The Lick of Fire Trilogy

by Bianca D’Arc

  “Ah, Mr. Stone,” the man enthused. “We have your usual table ready and waiting. Please follow me, sir.”

  The welcome mat had definitely been rolled out for Stone, and Diana had the startling thought that maybe the entire staff of Alfredo’s was made up of shifters. Could that be possible? One of the finest restaurants in town was operated by shapeshifters? Was the owner a shifter too? She was starting to believe that just about anything was possible where these creatures of magic and fur were concerned.

  They were seated and given menus. The table had a strategic view of all the doors and was against a wall with no windows. She noted the way Stone just casually looked around every few minutes, as if checking the perimeter. Must be a wolf thing. Or an Alpha thing. Making sure everything was secure in his domain. She found it endearing rather than scary.

  She looked at the menu, noting the lack of prices next to any of the entries and tried to think what would be the least costly of the items offered. She didn’t want to order lobster and cost the poor man an arm and a leg. He’d already fixed her car for free, and she didn’t feel right about any of it.

  He wasn’t being nice to her for sexual favors. She’d made it pretty clear last night that, if they’d been alone, she would have been incredibly easy for him. So, she didn’t feel there was any quid pro quo expected or implied. He didn’t have to fix her car or spend money on fancy meals to get her to jump into his bed with him.

  No, he was doing these things because he wanted to. Not because he wanted something from her that he couldn’t get in other ways. Hell, all he had to do was crook his little finger someplace where they could be alone, and she’d fall into his arms, no questions asked. He was just that potent, and she was just that smitten.

  A terrible thought suddenly occurred and she put her menu down. “You don’t have like, a girl in every port, do you?”

  “Every port?” he looked confused.

  “Like a sailor,” she tried to explain. “I mean, you don’t have a lot of girlfriends, do you? I’m not just one of many? I’ll know if you lie. Tell me the truth.”

  “Did someone cheat on you, Red?” he asked, his eyes going suddenly fierce, as if he would tear the man limb from limb for hurting her.

  “I’m not answering that until I hear your answer,” she countered. It wouldn’t do to be weak with this man. He was an Alpha. He’d walk all over her if she didn’t stand up for herself once in a while.

  He sat back and watched her from narrowed eyes, but relented. “I wouldn’t be here with you if I was dating someone else. I wouldn’t have done any of this if I was sleeping with another woman.” His expression was still thunderous, but she felt the truth in his words. “I’m old enough to know what I want and not have my head turned by every pretty thing that walks by.”

  Something Oma had said about shifter longevity suddenly reared up in Diana’s mind. “How old are you?”

  “Older than you, Red. By a mile. Now, answer my question. Did some scumbag cheat on you?”

  “Yes, but I’m not telling you when or who,” she told him quietly, picking up her menu once more.

  She thought she heard a growl from across the table but ignored him in favor of scanning the menu. “Don’t they have just a plain salad?” she muttered to herself.

  “Please tell me you’re not a vegetarian.” Stone’s tone sounded mildly horrified and made her look up at him.

  “No. I’m a carnivore, but, um… I just want a salad.” She tried to bury her nose in the menu again, but she caught the softening of his features.

  “Honey, I can afford anything on this menu and then some. Get what you like. I insist.” He pushed the top of her menu down gently with one finger, making her raise her gaze to meet his. “Do you like ribs? Maximo is a genius with ribs. He does great steak too. Or lobster. He’s really just a genius in the kitchen, in general.”

  “Ribs are too messy for a first date,” she replied, thinking aloud.

  “Steak, then. How about filet mignon? He wraps the edge in bacon. You’ll love it.”

  Filet mignon? That was always a pricey dish. She tried to demur, but the waiter came over at Stone’s gesture, and he ordered for them before she could object. The only question she was left to answer was how well she wanted her meat cooked.

  Chapter Nine

  Stone had ordered a bottle of red wine to go with their meal, and the wine steward brought it over and uncorked the bottle with great ceremony. She was seeing Stone in a whole new light. He wasn’t some uncultured mechanic. Oh, no. This man seemed totally at home with the traditions and manners of the upscale restaurant. She was the fish out of water here.

  She wondered just how old Stone was. If shifters lived for hundreds of years, like Oma had said, he could’ve been raised in the more formal times of a century ago, or more. It boggled her mind, just thinking about it.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” he said after the wine guy left the table. Stone looked at her over the brim of his glass, and she felt her tummy flip. Had a more seductive man ever been born? She didn’t think so.

  “Just remembering a few of the things Oma told me about…um…your kind when I was little. This all feels very surreal, suddenly,” she admitted, looking around the fancy place.

  “It’s real.” He reached across the small table and put his hand over hers. The warmth of him made an impression and sent shivers up her arm. His magic tingled.

  “I really don’t understand what’s going on here, or why this is all happening now, but thank you for bringing me here. The place is lovely.”

  “As is the company,” he told her with a grin, releasing her hand and moving back as the waiter returned with a basket of piping hot bread.

  Diana busied herself with a roll and the butter that was served with it for a few moments, trying to collect her thoughts and calm her pulse. Everything about this encounter was like something out of a romance novel. The handsome man. The fancy setting. His perfect manners and attentiveness. It was like a dream. A really good dream that she didn’t ever want to wake from.

  “Chef Maximo sends his compliments,” the waiter said as he dropped off a plate of mixed appetizers.

  “What’s this?” Stone asked, a bemused smile on his face.

  “Chef has been developing a few new appetizers, and he would like you to try them and give him some feedback,” the waiter replied, then left them alone again.

  Diana noted there were two of everything on the dish that had been placed between them. She used her bread plate to take one of each of the delicacies.

  “This looks yummy,” she said as she speared a roll of what looked like paper-thin eggplant and mozzarella dressed with crushed tomatoes and basil.

  “I told you. He’s a genius with food.” Stone lifted a bite-sized ball of fried something off the plate and popped it directly into his mouth. An expression of enjoyment broke over his face as he chewed then swallowed. “You’ve got to try that. It’s a shrimp ball or something. It’s really good.” He took his fork and pushed the remaining ball onto her plate.

  They spent the next few minutes eating the little tidbits and comparing notes on flavors and favorites. They had surprisingly similar likes and dislikes, although neither of them disliked any of the offerings all that much. By the time she’d sampled half of the bite-sized morsels, she was mostly convinced Stone was right about the chef being a genius. Her taste buds were dancing with delight at each new flavor and texture.

  Their lunch came just as the last appetizer disappeared, and the plates were rearranged by the waiter’s expert hands. Diana found herself contemplating the most decadent filet mignon she’d ever seen. The edge was wrapped in thick, crispy bacon, just as Stone had said, and the whole thing was still sizzling. The aroma was divine, and even the vegetables on the plate had been presented with an eye toward perfection.

  “This is almost too pretty to eat,” she said, lifting her gaze to find Stone looking at her.

  “It tastes even better than it looks,”
he assured her, lifting his own knife and fork in practiced fingers. “Dig in. You’re going to love this.”

  She did as he suggested and found herself fighting a moan at the first bite. It wouldn’t do to make such sounds in public, but her taste buds were in ecstasy. She met Stone’s gaze as she chewed and swallowed, then shook her head.

  “You were right. I’ve never had anything this good. I can see why everyone raves about this place.”

  They didn’t speak much as they concentrated on their food for a few minutes, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. She paused a few times to sip her wine and comment on the vegetables and the way the dish was cooked and presented. Stone told her little details about the chef that intrigued her. He claimed Maximo was an old friend and a perfectionist who fussed over everything that came out of his kitchen.

  From his words, Diana started imagining the chef to be a diminutive man who scolded all his helpers. The man that emerged from the kitchen was nothing like the image she’d built in her mind. No, Maximo was a huge bear of a man dressed head to toe in denim chef togs with his name embroidered on the upper left side of his chest in small, black letters. He was the total opposite of the white-clad fussbudget she’d been picturing, but he greeted Stone with a warm smile and outstretched hand.

  “Alph—Mister Stone—so good to see you again.” It was pretty obvious Maximo broke off the word Alpha the moment he got a good look at Diana. The two men shook hands, and the chef pulled a chair over from a nearby table and sat at the side of the table, so he could see them both. “Now, who is this lovely lady?”

  Stone made the introductions. “Diana Pettigrew, this is Chef Maximo Alfredo. One of the Alfredos for which the restaurant is named. Max, this is Diana, a client and new friend.”

  “Any friend of Stone’s…” Maximo let the sentence remain unfinished. “What did you think of the appetizers?”

  They spent the next few minutes discussing each of the appetizer selections in detail. Diana found herself telling the man more than she’d thought she would, from her objection to slightly too much pepper in one of the sauces to her desire for a pinch more basil with the crushed tomatoes. She hadn’t really thought he’d want such granular feedback, but he seemed truly pleased with her observations, so she got bolder as they conversation went on.

  “Stone, you’ve finally brought me someone with a truly sophisticated palate,” Maximo enthused as their conversation about the new items drew to an end.

  The chef was all smiles, and Diana felt like he really meant his compliments and that he hadn’t taken any of her criticisms the wrong way. Not that there’d been all that much to criticize. She was sure she’d given many more compliments than complaints.

  “Tell me, Diana, do you cook?” Maximo asked unexpectedly.

  “Well…for my grandmother, of course, but nothing so grand as what you’ve done here. I just cook the usual stuff, and I’m not professionally trained. I just learned from Oma,” she admitted.

  “Oma? You’re German?” Maximo asked, his head tilted to one side in that almost animal way she’d noticed Stone sometimes had.

  “Dutch,” she corrected the man gently. “She’s from Holland.”

  “Ah. The land of wooden shoes and windmills. I spent a lovely few years in Amsterdam, once upon a time.” Maximo seemed almost wistful. “We will talk more the next time you come,” he decided. “And you must bring your oma along sometime. My Dutch is very rusty, but I might be able to remember a few words.”

  “You speak Dutch?” Stone asked before Diana could.

  “I did once upon a time, but it was a long time ago,” Maximo said, rising from the chair he’d appropriated. He turned it around and put it back at the other table with one hand. “And now, I must go and make sure the staff haven’t moved all my knives while I’ve been out here. They like to play tricks on me like that sometimes.” He winked and left the table, heading back to the kitchen.

  The man was a bit of a whirlwind for someone so large. He wasn’t fat. He was just…bulky. Built on the huge side—both tall and wide, but not around the middle. It was his shoulders that took up most of the room and gave an impression of a giant.

  He looked like a bear. That thought sort of stopped her in her tracks. Maybe he was. He’d been about to call Stone Alpha, which meant he was probably some kind of shifter. And heaven knew he was big enough to be a bear.

  “They all keep wanting to call you Alpha,” she remarked, trying to sound casual. “Then they see me and think better of it,” she observed. “Are they all shifters?” she asked in the quietest tone she could manage.

  Even so, every eye in the room turned to look at her with varying degrees of alarm or anger. They’d all heard her? Holy crap!

  Stone stood up and held up both hands, palms outward. “It’s okay. She knows, but she’s cool. I’ll explain it all to your Alpha, but this is Diana. Human, but with hereditary knowledge. Say hello, Diana,” he directed toward her.

  “Hi,” she replied weakly, feeling a little sick at the idea that she was totally surrounded by people with what were probably lethal instincts and the claws to back them up. Crap.

  Some hard looks were sent her way, but universally, those looks were transferred to Stone and eased. He was an Alpha werewolf, after all. He probably had a lot of status in this group, even if they had different animal spirits inside them. Still, Diana felt the somewhat uncomfortable regard of pretty much every person in the restaurant as they finished their meal.

  “How about we take our dessert someplace a little quieter?” Stone asked, and she was more than ready to leave the restaurant—and the scrutiny of all those suspicions shifters—behind.

  He escorted her to the door, where a shopping bag with the restaurant’s logo on it sat waiting for them. He picked it up, nodded to the maitre d’. Diana and Stone went outside, where her old car was already waiting for them at the curb, the sandy-haired young man grinning as he held the door open for Diana to get in. She noticed Stone slide the kid a tip and another pat on the shoulder before he took his own seat on the passenger side.

  She drove away, still conscious of eyes watching their progress. She figured every shifter in the place had probably been wondering what in the world Alpha Stone was doing with a human like her. Oh, he might say she had some kind of magical presence, but she knew it was all bull. She was as human as the next person. Nothing special to see here. She’d given up on ever developing a true magical gift long ago. Those were dreams she had well and truly put away for good.

  But Stone… He was magic personified. She might be able to enjoy his company for a short time—and she was fine with that, or at least as fine as she could be with it—but for the long term, he would probably find a mate among his own kind. She knew that. She’d thought about it long and hard ever since finding out the truth about him. She’d thought she’d made her peace with the idea that she could only pass through his life, but not linger.

  The looks she’d gotten on her way out of the restaurant, though, had made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. Like, why did a human even dare to go out with an Alpha werewolf? Like she was some sort of magical social climber, reaching too far above her station. Worse, she knew about them all being shifters, and she sensed more than a bit of hostility directed her way. Oma had always said that shifters held their secrets close and only shared the knowledge of who and what they really were with members of their own family, Tribe, Pack or Clan.

  Very few humans knew that Others existed at all, and it had to stay that way, in order to protect them. Diana had considered the possible consequences of humanity learning that shapeshifters existed. She knew darn well that it wasn’t a good idea to go blabbing about magic, or shifters, or any of the Others her grandmother claimed lived in secret among everyone else. Nothing good could come of such a revelation, and it could lead to war among the races and a great deal of strife. No way did Diana want to be even remotely responsible for that kind of thing.

  “Make a right up her
e,” Stone said, breaking into her racing thoughts.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, glad to be alone with him and curious about where he was directing her to drive.

  She wasn’t nervous about being with him. Not by a long shot. Something deep inside made her trust this man where she wouldn’t have been so easy to trust anyone else on such short acquaintance. She didn’t know what it was, but she trusted her senses on this. She was a good judge of character and Stone was a steadfast sort of man. She felt it deep in her heart.

  “We’re actually headed to my place. I’ve got a great view of the desert off the back deck. It’s one of my favorite places. Is that okay with you?”

  His place? Hell, that was more than okay. They could be alone, and presumably, he had a bed somewhere in his house. Things were looking up. She might just get lucky this afternoon, after all.

  She would’ve blushed at her own thoughts, but heat was already coursing through her system. The heat that lived just below her surface lately was up and running, urging her to go wild. To act with abandon. To…fly.

  She didn’t understand where any of those impulses were coming from. She couldn’t fly, but somehow… No, she really didn’t understand it.

  But she could definitely do something about the urge to take a walk on the wild side. It didn’t get much wilder than a sexy Alpha werewolf who was leading her back to his lair. Growl.

  “Oh, that’s fine. I love the desert. It’s the whole reason we moved here. The heat is good for Oma’s arthritis, and I felt really at home here when we came to see the place. The desert calls to me,” she admitted. “I’m not sure why.”

  Chapter Ten

  Stone had his suspicions about exactly why the desert called to her. It remained to be seen whether or not he was right, but the more he was around her, the more familiar her latent power felt to him.

  He’d spent years working for Lance when he’d been holding the phoenix inside. Diana’s presence felt about the same. If and when her inner power broke free, Stone wanted to be there to help her deal with the fallout. He’d seen Lance go through the transition, and phoenix shifters had a much rougher time of it than any other shifter Stone was aware of. Most of them died.