Unleash the Night (Dark-Hunter #9)(13)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Suddenly the stupid old adage about "if you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it was, and always will be, yours. If it never returns, it was never yours to begin with" went through her mind. It was true.

Of course the thought was quickly followed by Tammy’s favorite addition: "If it just sits in your living room, eating your food, messing up your stuff, and using your phone while taking all of your money, and never behaves as if you actually set it free in the first place… you either married it or gave birth to it."

Tammy had an interesting take on life sometimes.

No good would ever come of trying to leash him to her side.

"Okay, Wren, but if you ever need a friend, you know where I live."

He smiled before he nuzzled her cheek. His breath heated her skin, making her hot and weak. It was all she could do not to pull him back to her bed.

"If you ever need someone to protect you, you know where I live."

She laughed at that even though her heart was shriveling at the thought of not seeing him again.

"Go," he said, urging her back. "Get your bath. I’ll be waiting in the other room."

Marguerite nodded and watched as he left her there. Missing him already, she bathed and dressed, then took Wren back to Sanctuary.

He opened the car door, then turned toward her. "Thank you, Maggie."

"For what?"

"For being with me."

She scowled at his odd words. Why would he thank her for that? "It was far from a hardship."

"I’ll never forget you," he breathed. He took her hand in his, then kissed her palm.

Then he left the car.

Marguerite rolled the passenger side window down. "Wren?"

He turned back toward her. "It’s over, Maggie. It has to be."

Before she could say another word, he disappeared into the building without so much as a backward glance. She listened to the radio while the song "I’ll Be" by Edwin McCain played quietly to fill the vacancy left by Wren’s absence.

But in her heart she knew that nothing would fill the emptiness inside her. Nothing but Wren, and he was determined to stay away.

Maybe that was for the best, though. There was something very dark and very sinister about Wren. Maybe he was right. Maybe there was something wrong with him.

The papers were filled every day with women who’d made the wrong choices in boyfriends or spouses. Many of the women didn’t live to regret it.

But Wren wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that instinctively.

"Yeah, but unless you’re willing to trust me, there’s no hope for this."

Wren wanted his freedom and she refused to run after him.

She was Marguerite Goudeau. And if she had nothing else in her life, she had her pride.

"Bye, Wren," she whispered. "I hope we meet again one day after you learn to trust someone."

Chapter 6

Wren felt like warmed-over shit as he walked through the back door of Sanctuary. He forced himself to shut the door gently and not slam it. He didn’t want to be here. The only place he wanted to be was with Maggie.

Even now he could smell her scent on his skin, feel her body pressed to his. He craved her with a consuming madness that wanted him to turn into his true form and bound back after her.

But it could never be.

There was no place in his life for her.

"You’re late, tiger," Remi growled at Wren as he entered the kitchen. "Where the hell have you been?"

Wren ignored him as he pulled a white apron from the hook by the door, shrugged it on over his head, and tied it around his waist. Marvin came running up to him, chattering in an angry tone as he expressed his upset at being left alone with the bears for so long.

"Sorry, monkey," Wren said quietly. "I had things to do this afternoon."

Marvin pursed his lips before he bounded up Wren’s arm to perch on his neck and muss his hair. Wren smoothed it down but didn’t comment.

Remi gave him a hostile glare before he went to get another keg out of the supply room.

Tony came through the kitchen door from the bar area with a load of dishes. He passed a relieved look at Wren as he set them in a large stainless-steel sink. "Man, we have been busy today. I swear it feels like Mardi Gras or something."

Wren glanced to the clock on the wall. He was fifteen minutes late and Tony still had traffic to deal with.

Tony inclined his head to Wren. "Don’t worry, I’ll make it. But watch out for Remi, he’s been in a pissy mood all day."

Wren snorted at that. Remi stayed in a pissy mood. The bearswain had perpetual PMS.

"Don’t speed," Wren warned Tony as he shrugged off his apron and pulled his keys out of his back pocket. "There’s a cop just down the street."

"Thanks for the tip."

As soon as Tony left, Remi paused with the keg and glared at Wren again. "What? You talking to the help now?"

Wren ignored him as he picked up an empty dishpan.

Remi cocked his head. "You wreak of human, tiger. Where were you this afternoon?"

He could sense the bear wanted to attack-it was as much Remi’s nature as it was his own. But luckily the bear had better sense. Without acknowledging him at all, Wren headed out to the bar to bus tables.

It was a typical evening with the tourists and bikers mingling against the backdrop of heavy metal songs that played over the stereo. The Howlers wouldn’t take the stage until much later. With the exception of Colt, who was their guitarist, the band tended to sleep all day and only rise at dusk. It was hard for an animal to retain its human form in the daytime.

Only the truly strong could manage it.

Since it was dinnertime, the table areas were packed with people eating. There weren’t many Were-Hunters about. Wren was one of the few who came out this early. But then, daylight had never bothered him that much. Even though he was young by Were-Hunter years, he’d never had a lot of trouble remaining in human form before dark. He wasn’t sure why.

Maybe it stemmed from the fact that it took just as much effort to hold a pure tiger or leopard form as an animal as it did to look human. He’d honed those skills early in life as a way to at least try to blend in with the other animals.

Unfortunately, it had been moot, since they could smell that he was a hybrid. His scent was the one thing that he couldn’t change even with magic. And he hated it.

As soon as he filled his pan, he headed back toward the bar for the kitchen door. Behind the bar, Fang moved to hold the kitchen door open for him.

Wren inclined his head in thanks. Fang was a wolf who had come to Sanctuary almost a year and a half ago. He’d spent the first few months here in a coma brought on by a vicious Daimon attack that had left the wolf completely defenseless. Unlike the vampires of Hollywood legend, Daimons not only drank blood but also sucked living souls into their own bodies to elongate their lives. Since Were-Hunters were able to wield magic, they were particularly sought by the Daimons, who could use the magic themselves after they killed a Were-Hunter.

It was a harsh thing for a Were-Hunter to be attacked by them, and Wren could understand Fang’s coma from it. The wolf was damned lucky to be alive.

Since that weird Thanksgiving when Fang had managed to leave his bed for the first time, he’d been slowly coming back around, but the wolf was still seriously scarred by his attack.

"What happened to your hair, tiger?" Fang asked.

"It fell off."

Fang shook his head as Wren walked past him, into the kitchen. He stopped at the sinks. Marvin leapt from his shoulder to the shelf above while he unpacked the pan for the dishwashers.

"How did it go this afternoon?"

He turned his head to see Aimee behind him. As always, she was stunningly beautiful, with a tight red T-shirt and a pair of jeans. A wide smile curved her lips. She looked hopeful.

Wren shrugged. "It was all right."

Her smile faded. "Did the flowers not work?"

"They worked."

"Then why aren’t you happy?"

He shrugged again.

Aimee grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the hearing range of the others, into a corner. "Wren, talk to me."

She’d been the only person he’d ever really spoken to, which didn’t say much, since he seldom said more than a handful of words to her. "I don’t belong with a human."

She glanced toward the door that led to the bar where Fang was working. "Yeah, it hurts to want something you know you shouldn’t. But-"

"There are no buts in this, Aimee," Wren said between clenched teeth. "Katagaria don’t have human mates, you know that. When was the last time one of us was mated with a human?"

"It’s happened."

He knew better. "Even if it did, we’d be sterile. An animal can’t have children with a human." Which might not be so bad. The gods knew the last thing he needed was to sire more freaks like himself. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that Maggie was out of his league. She was everything decent in the world, and he was everything that gave humans nightmares.

It was impossible.

Wren sighed in resignation. "I got her out of my system. Now I need to work."

But the problem was that Maggie wasn’t out of his system. If anything, she was more a part of his thoughts than ever before. He didn’t understand the hunger he felt. The need.

The beast within him wanted out to hunt for her. It was salivating inside, simmering. It was a good thing he knew how to control the beast, otherwise there was no telling what he might do.

He left Aimee and went to get his pan.

"Wren?" she said, pulling him to a stop.

Wren cast a meaningful look toward the bar where Fang was waiting for the bearswan. "Stop being a dreamer, Aimee. Our reality is too harsh for that."

He saw the doubt in her blue eyes. "But it’s the hope of something better that keeps us going."

He scoffed at her blind optimism. "I abandoned the idea of hope the day my own mother lunged at my throat to kill me." He gave Aimee a hard stare. "And if I were you, Aimee, I’d heed that warning well. Neither of us has a human mother. If you think for one moment that Nicolette wouldn’t turn on you, too, you’re crazy."

"I’m her only daughter."

"And I was an only child-the last of my mother’s kind-and yet she didn’t hesitate to come after me. Think about it." Wren brushed past Aimee, back into the bar.

Still, Aimee’s words rang in his ears.

Hope. He snorted bitterly at the thought of it. Hope was for humans. It wasn’t for animals or freaks.

"Hi."

He glanced up to see a young woman in an extremely short skirt and tight midriff shirt approaching him.

She leaned her head back and polished off her drink. "I thought I’d save you some time and bring my glass to you," she said, giving him a hot once-over. She slid her empty glass over her breast before she handed it to him.

Amazed that he felt absolutely nothing for her, Wren inclined his head and took it from her before he moved away to another table.

The woman pouted before she returned to her seat.

"What the hell is wrong with you, tiger?" Justin asked as he joined Wren. "What kind of beast would turn that down?"

"Go get her, panther," Wren said quietly. "She’s all yours."

"Yeah, I think I will."

Wren watched as Justin made straight for the woman and struck up a conversation. A few minutes later, the two of them were headed off toward the storeroom near the stage that had been soundproofed by one of the bears as a place where they could take willing human females for a quickie or two.

It was weird that Wren felt absolutely nothing for the woman. Not even a slight stirring. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear he was mated. But there was no mating mark on his hand, and even if there were, he would never mate with a human. Especially not Maggie. Her father was too prominent a man.

The idea was to keep their world a secret from humans. Mating himself to a member of a politician’s family was suicide.

Marvin came running up to drop a glass in his pan before he dashed off again.

Nicolette paused just outside the door to her office as she watched Wren cleaning tables. Every animal sense she possessed told her that it was time he left Sanctuary-not that she had ever really wanted him here.

If she had her way, there wouldn’t be anyone staying at Sanctuary except her own family. But that wasn’t their laws. It was necessity that dictated she allow other Were-Hunters to come and go and even live in her beloved home.

That didn’t mean she liked it.

Her gaze softened as it drifted toward her son Dev, who was talking to her other son Cherif. She’d lost two sons to the Arcadian Were-Hunters who had once pursued them to the ends of the earth and beyond for no other reason than because her kind were animals. She refused to lose any more children to tins bloodthirsty war of Arcadian against Katagaria.

She would do anything to protect her family.

"Lo?"

She turned at the sound of her mate’s call. Aubert was staring at her with a concerned gaze. "Oui, Aubert?"

He glanced over to where Wren was. "The tiger isn’t hurting anyone."

She curled her lips as she watched Wren cleaning. "His very presence offends me. He isn’t right and you know it."