Because she doesn’t know who you really are, his human pointed out inside of him at the same time his wolf growled, dangerous and intent.
“The proper title for the North American fenrir’s mate is First She-Wolf,” Rafes informed Myrna tersely, pushing his wolf down. Then he told Craig, “You may call her Mx. Adams. That’s her mother’s maiden name.”
Myrna’s eyes widened, “I never knew that about my mother, fenrir mine. You do honor me with this knowledge.”
God, she was sincere. And even though his guard’s faces stayed perfectly straight, Rafes could just about hear the conversation they were going to have as soon as they were alone.
Craig cleared his throat. “Okay, well, as I was saying, right this way, Mx. Adams.” He extended a hand toward the security drone that followed a few meters behind Rafe’s private one whenever he flew. “You’ll be flying with us.”
Myrna regarded Craig’s extended hand like it was made of silver. “I will not be removed from my fated mate’s side.”
“It’s protocol, ma’am,” Arik answered. “No one is allowed to fly with President Nightwolf.”
“Why is this a rule?” she asked.
“Ah…” Arik looked to Rafes for guidance, probably figuring the true reason, because President Nightwolf said so, wouldn’t pacify this particular she-wolf.
“We’ll make an exception this one time,” he told the stymied guard, just to avoid another argument like the one Myrna had with his mother a few minutes ago.
“Your flying boat is even larger than Aunt Alisha’s,” she said, looking around in awe after climbing on to his drone. Having someone else on board was a first, and he had to admit, it was kind of entertaining seeing the presidential drone through another’s eyes. Most personal drones were two, sometimes, four seaters, but his had been designed to seat ten. And Myrna appeared properly impressed. She oohed and aahed as she fingered the blue satin curtains and ran her hands over the ballistic glass that made up most of the drone’s walls and ceiling until the overhead voice asked her to take a seat before launching into a Bear McCreary playlist.
“So, it is true,” Myrna said as she took a seat on one of the long beige benches that ran down the sides of each wall. “In this time are voices captured like horses and kept in hidden places to instruct and entertain?”
“Yes, something like that. When my brothers and I arrived here we called them the musicians in the ceiling,” Rafes answered. God, he hadn’t thought about that memory in ages. And as he took a seat across from her, he wondered just how many questions he’d end up answering on the trip to Baltimore. She had to have a lot of them after a lifetime spent in a village seeing boats that could only be propelled with oars or sails.
“If you wish not the company of others, why do you have such a large boat?” she asked.
He nearly let out a bitter laugh at the question. Completely sincere but totally unanswerable if he wanted to keep any distance between her and his barely controlled wolf.
“I’m a very private person,” Rafes replied, giving her the same answer he’d given Georgina about why he refused to fly with his security detail.
“Private. That is from the word privacy, yes? Often would I give my mother this word during my later winters when I felt lonely and wished not for others to see my weakness. Maybe you were lonely, too, when you made this rule, fenrir mine,” Myrna said, her hopeful gaze raising to meet his. “As I was before the gate delivered me to you.”
This woman…his wolf throbbed inside of him with the need to claim her, even as his human insisted, “I’m not lonely. I don’t need anybody, including my security detail.”
“No, I don’t think you need any wolf to guard you,” she said, “But Rafesson…”
She slipped across the space separating them to sit on the bench beside him. Then she took his hand and placed it on her chest. “No man can keep a longhouse by himself.”
His reaction to her unexpected touch was swift and painful. His cock turned to granite and his wolf rippled his spine in a renewed bid to get out.
He snatched his hand from Myrna, and abruptly stood up. “Don’t,” Rafes snapped, his voice tight with the effort to hold back his wolf.
Hurt didn’t just flash across Myrna’s face it stayed there, obvious and pained as she said, “I am sorry. I did not mean to…” She trailed off, and Rafes felt like a total ass as he retreated to the only proper chair in the drone. A high back club that might have been declared the throne seat if he’d used his drone the way any other president would have and let other people fly with him.
Any woman born in this current period would have worked hard to hide how she truly felt. Rafes thought about how Camille had smoothly adjusted when he ordered a coffee instead of pulling out a ring. But Myrna was shockingly authentic in her speech and expressions.
But his wolf…the beast inside of him didn’t work that way. It wouldn’t let Rafes get too close to her, let her touch him without repercussions. It was too savage and untamed.
Again, he pictured Jillian cowering away from him, his chest slicing open with the memory, even as the wolf continued to growl. Wanting Myrna. Wanting out.
Control. He repeated it like a mantra, reminding himself of everything that was at stake. Everyone he could hurt. Including the she-wolf still watching him with troubled eyes as silence filled up the distance he’d put between them.
He could make this work with her. Control his animal. But not if he let anyone else into his longhouse. So, he shut her out, for her own good.
Control the wolf. Control the wolf…he commanded himself as he drifted off to sleep in the drone’s throne chair. That was his number one priority, even if she didn’t understand.
“Mine…”
Rafes awoke with this one possessive thought in his head. And languid contentment stole over his body as he nuzzled his face into black and red fur—
He stilled. His heart coming to a near full stop. What the fuck. His paws, not hands, were stretched across Myrna's black and red wolf, which was curled up against him, sleeping contentedly. With no idea of the danger she was in.
Fuck. The wolf was out.
10
Rafes
Rafes’s wolf didn’t talk to him like he’d heard other shifters speak of. The beast inside of him had been operating on only two settings since Rafes went through puberty. Threatening to break out and actually doing it. Most often while Rafes slept without the wherewithal to keep himself from morphing into the always lurking beast.
But as Rafes watched the animal rear up from the back seat, where he’d been shoved, it’s intention was clear. Claim her! Claim her! Claim her! His wolf panted and snarled, nearly crazed by Myrna’s wild sea and deep woods' scent. And there was nothing Rafes could do as he watched the thing get in position behind Myrna’s wolf. Nothing he could—
A loud piercing whistle suddenly sounded overhead, disabling his wolf with its painful screech, as a pleasant voice informed him, “Twenty minutes to your destination, President Nightwolf.”
This was exactly why he’d had the special alert system installed, and Rafes quickly took advantage of the paralyzing effect the alarm’s deliberately modulated frequency had on his beast, but not his human.
Control the wolf! Control the wolf! He roared as his humanity yanked on the leash.
Honestly it was like one of those dreams where he was in the passenger seat of a careening car and somehow had to figure out how to take control of a wheel. Rafes bore down as hard as he could, willing himself back into the driver’s seat.
Eventually with his heart beating like a drum inside his ears as the alarm died down, he transformed back into a man.
He adjusted his sleeves, thinking that while the average lupine tax payer might have questioned his insistence on an expensive wardrobe of tailored nanite suits, he could only thank God for the relatively recent invention of smart fabrics. This meant that all his suits adjusted to his form, whether he gained up to 40 pounds, or shifted into a
large savage beast while wearing it.
Shortly after he shifted, Myrna’s wolf came awake with a long stretch and yawn, having slept through the alarm. Her wolf was on the smaller side, Rafes noted. Just like her human. And the animal adorably rolled its neck to both sides, before easily shifting back into human form. Like NBD in comparison to what Rafes had just gone through to get his wolf under control.
This was a particular trick of the North Wolves, he remembered as he watched her transform. They were often forced to live in extremely close quarters in their homes, especially when the men went away on long sailing trips. So, starting at the age of four winters, every wolf in the village was made to undergo many months of training to remain themselves while in wolf form. For that reason, Myrna was able to shift back to human with way more ease than he had. Rafes had only received one week of wolf training before his father arrived to bring his mother and his three sons back to modern day America.
Most wolves from Rafes’s time didn’t bother or in many cases even realize they could train their wolves to keep their humans at the wheel when they shifted. That meant, even a sophisticated princess like Camille, would have reverted to her beast nature and attempted to tear out his throat after finding herself alone with him on a drone. Any other North American wolf in his position would have been grateful Myrna had this skill in her arsenal.
But Rafes was not grateful by the time she finished shifting. At all.
Apparently, Myrna hadn’t fully gotten the memo on the flexibility of nanite fabric. She once again stood before him, stark naked. The nipples on her full breasts hard as pebbles, the space between her legs emitting a delicious aroma. Begging him to taste. To touch…
The wolf howled inside, once again throwing itself against his body’s cage.
Control the wolf…control the wolf.
He held himself still, trembling with the effort to keep the beast inside of him, even as his normally reserved human took her in with hungry eyes.
“Are you angry with me again?” Myrna asked, mistaking his ravenous gaze and tremendous effort to not claim her right fucking here on the floor of his drone as rage.
She glanced away, biting her lip. “I do apologize to you, fenrir mine. I often say, and indeed do the wrong thing, and it does annoy my family so,” she confessed. Then her soft brown eyes lifted to meet his. “But you are my fated mate, and I wish not to displease you. Tell me how I can please you…”
God, it was, like, she has some sixth sense for saying and doing the exact opposite of what it would take to keep his wolf from jumping her. Rafes squeezed his eyes shut against the alluring sight of her. But he could still smell her. The wild sea, the woods, the aromatic sex between her legs.
Control the wolf. Control the wolf.
Maybe he could have held on. Maybe. But closing his eyes hadn’t blocked out her voice or her the tentative touch of her soft fingers on his face as her concerned voice said, “Rafesson…?”
That was as far as she got before he pulled her into his arms, his wolf slicing up his back as he mauled her with his kiss. And…oh fuck…she didn’t only not fight back but her sweet mouth fell open, receiving his tongue with a hunger that matched his own. Mewling with need, she pressed her soft breasts into his chest, and ground her naked pussy into the piece of stone, he used to call his penis. Mine…Mine…he thought as his back rippled with fur.
“Landing at The Wolf House. Landing at The Wolf House.”
The drone’s announcement snapped him out of the kiss. Made him remember who he was. Not a monster who took what he wanted without thought or control, but the President of the North American Territories, who would be landing on the very public, very open front lawn of The Wolf House in mere moments.
Ripping himself away from the naked she-wolf, he commanded, “Put your dress on.”
He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, but somehow, he perceived her hurt and confusion loud and clear in her answering silence.
“You asked what you could do to please me,” Rafes said, his voice straining as he held on to his wolf tight. “Put the dress on. I know feelings about nudity were much more lax in your village where everyone had to share the same lake. But we don’t do public nudity here, so you’ll need to cover yourself before we step off this drone onto The Wolf House lawn where everyone will be able to see us.”
More silence, but Rafes heard the soft whisper of the dress and oversized flats his mother had given her being put on.
In any case when he dared to look at her again, she was fully dressed. But as for her face…
You can’t walk off the drone looking like that,” he informed her as they set down.
“Like what?” she asked, honestly of course, because this she-wolf didn’t seem to know how to state questions in any way that wasn’t utterly sincere.
“Totally miserable. People are bound to gossip if you look unhappy when you step off the drone. You’ve got to smile.”
“Oh,” Myrna said, her face lighting with understanding. “You mean smile as my mother does when my father has invited someone to our longhouse table she secretly does not like?”
“Yes, exactly like that,” Rafes said, trying not to laugh, despite how close the wolf had come to completely taking over just a few moments ago.
To Myrna’s credit she pasted on a smile easily enough. No, she wasn’t exactly modern or particularly savvy. But maybe she could be with some training, Rafes thought as he waved at the people gathered outside the lawn’s high iron fence.
Myrna mirrored his wave, and that gave him some solace that maybe she wasn’t a completely lost cause that would not only trigger his wolf, but also cost him the big election in November.
Sure, there was still the matter of dealing with the political Camille fallout and selling his unorthodox fated mate to the public. But he’d tell his people to set up a meeting with Camille and her team, offer whatever incentive it took to assuage any hurt feelings, and way more importantly, keep that Arizona gate out of Drákon’s hands.
But other than that, yes, he could make this work—like his first election, it was merely a matter of negotiation and maintaining complete control over his wolf.
Rafes felt a lot more hopeful as they began the long walk from the drone station to the three-story brick mansion, that all wolves referred to as The Wolf House. Shortly after signing the Lupine-Human Pact and making Baltimore the seat of their newly sanctioned North American government, the Lupine Council had bought the nineteenth century Victorian mansion from a mining baron’s widowed wife. And though operations had eventually moved to much more clandestine VR spaces by the mid-twenties, North American presidents continued to use the original Wolf House as their place of residence. Rafes had decided not to break with tradition in this case. But he had maxed out his entire four-year housing allowance to equip the entire residence, save the old servants’ quarters in the back, with smart technology.
“I have a question,” Myrna asked before they were even halfway across The Wolf House lawn.
“Shoot.”
“Do you…” She paused, looking all around The Wolf House lawn as if she was having trouble finding the words in what Rafes bet she still referred to as her mother’s language.
His hard-on deflated a little, as sympathy replaced his baser instincts. Poor woman. Even a nineteenth century Victorian mansion would seem advanced to her three-digit year sensibilities, and all this modern-day stuff must be blowing her mind—
“Do you have any wish at all for me to lie with you beneath your furs?”
Rafes faltered, clamping down hard on his wolf, as his suit’s smart fabric reconfigured and shifted at the crotch to mask the erection now bulging once again inside his pants.
“You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want that, Myrna,” he bit out, ignoring the way his wolf howled with outrage that his female would even think to ask Rafes this question.
“Are you sure about that?” she asked. “If you desire me not as a male desires a she-wolf, I
ask that you tell me now. For I have no wish to be a piece in what my mother calls games of political chest.”
“Chess,” he corrected, stressing the es. “And if it was just a matter of politics, you wouldn’t be here with me. Believe me, this fated mate business is causing me a whole new slew of political problems.”
“I do not know this slew word, but…” Myrna slowed to a stop, and considered Rafes with troubled eyes. “My arrival has created great hardship for you?”
“Yes…no…” Rafes was known in political circles as a straight shooter, but right now he could barely bring himself to look into her sad, way too sincere brown eyes…or figure out how to explain that… “I want you, Myrna, I do, but because of…” The batshit crazy wolf hiding inside of me... “circumstances,” he substituted out loud, “…actually having you feels…impossible—at least for a man in my situation. Opting for you over Camille was not the wrong choice, per se, but definitely not one I would have made if I didn’t truly want you, ah, how did you put it? Beneath my furs.”
This answer sounded crazy, even to his own ears. But Myrna’s face softened as if it made perfect sense. “You do honor me with your desire, fenrir mine. Now I have but one question remaining. Who is Camille?”
Rafes might have answered that. Explained the situation to her in his much-impersonated cool and measured tone, in a way that would have left her with few remaining questions.
But at that very moment, one of the White House’s front double doors slammed open and, as if summoned by the mention of her name, Camille came sweeping out.
Rafes never cursed out loud. That was usually the first thing to go with media training. But inside…Rafes swore, low and vicious, as the she-wolf he’d proposed to the night before strode down the stairs of the wraparound porch, her stiletto heels hitting the stone steps with precise plinks.
The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy Page 49