by Dannika Dark
She licked a drop of wine from her lip and set the glass down again. “Do I look like a woman who is searching for a man to offer me the comforts of money?”
What exactly was she searching for? An obedient man? A plaything? Prince bristled at the idea because Nadia was descended from nobility—one of the purest Shifter bloodlines in Europe. He and Alex came from two of the oldest generations of powerful Shifters—their life spans would stretch twice as long as other wolves. Because of that rare purity, importance had always been placed on not diluting their family line by mating with an inferior Shifter. There were few purebloods, and they were still royalty even if others were oblivious. So finding out about Nadia’s existence had sent a sliver of hope that he might have found his perfect mate.
Finally.
“Have you taken up residency in your mind, or would you like to join the living?” she asked. “I have a meeting with a client in an hour.”
Prince rose to his feet, disheartened.
Nadia caught his look. “I’ll tell you what—why don’t you come to my place for dinner tonight? I don’t work in the evening, and that will give you plenty of time to tell me about how you know my father. We’ll have hours,” she said, uncrossing her legs. “Although I hope you don’t want to spend all that time talking about him.”
He gently took her hand, noticing how delicate her fingers were. Her fingernails were a deep shade of violet, and he kissed the knuckles on her right hand, all while keeping his eyes on hers. She rose to her feet, and the sweet scent of her perfume swirled between them.
“I adore a gentleman. No later than seven, and bring a bottle of wine.”
He arched a brow. “That I can do. Would you prefer red or white?”
“Surprise me.”
Chapter 2
Prince knocked on the apartment door for the second time, a bottle of wine in one hand and impatience in the other. A short, round woman with a fluffy white dog passed by him. She wobbled back and forth from what looked like a bad hip, pausing briefly to praise Mr. Teasley for sniffing Prince’s Italian leather shoes and showing what a good dog he was. After she went into her apartment, Prince bent down to wipe the stray dog hairs off his pant leg.
When the door swung open, he found himself at eye level with the most remarkable knees.
“That’s an interesting way to greet a woman,” Nadia said with a sultry chuckle. “I’d apologize for having you stand out in the hall so long, but I prefer to keep my men waiting. Come inside.”
She turned away and Prince stood erect, straightening his suit jacket and closing the door behind him.
“These are modest accommodations, Miss Kozlov. I thought you had money.”
Nadia was clipping on a pair of gold earrings while standing at the entranceway to her living room. “An intelligent woman doesn’t spend it all in one place. And never assume, Mister…”
“Prince.”
“You want me to call you Mr. Prince?”
“It’s the only name I have. Call me what you wish.”
Nadia put on her other earring, fastening the back. “As I was saying, Prince, I’ve purchased all the apartments on this floor as an investment. Well, except for the woman’s down the hall. I can’t seem to get her to sell, but since she doesn’t bother me, I can patiently wait her out. I have all the privacy I need with the convenience of living in the city near my clients. I’ve even renovated one of the apartments to allow my wolf to run.” Once she got herself together, she examined him closely. “You are a handsome man. Your features are very distinguished—something I don’t see very often unless I’m in Europe.”
If Prince were a man of humility, he might have blushed. But it was a compliment he’d received often from women. He was a Shifter in his prime—seven hundred years old, but he appeared to be in his late thirties. He still had many more years ahead of him, and hoped he would age as well as his father had. His long hair didn’t appeal to many women, so he pulled it back in a tight band for a distinguished look. It drew attention to his unique eye coloring. Prince was born with one brown and one sapphire-colored eye, and while most would have concealed such a defect with contacts or hidden it behind long hair, he had chosen not to. A man who hid his differences was a man who considered himself inferior.
“There is only one object in this room worth admiring,” he replied smoothly.
Her gaze dragged down to his hand and she smiled. “The expensive wine?”
They both jumped when a fist pounded against the door. Nadia glanced at her watch, and when a look of confusion crossed her face, Prince turned the wine bottle in his hand and held it like a weapon.
The pounding continued and a woman sang, “I know you’re in there!”
Nadia’s eyes not only rolled to the back of her head, but her eyelids fluttered. “Of all times… This is not the place… Always doing this,” she murmured under her breath while she unlocked the door.
In a swift motion, Nadia swung the door open. A woman with leather pants, attitude, and black tresses in unkempt waves filled the doorway. She leaned on the doorjamb. “’Bout time you opened the door. I was starting to fossilize. Something smells good.”
Nadia extended her arm in front of the woman, blocking her entrance. “Impeccable timing, as always.”
“I see you still haven’t dropped your accent,” she muttered, ducking below Nadia’s arm and sauntering inside. Before Prince realized it, the woman plucked the bottle from his hand and turned it around to read the label. “Yummy.”
“Katarina, I have a guest. Is there somewhere you can go until—”
“Nope.” Katarina held the bottle to her mouth, biting the end in what looked like an attempt to open it.
Prince grew agitated. The thought of this woman breaking her teeth on a nine-hundred-dollar bottle of wine made him wince. He took it away from her. “It’s sealed with a cork.”
“Ah,” she said with a snap of her fingers. “I should have known. Nadia likes the fancy stuff that doesn’t come with a screw top. Don’t you, Nads?”
“Don’t call me that,” Nadia bit out, slamming the door. “What sewer did you crawl out of today?”
“Hey, is that any way to greet your long-lost—”
Nadia cleared her throat. “Shall I just get my wallet?”
The woman raked her fingers through her hair and turned around. “Now I’m insulted. I only borrowed money once, and I paid it back the next day.”
When she faced Prince, he took a step back. Confusion swam in his eyes as he gripped the arch dividing the living room and front entrance.
“What’s the matter, never seen a carbon copy before?”
His eyes darted between Nadia and Katarina—the resemblance was uncanny. They were identical twins. Same warm eyes, same flawless skin and heart-shaped face, same attractive figure. The main difference was that Katarina had dyed her hair black, and it looked like the only thing that brushed it was the wind. When Nadia approached her sister, they registered at the same height, and yet the differences in personality between the two were striking. Katarina wore leather pants and a black shirt that revealed an inch of midriff. Her black boots were scuffed, and she didn’t paint her nails or wear makeup that he could see. Not that she needed any; her skin was luminous.
Prince had always been fascinated by the way a person’s body language spoke before they did. Each woman had a confident stance, but in different ways. Katarina’s pose was smug and nonchalant, whereas Nadia seemed ever-aware of her ladylike posture.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Katarina said with a snort. She slung her right arm around Nadia’s shoulder, waiting for Prince to respond.
Nadia stiffly gazed at Prince with an apologetic look in her eyes.
Prince bowed slightly. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Katarina Kozlov.”
“Kat.”
He flicked his glance up.
She jutted her hip to the side and smiled softly. “Everyone calls me Kat. Well, everyone except my
own flesh and blood, but she’s excused.”
“I apologize,” Nadia said to Prince. “We can do this another time.”
Prince slid her a reassuring smile. “If you didn’t prepare enough for three, we can always share a bottle of wine.”
“Sounds perfect!” Kat exclaimed.
A flutter of amusement rolled through Prince, but he concealed his smile. She didn’t have an accent like Nadia, and her personality was a force to be reckoned with.
Nadia frowned and looked toward the kitchen. “I only baked two quails.”
Kat wrinkled her nose. “Quail? No, thanks. Why don’t you two gobble that up and I’ll just order a pizza.”
“And who will pay?” Nadia asked.
Prince quickly spoke up. “I’ll cover the expense.”
“Swell!” Kat said jauntily, walking past him. “I left my credit cards behind, and I’m low on cash.” She suddenly whirled around and held up her index finger. “I want the largest pizza they sell that has three kinds of meat. Extra everything. Oh, and a two-liter bottle of soda with a side order of garlic breadsticks.” She nibbled on the tip of her thumb. “And if they have anything sweet, I’ll take it. Cinnamon sticks, brownies, whatever.”
“What if I just order it all?” Prince suggested.
In a motion too fast to track, Kat pounced forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, gazing up at him with provocative eyes. “Then I just might mate with you.” Her eyes flicked back and forth between his. “Say, you have different color eyes.”
“Katarina!” Nadia gasped. “That’s enough. Why don’t you clean yourself up while I put dinner on the table?”
Kat left the room with a sullen expression, hands clasped behind her back.
“Let me apologize for my sister. She’s crass and doesn’t have a sense of when she’s acting inappropriately.”
He lightly shrugged. “I find nothing rude about stating the obvious, unless the intention is to cause emotional pain.”
Strangely, Prince liked that Kat had addressed his eye color right away. Most people never mentioned it, although they would steal glimpses when they thought he wasn’t looking. She didn’t say it in a way that had offended him either. In fact, he’d stirred a little when she gazed into his eyes, their bodies pressed together and her arms around his neck. He’d centered his attention on her soft lips, or at least he imagined they were soft. Her breasts were unquestionably soft by the way they had molded against his chest, and she wasn’t wearing a bra. That kind of detail rarely escaped a man’s attention.
Nadia touched his arm, quieting her voice. “Katarina is like a virus. She infects people with her unsolicited opinions. I’m sure I won’t have to worry about that with a man like you. You’ll have to ignore half of what she says; she was raised differently than I was. She’s lived in America longer and has no ambition. The only time she shows up is when she needs a place to stay for a few days.”
“What does she do that she wanders around like a nomad?”
Nadia cupped her elbows. “She’s a bounty hunter.”
Prince’s jaw slackened. “I’ve never met a female bounty hunter.”
“Now you have. She won’t settle down with a job that doesn’t involve slamming someone’s head against the hood of a car. It pays well, but she’s not as wealthy as she could be because Katarina gives away too much of it to Breed orphanages and God knows what else. Why don’t you go home and we’ll do this again another time?”
Because then Prince wouldn’t get to learn about the peculiar offspring that Alex had produced. “Would you like me to assist you in the kitchen?”
She laughed with her lips pressed tightly together and began to pull off his suit jacket. “Take a seat in the living room and make yourself comfortable. It shouldn’t be long.”
“Yummy.” Kat folded a giant wedge of pizza in half and took a hungry bite, causing an avalanche of melted cheese and meat to slide off. She used her fingers to pinch the cheese in half, winding it up and placing it back on her pizza. The aroma of spices was heavy in the air, and after filling her mouth, she licked the sauce from her fingertips. She hadn’t even bothered to use a plate but instead had set the pizza box in front of her and ripped off the top.
Prince shifted in his chair and examined his glazed quail.
A burst of laughter flew out of Kat’s mouth when she looked at his plate. “I love the position you put her in, Nads. It looks like the poor bird’s about to get laid.”
Nadia shaded her eyes with one hand, concealing the blush that tinted her cheeks. She was sitting at the head of the table to Prince’s left, with Kat directly in front of him.
“I’m not trying to be rude,” Kat continued. “I just thought you were supposed to tie up the legs or something. Say, did you ever get a TV? I don’t want to miss all my favorite shows.”
Nadia cut through her asparagus. “It sounds like you need to buy a home of your own. Then you can have all the television sets you desire.”
Kat gave her a frosty look while picking a sausage off her pizza. “I just thought it would be nice to watch TV while you’re out toasting the town. I’m not much of a reader—not that you have any books,” she said with a chuckle. Then she turned her attention to Prince. “I may not look like it, but I’m the homebody in this family. Nadia likes to party all night, but I guess you know that already. When I’m not working, I just like to kick off my shoes, snuggle up on the sofa with a warm blanket, and have something to take my mind off everything. I Love Lucy works like a charm every time.”
Prince set down his fork. The way she shifted her eyes when talking about winding down from work made him curious about how stressful it was. “What is your line of work?”
“Bounty hunter. But shhh. It’s never a good idea to spread that kind of thing around. Most of the guys I turn in stay locked up for life, but people hold grudges for a long time. The last thing I need is someone blowing my cover, so usually the only people who find out are the ones I haul in.” She chewed on the crust of her pizza and spoke with a mouthful. “It’s good money, in case you’re wondering. And while Nads over there thinks I do it because I enjoy beating people up, it’s not about that. When I catch a criminal, I’m doing some good in the world, like taking out the trash. You know? I get to choose my cases, and I can’t resist hunting down a no-good loser who touched a little kid where he shouldn’t have.”
A muscle twitched in Prince’s cheek, and he leaned back. Just the thought of a male harming a child sent a reaction through him like fire racing up a trail of gasoline toward an explosive. “How can someone your size capture these men?”
Kat swept her dark hair back, unaware she had a dab of tomato sauce on the corner of her mouth. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear the underlying sexism in that remark. I’m tougher than I look, and so is my wolf.”
“Are you armed?”
She eyed him suspiciously and bit off another piece of her crust. “I carry a stunner because sometimes I have to track down the occasional Mage.”
Stunners were weapons, usually knives, infused with magic that would paralyze a Mage if embedded in their flesh. “And what if they are not a Mage?”
“Well, as it turns out, knives come in handy with just about anyone. Except Vampires. I once paralyzed a Vamp after driving a wooden spike through his shoulder, but I don’t like getting that close to them. They have a nifty trick of snapping necks with a flick of the wrist. I won’t be doing that again,” she said almost to herself, picking up a giant glob of cheese from her plate and putting it in her mouth.
Prince had never met a beautiful woman with such atrocious table manners. And yet her behavior wasn’t vulgar so much as it was quirky. Kat fascinated him in a way that took him off guard. She reminded him so much of Alex.
“Are you also estranged from your father?” he asked coolly, hoping she would give him more answers than Nadia had.
The twins looked between each other and Kat dropped her pizza crust into the box. “Estrange
d? I’ve been looking for the man for the past two decades.”
Prince quit chewing his food and swallowed the last bite. “Would you mind explaining?”
“While my sister wants to sit there and pretend that our father left us, I know for a fact he’s in trouble. Someone took him, because he would never go this long without getting in touch with one of us.”
Nadia rolled her eyes, and when Prince noticed, Kat followed the direction of his gaze.
“I’m sorry that you weren’t daddy’s girl, but that doesn’t mean you have to punish him with your indifference,” Kat said. “He didn’t abandon us; someone took him. You don’t have to believe me, but I’ll never stop looking for him.”
“And why would someone take our father? What reason could anyone have to abduct a Packmaster? Kidnapping is so Middle Ages.”
“People do it every day,” Kat murmured, prying another large slice of pizza from the pie.
Prince pushed his plate away, his appetite gone. “What makes you believe he’s in trouble? Who would have a grudge against him that they’d risk capturing a Packmaster?”
Kat swallowed a bite from her fourth slice and sat back, patting her bloated stomach with a satisfied look on her face. “I have a couple of ideas, but nothing solid.”
Nadia tapped her fingernail on her glass of white wine, the crystal ringing a high note. She looked at Prince and lowered her voice. “Remember what I said about infectious behavior?”
A hiccup from Kat drew his attention forward again.
“Seriously, are you still calling me a virus?” she asked Nadia. “I’m not the only rude one in this family. Having an opinion isn’t a character flaw; God knows you have plenty of your own that I’m subjected to hearing. Motivating people isn’t a negative trait. If I were a man, I would have been a Packmaster and you wouldn’t be questioning my behavior.”
Nadia held the stem of her glass. “But as it stands, you don’t have any testicles that I’m aware of. Prince is a respected Packmaster with responsibilities. He’s not a man you can brainwash into following your schemes.”