by Laina Kenney
“But you were a dog then!”
“Wolf.”
“Gesundheit,” she joked, and he laughed with her.
It warmed her heart that he was willing to play a little, even in such a serious situation. Maybe her silly sense of humor wouldn’t be the downfall of this relationship as it had been for the last one.
She frowned as she thought back to her college boyfriend. No, the only things worth keeping from college were her diploma and her friendship with Gracie.
“What about my friends?” she asked. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear his answer.
“Your human friends?” He turned to her fully. The look on his face was so openly caring that she braced herself for bad news.
“You will still be able to be friends with them, as long as you take some basic precautions. I have a human friend, as many of our people do. It is not forbidden. There are even some humans, though very few, who know the truth about us. Very few,” he repeated, and she heard the warning in his words.
Angel hesitated.
“My friends wouldn’t be safe if they knew. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes. Until we can eradicate this threat, your friends would be in danger with you, just because their minds are open enough to remain friends and keep your secret.”
Angel shook her head, but it was all too easy to believe him.
“The hunting society is always seeking out the next target, always recruiting. And they are not as careful as they should be. Sometimes their zeal gets in the way of their mission. They have been known to kill full humans who have had the bad luck to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that isn’t the only problem. Being hunted complicates everything.”
Angel sighed. It sure did.
“I have so many questions about the vulfen people I don’t know where to start.”
“Your wolf is strong, and we are taught to listen to our inborn sense of right. I think you will find that for the simpler things, you can have the question in your mind and your instinct will whisper the answer.”
She started, and he seemed to read the sudden awareness on her face.
“It already happens, I see. I’m glad for you, Angel. She has guided you from childhood?”
It was difficult to break the secrecy that was so ingrained in her, but Angel nodded. If there was anyone in the world who would understand, it was the man standing before her.
“She was always there, even when I was young, but Mom wanted her hidden. And the old gray wolf frightened her.”
Valeri nodded grimly. “As he would have frightened any sane being. You did right, Angel. Your mother did right. You have survived until your mate could find you, and if your mother were still alive, I would kneel at her feet and thank her for the gift of her precious daughter.”
Angel heard the utter sincerity in his voice and felt the tears roll free. Her emotions were all over the map. It was as if a dam that had been built and strengthened over her lifetime had broken all at once, and the force was unstoppable.
Valeri dipped his golden head and kissed her wet cheeks.
“Hush, my Angel. Hush. No more tears.”
Angel sighed and closed her eyes, resting her head in his hands. She needed his tenderness so much. It filled a part of her that had long been empty and gave her a chance to live a life she had never imagined until this moment, a life with her fated mate.
Chapter 13
Valeri tasted the fall of tears on his mate’s cheek, and his heart rejoiced when they were replaced by her shy smile. Her tears were unbearably painful to him.
He rubbed his sensitive lips over her smooth skin, drying every trace of moisture from her cheeks. Gradually, he made his way to her mouth and plucked at her lips.
Her mouth opened and he sank deep. Her taste went to his head, and a kiss that was meant to be gentle turned carnal and demanding in a heartbeat. He explored with teeth and tongue until his beautiful mate was meeting each thrust of his hungry tongue with delicate strokes of hers.
She was delicious. His claw tips were out, and his cock throbbed urgently. She made him so damn hot he couldn’t think straight. He tore his mouth away to reach for reason.
When her hands gripped his hair and pulled him in for another kiss, his sanity disappeared like smoke.
He used his claws to slice through her shirt and the heavy good-girl bra she wore. The fabric fell to the floor, and he dropped his head and gorged on her round female flesh. He licked and nipped with careful fangs while his mate gasped for air and arched her back to give him better access.
His hands moved continuously, caressing her pale curves with true enjoyment. He kneaded her soft breasts with firm pressure while he nibbled around and around her stiff pink nipples, reveling in her taste.
He stripped the rest of her clothes off while she pushed ineffectually at his pants. He unzipped and shed the pants without a thought and freed his pulsing cock to the cool air.
Her soft hand closed around him, and he thrust once without intending to. Her fingers could hardly encompass the thick evidence of his desire for her and the approving sound she made pulled a pearly drop of pre-cum from his engorged flesh. She nearly drove him mad with lust.
He cupped her feminine mound and squeezed. Her petals separated, and wetness flowed over his fingers. The scent of her feminine perfume rose around them, and he groaned into her mouth.
Her hands slipped around to pull at his hips, and he couldn’t hold back from her any longer. He rolled her to the floor and shoved inside her wet heat to the hilt. When he stopped to savor the connection, she dug her little nails into his buttocks in unmistakable demand.
He pulled out and pushed in again with brutal strength, over and over, while his mate whimpered and twisted.
“You tempt me,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “I want to taste every part of your body. I want to take you over and over, until we have finished so many times that there is nothing left to do but begin all over again. I want to devour you.”
“Yes!”
Her body was open, and she wound her legs around his hips and pulled him in deeper.
He pulled out and flipped her onto her stomach. Angel cried out when he hitched up her hips and mounted her from behind. He pushed into her slick, welcoming heat in a slow glide of friction that blew every thought out of his mind.
He held still, deeply embedded in his alluring mate, while she bounced on his heavy cock and begged.
“Please, Valeri!” The end of his name rose in a wail that pricked him like spurs.
He sank his teeth into her vulnerable nape and plunged deep, increasing his relentless rhythm with each thrust until Angel screamed and exploded around him. Her wet pussy squeezed him like a gripping fist.
It was too much, and he shouted as he followed her over the edge into a burning ecstasy that joined their spirits in a blaze of light. In the midst of pleasure he was shaken by a rising joy. It was a true mating. He had known, but now he understood all the way to his soul that fate had blessed him.
His mate was claimed, marked, and sobbing for breath beneath him. With the last of his strength, he rolled them over so that she was on top, though their bodies were still firmly joined.
After long moments where their hearts beat in synch, Angel stirred. Her soft hair slid over his face in a fall of shining gold.
“I need a shower,” she said.
“Shower. Yes.” It was the best he could do at the moment.
Valeri disengaged their bodies, and they helped each other to walk, stumbling and laughing to the shower.
Chapter 14
They were back in the living room, and Angel was reaching up to kiss her gorgeous mate when a low-slung silver car pulled up in front of her house. Its sleek, expensive beauty made her serviceable old car look like a junkyard special.
The man who unfolded himself from the driver’s seat looked like an older version of Valeri. His clothing was well-cut and looked expensive.
> Valeri muttered something under his breath.
“Pardon?”
“My father.”
The man pulled a huge box out of the backseat and started for the door. Valeri sighed and went to meet him.
Angel watched, bemused, as the two men made trip after trip, carrying five large boxes in total out of a car that didn’t look like it should have been able to hold them all.
The older man stopped in front of her and grasped both of her hands in his scarred ones. His shining blue eyes were the blueprint for his handsome son’s, and her heart thumped with sudden apprehension. She wanted him to like her.
He smiled a slow wide smile, and something in her relaxed.
“Valeri, I congratulate you,” the older man said. “Your Angel is a beautiful girl with a beautiful heart. You had better treat her right, my son. I am not such an old man that I couldn’t still teach a young rebel some manners.”
Valeri grinned. “I hear and obey. Angel, this is my father, Vasily Sidarov, head chef at Sidarova. He brought enough food to serve ten people.”
“Or one wounded warrior who is still limping,” his father said in a stern voice.
Valeri grimaced, but he didn’t object, and Angel thought it was telling. Well, what could he say? His father was right.
Angel smiled when Vasily kissed her hands.
“I am very pleased to meet you,” she said.
“All the ladies are,” he said with a wink, and she laughed.
She liked the old charmer.
“Won’t you stay for breakfast with us?” she asked on the spur of the moment. She met Valeri’s eyes and thought he looked pleased. “Since you seem to have brought all the food.”
Vasily bowed. “I would be delighted. Which way to the dining room, dear lady?”
She led Vasily to the small table, still pushed aside from last night’s fighting. Embarrassed, she tried to right it, but Valeri was there before her, swiftly putting table and chairs back in place. The two men unloaded food onto the table while she set three places.
The scents were mouthwatering, and the selection was excellent. As each container was opened, Angel’s sensitive nose labeled and appreciated the contents. Cheese and chive omelets wrapped in foil to keep them warm, a huge platter of fried ham and savory sausage rounds, mushroom risotto, blueberries, fresh croissants. A delicate potato soufflé was the final offering to decorate the table, still standing high and redolent of sun-dried tomatoes and basil.
It looked like enough food for half a dozen starving people. And there were two more boxes of meat and produce, which the men quickly unloaded until the fridge was stuffed to bursting.
Angel produced a huge jug of orange juice and the last jar of her mother’s famous chili sauce, and they devoured the meal with flattering speed. Angel noticed that Vasily watched his son very carefully as Valeri ate a mountain of the delicious food.
When the last crumb was consumed, Vasily sat back with a smile.
“I am glad to see you will be well, my son. Your mother has been frantic, but this news will please her.”
Valeri’s face was serious. “I would have sent word if I could have done so without endangering the Clan. I wouldn’t give mother another reason to worry.”
Vasily waved that away. “She is the proud mother of two warriors,” he said. “She knows what that means.”
What did it mean?
Almost as if he had heard her thought, the older man turned to Angel.
“We almost lost our daughter to an assassin a few months ago.” His blue eyes were damp with feeling, and Angel had a lump in her throat at the obvious love he felt for his children. “Naturally, my mate worried when she heard our son did not come home. But I said, Mura, he is strong and he will be well. And then I joined the Cadre search with my nephew and his warriors.”
Valeri shook his head. “But you were not worried?”
Vasily snorted. “Of course I was worried. But I couldn’t say that to your mother. She would think the worst.”
Angel thought the mother probably had a very clear idea of the danger her children were in at all times, if both son and daughter were warriors for their people. She didn’t know quite what that might entail, but the frontline soldiers of any culture didn’t have it easy. She knew that much without being told.
“But Rylek has assured your mother that you are well. And happy.”
His eyes cut over to Angel, and he smiled such an indulgent smile that she knew without being told that it was for her alone.
She couldn’t help but smile in return. Did he know that his son had declared himself her mate? No, how could he possibly know that?
But when she looked at Valeri, his expression was so satisfied that she could tell it was true. His father approved, and he was pleased.
The alarm clock went off in her bedroom and she started.
“I’ll have to call in sick right away so they can call in a temp. My shift supervisor will be getting there soon,” she said and pushed her chair away from the table.
The men stood when she rushed into the bedroom to turn off the alarm. She could hear the murmur of their low-voiced conversation, but she couldn’t make out the words.
She left a message for her supervisor to let her know that she wouldn’t be in, trying to ignore the guilt she felt about lying. She liked Gracie and considered her a friend, but she couldn’t possibly tell the truth in this situation. Poor Gracie would feel she had to line up a psychiatrist to help her with her delusions.
When Angel went back to the kitchen, the table was clean. Vasily was preparing to leave, and nothing she could say would dissuade him.
At the front door he turned and kissed her cheek.
“Welcome, daughter,” he whispered in her ear, and she hugged him hard. How wonderful it must have been to grow up with such a father. She felt such a rush of love for a man who was so kind to a relative stranger.
Valeri put his arm around her, and they watched his father drive away.
“He likes you very much.”
Angel leaned her head on his shoulder.
“I could tell. I felt it. He’s great.”
Valeri laughed. “Yes, he is great until you cross the line of discipline. Then he will lecture on proper behavior until you think your ears will fall off. And even then, he continues until you wish your ears would fall off so that the lecture would come to an end. I have experienced this many times with Rylek by my side.”
Valeri’s eyes were twinkling, and Angel laughed, but she could tell that there was love between father and son.
“I wonder what you did to earn these lectures from your dad. Did you cause trouble when you were younger?”
His smile turned sheepish, and Angel hugged him and laughed.
“Rylek and I caused much trouble,” he said. “What one didn’t think of, the other did. And my sister, Eva, though older, was not always a good influence. We were protected and watched over, but there are still a few things my father does not know of our early adventures.”
Valeri looked so proud of the accomplishment of keeping his youthful wrongdoing a secret from his intelligent and watchful father. Angel thought she knew what he must have looked like as a child, handsome and inquisitive and looking for fun.
She shook her head. With his quick intelligence and two built-in accomplices for any new scheme, there was no doubt he would have been a handful for his poor parents.
The phone rang, and Angel jumped. She quickly checked the display.
“It’s the hospital,” she said. The wonderful breakfast she had consumed suddenly felt heavy in her stomach.
Was it her supervisor? Gracie had never called before to check on her. They worked on the honor system, and Angel wasn’t a slacker. When she was at work, she worked, and if she called in sick, it was because she was sick. It was the very reason why she felt so horribly guilty about taking the day.
Her instinct whispered that it was Dr. Novaks calling. She hadn’t thought about it before, bu
t it could seem very suspicious to him if she took time off right then. Valeri said the doctor knew about the vulfen people and had been part of the group who had pursued and shot him. And the other members of the group had not returned from their attempt to break into her home. Maybe the good doctor was suspicious about her now.
She didn’t like it, but it made sense.
Both Angel and Valeri stared at the phone until her machine clicked on, but the caller hung up as soon as the message began. After a few seconds, the phone began to ring again.
A wave of anxiety rose inside her, and she thought she might throw up.
Valeri’s arm was suddenly around her, and his support was like a balm. She had been alone for so long, it was nice to have someone who understood where she was emotionally without being told.
When the phone began to ring for the third time, Angel couldn’t stand the strain any longer. She reached out to turn the ringer off, but the displayed number was different.
She snatched up the receiver.
“Hi, Gracie.”
Gracie talked fast.
“Hey, Angel, got your message. Take the day, that’s fine. You’ve got it coming.” Her voice lowered. “I don’t know what’s going on, but Dr. Novaks was asking after you this morning, and when he heard you had called in sick, he turned frantic. He said he had breakfast with you yesterday and you were fine.”
Angel groaned.
“He shouldn’t be saying that!” She was appalled. She looked at Valeri, and it was obvious he was listening to the conversation, but he didn’t react.
“The doctor made it sound like you and he were an item or something, but I know you don’t like him.”
“I don’t—I never—It was nothing like that. He just showed up, and I could hardly get rid of him. He can’t be saying stuff like that. What will everybody think?”
Angel didn’t know if she was angry or disgusted or afraid.