All of us headed to the sitting area off the front entrance and we met Isaac there, showing in two people with grinning faces that I had not expected to see.
“Gemma! Kenny! Oh my god!” Rushing to them, I grabbed them each in a hug. “I’m so glad to see you guys.”
Andras greeted Gemma with a hug and shook Kenny’s hand and said, “Welcome. I am happy you both could make it. Selena has been missing you two.”
Gemma exclaimed, “This place is awesome Andras. I had no idea that you had stolen Selena away into the lap of luxury.”
Looking pleased at her reaction to his home, Andras said, “We’ll show you around, then we can settle back here with a chocolate cake that Isaac has baked from scratch today and some coffee. I even have a couple cribbage boards set up over at the game tables,” and he gestured to a cozy spot by the fireplace.
I took hold of his hand and gripped it to my side, sending him my gratitude. His warm eyes smiled down at me. I could easily get used to sharing in this fashion with this incredible man.
After an enjoyable tour of the house, we had everyone settled in the sitting room, and true to Andras’s invitation found a fabulous looking cake and coffee waiting for us. I was happy when the twins were able to join us.
Sam had declined, Ross said, so he could spend some time in the library. After I sliced the cake and Gemma started handing out plates, I excused myself, grabbing a thick slice and a steaming cup of coffee, and made my way to the library.
Pushing open the door, I noticed the lights were off but for the gleam from a library lamp up on the mezzanine.
“Sam,” I called out softly. “I thought you might like some homemade chocolate cake.” Topping the steps I found him at a small desk, his beautiful face hood free, with several books piled in front of him, and a glimpse at the titles indicated they were various histories of the Fae War.
As I neared, he casually closed the books and stacked them to the side, then looked up at me appreciatively. “I smelled the chocolate as soon as you walked in. It’s kind of you to think of me. I would have joined you, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to do some research.”
“You’re perfectly entitled to that, and I won’t interrupt you much longer. Are you finding success?”
A shadow passed over his face, but it was gone in an instant. “Not yet, but I am not giving up hope.”
I laid my hand on his shoulder, “We should never give up hope. I wish you success, Sam.”
When I returned to the sitting room, a cribbage match had already begun between Ross, Ramsay, and Gemma. Andras gave me a knowing look and nodded. The two of us finished our heavenly cake and soon we were all immersed in a rousing cribbage tournament playing in threes.
It was not long before Andras broke out the whiskey and the sweet and sour from the sideboard and asked if I’d like to mix our drinks. Kenny drawled, “Awesome.” He knew that I focused on my game much better under the influence.
Ryan said, “I’m in.” I snorted, but looked at Colin who nodded, “Just for tonight kid.”
Kenny, watching fondly as I knocked back the rest of my first drink, said, “Watch out, dudes, she will be gunning for us all now.”
Everyone looked at me with their own challenge in their eyes. I rubbed my hands together. “Bring it,” I said fiercely.
When Gemma had to take a break to the ladies’ room, I went with her…naturally. We swayed slightly, propping each other up as we made our way to the bath in the hall. Once we entered, she turned to me and sighed looking only slightly maudlin, “You look so happy, Selena.”
Feeling slightly mushy myself I said, “The man continues to amaze me with his thoughtful ways. He completely surprised me with you both tonight. The rest of his family is pretty amazing, too.
“I have also wanted to thank you in person for answering the call, in the middle of the night no less, to pack me some things. And you remembered my knitting and sketchbook.” I gave her a big sloppy hug.
She pulled back and looked at me askance, “I had the idea at the time that it was some sort of emergency, but no matter. It ended with you staying in this lovely home with an unbelievably gorgeous man who is so hot for you, he doesn’t even try to hide it anymore. And you were right about the fabulous Isaac. That cake was to die for!” She was back to grinning at me, asking no questions.
Gemma was good with secrets. I loved her all the more for it, especially because I was such a bad liar, and she wasn’t making me lie.
“So…?” She drew out. “How is he?” I blushed crimson. I looked at her and fanned my face putting my other hand on my heart and she burst out laughing.
“Gemma, I never had a clue it could be this good.” Eventually, we tottered back to the sitting room, where I blushed even more as I spotted Andras’s knowing smile.
The evening with all my friends under one roof took my mind off Andras’s impending departure. The twins volunteered to take my inebriated friends both safely home along with Kenny’s car. At the door saying goodbye, my eyes were suddenly a little watery. I gave them each a big hug and thanked them for coming.
Kenny held on for a moment to whisper in my ear, “I’m happy for you, Selena.” I squeezed him harder and whispered my thanks. Then, I was astonished when he turned to Andras.
“Thank you for sponsoring my Halfpipe competition. I won’t let you down.”
I looked in wonder at Andras as he nodded to Kenny. “I have no doubts about your abilities.”
Gemma was smiling happily at Andras, giving him an approving look, then she hugged me one last time.
I asked, “Can you go by my place and just make sure it’s still standing?”
“Done. And it is.” She said as she followed Ross out the door.
After they left, a quiet settled over the house and I picked up the tray and silently made my way around the sitting room to gather dishes. Isaac appeared taking the tray from me, “Please allow me.”
“Thank you, Isaac. That cake was fantastic. No one left much for you, though,” I teased. But then I nodded to the plate sitting untouched on the tray holding a generous slice that I had saved for him.
He let a hint of a smile show under his mustache, “Thank you dear one,” he said as he headed to the kitchen. I raised an eyebrow at Andras. Dear one. I knew that was big.
✽✽✽
Back in my room, as soon as we stepped inside, I turned and launched myself at Andras, knocking him back against the door as he caught me.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed his face all over. “You are…” I kissed him three times down his jaw, “the most…” two kisses on the lips, “wonderful…” I sucked on his earlobe and stuck my tongue in his ear, loving how that made him hitch his breath, “boyfriend!”
He laughed, “Boyfriend, is it? I can’t remember when I was someone’s boyfriend.” He grinned at me, and I looked at him in astonishment.
“You can’t remember? Has it been that long?” I laughed at the look on his face as he appeared to be casting his mind back to some distant time.
Then I became serious as I thought about it. “You must have loved someone before Andras. Tell me about her.” This was as good a time as any to have this conversation since it had come up.
We had continued leaning against the door, looking at each other eye to eye, while his arms clasped me under my butt, and he looked in my eyes and told me sincerely, “I have never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. Certainly, you are my one and only true mate.
“I did long ago consider a life with someone. My busy life was a disappointment to her however, and that was that. Otherwise, it has been purely physical relationships, and those rarely.”
For some reason this made me sad. What a lonely life, though it was not much different from my own story. But no longer because we were making a new story together.
My eyes heated as I focused again on the places our bodies were connected at this moment, his hand fondling my breast almost absently, like it was ex
actly what it was supposed to be doing. The sensations fluttered deliciously all the way down.
At my look, he put me down only long enough so we could tear off each other’s clothes, which now littered the floor. I was so turned on that when he scooped me back up, I looked pointedly at the door, my eyes heavy with lust.
Andras wasted no time pinning me against the door, and was thrusting deep inside, making me cry out in pure bliss. The fullness of his slow, deep thrusts pushing me against the hard door had me gasping, building a pleasure so intense that I was soon begging him to go faster.
He held me tight as he answered my plea, pushing into me deeper, increasing the urgency of his thrusts, and it felt as if my breath was suspended while my body anticipated an explosive release.
Then he buried his face in my neck, his teeth grazing my skin, hot lips blazing a trail to my shoulder, then he bit me at the juncture of my neck, hard enough to draw blood.
The combination of pain and pleasure collided with my anticipation, and I screamed and shuddered violently as he sucked deliciously on my neck, pulling pleasure from deep within me, the pain receding quickly, as we both cried out in our shared climax, our bodies convulsing as one. And I was aware enough to marvel at the sheer strength of him managing to hold us both upright as pleasure wracked our bodies.
“Gods, Selena, that was incredible,” he breathed into my neck. He pulled back to look into my eyes as he braced us against the door. “It is so good, the intensity of feeling your emotions as well as mine.”
I put my hand over the bite mark, looking at him in wonder, and he said, “I have marked you. I planned to explain about it first. I thought I would have time, but the need overcame me.”
He tried to look contrite, but ended up smirking in satisfaction and said, “It is another step to sealing our bond, and you my sweet Selena will want to return the gesture.” He grinned at me.
We somehow managed to make our way to the bed. By the time we arrived there, he was once again hard for me, and we started all over.
Grinning in response to the look he was giving me, like he was trying to figure out if I was real, and how he was going to go about proving it, I reached for him, but he stopped me and perched on his knees at the end of the bed looking big and powerful, as his eyes roamed over me.
“You are so beautiful, Selena, with your hair tousled, the heated gleam in your eyes, the sheen of sweat on your body. It’s heating my blood just to look at you. Spread your legs for me, my beauty, so I can see all of you.”
The surge of desire at his words had me moaning, my chest heaving in excitement, and I knew my eyes spoke volumes for him as I complied with his request.
After looking his fill, he made his way closer, settling himself between my legs, and the sheer size of him looming over me, as I opened myself to him nearly undid me before he even made his next move.
Our eyes locked, and those green and gold flecks announced that his bear was close to the surface, kept in check only through the force of Andras’s will, but enhancing his response to my submission in ways I could never have imagined. And I knew right then that I would always do anything he asked of me, no matter how primal his need.
Andras took his time after that, paying attention to every inch of my body with that intense focus that I was coming to accept would be his gift to me forever.
Just as he had promised, I found myself having the powerful need to mark his neck, and when I bit down as he came, sucking on the mark, amazed at how unbelievably turned on I was by it, I thought the roof would cave in from his roar of pleasure.
My answering roar was overshadowed in volume but just as satisfying, and now I understood better what I had read in that book about shifters, about the act of marking each other, claiming each other body and soul.
We now lay back against the pillows, sweat drying on our bodies, legs and hands entwined, when Andras asked me thoughtfully, “What about you Selena. Have you had anyone special in your life before?” He stilled, bracing himself for my answer.
I said softly, “I suppose, though I’m not as old as you,” and I nudged him in the ribs making him smile, “that I have followed a similar pattern.
“I had one serious relationship in the past that ended in disappointment. But other than Thomas and a few female workmates I went out with now and then, I really had no relationships at all. I went to work, went to my fight studio, and created lots of things in my cramped condo.
“Occasionally, I managed to hook up with someone on those rare nights out after work, but I think I scared them off pretty quickly, and was content with that for reasons I didn’t really let myself think about much. I think I was waiting for you, Andras.”
He pulled me to him humming, “My sweet Selena, it seems we have been waiting for each other.”
We created more of our story until the early hours and then slept clasped in each other’s arms.
Chapter 34
Andras
Leaning down, I kissed Selena softly on the temple. She stirred slightly and stretched her arm up over her head giving me a tantalizing view of her breast. She was so lovely. As my eyes roamed over her, I spotted the mark on her neck and my hand went automatically to my own. It was hard to imagine my life without her now.
Thoughts of our night together flooded my mind and I needed to tamp it down lest I wake her. A small moan escaped her lips and she stirred. My feet seemed glued to the floor, and I could not leave her. I grinned again thinking that after our night together, she needed the rest.
Breathing in deeply her oranges and jasmine scent, I closed my eyes at the memory of taking her against the bedroom door, the vision made all the sweeter when I pictured her lustful invitation, which made me smile as I looked down at her beautiful face now innocent in sleep, marveling again at the complexity of my girl.
I was coming to love the creative ways she told me what she wanted, like how she had awakened me at dawn, the room just beginning to lighten with the rising sun. Gods, I would never leave if I continued down this path.
A fierce wave of protectiveness made me clench my jaw, then a sense of foreboding washed through me. I frowned. I was only going to be gone for the day, and back home in a matter of hours. This meeting was critical. She would be safe at the compound and in good hands.
I brushed her hair from her face and reluctantly turned to leave her there sleeping peacefully, shrugging off my grim feelings.
✽✽✽
Sam, Colin, and I took my Mercedes G-Class and soon joined highway eighty-nine, winding our way northwest, passing through both Plumas and Lassen National Forests, then west on highway forty-four. In less than three hours, we were settling into the conference room at GenStar LabCorp.
James Douglas, the human geneticist and consultant and a friend to shifters, and the WPC Rep, Anthony Gervais, a wolf shifter, were already waiting for us. Doc Bennet was still on his way. James had brought in three huge boxes of fresh donuts, and we helped ourselves to them and the coffee from two Starbucks urns, set up on the buffet.
Once Bennett arrived, we set about laying out all the various reports each had collected, leaving much to sort through, making my head pound by the time we were done.
The information included satellite imagery of the caverns and old abandoned mines on our border that Gervais had obtained, and he confirmed the Anurashin had access to the same images based on where their drones had entered.
Most remarkable were the blood samples taken from all shifter children for the last one hundred years. Gervais had been running comparative analysis tests.
He explained that there had been a reason at the time for the WPC to start collecting these blood samples, but most of it had been lost to obscurity, other than the research for an anecdote. The lab continued to collect the samples even after putting the project under wraps, but there had been no urgency until now to do a detailed study.
Gervais had gone to work immediately after getting our report about my resistance, and he had discovered
an old report from the nineteen sixties, compiled during a brief period of interest in shifter DNA, describing a unique strand in shifters descended from the Kodiak bear line. We all gaped at him in astonishment.
But that was not the most shocking thing compared to what he revealed next. Gervais said, “What is more remarkable about this strand of DNA, Andras, is that it appears to have been engineered. Only you and one other shifter appear to possess it.”
The implications of this stunned me. “How can you be sure it is engineered? And are you telling me there is another Kodiak bear alive today? Who is it? I thought I was the last.” I swiped a hand down my face.
“There are two of you, I’m positive. Uh…I feel like I am not the best one to tell you this bit, but you had a sister. She was killed eighteen years ago. She had a daughter.”
Sitting down hard at the table I said, “I have a niece?” And I had a sister? I rubbed at my heart. Then I felt concern tugging along my bond with Selena and I sent her reassurance.
Colin said, “That is remarkable, Andras.”
After giving me a moment to process the news, Gervais said, “I was hoping however James could run tests to confirm my results. There is nothing else in any records to explain this anomaly.”
James went to his lab immediately, leaving Gervais to go over more of the data he had collected.
Taking a call from Ross as he sat on the back patio at the compound, I smiled when he said, “I thought I’d let you hear the happy whine of the KTM zipping around while I reported in. Other than Ryan and Selena chasing rabbits out of the brush, all is quiet here.”
But only about twenty minutes after we had hung up, I felt Selena’s fear, and it sent a jolt through me. I called Ross’s phone and it went to voicemail, then I felt a tug of worry from Isaac.
Standing, and running a hand through my hair, I began pacing until Ross answered. I told him, “I’m putting you on speaker.”
Ross proceeded with his report. “Ryan and Selena are okay. But we just took down a high-tech drone that had been scoping out the property. We have no idea how long it has been on the compound spying, but it ended up homing in on Ryan and Selena while they were riding the motorcycle and shot at them with darts, darts that came awfully close to hitting them.” A low growl escaped me.
Ursus Borealis: Book One Page 19