by Michele Hauf
“That’s a sad thing. And I’m sure you have found a common bond, the two of you, with such histories.”
Kir’s muscles tightened. The man was putting up a front. He sensed it. He had had an affair with his mother. Kir knew it.
“Principal, I have to ask you something.”
“Kir, wait. You must hear this first.”
He nodded, but his fingers curled into fists. Suddenly his father seemed a much kinder man. But where did Etienne stand on the scale of honor to one’s own?
“I have to act swiftly to show Malrick we will not allow him to treat us with disrespect,” Etienne said.
“I agree. The pack must stand its ground. What are your plans?”
Etienne sighed and leaned back on his chair. He rapped the desk with a fist, then said, “We have to send her back.”
“Her?” Kir heard the word, but he processed it as if it traveled through his brain ten times slower than Etienne had spoken it. Her. Her?
Her.
That meant...Bea.
“No! She’s my wife.”
“I’m sorry, Kir. It’s politics.”
“Absolutely not!” He stood, tilting the chair back in the process, which landed in a clatter on the hardwood floor, echoing his anger. “I won’t give her back. Etienne, we’re in love.” He held up his hand to display the pale mark that now glowed every time he and Bea clasped hands. “We’ve bonded.”
“Kirnan.”
“You understand about bonding, Principal Montfort. We wolves take it very seriously. It is a lifetime commitment!”
“And so I had assumed the sidhe did, as well.”
Kir stepped back, fisting the air. Insanity! That his principal could even suggest such a thing. And yet, Etienne did not obviously hold the bonding in such high esteem if he had... “You and my mother,” he blurted out. “You are the reason my father left.”
“Kir—”
“Colin told me. You’ve hidden it from me all these years.”
“Boy, you watch your tone.”
“You have no idea what real love is, do you?”
Etienne moved swiftly, gripping Kir by the throat and slamming him against the wall near the door. “Your mother seduced me,” he growled.
Kir managed to fling his principal away. “My father left me because of you!”
“Because of your mother, son. Because of Madeline. I thank the gods every day that Estella took me back, and yet still I must live with that woman so close.”
“Damn it!” Kir slammed his fists against the wall behind him.
“Knowing all this now doesn’t change the present situation, Kir. We have to send the faery back.”
“No! I have to think about this.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
“You will. You must. How can you conceive— You owe me!”
“Kir.”
Now he was acting like the eight-year-old who had just been told his father had left. Stricken. Angry. Vengeful.
Kir shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair, pulling tightly against the pulsing in his temples. “Just...give me a day. I can come up with a better solution.”
Etienne breathed out a heavy sigh through his nose. He nodded once.
Kir turned and marched out of the room, leaving the door open. They would not send Bea back to Faery. He would not allow it! That...man. His principal had destroyed his family years ago. He would not allow him to destroy the new family he held dear.
* * *
At the sound of the front door slamming, Bea looked up from the pan of brownies cooling on the counter—easy to make from a box!—and rushed out to greet her husband in the hallway. He growled at her and punched the wall.
“Kir? What in mossy misery?”
He raked his fingers through his hair and turned away from her, pacing back and forth.
“What happened?”
He punched the wall again and again. The plaster cracked and sifted to the fieldstone floor.
“Kir!”
He turned to her, and when his eyes blazed and she had the fleeting thought he might hurt her, he suddenly pulled her to him and clasped her so tightly she choked on her breath.
“Don’t ever want to let you go,” he muttered, his arms banding across her back.
She wrapped her legs about his hips and clung, though really, she needn’t try to hang on. He was holding her as if to loosen a single muscle would conjure up a storm that would whisk her away from him.
“You don’t have to let me go,” she squeaked. “But you do have to take down the steel grip a bit. You’re squeezing me.”
His muscles flexed as he relented. Enough that she could breathe easily. But she didn’t want to. Something was wrong. She could feel it in the subtle shiver that tracked his bones and vibrated against her own.
“I need to hold you,” he said.
“You can hold me all day and night. But can you smell the chocolaty goodness?”
“What?”
“I made brownies.”
He pulled back from the tight clasp to study her eyes. “You baked?”
She nodded eagerly. “It came out of a box, but I had to mix in eggs and water. I promise it’s much better than the Garlic Spaghetti From Hades. You want me to serve you up a nice warm chunk and then you can tell me about it?”
He squeezed her again, and Bea had the feeling even a whole pan of brownies was not going to prepare her for what was troubling her husband.
He carried her into the kitchen and looked over the pan. So the edges were black.
“I can cut out of the center,” she offered. “And we have vanilla ice cream.”
He snickered, but it wasn’t his usual joyful sound. “I’ll eat the whole middle. Later.”
He set her on the counter and pressed his forehead to hers. Standing there, he slid his hands along her face and into her hair, stroking it, feeling her, taking her in. Bea didn’t reciprocate the touch. He was fighting some inner demons right now. The man had to do what he had to do.
And then she remembered. “What did your principal have to say? Is it something bad? It must be. Oh, Kir. Talk to me.”
“Malrick has reneged on the alliance.”
Breaths gasped from her mouth. Her heartbeat sped up as she felt her lungs deflate and she wasn’t sure she could ever draw in breath again. It wasn’t a surprise to hear her father had reneged on an agreement. That was his MO. But that Kir was so upset about it warned she wasn’t going to like what came next.
He started to speak, but she pressed her fingers to his mouth. She shook her head, not wanting to hear it. She wanted to stop the world. Freeze time.
He clasped her fingers and kissed them. “I love your skin, Bea. Your sweet candy scent. Your pretty pink eyes and your long fluttery lashes.”
Oh, hell, this was going to be bad.
“I dream about kissing you, about pushing my cock inside you, even when I’m lying beside you with my arms wrapped about your warmth. Is that crazy?”
She shook her head, not daring to speak because she sensed to open her mouth would allow a cry to spill out.
“You are the most interesting woman I have ever known,” he continued, still clasping her fingers against his lips. “You’re goofy. You’re flighty. Literally. You do naked like a pro. And you’re the first woman who has ever given me a pole dance.”
She managed a small smile.
“I love you, Bea, with all my heart and every bit of my soul. You make my life feel vast. Wondrous.” He reached for her hand. The bond marks glowed, signifying their love. “We belong to one another.”
“What is it?” she insisted. “Please, Kir, tell me.”
“Do you love me?”
“More than anything. More than I love shifting small. More than I love flying. More than I love sex.”
“Really?”
She nodded.
Again he pressed his forehead to hers. Bea felt sure he could hear her heartbeats, so loudly did they thunder against her rib cage. She g
ripped his shirt and clung.
“My principal wants to act swiftly to show Malrick the pack’s disdain for his actions. He wants to send you back to Faery.”
Chapter 21
Bea’s tiny, keening moan pierced Kir’s heart as if it were a silver arrow. He clutched her head and held her to him, forehead to forehead. He’d not felt more helpless than when he’d found her sitting before the tub in a puddle of ichor after she had miscarried their child.
And yet, he would not be helpless about this. He would not allow it. No one would rip his wife from his arms. Even if that meant he had to steal her away and leave the country.
He suddenly knew exactly how his father felt when he’d been forced to choose between family and happiness. And Kir could only be glad he’d made the rash decision to help Sophie escape.
“It will not happen,” he insisted. “No one is sending you back to Faery.”
“I love you,” she said on a gasp that segued into tears.
“I told Etienne the idea was ridiculous. You are my wife. We’ve bonded. We are in love.”
“Malrick wanted to get rid of me.”
“And, in doing so, he gave you to me. I have never received a finer gift.”
“But your pack can’t step back and allow Malrick to spit upon them. Your leader is right—”
“Bea, don’t say that. Would you willingly return to Faery?”
“No! Never. I mean that I understand about your principal’s decision. Oh, Kir, my heart hurts.”
She fell into his arms and he carried her down the hallway. “I told my principal I needed to think about this. I have to figure out a better plan. There’s got to be something pack Valoir can do instead of sending you back. Something that will show the Faery king we will not tolerate broken bargains.”
“Promise you won’t let them send me back?”
He kissed her. “I cannot conceive of parting with you.”
* * *
They stood in the shower, Bea’s legs twined about Kir’s torso as he lifted her up and down, thrusting his cock within her and pulling almost all the way out, until she would dig her fingernails into his shoulders and beg him to go faster, not stop, to bury himself and get lost inside her.
After the shower, they made it as far as the middle of the bedroom floor. Towels lay strewn across the floorboards in their wake. On the bed, Bea knelt on all fours as Kir took her from behind. His hand clasped her breast, his other clung to her hip. She loved it when he took her this way. It was the position that he enjoyed most, wolf that he was, and she felt as though he touched her high inside. Perhaps, even, he touched her soul.
He slapped a hand on the bed, and she slid her hand over to clasp with his so the bond marks glowed. Nothing could break their bond.
And later, laughing, they spilled off the bed, getting tangled in a tumble of sheets and the soft patchwork quilt. Yet when Kir pulled aside the sheet and Bea quickly sniffed away the damning tear, he paused and sat up abruptly with her on his lap.
“What’s wrong, Short Stick?”
She kissed him and stroked his beard and sniffed back another tear. “What if this is the last time we make love?”
“No, Bea, I will never let you go.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, I promise. They’ll have to send me with you if anyone thinks to remove you from this realm.”
She chuckled through her tears. “You might like it in Faery. Lots of good hunting.”
And then neither of them wanted to talk about that, because it only reminded them why she was crying in the first place.
Kir lifted her into his arms and she dragged up the sheets and quilt as he did the same. Not making the bed, but letting the blankets fall into a nest, the twosome curled up together and kissed and snuggled until they fell asleep.
* * *
Sunlight woke Kir. He sat up in a puddle of sheets and quilts and smiled at his and Bea’s antics last night. And then he frowned and shoved his fingers through his hair. Before they’d had sex she had been in tears. Nothing in this world should have hurt his wife so that she had cried. He needed to stop it.
Bea’s fingers tickled up his spine, tapping, tapping, a ticklish morning greeting. While he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in all the goodness she offered him, he knew if he didn’t act quickly he may lose that bright splash of faery dust forever.
“I’m going to talk to Etienne. I’ll not be gone long.” He stood and tugged some pants out of the dresser drawer and found a T-shirt to pull on.
“Hurry back before the nightmare comes.”
“The nightmare?”
“The one where I’m standing alone, without you.”
Burying his face in her hair, he squeezed her against his body, not wanting to leave but knowing he had to talk Etienne out of his plans before it was too late.
* * *
Principal Montfort paced the floor as Kir, this time, sat calmly in the chair. “Kirnan.” Etienne eyed him cautiously. Yesterday he’d accused him of tearing apart his family. And the man had not denied it, only tried to focus the blame on Kir’s mother.
It required two to ruin a relationship. Kir knew that.
“Principal Montfort.”
“So what did you come up with regarding a plan?” Etienne asked.
Did he sense a smirk in his tone? Why did Kir suddenly know his principal had abandoned him long ago? That perhaps Etienne could not have gotten Colin out of the pack fast enough? Did Etienne and Madeline still have something going on behind Estella’s back?
He didn’t want to divide his focus, and he really didn’t want to consider his mother’s illicit liaisons, so he pushed that aside. Bea was more important to him than stupid childhood abandonment issues that he could get over if he simply chose to do so.
“We’re making assumptions that Malrick doesn’t want to keep the agreement,” Kir said. “Has anyone from the pack spoken with him? Maybe there is simply a problem with the portal. They’ve obviously been trying to close it to humans. Something could have gone wrong. We need to discuss this with all involved parties.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to talk directly to the Unseelie king. He sent a liaison to deliver the news about reneging on the bargain. The harpie, Brit. Kir, I know this is difficult for you—”
“You can’t begin to fathom how much this hurts my heart to know you would consider giving my wife away. To know...how you have betrayed me since I was a boy. I thought family meant everything to you? The pack is family. I am your family, Etienne. Does that not count for anything?”
“We should not regard past mistakes in present problems, Kir. The two are not related. How can you claim such steadfast love for the faery? You were reluctant about the marriage.”
“My heart changed quickly. I love Bea.”
“I understand, and I do believe you genuinely love the faery. But she is a half-breed, Kir. What? A vampire?”
“Demon,” he announced proudly. “Most likely.”
The principal lifted his chin and gave him a knowing look. Yes, so the son had followed in the father’s footsteps. But Kir now knew that Colin had fallen in love and had followed his heart after he left the family and the pack.
“Demon,” Etienne muttered. “You know she would not be allowed to bring a demon child into the pack, Kir. It may have been a blessing she lost your child—”
Kir pounded the desktop with his fist. “How dare you.”
“I speak on behalf of the pack, Kir. We have expanded our arms far enough to welcome a faery.”
“At your command! And now you change your mind, so you think you can reverse it all? If you insist on sending Bea back to Faery, then you’ll have to send me along, as well.”
“You are young and rash, Kirnan.” Etienne sighed. He rapped a fist on the windowsill. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, staring out the window. “It’s already done.”
“Done?”
Kir’s hands grew instantly clammy. His heart dropped to his gu
t and thudded roughly. He knew exactly what that word meant.
“No,” he said on an aching gasp.
“It had to be done, Kir. And I’m sorry for doing it this way.”
“No!” He shoved the chair out of the way and headed for the door. “If she’s not at my home, I will tear you apart!”
* * *
The pack wolves were directed by Madeline. Jacques was absent, though. As a precaution, he hadn’t been invited along. Bea succumbed to the strange-smelling chemical that the wolves pressed over her nose with a cloth. She hadn’t had time to scream. Her eyelids fell shut.
Her last thought was that she would never see Kir again.
* * *
Kir kicked open his front door and rushed inside. He didn’t call out for Bea. He couldn’t scent her. Instead, a mournful cry keened from his mouth as he tracked through the kitchen, slashing an arm across the bowl of apples on the counter. They landed on the stone floor behind him with a crash. In the living room he walked around the furniture, pushed open the French doors and stomped out into the yard. The bright sun angered him and he growled, fisting his fingers.
Back in the house, he ran up the stairs. The bedsheets had been torn from the bed and pulled across the floor. They’d left the bed in a mess after making love last night, but the sheets had been pulled up on the bed this morning. He remembered that exactly. Had a struggle occurred?
If anyone from his pack had hurt her...
He howled, loud and long. A warning cry that birthed from his soul.
Rushing outside, he drove like a madman back to the pack compound. Once there, he didn’t take a moment to breathe or calm his anger. He needed the fury and rage. They would see how they had hurt him. His pack had betrayed one of their own.
Shoving aside Jean-Louis, who was but a lackey and who could have had nothing to do with the taking of his wife, Kir strode down the hall. Jacques stepped out and stopped him. The wolf shook his head and held up his hands placatingly. But the hairs on his head stood up.
“Tell me you were not the one who took my wife from our home.”
“I did not, Kir. I wasn’t invited to go along. If it had been anyone else, we would have had to do the same. Think about this.”
“I love her!” He lunged for Jacques, shifting to werewolf as he did.