It hurt just to touch herself. Actual, physical pain that stole her breath and overshadowed any real pleasure she might have felt.
But if she didn’t soothe the hunger somehow, it would either drive her to madness or unconsciousness, and she couldn’t risk losing control. Worse, if she didn’t drag it under control, sooner or later, it would control her—and any weak-minded male in her vicinity. The shape she was in, her only saving grace was that only Atargarians lived on this block.
No weak wills existed there.
Memories spun through her mind as she tried to find relief from the brutal pain brought on by years of deprivation.
“Leanan Sídhe,” Nikolai breathed out, staring at her as if he didn’t even recognize her. “You’re Leanan Sídhe. A leech. You’re a fucking succubus and you’ve been using everything I feel for you against me.”
No, Zee wasn’t a succubus. She didn’t feed from the life force of men, or women. But she was driven by that very nature to seek sexual contact, to seek a lover.
You’re a fucking leech.
More tears fell.
She stroked harder, pinching her clitoris hard enough to hurt.
It took almost twenty minutes to appease the monster within. And every touch, every glide of her fingers felt like a blade against her own skin.
Chapter Four
Samuel Day still hovered at death’s door an hour later when Nikolai’s phone rang. The name on the display made his lip curl but he answered.
“Is your sister on her way?” he asked, barely flicking at a glance at the screen that displayed a tall, broad-shouldered man just a few years older than himself.
“My second didn’t get an answer on that, but it’s unlikely, Whelan. If you think it will help him pass easier, tell him she sends her love. I doubt he’ll care.” Phoenix moved to end the call, apparently having said all he’d intended to say.
“Wait,” Nikolai ground out. “What in the fuck do you mean your second didn’t get an answer? Your guy did make it clear that Sam’s dying, right?”
Phoenix looked at Nikolai with apathy. “Yes. Colby told her he was dying.” Then a feral smile curved Phoenix’s lips. “Here. You can talk to him.”
“Fine—fuck, Colby.” He blinked at the sight of his friend’s face. Although they rarely saw each other more than once or twice a year, they stayed in contact via email or calls. The sight of the other man’s face was almost enough to make him wince in sympathy. “Who or what did you run into?”
“Meridia Blue,” Colby said in a voice that was way too neutral. The bruising on his face had faded to a sickly greenish blue, but the marks on his neck... they were still the ugly mottled purple of newly made bruises. “It’s been dealt with and handled, although it would be best if I returned to Appalachia. Another wolf can take my place if you feel it’s necessary, although Phoenix has men and women capable of taking my position as his second, in my opinion. I did pass the message on to Zennia Day but I can’t say if anything will come of it.”
That gut-deep sense of alarm, of wrongness that had been growing steadily over the past hour, swelled to even larger proportions. He focused on the primary issue—Zee, and how he could get her here to speak to her father while there was still time.
He was missing something—all of them were.
Zee couldn’t have been living without her family or a pack this long. She wasn’t made for it. In truth, very few wolves were. Therian wolves were creatures of pack, of home, of family. None of this made sense.
I’ll figure it out, he told himself, breathing through the chaotic rage that kept trying to shred his control. I’ll figure it out.
“What did she say when you told her she needed to return home and to her pack so she could see her father?” Niko asked.
Colby’s lids dropped.
“Tell me.” An order now, from a Prime to a subordinate.
The other male opened his eyes, and they were glowing gold. “Zennia Day told me she had no pack, no home. That she hadn’t had them for more than ten years.”
“Put your Alpha on the phone,” Nikolai said, struck by how odd his voice sounded. When Phoenix’s lean, saturnine features reappeared, he blinked slowly, trying to cage the rising flood emotion inside him. “Why does your sister think she has no pack?”
“You’ve spoken to Liam. Didn’t he explain this?” Phoenix canted his head to the side. It was an action common among Therian wolves, but there was something about the way this wolf did that made it seem... eerie.
“Liam is a kid. He... ” has to be wrong, Niko thought. But that wasn’t what he wanted to say to Phoenix. “... was a child when he first came here.”
“None of Samuel Day’s offspring had the luxury of being kids, Prime.” Phoenix shrugged, his eyes darkening, changing, until they were black. Pure, unrelenting black with no discernible difference between the pupil and iris, the ebony hue even spreading across the white until it was like looking into a pit of pure darkness. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Prime. You know Zee. She’s just an attention whore. A worthless bitch. What else did you say? Oh, I remember! A manipulative, lying leech.”
Niko controlled the flinch but the alarm in his head was now blaring. If the man on the screen had been talking to him in person, Niko would have already put him on the floor for delaying his answer—and for speaking about Zee that way.
But that’s exactly what you said about her, what you made people think, his internal voice reminded him mockingly. Don’t you remember?
“Phoenix. Now.”
The man’s lip curved up in a twisting mockery of a smile. “You threw her away, like she was nothing but garbage, Prime. Sam had already brought Liam to North Carolina because he’d heard you and Zee were... getting along. By the time you threw her aside, your father had already heard Sam’s case and granted him protection for him and those in the household. Zee hadn’t lived with him in months and she was out of the state. She hasn’t spoken to Sam since before you kicked her out.”
“And why the fuck isn’t she part of your pack?” Nikolai demanded, even as the acidic, ugly taste of guilt choked him.
“Why? Why indeed.” Phoenix’s features turned brutal. “There are several reasons for that, I’d imagine. She swore long ago she’d never return to Greylock, and considering the bad memories this place holds for our entire family, I can’t say I blame her—I wouldn’t be here either, except I was sent here and ordered to clean house. That’s one reason. The other? Well, Zee no longer speaks to me or any other member of her family.”
Phoenix leaned in closer to the screen then, those black eyes burning as if lit from within. “You see, something nobody ever bothered to ask was... why did Zee leave Greylock? Why did she go to North Carolina? Why did that perverted, monstrous fuck who was the former Alpha even let her go.”
Cold sweat dripped down Niko’s spine but it had nothing to do with the menace Phoenix exuded.
Both knew who the stronger male was—and it wasn’t the Day wolf.
No, it was the knowledge in Phoenix’s eyes, coupled with the savage light that made Niko realize the other man had been waiting for this. For this chance.