by Rebecca Main
Fuck.
The world around me bends and snaps. It shifts. A monumental movement suddenly centers my whole being around this little slip of a thing sucking so tightly on me now. My fingers tighten and urge her forward. To take me deeper as the passion unfurls inside me like some raging bull. No prior experience can possibly compare to this moment. This revelation.
Without a doubt, hidden behind her luxurious locks is a soulmark to match my own. There is no other explanation for this sudden euphoria, and the wolf inside of me growls its sound agreement. To be sure, my fingers must lie on three lines, stacked neatly atop each other. The matching mark reminiscent of the Greek letter xi. She lets out another softer moan, eyes fluttering closed. And then her tongue is moving, a gentle sweeping caress along the underside of my shaft. I must taper back the vicious snarl curling at the rear of my throat as my head falls back from the pure ecstasy of her touch. She draws herself upward slowly. Her lips sealed tightly around me as she drags out the sensation. Just as her lips seek to release me, my hips chase after her of their own accord. A flex of my fingers, and she stalls to accommodate my pursuit. I bow forward, trembling to keep from thrusting too deeply and hitting the back of her throat.
“Christ.” A heavy pant falls from my lips as stars erupt behind closed eyes. Around me. Inside me. There is nothing but Mary and her warm embrace.
She grabs my wrist, urging my hand to release its hold. I relax my grip, fingers lingering as I pull back my hips. Her hand becomes more insistent. Then a sudden striking fear takes hold of my heart. I cannot miss what will most likely be my only opportunity to seal the soulmark. My fingers tighten for a fleeting second.
“Let it be known that thee are found,” comes my ragged whisper, “and my soul awakened. The stars incline us, my love, and so we are sealed.” I gasp at the sudden all-encompassing glory that hits me. Reveling in the sound of her muffled moans around my cock. The vibrations entice my hips to press onward once more in short jerking movements to fuck her mouth.
“Fucking hell,” I grunt as my load spills unexpectedly inside her. She pulls away, much to my dismay, somehow finding the strength to push away my hand and remove those succulent lips.
“What the fuck,” she hisses, eyes wide and fully dilated. She wipes away the vestiges of my release from her face, an angry scowl marring her beautiful features. “What the fuck was that?” Her hand races to the back of her neck as she slips off the bed. Away from me.
“I can explain,” I mutter, trying and failing to roll onto my side and go after her. My limbs lack their usual strength and dexterity.
“Listen,” she calls from the bathroom. “I know guys get into the whole, ‘choke on this, bitch’ stuff, but I need a little warning before getting into that kind of shit, okay? You can’t just… do that and not fucking warn a girl. Not cool.” The sink turns on full blast, and I hear rather than see her splashing water over her face.
“What’s your name?” I ask, unperturbed by her anger. I’ll make up for it later, but first I need to know her real name.
“Mary,” she snaps, walking up to the bed with her hands on her hips. “Asshole.”
“Not Mary,” I correct, words slurring. “Your real name.”
The smile she shares with me is tight. Her eyes sparkling vindictively down at me. A slow comprehension fills me with dread. She is most certainly not as drunk as I am. I suddenly wonder if she ever was.
“Guilty as charged,” she says with a smirk. “How are you feeling, champ?”
I swallow, my eyes narrowing even though wave after wave of paralyzing weightlessness hits me. “What have you done?” Comes my rasping plea.
“Don’t worry, Kyle. This will all be over in three… two…”
My eyes fall closed against my will as the strength in my body leaves me completely. I succumb to darkness. Her radiant figure a fixture in my mind’s eye as I drift away into the sea of shadows that is my mind.
+++
Present Day
“And when I woke up, she was gone. Along with the crystal,” I tell them with a lamenting cringe, waiting for the outburst that is sure to come. Xander stands stock still, the little vein near his left temple jutting out. And dear little Zoelle is both flushed and flustered. Perhaps I went a tad too much into detail. I shoot her a knowing smirk, and her blush deepens.
“The crystal is gone?” Xander asks once more.
I swallow, feeling the weight of disappointment heavy in his words, and hold back another cringe. Soon enough my feigned composure crumbles under it, leaving a swell of regret and shame to rise as I am forced to acknowledge my failure. To know I have let down my alpha and caused him displeasure curls my stomach. Except, I didn’t just let down my alpha with my dalliance, but my pack and our allies as well. My head tips to the side with a whine as his displeasure continues to relay itself through the pack bonds.
“It’s all right, Ryatt,” Zoelle assures me, her hand coming to rest on my shoulder. “We’ll figure something out. Right, Xander?”
There is a tense pause. I dare not look my brother in the eye, remaining in my submissive stance and exposing my neck further to appease him. Finally—finally—he lets out a long-suffering sigh and that pressure in my heart, the one cinching it shut like an iron fist, lessens and releases. Another warm hand finds my shoulder. This one larger. Stronger. Better.
“We’ll figure something out, brother,” he reassures me. I nod and take a deep breath. Then another.
“On the upside,” I say, slipping back into a more relaxed stance, eyes lifting meekly to meet theirs. “I found my soulmark.” My lips twitch upward, a feeling of unmistakable joy spiriting through me. Zoelle peeks a quick glance at her fiancé, dazzling him with a brilliant smile and burst of gleeful laughter. He melts. His shoulders fall back and eyes light up for his soulmark. The dolt.
“But you don’t even know her real name,” Zoelle cries in distress, effectively ruining the moment. I roll my eyes at her dramatics.
“Au contraire, soon-to-be-sister. I do.”
Their eyebrows rise in unison. “You do?”
“But of course. I’ve been hard at work the past day or so getting my fingers into this and that. Her real name is Quinn Montgomery.”
“How did you find out so fast?” Zoelle asks, her head tipping curiously to the side. Xander merely rolls his eyes.
“I have a multitude of talents,” I inform her graciously, “as you well know, and one of them just so happens to be 'hacker extraordinaire.' Anything can be found on the internet these days if you know how to look.”
“What else do you know?” Xander asks. The continued retreat of his hostility allows me room to breathe without that strange pressure around my heart.
“She’s twenty-two.”
“Young, even for you,” Zoelle chimes in cheekily.
“An orphan. No family to speak of: mother dead, father out of the picture. From ages eleven to fifteen, she was in the state system until, seemingly, falling off the grid,” I tell them without pause. My mind fills in the blanks I leave out. Father never in the picture. The mother died of an overdose only to be found by little Quinn after she returned from school one chilly autumn day. Subsequently, she was tossed from foster home to group home time after time until the therapy she found in painting and sketching just wasn’t cutting it anymore. She turned to crime, using her artistic abilities to dabble in forgeries and other petty thefts until one day she found herself playing in the big leagues. Too bad she had yet to learn how to cover her tracks. It’s not easy to hide from a wolf, but hiding from an Adolphus is a different matter altogether.
“Sounds like you’ve been busy,” Xander says.
“I have.”
“I assume you have a plan,” he continues, the corner of his lip ticking upward as I give him a somewhat bashful smile. A chuckle escapes my lips. The one that has been fine-tuned to give my audience pause. Xander raises a brow. Zoelle sends me an unsure smile.
“I have something in mind
.”
Chapter 2
Quinn
There’s something so freeing about pretending to be someone you're not. Especially when that someone has no qualms spending a cool two grand on a pair of Christian Louboutin, Fabiola Over the Knee Boots. It hardly mattered that said boots had yet to be properly broken in and were forming major blisters on both pinky toes. Nope. Such were the daily trials and tribulations of my character's day: Colette Winters.
Denver, Colorado didn’t quite fit the vibe of the character I donned—California rich girl—but she would do. She was certainly one of my favorite personas to take on, if not solely because of her wardrobe. I was waiting at The Brown Palace for my current employer to show up. He was late, but with the payout from my most recent job, I didn’t care. Not that much anyway. After all, an order of Veuve Clicquot for Two had been placed immediately upon my arrival. So although his timing wasn’t to be applauded, his taste in dining most certainly was. I assumed the heavy rain thundering down outside had a strong play in his lack of punctuality. Downtown traffic was excruciating because of it.
I give a cursory look over the other occupants of the tea room on this dreary Monday afternoon. Lots of old biddies with their daughters and granddaughters. Not a man in sight, save for the waiters who come by with their charming, youthful smiles, hoping to snag a hefty tip. I barely bat an eyelash when my own comes around to deliver the champagne.
I heave an unladylike sigh once he is out of hearing range. He's cute and kind of charming, but not like a certain somebody had been. The melancholy I have been fighting for the better part of two days rears its ugly head again. Where the damnable thing has come from I have no idea. Yet it lingers and grows as the days tick by. The thought that my despondency could stem from a certain raven-haired man does nothing to appease my rare mood. Especially when a thorough review of said feelings seems to lead back to him.
It wasn’t guilt I was feeling. Kyle—or whatever his real name was—was just another pretty face, with a pretty piece of property somebody else wanted. Simple as that.
I had done it a dozen times before. The dingy bar. The sob story. The spiked water. Stumbling back to the decoy bedroom, only to tuck them in and take their shit. Hook, line, and sinker. Every. Single. Time. My targets could hardly make it to the bed before the Rohypnol started to kick in. Kyle had lasted a remarkably long time, all things considered. It was somewhat impressive actually. I take a delicate sip of champagne to hide the flush that creeps up onto my cheeks as I think of just how long he lasted.
That particular portion of my plan had not gone as I had envisioned. Though that’s not to say it went terribly. It was quite the opposite. Another blush dares to blaze across my cheeks as thoughts of his heated moans and the dizzying sensation of his touch collect at the forefront of my mind. How was it even possible to feel such a torrent of emotions from one intimate act? And yet the feel of his hand cradling my neck while I took him inside my mouth was an unbelievably pleasurable experience. Never before had I felt the building of such pleasure that I was almost torn from reality. I hadn’t minded going down on him one bit, and that in itself was even more unbelievable.
My eyes flick towards the second glass of Veuve that is placed before an empty seat. I long to reach out and down it, but that’s hardly how this native Californian would act. Not Colette Winters, I think.
So instead I set my flute down and scan the sea of plumed hats and demurely set shoulders for my waiter. I offer him a small smirk when I catch him making his way over with a tea tray filled with scones, pastries, and those little finger sandwiches I just love.
“Thank you,” I say softly once he has set down the tray and refilled my glass. I refuse the tea that comes with the service. My dietary needs fulfilled with all that is already offered: sweets and champagne.
“Ms. Montgomery.”
My second glass stalls at my bottom lip as my eyes flick sideways. Mr. Vrana stares down at me with familiar intensity, his words sharp as crystal. I straighten my spine and set down my glass. He waves off my attempt to stand and seats himself.
“Please, don’t stop on my account,” he muses, draping a napkin over his lap and looking over the presentation before him. He places a scone on his plate and lifts his glass of champagne, easing it forward in a gentle slant towards me. “I do believe congratulations are in order.”
I plaster a large smile on my face. “All in a night’s work,” I assure him smoothly, picking my glass back up and sipping from it tentatively. We share a measured look over the fine china before I flit my gaze towards the third chair at our small table. On it sits a small Prada bag, gleaming white and proudly stamped. Its insides carry very precious cargo.
“For me?” he gleans. “You shouldn’t have.” His gentle teasing leaves me feeling on edge when I catch the slight undertone of menace behind it. I watch as he inspects his merchandise.
He’s a beautiful man. Fair of skin and hair, prominent cheekbones, and pale blue eyes laced with bits of silver. He is tall and lean, with hardly a trace of fat on his body—not that I had the opportunity to prove that theory. Mr. Vrana was most definitely the type of man you would mix business and pleasure with, if not for your basic instincts yelling at you to run away screaming. He slants a smile my way. One that sends a bout of shivers up my spine.
“I hope everything is to your liking?” I nibble at the sandwich on my plate. The beef is deliciously tender and juicy, set off only more by the slight smear of horseradish between it and the bread.
He pulls the black box from the bag and lifts its lid carefully, eyes alight with a victorious gleam. The crystal he pulls from its cushioned bed is a mixture of purple and pink. The cluster of three is just one part of something bigger, or so one jagged side seems to suggest.
“That’s all he had on him,” I inform Mr. Vrana carefully.
“I’m well aware,” he replies shortly. We sit in silence as he repackages his new purchase. “This will go beautifully in my safe,” he informs me genially. My smile begins to ache as it ticks up another inch.
“Wonderful.”
He passes a cool eye over me. “You’ve done well. As per usual, Ms. Montgomery.”
Well, duh. I was made for this kind of stuff. No one ever expected the pretty blonde laughing away in a crowd to have their most coveted belongings tucked safely away in the Hermes bag on her arm.
“Thank you, Mr. Vrana. It’s always a pleasure doing business with you.” A smile curves onto his lips, though it does not reach his eyes. It rarely does.
“You’ll find your payment in progress, Ms. Montgomery. Should there be any issues, which I’m sure there won’t, you know who to contact.”
“Of course,” I reply smoothly, fingers itching to snatch my champagne as he stares me down. Mr. Vrana is a dangerous man, more so than any I have met before, and he knows it.
“I’ll be debuting a new artist in the city next Saturday at my residence atop the Four Seasons,” he tells me casually. I cannot hide the flicker of confusion that passes over my face. Nor the tiniest quiver in my smile at this unusual small talk. “I know your love of art,” he continues, smile turning sharp, “and thought to extend to you an invitation. As long as you can keep your hands to yourself, that is.”
“I—” don’t make a fool of yourself, Quinn, not now “—would love to come. Thank you for the invitation.” He inclines his head towards me and stands. This time I stand as well and stretch out my hand for him to take. He does, and places a kiss onto my knuckles, eyes never straying from my face. There is something unnerving about the act. The cool touch of his skin against my own. The uncommon pull of his gaze. It elicits a shiver from my body.
“Expect a formal invitation at your hotel’s reception desk. The Omni, is it?” I nod numbly, counterfeit smile back in place. “Was the Warwick no longer to your tastes? Or Hotel Teatro?”