Wolf's Choice

by Carina Wilder

  I found myself staring at his lips as he spoke. They were perfect, just like his brother’s. Kissable, biteable…

  Fuck!

  I pulled my eyes away and reminded myself that he was playing his cruel games again, only this time he was doing it to show me just how terrible a man he could be. “Stop it…please,” I said. “I get your point.”

  Immediately the erotic aura around me dissipated, and I was released from his spell.

  “When I’d learned to control my inner beast, I offered Tristan help,” he said. “But he never accepted it. Maybe it was because we’d grown too different. A wolf and a dragon are natural enemies, after all. Every instinct inside him told him I’d turned evil, and every instinct inside me told me he was inferior, not deserving of my loyalty. So over time, we grew apart. I left him alone for a very long time. That is, until…”

  “Until…?”

  “Until he met you.”

  I stared at Krane’s profile, trying to piece together every time he’d interfered in our lives. He’d shown up in Colorado when Tristan and I had taken our first little holiday together—which had of course turned into a disaster. He’d shown up at the Midsummer Ball and tried to seduce me. Another disaster. He’d shown up the night before our wedding.

  But now here he was again, and I didn’t know what to make of him. He’d saved my lover from death. He’d given us a place to hide for the night. He’d shown us a kindness unlike anything I’d ever known.

  Yet I still didn’t entirely trust him.

  “So every time you’ve tried to push us apart, it wasn’t because you were jealous, or because you wanted me for yourself,” I said.

  “No, not for those reasons,” he told me, eyeing me again. An odd little smile formed on his lips. “You’re a very beautiful woman, and I wasn’t lying at the Midsummer Ball—you really do have amazing tits. If you weren’t my brother’s woman…”

  I threw him a glare and yanked the blanket hard around my body again. “Watch it, buddy,” I snarled.

  “To be clear, I’m not looking to get into your pants—or lack thereof,” he said. “Every time I interfered in your relationship, it was only ever to protect my brother…which of course means I’ve repeatedly broken my vow to the Seven. I knew they’d eventually come after him if you and he stayed together.”

  “I still don’t understand why a group of dragon shifters cares so much about his relationship status,” I said.

  “They don’t. It was all orchestrated many, many years ago—this whole curse, as they call it. It’s all to keep Tristan from falling in love and to make sure he stays alone. It was Elodie’s way of punishing him.”

  “I don’t get it, though,” I said. “Why did she want to hurt him? She was the one who ran off and faked her own death, for fuck’s sake. Tristan didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Any number of reasons,” Krane said. “The change made her crueller than she’d ever been, and it amused her to watch from a distance as he languished in solitude, I suppose. She also knew it would hurt me. She knew I’d be torn up inside each time a woman came along who even threatened to steal my brother’s heart, because it could mean his end.” He exhaled slowly and ran a hand through his thick brown hair. “But you know what’s funny?”

  I shook my head. “No. What?”

  “No woman came along. Not for two hundred years. I mean, my brother was a reputed playboy. He went on his dates, always had someone on his arm at galas and important functions. For the last ten years, the guy’s been considered the most eligible bachelor in New York. But he never, ever took those women to his bed. It wasn’t until that night when I flew at his penthouse and saw you standing there, looking so terrified, that I knew for sure that he’d finally found his mate. Because you were with him in his home.”

  My heart warmed to think of it—that I was the first woman, maybe in two centuries—that Tristan had deemed important enough to bring to his own bed.

  “So why didn’t you just kill me that night?” I asked. “That would have solved the whole problem, wouldn’t it?”

  Krane shook his head. “If I’d hurt you…” he said, pulling his gaze towards the shack where I’d left my lover asleep.

  “If he’d hurt you, it would have destroyed me.” It was Tristan’s voice that spoke the words.

  I twisted around to see him silhouetted against the trees, his eyes sparkling light blue in the dark.

  “Yes, Brother,” said Krane. “I couldn’t stand to see you hurt anymore, which meant I was dealing with a double-edged sword. I’ve spent the last few months trying to figure out how to get Ariana out of your life while doing the minimum damage to your soul. None of it matters, though. In the end, the Seven have won.”

  “No,” said Tristan, stepping towards us. He sat down next to me and slipped a hand onto my back. “They haven’t won, not yet. This war has been brewing for hundreds of years, Krane. Just tell me you’re on our side and we can win it.”

  “I’m on your side. But this isn’t my war,” Krane said coldly. “I’m through with fighting. All I want right now is to find some peace and quiet.”

  “You’re not going to help us?” I asked. “But how could you…after everything…how could you desert us?”

  Krane shot me a look that made Tristan reach protectively for my arm. “I did my part when I betrayed my leaders and risked my fucking life to save Tristan’s ass,” he snarled. “I have a target on my back for the rest of my damned life. Don’t ask me for more than that.”

  “But…” I began, but Tristan squeezed my arm in a gentle warning.

  “Come back to bed with me, lover,” he said. “We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  Chapter 25

  “What’s going to happen?” I asked Tristan as I lay my head on his chest. We were back on our ancient mattress now, curled up under a pile of blankets that Krane had left for us. “I mean, if we don’t have your brother to help us…”

  “We have no choice but to fight,” Tristan said. “Which means we’ll have to confront the Seven tomorrow.”

  “Which is terrifying.”

  “Kara will be here in the morning with her army. You might be surprised to realize just how powerful they are.”

  I lifted my face to look at him. “It’s so strange to think of Kara fighting,” I said, “I know she’s supposed to be strong, but I really can’t imagine it. I hate to sound sexist, especially against my own gender—but she’s just a woman. What exactly do Valkyries do? It’s not like they have claws or giant fangs…or even flamethrowers.”

  A funny smile twitched its way across Tristan’s lips. “They do a lot more than you might think,” he said. “When they’re in combat mode, they’re utterly terrifying. I wouldn’t want to meet up with the likes of Kara in a dark alley if she was in fighting mode, even in my wolf form.”

  “You’re joking.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not,” he said. “Look—I talked to her on the phone earlier, when Krane first brought me here. They’ll arrive in the morning. If you don’t believe how powerful they can be, you can take a look for yourself.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said skeptically. “Now I’m expecting ladies in metal armor with horns on their helmets.”

  “They’re something like that, yeah.”

  I rested my head on his chest again. He was so hard, but so comforting. I wanted to spend the rest of my life like this, with my cheek against some part of him. I craved the reassurance of his touch, knowing at all times that he was here with me. I’d probably never get over waking up the morning after our wedding to find him missing.

  “What about the Four?” I asked. “I mean, the shifters in Manhattan—Rourke, Bahal—all the ones I met?”

  Tristan tensed for a moment. “I don’t want them to come,” he said.

  “Why not? They’re strong. Rourke is so devoted to you, and to Kara—”

  My lover stroked his fingers through my hair gently and kissed the crown of my head. “Because someone has
to watch over New York. If things go badly here, the city will be vulnerable. I want the Seven to know that there are strong leaders in Manhattan, and that it will do just fine without me.”

  “But it won’t,” I said. “They worship you there. They need you.”

  “No one needs me,” he replied. “If I die, they move on to another leader. It’s been that way for thousands of years. In the grand scheme of things, my existence doesn’t mean much.”

  “Well, I need you,” I murmured sleepily, “and I don’t like you talking about dying. I’ve had enough of that shit.”

  “Then I won’t talk about it anymore.”

  I lifted my head to peer at him. Despite the darkness engulfing us, his eyes shone in the dark like an animal’s irises caught on a dark road by a set of bright headlights.

  “We can totally win this, Tristan,” I said. “Even without Krane, the Seven are massively outnumbered. If we have the Valkyries and Trick’s pack, we’ll have way more than they do. Even if the Marquis brings his rogue shifters…”

  But my lover shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t know how many dragon shifters we’ll meet up with tomorrow—if all seven will be there—but a single one of them can take down hundreds of us, if we don’t stop them first. We’re guaranteed to lose a lot of our allies. The best we can hope for is to cripple the Seven…to cut the head off the snake, as it were.”

  A sudden wave of nausea overtook me at the thought of Elodie hurting Kara or Trick, or worse, my husband. “That’s not good enough,” I said. “Dragons must have vulnerabilities. There has to be a way to kill them…isn’t there?”

  “There is,” Tristan said. “It’s not easy, but it can be done. Under their scale they’re weak, like the rest of us. A wolf is pretty useless against them, but enough wolves, or enough screaming she-devils with weapons…”

  “You’re talking about Valkyries again?”

  He nodded.

  “So we need to hit those vulnerabilities,” I said. “We need to beat them.”

  He pressed his lips to my forehead. “We’ll try,” he told me. “It’s all we can really do. Now see if you can get some sleep…tomorrow’s going to be a very long day.”

  “I will,” I replied, “Once you promise you won’t take off and sacrifice yourself again without so much as a proper good-bye.”

  “I promise,” he said. “I will never leave your side again if I can possibly help it. Except to kick some dragon ass. But whatever happens, lover, I won’t leave you behind, I promise.”

  “Good.” With that, my head sank back into his chest and I drifted into a deep sleep.

  In the morning I found Tristan outside, pacing back and forth along the damp ground. “There you are,” he said when he saw me. He was dressed in the same clothing as yesterday—a pair of now dirty jeans and a t-shirt. He looked frazzled, like he’d lost control of the situation before it had even started.

  “What’s happened?” I asked. “Everything okay?”

  “It’s fine,” he replied. “I’m just waiting for word.”

  “Word?” I asked. “About what?”

  “I need to know they’ll be here.” Okay, now he was just being cryptic.

  “Who, Tristan?” I asked. “Are you worried that someone isn’t going to show up?”

  “The Valkyries—they should have come by now.”

  I grabbed his hand to stop him pacing, pulled him close and kissed him. “They’ll be here,” I said. “I know Kara, and so do you. I’ve never met anyone more reliable. I’ve also never seen you looking so worried. Why don’t you come back inside and sit down for a minute? Pacing around like a crazy man isn’t going to bring them any faster.”

  But just as he nodded consent, the sky above us darkened with a menacing shadow. I reached instinctively for Tristan, scared that I’d look up to discover that Elodie had found us—or worse still, all of the Seven . But instead my eyes were greeted by a multitude of winged creatures much smaller than dragons. There had to be a thousand of them up there, their strange, heavy forms hanging in the air, like…

  I pressed my hand to my forehead to shield my eyes and stared up. “Are those…horses?” I breathed.

  “Yes, and you were right,” Tristan said. “They’ve arrived.”

  “Those are the Valkyries?”

  When I pulled my gaze to meet his, he nodded. “Yes, they are,” he said. “Come on, we should get out of the way.”

  I moved with him towards the door of the shack, leaving room for some of the creatures to come in for a landing. The first to hit was a beautiful, coal-black horse with wings to match. On its back was a familiar rider who slipped off in one swift, elegant motion and ran over to embrace us both.

  “Kara!” I said, stunned to see her in what looked like full-on military garb. She yanked a backpack off her shoulders, unzipping it quickly. Her face looked tense, and a fog of worry seemed to spin around her like a tornado. “I came as quickly as I could,” she said. Pulling her eyes to Tristan’s, she added, “I hope we can help. I brought you a few things.” With that, she pulled a pile of clothing out of the bag; clean clothes for Tristan and a camouflaged outfit for me. “I know you, Ariana,” she said. “You’ll want to come with us, but you should stay concealed. This was the best I could do.”

  “Thanks, I think,” I said, taking the clothing from her. “I’ve got to be honest, it freaks me out to be dressing like a military woman for this little venture of ours.”

  “This is war,” Kara said, pulling her hair back and securing it into a ponytail.

  “You’ve already helped, Kara,” Tristan said. “Thank you for all this. You know how dangerous today will be, and I hope you know how grateful we are..”

  “I’m well aware,” she said. “But you know by now that I thrive on danger.”

  “You do look…weirdly excited,” I replied.

  Her eyes flared bright as they met mine and she reached a hand out to stroke the neck of her black mount, who’d followed her obediently to stand next to us. “I am,” she said. “I live for these moments.”

  “Woman, you’re insane,” I laughed. “In all the best ways.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Who’s this?” I asked, reaching a hand out to touch the horse. “I mean, where did you get him?”

  “It’s a long story,” she replied. “I summon him, sort of like a shifter summons their inner animal. Only he doesn’t come from inside me.”

  “We can talk about that later,” Tristan said, his tone all business. “I’m afraid we don’t have time just now.”

  “Right, of course,” said Kara. “Listen, I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner. If I’d known what was going to happen on your wedding day, I never would have left to head back to New York.”

  “You couldn’t have changed the outcome of any of this, Kara,” Tristan said. “What happened yesterday was entirely my doing.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that,” she replied. “If we’d shown up yesterday, we could have done some damage. Now they’ll be expecting us. They’ll be prepared for a fight.”

  “Possibly,” Tristan said. “I hope you’ve warned your troops up there.” He nodded up to the sky, which was still swarming with the amazing flyers.

  Kara let out a long, low whistle, and two of the mounts swept downward, coming to a landing nearby. One of them leapt off her white horse and strode over to us, leading the winged creature behind her.

  “This is Layla,” said Kara, introducing me to a tall woman with light brown hair. If I hadn’t already known she was a Valkyrie, I would have figured it out from her stern expression and exquisite features. “Layla, this is Tristan’s…wife,” Kara added, and I realized with a jolt of pleasure that it was the first time I’d heard anyone call me that in relatively casual conversation.

  It was just too bad it might also be the last.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

  “This
circumstance,” she replied, “would have arisen eventually. If not with you two, then with someone else. It’s about time we put a check on the power the Seven hold over us. They’ve terrorized us long enough…they and the Marquis both.”

  “Do you actually think we can succeed?” I asked. “You think we can win this fight?”

  Layla nodded. “Absolutely,” she said, leaning in close. “But before anything happens, you should talk to Madame Lola. She’s got a few things to say to you.”

  “Lola?” I asked, recalling that the name of the fortune teller I’d met in New Orleans. “Are you saying she’s here?”

  Layla looked back over her shoulder at a dark chestnut horse who was now grazing by the water, a small woman astride its back.

  I turned back to look at Tristan, but by now he was deeply engaged in conversation with Kara, so I nodded a quick thanks to Layla and headed over towards the horse and its rider.

  When I got close to the chestnut mount, I could see that the woman sitting on its back was small, her face wrinkled, her eyes bright. A dark purple scarf was tied around her head.

  The first time I’d met her she’d struck me as a strange combination of human and something else, but I hadn’t pictured her among an army of Valkyries.

  “We meet again,” she said in her thick, unplaceable accent. “Ariana.”

  “Hello again,” I replied, looking up at her as I stroked a hand over her horse’s muzzle. “I think I owe you an apology. I didn’t like what you said to me last time, and I’m afraid I was a little rude…”