Taken by Nero Wolf (Magnificent Beasts Book 2)

by Ana Calin

  “I assure you that’s all there is. She’s not even my type.”

  Paola looks at Princess. “Tall, queenly, red hair and white skin, quite extravagant. Indeed, you were never into women who stand out like the morning star, but this one turns every head in the room. Yours the most. Even now, look at you. You can’t tear your eyes away from her even when confronted about it.”

  For the first time in my life, I have no idea what to say. Paola cornered me, and there’s no way I can deny that I’m drooling over this woman, hell, that right now I’m dying to follow her down the corridor where she disappeared with Ramses Fritz.

  “Paola Valdez, is that you?” Drago appears from behind her, holding out his hand, his dark eyes simmering on his seductive bad boy face. She smiles widely in response, opening her arms to greet him, but Arianna’s heavily pregnant stomach appears by his side, followed by Arianna herself.

  The smile disappears from Paola’s face.

  “Wonderful to see you,” she addresses Drago, watching for a look of jealousy on Arianna’s face as she puts her hands on Drago’s shoulders. To my delight, all she finds is a well-meaning smile. My sister-in-law knows all too well her man is only hers, hell, he wouldn’t be able to sleep with another woman if he wanted to. He’s obsessed with her, in the same way that I’m growing obsessed with Princess.

  I’m relieved Drago stepped in, and he probably did it because he saw the predicament I was in. He has superhuman hearing, so he must have heard Paola, noticing at the same time that I’m at a loss. But instead of using the chance to pull myself back together and find a way out of this, I brush off my suit jacket, ball my fists, and stomp my way to the corridor where I saw Ramses Fritz take Princess.

  I walk deeper into the manor, following her scent up the stairs. The deeper I go the emptier the manor gets, and the more I realize I might discover them in an intimate situation.

  By the time I reach the chamber where their smell leads me I must look like a dragon breathing out flames. I clench my fists harder, ready to knock my way through concrete with my knuckles if I have to. But the door is ajar to one small chamber in the attic, a slip of orange light licking the rug, shadows moving inside.

  Part of me doesn’t want to push that door and see behind it, but the beast growls. My wolf fangs grow and I can’t control the transformation. I’m way too angry.

  I move as stealthily as ever when on the hunt only thanks to all my centuries of experience as a predator, but in truth I’ve never felt so insecure. I reach out and push the door, discovering Princess with her back at me. Fine muscles move underneath her perfectly white skin, her red hair sleek and nicely done on top of her head. I watch that elaborate hairdo move from side to side as she inspects the files stacked together on a higher shelf, perched on a small library ladder. The young Ramses Fritz stands by her side, gazing up at her full of longing, thinking no one can see him.

  Relieved that she’s not in his arms, kissing him, I push the door open all the way and walk inside. Princess whips around, falling off the ladder right into the young man’s arms.

  “Nero,” she yelps. “I mean, Mr. Mayor.”

  “Mr. Wolf.” Ramses’ big brown eyes widen.

  “You’re being missed down at the party,” I lie. “Theodore is asking around for the two of you.”

  “Please don’t tell him you found us up here,” Ramses bursts, his eyes as big as a child’s caught doing something wrong.

  I fold my big arms across my chest, blocking their way out, and intimidating him. Fuck, I thought I was above such petty strategies, but right now I’d do anything to make him look bad in front of Princess.

  “It’s okay, Ramses,” she says. “You can tell Mr. Mayor the truth. He’ll be on your side, even more than I ever was.”

  He glances from her to me, his cheeks on fire. He really seems to be still just a boy, even though he must be about Princess’s age.

  “But, but,” he stutters. “I can’t just tell him, just like that.”

  Princess places a hand on his shoulder. “Ramses, please. I didn’t listen to you all those years ago, because what you said sounded so, so, fantastic. It was like a scenario from a fantasy movie. But then Mr. Mayor came to Darkwood Falls with a different story, one that made me remember yours. I realize I made a huge mistake by not believing you, and he—” She looks at me, and my heart jumps as her caramel eyes rest on my face. “He indirectly made me see that I was wrong.”

  The young man turns to me, too, inspecting me up and down. There’s something innocent about him. If I hadn’t seen the way he drools over Princess, I might have even liked him, even wanted to protect him.

  “Have you seen fantastic things in your life, Mr. Mayor?”

  I glance at Princess, not sure what to say. She nods with reassurance.

  “Some.”

  He takes a step to me, as if wanting to inspect me closer.

  “And if I were to tell you there are people who manage to make themselves into fantastic beings, would you believe me?”

  I don’t answer, my eyes shooting to Princess.

  “What is he talking about?”

  “Please, Mr. Mayor, just listen.”

  “Years ago,” Ramses says. “I discovered something about my uncle’s business, something that I found, well, let’s say disturbing. I brought Princess here with the intention of telling her, and then showing her the file, but—” He bites his lower lip, cheeks reddening. “It sounded crazy. She thought I was trying to impress her with fantastic scenarios in order to get into her pants and....” He shakes his head.

  “Never mind, it doesn’t matter now. She called me up a few days ago, and said she now believed me, because she found some evidence of her own. But you can’t tell my uncle you found us here, he can’t be warned.”

  I close the door and lean with my back against it.

  Princess swallows hard, obviously uncomfortable with the situation. She grabs one of the files and clutches it to her chest like a shield.

  “I was wondering about Sullivan’s acolytes putting a sex drug in my drink,” she says. “I went through the minutes of Sullivan’s meetings that I attended the past year, the e-mails I drafted for him, the people he had me call up. Going farther down memory lane, I remembered this talk I had with Ramses many years ago, before I even started working at City Hall. I remembered Ramses telling me about a man his uncle was doing business with, a man who owned a viper farm. It turns out it was a special kind of viper.” She lifts an eyebrow, and it’s all I need in order to understand. We’re both thinking about the viper that slithered out of Spikes’ mouth.

  “Years ago,” she continues, “when Ramses brought me here, he told me this viper farmer worked on ways to use their venom in order to strengthen humans. He showed me this file, and said what I’d find in it would change the way I viewed the world.”

  “After I left Darkwood Falls,” Ramses takes over, now eager to share what he discovered like a mad scientist. “I kept track of the viper farmer and his work. Now his technology is so advanced it gets people, let’s say, pregnant with these vipers, causing them to become some sort of serpent shifters in the process.”

  I lock eyes with Princess. So Spikes was pregnant. In a flash, I make all the necessary connections in my head—they needed the sex drug to get Princess desperate for sex, and impregnate her. I don’t know why her of all people yet, but I will find out if it’s the last thing I do.

  The fur sprouts on my back, anger triggering a violent reaction. I won’t be able to keep the wolf in check, and I’m afraid I’m going to shift right here, in front of Ramses.

  I have to barge out and hurry down the stairs, taking two and then a whole flight at a time. I have to avoid the people on the ground floor, so I stalk through the dark on the first floor, throwing myself out through a window when I can’t keep the wolf in check anymore.

  My clothes fly off my body into shreds in Theodore’s garden, and I can only hope no one finds them by the time I come back. I
race through the woods, struggling to come to terms with this ache, need, and anger that inflate my chest. It’s liberating, speeding through the woods in my wolf form, seeking exhaustion if not relief.

  But when my head clears of the hotness my first thought is of Princess—I left her alone with Ramses. This is how a new torment begins. Flashes of her kissing him light up in my head, the young man sweeping the files off the desk and laying her on it, kissing her madly and working on his fly, ready to stick it in her.

  I growl with such menace that the animals around seek shelter behind trees and bushes. Wolves and foxes, all cowering away from the raging beast that I’ve become. I head back to the manor, my snout sniffing for their scent, trying to single out the smell of arousal. And I find it.

  His arousal. He wants her, oozing chemicals, sweating his desire for her. I track them to the gardens, and peek from behind a perfectly groomed bush to find them on a bench.

  They’re sitting angled to each other, the hem of her shiny red dress pooling on the ground. They’re not holding hands, and she frowns, clearly focused on the information he seems to be giving her. But the young man’s face is still flushed. He’s nervous, and overflowing with desire for her. He makes a move to take her hands, and it’s all I can do not to jump from the bushes and snap his throat between my jaws. I’m about to lose the battle with myself, but my brother Drago senses my predicament again.

  “Ramses,” he calls from the top of the stairs that lead to the back terrace of the manor. “Your uncle is looking for you. Let Princess enjoy the fresh air, you’ll be right back.”

  Ramses looks from Drago to Princess, while I can feel my brother’s eyes fixed on the bush where I’m hiding. He must have kept an eye on Princess since the moment she came back down without me, and now he’s caught my scent in the bushes. He knows the poor boy has put himself in harm’s way by getting close to Princess, and I can tell he’s worried I might lose control. I myself am afraid it will come to bloodshed.

  “I’ll be right back,” Ramses tells Princess, and makes to go. But on a second thought he returns and kisses her on the cheek. It’s harmless, but she giggles, and I’m about to lose it.

  Luckily for him he is out of sight when I stalk out of the bushes, my predator eyes on Princess.

  Princess stiffens, gripping the edges of the bench when she sees me emerge, rustling the leaves and cracking twigs.

  “Nero,” she yelps.

  “In the flesh,” I say in the deep, dangerous voice of the wolf. My eyes glow with jealousy and frustration. She white knuckles the edge of the bench. Without the werewolf’s calming effect on her senses, she gets to experience to the fullest what it’s like to have the big bad wolf stalking you from the bushes.

  “Why did you burst out of the attic like that?” She manages, but her voice trembles. “I had to find an explanation for that, I gave Ramses a load of crap.”

  “Ramses was focused on something else, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t even listening to your explanations.”

  “He did tell me a lot more about the viper farmer. I’ll come find you after I’ve talked this out with him.”

  “You can tell me now.” I lay down on the ground on my paws, my big black body gleaming in the lights from the manor. She swallows hard.

  “What is it?” I slur. “It’s not like you see me in my beast form for the first time.”

  “What of Ramses? He can come back any moment.”

  I tighten my jaw so much that my teeth crunch. It makes Princess wince.

  “Be honest with me, Princess. How do you feel about Ramses?”

  “He’s my childhood friend.”

  “Not your crush?”

  She blushes. “It’s him who used to be infatuated with me. I actually feel a little guilty for playing on those feelings now.”

  Ramses appears in the door to the terrace, talking to someone, but I can tell he’s eager to get back here. He fidgets from one leg to the other as if he needs to pee. He’s impatient to get back to Princess.

  “Come on. Straddle me, and hold on tight.”

  “But—”

  “Now, if you don’t want the big bad wolf to eat your Ramses.” I hiss his name through my teeth. I can’t believe I actually threatened to harm an innocent man in order to make a woman do what I want her to. For the first time in centuries, I acted like a villain, and I’m not even sorry. Princess is mine. I can more or less accept that other men want her, but acting on that is a crime punishable by death.

  Princess grabs her dress and walks over, looking like Cinderella hurrying away from the ball. She straddles me, grabbing the fur on my nape.

  “Like this?” she whispers. Her body chemistry is running wild, I can smell it. She’s nervous, but excited.

  “Hold on tight.”

  I leap with her into the bushes, running through the gardens towards the woods, but not so fast to make her sick, or lose balance. I need her to easily keep herself on my back, but she stops me in only a few minutes.

  “Please, I need to get down.” She’s sounds dizzy, sick. She unmounts, wobbly on her feet.

  I stand up on my back legs, helping her over to a sort of podium with a slab of stone over two bulkier, vertical ones. It looks like an old stone altar, weeds in its corners and between the cracks. I narrow my wolf eyes, remembering something.

  “An old serpent worship place in Lord Theodore’s garden?”

  “It’s ancient, Theodore says it’s been on his family’s property for centuries,” Princess explains, leaning on it. I grab her waist with my big furry hands, helping her up.

  “God, you’re huge,” she whispers. In my wolf form and on my feet I’m even bigger than normal. I’m the tallest of my brothers, even if not the broadest.

  “You should see Conan and Hercules. They’re double my size.”

  “Are they black, too?”

  “You like your werewolves black?”

  “It’s not what I meant.”

  Fuck, do I have to get jealous every time she mentions another man? I answer, even if only to prove to myself that I’m not a total dick.

  “Conan is brown. Hercules is white. But I didn’t bring you here to talk about my brothers. I came to talk about you. You can’t expose yourself like that, flirting with men. It’s clear Sullivan’s acolytes were here to get you pregnant with a viper, I won’t have you exposed to that.”

  “But Ramses is not an outsider. He is from Darkwood Falls.” She lifts her chin and places her hands on her hips as if she’s just been waiting to slap me over the snout with this.

  “Yes, but he’s been gone a long time. He could have been corrupted. Remember Spikes and the viper that slithered out of his mouth. I couldn’t sense him the way I can sense serpents, so basically anyone can be an acolyte.”

  “Ramses would never.”

  “I thought I would never do what I’m doing right now.” I sidle up to her, now very close, a towering big black wolf, my eyes blazing.

  Color stains her cheeks, and my heart aches. I step back, giving her room, but it goes against everything I really want to do. Namely to lay her down on that slab, pushing her legs open and sticking my cock inside of her, making her mine.

  “Nero, I’m tired of living in a prison,” she pleads, sincerity in her voice. “I’m tired of pretending, of keeping up this façade. It’s exhausting. Besides, I’m not even sure anymore that the werewolves’ control over this town will mean freedom. It could be as bad as the serpents’ control.” She raises her beautiful white face to me, questions in her eyes.

  “And what brought you to that conclusion?”

  “The night I went to dinner with my dad and Theodore, they told me things about you. They told me about the headmaster and the teachers at the orphanage where you grew up. That they had been torn apart by beasts.”

  “They told you that, huh?”

  “I didn’t believe it at first, really. Some of the things Theodore said just didn’t fit. You became of age centuries ago, not in the day o
f Wall Street, the time of finance and the Cayman Islands.”

  She waits for an answer, but I can’t give it to her. Not the direct answer she wants, because I couldn’t bear the contempt in her face. But I can’t hide the truth from my mate, the nature of our bond won’t allow it.

  “I never denied that I have dark sides, Princess.” As if on cue, the wind starts to rustle through the shrubbery, laden with bad omens. The bushes aren’t so neatly groomed in this part of the gardens that are closer to the woods. I doubt the gardener has been here recently, the place seems wild, dark.

  “Werewolves are, indeed, beasts, there’s no point in pretending differently,” I continue, keeping my tone even. “It’s a truth we have to accept, as do all those we protect. Sometimes, in order to serve and protect, we have to do terrible things.”

  “You mean tearing those men apart was a necessity?”

  Judging by her body chemistry, she wants me to convince her I’m not a villain. She wants to believe in me, and it’s breaking my heart. “Please, Nero. Tell me the truth.”

  But it’s not the truth that she really wants. She wants me to give her a sweet white lie, but I can’t do that. I couldn’t lie to my mate if I wanted to. I could avoid talking about certain things, but when she asks a direct question I’m helpless.

  “I’m not a good person. I never claimed I was.” I start pacing around her, in a circle around the altar. “What they told you was a version of the real story, Princess. In truth there was no Wall Street or Cayman Island, but trade in Venice, the Medici and corrupt cardinals.”

  “My God,” she whispers. “You did kill those people.”

  “They weren’t good people, Princess—not that it’s an excuse. I committed murder, and I stand by my actions.”

  “Then how are you better than the serpents?”

  “I don’t know if we are, but we do want the best for the people of Darkwood Falls.” I stop in front of her again. It’s hard to take the tears in her eyes, the disappointment, but it’s how things are. “The serpents have kept a grip on this town for a long time, keeping the females locked in, making sure they didn’t get to mate with werewolves, because there was a high chance that later the hybrids would produce fated females. Which is what happened.”