Must Love Lycans

by Michele Bardsley

  I plopped on the bed, pulled my knees up to my chin, and sighed.

  “Kelsey.”

  Startled, I looked up to see Damian standing in the doorway.

  “Do you need a pillow and blanket?” I asked. It was inane, but the only reason I could think of why he would unbend himself, and his pride, to approach me. It felt kinda weird offering the man comforts from his own bed—then again, it was the least strange thing to happen today.

  He entered the room, just a few steps, his solemn gaze on mine. “Forgive me.”

  “Tomorrow,” I said softly. “Promise.”

  “I’m sorry.” His voice sounded like a rusted hinge.

  “Don’t apologize much, do you?”

  He shook his head.

  “I appreciate how hard it was for you, Damian, but I was kinda hoping to drown in my own self-pity while lamenting about the sad lack of cupcakes in my life. It’s something a girl has to do alone.”

  “You’ve been alone too much.”

  “True,” I said. “But that’s always been the way of it.”

  “Please. You needed me and I failed you. I never want to do that again, Kelsey. Tell me the rest.”

  “I’ll share my secret, if you’ll tell me one of yours.”

  “All right.”

  I shrugged. “He killed the girl. I begged for her life. Pleaded for mercy. I tried to give him some, even, but he’d built this psychic wall. He was furious that I rejected his gift. He decided I wasn’t worthy of being his soul mate. He had the knife. And he knew exactly where to puncture her heart. I felt her die.” This part . . . this part I hadn’t told anyone. “She wasn’t scared—not at first. She’d resigned herself to dying. She felt sad, and then when he stabbed her, there was this sudden fierce blaze of terror.” I looked up at Damian through my lashes. “That shouldn’t be anyone’s last emotion. How can you have peace after this life if you’ve left it in abject fear?” I shook my head. I didn’t really want a response. Besides, I wasn’t finished. “I fought with him over the knife. I got a few cuts, a couple of punctures, but somehow I turned it on him. It pierced his heart, the same as it had hers. There was blood everywhere. I don’t remember calling the police, but when they found me, the phone was in my hand, and the nine-one-one operator was still talking to me. I couldn’t speak. I don’t know where I went”—I tapped my temple—“I just sorta realized I was in the hospital. Two days gone. I can’t remember a single minute.” I huddled into myself, drawing the throw around me tightly. “That’s why I was scared. I woke up and it was like he was there all over again . . . It was a dream, I guess. Or being in the dark. I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry he hurt you, and that he took the girl’s life,” said Damian. “But I’m glad you killed him.”

  “I’ve never been sorry that I killed him,” I said. “But I’ll always regret not being able to save her.”

  “I know well that feeling.” He said nothing for a while, his eyes shifting away, his stare turning distant—not coldly, more in a remembering kind of way. “I was married once.”

  It had never occurred to me that Damian had been married. Other than the fact he was the loneliest soul I’d ever met, and he tried very hard to stand apart from others, I had started thinking of him as mine. The idea he had belonged to someone else grated on me. It was irrational, but I think we’ve established my lack of logical approach to most things.

  “Our marriage was an arrangement. We liked each other. I would even say that we were happy. I am a royal lycan.” His lips turned up in a sarcastic smile. “The crown prince. She was a noble from the Roma, not by blood like I am. The Roma have their own ideas about nobility.” He paused. “Her name was Anna.”

  Her name was a soft rush of sound, as if he’d been afraid that by saying her name, he was giving it power. I understood the hold that the dead had over the living. I saw a young girl’s tear-streaked face, her blue eyes wide, her life draining away. I had no doubt that Anna was dead. I couldn’t imagine any female walking away from Damian. He had his own orbit. If you got too close, like I had, then you were pulled in.

  “What are Roma?” I asked. The Moon Goddess had mentioned them, too. I supposed I should learn the lycanthrope hierarchy, especially if I was gonna switch species an’ all.

  “They are considered cousins of the lycans because they can only shift during the full moon. They are mostly human.”

  “And are arranged marriages common between Roma and royals?”

  “No. Ours was the only one. Roma are Roma and full-bloods are full-bloods.”

  “And royals are royals?”

  “Yes. We shared a lycanthrope heritage, but are worlds in apart in every other way. Our populations were dwindling. Infertility was high among our females, and our children were dying very young. I believed that interbreeding with the Roma might save the full-bloods. I was wrong.”

  My shields were snapped firmly in place, but I detected the horror in his tone. He felt guilty and responsible, which seemed his driving motivation for all his decisions. His sense of duty was hard-core.

  “You were the experiment. If it had worked . . .” I trailed off, and he nodded.

  “The full-bloods and Roma would truly be one people.” I knew that this was difficult for him. Damian was not a sharing kind of guy. I was pleased he was trying to connect with me again, that he recognized how he’d hurt me, and was trying to make up for it by talking about his own secrets and his own regrets.

  “It was my idea to start the village. Full-bloods and Roma living and working together. The Roma tended to wander in small groups. They’ve always had restless hearts. And feet.” He flashed a smile. “But I was alpha of all lycans, so I created a council with full-bloods and Roma. I even had a vampire adviser—Ruadan. We had, earlier in our history, before mending the rift with the Roma, been protectors of the vampires.

  “We built the village, learned to intermingle. Then I married Anna and she became pregnant. For a while, everything was good. Very good.”

  “And then?”

  “We were attacked. Our buildings burned. Our people slaughtered. My wife and our unborn children killed. I saw our babies. They were mutated. They would not have survived even had they gone to term.”

  “I’m so sorry, Damian.”

  “It was a long time ago,” he said.

  “It couldn’t have been that long ago. You’re what? Maybe thirty-five?”

  “Lycans age very slowly,” he said. “What I’ve told you took place more than sixty years ago.”

  I stared at him. “How old are you?”

  “It’s a discussion for another time.” His tone was stern. Then he paused, and offered, “Okay?”

  “Okay.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “It’s the werewolf thing. It gives you immortality.”

  “Werewolves are not immortal. Most live into their eight hundreds.”

  “That’s almost like being immortal.”

  He laughed, but it held no humor. “Eight hundred years isn’t close to being immortal.” He joined me on the bed, sitting close, and took my hand into his. “I did not bite Anna. Do you understand what that means? I married her, and took her to my bed, and put my seed into her womb, but I never gave her the protection of my bite. I never claimed her.”

  “Why?”

  “Duty takes a man only so far, Kelsey. I know my own heart—though there are some who claim I do not have one. It is very simple. I could not offer to Anna what was meant for another.”

  “You loved someone else and married her anyway?”

  “No.” He pressed my wrist against his lips; then he clasped my hand once more. “My mother used to say, ‘The heart wants what the heart wants.’ There is, I believe, within everyone a core that houses our truths. It is who we are, and who we were meant to be. Sometimes, we act out of accord with this place, and it will correct our course, however hard or dangerous, to achieve realignment. Or it will act for us, even before we consciously understand what we’re doing.”

/>   “Our instincts.”

  “That, yes, and more. Even when I didn’t know who I was, I recognized you. The truth of who you were was already locked inside me, waiting. I didn’t know my own mind, Kelsey, but I knew you.”

  “You said I was like coming home.”

  “Ja,” he said roughly. “I could not stop thinking about your dinner date with Dante. I could not accept that you willingly went to another man when you were meant for me. Eventually I got so agitated that I shifted. Then I didn’t understand at all who I was, but I knew what I wanted. And I had your scent. The first time Dubowski shot me, whatever was in the disc reverted me to human form, but it held no sway over my intentions.”

  “That’s why you showed up naked.”

  He nodded. “I claimed you because I knew, as I know now, that you are mine. I regret that you had no choice, that I could not control myself.”

  “If you hadn’t taken me, Dante would have.”

  Damian growled.

  “Not by force,” I defended, though I didn’t know why. I was angry with Dante, with his machinations. “But eventually he would’ve gotten what he wanted. It’s who he is.”

  “You should have had a choice.”

  “I do,” I said. “I still do.” I cupped his face. “Your mother was right. The heart wants what the heart wants. It doesn’t matter how we got here . . . we’re here. And we can worry all day about the realness of it all, or we can let go and see where it takes us. I’m willing. Are you?”

  “Yes,” he said. He let the gates open then, and his emotions shattered my shields in an instant. There was pain and sorrow and hope and desire and . . . so much more, all with color and words I didn’t quite understand. It was such a jumble, and I knew he was trying to show me how willing he was, and it was both wonderful and terrible.

  I blinked at him. “I expected more blustering and glowering.”

  “I do not bluster or glower,” he said, his lips quirking. In his gaze, I saw passion tempered by tenderness.

  Then something changed between us, in that moment, just as quick and bright as lightning strike.

  “Permit me,” he whispered.

  I couldn’t speak, so I nodded.

  And Damian kissed me.

  You know in romance novels when the cute hero kisses the sassy heroine? There’s this single quiet moment before his lips descend—it’s a nanosecond freeze frame of longing and accepting the inevitability of their passion and then finally, oh finally, his mouth gently claims hers and her belly quivers and his heart pounds and everything feels perfect?

  Yeah. Damian’s kiss wasn’t like that.

  He didn’t woo my lips into compliance.

  He conquered.

  It was hot and messy and . . . and thrilling.

  My belly didn’t quiver. My whole body did. His passion poured into me, and all I felt was his need, his need, his need for me.

  He wanted me. Not just a woman. Not just sex. Me. Only me. It was a raw feeling, jagged with desperation, with a yearning that was soul-deep.

  I had never been wanted.

  Not by anyone.

  His tongue swept boldly into my mouth, and I met his fervent demands for submission. I offered him everything, and he took it. It was his due. His right. I am the royal alpha. And I knew that I would be his. I was always his. This was where I belonged. With him.

  His fingers ran through my hair; his nails scraped my scalp. He pulled on my hair until I was forced to expose my neck. Then he nipped my bottom lip, and continued those erotic love bites down my throat—a fervid line of need drawn with teeth and tongue.

  Once again, Damian’s feelings were color and sound. So different, so much more,than any I’d experienced before. Red clung to me like a silk cloak, and the words beat like primitive drums: Mine, mine, mine.

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes.”

  “All of you,” he murmured. He pressed lips against the hollow at the base of my throat. “I want all of you.”

  “S-sex?” I yelped.

  He pulled back and looked at me, and I saw how scarily close he was to losing it. He had iron control, I knew that, but it was thin. Even if my empathic abilities weren’t on alert already, the look in his eyes was proof enough of the danger.

  “I will not take from you, Kelsey. Not ever. You must give yourself freely. But you must decide now. Decide, or I will have to break my promise to leave you so I can . . . regain control.”

  “I’m a virgin,” I blurted.

  Damian’s mouth dropped open.

  “I don’t have a hymen, of course. I mean, I’ve been to the gynecologist and all, and I’m big fan of masturb—oh, I see that you . . . um, don’t want to know that part. Long story, short. I’m a virgin in the sense of never having sex.”

  “Never,” he repeated in a stunned voice.

  “I’ve gotten close-ish. It’s complicated.” I made a face. “I want to have sex. With you. Of course, with you. Only you. But I figured you should know what you’re getting into. Oh, God.” The heat of embarrassment swept over my cheeks. “I didn’t mean literally.”

  “You did, actually.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I guess so.” Misery crawled inside me and squatted like an unwelcome guest. “Me being a virgin changes things, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  He hadn’t let go of me, but I could feel his withdrawal. His passion burned as hot as ever, but his logical mind had taken over. He was already harnessing his emotions, tucking them away into those little boxes he kept in his figurative heart.

  “Don’t reject me.” I slapped a hand over my mouth. What was wrong with me? Could I sound any more pathetic? Well, truth was truth. I wanted him like I wanted no other man. No, no other life. I didn’t want to be turned away.

  “I have claimed you,” he said, brushing aside my hair to touch the bite mark.

  I swallowed convulsively. “No,” I said. “You haven’t.”

  It was both the wrong and the right thing to say. It was jumping off the cliff and knowing the inexplicable joy of free fall mere seconds before the slamming into the earth.

  One moment I was sitting on the edge of the bed, Damian’s hand curled around my shoulder, and the next moment, I was flat on my back with my T-shirt shredded and a very aroused shape-shifter straddling me.

  “This is the only opportunity you will have to change your mind.” His voice almost a growl.

  “I’m yours,” I said.

  He left the bed only to rid himself of his own clothes, and I watched him hungrily. I’d seen him naked before, but this time I would get to touch him, feel him, take him.

  I started to tremble.

  He returned to me, kneeling between my thighs, his hair flowing over his shoulders like black silk.

  He ripped off my panties.

  Then he destroyed my bra.

  My heart thumped wildly. He was glorious—a god who’d deigned to lay with a mortal woman. He feasted only with his eyes, his gaze burning, and his passion . . . barely contained. I couldn’t deny that I had unleashed a creature I didn’t understand.

  I feared him.

  But I would not deny him.

  He lifted my legs. As he leaned down, he placed them over his shoulders, that beautiful hair sliding along my flesh, and then he was kissing me . . . you know, there.

  Then he started to lick.

  And I died.

  Well, I stopped breathing long enough to die, but then I got distracted by the pleasure sparkling through me like stardust.

  My thighs shook, and I grabbed on to his skull because I felt like I was gonna float off the bed any second.

  Damian’s very talented, persistent tongue would’ve been enough, really, but Damian hadn’t forgotten about our little session in the kitchen. If Elizabeth and Tez hadn’t arrived, I might’ve well lost my virginity on the kitchen table (which wouldn’t have been a bad thing . . . note to self: Check sturdiness of kitchen table). He sent his passion into me. On purpose. I could feel it like an ocean wav
e, rolling toward me, inevitable, and the heat of his need, and the deep, dark red of it, and the words, oh the words . . . beautiful . . . mine . . . perfect . . . she’s perfect.

  And his mouth was on me, his tongue rasping over my clit, and my own lust crashed with his . . . and then I was crying out, my fingers digging into his hair, my hips arching, and . . . ohmyfreakinggod.

  Yeah. It was like that.

  Only times infinity.

  And I was shaking, and crying, and he was gently lowering my legs onto the bed, like they were ceramic, and then he was kissing my hips and letting his hands trail down my thighs. He was murmuring, in German, and he moved over me like a dark lord, a conqueror, and he was . . . he really was.

  He covered me, his cock pressing hotly against the vee of my thighs. I was still slick, still throbbing and swollen. His thick length offered the sweetest kind of torture.

  I moaned.

  “There’s more,” he promised.

  “You’re trying to kill me.”

  “Just a little,” he admitted with a raspy chuckle.

  My hands coasted over his shoulders, over the corded muscles of his back. His skin wasn’t smooth. It was marked with little dips and lines; I understood the lines, I had a few of those, too, thanks to Robert’s dagger.

  Damian nipped my neck, his sharp teeth scraping my flesh. My heart fluttered like a wounded bird; and my lungs were no help at all. I was gasping and panting, but so was he—although his harsh breathing was punctuated by the occasional growl.

  And every time he did, my womb clenched. There was something powerful about making a werewolf growl (at least during sex).

  He claimed my mouth, his tongue mimicking no doubt what his cock would soon do, and I felt another slow building of bliss. He wasn’t moving his hips, but the weight of his shaft was enough to make my clit very, very happy.

  He released my mouth, and leaned down to suckle my aching nipples.

  Electricity zapped me.