Haunted by Your Touch

resisting. But he would surrender to it now. For her.

She nodded once in agreement.

Then the Luc she knew was gone. Transformed in a fraction of a second. His face and body shifted, twisted into something horrible in its beauty. Almost feline, with its sleek lines and rippling sinew and muscle. Not swallowed in fur, like the lycans that had attacked Lily and Maureen that first night.

He did this for her. Embraced his beast. All so she could be free. Free of this curse. Free of him. Free of him? The thought swiped a bleeding gouge in her heart. She would never be free of him. She never wanted to be.

Her chest ached, and she wondered if anyone had ever cared enough to risk himself for her before. Aside from her mother, who could no longer even remember her, had anyone ever cared for her that much?

Then he was gone, a blur, a flash from her side. He had almost reached the alpha when the two other lycans intercepted him in a smack of bone and muscle. Animal versus animal. Evil versus good.

They fought like beasts. And they were. Bones that would later heal smacked and crunched together. She moved from where she stood, pressing herself to the wall, watching with suspended breath as the two lycans managed to gain the upper hand on Luc.

Wet and snarling, they pinned him to the ground, a grip on each arm.

Then she saw it. Curtis’s gun, the weapon innocuous in a shallow puddle of pool water. Silver bullets. A lycan’s only fatal weakness. She reached for it, tucking it behind her back as she watched the alpha approach Luc. Her alpha.

“A legendary dovenatu, eh?” His glittering silver stare raked Luc. “Disappointing. I thought you would be so much… more.” Snapping his fingers, he motioned to his two comrades. “Finish him.”

“No!” Lily surged forward, her palm flexing around the gun’s grip behind her back. Her only chance. Luc’s only chance.

“Ah, little one.” The lycan responsible for what she was—the curse she bore—bestowed a beatific smile on her. “I almost forgot about you.” That pewter gaze slid over her curves, and suddenly she wished she were wearing anything but a bikini. His smile slipped, the whiteness of his teeth barely visible as his lips moved. “All heart and sweetness. We’ll rid you of that. Come here.”

She angled her head, for a moment lost in the mesmerizing pull of those pewter eyes.

“No! Leave her alone!” Luc fought harder. He flung one of his captors over his head into the pool with a splash. With a two-footed kick to the chest, he sent the second lycan flying. He hopped to his feet with the agility of a cat just as a lycan sprang from the pool in a spray of water.

Snapping from her momentary stupor, Lily whipped the gun from behind her and surged forward, her heart a wild, desperate thump in her chest. Squeezing the trigger, she fired at the soaking-wet lycan charging Luc, sending him into the pool again.

The other lycan roared and came at her. Lily jerked back a step, slipping on the wet floor and firing one shot to the ceiling. Luc caught the silver-eyed devil before he fell on her. They crashed to the ground near her, biting and clawing at one another in a wild thrash of limbs.

Lily sat up, trying to focus her aim on the lycan. Luc hurled him off with a vicious kick. Those eerie eyes met hers the precise moment she fired.

“Lily,” Luc roared a warning in his thick, guttural voice.

She looked up, finding her alpha practically on top of her.

She swung the gun up, pressing it into his head. He pulled up hard, hands splayed in front of him.

“Easy,” he murmured, inching back a step, easing away from the barrel. His steel-eyed gaze locked with hers and she felt that pull again.

“Shoot him!” Luc shouted.

Shoot him.

Her finger tightened around the trigger. Just the slightest pressure more and it would be over. She would be herself again. Human.

Alone.

The alpha inched back another step. And another.

“Shoot him, Lily! End it now!”

End it. End them.

“Save yourself. Break the curse.”

His words settled in the pit of her stomach like rocks. In that moment, with her finger tightening on the trigger, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. It just felt… wrong.

Luc snatched the gun from her limp fingers. Her alpha was almost to the doors, his back the perfect target. Luc surged forward, arm outstretched, taking aim.

“No!” She charged Luc, jerking on his arm. A shot fired into the wall.

Like a flash of smoke, the lycan disappeared through the double doors.

“What the hell are you doing?” Luc started to go after him, but she jumped on his back, arms tight around his shoulders.

“Luc—let him go!”

Luc peeled her off him. He faced her, his fierce face snarling into hers. “What are you doing? You let him get away—”

“I know!” she shouted, tears choking her throat. “Did you mean it? God, please tell me you meant it!”

He grabbed her face with both hands. In a blink, his face transformed into Luc again. Her Luc. “What are you talking about?” His thumb roved over her cheeks, rubbing salty tears into her overheated skin.

“You said you would keep me with you. Forever. Did you mean it?”

A long, endless moment passed, the only sound her ragged breaths.

Then Luc dragged her into his arms. Forehead pressed to hers, he pulled them both to their knees. “Lily, Lily, Lily…”

She sighed his name.

He pulled back and gave her a small shake, his face tight with a desperation that she felt reverberate deep inside herself. “Don’t you understand what you’ve done?”

She nodded. “Yes.” Swallowing past a throat tight with emotion, she answered thickly, “I chose you. An eternity with you.”

He stared at her for a hopelessly long moment, and she wondered if he had changed his mind. If he didn’t want her… the responsibility, the burden. Maybe she wasn’t worth it to him.

“Say something.” Anything. Just not that.

“Lily.” He hauled her into his arms, squeezing her breathless. “I do want you—I love you. I only hope you don’t regret—”

She pulled back to rain kisses on his face. “Never. What I’m getting more than makes up for what I’ll lose. Believe that. Don’t worry about me regretting this. Instead, think about how we’re going to spend the rest of our lives.”

He muttered against her lips. “I’ve already got a couple of ideas.”

Chapter Ten

Soft rain pelted the bungalow’s window as Lily traced mesmerizing circles over Luc’s ridged belly. “Hmm. What now?”

They’d cleared Luc’s house of his valuables and left, checking into the Beverly Hills Hotel. Luc didn’t want to hang around waiting for more lycans to show up.

“We’ll stay here for a while. For your mother.”

She sat abruptly, staring down into his shadowed face. When she had asked the question, she had been thinking more along the lines of room service… but his answer could not have elated her more. “Really?”

“It’s important for you to be with her.” He pushed a thick lock of hair behind her ear. “We’ll stay. Through the