Werewolf's Treasure

Chapter Six

He looked at her, not really knowing if she was ready to see him in his wolf form.

Soren wanted to shift, because he wanted to prove he wasn’t an animal filled with bloodlust. So far Treasure was only marginally taking the fact he was a werewolf well.

The scent of her fear still perfumed the air around her. And he still hadn’t told her anything about her being his mate, and that after last night, they were irrevocably bonded. Nor how old he actually was.

“Are you sure you want me to shift?” he asked.

Her arms seemed to wrap tighter around her middle. “Yes.”

Soren still wasn’t sure, but he figured it might be better for Treasure if he got this all out in the open at once. With a nod, he stepped back to put some space between them.

He watched her as he willed on the change, calling on the magic deep inside him. She gasped and her eyes widened. He knew what she saw. As he shifted his eyes would glow, his body would shimmer, then blur as he took on his wolf form.

The change complete, he sat on his haunches and looked up at Treasure. Her face had turned white. She stared at him with a look of shock clearly written on her features.

The scent of her fear increased.

He knew he had to convince her he wasn’t some kind of killer she had to be afraid of. If he could only get her to touch him in this form, run her hands through his fur that was just a shade darker blond than his hair, then maybe they would be okay.

Soren got up and tried to take a step closer. She jerked back hard enough to lose her balance and she fell sideways onto the bed. He jumped up beside her and she scrambled away toward the head of the mattress and leapt onto the floor. For a mortal, she could move pretty fast.

“Stay away,” she said, her voice shaking as she spoke. “Just stay the hell away from me.”

Sensing her fear was about to take her over, Soren quickly shifted back to human form, willing his clothes on. “Treasure, calm down. I’m still the same man. I was a werewolf on the day we met, and I’ll always be one.”

“I have to get out of here.”

She tried to walk past him, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. Treasure shot out of reach as if he’d burned her with fire. “You can’t leave. I haven’t told you the rest.”

The laugh that bubbled out of her had a tinge of hysteria in it. “Don’t bother. I don’t want to hear any more. And I am leaving.”

He stood in front of her, blocking her way out of the room. “You have to stay with me.”

“What are you going to do? Hold me prisoner?”

“No, of course not.” This was going from not too bad to a hot mess in no time at all.

“Then get out of my way.”

Treasure walked around him, and Soren blurted out everything else. “You can’t leave, because you’re my mate. Last night the mate bond formed between us, which means we’re considered married. And with the bond, we won’t be able to stand to be away from each other. The separation will play with our minds, make us think something bad happened, and that it has been months instead of hours that we’ve been together. And once we are reunited, if it’s been a long period of time, all we’ll be able to think about is reaffirming what is between us in the most intimate of ways.”

As he spoke Treasure had come to a standstill. “Bullshit.”

“It isn’t. You had to have felt it during the first time we made love. I know I did. It was a part of my soul reaching out for yours, then the two combined to become one.

You are my mate, Treasure. If you weren’t I wouldn’t love you as I do now.”

She shook her head. “I can’t do this right now. I really can’t. This is too much to accept all at once. You’ll let me leave, because if you don’t, I’ll be on my cell phone so fast, calling 9-1-1, you won’t know what hit you.”

Soren let out a deep growl as she turned and walked out of the room. He followed her and watched her snatch up her purse from the couch on her way to the penthouse door. Shit, he was going to have to let her leave. She was in no condition to think things through.

Treasure undid the deadbolt and opened the door. It slammed behind her. Soren hurried back to his room, donned a clean t-shirt and put on his shoes. He raced to the kitchen at werewolf speed and collected his keys. He might have to let her go, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t follow. After seeing how Kian had gone through the separation anxiety in Niagara Falls, there was no way Soren wanted to experience it. It almost drove his friend nuts.

Out in the hallway, Treasure was nowhere to be seen. Not wanting to take the time to wait for another elevator, Soren headed for the door to the stairs. Werewolves could move faster than any mortal. He took the steps two at a time, moving at a speed that would have him quickly on the ground floor.

Once in the parking garage, he got inside his car and revved the engine before slamming it into reverse. He reached street level just as Treasure’s car turned out of the parking lot.

Soren followed behind her at a discreet distance, making sure her car remained in sight at all times. As long as he could keep her from getting too far ahead of him they’d both be fine. He groaned to himself when she reached her destination. He’d figured she would go back to the yacht. And it didn’t bode well for him.

He hung back a bit as Treasure parked in the marina’s lot, then headed for the docks where the boats were moored. He pulled into a slot a little away from her car.

With his excellent eyesight, it wasn’t too hard for him to watch his mate walk down the dock before stepping onto the yacht’s deck.

He waited until Treasure disappeared below, then Soren got out of his car and walked toward what would soon be the object of his misery. He had no idea if she knew how to captain the yacht, or if she could call someone to do it for her, but Soren didn’t want to take the risk of his mate taking it out on the lake with the hopes of keeping him away. He didn’t think she would do it, but there was a slim, very slim, chance it could happen.

Walking on silent feet, Soren reached the yacht and lightly stepped on board. He looked for a place to duck out of sight. The only place was at the very back of the boat where there was a platform close to the water that could be used by swimmers. This was not going to end well for him.

With a burst of werewolf speed and stealth, he raced past the windows of the main cabin below and onto the platform. He sat with his back against the yacht, facing the water, wanting something solid behind him. He brought his knees to his chest and rested his forehead on them. Soren shut his eyes and concentrated on not getting seasick.

He listened to the seagulls flying around, and the sound of some of the other vessels leaving the marina. Actually the latter part he had to force himself to ignore, since it made him think of what he sat on. He was forced to swallow a few times.

Soren guessed an hour had gone by before he felt his stomach roil with the familiar queasiness. He kept his eyes closed and leaned his head back against the yacht, breathing in and out through his nose. The upside of this was he wasn’t suffering from separation anxiety, which meant neither was Treasure. So what if he upchucked? It was better than being away from her. Without their minds playing tricks on them, he hoped his mate would be able to sort things out and realize he was the one she wanted.

If she couldn’t, it meant he had more hours of seasickness to look forward to, because he planned to go wherever Treasure went to save them both.

Eventually his stomach couldn’t take any more. Soren crawled to the edge of the platform and barfed up his guts. He used some of the lake water to wipe his mouth, and risked taking a quick look around to see if anybody saw him. That would just be the icing on the cake, to have an audience while he was sick.

Fighting his stomach again, Soren stretched out on the platform. Treasure was worth it. He just had to keep reminding himself of that.

The sound of her cell phone ringing caused Treasure to jump. She’d been sitting on the couch for who knows how long, lost in her thoughts. Of course they all centered on Soren and what he’d revealed to her.

Thinking it could be him calling, she fished her cell out of her purse and looked at the call display. She breathed a silent sigh of relief when she saw it wasn’t Soren, but she did recognize the number.

“Hi, Rach.” Rachel owned one of the other yachts nearby. They’d struck up a friendship shortly after Treasure had moved to the marina, even though Rachel only came during the weekends.

“Hi, Treasure. Are you on the yacht?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Bill and I are just leaving the marina to take a cruise on the lake. We just went past you. Did you know you have a man on the very back of the yacht who is sick as a dog?”

Treasure stiffened. “You mean he’s there right now?”

“Yes, we just cruised by. Do you know him? Because if you don’t, I’d call the cops to get rid of him.”

“That won’t be necessary. I know him. Thanks for calling.”

“No problem. Since he’s a friend of yours, I suggest you get him back on dry land.

Obviously, the yacht doesn’t agree with him.”

“I will.”

She ended the call. The man had to be Soren. He must have followed her back here.

Did she really want to go out and confront him? Now that she’d had time away from him to sort things out, her initial fear had subsided. She could look at things from a proper perspective. Had Soren ever tried to harm her in any way since she’d met him?

No, he hadn’t. If anything, he made her feel protected, safe. As if nothing would get through him to her. Maybe that had to be his being a werewolf, she didn’t know. In hindsight, in his wolf form, he really hadn’t been all that scary. He could almost pass for a dog, if you didn’t look too closely at him.

Treasure blew out a breath. She thought of what Soren had said about them becoming bonded the first time they’d made love. She’d felt it, and the thought of never seeing him again actually didn’t sit well with her. If she were honest with herself, she’d admit she had fallen in love with a werewolf. And he’d already told her he loved her.

Knowing perfectly well she couldn’t leave things how they were, Treasure pushed to her feet. She couldn’t have Soren getting sick outside for everyone to see. But before she took him off the yacht, she wanted to get some answers to her questions.

She climbed the stairs to the deck above and headed straight for the back. She looked down at the platform and saw Soren stretched out on his belly, his head over the edge as he threw up. A wave of pity washed over her. So much for the big, bad werewolf. Right now he was probably as weak as a kitten.

Once she stood beside him, Treasure squatted and rubbed his back. “Let’s get you below deck. You can wash up there.”

Soren lifted his head and looked up at her. “Treasure? How did you know I was here?”

She smiled. “A friend of mine who has a yacht here as well cruised by and saw you.

She called to let me know I had a strange man on mine getting sick.”

He groaned. “Great.”

With a hand around his arm, she helped him to stand. “Come on. We’re going to have a talk before we get you off the yacht.”

“You’re going to put me through the third degree while I’m down?”

“It won’t be that bad.”

Soren managed to get himself to the main cabin without her help, but the paleness of his face told her he still wasn’t feeling well. She led him to the bedroom and waited while he went inside the bathroom and rinsed his mouth. Treasure sat on the bed and patted the spot next to her when he came back out.

“Sit,” she said. Once Soren sat beside her, she continued, “I overreacted when you first told me about you being a werewolf, but it’s not something I ever expected to have to handle.”

“I know. It’s a big shock to learn a creature out of myth and legend is actually real. I tried to break it to you the easiest way I knew how. I’ve never told a mortal before.”

“Mortal? You must mean everyone else who isn’t a werewolf, right?”

“Yes. To set the record straight, my kind really isn’t immortal. We’re just really long-lived. The oldest we get is around three thousand years old.”

Treasure swallowed. “Then how old are you, Soren?”

“Nine hundred.”

She tried to not let on how shocking she found that. Soren might be that old, but he definitely didn’t look it. He appeared to be her age.

“Okay. I can handle that, I think. Now you said I’m your mate and that we’re bonded. Is it because of this separation anxiety you spoke of that you followed me home?”

Soren swallowed a few times, as if he fought not to get sick. “Yes. Mates can’t stand to be apart from each other, or it plays nasty tricks on their minds. It’s not something either one of us should go through if it can be prevented. I’d rather suffer through a bout of seasickness than be apart from you for any length of time. Though after a couple of years it does get better, allowing us more time to be away from each other.”

This separation anxiety had to be pretty bad if Soren was willing to purposely suffer through seasickness. Right now, he looked like death warmed over. And being with him again, all the reasons why she’d fallen for him in the first place came to the forefront of her mind.

Soren groaned, then shot to his feet, making a hasty retreat to the bathroom. She followed more slowly. She grimaced when she saw he had nothing left in his stomach to get rid of and only had the dry heaves.

“All right,” she said once he finished. “Time to get you out of here. I think you’ve suffered enough. We’ll continue our chat at the penthouse.”

He took a step toward her and tentatively took her in his arms. “Does that mean you’re willing to stay with me? Be my Treasure?” He grinned. “Pun intended.”

She couldn’t help but smile back. “As if I haven’t heard that one before.” Treasure grew serious. “I do love you, Soren. Just take things slow with me, okay?”

Soren kissed her forehead. “I will. I’m sorry we became mated before I had a chance to tell you about this. That had been my intention. Until somebody decided she couldn’t wait to have me.”

Treasure smiled. “Yeah, I guess you can blame me for that one.” She hugged him before she pulled back to look him in the face. “It’s going to take some work, but I think we’ll make it.”

“We’ll get it figured out. Now can we go, because if I stay here much longer I’ll be praying to the porcelain god again.”

“We can’t have that.”

With an arm around Soren’s waist, Treasure helped her mate off the yacht. She also decided she liked being the werewolf’s treasure.

The End