And she’d run out of her meds. No money.
“What’s wrong, Lilah?” Jess grabbed her elbow and pulled her out of the middle of the street. She’d just frozen there, staring at the back windows of the limo.
Lilah could hear Smoky’s whimpering and the city traffic, but it all came as background noise through the throbbing in her head. It wasn’t quite pain. The pulsing felt like it pierced her brain, a second heartbeat she couldn’t quite follow.
Her vision was fine, and that meant it wasn’t a migraine. Then what was this?
And why did it worsen when her eyes flickered toward the back windows of the limo?
“Let’s get Smoky,” Lilah said, though her mouth felt like it was filled with cotton.
Jess had an arm around her. “I’ll get him. You’re about to faint.”
“I’m fine.” Lilah forced herself to move, shooting an icy glance at the neighborhood felon before she squatted down to the car’s rear bumper.
“Lilah, you look really pale,” Jess insisted, frowning. She looked so much like their mom when she did that.
“Here, puppy,” Lilah cooed, reaching out a hand. She knew the biggest danger was if Smoky ran away again and hid where nobody could help him, so she grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him as gently as she could out from under the car. Luckily, Smoky was a small thing, barely fifteen pounds, and she got him bundled up in her arms without having to drag him far.
He relaxed in her arms, his shivering more from fear than any injury. Thank goodness.
But as soon as she stood, the throbbing, pulsing pain returned. Her gaze was pulled to the back window of the limo, now open. To the man sitting in the shadows.
Him. Her head felt like someone had dropped a brick on it, her body filling with heat and lava.
It’s him.
What was the matter with her? She had to get Smoky inside. She didn’t know anyone who rode around in a limo, so why did she feel like she did?
Him.
It didn’t matter. She had to get closer. She had to see him.
Holding Smoky in her arms, Lilah took a step toward the limo, then another.
Jess snagged her elbow. “Lilah, no! You can’t! That driver has a gun—”
Lilah was beyond reason, the pounding turning into a word, a word that had no sound, no form, no sense.
Him.
Him.
Him.
That voice. It pounded like a hammer forging steel. She continued to advance on the shining black limo, barely noticing when the driver climbed inside and slammed the door. She was fearless in her uncontrollable need to see that face, to know he was real.
You’re real.
Jess was at her heels. “Lilah, please—”
The limo peeled out, its tires screeching as it drove past her only an arm’s-length away. Two bright blue eyes, glittering with otherworldly sharpness, met hers through the open window. Gold highlights tickled his hair, a honey brown that curved up at the neck, a little too long to be all business, with waves she wanted to sink her fingers into. A strong jaw, set firmly, and those wild, seductive eyes... oh.
Oh my.
And then the voice changed in an instant.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
Gavin Stanton ordered his driver, Manny, to halt in front of the small, shabby building in the heart of Waltham, a mere pit stop on his journey into Boston from his Weston meeting. The side trip had been a hunting expedition, of sorts.
Hunting for her.
The tall, curvy blonde came to him in a dream on the eve of his birthday, hands and mouth and body in supplication to him, submissive and offering more than any other woman could.
Not that they hadn’t tried.
The hot, late-summer night made him roil with repressed need, his body buzzing as if covered with fire ants. The rush to get to safety, to the exclusive gentleman’s club he sought, to be among his peers, weighed on him. Without that sanctuary, so much good could be undone.
In an instant.
The shock of recognition started in the base of his cock, a tingling that quickly turned to a hum, a vibration that spread to cover his shaking body, hands curling to fists, nose raised to follow the scent.
The buzz turned into a bass drum, beating in time to her blood’s path.
Her.
Her.
Her.
My God, had he really found her? Weeks wasted, wandering down streets he had no desire to know even existed, nights spent aching for a woman his mind had surely invented out of pure need. And now...
The disgustingly dilapidated building, yet another of the triple-decker homes squeezed into a city block with small shops poking out of the sagging storefronts on the first floor, made him feel as if he were in another country. Another world, compared to the lush, rolling estate just outside the city where he’d negotiated another round of research and development for his prized pet project at his company, LupiNex, his biotechnology firm.
“Stop!” he’d growled, the timbre of his voice splintering inside, follicles stock-straight and at the ready, his body’s change imminent as he knew that yes—he had found her.
And that was all that mattered.
“But sir, we need to get you to safety,” Manny argued, no need to explain why as Gavin’s voice had already thickened with distinction. He sounded as if he were talking around gravel, the smooth, cultured British voice descending into something more animal.
“Halt!” Gavin demanded. It sounded like a growl.
Manny slammed on the brakes, a small thump registering in the dim recesses of what remained of Gavin’s human mind. In the cheap streetlight’s glow, Gavin could not tell what they had hit, and as his body pounded, blood pouring into limbs as they stretched and filled, joints loosening and lengthening as he shifted without control, he barely cared.
Twisting his head and resisting the urge to rip the door off its hinges and lunge up the building, he found her.
Her.
The throbbing beat in time with hers, an ancient sound neither could deny. Tale after tale had been told, in hushed tones and passed through more generations than anyone could count, over centuries or—perhaps—millennia, of the Beat, but Gavin had dismissed it. His own father said it was a fairy tale, a gibbering fantasy spewed by weaklings who believed in fairies and wood nymphs.
Gavin was not weak.
Therefore the legends must be true.
“Smoky!” he heard a woman’s voice cry out, the sound carrying like music through the air.
Manny got out of the limo and muttered something about a dog as Gavin stared up, nose smelling her, the blend of musk and cinnamon, pencil lead, and sweetness tearing through his nose and straight into his throat.
Her.
Her.
Her.
His arm snapped up to open the door but missed the mark. He fumbled with the window, desperate to roll it down but so focused on her scent he could no longer control his fingers. Finally he stabbed the button and the glass lowered. He reached out to touch her and could see his change begin, the dull, pale human flesh turning robust and textured, joints thick and long with promise and power.
This, too, was part of the legend. That he would lose control in the face of the Beat. The One. Until he mated with his chosen soul, he would have no power over his own body and heart. It would come back when he was complete.
With her.
A blur of blonde and white rushed out of a doorway, a young woman wearing light cotton pajamas, hair wavy and loose. Security lights behind her made a halo about her head, the effect ethereal, brown eyes wide and thick like pools of mink fur.