She was silent for a moment, lost in the memories and emotions of that time before she said,, "He went on to marry a princess, blonde and fair and most likely refined. Everything I am not. And though other wolves came to my father with offers for my hand, my pride continued to refuse to let me play the part of the good princess. My parents were not like most of the mates in the village. They were happy and adored each other so. And though FJ never would have admitted it, I believe that is why we both remained without mates for so many winters beyond other wolves our same age. I wished for a marriage of love, similar to what my parents had. But not one of the males who approached my father ever looked upon me with admiring eyes. I could always easily tell, that to them, I was spoilt food that must be choked down. A means to an alliance with my father and nothing more. None of the other she-wolves in my village expected love from their potential mate pairing, or even wanting. And none of those good she-wolves would have demanded such as a condition of marriage. But I wanted to be wanted, to eventually be loved. And I refused anyone who did not feel that way about me…”
She drew back, her gaze drifting off to the side as if she could not bear to look at him as she said, “No, Rafesson, I am not perfect.”
Rafes’s heart ached for the sixteen-year-old who’d been told she was too ugly to mate by a prince who had never known anything else. At the same time, he was seized with the desire to go back in time and kick this guy’s ass for hurting his mate like that.
But in the end, he could do nothing about her past. Only her now.
And so he cupped Myrna’s face, lifting it up so that she could meet his eyes for the first time since she began telling her story. “Do you feel me inside of you?” he asked, his voice as quiet and somber as hers had been inside his head.
She nodded, confusion replacing the sadness in her expression. “How can I not? We are knotted.”
He smiled at her, for once happy to tell someone the truth about himself. “That isn’t just biological, baby. This raging desire. This need for you to be mine. That’s how I’ve felt about you since the moment you came through the gate. So you know what? Fuck that guy. I love your nose. Love your hair. Everything about you drives me wild and makes me want to claim you for reasons that’s got nothing to do with this heat.”
The way she looked back at him, her gaze wary, as if his words could not possibly be true, broke his fucking heart. And pissed him off. He took her hand, and placed it on his heart, just like she tried to do that day in the drone, when he’d had to pull away from her for fear of his wolf.
But the wolf was a threat no more. It thrummed inside of him, just as determined as Rafes to make her believe. “Feel me,” he commanded roughly, pushing his forehead into hers. So close their lips nearly touched. “Feel what I feel over our mate bond.”
She went quiet for a moment, following his instruction.
And Rafes knew it worked, when he suddenly felt a huge spike of joy come down from her side of their bond. “Fenrir mine, I have such a warm feeling inside of me right now. But it is not the same happiness I feel at finding my woman’s pleasure again upon your staff. It is warm like the sun above. And beautiful like flowers in the spring,” she told him, her voice filled with helpless wonder. “This emotion… is that you?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” he said, burying his head in her shoulder. “That’s definitely me. Do you feel how hot I am for you? Even after I knotted.”
He started moving between her legs again. This time without an agenda. He just wanted to be with her, get inside her as deep as he could. Bring her pleasure. Make her come. Fuck her just like this forever. “I want you. I want you so bad it scares me.”
He promised her this as he kissed her lips, hips rolling up as he found his new heaven inside of her.
And he knew she believed him, when she came apart in his arms, shuddering around his knot as pleasure flooded through them both.
33
Rafes
Rafes had always held himself back when it came to sex. He’d had to be so careful with his lovers, that the act had felt more like a deliberate valve release than anything approaching spontaneous.
But over the next few days he worshiped at the altar of Myrna body’s, suckling her full breasts, kissing her deeply, trying out a kama sutra bucket list worth of positions. Creating explosion after explosion as he did all the things with her that he’d never dared with his handful of human lovers.
And as for that feral wolf of his, he lay quiet inside of him. Not just subdued after his Myrna beating, it would seem, but strangely content.
The beast clearly didn’t want to mix it up with Myrna and her banister bat again. But it also didn’t want to hurt her. When Rafes watched her sleep, he could feel his wolf staring at her right along with him. With real fondness, not malevolence, as it had when it dead-eyed Camille and Jillian.
And as one day passed into the next without so much as a growl of threat from the beast, Rafesson had to wonder if his wolf’s newfound training could be one-hundred percent attributed to Myrna’s banister bat. Could it be, he wondered, that his beast hadn’t hurt Jillian because it was feral—at least not only because he was feral—but also because she wasn’t Myrna? Could this have been his broken beast’s way of telling him that Jillian wasn’t the one, not the fated mate he’d been waiting for.
The questions piled up. Fascinating and unanswerable as he and Myrna broke in his formerly virgin bed, each session more intense and desperate than the last.
Day ran into night and back into day. And Rafes could not have cared less. Myrna. The whole world had become Myrna. And never in his life had he felt more like his true self.
Seriously, if he could have stayed there making love to her for the rest of his life, he would have.
However, fate had different plans.
Rafes woke one bright morning, his cock which hadn’t been at less than half mast for days finally spent.
He still had enough sex ed class stored in the recesses of his memories to know what that meant. His she-wolf was no longer in heat, which meant she was pregnant with his child.
The joy that filled his heart at that thought, was like nothing he’d ever felt. Nothing he would have guessed he could feel in the years he spent hiding his feral wolf.
And once again, he watched his mate snooze softly beside him, his chest full of that tender and warm joy she’d referenced…was it two nights ago? Maybe three.
Whatever. The point was he knew what that feeling was now.
Love. She was so fucking beautiful. So fucking perfect. And he was so fucking in love with her. And for once he didn’t wonder how that would sound or come off. No…the only thing he wondered in those quiet moments after waking was what he’d ever done in his life to deserve a she-wolf who could handle both his man and his wolf.
It made him want to yell at all those voters, who’d looked upon Viking Myrna unfavorably. Because they just didn’t get it. This was the kind of she-wolf who was loyal. Who protected the people she loved, even if it was from themselves. Like, who would let a whole village hate on her just to keep her father from killing the close-minded male who was too blind and stupid to see her true beauty?
And the way she’d offered to help him with his wolf? Telling him the wolf was now their burden not just his. No…the voters just didn’t understand how truly lucky they would be to have this she-wolf as their first lady. How truly lucky he was.
But, ugh, speaking of voters….
He forced himself to climb out of bed. He would have preferred to spend more hours with Myrna in bed—a lot more hours. But this election wasn’t going to win itself. And they’d already lost…
How many days was it again? With a heavy sigh, he turned back on his biosystem, but decided to leave the room turned off. No reason to wake Myrna up. He’d let her sleep, he decided heading toward the shower as thousands of messages downloaded. Then he’d tell her he loved her later.
But later never came.
Three day
s. It had been over three days since he turned off his bio-system, which this close to election might as well have been three years.
A lot had happened during his unexpected hiatus. Georgina pulled him into a triple encrypted VR version of her office nearly as soon as he changed his biostatus to active.
Craig was paralyzed from the waist down now, which meant he’d have no more access to his wolf even on full moon nights. But that wasn’t why Georgina called him into her VR office for this conversation. Apparently, he’d also given a full confession about what he’d attempted to do to Myrna at the hospital, but in a twist, he claimed that he hadn’t been in his right mind. He’d reported to Georgina herself that Damianos Drákon had talked to him and made him hate Rafes and forced him to send him reports.
“He claims that Damianos has been ‘inside his head’ ever since you sent him on that reconnaissance mission to spy on him in Greece and that the only reason he’s able to tell me about it in that wolf clinic, was because the spell lifted when he broke his back.”
It had taken nearly a minute for Rafes to respond to Georgina’s report, because that Greece mission had been nearly four years ago. Near the start of his presidency, when he’d been in the habit of sending his two guards off on random missions rather than having to deal with their constant presence. “Is he claiming Damianos hypnotized him somehow? Made him spy on me?”
Georgina nodded. “That’s exactly what he’s claiming. I’m pretty sure he’s the Leaker Zero who uploaded the footage of you and Myrna kissing at the North Dakota time portal, which would explain why that investigation went nowhere. And he says it’s not just him. Apparently, he’s met with a lot of other wolves on Damianos's behalf over the years. Some in your administration. He’s offering to tell us everything he knows along with the names of several other wolves Damianos had working for him, in exchange for immunity."
A conundrum for sure. One Rafesson wasn’t sure how to address. His beast growled inside of him at the thought of the turncoat wolf who’d hurt his mate and betrayed his commander in chief, getting off with immunity. On the other hand…
Rafes relayed to his head of security what Fensa had told him, and he had the feeling that if she weren’t being represented by an avatar with perfect color correction, her face would be ashen.
“We’ll need to give him the deal then,” Georgina concluded after he was done. “And if what Craig’s already told us is true, that means Damianos could have operatives everywhere. No one is to be trusted. This changes everything.”
Yeah, it did.
And it made winning the election even more important than ever.
So pushing down the wolf, who wanted nothing more than to return upstairs to the she-wolf in his bed, Rafes instructed Georgina to take the immunity deal and start the necessary security checks on every single person in his cabinet and also all members of his staff.
Then setting his face to neutral, he called an emergency meeting with his campaign team—in hologram form this time. After finding out that Damianos had so thoroughly infiltrated his cabinet, he wasn’t keen on the idea of using a VR room with direct access to his head until everyone in his inner circle was cleared.
His team beamed into his office their real time projections, looking completely ecstatic. Just the unconfirmed rumor that Myrna had gone into non-medicated heat had him up an extra five points above Lowell in the polls, Baylor reported. Which more than made up for Rafes missing several key rallies when Myrna went into heat. In any case, Stacey, his media strategist, had already rescheduled the rallies and Myrna now had several major offers for speaking engagements and interviews.
“And we’re going to need her to take all of them in the week leading up to the election,” Baylor told him with the urgency of someone calling in a five-alarm fire.
“She’s asleep now, but I’ll let her know when she wakes up,” Rafes answered, before turning to Stacey. “Could you tell The Joshua Tree we’ll be needing him twenty-four/seven until election day.”
“No problem,” Stacey answered. “But are you sure Myrna will play ball. She seemed…a little upset when we saw her last.”
“And how about the wrestling situation, bro?” Mehmet asked. “That outfit was sick, but we already know Viking Myrna doesn’t poll well.”
Without smooth avatars to cover up their natural awkwardness, Rafes could see a few of the holograms shifting nervously as they waited for his answer.
But Rafes just shook his head. “Now that she’s pregnant, we don’t have to worry about wrestling. Don’t worry about that. She wants to please me more than she wants anything else. Project Fair Lady’s totally back on for a full press tour. And Baylor, offer the IWF whatever it takes to bury that footage of her, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll need to send an operative in….”
It was a good command. A natural command. But for some reason he was suddenly hit with an intense stomach pain. Like something had curdled up inside of himself and died.
His wolf again, Rafes guessed. Probably pissed that the Perfect First Lady version of Myrna was coming back. Well, he’d have to get over. The real Myrna was fine when they were alone. But Myrna playing the opposite of herself was a burden they’d all have to endure until the election was won…and then for four more years after that if it went their way.
He spent several hours going over numbers and key talking points for Myrna with his team.
Then it was back to Georgina again. More bad news. Apparently, Ola and Fensa, who’d claimed not to know or have ever heard of Damianos during their interview had decided to pay him a visit. And then, according to Georgina’s sources, crossed over international borders with a male who might or might not be a dragon, but most definitely wasn’t a wolf.
Rafes stilled in both his virtual and real office, cursing. Inwardly of course, since he was back to being President Nightwolf.
What the hell had those twin cousins of his been thinking? He added yet another visit to Fensa to his bio to do list.
Which was why he was somewhat startled when a live talk request from the North Dakota kingdom house popped up on his smart wall toward the end of a meeting with his cabinet.
Guess Ola decided to call him before he showed up in person. Again.
Calling the meeting quickly, he told the smart room to turn off the holosystem before elling his fingers to take the call. “What were you thinking?” he started to demand—
Only to stop when he saw Myrna inside his screen, instead of Ola.
“Myrna?” he asked, confusion shifting through him. Even the wolf had faltered into absolute stillness. “How you are you calling me? My system told me this call was coming from the North Dakota kingdom house.”
“Yes, it is. I…thought to visit you. Bring you your mid-day meal. But then I overheard you, Rafesson. In your office.” Myrna shook her head at him. “The way you spoke of me. As if I were a mindless idiot who had no desire in life but to please you. Someone who’d do whatever you say, because you had seeded me, and to you that meant I no longer had any will of my own.”
At first, he didn’t understand. But then suddenly, he did. That stomach curdle he had felt earlier in the day. It hadn’t been his wolf. But Myrna. Myrna had overheard him talking to his campaign team about her, and he’d felt her reaction over their mate bond, but… “Those weren’t insults. If you had just come into the office to talk to me, I would have explained. But you just ran away again!” he ground out, his wolf kicking inside his chest. “Instead of talking to me, you ran away, this time to North Dakota.”
“Would you have let me leave if I had talked to you about no longer wishing to play the hologram part of your First She-Wolf. Of no longer wishing to live with someone who would ignore my wish to be seen making the sport I love?”
“Probably not,” Rafes answered truthfully, his wolf howling in his chest. “But I would have reminded you of certain promises you made to me. Vows. To do whatever it takes.”
Myrna flinched, her expression as pained as if
he’d slapped her. But he didn’t care. His wolf was freaking out at the prospect of its mate—its pregnant mate not just being gone from The Wolf House property, but in another part of the country. So seeing her guilty look, Rafes pounced as he would with any opponent, pressing into the wound, “You also promised me we were in this together, that you’d help me carry this burden.”
“You are right, I did promise that,” Myrna answered, her expression sorrowful. But then she said, “I promised that to the male I mated, the one the gate sent me to help, the one who said he wanted me. I did not promise that to President Nightwolf. I do not want President Nightwolf. And earlier this day, I realized, that President Nightwolf does not want me. Not the real me. Not the Viking Myrna who does not poll well, but who is, nonetheless, who I truly am. President Nightwolf only wants the hologram version of me.”
Rafes gritted his teeth against the beast rearing inside of him as he said, “No, Myrna, you can’t just leave. I’m open to negotiation. If you don’t want to do the press tour and help me win this election, fine, but—”
“You will win this election without me. According to my brothers you are now far ahead in the polls. As long as you keep my leaving quiet, nothing will change that. And this is not about the election only!” Myrna answered, her eyes hot with anger. “Viking Myrna is someone you wish to hide. And you will do everything in your power to make sure no one ever sees my wrestling debut, the only place I have ever truly shined both here and in the past.”
The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy Page 66