just packaging, with no substance?"

No substance?!?

Gemma swallowed against the sudden constriction in her throat, colour flooding her cheeks as her pulse speeded up and the blood began to shudder erratically through her veins. Her eyes lost focus and she faltered to a halt in the street as her brain plunged into erotic replay, her nipples tingling into hard, aching peaks inside her soft bra.

"Wow," Bethan murmured softly, a look of awe on her face as she surveyed the abrupt change in her friend's demeanour, the soft, rapid breaths and the deep flush of instant arousal.

Gemma looked at the ground, drawing deep breaths and hauling on her self-control like it was a recalcitrant heavy cover sliding off the bed that she was fighting to retrieve by her last faint grasp on one corner. Slowly mastering herself, she resumed her pace up the street, shuddering along in silence, dark thoughts whirling in the maelstrom of heat in her mind.

Then Bethan recalled that Gemma didn't want to talk about this, and leaped into the brooding silence with a staccato change of subject, "Did you hear Emma's plaint against Jason was called "completely unprofessional" by the judge?"

Friends, friends, friends. They may not be subtle but you have to love them for trying.

"Yeah, well, knowing Emma, she probably signed it 'LOL' with lots of hugs and kisses," Gemma responded thankfully.

Then continued in a rush, "He's moving out because we had great sex, but he thinks we can't possibly make anything together and that I should find somebody more my own - type - and I'm bloody furious with him for being such an arrogant, unyielding asshole."

Okay, maybe she'd missed out a few details, like that he was a werewolf - correction, wolf, and that she'd go mad if he bit and turned her - although not as mad as when he sends my pulse spinning into orbit and then I'm not bloody well allowed to touch him - and there was some wolf war on or something, so Nick had got him exiled somehow, but he was going back to his pack now, The End. Or along those lines. Mac hadn't exactly gone into details.

Bethan assimilated her companion's words as she eyed Gemma's heaving chest and the deep flush of arousal and anger colouring her skin, "Arrogant, unyielding, gorgeous asshole," she amended.

Gemma growled, "Damn right," and then stopped, pivoting on her heel and announcing abruptly, "I'm going to the lab." The pot of cream that Mac had used on her back was tucked in her rucksack, just waiting to give her some answers. At least she could work something out. The small phial he'd stripped from Nick had disappeared. She brooded a little on ulterior motives Mac may have had for protecting her. Not that she believed he'd not have protected her anyway, he was kind of stubborn that way - unyielding asshole - but it was soothing to rage at him internally for something.

"OK. Cool it, Gem. See you later. Come around when you're ready," Bethan replied, and they hugged briefly before they separated.

Late that evening, Bethan carefully slid the last tray of labelled test-tubes into the fridge, shut the door, and straightened, arching her back and rolling her shoulders to get rid of the crick in her neck. With any luck, one of those combinations would come up with the answer, and she'd know what that cream was made of tomorrow. One little step. One little piece of the puzzle. Piece of his world.

She knew it was irrelevant, really, but didn't want to, couldn't let go. Something kept tugging at her heart, calling her to try, try anything. Any connection.

She dismissed it from her mind, then lifted her head, swivelling it toward the side doorway leading out into the university park as she heard footsteps approaching. Despite knowing the level of security surrounding the campus, her heart jumped. Then she recognised the flat, heavy pace of the fat security guard who often took night watch. She sighed. Jim often stopped in for a chat on his rounds if he spotted the light on, he got bored of being on his own in the middle of the night. Whereas she liked to avoid him if possible, not liking his too smiling face and too exploratory eyes.

She quickly stripped off her gloves and grabbed a label pad so she could stick one on the fridge door, groping in her pocket for a pen. She didn't look up as the electronic lock beeped to let Jim in the side door, and his footsteps clumped in. Then he cleared his throat loudly, saying, slightly hoarsely, "Hi Gemma."

"Hi Ji-," the name died on her lips as she looked up and saw his companion. Frozen, stilled, her heart threatening to beat out of her chest.

Not again. Nick. What the hell is he after?

The dark-haired, elegant wolf was smiling a lopsided sneer of satisfaction as he loped swiftly towards her, and her hand clenched in convulsive reaction around a hard object in her pocket as she read the predatory expression in his eyes.

Not again.

Then an accusation speared out of her mind, You promised he'd leave me alone.

Phone! the thought skittered across her brain, threading through the mixture of rising panic and fury engendered by the approaching wolf. Gemma slid a finger down the front of the keypad to press the call button as she backed away, eyes on Nick, praying, just praying, that Mac's message was still on the screen.

She just had time to draw a breath to scream before a crushing hand closed around her wrist and, in a confusing blur of movement, Nick spun her around with a brutal, swift yank, his other arm curling around her waist to pull her back against him, trapping her arms, while the palm of the first clamped suffocatingly over her mouth. He easily lifted her squirming body to hold her tightly against him, and Gemma stopped fighting abruptly when she realised that her movements were making his partially erect cock harden against her buttocks.

Jim just watched, eyes wide, with a slightly eager expression that revolted her.

"Thank-you, Mr. Forbes," Gemma could feel the words reverberating in the chest she was clamped against. "Your assistance was most helpful. This building really is difficult to penetrate," Gemma's muscles tightened in automatic rejection when her captor gently pressed the hardening bulge in his pants against the crack in her buttock cheeks, dipping his head to breathe the last word into her ear. He smirked and continued, "Without drawing unwelcome attention, due, no doubt, to your own excellent security staff." Nick nudged her buttocks a second time with his arousal.

Corny. Feeble, Gemma scorned, determinedly holding onto her anger to keep the fear at bay.

The fat slime of a guard puffed out his chest slightly with a smirk, watching them with the querying, hopefully expression of a dog waiting for a reward. "Rest assured, the relationship we have built working here together will afford us both satisfaction," Nick answered the look, turning his head toward the main lab door as he spoke. Gemma's eyes couldn't help but follow, and she was puzzled as a young undergrad stepped in through the doorway, her toned, curved figure enticingly clothed in a short skirt, tight zip jacket and scarf, and long black boots. Her stance was wary and taut as she slid, eyes down, across the room toward them.

Oh-oh.

There was something in the young girl's movements that made Gemma more edgy, it was as though she really didn't want to be here, was struggling internally, but had no choice. Gemma had heard of this level of control, but surely Nick wouldn't hurt her, not one of his own wolves. But then - she didn't know the girl's name, but had seen her before around the library, studying desperately, always with a slightly tense, nervous, hunted expression. The same expression the undergrad wore now, as she faltered to a halt in front of them. Prey. The poor kid completely ignored the hand over Gemma's mouth, and her captive, immobilised position, although her eyelids flickered. Jim licked his lips, eyes roaming over her curves as his eyes started to glisten.

"Is she suitable?" asked Nick softly, and the girl shivered as the fat guard nodded eagerly, eyes fixed on the small amount of cleavage shown by the tight jacket.

"Good," the cultured voice deepened with an echoing note of power, "Anne, you are to pleasure this man for the night in whichever ways he commands, although you may leave if he begins to cause irreparable damage. He has done me a valuable service, and I have promised him repayment. Say nothing of this to anyone."

The security guard was already reaching for the curvy figure frozen in front of them, and he started to breathe heavily with excitement as he pulled down the short zip on her jacket and began to squeeze her full breasts in his podgy hands. Gemma was repulsed, watching the hopelessness on the young girl's face as she stood with her head down, being mauled, making no protest as the man's fingers groped inside the lace covering her to squeeze her naked flesh.

"Tell me how you're feeling," the guard breathed eagerly down into the girl's face as the tears began to cloud her eyes, "and take off your bra." A whimper of pain escaped Anne when the man twisted her nipples, even while she obediently reached behind herself and undid the strap, pleading, "Please, please don't do this, don't make me, I don't want to. Please."

Gemma watched, transfixed and horrified, and then abruptly found Nick was stuffing his tie into her mouth, tying it in a gag, before she could react. He deftly flipped her across his shoulders with her wrists caught in one hand and her thighs immobilised with his other arm, and headed briskly for the side exit.

"Soon you also will obey my every command," he murmured to his captive as he caressed a palm over her buttocks, easily holding her when she struggled fiercely to avoid his intrusive touch, shifting his grip on her thighs. He laughed softly. "Then once I've got a litter on you and trained you, I'll sell you like this also. It's a most lucrative way of serving one's pack and I expect you'll be in great demand. Like Anne.

Nick dragged Gemma's wrists across his chest and captured them in his right hand so that he could swipe the security card hanging around her neck across the reader with his left, but Gemma barely noticed. She was haunted by the empty desolation in the face of the semi-naked girl, Anne, begging disjointedly for leniency, as she was forced to her knees in front of the guard and ordered to form a ring with her lips. "No, don't, please don't, don't, please don't make me," her cries, distorted by the ring of her grotesquely obedient lips, were choked off when Jim eagerly guided his throbbing cock into her waiting mouth and ordered her to suck. One begging eye was visible, blind with tears, around the thrusting, wobbling buttocks of her assailant, hollow despair echoing in the depths as she was choked repeatedly, held tightly by the hair for his deeply probing cock.

How often has she been made to do this? Cold shivered in Gemma's veins as the door clicked shut behind them.

While Nick loped silently down the side of the building towards the park, he began to stroke the fingers of his free hand down across the front of her jeans and rub them against her pussy crack through the material. He laughed again, delighted, as the he girl carried across his shoulders heaved violently and tried ineffectually to yank an arm free. "The ones who struggle or beg are always the most popular," he drawled, then slid his fingers to the zipper and began to ease it down.

"It's so kind of MacKeld to leave you loose to wander so that I can also have you." Despite her desperate squirming, her zipper and waist button were soon open and the revolting wolf pimp slid his hand inside to finger her pussy slit through her panties.

Damn him. Damn him. Damn him. And damn Mac, he promised this wouldn't happen. So he'd better get here.

They reached the park trees and Nick abruptly up-ended her; Gemma gasped through the gag, disorientated, pressing her palms against the grass that was suddenly in her face as she collapsed downwards on her arms, feeling her jeans slithering off her legs, the cloth held by the grip Nick had around their ankles.

"It's so honourably wolfie to mate in the woods, don't you think? So sublime, so natural," he taunted, eyes gleaming down at the girl heaped at his feet as he rolled her over with a thrust of his foot.

Fuck you.

The elegant bastard prowled towards her with obviously malicious intent, and smiled slightly, acknowledging the anger on her face as she clenched her small fists.

"You've managed to heal enough to throw off the petrification, haven't you little manu? But don't worry; I'll instil it in you more thoroughly this time. You'll only be able to fight when I order you to."

Oh, you think so? One raging thought Gemma was clear on. She was never going to obey this vile excuse for a life form.

A rumble of a snarl checked Nick's sinuous stalk towards her, and her would-be assailant tensed as he swung to face the sound. Gemma's heart leaped, and they both focused on the heavily muscled, tawny wolf sprinting towards them across the empty playing fields. What-? Gemma had clear memories of thick white fur brushing her skin when she'd lain under Mac, of the white wolf unconscious on the hearthrug, so who was this? To Gemma's acute dismay, Nick relaxed again.

"Well, well, well," rising to his full height, "Who would have thought that he'd send someone that valuable just to keep an eye on a human?" A gleaming eye slanted down at her. "Let's hope you're worth it."

A slight shimmer in the air around him, and the elegant figure was replaced by a towering grey wolf. Nick snarled in response to the rumbling from the approaching challenger as he snapped into a powerful run, launching himself straight at his opponent. They crashed into a tangle of snarling, biting bodies at the edge of the trees, weaving a vicious fight as they ripped hunks of fur off each other, barging shoulder to flank as each tried to topple his adversary and gain the upper hand.

The fight rolled out of sight among the trees, and Gemma blinked, the fierce snarls and sounds of scuffling receding. Then they were overlaid by the memory of the poor young undergrad's hollowed, haunting eyes as she was forced to her knees before Jim. She felt her anger rising as she recalled the look of cruel enjoyment on the man's face. Their own bloody security guard. Her rage pulled her unsteadily back to her feet and, hauling her lab coat tight around her waist, Gemma suddenly lit into a sprint back towards the side-door of the lab, yanking her pass over her head.

Her mind was racing as she ran. Nick's order had been to do whatever the fat slob commanded, so if she could stop Jim's mouth, the young girl-wolf could not be instructed to do anything to Gemma. Or be violated any further by one of the men employed to keep her secure. Gemma was seething, livid that it was Jim in there, doing this. Human, known and to some extent, trusted. He needed to pay. He needed to be stopped. Now.

The pass cleared the swipe first time, and as Gemma slammed in through the door the yelping cries of pain that were being forced from the girl seared a red mist across her mind. Anne was bent over holding the edge of a bench, naked apart from her boots, crying out and begging Jim to stop, to be more gentle, to let her go, each powerful slap of his groin against her buttocks bouncing her breasts and her whole slim body as she was ruthlessly drilled from behind.

Raging, Gemma yanked up one of the heavy mechanical stirrer bases by its cable and ran swiftly toward the man savouring his brutal penetration of the girl. Jim's intently inward, glazed eyes turned to her and she saw a flicker cross his face. Then an intense spasm of lust crossed his features, drawing him back, and he looked down at the sobbing youngster impaled on his cock and began to rapidly ram himself into her, fucking furiously toward completion as the girl cried out again in pain. Just as the incensed Gemma reached the rutting guard and swung the heavy metal box around her head, Jim groaned deeply, pleasure erupting across his face. The box collided with the side of his head and a heavy grunt escaped, before his eyes rolled back in his head and his overweight form dropped backwards like a stone, cock sliding, still spurting, from the quivering, naked figure bent before him over the bench.

A noise behind Gemma jolted her heart, and she pivoted back around to see the grey wolf in mid air leaping from the door towards her, jaws agape and a frighteningly bestial gleam in his eye. Her hand tightened in fear on the cable within it and instinctively she jerked the still-swinging box on at full circle of her reach, the momentum of the heavy weight almost tearing it from her palm. It smashed into the side of the wolf jaw, knocking him sideways to crash into the fume cabinet and he slid to the floor with a faintly dazed expression, shaking his head as an amazed squeak escaped the young female now sitting upright on the bench, arms wrapped protectively around her still-booted legs, folded in front of her naked torso.

Gemma sprinted for the door and made it across the corridor to the common room before a vicious swipe to the side of her head slammed her sideways to sprawl across the tatty, upholstered chairs, ears ringing as she rolled onto her back.

Why aren't you here yet? She screamed at Mac in her head, and then desperation pulled her focus back to the vicious predator standing over her.

He was back in human form, rapidly shedding his clothing, chest shuddering with adrenalin-fuelled excitement from the fight and the chase, and his erect cock began to throb at the sight of the human female splayed at his feet and the defiance in her eyes.

"He left a Leighton to protect you, so he must see something inside you, little manu. Although you hit like a girl," he jeered. Nick's jaw was lengthening into the wolf shape, slavering as he looked down at her, breathing deeply in rising arousal. Violence had fuelled his excitement, and he was planning now on more violence to flame it further as the claws lengthened on his fingers and he began to quiver. "Now let's see what a pretty little wereie you make for me."

Fuck you. Gemma's mind wasn't being very inventive right now, but at least she wasn't frozen in terror this time. And she remembered Mac's words, remembered Mac. Keep him talking. "You wouldn't, the Warlords - the law, you can't, why would you, why risk the punishment for biting a human?"

The immaculately groomed wolf shed his expensive trousers, his arousal beating up proud and free against his taut belly and he smiled nastily as her eyelids flickered, "My, my, what an insufferably knowledgeable little manu you are. I'd better change you or I'll have to kill you. Humans go missing every day, sweetheart, who's to know?"

Fuck you. Mac'll know.

The thought steadied her. "Mac'll kill you."

Nick stepping stealthily closer, his lustful eyes locked to hers as the eerie shimmering light within them deepened. The quiver of excitement began to visibly shake his powerful frame and fur erupted along the lines of his powerful limbs. He sneered, "That whelp's been trying to kill me for decades."

Rage shook Gemma's small frame, both from shock at the raw scene in the lab and her own sudden, explosive violence, and from fear of the clear message in his eyes - that he was planning to make her scream much more than Anne had. In your dreams. Gemma was spitting words from her mouth even as she struggled backwards in a sitting position, away from the now looming wolf-man, "You've been trying to change people for decades but you're too weak, too undiscipl-,".

A paw shot out and Gemma was slammed down once more, bouncing her head against the frame of a chair and ending up against the floor, ears ringing and a trickle of blood running down her temple as she tried to focus on the frightening hair-covered lycan form moving to stand over her. His clawed, furry fist closed around his pulsing erection as he leered down at her, savouring his lustful anticipation, his deep enjoyment of her hatred, while he kicked her legs apart.

"But this way, sweetheart, I only need to add my shiele to his almighty lordship's - it hopefully won't have cleared your entire system yet. I've been wanting to try this out for years, but it's nearly impossible to get a bloody alpha to bite a human, so even if he's inconveniently healed you, it's worth attempting."

Nick lifted a foot and stomped hard on her stomach, winding her into immobility, then bent and ripped off her panties with his claws. "Even better that you're MacKeld's." He straightened again, looking down at her pussy, anticipation of the pain she would feel tightening his balls as he slowly stroked his throbbing, surging cock, and spread a bead of glistening pre-cum around the tip as he held her raging eyes, reading the deep fear hidden behind the fury.

His smile widened, "You were already finding it hard to say no yesterday - imagine what it'll be like when you're fully turned and you'll do whatever I like? I'll send him photos of you going down on me." His snarling smile widened into a vicious grin and he locked his eyes to hers, power and lust shimmering in their depths, "Screaming."

He pounced.

Gemma had been waiting, eyes a thin slit, concentrated, watching, refusing to be distracted by fear, fury, or the lust and anticipation shuddering off her attacker. One chance, one chance, the mantra echoed in her head. As she saw the shift in those eerie, gleaming eyes signalling the thought preceding movement, she jerked her leg up, knee folded toward his pulsing cock, and prayed, prayed he wouldn't notice, clawing at his eyes with her hands to distract him.

Nick, arrogance in every hair, held her eyes locked to his and effortlessly pinned the flailing hands of the feeble human, sneering into her face as he dropped onto her, wanting to savour her fear and watch her expression as he won and forced himself into her. His erect organ slammed into her braced knee with the full force of his weight behind it, and the male lycan shrieked in anguish as he dropped to writhe pole-axed across her legs.

Gemma screamed, her leg feeling as though it had splintered and he was now grinding it into the carpet, as she struggled and shoved desperately to free herself. She managed to roll out from under the incapacitated, yowling lycan, scrabbling in a searingly painful three-limbed crawl for the door, dragging the numb, useless leg. Then she heard a heart-stopping howl of fury behind her and claws ripping the carpet gaining on her, and knew she couldn't make it. So she hauled herself up by the door jam, standing upright to look back over one shoulder, glowering coldly at her adversary. He staggered back to his feet, a now lethal gleam in his furious eyes.

"Did you underestimate me, wolf?" she queried softly.

Suddenly, warm hands closed around her midriff and Gemma's heart stopped as she was lifted off her feet. Then the familiar, enticing musk curled softly around her senses, the world steadied, and her heart bounced from terror into staccato, desperate longing, relief shimmering along her skin.

At last.

Breathing deeply to recover from his mad run, Mac seated her gently on the kitchen worktop to the left of the door, then swung and launched into a furious leap towards her attacker; Gemma's scream still echoing in his head.

In the few seconds that Mac had taken to gently put Gemma aside, the grey lycan had hooked a silvery, slithering silken object out of the trousers lying discarded on the floor. He flung it with a panicked, snapping flick of the wrist towards the legs of the enraged alpha leaping for him across the tangle of chairs, and Mac abruptly fell to the ground, snarling and fighting to unwind the simple grey cord wrapped in a tight whipping around one shin.

Backing away from Mac, the grey wolf shimmered into place of the man and snarled ferociously at his escaped prey, promise of retribution in every line of his fur, before turning to sprint out of the far door of the room. There was satisfaction in Gemma's heart as she watched the faint wince, centred between his hind legs, which punctuated his every movement, even in wolf form. A little smile played around her mouth. She was only human.

Mac untangled the silvery grey cord from around one leg and hurled it aside, leaping back to his feet, just as they heard the slam of the front door of the building. He was a blur of impossible speed toward the exit, and then an engine roared into life outside and was punctuated by the screech of desperate car tyres.

Mac growled as he stilled in the doorway, a savagery to the long, low rumbling which seemed to echo around the room and shiver over Gemma's skin. She blinked at him, startled by the power of his voice as he turned to her, his black gaze fulminating as he held hers, striding over.

He came to stand in front of her countertop position, head only slightly higher than hers, and glared into her eyes, anger still simmering in his. Leaning on the counter, he encircled her with his arms as he bent forwards slightly to emphasise what he was going to say. A deep breath. Another. Mac's fists were clenching and unclenching convulsively against the worktop. He couldn't stop reliving the aching scream he'd heard as he reached the building.

Well, thought Gemma. Mac clearly had something to say and was quivering slightly as he held back the torrent of probably not very gentle words howling through his brain. Wow. Gemma watched the storm raging in his eyes in dumbstruck awe, but kept quiet - it didn't seem to be a good moment to start anything.

All that fire. If only he'd let her -. Her skin was tingling at his proximity.

"Do you mind explaining, Gem," the tone, when it eventually emerged, was a whisper of calm, in fierce contrast to the glare in his eyes, "why, when one of my best wolves nerves himself to delay the Grey by challenging him for you," his voice was deepening in anger, the words coming more rapidly, "instead of running, locking yourself in a vault, or waiting for me, you then turn and sprint to the only other threat around," the last four words ricocheted off her skin like bullets, and she winced slightly, " - the other grey pack-member?"

Um.

Um...

Gemma took a long breath. It wasn't that Mac actually scared her, but he was awesome, shimmering with power like this, and her blood was responding by making her mouth dry, her skin tingle, and a sudden sweet warmth flutter in her belly. And she had a feeling her voice would only emerge as a whisper. Besides, he maybe did have a teensey point, she had thought of that danger herself, only it had seemed irrelevant in light of the haunted eyes of the victim.

He stood over her, waiting for an answer, glowering down at her.

"She was being -," she began hoarsely

"She could've killed you," he cut her off flatly.

Let me finish the sentence. "She was being raped!"

"And she would have killed you on order." His tone was flat, ungiving.

"She didn't want-," Gemma's voice rose, but he cut her off again, a sharp movement of his hand emphasising his frustration with her inadequate reasoning.

"But she would have killed you on order. If Nick didn't. You didn't even call your police!" he whipped her phone out of her pocket and waved it under her nose, glaring at her.

Gemma eyed the handset guiltily. It would've been easy. And right. Because her plan might not have worked. Duh. "I didn't think," she admitted. And felt the angry male standing over her relax slightly, like she was answerable to him. Humph.

"But Nick didn't want me dead," she added. Not then. Maybe now. "He wanted - me," she shivered, and looking back up at her old flatmate, questions shading her eyes.

Mac tensed, staring down at her, a shudder rippling through his frame as the anguished scream replayed again in his head. "I thought he had you," he murmured on a thread of pain, tracing a trail of fire over her short nose with one fingertip, deep shadows in his eyes. Then the anger, the puzzlement slowly grew, and he took a deep gulp of breath, shaking his head in frustrated confusion as he straightened, muttering, "What the hell is he playing at? The council will torch him if he tries changing humans again." He added on a low growl, "If they got to him before I did." And began to prowl around the room, deep in thought.

Gemma watched him pace for a moment, a small smile ghosting her lips. He was clearly a wolf at this moment, whatever form he was wearing. She answered on a questioning note, "He said your - shield? - wouldn't have totally left my body yet and he wanted to-."

She was cut off this time by a string of curses as Mac lurched fully upright, scraping the fingers of both hands through his tawny hair. It looked like he was trying to pull it out as he swung to face her, his face contorted with anger, incredulity, fear, enlightenment. Finally settling on pure fury.

"What the hell? He'd kill you - or you'd kill yourself, or him, or rip into anything you could get your teeth into - experimenting with two mordeurs? Having just one master makes a were insane! Two?! That's crazy."

Gemma recalled the eerie light in Nick's eyes and another shadow crossed her eyes as she shivered again, faintly, "I think he is crazy."

"He -," Mac halted abruptly, head lifting and swivelling to the door as he heard something beyond her ears. Eyes suddenly alert, he was beside her, pulling her down from the countertop with a warm hand engulfing hers.

As her right foot touched the floor Gemma let out a gasp and crumpled over the limb, pain shooting fire through her veins. Almost before she had time to register the horrible scraping feeling in her knee, she heard another soft curse and was in the air, in his arms, and they were out in the corridor, beside the main door to the laboratory building.

The brush of her pass cord over her neck filtered through after the door had already beeped acceptance, and then suddenly they were outside, in the trees, where Mac bent over to pick up her jeans. The jolt to her leg as he leaned over forced a moan from Gemma, and she bit down hard on his cotton shirt, pressing her face into his shoulder to suppress another as he straightened.

Another heartbeat and they shimmered back through the smashed side-door to the lab, whipping across the room too fast for human eyes, past the tear-streaked, subdued face of the girl, huddled on the bench wrapped in a coat, past the cowering security guard, who tried to focus on them as the wind of their passing stirred the air. Jim was held in a tight grip by a burly, towering male with grey hair who nodded solemnly to Mac.

Gemma picked up the distant echo of the fast approaching siren as they re-emerged in the common room, and Mac set her gently back on the counter where she'd started, before whirling to replace the knocked about chairs into a semblance of order and push Nick's discarded clothes into the bin, growling slightly as he touched them. The carpet had always been shabby, and he rapidly grouped chairs over the ripped surface and scooped up the grey cord.

Then she was in his arms again, mind ticking over what he was doing while they flew silently upstairs, upstairs, and along the dark empty corridor to stop outside her office door, light gleaming through the crack at the base, just as the screeching police cars shuddered to a halt outside the front entrance.

He tried the door, then, "Key," he breathed softly, as he pulled a hand from her lab coat pocket, dangling the faintly jangling bunch by the ring.

Autocratic, thought Gemma with faintly satisfied amusement as she sorted swiftly through the chain and found the correct one. There was so much more to Mac than the laid-back photographer and barman she knew.

They could hear the heavy footsteps entering below, loud voices beginning questioning, oblivious to the faint click upstairs, and the quiet creak of her office door swinging open. Gemma's eyes struggled to adjust to the bright glare as Mac stepped in and the door lock softly clicked behind them.

He stilled and listened. Gemma couldn't hear anything at all, but watched him as he stood intensely still for a silent moment, then relaxed.

"How is she - the girl?" she murmured, slightly wary of reopening the subject. But she couldn't just leave it.

Mac quirked an eyebrow at her as he transferred her onto one arm for a moment so that he could scoop up the pile of books currently resident on her desk, and place her gently in their stead. "She'll be fine." He began looking around for somewhere to put the books, frustrated by the piles of them already heaped around the small room. "She switched to the MacKeld pack when I ran through the first time, she's clear of Nicolas and lodging an assault charge against the human with your police right now. Sam is acting the proverbial passing Samaritan who broke in to stop the assault."

Abruptly, Gemma's brows twitched together into a light frown.

"She took one look at you and switched packs? Does that happen often around you? With girls?"

Mac smiled crookedly at her, a teasing sparkle in his eyes, "I only accept the young and pretty ones." He bent to place the books on the floor just as she smacked him on the shoulder. Her hand bounced off and he didn't even twitch - she wasn't even sure he noticed.

"Actually her bond was weakened when she saw how feeble the Grey really is – flattened by a mere human – a teeny wee female human at that, with only a little metal box," said Mac.

He was grinning at her when he straightened up, and she scowled at his chauvinist racism, but then his eyes narrowed and his expression sobered." You held him off with your leg, too, didn't you picchu? But that didn't fare so well."

"It worked," retorted Gemma. "I'm still in one piece. You should answer phone calls faster."

Mac sighed, "In one piece relative to what? A broken chocolate bar still in the wrapper?" He smiled lightly as he lifted the lab coat to examine her knee, "And I promise to practise sprinting faster - not that I didn't appreciate the stagger you induced in Nick, but you've taught him respect now, let's avoid an action replay, huh?"

It struck Gemma how strange their exchange was. It seemed as though this wolf's constant, overly protective attitude was rubbing off and she now expected it, demanded that he protect her as her right. Which he didn't query, rather seemed to view as perfectly natural. Well, it wasn't natural to her.

Hmph. A new habit is easy to break.

Then Gemma blushed, realising she had no underwear, and he was pushing the coat higher, so she grabbed it and pushed it back down again. Mac's eyes were incredulous, teasing as he lifted them back to hers. Her flush deepened to a furious crimson as she read the smiling message in his gaze, but she stuck her bottom lip out stubbornly and held on, eyeing him defiantly.

He sighed and let go.

"I just want to heal you, Gemma. That must be painful."

"It's Ok if I don't move," she retorted. And added under her breath, "I've heard that "just healing" line before." Mac smiled slowly as he eyed her. Then he bent his proud head and kissed her.

?!?!?

Gemma was frozen, shocked into stillness by the unexpectedness of it.

Then simmering fire shot through her veins as his tongue traced slowly along her pouting lower lip, softly exploring, trailing tingling heat in a path along her sensitive skin. She dimly felt that this was a problem when arguing with Mac. He nibbled at her lip, her breath speeded up, and Gemma sank into a cloud of feeling, reason rapidly evaporating. Then he parted her lips and his exploration deepened as he threaded that playful tongue inside them along her teeth.

I'm sure we were disagreeing about something a moment ago.

Mac's deepening breathing was brushing her skin and lighting her blood as he played along her lips and closed teeth, savouring her taste, her warmth, her softening. He began to nudge the tip of his tongue gently against the barrier, coaxing her to open, and Gemma responded with a sigh of pleasure, parting to him.

Nothing important.

Then, as his tongue began to stroke more deeply along hers, Gemma found that sliding her fingers over his broad shoulders sent a tingle of arousal shimmering down her spine. When she scraped her nails lightly on his upper arm muscle he quivered lightly, and the feeling spread to her toes, liquid arousal beginning to melt throughout her body. Sinking, she could only feel his heat, his heady scent and the sensations his skilful tongue evoked as she sighed into his mouth and tilted her head back onto his cradling palm.

This just felt so right. There was something deep, meshed, fulfilled that rang with his being here - tongue in her mouth, tasting her, learning her, as he surrounded her with his scent, his heat, and his strength.

She arched up to allow him deeper access, and a sharp stab of pain shot up from her forgotten leg, making her flinch backwards and gasp. Before she even finished the movement, Mac lifted her to seat her more securely on the edge of the desk, frowning down as he admonished,

"Keep still. Let me handle this."

Handle? The word stuttered discord across her rioting senses.

What?

Abruptly, Gemma flung up a hand between them, covering his descending mouth as she realised - or thought, maybe - this, what-? He waited, eyeing her with a calm question - too calm in view of how she felt - while she pulled her swirling thoughts together - including the recalcitrant ones that kept lurching back to the feel of his lips against her palm - and the sight of his chest, stretched inside that t-shirt in front of her - and the scent of his musk. And -.

Snap out of it.

Gemma finally dragged round herself enough control to recover the power of speech. Well, eventually. In a moment. Now. Well, now then. Now.

She queried breathlessly, suspiciously, "Handle?"

He raised his brows in an 'Isn't it obvious?' expression. She scowled, lifting her hand from his mouth, ignoring the large part of her that wanted to trace his lips instead, and just looked at him, waiting for an explanation. Mac sighed, looking faintly guilty.

"It's an internal wound. I need to send my shiele inside, and it's easier to direct if you stop trying to distract me," Dumbstruck, she just stared at him as the words sank in, rapidly cooling her blood. They continued. "And if you'll stop hurting yourself."

Still just staring at him. Feeling cold spreading through her veins.

Staring. The space behind her eyes tightening with tears.

Staring.

"This- kissing - you - it's just healing?!" her voice almost rose an octave on the last word. Then she sank into silence, still staring at him, accusingly, holding back the tears shimmering in her eyes with a stark glare. His eyes hooded over and he sighed deeply again, a tinge of colour to his cheekbones.

"You need healing, Gem. Yes, it's a pleasure to do it, but principally, you need healing."

"So I'll call a bloody ambulance." Damn you. Damn you. Damn you. Bad wolf.

The bad wolf snorted, and shook his head.

"They'll want to know how you hurt yourself - and the police will wonder why by coincidence you were viciously injured on the same night as Anne, in the same building." There was a spike of jealousy scouring along her skin as he reasoned - Mac obviously knew the young, pretty girl- wolf's name. Already.

Bad, bad wolf. And he was trying to reason her into letting him kiss her for medicinal purposes. The congealed blood in Gemma's veins was beginning to tighten with rage, heating again.

"So I'll say I fell downstairs!" she hissed.

"They won't buy it."

"So what? Leave me alone - I'll sort something out, just get out. Go." The fury was beginning to make her shudder as she perched on the desk in front of him.

Suddenly, Mac lent over her, bracing his hands on either side of her thighs, so he could stare gravely down into her eyes. The lab coat had ridden up and she could feel his warm arm hairs tickling over her sides of her legs, but she wasn't paying attention. Much. Too busy glaring into that powerful, mesmerising gaze, black beginning to filter into the green.

"My main reason for needing to heal you now," he continued, a quiet note of implacability at the back of his tone, "is that there is a viciously homicidal Grey wolf out there somewhere waiting a chance to attack you for a third - no, fourth time, so I'm not letting you out of my sight until I have you somewhere safe." She opened her mouth to snap a retort and was shut up by a swift hard kiss pressed to her lips, causing an unfair surge of melting, and infuriatingly suspending her voice.

"And I can't carry you past the police without even your humans noticing something." Damn him, damn him. Just one kiss, together with his faintly aggressive brand of protectionism, and she was melting back into his gaze. Gemma rolled her own eyes, trying to haul her anger back in place. That kiss had just been so cheating. As was the concern for her welfare. "And I can't just stand about here and wait with you in this amount of pain," he finished.

This? Hah. This is barely noticeable. Deliberately, Gemma damped the reviving tingle shimmering through her blood by recalling how she'd felt when he'd left yesterday. Then all the afternoon. The evening. And the night. Today. Echoing. Missing. Pain.

They stared at each other.

"Well, I'm not letting you kiss me," Gemma said quietly.

"I'm healing you," Mac's voice was deep, tinged with faint frustration that she wouldn't listen. Been there, had that, Gemma thought glumly.

"It is just for healing, not a kiss," he reinforced, the edge to his words growing stronger as his eyes darkened.

What?!?. Thanks. "Tell that to my aching libido," Gemma muttered. She couldn't stand holding those gorgeous, distant eyes any longer, and dropped her own to focus on her fists, clenched on her thighs.

"It's kissing from this side, Mac, even if you're immune to me," she corrected him sadly.

"I never said I was immune to you," he answered brusquely, and from the corner of her eye, Gemma realised that she could see the shimmer of frustration trembling through his strong frame. It made her skin tingle – maybe she could work around his attitude. Maybe.

"I can just control my feelings when something more important - like damn well healing a multiple fracture - overrides them," Mac's voice held the echo of a low growl. No, she couldn't work him around. Like yesterday. He was paranoid about retaining control. The frustration was probably just from her not saying what he wanted.

She glowered back at him, "Well, bully for you. I prefer not to live with another series of x-rated sensations plastered over my body by you, when you have no intention of following through."

The heat was rising in his gleaming eyes, and he smiled slowly. "I'm more than happy to make sure you thoroughly -."

"No," Gemma cut him off on that one. Better not to let the memory of Mac and thoroughly get any more deeply imprinted in her mind and body. Her mind and body weren't listening to instruction, off reliving some of their favourite highlights, raising goosebumps across her skin.

Mac wasn't listening either, and leaned in closer, the growl deepening. His musk teased at her and colour traced along her cheekbones. This so wasn't fair.

"No," she repeated, placing her hands on his chest to hold him away. They tingled where she touched him. "If I can't touch you, then you can't touch me. At all," she stated brusquely.

Then she struggled to ignore the little voice inside her whispering that she was touching him, just a little bit, and he didn't seem to mind, so why not slide those hands a bit further down. Down. No, further than that.

Luckily, he clamped her hands under his, and growled again.

"Gemma, I told you why we can't - I can't control the change when I get too excited."

Many people would have been nervous to have a large, powerful, aggravated male glowering down at them, growling angry words.

"So just shut up and let me kiss you," the angry male added frustratedly.

It wasn't a frightening phrase. They both knew he could stand her on her head without raising his heart rate. They both knew he wouldn't.

Gemma clenched her jaw and repeated, "If I can't touch you, then you can't touch me."

"Will you stop being so bloody obstinate?!" he snarled.

Hah! Welcome to my world.

She snorted inelegantly and tilted her head, "Pot, meet kettle."

He flung his head back, breathed in sharply, then leaned back over her, "Let me heal you. I swear you'll feel much, much better if you just -."

Not this time.

The rage re-ignited in Gemma, burning up the lust. "I know I'd feel amazing. Then you'd take yourself off. The answer's no."

His eyes were actually glittering, small black flecks seeming to explode like starbursts in the pupils as he breathed heavy anger and she could feel him willing her to give in. Hah.

"Human medicine can take days, weeks – you'll be vulnerable to his greys and in pain all that time," he bellowed.

Little you know about humans.

"Make that months for a multiple bone fracture," she corrected him and he flinched, then rolled a long growl at her, fury at her obstreperousness firing his eyes. Stubborn little human who wouldn't let him put it right.

"And if you're so worried about Nick, why the hell did you just let him leave?" Gemma knew that that was unfair, but anger was necessary. It worked. Mac abruptly straightened and stepped back from her, a flicker of expression she couldn't quite catch chasing across his hard-etched, strong features.

Then suddenly he stilled, looking completely blank, just before a deluge of emotions chased each other across his face, each too fleeting to recognise. Mac's hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides as he started to shudder, blinking rapidly, and he actually flickered into a towering, powerful, hair-covered lycan form and back as his breathing deepened and green flecks shot through the black fire in his eyes, making her insides melt again with swirling arousal as she watched the furnace rising in his gaze.

He seemed larger, more forceful, when he finally settled himself, skin shuddering, and re-focussed on her. A small smile was playing around his mouth and a hot, predatory gleam lit his eyes, making her pulses rocket, before they settled on merely trying to batter the blood out of her veins.

"Argen rope," Mac purred softly, the smile in his eyes deepening as he held hers. Deep, deep green and so, so hot. She could feel herself leaning forwards, towards the call in his gaze as he stepped back toward her, trembling faintly.

"What's -." She couldn't recall what he'd said. "Uh?" The colour of his eyes was thickening, whirling, black and green melding, drawing her into their heat, their want.

Her nipples tightened and the liquid heat began to pool between her thighs, blood shuddering sweetly in her limbs as it hurried to answer his eyes, his scent, his strength.

He was murmuring something else, but the intensity of the furnace in those bewitching eyes was increasing the crescendo of blood singing in her veins, obliterating all else. The words whispered on the other side of a fog of sensation, and she reached up unsteady fingers to brush over his full lips, to feel the whisper of his breath calling every atom of her blood, curling her toes and lifting the hair at the nape of her neck, along her arms, across her scalp. There was nothing, nothing in the room but the ferocious joy in him, the heat in his eyes, his scent, the quivering power barely restrained by his skin, and her own soft, shimmering skin waiting for him to touch her, to melt her further. Pleading, straining with every fibre. Wanting, waiting. Pressure and friction, please.

She whined, leaning in towards him. What had he said?

The scent enveloped her as he bent close, "So let me heal you," the words whispered in her ear, dancing tantalisingly over her trembling, sensitised skin. His tongue traced over the delicate shell before he nipped lightly at the lobe, then suckled the nick to form a pinpoint of deep, aching pleasure. Gemma shuddered, leaning her forehead against him, breathing deeply of his heady, aroused musk. Stronger, stronger, the pull, the power was tightening its silken hold.

He stilled, and waited. And she whimpered, and nuzzled at his shoulder. He waited. Then, slowly, the last phrase penetrated. Gemma blinked rapidly, leaning on him. She couldn't believe it. Crying inside, she pulled back, the disappointment that he'd tried to influence her that way coursing coldly through her. And an echo of rage - he could have just carried on and she'd never have stopped him, but now she had to turn him down again.

Then, abruptly, she focused on the silvery cord he laid across her palm. Silver cord. Gemma jerked her head up, heart pounding as she stared at him in disbelief, captured by the aroused, taunting, challenging smile curling his lips as his eyes gleamed down into hers.

"Let me heal you," he repeated softly, "And then I'll let you tie me up and have your wicked way with me."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Her nipples tightened to agonising bullets and a surge of liquid heat pulsed between her thighs at the images that his suggestion, together with those knowing eyes, were throwing into her head. His challenging smile deepened as he held her gaze, watching the red fire flare in her cheeks as he smelt her deep arousal. He leant forwards and brushed a soft kiss across her lips, taunting his own version of her words back at her,

"If you let me kiss you, then I'll let you touch me. All of me."

Gemma was submerged, surrounded by the fire, engulfed in it, and couldn't seem to find the surface, the way out, - did she want to -? But - the images in her head. She couldn't. She'd never - and only once ever - and she hadn't exactly been directing matters last time - and now - tie him up..?

That meant she could -.

Another wave of heat surged colour over her delicate skin, a trickle of moisture pooling at the juncture of her legs, and Mac laughed quietly, joyously, a husky little bark as he trailed the tip of his tongue over her scarlet cheek, pressing the heat of his inner wrists against her thighs. She squeezed her legs together in response to the fire of his touch, compressing, compounding the pulse of liquid fire between them and tightening the deep ache in her belly.

Damn it, she realised belatedly, the conflagration in her blood surging, cresting over the embarrassment in her head as the ache in her nipples became painful, and she almost whimpered. He meant to do that, bad wolf - teasing her, arousing her further.

"You set the rules," Mac murmured.

She met his gleaming eyes, and glanced away quickly, reddening. But he was so happy, his happiness melting the resistance of her embarrassment. Mac wanted this, wanted her, was so joyous, so aroused, so amazing, how could she let a little shyness stand in the way of pleasing him so much? Pleasing both of them? But - tie him up? What did she do then?

The image of his powerful, aroused body spread-eagled on the floor for her, his eyes calling her, burned across her imagination. How the hell was she supposed to restrain her brain or body with that image fused into her retinas? She couldn't do it, didn't want to take control, didn't know what to do. But - say no? No way. What if she got it wrong, though?

Gemma could feel her mind stuttering. She didn't know what to do, what to say, right now, or - well - later, if she said yes, then -.

Once she said yes, her internal voice interrupted. Then she could-. she closed her eyes as the image of him, and what she could do, how she could taste him, savour the exploration, seek to make him moan - it all blazed across her mind, shaking her frame with a wave of uncontrollable desire.

Who was she kidding - she knew what she wanted to say. What she was going to say. She just needed to man up and say it. Gemma took a deep breath and opened her eyes to look into his. Deep, deep green fire. Sparkling. Knowing. Enjoying.

"Mfph." At the gleam in his eye, coherency went out the window, her decisiveness swamped by a fresh tide of embarrassment coursing through her, flaring a new, vibrant trail across her skin.

His soft chuckle tingled over her, and Mac leaned in to breathe deeply of her fully aroused scent, brushing his nose lightly against the pulse at the base of her jaw as he felt himself harden still further, almost unbearably. She was so responsive. So open. Untried. Eager. Delicious.

Gemma found her fingers were tangled in his hair, stroking softly as she leaned back against his arm, enjoying the ease with which he held her, savouring his closeness. Let him tie her up. Delete that.

"You can just nod, picchu." Mac brushed the words against her pulse with an accompaniment of light kisses. Then he pulled back to look down into her eyes, waiting for them to open. His were playful, joyous, ferociously aroused.

"Or shake your head," he suggested teasingly. Holding her eyes with the fire in his, he stretched slowly, luxuriously, in front of her, etching the powerful lines of his body into her mind, taunting. Standing smiling down at her, hands clasped behind his head, enveloped in her heady mating scent with his own aching arousal evident, Mac offered himself.

"Please, picchu. May I kiss you better?" he asked softly.

Gemma gulped. There was only one answer. She met that teasing gaze and her head slowly dipped in acquiescence, melting, melting as the fire in his eyes deepened in ardent delight.

His smile widened and he held her still with his fiercely aroused gaze. Just looking into hers. Gemma was waiting, shuddering in anticipation, watching him, aching. Then he slowly curled himself back over her, palms either side of her, bending his tawny head back to hers.

"This kiss," he stopped just above her lips, breath whispering across the sensitive skin, "Will not be just healing."