Protected by Conan Wolf (Magnificent Beasts, #3)

by Calin, Ana

  But I don’t get to answer because Lorenzo and his bodyguards are already here.

  “Miss Kovesi,” he addresses her, his voice musical and pleasant. Accommodating, seductive. Fuck, he’s gonna win her over.

  “Lord Piovra.” She offers him a friendly smile, like a lady, and her hand to kiss. So far so good, at least she’s not acting like a flattered giggly schoolgirl.

  He takes her hand and kisses it while keeping his pale blue eyes on her face. Any other woman would be sighing already, at least inwardly but, to my surprise, Janine doesn’t seem very impressed. Probably because she’s used to good-looking werewolves by now, and Piovra’s dashing good looks can’t strike her as hard as they would if he were the first supernatural she ever met.

  But Piovra is determined to get through to her, and he continues to stare at her in a way that makes me want to split his jaw.

  “I was impressed by your talk. Encouraging women to become entrepreneurs, that’s as virtuous as environmental work if you ask me.”

  “Then too bad you’re not ruling a government or two around the world. Your country would be all green and full of happy women,” Janine replies without losing her composure, the polite smile still on her lips. Once again I’m impressed—Lorenzo can’t even flatter her into loosening up.

  Janine motions to me with her hand. “I understand you’ve already met my companion, Mr. Conan Wolf.”

  “Companion,” Lorenzo says, his eyes meeting mine for the first time in two centuries. “I thought he was your bodyguard.”

  “Oh?” Janine frowns at him, feigning ignorance. “And where did you get that information?”

  The glint in Lorenzo’s eyes betrays that he’s busted. Janine’s smarts cut right through. Indeed, he couldn’t have known, not unless he had spies in Darkwood Falls, maybe even amongst our own. Eventually, the pretty boy smiles.

  “The way he stared at you from the shadows the entire conference,” he says. “He looked like a man with a job—or an obsession.”

  Janine smiles back at Lorenzo. “And since the second possibility is out of the question....”

  No one reacts for a few moments that feel like an eternity, but then Janine breaks the silence, straightening her back and hooking an arm elegantly around Lorenzo’s. He’s not an easy man to read, but I can tell he likes her bold yet classy manner as she leads him out of the conference room, his bodyguards and me following.

  “I’m glad you agreed to meet me a few days early. That way we can enjoy together the Cote d’Azure while we talk business,” she sys as we take our seats in the VIP section of the hotel lobby.

  “Actually, the business we need to discuss is of a very delicate nature,” Lorenzo says. “There are things I need to show you, things can’t be simply—” He leans towards her, his blue eyes set on her. “Told.”

  “You can at least tell me what it’s about, I’m sure.” Janine signals the waiter like a woman in charge, which gives Lorenzo pause. My cheek twitches, because I have to suppress a smile. Lord Piovra is in for quite a few surprises with Janine Kovesi.

  “There are too many people listening for that.”

  Janine looks at me. “Conan. Would you mind taking Lord Piovra’s boys for a drink at the hotel bar?”

  “I can’t leave your side, and you know it,” I grunt.

  “I’m sure Lord Piovra isn’t here to hurt me. If he were, he would have insisted that we met in Venice at his palace, where we couldn’t have done much about it.”

  “There’s no place where I can’t do something about it,” I say through my teeth. “Provided that I remain by your side.”

  “Please, Conan.” She puts her small hand over mine, and electricity runs through my skin. I make a conscious effort not to shudder. Turns out the lightest touch of a Fated Female is enough to do a werewolf some damage.

  “I’ll tell you what. I’ll take the boys to the other side of the lobby—it’s big enough, and full. That way I can keep an eye on you.”

  I turn my back and do it without waiting for an answer, but perk up my ears to hear everything they talk about from a distance. I watch from the shadows as they warm up to each other, watching for little signs in Janine’s attitude that would betray if she loosens up towards him. To my relief she doesn’t, but then he invites her for a walk on the famous promenade.

  And who would refuse a walk to remember on the Promenade des Anglais. Janine has a soft spot for history, and I can sniff out the delight in her as Lorenzo tells her stories, helping her picture what life used to be like on the promenade of Nice centuries ago. He would know, wouldn’t he?

  Lorenzo’s bodyguards and I follow them close behind, close enough to smell and hear them without much effort. Damn it, I could be even closer if not for all the attention I’m drawing. They might as well have an elephant trailing them.

  While the two werewolves manage to stay inconspicuous in the crowd, I’m too big and mean-looking to go unnoticed. I swear under my breath. I can keep in the shadows under different circumstances, but not while the one I protect is walking on the overcrowded Nice promenade on the arm of the very man I’m trying to protect her from.

  But I can’t resist. I get really close behind them, Lorenzo’s bodyguards on my heels, ready to intervene if I did something unexpected. Not that it would help them. They pose no danger to me, and they know it.

  I keep my ears perked up for the conversation between Janine and Lorenzo. He keeps trying to charm her but she forces him to get to the point, which fills my heart with this feeling that has been growing inside of me ever since I met her. The woman can hold her ground and, to be honest, I’m impressed that she can keep such a cool head with someone like Lorenzo. The human women I know go giggly and often lose their heads for werewolves, because werewolves are so attractive, even compelling to humans. Perhaps Janine is resilient because her two best friends are mated to werewolves, and she’s already into me?

  Or is she over me already? I hurt her badly last night, I offended her even, knowing full well what I was doing. I tried to push her away once and for all, but that might just have been the worst move I’ve ever made.

  We’re getting closer to the hotel where Janine and I are staying, which cuts Lorenzo’s time with her short. He decides to make it a little clearer why he wanted to meet her of all people as they turn to each other in front of the hotel.

  “I can save Darkwood Falls from the serpents, and even send The Reaper to his maker forever. But for that I need you, Janine.”

  “Then be clear once and for all—why me?”

  “I wish things were so simple and I could just tell you the reason. But that’s why I say there are things I can’t tell you, I have to show them to you.” He kisses her small white hand with the slightly curved, long fingernails. I imagine those fingernails scratching their way down my back, leaving trails of blood in their wake as punishment for the way I treated her. What the fuck, why did I just think of that?

  “Before you go,” Janine stops him. “One more thing I’m just dying to know. How come your invitation reached me on the very day that Conan Wolf became my bodyguard? And how did you know he was my protector? No one here knew that, actually nobody outside our closest circle in Darkwood Falls.”

  He smiles full of secret and straightens his back, looking even taller. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions, and I’ll be happy to answer all of them at my palace in Venice.”

  I should be analyzing every word this bastard says, putting it through the filter of my analytical mind, but I can’t. All I can think about is what a great couple they’d make, and it makes me want to beat him up right here, in front of her. Lorenzo is a tall, pretty-face werewolf, looking dashing in a suit, while Janine an elegant business-woman with intelligence oozing out of her eyes and sassiness out of her entire attitude. Lorenzo is exactly the type she’s been looking for all her life.

  A black car pulls up at the curb in front of the hotel, and Lorenzo gives us both a nod as one of his bodyguards holds th
e door open for him.

  “I’m looking forward to your visit,” he says before the black door thuds shut, and the bodyguards walk to the other side of the car. Janine watches them drive away until the car turns at the corner of the exclusive compound and drives out into the thick traffic of Nice.

  Conan

  JANINE SEEMS LOST IN a daydream as she enters the room. She throws off her pumps, and her entire body language changes. She’s relaxed, as if she’s either by herself or with someone who doesn’t make her nervous or self-conscious at all.

  There’s a tray full of ice on the table, and three bottles of Moet in it—VIP treatment for conference speakers. Janine pours herself a flute of cool champagne, glancing briefly at me.

  “Want one?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Another no drinking no sinning member of the Wolf pack. Was Drago the only decadent one?”

  “Achilles is, too. But the rest of us prefer to keep a somber reserve at all times. Sorry you got stuck with me and not with one of my more joyous brothers.”

  Janine ignores my stinging remark and walks to the open windows, running her fingers through her hair. Her moves are so natural, and at the same time elegant.

  “What do you make of what happened tonight, Conan?” she says over her shoulder, leaning on the window frame and staring out at the sea in the rapidly darkening dusk, lights already turning on in distant buildings.

  “You were the one arm in arm with him. You tell me.” Fuck, I can’t keep the edge out of my voice.

  “Yes, but you’re the one who can smell people’s body chemistry, you can assess his intentions.”

  “I think he wants to imprint on you,” I spit that out like it’s poison on my tongue.

  Janine turns around, the flute of champagne in her hand. “Where did that come from?”

  My jaw ticks. “You asked me what his body chemistry said. That is what I picked up.”

  She snorts like she believes I’m making fun of her. “You know, Conan, I admit I’m super curious about what makes me so special that Lorenzo invited me of all people to his palace in Venice, considering he’s such a powerful werewolf and all. But do you know why I’m so curious? Because I never felt special before, and I can’t imagine actually being it. Now a new blast hits me, namely that this powerful werewolf who’s been alive for centuries and basically owns all of Europe wants to imprint on me. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It will make sense soon enough. We’re going to his palace tomorrow, and I might be able to put two and two together with only a few details more than what we have right now. You might not need to keep his company for long.”

  Janine leans with her back against the window, cradling her glass and looking at me like she’s calculating something in her mind, a cute line between her furrowed eyebrows.

  “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea, him imprinting on me.”

  “Oh. Thinking about betraying the Wolf pack already, switching sides to the Piovras?”

  “How quick you are to think ill of me.” She walks over as she speaks. “I was thinking of eliminating the Piovras, actually. Not in that way,” she reacts to the look on my face. “But make them cease and desist, leave Darkwood Falls in your hands.”

  “And what makes you think that Lorenzo would give up Darkwood Falls if he imprinted on you?”

  “Because, like you said, when a werewolf imprints he becomes an adoring puppy for the woman he imprinted on. Drago and Nero don’t spare any effort to fulfill Arianna and Princess’s every wish. Maybe Lorenzo will be the same with me.”

  “Not maybe, he’d surely. Every werewolf who’s imprinted on a woman can’t breathe without her, and can’t bear to see anything but happiness in her face.”

  “So he would do anything for me, right?”

  “Yes, but you forget one very important thing—you’d do the same for him. So what if he asks you to betray the Wolf pack, tell him all the secrets you know? Trust me, when a werewolf imprints, the woman becomes high on him, addicted to him. He oozes pheromones and an emotional appeal that makes him irresistible to her.”

  “Oh, I know that.” There’s defiance in her face. “I know how Arianna and Princess love their werewolves. You say you don’t want to become an ‘adoring puppy’ like your brothers, but believe me, I don’t want to become the love struck schoolgirl that Arianna and Princess have become either.”

  She downs the champagne and licks it off her thin but beautifully shaped lips, then points at me with the index of the hand in which she holds the flute. She moves like a mafia queen, delicate, but powerful.

  “So you’re saying I shouldn’t entertain the idea of giving myself to Lorenzo. Very well. Then how do you suggest that I keep him at bay while I’m at his palace in Venice? Because I don’t think he’s the kind of man that will let me leave until he’s achieved his purpose.”

  “No, Lorenzo isn’t the kind of man who gives up.”

  “He’s also a man of many mysteries, our good old Lorenzo. He left so many open questions to ensure that we join him at his palace in Venice. He’s yet to tell us in what way I’m special, why he can only beat The Reaper with my help, how he knew that you were my bodyguard and how his invitation happened to reach me on the very day you became my protector. Lorenzo has worked his spell, making me look forward to his answers in Venice, but I have one question, Conan, that only you can answer.”

  She’s now so close that I can feel her breath on my chest, right between my pecs, between the upper buttons of my shirt. “How are we gonna get out of there if we find ourselves trapped?”

  “That’s not a question of if. Lorenzo will try to keep us, that’s for sure—you as his mated wife, and me... He won’t let me leave his palace still carrying The Reaper’s secret weapon. He’ll either fight me for it, or demand that I give it to him.”

  “Because it can only be earned or given,” she whispers, remembering the story. “What is that weapon, Conan?”

  “I can’t tell you that. Only Lorenzo and I know that, and we’ll both take it to the grave.”

  “Why the secret?”

  “You saw the Lord of the Rings, I trust?”

  “I read the books.”

  What did I expect? “Well, The Reaper’s Secret weapon is very much like the Ring of Power. It corrupts people. It makes them destroy each other and, finally, the world around them. It takes a special kind of resilience to master the weapon.”

  “That a man like you should watch Lord of the Rings.”

  “I didn’t. Like you, I read the books. It intrigued me how Tolkien knew the Elvish languages. They’re real languages you know.”

  Her intelligent eyes glint. “I thought he invented them.”

  “People assumed he did because of his extensive notes, but he was studying and analyzing the languages, not inventing them. At least that’s what he was unconsciously doing.”

  “Fascinating. And how did he have access to the knowledge? Secret documents?”

  I have to repress a smile that would have come out warm and accommodating. I love how she hungers for information, and how she twists it in her pretty head.

  “Not only that. I think he had psychic access to long lost knowledge, but that’s not what we’re here to investigate. We’re here for other secrets.”

  She turns from me, trying to hide her feelings, but I already smelled it in her chemistry. She’s losing control over her attraction to me.

  “True,” she says. “But before we embark on this journey we should both be ready. There is something I need to solve before we venture between the dangerous walls of Lorenzo’s palace.”

  She places the flute on the table by the open window, and pours herself another.

  “Would you mind?” She offers me her back, inviting me to unzip her dress. I was the one to zip it up this morning, so it seems harmless—at first.

  I slide her zipper down, revealing more and more of her white skin. She’s slightly freckled, which gives her a nuance of v
ulnerability, which adds to her special femininity.

  I take a step back when I’m done, but I can’t take my eyes off of her. I can’t help but watch as she pushes the dress off her shoulders and lets it pool at her feet, stepping out of it. I lick my hard lips without thinking. What a sight she is. She’s wearing red lace underwear, her shiny blonde bob shimmering in the Mediterranean lights. The breeze mixes with Janine’s natural ocean scent, but I can tell the difference quite well. Then, without even trying, I find the words for her scent—an ocean nymph.

  Yes, the scent of her essence as a Fated Female, oozing out of her more and more in the presence of a werewolf. Actually, tonight two werewolves have been interested in her, Lorenzo and me, which lends her Fated Female energy even more power.

  I hope that her pride will keep her from trying anything, and that she’ll just head to the bathroom without noticing how my jeans have tightened over the aching swell between my legs. But what she does is turn around, facing me in full, dressed only in red lace bra and panties.

  I can’t help staring at her, drinking in the elegant shape of her body. A body that could so easily be crushed, while her personality could crush the world. Fuck, I have to back off before she comes on to me, because I won’t be able to resist her this time, and I’m dangerous when I’m horny.

  “What are you doing, Janine?” I grunt through my teeth, glaring at her. I have to scare her off before it’s too late.

  “I’ll be blunt, Conan, because we’re not exactly spoilt for time. I need to be with a man, or to find relief some other way, and it has to be tonight, because otherwise I might fall victim to Lorenzo’s advances. He is a very attractive man, and I’m sex starved.”

  “You find him attractive?”

  One corner of her mouth quirks up, sass filling her heart-shaped face. “What human woman wouldn’t? All werewolves are insanely attractive to human women.”

  “I try not to be.”

  “You try and you fail.” She walks over, her essence and her scent engulfing me. “You have a brutish face, and muscles that show what a powerful, hardcore beast you are. Your masculine essence could drive any woman crazy. Today at the conference you kept in the shadows, protecting me, but when you walked into the light, standing by my side when Lorenzo came, didn’t you notice how women stared at you?” She creams between her legs, and I can smell it. I clench my fists so hard I feel my knuckles protrude. No matter what, I have to keep my ground.