The Empath Read online

  “Like how some men think of baseball when they’re trying to slow down during sex?”

  He gave a strangled laugh. “Something like that.”

  Maggie didn’t want to think of baseball. His scent swam in her nostrils. The exhilaration of changing without anger provoking her stimulated her senses. She wanted to taste him again, mark him with her scent.

  Taking his palm, Maggie gave it a long, slow lick. Nicolas trembled as if trying to restrain himself.

  She didn’t want restraint. She wanted him, wild and free, as her wolf had been free.

  Desire and something deeper swam in his velvet gaze.

  More. Maggie ran her hand over the taut muscles on his body. Raging sexual need consumed her. Her body felt on fire with need for her mate. She burned. It felt almost painful.

  A soft breeze caressed her naked skin. She felt wild, free and incredibly alive. Desire burned in his gaze.

  “Caira,” he said thickly.

  She felt it as well, a need so sharp it consumed her. Nicolas started for her. She danced away, laughing.

  “Not so fast. Let’s see if you can run that fast on two feet.”

  Darting away, she tore off for the house. Maggie sensed Nicolas hot on her heels. She ran faster, exhilarated, her wolf still howling inside. Into the house, hooking a left into the living room then the bedroom when Nicolas pounced.

  He tackled her, sending her flying backward on the bed. They wrestled a minute, rolling as Maggie laughed. Then Nicolas rolled her over, straddling her. His crooked smile faded with the intensity of his gaze.

  “I can’t be gentle with you,” he growled. “Not now.”

  Panting, Maggie stared up at him. She knew what he wanted.

  As an answer, she kneaded the firm flesh of his taut buttocks then slid from under him and flipped over on her stomach.

  His hungry growl echoed her own as his warm hands stroked a line down her back. Maggie arched her back, leaning into his caress.

  His hands on her hips, Nicolas pulled her onto all fours. She felt him position himself behind her. His rigid length prodded her soft opening. Maggie arched and moaned, undulating her hips. He pushed inside a little, teasing, then withdrew.

  Nicolas leaned over her, his chest hairs rasping over her overly sensitive back. He cupped her breasts, thumbing the nipples. She felt wild and carnal, animalistic in her need.

  With a low snarl he thrust deep inside her. She gasped, trying to absorb the shock of taking all of him at once. He leaned close and thrust, withdrew and created a rhythm. Maggie snarled herself, desperate to be free, to touch him. But he held her firmly, controlling each deep thrust, intensifying the pleasure until it mounted and built. She felt ready to explode.

  Then his hand reached down to her cleft. Deftly he flicked once, twice.

  She screamed as the climax shattered her. Quivering, she wanted to collapse onto the mattress.

  “Oh, no, I’m not done with you yet,” he whispered into her ear as he thrust into her. She felt herself open to him like a flower, exposing everything. Then she felt him tense as his hands gripped her hips. His cock seemed to expand and stretch her beyond limits.

  Suddenly he stopped, as climax shimmered just beyond her reach. Maggie howled with frustration as he withdrew. Nicolas pressed a gentle hand onto her backside, which was slick with sweat. She fell on the mattress.

  “I want to kiss you. Turn over,” he ordered.

  She did and he slid over her, framing her face with his warm, strong hands. Nicolas kissed her deeply, his tongue thrusting in and out as she wriggled beneath him. He drew back, parted her legs and pushed into her, angling his thrusts to give her the most pleasure. Maggie arched off the mattress as the tension built. She felt taut as a bowstring. Trailing his mouth down her throat, he suddenly bit her neck. She screamed and wrapped her legs about him.

  “Now, caira, now, come for me, now,” he growled.

  Arching, she climaxed and felt her sheath clamp down on him as he swelled inside her. Nicolas released his seed as a harsh roar ripped from him. Her vision blurred with tears from the power of the emotions pouring from her, and into her.

  He locked inside her even as his seed kept pouring into her, his essence. Everything. A little scared of the intensity, she wanted to pull back and hide, but he murmured soothingly into her ear.

  “Maggie, my Maggie, don’t fear it. Look, caira, look at us.”

  Colors swirled and sparkled, dancing like iridescent butterflies. Maggie gasped in awe and began to weep. Wonderment overcame her. She felt her very spirit flowing out of her, pouring into her mate. Strength filled her. Nicolas’s immense strength and power. His magick.

  She opened herself fully, giving him all her healing powers. Her tearful gaze locked with his intent one. She sensed Nicolas struggle against the powerful emotions pouring into and out of him. A single, small droplet of water leaked out of the corner of his eye and his expression tightened as he blinked furiously. Maggie sensed he held back the smallest bit. He was blocking her, putting up a small barrier, like concrete blocks piled in the middle of a raging river. Nicolas hung over her, kissing her neck as they melded together.

  Nicolas carefully turned around and rolled over so she lay atop him. He stroked her hair, murmuring endearments as she trembled in his arms.

  Many minutes later, she felt herself loosen around him. Very carefully, he pulled out, leaving her feeling bereft and empty.

  He opened his arms with a solemn look. “Oh, Mags, come here.”

  A little cautious, she lay against him, wondering what he’d seen deep inside her that put that aching note in his voice.

  “You’re scared,” he whispered to her. “So scared and you think, if you hide, you won’t have to face what happened when you were younger. You’ve been hiding your whole life behind your science, technology, logic. Hiding away from your true self because it scares you. Don’t hide anymore. Come with me, and be who you are destined to become. You can’t hide anymore. You’re in this and there’s no place to hide.”

  He caressed her cheek. A haunted look entered his dark eyes. “Have you ever been so lonely, Maggie, that you feel as if the world had died and left you behind? No one understands, no one cares, you’re not even a speck of dust, not noticeable. Then along comes someone you know, who is there for you, and your world goes from being a cold, stone hearth and burnt ashes to a crackling fire and friendship. That’s pack, Maggie. Family. With pack you are never alone, you’re tied to them irrevocably unless you do something that banishes you. And that kind of loneliness is like a knife stabbing in little thrusts, over and over.”

  His gaze grew intense. “Until you meet your one, true mate, your draicara, the one who is meant only for you. And the loneliness fades and even pack isn’t as all important as your mate and bonding to her at last. That is our life, Maggie. You feel it, too. I know you do.”

  “With you, I feel like I can be anyone.” Maggie paused, touched his cheek. “A wolf. I’m not afraid anymore of who, or what, I was meant to be.”

  He closed his eyes, trembling as she caressed his face. A thought entered her mind and she sensed it had escaped him like an elusive tendril of smoke.

  I am very much afraid. Because I don’t want to lose you, Mags. I can’t. Part of me will die with you.

  This vulnerability of his touched her. He guarded it just as he guarded her.

  She had never felt safe, protected. Or had been able to fully let go. Always on her own, guarded and wary, as if an instinctive caution guided her. Now resting against Nicolas, she felt cherished, protected and safe. This felt right. It felt like coming home after a long, weary journey.

  Except Nicolas hadn’t fully opened to her. And since he hadn’t, it meant he didn’t fully possess her empathic abilities to heal. If he tried healing a catastrophic illness, just as she’d healed her dog, it might kill him.

  She lay awake for a long time, deeply troubled by the thought.

  ———

  Much la
ter, as Maggie slept, Nicolas slid out from beneath the covers. He padded out to the kitchen and fished in a drawer for a sharp knife.

  Clenching his teeth, he drew the blade across his palm. Blood welled up, black in the darkness. Just as quickly the cut closed together. Nicolas watched in rising excitement as the wound healed. It worked. He’d inherited Maggie’s healing abilities.

  He cleaned the knife and put it away. Now he could heal any one of his sick pack members. The disease would not thwart him or kill him.

  Nothing could stop him now.

  Chapter 12

  The next morning, the tender closeness they’d shared during the mating lock seemed to evaporate. Maggie’s stubbornness grated on his nerves. Nicolas leaned against a tree trunk, rubbing his tattoo. It seemed to burn against his fingers. He’d shown her how to toss daggers as they practiced using a tree trunk. Maggie had excellent aim, her knives arrowing straight to the target. Then he demonstrated the intricate maneuvers needed in human form to stab a Morph through the heart.

  She refused to practice. Maggie refused to even try. It was as if she’d never absorbed any of his warrior abilities.

  Hitting a tree trunk with knives was more like a game, she said. Hitting a target was different. Emotions blazed in her deep blue eyes. The passion exhibited in bed last night flared now in mute defiance.

  Nicolas took position before the CPR dummy. Unsheathing both daggers, he held them loosely with a practiced hand. “Like this. Loosen your wrists.”

  Barely concentrating, he flicked back his hands, released. The daggers sank into the dummy’s chest. Several slits marked the target. His marks. Not hers.

  “Try it now.”

  She broke her silence, folding her arms across the navy sweatshirt. “No, Nicolas. I won’t do it. I won’t kill so there’s no point in learning.”

  Trying for the logic she liked so much, he pointed out that the Morph leader had clearly marked her for death. “Kill him and you dispatch the army, Maggie. Kane is the key to destroying them. You’ll find no peace until he’s dead. He’ll search for you and use everything he has to cut you down. Everything. He will come after you himself.”

  A frown line dented her lovely brow. “I know. I can’t keep running, but…can’t you see, Nicolas? I’ve spent most of my life training myself to invoke peace. How can I change?”

  How? Like he had learned to change. Out of necessity, Nicolas learned to kill. “You do what you must. Faced with danger, you have to protect yourself. Remember, Kane is a germ and you’re a white blood cell. He’s a disease that needs to be eliminated.”

  Wind ruffled the curls framing her heart-shaped face. Her velvety lips pursed in a troubled moue. Nicolas tensed himself against a desire to kiss away that look. “Then why can’t you kill him for me, Nicolas? If Kane is such a threat, and you’re skilled in killing them, do it yourself. Baylor said out of all the males in the pack, you’ve downed the most Morphs.”

  Her eyes searched his as she studied him. “Hasn’t he ever come up against you?”

  His heart dropped into his stomach. “Kane has never tried to kill me.” That much was true. Nicolas erected a shield to guard his thoughts.

  Because I can’t kill him, Maggie. If I kill him, I become what I fear most. And nothing will stop me. He turned to the immediate problem.

  “Enough of this, Maggie. What was in your past is gone. You’re Draicon now, and my mate. Every single Draicon must protect the pack. You will learn to kill Morphs.” His firm voice brooked no argument.

  “Like hell I will!”

  “Would you let them kill you?”

  “I’d find another way to defeat them,” she stated. “And I’d stay out of their way until I did. I’m a vet and I know animals. There must be a way to destroy them without violence. I will not use violence to destroy evil. Not again.”

  Her inward gasp of breath alerted him to the disturbing memory she faced. Maggie pressed her hands against her temples. He slipped into her thoughts, did not find the shattering images of blood and bodies he’d expected. Instead he found a brick wall.

  “Maggie, you need to remember. Only when you remember can you get past it,” he said softly, watching her.

  A barely perceptible shudder racked her delicate body. “I can’t, Nicolas. Somewhere in my past is a memory filled with violence. I’ve spent the rest of my life pushing through it. I won’t be like that again. It was brutal and bloody.”

  “Life can be brutal and bloody. You have to learn to fight back. I did. I proved myself and my worth to the pack.”

  He learned the hard way, carved a pathway to acceptance with his daggers and his strength.

  Blue eyes deep as a quiet sea focused on him. “Nicolas, you’re more than the image you project. You’re more than a warrior who’s fought hard. You’re kindhearted and noble and sensitive with the soul of a poet. Maybe you’ve never let anyone else see that. But I see it. The others should know all of you, not just the surface part of you. If you’d let them see deep inside you, they’d know what I know.”

  Alarm raced through him. Maggie dug beneath his layers and saw what he didn’t dare show to anyone else. The pack didn’t need a poet. They needed a warrior.

  He had to steer her away from this dangerous thinking. “The only person who needs to go deep inside is you, Maggie. You must learn to defeat the enemy, and you have to remember what’s in your past that’s stopping you from learning,” Nicolas growled.

  “I don’t need to remember anything. And I don’t need this.” With a firm flick of her wrist, she sent the dagger sailing downward. It stabbed the earth and quivered.

  Nicolas studied the defiant thrust of her lower lip. She would not. Gentle-natured, stubborn Maggie would defy him. He could not break through that barrier blocking out her past. Not even with the mating lock. She’d erected her own block from him, just as he had with her, he thought ironically.

  But he knew how to push past it, propel her into battle.

  When the first Morph scout arrived, he’d put the plan into action.

  ———

  Outside on the wood deck, they ate a hearty dinner of lightly grilled beef. Nicolas topped off her wineglass with the bottle of merlot he’d found on the wine rack. Rose twilight filtered through the thick pines, dappling the ground. Wind brushed the thick grass at the forest’s edge. The late October chill felt delightful.

  It felt peaceful and yet Maggie had never felt so tense before. Her wolf strained and whined to be free. It warned of danger and alerted her for predators.

  Ridiculous. No predators existed here. Nicolas assured her the cottage was protected from intruders. The magick spell warding off Morphs would last as long…

  As she and Nicolas didn’t practice too much magick.

  Her fork fell to the glass table with a loud clatter. Nicolas glanced up.

  “Nicolas, we are safe here, aren’t we? I mean, this magick we’ve emitted with our shifting, has it done anything?”

  Nicolas toyed with his food. “I’m not certain. The shield around the house is strong, but it’s never been tested. It depends on the level of power used.”

  “How can you tell how powerful the magick is?”

  He raised his intense gaze to meet hers. “Morph magick is dark and emits no colors, but most powerful Draicon magick produces iridescent sparks. Our mating certainly compromised the shield’s integrity.”

  Remembering the brilliant flare of colors when they made love, Maggie’s appetite faded.

  His reassuring smile offered little comfort. “We’ll be gone tomorrow, caira. Long before the Morphs can track us. Try to relax.”

  She speared another forkful of beef, but kept scanning the fields beyond the cottage. Twilight attracted animals to the straggling, sad garden. On the field’s edge, she saw a flicker of movement. Maggie set down her fork and sniffed the air. She caught Nicolas’s delicious masculine scent, the smell of meadow and a faint musky smell of deer.

  The animal cleared the forest an
d stepped into the meadow. It began cropping the grass.

  “It’s only a deer.” Maggie sat back, sighing with relief.

  Nicolas raised a black brow in question.

  “I guess I’m suspicious of every animal that walks nearby. I think it wants to jump me.”

  “Even me?” He smiled at her.

  “Especially you. You always look like you want to jump me,” she teased.

  His smile faded into an intense look. “I do.”

  The dark promise in his eyes sent delicious shivers coursing through her. Maggie glanced at the deer again, which advanced as it grazed. She frowned as it drew closer, obviously unafraid of the humans eating their own dinner nearby.

  “That deer is awfully large for a southern species. I’ve never seen one like it.”

  Maggie’s senses went on full alert. The pretty doe flicked its ears forward. It licked its nose, then opened its mouth.

  A ray of dying sunlight glinted off pointed, razor-sharp teeth.

  Horror speared her. Maggie gasped as scales erupted over the deer’s soft golden fur. The deer writhed and twisted, elongating into a scaly reptilian creature.

  She stared in shock at the twelve-foot crocodile as it began crawling toward them.

  Daggers had already materialized in Nicolas’s hands as he jumped to his feet and ran to the deck’s edge. “It’s a Morph scout. Stay here. I’ll kill it.”

  The shout of protest on her lips died as Nicolas jumped off the deck and ran toward the invader. It hissed, opened its jaws. She shouted a warning as the croc swung around to attack. Massive jaws closed on Nicolas’s arm. Her mate dropped his daggers and screamed as the croc bit down, tearing open his skin.

  Maggie cried out as well, her wolf clamoring for freedom. Nicolas had never screamed in agony. Tears blurred her vision.

  She must save him. Maggie jumped off the deck and raced forward, ignoring Nicolas’s weakened protests. Reptilian eyes stared at her as the crocodile swung around, jaws open, showing rows of sharp teeth. Nicolas lay on the ground, moaning. Always he fought in silence, a lethal machine mowing down Morphs.