by Michele Hauf
Tryst nodded but couldn’t inwardly agree with the terse warning. If no other wolf would go near Lexi, why couldn’t he go for it? What could possibly be so wrong with the woman?
“You don’t know the ways of the pack,” Liam said, selecting a part from the layout before him and motioning for Tryst to find the part on the schematic. “They will kick your ass if you get too close to one of their females.”
“And will you be in that ass-kicking crew?” Tryst asked.
Liam cast him a discerning once-over but didn’t answer. “One of the guys said you were from the Paris pack. There’s no such pack. Unless it’s the Levalois pack. Bunch of pussies.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly specify—”
“Have you ever been in a pack, Hawkes?”
“Nope. My father was a lone wolf, and raised me the same way.” He winced to know he was lying by omission, not mentioning why his father had never been in a pack. Liam deserved his truth but there were just some things Tryst had to hold on to. “I’ve always admired the idea of a pack, and have dreamed of being a part of one.”
“I couldn’t imagine being an omega wolf. It’s got to be lonely. Doesn’t your nature scream for family? A big one? And a devoted female of your breed?”
“Of course it does. And trust me, my family may be small, but they are weirdly distant. My father and I are close, but my mother, she’s…she has a mental condition, and she’s not always at the top of her game.”
“Sorry.” Liam grabbed another part and the two bent over the layout to figure what the next move should be. “No brothers or sisters?”
“I have a half brother.” A full-blood vampire. Another omission Tryst felt he had to make. “We only just met each other about a year ago, because he was taken by faeries after we were born, so we’re slowly getting to know one another.”
Liam whistled. “Taken by faeries? Bet that’s an interesting story.”
“He’s cool. He’s a good man and has a gorgeous wife. I think we’ll become close. Hell, we already are.”
“I was an orphan pup,” Liam said. “Edmonton took me in. Though when I was a teenager I used to wonder if maybe I was one of the principal’s love children.”
“As in more than one love child?”
Liam chuckled. “You haven’t known Edmonton long. The principal is a rogue. If it’s truth, then I have at least a dozen half brothers and sisters in the pack. Although I’ve heard my father was an Irishman. So that’s cool, too.”
“Love children. Way to build a family.”
“The principal’s wife died when the princesses were young, and Edmonton was heartbroken. I don’t think he could ever bring himself to make a commitment to a woman again, but that doesn’t mean a man loses the need for companionship. Like I said, the man’s a rogue, and usually is never without a fine female by his side. Only the past year he’s been different. I think he wants to travel.”
“Has he lived at Wulfsiege all his life?”
“Yes. As have we all. Though I did a stint in the village a few years ago. Expanding my horizons by working in a small auto shop, and doing carpentry jobs here and there, but I prefer living with wolves rather than mortals.”
“So you got a girl, Liam?”
“Not in the pack. Right now the current squeeze is vacationing with her family in, of all places, Paris.”
“Wolf?”
“Mortal. But she knows what I am, and I admire her for putting up with me. Takes a strong mortal woman to accept the werewolf, which she hasn’t done yet, but I’m working on her.”
“That’s awesome.”
“It serves as a means to an end.”
“Means to an end sounds like the furthest thing from love.”
“It gets me off when I need it most.”
“I can understand that with the moon nearly full tonight. But what have you got against Paris?”
“Those pansy packs in Paris?”
“Hey now, I’m from Paris.”
“They’re citified. Couldn’t drive a snowplow through a rainstorm without destroying the thing.”
The two laughed and worked together to lift a heavy hydraulic column and position it on the cardboard work area.
“So what are you going to do tonight?” Tryst asked. “Since you don’t have a woman at Wulfsiege, you don’t hang around the castle, do you? I’m thinking of going for a long run.”
“The males who do not have females here at the castle head out for a run as a pack. You want to join us?”
Tryst’s mouth fell open. “Seriously? You would let me join you? The pack? I’d be honored.”
“Meet up with us on the west side of the castle before midnight. We leave our clothes in an outbuilding designed as a post for before and after midnight runs.”
“Thanks, man. I’ll see you then.”
* * *
Around two, Lexi strode the hallway before the destroyed glass wall that a couple wolves were currently boarding up, after having shoveled away the snow butting up against the outer wall. She’d located a construction crew that could come in a week and, anticipating the plow would be fixed and the area would be cleared so visitors could get in, had scheduled the work to be done.
“Lunch still available?”
She swung around to find Tryst walking toward her, his coat tied low about his hips and his face smeared with streaks of black grease. Yet through it all, his smile beamed and those big blue eyes radiated warmth. He looked like something she would like to slowly indulge in, as if he were a rich dessert.
Remembering the wolves not far away working on the window, she assumed her in-charge mode, setting back her shoulders and clasping the iPad with the open schedule app to her chest. “How’s the plow coming along?”
“Great.” He put an arm around her shoulder, intending to walk her toward the keep, but with a shrug from her, he dropped the arm. “Sorry. Was that too forward?”
“It is around other wolves.”
“Right. Your father did warn me.”
“He did? Then you should heed that warning.” She hated saying that. She wanted him to ignore the warning and kiss her again—what her father or the pack thought of it be damned.
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his work leathers. “Do you want me to stay away from you?”
“I, uh—”
“Thought so. Have you eaten? Will you have lunch with me?”
Despite knowing that a warning from her father should be taken extremely seriously, Lexi could not resist the man’s sexy wink. And really, he did need to clean up a bit, and she did have a washroom. “Let’s go to my room, and we’ll have lunch sent in.”
“Sounds great, but let’s make it quick. I promised Liam I’d bring back lunch for him.”
Once inside her room, Tryst closed the door behind them and pushed her against the wall. He paused before diving in for a kiss, his eyes tracking her face, moving over the sunglasses and along the frame of her hair. He was waiting for something, and she instinctually sensed what it was.
She nodded, giving him the permission he sought. Without a word, he pinned her wrists to the wall and kissed her as if only she could feed his hunger. He was not aggressive, and he was. He didn’t demand, yet he did. He took from her, but also gave. She threaded her fingers up through the ends of his hair, tugging, holding him against her, silently demanding in return.
When she ignored her brain and allowed her body to lead the way, she got everything she wanted. And more.
“Sorry if I offended you last night.”
“I’ve already told you.” She kissed his mouth quickly, then deeply, tickling across his tongue with hers in a fast tease. “Nothing you do offends me. Not even this.” With a fingertip, she traced a smear of grease striping his jaw.
“Then tell me,” he said, leaning his hips against hers and allowing her to feel his erection melding against her belly. So hard. So…long. Oh, Lexi, control your purring desire to touch that. “What is it that makes all the mal
es in the pack walk a wide circle around you?”
Buzz kill. Like that, Lexi’s desire plunged.
Pushing out of his embrace, she paced toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the east courtyard. Apprehension tightened her shoulders and she clasped her arms before her stomach. The loss of his heat against her mouth teased up regret.
He had every right to know why the pack males avoided her. But the explanation wasn’t easy. She didn’t know where to start. One advantage to growing up in Wulfsiege was that everyone else had simply always known so she hadn’t had to explain to them.
She respected Tryst, and she didn’t want him to stop respecting her. Could she tell him? How to start?
“Lexi, I really like you. I sort of feel like we’re two of a kind, standing on the edge, not really in the group. I can’t imagine there’s anything about you that would make me do a one-eighty. Though, I should tell you, I’ll be one-eightying tonight. Your father specifically told me to stay the hell away from you during the pre-moon.”
She nodded, assuming Father would have said as much to Tryst, who wasn’t dialed in to the pack ways but who must also experience the incredible sexual compulsion the males felt the days before and after the full moon. “That’s honorable of you.”
“Yeah, but it’s going to be tough. I’ll be thinking of you the whole time.”
“You will?” She turned, and found it was hard to resist the urge to rush into his big strong arms. Nonjudgmental arms. He deserved to know her truth. Slowly, she approached Trystan. “I’ve been thinking of you a lot, too.” Of him standing over her, commanding her body to rise up to meet his in a dance of passion. “When you kiss me…”
He broached the distance and swept her into a firm and demanding kiss that took away her breath and stole her sighs. It was as if he marked her with an indelible brand, and she wanted it to be visible, so she could show others that, yes, she belonged to someone.
“When I kiss you?” he prompted.
“It’s like no other kiss I’ve had,” she said, trying to sort out her feelings as she spoke them. “So intense. Like…”
“Like I don’t think I’ll ever find another woman who makes me feel the way you do when we come together, Lexi. Our breaths combine, our mouths touch. Our hearts beat for one another.”
“Yes, like that. And I want others to know about it. To know that you’ve kissed me.”
“That probably wouldn’t be too smart right now.”
“I know. They’d rip you apart if they knew you’d even touched me. Oh, Tryst.” She extended her arms and stepped as far from him as she could without letting go of him. “I don’t want to lie to you.”
His frown creased the grease smudge on his cheek.
“Not really a lie, just lie by omission, which is almost as bad. I don’t want you to think poorly of me.”
“Lexi, I would never. If there’s something about you that you need to talk about I am the guy you can tell it to. Me, the dude with the half-breed dad and vampire mother. Do you think it gets much worse than that?” He held out his hand, palm up, not threatening but waiting for her move. “You can trust me, Lexi.”
“I think I can. And I know if it doesn’t go well, at least I was honest with you.”
“If it doesn’t— Lexi?”
He held such confusion and gentleness in his eyes that she wanted to make it right between them. To not hide anything. And if he could not accept her at face value, then so be it.
With a decisive nod, she bowed her head, and pulled off her sunglasses, folding them carefully in her hands. Unable to meet the eyes of the one man she most wanted to please, she waited, wondering how exactly to go about this.
Too late to back out now. You’ve already taken off your glasses. You are going about this.
She closed her eyes. Don’t cry. You can trust him.
The touch of Tryst’s finger under her chin tilted up her face. Eyes closed and heartbeats thundering, Lexi fought the urge to flee, to hide away from the best thing she’d found because she didn’t want to lose that best so quickly.
The stroke of his thumb along her lips urged her to open her mouth. He traced her lower lip softly, so tenderly she wanted to moan at the aching sweetness of it. But her heart pounded with fear even as he smoothed over her cheek and dusted a fingertip along her lashes. Butterflies set free in her stomach, fluttering up and about her desperate heart, twining it with invisible and squeezing ribbons. Tryst’s breath across her mouth softened her fears and…she opened her eyes and looked into his.
“Holy shit!” Tryst jumped back.
Lexi bit down hard on her lip, cursing her stupidity.
Chapter 8
“Your eyes…” He grasped the air between them and bent to study her eyes.
It was so hard not to close them again, but she’d done it. For good or for ill, Lexi had exposed her biggest secret.
“They’re shifted,” he said.
Yes, gold, the color all wolves’ eyes turned after they had shifted to wolf or werewolf form—but never when in were, or human, form as she had been—forever.
“Is it the moon?” he asked. “Have you already started to shift for tonight? Do you want me to leave? Hell, Lexi?”
“It’s nothing to do with the moon. Unfortunately.” She rubbed her palms together, drawing in a breath of fortitude. “This is what I am, Tryst. This is my dark secret. My eyes have been this way since puberty. They are the only thing on me that has ever shifted.”
He cocked his head into a querying tilt. “I don’t understand?”
“I can’t shift. I have never shifted to wolf or werewolf form. I never will.”
“Wow. Really? That’s gotta—” He frowned.
“Yep, it sucks,” she finished for him, having thought the same thousands of times over the years.
“I didn’t mean to say, well, I didn’t say that.” He slid a palm down her shoulder, his eyes never leaving hers. “So your eyes…”
“At puberty, when all wolves come into their first shift, my eyes changed from blue to gold, and then…nothing. No fur. No tail. Not even a howl. I don’t know what is wrong with me, Tryst, and my father has had all the best doctors examine me. I’m…broken.”
“No, you’re not broken. You’re just…not.”
And he pulled her into a hug that surprised her because she had expected him to push her away and retreat as had all other males in the pack. They were frightened of her oddness, afraid she wasn’t normal. Not right.
Broken.
She was broken. If she couldn’t shift, she could never become fully werewolf. And when wolves mated to procreate it was always in werewolf form.
“I can’t shift,” she said, “which means I’ll never be able to conceive. Not the most appealing attribute in a mate to any male wolf with an ounce of pride and a paternal desire.”
“Don’t say that, Lexi. Any man would be proud to call you his. You’re gorgeous. You’re smart. You can kick my ass on the half-pipe any day.”
She smiled at his way of trying to diminish the pain. She appreciated it, but she also wasn’t stupid. Once her truth sank in, Tryst would walk that same wide circle around her as did all the rest of the pack.
“And you’re not broken.” He hugged her again and this time she almost slipped into believing that he genuinely cared. She wanted to buy into that belief. “You’re just not finished yet. Right?”
“I will never be complete. But I’ve accepted it. I know I’ll never marry and have children like Lana will, but there are things I can do to help the pack and make Wulfsiege the best place to raise a family.”
“It’ll happen,” he encouraged. “The shift. It has to.”
Because if it did not, she would die a lonely old wolf.
A knock on the door alerted them that lunch had arrived. Lexi put on her sunglasses and answered the door, bringing the tray inside to set near the bedside. When she turned around from the table, Tryst stood right there, in her space, forcing her to
see him as she’d just forced him to see her truths. He pulled off her sunglasses and kissed each of her eyelids. Softly, lingering. She’d never known a man could be so gentle, and a sigh drifted from her lips.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, and kissed her mouth. “And you’re perfect the way you are. Never believe anything else.”
“You’re too kind, but I’ve learned a thing or two about you. You’re kind to everyone. You can’t not help out, or provide assistance or an encouraging word. Your parents certainly raised you right.”
“I do give them both a lot of credit. Even my mother. She taught me to respect all breeds and people with disabilities and those who don’t look like us. It’s a big, beautiful world, Lexi. We make it what it is with every word, every step, and every breath we take. I want to keep it beautiful.”
“You’re doing an excellent job of it. But like you said about putting your energy out into the world? Life is energy. The werewolf is your life. It is my life. But my werewolf energy just isn’t working.”
He kissed her forehead. Wrapped in his arms, she surrendered to the luxury of his embrace. Nothing mattered right now. It couldn’t. She wanted to take in his energy. Maybe he could provide the life energy she lacked?
It was a strange notion. But she clung to the idea that her involvement with Tryst would only improve her life, perhaps help her overlook all that she was lacking.
“You go and take Liam some lunch. I had them bring extra sandwiches. I’m kind of tired. Think I’ll just eat by myself and relax a bit, if you don’t mind.”
He nodded and, without another word, headed out with lunch in hand.
Lexi pressed her palms to the closed door, listening to Tryst’s retreating footsteps. He’d left without argument, without begging to share a few more minutes with her. As teardrops spilled from her gold eyes, she fell to her knees cursing, for not the first time, her broken body and heart.
* * *
Tryst trekked to the end of the hallway and made a fast right turn, stopped, and pressed his back to the wall, head falling back and eyes closing as he exhaled deeply. The bag of sandwiches dangled from his hand.