He chuckled. A heated, lusty, and totally evil sound.
Clothes tore. His fingers forced themselves underneath me, groping for a breast. I shuddered, fighting nausea and feeling more and more desperate for air.
Stake, I thought, and groped blindly around me. My hand brushed against wood, and I grasped it frantically, my fingers tightening around it spasmodically as I lifted my arm and stabbed backward with all the strength I had left.
I hit flesh, felt it give way. He roared in pain and jerked away. Not getting off, but giving me the freedom to move. To breathe. I gulped down air, my whole body shuddering with the effort.
“Bitch!” The sound rode the air, harsh and forced. “For that, I will do you slowly, and then I shall let my brother suck you dry. No easy death for you, little girl.”
“Your brother is dead,” came a voice so flat, so deadly and so damn cold that for a moment I didn’t even recognize that it was Brodie’s, “as you soon will be.”
Then the weight was off me, and I could move. I forced my trembling limbs into action and pushed up, the now-bloody stake still in my hand as I swung around.
Brodie’s powerful fingers were around the neck of a thickset man, and he was holding him off the ground by a good six inches or so. That took more strength than I could ever imagine anyone owning, but he didn’t even seem to be exerting himself.
The only sign of effort was in the whiteness of his fingers. Fingers that were ever-so-slowly squeezing the life out of my attacker.
No quick death intended there, whatever he might have said.
“Brodie—”
“No one attacks you and lives,” he cut in, his gaze not leaving the thickset man’s. “No one.”
There wasn’t only anger in his voice, but possessiveness. It was the wolf speaking, and the wolf was protecting what belonged to him.
Me.
Normally that knowledge would have made my heart dance, but such a reaction seemed out of place when he was intent on slowly strangling his quarry in the middle of a graveyard. And the fact that this vamp entirely deserved it was beside the point.
“Damn it, Brodie, kill him quickly. You’re not him. I don’t want you to be like him, or any of the others we kill.” Didn’t want him to enjoy it, as the protector within undoubtedly was.
His fingers moved, and a loud crack ran across the night. The vamp went limp, and Brodie released him, letting him drop to the ground like so much rubbish.
“God, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice soft and suddenly weary as he turned to face me. And the pain in his eyes, the fear still etched in his face, made my heart ache. “I’m so damn sorry—”
I didn’t let him finish. I ran into his embrace. Felt his arms wrap around me and hold me so tight. Arms that were trembling more than I was.
“It’s okay, I’m here, I’m safe.”
“I thought my stupidity had taken you from me a second time.” His breath whispered heat past my ear. “I felt your fear echo through me. The thought of a life without you in it hit me, and I panicked. I can’t live without you, Hannah. I don’t want to live without you.”
I broke free of his fierce grip, and stared into the glory of his green eyes. Seeing the honesty there. Seeing the love. Wanting to return it twofold, but still trapped by the hurt of Christmas past. “Yet you walked away for a year. I can’t just forget that, Brodie.” And while I might have told him I didn’t want a reason, that was a total lie.
He sighed, and ran a finger lightly down my cheek. My body trembled in response, and it was all I could do not to step into his embrace again, to forget the past and just enjoy the promise of the present.
But I couldn’t. I owed my tear-soaked pillow more than that.
“I was an ass—”
“I think we’ve both agreed on that point,” I said dryly. “The point we need to clarify is why.”
He thrust a hand through his hair, then said, “We happened very quickly. I just wasn’t ready for it.”
“So you coped by running away? That’s logical.”
“Loving a human isn’t logical.”
“Me being a human isn’t a reason, Brodie. It’s an excuse. I need a reason.” Needed to believe he wouldn’t do it to me again.
He sighed. “You scared me.”
I almost choked on my disbelief. “I scared you? You’re the big bad hairy monster, not me.”
He half smiled. “I never expected—or wanted—to fall in love with a human, Hannah. And my family certainly didn’t appreciate the thought of me bringing a human into the pack.” He shrugged, his expression a little sheepish. “So I convinced myself it was nothing more than an infatuation, and walked away.”
“Just like that,” I said, and all the hurt and the pain of that time was suddenly right there in my voice. “So damn easily.”
“It wasn’t easy. It was never easy.” He grimaced, and suddenly his green eyes held a loneliness as powerful as anything I’d been feeling over the last year. “You have no idea how many times I picked up the phone to call you. No idea how many times I sat out in front of your place, practicing an apology.” He hesitated, and smiled ruefully. “And no idea how many times I came close to interrupting your dates and punching out whatever man you were with. It was that need to destroy the men you were dating that finally convinced me this was no mere infatuation.”
“And you never thought to talk to me about any of this?”
“I thought about it, trust me. But it’s never easy for a werewolf to admit that they’re wrong, especially in the face of such anger and hurt. And the longer I left it, the more certain I became that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, the more afraid I became that apologizing wouldn’t undo the damage and that I might have lost you forever.”
“So why are you finally apologizing now?”
“Because I think about you every day, and dream about you every night. We were never a mistake, no matter what I might have thought at the beginning, and what we have will never go away. I love you, Hannah. I need you.” He let his fingers run over my lips, making them tingle, then dropped his hand. “Please, tell me you’ll forgive me. Tell me you’ll give me another chance.”
I stared at him for a moment, knowing there could only ever be one answer. That there had only ever been one answer from the moment he’d walked back into my life. I might not be able to totally forget the year of loneliness, or the pain he’d caused me, but what we had was worth fighting for.
Rat or not, right or wrong, I wanted this man in my life.
For Christmas.
For ever.
I blew out a breath, and said hesitantly, “I don’t know, Brodie.” Tension flitted across his shoulders, and for a moment, utter bleakness shone in his eyes. I let a smile touch my lips, and added, “After all, I didn’t even get to finish my chocolate cake. And there’s still the matter of the missing Valentine’s Day and birthday presents to be resolved.”
He laughed—a sound so joyous, so happy, that goose bumps ran across my skin. He wrapped an arm around my waist and hauled me close. “What if I promise to bathe you in chocolate cake for the rest of your life?”
I snuggled closer, letting the heat and scent of him flow over my skin and fill every breath. “That might be a step in the right direction.”
“And give you two birthday presents for the next ten years?”
“And at Christmas and Valentine’s. I’m missing those, remember.”
“It’s a deal,” he murmured, then his lips claimed mine, and he kissed me.
It felt so good, so right. Like I was finally home, right where I belonged.
Christmas past might have been a nightmare, but Christmas present and Christmas future were suddenly looking mighty damn fine.
SA
J. A. Konrath
J. A. Konrath’s short work has appeared in over fifty magazines and anthologies. He’s responsible for five books in the Lieutenant Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels thriller series, the latest of which is Fuzzy Navel. He also edited the collection of hitman stories These Guns for Hire, and penned the horror novel Afraid under the name Jack Kilborn. Visit him at www.JAKonrath.com.