by Ann Gimpel
“What?” Valentin leered. “You’re fucking her. That’s why—”
Elliott covered the distance to the other man so fast, she could’ve sworn he had shifter blood. The sharp crack of a slap filled the room, and a reddened spot bloomed on the side of Valentin’s face. Elliott doubled up a fist and drew it back, prepared to break the man’s nose.
“Apologize. Now.” Elliott closed a hand around Valentin’s shoulder, holding him in place.
“When hell freezes over. This is what comes of allowing women into our midst.”
“Let go of him,” Stewart said, compulsion strong in his voice. “Once ye do that, Valentin will leave and remain outside for the remainder of this discussion.”
“You can’t magic this away,” Elliott said through clenched teeth.
“Och, but I can.” Power thickened the air, and the salt smell of the ocean mingled with bayberry wafted around Stewart.
Elliott released Valentin; the man rose to his feet and walked out the door as if he were in a trance. The scent of Stewart’s magic departed as quickly as it had risen, following Valentin.
Tairin started talking before any of the other men decided she was a bad omen and needed to be silenced. “My mother was Romani. My father a wolf shifter. As you might guess, neither side wanted me once I began to bleed and the ability to shift came with my moon blood.”
She hurried on before she lost her courage. After centuries of silence, talking about her beginnings felt unnatural. “Mother was burned by her people for transgressing. Father returned to his people on the condition he’d not have any contact with me. I spent my first hundred years as a wolf. After that, I’ve traveled with Romani caravans. No one died because of me. No one went mad. No one did anything unusual…” Tairin was babbling, and she reined herself in.
“The only reason I broke my silence now is you need shifters to defeat the vampires. My wolf believes local shifters will help because they know how dangerous the Reich is to all magical creatures.” Tairin stretched the truth about her certainty shifters would do anything but tell her to get lost and said a small prayer she was right.
“What makes you think we’d ever want to do battle side by side with shifters?” Michael asked, sounding as if the words choked him.
Tairin shrugged. “Desperate times require desperate solutions. Even if you refuse to help, I’m betting shifters will take on the vampires.” She cloaked her mind now that she was lying outright.
“It appears we have a few unknowns here.” Stewart’s brogue was welcome. “How long will it take to raise your kinfolk?”
“Not long,” she replied. “A day or two. I’ll travel in wolf form, not human.”
More hisses and hooked fingers.
“I’ll go with you,” Elliott said.
“But I require your help with the caravan,” Michael said, still sounding as if something were stuck in his throat.
“Really? I never help with the caravan. Mostly, I’m off on my own spinning magic.” Elliott drew his brows into a tight line. “What Tairin is makes you uncomfortable, and you’re trying to protect me. Don’t.”
He hooked a hand under her elbow. “We’re done here. Let’s hunt down your shifter kin.”
Tairin unkinked her fists and held out a hand. “Not quite done. We’ll return to the caravan—or Elliott will if you want me to leave—by nightfall two days hence.”
“We’ll wait for you afore we make any decisions,” Stewart said. “I’ll see to it.”
“You’re welcome to return,” Michael said stiffly. “If only to recover your things.”
“If you banish her, you’ll lose me too.” Elliott pushed her toward the door before Michael could reply.
The buzz of voices followed them into the yard. Words like besotted and ensorcelled made her sad and angry that no one believed Elliott could care about her for herself. Valentin lounged against a tree, smoking, oblivious to everything but the spell that still held him in thrall.
“Let’s get Flame. We can talk once we’re away from here,” Elliott said.
“Fine, but we’re not going far. I was serious about hunting in wolf form. I can cover more ground that way, and perhaps the other shifters will take me more seriously if I’m in my animal body.”
“Wise of you,” the wolf observed.
“I was wondering what happened to you,” she said.
“Watching to see which way the wind blows.”
Elliott angled the stirrup, and she sprang lightly onto the stallion’s back. He got on behind her as he’d done earlier, but let her manage the reins. “I apologize for Valentin back there.”
“Not necessary.” She kneed the horse to make him trot. “You’re scarcely responsible for other Romani. What are you going to do while I’m gone?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Seems like a good opportunity to delve into the lore books. I was in a hurry earlier. There are better than twenty volumes in Michael’s chest, and my Coptic came back to me as I spent time with them. I’ll be far more efficient now than I was then.”
“Still hoping for a magic bullet?” Turning, she stole a glance at him over one shoulder.
“More like a miracle. Besides, if we leave the caravan, this may be my last opportunity to study a collection of Romani lore books.”
Tairin guided the stallion back to the same copse of trees where Elliott had found her earlier and waited for him to slip off the horse’s rump before jumping down.
Elliott closed his arms around her from behind and nuzzled her neck. She should shift and leave. Instead, she twisted in his arms and turned her mouth up for a kiss. Who knew if she and the wolf would find her kin? Even if she did, would they do anything but chase her away? Worst case, they might try to harm her. If they held the same narrow worldview as the Romani, it was a distinct possibility. She might prevail against two or three shifters, but not an entire wolf pack intent on her destruction.
His magic rose around them, bay rum and vanilla, and she felt the touch of him in her mind. “You don’t have to go,” he said. “Not if you don’t want to.”
“But I do. Have to go, that is. Now that we know about the vampires, we can’t just walk away and pretend we never saw them. It could mean the difference between the Reich succeeding or failing.”
She twined her arms around him, hands spread across his back. “We cannot let that happen. The Nazis can’t win. If they do, everything good in the world will die out.”
He tipped her chin upward. A savage light burning in his eyes turned them midnight blue. “You’re braver than that whole roomful of Romani elders.”
Pleasure at the compliment filled her. “Maybe because I’ve survived worse than any of them. I’ve sure as hell lived longer. All I know is we have to try. And that means me coming out of hiding. I dropped my mask in front of half the Rom caravans in Germany tonight. Letting the other part of my blood know I’m still alive won’t be any harder.”
“Except I won’t be there.”
“Ah, but I will,” the wolf said. “I can reason with my kin. They’re not cowards like the Romani.”
“I feel shame for my blood kin,” Elliott told the wolf. “Please don’t hold their weakness against me.”
Tairin’s heart hurt for Elliott, but she was proud of him for not making excuses for the other Romani. She tugged him hard against her. Standing on tiptoe, she brought her mouth down on his. Moaning low in his throat, he crushed her against him and kissed her with a fervor that stole her breath. He nibbled, licked, and sucked her lips. Explored her mouth with his tongue and welcomed hers. The kiss developed a life of its own, and time slowed while he teased her with tongue and lips. Sensation coursed through her, lighting her blood with desire.
Their breathing quickened as they ground their bodies against one another. Her nipples turned into stiff peaks, and the dark, secret place between her legs ached to be full. He moved a hand from her back, sliding it beneath her cloak to cup one of her breasts and rub her nipple. Sparks raced to
her belly, and she straddled one of his legs, rotating her hips to increase contact with her nub. His cock swelled, pressing against her belly, and she sandwiched a hand between their bodies to cup his erection.
Before she was totally swept away by sensation swirling through her, she tore her mouth from his. “We can’t. I have to leave.”
“Please, Tairin. Making love properly will have to wait, but I have to touch you. This is one genie we can’t stuff back inside a bottle. Not now.”
Elliott jammed a hand between her legs, pressing upward. She thrust her hips against him and worked his cock through his trousers, too aroused to manage the laces holding everything together. He kissed her again—hard, firm, demanding—and angled his hand to rub the distended nub beating like a second heart between her legs. Layers of clothing didn’t mute his ability to find the right spot.
She knew how to make herself come. Had done so many a night when the sounds of lovemaking from other wagons aroused her. But the touch of his fingers in what had been a private place was intensely erotic. He pressed his cock up and down in her hand, closing his other around it to show her the pressure he needed.
His penis grew harder still cupped in her hand, and an orgasm spooled deep in her belly. When it roared through her, wave after wave of white heat, his cock exploded, pulsing with a climax of its own.
Gasping and panting, they clung to one another. “I love you, Tairin,” he managed, his voice harsh with passion. “I suppose I’ve loved you for a long time, but I never let myself see what was plainly in front of me.”
She stroked his hair and his face, overcome with tenderness. “That’s the sex talking.”
“No. It’s not. I’ve been searching for a way to tell you I want to marry you. Make an honest life for us. Not one where we hide in shadows and pretend things are legal, like so many of the Romani.”
Hope lodged in her breast. Rather than kicking it out, she found a home for it. “I hope you mean it. I want to believe you.”
He kissed her forehead, her lips, her chin, and pried her fingers off his still-hard cock. “It’ll be a mess inside my trousers. I need to clean myself up, but I’ll do that after you’re well on your way.”
She removed her cloak, folding it and leaving it in the crotch of an evergreen tree. Next, she removed her boots and stockings. Elliott’s gaze never left her. “No privacy?” She quirked a brow in an attempt at humor.
“You’ll be my wife. Sooner or later, that means I’ll see you naked.”
“You opted for sooner, eh?”
He smiled, and her heart cracked wide open. Before she lost her nerve and threw herself into his arms, she undid her skirt, folding it atop the cloak and followed it with her long tunic. Goosebumps raised along the length of her arms, and she shivered. She drew her shift over her head, leaving it on the very top of the pile. If she survived her meeting with her kinfolk, she’d need her clothing, particularly if Michael rescinded his offer to allow her to collect her things from her wagon.
“Gods but you’re beautiful.” Elliott whistled long and low.
“Thanks. Too bad there’s not time for you to display your wares as well. I’ll meet you in the grotto,” she said through teeth that were beginning to chatter.
“Not here?”
“How would that work? You’d have to keep coming back to check for me. At least if we choose the grotto, you can bring Michael’s lore books there and work. You can bring my clothes back with you too.”
“Wise as well as beautiful. Be safe. Hear that, wolf? Keep both of you safe!”
“You can bet on it,” the wolf said. “I’m not planning to let some other shifter be the death of me. Besides, we might find her father. Bastard is so eaten up with guilt, he’ll help all he can.”
“I thought he was in Austria,” Tairin said.
“I put out a call when we first talked about finding him.” The wolf sounded smug. “Who knows? By now he could be much closer.”
She summoned magic to shift, and the scent of her spell filled her nostrils. Musk and the wooded glens where her wolf loved to run. The change took her, torso shortening, fur sprouting. Fur would cut the winter night’s chill, and she welcomed it.
Elliott waited until her transformation was complete, and then gathered her against him and kissed the tip of her snout.
She licked him and wriggled free. “I need to leave. I’ve stayed too long as it is.”
“Come back to me.”
“We will.” The wolf spoke for both of them before it ran between shadows, taking them away from everything familiar and into the unknown.
Chapter 9
Tairin gave the wolf its head. For a time neither of them spoke, caught up in the simple joy of running free. Earlier clouds had dissipated, and the inky sky was shot with stars and a newly risen moon.
“You didn’t ask, but I approve,” the wolf said.
“Of what?” She felt confused. “Hunting for our shifter kin was your idea.”
“Not that. Elliott. He will be a good mate for us.” The wolf hesitated, maybe gathering its thoughts. “Because you weren’t raised among shifters, you wouldn’t know this, but I have to approve of your choice of a mate. If it’s another shifter—which is far more common—the bond animals must agree to the mating.”
A thought slapped her hard. “If I link my life with Elliott’s, does that mean you’re destined to never have a mate of your own? Help me understand how this works.”
“It does mean that, but bond animals don’t engage in physical relationships. We walk in a spiritual realm.”
“But I had sex with other wolves.” Tairin worked to make sense of the wolf’s statement.
“It may have been my body when you lay with wolves, but it was your soul. You needed that connectedness or you’d have slipped beyond where I could call you back.”
“I almost did.”
“I haven’t forgotten. Elliott will be a good partner for us both. When you dreamed me when you were just a girl, and I agreed to the bond, I knew about your mixed blood. And I also understood it meant we’d likely never mate with anyone. Neither shifters nor humans would want to be part of such a pairing.”
“Funny, but I’d come to the same conclusion. It seems miraculous Elliott can look beyond our dual nature.”
“Indeed. We will both welcome him, but now is a time to turn our thoughts outward. Let us hunt for our kin.”
They ran through much of the night in a generally westward direction. Tairin let the wolf pick which dark glens they skirted, invisible as a passing shadow. They stopped to drink from rushing brooks and even caught the odd field mouse that crossed their path. Hours drizzled by. So many, the eastern sky was turning pearlescent with the coming of dawn.
“We need to go to ground,” she said as daylight grew around them.
“We would except we’re almost there,” the wolf replied, not bothering to elaborate what it meant by there.
Tairin waited. She could be patient. It was one of the traits that had stood her in good stead through her two hundred years. They’d left anything resembling a main road hours back. The land grew rougher, marked by abrupt escarpments and rocky cliffs, and they slithered through increasingly thick timber. The wolf halted in front of a solid granite cliff face. It howled, and power built within their shared body before boiling over in a torrent that lapped against the granite walls.
The feel of her bondmate’s magic shocked her. Beyond the ceremony formalizing their bond that it had walked her through after her first shift, she’d rarely known the wolf to wield its own ability—even during the century they’d spent in lupine form. Then they’d been motivated to blend in with a normal wolf pack, though. Any unusual displays would’ve gotten them booted out.
The stone before them took on a shimmery appearance, and the scent of magic tickled her sensitive nose. The wolf’s power smelled a lot like her own, but heavier on the wild animal side. Clean, bracing, fresh, it reminded her why she loved being a shifter. Tairin train
ed her gaze on the stone, ready for damn near anything.
Footsteps—human, not wolf or any other animal—approached from somewhere beyond the wall that was fading to nothingness. A man with copper-colored hair braided tight against his head came into view. Tight-fitting leather garments made from tanned deer hide hugged his tall form. Leather boots laced to his knees. He stopped in the doorway and looked at her from eyes eerily like her own.
Tairin swallowed hard. Her father hadn’t changed at all in two hundred years. Being in her wolf’s form muted her emotions, but joy vied with fury anyway. “At least you opened the door for me this time, Father,” she gritted without preamble.
“Come inside.” His low voice was gruff. “This isn’t a conversation to have where any might overhear.”
Tairin growled; hackles raised the length of her back. “I’m not going inside a place controlled by your magic until I know more.”
A look of grudging admiration etched into his high cheekbones and square, stubble-covered chin. Austere features, yet the man before her was handsome in an ascetic way.
“He knew we were coming,” the wolf informed her, following it with, “We ran most of the night to get here. Don’t let your temper stand between us and securing help against the vampires.”
Her father angled his head to one side. “Are you going to follow me or not? The magic won’t allow me to hold the gateway forever.”
The wolf stepped forward. Tairin considered fighting her bondmate, but she’d trusted its instincts most of her life. If it thought traveling through stone that wasn’t stone would be safe, she’d go along with it.
“I have strong reservations, but we will follow you.” She kept her tone formal. Her long-lost father had abandoned her in favor of his own self-interest, and she’d be worse than a fool to forget or even lay it aside.
He spun on his heel, walking fast. She moved through the gateway, feeling the zing of unfamiliar power turn the air electric. Small jolts of power buffeted her until she was well clear of the illusion that maintained the rock wall. It grew darker, and she assumed the cliff was back in place.