Ecstasy Untamed (Feral Warriors #6)(77)

Her eyes slowly turned huge as another thought seemed to occur to her. "I'm going to turn evil."

"Not evil, just . . . infected."

Her hand squeezed his fiercely. "Don't let me hurt anyone, Hawke. Promise me. I couldn't the way I am now, but if I turn into something with big teeth . . ."

"I won't let you hurt anyone."

He hoped he could hang on to his animal long enough to fulfill that promise.

Chapter Sixteen

Wulfe parked his truck behind a deserted warehouse outside Frederick, Maryland, then climbed out, shoved his keys deep in his jeans pocket, and stripped, tossing his clothes into the bed of the oversized pickup. Kneeling beside the truck, hidden from prying eyes, he shifted into his wolf. He'd made a brief foray in and around Harpers Ferry before driving the twenty miles to Frederick. Though he'd tried to convince himself . . . and Lyon . . . otherwise, this trip had little to do with hunting the new Ferals. It was a long shot that they'd have come back here, and he'd seen no evidence of it.

No, this trip was about Natalie and his need to check on her for Xavier.

Okay, not for Xavier. Not just for Xavier. The truth was he needed to know that she was all right. He needed to see her for himself even though she wouldn't remember him. He'd taken care to clear her memories of that horrific day - the deaths of her friends at the hands of three wraith Daemons, the Earth opening in front of the stake upon which she'd been tied. The opening had been a wormhole into the spirit trap, and Hawke and Tighe had gone down, as had a couple of her dead friends.

But Natalie had survived, along with her brother, Xavier, and another girl. The Ferals had been able to clear Natalie's and the other girl's memories, but Xavier was blind, and memories were cleared through the eyes. He lived at Feral House, now, helping Pink in the kitchen.

And Natalie was back home with no recollection of where she'd been for a week or where her brother had gone. All she knew was that three of her friends had died horrific deaths. She knew that only because their bodies had been spit out again by the spirit trap, and the Ferals had left them for the humans to find.

In his wolf's form, he trotted into the woods separating him from Natalie's house, having mapped out the coordinates before he left home.

At least she wasn't alone. Natalie was engaged to be married. Wulfe had returned her to her world, leaving her in Harpers Ferry and watching from the shadows as her fiance swept her into his arms.

He couldn't get the damned image out of his head. It was best for her, he knew that. She had no place in his world. She was human. And he was a widower, as the humans would put it. A mated male with a dead mate, which equated to damaged, in his world. Mating bonds were real among Therians, not verbal or legal promises, as in the human world. And a severed mating bond damaged the survivor, one way or another. He didn't have it in him to connect that way with a woman again. And he'd never want to, especially with a human who would only die on him, too. No, he wasn't looking for anything from Natalie, he just needed to know she was okay. In the short time he'd spent with her in the prison below Feral House, she'd touched him in a way he couldn't quite explain.

Some twenty minutes later, he picked up her scent, sending a thrill of recognition through his man's mind. She'd walked these woods in the past couple of days. Alone.

He followed her scent straight to the house he knew was hers - a small two-story Colonial with pale yellow siding and a wooden deck attached to the back. And now what was he going to do? He couldn't trot up to the door and start barking. In his wolf's form, he was huge - far bigger than any normal wolf. In past centuries, he'd terrified humans in his animal form. Today, with wolves so rare, most humans assumed he was merely a big dog. Many weren't quite terrified, though most gave him a wide berth. Which generally suited him just fine.

Today, he wished he could downsize into an innocuous pup and call for Natalie's attention. Though he'd stolen her memories of him, he couldn't risk her seeing his man's face. Nor did he want her to. She might not have been afraid of the scarred mess after that trio of hideous Daemons, but she didn't remember those, now, either. Compared to most humans, he was a monster. And, thanks to his inability to keep his clothes when he shifted, a big, naked one, at that. No, it was far better to stay in his animal. To stay hidden in the woods and hope he caught a glimpse of her. It was already close to sunset. If she didn't pull blinds or curtains over her windows at night, he might succeed. If she did, he was out of luck. Or if she went to her fiance's place instead of her own.

The thought sat like hot coals in his gut.

He settled into the underbrush about twenty feet from the back of her deck to wait, wondering if he should just leave and forget about trying to see her. If he really needed to know that she was okay, all he had to do was have Delaney or one of the other women give her a call, pretending to be a reporter. Goddess knew the press had been all over her after her miraculous escape from death. But just as he'd about convinced himself to turn around and head home, he heard the sound of a car stop in front of the house. His pulse leaped, his ears twitching, his nose seeking her scent. He heard a door open and close. A moment later, something moved in her house. Natalie? He leaped up, catching a glimpse of blond hair, wondering when he'd last been this excited about something . . . anything. And all he wanted was to catch a glimpse of her. He'd turned into a sad-ass peeping Tom.