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“It’s fine. It grew back,” he said, and she knew it was true because his hands went over hers. Sticky, but complete with all possible fingers.

  “Yeah, that makes it okay.”

  “It makes it okay when you say things like that sarcastically,” he said. She could feel him stroking over the backs of her hands. Feel him leaning down to kiss her through the bars. It made her weak, even under these circumstances.

  “I need to get you out of here. I mean, I know the wolves might ignore you but even so—”

  “There aren’t any wolves. It’s a corridor collapse down by Ward Two.”

  He was still stroking her hands. And when she went still and didn’t quite know what to say, he kissed her mouth again. Wetter this time. A little deeper—or as deep as the bars would allow.

  She could taste blood, though it didn’t scare her. Only a bite could turn you—no blood, no semen. Though she suddenly found herself wondering what would happen if she bit him.

  “How do you know?” she asked, then cursed her stupid voice for sounding so breathless. They were in mortal danger, in the dark, in a death lab. Snogging through the bars did not seem like an ideal use of time.

  “I can smell an intruder wolf a mile away. I can smell an intruder wolf in the fortress five miles from here. And I heard the crash too. Termites, I think.”

  She could feel him standing straight, suddenly, before turning a little. As though he was looking at the door and seeing beyond it, to the heap of rubble. To the fortress on the hill.

  “Still, I should let you out. Just to—”

  His attention snapped back to her, immediately.

  “You can’t let me out, Serena. The lights will be back on any minute and then people will return to their stations. How would you answer Dr. Philips if he asked you why you’d opened my cage?”

  “With a dirty limerick?”

  “Be serious. Go back to your room. I’ll see you later, all right?”

  She paused before speaking. It wasn’t that big a deal, really, what she wanted to say. He had to know it was coming, reasonably. And yet it took some getting out, anyway.

  “I don’t want to wait until later. I don’t want to see you in installments anymore, Conn. Those days are over.”

  His pause was just as long and pregnant as hers had been. And he sounded different when he finally said something. Looser, somehow. Crazier.

  “If you don’t go I’ll do something stupid.”

  “Pffft. Like what?”

  “These nails are really deep in my shoulder.” One of his hands left hers and even though most of her didn’t really suspect he could ever do something like the thing he was absolutely going to do, she had the urge to hold on to him. Just grab one of his fingers, maybe, and cling. “If I just twist one of them it really—”

  Something cracked. It actually cracked, and squelched, and he made a sound like nothing on earth.

  “Oh God no, no! Stop it! Are you fucking nuts? No, no, I’ll go, I’ll go!”

  He didn’t say what she expected, however. Though after the whole nail in the shoulder stunt she wasn’t sure what “expected” actually was.

  “You really care about me that much, huh?”

  “Was that a test of how much I may or may not care?” she asked, too incredulous to make her voice normal. “Oh my God, I think I’m going to faint. Don’t twist things in your shoulder, okay? Don’t do that.”

  “It’s not a test, Serena. You just ran down a possibly wolf-infested corridor to come let me out. You’re standing here, as though waiting for them to come and find you. So I’m going to make this point very clear with a nail in my shoulder—don’t do that again.”

  She slapped a hand against the bars.

  “Don’t you fucking twist that nail again, Connor, I mean it! I won’t, I promise I won’t.”

  “You swear to me.”

  “I swear, you fucking masochist!”

  She took a step back, away from the bars—just as light suddenly flooded the room. Only once it had, everything just died in her mouth. All the words about him being an asshole for torturing her like this…they seemed pretty weak in the face of someone who’d actually been tortured.

  “Go,” he said, and pointed her in the direction of the door with his gaze.

  “You look like shit,” she said, because it was true. But also because it was the only thing she could get out without crying over it.

  “I’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just sorry.”

  “You know, as much as I hate using my pain against you, I love knowing you care that much. I never thought anyone would ever care about me that much.”

  She couldn’t do anything but. There were great, livid bruises all down his left side—some of them swirling away into nothing even as she watched—and blackened burns across his face likes claw marks. He looked beaten and exhausted and bloody all over, and it made her wonder how anyone in the world could look at him and not care.

  Even when his face changed.

  It flattened out, went as smooth as glass. And when he spoke he sounded…actively cold. As though she’d done something wrong she couldn’t possibly know about. And even worse, “I don’t know where he is, Nurse Kent.”

  Though her stomach didn’t drop far before she realized he hadn’t suddenly stopped liking her. He hadn’t decided they should go back to formal titles on the spur of the moment. He’d just noticed Tara stood in the doorway. Tara, who’d been standing there for God only knew how long.

  She thought about what they’d said only seconds before. About the word caring and the word love and the word sorry.

  And then she turned briskly and plastered on a smile, just in time for the interrogation.

  “What did you come here for?”

  The question wasn’t as scary as it could have been. True, she didn’t have an answer. But at least Tara hadn’t said, You’re sorry a werewolf got beaten up?

  “The alarm goes off and you come here?”

  Her mind flicked to what Connor had just said—about not knowing where someone was, as cool and calm as anything.

  “I was looking for Dr. Philips,” she said, and it sounded plausible enough. It really did. Until she thought about how pathetic her relationship with Dr. Philips actually was.

  “You were looking for Dr. Philips. In the middle of a wolf attack.”

  Tara narrowed her eyes and that was that. She was cornered. She and Connor were doomed, doomed to the incinerator or worse. She could see it in Tara’s eyes—the girl knew. She just knew even though the whole scenario should have seemed impossible, insane, repugnant.

  Serena had to get her out of the lab, away from the pressure of Connor’s gaze. Out of this, whatever this was, and into some other ludicrous version of her life. Of course, doing so meant only one possible thing.

  She had to drag Tara into the corridor, and tell her something that made Serena want to throw up into her own hands.

  “Philips and I are sleeping together, okay? I just didn’t think. I went for him. And if you tell anyone I’ll…I’ll…I don’t even know what I’ll do. Got it?”

  She expected laughter. Laughter, as though no one could possibly believe that she was sleeping with Dr. Philips. Tiny, bug-eyed, reptilian Dr. Philips.

  But then Tara suddenly made a face—the one she’d expected after the realization that her best friend was fucking a wolf—and shrugged her off, and said the very best thing she could possibly say under these crazy parameters.

  “You’re fucking lizard-face Philips? Oh my God, you are desperate, Kent.”

  She backed away, shaking her head. Then seemed to consider, for a second. As though she’d just realized how mean it sounded, to call a “friend” desperate.

  “Well, you’ll find him in the south corridor laundry room. As soon as the alarm sounded he climbed into a washing machine and shut the door.”

  Yep. That was her dreamy guy, all right.

  * * * * *

  “You t
old her you were sleeping with him? My torturer? You told her you were sleeping with my sadistic torturer?”

  She gritted her teeth and pulled, but the nail wouldn’t come free. Much to his displeasure.

  “I’ll show you sadistic torturer in a second.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re not even twisting then pulling. You’re about as sadistic as a donut.”

  “Hey, don’t blame me for my lack of sadistic-ness. You’re the one who made me watch while you did that very thing just to make me do your evil bidding.”

  “You didn’t watch. It was dark. You just heard squelching. I could have been stomping on my torn-off finger.”

  “Gross, Conn. Really gross. And as for the other thing—you know I’m not actually sleeping with him, right? I just had to tell her something that would explain my running desperately to your rescue.”

  She put a hand on his back and tried to brace herself. The nail was coming, she could feel it. It was the last one and it was coming and once it was out they could stop trying to banter past horrible, grisly injuries. They could do something ordinary, instead. Like cuddle.

  “Did I mention how much I loved you running to my rescue?”

  “You might have said something—hold still.”

  “I can’t, it’s really—ah, Jesus!”

  “I’m sorry I’m sorry, oh fuck I’m so sorry!”

  And then the banter evaporated, and she was just blubbering into his blood-streaked back. At least she had the nail—though what kind of victory that was she couldn’t say. Her entire body felt like a wet dishrag. She’d soaked her uniform, under her arms. Three nails, and she was out for the count.

  “Hey hey hey—it’s okay. I’m okay. I haven’t died.”

  But that wasn’t the point really, was it? When she ran her fingertips over the almost smooth marks where the nails had been, he still flinched. She could still feel the blood sliding thick and visceral beneath her touch. It had run all the way down his back to wet the sheets, and when she got the cloth and wiped and rinsed, wiped and rinsed, it turned the water a stormy red.

  “Scrub harder,” he said, so she did. She got the sooty trails off his arms and his face—not like before with the soft, sensuous strokes she’d fallen into over the year, but rough and hard and desperate.

  And the harder she scrubbed, the less he seemed appeased, until somehow he’d reached behind himself and crushed his hands over her ass, plastered her to him like maybe he could get rid of the blood and the pain by merging them into one person.

  Which seemed, frankly, insane. She’d just pulled nails out of him and he was groping her in a completely suggestive manner, and when she kissed the nape of his neck instead of pushing her face against it, he groaned too loudly.

  “Weren’t you in agony, three seconds earlier?” she asked, but he just laughed—a terrifying, full-throttle sound. She wasn’t even sure if she’d ever heard him make anything like it before.

  “I’m no longer completely sure I can tell the difference between pleasure and pain,” he said, and she thought of his scar, the way he’d reacted when she’d bitten him. The way she had reacted when she’d thought he was going to bite her.

  “I don’t think we have an entirely healthy relationship,” she said, though it kind of hurt to do it. Still, it felt a whole lot better when he didn’t respond with something like, Yeah, well, we’re a different species.

  “I spend half my life in a cage and you spend all of your life pretending you don’t mind. I think we’re long past healthy,” he said, then quite suddenly spread himself over and against her.

  It made the back of his head and the nape of his neck slot into the curve of her shoulder, and gave her a long, charged look at the entire length of his glorious body—golden again, now the pink of the scrubbing had left his skin. Nothing stuck, that was the thing with him. Nothing stuck, and he was just going to be ageless and flawless forever.

  Save for the scar. The one she couldn’t help tracing her fingers over—oh that branching, beautiful part of it like a twisted letter Y, so rough beneath her touch—on the way down his body, to the thick, insistent jut of his cock.

  “You know, I always thought I was the insatiable one,” she said, though the way it had really felt played on her mind. It played so hard she had to say it. “I thought I was going mad.”

  His eyes were half-slits. Most of him didn’t seem to care, but some of him apparently did.

  “Because I’m a wolf?”

  Oh yeah, some of him did.

  “Because I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. Because I think of it even in darkness, with bars between us.”

  “Think about what?” he asked, but she could see he had a pretty good idea. He’d turned his face to her throat now, and his mouth felt unbearably wet and hot.

  “Being with you. Having you inside me. I could still taste you all over me after…after you did those things to me. I could still smell you.”

  “And you thought about those things through the bars.”

  “I thought about there being no bars. I thought about leaving here with you—”

  He cut her off almost immediately. Like a reflex.

  “Don’t. Don’t,” he said, and she understood why. She really did. Outside he’d be safe, or as safe as anyone could get in this world. He’d be able to run with the wolves and challenge any that got in his way, and after a time maybe he’d even build one of the strange wooden cities people said they’d made.

  But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t be safe. They’d eat her alive before she’d taken three steps out of the heavy metal bulkhead at the end of the south corridor, and they wouldn’t think twice about it.

  “It can only end up one way, you know—this thing we have,” she said, but she could tell he wasn’t thinking about anything like that anymore. It got hard to think when someone had their hands down over your body, sliding through a gloss of perspiration slow and easy, everything intent on making you feel good.

  And she was, she was, because stroking him was better than thoughts of burning or being torn apart or worse. Everything just washed away when she slid out from beneath the bulk of his body and laid slippery kisses over his chest, his stomach, and finally his stiff cock.

  Of course he reacted the strongest for that last one. She felt his hand go to her hair almost immediately, and though his hips bucked he didn’t try to force her to go on. Quite the contrary.

  “No, no—let’s not do that. Don’t…that.”

  “You missed a word,” she said, then licked over the straining curve of his shaft, nice and wet and slippery.

  He said things then, all right. But she couldn’t really count them as words.

  “Is that good?” she asked. In reply he squeezed the pillow behind his head. His cock twitched, as though maybe it could get at her mouth just by acting innocent and moving around a little.

  A little wasn’t going to cut it.

  “You know, I’ve never had a man in my mouth before,” she said, and he groaned harder for that one. Mumbled something about her not having to do it, if she didn’t really feel like it. “Have you ever…?”

  He opened his eyes then. They were still heavy-lidded, but his gaze lasered in on her with some precision. Her sex swelled in response, everything down there growing slick and ready to take him.

  “Once. Once. Maybe…forty years ago now.”

  Of course she’d seen his file. She knew he only looked in his late twenties. But still, it was sometimes a shock to hear him say how old he really was, out loud. To hear him talk about things she knew nothing about, having spent her whole life in this decaying rabbit warren humans now called home.

  “People used to drive around in little vehicles of their own—not like the big armored transports now. And I had one—a car. I had a girl too, though she was nothing like you. What we had was nothing like this. It was all just so…casual. Everything was casual then. I used to take her somewhere quiet in my car and then she’d put her mouth on me just
…like…that.”

  She sucked him into her mouth, hard, caught somewhere between raging desire and twisting jealousy. But then the taste of him—so salt-sweet and good—flooded her, and the feel of him took the rest of her senses, and she forgot the little sting of resentment toward some other girl, long gone.

  Especially when his hand tightened in her hair, and he said so low and soft, “But it didn’t feel this way. Like I’m going to split apart if you carry on—God your mouth is so hot. So wet. Keep going like that, keep going.”

  She got a hand around him and rubbed as she tasted him, licking under the pronounced ridge beneath the head of his cock, flicking over the salty slit at the tip, sucking and sucking until his hips lifted off the bed. It felt so much better than she’d imagined, to bring someone pleasure with her mouth, so much hotter. He’d almost lost himself, and she’d barely done anything at all.

  “Turn around,” he said, in a voice so hoarse it was practically burned down to nothing. And when she did, when she twisted awkwardly on the bed until he could get at the aching place between her legs, he didn’t waste time. He didn’t even seem to care if she carried on sucking him—though she found it a fairly simple task to do so.

  It was less simple, however, when he slid a hand up over her thigh and pressed two fingers over her slit, suddenly, firmly. Said two fingers found it pretty easy, from there, to slither through her folds and find her clit.

  And then it was all just frantic stroking and even more frantic sucking, and every scrap of greed in the world rattling through her, too heady and strong to deny. She could feel her orgasm rising up already, though she knew it had a lot to do with the shaky breaths he was taking, and the moaning, and after a long, drawn-out moment he told her, “I’m close, don’t stop. Oh God don’t stop.”

  He actually said the words don’t stop. No resistance, no worry. It was almost as though they were normal, a real and normal couple just pleasuring each other with complete abandon, and if there was ever a time for Tara or Commissioner Reddick or anyone at all to just walk into the ward right then and there, this was it.

  But nobody did. Instead, she bristled from head to toe with that lovely, fizzing sensation, clit swelling beneath his busy fingers, body releasing and contracting under the pressure of orgasm. And when he blurted that he could feel her coming—shortly before flooding her mouth with hot, slippery fluid—the sensation twisted deeper, went on longer.