"Chhhh. Fucking technicalities now? A couple thousand years in darkness, close enough. You'll watch everyone you love die. You'll watch the crew die of old age, and I'm calling it now-you're going to find a man you love, who dies on you, and you'll carry that hurt for two thousand fucking years. Turning vamp isn't a fix for anything. It's replacing one problem for a dozen more."
"One problem," she repeated, standing. She clenched her hands. "I'm a song-writer, Dustin."
"What?"
"Yeah, that's my passion. I write songs. Some of them are big. Some of them you've probably heard on the radio. I'm a natural," she said, the words tasting bitter against her tongue. "A music prodigy, my teachers said, if not for the hearing loss. And I want to write songs for me. Can't you try to understand? My whole heart is full of music, all the time, and I have this voice I can't control, can't stand the sound of, can't hear well enough to hold a tune. So yeah, if I have to give up sunlight and live the exact way I've been raised my whole entire life, which isn't the awful experience you imagine, then yeah, I'll give up steak and sleep during the day."
"Then what are you waiting for? Huh?" Dustin's eyes flashed with anger. "Why are you here trying to be a Blackwing instead of shacking up with your beloved coven and getting your throat ripped out by one of your loving parents?" Dustin was shaking, but she didn't understand why.
"Why are you so offended by this? If you were really my friend, you would at least try to see it from my point of view."
Dustin snarled deep in his throat, and his words came out too gravelly. "I'm a fucking werewolf, Emma. Have you not heard anything about us? You really live in the supe world and don't see what is standing right in front of you? You think you befriended a werewolf, really? Friendship isn't our gig. Blind loyalty to our alphas is. That's it. There's no room for humans or vamps." Dustin stepped up to her and curled his hand around her throat like he wanted to squeeze, but he didn't. His eyes flashed those bright colors, and then he strode off toward the woods, removing his shirt as he went.
"What about the food?"
Dustin turned and walked backward, his face snarled up and terrifying. "Eat it all. Enjoy, Emma. You'll be on a boring-ass blood diet soon enough."
And then he shoved his jeans down to his ankles and Changed into his black-furred massive wolf before he was even done undressing.
Emma sat heavily on the blanket as the tears that had brimmed in her eyes trickled onto her cheeks. She'd never seen him like that. Never seen him open up about his hate for being submissive or his disgust for vampires. Her heart felt like it had been severed from her body, but why? It was just Dustin, and this shouldn't be a surprise. He was right. Werewolves were psychopaths at best, and she'd been mistaken to think he was different.
The haunting note of a howl lifted on the wind, rising and rising, and she closed her eyes against the world and just listened to his song.
Dustin's howl was the saddest, most beautiful sound she'd ever heard.
Chapter Six
Emma wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and lifted Dustin's shirt from the pile of wild grass where he'd discarded it. She folded it and then checked the tree line before she lifted it to her nose and smelled the fabric. It smelled like cologne and Dustin. So good.
What if he was watching her from the shadows? The hair lifted on the back of her neck as she hurried to pick up his jeans. Movement on the edge of the woods caught her attention, and there he was, human, naked, muscles rippling as he strode directly for her. His eyes were still glowing blue and green, and his mouth was set in a grim line that said he wasn't through with his tirade yet. Shit.
She clutched his clothes to her chest and readied to strip him down right back. Testy werewolf, judging her life choices-and whoa, he wasn't stopping. Back up! Dustin was coming in hot!
Eyes sparking with intensity, he cupped her neck and pulled her to him. His lips crashed onto hers, shocking her completely. He pushed his tongue past her lips, forced his way into her mouth, and hell balls, a post-Change, riled up, oversexed Dustin was hot. He ripped his clothes from her arms and threw them away, then gripped her waist hard, dragging her against him.
"I'm sorry," he growled against her lips.
An apology from a werewolf? Maybe she had been right about Dustin after all. Perhaps he was different.
He gripped the back of her hair, not too tight, not too gently … just perfect to get her revved up. With a soft moan, she slipped her arms around his neck and allowed him to lift her off the ground. She thought he would get rough in his hurry to get to the blanket, but he didn't. He cradled her in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all, working her lips with gentle sucks and nips. Overwhelmed with feelings she didn't understand, Emma pecked his lips, then buried her face against his neck, inhaled deeply. He smelled of fur.
Dustin must not have minded the affection right in the middle of their kiss since he rested his jaw on her forehead and sighed a relieved sound. Then, and only then, did he carry her slowly to the blanket, keeping his gait smooth and steady.
He laid her down as though she was fragile. As though she was a flower with thin petals. Trailing a finger down her tear-stained cheeks, he shook his head, his eyes filling with regret. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, and she got it. Words were hard for her now, too. She didn't like fighting with Dustin. Didn't like arguing. Didn't like upsetting him. She drew his hand to her lips and kissed his palm. He watched her lay kisses along his wrist, up to the inside crease of his elbow.
Inhaling deeply, he pulled the hem of her silk blouse until it slid over her hair, and then he cradled the back of her head and laid her down gently. Emma wanted to laugh and cry and grin and cry some more. Dustin was capable of great gentleness-something she would've never guessed in a million years. Oh, this man didn't know it, but his tenderness right now, right when she needed it, was earning her devotion.
His triceps was flexed as he locked one arm by her head, and with his other hand, he unclasped the front fasten of her bra and pushed it aside. He blew out a shaky breath as he drew his touch lightly around one of her breasts, raising gooseflesh where his heat met her skin.
"The first time I saw you," he murmured, speaking carefully, "I thought you were beautiful. I thought something was wrong with me because there were two shifter females right there, right near me, and I couldn't keep my attention off the human."
"You did not," she said low.
Dustin dipped down and sipped her lips, then rested his forehead against hers. His hair tickled her cheeks, so she tucked it behind his ears.
"You wore a blue shirt, no logo, hugged your curves. Dark blue jeans with holes at the knees, and your hair was down in waves. When the sun peeked out from the clouds, it made your hair look like it had gold streaks. Your eyes looked so green with Kane's woods behind you. I thought you would be sweet. Too sweet, but then when you flipped me off and turned off one of your hearing aids, my wolf sat up straight inside me and couldn't stop watching you." He kissed the base of her throat. "Little human who knew how to posture. Who knew how to handle herself in the middle of all those monsters." He kissed her right under her earlobe. "You were writing in that journal, and I wanted to see just one page, so bad. I wanted to see what you were writing, and if it was about me. I hoped it was about me, even though we were strangers. But every time I got too close, you closed it up and lifted your little chin. You glared me down like I wasn't scary to you. I knew you wouldn't let me push you around, and my wolf sat up a little straighter." He kissed her lips, nibbled her bottom one. "Remember when I bought all that Chinese food and the D-Team sat around eating, waiting on the call-backs from Kane?"
"Yes," she panted out.
"I bought the food for you. I wanted you to eat with me, and you did. And then I wanted you to eat after me. I wanted your lips to touch what mine did. I couldn't stop watching you. And still, you didn't take my shit. You saw through it. You giggled when the others wanted to murder me. And my wolf sat up a little straighter."
Was this what it was like to fall in love? Emma ran her knuckles along the underneath of his defined jaw. "What else?" she whispered.