by Dalia Wright
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Table of Contents
Frey’s Mate
The Preacher’s Daughter’s Secret
Saved by a Cowboy
In Love with a Preacher’s Daughter
Rescued by the Alpha Wolf
The Panther’s Lair
Once Upon a Mail Order Bride
A Vampire Love In Time
Abducted By the Alpha Alien
Nursing the Soldier
Rich Love
A New Love Baby Daddy Next Door
Crazy In Love With a Bad Boy
A Boss’s Forbidden Temptation
Not Just Another Soul Mate Book
Knocked Up by The Navy Shifter
The Highlander’s English Princess
Craving a Cowboy
Forbidden Love Affair
Summoned
A Secret Love in Paradise
Betrothed and in Love with a Commoner
The Duke’s Engagement
Secret Escape
To Love a Wounded Soldier
In Love with the Wrong Brother
Fate Takes a Turn
The Mistress of Black Grove Manor
Rescued from Royalty
The Pregnant Preacher’s Daughter
A Taboo Billionaire Love
Adopted by the Amish
The Superstar’s Lost Love
A Soldier’s Last Hope
Working for the Billionaire Shifter
The Bishop’s Daughter’s Romance
The Minister’s Daughter’s Secret Love
Therapy for the Navy Seal
In Love with the Duke’s Son
An Amish Double Life
God’s Plan for a Husband
Tempted by the Duke’s Son
Running Away for Love
A Taste of Freedom
Gifted a Baby
Hannah’s Miracle
Forced into Royalty
The Amish Nanny’s New Beloved
Annie’s Escape
Bella’s Return
Tia’s Mate
Arina’s Mate
Frey’s Mate
By: Dalia Wright
Prologue:
When Frey reached seven years of age, she tried to kill her baby brother with a knife. Evo represented the pride of her parents, the bundle of joy that she should have been, but wasn't. Evo, in all his chubby brilliance stole the love that should have been for her – sucked it all up until nothing remained but ashes.
Frey grew up, enduring her father's disappointment, her mother Kalina's sadness when she thought Frey wasn't looking, but Frey saw everything, and understood her parents hated her for being normal. For not having the magic blood. She had failed her family bloodline, defiled their purity by coming into the world as a pathetic human baby.
She did strange things without love warming her up. Once, she had stared at the midnight skin of her mother, and the snow-pale contrast of her father, Lazarus Radev, then stared at her own walnut toned mix, hating the fact she was neither dark or light. It marked her out as broken from the start. She took a knife from the drawer and peeled into her skin, thinking it would be like an onion, and paler flesh would reveal itself underneath. It didn't work out that way, and her mother had caught her, screamed hysterically and rushed her to hospital in one of the few times she exhibited concern.
The doctors treated her like she was stupid and disturbed, but she wasn't. She just didn't want to be Frey Radev. She didn't want to be a failure.
When her mother fell pregnant and gave birth to Evo, with startling ice blue eyes gazing out of his dark skin, her parents rejoiced. Evo had the magic blood. He would transform, and carry on the legacy of his forefathers.
And Frey, well – she was a human in a world of werewolves, a nothing in her father's eyes, and a source of guilt and shame for her mother.
Evo had taken the little love Frey had left. Maybe if he was gone, she could find it again, and her mother would return it without the distraction of little Evo. One night, when her mother slept, and her father was away on personal business, Frey took the knife, went into her brother's room and crawled into the cot with him. She stared at his peaceful sleeping, knife poised in hand, trembling from fear and adrenaline.
Her heart bubbled in hatred, anger and frustration, and tears ran hot down her cheeks.
At that moment, Evo opened his eyes, and looked at his big sister, with the metal object glinting in her hand. Unafraid, thinking it was a game, Evo reached to his sister's free hand and squeezed it with pudgy fingers, gurgling in happiness.
Frey's heart crumbled some more. Her fragile defenses fell, her rage dissipated. The knife dropped from her grasp, tumbling onto the bedsheets. She watched Evo for a while as he made those contented sounds, before quietly getting out, returning the knife, and clambering into the cot to sleep with her little brother.
Maybe her parents didn't love her. Maybe they saw her as nothing but a burden, a reminder of their plans gone awry.
That no longer mattered.
She had her little brother, and she would protect him with all her heart.
Chapter One
Howling jerked Frey awake. Rubbing her eyes, she rolled out of bed and groped for the light, turning it on to reveal a mess of a room, with empty Winston cigarette packets piled on the dressing table. I need to get around to throwing those away, she thought vaguely, before opening the window and peering out to the town road below.
Sapareva Banya usually resembled a ghost town at this time of night. Sometimes, in the silence, you heard the spit and hiss of the pipes processing the geyser that had erupted from the thermal springs under the town. You didn't hear howling, however. She strained her eyes, trying to make out shapes in the darkness. The howl came again. It made the hairs on Frey's neck rise. Desperation, loathing and agony saturated those calls.
Evo burst into the room behind her, ice blue eyes already gleaming. “Sis! Be careful. Me and the other guys think there's been some kind of fight. We're gonna check it out.” He spoke in English, solely out of the desire to practise Europe's international language, and Frey responded likewise, though her English accent was thick, laced with Bulgarian vowel crunches.
“We're not expecting any travelers.” Frey groped for her Taurus PT111, and checked the chambers of the handgun to make sure it was fully loaded. “Could they be after the Belgian wolf we've got?”
Evo shook his head, his fangs and nails elongating slightly. “Tas wolves doesn't have any known enemies. Might be a conflict from Rila. Heard there's a hunt going on for one of them Spirovas.”
Frey backed from her window biting her lip as she ran her thumb over the grip of the Taurus. She screwed on the silencer tighter. “I'll alert the Belgian.” She strode out of the room behind Evo, ready to fire, even in her blue and yellow pajamas, out of place on a grown thirty year old woman.
Her mind raced through possibilities, even as she banged on the door of where the Belgian werewolf currently slumbered. Evo with the two Americans who helped run their werewolf hotel. A bleary faced man with light pink eyes answered, purple shadows sunk into his cheekbones.
“What?”
“There's something going on outside. Might be werewol
ves, a fight. Be alert in case they're not friendly.”
The Belgian werewolf nodded, rubbing at his rose tattooed arm. “Need me to help?”
“Well. Got any enemies you know of who might want to track you down?” Frey said, patting him on the shoulder.
The werewolf merely grinned under his mop of blonde hair. “I doubt that. See you at the bar.”
“Don't die,” Frey advised, sidestepping and heading downstairs, turning on the light of the bar and watching her colleagues and friends shrug on jackets, ready to inspect the scene outside. Frey tossed on hers as well, and hastily tied back her frizzy hair into a bun. Her heart pulsed rapidly, hoping that her fears were misplaced, that the old clans hadn't started their slaughter of the humans in Sapareva Banya.
She watched her brother lope off into the empty street, his face lengthening into a bestial snout, his normally deep voice grating into rumbling snarls. Emma and Horace, the American couple, sped after him, their forms a light silver compared to Evo's iron gray. Frey wished in that moment she could assist as well and let the wolf burst out of her body, but she had to remain content with watching her friends morph.
She did, however, pack some expensive vanadium laced bullets. That material did some interesting things to werewolf blood. She stood at the entrance of the hotel, noting the Belgian prowling behind her, and stared into the darkness, where the howls wrought the atmosphere.
She felt sure Lazarus Radev would be cursing her from his scattered ashes if he knew his corrupted daughter had taken Evo completely under her wing, planting liberal notions in his brain and turning him against the old ways.
The thought made her smile, though it came bitter and spiteful. The smile dropped when she caught a flicker of movement in a black corner, past where several dilapidated buildings crumbled into ruin. Johan's warning growl next to her ear made her aim her gun at the disturbance and wait, trembling in fear and exhilaration at the same time.
“This one smells like bones,” Johan said, joining her by the door. His pink eyes narrowed in distaste. “Bones and meat stuck between teeth. A savage.”
“Thanks.” The shadow moved, and Frey caught a glimpse of a shaggy human, with a strange lurch to their gait. He staggered toward where Frey stood, and she could quite clearly see the whites of his eyes, the foam bubbling at the corners of his mouth, and the cracked, bloody hands and face, as if he had been tearing at his own skin.
“Fuck,” Frey said, along with Johan's exclamation of disgust. “It's a human.”
“Infected.”
“Let him come inside. Easier to clean the mess,” Frey said, her emotions glazing over in an icy film. She didn't like killing, but with an infected human, she had no choice. They were a hazard to everyone. All that remained in their minds once the infection struck was a boiling pool of pain, and a ceaseless urge to kill.
The human grunted, and staggered closer, now snapping his teeth at Frey, who moved aside. Johan, nervous at the sight of insanity, snarled softly, claws developing on his hands. Finally, the human, ravenously driven toward the lure of fresh meat, tripped into the hotel. The stench of rotten meat covered his skin, along with the acrid tang of filthy clothes and dried, unwashed sweat. His broken nails scrabbled at the floor and he looked so pathetic there, exactly like a flopping fish, stranded on the linoleum of their clandestine hotel. Frey crouched near him, aiming carefully as he gibbered and cackled, dribbling foam on the floor.
“Rest well,” she said to the suffering man, and pressed the trigger.
Johan helped her drag the body into a small kitchen, where she would clean up the remains later, along with her brother and the Americans. She didn't feel bad for killing the man – only that it needed to be done in the first place. Why would she feel bad in putting something suffering to rest?
Her brother came bounding into the hotel a few moments later, in full feral form. Gashes and scratches covered his furred form. He shuddered at the blood of the dead human, nostrils twitching. “Bandages,” he rasped through his throat. “We have a badly injured girl and a hysterical sibling with her. We...” His muzzle twisted in a grimace, and he clutched at his side.
“Brother, you must sit! Don't move around and don't be dumb. Are the others okay?”
Evo shook his head stubbornly. “I have to go back out. The others are fine. We had to put down a werewolf. He was... chasing the two we're bringing in now. He... bit some humans. Which I think you're aware of.” Her brother's light blue eyes slid over the human. “I have to go clean up. Check no one else saw.”
Before Frey could add to the matter, she heard the entrance door clang open again. She strode into the entrance to see four werewolves, with two new additions to the family.
One resembled a bloody rag, and lay unconscious in human form. Her green dress hung in tatters, and her skin mottled purple, red and black from whatever horrors inflicted upon it. Her puffed up face lolled to the side of another werewolf, also in human shape. He clung to the unconscious female as if she was the most precious thing in the world, and whispered into her ear. Emma and Horace flanked them, both sporting crimson muzzles, the thick liquid dripping onto the floor.
“I'm gonna need a cigarette,” Frey said.
Chapter Two
Yanus held vigil by his sister's bed, refusing to leave. It tore him up inside to see her as a shell of her former beauty, to have her lie in a small bed breathing pain, waiting for her werewolf healing to kick in and to swallow up the injuries that would kill a normal human twice over.
I'm so sorry, Luelle. I'm so sorry. He raised a shaky hand and stroked his sister's matted black hair, soul shriveling as he examined the extent of her injuries.
When his sister had gone all those years ago to be married to a Russian werewolf, he never imagined seeing her again like this. That cheerful little Armanev girl, a member of one of the proud noble families, reduced to a battered slip of a creature, a shadow of the laughter she had once been.
“You're safe now. You're safe. He'll never have you back.” He crooned the words to his sister, but she lay deep in unconsciousness, oblivious to his comfort. How many years had she endured, with that horror of a man, who had been all sweet smiles and promises to their family, exchanging children – only to then ensnare her in a domestic hell?
The black woman sauntered into the hotel room, tucking away a lighter into her pocket. Yanus examined her, detecting a strange odor emanating from her skin, a mix of honey and peaches. It also came with something else – the faint tang of rust under her skin, not quite wolf-like, but not quite human either.
Light brown irises stared from her face, accentuated by wide cheekbones, a gently sloping curve to her chin, and long eyelashes over hooded, lazy eyelids. The woman smiled, and dimples pinched in on either side of her mouth. For a moment, Yanus found himself distracted by the unexpected display of beauty.
“Hey,” she said, in a husky voice, folding her arms as she approached the bed and scrutinized his sister. “Welcome to the Springmoon Hotel. Anything you need, we'll try to help with. Though I suspect your sister just needs time, food and drink.”
“Thank you.” Yanus examined the girl with the peculiar smell for a little while longer. What was it about her? He knew she wasn't a werewolf. She didn't have the eyes, or the scent – but there was something different. He turned back to his sister, immensely annoyed and ashamed of his focus drifting onto the woman instead of his sister. After everything Luelle had gone through, she at least deserved his love and care.
“I'm Frey Radev.”
Radev. Have I heard that name before? “Yanus Armanev.”
He saw Frey's expression darken at the mention of his ancient family name. “Ah, yes. My father and mother thought highly of the Armanevs. Then again, my father used to go pretty crazy over anyone of noble heritage.”
Now Yanus thought he realized where the odd displacement of Frey's scent came from. “You were born to two werewolves?”
Frey smiled at this, but it was a thin, lov
eless curl of her lips. “Yes.”
“Oh.” She didn't need to say anything else. A history of resentment and discrimination lathered itself in the tone of her voice. “I had no idea that was even possible.”
“Neither did my parents.” Frey's fingers started twitching, a nervous habit Yanus often identified with smokers. Frey then studied Yanus for a long time, her eyes searching his body, lingering at his exposed collarbone. He felt as if he was standing in a spotlight, ready to talk to an audience of spectators, and his heart thudded a little faster.
“What happened to your sister?” Frey stopped clenching her fist and closed the distance, now crouching beside the bed. Yanus took this opportunity to scour Frey's simple white blouse and black pants with his eyes, and over the subtle hint of cleavage the frills of the blouse revealed. He shook himself out of the distraction with a low growl.
“I'm not sure. She escaped from Russia. Contacted our family to ask for asylum, that she was being chased by her husband. Our mother and father chose to ignore it, because she had a right to her husband, to provide him with children...” Yanus turned to his sister, insides broiling with fury, the kind that melted stone. He honestly wanted to find every last one of those disgusting Koroslav wolves and rip out the throat of their wives, husbands and children. Anyone who condoned an act like this didn't deserve the air they breathed. “They even contacted the husband to tell him where she was.”