And then she had felt his teeth graze her neck. Only it wasn’t his human teeth. These were elongated and very sharpened canines made for rending and tearing into flesh. His fingernails too dug into the soft flesh of her waist. Only they weren’t human fingernails anymore either. They were claws. Tiger claws.
He was turning into his animal self even as he came inside her.
She had cried out. Tried to warn him he was hurting her. He heard her, and he knew. And so he pulled out. Dropped her to the ground and ran away, bounding into the woods and metamorphosing as he did so.
She was bleeding where his claws had indented her flesh and where his teeth had nicked her neck. The pain itself was not intense, and she knew that Rust had not been able to control himself. Maybe it was the magick of the place. Maybe it was something else. But she was shocked and hurt and bewildered altogether at once.
She had lain there by the tree as her blood trickled to a stop. These were flesh wounds only and they would not cause permanent damage. But she wanted Rust to come back. To explain and hold her and tell her how sorry he was for having hurt her.
But he did not come back.
Someone else came for her, however.
The phoenix mask of Aaron Mitchell appeared after a while. As soon as he saw her, he rushed to her.
“Are you hurt?” he said urgently.
“No. I don’t think so.”
He helped her trembling body up. “I’ll take you to the house. We have a first aid kit there. Tell me what happened. Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
She leaned on him as he slowly guided her back to the mansion, using a path away from the revelers.
Once they were inside, he brought her to his den. A butler brought some towels and a first aid kit. He tended to her wounds gently, and she was right. They were barely dents on her skin, and they looked far worse in the beginning than they did all cleaned up.
“Do you need to go to a hospital?” Aaron asked solicitously.
“No. Where is Rust?”
“Probably working off his animal lust. Don’t worry about him. He’ll come back when he’s exhausted it. It happens to the best of us.”
Her heart sank. “Will he be all right?”
“Yes. Shall I fetch you home?”
“I have a driver . . . he’s probably waiting for us out there. His name is Hector.”
“I’ll get him.”
And here she was, with Hector, in the car. Going back in anxiety – worrying about Rust.
There was nothing she could do but go back to the Four Seasons and wait for him there – if he turned up.
She took a long bath and waited. She was not hungry, despite not having eaten for a while. Her pussy was still sore from his pumping and his seed was still deep inside her.
She waited and waited.
But still, he did not show up.
It was already three a.m. She was tired. And so she spread herself on the bed and fell into an uneasy sleep.
20
When Rust woke up, the sun was shining strongly from a blue sky. He was naked and his body was streaked with dirt. But he was thankfully in his human form.
The change had come very suddenly and powerfully last night. He barely remembered what happened. In his brain was a fuzzy recollection of running through the woods, crashing through the undergrowth. And hunting.
The rending of flesh between his teeth.
He sat up in horror. Surely he did not hurt Kate, did he?
Think!
Remember!
Flesh.
Blood.
The taste of it was still strong in his mouth. He ran his tongue over his teeth, tasting, imbibing. The iron taste of blood was still there, embedded in his teeth.
He had eaten something.
But he had to determine what. His memory was going to be hazy, as it always was when the change came over him as overwhelmingly as it did. That was the danger of augmentation by the ley line – it forced out the most feral parts of themselves like a tumbling house of cards.
He had a top priority now. He had to get to Kate and make sure she was OK.
Kate.
He would never forgive himself if anything happened to her because of what he did.
21
Kate’s flight was at three, and so she was all packed up and ready to go by noon. Rust still hadn’t called or showed up, and when she rang his cellphone, it went directly to voice mail.
Truth be told, she was worried. She didn’t know Rust’s parents’ cellphone numbers, and so she asked Hector to check in on whether Rust had returned to the house.
“He hasn’t,” Hector confirmed. “Don’t worry, Ms. Penney. Mr. O’Brien will show up soon enough. He is having the human equivalent of a hangover.”
Only it was a lot more than a hangover, wasn’t it? It was a lot more serious than that.
“Has this happened to him before?” she asked.
“Yes.”