The Wolf in the Mansion [A Siren Adult Fable] Read online

  Deja swallowed at the memory of his departure, what she'd done to him after he rejected her and before he left town. She promised herself she would never use her powers that way again.

  Jeff had been lucky, leaving with a new lease on life, but Deja was left with the memory of how she'd let her self-righteous teen anger and hurt drive her into his dreams to ‘teach him a lesson.’ She'd pulled up the mirror in his soul, dug deep into Jeff's subconscious to show him a vision of what he would become if he continued on his current course. It had been enough to frighten not only Jeff but Deja herself with what she could do.

  Never again.

  "Are you working with him? Are you helping him?"

  Deja shook her head and stared at Lincoln, train of thought momentarily lost before she found her voice to say, “I don't know what you're talking about. I rowed over from my cottage to help you. That's all. I'm not working with anyone and the only one I'm here to help is you. I'm not here to hurt you, Lincoln.” She tried to free her hand again and instantly stopped at his resistance. She tried to stay calm, softened her voice. “Please, let me go so I can help you."

  "No doctors. No hospital."

  Why was he so adamant but, more importantly, why was he so paranoid? Maybe it had something to do with how he had been injured and fallen off that cliff. Maybe it had something to do with why he was in his birthday suit!

  He groaned, lifted himself out of the water onto the rock with his free hand to lay flat on his back and Deja gaped when her gaze drifted to his lap.

  She darted her gaze up his body focusing on the shoulder and noticing the hole. The bullet must have gone straight through, since he seemed to have a wound in the front of the shoulder matching the wound in the back.

  Deja let her glance move over the rest of his body, admiring his smooth, well-delineated chest and broad shoulders, then back down over his slim waist and lean, muscled thighs. She had a flash of herself and him together, Lincoln's legs flexing as he pumped inside her.

  Deja avoided the center of his body altogether, at least as much as she could, though she couldn't stop thinking about his semi-erect cock rising from a nest of fine black curls.

  What would he look like fully erect? Certainly he'd be drool-worthy and imposing. What would he feel like inside her? Deja's pussy spasmed at the idea of him, hot and pulsing, against her inner tissues. She got wet just imagining the scenario and shook her head again, nipping her wayward thoughts in the bud. The man was injured. He needed tender care and medical attention, not sexual harassment. “My hand,” she blurted.

  He raised his head to look at her, realized what he was doing and released her wrist as if it burned him. “I'm sorry."

  Deja immediately missed the skin-to-skin contact, almost regretting saying anything. She went closer to wrap an arm around his waist as he sat up. “Can you make it to the boat?"

  He frowned at her. “Why are you helping me?"

  "Why wouldn't I?” Was he testing her again?

  He shook his head as if to clear it then moved to stand.

  Deja automatically averted her gaze, trying to give him as much privacy as possible and not stare but, my Goddess, who told the man to go skinny-dipping in the middle of the night and to look so gorgeous wet beneath the light of the moon?

  When he stumbled as they reached the boat, Deja caught him against her side, holding as much of his weight up against herself as she could, and that was saying something since he must have outweighed her healthy one-forty by at least fifty pounds, fifty very solid and firm pounds.

  As soon as she got Lincoln into the boat, she wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and he immediately hunkered down into the cover's flannel warmth. “Thank you, Dah ... Deja."

  There was that name again, his dead wife.

  She almost asked him about her but didn't want to raise his suspicions anymore than they were already, though she hardly understood his mistrust, especially after what they'd shared, though brief it had been.

  "Thank me once you're out of the woods.” She didn't know why she said it or why there was a reason he wouldn't be safe now that she had pulled him from the water, but she still had that feeling of dread pressing down on her, a feeling that told her they were nowhere near ‘out of the woods’ yet.

  * * * *

  Lincoln caught himself being rude as she rowed the boat back to shore and her cabin. He tried not to stare, but it was difficult to keep his eyes away from her when she looked so much like Dahlia, the resemblance almost caused him physical pain.

  He closed his eyes and concentrated on the steady, heavy sound of Deja's breathing for a long moment before opening them to stare at her again. He was so mesmerized by the way her copper skin, long, russet hair and gray eyes looked beneath the moonlight, it was a while before he found his voice. “You should let me do that.” He had tried to get her to let him do the rowing before, but she'd flat out refused, saying he needed to save his strength.

  "I'm good,” she said.

  He smiled at the understatement. She was more than good. She was beautiful and sexy and he wanted her warmth even in his wounded state, something in her soul reaching out and screaming to his so his skin tingled just being in her presence.

  Did he want her because she looked like Dahlia or in spite of the resemblance?

  He'd initially thought she'd stayed in his memory so long, when no other woman held his attention past an introduction, because she looked so much like his dead wife. When he'd gotten past the resemblance, however, he thought she might have put a spell on him to make him remember her, though he'd never been able to come up with a viable reason why she'd want to go to such extremes to get his attention. But he now knew his attraction to her went beyond her looks or any imagined spell. He just didn't want to believe Deja was his mate. His mate was long dead. End of story.

  Tell that to your ever-hardening dick!

  "Are you okay?” She stopped rowing long enough to lean towards him and place the back of her hand against his forehead as if feeling for a fever.

  He grinned at her maternal reflexes. He could see her doing the same to her son at home.

  How did he know she had a son? Was it something she told him, or something he just knew?

  There were other memories there, just below the surface, just out of his reach, a flash of their first encounter in the park across the street from his office. It was almost immediately after that he had decided to work from home, too afraid to risk running into her again and opening up anymore than he had, or feeling her open up to him. He had been too raw, and yet, something in her during that brief meeting moved him, not just her resemblance to Dahlia but something in her soul that touched his.

  Deja suddenly smiled and shook her head, answering her own question. “Of course you're not okay. You just barely survived a fifty foot fall and..."

  And what? He wanted to ask her, but couldn't. He didn't want to let her know he had gaps in his memories of the evening.

  He didn't even want to examine how serious or extensive his memory loss was, not yet, was just satisfied that he could remember at least her and she wasn't such a strange or unfriendly face; glad that he still had their meeting, his brain holding onto it like a talisman against evil or pain, she his light during dark turbulent times.

  How long had he been thinking of her this way? Needing her without knowing her?

  She frowned at him and he imagined her look mirroring his own. “What happened to you, Lincoln?"

  He felt the pain in the back of his thigh and shoulder, was weak from what he assumed was blood loss, but he couldn't remember how he'd been injured or how he had gotten into the water. Everything right before Deja turned him over on the rock was a blur, incomplete.

  She touched his arm. “Lincoln?"

  He looked at her, liked the sound of his name coming from her mouth, the smoky timber of her voice, but chastised himself for enjoying her company. “I don't remember."

  She looked long and hard at him and he wondere
d if she believed him. He wouldn't in her place, but then, everyone wasn't as cynical of human nature as he was. At least when it came to strangers he was cynical.

  Why was that last thought important? Had someone related to him caused his injury tonight? Had someone close betrayed him? Was his amnesia organic, caused by his injuries or was it psychological, a defense mechanism, his way of denying what had happened to him? Deny who had hurt him?

  He growled in frustration and immediately regretted it when Deja pulled back and grabbed the oars to start rowing again.

  "You don't have to be so touchy about it. I was only curious."

  "I'm not growling at you."

  "It will come back to you.” When he frowned at her, she grinned and said, “Your memory. It will come back to you."

  She sounded so sure and optimistic it made him wonder. Did he want his memory to come back or was he just better off in the dark about what had happened tonight?

  Chapter 2

  Cyril McCabe fumed and paced at the edge of the cliff as he shouldered his rifle.

  He wanted to believe his younger brother was dead, had been well on his way to thinking he had completed what he'd set out to do tonight, before he saw Lincoln's head bobbing above the water as he struggled to stay afloat.

  Cyril had been in the midst of deciding how best to handle the situation when his brother made it to the safety of an outcropping of boulders and finished shifting to human form, too weak to hold his wolf shape.

  Had that interfering woman not shown up in her boat when she did, Cyril would have been able to make it down and finish his brother off. But with one of his employees as a possible witness, he didn't want to take the chance. Not that he had any compunction about killing anyone else. He just didn't want to waste the energy, or his silver bullets, unnecessarily.

  Deja Hamilton.

  He'd wanted the woman from the first moment he saw her, not for any overt sexual attraction or animal magnetism on her part. Though she most assuredly had her charms, ones that Cyril would not have minded enjoying in greater detail, he only wanted Deja because he knew his brother would want her. And he knew Lincoln would want her because she looked almost exactly like his late wife, Dahlia. It was the last detail that had strengthened Cyril's resolve to hire Deja five years ago.

  She had proven to be an excellent, if aloof, secretary over the years and an even better account executive. But her biggest asset to Cyril was her ability to turn Lincoln's world on its ear just by her daily presence in the office.

  Lincoln had been a relative recluse before Cyril hired Deja, preferring to work from the family mansion and only coming to the offices when absolutely necessary. After Cyril hired Deja, the necessary appearances dwindled even more. Lincoln got away to the family's country farmhouse, telecommuted as often as possible and created other ways to stay away from McCabe Associates, especially Cyril's office and the mansion, where he had the greatest chance of bumping into Dahlia's twin.

  Cyril sneered now at his brother's lovesick behavior.

  The woman had died. It was time to move on. Cyril had moved on, even though he had lost the most as far as he was concerned. It was he who had introduced Dahlia to Lincoln, and he who had to sit back and watch while the two fell in love. However, Dahlia's defection wouldn't have made a blip on Cyril's radar screen if the object of her affection had been anyone but Lincoln.

  Cyril had but one use for her and since Dahlia only wanted to be friends and refused to get sexually involved with someone she didn't have ‘feelings for.’ How antiquated could a modern woman get? She served no use to him at all. Until his brother became smitten with her.

  Despite Dahlia's disinterest and Deja's obvious aversion, Cyril gritted his teeth now at the idea of losing another woman to Lincoln. He could see the instant chemistry between his younger brother and Deja even from his place on the cliff.

  Had the pair gotten together before Cyril's attempt on Lincoln's life? It occurred to him he could have used the union to his advantage, especially if Lincoln fell as hard for Deja as he had fallen for Dahlia. But any sort of plan that involved getting to Lincoln through Deja had been destroyed with his attack tonight.

  Cyril peered at them as the boat moved towards shore, reaching out to his brother and just brushing across the surface of his brain with his mental fingers.

  He had a lot of practice getting into Lincoln's head, though his ability, regrettably, stopped at manipulation. Had he the power to sway Lincoln through supernatural means, tonight would have been unnecessary. He could have easily convinced his brother the merger was a great deal all the way around and not just one that would make Cyril a wealthy man.

  Lincoln wanted to stay loyal to the family name, loyal to their parents who'd built the business from the ground up. Once again, he allowed his emotions to rule where the business was concerned.

  Wimp, just like their parents.

  The only thing they had been good for was passing on their superior, supernatural physical and psychic genes. The drawback on that was that Lincoln had them too and their parents must have thought he was the more worthy of the two since they'd lavished all their concern and attention on Lincoln throughout his and Cyril's childhood.

  It wasn't supposed to be that way. He was the eldest, and should have been the recipient of all and had been until Lincoln came along to spoil things, his parents under the misguided impression that he was lonely and needed a sibling.

  He didn't need anyone, parents or brother, beyond what they could do for him. Beyond this, they had no purpose to him.

  Cyril thought once his parents were out of the way his path to fortune was set. But Lincoln was staunchly loyal to the family business and the employees, seeing them as an extension of his family as did his parents, a totally inappropriate attitude in Cyril's eyes and proving that Lincoln was too soft to run a business the way it needed to be run. Never mind that, and despite his lengthy absences, he was universally liked by everyone who worked at McCabe and Associates and other companies allied, and even competing, with theirs. Friends and associates could be bought, so could employees. Either this or they could be done away with.

  He should have done in the-thorn-in-his-side, goody-two-shoes when they were kids, had tried to numerous times and would have succeeded had it not been for the watchful eyes of their parents, Cyril's own inexperience and hesitance, and Lincoln's damnable luck.

  But now there were no more parents to protect him and Cyril wasn't inexperienced or hesitant anymore. As for Lincoln's luck, well, that was about to run out.

  Cyril closed his eyes and sifted through his brother's mind to see if he could come up with anything useful. He brushed over the area where the short-term memory would be, careful not to alert Lincoln of his presence. He searched for several long minutes before coming up totally blank.

  He knew he was linked with his brother, could feel his consciousness. Did the ‘blank’ he encountered mean there was no short-term memory? Did Lincoln not remember what had just happened to him?

  A grin crept up the side of Cyril's face at the implications.

  This was just too rich! For once providence was shining down on Cyril.

  He had to stop himself from laughing when he realized Lincoln's memory loss might not be permanent and that nothing regarding the human brain was an exact science. After all, the gifts he and his brother exercised naturally and on a regular basis, like shape shifting and telepathy, were debatable and deemed impossible amongst those in the scientific community, the actions of comic superheroes and fantasy novel characters.

  Didn't they know yet that the brain itself was at least eighty-five to ninety-percent uncharted territory?

  Arrogant fools!

  For these reasons alone, and since he couldn't really be sure how extensive his brother's amnesia was, he couldn't sit back too long and wait for the man to get his memory back completely.

  How could he explain the accusations? For that matter, how could Lincoln?

  Cyril knew D
eja would be at the cabin for the length of her vacation, at least another two weeks. He would just have to keep an eye on her and his brother for the duration, wait and see how things progressed.

  In the meantime, he had a few calls to make to start building on an already solid alibi.

  * * * *

  Deja got Lincoln inside to her bedroom and deposited him in the king-sized bed.

  He made no comment when she left him to throw more wood into the hearth and stoke the fire, nor did he stir when she returned to the bed to see how he was doing. In fact, he was sound asleep and curled under the sheet and comforter by the time she sat at his side.

  Deja stared at his serene, sculpted features, and soon found herself caressing his face as if trying to commit every angle and curve to memory. She stopped, jerking her hand away from him and shook herself at the notion. Every physical aspect from his arousing, spicy scent to his big, hard body was already firmly entrenched in her mind. It had been since she first met him five years ago. For the first time in all that time, she had him alone, vulnerable and at her mercy.

  Deja almost laughed at the idea of someone as dangerous to her psyche and libido as Lincoln McCabe being vulnerable or at anyone's mercy. Even incapacitated, the man was plain dangerous. But for now, he needed her help.

  She hated disturbing him, especially since from all appearances he could use the rest, but she had to see what sort of injuries needed to be tended.

  She'd seen the blood on his shoulder and assumed he had been shot and immediately considered the possibility of a hunting accident. But who went hunting in the middle of the night? And a hunting accident still didn't explain why he was naked when she found him.

  Deja pulled back the covers and turned him onto his side as gently as possible. He didn't protest either verbally or physically and it made her fear how deeply he was sleeping.