by Lisa Daniels
“Eh, I should be fine tonight,” Kallen said with exaggerated bravado, though the dim awareness that he might have endangered Claire with his presence lingered. Perhaps he should have just gone alone. But he didn’t want to leave Claire alone while Suzie was prowling. He wouldn’t put it past that woman to pay a visit for some innocent reason, but with sinister motives. Because the Suzie he knew never existed.
“I feel slightly used,” Claire said, lips turning downwards. “But no more than I am using you, I suppose.”
Ouch. Kallen had no answer to that. It was true. Though he wished he could say otherwise. That he was an idiot like Andrea said. An idiot who fell for the wrong types of women, who couldn’t be trusted to feel for himself.
A small group of people were watching them, which sent Kallen’s senses on alert. People watched them anyway, but something about this group was jarring, somehow.
It struck him then that they were all werewolves. From their postures, the packish way they grouped together—they reminded him of a group preparing to hunt.
Panic set through him, though he kept cool on the outside. There was no way Suzie could have found out where he was going, right? He didn’t say anything about the location to Claire. Sure, he had frequented it in the past, but mostly with clients.
“You didn’t betray me, did you?” Kallen hissed at Andrea, who appeared utterly dumbfounded from his accusation.
“What? What on earth are you babbling about?”
“Them!” Kallen pointed toward the pack. “Did you tell them where I was?”
Andrea stared at them, before her eyes widened. “Oh, this is bad. Look, I swear to the clan that I had no idea about this. I don’t know the guest lists. I know that people from our clans visit, but not the specific dates. Either this is a coincidence or someone followed you. C’mon, cuz, it’s not me.”
“Who are they?” Claire whispered, frightened.
“Possibly family,” Kallen answered, racking his brains, thinking about the others who got onto the train with him. Had one of them been Suzie? It would be easy to track his scent in werewolf form, morph back into a human, and hide under clothes to get on the train. People had passed up and down, too. Had there been someone who smelled like Suzie? God, he couldn’t recall. Hadn’t been paying any attention.
“Good family?”
“Murder family,” Kallen said as the pack began to move toward them. “Andrea, take Claire with you. I don’t want Claire to be hurt.”
Without another word, Andrea whisked Claire away, who kept glancing back, but Kallen couldn’t spare extra thoughts for them. He stayed to confront the pack, hoping that they wouldn’t risk a murder in front of a whole ballroom full of guests. Sometimes his hopes didn’t exactly work out, though.
The first to reach him smelled like Suzie, and he scowled. “Miss me, did you?” he said.
“Hardly,” Suzie replied, and her voice was colder than before. Lacking the warmth. “You always gave up too easily, Kallen. You should have tried harder for me.”
“Would that mean I’d pay you more than a million? Bid you out like some whore?”
Suzie’s smile faltered.
“The only reason you were interested in me was because of the money, wasn’t it?” Kallen said, now staring at the others circling him in a rather ominous way. He didn’t see Claire or Andrea, and hoped they’d made their escape. “What do you want?”
“For you to come back to clan territory,” Suzie said. “Your father wants to see you.”
“My father wants to kill me,” Kallen snapped, and he was greeted by growls from the four other wolves. “Or are you going to pretend otherwise? I’m not an idiot. I don’t know what he thought by sending you. I’m not the same person who liked you.”
“I thought the same, but he insisted.”
“I’m not coming back. I was exiled by him, remember? I’m not going to come back. I don’t want to come back. My brother can take over.”
“Your word isn’t enough,” Suzie said. The other wolves continued to growl softly. “And I know where you are, and who you like. Or did you think I wouldn’t notice you having a hard-on for that filthy human woman?”
“Human laws aren’t like wolf laws. You kill them, you’re potentially instigating a war.”
“Not if she steps into wolf territory. The Cosmo clan rules the forest by Clydesdale. We have a few acquaintances there who might be able to arrange for something to happen.”
“And now you’re telling me your evil plans,” Kallen said with a laugh. “Congratulations. I’ll let it be known that if anyone I know happens to disappear mysteriously or die in an accident, the entire Cosmo forest range will be torched. Humans aren’t stupid. You tell them someone’s under threat, they won’t just ignore it. Don’t start a war you can’t win. The moment I walk out of here, you can’t touch me.”
At that point, Suzie completely lost her head. “Kill him!” she snapped to the other wolves. Two hesitated, while the other two transformed eagerly, thirsting for blood.
What an idiot, Kallen thought sourly, before backing away, holding up his hands, and shouting, “Help!”
The other supernaturals within the ball turned to look. Then an eruption of animals emerged from the mess, from bear to tiger to one partially transformed dragon, as his true form would have taken up a lot of space.
Suzie, instead of admitting defeat and crawling away, lunged at him. He made no effort to resist, and grunted in surprise when a blade sank through his throat.
He attempted to gargle something. Pain exploded, then dulled, and a cacophony of sounds greeted him as he fell to the ground.
Sorry, Claire, he thought, before the darkness came.
Chapter Nine – Claire
Claire waited in the reception, twiddling her thumbs. Andrea sat next to her, stony-eyed, maskless, and seething with animosity.
“Are you sure he’ll be okay?”
“He should be,” Andrea said in her deep voice, glancing at Claire. “Shifters can survive a lot of damage. If they take too much trauma in a short space of time, they can’t. Kallen just got a little stabbed and bruised.”
“A ‘little’ stabbed and bruised. Yes, that’s so comforting to hear,” Claire said, which prompted a laugh from Andrea.
“No, I’m serious. I am surprised Suzie went full psycho in a room full of shifters. What did she expect would happen?”
Claire had been close enough to watch numerous shifters transform, lunge, and subdue Suzie and her lackies. Maybe she’d been offered a lot of money from Kallen’s father. Or maybe he’d said something that stopped her from thinking clearly. Either way, she’d been taken away to be tried by the city. Attacking in a space occupied by humans and shifters was just asking for the death sentence, Andrea had said. Claire for one felt secretly glad that the ex from the past turned out to be a nightmare. She knew she should feel bad about thinking this way, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to care.
That bitch had tried to murder Kallen. If Kallen was a human, he would have died. Andrea said that Kallen probably didn’t transform to make it look more obvious about who the attackers were. Stupid thing to do, in Claire’s opinion. Should have fought and saved himself from injury. She still couldn’t quite believe what Andrea said about how hardy shifters were. Even with Google research confirming the same thing, and a helpful yet suspicious guide documenting the best ways to kill shifters, until she saw Kallen for herself, she didn’t dare allow herself to hope.
“He likes you, you know,” Andrea said, her attention now drawn to a doctor striding through reception. It wasn’t for them, though. “There’s no way he would put this much effort in, even with money added, if he didn’t like you.”
“Oh, he likes me, sure,” Claire said. “But that’s all it is. You can like people when you work for them.”
“Sure. And I’ll eat my boots if you didn’t like him more than that.” Andrea smirked, and Claire wanted to punch her in the face. “Has he slept with you yet?�
��
What? “That’s an inappropriate question to ask!”
“That’s a no, then. Good sign, by the way. He’s not so quick to jump into bed with women he likes.”
“Not for his lack of trying, though,” Claire muttered, blushing as she did so. After a moment’s hesitation, she confessed, “I paid him for a one-night stand. Then I freaked out and it didn’t happen.”
“So he’s being patient,” Andrea said. “There might be hope for him yet.”
They sat together in a rather awkward silence. None of it happened the way Andrea seemed to be trying to paint it. Yet there had been something, hadn’t there? If Suzie hadn’t interrupted, Claire believed things would have gone much further.
They sat and waited for another hour, before a doctor finally approached them and beckoned for them to come and see the patient. They bounded after the doctor and were taken into a small ward, where Kallen was propped upright, bandages over his throat, looking very much alive.
“Shifters recover from the most remarkable of wounds,” Doctor Telsin said, shaking his head as he watched the women converge on Kallen. “I always envy it.”
“Doesn’t stop us from being mortal, though,” Andrea pointed out to the doctor, who nodded and went to check on another patient. “Kallen, you old rogue. Not every day you get stabbed in the throat by an ex, is it?”
Kallen laughed, though there was a slight wheeze to it, and he coughed. “Ha. God, my throat’s really itchy now from the healing. You’d think I’d be able to do it without any problems now, wouldn’t you? The amount of times I got beaten up as a kid.”
Claire clung onto him, reluctant to let go. He absently patted her head. “I’m alright. I really am. You seem… alright, too?”
“Your cousin got me out. But I saw the moment when...” The image flashed back through Claire’s mind. The short knife sinking into Kallen’s flesh. His surprised expression, his drop to the ground, and then losing sight of him when the other shifters joined the fray.
“Trust me,” Kallen said softly. “It looks worse than it is. You never had to worry about me. It’s you that needs to worry about yourself.” He winced. “I shouldn’t have taken you. I didn’t think you would actually be in danger. She even threatened you.”
“Suzie threatened me?”
“Yeah. Trying to scare me into joining her. She shouldn’t be able to carry through her threat anymore, but all the same, I’d like to stick around a little longer, until I’m sure you’re not in danger.”
Andrea let out a kind of disgusted snort. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she said. “Just be honest and say you like her. I’ll leave and have the cousin-to-cousin talk later. You two have your moment.” She waved at Claire, then stalked out, leaving both Claire and Kallen frozen.
Claire’s instant reaction was to downplay what Andrea said. The expression in Kallen’s eyes, however, caused the protest to die in her throat.
“Do you actually like me? My cousin seems to think you… do.” He rubbed the back of his head, suddenly shy.
“I...” Claire stared into those beautiful orange eyes, before tracing over his cheekbones, and thinking of how she felt around him. How her heart kept fluttering in an annoying way, which made her want to squirm away from the feeling and pretend it didn’t exist. “I do. I’ve not wanted to go on dates or come to places like this, because I didn’t want to see other men. I wanted to see you. But you were a bit unavailable, so...” She shrugged helplessly.
Kallen remained silent for a long time. Claire didn’t add, didn’t backtrack. She saw he wanted to process. Maybe he was struggling with words to say as well.
“I’ve not wanted to like another woman since Suzie,” Kallen finally admitted. His eyes went down to the white bedsheets. “I didn’t want to feel that way again. To love someone and then have them stab me in the back. Easier to keep them at a distance. I found you interesting, but I didn’t think anything of it. It seemed I underestimated quite a few things.” He looked at her once more, and Claire’s heart pounded fast, and she began to feel dizzy, disbelieving.
“Wait. Do you… like me, too?”
“Maybe. I know I don’t want to see the end of you just yet. Though you don’t have to pay me for the privilege,” he said. “How ‘bout it?”
Claire couldn’t quite comprehend that this handsome, if slightly stabbed and hospitalized, man actually liked her. He’d said all that seriously. He meant every word.
“Well, I’m glad you weren’t killed, then.”
“Me, too,” he said. They held hands, smiling like fools at one another, while Claire felt excited and scared at the same time.
She never thought she’d reach a stage like this in her life. Or if things would even work out. But she certainly would be up for trying.
* * *
Explaining to Rita that she was dating Kallen caused the expected squeals of excitement, whereas Shannon smiled, congratulated her, but seemed gloomy, somehow. Still hadn’t solved the issues with her own boyfriend, it seemed. Less than two days after Kallen had been released from the hospital, Claire returned home and found Kallen there, having ordered a meal and set up the dining table in the process. He admitted he couldn’t cook to save his life, but luckily there were people out there who could cook well for themselves. Claire sank down to delicious Chinese takeout, and settled to watch something Kallen liked and wanted to introduce Claire to.
About halfway through the movie, and feeling rather less full and rather more horny, Claire found herself touching Kallen, innocently enough, just to convince herself that he was here. That he was real.
He wore a simple white tunic with jeans, and seemed to take amusement in the way she stroked his arms, letting out a satisfied rumble from deep within his chest. She wore a long skirt and blue top, and he definitely seemed interested in the amount of skin it showed.
“We’re never going to finish the movie, are we?” he whispered, right before he turned on the spot and kissed Claire full on the mouth. She gasped against his lips, taken by surprise, thrilled and shivering all at once. Her insides went crazy, electrified, and she sank into the kiss.
This time, not intending to let him go. Somehow, she was lucky enough in her life to be able to encounter this person. Maybe they didn’t meet in the most scrupulous of ways, or for the most scrupulous of reasons, but right now, none of that mattered. Because this was the result. A handsome werewolf shifter in her home, kissing all the breath out of her. She gripped onto his strong arms hard, kissing back harder, desperate for the contact, the warmth. Arousal flared in her like an inferno, and she never felt it so strong, so brilliant before.
No one else was able to provoke this kind of reaction.
“I’m taking you outta here,” Kallen whispered against her lips, before hefting her into his arms and making a beeline toward her bedroom. She looped her arms around his neck, grinning and giggling, still holding onto him as they fell onto the bed together. He peppered her with kisses, being quite insistent on taking charge of her pleasure, in making sure she didn’t have much room to think. He tore at her clothes, attacking the offending items in a frenzy. They scattered around the room, and there was something invigorating and vulnerable at the same time about being beneath him naked, while he wore all his clothes.
“You’re mine now. And I’m gonna make you come. Over and over again...”
The words ignited Claire further, and her body trembled in response. Dear lord, such simple, dirty words sure had a way of firing her up. Especially knowing that they were all for her.
“I want you,” she gasped, arching up into him when his hands began teasing along her skin, touching and opening her to more wonderful possibilities and sensations. Like the way his hand brushed over her forearms, stirring the sensitive hairs there, and the spine-rippling pleasure shooting through her bones.
“You have me,” he growled, orange eyes almost glowing in the dim light. He began to tug at his own clothes, almost getting stuck in his own shirt, before
finally wrestling every last offending piece of item off, leaving him in all his bare glory in front of her. Her attention shifted to between his legs, then back up.
“That’s… bigger than I expected.” Although thankfully, it wasn’t monstrous. That might have caused some problems.
He grinned, reaching to tear a condom packet and rolling it slickly over his erection. She felt a tiny bite of disappointment, because she wanted the flesh-to-flesh contact. She wanted everything. Still, she appreciated him doing this without asking.
“There’s going to be a lot of things happening that you won’t expect right now,” he said with a wicked grin, one hand sliding along her stomach, one thigh, then dipping between her legs to the wetness accumulating down there. When he located her nub, he stroked it deftly with one finger, and she let out a gasping scream, body squirming from the assault of pleasure coursing within. So much. Too much! How could anyone stand this?
Yet somehow, she did, tensing, trembling, and gasping sounds from her throat. Maybe his name a few times. Her cheeks burned as he steered her body over the cliff, though just before she felt convinced she was about to erupt, he withdrew, and plunged his erection into her.
What a devil, she thought, even as a painful pleasure bit every cell in her body, radiating from her core. Even as he continued to move, chasing his own release, his body hard at work, arms solid on either side of her. He cried out her name once, and it was enough to make her orgasm a second time, though it was a smaller wave than the first—more of an aftershock.
She flopped out on the bed, utterly dazed, although grinning stupidly at the same time. He settled next to her, breathing almost as fast as her heart pounded. When she turned to look at him, he looked awfully pleased with himself. Naturally.
“Took you long enough,” she said, snuggling in close to him. “Finally got what I originally paid for.”
“Oh, you didn’t have to pay for that,” Kallen confirmed, his voice rumbly against her neck. She sighed in contentment, though her mood began to sink slightly when thinking about her life. As usual.