by Sylvia Frost
“That lock doesn’t look sturdy,” he said.
“It’s not really,” I admitted. My wrist ached as I tried to force the lock and a paint chip flacked off the door, revealing a bit of the pockmarked wood underneath. Mamma had given me heck once she’d seen my apartment, but I’d endured her shouts and pleas to move somewhere safer. This was what I could afford with my money. And if I took hers and got some fancy place up in Chelsea it wouldn’t be my apartment anymore.
Daniel grunted his disapproval, and a vein in his neck twitched as his gaze zeroed in on the industrial complex across the street. It was guarded by a high metal fence fringed with nasty looking barbed wire.
“What’s that?” he asked.
I released the key, and brushed my hands together. From all my twisting and turning, they were red, hot, and gritty with paint flecks. “That’s the brewery.”
“It doesn’t look like a brewery.”
“I know. It does have a prison-y vibe, doesn’t it?”
“I assume the brewing is why there are so many broken bottles around,” he said flat as old soda. “Do they not own trash cans? Someone could hurt their feet.”
“It’s not as if I walk around barefoot.” I shrugged. “But I get you. My Mamma feels the same way about this area.” I jutted out my hip and channelled Mamma’s all-nighter workaholic rasp.
“I won’t have my baby live in the projects.”
“Your mother sounds smart.” Daniel padded over to the window, not enthralled by my imitation.
My hand slid off my hip and I leaned back against my door. “But it’s not really the projects.” I sighed. “It’s Brooklyn. Artists live here. She doesn’t get that though.” I closed my eyes, imagining the huge backyard with a tire swing at our McMansion back in Illinois. Comfortable, safe, and totally isolated from anything so much as resembling adventure. “She’s not a city person.”
“Rose, do any of your neighbors drive a Humvee?”
I opened one eye, my braids having fallen across the other. “No, why?”
“It’s nothing,” Daniel said, and the undercurrents of dark “somethings” running in his voice and hidden in his clenched fists were too many to name.
I opened my other eye, pushed off the door with one foot, grabbed the key and joined him by the window.
The brewery parking lot was full of cars, one or two of which were big and black, but I wasn’t enough of a gear-head to be able to say conclusively that they were Humvees. A bass line of an EDM track thumped in the distance, and if I really strained I could catch the reedy whine of electric violins. Late twilight dyed the sky almost iridescent rainbows of periwinkles, scarlets and corals. Wispy clouds skittered between the hazy skyscrapers. Just passing through.
“It’s a launch party for one of their new drafts,” I said. “They have them all the time.”
“Hmm.” He jerked his head and made a low noise in his throat that I swore was a cross between a purr and a growl. Whatever it was, it made my nether regions instantly warm. Breathe, Rose. I reminded myself.
“D-Daniel? Do you think someone’s following us?” My heart thrummed as I remembered my paranoid blog post. But no, if I started believing that I was the target of a shadowy government conspiracy I might as well go back to the drawing board of crazy day-dreams and pretend I was the mate of a werewolf.
And oh, God, did Daniel fit the part. As he turned to me the sharp fluorescents threw his cheekbones into stark relief. The haunted shadows in his pupils reminded me of one of my favorite lines from Mates of Darkness:
“Veren wasn’t beautiful like a Renaissance sculpture of a human prince. With his savage eyes he was more like the stone idols of the werebeast gods, carved not by human hands, but by monsters longing for a paradise that could never be reclaimed.”
Despite his jeans and T-shirt, Daniel looked like that. Yearning. Old. And too beautiful to touch. Yet the way his dilated eyes drank in my body, it was as if he were already touching me.
“No,” he said finally. “You’re safe here with me.”
Never had I wanted to kiss him more than right now. But the last time I tried to make the first move I’d been thirteen and the boy had laughed at me, asking why would he ever want to kiss a “Jell-O face?”
So instead of kissing Daniel, I gestured with both of my hands to the hallway. “I see why you might have reservations about this place. Honestly, I could afford a nicer apartment if I accepted my mamma’s help, but I want to be independent. Plus, I thought the grimness of this was kind of romantic, like a modern-day version of a dilapidated mansion on a windswept moor, werebeasts lurking just outside. Urban gothic.”
Why couldn’t my mouth stop moving? There was no way he actually was interested in hearing all of this.
He touched my arm. “Rose.”
My belly curled up into a little ball of aching, squeezing want, and I waited for him to move his hand away, like he had in the hospital room. But this time, he didn’t.
“You don’t have to be quiet. I was enjoying hearing your thoughts. You just seemed…” He shook his head, eyes narrowed as he very carefully selected his next words. “Distressed.”
His thumb brushed over my arm again, slower than it had the last time, and when it reached the end of one side of my arm, it moved back down the other.
My tongue snuck out to wet my lips as they parted. “I’m not used to people listening to me.”
His hand was still there, anchoring me to him. “I like listening to you.”
He kept rubbing his hand up and down my arm and my knees melted. Between my legs, a dampness was seeping. I gave him a breathy smile and managed to escape before I just had to kiss him. I focused on the door.
The key had to be just a little bit out before it unlocked. It was just about to click, when I mumbled to myself half sarcastically, “Why you like listening to me, I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t, Rose.” Daniel purred my name like it belonged to him. “You can see the beauty in everything but yourself.”
The door gave, and still reeling from his words, I fell into my apartment. My hands windmilled as I lurched forward, readying myself for impact against the carpet. But the nose-smashing crash never came. Instead I landed against Daniel’s chest. The breath thumped out of me as his hands looped around my waist.
I looked up at him, blinking in shock. “You are really fast. Like werebeast reflexes. Seriously.” I laughed to play it off, as if I didn’t believe in the impossible still, just a little bit.
Daniel gazed down at me, saying nothing. Again, I waited for him to release me. Again he didn’t. His musk had spread fully into my senses, drowning out the smell of dusty books and my apartment’s apple air-freshener. My tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth.
I rose up onto my toes without thinking. Now my lips were right in line with his, the tips of our noses almost touching. Up this close it wasn’t just his canine I noticed was crooked. His nose had probably been broken at least once before, and there was a fleck of gray in his tawny mane. For all his beauty, he was just a man. A man who wanted me. This was real.
My lips skimmed his. Or at least I meant to do that, but the moment we made contact my need took control. My hands crept underneath his T-shirt, and I explored the ridges of his abs.
His lips were still. His hands were loose around my back. They didn’t move. He didn’t move. Ice skidded down my spine.
Oh God, he wasn’t kissing me back.
Chapter 11
DANIEL
I froze as Rose’s hands drifted down my stomach. A groan built at the base of my throat at the thought of her curious fingers traveling just a bit lower, to tangle in the pubic hair above my rigid cock. Her nose brushed against mine as her bottom lip grazed my upper.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t touch her. If I did, I knew I wouldn’t be able to control my inner beast, and that I’d take her before she knew what I really was and what sex with me really meant. Not only would the completion of the bond t
ie her to me for the rest of our lives, but she’d have to live her whole life keeping my secret. Hiding.
But telling the truth might hurt her, but not telling her the truth definitely would.
She sank back down back to the soles of her feet. Her eyes were downcast so all I could see were her long eyelashes, her eyebrows stitched together like she was trying to hold together a wound. “I-I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. I’m cool, I promise.”
I had to tell her the truth now, before before I drove off on another wild goose-chase and left her wondering if I cared about her at all.
Still I couldn’t say anything. The truth of what I was clogged my throat. The last time I had shown my true self to the world, I’d earned the scars on my biceps and a solid six months of torture. The last time I’d been in the cage, I thought I’d lost her.
As I stood silently, Rose’s mouth calcified into a hard line, and beneath my panic I was proud that there wasn’t just rejection in her puffed-out chest, but annoyance.
“Say something to me, Daniel,” she huffed.
“There are things I need to tell you.” I hated how distant my own voice sounded. Like I was about to give her a bad prognosis.
She hooked her palms underneath her arms. “Like what?”.
“The back of your neck.” My spine felt like a rubber-band pulled tight.
The hardness in her mouth reached her eyes. “What about the back of my neck?”
“The fur on it,” I said slowly. “It’s a matemark. I’m a werebeast and you’re my mate.”
Chapter 12
ROSE
For one second I let myself believe.
It was easy to believe Daniel Ward might be a lost monster from legend. Strands of his burnt-wheat hair hung longer than I remembered around his warrior-square jaw and rugged, heavy brow. His pecs swelled beneath his stupid T-shirt making him look like a cross between a fallen angel and a Norse god. When he met my gaze, his eyes sparked the color of lightening. If I looked too close, his baseball T-shirt and too-tight jeans seem like a dollar store Halloween costume.
I wanted so badly for him to be telling the truth. My mind could already fill in the gaps. He was some sort of ancient warrior the government had found suspended in a glacier and had unfrozen just so he could claim a mate and revive the species. But then Daniel had escaped. And had become a doctor? But how exactly had a cryogenically frozen former warrior had enough pre-med college credits? Plot holes.
Also, my secret idea of Daniel’s background was plagiarized beat for beat from Unthawing the Werewolf’s Heart, (sans the doctor part), one of my steamier guilty pleasures. I pushed air from between my lips, like I could expel all my stupid dreams in one long sigh. I couldn’t let Daniel be telling the truth.
It was unbelievable enough that Daniel wanted me, but him being a werebeast pushed all of this from improbable to impossible. Also, the toes of his sneakers were scuffed. He had worn them. A lot. Sneakers.
Werebeasts weren’t doctors, they didn’t go on dates with girls like me, and most of all they didn’t wear sneakers. Because werebeasts were extinct. And Daniel, beautiful, kind, good Daniel, was absolutely bonkers. Of course he was. Why else would he want me?
I gave a watery chuckle and navigated further into the safety of my apartment toward my kitchen counter.
“Very funny.” Once I reached the counter, I began fiddling with a few of the paperbacks next to my stack of take out menus. I flipped over Mates of Darkness: The Limited Edition so its cover of a sultry male teen backed by a halo of the moon was face-up. “Those are just hairs I have back there.”
The doorjamb creaked underneath Daniel’s sneakers way more ominously than it should’ve as he entered my space. “You think I’m insane.”
I traced the Veren’s earth-real cheekbones on the cover. How many fan-art renderings of his face had I lusted over? How many times had I wished he, or any other werebeast was real? Too many to count. But Daniel wasn’t Veren, and if Daniel was a werebeast, all of this, his kisses, the way he smiled at me, when he told me I was special, would be just as fictional as my favorite books.
Sighing, I gripped the lip of the counter and faced him. “Look at it from my perspective. I’m super into werebeasts, and while yeah, you’re fast and smart and strong, and weirdly into me, even my luck has limits. You’re not a mythical creature.”
“Would you like it if I was?” He neatly dodged a stack of books on the floor and continued his advance toward me.
“Y-yes. I think. Probably a lot.” I warded him off with splayed fingertips. “But you’re not.”
“And what if I told you I have a mark on the back of my neck, too?”
“Coincidence?” With my back already against the counter there was no where else to go. Small spaces. Hazards of living in New York.
“Hmm.” Daniel narrowed his eyes and then back-tracked to shut the door behind him. Despite his focus on me, he made sure to securely flip the lock and quietly close the door, like he was prepping for surgery. Then he surveyed me again, crossing his arms. His biceps bulged to steroid sizes. “What if I could prove it?”
“Here? In my kitchen? You w-would shift?” I glanced around my tiny kitchen with its old laminate wood cupboards and blue tile. “I’m not sure you could fit.” It was easy to think about practical logistics instead of the impossible and the second part of his statement, that I was his mate.
A spasm of unease flickered across his face as his gaze darted between my purple-curtained windows. “No. That’s too dangerous. Someone might see. As you said, we’re supposed to be extinct.”
“How will you prove it, then?”
He didn’t answer with words, but strolled in a wide arc until he was close enough to measure the distance between us in inches not feet. I rode up further against the counter, and my tower of take-out menus toppled behind me. Xia Lao Chinese and Tim Tuk Thai’s pamphlets skittered around my pile of books, toaster oven and half-open box of cereal.
“Let me just get these.” I reached to pick them up.
He stopped me and placed one hand on either side of me, giving me no escape. “You’re avoiding this because you’re afraid I’m lying.”
My hands clutched at my neckline, needing the comforting feel of my talisman in my palm. t I came up empty.
His fingers skittered over my bare shoulder down my back, in a caress like I was something fragile and so, so cherished. “I’m not lying, and if we do this, you will be bonded to me for the rest of your life. It won’t be an easy.”
I indulged in the feeling of his strong hands on me, and imagined what I’d be like to wake up to this every morning. “I’ve been waiting for something like this my whole life, Daniel. If what you’re telling me is true, I’m ready. And I…”
His hands slipped from my back to my hips. He gripped them, and maneuvered me to face him. Warmth radiated out from my core making my knees weak. His thumbs traced the line of my standard cotton underwear through my colorful dress.
The air in my lungs felt electric.
“Finish your sentence,” he purred.
“I like you. A lot.”
“Good. I like you too.” He smiled encouragingly. “Step one, was I tell you the truth.”
“Step two?” I rasped.
He eased closer. “Step two is I touch you.”
Without my talisman, all I had left was a fist. I squeezed it, as a barrier against the pleasure trying in infiltrate my body. Breathe. He’s touched you plenty of times before, and you lived through it.
“Okay, and then what,” I said, sounding more casual than I felt, “Is anything I know about werebeasts right? Or will I turn into a wolf too?
“You won’t turn into anything.” He took my fist into his own, unfolding my fingers like pages of a book. His skin looked so pale against mine. My blood felt heavy with wanting as he traced the lines in my palm.
“And I’m not a wolf, I’m a lion.”
“Ha.” I jerked my hand b
ack or tried to.
He had an odd miracle grip around my wrist that kept me close, without hurting when I tried to pull away.
“You think that’s funny?” A note of warning laced his words.
At this point in my life, I ignored it. “Wolves are still around. Maybe. There are always a couple of supposed ‘sightings.’” I did air quotes with my other hand, as if I wasn’t a regular on all the forums with the grainy totally Photoshopped werewolf sightings. “But not even the hoaxers try to pretend werelions still exist. The last one died after Queen Alice had him killed.”
His thumb skated up my life-line to my thumb and a ghost of a sad smile flirted with his lips. “Yes, that’s one story. I’ll tell you the real one sometime.”
“Oh will you?” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes, as if that would make my knees less week.
“Another time, but now I’m going to prove to you I’m not lying.” His eyes were half-hooded with a lazy predatory arrogance I did admit was very leonine. As was the way he managed to close the few remaining centimeters between us in graceful silence. I couldn’t even hear his breath.
I couldn’t hear mine, either, because for the next few seconds I stopped. He pulled back my mass of braids and lay bare my face for him.
I straightened, refusing to show how unnerved I was. My matemark, if that’s what it was, was smoldering just as hot as his eyes were, throbbing in time with my heartbeat. I tensed waiting for him to grab the back of my neck, pawing like Lonan had, but Daniel just petted my throat with a steady pressure.
My muscles uncoiled under his ministrations. I couldn’t help but moan, tilting back my chin until my head bumped against the column separating the kitchen counter from the entry way. “Oh.”
But Daniel was just getting started. On the third stroke his grasp expanded to cup the back of my neck. Right over the hairs. Pleasure sizzled through me. My blood buzzed with warmth and need. My nipples felt so hard, I worried they might cut through my dress, and I parted my legs to ease the wet pressure building in my panties.