“Obviously.”

Perhaps he heard the hysteria creeping into my voice, because he stepped closer and placed a hand on each of my shoulders, giving me a supportive squeeze. The look in his eyes wasn’t as patient, though, and plainly said, Pull yourself together, woman.

“Think about what Calliope has told you a thousand times. About why werewolves and other shifters can’t come through her gate. It’s obviously not impossible, since you’ve proven that by bringing Desmond across. But think about what she said the reason was.”

“I don’t remember,” I replied.

“Bullshit, you don’t remember.” This time when he squeezed, it wasn’t friendly at all, it was downright painful. “Remember what she said.”

I did remember. Of course I remembered. It’s hard to plead ignorance to a rule when you’re the only known exception to it. “Shifters aren’t allowed because time doesn’t function the same way. The moon can be full even when it seems to be the middle of the day.”

“And why is that dangerous?”

“Because a shifter who changes when they aren’t prepared can’t be controlled.”

“Right. They aren’t responsible for their actions,” he said, quoting Calliope directly. When she’d said it to me in the past, it hadn’t sounded like a free pass for bad wolf behavior, but if she was right, it might explain why Desmond was acting like a lunatic. He hadn’t wanted to change, but the pull of the moon here was too much for him, especially when we’d been on the verge of our own full moon back home.

So when he’d changed, whatever governed his self-control must have slipped. Now the wolf was driving, and apparently Desmond’s wolf could be kind of a dick.

It would get along great with my bitch. This proved we were soul mates after all.

And perhaps I needed to start appreciating the complexity of the animal living inside me. Being a werewolf wasn’t just the ability to shift from one form to another. It didn’t simply mean having the assets of a predator while continuing to live a normal life. What it meant was each of us—all shapeshifters everywhere—had to exist like high-functioning multiple-personality-disorder victims. There was a second being—a wild animal—living inside us, and we spent every single day working to maintain our control over it.

Tonight, Desmond had lost control.

And God only knew if he’d get it back again while we were here.

Another loud thump against the door told me not to be optimistic, but the part of me that knew Desmond inside and out wanted to believe better. I wanted to bet against the house and see him come through on his own. I wanted to fall asleep at dawn and wake up at dusk to a human Desmond.

I wanted him to not remember any of this.

Blood seeped from the wound on Holden’s arm, soaking his whole shirtsleeve red. The way the liquid glistened against the material made it look more like oil than a vital bodily fluid. It wasn’t until I thought of it in terms of being a part of Holden that I was struck by what I was seeing. And smelling.

Once the shock of everything we’d experienced began to slink away, I was left with the invasive coppery fragrance of blood. It didn’t matter that it was vampire blood, or that I’d eaten before I came. The moment the odor reached my nostrils I felt dizzy.

“I need to sit down,” I whispered.

“Are you all right?” Holden guided me in the direction of a large bed I’d previously ignored, gently forcing me to sit on the edge. I didn’t resist, and rested my head in my open palms, trying to will the woozy feeling to go away.

Maybe if I closed my eyes for a while, I’d wake up and this whole thing would be a really weird dream. Kellen would be at home, Desmond would be human, and Lucas would be off merrily fucking himself and staying the hell out of my life.

Then it struck me. This. All of this. Was Lucas’s fault.

Sure, in a more literal and logical way it was Kellen’s fault for falling into debt with the fae, but it was way more fun to say it was Lucas’s fault. He’d made it my problem, after all. When I got home—provided I passed Aubrey’s trial by fire—I was going to make sure the wolf king knew how much I appreciated the errand he’d sent me on.

For starters, I would take each of his testicles and—

“You’re smiling…but in a really fucked-up way.” Holden was staring at me, and when my gaze met his, the look of worry on his face increased exponentially. That couldn’t mean anything good.

“What?” I asked.

“Your eyes.”

If a vampire was pointing out something amiss with my eyes, it could only mean one thing. I must have gone into bloodlust mode after smelling Holden’s open wound, so my eyes had likely shifted from brown to solid black. Without a mirror I couldn’t be sure, but given how dizzy the blood had made me, it would be the logical conclusion to draw.

“I’m sorry…I don’t know what’s going on with me.” When I tried to jerk my head away, his hand darted out and caught my chin, turning my face back towards his.

“Let me see your teeth,” he commanded.

I complied, baring my pearly whites at him to show my fangs were still in check and hadn’t yet popped out of my gums in preparation for the feed. Apparently my vampire half was aware Holden wasn’t food. Dead blood provided no nourishment, which was why vampires didn’t in-feed. They needed human donors because it was the vital essence within human—or any living mammal—that ignited life within a vampire.

A light bulb out of its socket wouldn’t light, but connect it to energy and it will fill a room. The same was true of a vampire. Take away the lifeblood and a vampire will wither into dust and nothingness. Connect it to something with a spark and you create life.

It was basic science twisted into something truly macabre.

But my fangs weren’t out because Holden had no vitality to give me. His was all borrowed.

And I wasn’t afraid of him, or feeling physically threatened. So there was only one other reason my eyes would be going black. I didn’t want to think about it, admit to it or acknowledge it. In fact, had we not been locked inside a bedroom because a feral wolf was on the other side of the door, I would have been out of there faster than a peace activist at a gun show.

“Can you stop touching me?” I whispered. My gaze was locked on the liquid pooling at his elbow, and whether or not it was food, in the presence of blood it wouldn’t be long before my fangs were out.

When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to a lower register and was thicker than it had been a moment earlier. “Why?”

“Holden, please. Something’s wrong.” Once I spoke the words, I knew it was true. If my eyes were black and it wasn’t from hunger or rage, it could only be from lust. Those were the three triggers of the vampire eyes—feed, fight or fuck. And while there had been plenty of times Holden had amped up my lust, many of them recently, now was not an ideal or an appropriate time for my loins to start aching for him.

I’d gotten lost to carnality more than once at a wildly unhelpful time, but I could admit to myself those had been my decisions, as poorly thought out as they were. Fucking Lucas against a tree in Louisiana? Bad call. Letting Holden kiss me any of the gajillion times he’d done it when I was with Desmond and Lucas? Terrible call. But those mistakes had been mine to make.

What I was feeling right now wasn’t natural.

Not even in the, I want you so bad, it’s unnatural context, either. I couldn’t blame hormones or pumping adrenaline, though the adrenaline was certainly present. No, I was getting hot and bothered for Holden, and I had zero control over it. Like someone else was taking the reins, and not my wolf, either. There was no part of me that would—in a time of dire trouble—think now is a good time to fuck.

Yet I wanted to do just that.

“Stop touching me,” I said again, this time putting more command into my voice.

“I can’t.”

I lifted my hands to push his away, but the moment I had more skin-to-skin contact, my train of thought vanished. Why was it important I move his hands? Didn’t they feel good? I liked it when Holden touched me. I liked the way his lips felt against mine, the gentle caress of his tongue in my mouth eager and adventurous.

The soul-crushing ecstasy of his bite—something I’d only experienced in dreams.

What would be the harm in letting him touch me now?

I’d never been a religious person, but something in the back of my mind kept repeating, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…

But what fun was life without giving in to temptation every now and then?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The fairy king was fucking with me.

He’d managed to turn my boyfriend into a slobbering beast then turn me and a two-hundred-year-old vampire into horny teenagers. All in the span of an hour. If this was his way of testing my mettle, I must have been failing hard.

I’d experienced some weird shit in my life. My memories had been stripped away from me once, taking with them any awareness I had of who Desmond and Lucas were. But the feeling of knowing I should know someone, yet not having the faintest clue why… It was nothing compared to this.

The violation I felt would have been one thing if the emotions being toyed with were complete fabrications. Had the fae invented a lust between Holden and me, I might have been better able to fight it because I would know it was wrong. In my head, I’d be able to recognize what I was feeling wasn’t real. The emotions and desires weren’t mine.

What made this so much worse was the feelings were mine.

My yearning for Holden was being played against me like a skilled poker player would abuse an obvious tell. The king must have known or seen more than he let on, because he had found and exposed all my weaknesses in less time than it took for The Real Housewives of New Jersey to get into a catfight.

“Holden…”

“I’m sorry. I can’t.”

My fingers were clasped around his wrists, and I could feel the strain of his muscles as he fought to pull his hands away from my face. He wasn’t hurting me, but the effort he was making was evident. I wasn’t the only one here fighting a losing battle against the fairy king’s forces.