by Lisa Daniels
“Will you tell me, at least?” Claire hoped he might. She really did. She wanted this far more than pulling some random guy in a club.
“Mm. I don’t really talk about it,” he said. A much longer pause existed this time. “There was a woman. One my family had marked out for me,” he said, now staring straight ahead, eyes distant. “That’s normal. We grow up together, we trade each other to the families to ensure peace and cooperation. The woman herself, though, didn’t like me. She liked me even less when I started to show interest in someone else.”
Claire’s heart cringed slightly, because she now realized that she was intruding on something personal. Maybe a declaration of a love he still held, which put her quite firmly off the radar for him in every shape and form. Still, she listened. Wondering.
“The person I liked was considered lowborn, you see. Not someone I was supposed to like. Not worth much, and her clan was disliked by the others. Well, she broke it off with me because of a bribe by my father, and I went down the dark path. Visiting outside of the clans. Taking women from bars, taking human women, because I knew it would incense my father. He couldn’t bribe them...” Kallen bared his teeth in a grin, but it lacked any warmth.
Oh boy. “Wow, your dad sounds like a dickhead,” she said quite sincerely. He really did. If her father had been someone like that… if she wasn’t allowed to love the people she wanted to love, and to have her own interests bribed against her, well… that stank.
“He was only doing it for the honor of the clan,” Kallen said, though his lips twisted in a mocking way. “If only I had the foresight and maturity to understand. I told him I wanted none of it. So he gave me an ultimatum. Marry the woman he chose, or be exiled. Guess what I chose.”
“It hurts you still, when you were justified?”
“Of course it does,” Kallen said. “This is my own family. People I love. People who claimed to love me. But their love was given only so long as I obeyed them. Which isn’t much of a love at all.” He looked at Claire, his orange eyes sad and angry at the same time. “I miss my brothers. My aunt. Not so much anyone else. But I won’t go back there. My father will probably try to kill me.”
“What? Really?”
He only nodded in reply.
She digested the information, feeling unease. There was a lot she didn’t know about his world. He knew a lot about hers, by now, out of necessity. His came as a revelation. “Do you still love that woman?”
Kallen’s jaw tightened. His nostrils flared. “Not anymore,” he said, though she wondered if that statement was a lie. She didn’t think it would be that easy to shrug off an old love. “She...” He swallowed. “She called me.”
“What? The woman you loved?”
“Yeah. I suspect it might be a trap of some sort, though. She and her family always did like my father’s money. I suppose my father’s using her to lure me home.”
“To… kill you?”
“Maybe. Wolf law is a little different from human law. In our sanctuaries, we act with impunity.” He gave a small, lopsided grin. “It was a shock to hear her voice again.”
Claire saw the lump in his throat bob. “I imagine it would be. Must have made you angry, too.”
“Something like that.”
A part of Claire wanted to reach over the distance of their seats and kiss him. Her heart beat treacherously in her ribcage, and the desire felt like little itching motions over her skin. Now was not a good time to give into those hormonal, teenage urges. Not when he needed an ear to listen to him, rather than a mouth to kiss, a chance to forget. All the lessons she’d had swirled in her, conflicting, knowing that people at their most vulnerable were most susceptible to advances.
Damn these lessons. Damn all the methods she was learning.
The moment between them stretched into eternity. He smelled of mint aftershave, of a strange, forest-like musk, and his breaths were slow and steady. Her lips parted slightly. She wanted to say it. She wanted to say, screw the bar, and take him home instead.
“Maybe we should head to the bar now,” came out of Kallen’s lips. And just like that, Claire lost her blossoming willpower once more, and simply replied in the affirmative.
The moment broken, the thread between them vanished, Kallen started up the car and headed toward the werewolf-dominated bar on the edge of town.
Chapter Six – Kallen
Kallen sat in the corner of the bar, watching Claire in the middle of the bar. Noticing that she didn’t seem to be trying so hard. Whatever was wrong with the woman? Why pay all this money and then not follow through? It annoyed him. He didn’t like that needling feeling of somehow stealing from her. Maybe she expected him to stay for longer.
Or maybe she expects more from me, he thought darkly. It would be just like a naive human to fall for someone who was unavailable. Because he didn’t intend to go for the things she wanted. He desired freedom and the chase. She wanted love. Even in her pursuits of a wilder side, he knew she only went for it because she believed she’d never be eligible for relationships otherwise.
Of course you are. Silly woman. His heart gave a little twang when he saw one of the werewolves in the bar approach her. Fast, powerful, clearly planning to radiate his strength toward her. You could have come here, rather than pay for me.
Except she did pay for him. Her stupid friend Rita was in the bar as well, sizing up some man-meat of her own. Most of the patrons acted indifferent to Rita, but one—a human, not a werewolf—eyed her as a potential prize. Kallen needed to rebuff some women away from him, but they soon got the message and let him skulk in the shadows, sipping his drink, wondering just why he agreed to all this once again. He should be accepting those advances with open arms.
Instead, he was babysitting a woman. A good one, to be fair. Someone who deserved better out of life. Who deserved more excitement. He smiled to himself, thinking of her joy when he took her to the park, to the movies, and her weekend trip in Canada. She complained of the cold, maybe had a few too many lingering silences where Kallen considered filling them up with something else, but afterwards she claimed that she loved it.
Felt more like a holiday to him, in all honesty. There was something refreshing about not pursuing women for once. Of helping one, rather than trying to wrap her around his finger. He discreetly checked his phone, noting no more new messages from an unknown number. Suzie. He wondered why Suzie had bothered to call after so long, if it really was a trap, or some vestiges of guilt. Or perhaps there might be something else involved. Maybe she really was sorry, but she did start straight away with self-justification.
“You waiting for one of the girls, too?” A man slithered into one of the seats at Kallen’s table. His eyes were a glassy yellow, and there was a smell on him reminiscent of blood, as if he’d recently hunted in his wolf form. “I can see you’re quite popular here.”
“Relax,” Kallen said. “I’m not going to steal anyone off you.”
The man picked at his teeth with a long nail. Though he was dressed neatly, something about his beard and hair made him look unkempt. He also still looked suspicious of Kallen, and he suspected that the man might not have an efficient grasp of his own inner alpha. Some werewolves preferred to give in to their own savagery and let the instincts talk. Some even went a step further and turned it into a man-eater. Was this idiot a man-eater?
“Why else would you be here? You’re a foreign wolf, too. I don’t recognize your scent. Where’s your pack?”
“Lone wolf,” Kallen replied, and the man growled softly in response. Lone wolves didn’t have the best of reputations, as they weren’t bound by pack laws. Not in the same way as a proper clan wolf, who clearly hadn’t done anything to break wolf law. In some of the more remote clans, they would want to challenge and attempt to kill a loner.
“We don’t like your kind here. Step foot in our forests, you’ll be in trouble. Me and the boys here would rather you didn’t take any of the women for yourself either.”
&nb
sp; “Is this not a neutral bar, outside of werewolf jurisdiction?” Kallen said, tapping his fingers, still alternating his gaze between the hostile machismo and the current state of Claire’s attempts to pull. “Are we not in human territory?”
“Doesn’t matter. Werewolves are here, means it’s a werewolf bar.”
“Screwing humans over werewolves?”
The man smiled, exposing neat, savage teeth. “Easy catches. Don’t have to challenge like we do for werewolf women.”
The man continued to posture aggressively, but Kallen remained seated, unmovable as a mountain. He let his inner alpha bleed out slightly, letting the scent permeate his skin and push against the other man, who had more beta tendencies, and clearly hated them. In fact, now that Kallen had his senses more on alert, he could smell that the other men in this room were of lower ranks. No alphas. Betas and lower. People who had far less chance of getting a female werewolf of their choosing. It had to be people from their ranks.
Kallen’s complete disdain aggravated the werewolf, but he wasn’t foolish enough to pick a fight. Not without knowing what type of clan Kallen hailed from—and whether his clan had humongous werewolves compared to others.
He thought about Suzie once more. Her memories encompassed anger and regret all at once. To think he had wanted to marry her once. That he was prepared to leave everything behind for her. But she wasn’t prepared to leave everything behind for him. She took the money. Her choice. His mistake. Now here he sat, teaching a woman to take control of her life, and secretly hoping she didn’t get too good at her new role. She held a kind of joy in her heart, a true desire to change, to do something, convinced of the dullness of her life. That was mostly the case, wasn’t it? Be productive, don’t do much. Enjoy, but lose out on some productivity. Probably why so many people went and did their holidays and long trips when they hit retirement. They lost the chance in their youth.
Hmm… Kallen narrowed his eyes. Claire acted interested, leaning in to listen to the werewolf currently serenading her. Her blonde hair tumbled carelessly—she’d worked out the band—and he sensed the werewolf turning on his pheromones to max. Not that he blamed a werewolf for using the tools at his disposal—he’d done it many times himself—but somehow, from the outside, it seemed to him like cheating. Assaulting her inferior human senses with the primal power of the werewolf. Her stupid friend, tucked in a corner, already writhed in the full throes of passion with another man. Sloppy kisses, wrapping her legs around his hips, leaving very little to the imagination of what those two might do shortly.
He saw a few attractive women, but none of them held his interest like Claire. If she succeeded, then, well, it would probably be the first time he had a really positive impact on someone’s life. Not too bad.
The aggressive werewolf, who had walked away at some point during Kallen’s passive indifference, made his way back with two other men, both with better physiques than him. For god’s sake, Kallen thought with ill humor. Couldn’t even have a nice sit down with a beer nowadays without someone deciding to measure their dick against his.
“Gentlemen,” Kallen said in a bored voice, not bothering to smile. “Any chance I can buy you a round of drinks so you’ll leave me alone?”
“Nah. Think you’ll be the one leaving us alone,” the original man said.
“I was,” Kallen pointed out. “You’re the one who keeps coming over here and instigating.”
They didn’t bother with snappy responses this time. They surrounded him, like a pack attempting to harry prey, and for the first time, he let his own inner alpha blaze out stronger. A mixture of anger and fear tinted his scent, along with some adrenaline, and the nearest two werewolves took steps back as they registered his alpha power.
“If I have to transform, I’m going to make sure you three regret it,” Kallen hissed, though in all honesty, he wasn’t sure he could take all of them on. They didn’t need to know that, though. All they needed to know was that he meant business. His gaze flickered to Claire once, who still held herself in active conversation, oblivious to the drama unfolding over here. One of the burly men, unfortunately, was attentive to the distraction, and spotted Claire for himself.
“Oh,” he said in a deep growl. “Is that the one you want to fuck?”
Anger bloomed hotter in Kallen’s heart. He controlled himself, though. He didn’t want to be the one to start the fight. It had to be obvious he meant to defend. “What, I’m not allowed to look around?”
The three men took one lofty glance at each other. “Don’t mind if we take a look ourselves.” They turned on him and made a beeline straight for Claire, and Kallen cursed his distraction. He shouldn’t have looked at her. Maybe if he played it cool, acted like he didn’t care at all, they would soon lose interest. So he placed his boots up on the table and stared at his phone instead. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw the men surround Claire in that same predatory flanking, and hustle out the beta who wanted to woo her. His advanced hearing picked up their raised voices.
“Hey, darlin’. You look like you want to have some fun. Bet I can make your visit here worth your while.”
Claire was silent a moment, before responding, firmly, “No thank you. I already had someone I was talking to.”
“Why go with him when you can have so much better?”
“Because I liked him. You just bullied him away. I’m not interested. Please leave me alone.”
Kallen smiled to himself. At least she was being painfully clear, though judging by the main man’s reaction to Kallen just minding himself in the corner, he wasn’t entirely sure that painful honesty would be enough. Though he kept his outward body pose relaxed, and even considered just leaving, his mind was on full alert and his inner alpha growled with frustration against the mental bonds he restricted it with.
“Don’t be like that. Here, the strong get what they want. And you’re quite the catch, ain’t you, darlin’?” Kallen observed the man glance his way. He also noticed the werewolf Claire was chatting up, the red-haired, tall but gangly adult, step back in.
“Come on, guys, cut this out. This isn’t cool, what you’re doing. She just said she’s not interested.”
“Tough. If you want her, you’ll have to deal with me and my mates here.”
Kallen swung his legs off the table and strode up to them, standing by the redhead’s side. “I’ll say it’s two versus three right now.” He looked into Claire’s face and saw gratefulness in her expression, and something else he couldn’t name. “Maybe you’ll win the fight, maybe you’ll go home licking your wounds.”
“Ha. Jackson here can’t fight for shit.”
“Come over here,” Kallen said to Claire. She attempted to shuffle over to him, but was body-blocked.
“Leave me alone!” she said, her voice shrill, her eyes a little wild. “Seriously!”
“Shut up.” The person blocking her shoved her viciously to the side, and she bumped into the edge of the table with her hip, letting out a cry of pain. They wanted to clear her out of the way for the fight, but had done it in the most callous way.
Red misted over Kallen’s vision. His inner alpha roared and burst through his skin, igniting over his flesh and letting the fury channel within. He shifted into his dark gray form, growling and snapping. The barman cursed, and the other three werewolves responded with the same. Black, russet, and tawny, they loped on four paws, smaller than his own form, and instantly hesitated from the size difference. Perhaps emboldened by Kallen’s form, the redhead transformed into a ginger wolf, the same size as the others.
Kallen’s inner alpha held no reservations about attacking. He lunged at the nearest foe, bowling him over as if he weighed little more than a feather. He snapped and scratched, teeth biting into fur, and someone bit at his haunches, trying to secure a strong grip, but falling short. Pain slithered through him, enraging his inner alpha further, and he let out a terrible, demonic snarl, thrashing at his opponent.
Within moments, th
e trio dashed out of the bar, yelping in pain, not even having the decency to show their bellies to him in surrender. He reined in control of his inner alpha with some difficulty, as it wanted to chase the trio and hunt them to their deaths. Then he shifted back into his human form, grimacing at the pain in his rear end, knowing he would need to get the injury checked. Who knew what that werewolf had been eating?
Claire’s expression, however, blew all other thoughts out of his mind. She stared at him as if he was the single most wonderful thing anyone could ever encounter. Aw.
“If I didn’t think you were sexy already,” she said, her voice rather breathless, “then that just cemented it. You actually came to my rescue.”
“Oh, right, are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll have a bruise, but it’s nothing I can’t cope with. Are you okay?”
“M’fine,” Kallen said, though his ass stung like hell. Really, did the guy have to bite right there? He breathed harshly through his nose, weaning himself off the adrenaline. He gave her a small smile. Then his mind registered that she’d just described him as sexy. Then there was the fact that her eyes were shining like opals. He lost his head in that moment. Without thinking, ignoring all the people gaping at him and the boundaries he’d personally set for himself, he strode over the distance and scooped her up in a kiss, capturing her lips with passionate tenacity. The sounds beyond their bubble faded out as all that mattered to him was this woman, kissing this amazing, sexy woman…
“Oh, really,” someone huffed, and he recognized it as belonging to the redhead, trying to get his own claws into Claire. “He just bowls over the others and suddenly that’s it?”
The redhead said something else, but his attention was taken by the fact that Claire responded to Kallen’s advances with equal passion, rising up into his body, kissing him hard, with fervor, and it ignited desire in his body. A craving to take her.